Forum:Illogicopedia needs a kick up the butt

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I'm slightly worried, folks. Illogicopedia is, once again, falling into the same old routine of the same old six users the only ones even bothering. Now, I'm all for having a niche and I know full well Illogico has deviated massively from its original goals etc. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, in fact I'd say it's healthy. The old, infantile gibberish that characterised Illogic's early years is being phased out as 'uncool' as the site grows, which I agree with.

In other words, we have become slightly more upmarket and, dare I say it, like Uncle Pete. Change is happening, but we need to capitalise on it in some manner... a relaunch of sorts, perhaps?

I guess what I'm getting at is the fact things have become stale and predictable again, and small changes to policy, Pickles or whatever will not stop Illogic from flatlining. Now I'm not having a go at article quality, which is better than ever. I just think the site is stuck in a rut from which it continues to struggle to get out and move on.

Dare I suggest Web 2.0, but in a non-irritating manner? A new direction? A rethink about Seppy's archiving idea, the forum topic for which I cannot find right now? I know there are rumbles of a return for No-Ammo, so perhaps that's the way forward?

Just some thoughts. Digest/ignore as you wish. -- Hindleyak  Converse • ?blog • Click here! 18:06, 31 Jumbly 2010 (UTC)

As much as I agree that Illogicopedia needs a kick up the butt, Seppy's archiving idea won't help. We need to be more "open". What I mean is, that for the last two weeks, EVERY day I checked Illogicopedia and looked on recent changes. Here's a transcript of my reaction.

Huh... ten edits on one article... Um... Something in someone's userspace... And flyingidiot making a coding thing that I don't get, nor do I care about... Back to YouTube, I guess.

:D

Seriously, guys, USE THE GODDAMN PREVIEW BUTTON. When there is a massive list of the same article, over and over again, that's all people see. They don't see forum topics or talk page edits or ANYTHING that interests them. Sure, sure, there are other problems but a big one is the lack of variety on recent changes. I have had NO desire to edit recently simply because it seems like new/old users are in their own world making their article, not paying attention to the community and all that. As much as I love to rant, I'll end this one by simply saying take a break on articles and be part of the community and then, only then, will Illogicopedia be more inviting for people to rejoin the community. --T3 21:24, 31 Jumbly 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I have an ear ache

It really really hurts. You know when it gets in the cartilage and starts twingeing, yeah, that. Anyway. The only reason its got stale, I personally think, is because on the whole we're generally just not trying anymore. What we really need to do, as a collective, is write articles, make forum posts, draw out the forum posts, forget the original point of the forum post, get into epic talk page wars, blog posts etc etc. Maybe clean the site up the site on the side, but activity's the main thing. Once we get thing's going, my ear REALLY hurts, activity and such like, it shouldn't be too hard to get people. And even if we don't we'll still be enjoying the site. Up until wednesday when I head out on my bootilicious sex tour of south Kent I'm going to edit like crazy, whether or not it does anything. I think my ear pain might be linked to my iPod, I spent too long with it today, and I can never get the head phones comfy.

Also, uncyc's going down the pan. Testostereich • (ballsack) 22:04, 31 Jumbly 2010 (UTC)

And screw you T3, dammed edit conflicts. As far as I care, anything you said (I haven't read it) is a pile of cow dung.

Yeah I think simply being more aktive would help prevent staleness. --THE 03:40, 1 Ergust 2010 (UTC)

Activity? fuck that. spring cleaning? dunc, you're as stale as the site. and THE, er, go write something funny, you're good at it. anyways, I have the answer.

SPAM. SPAM THE SITE EVERYWHERE. Bound to draw in suck up vandals, but good users just the same. who's with me? everyone, arm your facebook posts with c link to the main page at the end of every post. go to blogs and spam the comments. everyone, now! augh! i'll start by posting it on popular facebook pages such as "The Bible" and others —rms talk 04:27, 1 Ergust 2010 (UTC)

I don't have a Facebook, maybe because I hate it. Anyhow, not sure if this is such a good idea -- I mean, I suppose it's worth a shot if the site is as stale as you say, but it seems sort of drastic and there's no guarantee that it'll work. Plus it might backfire -- I'm not sure if that can really happen to a site as small as this, but I doubt many people would appreciate seeing Illogicopedia links left and right if they're not interested. --Asema 04:41, 1 Ergust 2010 (UTC)

it was sarcasm yeah, you're right, maybe i shouldn't. —rms talk 04:43, 1 Ergust 2010 (UTC)

sarcasm sucks Good then. --Asema 04:49, 1 Ergust 2010 (UTC)

So what is it that made Illogicopedia popular in the first place?

