All logged in users will be able to “switch on” the new look for themselves on any wiki they visit.
October 20, 2010
All users will see the new look on every wiki.
Logged in users will have the temporary option of viewing and editing wikis in Monaco.
November 3, 2010
The option to use Monaco will be removed.
Should we leave Wikia?
See http://wikia.pastebin.com/DF8YwGhK -- in short, we may not be allowed to change anything about the new interface, since everything may be deemd an "ad" and thus against the TOS. Could somebody dig up the statement where Jimbo Wales promises that GuildWiki won't get more ads than it had when moving to Wikia? The way Wikia is reading it, it seems more than half of our screen real estate is going to be ad; maybe we should claim breach of contract and demand our domains back. :-P --◄mendel► 23:47, September 27, 2010 (UTC)
GuildWiki:Wikia Move. I can't find a concrete statement saying, "We will never increase the number of ads on GuildWiki." However, Gil does mention a number of times that "our intention is to reduce the amount of advertising, not increase it." I'd say Wikia's intentions have changed dramatically in the past 3 years. —Dr Ishmael 00:56, September 28, 2010 (UTC)
I don't see anything in the formal contract that requires Wikia to honor any other statements any of their staff ever made. In fact, 7.1 pretty much says, if there was a deal besides this one, too bad. I don't see them promising anything except reporting on profits, returning profits to the community, providing tech and live support, and allowing us to opt-out of new features and skins. It seems to me that they haven't done well on those promises, but then again, they aren't contractually obligated. They expressed serious interest in reducing ads on GWiki, but didn't actually promise to do so. However, we have been encouraged to "fork our projects if [we] feel [wikia is] doing something wrong."
Seems to me that, if GWiki is going to see anything different from Wikia that someone would need to speak to their executives to clarify what this site's special status means today. —Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 01:52, September 28, 2010 (UTC)
I'll bring everyone's concerns to their attention if you all make them known here. 01:53, September 28, 2010 (UTC)
7.1 just says "This is the sole and final contract between Wikia and Gravewit concerning the sale of the www.gamewikis.org domain name." It doesn't say that it prevents Wikia from making any promises to the wider GuildWiki community, because the contract did not concern the community in any way.
However, you are quite correct in observing that Wikia has not followed through on their promises very well, other than keeping Monobook as an option (although they currently have it for all wikis, so you can't exactly say they did to keep their promise to us specifically). We did ask for an annual report somewhere around the end of 2008, but they basically told us that there was no need to run a report because we were just a huge money sink (no, I can't recall where this conversation took place on the wiki). I don't know if anyone has ever called them out on that promise since then. —Dr Ishmael 02:12, September 28, 2010 (UTC)
Gil Penchina and Jimbo Wales aren't exactly "staff", AFAIK they're founders and co-owners of Wikia. --◄mendel► 14:43, September 28, 2010 (UTC)
Gil Penchina was and still is CEO, and Jimmy Wales was the co-founder of both Wikipedia and Wikia. —Dr Ishmael 15:11, September 28, 2010 (UTC)
"In any event, our intention is to reduce the commercialism of the site, not increase it."
Also, Gil Penchina wrote:
"We DO NOT plan to put lots of ads to the site, in fact if you look at our sites, they typically only have ONE ad per page instead of TWO so I had hoped we would be viewed as an improvement. Also when you login to our new skins, the ad unit is EVEN smaller."
"I had hoped that by reducing the number of ads and improving the software, we could help make Gamewikis a better place"
"For now all I can say is that we want to reduce the number of ads without eliminating them"
So if they want to make half the page untouchably ads under the terms of their TOS, they'd pretty much have turned around on these pledges. (There are also promises about profit/loss reports and regular data dumps which have not been kept properly.) --◄mendel► 14:41, September 28, 2010 (UTC)
What can we do if we take these concerns to Wikia and they tell us to shove it? We have no leverage and no reliable alternate host. 16:10, September 28, 2010 (UTC)
That's the catch: There currently is no viable alternative MediaWiki-based wiki farm, so Wikia can do whatever the hell they want without having to worry too much about their "big" wikis leaving. There's http://www.referata.com, which is tied in to the semantic web and strongly supports SMW, but it's been mostly slow and unreliable when I've tried to access it. —Dr Ishmael 17:14, September 28, 2010 (UTC)
Hm, that looks very promising, thanks for pointing it out. I was going off of my own limited experience and Wikipedia:Comparison of wiki farms, which doesn't even list Referata.
