AHS article in Wikipedia is up for deletion

 
kimon
 
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kimon
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10 May 2016 11:44
 

Looks like an individual that goes by the alias BlueSalix wants to delete the Wikipedia article on the Society and has posted a request up. It is open to discussion and people can give their 2 cents on why it should or should not be deleted.

Link to the AfD: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/American_Heraldry_Society

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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Joseph McMillan
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10 May 2016 17:45
 

It probably ought to be deleted.  It’s terrible.

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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Joseph McMillan
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10 May 2016 17:47
 

kimon;105975 wrote:

Looks like an individual that goes by the alias BlueSalix wants to delete the Wikipedia article on the Society and has posted a request up. It is open to discussion and people can give their 2 cents on why it should or should not be deleted.

Link to the AfD: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/American_Heraldry_Society


Do we know who wrote the article in the first place?  It’s out-of-date and in some respects inaccurate.

 
kimon
 
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kimon
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11 May 2016 09:14
 

Joseph McMillan;105977 wrote:

Do we know who wrote the article in the first place?  It’s out-of-date and in some respects inaccurate.


It was first created in 2005 and since then has been edited by several people. Here’s the history of edits: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=American_Heraldry_Society&offset=&limit=500&action=history

 
QuiQuog
 
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11 May 2016 12:46
 

From the article:

...briefly sponsored a few awards, journals and other minor activities, but appears to have burned out and is now just a semi-active message board.

Unfortunately, if I’m being honest to myself, as I look around at the different offerings on the AHS site, things have been pretty static since 2010. Before that, there were at least some publications to claim activity, and the awards program, although recently suggested to be reignited, has been inactive since the same year. The description of the forum as semi-active is also sadly accurate. The AHS forum is on my nearly daily rotation of sites I visit for reading forums. Nearly daily because I skip frequently due to the fact that days frequently go by without a single post. sometimes I’ll skip a week so that enough posts have built up to read. I’m not a regular poster myself because I feel outclassed by the mental kung fu of the most regular posters. The topics are simply beyond my scope of knowledge.

 

I’m sure everyone has noticed at the top of the forums page are a couple basic stats. One is the most active users in one day, being 93 in 2013, the other being the current active users online. I look at the later quite often and rarely see it counting beyond my own connection. As much as we may hate to admit it, semi-active seems to be a fairly accurate description of the forum. As a contrast, another site that I frequent is pokerchipforum.com. It’s a site that caters to the high end custom poker chip market, admittedly a niche market. Looking at the current activity on that board, there are 309 connected, of which 185 are registered members representing 12 percent members online.

 

While the opinion of BlueSalix that the AHS is unworthy of a place in Wikipedia doesn’t mean that this site is irrelevant per se, it should be an eye opener as we look at what contributions the AHS is making and who it’s making those contributions to. Perhaps it’s time to think about rekindling interest and activity in the AHS. I’m not an activist by any stretch, but maybe somebody needs to take the reigns on a promotion campaign. Reach out to groups that may have a tie in, increasing visibility of the art to younger potential interested parties.

 

This is probably a topic for another thread, so I’ll end by suggesting that a senior member start a thread relating to site contributions, site promotion, bringing in younger members, and reaching out to groups that may have an interest tie in to heraldry such as medieval reenactment groups, renaissance fairs, LARPers, D&D gamer groups and such.

 

Worth = 2ยข

 
arriano
 
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12 May 2016 16:12
 

I don’t know what to say to all that. I agree that the AHS isn’t as active as it used to be, but I’m not quite sure how to remedy it. And not being an officer, I’m not sure if it’s really my place to start throwing suggestions around at this point. The fact is, this is a volunteer organization and we are (I’m sure) all busy with our lives. But I’d like to help if I can.

 
QuiQuog
 
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12 May 2016 18:18
 

I understand that the site is run by volunteers, and I admire the dedication that some have to the site. I don’t make any real contribution other than the occasional comment or idea, misguided as they may be. As a lowly member, I certainly wouldn’t take action and start a promotional campaign, but surely we can throw out suggestions. My comment above wasn’t intended to ruffle feathers, it’s just what I happened to be thinking as I contemplated the idea of BlueSalix that this is a semi-active message board.

I think that there are a lot of very talented and passionate people here, and I’m sure that they would like to see the site flourish. It’s just that as I really take a look around, it really doesn’t seem to be much more than a semi-active message board as of late.

 

Maybe this is the way that the membership likes it. But wouldn’t it be more interesting if there were more activity?

 
Michael F. McCartney
 
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16 May 2016 14:21
 

I’d also like to see our forum more active, though I’m not at all sure that mere volume of traffic is a particularly useful or valid measure for this sort of forum - unless we want to start posting photos of puppies and kittens! wink

One of the themes we used to do a lot, but infrequently lately, is design assistance for those wishing to assume new arms.  I see it now and then in the Facebook heraldry forums (Heraldry Society and International Heraldry Society) but not the depth of knowledge and creativity that this Forum cn and did bring.

 
Claus K Berntsen
 
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Claus K Berntsen
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17 May 2016 10:49
 

I have noticed that the decline in activity on the heraldic forums all seem to have declined significantly in the last few years. I have noticed this on the forums of the AHS, the Heraldry Society of Scotland, the Swedish Heraldry Society (which caters to all of Scandinavia), and the International Association of Amateur Heralds. At the same time more and more discussions are taking place on Facebook, which of course means that more people might notice it and participate, but it might also be difficult to find a discussion later on.

I have no solution to this problem, and am not sure there is one, but perhaps this is a logical evolution from message boards to forums to Facebook?

 
Michael F. McCartney
 
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18 May 2016 14:52
 

Same observation re: Facebook - the Wmazon of heraldry, tending to drive out the smaller local shops.

But FB, while fine for running comentary, isn’t suited to extended, detailed discussions like Joe’s recent series on armorial capacity, or an earlier detailed examination of the term "gentleman" or extended and detailed discussions on "best practices" - FB discussions may borrow snippets from these longer and more detailed discussions; but derivative, not original.

 
arriano
 
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arriano
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18 May 2016 17:26
 

Facebook is really good for driving traffic to your web site. You can make an announcement about a specific issue and then include a link to the page.

Of course, you need something on the web site to drive people to. For instance….

 

American Heraldry Society calls for nominations for heraldry awards:

www.americanheraldry.org/whatever

 

But you need to have that content and have it on a regular basis for it to work. And we’re not doing that.

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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18 May 2016 18:13
 

Fair enough.  I just posted on FB a notice on availability of our Barton Scholarship to fund postgrad thesis research.  Let’s see what happens.

It’s also a fair point that we’ve let the design award become dormant.  I’ll post something on that as well.

 

Ultimately, though, the AHS can’t survive if everyone’s first reflex is to look to the officers to keep things going.

 
Michael F. McCartney
 
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Michael F. McCartney
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18 May 2016 21:22
 

There are also a couple of us (Kathy McClurg & me) who will on occasion suggest the AHS as a place to go - sometimes for the Guidelines, sometimes for design assistance (but pointing out the membership requirement).

 
arriano
 
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arriano
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19 May 2016 16:12
 

You can pre-schedule posts on Facebook. So the person(s) with access to the AHS’ page can spend an hour scheduling posts on each president heraldry page, on different guidelines to focus on, etc. Then you sprinkle in specific announcements as they come along.

Also, it’s important for each of us to "like" the AHS Facebook page and "like" each post so that it builds recognition. I just went in and "liked" the most recent posts.