It's been quite a while, so I don't entirely remember (given how stupid I was sometimes, maybe I don't want to) -- I only *vaguely* remember our time at editthis, though I still have nightmares about what happened with Wikia -- what was it that attracted the first crop of users? If it's something other than word of mouth, or maybe even if it is, we could always try that approach over again and hope it works. Thoughts? Does anyone have better retention than I do with regards to this? --Asema 04:49, 1 Ergust 2010 (UTC)

I'm too young for this crap, no one new really came in after me, we have fi who's been nice and maybe two others or so. so i'm going to refrain from commenting. er, too late. man, i suck —rms talk 04:51, 1 Ergust 2010 (UTC)

The appeal for me was that I felt i could write absolutely anything and it would be accepted. It was (and is) a place of creative freedom, and that's wonderful. I liked the lack of pressure like at uncyc--at uncyc there's a constant "BE FUNNY OR WE'LL DELETE YOUR ARTIKLES AND BAN YOUR ASS" mentality, and I much preferred illogicopedia's mentality of "welcome. Write whatever the hell you want." --THE 12:57, 1 Ergust 2010 (UTC)

so

1. Advertise (maybe putting the logo on a high-speed blimp and offering rides while someone reads a random article over the intercom is a bit much) so more than six people know ?pedia exists
2. Lean toward more humor and interesting EPICS. Articles about hamsters on keyboards that are made of random letters are amusing for 5 miliseconds. Live up to 'Proudly making posts vaguely longer and more interesting than Twitter'.
3. ???
4. Profit!

--(ƒî)» 05:10, 1 Ergust 2010 (UTC)

Advertising sounds good. Every time that idea gets suggested though, it never (or barely) gets acted on. For me part of the appeal of the site is the fact that I feel I can write whatever I want, so if we start applying more "Be funny! Be interesting" pressure, I feel the site would suffer and lose part of what makes it special. --THE 12:57, 1 Ergust 2010 (UTC)

In response to Asema's original qwestion

Hey man, nice to see you back, even for a brief time! It's a very good question, the one you posed. I'm not exactly sure if Illogic ever had any real appeal in the outside world to the general public, we've traditionally got the bulk of our users from Uncle Pete. Now, if, say, a lot more Illogicopedians were active over there, they'd be able to drop 'subtle' hints like I used to when I was more involved in all their projects and such. That's how I originally managed to convince MMF to defect to Illogico in the first place, and doubtless how many found out about this site.

As you said, THE, what we had that Uncyc didn't was a more relaxed policy on creative content. Whereas Uncyclopedia is all 'hey, make this article better now or else die,' Illogico is like 'ah, nice article, let's work on it together'. Maybe we've lost some of that original 'help each other' community spirit. Back then we had a (relatively) active forum which people felt compelled to visit on a daily basis. I know I did, even if it was to post pointless stuff and post whore like hell. I just don't feel the same way about our current forum, you know, even though it is the obvious and natural progression from the external Proboards one.

Is there any way we can introduce any sort of new fangled web 2.0 SuperMediaWiki Forum extension so it's a bit more like an actual forum than a wiki one?

So, I guess:

1. We promoted better at Uncyc
2. We had a more accessible and active forum

Another avenue we never really explored was viral/guerrilla marketing. I know this was heavily discussed at one point but that has fallen by the wayside somewhat. Doubt that would be able to be revived though. -- Hindleyak  Converse • ?blog • Click here! 09:38, 3 Ergust 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion: Don't be hostile to IP's!

A lot of times over the last few months I've seen a new IP write an article, and then the article will immediately get tagged with trash or QD. Now sometimes those articles deserve it, don't get me wrong. But sometimes they're basically your standard illogicopedia article, in that they're vaguely amusing randomness. If we want new articles, perhaps we shouldn't be so harsh on newcomers. We can't really afford to since newcomers don't come around that often. --THE 12:57, 1 Ergust 2010 (UTC)

I strongly agree with this. I think we've become too much like uncle pete. --Nerd42 15:46, 3 Ergust 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, we don't want to scare new users off, we wanna welcome them with open arms and make them IOTM and junk. Don't bite the noobs! -- Hindleyak  Converse • ?blog • Click here! 17:53, 3 Ergust 2010 (UTC)

THE for admin!

This guy's great! He's saying the only things that make any sense! Make him an admin!

Wait, he already is? Er, president, then. —rms talk 16:28, 1 Ergust 2010 (UTC)

Title!

