Forum:Please make the Rogue Helper Merrystar Leave Our Wiki Alone

I have not received a response from any of the community help mails I have sent, so I post here as a last resort.

The "Helper" Merrystar came to our site, forcibly changed the content rules for the site, threatened bans against the admin if I followed the previous content rules of the site, and justified her actions by making up completely false stories about me on the site. She also retroactively undeleted many pages of false content under the premise that I was deleting them due to some sinister motive. Despite my continued complaints against her and refutation of her completely false allegations, she continues making edits to the site where she has no idea what she is doing and she continues screwing up the site by validating false content, validating vandalism, validating articles which have no place on the wiki and messing up the organizational system on the site. I have received dozens of complaints against her regarding her actions and edits by people who are afraid to post otherwise since they fear bans as I was threatened with. Her biggest claim to validate her statements was that I was leaving the site, which I have refuted many many times (I took a small leave of absence, since I had an injury which prevented effective typing, and said that publicly as a response to her claims). She never posted anything but deceitful and harmful statements to back up her lies and even lied about the factual history of edits on the site to back up her claims.

Her false claims are factually refuted by the history of the site, my statements as admin, and the complaints I have received about her actions. She is facilitating a hostile takeover of the site by new members and despite my warnings to her to stop she has continued. Despite what any posts may say on the site, I remained behind to continue running the site under the given mandate.

Her actions, behavior, and general conduct are all in violation of the Terms of Use for Wikia:
 * Unwarranted harassment, threats, and lies
 * Undeleting deletions of spam and false content
 * Violation of privacy laws by claiming to know and base her decisions on what I may or may not do elsewhere on the internet - made worse because ALL of her claims were 100% false

She has abused her position as a Wikia helper and has been a poor representative of Wikia:
 * Facilitating a hostile takeover of the site by new members
 * Completely disregarding the site rules of content and conduct
 * Complete disregard for the wishes of the community
 * Came in to the site and placed herself above the admin by threatening bans if the admin maintined the rules of the site as voted on by the community
 * Blatant violation of the Wikia Terms of Use

Her actions are in violation of our site policy as regarding content of the site. Her behavior is in violation of our site policies as well.

Despite my attempts to email Wikia community and staff regarding these problems multiple times, I have not received any response. This is my last recourse. I am trying to run the site as I was mandated to do by the users and she has been creating a huge amount of interference to that.

Erin Emerald flame 20:03, January 22, 2011 (UTC)


 * Can you post a link to your wiki so that we can see what is going on?--God (Pray)  20:25, January 22, 2011 (UTC)


 * Probably referring to Wizard 101 Wiki -- Weas-El  Talk|Contribs  21:33, January 22, 2011 (UTC)


 * Link to ErinEmeraldflame talk page on Wizards101. Read what was said by both parties. Devilmanozzy  (Talk Page)  22:17, January 22, 2011 (UTC)
 * The page speaks of you guys moving off Wikia by fellow wiki user. You have no reason to complain if you have already left. Devilmanozzy  (Talk Page)  22:30, January 22, 2011 (UTC)

If your wiki is moving, wikia reserves the right to step in and take control of the wiki. You are not allowed to put a notice on your front page either. --God (Pray)  22:37, January 22, 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, Merrystar officially approved the front page message that was not posted by me on my talk page. Erin Emerald flame 23:29, January 22, 2011 (UTC)


 * Or use community messages to say "you've moved". ;) The 888th Avatar   (talk)  23:17, January 22, 2011 (UTC)
 * I never made any community posts to do any such thing, I was on vacation when those were posted and made it clear that Wikia would not approve of them.Erin Emerald flame 23:29, January 22, 2011 (UTC)

Regarding the replies:

Simple answer: Some people left, some did not. I clearly posted that I was not leaving many times and I did not leave. Her claims of that were completely false and made-up. Any claims by anyone else stating that were false, and I said so. I did not join a new wiki and I did not do stuff there. I was extremely careful in all of my posts regarding the moving that went on to not say anything of that sort. Besides the fact that it is not anyone's business what a person does elsewhere on the internet, I am not the same ErinEmeraldflame as on the other site. I did not fix (edit) all of the statements made by others yet since there were many and I was away for a bit.

