Stolen from scpcrnp
New members of the ruling class volunteer as they fade out from active writing on the site. (This happens naturally as is, and can be regarded as an analogy to elders who maybe don't do all the activities that they used to, but still contribute an executive and over-seeing role for the good of the community. The time at which there are no willing ruling class members is the natural death of the site; all good things must come to an end, and this will give a definitive, non-arbitrary way to determine that… unlike the current community, which no one knows has already died been killed and is slowly rotting in secrecy.)
This already happens. You cannot suggest what is already being implemented. This is literally what Junior Staff is. Your lack of knowledge into staff structure makes me question whether you actually did any research before complaining against literally everything.
How would you describe the SCP Foundation to someone? What does this community mean to you?
The SCP Foundation is a community of authors, readers, and voters. At least, that is what would assume at first. In reality, it is the combined devotion of earnest volunteers, semi-active participants, and curious newcomers that form the community. The community, in essence, is a hobby. It's something we do for fun.
The community can be cast as three classes: a ruling class (staff), a production class (writers), and a consumption class (readers). There is obviously overlap between all of these.
The Ruling Class
I'd be remiss if I claimed to have any solid ability to claim any knowledge into the ruling class, which is comprised of all variations of staff. Staff come in various flavors:
- Junior Staff
- Operational Staff
- Moderators
- Administrators
The ruling class, as the title implies, rules. It governs, yes it does. What more would you expect?
The internet calls us elitist creepypasta. We embrace it. We are, after all, a hierarchical community base. We understand the folly of Athens, we understood what the American Founding Fathers do: democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding who will become dinner. We may appear to be an oligarchy, yes, but we are in fact a meritocracy: the actions and merits of any particular user determine if they qualify to become part of the ruling class.
Our site has standards - and the ruling class is the one that enforces them. Our site has rules - and the ruling class ensures that we follow them. Anarchy does not directly equivocate to freedom, especially not on the Internet. The ruling-class, therefore, ensures order remains within the community.
The Production-Class
The production-class is, as stated before, not entirely exclusive of the ruling class. Indeed, they are some members of the ruling class who may have the time and willpower to create works for the community.
The production class, in essence, is what fuels the community. The production class is that of whom create content so that the community continues to grow and thrive. It is the class that ensures the community does not stagnate, it proves that the community is well and alive.
The production class is, therefore, the lifeblood that the community depends of.
The Consumer-Class
An overwhelming majority of the (near adolescent) voting members typically wouldn't know good writing if H.P. Lovecraft signed it for them.
The above is a comment made by a user who felt slighted in the community. I am afraid that I do not agree with this quote.
The main issue I have is that it takes a very narrow, and frankly stereotypical, viewpoint of the community. Perhaps this would have been the case a few years ago, after the wave of Markiplier fans swarmed in with the advent of Containment Breach, but the community has grown, and with it, its userbase. I won't deny that we still have many, many adolescent readers, but to claim that the overwhelming majority is like this is simply derisive.
If the production-class is the lifeblood, then the consumption-class is the water that nourishes the community. Try as it might, the community could not do without its readers. It gives the production-class a sense of purpose. It reminds the ruling-class that they must be serve others before themselves. They are who ground the other classes onto reality, it is they who have the final say in the ultimate test of whether someone has lived up to the standards and expectations of others.
Long live the jury..
Now, why would one divide the classes into three stratified layers, when clearly someone can be a part of two, if not three sections?
Fuck if I know!
The truth is that the ruling-class and the consumption-class by extension are unable to define what is good writing.
This is a disgustingly broad take on elitism that goes well and beyond the "communist manifesto" shtick, but outright seeks to antagonize most if not all members of the community. The user defined the consumption-class as those who consume and read works without contributing, but that is an inherently flawed derivation: the very act of reading is contributing to the site. The act of reading allows one to vote according to what they believe is good or not.
Is it inherently biased? You're damn right it is. People have opinions. This is a fucking fact, and to dare and take it away from them is a show for basic human individualism that is disgusting to its core. It doesn't matter how good writing is if its not interesting. It doesn't matter how interesting something is if its not good. The two are not mutually exclusive: they must work in tandem to allow for creative writing to begin with.
They can dictate what is acceptable in a mesh of subjectivity and ulterior motive, and their like-mindedness can be interpreted as authority.
