Help talk:Building a community/Wikis that need editors archive

Thoughts for improvement
Hey everyone. I'm looking into what sorts of things we could be doing to improve this page. The big issue that we've seen is that someone posts on this page saying their wiki needs editors, and then a whole lot of nothing happens as a follow up. It's unfortunate, but it's also understandable. Getting help in attracting editors is hard, and hoping that someone decides to join a wiki based on a list of 100 wikis that need editors is unrealistic (at least to me).

So, I’d like to turn to you all to see if you have any thoughts about ways this page could be improved. Do you think this is a worthwhile page to have? Is its topic and focus right, or should it shift to something a little more general or maybe a different wiki help topic altogether? Is a page like this the right format, or is it better served with a forum or some other type of space? Is there any structure that you think we could bring to it in order to make sure people’s requests for editors and/or help don’t go unanswered?

I have some thoughts on this, but first I’d like to see what you all think. I’d appreciate any thoughts you may have. Thanks! - Brandon Rhea (talk) 21:23, March 8, 2012 (UTC)


 * It seems to be a good page to have to have a place to point towards for people asking for ways to try to attract editors, but looking at it I can see why it's hard to pay any attention to the wikis that are on the list simply because of how long it is. It could possibly be helped by dividing it up into various smaller pages such as by topic and amount of pages. A page of wikis that have similar focuses, such as anime, video games, and book series, might be better in a way to trim the page down to help keep potential editors looking at the page interested by the time they get to the bottom of the list. It could also be helpful if the page was advertised more to newer editors, because typically those people are the ones who don't know what or where to edit. But this page in its current state is not helpful to the wikis who are on it. 21:45, March 8, 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree that breaking it up into multiple pages by topic is a good idea (with one main page that describes the purpose and links to all of the different topics). Requests older than say 60 days (or some time limit) should be eligible for removal to keep things current and tidy. Also, is there any way to advertise this page more so that more people know about its existence? Organizationally, I would recommend that requests be placed in alphabetical, rather than chronological order if possible. Mathmagician 01:41, March 9, 2012 (UTC)

Great suggestions so far. I agree that it can be advertised better, and I like the idea of having pages with more specific focus areas (perhaps Entertainment, Video Games, and Lifestyle as a start). I’m apprehensive about removing old requests, but only if they’ve never been answered, since that seems to be like a way of caving to the fact that there’s a problem with the page and just getting rid of the problems after a certain amount of time. Do you all think there are more ways that we could help wikis that post here find editors, beyond just advertising it better? - Brandon Rhea (talk)  20:55, March 12, 2012 (UTC)


 * Ummm, is there a plan to implement any of the suggestions above. It can be very discouraging when someone asks for feedback and then basically does nothing with it. This thread sadly mirrors what is happening in the need editors page. -- Fandyllic (talk &middot; contr) 4 Apr 2012 3:35 PM Pacific
 * Yes. We're currently working on a new way of helping wikis grow here on Community Central. This page will remain in some form, and we're also looking at ways to provide more in-depth help. - Brandon Rhea (talk)  21:53, April 9, 2012 (UTC)

Revisiting
Having this page pop up in the recent changes, I checked it and it's messy. Perhaps we could make an archive, and, as said above, perhaps separate it by topic. I'd be completely willing to help.


 * Hi. Per my comment above, we're currently in the process of working on a revamp for this page. - Brandon Rhea (talk)  21:53, April 9, 2012 (UTC)