To me, it's more than that. The entirety of the website needs to be one single entity. I understand why you specifically would focus more on Wiki/Forum connectivity, but it should be more than even that. That's just part of it. When people visit anything that has to do with X brand, it should feel familiar and safe. If people visit our Facebook page, conversing there shouldn't necessarily feel like a totally different community than conversing in the forums. Because all areas of the site should be held to the same ideals. While there are obviously going to be differences inherent to the delivery method of conversation (and differences in user engagement). I think we're mostly in agreement here. Everything is a part of the whole. Facebook isn't who we are. Etc. Everything is centralized at the site where we have more control over the community we wish to have.
Well I didn't really meant to only focus on the wiki/forum interface. I do agree that the whole thing should be considered one.
To be fair, the very early days of ZW (long before there was head butting), pretty much the entirety of the ZW community back then originated from said bureaucrats. Like the entire foundation of the wiki was built off of their user bases and their support. Once that culture began changing as ZW was starting to see more organic growth, that's when headbutting occurred and the crats didn't want to see the change happen, even though it ultimately needed too. As for the base of operations - I agree in a sense forums can help foster a healthy wiki, but I have first hand experience that it isn't the only way. It's the way you know. It's the way you're familiar with. But I have seen that growth and community building can come from many different avenues. That's part of my ideal with a united site. It's about bringing the whole community together - and when I say community it's not just the boards. I hate notions we should "ignore" the fact that most of the Zelda community doesn't, nor will ever, use a forum. Because in a sense, that air of superiority forum users feel over commenters is something that needs to go away. Those people who comment can care just as much as anyone in the forums about this site.
Actually I wasn't insisting that the only thing the wiki needs is the forum. I've actually had a lot of ideas to support the wiki. And I think it's a bad idea to only rely on just one of them. It's in our best interest to utilize every single possible support we can think of. My issue was that I don't think any of them will work without a forum there on the same site. Kind of like you can squeeze all the gadgets you want into a computer, but none of that is going to mean anything if doesn't have a power supply. Regardless of what you and I think represents the community, the greater whole, viewers are not going to understand that. When we're looking for viewers to join the wiki, they first need to have incentive. Seeing a place be devoid of all life is going to be a serious turn off. They will not understand it's just one facet of a larger community. That takes time.
See, the thing is, our code of conduct takes care of all of this organically. It governs our staff too. Like, this is how we want everything to be. People weed themselves out naturally. People are allowed to have opinions and speak their minds - even against us. But, there is a limit to how that can be approached for the betterment of the community on the whole. I don't know this community pretty much at all. I see my ideals lining up with some in this thread - but I have a hard time believing that those in this thread is all there is. I saw someone mention 40 active users or something. No idea on the truth of that, but I'd like to see more and more what this community is about. Because my ideals at ZI may be geat and our code of conduct sound, but it doesn't mean that those ideals are the reality here, and people here may not actually want those ideals. Much like some of ZI's old guard are ho-hum about the code of conduct, but for the most part are willing to work within it if the community can foster. They care more about having an active community than about trolling and all that other nonsense that use to go on.
Well in the big drama here last year you've heard about, I was arguing for the same sort of ideals and the staff at the time was deadset against them. Not that they actually said that. They claimed that "of course everyone was equal" while in reality in their actions they constantly disregarded our rule that everyone be treated equally and acted as if they were above everyone else.
This was not the first time. We've had staff before then that were like this. And every time any such person gets like this, they always get a loyal following of regular members who support their antics. A notable theme that always pops up is considering questioning the decisions of the staff to be the single greatest offense anyone can commit. Oh, they'll make excuses, try to find some other justification even if they have to provoke one, but it ultimately boiled down to feeling threatened by criticism they felt they ought to be immune to because of their position. Due to our history of getting people like this, it would be my single greatest concern no matter what happens to the forum that any staff is always held to the same standards as everyone else AND that people are allowed to question them. Most of the time when this questioning got out of hand, it was nearly always deliberately provoked by the staff member it was directed to or their followers in an attempt to invent a reason to ban the person questioning them. Typically by harassing them as much as possible to get their anger going, which they never got in trouble for because of their expectations of being above the rules themselves.
