The Otaku Wars! (OW!) is now in its nth season and still going somewhat strongly! Someone recently said that the Wars! defy explanation; this is true. They can be described, though, as a sort of ongoing story about a battle over which Senshi really is supreme. The Otaku Wars! aren't really about who the best Senshi is, though; it's about fun. It's about reasonably sane people with a touch too much time on their hands. It's about drama, action, and a good laugh. It's entertainment, not a flame war. That's the only thing you really need to remember. The storyline is about the Wars! between the factions over which Senshi is best.
The Wars! have been around since January 1997 and started as a side-note to an existing thread. The (famous? well-known? Aw, heck) illustrious Jet Wolf made the comment that there was no such thing as liking Sailor Mars too much, and that she was "Secretly plotting to overthrow the Ami empire". Which attracted the attention of Belial, the Newsgroup's Crown Prince of Weird, and he followed up with his opinion on Rei fans. About which time Nightman jumped into the fray, with a pseudo-storyline, and by the next post the term "Otaku Wars" was in use; by post 15, we had such now-famous people as the Happy Hindu and Sailor Jessica Rabbit physically beating the heck out of each other and zapping opposing factions. This gradually degenerated into the general chaos known as "the Otaku Wars!".
A faction can be a rather ephemeral thing. A faction need be nothing more than a group of Otaku Senshi that would like to defend a certain Senshi. Heck, all you really need for a faction is one person that thinks, say, "Hey, Chibi-Chibi is great!" and is willing to laugh, embarrass, maim, and sing off-key in her name (not that I'm predicting an upsurge in ChibiChibichanians, mind you).
A faction need not be centralized. In fact, most factions aren't, and have no clear leader. (Quite a few factions are rather unclear on membership, in fact!) At the time of this writing, Cape-Mike of the Makochanians, Kane Magus of the Endymionsamaians, Nightman of the Reichanians, SuperSteve of the OSDF (presumably), and Tuxedo Dionysus of the Minakochanian bloc (then the AW of the Minako-reichanians) are the only real, active faction leaders in the Wars!. The OSDF, Minakochanians, and Endymionsamaians are among the most cohesive active factions; their members actually stay together and work together (^^;).
This is a pretty good question to ask, and a fairly dangerous one to answer. Most people don't like it when people start a one-person faction ... well, that's not fair. A new faction is generally considered fair game if it makes sense and it actually revolves around a Sailormoon character. After all, these are the alt.fan.sailor-moon Otaku Wars!, not (at least, not yet) the Anime Otaku Wars, the Oddball Chara Otaku Wars!, etc. Witness the Clownians. Now, I don't mean to pick on anyone here, I'll say that right now. But ... exactly who were the Clownians fans of? The name betrays nothing except grim images, white painted faces, horrifying red button noses ... MY GODS! GET 'EM OFF ME! UWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
<author runs screaming from the computer and returns five minutes later>
*ahem* Anyway. The point I'm trying to emphasize is, while their intent was probably good, the Clownians just ended up ... well, dying out. Their affiliations weren't as obvious as, say, the Yatenchanians. (Who also kind of died out, but that's neither here nor there!) This may be due in part to my ignorance, but it seems to me the general reception would be various variations on "what is a faction worshipping clowns doing in a War over the best Sailormoon character?", most polite, a very few not.
Anyway. That was a bit of a tangent ^_^; The main factions (that I can name off the top of my head, gomen if I forget yours) at the moment are: the Reichanians, the Amichanians, the Makochanians, the Minakochanians, the Usagichanians, the Outer Senshi Defence Force (OSDF), the Hotaruchanians (not affiliated with the OSDF), the Endymionsamaians, the MinakoReichanians, the Neutralians.
The acknowledged leaders of the factions are as follows: Reichanians, Nightman; Amichanians, no-one really; Makochanians, Cape-Mike; Minakochanians, Tuxedo Dionysus; Usagichanians, Sailor Ice Blade; OSDF, the absent Wendy Chronos, but presumably SuperSteve now; Hotaruchanians, Sailor D'ni; Endymionsamaians, Kane Magus; MinakoReichanians, the Artemisian Warrior; Neutralians, Johnathon and Andrew. The Reichanians, Usagichanians, and Neutralians haven't done much for a while, though.
Well, first, you don't. <grins> Let me explain. Anything new you start, it's usually a good idea to lay low, observe, research, at least for a while so you know what you're getting into. Read the posts for a while to get a feel for the atmosphere of the Wars!, and if there's nothing going on visit the Archives or (shudder) the New DejaNews or whatever you use to look at old Usenet posts.
Once you've watched the fighting for a while, and you have an idea of what's going on, make yourself a character. There really aren't many guidelines on this, except they absolutely MUST NOT be all-powerful (but arrogance is widely accepted). To quote Miss Dammit, "Omnipotence is baaaaaaaad." Write up a Writer's Guide for your character (if you would like an example, my character, Nyagchilios' guide, can be referenced here), and write a starting-off post. Some consider it a good idea for newbies to plop themselves down in the middle of the action, some consider it just a nuisance. Use your discretion, but don't expect people to notice you if you just set your new chara down in a field somewhere and hope someone sees you. On the flip side, don't come in with a blaze and blow up someone's ship. This has happened before.
Also, it's generally a good idea to limit yourself to one (1) character. This goes back in part to the days of the infamous Akaena Elfid, who had a great many (well, several) characters, several of which really got on people's nerves. It also goes back to common sense; it can be difficult to keep track of what's happening to four or five people at once in something as nonsensical as Our Public Little War.
All OW! posts should have the subject line start with [OW!], so other authors can easily identify them and also so people who DON'T want to read a bunch of posts like this can killfile 'em. (But who would want to do that? ^_^; ) Also, you'll see the [NS] tag in the subject sometimes, this stands for "Non-Story" and is usually commentary on a post. [NC] refers to "Non-Canon" or "Non-Continuity" posts where action takes place, but really doesn't have any effect on the OW! timeline. (It's also the root of the NC-Janitor's name!) Also, from time to time gifted writers such as Mr. Tucker of Ryu fame (and yes, his assistant or assistants who seem to be unwilling to take much credit ... ) will post long, NC-type storylines; yes, I'm referring to the famous OVAs, which are, of course, marked [OVA].
Now, you've done it. You may not be considered a regular by all, but you're a "writing participant of the Wars!". Remember, have fun!
Er, anyway, the rest of my OW! page is back here.