User talk:A. Bloom

Welcome!
If you think being staff before editing is going to weasel you out of an auto-welcome you're mistaken! A challenger appears! Welcome! -- 23:57, May 2, 2011 (UTC)

Entertainment
Hi there, I heard you were the category manager for entertainment on Wikia. Does that mean you sort out pages like this one? Are you open to feedback about how those pages work?--Acer4666 12:33, June 14, 2011 (UTC)

Hi Acer4666,

Nice to hear from you. I am Wikia's category manager entertainment, correct. I am always open to feedback/questions/concerns from the community and welcome your input! If your feedback is related to the Entertainment Category's main page sliders (I.e. the link you posted above), please remember more often than not I will highlight wikis related to an upcoming premiere/release/giveaway/focus if the timing is right. However, please let me know your concerns and I'll gladly address them. Thanks! A. Bloom 17:03, June 14, 2011 (UTC)

Sincerely,

Adam Blumenfeld

Entertainment Category Manager, Wikia Inc.


 * Many thanks for the friendly response! Don't worry, I'm not here to beg for a wiki to be stuck on the page haha. Obviously I would love my wiki to be splashed across all the pages but I am a realist!
 * But on that page I linked to, I understand the scrolling banner across the top shows spotlighted wikis from the category, and I have nothing against the spotlight system. But the "top 10" wikis below that - are they also judged on what's in vogue at the moment, or stuff like that? Also, I just noticed how both Memory Alpha and Disney wiki pop up in both TV and Movies - now I know the wikis cover both media, but really Disney is primarily a film thing and Star Trek is primarily a TV thing, so (in my opinion) shouldn't each wiki make its mind up over what type of wiki it is?
 * But my main concern is that the entertainment, movie, and TV pages list the top 10 wikis and nothing else. It's almost as if wikia is saying "these are the wikis we have about TV, and that's it"! I mean there is the whole entertainment.wikia.com section with a whole host of all the different entertainment wikis, but there isn't even a link to it on entertainment page. The way to get to that is to click on "staff picks" at the end of the drop down menu above. Now this seems odd to me - when you click on "more TV from wikia" you get to the ten that the staff have picked, and when you click on "staff picks" you get to all the other TV wikis out there! Surely that is backwards? I have nothing against highlighting certain wikis, as long as the non-highlighted ones get some sort of acknowledgement of their presence!
 * Also, when you click on "what's trending", it seems to lead to a text search for the word "trending", showing "kitchen furniture trends 2011 wikia", which isn't necessarily what someone looks for when wanting to know what entertainment wikis are trending!
 * Anyway, those were my thoughts, thank you for listening!--Acer4666 10:07, June 15, 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi Acer4666,
 * First off, thank you for taking the time to list your concerns. I'll give you a quick rundown of where we're headed with the Entertainment Category so you're up to speed on things.
 * 1.) Redesigning the Main Nav Board: I'm keeping TV, Film & Staff Picks but added the "What's Trending" menu. This will have a random selction of wikis that changes out frequently, and I'm in the initial stages of testing it out. The "broken link" you speak of (i.e. the Trending link) will have to be fixed. It's on my list of revisions, fret not!
 * 2.) Top 10 Wikis: These are wikis that receive the most pageviews on our site. They are automatically generated according to data we receive on all wikis for our site. While I cannot change those, our users can certainly work towards making their own wikis more popular, and thus have a better chance of cracking the infamous Top 10. In addition, I will happily work with you on spotlighting a particular wiki/running internal promotion, should you feel passionate about getting it out there to the community at large. :-)
 * 3.) Defining A Wiki: Some wikis will show up in both TV and Film; you are correct in pointing that out. I am going to work on fixing this over time, but it's tricky with some properties. Disney is a tough one, because they have material spread out over so many categories. But I promise you, I will eventually separate these and define their boundaries. After all, I want to show love to as many wikis as possible without having one particular community monopolizing the Navigation Board!
 * 4.) Long Term Goals: The Entertainment Category will go through many revisions over the course of 2011 (ideally). We have so many wonderful things we want to do here (from adding "social" content, to page redesigns, to more fluid integration with other Categories and external content); but I have to roll things out in stages. As I move forward with these initiatives, it is imperative our user base is on board. That means I'll be expecting enthusiastic people like yourself to chime in and give input on the things we do--and also suggest improvements of your own! Ultimately, I want the Entertainment Category to be as popular as our Gaming section and I'm confident we'll get there. Stay tuned for more updates...you'll be seeing a lot of them in the coming weeks and months. Thanks again for your time, Acer4666. :-) 38.127.199.123 17:51, June 15, 2011 (UTC)
 * Sincerely,
 * Adam Blumenfeld
 * Entertainment Category Manager, Wikia Inc.
 * Adam Blumenfeld
 * Entertainment Category Manager, Wikia Inc.


 * Adam,
 * Many thanks for your response, answering my questions and for listening! I suspected that's how the top ten was formed; and agree it is a very good criteria for picking what wikis to have in the top 10! Just to clarify - was my concern about only showing ten wikis without any other links in this main section possibly covered in your long-term goals? Will the fluid integration with other categories lead to access to something other than the top highest-traffic wikis being accessible from that page? Not to push the debate; it's just that was my main concern and I couldn't see it specifically addressed. However I realise I left a mammoth post and mixed my ideas all over the place! But just to let you know, currently my main issue is that the entertainment page doesn't allow access to anything other than the 10 highest-trafficking wikis (when you speak of aiming towards what the gaming section has - they also have this problem, so perhaps is it a wikia standard?). But I look forward to the changes you and the rest of the staff have planned for the site!--Acer4666 22:12, June 15, 2011 (UTC)

Shameless Wiki
I'd be very happy with your suggestion about the Shameless wiki. I'm doing my best with it but it's a struggle on my own, contributors are few and far between and 99% of them are unregistered users. So any help would be much apreciated. -- Lyco499 (talk ) 23:56, July 26, 2011 (UTC)

Hi Lyco499,

I'm so glad you're on board!! We'll redo the Shameless wiki in time for the launch of Season 2. I've already spoken with the folks at Showtime about this wiki and we'll be heavily promoting it later this year. Obviously if there are any special design tweaks you want on the landing space, please do let me know. (We'll do our absolute best to make it up to your standards). Hopefully, we'll drive lots of traffic to the wiki before the premiere. :-) A. Bloom 00:03, July 27, 2011 (UTC)

Quizzes featured on staff blog
Hi,

Recently Xean, staff member of wikia, referred to scavenger hunt and quizzes being part of a possible user experience in a blog post. I am interested in both these, but already found out that user Ausir (actual name Paweł Dembowski), creator of the Scavenger hunts, no longer works for Wikia. I found out that you have been involved in the quizzes. I also don't see the staff title on your page (anymore). Does that mean you also are no longer part of the wikia staff?

If so, that's even more of an odd impression because then Xean refers to various projects which are no longer available. It however took me quite some while to find out what and how on this subject.

Hope to hear from you.

Greetz