Forum:Getting the Wiki Back up to Scratch

Since coming back a couple days ago and editing whoring anything to do with categories and images, I've noticed a couple things that are concerning me:
 * User activity seems to fluctuate a bit, from times where I observe a high level of activity to nothing new appearing on RC.
 * Chat activity is at a new low, however, I'm not entirely sure if this is due to my timezone.
 * Numerous new accounts have been made over the past week, but their involvement with the wiki has been limited to around 10-30 edits and nothing else.
 * Some users, such Soap Shadow, have left without explanation.
 * Involvement with AFD, UotM etc has nearly no involvement (as noted by Ninja in his blog).
 * Weekly New Blogs and similar are in complete disarray.

The main problem at the moment is the lack of user activity in side areas of the wiki (AFD, FA, Chat e.g.), and to a lesser extent, user retention. Overall, the wiki could be brought up to scratch if these issues were addressed; I don't want to see this place just fade away because of some simple stuff that can easily be fixed.

Here are some questions to start the discussion:
 * How could admins be more inviting/friendly for new users?
 * How could we highlight the wiki's side stuff more so then a single blog?
 * Is user retention a problem with us, or the franchise?

Capt. MillerTalk 11:52, August 6, 2016 (UTC)

Discussion
I don’t see how activity fluctuating is a bad thing, or a thing we need to try to improve. Not only is it summer, but most editors here come from North America and the UK, which means that there’ll be times where very few users are active for reasons that are outside of out control. We’ve also discussed shutting down Chat recently. Not to mention that users come and go at random, even experienced users, and a user actually telling us that they’re leaving is a very rare thing. Have we even had a weekly news blog recently? I thought those just died off.

On the topic of admins being more inviting/friendly, it doesn’t work. I feel like this was already discussed in a forum before a couple years back, and there’s only been one user that I can think of who’s joined this wiki because of the actions of an admin. Even, the user even admitted that he likely wasn’t going to stick around the wiki much.

User retention is an overall problem the Wikimedia foundation and even Wikipedia has, but if you add on the fact that CoD is a dying franchise and that most CoD players are no longer getting their news from websites like us and Charlieintel, but turning to YouTubers (at least one of whom has slandered us in a video) instead, you’ll get the situation we’re in now. In all honesty, I think there’s very little we can actually do. Conqueror of all Zombies (talk) 16:54, August 6, 2016 (UTC)

Conqueror is mostly right. The biggest reason behind the fall of activity is because media like YouTube and specialized websites like CharlieIntel are what appeal the most to people. Don't get me wrong, YouTubers are complete cancer for the most part and I 100% prefer utilizing the CoD Wiki over some obnoxious YouTuber for research and other stuff, but remember that most of CoD fans are either children or dudebros who are the perfect audience for people like TmartN, Noah, AliA, etc. CoD itself isn't the only one concercned: Wikias like GTA have decreasing activty because Youtube handles most of the available content.

It's not the only reason. CoD itself is becoming less popular among modern vidya audience. 75% of CoD stuff is backlash, because the modern-day gamer is apparently cool if they hate CoD, and because newer releases like Overwatch are taking over the FPS genre. This place was very active when CoD was at its peak between 4 and BO. Ghosts turned a good part of the audience away because of how mediocre it was. I haven't monitored the evolution of the sales from release to release, but it's probably been going down.

And then finally, as a consequence of the above, it wouldn't surprise me that people left because they lost interest, either in Wikia itself or in CoD. To be honest, besides reverting the occasional vandalism and posting blog comments, there's little for me to do. I mostly lost interest in CoD, stopped playing BO3, don't plan on buying IW, and the older games already have 99% of existing info so there's little to nothing to add.