Key points about Wikkii:
100% free, one (1) small ad in the sidebar.
Unlimited storage and bandwidth.
Advanced Hosting option is also free, with no additional ads, and allows for complete control and customization of your wiki (you even have to install MediaWiki yourself).
They will set up a domain name for free for wikis with 250+ unique visitors per day (pretty sure we'd qualify for that, but I don't know where to find the statistics), so we could be located at guildwiki.com again (Wikia only owns (*.)gamewikis.org, guildwiki.com had been maintained by someone other than Gravewit).
Site appears very responsive.
If Wikia really does screw us all over with this new skin, I'd say this is a good option to consider. —Dr Ishmael 18:15, September 28, 2010 (UTC)
That IP was me. I looked at the wikipedia comparison article first too, found absolutely nothing likable, then googled "free MediaWiki host." And it looks good. 18:58, September 28, 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, I didn't like the wikipedia comparison article. I also found this list [1]. It loads a bit slow, but it has some additional mediawiki options. --JonTheMon 19:04, September 28, 2010 (UTC)
Joy. They've gone and modified the Terms of Use so that we can't modify any "core features" with sitewide .js or .css.
"You further agree to: [...] * Not intentionally block, remove, or otherwise obstruct the proper functioning and view of advertisements, and/or user interface and functionality by other users, including but not limited to changing or adding javascript or CSS changes to the Service that would prevent the proper display or function of advertisements and/or user interface and functionality." (diff, bolded parts were added)
Specific examples from Sannse's blog: "It’s not permitted to remove the right sidebar modules, blogs, and image attribution or add a banner that shifts the entire content area down the page, or alter the fixed width."
I'm sure they intentionally left the part about "user interface and functionality" sufficiently vague so that they could shoot down pretty much any modification to their precious new skin. —Dr Ishmael 20:36, September 28, 2010 (UTC)
After that blog post, I'm for moving, I know Solar Dragon (WikiSimpsons Sysop) is thinking of leaving, too - so we can get traction around this. Comments? -- RandomTime 20:41, September 28, 2010 (UTC)
That's a pretty low trick for them to pull... Not being allowed to edit ANYTHING is just plain stupid, especially with all the new "features" they're giving it. I've seen screen shots of the new skin, and it's ugly as hell, and seems highly impractical too from what I hear about it.--El_Nazgir 20:32, September 29, 2010 (UTC)
The worst part, IMO, is the fixed-width. It's a good idea in theory, but they've made the width too small to be practical for any wiki with large data tables, which we have in truckloads - just imagine any of our Skill QRs scrunched into 680 pixels. Better yet, click on the thumbnail to the right (sorry for the crappy compression, I don't have anything besides Paint at work). I used Web Developer to set the table to width: 680px; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.8em;, the default settings for the new skin. In reality, the table would be even skinnier, due to margins/padding within the content section.
Maybe these QRs could use a redesign anyway, but Wikia shouldn't be forcing us to redesign the core functionality of our site to work with their corporate-committee-designed skin. —Dr Ishmael 20:54, September 29, 2010 (UTC)
Potential move to Wikkii
Well people, I'm looking at Wikkii's hosting terms, advanced hosting option, etc and so forth, and it seems like an extremely reasonable choice. See Features, Advanced Hosting Requirements, and Rules. What are everyone's thoughts? 22:24, September 28, 2010 (UTC)
Look like the best that I've seen - I like the fact we can have full control over the whole wiki. The problem is getting users used to the change. -- RandomTime 22:34, September 28, 2010 (UTC)
I presume it would be violating Wikia's ToS to have [guildwars.wikia.com] redirect to the new site. 22:37, September 28, 2010 (UTC)
I think someone here should see if renegotiation is possible.
