User blog:Sci100/2015 - A Year of Community

2015 - Year of Scidra
''Attention: Sci100 is now ruler of Ben 10 Fan Fiction and your dictator. You will do as he says or be blocked. Hail Scidra. ''

Loljk. I wanted to start the blog off with some Hail Scidra stuff.

What is 2015?
12 Months ago in the year of 2013, our wiki was suffering. Our wiki had gone through war after war, troll after troll. Nothing was being done. Too many blocks were being given out. So I thought about what I wanted for our wiki, and a year ago, I proposed some changes. Needless to say, it was a success. Around November, I began questioning what I wanted for 2015. Let’s think back to the two resolutions I came up with for the wiki:

By the end of 2014 - we will have a significant decrease in the number of users blocked for various reasons.

And for our second new years Resolution: By the end of 2014, we will treat others with more respect, we will be responsible with what we have said, we will be trustworthy and give a good effort to keep our word, we will be good users by following the rules and policies of the wiki (and the Terms of Use of Wikia), and we will be kind to our fellow users. We will assume good faith, do our very best to not feed the trolls, and we will help new users with their mistakes, not mock or criticize them.

The first resolution was successful. The second resolution was semi-successful, but not as good as it could have been. We need to do better in the coming year. Much. Better.

Anyway, I thought about this, especially as I was having a hard time being on here. Then on November 22, 2014, a user came up with an unofficial continuation for 2014 – A Year of Change. The Year of Innovation. I read his blog. I didn’t comment, but I read it and I took it really into consideration. He made me think of what we could do better and what we could focus on. What would 2015 be? So on December 1st, I released the final 2014 blog. I asked what kind of year do you want 2015 to be, and what should we call it? I got many proposals. The Year of Innovation. The Year of Opportunity. The Year of Progress. The Year of Creativity. I thought about all these things, and on December 27th, 2014, I looked at what these words mean.


 * Innovation - Innovation is a new idea, device or process.
 * Opportunity - a set of circumstances that makes it possible to do something.
 * Progress - the process of improving or developing something over a period of time
 * Creativity - the ability to make new things or think of new ideas

When I took all the ideas for 2015, I came down to this statement: “The process of improving or developing the ability to create new ideas, devices, or processes through a set of circumstances.” So then I thought, what could take this whole idea and put it in one word. And as Midnight came, I realized the answer.

And so as 2014 – A Year of Change ends, a new year begins. A Year of Innovation, a Year of Opportunity, a Year of Progress, a Year of Creativity, and all these things combined for 2015 truly is…

''' A Year of Community. '''

You may ask, why Community of all the words? Well when it comes down to it, our wiki is a community of fans dedicated to writing unique stories based on, inspired on, or influenced by Ben 10. We are a community, and as such our direction should be towards the community, not against it. Like I said, the statement that I came up with was: “The process of improving or developing the ability to create new ideas, devices, or processes through a set of circumstances.” Then I thought about the thread that I had made about 2014 and 2015. You, as a community voted two things as the number two and number one most important things to improve on in 2015. The runner up was an improvement in how the community and admins communicate. The #1 voted on is wiki events. Both of these things are connected to the Community, and so it makes sense that this year should focus on the community.

It seems like there’s a problem with how administrators act and talk to chat moderators and non-rights users. We should fix that. There also seems to be an issue with wiki events. Alien Fest hasn't happened lately. There’s growing issues with Fanon Con. Wiki Events seem to be weakening. The community struggles to manage the time to read, write, socialize, and clean up the wiki. Even I am guilty of this. We should fix this.

So now that we have an idea of what this year can be about, let's address some things that need to be dealt with.

Blocks
First, let's take a look at blocks. In 2013, we blocked  153  users. And many users did more then one of the above things. In fact, they usually did 2 or 3.
 * 67 of those users were sock puppets.
 * 23 users were blocked for Profanity.
 * 14 users were blocked for spamming.
 * 9 users blocked for Intimidating behavior/harassment
 * 8 users were blocked for Vandalism.
 * Another 8 users were blocked for Trolling.
 * 7 users blocked for being underage.
 * 5 people were blocked for inappropriate messages/pictures.
 * 4 people were blocked for stealing pictures
 * Another 4 users were blocked for removing content.
 * 3 users were blocked because they moved to a new account. (this is the only non-bad reason to be blocked).

