13 Oct 2009
Is HikiCulture turning more and more into a spam forum?
This is another placeholder topic but one slightly more serious:
First off, I’ve no doubt that - for members of this forum - this could easily come off as a HikiPhpBB vs. HikiCulture vs. AnonIB /hikikomori/ thread.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t help that coincidentally I’ve made a recent return post on HikiPhpBB.
This isn’t intentional but is a result of me just being frustrated and bored so I decided to re-check the Hikikomori boards I know of (except Sankaku and HikiCulture)
Sankaku because it’s a news site and I’m too busy to add further information overload unto myself and HikiCulture because I’ve been banned.
Another major blow to my bias but I’ll let you decide how much based on this incident:
From a recent revision of the Hikikomori wikipedia page discussion board:
I’ve been a member on a few Hikikomori and recluse forums and websites for a while now. “HikiCulture” keeps being linked to here, but it generally is not a good place for information and help. It’s still fairly new and the administrator has no idea on how to run a forum correctly and generally doesn’t understand that the site is for people who need help and information. He overreacts and abuses control without thinking about his actions, and he has Asperger’s Sydrome which hinders his decisive abilities, causing harsh and uncalled-for actions which may offend. He also bans people for things which are petty and do not require action. It’s generally a place to avoid due to this. The community itself is great, but the administrator known to some as “Chair” isn’t good for the community. I’ve heard of other Hikikomori sites opening soon for giving advice and help and they’ll be linked to here once they have been created.
Also, I am not meaning to cause offense, I have been asked to write this comment by a lot of members of the community at “HikiCulture”. The way it’s ran is unfair and the staff do not care about us with mental conditions, reclusiveness, depression and social anxiety. It’s not wise to link to “HikiCulture” any further.
Now I didn’t write this and I only had a short time on HikiCulture so I have no way of verifying this but what’s worrying is that this comment was up a few days ago.
I don’t participate much in Wikipedia but the argument while not verifying to me that it was accurate, did convince me that there was ample reason to remove the HikiCulture link from the main article so I decided to do so.
What’s worrying and why I am being harsh and calling it spam is that not only was the link restored but that the above quote was also removed.
…
Now I get that there’s no proof of any persistant trolling nor is this even a rare issue for most wikipedia articles but it is kind of worrying that the Hikikomori label may be starting to be used as a marketing tactic and that’s why I’m preserving these quotes in case it never gets restored.
(I’ve no patience for wikipedia edit wars.)
I also fully accept the responsibility that I may be accused of doing the same thing with this blog and this may come off as hypocritical mud-slinging by me but since I have no way to prove my integrity, I could only give my word that I don’t have an agenda against Hiki-Culture but it would be heart breaking if future Hikikomoris gather in the wrong place due to wikipedians’ neglect of protecting the Hikikomori article from such edits.
Therefore even if the word “spam” can be interpreted as sensationalism, this would have to stay to serve as linkbait in case the issue becomes more drastic in the future.