I had over 200 constructive edits (not just housekeeping) to the site during that time period before she came along to prove that I was upkeeping the site. I modified various site pages to accommodate the direction the site chose to take based on the conversations and preferences of the people who stayed behind. Merrystar deleted those changes a long time after they were posted and thus forcibly altered the direction of the site.

So, since not everyone left, Wikia helpers do not have the right the strip the wiki from the people who stayed behind. Merrystar even said so directly when she stated, "If you had not chosen to start a new wiki you could turn this one into whatever you pleased." I did not choose to start a new wiki, I did not leave, I am not the person she is claiming I am and she is thus violating all of the Wikia policies and being extremely obstinate about it. Currently, this is destroying the site that was desired by the people who actually stayed behind.

Erin Emerald flame 23:29, January 22, 2011 (UTC)

After looking at the argument I feel that ErinEmeraldFlame was defintly doing the right thing. She was completly disregarding your ploicy and power as an admin. And changing things that weren't her buissness. I tottaly agree with you. Dustpelt <sup style="font-family:Arial;color:Green">A Wikia Contributor
 * There have been a lot of cases where admins have claimed "I didn't move" when they actually have so that they can claim that Wikia is violating their own policies when Wikia tries to get the site moving again. There is someone of the same user name registered on the new wiki, and that user page conveniently is a soft redirect to a page that we can't actually see without registering. In addition, your reversion of Merrystar's last edit to community messages back to a version that has your name signed on it suggests that you actually are part of the new site. A lot of very constructive and useful changes made by Merrystar also seem to have just been summarily reverted without a lot of explanation, which isn't too typical of an admin interested in continuing to edit indefinitely. Furthermore, as the account on Wikia and the account over there appear to write in similar styles, it is even more difficult to believe that you are different people. Of course, I can't prove it, but I'm just putting out some reasoning as to why Wikia isn't being too unreasonable with its assumptions. The 888th Avatar   (talk)  23:47, January 22, 2011 (UTC)
 * Its not the case and I already stated that they are not the same person; I would not have given my blessing to use the name if I had known the trouble this would have created. I do not understand what you mean by "conveniently is a soft redirect"... I am pretty sure they don't have wiki user pages on that site.
 * The reversions were done because I specifically told her not to edit those pages because she does not know what she is doing. The changes were not constructive since she was utilizing incomplete and only partially functioning templates without knowing which was which and her changes were adding bad categories all over the place. Reversions to the main page were done because she should not be editing the main page; there are other things I have to fix on that page, such as messages with my name on them that I didn't write and only became aware of recently. I am simply at the beginning of trying to undo her mess and fix the site which she has been leading down a road to ruin even after I specifically asked her not to do so.<font face="Monotype Corsiva" color="Red" size="4">Erin <font face=" Monotype Corsiva " color="Green" size="4">Emerald <font face=" Monotype Corsiva " color="Red" size="4">flame 01:31, January 23, 2011 (UTC)


 * I find it difficult to believe that you would give "blessing" for another site to use your user name. Anyone on the Internet should know how much trouble can be caused when there are multiple people using the same name. You say you only became aware of messages typed "by other people" recently - then why did you revert an edit by Merrystar back to a version that has your name on it?
 * The duplicate name existed long before any of this occurred, and repetitions in user names exist all over the internet. Also, there was a broad idea to be friendly within the overall community instead of hostile so it was no big deal. I never reverted Merrystar's edit back to one with my name on it, the user that claimed that was wrong. I only came back yesterday editing and plan to remove it, since I DID NOT POST IT, from the main page today.


