Forum:Expansion of blogs

In the spirit of expanding community involvement, I've been thinking of an idea regarding blog posts on The Sims Wiki. Specifically, I'd like to see the wiki take a more proactive role in encouraging users to produce Sims-related blogs here on TSW.

My idea is motivated by the response I've seen to many popular blog posts written on The Sims Wiki in the past. On several occasions, these blogs have become popular enough to be commented on by several unregistered contributors. While I don't delude myself into thinking that every anon that comments on a blog will run off and create a Wikia account, I am at the same time heartened by how they choose to interact with the words of others.

Presently, our blogs are in a state of disarray. We have no real rules, or even any firm guidelines, regarding what should or should not be blogged about. Users frequently use blogs as a means to talk about the games or to ask for help, even though we have forums specifically for these things. However, I see a lot of untapped potential in blogs, as being a place where players can talk about their games (not completely unlike the the former Player Stories, but with an emphasis on substance over the long term, versus short paragraphs about Sims played), or talk about other experiences they've had. The key in all this would be to encourage quality posts, to encourage repeat postings by the same individuals, and to encourage active commenting on these blogs.

Some of you may lampoon this idea as being another step towards the Facebook-ification of The Sims Wiki, but I see this as a real tool towards building community involvement over the whole site, as a means to ultimately improve our encyclopedia. Getting users to visit and to edit an encyclopedia is not the simplest task, especially if the user believes that everything to be said about the games has already been said, or if they believe that the community on the wiki is too exclusive, and that they will not be welcomed. Showing regular users, non administrators, writing blogs and getting positive feedback might do some good towards eroding this image.

To get down to details, here's a rough idea of what I'm envisioning. First, we create a page - something like 'The Sims Wiki:User Blogs' or a similar title - where we have a running feed of new user blogs. This would be similar or identical to the blog feeds on the main page, except they would not be category-specific, but would encompass all blogs. The reason I feel this is important is because blogs are not housed and shown in any centralized location, aside from the blog post category. Putting up a page showing the blogs (especially recent ones) would do a lot to bring attention to them. Additionally, I'd like to implement a blog showcase (notice, not a Featured Blog per se), where one or several popular, poignant, insightful or well-written blogs could be selected and showcased. I'd prefer to keep this selection in administrator hands until such a time (if ever) that the feature becomes popular enough to allow selection by the community at-large. This page could also display some guidelines for writing blog posts (I'd prefer not to create a formal policy for them, as I feel we might be getting a bit too "policy-happy" lately), such as suggestions on quality and topic.

So ultimately, I'm bringing this up here. I'm not seeking permission, but rather am seeking some constructive criticism and ideas. I encourage you to be optimistic when discussing the possibilities, and to keep your mind open to what can be achieved. I may begin to draft some page ideas on my Test Page, but we'll see.

Let me know what you think. --  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 06:02, April 2, 2013 (UTC)