I think a proof-of-concept of some sort is worthwhile.
Should those measures prove unproductive, it's worth considering leaving GWiki and moving to GWW — why should fans/contributors have to deal with wikia baggage?
re: getting used to the change. That sounds like a call for Someone has suggested merging this page with a completely different site; discuss. —Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 22:41, September 28, 2010 (UTC)
I think Wikia has made it very clear that there won't be any exceptions for any wikis, period. They're not making any concessions for Wookieepedia or WoWWiki, so why would they do so for us? We're not nearly as important as we were 3 years ago.
Proof-of-concept... of what? The new skin on this wiki? Just go to your Preferences -> Skin -> New Wikia Look. It's utter crap. Never mind, that's not enabled until October 6.
What, and wrestle with their admins to get SMW enabled and redo all the work I've put in over the past couple months? Without admin rights for myself? No thank you.
Exactly - we would probably replace the main page with a similar message, then ask Wikia to lock the wiki. —Dr Ishmael 22:53, September 28, 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict) The main difference between ShoutWiki and Wikkii is the lack of the "Advanced" option - ShoutWiki staff manages all configuration/extensions for all wikis, just like at Wikia. I can't find anything specific on ShoutWiki about their ads (looks like 0, from what I can see with ABP disabled, but that can't be right) or storage/bandwidth limits (I'd expect those to be pretty restrictive if it really is ad-free).
I say if we're going to leave Wikia to protest their restrictions of community freedoms, we go somewhere where we have full freedom over the wiki, like what Wikkii offers.
I guess the next step, if we're going to do this, would be deciding who's going to "own" the wiki. Obviously the initial contact with Wikkii and setup would be handled by one person, but after that, would we want the backend administration left in the hands of that one person, or handled by a team?
The new skin won't be forced on us until next Wednesday October 20, so we've got a little time to plan this out before rushing ahead. —Dr Ishmael 22:45, September 28, 2010 (UTC)
TEF, I balk at the very idea of abandoning GuildWiki and moving everyone to GWW; besides being a rat-infested hell-strewn bureaucracy of stupid, GWW has an absolutely different attitude about what makes a wiki. GuildWiki is people, no doubt about it. GWW is "Document the game and shut the hell up." While I am equally active on GWW as on GWiki, I still prefer this one.
Ish- I would like to try my hand at negotiating with Wikia before we start making real plans to leave. Now that we have viable alternatives, we won't be at their tender mercies. 23:11, September 28, 2010 (UTC)
Right, thus the big if I included there. I just thought it would be a good point to bring up before someone rushes ahead on their own to set something else up. —Dr Ishmael 23:39, September 28, 2010 (UTC)
I am establishing a preliminary contact with Wikkii to get their thoughts and support and to add some leverage to negotiations with Wikia. I will not be committing to anything, of course. It would be great if other users could put out some feelers toward shoutwiki and the other potential hosts as well. 00:06, September 29, 2010 (UTC)
If we need it I can provide some minor financial aid, enough to purchase enough space on some third party server to store information during a transfer for a month or two. This is not an official commitment, and it is not a vote towards splitting. Personally I would like to play ball with wikia, and only move if they are obstinate in their demands.--Łô√ë îğá†ħŕášħ is hosting a Card Creation Contest! 00:34, September 29, 2010 (UTC)
I've had about enough of Wikia coming in every several months and saying, we're going to change things on you whether you like it or not. How hard would it be to move? Is it a simple copy all the pages over? Do we lose the page histories? Do we lose a bunch of pages outright? Does everyone have to create a new login?