 * Merrystar is technically competent and knows what she is doing; the only reason that templates would be "partially functioning" is if they're not quite finished yet (less likely) or parts of them were reverted before the overall result was looked at (more likely). And why can't she edit the main page? I think the problem here is you haven't actually tried to work with her. Instead, you've been reverting everything she does instantly before stopping to consider whether the changes could be helpful. If you really are staying on the Wikia wiki (which we have reason to doubt based on the evidence), I think it would be better to be appreciative that Wikia is trying to help, recognise good faith for what it is, and work together to build up the wiki. The 888th Avatar   (talk)  02:33, January 23, 2011 (UTC)
 * That's all well and good, but one thing hasn't been mentioned here that I think deserves looking at:
 * "Despite my attempts to email Wikia community and staff regarding these problems multiple times, I have not received any response."
 * Why hasn't Wikia responded to the sent Special:Contact (I assume that's what you mean by staff emails) messages? Personally, if I thought a Helper was destroying my wiki and I couldn't get a valid explanation from her, I would at least expect a neutral staff member to be able to give an opinion on the subject. In my experience, there are very few reasons why Wikia would completely ignore a Special:Contact message. They have ignored messages regarding controversial topics in the past (especially when one or more parties has threatened legal action), but I think that any action taken by a staff member should be able to be explained by another staff member, and anyone should be allowed to ask for an explanation. Wikia Staff members are, contrary to popular belief, people. This does make them fallible, and as such they make mistakes. I think that if a staff member performs an action that no other staff member can see a reason for, the taken action should be considered a mistake, and as such, revertible. Granted, if ErinEmeraldflame has moved to the new wiki and is attempting to "soft delete" the Wikia wiki so to speak, I think that Merrystar has every right to do what she wants with the Wikia wiki, as ErinEmeraldflame is no longer "using" it. However, as 888th has mentioned, we can't prove ErinEmeraldflame has moved to this new wiki. If you truly DO intend to stay with the Wikia wiki, then the best thing to do would be to work with Merrystar, and give logical reasons why you don't like what she's doing. Regardless of whether or not you have moved, Merrystar DOES have to listen to your opinion. Ultimately, it is your wiki, and not hers. But if she continues to blatantly ignore your opinions and your ideas, then Wikia staff needs to step in and figure out how to end this dispute.
 * Considering that she starting deleting my edits without asking questions about them, and thereby actually added spam and changed the rules of the site without even questioning them... My responses were entirely reactionary to someone who came in just started doing things, deleting content, adding spam, and disrupted the functionality of the site according to an agenda which she kept to herself from the start. Her questions on my talk page had nothing to do with what she was clearly thinking and was prepared to act upon.<font face="Monotype Corsiva" color="Red" size="4">Erin <font face=" Monotype Corsiva " color="Green" size="4">Emerald <font face=" Monotype Corsiva " color="Red" size="4">flame 19:17, January 23, 2011 (UTC)
 * Wikia Wikis do not belong to any one user, so saying "it is your wiki, and not hers..." is extremely incorrect. This is just the case of a user who left pretending he didn't. Nothing more. 17:25, January 23, 2011 (UTC)
 * "Your" was meant to refer to the community. Wikia recognizes that the community should have control over the content and organization of a wiki, the wiki is theirs in that sense. Otherwise, Wikia reserves the right to do whatever else they want to a wiki (like delete the Monaco skin). I realize that it's entirely possible that the poster is lying, it wouldn't be the first time someone did that. Regardless, Wikia staff don't have the ability to do what the poster claims they are doing for no reason. That's why I think another staff member should be here.


 * In fact, to that end, why hasn't Merrystar made an appearance here? Seems to me like that would be the responsible thing to do.


 * Ah, okay - then yes that is true about the community. However, just by reading this user's talk page - it is shown that he did not email wikia like he said. They even tell him exactly what he did do - a single email over 2 months ago about a signature problem that Merrystar/Wendy was the one who replied to and fixed it. So he is lying there. Then, the front page of the wiki proves he is lying about not leaving, as he has kept his signature on a announcement that announces he is leaving. So, we can't accept anything this user says as fact. 17:50, January 23, 2011 (UTC)

(Unindenting) I wouldn't jump to that so quickly - however, there's also a lot I haven't read yet. What I think we can agree on is that there's a whole mess of miscommunication going on here between Erin and Wendy/Merrystar. I think that claims should be separated from facts here, and to that end, I'm going to add this post to Category:Staff needed, and I've started a list (below) of facts and claims that I've picked up skimming over these posts, and Erin's talk page.