But that is the point! This is a collaborative writing website, what the hell did you expect was going to happen? Criticism is inherently subjective and both forum critique and site critique will be done by those trusted to give critique that is consistent with the site's standards. There is nothing telling you that you must follow them, only that you improve your odds of your article staying on the site by following them.
But the nature of the existence of power — which on the one hand isn't the ruling-class’s doing as a phenomenon; but on the other hand, is present because they want it to be — promulgates (sometimes narrow) idiosyncrasies in taste as synonymous with quality writing. This creates a positive feedback loop which ostensibly has no governing counter-mechanism in place. There is and will be no metric or moment that can be pointed at to show that the community has become an abscessed echo chamber, frustrating a fair chunk of talent far away from the effort of trying to contribute. The effect of this imaginary authority is ultimately exclusion under the farce of being highly selective with respect to quality.
The very nature of the ratings module is a counter-mechanism to the ruling class. Try as they might, there are very few instances in which the ruling-class can override the ratings module - and should you find yourself forcing staff into that position, you have much worse things to concern yourself with.
To call this community an echo chamber is not entirely justified. I do not know if you've been blithely ignoring genuinely controversial articles, but there are few if any genuine echo chambers on the site. To claim that the entire community is one is to ignore the entire history of the site and its controversies.
It can be seen then that this structure and mechanism of action in turn loops inwards on itself, as if to willfully enter its on digestive system. This works to undermine the quality and capability of the site's core idea; the format itself is limited and handicapped by the system "smart" members of the ruling class created around it. This is an erosive process that has left the sheen of the original idea as merely the patina of a biofilm.
The format itself is the handicap, not the ruling-class. The ruling-class only enforces it. This is what you get when a community is based around an incredibly niche style of writing. This is meant to challenge writers. There is also nothing stopping the production-class from attempting to craft tales or GOI articles.
The irony of the rating module is that while it was intended to prune the site of poor quality articles, it has created a feeding frenzy for upvotes that is typical of modern-day social media platforms, such that there are too many contributors of just slightly less poor quality. We see now that the rate of production for this incentive is outpacing the ruling-class, and May eventually do so for the consumption-class as well.
Again, this is a narrow viewpoint, and frankly leads one to believe that you don't understand users but want to shit on them. Not everyone writes for satisfaction. Many write because of their own desire to. As you write in the style of the communist manifesto, I am disgusted that you would not think about this.
Typical of real-life events, there is no and will be no cataclysmic or apocalyptic watershed moment of the realization of this process and failure. Instead, the system will be silently atrophied with time to the point that genuine works of quality will increasingly find themselves rejected outright by the community; the community will not know anything has gone awry at all and will regard the quality author as the failure.
Frankly, this simply seems to be bitterness and arrogance on an unparalleled level, perhaps matched only by Fishmonger's grandiose farewell.
The world doesn't revolve around a solitary writer. You cannot hope to claim to be some legendary author whom the community will suffer without. You cannot claim that those similar to you are great and those who are not are not. Genuine works of quality will be decided as such by those who read them. This applies not only to this community but to reality as well - that is why editorials exist. That is why critics exist. That is why people fucking at all - they can decide for themselves if they feel the writing is good in their view. You have no right to demean and ridicule the opinions of others simply because you feel slighted.
The community may die. It may not. The second option is preferable, of course but realistically, all things come to an end. So be it. That is not, however, an excuse to insult a community that many genuinely cherish. And should the community thrive more than it is at the moment, we will see who gets the last laugh.
This is why I left the community as a writer (but not as an anonymous, non-participatory reader), and will enable browser scripts to hide the rating module, and never ever ever click on the comments function to see what everyone else is saying. The humanity of the site — really one of its only redeeming qualities in theory (see first paragraph) — is in addition to the richness of the format itself, also in decline. It's also why (in part) I abandoned my initial username in favor of rotating others; to protest the system.7 The ultimate success of my active time in the community is not any quantity; it is the fittingness of this errant message coming from a nobody writer in some insignificant corner of the site that will have no meaning or consequence outside of the next punctuation mark. I hope that any success I’ve had serves the sole purpose of giving validity to this response.
It is without doubt that you were an accomplished writer. That is why it hurts to hear this from you specifically. I cannot speak for how you've improved or fallen as a writer, but it is a personal belief that simply choosing to ignore criticism and feedback does little to help one develop as a writer. If you believe that the feedback is unhelpful, then address it. You cannot solve a problem by choosing to ignore it.
