User blog:Scalec/Letters

I have been conversing with the mother of Spkavyia2012, and since I am representing both this wiki and the Warehouse 13 Wiki in my e-mails, I thought it best I share with you what we are saying.

I sent her this:

To the Mother of Spkavyia2012,

''Before anything else, we wish to explain how we got your e-mail, as I know it is very concerning to get an email from a stranger. Your son who goes by the screen name 'CalmandCollected' approached us on the Warehouse 13 Artifact Database Wiki, arguing on his little brother's behalf. When he revealed that you had had words with your son over our interactions with him, we thought it would be best to explain the situation from our side of the story, so that you are better aware of what actions led us to ban your son from two wikis. However, when we asked CalmandCollected to deliver this message for us, he posted your e-mail instead so we could send it. ''

''We here at the Warehouse 13 Wiki and Warehouse 13 Artifact Database Wiki would like to express our apologies to you over any problems that have arisen in your household because of interactions between us and your son, who goes by the screen name of Spkavyia2012. We never meant for these interactions to be hurtful to your son's self esteem or to cause unnecessary issues. ''

''However, we feel we owe you an explanation for why your son was banned from both wikis - there is a certain unfairness in being limited because of a lack of information. We respected your son's creativity - he came up with some very interesting ideas for the wikis, after all. As a creative force, he was very motivated. Our problem arose when it was discovered that he didn't react positively to any critique on our part. Whenever we gave him an analysis of his work, your son would get angry at us, typing back at us in capital letters and insulting us. An example of the latter is when he wrote back to a user who critiqued his work: ''

 "  Judge your own self because i am not trying to be mean but are you one of the guys who sits on the computer all day with no friends doesnt hang out with people. We'll let me tell you what i do im a jock on the football team i have a girlfriend im popular and i have a  LIFE. :)<3<3<3 " 

''And so on. ''

This happened several times, so administrators banned him from the Warehouse 13 Wiki.

''However, by this time your son had also been aquainted with the Warehouse 13 Artifact Database Wiki, and began to make posts there. While he started out being very courteous and polite, a personality change that we were all happy about, it eventually became clear that he had become obsessed with trying to please one of our members. Your son would leave messages all over this particular member's wall, and when interacting with this member publicly would not leave him alone, asking him constantly to join your son's wiki despite this member's adamant wishes to not join. ''

''We wish to have all users on these wiki pages to have respect for each other and follow the rules of conduct. But if there is a consistent breaking of these rules that does not lead to a positive outcome, an appropriate punishment must be put into effect. Given the anonymous nature of the internet, the only defense against those who harm or harass others that Wikis have is banning users or IP addresses, and such a punishment is carefully judged before being implemented. While we do not claim to know your son, the actions and attitudes he showed to us gave us cause to ban him. ''

''We know that in all honesty, there is a strong chance that you will find no comfort in this letter, and that you may dislike us even more for trying to talk with you personally on the matter. But just as you as a mother will want to protect your family, we want to protect ours, as well. We can only hope that you will see our side of this story, and perhaps we will all be able to move forward from this with respect towards each other.''

Sincerely,

The Warehouse 13 Wiki team and Warehouse 13 Artifact Database Wiki team.

''P.S. - We don't wish to alarm you, but it has come to our attention that Spkavyia2012, in the making of a Warehouse 13 character, may have used his real name - we've come to that conclusion by looking at your e-mail address, and how the exact same name was used by Spkavyia to name his character's younger sister, Mamie Johnson. He called himself 'Karess Johnson'.''

Her response was:

''I would like to say If you were my sons age would you like criticism when you have just joined somewhere even If It maybe incorrect you could give of given him a warm welcome. Also my son was just looking up to the so called Per Ankh and I quote on his behalf "Mom this guy on that warehouse 13 site Is so cool I want him to be featured In one of my first stories". I didn't read It but he even told me he put all this work into It and he still got negative feedback. My son loves warehouse 13 more than his extracurriculars he has every disc set, poster, and artifact trading card and you tell him his work Is nothing every single time. Aditionally I would like to know where you get that being his real name because Johnson might be our last name but the first Is not the Mamie Johnson girl Is not my daughter she Is a family member though. So I can't take your apologies when It has done my son harm. ''

My response to her:

Madam,  '' First of all, we were just concerned about the name, since we take internet safety very seriously and the similarity between the character and the e-mail lead us to that conclusion. If that is not his real name, then we were wrong and sorry for concerning you about that. ''

''We know that your son is a very big Warehouse 13 fan - his dedication to his work is evidence enough. But a warm welcome? Madam, this is a public forum where people post their ideas following a certain set of rules set by the administrators of the wiki. A warm welcome means critiquing, as would posting on any other public site - Fanfiction.net, Deviantart, etc.. ''

''Place yourself in our position. We saw your son's work. We analyzed it as we would analyze anything put on the Wiki, a public place where to put something onto is a guarantee that it will be reviewed, commented, and discussed. We shared our opinions on his work, which were fair, mind you, stating that while we liked his ideas the grammar and spelling could use work. He got angry at our words, and refused any offer of help we gave so he could improve his expression of ideas. We never considered his work 'nothing'. But after so many times of him yelling at us, we tried to remove ourselves from the situation by simply not interacting with him. We weren't trying to be cruel by doing this, you must understand - we were just trying to save our emotional health. Your son was not the only victim, Mrs. Johnson. We all were hurt by his words to us. I offer this example of his reactions to our critique. Here, one of our users gave his critique of one of your son's posts, not even mentioning grammar or spelling. Your son's response was loudly out of line. ''

'' And Mrs. Johnson, there is a large difference between 'looking up to' someone and harassing them. Your son would not leave user Per Ankh alone, even after Per Ankh repeatedly told him to stop. We could easily pull up a screenshot of that, too, if you wanted. ''

''Once again, we aren't saying your son isn't a big fan of Warehouse 13. We just insist that our users be aware of the rules of conduct and of respect towards others, as well as respect for the show and it's mechanisms. If there was angry on our part, it was because we could not handle your son's constant prods at our feelings.''