Board Thread:Naruto Discussions/@comment-1514283-20140829001753

This wiki is fortunate enough to have very passionate contributors that are committed to making it the best wiki it can be, but it an unfortunate and undeniable reality that this wiki and its policies over the years have been contradictory, confusing and outright illogical at times. This is not meant to be disparaging, my only intention is to start reasoned discourse regarding the current state and policies of the wiki that have led to much infighting and strife amongst contributors. It is my hope that, through open and honest debate, that we can reach new solutions and change for the better.

My position is very simple. For the sake of being as up to date and comprehensive as possible, I believe the sysops should adopt, maintain and enforce a policy of reasoned allowances for matters sufficiently supported by logic and evidence to be noted in relevant articles regardless of whether or not they have been outright stated as fact in the manga. My reasoning for this is just as simple. If we can momentarily dispense with personal agendas for just a moment, then we should all be able to agree that Kishimoto is rarely as unambiguous and straightforward as we would like. Some things are obvious for all to see but go years without confirmation, so rather than write the truth as we know it at the time, we've adopted an policy of inaction - inconsistently I might add, but that's beside the point - while we should have, in my opinion, reported on the truth as we knew it to be at the time of writing.

The same old "wait for the data books" line can be trotted out again and again, but it has been years since the last data book and we have no idea when the next one will be published or if one is even being written. Now, I am not suggesting we present purely speculative statements as facts in the main body of text, only that we bother to draw attention to things we know are as good as confirmed, similar to what has been done with the Shakuton page for example. We all know Shakuton is comprised out of fire and wind but we can't state that as a matter of fact in the main body of text, so we add it to the trivia section - a move I applauded when I first noticed it, and still believe was the right move.

A somewhat similar case, though not treated the same, is Ashura in regards to his avatar. We all know what it looks like. Very clearly. But rather than note the possibility that Ashura was very likely a pseudo jinchūriki of some sort, we vaguely refer to his avatar as just that, an avatar. We don't mention the fact that it was wielding, by all indications, Bijūdama, and we don't note it's resemblance to Kurama or anything of the sort, because for some reason we're so deathly afraid to be wrong we'd rather feign blissful ignorance.

I believe it's this level of inconsistency that is holding the wiki back. Our first instinct is to corroborate suppositions with the manga. That is the right move. However, to an extent, and I realise this may sound ludicrous, we have became so overly reliant on the manga to tell us everything in the most clearest and unequivocal terms, that we simply opt not to record information that we know or should have known was correct.

The biggest example of this that comes to mind is Minato's status as a jinchūriki. It should have been obvious to us he was an jinchūriki after Kushina's flashback arc, but we opted to ignore all the signs because we weren't explicitly told that was the case. Another recent example would be God: Nativity of a World of Trees - it should have been clear from the get-go it was a Mokuton jutsu, and it should be even more clear now we know Kaguya has Mokuton, but we still have failed to list it as such. Why? The signs are there. The evidence is there. What is stopping us from listing it as what we know it to be?

I believe the frustrating contradictions in this wiki has led to not just resentment amongst contributors, but also has led to intellectual dishonesty as some means of retaliation between contributors that feel as though they were stonewalled into submission and thus stonewall in return.

The biggest and most recent example of this that I can point to is the Gaara/Magnetism debacle that got rather heated.

All evidence points to Gaara having Magnet Release. His father, Shukaku, the rings around his eyes, the similar and identical techniques like Third Eye, the fact Gaara used Gold Dust, and that sand was very clearly present in Naruto's jutsu - after all this evidence and lengthy, painstaking debate that spanned over several months we finallyreached a consensus on the matter - only for the decision to be reversed by, in my opinion, a minor misunderstanding, that being the fact Naruto used Shukaku's cursed seal ability in conjunction with his Rasengan rather than sand against Madara even though he later used magnetised sand in his offensive jutsu against Kaguya. But I was late to the party and the decision was pretty much done by the time I tried to refute that point so the damage was done and Ultimate, understandably, had to put his foot down, while lamenting the fact he had to do it.

I fully admit, I took that one personal. I shouldn't have, but I did, and for a while I held that against the likes of Seelentau and Elveonora, but then I realised that's exactly that kind of mentality that is toxic to this wiki.

Nobody likes being wrong and egos get bruised easily because we all think we've got it all figured out, but to come back to the original point of this entire topic: I think we need to change the way we do thing around here. A little more common sense and logic, and above all consistency would do wonders for this place.

So to summarise, and I hope that these examples made my intentions and suggestions clear:

We need a policy put in place that allows reasoned edits that are supported by evidence and consensus; to maintain and enforce consistency on that policy; to stop taking things personally; and above all else we need to prioritise intellectual honesty over petty resentments.

It's pretty late so if that stopped making as much sense halfway through, I apologise. It is my hope no one feels singled out by this post and that we can all try to come to a reasonable outcome together. 