So I wasn't going to come on-line today because I was up til 1am last night. But I decided briefly to come on-line because I was up until 1am.
Fuirstly if you don't know what Vocaloid is;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocaloid
Though to be honest, its best not to get too deeply into this, because I've got a little tale to tell.
Basically since mid-2010, I've been with the Vocaloid fandom. I stopped being a editor here in 2011 when the new Vocaloid3 engine became the subject as it was big thing and there was a lot of things to hassle, they were coming in bulk and without warning. Basically for the Vocaloid fandom, it was the equivalent of a new book being released by your favorite authour. I couldn't keep up with editing here on the One Piece so I decided to commit to the Voclaoid wikia.
Okay to began from the beginning though...
In 2010, for 2-4 months I sat there and watched members of the most popular Vocaloid forum just constantly, more or less, criticizing others in the fandom. I was still new to the fandom and acting, I guess, more as an outsider. My knowledge of Voclaoid itself steemed from owning one of the orignaly five.... If you know Vocaloid, thats not Miku, Len/Rin, Luka, Kaito or Meiko. The orgininal 5 was Lola, Leon, Miriam, Meiko and Kaito, Miku, Len, Rin and Luka came later. But typically, most of the time you'd come across fans who didn't know Leon, Lola, Miriam and took there only to be the 5 they knew. To top it off 2 popular fan made OC's Neru and Haku were commonly shoe-horned in as Actual Vocaloids and a character known as Teto from another software called UTAU, was said commonly to be a Vocaloid.
After a few months, listening to people whining or mocking the "fandumb", which amounting to mockery based on the fact those few forumers actually knew what Vocaloid was and 80%-98% (I'm not joking about this) didn't even know. I looked up everything I could to see why such a huge problem was occurring and found their wikia.., and wikipedia... Were a shambles.
Next came the Laissez Faire, for those who don't know, " Laissez Faire" means the policy of doing nothing to change a situation, basically knowing theres a problem and not lifting a finger to change it. Which sums up the following 4-6 months of me begging the members of the forum to do something to actually help their fandom instead of just complaining about the problems. No wiki-system is perfect and wikipedia in particular is the most flawed of the wiki sites, but wikipedia and the most popular wikia tend to be the first thing that comes up on a google search, or one of the first. Therefore, the better you make those two places, the less room for error there is. When they refused, they basically were committing to Laissez Faire and letting the situation continue without anything being done about it.
Well since I was experience at wikipedia and general wiki editing, I decided to help the situation because if they weren't going to do it, someone else had to.
I faced an awful lot of problems, look the OP wikia wasn't my first fandom or wiki site, but all the wikias up to the Vocaloid wikia were series based with canon storyline and all that. But for Voclaoid all you have is technical terms and science. Thats sounds like fun, but it took a while to work out how to build and make the Vocaloid wiki work. :-/
Meanwhile I just got a lot of criticism from those same fans. They didn't want to do a thing to lift a finger, but when a stranger did it instead, suddenly they didn't like it. And that set the tone for pretty much everything up until now. *sigh* Look I know I'm not perfect, in fact I'm far from it, but at this point I was just trying to help remove a situation. I pointed out that getting into the heads of newbies basic information was good. It removed things like "Neru is a Vocaloid", because the information is there to prove otherwise. But... They didn't like it.
So this leads to several other issues.
Frstly, I'm used to writting long essay-length blogs and posts, because I'm a nerd/geek and I like writing things that are well thought out and carry weight. Being dyslexic, I also take time on occasion to explain myself and will going around a subject several times before I hit it when I can't quite get out what I want to say out. The Vocaloid fandom doesn't like that. If you post is too long.... They dis you for it, several times my pots were re-quote and in the auote tags the word "stuff" was written, which I found rude. You basically don't care what I have to say or can't be bothered to read it. They start complaining your post is off topic, even those it doesn't necessary go off topic at all. If everything is related, its on point. :-/
Next comes the overreaction. So while I was trying to figure everything out, I wrote a page about the way Hatsune Miku looks, I used the term "Miku formula" because the chinese fandom just recently said "it was as if they were working to a formula based on Miku". Which was noting how the majority of characters in the contest to design the first Chinese Vocaloid, basically were copying things from the most know/popular Vocaloids the Crypton Future Media ones. Nope. Miku is a special snowflake, you can't mention other characters are copying her. Except the page wasn't and later 5 other Vocaloids were confirmed to have taken notes from Miku on avatar/character design... But in 2 weeks I completely wrote this page and came close to quitting. I still don't know why I stuck with the fandom. =_=
