Organized Dicussions

The lack of organization of this talk page is causing many things to be repeated and getting nowhere. Therefore I have decided to be bold to create sub-articles on individual issues.

Gravewit's compensation - On issues pertaining Gravewit receiving money from Wikia in the transaction, and legal/copyleft/license issues on the monetary transaction surrounding a BY-NC-SA site.
BY-NC-SA vs Site advertisements - On issues pertaining the GuildWiki (a BY-NC-SA site) having advertisements, either during the Gravewit era or under the new Wikia dominion.
Technical - DNS, server, extensions, skins issues related to the Wikia move.
Forking - For people with thoughts on taking a database dump (which Wikia will supply if requested) and start a fork elsewhere.
Community Poll

Misc discussions

Archive 1 - Contains many discussions that do actually belong in one or several of the "Organized discussions", but this talk page was generally getting too in-conducive for discussion. You are free to unarchive any of the threads and place them into unorganized discussion section below or one of the above organized topics.

This page is on slashdot

For those that don't know. They got the story a little wrong, claiming the database itself was sold.--24.206.111.186 10:15, 15 September 2007 (CDT)

And there posting all over this page throwing out advice to a community that really just needs time with itself to work out what's happening --Nela 11:43, 15 September 2007 (CDT)

Ah so that explains all of the recent comments that have been reposted again, I was wondering when that would happen, thanks for that info. -- Xeon 11:58, 15 September 2007 (CDT)

I will come fully clean: I submitted that story to Slashdot. It was probably unwise of me. I truly didn't think they would run it. There have literally been hundreds of much worthier submissions of mine that were rejected outright. Yay Murphy's Law. Yeah, the commenters are getting many details wrong, but that's normal for Slashdot. BftP 12:11, 15 September 2007 (CDT)

rofl. Bullshit Bftp. --24.206.111.186 13:24, 15 September 2007 (CDT)

Why the hell did you do that? >:| We already have enough to do here without worrying about the validity of an internet news article. Good going. The Imperialist 13:26, 15 September 2007 (CDT)

FFXIcyclopedia

Wikia acquisition of another gaming wiki is also stirring up problems... forum post regarding FFXIcyclopedia here [1]. Can't confirm the authenticity, but it has parallels to what's happened here. — HarshLanguage 20:56, 16 September 2007 (CDT)

http://euphidime.com/wiki_scandal/10.png http://euphidime.com/wiki_scandal/13.png + http://euphidime.com/wiki_scandal/23.png http://euphidime.com/wiki_scandal/18.png are among some of the most interesting caps, if true. Assuming the numbers hold true across the board, it'd indicate Gravewit's compensation is somewhere around a quarter of a million. And the finale is just cake. http://euphidime.com/wiki_scandal/26.png

Considering Wikia's main source of income appears to be from ad revenues driven through acquiring large existing communities, compounded with pushing traffic from Wikipedia, I don't really doubt it. Merengue 21:32, 16 September 2007 (CDT)

Wow. Just wow. --Dirigible 21:44, 16 September 2007 (CDT)

Apparently, if we look at all of that, Wikia's had their eye on us for a while already. WoWWiki got snapped up first; probably because it's one of the biggest. THE biggest, I believe. Once they have the biggest one they can on their network, they're raking in enough money to pay for the other wikis, plus they can say "WoWWiki joined us already, and look at how well they're doing!". It's not looking like anyone from Wikia's going to help us out on this issue at this point; we might have to end up either folding like a lawn chair, or making a new GuildWiki. Unless someone finds a lawyer willing to go up against Wikipedia/Wikia. (good luck.) --

Ĵĩôřũĵĩ Đēŗāķō.>.cнаt^ 21:53, 16 September 2007 (CDT)

Ugh. What a mess. Does anyone have any info on the source of those images? Biscuits

21:55, 16 September 2007 (CDT)

The images were supposedly taken from a private e-mail account through hacking, so there's really no verifiability. Due to the issue of transparency, or the lack thereof, we're likely never going to see any hard information short of a lawsuit forcing the issue, I'd imagine. Until then, it's a he-said, she-said issue, isn't it? Merengue 22:01, 16 September 2007 (CDT)

If these images are valid, then our number 1 priority is to get as much of the guildwiki data off the servers as possible for a fork. Wikia may buy off one person, but they cannot buy a community. 193.52.24.125 22:08, 16 September 2007 (CDT)

So long as Fyren can still access the servers, then we should be able to copy over the Wiki in it's entirety, and legally as far as I know. Wikia would be left to deal with a cheap imitation, basically. --

