Forum:Regarding The Sims 4 edits and the community in general

Since last May, possibly even earlier then that, I've noticed that various articles related to The Sims 4 and the newest content packs of that game have been lacking in content. And especially the editors that edit The Sims 4 articles. Many of these pages such as this, this and especially this are honestly just depressing to look at. Many of those articles/sections have mostly not gained any forms of edits since their creation. They encourage people to expand them, but it seems that editors who have access to The Sims 4 don't edit them. I am not blaming anyone here, as people may not have some of the content packs, and/or have real life getting in the way. And this is the reason why I created this thread. We need more active editors, that would edit when our current editors are busy and vice versa.

As the current The Sims 4 editors most likely don't have time to do these enormous edits, together or alone, is the reason why this wiki needs more people familiar with The Sims 4. And not just TS4, some of The Sims 3 articles also don't have enough information. Yeah, every article not having enough information is going to be common in big wikis like this, but when pages that are about the biggest features of a newly released content pack are stub, like the examples I showed earlier, I honestly think there might be a some sort of problem.

The featured articles are back, and while it is great, it also seems that the activity over there is small. The current nomination only has two votes for it and those two votes are from the same users who also voted for the FA of August, which also got two votes only. Again, I'm not blaming anyone for not voting on those featured articles and the nomination for July did actually get a lot of votes, but I just fear that since the past two months have been lacking in other nominations by users other than me, I have a feeling that it is alive only because it is "Featured Article" and that it's important since every other big wiki has it. Many other nice features such as wiki battles and featured fanon have also died, as there hasn't been big activity in them.

If looked into the page views of the most popular articles, it can been seen that there are a lot of visitors here reading our articles. So I think the question that I'm presenting here is "How do we make those readers, editors?" People that would join the current group of The Sims Wiki editors and then would create, expand, and improve articles together, along with joining into important and fun discussions, featured article nominations and more. The current community of this wiki is amazing and do great edits, but I think it could be a lot more.

Since the new infobox design situation is now done, I think this is something that should be talk about. So, let's talk. - SimDestroyer (talk) 16:58, August 26, 2018 (UTC)

Discussion
Gonna add my input in. I ageee with what you're saying. I have also been expanding some of the pages for Sims from The Sims Pet Stories.

Also TS4 game Page has been a Target to vandalism here. Could you think about protecting the page?

Bubbz3388 (talk) 17:03, August 26, 2018 (UTC)Bubbz3388


 * The The Sims 4 page has already been temporarily protected; however this thread isn't about that. Page protection requests should be made at the administrators' noticeboard and not the community discussions forum. — k6ka  🍁 ( Talk ·  Contributions ) 11:02, August 27, 2018 (UTC)

Yes, those pages are in a sad state and I would help if I could, but I do not have TS4 and buying it isn't very high on my list of priorities (already have Sims 2 + Sims 3, working, caring for family and studying at university). While I have seen some harsh criticism towards TS4, even from some long-time Sims players, there are fans out there. This community is very helpful and industrious, but will these readers actually have the motivation, coherency and maturity to positively contribute to these barren wiki pages? If one thing is certain, a deeper understanding of TS4's mechanics will become more clear to players as they explore every angle of the game over time. --Acherontia Styx (Talk) 15:40, August 28, 2018 (UTC)

I think we should looking people that are outside the wiki, not in it. These tend to lurk in social media fandom forums than in here.


 * I'm sure we can find more qualify for the job to do editting stuff, or at least provide information while others do necessary gramatical and other strict format revisions, If we inquire people to join in our small bubble domain from outside.

DrakonoSkerdikas (talk) 19:01, August 28, 2018 (UTC)


 * I think a big portion of the problem comes from the fact that people either 1) don't know you can edit the wiki; or 2) are too shy or scared to edit the wiki themselves. A lot of people seem to have the mindset that only a certain group of people, like site administrators, are able to make edits, since that's how just about every non-wiki website on the web works, and so would be more comfortable poking and prodding people to add information rather than adding the information themselves (we operate on the latter; we can't really survive if everyone did the former). We've been suffering from this problem for a very long time, and we have not been successful in getting a solution. To make things worse, FANDOM (AKA Wikia), our landlords, have basically made the mobile editing experience complete rubbish, which means that people who view our wiki on mobile are pretty much locked out of editing pages unless they're willing to climb over some steep learning curves (or just rip their hair out over how non-intuitive the experience is).


 * Also, as I've mentioned on the Discord server, our older, more established editor-base generally has a negative attitude towards TS4, given how we grew up playing earlier iterations of the series and being majorly disappointed with the cash-grab DLC-loving nature of the fourth addition to the main series. This means that the people who know how to edit and have experience with creating good articles are disinterested in TS4 and are therefore unable to help with content creation in that field, or can only help minimally. There's a disconnect between more experienced editors that like previous games and less experienced editors that play TS4. The more experienced editors are practically estranged from being able to counsel newer editors.


 * So far I think I've identified two issues: 1) difficulty with attracting new editors; and 2) difficulty with counselling the few new users that do make the attempt to improve TS4 content and are not just here for fanon. — k6ka  🍁 ( Talk ·  Contributions ) 23:56, August 28, 2018 (UTC)


 * Reading through your comment, I think you've pretty much hit the nail on the head of this problem, K6ka. There are fans of TS4, but as you've said, most of them will have some issues when editing this wiki in one way or another, while others simply prefer making fanon. As for the more experienced editors here who either do not like and/or do not have TS4, buying the game combined with all released DLC just for the sole purpose of filling this wiki with the necessary information isn't much of an incentive if one does not actually enjoy the game and feels ripped-off by the shameless and expensive microtransactions implemented by the publishers. --Acherontia Styx (Talk) 01:52, August 29, 2018 (UTC)

At some point, I guarantee someone eventually will find a need and will edit-to-add the missing information that regards to TS4 of the content in question of the articles. It's a matter of time: it might be soon or of very late. If anyone want to find and seek for players that met the requirements for the wiki's editing department job description (at the very least know english and how to write), have dedication and are determined, and happen to be avid players (or still somewhat play) TS4. To find these players, there will have effort put for looking them in the communities (reddit sections, discords, facebook groups) that are cater for the discussions exclusively of TS4. Besides the relevance of time period, the only concern should be whether after TS4 come to an end - we must all hope it doesn't disappear from the shelves out of the blues (though there is always a way of attaining the game without purchasing it, If you know what I mean), though the odds are very likely that that will happen, so really let's not think about this whole concern much and be worried up about it.DrakonoSkerdikas (talk) 13:13, September 29, 2018 (UTC)