Next comes the other issue. Here in the One Piece fandom, your a anime geek/nerd, in the Vocaloid fandom, your a weaboo. This annoyed me. If you like Vocaloid your a weaboo, I don't even like the Japanese ones, I like the English ones, which originally didn't have some random cutesy character slapped on the boxart. But before the Vocaloid fandom, I never came across anyone who had accused anyone else of being a weaboo, unless they actually were a weaboo. Likewise, a lot of fans claim they are a Otaku because they like Vocaloid... But they are presuming "Otaku" means "anime/manga fan", which is not a fully faithful portrayal of a true Otaku by what Japanese culture has come to know it as. Basically they are using the word as a loan word to mean they are a anime nerd/fan... =_=
Also until the Vocaloid fandom... I never knew Japanese songs (vocaloid songs included) were so deep and full of meaning and western songs just about sex. Good grief. Yet I've just listed one with a lot of deep meaning, there is also the song "Hazard" and even in the Vocaloid fandom, the song "Twaddles of a Flue Faker" is western producer made using the English vocal "Oliver" and has a lot of meaning. There are plenty of Japanese songs, even not vocaloid related, about sex. ¬_¬
Next issue... *sigh* bias... You can't just enjoy English Vocaloids, because "they suck". And people go out of their way to tell you that, or quote some BS about them without backing up things with facts. Basically it comes down to "why can't the Japanese language be what English is in the world" aka "Japan does everything better then everyone else in the world". If their not LQ, then their "unrealistic" - even though at one point the number of realistic Vocaloids made by Japan was lower then the number of realistic vocals and English vocaloids had only 1 unrealistic singer. And there are two English Vocaloids who sing in opera who are known to trick long-term opera fans into thinking their real singers. =_=
Ah then last night the nail in the coffin occurred. Something the Vocaloid fandom doesn't do happened on the OP wiki chat.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zgiku-q55_k - this video highlights it.
SeaTerror said something which caused 3 of us to try to remember or look up how something went down in the OP wikia. Another point I found myself discussing how the 3 powers are not equal because once WB was down, they Marines AND the Shichibukai had no further "oomph" to take on Shanks and his crew. Both these are centered around a thing I'd forgotten how much I enjoy about being a fan of a series. This is "fun" to me as it means that you are trying to get your brains around a subject. There is no canon storyline in Vocaloid and the debates aren't debates, their arguments about whose opinion, not facts, are correct.
And that finally leads me to the last few subjects. If you ask a Vocaloid fan what Vocaloid is, some will tell you its a software synthesizer, but at one point more would tell me its a anime, game, virtual band. None of those are correct and it left me wondering "how can you claim to be a fan of something you when you don't actually know what it is". this is getting better... But... Its still a degree of an issue... I've never comes across a One Piece fan who hasn't told me what OP is about without some grounds of correctness. But it basically means that the person who is saying it hasn't looked up anything to do with what their a fan of, which leads back to the issue of making sure the wikia pages are sound... Argh! And whats worst, some Vocaloids like "Megpoid" are even accused of not being a "Vocaloid" because the name of the product is "Megpoid" and their a "Megpoid" not a "Vocaloid". Which is a example of the BS fans with little knowledge pull out during an argument; its just the software name.
And finally. There is no canon storyline. And people take the songs as the "canon" leading to people presuming things like "Kaito is a pervert". Kaito has no personality. In one song he is a pervert, another song a white knight, another song a murderer, another a saint. Vocaloid songs are made by fans who know how to use Music software. But without that storyline, we can't tell a person to go look up chapter X to correct them. :-/
Basically, it amounts to the average Vocaloid fan, being like a Justin Beiber fan. They'd kill me for saying that, but I've seen fangs of popular singers act the same way as Vocaloid fans. Wherein they know who the singer is, where their from, etc, but don't actually get too deep into it, and they basically are only following J. Bieber because he is popular or they like a few of his songs - if they even know his non-popular songs exist. Its like saying your a Elivs fan, and not knowing the song "in the ghetto" is about, or liking Elvis for just that one song because it has a deep meaning.
So basically I'm lonely. The Vocaloid fandom has left me feeling really isolated from things I enjoy. I do enjoy Vocaloid, but the way the fans behave and the way they act... And the list of issues with the fandom. So I've decided to return to this wikia, its going to take a while to get out of editing on one wikia and return to duty here, especially as I was made redundant in the things I did here originally so I need to figure out how editing works for me here once more... But I hope everyone know why I'm suddenly hanging around.
I owe SeaTerror a lot, we've never been friends, hence why I got a bit snappy about Meg saying we're only voting for ST in his ban poll because we're his buddy, but he and those others on-line said the things I think I needed to hear in the chat yesterday. Things even I didn't want to admit. As I said in the ban poll... I'll sum it up in a phrase I said in the Vocaloid fandom, "I'm one person on the net out of millions - if you don't like me its fine because there are still millions of others on the net like you so you can ignore me. But.. While there are millions of people on the net like you - but I'm me and if you don't like me, there are also millions of others on the net like me too." :-/