Servers and bandwidth aren't free, though, and I'm somewhat skeptical that Wikkii can stay free forever with just the one little ad. Quizzical 06:56, September 29, 2010 (UTC)
I share your skepticism. Though, with wikia you pay for more infrastructure and personnel than you do with wikii. We do not lose the page histories or any pages. tfwiki.net organized the move so that users had to confirm their logins on the new wiki. --◄mendel► 07:44, September 29, 2010 (UTC)
Wich means we WILL lose all the inactive (old) contributers, and a lot of the once-a-month contributers. And I think also a lot of anon help, right? I don't know. I'm pro negotiaiting with wikia first. But if they refuse to budge (read, take away my monobook) then I want out of here. Arnout aka The Emperors Angel 08:27, September 29, 2010 (UTC)
I'm unfamiliar with most of the problems caused by wikia, but I've heard plenty of more experienced people swear about it. I doubt negotiations with wikia would actually work, but I am still in favour of it before doing drastical things such as moving completely. IF we move, I suggest the main page should indeed say something clearly about the site being moved to the new host, including a link (if wikia lets us do that).--El_Nazgir 11:08, September 29, 2010 (UTC)
I'm no wiki pro but on this page it looks like there have been relatively few people sharing their opinions considering this is a fairly large wiki. I'm not sure how easy/hard it would be to do but maybe a poll is order to try and get more people's views on the matter. Just a thought.GenericName 17:20, September 29, 2010 (UTC)
That's exactly why I added it to the sitenotice (the message that appears at the top of every page), so that we could get more people involved in this discussion. —Dr Ishmael 17:24, September 29, 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, I wasn't aware that the site notice was only added recently.GenericName 17:32, September 29, 2010 (UTC)
Correspondence with Wikkii
Yesterday I sent this message to the Wikkii staff via their Contact Us form:
Hello,
My name is <SECRET SECRETSON>. I am a bureaucrat of GuildWiki (http://guildwars.wikia.com), a large wiki dedicated to ArenaNet's online game Guild Wars. We've been hosted by Wikia for several years with varying levels of satisfaction, but right now they are eliminating the current default skin and forcing a less-than-optimal new one. On top of that, they are also changing their Terms of Service to prevent modification of global .css. Because of these actions, we are seriously considering finding another host. At the moment, Wikkii is at the top of our list of options, so I'd like to establish a preliminary contact in preparation for a possible move.
Our license is the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC-BY-NC-SA) 2.0.
We currently have approximately 160 active editors (those who have edited in the last 30 days).
We are currently running MediaWiki 1.15.5. We use a number of extensions, including Semantic MediaWiki. In the event of a move, we will in all probability opt for Advanced Hosting and configure them ourselves.
Now, knowing all that, I would like your input as to whether you believe Wikkii is a feasible hosting option for us and if you foresee any problems in a potential move. I look forward to hearing from you.
And today I received this response:
Hi <SECRET>,
Sure, we would be able to accommodate your wiki. With our Advanced Hosting you can install the Mediawiki of your choice, as well as the extensions of your choosing.
You could feel free to try us out and see if it is suitable for your needs.
Any other questions or problems please post on our forums :)
Kind regards,
Lindsay.
They seem confident enough, but I was hoping for some details about their server arrangement, total bandwidth, and so forth. How should I reply? 22:27, September 29, 2010 (UTC)
Ask them for those details :-) (It would also be useful to know about their support and backup plans.) I don't think the person responding is treating this as anything other than a standard question, rather than something of more than passing interest. So, maybe it's also worth asking (again) if there's someone you could chat with in gory detail about the mechanics of a move and what life would be like for host/site 30-60 days after that.
Also, I think it would be worth asking whether hosting GWiki has any advantage for them. It would be nice if we could develop a synergistic relationship if we're letting another company host. —Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 22:39, September 29, 2010 (UTC)
Getting details on bandwidth would be good, because a lot of places that say "unlimited" really mean "it's really, really high and 90% of our users won't ever reach it," where we would more than likely fall outside that 90%. Other details I would ask for:
In addition to MW, can we install our own AMP packages? If not, what versions will be installed for us? (They say we get cPanel and FTP access, but don't specify full root control.)
