Community Central:Guide to building a community

Communities are the lifeblood of Wikia. In the simplest terms, a community is the sum total of all of the editors on a given wiki, as well as Wikia as a whole. What are communities on Wikia, and what do they do?

Communities work together
Merriam Webster's dictionary defines communities as "a unified body of individuals" who have "common interests" and work together within a larger group. They often work towards a unified goal. On Wikia, that goal is building a wiki about their shared interests, whether it’s about movies, like on Star Wars; video games, like on Elder Scrolls; or genealogy, like on Familypedia. Communities work together to build the information, to solve problems that arise, and to create a positive atmosphere for everyone to share their passion on the wiki.

Communities make decisions
Communities should be thought of as the ones ultimately in charge of a wiki. Admins are there to guide and support the community, but are not meant to be rulers. This idea is an ideal scenario. It’s one that may not be the most practical if you have a very small group of users, but this is the goal you should shoot for. This means that admins don’t make the rules on their own and don’t make unilateral decisions, but rather they use their tools to carry out the will of the community.

Let’s take Star Wars Fanon as an example. One of the central policies there is the Manual of Style, which overviews how articles are formatted and put together. This was not a policy created by the admins alone, but one that had input from the community and was voted on by the community before it ever became policy. When a Star Wars Fanon admin enforces that policy, they’re not enforcing their own arbitrary ideas about what you should do. They’re saying “this is what the community would like you to do.” That’s very important, because it brings a form of democracy to the wiki.

Just like in a democracy, when a wiki community votes on decisions rather than decisions being made by an admin, it sets up an important relationship between admins and the community that says the community is the most important decision-maker on the wiki. Admins have lots of extra editing tools that non-admins don’t have, but it puts admins into the position of not being the most important part of a wiki.

Building a community
Building a community isn’t easy, but it’s incredibly rewarding when it pays off. We’ve talked about how communities work together and make decisions together, but there’s still more to it than that. To work towards the goals of the wiki, you always need to be willing to compromise. Whether it’s a wiki full of fans of a TV show or video game, or those with the same hobby or personal interests, there will be people with very strong and very different opinions. That’s great and it’s perfectly normal. Different ideas and perspectives can often come together to make an even better idea, taking more than one opinion into account. Where that breaks down is if you’re not prepared to compromise. At that point, it’s just people yelling at each other.

That leads to another important point, and something you want to avoid when building a wiki: drama. Drama can be all kinds of social issues like personal disputes, name calling, arguments, or anything else involving conflict between users. This can happen and sometimes it’s unavoidable, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to avoid it. The best way to steer clear of drama is to focus on building the content and reaching the goals of the wiki. Who said what, who thinks what, who ships which characters, who likes what movie more than another, and any other kinds of debates that can cause conflict should be avoided if the people involved are not respectful of others’ opinions. You certainly don’t need to say that those conversations can never take place, but making sure your main focus is on building content by writing pages about the subject is the best way to avoid major drama issues.

Ultimately, the big philosophical driver behind a community on Wikia is to be friendly and respectful of others, and especially to assume good faith. What does that mean? To put it simply, assume everyone on a wiki is working together towards the common good until proven otherwise. The vast majority of people are here to help, not to cause problems. People will make mistakes, especially when they’re new, so don’t treat potentially great and helpful users like they’re troublemakers.

That is what leads to the last point: be open and welcoming to new contributors. People come and go, and the most dedicated contributors can only do so much. Without new users coming in, a wiki can’t survive. Always remember to give them the time they need to learn how wikis work, and to always be welcoming, helpful, and respectful of them.

If you can keep all of this in mind, you will be able to build a great community that can work together towards its common goal. If you ever need any help or advice, be sure to check out our help pages, staff blogs, and community forum, or contact Wikia.