If you look at most modding communities, they consist of a lot of individual people with their own projects working independently. Projects take a long time to develop because talent is spread very thin and personal research is kept private. In the end, the fans suffer because fewer projects are released from the lack of coordination. Now, reflecting on our current fan projects (and I don't mean to offend people), Chrono Trigger + is in limbo, Azala Style is totally stalled, Re-Amped is going very slowly because it's only one guy, Time's Illusion is at a standstill, and Rebirth has a title sequence done after a few months of work. Crimson Echoes has shown significant progress thanks to jsondag2, but even it is having issues due to personnel shortages.
I've always tossed the idea around of designating one fan project "Compendium sponsored", where like all the official faculties of the site are geared towards it. It'd get a prominent button on the sidebar and maybe other places, and clicking any of those would take the reader to an encyclopedia page set up by and maintained by that project's leaders which advertises opportunities for help and open positions. This way, more resources are directed to a single project chosen because of its appeal and likelihood of getting finished. Once it's done, a new fan project can fall under the Aegis.
Still, I wasn't sure how others would feel about this, or whether it would be truly effective. If it went into action, for example, a few people could clean up one map each from Crimson Echoes, and in one gesture 90% of the mapping work will be done for the project. But when one person like jsondag2 is tasked with cleaning up maps, it represents a lot of time and limits contributions to only one vision. If this system works ideally, fan project development time will be cut down and research will be shared among more people. There will also be more "accountability", as an increase in people with a vested interest in a project should increase interest and volunteering. And the small talent thats invested into projects that are stalled will instead be of real use. Anyway, feedback wanted.
