User blog:Windsword7/Windsword7's Guide to a Successful Wiki Experience

Having just returned from a period of absence, I myself am striving to find ways to reintigrate myself into life on this wiki. And as I go through this process, I thought I might chart some lessons and experiences I've had that can be of use to new or adjusting users trying to find their place on the wiki. It's my sincerest hope that members of the wiki can find some benefit and enjoyment from it.

1. Don't Get Lost In Trying to Recreate the Glories of Your Favorite Characters
When I created my first character Marcus Shacklebolt, I was determined to have him live life of just as much thrill and glory as Harry Potter and perhaps more so. To accomplish this, I went about beefing him up as much as possible without it becoming outrageously overpowered. I managed to make him Seeker of the Gryffindor Team by his second year and Captain of it by his 4th. I also revamped the duelling club and in doing so insured that he would be captain of it as well. Every sort of dangerous mission involving battles and glory and plenty of house points always had to involve Marcus in some way. And while it was certainly fun for a while, the experience soon lost its luster. When I had to take a period of absence and came back to find that positions like Seeker and Quidditch Captain had been given away to other user's characters I quickly became disenchanted with playing with the character until times came when I could finaggle him into positions of glory and authority again. And while it's always nice to have your character be a quidditch captain or a Minister or a villainous leader, remember not to get too caught up in pursuing these positions and leave your characters open to growth.

2. Have an Appreciation for Various Forms of Leadership
Just as I was going about attempting to buildup In-Character authority, I also often got caught up in a fast rise to the top. When I first joined Hogwarts RPG (Essentially this Wiki's Predecessor) I rose to the rank of rollback fairly quickly through a combination of descriptive roleplaying as well as engineering ideas such as the duelling club. As a revolution of sorts took hold of the wiki and sweeping changes ensued I made a point of involving myself heavily in the implementation of them and found myself rising up to Administrator and soon after that to Beauracrat. And while I certainly believe that I helped guide the wiki to the best of my intentions, Many ideas and improvements that could help the wiki were sometimes left on the table as a result of my inability to lead with my ears as well as my mouth (so to speak). And when my periods of inactivity resulted in demotions, just as with Marcus I often found myself lost without that golden star next to my name or the title administrator next to my username on my userpage. A power structure is always necesarry in communities like these but don't let the pursuit of stars and titles get in the way of true discovery of what it means to be a receptive and open leader both in and out of character.

3. Keep A Reasonable Amount of Characters
Just as it's important to not get caught up in accumulating glories for one character, it's also important to not get lost by creating more characters than you can handle. I myself often found myself getting lost in my characters as I created more and more of them to fill positions I found appealing such as fun classes or intruiging ministry posts. It's always fun to have different characters that can carve out different niches and have journeys and experiences that one character alone couldn't have but make sure you keep the number small enough so that you know each character you are roleplaying is truly "yours" in every sense of the word. If you are finding yourself putting up characters for adoption every other week, it might be best to reexamine your character count.

4. Don't Neglect Aspects In Need of Improvement for the Sake of Adding New Gimmicks
Now I know exactly why this happens having done this a couple of times myself. When I was building up Marcus, one roleplay group in need of improving was Dumbledore's Army. I most certainly could have and should have invested my time and talent into revamping it and sparking some activity in it. But because another active user had a character in charge of it at the time, I decided instead to help make a whole new student group that was almost identical except I got Marcus a major leadership position in it. This lesson is especially important when it comes to classes. Have a character that you really wanted to teach Transfiguration but only have a neglected class like Art available? Instead of going about trying to add a whole new unique class for your character, see what you can do to make existing classes more exciting and desirable for people to join and roleplay in. It's always fun and exciting to add new unique classes for our characters to run, but when it starts coming at the expense of existing institutions in need of investment then it becomes counterproductive.

5. Let J.K. Rowling's Foundations Be a Foundation But Not a Handicap
One of the reasons classes like Art or Astronomy get so little attention is that little if any light has been shed on such subjects by Rowling throughout any of the books. And this is the time for adding new gimmicks and ideas. Take Astronomy for example. Since the foundation provided for astronomy is essentially just students looking at planets at night in the astronomy tower, think of some ways to expand the subject. For instance, the names of planets such as Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are named after Roman Gods appropriated from Greek culture. Making that history part of the class would definitely give it some spark particularly as we have many users coming from other wikis such as the Camp Half-Blood Roleplay Wiki.

A Windsword Arrives   Precisely When He Means To