Moving to Curse
this wiki
Forum page
I know that we have discussed moving before in the past in a discussion where we had decided that we would stay with Wikia. However, throughout the past years, Wikia has made some, dare I say, stupid decisions. One of those decisions being the new skin, yes I'm sure we've all gotten used to it by now, but let's face it, if the whole site users Monobook why have it still enabled? That's right, because Wikia won't make an exception. You can see on the blogs about the mutiple blogs on the new look.
In "Important Updates on Wikia's New Look", you can find a comment that says: What the heck?Why did Wowwiki get better version of the Oasis skin? That's a good question, why did WoWWiki get a better version? Why don't all wikis get the same treatment? Why is WoWWiki under a completely different URL? In response to that comment, there was this statement at the end of the reply: Other wikis are pretty much worthless to staff. The sad thing is not that people think that it's true, the sad thing is that it is true. Ever wonder why Uncyclopedia's default skin is Monobook? Because they bring in a lot of viewers. Unless you're bringing in a lot of viewers and have what seems to be over 10,000 articles, you're not going to get special treatment. Even if you are over 10,000 articles and bring in a lot of viewers, you might not get your own URL and separate login system.
On that very same blog in a few pages back, you get a comment that says its not ready... to which Sannse replies with Some changes and fixes have been released today, more are due in the next few weeks. It's been a few years, things in this skin are still broken.
On The new look 2, section 8 (What skins are supported?) you see that they state We are keeping the Monobook skin for the time being as an admin option for Uncyclopedia and its sister projects. We are also allowing it as a personal user choice for those that prefer to view Wikia sites in that format. However, as a company we cannot afford to continue to support older versions of our design. You know what this means? We could lose Monobook. Our userbase is pretty much all Monobook users.
On that same page on section 6 you find that Staff state We’ve found that overall, fixed width simply looks better.
On the "Your First Look at the New Wikia" blog you can find a comment that says Whats the point. Wikia is fine as is. Wikia was fine. But now they have a ton of broken functions and pointless features.
That takes me to my next point. We have had features such as PlayQuiz added to our wiki without staff asking for consensus. We did not want this. We did not ask for it. They waltz in and added this feature to Zeldapedia. Additionally, they have completely broken search. Searching "Zelda" should only bring up pages with "Zelda" in the title, not a page that has "Zelda" in the page. This leads to endless pages of search results. Chat. Because we all want to use a pointless little chat in a new window where we have to deal with trolls. Not only that, but IRC and Skype exist for reasons. And then Message Wall, we don't need these bad features. We don't need any features.
Need I remind you guys that this is an encyclopedia. Wikia is turning it into a social network site. Jazzi 22:31, June 25, 2012 (UTC)
Contents |
Pros/Cons and Options
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Pros
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- Moving to a new farm will be able to give us a fresh start. We'll be independent from Wikia. We won't be with Zelda Wiki.org. The URL will be completely independent as shown on the following sites: Vindictus Wiki, Skyrim Wiki, Minecraft Wiki, SWTOR Wiki, WoWPedia, Dragon Nest Wiki, Terraria Wiki. All those wikis are Subject Wiki in the URL. Not subject.curse.com. We are our own URL. The only probably would be that we would either have to be zeldawiki.com which would cause a problem with ZeldaWiki.org
- Bring in more users. Users who won't be incompetent and will actually know how to edit something.
- We could possibly have protect site on, meaning that we wouldn't have anonymous users.
- Get rid of Zelda Answers.
Cons
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- We could lose our anonymous users.
- Possibly lose the name "Zeldapedia".
Options
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- Curse has Vector. All wikis use Vector. It might be possible they will consider giving us Monobook. It might not be positive though.
Questions to Curse
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- If we get a database dump of Zeldapedia, would we be able to have the articles on the new(er) wiki without copyright problems?
- Yes, all the articles are under a free license.
- Do user accounts transfer over?
- Yes, users will be able to reclaim their Wikia accounts.
- Do you guys allow username changes?
- Yes.
- Do you guys have a forum namespace? Or is it in a forums.siteurl.com?
- We can create a forum namespace if needed.
- Can we add in namespaces? We have a Walkthrough namespace at Zeldapedia and I'd like to see it transfer over with us.
- Sure, we can add any namespace.
