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For almost nine years I have been a citizen of Whyville. I wasn't always active, but I've still seen the ups and downs this website has experienced. I've seen the complaints, the petitions, and the City Workers trying to appease their citizens. All of this is what prompted me to write my first article for the Times. Every year it seems the City Workers are doing something new that, WE the citizens, have asked for. Instead of getting thanks they get complaining and whining. I could list so many examples, but I think I'll stick with Face Factory Vouchers, Scions, Bankinter, and the newest of course, non-expiring face parts.
For you newer citizens, I?ll start with Face Factory Vouchers. When Akbar first started accepting user-designed parts it was very hard to get into the Face Factory. In fact, it was almost impossible unless you were lucky enough to have a WhyPass. I saw petitions and complaining. "It's not fair," they would say. The CWs finally had a solution, Face Factory Vouchers. These magical one-time passes into Akbar's Factory would be popping up all over our little town. You'd think this would thrill people. After all, it would make designing significantly easier for non-WhyPass holders. Alas, it brought on more complaints than thanks. "Vouchers are too hard to find." "Can you tell us exactly when and where they will be?" "Why can't we just buy them with clams?"
Moving along to the subject of cars. For a long time the demand for vehicles on Whyville was so high that designers would make cars for you to wear on your avatar. Almost every petition would include something about adding cars. Finally, Whyville found a sponsor and announced we would be getting Scions! Instead of thanks, CWs heard, "I don't like Scions, can't we have Mustangs?" "These are too expensive!" "I don't want mine anymore, I want a refund."
With new expenses like Scions people started wanting a better way to save. They wanted a bank. Not just for saving either. People wanted a safe place to put their clams so if accounts were hacked. Enter Bankinter! Bankinter would offer CDs to make saving easier and a password-protected savings account to assure all of your clams were safe. Still no thanks? Nope, instead older users were mad because their riches were earned through hard work and CDs would allow people to get rich easily. Forgetful citizens would have to remember ANOTHER password?? And paranoid kids now wanted safety deposit boxes to protect rare parts, not just clams.
With all this back and forth, how could CWs possibly make all their users happy? Surely non-expiring parts would do the trick? After all, people have complained about their parts expiring since they first announced it would be happening. So for their 12th birthday celebration it was announced that parts would no longer expire. Citizens will be excited! Then, I looked at the BBS. People are down right outraged. "Non-expiring parts means no rares!" "It means fewer clams for designers!" "It means no good use for pearls!"
What it really means is that you all have lost sight of what this website is about. It's supposed to be a place that makes learning math and science fun. A place where you can talk to other kids from all over the world. A place to showcase your writing and get feedback from peers. Instead it has turned into a bunch of money hungry kids who are only worried about how their avatar looks today or how much the new rare hair is. And feedback on an article has turned into, "It's too long so I didn't bother to read it all." Instead of all this whining you should be thanking CWs for even asking for our opinions. You should thank them for actually implementing some of our ideas. You should remember that this site is free for us to use, but it's certainly not free for them to run. They deserve appreciation, not disrespect. They can't please every single person at one time unless every person is in agreement. If you think otherwise, I suggest you try running a website.
An appreciative oldbie signing off,
Crazyinnc
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