Now, let's take a look at 2014. In 2014, we blocked 70 accounts, which when cut down via multiple socks goes to 56. Now like the one above, I'm listening either the only or primary reason for blocking. Many users were blocked for multiple reasons (ex: a user who trolled also socked, but is listed under trolling, etc.) Now we only blocked 45.7% of the amount of users that we blocked last year. That's a 54.3% decrease in blocks. You might think that's good. And it is okay, we've made a lot of progress. Its a big change from 2013. In fact, pat yourselves on the back because that's amazing. We blocked less then half of the amount that we did last year. Its really really good guys.
 * 16 blocks were for sock puppet accounts.
 * 9 blocks were for being underage and violation of COPPA
 * 6 blocks were given for profanity
 * 6 blocks were given for moving to a new account (the only okay reason for a block)
 * 6 blocks were given for vandalism/removing content or categories/inserting your own information
 * 5 blocks were given for spamming
 * 5 blocks were given for harassment and threatening
 * 3 blocks were given but did not have a reason given for the block (which isn't good)
 * 2 blocks were given for general disruptions
 * 2 blocks were given for using images without permission or violating the image policy
 * 1 block was given for disobeying a warning from an administrator as its listed reason
 * 1 block was given for wanting to be blocked (which is stupid because why would you ask for that?)
 * 1 block was for speaking in a foreign language
 * 1 block was for edit abuse
 * 1 block was for not needing an account anymore
 * 1 block was for asking for personal info
 * 1 block was blocked for "administrator decision" as the reason (not a good answer)
 * 1 block was for editing pages without permission

But its not good enough. 70 users is not okay with me. That's still 70 problems. 70 issues. We should be pushing hard to get it to 32 in 2015. Then 14 and so forth. We should keep going down, because while I think its amazing that we were able to get to 70, 70 is still a lot of blocks. We should strive to be the best fanfiction wiki on Wikia, and if we want that, 70 is not enough.

As a community, we should strive to make it to 32. We should help each other not cause fights and issues and blocks. So I have a news years resolution for you guys.

'''By the end of 2015, we will have decreased our total number of blocks from 70 to 35 or less. '''

If we can do 70 users, we can do 35.

Committees, Features, and PCP
Over the last year, the need for a committee to handle all community events has become clear. While we had a Fanon Con Committee, there was no body handling the Anniversary, Omniverse Awards, and Alien Fest. The Anniversary was a mess this year. Alien Fest has had trouble. One of Jack’s proposals in his blog was a Community Committee, and I agree. So, I ask this of you all. Should we have a Committee to handle all wiki events, including: Fanon Con, Alien Fest, Wiki Anniversaries, the Omniverse Awards, International Week, as well as holidays and seasonal themes: Ester Sunday, April Fool’s Day, Halloween, Winter Theme, etc.?

Note: If passed, the Fanon Con Committee would be absorbed into the Community Committee, and all members of the FCC may not be in the Community Committee.

Featured Object as a voted on discussion earlier in the year of 2014. As it had already been voted on, Featured Object will begin January 2015. The Minimum Word Count on the Blogs will also be enforced as of 2015.

However, I do have a question about the Features. Should we have a separate feature for Omnitrixes? Meaning should we have both Featured Object (for non-trixes) and Featured Omnitrixes?

The Page Creation Portal hasn’t gotten anything new. One of Jack’s several proposals was adding on to the Page Creation Portal. What kind of things would you like to be added to the Page Creation Portal? A thing for Alternate versions of a character? A thing for a miniseries? For a Cinematic Universe? What kind of pages do you want? Do you even need pages or do you not use the Page Creation Portal at all? Let us know so we can do something about the Page Creation Portal!

