I’ve been ‘involved’ in fandom for most of my life, and it there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s how to handle weird community insanity.
It’s a given that fans are going to get crazy. Just accept this and move on. If you’re a fan of a TV show, you will find the creepy fans. Don’t Be A Creepy Fan. If you’re a fan on a singer, watch out, there are psychos! Ditto books, movies, and software. Surprised about that last one? Go outside an Apple Store and shout “The Zune was a better product!” I’ll come to your funeral.
The point of this is that when you run a community about a fandom, be it WordPress or Castle, you need to pick a big dog.
A lot of the time, a community starts because you and your friends sit down over a beer and say “You know, we should make a website about Foobar!” Your friends think it’s great! One of them is good with code, another with images, and another writes really good copy! Great! You make a website with forums etc and people come and it’s popular. Then someone goes crazy. They think “You know, this code is good, but THAT code is better!” Or they hate an image. Or they hate how someone else did something. The reasons are endless, and now you’re in a in-feud.
This is where you need a big dog. You need someone to be the final line in the sand. You need someone to say ‘I get that you feel strongly about Baz, but we need to do this in order to keep things going.’ You need a boss. And that is the most thankless, soul rending, gut destroying moment in the world. That’s why roleplaying games have a game master (DM, GM, whatever). They have an appointed big dog, and you accept that if you don’t like when the big dog says ‘No, that doesn’t work. Move on.’ then you can walk. Vote with your feet if it’s that bad, or agree to disagree and move on.
The converse, alas, is what happens when the big dog goes off the reservation. Then you need to take down the crazy and either find a way to take over, or leave. I admit, that one is harder, because if the big dog doesn’t see they’re wearing the crazy pants, it’s an uphill battle. The big dog has all the codes and passwords. The big dog can tell you to screw yourself.
But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t appoint a big dog. Yeah, it’s a scary risk to know you may lose everything when the big dog goes crazy (so pick your big dog well!), but it’s a risk you have to take because someone has to be in charge!