Adieu my friends, i bid you all farewell, My name was Endogene
By Endogene 245 Comments
I'm the 6th most important contributor to GiantBomb.com out of a total of 42985 members with a total of 57329 points that i got on 3523 different pages. I joined the site July 21, 2008, the day the site was launched. Including this final blog post i will have posted 3858 comments on the site. I am in the top 10 poster rank of both the "delete and combine" forum and the "editing and tools" forum. After I was chosen to become a moderator I moderated over 6000 submissions and posted 232 times in the "moderation hangout" placing 3rd on the top poster list. Today i turn my back to this all.
I've genuinely enjoyed the countless hours I've spend on Giant Bomb. I loved helping out others, I loved adding information for others to see, I loved all the silliness of the forums and the great personalities that visit them yet i do no longer want this all.
My name is Endogène
When i first visited the forums things where wild, uncertain, nothing was decided, no rules existed same was for the Wiki part of the site, the one promoted to be the big feature of GiantBomb that was buried under submissions that moderators who were chosen out of those who had the most points in the early hours that the site launched. I've got the my first real attention by defending non censured images from adult games, most notably Bible Black. I've spend days saying that if the site wants to be a encyclopedia it should allow everything without exception be it offending or not while being yelled at and called names by others before finally a staff member came out with a small message saying that it was an okay thing to do. I then gained some more popularity helping others out with wiki related questions and moving data over from duplicate pages. It was great being a meaningful part of something constructive on such a big scale.
Once i had hit 5000 points i started adding new pages to the site at alarming speeds so that users who did not already had 5K points whould have pages that they could work on without having to wait on moderation. I continued working on the wiki to a point that i reached the top 100 that was crowded with people who gamed the system be it by bugs or willingly. I was proud, my name on that page meant that i had helped others out.
As i continued working on wiki pages my rank as my "notoriety" climbed, I was never afraid to defend what i believe in and and take on the things I oppose. I've often got into conflict with other users due to this, however I am proud of the amount of self control and objectivity i've shown during these arguments and that I have never verbally disrespected others.
During my stay on GiantBomb I've done my best promoting games that needed attention by either posting about them or filling in their wiki articles as good as i could, I was always proud and happy once i was done making a wiki page for a game yet sad at the same time since i knew that if i did not do it nobody would...
After some months I as well as another two users were added to the moderation team, two wiki mods, one forum mod. I delved into the submission queue checking everyone of the for plagiarism and correcting them if needed, i would always leave a detailed comment for the users explaining when i would deny a submission explaing how they should do it next time. At the end all my effort was for nothing, the reply function of the moderation queue was broken since the site launched, nobody told me... I was upset.
My name is Endogène
I am tired, tired of seeing so much of everyone their effort being wasted. GiantBomb is supposed to be a community site, yet it's founders neglect it all together. How is a community supposed to prosper if it's founders do not support it? It pains me to see users troubled with the site, asking it's creators directly for change, proposing ideas be they hard or simple to implement and seeing no word what so ever from these founders to a point that the mods have to come over and to say the GiantBomb team is but small and can't take care of everything. I agreed with those who said that when the site was created but seeing the same issue still exist now that the site has almost hit its one year mark makes it hard for me to believe that they even care. GiantBomb's business model seems to be to pump out as many different features as possible that will lure new users in but by doing this they are neglecting what their core, the people who invest their personal time in making the site what it is want. The never ending trivia and the achievement feature might be nice but there are so many things that actually matter that need to be done.
After I had become a moderator I've done nothing but try and make the founders realize the things that were absolutely needed being fixed, added, clarified all in vain. Never did the founders even answered my request even when supported by the other moderators, the only time i had contact with one of them is when i started doing what they had always neglected out of my own, delete duplicate page. I used the tool that allowed us moderators to rename game pages to change duplicate games into games that were not yet added to the database. I got a message asking what i was doing and after explaining how i was "deleting" pages I was told that it was okay to do. Afterwards i discussed it with the other mods and we stumbled upon some cases where this method might break the site. I messaged the founder again asking if i still had green light ot use this method despite the risky pages, i never got an answer and thus found myself uncertain if i could continue or not, I had no choice then stop. With pain I would see the list of pages that needed to be deleted more and more. As time passes more issues rise, the community discusses them, proposes solutions, no answer, nothing happens... Do the founders live in a tower so high above ground that they do only see clouds under them and not those below struggling?
My name is Endogène
No longer will I stay here, no longer will i accept this behavior towards those who support you. I hope that I will be the only one who has to leave for you to understand that they way you are neglecting your core is unacceptable. I hope that you will see reason and that GiantBomb will become what it is supposed to be, a community site!
For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught.
To say the things he truly feels
And not the words of one who kneels.
The record shows I took the blows
And did it my way!
My name was Endogène!
Mirror: http://lastwordsbyendogene.blogspot.com/
248 Comments