This is like returning to your abandoned childhood home right before it's about to get demolished. A decade ago, I lived in this namespace, but haven't touched it in 5 years...nor have most people. But before blogs are gone forever, it was only right to get a last blog in. I CALL ON THE BLOGGING ANCESTORS TO GUIDE ME...
Right, what to talk about? What makes a blog? I suppose the rules are still in effect, and DP, Yata, JSD and Kage continue to rule with an iron fist. So I must behave, and make a topical blog. Let's talk about the wiki! The wiki is supposed to be factual, otherwise why would it exist? It's not always right of course. Usually vandals and dumb editors who should have stayed in the blogosphere. But hear me out, there are instances where the wiki is wrong out of necessity. And that's not a mark on us. Simply put, Oda likes to play tricks. He presents something one way, and then pulls out the rug. Surprise ya fools! Sabo was alive. Should we have been embarrassed to have marked him deceased for four years? Some may disagree, but I say no. He was clearly presented as being dead until Oda dropped the other shoe. Another example personally relevant to me, I popped onto the wiki scene just over 11 years ago when I posted my first blog, titled Does Anyone Care About Kinemon? Honestly, the point kinda still stands, even if ol' Kin finally got a bit more spotlight in Zou and Wano, featuring another twist where he got replaced as Momo's daddy by ChadOden. Naturally, it doesn't reflect poorly on the wiki that we said Kin'emon was Momo's father for 4 years. How were we to know?
Now, I don't think many people see this as a problem but this mindset does make other things more difficult. Sometimes there is such a strong desire to be careful that people overcorrect on things. We want to consider all possible options and avoid all speculation. However there have been times when something is so gotdang obvious even though it's not 100% spelled out that I view it as a detriment to the wiki if people play devils advocate. Yes, that person turning into a mythical creature is obviously a Devil Fruit. Yes, Vergo and Monet are dead, they haven't appeared in the story in 12 years, no that cover story is not coming, rest in peace!! Each argument is different, but I think it's important to avoid the slippery slope here. Be too careful to consider all options and you start considering the most unfounded crackhead possibilities. It's possible that Roronoa Zoro is a fake name and his real name is Jim Bananatucker and he pushed Kuina down D. stairs. Nothing in the manga necessarily contradicts this theory. However, it's not our place to assume Oda is lying. If we tried to cast doubt onto every plot point in the hopes of successfully predicting a plot twist, this wiki could not function. To be healthy, we have to assume Oda is telling the truth until proven otherwise, even though several times he has proven otherwise. But the law of probability comes into play here: more likely than not, Oda is not going to prove otherwise on Jim Bananatucker.
So my advice to like the 2 people who will read this blog, is don't be afraid to introduce bold ideas to the wiki. Just have a case for them. There's a difference between being wrong and being stupid. And really, this doesn't apply just to wiki editing, but to real life as well. This may come as a shock, but everyone you meet in life will be wrong at some point. Some people, most points. But you'll find most things people are wrong about never have much impact on them in the long run. In fact, many people use the power they're given to promote wrong. Such is life. Allow me to present:
THE MEANING OF LIFE THROUGH THE LENS OF THE ONE PIECE WIKI
(results not guaranteed)
1. NARUICHI'S CRAZY VOID CENTURY THEORY
One of my earliest One Piece Wiki blog memories was an entry by a gentleman named Naruichi96, Crazy Void Century Theory. What I remember most about it was not the content of the blog, but rather the firestorm of comments as some rather harsh criticism of the theory morphed into shitposting. Back in the days when the blogs were popping, we had a system where many users (most new) posted their wild theories and other users (often older, even admins) had fun shooting them down. In a competitive marketplace of One Piece theories, god forbid you were ever wrong. Was Naruichi wrong? I'm going to be honest, I never actually read his blog until I started writing this one. Given what we know about the Void Century now, it...doesn't seem off base at all. Ultimately, if anything about the blog should be crowned it's the title, as it was a rather safe theory all in all. That's another thing, though. You can be wrong about something and feel really bad about it in the moment, but time passes and that thing you were wrong about hardly matters at all.
