NIWA and DAWN can co-exist, NIWA can do what NIWA wants to do and DAWN can do what DAWN wants to do; neither organization should attempt to mold the other.
Agreed.
Sure, we can coexist. I think the fundamental problem, really, is that both networks are essentially aiming to add the same members. I think our "original" mark for amount of articles was 200. I remember when founding Metroid Wiki that it was the goal to hit 200 before inclusion, and even in doing that we already had massive support from NIWA. We had guys from Zelda Wiki, Bulbapedia, and Super Mario Wiki that were all helping us out. It was rather amazing really. While the support may not be as heavy fromt hose 3 as it was at the start, the overall support has grown much wider. Fact is, a lot of us "major" staff members at other wiki's have interest in other games, so we are more then happy to help newer/under utilized wiki's out.
On the point of secrecy - I don't think it's that bad. In fact, I have been kept up to date on the ongoings at times simply by reading the NIWA PUBLIC Skype chat. A chat that more than just staff uses, and I hear staff discussions there. We're pretty open and free verse with what is going on. While we may have talks like redesigning the hub page that isn't public, does it need to be?
In terms of what is actually private - it's mainly just the inclusion and disclusion of a specific wiki. If you can't tell - our doors have been pretty wide open. In just one year we grew from 3 wikis to 16. At the continued growing rate we'll be close to 40 by the end of 2011.
I don't have an issue with co-existing, and I am always one up for new ideas. I like the concept of "open discussion on everything" - it's actually a concept we use in running ZI. We are a free verse, open to all community. We have a staff room which we use primarily to organize everything more so than to make decisions. We pretty much let everyone, staff, fans, even haters, have a say in how our site operates... with an occasional surprise. We also have one loose rule on the forums, which has lead to great success for us.
Point is that even with how open we are, we still have staff boards because, frankly. it's really hard to organize something when you have "thousands of people" trying to talk at once. We will listen to those people, adn then we'll organize it behind the scenes so as not to get things derailed. We'll then go from there with any changes people suggest.
We've changed a lot on our site at the whim of people simply asking - be it comments or on the forums, or through email.
While I wished NIWA to run similar to ZI, fact remains that for a place to work the way we function requires just the right "type" of people in charge. It wont work for everyone. It wouldn't work here.
I am well aware oft he reputation NIWA has (on the negative side) and honestly, that is mostly through misperception or people simply forming an opinion without actually ASKING what is going on. Frankly, if any of you pm'd me and ASKED me straight up what is going on with x - I'll look and give you a direct answer. I'm not hiding anything from anyone. I doubt any of us are outside of happy surprises.
So, whats the problem here folks? Oh another network inspired by us wants to form with a new concept? Cool, good for them. Just going to be slim pickems because either way you slice it, we're "competing" for the same wikis.
