Forum:SH:Discussions - A New Star Wars Forum Experience

Hi everyone.

The administrators here at Wookieepedia know about this already, but I wanted to share with you a new feature that is now live here: Discussions.

Discussions is a brand new discussion feature (obviously) that completely changes the way that we do forums on Wikia, mainly by actually making it act like a forum. This isn't a wikitext page (as the standard MediaWiki forum is, which is what the Senate Hall you are reading this in is) or a MediaWiki hack like the current Wikia-style forum is. This new feature doesn't even exist on MediaWiki, giving it more freedom to act like a forum.

You can find the new Discussions forum here: http://starwars.wikia.com/d/f/147/

How it works
Discussions are both part of Wookieepedia and not part of Wookieepedia. Here’s what I mean by that:


 * Discussions exist in two locations: on the Wikia Star Wars/Wookieepedia app and on the web (though they're both tied together, so it's not two separate Discussion areas). A note about the web version, and this is what I meant when I said “part of and not part of” Wookieepedia: because it's not built on MediaWiki, it exists on its own URL structure (as you can see in the link above). So instead of being on starwars.wikia.com/wiki/whatever, it is on http://starwars.wikia.com/d/f/147/. The d, of course, stands for Discussions. So even from a basic, visual look at the URL, it's part of the Wookieepedia URL structure but it's not part of the wiki content. That creates a clear separation between the encyclopedia and the forum.
 * Also because it's not built on MediaWiki, its activity doesn’t show up in Recent Changes, meaning that if you're not interested in seeing any conversations that people are having then you don't have to. We may, moving forward, add in an option to see it in Recent Changes, but that would be something you would opt-in to. So this is also a clear separation between the encyclopedia and the forum.
 * It does not replace or affect Wookieepedia’s current wikitext forums, hence why I can still post this Senate Hall thread here.

Survey results
Having a feature like Discussions is important now that Star Wars: The Force Awakens is only two weeks away. People are going to be looking for a place on Wookieepedia to share their enthusiasm for the new movie, and for all of the new stories that are coming out. And indeed, as I shared with the admins last week, we've had readers tell us that. Here's what I mean:

Back in September, we ran a survey asking Wookieepedia readers two questions:


 * 1) How interested would you be in sharing news and talking about all things Star Wars with other fans on Wookieepedia?
 * 2) What kinds of Star Wars topics would you be interested in discussing on Wookieepedia?

We received hundreds of responses (we went way above what's actually needed to make the results statistically meaningful), and 65% of respondents said that they are interested in participating in discussions on Wookieepedia (40% said they are very interested and 25% said they are somewhat interested). Here is the breakdown on what they would be interested in talking about:


 * New Star Wars movies: 70.60%
 * Star Wars: Episodes I-VI: 62.30%
 * Star Wars TV shows: 46.90%
 * Star Wars news & rumors: 42.10%
 * Star Wars books: 47.80%
 * Star Wars comics: 39.90%
 * Star Wars games: 58.80%
 * Other Star Wars merchandise: 28.10%

What these results show is that there is not only a clear interest in being able to actually talk about Star Wars when browsing on Wookieepedia, but also that a discussion area connected to Wookieepedia will be successful, especially if timed with the release of The Force Awakens. I've talked about this before, especially with the admin team, but Wookieepedia is unique in terms of Star Wars fan sites because its traffic means that new elements to the site have a far greater chance of success. Any other Star Wars fan site that was launching a discussion forum would have to start from scratch in a lot of ways, but Wookieepedia's brand is already so strong and there's already so many eyes on it that if you build it, they will come. And while many people will just want to take part in conversations, it's safe to say that others will also become editors on Wookieepedia.

Can we expect people to become editors?
Based on our experience releasing Discussions on other communities, we believe that Wookieepedia is well-positioned for success. In September, we released Discussions on the community app for Fallout Wiki. Between then and now, over 50,000 Wikia accounts have been created in the app. The vast majority of those users created their accounts to participate in Discussions in some way, especially with the release of Fallout 4. If Fallout can do it, I think it’s safe to say Star Wars can too, especially with The Force Awakens on the horizon. So to my point at the end of the last paragraph, if even a tiny fraction of that number ended up being editors on the encyclopedia, that is a lot of new editors. And that’s a great thing for Wookieepedia.

Moderation
Moderation tools are live in the app and will be available on the web next week. In the absence of any administrative and community decisions regarding who should moderate the forum, I will be handling moderation for the foreseeable future. I will be making sure people stay on topic about Star Wars, are acting civil, and aren't spamming. Absent any policies created by the community about what topics are acceptable, I won't really be enforcing any content policies, just a standard "the discussion has to be about Star Wars" policy. When building something new, it's always better to start broad and see where the new thing goes. We can let this evolve on its own, I think, and then craft policies based on our experiences with Discussions, rather than trying to lock it into preconceived notions about what the forum topics should be.

I would also recommend updating Template:Talkheader to point people to Discussions. That way, rather than just reverting people's edits to talk pages when they try to discuss the subject of an article rather than the article itself, we have a place to point them towards.

Conclusion and questions
I am sure there will be many questions about this, so please don't hesitate to ask me any question you may have. If you’re unsure of anything or have any questions about anything, please do ask them. I hope you’re excited about this, or at least cautiously optimistic, and I hope to see you in the new forums! - Brandon Rhea (talk) 17:12, December 3, 2015 (UTC)