 * I did send emails to community at wikia and have received no response. I also sent to staff through contacts and received no response. In the latest community email, I specifically outlined all of the problems and specifically suggested them sending in another neutral helper if they felt it was needed. This link is the full text of the message I sent most recently to which I received no response, I saved it in a file for just such an occassion. <font face="Monotype Corsiva" color="Red" size="4">Erin <font face=" Monotype Corsiva " color="Green" size="4">Emerald <font face=" Monotype Corsiva " color="Red" size="4">flame  18:58, January 23, 2011 (UTC)
 * Templates are partially functioning for two reasons: 1)because they were still being designed, by me and the admins, they were not ready for implementation, and 2)because the change in skin has seriously disrupted them. The reason she doesn't know what she is doing is because she knows nothing about the topic, the content, nor the site structure and has chosen to not listen to the admins regarding the content.


 * Wikia has ignored emails in the past. They tend only to blatantly ignore emails when they feel like they'd be digging themselves into a hole by answering (often when legal action is involved). However, Wendy claimed that she did not receive any of your emails, which is completely different. Unfortunately, neither of those claims can be proven or disproven at this time. We can't move forward on this unless we get some other staff input. If Wikia is true to their word about their new idea with Category:Staff needed, someone will notice this thread soon and we can get some answers.


 * Quick update: I moved some of the facts you added to claims, because I realized it was probably really stupid of me to make a list of facts and not include sources. We should try our best to find sources for the facts. I also marked some of the claims as "Currently being validated", which indicate claims that can be validated at this time, and as such, we should look for sources for those too. Page histories and user contribution logs are probably the best bet.

Facts
For reference: the wiki in question is Wizard 101 Wiki.

Also worth noting: Merrystar and Wendy are the same person.
 * There is a notice on the main page, that was signed by ErinEmeraldflame, stating that she had left the wiki. Erin did not sign this notice, rather, it was added by another editor. Source: Main page history.
 * Wendy/Merrystar has threatened to block ErinEmeraldflame if she continues to act as she has acted. Source: Erin's talk page.
 * Erin posted several warnings against Merrystar to cease her actions and behavior. Source: Erin's talk page.
 * There is an account on the new wiki under the name of ErinEmeraldflame. Source: Wizard101 Central Wiki.
 * ErinEmeraldflame made over 200 constructive edits in the time it was claimed she left. Source:Erin's contribs. Note: October 27, 2010 is the date the community "left", as this is the timestamp on the main page message.

Claims

 * ErinEmeraldflame claims that she has not left the wiki.
 * ErinEmeraldflame claims that she sent emails to Wikia on her normal email address via Special:Contact and wikia@community regarding this issue.
 * Merrystar/Wendy claims that Wikia never received any emails from ErinEmeraldflame.
 * Erin claims that until Merrystar arrived, nearly all of the edits were done by the community that remained behind. (Currently being validated)
 * Erin claims that rules for the Wiki's content were changed months before Merrystar's arrival on the site and no-one had complained about them in any of the various communication formats on the site. Note that Merrystar made her first edit December 1, 2010. Source: Merrystar's contribs. (Currently being validated)
 * Erin claims that the templates Merrystar was using had not been finished.

A Header
Well this one is getting a bit out of control... and I can see it's going to be a hard one to resolve. Thanks Monchoman45 for adding the "staff needed" category :)

ErinEmeraldflame, I've found an email from you (received 5th December) on this matter. I'm afraid it was miss-filtered by our spam detector, and so we lost it. The issue with spam filtering has since been resolved, but I apologize for us losing your mail in that way.

However, that was the only mail I found (other than the one from months ago that Wendy mentioned). It's possible there has been some other problem with us receiving your mail, but I have to admit that the number of distortions I'm seeing in your description of the situation make me less likely to believe that's the case.

An example: you started by saying that Merrystar "forcibly changed the content rules for the site". I think it's clearer to say that she protested you doing so as part of your move to a new site. You were reverting additions of up-to-date content on the basis that the site had moved to a new home, and the Wikia one should be an archive of the older game only. What this comes down to is that you were trying to move to a new wiki (as is your right of course) and to control the one you were leaving. I don't know what your intentions are now, but I think they were obvious enough when this started and Merrystar got involved to try to resolve the problems.

