Wiki as a Minefield
The term “wiki” refers to a site where any user can create, edit, and modify documents on their own. In other words, it is nothing more than a massive database built by countless users.
In Korea, Neo Wiki is famous for being a huge wiki, and I know other wikis that exist for every game—whether popular or minor, as long as it’s a decent game, a wiki is usually there.
But in the case of minor games, if no one voluntarily keeps updating or polishing the wiki bit by bit, patches might come late or the information might be outdated for the current version, which lowers reliability a bit.
Neo Wiki, on the other hand, has an enormous number of users. Without strict enforcement on document editing, updates tend to lag, but with so many users, even the few who would normally be the troublemakers can have a big impact.
Of course, you can’t trust everything written in the wiki. That’s obvious. Every document inevitably contains the subjective standards and judgments of whoever wrote it.
For a simple historical fact, the reliability is high, but once it moves into evaluating the people involved in the event, subjectivity creeps in. Plus, there are times when they write something that hasn’t been properly researched academically as if it were fact.
So when reading a wiki, it’s important to properly sift through the information. You need to filter things with your eyes—‘this is fact, this is just someone’s claim’—and decide what’s actually reliable.
On that note, the otaku-related document is the easiest to read, right?
Why is that? Is it because the riot-deck document is written only with in-story facts, so nothing else can really come out?
Of course not. Riot-deckers are mostly the incarnation of their own ego, so they stuff their personal bias into every document anyway. Still, I thought it was easy to judge because you can literally see it.
I used to be one of them, and I know roughly how their thought process works. So spotting the difference between “this really happened” and “someone just made it up” isn’t that hard.
Moreover, the more people who edit a document, the richer the content becomes. The people who edit this wiki are usually the ones who love showing off their knowledge, so if something feels off, they’ll immediately tag it with ‘that’s not it, dumbass.’
I don’t know exactly why, but there are just a lot of riot-deckers on the site itself.
Because of all these reasons, I figured the quality of their documents would still be high, so I thought I’d check them out for study material—
*Hmm… the wiki…*
I got bombed with emails and decided to check the wiki… sure thing…
Is this a declaration of war?
*Holy crap, that was intense…*
I glanced at the chat window and felt like I’d done something huge. No, wait… isn’t looking at the wiki forbidden? Is this another trap? Why are there so many traps? What am I supposed to do with this?
In that case, I had two choices—push through or run.
But choosing to run felt weird. Suddenly panicking in chat and then just stopping? It would look like I got scared too easily. There has to be a reason.
But then asking the chat ‘Why the surprise?’ would just be a bad option too… either way, exposing something that would cause a big shock on air isn’t great.
So by elimination, pushing through is the way.
*Just… I’ll read through a normal amount of it and move on.*
If I can’t handle this much risk, am I really the hero who saved the world?
“Alright, stop making weird noises. If anyone gets too annoying, they’ll be banned. I already warned you.”
—Yes
—He always wears short sleeves
—Never look at paragraph 10
Paragraph 10? What’s so special about it?
—10. Controversy and incidents
*Oh, okay. But even if it was someone else broadcasting or not even in broadcasting, they probably wouldn’t have read it and would’ve just moved on. It’s not that surprising.*
Why would I read someone else’s mistakes on air and stir the pot? I’m not that great. Even if I was, doing something like that would be a bit… personality-wise, I’m a bit of a troublemaker.
*If there was an incident, objectively speaking, people way more impressive than me exist, but attacking over something like this is just too low.*
“Debut date… huh, five-year anniversary? You’ve been active for a really long time. Five years on the fanboard? That’s not easy at all.”
—For real
—Surviving means you’re strong
“Genre? What is this genre…? Oh, songs? Being able to sing songs as a group… or has anyone sung songs before? Interesting. So that’s what this is about?”
—I guess so?
—It’s there in every idol document
“Ah, I get it. That’s a rule. Okay, members… some I saw at the World Cup, some I didn’t. Random, I guess. Agency is Sinis Entertainment, fandom name is Eve, members… huh? All members and current members… what?”
From the chat info, the group Children of Paradise had five members total, but the wiki now lists four former members plus five current ones. That’s nine in total.
Current: Sanana, Nelly, Annette, Hwang Sera, Zapina. Former: Lampemper, Song Composition Goddess, Bisha, Mint Hotpack. They all declared activity suspension for differing activity directions… Yeah, that’s pretty common.
Even among K-pop idols, people leave for all sorts of reasons. Nothing weird about it. Since it’s openly stated, it probably isn’t some big shocking story. They probably parted on good terms.
“Whoa, look at this. The wiki is packed. You’ve been active a long time, and everyone’s impressive, so there’s a ton of content.”
—Totally
—Haha
“I’m also curious about broadcast history, but going through everything would take too long… Let’s just listen to one song together?”
Thinking about it, I didn’t need to read the whole document. Just figuring out they’re impressive people is enough. The details can be for me to figure out later…
So right now, I’ll listen to one of their representative songs, sprinkle a little gold on their faces, and move on. I never planned to do this for long anyway, and I had other content in mind.
“Then here’s the representative song listed… everyone, listen to it…”
—Huh
—Huh
—Hmm
—I didn’t see anything.
The moment I clicked the representative song and tried to play it, the chat exploded with more huhs than before. The reason was obvious.
The music video for “Time to Turn Back” wouldn’t play properly. The embedded Nyatube link even explained it simply: private video.
*What the hell did they do?*
I glanced at the chat in surprise, and it seemed like no huge incident had occurred.
—The music video included all former members, so it got pulled down
—They’re probably rerecording with only current members
—Hmm…
I see. Yeah, if the music video keeps showing people who left, there would obviously be settlement issues or whatever. Since I don’t know the legal side, I just let it go.
Still, since the chat said audio tracks without the video were available, I searched for those and played the song. The first song I heard from Children of Paradise was… not bad. No, maybe pretty good.
The melody and lyrics were really excellent. It was quite addictive, so I understood why people liked it and why they became fans.
“I listened well. Nice. The way each member’s individuality shines through their parts is especially good.”
—Are you reading textbooks?
—I want to see the music video
—Boss, do you sing well?
“Me? Sing? That’s out of left field… I’m not great at it, but I like it. When I was in the military squad, the kids would go to karaoke when they were bored.”
It was a way to get closer to the squad members and a way for Seo Yuna to relieve stress, so I remember going to sing with them.
After I answered that, the chat started talking about picking a song or whether they would do karaoke one day, and so on—
**Anonymous has donated 10,000 Jeollyeok.**
Can you sing “Time to Turn Back” with 2 keys higher? You seem to have a high range.
“Thanks 1,000 Jeollyeok… two keys higher? That’s already a high song… there’s even an octave jump. I’m not good at rapping.”
—Hah
—I want to see~
—It wasn’t that hard
“Hmm… well, I’m bored, so I’ll try. You’re lucky. Later, I won’t sing for money even if you offer it. Anyway, if you can’t sing or quit midway, don’t get angry. It’s been a while since I sang…”
I wanted to sing, but I realized I didn’t have MR and didn’t know how to raise the key even if I did. I hit a very realistic wall, so I called out to the chat ‘help’ and followed their advice, carefully setting up everything.
It took way longer than singing one song, and after all the struggles, I finally set up a program so I could do karaoke on air.
*Hmm… will it work? It’s been a long time since I sang, so I’m a bit nervous. Oh, I don’t know. If it’s hard, I’ll just turn it off in the middle.*
Feeling lighthearted, I followed the chat’s request, raised the key two levels, and played the MR. I took a sip of water, cleared my throat, took a deep breath, and started singing.