I love this site. I can't remember why, probably because it helped me fail my way through school. Anyway, I came to this site to ruin it but I stayed because everyone was friendly and no matter how awful my articles were, there were always people there supporting me and just generally being nice. That is gone now, the community seems more disjointed and newcomers are never met with more than the kind of smile the creepy innkeeper might give to the soaking wet nubile young blonde who has found the inn after her car broke down miles from anywhere and later he watches her showering through a small hole in her bedroom wall as the water cascades down her naked body and she rubs herself tenderly to forget the troubles of the night...where was I? Ah yes. The key is more activity and just general friendliness. Make everybody feel welcome. Talk more and redevelop that tight-knit community that we all knew and loved. -- $H_{olleH}^{ello}$ 23:04, 1 Ergust 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps we are too hasty with new users. I can vaguely recall (not really "vaguely" because it was only two years ago) when I joined this site and it took a while for me to be integrated. I would write my little articles, read others but not really SAY anything. It seems that we need to give noobs space, but also let them know that our gentle and loving grasp is open any time it's needed. Okay... that was a gay way to put it but you get what I mean. I do think we need to advertise but I don't know who (if anyone) is willing to pay for paid-advertising so we'll have to be petty about it... So, 'chea. --T3 07:13, 2 Ergust 2010 (UTC)

I guess I take as much of the blame as anyone on this one. Since leaving the fine educational establishments of the United Kingdom I have had much less time to waste on Illogicopedia (work sucks!) and hence I've been unable to bind everything together in the way I used to. A knock-on effect of this is that Recentchanges dies and people, ie the regulars, feel less compelled to visit. I know Illogic was always a small, niche community and that's fine, but the downside of this is when you lose the activity of one of those guys, things can seriously take a hit. When you lose three or four for a period, then you get the long stints of inactivity.

I also note that I've all but abandoned Uncle Pete for Illogicopedia these days. Maybe I should go back there and whore us out to the fols over there again. Over There! Over There! (God I hate that GoCompare advert) -- Hindleyak  Converse • ?blog • Click here! 09:48, 3 Ergust 2010 (UTC)

Check the ban logs over at Uncyclopedia and leave a message 'You Want to escape from drama for awhile? Relax amongst saner human beings??' on a user's page who has recently been banned. Avoid the vandals of course but if I hadn't already created an account here, I would have been stumped a bit with my recent 3 day ban at Uncyclopedia. I say this as main user of uncyclopedia but also as an interested contributor here too. Maybe, even try at ED but that would probably earn a life time ban so perhaps not.--RomArtus*Imperator (Orate) 10:25, 6 Ergust 2010 (UTC)

That's not a bad idea, we used to do that with users who had suitable articles deleted it's how MMF found his way here. It does pose one problem though, searching for and identifying such people is such a laborious process.--Silent PenguinLeave Me Alone 15:45, 6 Ergust 2010 (UTC)

Well they can say no and go elsewhere and even if they don't take up the offer then, one day (like me) they may just pop over to have a look at your esteemed site. --RomArtus*Imperator (Orate) 18:23, 6 Ergust 2010 (UTC)

I didn't state that there was a chance of rejection, that's just human nature, I said that it's like searching for a needle in a very large haystack. :P --Silent PenguinLeave Me Alone 18:41, 6 Ergust 2010 (UTC)

Idea

Use tippex.--Ben ^Blade 08:01, 2 Ergust 2010 (UTC)

Banned substance. Caused highness. -- Hindleyak  Converse • ?blog • Click here! 09:48, 3 Ergust 2010 (UTC)

Advertise! A rare sensible idea.... Specsy1 21:50, 6 Ergust 2010 (UTC)

where? --Silent PenguinLeave Me Alone 15:50, 9 Ergust 2010 (UTC)

Where people visit the most; youtube, twitter, facebook. Get the site advertised constantly on other people's groups; make a spam account my all means. Subliminally slip references to the site through comments on Youtube on 'videos being watched right now', or on the videos you know have tens of millions of views. And make a lot of statuses on twitter. ALOT. It's not too hard i reckon.....now....look at how illogic it is to be logical on illogicopedia! Oh the paradox! Specsy1 22:52, 9 Ergust 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for stating the obvious, but if we spam (rather then advertise) illogicopedia, then we are going to attract more vandals then editors. --Bagelman ^{talk to me !} 04:54, 10 Ergust 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure - Sometimes it's harder to tell between spam and real stuff on here anyway (no offence meant); and edits can easily be reversed and people banned (I think); but more than anything it's worth the awareness and publicity if for every few real editors there's a troublesome vandal. As they say, any publicity is good publicity. Specsy1 18:15, 10 Ergust 2010 (UTC)

Making bans stick on the internet is almost impossible, wait til we have another vandal, then watch them come back again, and again, and again. --Silent PenguinLeave Me Alone 20:46, 10 Ergust 2010 (UTC)

Another idea

I thought of a slightly, well, ambitious idea. There is nowhere on the internet where people can go for collective, easy, simply and yet entertaining knowledge. By that I mean a version of the Bible, or of English History, or of the Beatles' Biography, that you could read over and learn in about 5 minutes. This site could be the 'alternative' encyclopaedia; not a parody or a mickey-take, but actual useful stuff that people might want to learn. For example:

• Good insults
• Chat up lines (good or bad)
• How to win certain games (like monopoly)
• Table manners
• Good arguments
• Very quick profiles of people on the news and why they're famous and people seem to know who they are
• Where the countries are and why they're on the news (seriously, I had no idea Israel was a jewish state until about 2 months ago)
• Good past TV shows everyone should watch

etc.etc.etc.