I really don't want to get into a tit-for-tat argument about who said and did what - those interested can read the talk pages and logs. But it seems to me that it's going to be very difficult for us to work together on this with such a clear loss of belief in each other's good intentions. However, if you use IRC, I'm willing to have a live chat with you to try work this out. Please let me know if you want to try this. -- Sannse (help forum | blog) 20:03, January 23, 2011 (UTC)


 * With that in mind, I was unable to find any notification of a change in wiki rules, other than the main page notice saying the site was archival. I think it's worth noting that many problems may have arisen because your notice was vague - users probably weren't quite sure what you meant, so they kept on doing what they had always been doing. Users tend to get upset when you remove content that they know to be true, which may have led to a user complaint, which may have led to Merrystar's involvement. And there's nothing wrong with allowing the Wikia wiki to continue on its own terms. Multiple schools of thought on a subject can provide insights that you wouldn't have thought of alone - for example, Sannse is probably right about a who-said-what argument being a bad idea. Bottom line: talking to Sannse is probably a good idea.


 * Further replies:
 * First, there is obviously tremendous confusion here as to what is "up-to-date" content. Merrystar reverted three types of content on the site. 1) most of the reverted material was from the test realm in the game, which was proven false at the time of posting and people continued to try to post the false information on those pages, 2) totally false information, some of which had nothing to do with the game content, and 3) pages with frequent postings of false content and vandalism. Also, none of her changes affected any established, still-around members of the community; they were all brand-new editors to the site who, based on multiple aspects of their edits, did not read the editing guide and rules of the site. People are never happy when their content they might think is real (but isn't) is deleted or reverted, so I am never surprised to get complaints about that, especially when our primary demographic is ages 8 to 12. We work very hard based on information from hundreds of community members to make sure the information is accurate, something that many lone editors do not have. Unlike most sites, this site is a database of factual information which disallows supposition, spoilers, and discussion on content articles, which does actually make most things on the site true or false.
 * Discussion of the direction the site would take was based on discussions on and off the site, spread across the forums, talk pages, etc. (Note: this is with the remaining community) The decision to change the direction of the site was based on technical limitations, major changes in game content which were contradictory to existing content, a desire to serve a different purpose to the Wizard101 community, and the large exodus. I had helped lead this site to its best state in its history and in the wake of the change and the move, my desire was to not move with the site and keep the site functional and purposeful, something that it would not be able to do without the change in direction. None of the existing community disagreed with this, and in fact they were enforcing the new rules themselves before Merrystar intervened.
 * You are correct in that originally the information was not as clear as it could have been initially, however, I did start getting the written rules changed explicitly in less than a month from the release of new content. This is actually quite rapid as far as our site goes, especially since I didn't have help. Major changes had occurred to the site, and it was not possible to rapidly fix every element that needed to be fixed immediately as I was having a hard time finding them and knowing what was still functioning or not. I was very busy trying to maintain and figure out the site and deal with an injury and there was only so much I could do at a time. However, as it is the job of the admins to enforce the desire of the community (and I only refer to the community that remained behind), I made sure to at least discuss the rules with every single person who crossed them on a case-by-case basis, as is the job of the admins. I handed out no bans for any transgressions and only one person complained against any deletions (but they posted clearly false content from the test realm and insinuated that I was crazy for deleting that content).
 * So, I was ready to make these changes and was in the process of reconstructing all of these things when Merrystar arrived. Her statements that things were not clear led me to immediately make the clearer on the main page and in the editing guide; her response was to immediately delete the clarifications I posted which had been enforced without dispute or argument on the site for months. This is unacceptable and was a major change in site rules, as she deleted long-standing and "newer" rules alike in her reversion, not only "newer" rules.
 * I strongly disagree with your claim of "distortions". My statements have been entirely factual and combined with an immense amount of frustration. I agree that she did protest the change as "part of a move", however I tried very hard to clearly state that that was not the motivation behind changes to the site, and I did so repeatedly. One of the primary problems here was the failure on her part to try to understand and listen to the facts of the case. I think the entire thing is a blown-out-of-proportion response by someone who had no idea what was actually going on, combined with her confusing and equating the goals of different administrators on the site. Added to that was a predisposed thought process and unwillingness to listen and a propensity to post falsehoods based on supposition and a failure to listen to my posts (which I can go through and point out one-by-one in her messages, but also would prefer not to do so), this is very clear to me as a failed response and actions on the part of Merrystar. I may not have been pleasant in my responses either, however this was very legitimately based on very large disruptions to the site that were undertaken before any discussion about them, (and I could easily discuss at length, with facts and site history to back up my statements, why they were large) and this did not disrupt the accuracy of my statements.
 * I could be willing to chat, but I don't have IRC and am not sure if there is another option. <font face="Monotype Corsiva" color="Red" size="4">Erin <font face=" Monotype Corsiva " color="Green" size="4">Emerald <font face=" Monotype Corsiva " color="Red" size="4">flame 21:03, January 25, 2011 (UTC)
 * Erin, seriously read about the word, "logorrhoea".It is hard to read your paragraphs of text. Devilmanozzy  (Talk Page)  23:43, January 27, 2011 (UTC)


