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I've been thinking of starting this thread for a long time, but I've decided to wait. Unfortunately, nobody ever bothered with it. I'm talking about The Sims Wiki news and The Sims Pen. Both haven't been written for a long time, and nobody bothered to write them or ask if a new issue would come out soon. It slowly kept disappearing into the shadow of The Sims Wiki. There is almost no point of keeping it on the wiki, unless if someone wants to resurrect and write them both again. So my question is: Should The Sims Wiki news and The Sims Pen retire and keep them on the wiki as a memory of good times, or should they be kept on the wiki if someone ever wants to write an issue. In the recent periods, I haven't seen anybody bothering about it, so I think that the first option might be a good idea. Maybe we can think of something else? I hope there can be a consensus reached whether or not they need to retire.
They're already de facto retired, just haven't been officially declared that way. I used to write The Sim's Pen until a number of fanon editors took up the reins, so rather than burdening myself with one more thing to do I let them handle it and did The Sims Wiki News instead every week. And the week after that. And just about every week, with the occasional break when Auror or LiR decided to pitch in.
I stopped writing for two reasons: 1. Real life got in the way, and 2. I lost considerable interest in The Sims, especially The Sims 4. I just grew tired of lavishing praise onto the game when I despised it and the marketing strategies used to sell it. There simply wasn't anything new to the game that was new to the series. Clubs? We had groups in Nightlife. Kids stuff? We had Family Fun Stuff. Hot tubs? They were in the base game of The Sims 1! The Sims 4 overall had less content in it than any other base game as far as I know, and EA really has their eyes set on milking this cow to the bone. I lost count of how many crap packs they've released for the game already, and I am in no mood to constantly have to update the wiki templates to accommodate all of them, nor do I want to have to sarcastically announce them when SimsVIP does it already.
If anyone wants to start writing them again, go ahead. But for now I'm done. I find my retirement from standing on the front lines of The Sims 4 quite cushy. —k6ka🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 12:42, July 21, 2016 (UTC)
Real life is to blame for my absence from writing the weekly news blog, as well. Not to mention, there are several weeks where there is little-to-no news worth reporting. We have to write a news blog regardless of whether there's anything actually worth talking about. I think it makes sense to keep the format of a news blog available to us when we want to use it, but not restrict ourselves into using it on a regular basis if we have nothing to report. Ditto for The Sims Pen. Additionally, we have The Sims Wiki:News for listing out recent news in the series when it does occur, and a portion of that page is automatically transcluded onto the main page. We can supplement this news feature with special blogs as needed. LiRtalk • blog • contribs 13:23, July 21, 2016 (UTC)
Support — I think that we should at least retire them for now, since there doesn't seem to be a strong enough argument, that we should keep them. If there's ever a popular demand for them in the future, we can always bring them back then. ― C.Syde (talk | contribs) 21:43, July 21, 2016 (UTC)
Bump — It's good to see that some users have participated in this discussion. But it doesn't look like a community consensus has been reached. ― C.Syde (talk | contribs) 09:58, August 7, 2016 (UTC)
I can see the reason to have the news blog available for updates as they come rather than doing it regularly, but I just don't see that working for The Sims Pen. If it isn't done at regular intervals, it won't ever be done. I personally enjoyed reading The Sims Pen, but I found it a little hard to continually come up with something to write about without self-promoting because I rarely get into other people's fanons without someone mentioning one to read. Maybe a monthly blog would workout better than a weekly blog. Also, I have figured out how to do the stats, so maybe that could be something put into a monthly Sims Pen. Just a thought. – Icemandeaf (talk) 15:36, August 7, 2016 (UTC)
Here's another thing I must bring up - who actually reads these blogs? A month or so ago I started a survey on Google Forms in order to collect some basic information about users and readers alike, and the results are organized neatly into a Google Sheets document (if you would like to view it, find me on IRC). 70% of users do not read or have never even heard of our community blogs. 70%! Only about 5% of users actually read every edition that comes out, and the rest only sporadically. I'm not too keen on keeping a feature that few people use running for the enjoyment of nobody. I must admit, I personally am getting sick and tired of routine (personal stuff unrelated to the wiki) so if no one else wants to keep these features going, I'm fine with pulling the plug. I think it's better if we wrote blogs only when necessary or when we feel like it, like LiR mentioned above, since I find that such blogs draw more attention and excitement than a regular issue. We already do this to our IRC channel; we used to update the topic weekly to accommodate links to the weekly news blogs, but now we only update the topic occasionally for announcements that people might actually give a damn about. —k6ka🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 17:21, August 7, 2016 (UTC)
I have no problem with the wiki having a weekly news and Sims Pen blog, if someone is willing to volunteer to write it. I would not want to tell a willing and eager volunteer (who is able to write decently enough) that we won't allow such a news blog. Indeed, there is no rule at all governing who can or cannot publish news on the wiki. So all that being said, I don't think we need to formally retire the feature... simply not updating it does the same thing, and doesn't close the door on someone in the future deciding to volunteer to do them if they choose. Having a community consensus in favor of retiring the features essentially says that we want to get rid of them, and consensus is that they shouldn't be brought back, which restricts future users from bringing them back if they want to. -- LiRtalk • blog • contribs 01:28, August 8, 2016 (UTC)
@ LostInRiverview - You definitely have a point there.
But even though these features haven't been semi-active since March, or active since February, there is still no indication that these features are no longer as active as they used to be. I mean, they are still displayed on the Community Corner page as if they are still active. And on the News team list, it's still clear that new issues of the Sims News and the Sim's Pen used to be done once a week, and it still says that editions of the Sims News and the Sim's Pen for May are in need of volunteers, even though we are in August. I don't have a problem with not retiring these features, but then again, I find it hard to decide whether or not I think we should be updating the News team list once a week if no one is going to write any issues every week. ― C.Syde (talk | contribs) 01:39, August 8, 2016 (UTC)
Support
There is no point in keeping a old thread or source alive and the function has not been active for months so to retire it will give it the honour of remembrance of the great thing it used to be.
This thread has been open for far too long, and we still haven't had anyone take initiative to write a news blog. As such, it's time to bury this feature and hold a funeral for it. On a more serious note, this thread has been closed and pages relevant to the weekly news and The Sim's Pen have been tagged as {{Historical}}. News blogs can still be posted at Blog:The Sims Wiki News if needed. —k6ka🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 22:57, September 11, 2016 (UTC)
Player (talk) (mistakes) 10:21, July 21, 2016 (UTC)
