User blog:Safe Storm/Building a Wiki, One Step At a Time

There I was one day, after having spent months familiarizing myself with Wikia, and it hit me like a bolt of lightning: I wonder if Wikia has a films wiki? Films are an experience for me, as affecting as life itself. When I watch a film, I look to feel something. Well, I looked and nothing came up. There was The Film Guide, but when I went to enter in Passion Fish and About Schmidt and In the Bedroom, nothing. "What kind of films site is this?" I thought. That was my surprise. My shock was finding precisely that Wikia did not have what I was looking for, because this now meant I could create it myself. Oh, the joy of being able to do that. Coming from someone who edited on Wikipedia for years before discovering Wikia, I welcomed the challenge. But it soon proved to be more daunting than I ever would've imagined. Well, nearly a year later, and does anybody know the name "Films Wiki"?

'You've heard of pick-up-and-play gaming. That's what I want for a wiki.'

Don't bother going to the site and seeing any progress. Films Wiki has been a long trial-and-error period of wikis created and wikis deleted (and I realize that might be part of the problem). And there are a lot of things I had to learn the hard way...

Like how I thought people would flock to the site. I wasn't expecting droves, but at least a flock of ten people, or something. A week, and then another week, and then another and still no visitors? I thought that someone would see the site at least through Wikia, but no. The truth started to sink in: OK, this isn't going to be as easy as I thought. And a long sigh.

This experience with the first incarnation of the wiki was useful in one way: thinking that something I was doing was the problem, it forced me to rethink the entire way I envisioned Films Wiki.:




 * 1) I can't compete with Wikipedia, so why even try? And how do you not compete? Well, don't look like them, for one. Creating a non-traditional infobox is one way. So whereas a lot of users were criticizing the new skin, I welcomed it.


 * 2) Make the site as easy to edit as possible. I've broken my back trying to do this, ensuring that every facet, every template is uncomplicated. You've heard of pick-up-and-play gaming? Well, that's what I want for Films Wiki: anyone should feel comfortable jumping right in. Getting away from using certain terms is key, too. I imagine someone who has never edited at Wikipedia or Wikia is ever going to as long as it sounds as dull as "Editing an article". So I try to use that word as little as possible, saying "page" instead. I don't want anyone to have any trepidation when they come to Films Wiki. After all, these are films, and films are universal.


 * 3) Engage the users. I first and foremost want Films Wiki to be a place where people can discuss the movies. What movies they last saw, forums, blogging—and lots of it—and there are several other ideas I've yet to implement (as they require a community, and not just one person). I've never used Facebook, MySpace or Twitter in my life, so I don't know the first thing about "social networking" (I know, it's sad isn't it—and I'm 20), but as these sites have shown us PEOPLE LIKE TO SHARE A COMMENT. (Even if it means doing it on their cell phones while driving.)

Films Wiki will still have content—it's just that it'll be presented in a loosely-structured, modern way. I don't want people to get the impression that we're an encyclopedia; that, even when they are "creating/editing an article", it's just another form of "commenting". So, I don't want the main article pages to be "structured", but instead to be presented in a "coffee table book" kind-of way, summarizing the film in a well-written (completely community-generated) review, with all other information on sub-pages. This sidebar I'm currently working on (right) will hopefully help with that.

When I see other wikis whose scope isn't as great as film thriving nonetheless, it's not so much frustrating as it is boggling: What are they doing that I'm not? (Well, probably using social-networking sites, for one.) Perhaps that's the problem: The scope of film is so big. Wikis dedicated to individual films are much more successful. Or perhaps it's me. I haven't even begun to enter the realm of "promoting" Films Wiki yet, because I want the site to be "ready" when users come—but I can't do it all alone. And if you haven't figured it out by now, I'm a perfectionist, and that's not necessarily a good thing either. (English was always my best subject in school. Not my favorite—that was science.)

But at the moment, I've just decided to keep myself interested, adding those things to the site that would interest me. It would appear I have all the formulas to making a successful wiki.

Everything except people.