Board Thread:Wiki/@comment-5774380-20170603100800

To the community of the Attack on Titan Wiki,

I'm Manuel de la Fuente, former Bureaucrat and Administrator on this wiki. And I say "former" because this post is to announce that I'm resigning from both of these positions and leaving this community.

Throughout these 2 years and 2 months since my promotion I've seen this place grow and transform as it never did before. We started as the Shingeki no Kyojin Wiki, a small community with barely a bunch of active editors (at times only 2 or 3 of us), and over time and thanks to countless hours of continuous efforts, little by little this was changing. The wiki, which back then suffered from terrible inaccuracies, got a reform thanks to the development of a Manual of Style; the old design, ugly and stale, was replaced for a completely new look, and the site itself was renamed to Attack on Titan Wiki to match this transformation. Stuff like badges and achievements, forum, Message Walls as well as social network accounts were also added; and the community responded by gradually growing and turning more active. The staff, which back then consisted of only me, has now 11 members of several countries, and the wiki itself has around 4 times the number of articles that it had at the time, with the amount of daily visits being on a whole new level. Putting it all together, it's like looking to a completely different site that has barely anything to do with what I knew at my arrival, and it has been a great pleasure for me to have been part of this evolution.

Unfortunately, the good state the wiki reached also meant that my time here was coming to an end. Whenever I start a new project I do it with a goal in mind, and when I was promoted I saw a community with great potential but severely underperforming, so my goal was to make the most of that potential and turn the wiki into the best version of itself, more in line with the series it's about and the amount of fanbase behind it; all in preparation for the second season scheduled (back then) for 2016. My original idea was to leave shortly after the release of the season, which was expected to come out around October, so I had already in mind the projects I wanted to work on during 2017 after this one was completed. However, the season was delayed, which also delayed that plan. I saw this as an opportunity to undertake more changes on the wiki and make it even better; which eventually proved to be a mistake, given that as my real life projects began to require more resources than expected I had less and less time to devote to this place.

I always had clear that anyone who collaborates on the wiki does it as a hobbie: it is a website about a fictional series and where nobody gets any payment for their contributions, but we still do it because we like the series, and for whatever reason we find joy in editing the articles and compile the information of the manga and anime in them. The keyword I want to highlight here is "joy". The purpose of a hobbie is to be fun, a "hobbie" that's not fun is just a waste of time. And I have to admit that over time, as I was finding more excitement and personal satisfaction into the other areas of my life, the opposite happened on the wiki, which gradually started to look more like an unpaid job. Even so, I continued for two reasons: because I don't like to leave unfinished projects, and because I wanted to continue helping the rest of the staff to cope with the workload that the current season brought with it.

Nevertheless, it became increasingly evident that this situation couldn't last for too long when it began to have an impact not only on my performance on the wiki (heavely undermined in the last months) but also on my other activities; especially these days when some events both on the wiki and outside (as this week also marked the start of an even more demanding phase in my career) made me rethink my priorities; so I decided that it was the time to choose a path and take my departure from this place.

This moment is, of course, not an easy one. I leave many unfinished tasks: bugs that will never be solved, half-finished projects that will never be completed, ideas in my mind that will never come to reality. There were even some features on the way for which I had already requested the help of developers and which I've now cancelled since they will never be applied. I wish I could have done everything I had planned to make of this place the one I always dreamed of and to have been able to stay at my top level until the end; however, on hindsight, I'm also satisfied of the results reached. I leave as the top contributor in the history of the wiki with over 17k edits (over 43k counting ) and the longest-lasting Administrator being the only one so far that remained more than 2 years in the position. But more than anything, I leave with the peace of mind that the wiki will be in good hands.

I've already removed my Bureaucrat and Administrator rights, and according to the procedures, a voting will be held among the remaining members of the staff to choose the next Bureaucrat. As it's no longer in my power to inherit those rights to my successor, the Wikia Staff will have to be contacted in order to carry out the promotion. I've also transferred the ownership of the Facebook, Twitter and Google+ accounts of the wiki to, who has been the true hero behind them for a long time, doing an amazing job in keeping them updated with the latest news day after day. It's thanks to him that at this moment these accounts have together over 20,000 followers and getting hundreds more every week. I can't think on anyone more capable to take care of them.

As for the Discord server, the situation is different. Almost the entirety of its base (the server itself, channel structure, rules, design, promotion strategy and overall functioning up to many minimal details) was made by me; a very fruitful effort as it reached almost 3.5k users and became what was one of the largest servers affiliated to Wikia and being awarded even with Partner status. The team of moderators also did a great job by helping in the management along with ocassional suggestions from the general public; however, although there were many good moments in the server, there were also conflicts in the community and strong polarizations over the way it should be run; situation which reached a breaking point this week. Even though I always believed that eventually a solution could have been devised to satisfy all parties, as I mentioned previously I rethought my priorities, and I realized that I didn't want to be involved with that place any longer. I chose not to transfer the ownership either because I didn't feel like gifting the product of months of intense dedication (including sleep deprivation and even finantial investment) to a community that doesn't represent me. If a separation in those conditions had to happen, I thought the fairest thing would be to do a reset so anyone who wanted could follow their own vision from the start; reason why the server no longer exists. If the administration wants to make a new server, feel free to, but I'd just request that you build it on your own foundations, using your own resources and ideas. This is the one thing to which I don't want to inherit anything I ever created or that came from me, and I don't wish to be linked to it in any way.

I apologize for affecting with this many people who I came to like and respect, who were a lot; but you don't need to worry much because there's already the server of the /r/ShingekiNoKyojin subreddit that already serves at least the purpose of providing a place to talk about the series.

In the end, if I had to summarize in one word what my stay at this wiki left me, it would be "experience". I expanded my knowledge in many areas while I was here and also taught others; I met many people, friends and even enemies; I achieved great things and also had big failures. It was a rich experience in all ways which will be very valuable for my future and I want to thank all those who participated in it (either for good or for bad). I wish everybody good luck. 