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NIWA Community => Wiki References => Topic started by: Xizor on April 16, 2011, 08:46:46 PM

Title: Axiomist's New Wiki Roadmap / Launch Strategy
Post by: Xizor on April 16, 2011, 08:46:46 PM
As originally written by Axiomist:

New Wiki Roadmap
First is always the idea for a new wiki. Extensive searching should be done to ensure no existing eligible wiki for NIWA exists. It would only embarrass you later if there already are independent wikis on your topic. So in addition to running several relevant search terms through a search engine, check out fan forums and sites, ask around, and get at least one other person to do the same.


I'm not meaning to sound so bleak but the above issues are to be expected. I think people expect running a wiki to be such an easy task, and have only imagined themselves editing articles and making decisions as a bureaucrat. My fear is that too many people would have a total system shock and quit the project. We can't tell how you will respond to the stresses, but try to judge yourself. If you have some fantastic idea of the site being a success anytime soon-forget it. The new wiki is likely to be insulted, neglected, rejected, and possibly even vandalized. This is where being a strong leader comes into play, because you'll have to trudge through it all slowly.

Get started
If you're still here reading and willing to proceed, I applaud you. I'm assuming you read the above and have decided that you possess the constitution to tough it out for a long time. NIWA will ease as many burdens as possible, but your upcoming burdens will still be heavy. The first thing you'll want to do is get an actual wiki up. Without going into the extensive technical aspects, there are two possibilities.
--OR--

Take this job and Staff It!
It's easier to choose people you know, but be willing to unstaff them if they aren't productive. Everyone wants a staff rank and few are going to roll up their sleeves and get the work done. So being tough on that should be a consideration. Your initial staff should be small, try to build a balanced staff and look for people that specialize on things. For example, you'll want someone that has some technical expertise, some one that has a history of image work at a wiki, some one that has done extensive content management and article writing, and some one that has more knowledge on the series than you do. Try to match their current ranks or go one above it to not overwhelm them (although exceptions are expected).

Initial tasks
The first things to do may seem overwhelming, so having a cookie-cutter plan in place may ease your stress levels. Instead of fussing over what on the long list of things to do should be done right away, simply adopt the following and tweak as needed:
#1.) Policy pages- Articles would be too chaotic without policy in place.
#2.) Help guides- This is also a good start since it helps get the staff busy on easily overcome tasks. Most of the help guides and policy pages can be copied from other wikis (with their permission of course).
#3.) Main Page- Have at least one or two people whose job is to get a decent Main Page going and doing nothing else until it is done. Don't worry about what your ideal Main Page is until you have a general mock up created. It's a lot easier to tweak an imperfect Main Page than to start designing the perfect one from the start.
*See Step 3 here (http://help.wikia.com/wiki/Advice:Raising_your_wiki%27s_Google_ranking), Wikia offers this advice, which is even more useful if you have a clever name for the wiki:
 "Move the Main Page. This trick also helps to maximize the boost you get from having the topic in the title bar. Wikia now does this automatically for all new wikis when they're created, but if you are working on or adopting an older wiki, read on!

First, move "Main Page", and give it the name of your wiki. Having "Charles d***ens Wiki" in the heading at the top of your main page will give you an edge. "
*Despite being Wikia, this is sound advice, your Main Page will be the most viewed page, so if you retitle it from "Main Page" to "___ Wiki" or "___ Encyclopedia" you'll have a strong key word for search engines. I promise you "Main Page" is never searched. So choose something related that would be an obvious search term. (WiKirby's Main Page has been moved to "Kirby Wiki" for instance.)
#4.) Categories-Another boring and easily overlooked aspect of wikis, also one of the important fundamentals. The best thing to do is generate at least one article for each category you want to have. This helps to create an example of how you want future articles to be written, formatted, etc.
#5.) Priority articles- Obviously priority articles are going to be things like the games, the series itself, important items, characters, places, etc.
#6.) Templates- Actually at least one of your staff members should be making templates from the start, preferably someone with prior experience and free time. The all important Notice Templates should be first. (Templates indicating that an article is a stub, needs images, should be deleted, merged, split, etc). The second most important templates are the Formatting Templates (Citation templates, styling templates, etc) From there the others are roughly equal with userboxes being deadlast. Best to even hold off on userboxes until sometime after launch, but if anyone makes userboxes don't worry about deleting them or anything.
#7.) Logo and skin- Another thing that would work out best if someone were tasked with this from the start. A good logo and skin can heavily impact other people's opinion on the wiki. Even a favicon and affiliate banner can be designed all in one go. Consistency is good, but so is variety on those aspects, this is something each staff would have to decide on. (WiKirby for example chose variety, the logo, favicon, affiliation banners [we have 2 so far], and dominant image on the skin are all different. We prefer roundness over the consistent use of a single image.)

