- Joined
- Jan 3, 2021
I don't think the wiki is going to fracture any more than it already has. Even the people who are threatening to quit over recent drama like Kaktus don't really seem like they want to form a new wiki should the current one die off.Sorry for the doublepost, but given the recent attack and day since the last post, I don't feel too bad about it. Anyway, these two questions have been asked before, but not very recently or at the same time.
But do you think the SCP Wiki can be fixed, and even if it is possible, should it be fixed?
For my own two bits on it, I think in some rare scenario where everything goes according to someone's plan, yes, the critical issues surrounding the wiki could be staunched. But then that doesn't repair the more long-term issues, namely the fact the SCP wiki is simply put, dying. We'd be putting off what has been happening for a very long time, and I think this thread has several signs to show just that, that the SCP wiki keeps finding skeletons in the closet, old controversies coming to light, drama crawling out of whatever hole it's been hiding in. It's lasting long enough for there to be lasting damage- you can go to any discussion page or O5 thread and see the lines drawn in the sand, between the wiki and the rest of the internet, between the wiki's staff and the wiki's users, between staff and staff. It's breaking apart.
Second major issue I see is that the SCP Foundation is no longer a wiki. It's moved on from website, to community, to idea, to a concept. Not only does the SCP Wiki no longer have a monopoly on community-written containment fiction (if it ever did), it no longer has a monopoly on itself. YouTube videos, Tumblr blogs, art pages, all under the banner of the SCP Foundation. It's become so big that despite the fact several users have become so entrenched in the many different sub-communities of the Foundation, they can't seem to control it all, not to say they're conspiring to, but the fact stands that the Wiki no longer controls the Foundation.
Also I'd like to clarify something I said earlier, that it is the SCP Wiki that is dying, not the Foundation. The former doesn't have much longer, a decade or even less, but the latter is going to last a very long time, in one way or another. At the very least, containment fiction has found itself becoming a legitimate genre if it wasn't already.
My personal prediction is that the Wiki is going to last, oh, let's say 5 years, probably more, but maybe less, before some major internal divide forms over some drama, with sides being picked and factions forming as the users latch onto leaders and follow them to whatever stance they see fit to take. Several new wikis are formed, all claiming to be the rightful successor, etc etc, some major authors pick a place to settle and that forms the primordial bedrock that the little communities grow from. The original wiki stays, but so many were lost that it slowly, quietly, fades away. In 10, maybe 15, but likely 20 years, the SCP wiki exists, but it is something wholly alien to what we have now. The little communities are devoured by the larger ones until we have a new series of robust wikis that came out stronger.
Maybe that wouldn't be so bad. Maybe because to a lesser degree, it already happened. The exodus we saw earlier with the RPC wiki and the other ones is what will happen again in microcosm. Yes, it was devastating (for internet drama), and several parties came out arguably worse, but the creative outburst that came of it, the articles that were produced as the new communities used their newfound freedom, was pretty cool. Even the SCP Wiki had a rush of energy as the new rivalry invigorated it just that much, although "rivalry" probably isn't the right word. But I doubt it'll be much longer. If it lasts, it stagnates. If it falls, it'll be a strange sort of dark age for a little while before it recovers, scattered but new, invigorated, and arguably tougher than before. I wouldn't mind that.
Or sure, if Harmony is correct, Rounderhouse coups the administration of the Wiki and forms a highly militarized autocracy that effectively integrates the wikis it conquers. It dedicates its registered users to something higher than themselves- to the idea of SCP itself. Long-term stability at all costs. The author has no value beyond his utility to the Wiki, whether as an instrument of drama, or production. His death in 2281 from a brain tumor leads to his most devoted followers enshrining his body on the front page for two days before the next contest, while his trusted Legate Kaktus travels west to conquer the despotic remains of the RPC Republic, the armies and votebots of the Legion close behind. Moderation, unforgiving as it was, had finally come to the Wikidot Wasteland.
I think that the current drama is either going to lead to the upheaval of the current staff and structure, or the death of the wiki as all the talent quits and moves to other places. As for where they'll go, I think they'll either move to the smaller communities for containment fiction that already exist (Wanderer's Library, SCP Commune, maybe even RPC) or go do things unrelated to containment fiction (I could see Kaktus trying to get published). It's possible that staff will finally figure out what the fuck is going on with their community and turn things around, but somehow I doubt it.