We don't even have to make this stuff ourselves, there's tons of resources on the internet and books (The Dangerous Book for Boys etc.) that you can paraphrase from (thank god there's no reference rule here), and people will look on it, because if they ever want to find out about something, they won't get an endless long list of boring dates and subheadings, but a short page that probably tells them everything they need to know - in the space of a few minutes.

People just have to rack their brains to thing of the things they've always wanted to know, or had to learn and knew everyone else already seemed to know. Body language, road signs, insulting gestures in foreign countries, sex positions, guessing someone's bra size, various nicknames for 'the parts' - right, i need to get off that track, but if you can see in that list anything that you might have wanted to know at some point in the past but didn't know where to look, you might get what i'm suggesting here. If the website compiled that sort of information, this could be absolutely essential to everyone. Just wanna know what people think. Sorry if this edit was crazily long... :P Specsy1 19:26, 10 Ergust 2010 (UTC)

I DODN't Read the whole page.

Just the first few lines of what Handle light says. Something about no one editing and getting a kick. I WILL BE THAT KICK YO! Cause. I mean i was like the coolest for a while. Theni got bored. Then i got bored of being bored. Then i decided to. make that. Boredom. not bored. Hey im back. At least for like this minute. I can change my mind in likea few seconds! OH HEY! dinner is ready!--|Fonchezzz| Quacking| 23:33, 10 Ergust 2010 (UTC)

I haven't been here in a long time so I might not know a lot but

Does ?pedia have a Twitter? Because it should. People like twitters, they're easily advertisable and noticeable, and ?pedia seems like a perfect fit for that media. Also, quality control never helped anyone, and a step backwards in that should be two steps forwards. --Thekillerfruitcake 09:25, 11 Ergust 2010 (UTC)

And this is contradictory to what T3 said about multiple edits, so sorry in advance, but what Hindley or whoever said about getting users from Uncle Pete is spot on. In fact, I came back here today because I was adjusting Hindley's spot in the Hall of Shame over there, since no one bothered to add his wikia article to the list. Then I remembered how great a writer he was and clicked on his page, and remembered ?pedia existed, then came here and realized one of my articles is being voted for feature here, which was a nice surprise. Anyway, the point is, do the Uncyclopedia things, because that's primarily where you'll get more-likely-to-be-dedicated users from. --Thekillerfruitcake 09:28, 11 Ergust 2010 (UTC)

And again I do it! Sorry T3. A downside to this is that ?pedia's reputation hasn't held up over the years that well because a handful of fruitcakes tend to dismiss it as some kind of lesser, stupider cousin, though I suppose this has always been an issue. --Thekillerfruitcake 09:29, 11 Ergust 2010 (UTC)

Those guys are living in the past, when Illogicopedia was waaaay stupider. If anything, as I've mentioned, we've become more like Uncyc in terms of article structure etc. in recent times. But not completely. We have Nerd to thank for that. :) -- Hindleyak  Converse • ?blog • Click here! 17:59, 12 Ergust 2010 (UTC)

We are live uncyc? I have two options. Leave again, or STOP THIS MADNESS! I choose the latter. I mean, ive never been one to make sense. My humor lies in making random stories that leave you in utter.... confusion. So much confusion that you have to laugh. LAUGH! LAUGH OR ILL SPANK YOO! In conclusion. Who gives a fonch what they say. I dont mind being the lesser down syndrome cousin. As a matter of fact, i enjoy it! Meep.--|Fonchezzz| Quacking| 21:24, 12 Ergust 2010 (UTC)

So what you're saying is that ?pedia is just Uncyc's smaller, more conservative cousin now instead? --Thekillerfruitcake 07:04, 13 Ergust 2010 (UTC)

I think you'll find that's Conservative with a capital C, my friend. Damn you Cameron! Also, turkey twizzlers. -- Hindleyak  Converse • ?blog • Click here! 17:25, 13 Ergust 2010 (UTC)

While I personally am a conservative in "real life" (which means I advocate principles of limited government, personal responsibility and moral values) Illogicopedia certainly wasn't supposed to be particularly conservative or particularly anything else political. In fact if you recall I wanted to beat the evil hordes of politics, religion and socially conscious persuasions of every kind back onto Uncyclopedia where they belong and keep Illogicopedia argument-free with all logical persuasive arguments banished or lost in the ineffable insanity of the place. So it would be fairer to say I envisioned Illogicopedia not to be Uncyc's conservative cousin but Uncyc's apolitical non-offensive cousin. --Nerd42 15:34, 2 Octodest 2010 (UTC)