If you choose to leave the community, then so be it. It was your desire. But please, while you do that, don't tear down what others love.
Some "suggestions" and why they don't work. I won't claim to be any expert on this, but this is a layman's perspective:
Only non-staff authors/usernames can contribute works. (How much do you really want to be in power? What are you willing to give up for that power?)
Of all your suggestions, this is just a flagrant disrespect for the ruling-class. Would you restrict Internet Outreach staff from contributing? What about the staff who welcome new users? Staff extend far more than just moderators and admins - why would you actively restrict user freedom in the domain of user freedom? Staff not contributing is an artbitrary gate-keeping style that only serves to hinder the community. To restrict the moderators of a writing community from writing is the equivalent of restricting r/books from reading.
Rating modules are not displayed in the upper right hand corner of the article. (Do you really need a number to tell you whether writing is good or not? The rating module can be easily accessed by scrolling to the bottom of the page and clicked on as an OPTION, which is logically where it should be positioned anyway.)
Again, rating modules are not an indication of whether a piece of writing is good or not, only whether people enjoyed it. If you're so insecure about people rating your writing, then go to TeenInk.
Only ruling-class members are allowed to review new articles prior to publication. (They will not be voting however, as a balance of power.)
Again, you desire to restrict one's user freedom? Why? You dream of some vision where everyone is equal, but equality can't be achieve if you have to manually restrict one's freedoms. At that point, no one is left happy, and all you do is tire out the ruling-class.
Works' author(s) is/are kept anonymous. (Are you in this for the craft or for the popularity contest? Don't worry, because you got a pre-existing author to review your article, you can still prove to people that you wrote this one when you want to stroke butter your ego. Also, I believe your reluctance to submit to a blind-resume-style value system is diagnostically symptomatic of the pathological obsession with upvotes in this community.)
You can write and want recognition for your work without wanting upvotes. People want to be known as writers. Forcing works to be anonymous not only complicates staff matters and policies, but also acts as a means for allowing low-effort coldposts to consistently be posted on the site without repercussions for spam.
Works' cumulative rating is kept private. (Good at preventing a lot of buttered egos! The only thing that really matters is whether or not the article is acceptable enough, i.e. positive/survived or negative/deleted.) Obviously, this is revoked for contest entries (until the contest is over).
The fact that you need to allow an exception clause renders this entire point moot.
A hopeful author’s first work must be submitted for OBJECTIVE (syntactical, grammatical, formal) approval by anyone either of the ruling or production class in order for that author to become a production-class member. (None of this "anyone can post" or even this "greenlight" business, which is just a motion to move the goalposts but will still fail.)
You claim that the community will wither away and die? Please. With this suggestion, you would instill a chokehold on the community so strong that it would asphyxiate within a few weeks.
Not everyone whose first work is bad. Not all of them are good. That is true. But, as I stated before, you cannot have a writing community while systematically stripping away an individual's freedoms.
Disable comments. (Private messaging suffices to get a comment across. Again, are you in this for the craft or for the pageantry stage?)
Not all comments are for the author in question. Many of them touch on the writing itself, which allows readers to see what worked and what didn't, allowing them to improve their own potential drafts. This is literally the point of Site Critique.
Require an observational/probationary period of all new members that must be satisfied before attempting contribution. ( PERHAPS fewer low-quality contributors would be interested and the holistic input be of better quality (and the staff be less strained) if the process was not incentivized by middle-school level ambitions that reduce the art to the equivalent of social media whoring, or advertised as such? I wonder what the site would look like if it were just authors posting for the love of the craft and medium instead.)
But that is the point of new users posting! They love the site, they love the works themselves, that is why they post! Who says they crave attention, they want to contribute!
I find it severely ironic that you would claim to write for the love of the craft and medium when all you come off as is bitter over a string of failures.
And now for my own thoughts
This is quite frankly one of the most disgusting things I have ever had to dissect. The very nature of the manifesto is a disservice to the community as a whole.
The fact of the matter is, what appears as a complaint against the elitism and flaws of a community is really just someone mad that they had a few failures
This community means a lot to everyone, not just you. You are not the sole correct opinion. You cannot just disregard the opinions of others just because they do not line up with yours.
You had a talent for writing. And yet, because you couldn't fully implement it on the site, you decided to rail against the site itself and those who aren't like you.
What a shame.
“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one, just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”
- The Great Gatsby