Board Thread:News and Announcements/@comment-5645428-20181202150551

Community migration? Some of you may have already heard a bit of talk about this, and it's kind of a big deal... but not that big of a deal. During the past few weeks, the wiki's staff have been thoroughly discussing numerous important elements of the wiki, and through much deliberation have agreed on this course of action. Let's split this up into some tasty sections.


 * What is this community migration business?
 * The community migration will involve having the Geometry Dash Wiki's forum community migrated to the Geometry Dash Fan Wiki.


 * Who specifically does this involve?
 * The 'forum community' henceforth refers to those who actively participate in forum games and activities. Most people who participate on the forum fall squarely into this category, since the majority of activity on the forum is forum games. Note that the process of migrating does not include those who participate as editors on the wiki. Nothing really changes for them. This is why this is a 'community' migration and not a 'wiki' migration. No encyclopedic content is being moved, although certain elements of the official wiki will be replicated on the fan wiki to assist in the migration.


 * How did the idea of a migration come up?
 * There has been a lot of discussion regarding the state of the wiki. Unsurprisingly, the underlying matter was declining activity. Responsible staff confront such things head on. Assessing the state of the wiki, a few things were identified:


 * Actitivity
 * The majority of activity on the wiki is forum participation, and as mentioned, primarily participation in forum games and activities.
 * General editing activity is low, mostly conducted by staff, typo-fixers and reformatters, vandals and vandalism reverters.
 * Routine casual editing activity is about non-existent.
 * Significant productive editing activity is minimal, mostly conducted by staff and some periodic editors who stop in every now and again.
 * Overall wiki activity is slowly declining.


 * Content
 * The state of the wiki's encyclopedic content is very developed and quite comprehensive in most areas.
 * The state of the wiki's organisation is extremely refined.


 * Subject
 * Geometry Dash is still popular as indicated by its high rankings on AppStore charts.
 * Interest in other communities which follow Geometry Dash (eg. YouTube) is slowly declining.


 * Engagement
 * As a result of developed content, there is not much for casual editors to do, making it difficult to attract new editors, while retaining existing editors is also challenging because there is still not much to do, as follows:
 * On the forum, there is little discussion about wiki editing, tasks or projects, due to the aforementioned points. There is also little discussion about Geometry Dash itself, due to both the simple nature of the game and a lack of even occasional updates. Also, many users do not play the game actively anymore.


 * The above and some other factors have informed the staff decision-making.


 * Why does this group need to be migrated elsewhere?
 * So it would appear that the wiki is primarily catering to a group that is not involved in its development, nor does the group express an active interest in the wiki's subject, even in a casual focus. It must be recognised that the wiki is first and foremost a collaborative encyclopedic resource. To improve the associated development processes, there are multiple communication platforms to utilise. They can also be used casually. However, even casual use comes into question when it is this far disconnected from the wiki's subject, and even more, typical discussion in general. Forum games stray beyond off-topic discussion and assumes a category of its own that does not even remotely link to an association with a wiki. What led to these circumstances can be summed up as 'habit' and 'ageing'. Simply, things were different in earlier days, and now we are here today as a result of a gradual evolution. It then makes sense to look to the future. The cold hard truth which many have likely contemplated is that one day activity will have declined to the point that the forum community completely dissipates. The wiki will live on, of course, with its solid content and contributors popping in here and there, but its social ranks will have disappeared. Despite being bleak, there is still time to plan for the future and to come to a resolution on how to sustain the forum community as best as possible. This is where the fan wiki holds the answer.


 * About the fan wiki...
 * The Geometry Dash Wiki has served well in providing for its forum community, but it is not unique in being the only place that such a community could interact and grow. It was determined that the Geometry Dash Fan Wiki could serve as an alternative platform, one that facilitates the forum community in a similar and familiar way but also brings new opportunities and benefits.


 * What are the benefits of migrating?
 * There have been a number of scientific studies which suggest that the brain reacts strongly to changes in scene that help to stimulate it and boost interest and productivity. Next time you're doing your homework, paperwork or a boring organisational task, consider shifting to another room or heading down to your local McDonalds or coffee shop to work on it (take snack breaks as well). But here we can draw parallels to migrating to a new wiki. Hopefully, it will be a refreshing change of scene. There will also be other benefits in joining with a new community:


 * There will be many new people to meet and make friends with.
 * There will be more participants in activities coming from both communities.
 * There will be more activities coming from both communities.
 * There will be less restrictions on the type of content which can be posted in threads.
 * There will be many new ways to contribute to the fan wiki and its development compared to the official wiki.
 * User pages will be able to be customised to a far greater extent, including the freedom to upload (appropriate) images and videos.
 * 'Fun' templates from the official wiki like Template:Banner, Template:Infobox_Stats, Template:Togglebox and more have already been imported to the fan wiki (userboxes are coming soon).
 * There will probably be a greater likelihood to obtain various staff rights.
 * User retention will likely be higher with regard to others who join the wiki.
 * Stuff will probably just be more interesting in general.


 * How is the migration going to work?
 * All you have to do is start participating on the fan wiki. You can set up your user page and message wall greeting whenever you're ready, plus there are no restrictions on user page extensions and there is also a quick link to your own sandbox page. The forum is handily equipped with the familiar boards, including the newly created 'Off-Topic Activities' dedicated entirely to forum games. Staff members Sonar553, TimewornKaiju and Acer of Dragons will continue to moderate on the fan wiki as newly elected staff. Sadly, 3primetime3 has indicated that he will be resigning from the Geometry Dash Wiki once the migration has been concluded and will not be signing onto the fan wiki (he will keep you posted on this later), while I might be stopping by occasionally to lend the fan wiki additional resources like new templates and my site styling skills.

Hopefully, once a few people start up on the fan wiki's forum, others will follow until it's business as usual. This shouldn't take long and can happen as quickly as you're willing. Things should feel much the same, just somewhere a little different. There are probably some cool things on what will become the 'old' forum which people might want to hang onto, so there will be a few weeks for you to go back through and save your favourite memories. At some point after December 17 (not gonna lie, it might be weeks after this date), the Off Topic board will be processed and threads whose content is relevant only while the thread is active and also serves no historic reference may be deleted. The transition to Discussions may also be carried out, but this is dependent on other factors and may continue to be delayed. Don't forget, you'll want to familiarise yourself with the fan wiki's rules and policies as well. In fact, they've got their own announcement here regarding the migration, although I think I've given you more than enough to absorb for now. If you got this far, congrats. :P

Make no mistake, the official Geometry Dash Wiki is still rolling, message walls, Discussions and chat aren't going anywhere, and there'll still be stuff going on here. I'm very proud of how far the wiki has come in its many different areas. In terms of the forum, I still remember its earliest days, first enabled after RaonicHero/Qwertyman1 adopted the wiki. It took until 3primetime3 unleashed the first of his trademark forum games, Count to 1,000 before an admin posts, before the forum really hit off. Perhaps the two most remarkable activities to ever be hosted were 3primetime3's Jack of All Trades contest and TimewornKaiju's (then Steven Fedkin's) Break the Chest series. Indeed, many good times have been had. I'd like to sincerely thank everyone who has participated on the forum over the past 3.5 years as you have all contributed in crafting the identity of a very unique and successful wiki. Now that we end this chapter, I hope that the fan wiki can continue to provide many more memorable experiences in the near future. :D 
 * Looking back at how far we've come