Would we be able to modify the Apache configuration at all? (Some of the finer details of MW config are most easily done in httpd.conf, which shared hosting providers usually don't let you access.)
Support/backup, like Ernie mentioned.
What about cron access? It would be very nice to have a weekly/biweekly cron job to create XML dumps or even full DB backups.
That's all I can think of for now. I've used cPanel before, and while it's pretty robust and very useful for the not-so-tech-savvy, it's got nothing on root command-line access. —Dr Ishmael 23:03, September 29, 2010 (UTC)
Get server
Moving to any wiki farm requires advance negotiation; GuildWiki still isn't exactly small, we require DPL (and possibly SMW) and should probably have our own server. And if you look closely, the "advanced" option is exactly like having our own server, except that they've set up Apache and SQL for us and tell us what ads to run. I'd rather run our own server; in fact, I'd rather form a wiki assocoiation of self-administrated wikis that run their own server farm than ever rely on a business model that removes control over my wiki from me. If Giga can cough up one month's worth of root server, I'm sure between us and our users we can get the money and do away with ads altogether. (See also the poll on Welcome PvXwiki.) --◄mendel► 06:25, September 29, 2010 (UTC)
Get me a realistic server cost number and set dates for a move if this goes through and you have my support.--198.199.136.144 07:08, September 29, 2010 (UTC)
If we have someone who can handle the hardware side, great! (Is that what Giga was volunteering for here?) I would be happy to help with the software side - I used to do Apache/PHP/MySQL installs all the time when I was a developer, so I have plenty of experience with that. —Dr Ishmael 15:02, September 29, 2010 (UTC)
What operating system did you install them on? I assumed the hardware needed to be rented anyway. --◄mendel► 15:06, September 29, 2010 (UTC)
Mostly RHEL, with a few on HP-UX and others. I realize that we would more than likely be using a free flavor like Debian or Ubuntu, in which case it's even easier: Debian has a package system for installing everything (even MediaWiki itself, but that package is only at the 1.12 version, we're on 1.15) and Apache/PHP/MySQL are core components of Ubuntu server edition. —Dr Ishmael 15:37, September 29, 2010 (UTC)
From my experience of the desktop release, Ubuntu repositories aren't the most up-to-date. Not sure how core server tools like PHP/Apache/MySQL are on that front. This looks like a promising move, and with the power of open source softwareTM we should be able to get this running pretty quickly. Not sure how much the bandwidth would cost (and that's the limiting factor). -- RandomTime 19:34, September 29, 2010 (UTC)
Looks like Ubuntu's actually more up-to-date right now. This trend appears to continue with the dependency packages, too. —Dr Ishmael 19:57, September 29, 2010 (UTC)
I'm happy to admit I'm wrong on that one. -- RandomTime 21:26, September 29, 2010 (UTC)
Yes, Ubunutu has always been more current than Debian. Anyway, Wikkii is running MW 1.15.1 as well. Their .php and SQL versions are older though. --◄mendel► 21:58, September 29, 2010 (UTC)
That's just on their main wiki. We could use whatever versions of whatever we wanted with their Advanced Hosting Option. 22:19, September 29, 2010 (UTC)
I didn't understand their terms like that: advanced means we get to install the mediawiki .php scripts, but the server software itself is pre-installed. --◄mendel► 23:15, September 29, 2010 (UTC)
I have Ubuntu laptop distro (x64) and I've checked a bunch of the server / dev packets, and compared those to what debian and fedora offer. For the most part Ubuntu has the most up-to-date, and if its not the most up to date, its the most stable recent release. — Scythe0:05, 30 Sep 2010 (UTC)
Another option- Curse.com
I've been told by the head of another wiki that's leaving Wikia that http://www.curse.com is offering to host various gaming wikis with near autonomy. They host several other small-to-moderate sized wikis, and it seems to be fairly popular gaming site, so we might see an increase in popularity and userbase. There would be ads, and the curse.com banner somewhere, but that's hardly different from anywhere else. What do you all think? 22:52, September 29, 2010 (UTC)
I think I'd trust them over Wikkii, but I don't know about the ads. It looks like a banner ad at the top and bottom of every page, and the top banner seems to always be Flash. I also encountered a splash-page ad when going to the Evony Wiki. Definitely need more details on the server environment, too.
