by Hello Everyone
It has been a long time since I decided I would translate and refocus the JP wiki into our own community-fueled Dark Souls resource for our Playstation Boards. Two and a half years have passed since I created the wiki, and started adding previews, images and articles, with Emergence and Ublug, and the other PSboards members quickly jumping in to contribute.
At that time, before game launch, we found more help from random fans looking for content, and people from other countries wanting to have their own language version. We all teamed up and did our best to create a good framework, and we thought we’d made something we were proud of as fans.
We were certainly not expecting the attention and exponentially increasing traffic that followed the launch. . From one day to the next, our Chatango counter had 2000 people on, creating a mini-meme about speed reading on the wiki chat. Pages were updated so fast people were getting locked out. Threads and comments were so numerous, there was no way to keep everything aligned. It became a second full-time job for the organizing team to keep all of this not only afloat, but also improving.
As months passed and activity settled, more dedicated individuals came through to propose improved templates and further contribute with icons, maps, images, videos, commentary.. The site was alive, and no-one demanded acknowledgement. They were doingthis for the community, just as we were doing. To this day, the wiki gets dozens of daily applications and edits, on multiple languages, by people who simply want to make it a better resource.
Over time, we then migrated forums here to give you all a better place to find and give specific help, comment on builds, role-play, or simply socialize. We spent time creating graphic themes and even jokes for certain occasions, thought out and implemented special ranks with their own graphics, interviewed and promoted moderators to keep everything civil, mediated personal disputes, implemented and monitored a second chatroom to give variety to forum interaction, and organized and streamed events with amazing participation.
I am very proud of what has been achieved, but have been giving thought to sustainability. Part of this is due to the Dark Souls 2 launch coming up in a few months, and we already have some idea how this is going to expand the Wiki scope and needs to maintain the site. There is also ongoing in-forum discussions of how our community continues to extend beyond the scope of a single game wiki. We have 17,000 registered members and 6000 forum users (and according to analytics, more than half a million observers) to consider in that dual context.
Perhaps many of you are not aware this wiki is supported financially by 3 people: Ublug, Emergence and myself, who also shoulder the majority burden of administration which we undertake on our own time. Frankly, my thoughts have also been given some negative reinforcement of late, due to those who wish to voice opinions unchallenged, and declare that those who run the site should not have a voice because this is ‘abuse of power.’ Why such people think I am obligated to pay for and maintain a playground for them which I am not allowed to enter, I am not sure. I would rather focus on our growth, but I must be honest this does impact myself and others who have paid for this site financially, mentally, and emotionally.
In light of these multiple factors, I have decided that in order for the community to grow and prosper, we must change the way we support the expense of the wikis and forums. The final objective will be to integrate everything into a self-supported site that pays for itself and is not tied to the whims of wikispaces or forumotion as our current sites are, with independent code that we have control of so we can fulfill the requests of the userbase.
How will we achieve this? Well, as is widely know by anyone who talked with me on the subject, I do not like the idea of donations. A few generous people supporting the whole is neither dependable, nor fair.
So our solution is twofold:
1. Amazon affiliation and Advertisement: We will integrate an Amazon store on the site. Purchases are still handled by Amazon, but the wiki/forums receive a commission. The amount is tiny, but costs us (and the buyer) nothing and puts a few cents towards site upkeep.. Need to pre-order a ps4? Do it through our links, pay the same price, and support the wiki . Advertisement will be unobtrusive and we'll block anything that we deem inappropriate.
2. A new website: For a little while now we have been working to prepare our own blog/mag. The wiki/forums will be "sponsored" by this website. We hope that, plus buzz from you guys will generate traffic which in turn will generate some advertising revenue to further offset the costs of the wikis. The blog will have membership features and allow for submission of articles, reviews or posts by any of you, pending approval from the admin staff.
This site remains a fansite and community-powered. We aren't doing this to get rich, obviously, or we would have intrusive advertisements, PayPal “Donate!” logos everywhere, or simply stolen the community’s work and sold it as a book like others have done. The time we use to prepare these ideas and frameworks does not remotely equate the possible revenue we'll get from some amazon links/ads. We spend entire workweeks for free fixing and filtering content, and we will continue to donate that time to the community.
My objective is to have the site not depend on my or anyone's pocket, and I trust the Dark Souls community is committed enough to understand why I want to keep these websites going for many years. I also sincerely hope the new site meets the objectives of providing a place for this community to discuss the very broad range of interests we all clearly have.
So, without further ado, I am very happy and excited to announce
Fextralife
and our
Dark Souls Wiki Shop
Bookmarks, "likes", tweets, word of mouth could help both of them achieve their objectives, so I would like to encourage everyone to help promote them if you like the content or want to support the wiki. Please also contact me if you have an interest in contributing to Fextralife as an author, and be aware it remains a 100% volunteer site so there is no professional work available.
Fex
