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:I don't think we should be worrying at all about losing name value. Wowpedia quickly made a better name for itself after leaving Wowwiki, and a new site will do the same before long. --[[User:ShadowShade81413|ShadowShade81413]] ([[User talk:ShadowShade81413|talk]]) 19:51, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
 
:I don't think we should be worrying at all about losing name value. Wowpedia quickly made a better name for itself after leaving Wowwiki, and a new site will do the same before long. --[[User:ShadowShade81413|ShadowShade81413]] ([[User talk:ShadowShade81413|talk]]) 19:51, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
 
::That list is dated; [[Special:Statistics|Wowpedia is much larger than that now]]. (And Yugipedia produces an error currently, which does not inspire confidence). --{{qtt|[[User:Pcj|Pcj]]|Wowpedia wiki manager}} ({{qtt|[[User talk:Pcj|T]]|Drop me a line!}}•{{qtt|[[Special:Contributions/Pcj|C]]|{{User:Pcj/count|nobox=1}} contributions and counting}}) 20:15, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
 
::That list is dated; [[Special:Statistics|Wowpedia is much larger than that now]]. (And Yugipedia produces an error currently, which does not inspire confidence). --{{qtt|[[User:Pcj|Pcj]]|Wowpedia wiki manager}} ({{qtt|[[User talk:Pcj|T]]|Drop me a line!}}•{{qtt|[[Special:Contributions/Pcj|C]]|{{User:Pcj/count|nobox=1}} contributions and counting}}) 20:15, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
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:::I use Shoutwiki to host a small wiki for my D&D campaign, and while they've been mostly alright I'm fairly certain that they have nowhere near the bandwidth and infrastructure needed for something of our size. We would also be sharing a user list with all of their wikis, significantly increasing the incidences of spam. -- [[User:DarkTZeratul|DarkTZeratul]] ([[User talk:DarkTZeratul|talk]]) 20:18, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
   
 
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Revision as of 20:18, 16 December 2018

Forums: Village pump → Gamepedia and Fandom

If you haven't heard the news, Fandom (Wikia) has purchased Curse Media from Twitch. Curse Media owns Gamepedia, and therefore Wowpedia is on the way back to Wikia.

We don't know what all this entails, as they've only just made the announcement, but we wanted to make sure you're aware too. There are discussions going on behind the scenes about what that means for the community of editors and the great resource we've put together over the past eight years.

