Board Thread:Star Wars Fanon Announcements/@comment-3528596-20160203175050/@comment-31421-20160330194446

I'm going to be real straight-forward here and if you don't like it, direct all complaints here. In their glory, the Wiki Awards were almost-completely composed of two kinds of voter/nominator. The first is your average SWF user who nominates something they wrote that they spent a lot of time, usually of dubious merit. Like this from the Eighth Wiki Awards. The second group was what I'm going to loosely define as the "IRC Lulz Club." This was a group of people that goofed around IRC in their spare time and became. . . something akin to friends or at least people they'd sit around a virtual table and BS with. (Sorry Brandon, I can't quite bring myself to say it!) Go back and look through all of the old Wiki Awards votes, from I think around 4 or 5 up through 8. Go see how many of them are from the following people: Goodwood, Trak Nar, Brandon, Solus, JM76, ITCO, Nightmare, MPK, Wylind, and me. To an extent, Savage, Fiolli, and Sakaros are part of that group too. Possibly TK; I never interacted with him that much in IRC. I guarantee that a lot of the discussion and interest around the Wiki Awards started in IRC because it was there and something to goof around with. Now, how many of those people are still active?

If you want to revitalize SWF's community, start by making some f. . . online buddies. And not just with the SWF elders. You need a couple of the (somewhat) older hands (like Savage and TK), but the next "generation" of SWF users hasn't come together because you guys aren't fri. . . compatriots. Not "facebook friends" or "twitter follows," but you actually enjoy spending time together in a common environment, in this case online. We'd sit around and talk about all kinds of random stuff, some of it more serious than others. You want a community, make it. Go learn something about some of the other lesser-known users who seem to be active (and don't appear to be 13 by their writing style), and then go invite them to hang out on Chat or whatever it is that you guys use these days. Build up the relationship, and you'll have your Wiki Awards and community involvement. It's going to take time and investment, but you'll have better luck with that than just nostalgia and trying to round up the old band for one last farewell tour. I mean, Brandon's almost thirty. He's too busy contemplating how he's going to pay for retirement, when to change the oil in his car, and in what manner he'd like his remains to be disposed of. Along with how to get those kids off of his lawn.

See that? That's teasing. Jesting. I can do it to Brandon because I have a history with the guy. A relationship even (very casual, he never bought me dinner, we parted amiably years ago). See? More teasing. In fact, most of our interactions on IRC were teasing/trolling/sarcastic with a genuine dose of mutual respect and admiration sprinkled in. Why did that happen? Because one day, I read something of Brandon's and cared enough to comment on it. He decided that engaging me about it was worth it, and we went from there. I have similar stories about MPK, Solus, JM76, Fiolli, etc.

Build that. Do that. Then you'll have community.

TL;DR Go make some friends (FINE! I said it!) and invite some other people into your SWF social circle. Care enough about them and their imagination that they feel welcome and fun. Do it because you care. Then you'll have community involvement again. (And without disturbing those of us in the SWF retirement home for aging nerds!)