more ideas about how to attract more fans to edit

[ratcreature]

I commented in that discussion linked here earlier with some thoughts I had about what would make contributing more attractive: I think that maybe a "focus on" feature would be nice. I think it is more fun to contribute when others are working on related articles at the same time (for example "focus on fandom X" or a genre or a fanactivity, like "focus on conventions" or costuming, even recurring popular kerfuffles that could be tracked through fandoms or whatever), because then there is more opportunity for discussion and feedback, talk about what article structure would best, and you learn interesting stuff from other fans in the process or can reminiscence about how kerfuffle such and so was on mailing list X, so then there is less of that feeling of toiling in the wilderness full of frustration. Also newbies wouldn't have such a steep learning curve because they'd co-edit with more familiar people, so they wouldn't have to know or find the code for templates or advanced formatting on their own, but would just have to say "it would be cool to have this as a table/have a gallery here/get an infobox/..." And even if you didn't know anyone personally you'd be still in a group. It would be easier for people familiar with the fanlore to remember to talk to newbies too, because there'd be a common topic.

Comments

[elf]

I like this idea. It'd definitely be more fun to work as part of a group, even a loosely-defined one like "people who saw the post at fanlore and decided to play along."

And a "focus on [X]" theme could contain suggestions, either in a post or comments--if "X" is "conventions," suggestions could include a short list of cities known to have major conventions, worldcon bid histories, average sizes of conventions, single-topic conventions, authors who refuse to attend conventions, impact of conventions on local economies--all as "topics that it'd be nice to have more info about, which could work its way into Fanlore somehow."

Part of the problem with getting people to create/edit pages at Fanlore, is sorting out what info would be useful or interesting. That sorting is easier done in a group than alone; the back-and-forth conversations could help people figure out what random fannish info goes where.