User blog:LostInRiverview/Community discussions - why do they matter?



The Sims Wiki is a project focused on presenting information about The Sims series. The project is dependent on its countless contributors and the wealth of information that we have all brought together here. However, the project's continued growth and success depends on a framework established by the users. These range from formal policies, to accepted best practices, to guidelines on style, to a myriad of other decisions made which impact many factors both big and small. The pieces of this framework are dependent on continued community involvement in their formation and maintenance - without this, the foundation of the project would be eliminated.

Community discussions are the route that we have chosen to make these important decisions. In order for discussions to serve this purpose, however, users have to be involved.

Most wiki discussions do not require that participants be a member of the wiki for a certain period of time. Even a new member may have insight into a particular topic, and all opinions from all users are given equal appreciation and consideration. Wiki discussions do not require that each person involved in the discussion come up with some unique or novel thing to say - sometimes simply saying "I agree with..." is the strongest way to show support for an idea.

It may seem that only administrators are allowed to begin discussions, because they appear to be the only users that do so regularly. But in reality, discussions can and should be started by any user, to talk about any issue which has a wide-scale or community impact. It makes no difference whether a user has one edit or 10,000 edits, or whether a user is a long-time Bureaucrat or just a new user with no special user rights.

In addition to solving important issues, discussions are also used to handle user promotions, such as requests for administrator or bureaucrat rights. These matters are not typically put to a straight up-or-down vote, so the voices of regular community members are very important in helping to decide whether or not to promote a user to these positions.

Definitely check out the Community Discussions forum! There are usually several open threads just waiting for user input. There's also a place for users to start their own threads. In addition, there are often relevant discussions occurring on the user rights requests pages. You can find a list of these pages here. From time to time there are also discussions about the main page taking place on Talk:The Sims Wiki, or discussions about technical aspects of the wiki (e.g. templates, coding, .js/.css) on the Development Portal talk page. When an article is nominated for deletion, it is usually discussed on Candidates for deletion. Finally, many discussions about specific pages take place right on that page's talk page. Take a look at some of these places and weigh in if you can.
 * Where to get involved

Community discussions may not seem like everyone's cup of tea, but they help keep the project progressing, help keep things in order, help resolve important questions, and help select new members of the staff. Participation in these discussions is easy, but it is also vital for the continued success of The Sims Wiki. Please consider getting involved!

--  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 01:54, October 2, 2013 (UTC)