Sorry you view the comments that way. But I think this goes along with your overall mentality and misconceptions about comment sections versus forums in general. Did you know that most of the people commenting on my editorial there are regulars who are around daily/weekly conversing with fellow Zelda fans on ZI? They aren't just a random subset of users. As for "approvals, disapprovals, something is better, etc" - that's literally what a conversation is. This is also true in forums. I have read many Zelda threads on these boards as part of my internal search for inspiration on editorials and daily debates. I see a lot of that same stuff right here on the boards. Why is that? Because that's what a conversation entails. If everyone just nods there head in agreement, it typically becomes a rather stale conversation after the first page or two and it fades away.
Let's look at a more broad conversational discussion:
http://www.zeldainformer.com/exclus...-enough-to-convince-you-to-buy-twilight-princ
Now, there are clear differences there than a forum. Mostly that forums serve better purpose to a depth of conversation and continuation - basically this sort of topic at the site is really only going to have conversation going for a couple days before they move on to the next conversation. But the conversation is still just as important and it's pretty healthy there - even with an influx of "randoms". Those randoms are still viewers of our site. They aren't 2nd class citizens below a long standing commenter. However, the idea I had moving forward was the interconectivity - these discussions promoting continuation to the boards to keep the conversation going longer. Allowing different forms of the conversation to take place. To me, forums are for long form conversations, comment sections are more for quick discussion (think of it more like your chat box area versus people posting in threads). But all of the above is essential to a cohesive and long form community. I have a long standing history and experience that neither is inherently more important than the other for any aspect of the site. They are just different, but equal parts important to a healthy community.
They have their place yes. I just am not comfortable with the level of near religious reverence Mases has for them and how he always puts them ahead of everything else. How they're some masterwork of web design even though something like them has been around as long as the internet has existed and they're never going to replace anything. They can't. As you said, they have a role that they're suited for that they fit into, but they don't replace other forms of communication. They supplement and complement each other. Comments are good at what they're meant for.... but honestly they're just one cog in a much bigger engine. They're not THAT important. Important enough to have their place permanently, but not important enough to undermine other areas.
If they come back and do not conform to our code of conduct, there is no special treatment here. They are out the door. We've already had one returning member in particular trying to fight against the change and after the boards get out of beta, if his behavior continues he's out of here. That's the beauty of how things work now. It doesn't matter what they were like before, we have new standards and they either live within them or find themselves removing... themselves from the community.
As for Gamnesia - I had nothing to do with the sale of ZI. Let me make that clear. I had no say. I didn't get paid out of the ordeal. In fact, the sale itself brought to light something that was hard for me to accept - I never got down in writing that I co-owned Zelda Informer, so the sale literally happened without my input for the most part. I was made aware of respect for what I do by both sides, but I didn't get any real say in it. Gamnesia isn't upset at me or ZI. They are upset at Dennis, and yes there are many there that may not think to fondly of Mases. But that doesn't ultimately matter because Gamnesia is not Zelda Informer.
You mention trolling and yada yada. See, this sort of drama literally can't exist at ZI. Our code of conduct basically eliminates the possibility because it applies to EVERYONE. Is an admin acting against the policy? They will get the boot out of the community just like anyone else.I can't stress enough how much this code of conduct makes it a non issue. That doesn't mean people won't go behind closed doors to try and cause drama. People can be ****ty. But I don't forsee this being a problem. We literally eliminated our massive trolling issue int he past year. If a higher up at Gamnesia wants to come and start attacking us - it's literally a click or two away from not mattering at all. Everyone is expressly aware of this code of conduct, especially those at Gamnesia and on ZI's staff. It's a none starter concern.
I don't care about inter-site politics anymore. I want to move forward, not backwards. Lies, deceit, it doesn't matter today. What does matter is that we stand united moving forward.