- How do the user rights work over there? On Wikia people with the rollback flag can do a quick undo, then we have the administrators who can delete, block, protect, move files, and move pages without a redirect, and then the bureaucrats who can add and remove rights while having the same abilities as admins.
- We can transfer the user rights as well.
- What would the URL look like?
- As for the URL, we can look at various alternatives.
- Do we have to pay to be hosted?
- No.
Comments
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When it comes down to it. We'll either have to move as a good chunk of the community, or we should just stay. I personally do not want to stay, but I'm staying with the community. Jazzi 22:31, June 25, 2012 (UTC)
No deal. --AuronKaizer! 22:34, June 25, 2012 (UTC)
Wikis has very clearly shown that they are not the optimal wiki farm for us, and if it was as simple as moving with no logistical problems I would support this immediately, but I'm going to need to see Cursed answer your questions before I can weigh in on this. In particular, the transfer of articles/images/etc. is a major concern. I'm also a bit concerned about the transfer of edit counts and contributions — not because it's important to me that people know how much they've edited, per se, but because I think it's important to preserve a history of who edited what when. Xykeb Yvolix Zraliv 22:43, June 25, 2012 (UTC)
Updated the questions with the answers I have received from curse. Jazzi 23:48, June 25, 2012 (UTC)
I'll be a bit slower to fully support a move this time, but especially with the answers to your questions, this doesn't look too bad. I'm definitely not opposing, at the very least. Transferring contributions/edit counts would be nice, but I don't think my final decision will depend on that. Jedimasterlink (talk) 00:31, June 26, 2012 (UTC)
As of now I'm not as interested because Wikia hasn't been giving us too much crap as of late. Another one of my concerns here is that all of our viewership will be lost and searches for 'zelda wiki' or 'zeldapedia'/etc. will result in the wikia site/ZW.org even when we've moved. Also, there is the huge problem of images and unless there is an easy way to transfer all images (and all of everything, really) I'm going to be more likely to oppose. Their answers to your questions do look promising, however, and as much as I dislike Vector in general it's still doable. So I guess we'll just have to see. Minish Link Talk Page 01:19, 6/26/2012
- I completely disagree with your first point. Saying that Wikia has not been giving us crap "as of late" is absolutely meaningless. If there was any indication it would last, sure, but Wikia has shown literally no signs at any point in time of improving, ever, and if we wait for them to implement the next big change, thereby "giving us crap", we're basically just asking for things to reach their logical breaking point. That said, I agree with what else was said; unfortunately, although their answers to Jazzi's questions are very promising, there are a few very important logistical problems with no clear solution. I support this if and only if the majority of other users also support it, which it seems like everyone is hesitant to do. I kind of feel like this is too big of a change for our infamously indecisive community to ever, ever decide to do. A painless move with no viewership/transfer/etc. issues would be really nice, though. Xykeb Yvolix Zraliv 03:53, June 26, 2012 (UTC)
- I see what you mean and agree with what you're saying. Everyone seems hesitant as of now but if those issues were resolved and the move was 'painless' I would probably support. Minish Link Talk Page 21:46, 6/26/2012
- I'm pretty sure it'd be completely painless. The images might be a sore to move, but I'm pretty sure that we could get someone to sort that out. I know I'm willing to download them to fix it. It'd be hard, but I could do it. I'd love to move. I can talk to the Curse staff, actually, we all could. Since the majority of the users in this forum have Skype, we could create a little-mini group to talk about a possible move. It'd be a pretty quick move as well. If we were to go, we should probably change this name to "The Legend of Zelda Wiki" so that we could have Zeldapedia. Jazzi 03:13, June 28, 2012 (UTC)
Going through this and the previous move forum, it's obvious this forum will turn out in the way the last one turned out only with less contributors. The point I'm getting at is, we're not going to move, at least not at this point in time. I can expect that if Wikia does something insanely stupid, such as getting rid of Monobook, another move forum might be opened up. But at the time being, there is no need to move. In the case of Zeldapedia, we do not need a fresh start, unlike another wiki I edit on that's moving. Zeldapedia has a good stance as a community despite not being well liked amongst the Zelda-community (which I would like to try and change). If we were to move we'd lose editors and content. Additionally, it'd completely screw us over. So there's no point to move as it would ruin our reputation and we'd have to establish ourselves again. Jazzi 15:51, July 2, 2012 (UTC)