Board Thread:Support Requests - Getting Started/@comment-30129094-20161002224232/@comment-28656770-20161002233809

For future reference, I do not manage or own a Wikia; I simply work with one to better it. With that comes some ideas I've had in regards to attracting and keeping new contributors.

In the shortest terms possible: find a point of enticement.

By nature, people will not do something unless they receive some kind of reward, be it physical, emotional, or otherwise. Applying this logic to any kind of community-growing effort can inspire different approaches. The following are the ones I've tried or have plans to try (because I've seen them work).

To start off, have a solid set of rules and guidelines for these newbies to follow. Nothing is worse than when everyone is running around doing their own thing, and everything turns to chaos. Have set expectations for every member of your community and every piece of writing they'll ultimately produce or proofread. If you need some examples, take a look at the guidelines I've been working on fully smoothing out for my Wikia.
 * | Character article guidelines
 * | Species article guidelines
 * | Event article guidelines
 * | Location article guidelines
 * | Location types

Granted, these are still very much incomplete and need small changes here and there, but it's a good idea nonetheless. I've seen other Wikia have Manual of Style pages on which they elaborate further upon the expectations in terms of formatting in general and sometimes even give short tutorials on how using Wikicode affects their Wikia (since this site's Help pages kinda suck sometimes /: )

Another thing you can do is build a strong community of fans, and this method has two parts: 1) create an attractive, active community; 2) pinpoint which members care enough about whatever it is your Wikia is about to improve any and all information regarding it and lock 'em in.

Believe it or not, creating an attractive community isn't really all that hard either. Having something like a straight-forward, easy-on-the-eyes forum can often do the trick. The look alone either turns people on or away from your site. From there, encourage discussions about both your Wikia and not. Personally, I love Okami, but if I had to talk about it 24/7, it'd lose its meaning over time. Off topic discussions are healthy, because it's kind of a buffer between two or more on-topic discussions. The key there, however, is to make sure BOTH are enticing.

Back when WarriorCats had a forum for the series (not the Wikia), I joined for the ability to talk to other fans, and ended up staying because I liked the off-topic discussions better. After a while, I stopped contributing to the threads about the series as a whole, which kinda defeated the purpose of having a themed forum to begin with. However, with something like VocaloidOtaku, I've seen that site bounce from spam to legit discussion without skipping a beat. That just shows that you CAN do both. You just need to learn how to manage it.

From there, it's up to you to figure out who meets your requirements and who doesn't. I know what I have in mind as an ideal contributor, but that may look radically different to you. So this next bit of advice is to write down and keep a list of qualities you have for you ideal contributor. When you find someone who starts to meet these, reach out to them and try to draw them into your community for good (sounds creepy but it's not; I swear).

The last tidbit I have for you (because this is long enough already) is to draw people in through social media. Get on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, DevniantArt, whatever and find what exists of your fandom there and guides them ,like a shepherd leads the flock to the waters, to the beacon of hope which will hopefully be a solid community for them to interact with other fans and truly have a place to enjoy themselves.

That's all I've got for now. Hope this helps. >W0