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First off, I hope this is the right forum to ask this question. I looked everywhere and nothing else seemed to match.

Now to the topic question. Will the news section continue to be its own thing, like Wikinews is to Wikipedia? Or will the news section slowly become the dominant purpose of the site? I only ask this because in an interview I think a mod did with a magazine said he wanted to start transitioning Know Your Meme to more of a news site. And so some time has passed and low and behold, a "News" section pops up. Certainly piqued my curiosity so that's why I'm asking.

The shift over the past few years has been subtle but clear to anyone paying attention.

KYM used to be a community-driven wiki much like TV Tropes. The admin team featured 1-2 full time writers/editors at most and had a dedicated community manager. Most articles were written by users or mods, though admins put in the finishing touches.

KYM currently features like half a dozen full time writers and no community manager. 90% of (frontpaged) content is conceived and written entirely by admins. Even though pageviews are up, the userbase has shrunk a lot and fewer people hang around nowadays except to comment on softcore porn or argue about politics.

I feel like the news section is merely the latest development in KYM's long arc toward a standardized internet news site driven by paid writers. The encyclopedia format of entries is a relic from another era at this point.

So is this a good thing?

"the userbase has shrunk a lot"
Active KYM users are like an endangered species at this point

"the userbase has shrunk a lot and fewer people hang around nowadays"

If only you knew how bad things really are