 * If you have the internet, you have IRC. Another in-factual statement you've made. I'm sorry, but when you're claiming to of not left a website that has a main page notice with your signature saying you've left - then you're the one being in-factual somewhere. In addition to you having an account on the new site, well, we all see the forest no matter how many trees you put in our way. 02:15, January 26, 2011 (UTC)


 * She didn't sign the main page notice. See this diff. Another member put her signature there. And there's nothing wrong with being on multiple wikis at once - I'm a bureaucrat of two wikis and a rollback user on a third, and I'm sure you've been on more than one.


 * We're expected to believe that someone else put it up without consent and this very active user engaged in the website just missed it? Or left it up? Erin knew it was there, and left it. I'm sorry, but we can't trust any of her claims. It also doesn't help when Erin continues to alter things on that wiki and the forked wiki to pretend that both Erins aren't the same person (again, I agree with you - no problem with that - but above Erin tries to pretend she "gave permission" for another user to use her name. please.), such as removing her name from that front page notice only after it was brought up here. Erin is an extremely unreliable source of information on any possible or conceived issues with Wikia. 23:48, January 27, 2011 (UTC)

(unindent) There's a dispute over the "Jump to list of facts" navigation link. While the list is fairly irrelevant now, it does have sources listed that you can check. Everything there is factual.


 * Okay, on the list - no, everything there is not factual. The facts portion says "there is a new account under the name" on the new wiki, but doesn't just call out Erin on her above b.s. that it isn't her. It also doesn't give a proper two-sided list with pre-history prior to the fork. But most importantly, placing it at the top of the page with the word facts as part of the link is both incorrect procedure and falsifying, as well as allowing passerbys to actually skip over the main beef of this forum where Erin's claims and credibility have been mostly shredded. Our forums do not have links like that, given by a user for any side of a dispute, and they shouldn't. Let the users read this page, and leave with whatever feeling they want. 23:48, January 27, 2011 (UTC)


 * Firstly, in many browsers, pushing the end key will take you to the bottom of the page, thus skipping the "main beef". Secondly, I'm curious as to the phrase "incorrect procedure". Third, I don't see how calling them facts is falsifying, when you can clearly see in the sources provided that the statements are true. Fourth, if you were to look in the "claims" section, you would notice that "ErinEmeraldflame claims that she has not left the wiki" is listed. Fifth, if you really wanted to clarify the list, you should have clarified it when it was relevant. Lastly, the point of my statement is that disputing the nature of the link really doesn't matter. It's silly to edit war on a thread for a resolved issue. Just leave it be.

Returning to the chat subject for Sannse:
 * I had removed IRC programs from my computer previously due to security conflicts. I am aware that there are probably a host of free non-install chat programs in existence and if you would suggest one that you use which is safe I am amenable. <font face="Monotype Corsiva" color="Red" size="4">Erin <font face=" Monotype Corsiva " color="Green" size="4">Emerald <font face=" Monotype Corsiva " color="Red" size="4">flame 21:12, January 29, 2011 (UTC)
 * Click here for the free and safe Freenode IRC gateway. - <font color="#1A2BBB">Brandon Rhea <font color="#1A2BBB">(talk) 00:00, January 30, 2011 (UTC)
 * Erin, can we set up a time? I'm based in San Francisco, and can try for any time during the day or evening here. -- sannse http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb32675/wikia/images/e/e9/WikiaStaff.png  (help forum | blog)  02:15, February 4, 2011 (UTC)