User:FoggyGlasses55/Why I Quit Fantendo

Let's see. Where to start?

Oh yes. I quit Fantendo recently on the beginning of May for reasons. I didn't really tell anyone why I quit but now I'm just going to come clean and tell why. And by "coming clean" I mean "bashing on Fantendo till I feel sorry".

There's many reasons, but let's start with the biggest:

What's Wikia all about? I mean, sure, it's on the Internet and it seems pretty meaningless, but the real purpose of Wikia is to share knowledge. Debate and relate to others who have the same interest as you. Show off your talent and get advice. For example, the Creepypasta Wiki is a wonderful archive of scary short stories: Sharing knowledge. You can post your own stories and receive advice: Show off talent and get feedback. It's an organized, proper wiki that still contains the traditional values of the Wikia community. Even the SuperMarioGlitchy4 Wiki fits the criteria in that it shares knowledge about Smg4.

Now let's look at Fantendo. It's all about making fangames and talking about them, right? But I forgot to mention one other thing. Wikis should be useful. It should benefit the external viewers and members with something. For example. Wikis about said Smg4 and FnaF seem meaningless, but you can gain more knowledge about those subjects and they can become a conversation topic amongst friends. Wikis about food, fashion, and stories, as well as science, are filled with practical and educational facts that can apply to real life. What does Fantendo give us? Oh yes, a myriad of nicely-coded fangames that gives you no benefit to your life whatsoever and what's more, will probably never exist as far as I'm concerned. These fangame creators have ideas, but they don't know how to recreate those ideas into real life. Most probably don't know how to engineer hardware and softare that's necessary to create the games, how to manage gaming companies and the stock sales, etc. They need to learn technology, engineering, and economy to make games. And Fantendo won't give you those.

I realized that towards my final days on Fantendo. I was thinking as I made a fangame, "Why am I doing this?

"Why am I creating this crap that will bring about no impact, positive or negative, onto the world whatsoever?  Why am I wasting time and resources like this?  I could be making stories, catching up on the latest scientific and political news, debate about history, yet I'm doing something utterly useless in the place.  I don't even want to be a game creator.  What's wrong with me?"

If life was determined by Pokégods, Mario, and Fiore, Fantendo would've been such a useful wiki. But it isn't. So Fantendo's just... meh.

Then there's the overall attitude of the members of Fantendo.

Good wikis have admins and members who can set an example to newbies, a framework as to how they should act, welcome them gladly, and guide them through the wiki to an extent. Fantendo veterans and admins follow a conservative bias towards newbies which can be summed up to this:

"Welcome to Fantendo, if you're a newcomer you're stupid and we'll just flame on you for not knowing the basics of the wiki hivemind."

Perhaps I'm exaggerating, but that's how it felt to me.

The rather cold welcome Fantendo gives makes newcomers uncomfortable, and that won't give the place such a good image.

I mean, in Fantendo you have to be able to make tons of quality fangames, join those stupid "roster evolutions", "sign-ups", "drawing contests", and "elimination rounds", plus a lot others. By the way, do those help me in life in any way at all? In my own experience, I couldn't do those, I couldn't fit in. So I shipped out. That's my problem. The wiki's problem is how unwelcoming everyone is to newcomers.

Lastly, I just noticed a simple thing that seperates Fantendo from other wikis. A comparison wiki would be the Creepypasta Wiki (I know I idolize that place, but it does set a good example to other wikis). When I see people on the Creepypasta Wiki, they're all cultured, mannered, and formal, and rarely acerbic. Many people have already published their own stories and are going into the career of writing, one of the admins is a former Peace Corps volunteer, many have exact, sharp plans for their future, and so on. Then I go to Fantendo. Most people there, it seems to me, have no idea what to do with their lives. They can make great fangames but can't contribute to real life society. Many have admitted they aren't doing so hot at school, many haven't found a proper job yet (No offense), and many just go around making weird images for no reason. Yep. Fantendo is so beneficial for your life.

There. I finished my rant. Say what you want, this is my opinion.

If you want an article that supports this, read this.