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.

@Noland Fixing our relationship with Arlong Park would be nice, although I've never gotten a clear answer as to why they hate us. Ryu did a post to r/onepiece a while back and they seemed to have a pretty positive opinion of us overall, so IDK what's up with AP.

@Levi That's a good idea. We could maybe do a weekly or monthly goal and see if that attracts more editors. We'd need to figure out a way to figure out what that would be, but it could work. 01:49, March 11, 2017 (UTC)

I think a large part of that is due to our very early history with some speculatory stuff. Also, everything that happened to Galaxy9000, who was extremely active on there (idk about now though). I also agree with Lev's idea. I definitely could make stub goals!

On a side note, even this forumn isn't active. We REALLY have a lot of work to do. 03:04, March 11, 2017 (UTC)

My thoughts on this are a bit complex - sure I'd like the wiki to be active like it was in 2014 when I joined, it was pretty fun. But at the same time, there is a limit to any commitment I would put into it because, ultimately, this is a website. I've had fun times here, but real life comes first to me and is much more rewarding. Ultimately, I can't say I'm disappointed with where we're at now. Certain people are gone and I miss them, but the wiki is continuing to be successful. Vandalism is dealt with quickly, chapter updates are made in a timely fashion, people still write blogs, we actually reference nearly everything now which is a HUGE improvement. Not to mention that we rarely have toxic discussions anymore. We do have some issues now like discussion participation and the lack of any active users with automated bots, but those have not been a serious detriment to this site.

I'm not saying I'm completely apathetic to the idea, it's a good one overall, just trying to be mindful of where on my sliding scale of priorities this really is. One thing I would like to improve on myself is returning to my roots and writing blogs more frequently, since I find blogs to be an excellent way of gaining community members (I literally only joined this site to write blogs), plus it's a fun pastime for me in general.

Regarding Arlong Park, I am an active member of the site, and while I've met quite a few nice people there, the overall mood of the community is very particular and finicky to the point of being cancerous sometimes. Many users do not like us using anime images or our methods of doing arc/saga pages, for example. Not much we can do about it, it's just their personal preferences. The bigger reason is probably that many of them, especially the more vocal senior people, still have an impression of the wiki from its earlier days when stuff was a bit less reliable. To a degree, they're right, because we do have a bit of an editing bias where we reference and destub newer stuff, but leave the old ones pretty much untouched. So many of our Skypiea-related articles are hot trash. It also boils down to the fact that anyone can edit this site, which can be a turnoff for some people - we still have many users who, while well-meaning, simply have impediments in terms of their understanding of how to write things, and also format as well. I don't think a blanket criticism of the wiki as a whole for these reasons is entirely correct or productive, but there are stuff we could definitely improve.

I'm not entirely inclined to advertise the wiki in Arlong Park due to the aforementioned sometimes-cancerous clientele there, but I've had the occasional conversation regarding the wiki, and they've usually been polite and productive. Kaido King of the Beasts (talk) 03:57, March 11, 2017 (UTC)

Here's my view on this. First I want to say that I seriously admire all the great work that goes into the chapter updating and destubbing. The amount of time that goes into it and the quality of the product is simply baffling.

I have not been so active as I probably should have been. At least, not in the editing part, I even said so when the admin election happened that I am not an avid editor. But I've been around when an admin was needed, and for a small period, I was the only admin around. Admins aren't that prominent in the whole aspect as they used to be when I joined (DP and Yata basically were demi-gods), mostly since we have content moderators now who can do alot of stuff on their own (you're my darlings, Vid, Kaido and Xil). I've been so incredibly busy with med school that I have no desire left to spend the remainder of my free time on editing, and I apologize for that. It's just not been my priority.

The community has been dormant for a while, even I've noticed that. The only thing relatively active was Discussions, and bringing them over to the editing part would not help imo. Most of them are young peeps and English is often not their native language. I can see the goal idea working out, or maybe some more boost of the community in blogs. Things like King of the Hill and those weird MDM blogs DID bring in alot of people (including myself lmao). I'm curious to see what others think. 13:06, March 11, 2017 (UTC)

Why not try reaching out to other social media services like SnapChat or Instagram? CakeXD (talk) 17:56, March 11, 2017 (UTC)

I think using too much social medias will just be burden on the people responsible without giving any tangible results. I'd like to remark that bringing in new users is very different than keeping existing ones. First of all, this wiki is active and has a good user base. I don't think it has a desperate need of new users. However, the best way to attract people is to give them a place to look forward and enjoy. Discussions seems to be working good in that sense, and blog did the same in the past. So you have to think something to convert those "discussion-only" users to editor, after all why reaching out even more users if you already have them right here?