Yeah, though the problem is very angry people are not going to particularly care about who had any say in what action. If you want an example, take my removing you from the ZW staff chat back in the day. Despite the fact that it was not my call and that I was instructed to do it by both colleagues and individuals who were technically my bosses, I took the full blame and it was used as rationale for my demotion. Rage tends to limit a person's ability to utilize reason. As a case in point, ZD has had people come here before with the express purpose of causing trouble, yet were able to just barely skirt the upper bounds of the rules to not get banned. Same thing could happen with others who resent this acquisition.
In a sense, a forum community, just like a comment community or a community on facebook, twitter, tumblr, etc... can't inherently be measured purely by raw numbers. Those numbers really only explain if things are growing, dying, or stagnant. They are vital, but only really one piece of information. He focuses on viewership to ZD because viewership is his livelihood. He makes his living from viewership. With or without the wiki, forums, news, etc - ZD get sso much traffic due to static content that really has absolutely nothing to do with community building that he doesn't need the other stuff. Now he does desire the wiki, but what I am getting at is that the forums aren't really part of his livlihood. That's fine. But he's not going to care as much because he was never a big forum person and forums have nothing to do with ZD's success. It's a very harsh reality, but it's nonetheless true.
Except he wants the wiki to be a success and continue to succeed. I'm absolutely certain that anything we can do to promote it, isn't going to be good enough without the forum remaining exactly where it is. The wiki would go on in any case. But it won't ever surpass Zelda Wiki. I don't want to just merely match them. I want to surpass them. I don't think that is possible if we forcibliy limit our horizons and insist on living in the past. We need to be more open to new ways of doing things. Involving the forum in the wiki is a new way of doing things that I think will be a huge boon for it. It works exceptionally well for the two wikis I mentioned,
Bulbapedia and
Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages. Bulbapedia makes a point to mention how it's community driven. That's the missing element we need to truly surpass Zelda Wiki and not merely keep pace with them. The forum is an indegral part to it. And in my view, it'll be the ideal gateway connecting the average person to the the larger community that we want to drive our efforts.
Activity levels are definitely down from what I can see, but I wouldn't quite say it's dead. I think, more or less, a better job can be done fostering wiki growth and support in general from all around the reach available to it (not just forums). I know how to do just that, but I am fairly hands off with wiki stuff since it's not under the ZI umbrella. But I am willing to help in so much as Mases would like me too.
Actually it might surprise you to learn that what you could bring to the table to help the wiki was what I thought was most valuable in the aquisition. There is of course the potential to have the social sites promote the wiki. Though by no means should we limit it to that and of course we're in no position to refuse to hear any suggestions. Anything that can be done to help would be invaluable.
Visual design is in the eye of the beholder. I focus more or less on inter-connectivity. Example:
http://www.zeldainformer.com/walkthrough/c/links-awakening
That's a walkthrough index page. Notice something? Forum link. Wiki page integration. News. Guides. It's all there (though, I wanted to work more on the forum integration). The point though is that this is the sort of direction I was taking ZI in before it was bought. A similar direction can still be seen moving forward. ZI's board design is just the default IPB design atm. There are many free and paid sklns themselves that are already leagues ahead of what we have. In an ideal world, I'd love to pay about $100 to $200 for someone to create two custom skins for the boards. One that allows people to set their layout more to ZD's current, the other fits more in line with the rest of Zelda Informer. my issue with ZD's current design beyond personal tastes is these boards feel isolated. Where are the game hubs and walkthrough pages? It's like they don't exist. That's bad form IMO (and a current issue wout the default IPB skin).
I mostly prefer skins that look nice, but also have a very strong focus on practicality and ease of navigation. If you get too fancy with how it looks, it'll start to be hard to navigate. What we've done for our wiki was heavily navigation focused. Honestly, I haven't been a fan of every ZI layout. But that was only because I thought some of them were just not visually appealing. In most of them, it was impossible to miss that, no matter how they looked visually, it was very simple to find where everything was and you didn't have to struggle to understand where to go like you always have to on Zelda Universe's layout.
