User blog:JustSomeDude.../JSD's "Secret" Agenda

So I've been thinking a lot recently about what the fuck I'm trying to do as an admin, and how it's different from what the fuck I was trying to do as a regular editor. Believe it or not, the idea of "power abuse" is on my mind. Constantly. So as part of that, I was thinking about what power abuse actually is, and when it becomes a problem. One thing that often leads to abuse of power is the protection of a "secret agenda." I thought about that, and I realized that I do have an agenda for the wiki. I don't want to abandon those goals though, so there's only one way for me to make sure it's not a secret agenda: Make it not a secret.

So in the interest of transparency, and the clearing of my conscience, here's a list of some of the parts of my "agenda" for 2015. Some of these, I have a couple ideas of steps to take to help achieve them. Other ones, I'm totally helpless to work towards. ''If you have any ideas to help me out (or even better actually take the wheel and actually help) I'd love you forever.


 * The most basic goal I have is to get readership, and the number of active editors up. Just about everything I'll mention here deals with this.


 * We have a huge problem with attracting new users and editors. An even bigger problem with keeping them. Why do I think that is? Because we are mean and unfair to them compared to new users. We're not a particularly welcoming group of people, and we don't do anything to show new users that we appreciate them.


 * One step to fix this is to make sure that we treat veteran editors the same as newbies in terms of bans/discipline. And guess what, it looks like that will become a rule by the end of the week!


 * A much trickier goal though is to take steps to make sure editors who are "poisonous" to the editing process and community (Ex: Galaxy9000) are encouraged to change or be banned. I don't want to make a rule that just says "if we don't like you, we can ban you" but I'd like something more measurable (and fair) to make a rule off of.


 * Some kind system that helps new users learn how use the wiki would be great. We tried this a bit with teams, but that focused more on editors we already had. I want something that focuses on teaching editors. Realistically, we aren't gonna get many editors who already know what they're doing, allowing for and helping users who don't know what to do would be a great step forward in terms of being more welcoming.


 * We have a lot of discussions that need to happen on this wiki. But I constantly find myself with a large list of them, many unresolved from weeks earlier, and I'm always needing to pick my battles on which ones need to get resolved quickly, because posting on them all daily doesn't seem to help. I want to focus efforts on making these discussions more civil, productive, interesting, and quick. I have no idea how to do this.


 * I want us to not just advance ourselves, but to advance in the world of all Wikias. Our WAM Score used to keep us in the top 10 of all wikias. Now we are over 40 most of the time. A long fall. And I want us to not only have higher ranking, but to be recognized by staff as a top-tier wiki, and something that they can show off.


 * Part of that was taking the full episode videos staff went and got for us and putting them into articles, becoming as far as I know the first wikia to include full episodes of their show. If we did that, it would be a interesting step for us for sure. But right now, the poll for that idea idea doesn't look good...


 * I want us to get featured in a Wikia Spotlight as well, but I don't want to do that until more improvements are made here. I want us to be worth it.


 * There's a lot of upcoming changes to the visual aspect of wikia too. The Venus Skin, a possible Mobile App specific to our wiki, and probably several other changes coming in the future that we don't know about. I don't want us to resist these changes. I like the ideas behind the changes, even if they aren't being implemented 100% correctly right now. Personally, I think our wiki looks like outdated garbage as it sits right now. I welcome change, even if it's forced.


 * Part of helping this change means that I want to start conversations among people on other communities to prep us for Venus Skin, mobile-friendly tables, etc. Likely, I'll do this through blogs on Community Central. It would have a nice benefit of getting us more involved with other communities, smart editors, and staff. In a perfect world, we could make a hub of editors that would be contributing meaningful and valued feedback to the changes. If you're not happy about the changes, you need to work with them to change them. "The best way to damage a system is from inside it."


 * Not only are we losing editors, but we're losing a specific kind of editor that we can't really function without: Content editors. I define "content editors" as the people who add large amounts of text (not to be confused with templates, etc), usually in the form of summaries and article updating. Right now, it's a mixture of "not being handled at all", a few editors, and some AWCs who are taking care of most of that. I would love to do something to both get some new editors who work on that stuff, and get old editors to get back into these stuff.


 * There's also another thing that's been bothering me in terms of editors we don't have: Someone who can translate the SBS from each volume for us. We've got quite the backlog of untranslated ones. I think we might need to actually recruit someone from another site to do this though.

There's probably more to my schemes, but I can't remember it all right now, and this is already long as fuck. For now, this is the list of ways I want to work to push the wiki forward, and frankly, out of the slump we've been in for the past year or so. I hope you all appreciate my honesty, and more importantly help me to achieve these goals (or even think of some new, better ones!) because in the end, my intent means nothing next to actual measurable progress. Thanks for reading!