User blog comment:Ildsjel/An Open Letter/@comment-25142300-20190818212846

Alright so I never got to add my comments yesterday so here we go.

If you take a scroll through recent blog posts can you guess how many blog posts are almost exactly like this one? In the first five pages alone there's fifteen different blogs the last dating back to 2016. This isn't a new thing. These issues aren't new, this isn't the first time they've been brought up (Hell it's not even the first time in the last 6 months!) At this point people see blog post and instantly go on the defense because so damn many of them have come across as being attacks over the years that it's better to act first and deal with the consequences later. The thing is we can't keep running. If we stick around or come back the issues still going to be there, there's always going to be tension between users.

In all honesty? Blog posts help nothing. Almost every single blog post has been met with hostility in some way or another. Issues like this should be discussed on chat or between people in a controlled environment to prevent exactly the sort of reactions we have now (hell that's why we have a HR department isn't it? To keep things civil?)

Activity has been a problem on the wiki pretty much since I joined (and that was in back in like 2014) the only reason most are seeing it now is because people are drifting more. Suddenly we're not as close to the users we once were whether through real life, or differing interests or arguments. People are still posting (albeit in longer time frames than in the few months when everyone was posting hourly) it's just suddenly not the people that we're used to posting all the time. (And that's okay! We're busy people with lives outside of here).

As for new users? Personally I think it's the amount of rules DARP has. Every little action always seems to be wrong. I get the policies were being redone but even then there's just so many of them it's majorly off putting. A big sibling program when a user starts would be a really good addition (even if it just ended up being the HR department going in and helping a user with everything). Which is another issue, when a new user starts I get everyone wanting to help but how do we know what the user has and hasn't been told? Assigning one person to them would be a benefit for the entire community and might help people start up.

Whilst I think mini events are a good idea (things get very samesy after a while) our issue isn't that there hasn't been enough. Our issue is the lack of inclusion. At this point I think we need to physically (you know what I mean) go up to people and invite them to join. Send people (especially new users) private messages inviting them to join (again a big sibling program would help with this). A lot of people don't feel like they fit into certain circles, they don't feel able to join even wiki wide events out of fear of being laughed at. It's at the stage where even Wiki wide events come across as being cliquey.

I think in the end we've got to remember no one's job is to run the wiki, not really. No one is paid to run it, to keep it active. It's a hobby and nothing more. We've let ourselves think for so long that it's so important to keep people posting but honestly? There's nothing we can do if people choose to stop. If the community doesn't have an interest anymore then there's nothing we can do to keep them here and it's no one's fault, no matter how much we blame each other.