User blog:ThePK/Meet The Staff! Community Development: 4 People, 4 Stories

Have you ever seen staff members around Wikia? Have you ever wondered: What are they doing here? Why are they editing that? Do they even lift, bro? If you answered yes to any of those questions- this blog is for you!

Today, I’ll be introducing some of the best Wikia staff members, the Community Development team!

What is Community Development?
“We're the people in the field. We are there to help users create new Wikias, help existing Wikias, and to help guide admins and other users.” -Asnow89

The Community Development (ComDev) team members really are the people in the field. You can find them doing all sorts of things across Wikia sites, helping all sorts of people. Often, on Wikia, they are found spiffing and designing wikia sites, writing blog posts about press releases, hosting community wide events, and reaching out to users and communities about new site updates. In the office, however, you can often find them here. Essentially the ComDev department exists to help you develop your community and make it the best it can be!

4 People, 4 Stories
I asked 4 people to share some stories about their experiences working for Wikia as a member of ComDev. Each of these stories should hopefully highlight a different aspect of the ComDev Department and more fully explain what ComDev’s role truly is in the Wikia Community.

Ariana and Programming


Hi everyone! My name is Ariana, but my friends call me Ari. I am a big foodie (namely I LOVE sandwiches, pie, and everything Italian), book nerd (you will see me around all of the Young Adult book wikias), and T.V. fan.

I work closely with our Marketing team (shout out to Acardwell415, my Lifestyles counterpart on Marketing) on Community programming. What is programming, you ask? Wikia creates monthly programs to engage the different communities on Wikia, which can include quizzes, challenges, bracket tournaments, community choice awards, or even book clubs. You might have seen the Battle of the Fantasy Foods, recent Gravity Falls Food Fiction, or Pop Queen Closet Confidential around Wikia...that’s all us! Every month, we sit and plan around what kind of fun and relevant activities we can bring to the Wikia community.

I get to write and edit about my favorite things. Wikia lets my creativity run wild, so if for example I want to write a menu about the T.V. show Scandal- well, go for it! Or maybe there is this Y.A. book I think kicks butt, so let’s start a wikia for it…that’s okay too!

Joe and Spiffs
Hi, I’m Joe and I joined Wikia in August 2007, so almost exactly 8 years ago. I'm one of the remote employees in the Community Development Department and I often work to fulfill Community Spiff requests. Wikia does spiffs because the better a community looks and the more organized it is, the better the chances are for attracting users and visitors. I recently worked with User:StarFox0 to give a new look to Arwingpedia, the Star Fox Wiki.

It's always good to see the result of your work in such a visual way, but my favorite part of fulfilling design help requests is the gratitude I often receive from admins when the job is done. It's very rewarding.

Matt and Journalism
Greetings! My name is Matt and I'm a Community Development Associate at Wikia. One of my favorite parts of the job is attending industry events and serving as a representative for our communities. Oftentimes, when a game publisher wants to show off a new title, they'll put on an event and invite journalists from across the country to check out what they've been working on. Developers love hearing about what their passionate fans (and, at times, harshest critics) are most curious about.

Though, like a traditional journalist, I spend a lot of time researching games and paying attention to developing narratives in the industry, I have the added luxury of being supported by an enormous network of passionate enthusiasts who know all of the ins and outs of their favorite video games, admittedly much better than I do. Being able to help get them access to the information they want is incredibly rewarding and easily my favorite part about being on the Community Development team.

Grace and Outreach
Hey, everybody, I’m Grace and I’ve been part of the Wikia staff for a few years now at the San Francisco office.I’m a huge fan of Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Adventure Time, Shadowhunters, and really too many other things to count on 2 hands, and I think hopping around community to community has really helped me find even more things to watch and read!

You’ve probably seen the Community Development team working on communities that you edit on, and Asnow89 has already spoken a little on the programming we do. I’m here to tell you about what we do as a team at different events and conventions that occur around the world! San Diego Comic-Con, E3, New York Comic Con, Gamescon, you name it and we try to be there with fans and for fans like you. Our team works with Wikia’s marketing team to get fans into panels, pressrooms, and cool events like a Battleborn demo, but we also make plans for Wikia-related convention panels or fun (and delicious) locations like the Fantasy Food Truck. While we are there, we are the eyes and ears of Wikia, so everything we see and all the interviews we conduct are posted on Wikia for the fans that couldn’t come with us! For example, I interviewed the cast of Supernatural at San Diego Comic-Con, which you can read here.

Of course, I love my time spent on wikias the most, but going to events can be pretty fun too, especially when I finally get to meet our users in person :D If you’re planning on going to any convention or fun, fandom focused event, let us know and stay tuned for more awesome things to come!

Finale
I hope y'all enjoyed reading about 4 very different roles of Community Development. Anyways, feel free to use the comments to ask any questions you have for the Community Development team, or just say hi! Was this what you expected when you thought of the roles of the staff? What surprised you? Were you hoping to hear more about the glorious printer? Let us know in the comments!