Thread:The S/@comment-995426-20160104232418/@comment-995426-20160808111014

...Wow.

It appears I may have drastically misunderstood the situation.

To be honest, I always had the impression that your disapproval of something meant I would be stepping on your toes if I went ahead with it. ...I just completely missed the point that you were telling me to go ahead and do it anyway. If I was making it too much about you, I'm sorry. I just want to color inside the lines, so to say.

And yeah, I always do take my wiki work seriously. I do enjoy it, but it's also an exercise of my documentative ethic. Wikis are important tools of information and reference, and there doesn't appear to be any other TMNT wiki with as much scope as this one. I take my Turtlepedia work seriously because I take my particular TMNT interests seriously, and have for decades. Off the wiki, I maintain an extensive cataloguing system of my collection of TMNT comics and books. I'm dedicated and workaholic, and come from a family of dedicated workaholics in their areas of interest, whether it's my brother the university professor with a doctorate, or my two siblings and their sprawling Lego projects.

As for TMNT stuff being glorified toy material, the funny part of that is that my favorite TMNT stuff, besides the first two seasons of 2K12, was usually the more adult comics&mdash;stuff that doesn't have a huge audience and doesn't see much merchandising. I'm actually one of the fiercest critics of shallow toyeticity in the TMNT franchise, which is why some of my strongest criticism is against the 1987 TV series, the later seasons of the 2012 TV series, the Michael Bay films, and the tsunami of tacky merchandise for children. I don't necessarily expect anyone to share these opinions.

As for the complaints from other users, it's usually Trigger009 that deals with those directly. I make it a point to try never to insult other users. But I do have strong opinions on the TMNT franchise and I express them now and then. The friction comes when another user feels personally offended by my criticisms of shows they happen to like. They expect the wiki comments to be fans talking about how much they love it, and don't realize that the TMNT fandom has seen its fair share of fan division for decades. So in a round table discussion, I maintain a thick skin for other people's opinions about shows, comics, etc., and expect others to do the same; I use forums mostly for literary criticism and analysis. But when people resort to personal attacks, Trigger009 becomes involved. He and I have developed a pretty good working relationship and mutual understanding, and we usually seem to be on the same page if trouble arises.

But I'm sorry I haven't been able to cultivate that kind of understanding with you specifically. I'm sorry this has been so difficult for you. I'd actually been trying to work more harmoniously with you and more of the other users, and I'm rather disappointed now that it seems I haven't been able to do that. But as is well-established, my TMNT fan interests can diverge significantly from the mainstream, and always have. I have little to nothing in common with fans who are mainly into the most popular TV/film stuff since 1987. I'm a niche fan, and I like editing on this wiki largely to help improve various niche articles that would otherwise go largely ignored. That these seem so ignored is something that always bothered me, and I'm very serious about this stuff.

Now, as for the outside ridicule...I have to admit it's difficult to understand why people would take issue with something like continuity-specific categories, or charts in species categories, or the inclusion of material like Mutant Ninja Turtles Gaiden. I became a fan on Mirage comics and Palladium RPGs, and always wanted more serious adult-minded drama comics, and appreciate geeky facts and data. But I'm not entirely surprised that some parts of the TMNT fandom receive ridicule from other parts of the TMNT fandom&mdash;this has never concerned me that much, since opinions are opinions, and once again, I don't necessarily share the same fan interests as the mainstream, so I feel fairly immune from their ridicule when it comes from a completely different area of interest within the franchise.

One of my original motivations for getting involved in Turtlepedia, was because my friends couldn't take the wiki very seriously, because it mostly only dealt with the stuff that was most popular to the mainstream and the kids, and the articles about comics, RPGs, MNTG, etc. that they actually cared about were still so sparse and stubby. I wanted to help make this wiki less of an object fo ridicule in that regard, so other similar niche TMNT fans wouldn't feel so bored trying to browse this site.

But it seems clear that there is always going to be something for TMNT fans to ridicule about something else TMNT-related. For me, my two brothers and many of my TMNT fan friends, one the biggest objects of ridicule is the entire 1987 TV series and most of the fruits that came from it, and I already well understand that this sentiment would be considered beyond-the-pale sacrilege to a great many (perhaps even most) other TMNT fans. Again, that doesn't necessarily mean anything to me&mdash;fans like me wouldn't even be here if there hadn't already been plenty of TMNT material targeted to our niche interests in the first place. And I'd hate for this kind of division to be so irreconcilable that all these disparate TMNT audiences can't even share the same wiki.

If possible, I'd like to keep trying to work with you and the others to improve this wiki as a place where all the targeted fan interests can come together and coexist. That will probably necessarily mean there will always be something about the wiki that someone else will find completely ridiculous for even existing here. But that's part of the territory of not always sharing fan interests in a highly varied franchise.