(Their wikis are linked in their page footer, took me a bit to find that, although not all of those are hosted by them - the Diablo and FFXIV wikis don't show the Curse footer, at least.) —Dr Ishmael 23:18, September 29, 2010 (UTC)
PvXwiki
Hey guys. I'm Phenaxkian (obviously) a sysop over at PvXwiki (for any GWikians that are reading this and don't know what PvX is, it's a wiki for GW builds). The general feeling over there is that the new skin is....rubbish...and I'm putting that nicely, believe me. While most of our userbase wasn't keen on Monaco either (we much prefer monobook), we all agree that the new skin is ridiculous.
Not to mention that when this skin was announced, the original plan was to remove monobook. That has since been retracted, purely because of ONE wiki. That would be Uncyclopedia (i belive that's spelt correct), one of the biggest wikia wikis. Now personally I don't like the fact the only reason it's being kept is because of that one wiki. If they up and move, Monobook will be gone tomorrow. As such I think the feeling is we'd rather go somewhere that we can make such decisions on our own, and not have them forced upon us. As well as being able to sort out our own custom extension. While wikia helped with that a great deal, there are still isuues with it, one of which a user has actually supploed the solution and it simply needs wikia to copy to the relevant places, which hasn't been implemented for months.
Now of course, we've not really had any formal discussions so i can't reliably say "our users want to leave if guildwiki does" or anything like that, but for me personally, and i think the majority of the sysops, that would be the preferred course of action. ~ PheNaxKiantalk 00:36, September 30, 2010 (UTC)
An overly dramatic topic header
I go away for three weeks and the shit hits the fan. Just like in game. Have you ever noticed how the Kurzicks always take Etnaran Keys when my guild is incapable of ABing (such as when we're all on vacation for three weeks?) It's not a coincidence. Though I admit I have become a lurker in recent months. I'm a lurker at heart, and now I'm regressing. I still check the wiki everyday and keep up on all the discussions and dramas; except for the last three weeks, of course. Normally, as is my lurker habit, I'd stay out of this. But Felix asked me to give my two cents on the matter. I'm not sure what he expected me to say - I have nothing to contribute to the technical side of this, what with moving servers and mountains, and I'm pretty sure the anti-Wikia bandwagon is full.
I will say this, however. I'm fine with Wikia under 3 conditions:
I get to keep monobook
I get to keep my custom .css
And I get to keep using ABP (not that they could do anything about that anyway)
That's the way I feel. I'm content with the way it is now, because I can hardly tell Wikia owns GuildWiki. I usually only notice them when someone starts a discussion reminding me to opt-out of some new feature. I know Mendel and Ishy and a few others (the ones forced to come into contact with Wikia) don't feel the same way. I probably would too if I were in their position. Which is one reason why I will adamantly refuse any position of authority; that is, if someone were crazy enough to nominate me. But that's neither here nor there.
Wikia has not treated us with all that much respect. I know it's probably hard to make friends and share beers with each of the thousands of wikis on Wikia, but still. GuildWiki has been disappointed in Wikia ever since we first met them - right after the deal was closed and we became one. It's ironic that the very act of buying GuildWiki caused it to lose most of its value - its contributors. Wikia made a bad investment in GuildWiki and got burned from it. I hope they learned something that will prevent the same thing from happening to another wiki someday in the future.
If GuildWiki decides to move, I'm afraid I won't be able to help much. I'll donate some money, but I'm ashamed to say that it won't be very much. I don't have any experience with any sort of programming, and running a server is orders of magnitudes beyond me. I know nothing about running the backends of websites. If GuildWiki moves, I'll be right there with it, but I'll be just another lurker. --Macros 02:39, September 30, 2010 (UTC)
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