2. SHOUTOUT TO OUR FANDOM OVERLORDS
Right and wrong is sometimes in the beholder. Sometimes a person does something that most of their peers judge to be wrong and maybe stupid too, but the only problem is that the person who is wrong is the one with the power to effect change. Such is our relationship with our overlords at FANDOM (formerly Wikia). This website looks VERY different from how it did when I joined the wiki, and if you held a gun to my head and told me to name a beneficial change that our FANDOM sovereigns blessed us with, I'd be ruing not writing a will (making sure Pau does not steal my inheritance!!) Over the last decade it has become increasingly clear that FANDOM is more interested in modeling these wikis into social networking sites centered around media interests (fandoms, you might say, wow what a coindicidence). But many of these changes you could argue whacked away at previously existing social networking options that were popping off in the olden days. Take the wiki chat feature, which was done away with during a big UI update in 2020. Nowadays FANDOM has outsourced this quick chat to other platforms like Discord (we don't talk about Skype). Our Discord has been around for 8 long years and many of us still aren't sure if it was the right decision. Here's a funny story, we had a poll to determine whether to make the Discord chat official and obviously "Yes" one, but you'll get a kick seeing where I voted, and if you're familiar with your users you may notice that quite a few of the "No" votes are saddled with managing the Discord in the present day, while most of the "Yes" votes have gone on to other pastures like j*bs and f*mily and the My Hero Academia Wiki. A great monument to irony on this wiki.
But most of all, I really think FANDOM screwed up blogs. Blogs were another key space for wiki users to chat and share their ideas, in a more let's say sophisticated manner compared to the newer discussions feature. But the same UI update which killed chat also put Blogs in something of a purgatory. It used to be that the posting of blogs, as well as comments, was integrated into the live Wiki Activity page, and you could keep abreast with both wiki page edits and new blog comments simultaneously. But for the last 5 years, blogs have been in a no-man's land. Formatted like Discussions, but still not touching that namespace, comments became rarer and rarer because you couldn't see anyone make them unless you regularly visited the blog. And so, we're putting the final touches on this wrong by taking the Blogspace out of its misery. When does a man die? When he is forgotten...
In some cases FANDOM staff has also seen fit to intervene in our wiki page discussions to make sure we choose the right procedure as to how we cover certain topics. Take the character of Yamato, for instance, whose gender was evidently the most impactful part of the Wano Country Arc,fpoeo[nrfl
EDITOR'S NOTE: KAIDO HAS BEEN TAKEN TO A FANDOM COURT OF LAW. PLEASE HANG TIGHT WHILE HE SETTLES SOME MISUNDERSTANDINGS
INTERMISSION: FREE CATALONIA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLC-ixTv3mI
(yes, Yamato is a boy. Moving on...)
3. ADMIRAL MAYNARD'S FOLLY
BEHOLD:
https://i1292.photobucket.com/albums/b573/amateragi/maynard_zpsjrw5anmi.png
...believe it or not, that link used to work on its own. Now I'm just waiting for Photobucket to make good on the emails they've been sending me the last 5 years threatening to delete my shit if I don't buy one of their plans :O
Anyways, this here is the poster child of the quality translations we used to rely on to update the wiki. Mangapanda was a shining example of being wrong and not caring a single lick out of it. They got the chapter out first, and all the do-gooders just had to put up with it. Admiral Maynard became a shining light as he inflicted more chaos on Dressrosa, and who has the standing to say the one-time admiral was ever wrong in his mistranslation adventures?
We could all learn something from the people who worked at Mangapanda. Yes, they got arrested during the Zou Arc and ceased making their own One Piece translations. But that was for illegally acquiring scans, not for diarrhea-quality translations. At least, as far as I know. Spewing your truth is one thing, stealing is another. Crucify and chill, anyone?
4. 9000 GALAXIES FAR, FAR AWAY
Last one! And another event in my first year here. Over the last two decades we've had a lot of people come with the goal of helping the wiki and using their ideas to advance its content and presentation. 2014, though, showed what can happen when you care a little too much and meet enough pushback to push you over to the point of deciding, well if the community thinks I'm wrong, then I'll be wrong! That is the tragedy of Galaxy9000.
But, at the end of the day, Galaxy's petty vandalism was quickly washed away and has no lingering impact on this wiki. I've interacted with him through other online forums in the years following this incident, and he moved on with his life. Going on a wiki vandalism spree isn't great and I 100% do not recommend it, but it's not nearly as impactful as going on a real life spree of destruction. Sometimes a big crash out is what it takes to remind people of the things that matter, and this wiki should be pretty low on the list.
If you've made it this far, or you saw the massive walls of text and scrolled all the way to the end, or if you're off your rocker and don't know how you got here, I say thank you for reading regardless! This was a fun walk on memory lane and I'm glad I got the chance to write a final final blog. Now, normally I would end this with a poll, but FANDOM also disabled those in 2020. Generally, if something bad happens here then FANDOM is typically a pretty safe culprit. But it enabled a nice - sometimes naughty - community to foster here over the 11 years I've frequented this site, so I want to give a shout out to every one who has interacted with my blogs.
To start, I'd like to say a big fuck