As soon as we get more information, we'll make sure to pass it along to you, but for now, that's the news. --k_d3 20:13, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Guess that's the two last years of my life down the drain Xporc (talk) 20:18, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
Also https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/the-future-of-wowpedia/45879 --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!C207,729 contributions and counting) 20:27, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
Frankly, I do not believe it bodes well for the Wowpedia/Gamepedia community that there was no plan ahead of time. That is not a dig at Gamepedia staff, just the fact that the money-movers probably cannot see past the established content, updated for free by community members, ripe for advertisement clicks. The only way I am sticking around is if the WoWWiki design in its entirety is nuked from orbit and never allowed to taint all the work and reputation of Wowpedia. Aliok (talk) 03:49, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
I'm willing to wait until we have more information available, but my skepticism is quite high given past history. -- Alayea (talk / contrib) 04:24, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
Aw, dammit. I remember when we moved from WoWWiki a long time ago, the website itself wasn't too bad yet. Sometimes I'll check it out to see the differences in information or pictures, and it is just a bloated mess now. What a shame. VraulIconTINY Vraul Jawrip (talk · contr) 05:54, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
There were some unprofessional comments at the Wowwiki announcement. I honestly don't think there could be a worse move than going back to Wikia/Fandom. I don't believe they support their editors properly at all. Techhead7890 (talk) 04:29, 14 December 2018 (UTC) (parts struck at 0500)
Yeah. He called for civility while taunting us.—SWM2448 04:55, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
I thought so, I'm not sure any more, it might have been a lapse in judgement. The 'crat who posted it actually wrote a much more conciliatory post on the official forums, so I guess I ought to give him the benefit of the doubt, but it is rather irksome. Techhead7890 (talk) 05:00, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
Ugh, Fandyllic continues to justify his little "joke" that Wowpedia is his "wayward child" and dismissed me as some kind of random wandering idiot. He clearly isn't a pleasant person to work with, lording over his castle over there. Oh well, I've never really found wikia admins to be much help anyway. Techhead7890 (talk) 05:21, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
Fandyllic is believing all of our hard work belongs to him just because he made "25,000" edits on the site a decade ago, as if that was supposed to be any impressive. Well, bad news because I made 100.000 edits since joining two years ago, and that's only me. Any person with a brain can compare wowpedia and wowwiki about the coverage of recent WoW material and see that we are not wayward child, but that wowwiki is the drunk and jobless uncle living in a ruined shack Xporc (talk) 08:21, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
Haha, well, I feel like I shouldn't badmouth him too much however I feel about him, especially with the merge likely coming -- but I'm glad I'm not the only one who's seen his bad side. I've not been around Wowpedia as much as I would have liked, but for what it's worth Xporc, I've found you guys way friendlier :) Techhead7890 (talk) 08:52, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
Wowpedia's reactions ".. fuck."
Wowwiki's reactions "haha, this is going to be fun, we'll get to steal all their content." (comment thread) -- MyMindWontQuiet 09:05, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
I hate that he's so damn smug about it. If we're forced into a merger and...that guy is given any power, then I, for one, will be done. I'm kind of hoping that Wikia looks at us, then looks at them, and then tosses them aside, but somehow I doubt it. Perhaps the fact that back when Blizzard used to link to a wiki, they linked to us and not them will be a point in our favor, but Wikia is about as accomodating as a prison. --IconSmall Deathwing Joshmaul, Loremaster of Chaos (Leave a Message) 18:01, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
The guy is due congratulations for admitting his site is substandard. You guys forked off once before, there's no reason you can't do so again. While the guys at Curse have obviously done a grand job thus far, the ideal would be migrating to a volunteer-run not-for-profit farm. The problem, of course, a large one (bar Wikimedia but Gamepedia is not under the scope of their project goal) does not really exist. Miraheze is a thing and has excellent support but it is quite small, and the whole Orain incident brings security into question. Wikia, whether this is a cover-up or not and they are keeping quiet to prevent backlash, themselves seem to be unsure of how the acquisition will pan out, whether there'll be a merge or not, etc. (even if there is no merge it may be best for the community to explore alternatives) If the proposed course of action is dire enough, I'm sure a fork will pop up somewhere in no time. I'll stay tuned. Gcx0 (talk) 19:45, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
"Smug" might be a euphemism.
> gloats and laughs at Wowpedia unprovoked
> "let's steal all their content"
> "Wowpedia better be civil" -- MyMindWontQuiet 20:04, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
Oh hell naw! I can't imagine working on Wikia. It's chaos :-( Mordecay (talk) 21:01, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
I happened to read over the old post from eight years back when we left Wikia in the first place, and I find myself appreciating the irony of complaining about going to Curse (jumping from one corporate overlord to another, as Pcj put it) back then when they ended up being a hell of a lot better to us than Wikia. Kinda makes a fellow wonder what all the fuss was about, considering we've gone full circle. (Or, in the immortal words of - among others - Bugs Bunny, "Was this trip really necessary?") Anyone know any other corporate overlords who aren't being bought up by bigger ones like it's a fire sale? --IconSmall Deathwing Joshmaul, Loremaster of Chaos (Leave a Message) 03:45, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
If Wowpedia is merged back into WoWWiki or forced to use the Fandom / Wikia format, I'm out. We forked for this very reason nearly a decade ago, and Fandom has only become a worse platform in the intervening years. I know that I'm not a massively active contributor these days, but I absolutely will not contribute to WoWWiki, and I hope that the powers that be are searching for viable alternatives. Amaranth Sparrow (talk) 17:43, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
I am actually a Wikia user, but I do often visit Gamepedia's wikis for information, and I couldn't help but join the conversation. Nothing has been officially announced yet regarding the post-buyout cooperation between the two wikifarms, but I believe that a forced merger with Wowwiki is unlikely. Wikia normally permits the existence of many different competing wikis about the same topic on their platform and would only join them if the users of both agree. I admit that the change in the page layout is a possibility, but so is the two platforms operating independently, only borrowing things they like from each other. You are of course welcome to fork, if you wish, but I would advise waiting at least until the plan has been revealed. Vengirni (talk) 09:47, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