Actually, there is something you can do. Enforce your code of conduct. The issue is, most places don't, or they don't even bother to have one. My long standing experience with the ZI comment community and your understanding of what many other sites do are on different spectrum. Other sites don't care about the commenters. I do. We rarely have conflict. Arguments are within reason (and arguments happen on forums a lot. Seen it over and over again at ZU and ZI). Arguments are not wholly negative. You just need to foster the best parts of them and discourage and eliminate the worst. We've done just that at ZI so far and we're not some small place. We're the 2nd largest Zelda site in the world, boasting one of the largest active followings in the world. I hope over time your adversity to commenters changes, because I think you may come to find out that you can also foster wiki growth from them too.
I am rather doubtful I'm going to stop being cynical about commenters, unfortunately. Too much troubles with in the past. And I really think that it's too many people for enforcing a code of conduct to be feasible. Sure you can expect it on the regular, familiar commenters. But not on every single one. Especially so if the overall hope is to keep on growing and attracting an even larger audience.
ZI has local accounts. When you register at ZI, it doesn't register you at DISQUS. Yet you can still make comments via disqus on our site with your username. So yes, disqus does support local accounts. IGN use to use them too and did the same thing. But it has to go deeper than disqus itself - you have to have full integration into the site. We have that. It's not perfect and could use some tweaks and fixes, but it's there. As for "facebook" - my issue with linking anything through social media channels is that while it should be a method, you are now entirely relying on registration and site connectivity through a third party. Why not also do it locally? Why rely on that? It can be part of, but shouldn't be the foundation of inter-connectivity.
Um.... every single time I have seen Facebook registration, it never has been there as the only option to sign up. Just as a possible alternative to a direct signup that was already there. Surely the facebook login plugins that are available to us won't supercede normal login.
We can have survived for years without a thriving forum. It's not "essential" yet. I hope it will be down the road. But, the merger I feel more or less has to do with Mases not needing to manage or worry about forums anymore. Look at some of the dissent here against him - I am sure it's stuff he'd just rather not have to deal with. He admitted he's poor with communication and you can't be that way while fostering a community. I think he knows that. Which is why this merger makes sense for him. Gets everyone that cares to a place where they feeling is mutual from the whole of the site. Takes it almost entirely off his plate once things are moved cleanly. Let's him go back to refocusing on what he wants ZD to be, while he lets ZI take care of the rest. He's fairly "hands off" at ZI. I mean he's around and he talks with people, but he lets us be who we are and lets us run (IE, me and other staff) the show. Now that a merger is off the table, he is more concerned that ZI pushes forward and that he provides whatever he needs to to help that, while he personally focuses most of his work at ZD. What's nice for him in this regard is that ZI has me. In that way, he is less essential to keeping ZI moving forward, but still someone that actively cares. He just needs reminders now and then that traffic is important, but reputation and community matter too and they don't have to be exclusive.
As I said, it has nothing to do with the use that has been made of it in the past, but what it ought to be used for in the future. I think it represents one of the critical pillars of a community, along with the others you have mentioned. Cut down one of them, and the whole structure becomes unstable. More so the more you try to build on those pillars. The future is going to have us build more. Diminishing the role of the forums now is going to limit our options for the future and I believe that is a critical error.
I can't talk much about ZD. However, if mases allows me I can greatly help the growth of your wiki with Zelda Informer. Not just increasing google rankings and driving traffic, but help foster a healthy community around it. I just hope you can come to grips over time that in that way, it's not just the forums. Forums are but one tool. It's like bringing a hammer and thinking you can build everything for x with it. You still need other parts.
As I said, I never, not once, implied it needed just one thing to kick start it. I want to explore every possible avenue of injecting some life into it. And for his part, Mases actually took the rest of the suggestions I made for helping the wiki, even though he refused to listen to the key part in how I didn't expect any of them to work as well as we're hoping them to without a forum. At best we'd just get more visitors. While in itself is always good, it doesn't help the core problem of the severe lack of contributors it has. But anyway, I don't even want to limit it to just those ones. Any ideas anyone has, they should be voiced. It needs it now.
