Forum:Increasing Community Involvement

For a while now I've noticed the wiki growing less and less active. We still have plenty of edits and new users still pop up sometimes, but they rarely stay long or get involved with the community in any way. Similarly, a lot of veterans, myself included, haven't been as active as we used to be. It used to be there would be at least one active blog every few days, but now the only ones that get any real amount of comments are the chapter review blogs, and even those never top 100 or even 50 comments. Chat's also been dead for at least a year now. I was never as active as some users, but even I've noticed it being used less and less, and not just because of the Discord server or the Skype group since the Discord is just as dead, and only about 3 people use Skype with any regularity. The problem with chat seems to be that nobody enters chat because nobody's ever in chat and nobody's ever in chat because nobody bothers to enter it.

The point behind my rambling is to try and find out why this is and what we can do about it. We tried social media before, but that's largely dead and didn't seem to help at all. Discussions are plenty active, but don't seem to spill over to the main wiki. It doesn't seem like there's declining interest in One Piece, since r/OnePiece is plenty active and I don't think the wiki is driving people away since we've gotten a lot better as a community over the past few years, especially compared to when I first started here in 2012. There are fewer arguments, stricter rules about rudeness and the admins have more power to ban users who turn toxic. Everything sounds fine from the outside, but things are still dead. I don't have any answers, but I'm hoping we can figure out why things are this way and what we can do about it. Any thoughts? 06:43, March 9, 2017 (UTC)

I completely agree 100% with everything you said. I have lagged on editing for a while, and I have been cynical about the lack of activity. I think necessary course of action is opening up a lot to the subreddit, as well as other major One Piece communities, and recruiting. We should also start fun things to keep people engaged in the community and projects to keep them editing. I would gladly take over the stub team again, which has a good foundation but never got super active besides my own work (unless you count Besty's fake destubbing, which I don't). We also need to make sure that the reasons for our wishy-washy relationships to other sites (like Arlong Park) are resolved, meaning overall more accepting behavior towards new editors across the board. There is a big difference between criticizing and giving constructive criticism, and all veteran editors taking the lead to teach new people need to understand that. The chat is being discussed already, but I don't know how to guage the Discord's impact on community engagement. We could also reevaluate leadership positions, since few mods/admins are active, but this is a lesser concern. The best things: lead by example, treat people appropriately, and create the framework for a stronger, larger community. 19:51, March 9, 2017 (UTC)

I'm personally busy with my wiki and IVT stuff, but maybe giving people something to do, like an objective or goal will increase the dedication for editing? I liked the idea of the wiki crews, maybe just some general objective for the wiki? It should also not something indefinite, but rather something to do during the course of a set time, like a week or a month, after which the wiki should move on something else.