I doubt social media would do much to help unless we drastically change our approach. We've had Facebook and Twitter for a while now, and neither have done much to help. Doing something to bring over people from discussions might help, but most of the users there seem to stay there. It sounds like there isn't much to do about AP, but I wonder if we could try recruiting from r/onepiece? They seemed to like us just fine last time Ryu posted there. 02:05, March 14, 2017 (UTC)

Our community will never be the same as it was again. That's just fact. We have aged and the wiki has aged with us. 3 or 4 years ago when this wiki was at its peak, most of the active editors and community members were in high school. As those people have aged, they have less time for the wiki. Many of us are in or through college and have more important things to do than edit. And we just haven't been able to draw in more young people to keep the "population" up.

We can use this forum for one of two things: 1) Try to get more editors (particularly younger ones) or 2) We can prepare the wiki for a smaller, less active future. Right now, I'm more inclined to put effort into #2. 01:12, March 15, 2017 (UTC)

I do wonder if it is not just this wiki that has aged, but the One Piece community as a whole. With 858 chapters, fewer and fewer people are getting inclined to start the series all the way from the beginning and read up to the present since it's just so long. So you have the fans who have been keeping up with the series for a while, but they're growing up and while they still read the series, they've taken up other things instead of documenting/talking about said series. If I was in pursuit of something in real life that meant I would have to stop coming here, I would abandon this place in a heartbeat. Don't take that the wrong way, I like this place, but I did mention earlier that real life should always be one's top priority. Take Arlong Park for example, which also has nowhere near as many active members as it did during our heyday in 2012-ish. I've been there for a while now and I'm still one of the youngest members. What is important is that though this place may not be as bustling as it was a few years ago, it is still stable and a good source of information. Kaido King of the Beasts (talk) 02:01, March 15, 2017 (UTC)

I agree that we'll never get the wiki back to the way it was, but it would be nice if we could get at least some new editors. Levi's idea about creating some kind of goal system could work if we figure out how to implement it. I'm also wondering about getting more users to come over from the discussions since those are plenty active but most of the people there don't come over to the wiki itself. Even getting a few new active users would help a lot. 07:28, March 18, 2017 (UTC)

I agree that Wiki morale seems to be down. It's definitely not that the manga is losing its touch. We are approaching the climax of one of the most anticipating arcs and not to mention it is the series 20th anniversary this year. Without further ado, here are a few of my suggestions:

1. Like I said before, its the series' 20th anniversary. Let's celebrate it. Update the logo and maybe change the background of the wiki for the occasion. (I guess this would be like another "seasonal change?")

2. In regards to social media, Facebook is the only thing we have that's is regularly maintained. Our Twitter activity fluctuates greatly (sometimes months between tweets) and after X number of years we have only managed to get 116 followers. I suggest we just cut the cord with Twitter and focus more on Facebook unless of course, someone is willing to take charge over the Twitter.

3. It's been almost 2 years since Ryu made that Reddit post on /r/OnePiece about the wiki. Maybe it's time we did a follow up post there. Also being on their Discord Server (our servers are affiliated now btw) I see some posts with users who love us and like to use the wiki as a source of information, then there are some people who call us "not credible". Perhaps we should make an AMA post to recruit new editors, throw our name out there, and address the concerns of those who call us not credible. So an example thread we could make is "We're from the One Piece Wiki, Ask Us Anything" And this could be a stickied megathread or something (this can be worked out since the Reddit admin is a member of our Discord Server)

4. Discussions seems to be doing well. I'm seeing post approaching the 100+ comments mark, something that is very rare for normal blogs to do nowadays. There's about 555 users in Discussions, so if we can get even 2% of those users to edit regularly we are good.

15:44, March 18, 2017 (UTC)

Drake is right in that we are at a major time in One Piece's life cycle. I think we could certainly capitalize that with the ideas suggested. Monthly goals are great (thanks Levi), and a message to /r/OnePiece would be a good idea. There are more than enough people on Discussions and Discord to recruit (probably a lot of whom are younger than use veterans), and encouraging some of the stronger discussion writers to move to a blog format might give that section of our site the face lift it needs. I'd like to reiterate by idea of setting up a veteran-new user support system kind-of-thing so that the new editors can get some advice. We should revamp the weekly news bulletin, revive Featured Article Nominations, and maybe add an Editor of the Month award (maybe problematic, but I'm sure we could set up a reasonable system).

As for social media, the issues are: 1) reaching a large enough audience (because the Twitter has few followers and we barely capitalize on the potential of social media outlets because of inactivity) and 2) keeping a steady stream of content to keep the communication with our followers going (successful social media pages for websites or companies are extremely active because that have to do so to keep people's attention). I have plenty of ideas about the social media side of our community, but I don't feel like brain dumping right now when it could be relegated to another forum.

I have to agree with Aurora and JSD, though, on personal activity here; we are all getting older and busier with our lives and this wiki is way lower on the priority chain. I've been home for spring break for almost a week now, and I haven't destubbed any pages on my to-do list. This is just part of life, but we can still set up a hierarchy/power structure where responsibilities are passed to people with more free time/equal interest in improving the wiki (yes, there are new/young people out there who still want to help us out). I am confident that the wiki will be fine no matter what, but we could make it an exemplar like it used to be with a little effort. 19:38, March 18, 2017 (UTC)