User blog:Orange Kiwi/What are we doing?

So it's been several hours since Rain left the wiki, and it's pretty clear from the way everyone's acting that this was a huge loss for community. Aside from his 'To Do Before I Leave List', I honestly had no idea anything was happening until recently ('recently' meaning right after he left). The only thing anyone knows is that he's sick of us. I can't say whether or not I contributed to his frustration, because we hardly talked, but even if I don't know him very well, it doesn't stop me from having an opinion of him.

Rain, as I've seen, was the most active member of the wiki, and as I've heard, was something of an expert in CSS, meaning a lot of how this this wiki looks even outside of articles is his doing. He has a very, very high edit count and by a large margin, the most achievement points in the wiki. I don't know how much of the wiki in terms of appearance was his doing, or White Flash's, but it's clear that he ran the whole thing while Floobs wasn't around. And he's, so far, got no clear replacement.

My two cents? Yeah, he was the most active, and a greatly valued member, but far from perfect. It was hard for the newer of us to talk with him, and sometimes, the reasons for the things he did weren't clear, with this problem being an example. Like I mentioned before, all we know is that he was sick of us. Not all of us, I'm sure, but enough of us to make him leave. In my view, one of the jobs of a person in charge of a group of people, be they a wiki community or cooks in a kitchen, is to be able to work well with people. That doesn't mean that the person has to be nice to everyone, the person just has to communicate, and communication requires a exchange of information and ideas.

I'm saying now that I don't know anyone here very well, most especially not Rain, so a lot of what this could sound stupid, naive, shallow, misguided, etc., and I'm expecting a lot of flak for what it, but let me finish.

Regardless of everything I've said about him so far, I can see what people are trying to do to fix it. Most of the effort is going into trying to get him back, but doesn't look like a good way to go. I'd gladly leave if doing so would bring him back, and the best outcome at the moment is, indeed, his return, but there is a very real possibility that he left definitely. Someone, at least, is asking about a replacement, and that's a start.

All I'm going to say is that Rain was a great admin and a good friend to others, and while it would be great to have him back, we have to be prepared for if he really is gone.

I'm writing this blog (something I don't really enjoy doing, since I'm not a very vocal person, and I will probably not do so again in a very long time) to know what we'll do if he doesn't come back. We need more than one solution.