User blog:Sonasaurus/Problem? Hell, yeah.

The Against All Odds expanded universe was launched a year and a half ago, in September of 2009. Initially, it was just Maslab and myself, and the process of having members joining us was slow. But as we progressed into 2010, things picked up as more people became interested. And these weren't just any users, mind you. To this day, we have some of Halo Fanon's most active and skilled writers, such as SPARTAN-118, Athena32, and Actene. Thanks to them and many others, 2010 had been a strong year for AAO, where we collectively won no less than 14 Halo Fanon Annual Awards. I think it's fair to call ourselves a successful and well-known community project on Halo Fanon.

Yet there's more to it than that. As we moved into 2011, I thought that we needed a more firm structure within our EU. Of course, we did establish methods to ensure that it was so. For one, the AAO member list was split into different types of users; co-creators, the ones who decided what was and wasn't to be in the expanded universe; moderators, who regulated the users and sorted out issues in AAO if any arose; adepts, who were the most committed writers within the group; and the standard users, who were made of either the less active contributors or the newer ones. To be allowed into AAO, one had to either receive a direct invitation or receive enough supporting votes from AAO upon making an application; we openly welcome good to fair writers, encourage the newer ones to try again a later date, and keep the uncivil and uncooperative out. This, I hoped, would have been enough.

But I know it isn't. Believe me, it's no easy task to run an entire universe, especially when my partner Maslab is currently preoccupied with real life matters. There's a very thin line between what one can and cannot tell another writer to do, even as a co-creator. I want AAO's members to stick to the basic ideas we've established, but I still want their writing to be, well...their writing. And I am aware that their new ideas are what keeps a community project going, so forcing a user to follow what I've made would be counterproductive, not to mention boring as heck.

So, after 3 paragraphs, I think I'll finally get down to what I've wanted to say. Overall, I believe that one thing AAO is missing is balance. Maybe I'm not the best at keeping that balance, which is why I've appointed other capable users to help me. There are three key things I believe are important to keep balanced in a community project as large as this.


 * Number of users and writing quality. Very recently, it has been voiced that AAO is rather elitist with its "skillz or gtfo" policy. I'll admit, I don't like to shun people. But sometimes I just don't see some users being able to contribute to our EU at all. If that sounds selfish, I'll point out that it wouldn't even benefit himself/herself, let alone us. As of late, I've loosened our standards of what writing skills someone needs to join, to allow more users in. A community project should, after all, involve as much of the community as possible. But as another user correctly pointed out, this has lowered our overall writing quality. This has also bothered me, as I've been aiming for our quality to be as high as possible. I don't want to single out users who could use improvement, but I can't seem to find that balance that allows a fair amount of writers in while maintaining our quality. Of course, no one has ever accused me of someone else's writing quality, but I still feel that I can do better than just observe.




 * Project activity and writing restrictions. For the first half of 2011, activity in AAO has taken a downturn. This has puzzled me, as I haven't set in any new restrictions on what one can and can't create. Not that the existing restrictions were very limiting in the first place; as I stated above, I think it's good for others to introduce new ideas to AAO. Nor has anyone voiced concerns that they don't feel like they can do enough. I know for a fact that people feel less motivated when their creativity is hindered by someone's else's idea. Hence AAO has always been a rather open project. One problem I can't seem to get us out of, however, is the fact that neither activity and restrictions are very high. This is more of a lack of balance, and I can't figure out what it is.




 * Writer creativity and contribution to the project. I'm actually wondering if I should start reminding users to include more of AAO's main elements in their own writing. While I have no intentions of holding any of them back, it looks like, from my perspective, that the ideas are just flying all over the place and have little to no coordination. What I'm really looking for is an increase of collaboration between writers, and interaction between their characters, places, and events so that the project actually feels interconnected. Right now, I'm seeing a group of writers who are all adding their own ideas into AAO without looking at what the others are doing; it almost feels like you're all competing to see who's the best (this could just be my point of view, so don't take my word for it). I think what would really make AAO better is the determination to work together while pulling your weight in the project. One of the best examples I can think of is the story Halo: Heroes All, written by SPARTAN-118 and Athena32. They made considerable efforts to combine their ideas and individual strengths to create a well-written story that's still ongoing. In short, I can honestly say that you are capable writers who don't need to prove yourselves to Halo Fanon anymore; what you do need is to prove you can work together with others to build AAO to be even better than it is now.

I just wanted to say all that because it's been weighing on my mind for a very long time. I hope finally putting it into words will help you dwell on it. I hope that this has brought AAO's primary problems to your attention, and that we will be able to deal with them as a team.