Forum:Retiring the fanon battles

Well, it pains me to say this, but I have some serious thoughts about shutting down or retiring the fanon battles. Maybe temporarily. Maybe forever.

The reason being is that our fanon battles just aren't garnering enough attention or even popularity for it to be worth trying to run any more. Hardly anybody participates in these battles and even fewer are nominating new candidates to partake in the battles, with many of the recent candidates being selected at the last minute just for something to appear, only to receive at most four votes.

Battle 39 (current battle at the time of this writing) is a misery, just looking at the page. I couldn't find a decent image for both of them so I had to use plumbobs as placeholders. I can't imagine more than 5 people voting in this battle, and that number will probably go down as time progresses.

This doesn't appear to have anything to do with the idea for battles themselves. Our canon battles are doing well. It may have something to do with fewer and fewer people being interested in fanons, let alone contests between fanons. It may also be that we just aren't seeing the quality that is needed to run these fanons. Even with the Fanon Peer Review Team, it's up to the fanon authors themselves to improve their fanon or ask someone to help with it, and I see little of that. Featured fanons and fan fictions were discontinued for this reason, because there just isn't the quality that makes it worth running such systems.

Closing fanon battles does not mean "being closed for eternity." If there is the demand for it, then I'm sure another discussion thread can be opened for consensus for that to happen. But that's the thing: demand. There just isn't any for the fanon battles.

Thoughts? --I am  k6ka  Talk to me!   See what I have done  21:03, July 11, 2015 (UTC)

Discussion
Although it saddens me to say it, I think you might be right as well. I know that in my case, I haven't really participated in the battles, but I haven't really participated in the canon battles either. For the fanon battles, I find that I don't usually participate because I don't really feel that I know enough about many of the fanons other than my own. For the canon battles it is because I don't play any games other than Sims 2, and I don't really play premade Sims either.

This is only me, so it probably doesn't mean others feel the same. Regardless what people's reasoning for not participating in the Fanon Battles, it is obvious that there isn't a whole lot of participation.

I think that awareness is key for the battles to work, but it also makes it so that it builds awareness as well. I just doesn't seem to build awareness from little or none. It could be that part of it is because many fanons are just "hit and runs" with short lived stories. That is why I was supportive about the idea of improving quality with the Fanon Peer Review Team. Sadly, I haven't seen much action with that either. You mentioned that it was up to the author to put their fanon up for review. Maybe I should put mine up for it to maybe get others motivated to do it.

Anyways, I digress from the original purpose of this discussion. Needless to say, I support retiring the fanon battles, but I sure hope that it isn't forever. -- Icemandeaf (talk) 23:16, July 11, 2015 (UTC)


 * I enjoy participating in fanon battles, however I don't really enjoy it as much as participating in the canon battles, hence the lack of participators. I too am absolutely sure that this won't be the end, but while it is obvious that I can't oppose retiring the fanon battles, I currently give retiring the fanon battles weak support (leaning towards neutral).


 * I haven't really got much else to say because the users above me have said pretty much everything else for me. ―  C.Syde  ( talk &#124;  contribs ) 23:32, July 11, 2015 (UTC)


 * Bump Two users is not the full community's opinion on this. --I am  k6ka  Talk to me!   See what I have done  01:24, July 18, 2015 (UTC)


 * I agree with what everyone said above me. They wrote it really well. I don't participate either because I do not know enough about the Fanon or Canon Battles. When I vote, I want it to be informed. I support retiring the fanon battles. Maybe we can bring them back in the future. S*pphir3 St*rdust (talk) 19:23, July 18, 2015 (UTC)


 * I weakly support (leaning onto neutral) for the temporary retirement of the fanon battles, for all reasons stated above. I think we should restart the battles (and maybe the featured fanons too) at some point in the future. — The  Tim   Man  (IH • GC • TSW • AH • Contribs )


 * At this time, the Fanon Battles don't seem to be worth the effort. I support retiring them for now, until there is a clear demand for them in future. Aldo  Hyde  06:46, July 19, 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't think I've seen the fanon battles active for quite some time. I don't exactly know how we could fix this but for now I think we should retire them, at least for the time being, and see if we can think of a way to fix them.
 * Personally, I'd say that even the canon battles are lacking a bit, at least with votes. We don't seem to have as many people voting as we did, back in the day. But unlike the fanon battles, the canon battles still have at least enough people to warrant the effort with keeping them.
 * However the idea of bringing back featured fanons sorta does bring something of interest to me. ―  C.Syde  ( talk &#124;  contribs ) 04:37, July 20, 2015 (UTC)
 * I think that Fanon Battles is an uphill climb in even the best circumstances. Fact is, there's so much fanon on the wiki and most readers probably aren't that familiar with all the different bits of fanon out there, so they're less able to participate in a battle about it. Additionally, you can't forget that canon Battles are featured on the main page, whereas the fanon Battles are not; no doubt this has at least some impact on the success of the latter. At the end of the day, I support eliminating fanon battles, though hopefully we can determine some good replacement for them. -  LostInRiverview talk • blog  •  contribs 03:13, July 23, 2015 (UTC)


 * Support. There just isn't enough activity in fanon battles and I don't think we're going to get a sudden influx any time soon. We'll just have to wait until the heat returns. MILK FOR THE UNYUUFEX, FLAT CHEST FOR THE CUTENESS THRONE, SKULLS FOR THE SKULL PROBES  (user talk:Mathetesalexandrou) 21:07, July 23, 2015 (UTC)


 * Support - I'd like to point out the irony of this forum--concerning fanon battles-garnering more attention than an actual fanon battle has ever had. Ѧüя◎ґ (talk) 00:29, July 24, 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment - Currently we don't have any new fanon battle nominations, so I was just wondering if users were still able to nominate new fanon battles, while this discussion is still going. I don't have any particular reasons for making any new fanon battle nominations myself, but if I did, would that mean that they could be selected, or are the fanon battles on hiatus while we decide whether to retire them or not? ―  C.Syde  ( talk &#124;  contribs ) 05:01, July 26, 2015 (UTC)
 * On hiatus largely because of what I said about nobody voting. It would be wasted effort for me to continue the absurd "Select, create, nothing happens, repeat" cycle. Heck, this thread's doing miles better than the fanon battles. --I am  k6ka  Talk to me!   See what I have done  14:28, July 26, 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment - I'd vote but I think it's best that I don't because, until a couple minutes ago, I wasn't aware that fanon battles even existed. It seems like it was one of those things that may pass unnoticed by most of the community (I found out about this discussion and, afterwards, about the battles themselves while reading the Wiki's news). They aren't mentioned in the main page and I only found them on the Fanon Portal (I can see why that is, but, again, it hurt these battles). So, due to this and after reading what others have said, I'll be abstaining from this vote. 22:55, July 26, 2015 (UTC)
 * Not going into my personal opinions on the fanon battles as a whole, but I support the retirement of the fanon battles. ~ Beds  (talk - blog ) 17:44, July 29, 2015 (UTC)