Forum:CT Archive/Contests and giveaways

The game plan Hello, Wookieepedians. At our recent visit to Wikia HQ in San Francisco, one of the topics we discussed was potentially hosting Wikia's Star Wars promotions through Wookieepedia. For those unaware, Wikia, through its relationship with Disney/Lucasfilm, occasionally runs contests and giveaways through the Star Wars Fanpedia, one of Wookieepedia's Official Friends. Recent examples include the 2014 Predict the Madness tournament and a TCW Season Six Blu-ray giveaway, in which three Wookieepedians, including myself, actually won.

I had expressed to Brandon Rhea going into our Wikia visit that Wookieepedia was feeling left out of these things and that we were interested in being included. Eric Moro, Wikia's head of entertainment, was delighted to hear this, thinking before that this wasn't the kind of thing we would be interested in, and he said that Wikia would be more than happy to run all of its future promotions through Wookieepedia rather than the Fanpedia and that he can get the ball rolling on new stuff immediately.

So, why do this, you ask? What's in it for Wookieepedia? As previously noted, Wikia has a growing relationship with Lucasfilm, which makes sense for us to want to be a part of. Lucasfilm definitely knows who we are and has a positive outlook on what we do, so anything that can strengthen our ties with them is obviously in our best interests. And if nothing else, it means more eyes looking at our website, which is never a bad thing. Plus, we might actually win stuff, which is cool.

How will this work? So how will this work? The plan, after discussing this with Brandon, Eric, and the other Wookieepedians who joined me on the Wikia trip, is to host contests, giveaways, and other promotions through a new Wookieepedia namespace. We can call it "Wookieepedia Contests." This namespace and only this namespace will have the Comments feature enabled. That means activating one of Wikia's features that we have previously never activated. Before everyone goes spastic on me, let me repeat and clarify this again: The Comments feature will be enabled exclusively on this new Contests namespace and nowhere else. Why enable it? Because Comments is simply an easier, more user-friendly way for new people not familiar with wiki editing to be able to participate in contests. For example, the TCW Blu-ray giveaway required contestants to respond by stating their favorite TCW moment. It also prevents editing conflicts. If hundreds or even thousands of people are entering a contest, edit conflicts could create a bad user experience.

Wikia's technical people have confirmed that enabling Comments in a single namespace and nowhere else is possible. You can see an example of this in action here: Enabled, Not Enabled. Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 21:49, December 5, 2014 (UTC)

Support

 * 1) I think this is a great way for us to expand our brand name and overall presence in the greater Star Wars community. Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 21:49, December 5, 2014 (UTC)