People are losing interest, and those that still have some typically go towards YouTubers which is, tbh, more viewer-friendly than Wikia is - people typically prefer watching videos than reading text blocks. There's little for us to do here: I believe the sysops' behavior is mostly flawless when it comes to new users, and the wiki itself is not to blame. Losing interest is why FA, UotM, etc. are being left behind, and also a lot of active users/sysops stopped being active, or are hardly active at all. Just keep the wiki running in its current form, and eventually pray for an activity spike - this sounds like a joke, but there's really not much else to do, it's nearly impossible to draw attention away from YouTubers. 17:53, August 6, 2016 (UTC)
 * According to Game Rant, BOII sold much slower than MW3, and both Ghosts and AW made less money than the previous game did. It doesn't say how much that BOIII made, but it's probably safe to assume that it didn't make more than BOII or MW3. Conqueror of all Zombies (talk) 18:17, August 6, 2016 (UTC)

Ah, another forum that somehow thinks a wiki of a dying franchise will be able to grow. CoD is not doing well, so of course the contributions will lull. Also, I want to point out a few issues with your points. So in short. We can raise the issue as much as we want, but it's something we can't fix. Unless someone like Acti wants to get involved and help us, then we will die as the franchise dies. Most I'm waiting for now is a new game to be announced so I can make a new wiki on it and move to that wiki, as I was hoping to do with Human Element before it got axed. 18:32, August 6, 2016 (UTC)
 * 1) "User activity seems to fluctuate a bit, from times where I observe a high level of activity to nothing new appearing on RC." - As I said, this is due to the franchise being dull. We don't get many new contributions, and sometimes not many people edit. Throw in a hint of real life (work, school and the like) and you end up with days where not many edits are done. It's also made harder by the fact a lot of new content to CoD these days is done though Supply Drops, so we can't update as easily any more.
 * 2) "Chat activity is at a new low, however, I'm not entirely sure if this is due to my timezone." - Same reasoning as above, not many people are coming to the Wiki so all we have left is the regulars. Not much can be done about that. Sometimes I see new people join say "Hi" and then leave in under 30 secs because they haven't had a reply.
 * 3) "Numerous new accounts have been made over the past week, but their involvement with the wiki has been limited to around 10-30 edits and nothing else." - There's not huge incentive to stay really. But also this isn't new. Back at our peak we still had loads of new accounts doing nothing more than 1-2 edits than disappearing. It just seems more pronounced now because we have less users editing, so new names stand out more.
 * 4) "Some users, such Soap Shadow, have left without explanation." - Not new at all. We've had 100s of users leave without explanation. Heck, the Founder of the wiki didn't even stick around after they made it.
 * 5) "Involvement with AFD, UotM etc has nearly no involvement (as noted by Ninja in his blog)." Again, the wiki is lulling, so this has knock on effects in other areas. When a War Room forum is just 3 voices going round you can't get a consensus and it dies.
 * 6) "Weekly New Blogs and similar are in complete disarray." - This one I'm going to be blunt on. No one gives a shit. Not about the point, but about CoD news. At this stage all we really report is patches, DLC/games being announced and that's about it. Also, we're left so far out the circle most YouTubers snatch up news first. If we die, it will be Activisions fault because they're bias twats that only care about money and not their community (in fact remember Black Ops 3 "community" trailer that was just esports players and YouTubers?).
 * Yes, we can fix it (or at least several parts of it), by simply focusing on improving the wiki and stop throwing away the things that have been waning in activity. I don't mean to be rude, but several of the users who, on my blog, addressed the issues that I mentioned, ironically didn't recently make any effort in improving the areas (UOTM, AFDs, etc.), which would be done by simply giving your opinions and votes on them. The issues are just being dismissed, with a sticker on the topics that says "they're dead, don't bother re-establishing activity on them", and this is completely unacceptable. Activity has decreased, but not to the point of considering the wiki as dying, and just because several users have left doesn't mean we're gonna imitate them. We still have decent activity on the wiki, which means that the problems can be fixed indeed. 19:18, August 6, 2016 (UTC)
