Project Time!

[briar_pipe]

I have a dream... a dream that we could build collaborative, shared project pages on Fanlore that would allow multiple people to share a goal (or group of goals). You know - a Wikiproject.

I've been working on pages in the general Anime & Manga category for the past few weeks. After talking with frogspace, I think what I'm looking for is a pony a page on Fanlore that could be collaboratively edited (and if a forum is set up, a topic for the project, if it's busy enough to warrant one). In my mind, the goals of such a page would be something like:

1. Make getting started easier for new editors who're interested specifically in this topic (and old hands who want somewhere to direct new editors),
   
2. Make it easier to review what's already been contributed to the topic and find places to add more material,
   
3. Facilitate discussion among editors and collect discussion links, so conversations aren't fragmented and people don't miss things they wanted to be a part of,
   
4. Provide a place to cheer other editors on, request review of your work, and generally support one another.

For content, I'm thinking an introduction to the project itself (including goals), a section for new editors so they could have an Animanga-focused introduction to Fanlore (which may encourage them to stick around), a list of resources or instructions somewhat modified from the one I posted on the wishlist, an explanation of the structure of related categories, links to relevent past conversations/decisions about the categories, etc.

For naming, I have no idea.

So, if you're interested in the Animanga side of fandom (and frankly, at this point I'll throw in the kitchen sink and say "anything on East Asia", because we can make sister projects to limit the amount of reinventing the wheel any one person has to do), please weigh in. What would you like to see on such a project page? What would you call such a page?

And if you're interested in the idea of projects, whether or not you have any Animanga background, what kinds of things would be useful on project pages in general? What kind of consistent naming scheme could we work towards?

[Note for mods: Tried adding a 'projects' tag but couldn't.]

Comments

[briar_pipe]

We should definitely link prominently to talk pages on something like this, yes. *makes note*

There is an open chat for Fanlore, though it's not embedded. We could put up a link. However, I don't think it's feasible to have experienced editors staffing it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We don't really have the peoplepower for that. On the other hand, it would be fairly easy to set up a system where people left a comment when they were going into the chat or planning to be there, so newbies could see it. That could just be a subheading on the talk page of the project.

For tutorials, I think some brainstorming with a crew would be good. I've written things like that, but in very different contexts, so I'm not sure those formats apply.

For red link -> blue link joy, that's why I created the "List of" pages. They provide an easy place to put a bunch of obvious red links (and some existing blue links for reference) and provide an obvious starting point for new editors. If you can think of any other "List of" pages you'd like, we can make them!

The people working in doujin fandom right now all seem to be into doujinshi, so that's where the focus is at the moment. We could definitely add that to the wishlist. It might even become its own project if it becomes popular.

Glossary terms are shared by nature, though we can encourage users to add certain terms and to add them to specific categories. Or did you mean helping new editors by providing definitions of certain terms?

[unjapanologist]

Yeah, the chatroom now is good too! I'm just a little leery of people having to plan chats in any way, instead of being able to just pop in any time. Planning and having established chat times probably works much better for people who are already part of the community than for newbies. But yeah, manpower :/

The people working in doujin fandom right now all seem to be into doujinshi, so that's where the focus is at the moment

Yeah, I think I'm the one who's got pages about doujin fandom in mind ;) (Background: I'm doing a research project on doujinshi, so I'm amassing a lot of info that I want to put out there in a useful place like Fanlore.) It would be great to find other people interested in that, and maybe some others will notice more easily if it's in the wishlist!

By the way, I remember Kylara making a handy form for creating new doujinshi pages. Can we repeat that for other kinds of pages? I don't remember what software she used...

Glossary terms are shared by nature, though we can encourage users to add certain terms and to add them to specific categories. Or did you mean helping new editors by providing definitions of certain terms?

I meant getting anime and manga-related glossary terms in one list (eg by adding categories) so it's easier for people to see what's missing. There's no separate "anime and manga glossary terms" category now, right? Or did I miss it?

[briar_pipe]

I've had a similar experience with the chatroom, but then again, having regular project chats at least would let us know to expect people in the room at a certain time on certain days. It won't work for all situations, but at least it could increase the sense of community and encourage editors to comment on one another's talk pages directly.

(Omg, if you put your info on doujinshi up, it would be awesome. Please do that. Please.)

If you can find Kylara's work, that would be great! I do think many newbies are made nervous by wiki markup, even though in some ways it's easier to type than HTML. It's not quite as intuitive, perhaps, so it's a bit harder to remember until it becomes familiar.

We do have Anime & Manga-related terms under the Anime & Manga Fandom category, but many of those terms are also shared with other fandoms, such as J-Drama Fandom, Doujin Fandom, or AMV Fandom, and some of them are shared generally among all fandoms. That said, I would not object to a subcategory on Anime & Manga Fandom, once we have at least 15 pages to go in it.

(Note that translation-specific terms or Japanese-culture-specific terms may be in their own specific categories right now, and therefore may not show on the Anime & Manga pages, nor should they necessarily. We can point editors to those as related terminology, or we could even make a project list of terms we'd like to see added.)

Ok, I mocked up a basic quick-and-dirty tutorial for people already familiar with wikis, based very loosely on the wishlist. Here is the AMV section.

[tiyire]

I didn´t look at it in detail yet, but I like the specific tutorial! Definitely something that would fit nicely on the project page.