Looking at Wikia past events, to understand what is coming

I've just registered here to give some past experiences and facts about Wikia, that hopefully would give more information to get the best decision:

  • Uncyclopedia was bought, and for many years it was the only wiki that had a special treatment regarding skins: Every other wiki was forced into using their corporate skin (Monaco at first, Oasis next), except Uncyclopedia and sister-language projects. Until May of this year, where wikia decided to ditch Monobook entirely from personal preferences and also as the default skin of Uncyclopedia.
  • One of the reasons of ditching Monobook was GDPR, which Monobook has no issues with. But the real reason was Wikia didn't want to invest in maintaining that skin, and to develop something where EU users can give consent to access their preferences about cookies and other tracking technologies.
  • Wikia has phased out many of their own-developed extensions, and more are coming. As with Monobook, they don't want to invest in their own extensions. They're using an old version of MediaWiki (1.19), heavily modified, and backporting some of the features, but they don't want to invest in upgrading the software.
  • Wikia is going to change all domains from wikia.com to fandom.com to complete its rebranding, even if it's going to hurt SEO of the wikis (at least initially). Their branding is the top priority of Wikia. I also remember when they disable the ability to change the document title (the text displayed on the tab/window title on the browser) to prevent users from removing the "Fandom powered by Wikia" part of it.

With all this background, it's very unlikely that Wikia will support the current skin used by Wowpedia or your MediaWiki extensions. Initially all would remain the same. However, when one company acquires another that has the same focus, they try to merge the technology to reduce maintenance costs. Maintaining 2 different MediaWiki codebase and infrastructure doesn't look reasonable for a company like Wikia. I have no doubt that Gamepedia wikis will be merged into Wikia infrastructure, meaning an effective downgrade for you, both in features and the ability to make decisions, although anything has been decided yet. Of course, this is just my guess, but if you think another scenario is possible while wikia still earning enough money to profit from this, feel free to convince me otherwise.

I know this situation is horrible. Best of luck and feel free to contact me in case you need assistance in hosting your wiki yourselves. Ciencia Al Poder (talk) 18:10, 16 December 2018 (UTC) (PD: Yes, I'm the site owner of wikidex.net)

Thank you, I found it an enlightening read. :) -- Alayea (talk / contrib) 19:10, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
Wikia doing Wikia things ? Color me surprised ! There have been many comments on this subject, and events related to it in the previous months, and it's almost sad to see that they have not changed a bit, even within the span of an entire decade, . -- MyMindWontQuiet 19:22, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

Forking

So ... I believe it's on everyone's mind. Like eight years ago, it's time to discuss the possibility of going solo again. I know this has already been linked earlier, but here is the old discussion about this: Forum:Should WoWWiki leave Wikia?

Basically FANDOM hasn't done anything bad (yet?), and the Gamepedia staff has asked us to give them a chance, but it's unlikely things are really going to improve. FANDOM now has a quasi-monopoly on things hobby wiki-related, and they have never shown any willingness to discuss or improve themselves in the past years, which is why even a few weeks ago several FANDOM wikis were still running away and trying to join Gamepedia.

So yeah, things could actually turn out great, but it wouldn't be bad to investigate potential other options here. It seems the wowpedia userbase doesn't have a chance of splitting, considering almost everyone here seems wary of FANDOM, but it could potentially lead to us losing the wowpedia name and having a long time before the community & Blizzard itself would consider our eventual new wiki as the best one. That would be the price of freedom, I guess.