 * No it's an issue that cannot be fixed. If wiki activity was so easy to control then we wouldn't have these issues. Fixing UOTM, AFD, etc. and putting them back on the tracks won't do much. It's really simple, CoD is dying off and the remaining fans go to YouTube because it's a worldwide website. That's the issue, YouTube is insanely popular and catching their users' attention is very difficult. It's nothing akin to using a toolkit to fix a couple of screws. 19:26, August 6, 2016 (UTC)
 * AFDs, UOTM, etc rely on consensus. You can't form a consensus with so few voices. Take the trivia forum. It got no where because it was more or less just CoaZ and myself. There's no way to re-inject life in to that. This isn't just a simple fix of just "Go on the forums and do stuff". I'm replying now because I'm watching RC because I'm bored but can't be asked to load up a game. But come tomorrow after I've slept, if this forum isn't in the RC, I may forget about it. I spent all of today putting some pokemon though Super Training so I was able to focus on the Wiki and the game, hence how I saw this. Come tomorrow I may feel like going on Fallout 4, so I won't be looking at the Wiki. It's nothign that can be helped. We can be active as much as we like, heck I'm still here despite hardly touching CoD sans the odd screenshot, but a handful of active users does not make a community. We need quantity as well as quality. 19:43, August 6, 2016 (UTC)
 * Honestly, I think it's something where we can at least make an attempt, or quell it to some degree. From what I've observed, we have at least several new/returning users actively contributing (ToonToons22, NotLessOrEqual, Orbitball, Makaroz, Zombiehunter115 etc) that indicate we have the amount of users, just not the participation. I'm mainly raising the discussion again because of this recent trend, so maybe just dismissing it altogether might not be the best idea. Capt. MillerTalk 02:26, August 7, 2016 (UTC)
 * EDIT: "Not much can be done about that. Sometimes I see new people join say "Hi" and then leave in under 30 secs because they haven't had a reply." Also, one other point, I know it isn't your responsibility, but if a user says "Hi" while you're on chat, and you don't respond, why do you think they left? Maybe interacting with people who randomly join might increase the activity. Capt. MillerTalk 03:10, August 7, 2016 (UTC)
 * This kind of forum was opened before, and it will be closed the same way as the others, with no real solution or change. Honestly it's really simple: contributors have their activity dying because they're losing interest and/or getting IRL responsibilities, and potential contributors are going towards YouTube. If something could've been done then I assume we would have probably raised the issue and took care of it by now. As of now there's really little for us to do anymore to attract new contributors, this wiki is already pretty well customized to be user-friendly with messages, suggestions etc. You have to realise, the biggest issues here are CoD dying off and YouTube and it's really impossible for us to do anything against that. 08:35, August 7, 2016 (UTC)
 * "Also, one other point, I know it isn't your responsibility, but if a user says "Hi" while you're on chat, and you don't respond, why do you think they left? Maybe interacting with people who randomly join might increase the activity." - I'm sorry, let me just drop whatever else I'm doing to ensure someone stays in chat for 5 minutes. I don't get a chance to reply quickly every time, but many of the users in question are also impatient. I mean early in the day the only people in chat are myself, Holo and sometimes Cod4. Since one of those users is a bot, and Cod4 just has chats open be default, the only one that could remotely be active is myself. But with only 3 users in chat, how can anyone expect an instant reply? There has to be leverage from both sides. Maybe we need to respond quicker, but people need to understand if there's only a few people in a chat, then they may not get an instant response. Sometimes I'm in chat but on a fullscreen game. I can be pinged if a troll joins, but aside from that at times I can't watch chat 24/7.  10:42, August 7, 2016 (UTC)
 * Common courtesy can do wonders for people, and simply engaging with random users wondering in might make them a regular. Sure, you might be playing games or something, but people appreciate a welcoming attitude. Again, I'm not asking you to actually do this, so just consider this as a suggestion. Capt. MillerTalk 11:41, August 7, 2016 (UTC)

I don't think this forum is necessary, as the community itself already has enough contributors to sustain it. What's the point if the situation isn't that bad? Alpha25 (talk) 15:37, August 7, 2016 (UTC)