User blog comment:HauntedAlchemist/Regarding The Wiki's Inactivity/@comment-1587581-20150330024425






 * Sigh*

Yeah, I've noticed this too and I even made a blog a few months back about this very dillema that we are still facing I even made a blog a few months back about this very dillema that we are still facing.

This place is dying slowly but surely and various times I've been promised that it'll get better soon but with no avail. Looking back, it's not a particularly new thing either, I made my Remnant Chang and Frederick the Rabbit my new MC's about two years ago and I'm very disappointed that I have not really been able to use them at all. The roleplays I made and joined died ludicrously fast.

In my day, many a roleplay died but now it seems like roleplays (when they get created) get a good week in before they fizzle out. New users are non-existant and when they do show up they usually flee fairly quickly. Heck, the new users that I helped three years ago are nowhere to be found!

It breaks my heart to see the place in such a state when it was once teeming with life. It seems like everyday is worse than the last and each day I check in, nothing of note has happened excpet for a few blogs.

Now for the problems. I've always had a gripe with the chat since I never felt the need to go on (probably due to being pretty shy) and as time passed and the wiki started bleeding out I noticed that more people were hanging out in the chat than editing the wiki and it really struck a nerve. More people cared about the chat than editing the wiki meaning that it was hurting it. Even though you say that the chat is dying too, I still want it to go. The sooner it's gone, the soooner people will start caring about the wiki and if they leave *shrug* they weren't really here for the wiki itself. There should be more roleplays and none should be private. Due to the dire state we're in, I feel that we should not have private roleplays since it has a negative impact on the community. The only people making free-join roleplays are the newer users who are pretty "green" while the older users are keeping to themselves, making private roleplays. When it's our duties to make fun, well-balanced roleplays so that the new users can get excited and learn how to roleplay effectively, we hole up and make them private. It's also baffling because there really aren't that many users to be picky with who you roleplay with.

I guess writer's block and real-life are our main problems as a group, since as someone mentioned, we are getting older but even as I grow older, my love for Sonic won't diminish. I've been here for almost six years and I've grown so much, it can't end liken this.

Younger Sonicfan always felt that he was detached from the community since he wasn't part of "the wiki-family", wasn't part of the chat and just generally didn't talk that much but comparing then and now, I was part of the community even if I didn't do all the extra things, that's how warm and big we were, as a whole. That's what we were and that's what we should be now.

Admittedly, I could be a hell of a lot more active than I currently am as you read this long post. Go ahead and hit me that it's mainly schoolwork. Even when I'm not doing schoolwork I'm just browsing my phone due to how convient it is compared to walking over to my desk and hunching over my unreliable netbook (which is working perfectly as I type this (IT'S A SIGN)) though seeing as the SFW recent edit page is my most visited page on my phone's Google Chrome app, I do check back on a regular basis and unfortunately, nothing really happens. Admittedly it's not an excuse and I should edit regardless as I'm only aiding the illness but it's really hard when you have no ideas, no one is on to appreciate/critique your work, when you're working on two(ish) stories (non-fanon, original work) and when you have other things going on. I would edit more but I guess I'm just not that compelled, sorry if that sounds lame. There ARE so many ideas I have some days but I just don't put them down, it's time mainly. Simply doing the research for EDITING Krinkinko's page (a dead character mind you) took like an hour on Friday. I was planning on editing Rapa's page today before it got deleted again but ultimately I ran out of time due to homework and chores. Again, really crappy excuse considering that I wasted hours on PokeMMO but it probably has something to do with this being a ghost-town. That being said, I'm just beginning to understand that this is my duty and will try harder than ever to edit, if only to set an example, if only to say that "yes, you should be doing this too, take my lead". Spring Break is around the corner and since I'll probably just be hanging around me, myself, and I, I'll edit, that's a promise. This past year and a half or so I haven't really edit since things have been a tad bit hectic, what with my heart getting stolen, then crushed via steam-roller but that shouldn't have been an excuse and it won't be now.

The biggest problem I see is with our userbase which is dwindling. We really need to get ourselves out there, maybe ask other thriving wikis how they manage to keep going (someone check the SNN)? What I've wanted to do with my wiki (which makes this place look like China (Two friggin' semi-active users by the way)) and what we should do with this wiki is make Youtube adverts, that way we'd at least attract more people. Or heck, DeviantArt just SOME place. If we do get an influx of new users, I say revise or policies and standards. It can prove a tad daunting to new users and I fear that a lot of this is due to strict standards and elitist like thinking. We shouldn't care what people think of us and we sure as hell shouldn't stifle creativity to make us look better in the eyes of a few snoots. The standards aren't too terrible but I still feel like too many of my articles have been deleted and that the rules are a tad strict.

We need a roleplay, like a big roleplay and the awards need to be optimized to be as sucessful as humanly possible. I was the one who started the Summer Awards in the first place, maybe me and Smash could work together for it's fourth anniversary.

I don't have much to say about the admins, which is a bad thing. We should see more of them and they should be more helpful, not just deleting pages. That's not to say that some admins aren't great, they all should just be a tad more involved. It's amazing how the smallest things can make the biggest difference.

Well, I made a tod-do list so hopefully that will help with my productivity. I'll reply to comments if I get any.

Overall I'm sad at the state this place is in because I love the Sonic Fanon Wiki and I'd hate to see it go. We're already halfway through the gate but I know that if we all link together than we can pull through and restore this place to its former glory.