For now nothing drastic happened, it's all about mid and long-term hypotheses, but please discuss how you feel about the question. I'm all for giving chances but having several options is always better than being imposed one. Xporc (talk) 13:56, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

For those curious, we already have the extract. Gamepedia was kind enough to give it to us without too much hassle. And they're working on making sure we can continue to get extracts as needed. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!C207,729 contributions and counting) 14:49, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
Personally, I'm completely fine with the idea of forking if the community decides that that is the best option, even if it means potentially losing the Wowpedia name and reputation and having to start over from scratch in regards to earning the larger fanbase's trust. In general I'll probably just stick with the community wherever it decides to go, even if the destination ends up being one I disagree with. I definitely think we should wait until we get some more concrete details from FANDOM's side before we do anything drastic, though. -- IconSmall TrollDeathKnight Male DeludedTroll (talkcontribs) 15:42, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
I'd prefer not being part of FANDOM. PeterWind (talk) 16:24, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
I'm fine with forking too. But I agree with the others and think we should wait a bit to see if anything bad actually happens. What is at stake here is the "Wowpedia" name, if we leave, then we will lose it, so we need a good reason to leave, and for now we don't since nothing bad has happened. We already have an extract/copy of the database and are able to leave at any moment, so if Wikia does try to roll over us (highly likely), then we'll just fork. There's harm in leaving, but none in waiting.
In the mean time we can try to think of other options. The only two, main options I can think of would be joining the ZAM network (which comes with its own potential issues (and advantages) but it's probably the only alternative to Curse and Wikia) - that is Wowhead, Hearthpwn, etc. - or self-funding (like the Transformers wiki, though I'm not sure how well they are doing now). -- MyMindWontQuiet 16:57, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
I'm all for waiting and seeing, but discussing other options is still good to do so that we'll have something to fall back on rather than being spur of the moment. (We also have to consider that, like the last time, other wikis are watching us to see where this all goes.) -- Alayea (talk / contrib) 19:08, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
I have a suggestion: what if we considered a move to ShoutWiki instead? A lot of ex-Fandom wikias moved there, and they seem to still be going strong. Wowpedia actually is on ShoutWiki's Anti-Wikia Alliance list and is the second largest site on that list, after Yugioh. Both Yugioh and Runescape (3rd largest) are self-hosted, so perhaps we could go that route as well but I assume it's a difficult process since we didn't do that after first leaving Fandom.
I don't think we should be worrying at all about losing name value. Wowpedia quickly made a better name for itself after leaving Wowwiki, and a new site will do the same before long. --ShadowShade81413 (talk) 19:51, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
That list is dated; Wowpedia is much larger than that now. (And Yugipedia produces an error currently, which does not inspire confidence). --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!C207,729 contributions and counting) 20:15, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
I use Shoutwiki to host a small wiki for my D&D campaign, and while they've been mostly alright I'm fairly certain that they have nowhere near the bandwidth and infrastructure needed for something of our size. We would also be sharing a user list with all of their wikis, significantly increasing the incidences of spam. -- DarkTZeratul (talk) 20:18, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

It's been 96 hours since we got the news that we've been sold down the river. Hopefully everyone's gotten over the shock and we can start making plans.

At this instant it's too early to say "we're forking right now and here's the new domain", but it's clearly in the cards. In order to not play that hand, what assurances are we looking for from Fandom? From Gamepedia? Past experience proves that Wikia/Fandom's word is generally not worth the paper it's written on, so who do we trust to actually keep the promises that are made? Sure, there's been a leadership shakeup over there recently, but communities within the past two weeks just forked over to Gamepedia to get away from that environment. Not a sign of confidence.

Curse staff have been giving the impression that they'll be in charge post-acquisition, but who acquires a competing product/team and installs them above their own employees and says "hey, you're in charge now"? That's gotta be demoralizing for the Fandom employees, and even less of a sign of confidence that things are in a good place. The VCs funding Fandom clearly don't mind throwing money around, but they're going to want a return on their investment at some point and we all know what that means for ad quantity/quality...

Should we pull the trigger on the fork, is it worth hitching ourselves to another provider? We're in a much better place now and the cost of hosting/bandwidth/etc is a relatively known quantity. I said on the forums that this has been a passion project of mine for eight years, so I'm not opposed to putting my money where my mouth is... at least to get us started.

I'd like to direct this conversation to see if we can answer my first question: what assurances do we want? Ultimately that's what this forking decision comes down to. Can Fandom/Gamepedia give us what we want? --k_d3 19:32, 16 December 2018 (UTC)