Soft launch
Now your wiki should be well rounded. Invite NIWA members and people in your contact pool to review the wiki and point out any issues they come across, no matter how minor. Ask them to report which browser they are using, and any other relevant factor. Ask them to also try editing even a userpage (logged in and out, using as many browsers and devices such as PCs, Laptops, phones, etc that they have can access) to see if there are any issues needing attention before a full launch. Give this phase a minimum of 2 weeks to ensure adequate time for bug hunting. Be sure to follow up on changes, fixing one thing may break something else. Ideally it's best to wait for each issue to be resolved before a full launch.

Now would be a good time to get extensions added. This can be done at any time, but usually is best done after thoroughly debugging. I think each member wiki has their own stories of extensions that caused problems, expect a comprehensive NIWA extension guide sometime in the future.

Full launch
This is the big day, You should be planning it at least a week in advanced, preferably 2. Contact as many sites, NIWA ones included, and ask them to report on the news of the new wiki launch. Have a date set and stick to it. Ideally a Thursday. This will ensure your news is visible on a Friday and probably during the high traffic weekends. Consider other ongoing events during your launch, for example, if it's Christmas, or school is starting, you may want to scrub the launch date for a few days or weeks until a better time window is available. Many fan forums won't allow you to post an external link without having had a certain number of posts or certain number of days from registering. It's a valid spam fighting tool, so as preparation, join as many forums and general Nintendo sites as possible and get the minimums taken care of. Ask the staff if they are willing to report your launch news via pm. If they decline, you can always make a post in a relevant board (check their rules on that first tho-or even get their blessing for that). And lastly, many of the current staff members of NIWA have contacts that you wouldn't normally be able to access. Let us know your plans and progress and we can coordinate on getting your news out there. Expect a lot of views, some new members, and hopefully new editors on and after your wiki launch. Choose a weekend in which you can actually dedicate yourself to overseeing the new edits to fight spam and vandalism; as well as answering any questions that are asked.

*Another good optional idea at this point is to contact the staff of the wikia version. They'll find out about your wiki anyway-so you may want to be the messenger. The main concern to expect is rampant copy/pasting, if you have your policies in place, inform them that you won't allow any plagiarism or paraphrasing. They likely will be worried you are out to steal their work. The best thing to do is to establish a channel of communication and inform them that your wiki will act when someone plagiarizes from them. If staff members of both wikis keep cool heads the issue can be resolved immediately without flame wars.  Ask them to inform you and link to issues of plagiarism (links to both, stolen article, and place it was taken from) instead of dealing with it themselves.

NIWA membership
The rules aren't finalized on this. But that's worse for you. Each voter may have their own standard in which they'll judge a wiki on. So far each new member did reach the 200 article minimum before induction. The absolute best path would be to become an affiliate of the member wikis for at least a month prior to a formal request for membership. I think in general new wikis are going to be judged by:

Post NIWA induction
In all probability, your wiki will be bursting with activity and life after this point. You may want to consider drafting a strategy for the days ahead after evaluating how well things are going and where improvements are needed. If you find it easier to follow a strategy than to create one, feel free to ask your fellows in the NIWA staff for help.  Also at this stage, chances are you'll be seeing new wikis trying to start up, be humble and help them out. Share your experiences and knowledge with them. Consider ways to add to your wikis resource pool without draining a fellow wikis' own resources. Keep a look out for new sites pertaining to your topic or even new places to invite editors such as Facebook, Wikipedia, or even refresher articles/threads at your current affiliates.