The Wajas Drama Llama Strikes Again

I would first like to offer my congratulations to Erienne, Accipiteris, and LadyMarisa, the new mods on wajas. -applauds-

Erienne has been a buddy of mine in the wajastwo chat group for a while now, and I know she'll make a good staff member on the site. The others I know less well, but I trust Estu's choices and am sure you all will contribute greatly to the team.

I am pleased that Estu finally got out our beta items. <3 I can't really explain how exciting it was to be picked as part of the small group that were allowed onto the site with the express purpose of breaking it. I love the wallpaper we were sent, so chances are I'll hoard that for a while. Right now it's equipped to Virulence, one of my favorite customs. Oreo and I traded the Sea Turtle item for 10 Silver Divine Tokens. I don't know whether we plan on designing another pair, or whether we'll just hang onto them to resell later. c: All in all, its been a good week so far, as wajas goes.

Good remarks aside, I've noticed an increasing amount of tension on the forums right now, specifically the Rants boards. I've often thought that the Rants forum should be renamed "Drama," but alas, the decision is not mine to make. I've seen a couple of friends of mine speaking out against the staff, and while I'm not fully aware of the situation preceding these locked threads, I'm a little worried. I don't like to see my wajas friends at odds with the site. =[ Well, to be honest, I don't like seeing anyone at odds with the site. I feel like, a lot of times, things get blown out of proportion very quickly on the forums. I'm not saying my friends are overreacting, but the vocal minority of wajaians complain very loudly when anything is changed.

Take the matter of the ads from last week. I have 2 upgraded accounts, so I needed someone to screenshot them for me so I could see them. While they are a bit annoying, they're targeted (the one I saw was for Howrse, another pet site) and at least they aren't noisy. Everyone seems up in arms about how ads are merely a sign that Wajas is going to become the next Neopets. Maybe because I never played Neopets, I have a more optimistic outlook. Plus, I think some of the things the site has been through in the past were worse than ads. At least we can still breed our wajas. -nod-

I've been accused of sticking behind Estuko and the team simply because they are "the team." Sucking up, or whatever. That's not it at all. There have been mods I haven't liked (though I won't name them), and I don't ALWAYS agree with Stu's decisions. However, I'm completely ignorant of how to run a website, let alone one with members in the thousands. The tens (or possibly hundreds) of thousands, even. So wajas isn't hurting for money...so what? I'm sure there's another good reason for adding ads to the site. Just because I don't understand it doesn't mean it isn't there. Maybe Estu just wants some extra money so she can put new floors in her house. -shrug- That seems like a pretty good reason to me.

And, to be honest, I'm glad there's now another perk to being upgraded. I'm not an upgrade snob, but some of us pay 20 cwp to get a year's worth of...what? A tag on the forums, a higher limit on restocking, and access to the pear tree. Whoop-de-doo.

Ehh... this post felt kind of preachy, sorry about that. I'll have a more lighthearted one tomorrow, probably. <3