Again, this just stems from your complete misunderstanding of not only ZI, but of anything beyond forums. Communities do not exist in forums alone for this stuff. ZI has a really great dedicated staff for walkthroughs, news, editorials, and a wiki. All of that built without a forum community to draw from. According to what you're saying, that's not possible. Yet it happened. ZI is literally where it is today without a forum community to draw off of. In fact, sometimes it's hard to draw from the forum community because while they care, they care more about the forums than necessarily any other part of the site. I am not saying forums can't help. They can. But they are a tool and comment sections are one too. Facebook pages are one. Twitter is one. Tumblr is one. I feel like part of the reason ZD's wiki is losing activity is because of a too narrowed focus outlook here. I have first hand knowledge that what your saying doesn't apply at least at ZI, because we specifically treat our fans respectfully and foster communities where people are. People are in our comments, so we foster it. People are on our facebook page, so we foster it. We don't act like they don't care just as much as someone on the boards. And because of that, we get our best volunteer help from those areas.
I think you're misunderstanding me. Just because I'm so concerned about the wiki and the forum at the moment doesn't mean that the rest of the site is irrelevant to me. On the contrary. Despite my primary interest being the wiki, I've always involved myself in other areas whenever I felt I could offer a usable opinion. I'm not sure how you got the impression that I had such a narrow focus, but rest assured, that's the furthest thing from the truth. I want everything involved with everything else working as one whole unit.
And yes, we've talked about common goals and interest both on our facebook page and directly on our front page through the comment section. It can and does work. It may not work at say, IGN, but we're not IGN. We're not Kotaku. We're Zelda Informer. I feel like there is going to be some back and forth on this point, but that's fine. I just hope you can open up a bit more if this merge goes down. Because you seem jaded against something and I don't blame you. ZI is a very unique place when it comes to the community aspect.
I had my reservations about ZI itself. But as you can see, I had a lot of different reasons for being against this. Even with some of them not proving to be a real concern, the others still remain as very serious concerns. Reasoning away one concern doesn't automatically invalidate the others. I still think the merger is an extremely bad idea regardless of how well the two sites can get along. I just don't think it's going to help us. I think it's going to put us in a weaker position that is going to limit our potential growth in the future.
As of last night (after my posts), I can confirm the merger is still on, but more slowly. It was going to be this week - now it sounds like he's going to slow burn it over the course of 3 to 6 weeks. Probably more likely after the release of TPHD. Just giving time for it to sink in, mostly on this end. Maybe allow me to work closer with the folks here and make this as smooth as we can instead of setting and forgetting.
I am certain we can get around our two community's initial preconceptions while they work to try to meld the communities into the end product of a greater whole. But that's no guarentee that it'll all go smoothly. And there are other concerns that don't have to do with perceived attitudes, or easily remedied ones like features or posts that could be lost, which are not going to simply go away with time.
Unless your website's foundation was forums (like Zelda Universe, or say.. NeoGAF that is nothing but a forum), all forum communities pale in comparison to the rest of the site. ZD's popularity is literally solely due to walkthrough rankings in google.It's starting to branch out a bit with the wiki, but the forums even at their peak probably didn't even register for traffic. Just saying. It's hard realizing that at times, but it's the truth. Forums can have good traffic, but they are just a cog of community building. As an example, I mentioned I have used the ZD boards to find inspiration for work I do at ZI. There is inherent value to me in a centralized long form communication area (IE, Forums). Not just for personal inspiration, but because it's just a form of conversation I thoroughly enjoy. I may not like making forums posts quite as big as this one, but we're dealing with something here that is unprecedented in the Zelda community, especially with two of the three giants in the Zelda community.
