Forum:Retiring the battles

Right. Well, we've reached that point again. Now The Sims Wiki:Battles simply isn't getting enough activity to be worth keeping around now.

We used to be getting way more than ten people voting on each round. That number has steadily declined. The past few battles we got about four people, eight at most. Then it dropped to three. Now it's only two.

I'm starting this thread early because it takes forever for things in this forum to come to fruition, so if consensus exists to close the battles about a month from now, then that'll be done. — k6ka  🍁 ( Talk ·  Contributions ) 13:40, November 19, 2016 (UTC)

EDIT: I've compiled a table and a graph of participation in the Battles over the years; you can view it here.

What's concerning is that the Battles have been on a downward trend for quite some time now, so it was only a matter of time before we had to give it up. We already killed off our Fanon Battles due to its absurdly low popularity and even scantier nominations that made it virtually impossible to run. Who knows what's next to put to rest? — k6ka  🍁 ( Talk ·  Contributions ) 19:24, November 19, 2016 (UTC)

Discussion
Support retirement of Battles. I think the problem we run into with battles has to do with our audience.

The vast majority of wiki visitors are readers, who don't edit at all. These readers may not even have access to decent editing tools; the mobile site editor is garbage, and the TSW app doesn't allow you to edit at all. The number of people reading the wiki from a traditional desktop/laptop computer setup is declining, and from that population, very few of them will ever bother to edit.

A very very slim margin of visitors are people who will actually edit the wiki. They're the only ones who will even bother to participate in Battles in the first place. So, any decline in editor activity (as we've seen) will also probably be accompanied by a decline in Battles participation. We could try to wait it out, and wait for more visitors to begin editing the wiki, but even if that does occur (and that is by no means guaranteed, especially as The Sims 4 continues to be received lukewarmly by many Sims fans) there is still a fundamental problem with Battles that we've never solved.

Battles are designed to be reader-oriented, but only editors can participate in them. That's not to say we restrict anyone from participating, but because of the nature of Battles themselves, only people who know at least a little bit about editing can actually vote in the battle, let alone nominate new battles. The intended audience for Battles doesn't match the real audience. Unlike something like Featured Article, which I feel still has a role to play in presenting good articles to the readers (though again, only editors would participate in selecting which articles are featured), I think Battles have outlived their purpose and are from a time when making the crossing from reader to editor was much more straightforward. I support their retirement. --  LiR talk · blog  ·  contribs 15:32, November 19, 2016 (UTC)