Clean-Up and Organization
Now for cleanup. As of now, we have 159 pages for Candidate for deletion, 1000+ for Wanted Pages, 873 for pages requiring further categorization, 3 pages with no categories, and 1853 article stub pages. In other words, we have a lot to do. Now yes, some people have asked about the stubs, and to that I say this: I can't approve anything regarding stubs until we figure out how exactly we're doing to handle it. All the idea is is: "My Suggestion is to either make them bigger and expand them with more info, or delete some of them. I belive we should updated most of them, but there are those who need to be deleted". How do we know which to delete and which to not? How would we make them bigger? Isn't that just gonna take too long? And if we have to delete them, that's going to add to the canddiates for deletion, which makes it harder for administrators. And if we delete them, they might become wanted pages, so how do we handle that? <--- this is what I mean. I'm interested to hear how article stubs are going to be handled, but I need to know more then "we're gonna add stuff or delete stuff".

If you guys have any suggestions about how to handle cleanups, please tell me below.

Wiki Groups is a thing that never got off the ground in 2014, and I’d like to change that. Now all I want to do with it is just see how many people want to help out with being Multiverse Trackers (whose duties is to make sure Project:BTFF Multiverse, Earth (disambiguation), and Template:Universe are all up to date) and Janitors (whose duty to help clean-up of the wiki). If you’re interested, comment below. We’ll talk more about this later.

By the way, should Multiverse trackers also apply not just for the BTFF Multiverse but other user's multiverses as well? I'm just curious what you guys think.

User-Admin Relations and Forums
Now I know so far this blog has more 2014 – A Year of Change then 2015 – A Year of Community, but that’s okay. We can still have change in 2015. Plus, this is the first blog. But I do want to turn to you, the community. One of the biggest issues is how administrators and users communicate apparently. Well, I thought about it and there are two possible ways to help this. The first is the earlier proposed “User-Admin Relations Counselor”. A user would serve as a delegate working with both the users and the admins, and this is how.

The user will be an elected official, with elections happening every December of the previous year and every June of that year. In this case, the election would be in January but only for this case. Every month, a thread would be opened in the forums that would be strictly for non-administrators. It would be highlighted, and the Counselor would say “Now is the time to speak up. Tell me what you want changed. Tell me what’s wrong with the current way the wiki is. Tell me what you want updated. Tell me what you want added or removed. Tell me what you think so we as a community can have our voices heard”. For one week, the thread would be open. Afterwards, the thread would be closed and the counselor would then work with administrators to see if, how, and when the changes and demands of the people could happen. The counselor would also work with administrators if the users had a problem with them, or if the administrators had a problem with the users. Other rights would also fall on the counselor if needed, such as the possibility of allowing them to be the only non-administrator to speak on the administrator thread, etc. They do not have to be a chat moderator to be the counselor, but they can be. So, do you want this? Do you want a User-admin relations counselor? Vote below.

This leads me to my next topic: the forums. I want to change it a bit. We currently have 15 boards in the forums, I’d like to change to 13. Here is my proposal for the new forums:


 * 1) General Wiki Discussion
 * 2) Discuss this wiki, or wikis in general.
 * 3) 2015 - A Year of Community
 * 4) Discuss any changes coming to BTFF that are a part of 2015 – A Year of Community or 2014 - A Year of Change.
 * 5) Wiki Events
 * 6) Discuss and Post Threads about Wiki Events such as Fanon Con, Alien Fest, Awards, and more. The Community Committee will post event threads here.
 * 7) Series Discussion
 * 8) Discuss people's series in this board. It can also be used as a place to post updates. Miniseries, Crossovers, and Collaborations also can be placed here.
 * 9) Movie Discussion
 * 10) Discuss people’s movies in this board. It can also be used as a place to post updates. If your crossover is also a movie, it would go here, not the series discussion.
 * 11) Fan Fiction Discussion
 * 12) Here, discuss general fan fiction that doesn't fit in the series or movie board, such as aliens/stand-alone episodes.
 * 13) Fan Fiction Ideas
 * 14) Have a new idea, but not sure whether or not it's good enough? Post it here for feedback from other members of the site.
 * 15) Role Playing
 * 16) Take the role of a character and create a live story with friends!
 * 17) We the People (Site Suggestions)
 * 18) Want your voice to be heard by the community and the administration? Got an idea for something we should do with the site? Go ahead and suggest it. Note that this is NOT for suggesting episode ideas. This thread is managed by the User-Admin Relations Counselor.
 * 19) Help Desk and Services
 * 20) Get help about the site here, such as how to start a series, or how to rename a page. Want to start any kind of service, like one for art? Post it here!
 * 21) Off Topic
 * 22) Discuss anything here!
 * 23) Administrator Discussion
 * 24) Administrators can discuss wiki changes and design on this board. If you are not an
 * 25) Trash Can
 * 26) Locked threads without sensitive information will be locked and moved here as an example of what not to do.

Now some of the changes I’d done is firstly, I’ve changed 2014 – A Year of Change’s board to 2015 – A Year of Community. What I’ve done is basically said that the 2015 threads will also go into that board, and that every year the board will be renamed accordingly. All 2014 posts will be locked before 2015 posts begin. Second, I’ve combined the Crossovers and Collaborations board with the Series board, because I think that crossovers and collaborations shouldn’t have their own board, as it’s not used as often. Third, I added the Movie Discussion for movies. I do think however movies deserve their own board. My fourth change is the Sites Suggestion board. It has been renamed “We The People (Site Suggestions)”. The “We the People” part comes from the petition website run by the White House of the U.S. In “We the People”, you can petition, protest, request, suggest, do whatever. This is the board that the User-Admin Relations Counselor will be working on mostly. My final change is that I’ve combined Help Desk and Services, because if you’re doing a service for a person, then you’re helping them, right? Plus both aren’t as big so I decided some room.

Do you agree with these changes?

A Few Other Things
While still on the topic of threads, I have a question. We continue to want a newsletter but we can never get it off the ground. So I have a question. Do we really need one? Between the User-admins counselor threads, the administration threads, and blogs, we’ve pretty much covered what a newsletter would do. So I ask you this…. Do you still want one? Do we need one?

Now I know that there's been some heated Ben 10 discussions on chat. There's a particular blog that I think we should all read. Its about us being fans, and how we should react when a person doesn't agree with our opinion. Here's the link.

Wiki Events and a Meeting
Another thing that you guys said needed improvement was Wiki Events. Unfortunately here’s the thing: We don’t know what needs to be improved, so you guys have to tell us. You have to tell me what’s wrong with Alien Fest and Fanon Con and all the other events. Tell us what kind of things you want at these events, what things you don’t want. What’s working and what’s not. Anyway, at Noon EDT there will be a wiki meeting on chat that everyone is invited to attend. On this last day of 2014, I’d like to reflect on what we did good and bad, and what we can improve on in the future. You, the community, can use this opportunity to tell us what’s wrong, how we can fix it, what we should do, to discuss rights, policies, wiki events, how to handle issues, etc. If we as administrators suck, I expect you guys to tell us. If the chat moderators don’t do their jobs right, I expect you to tell us. We can’t figure everything, we need you to tell us. The meeting will last for one hour. Now I've also considered the fact that maybe not everyone will be able to be there. So, I'll also be making a discussion thread immediately following the meeting. While we don't be deciding anything in the meeting, on the thread, we may be deciding some things.

Conclusion
I don’t have everything figured out, especially concerning how this year will be with the community, but I know we’ll figure it out. Look, this year is supposed to be about building our community, improving our community, providing our community. Wikia was created in a country that was built on the ideals that state “of the people, by the people, for the people”, and it is this same belief that we must build our wiki upon. We must not only improve our writing, but our standards, our friendship, our union, and as Abraham Lincoln said, we must unite together so that this wiki and this family of users shall not perish on this Earth.