That's kind of my point though. Because the forums are never the main point, we shouldn't be treating them as if they are. Being so absurdly obsessed with the traffic they get is beyond ridiculous when that's not what they're there for. At no point where they ever intended to be the big thing that people look for in the sites. They are there to serve the rest of the site. To give it some long term community that can tether it to reality, which can be sorely needed. It may not be 100% necessary, but neither are many things in life that are a very good idea to keep around. It helps. It helps people unwind, it helps them keep socialized, it helps the community itself by establishing people's long term loyalty to the site. In this day and age, a lot of people socialize near exclusively online. Some people focus their socialization on just one site. And some of them here. That's going to be especially true for people who dedicate themselves to it and work for it. Destroying that venue for such petty reasons ought to be beneath us. Especially if we want to strive towards higher ideals.
Honestly, if ZI "merges into ZD's forums", I can all but guarantee ZI will simply not really even use the boards. I understand why you feel the way you feel though. I mean, that is the logical choice, is it not? But to my end at ZI, all I can say is that we care. So long as it stays here on the ZD banner, we probably won't inherently care as much because it's not part of the larger umbrella and will ultimately be segmented from everything else. If it's segmented, that's a fracture in our fan base and fractures lead to issues long haul. Keep in mind I'd rather not merge the boards at all. But, if a merge happens, I do feel ZD into ZI is best long haul, because you enter a place where you will be cared for versus what many are complaining about here from the top. It's a very harsh change out the gate, but long haul it will be beneficial. Where as, if things just stay here, it will be as if ZI doesn't exist to these community users here.
BUT, it is what it is. Ultimately I'm on the page with most of you. They should remain apart. But if they are to merge, I do see the ZI merger the best option long haul, where as merging ZI to here ends up not actually fixing any of the current issues here, outside of "peace of mind" - and peace of mind is important, but so is the long view. Is ZD really going to change and do anything to help foster this community? Because ZI won't be if it flies under the ZD banner - because we won't be able to uniform the community, hindering what we can do in the first place.
As I outlined above, I care about the forums. But a lot of that care is that it's under a banner that fosters trust and consistency in community driven works. If it continues to fly under ZD, ultimately I feel like I won't have the ability to do what I feel is right by the community here. Take my code of conduct, it wouldn't fly here in all likelihood and the branding would dissassociate it from the ZI team. Remember, I am the EiC of Zelda Informer, not Zelda Dungeon. If ZI's boards merge here, I probably won't be around much to help. Not trying to be mean about it. Just a reality.
I can't ever connect the fan base that way. But I DO understand why you all feel that way. You should feel that way. If you didn't, I'd be utterly surprised.
What I'm seeing here is still all the more reason to not merge the forums over to ZI. And I understand why you feel you can't be around if it's here. But someone has to, if not you then one of the current admins or someone else. Someone who has the authority to make their own decisions without having to check in with Mases, Let's be honest here, Everyone, himself included, knows Mases hates dealing with drama, and especially drama on the forums. He very much prefers to ignore it is happening and hopes it'll just go away on its own if he ignores it hard and long enough. And when someone on staff HAS to go to him about the forums, it's usually about drama because that's just the nature of the job and you can't avoid that reality. In any reasonable thinking, the best thing would to formally name someone as in charge of it, or simply give that authority to the admin position itself, who can make those decisions themselves, and who will not brush issues under the rug just because they don't like dealing with controversy. Mases has made it abundantly clear he absolutely does not care about the forums in the slightest. So why not make it someone else's responsibitly? Overall I'm more comfortable with the latter idea of giving that authority to the admin position in general, and always having more than one so there can both be a cooperative effort, and so that there's always someone available who can do it without requiring anyone to give up the possibility of actually possessing a personal life.
But in the event we do merge the forums the other way, over here, you can still help in a key way. If we keep the forums here, it's probably a good idea to switch to IPB, which would hugely benefit from your input since none of our staff has experience with it. It wouldn't be a permanent arrangement, so it won't hinder your main areas of focus for more than what it takes to simply explain things.