Ĵĩôřũĵĩ Đēŗāķō.>.cнаt^ 22:17, 16 September 2007 (CDT)

All I can say is that we need to get as much information over to new servers if this is how it is. That doesn't look very good. Kind of underhanded if you ask me... The Imperialist

General note: please direct indepth discussion of any forking efforts into the relevant subpage, so it's more centralized and other people of like mind can find it easier. It may be possible that some of the community may be interested in forking but didn't care about the FFXI topic so are not reading it. -User:PanSola (talk to the ) 23:57, 16 September 2007 (CDT)

FAQ and working through the issues

Thank you all for the patience -

FAQ's: A few things I can tell you now, at least to provide some amount of updates for those who are afraid that too many changes will be made:

We will not be changing the licensing for the wiki - it will stay with it's current license. For some of the smaller wikis on gamewikis.org - where there is an existing GFDL wiki, we will work with the two communities to try to merge them so that the communities can come together if they're willing
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
We always maintain monobook as an option for people that want to use it, if you don't like our new skins, like on http://tv.wikia.com
We do have a number of wiki communities that have come over to Wikia and some but not all received some compensation for this. My contract doesn't permit discussion of this, but I will talk it over with Gravewit as some of the estimates have been speculative
What I can tell you about the contract is that we acquired the domain name and did not ask for a copy of any CC-NC content as part of it. However we did acquire any commercial licenses or rights that came with the URL.
The content GameWikis presents to the public is available under CC and we WILL continue to make public dumps of it available on a regular basis to insure that it belongs to the community
We try to support communities so those who want to stay on their old URL have been able to do so and we would talk to you before making that sort of change.
I had hoped that by reducing the number of ads and improving the software, we could help make Gamewikis a better place for fans and that this would be a positive change and one that would improve the experience on the wiki.

I have been trying to work through the various issues raised and want to see if there is consensus about at least the issues

Some people appear to be angry that Gravewit received compensation for this, or at least curious about how much.
Others are trying to determine what exactly CC-NC-SA prohibits
Some are angry that the site was not run by a company, although it was hosted by a commercial hosting facility paid for by Gravewit and will now be hosted by a different commercial hosting company. What I find a bit troubling is the notion that ads are ok if there's no profit. Once there are ads - it is a site with some commercial flavor to it. (Not sure that's a legal term)
Others think Wikia is making lots of money from this. If the community has one volunteer who is designated by the admins, I will put them in touch with our accountants and they can hear directly from them that we lose lots of money every month. We hope over the long term that revenues will increase as we attract more passionate users, but for the moment, we are definitely not making a profit despite having over 4,000 wikis on Wikia. That is something I am happy to be super-transparent about.

If there are other issues I need to work through let me know, otherwise I will keep working on these three. I am going to try to be as transparent as I can here - so please continue to contact me if you see things we need to be talking about that we aren't.
Thanks,
Penchina 23:14, 16 September 2007 (CDT)

You are answering a lot of FAQs no one is asking, and failing to answer the one question that everyone wants answered: how much was Gravewit paid for this? Also, there is no uncertainty about what CC-NC prohibits. Just read clause 4(c). I am sure you don't need an army of lawyers to understand what "you may not exercise these rights ... in any manner that is primarily intended for or directed towards commercial advantage or private monetary compensation" means. Unless you are willing to publicly certify that Wikia will make zero profit from hosting the GuildWiki content, you are in breach of license. 193.52.24.125 23:24, 16 September 2007 (CDT)

Gil, I think one thing we really want an answer to is whether or not this is a legal sale at all. And by answer, I mean a clear, legally sound reference to licensing law that states it's okay to sell a CC-NC-SA licensed site. Regardless of dollar figures, we at GuildWiki want to know that the integrity behind this "Non Commercial" license is still sound. Even though we're not lawyers some of us feel scammed. And we want a clear explanation of why this is. This statement:

"What I can tell you about the contract is that we acquired the domain name and did not ask for a copy of any CC-NC content as part of it. However we did acquire any commercial licenses or rights that came with the URL."

...is one thing that especially troubles us, where the muddy waters begin. What, exactly, does the purchase of the domain name entail? How much of GuildWiki was built up under the idea of being "non-profit", only to be later sold? What "commercial licenses or rights" came with the URL?

I realize and have seen it repeated many times, that "My contract doesn't permit discussion of this". But, at this point a lot of us want to hear every last little detail explained until our questions are answered. We want to get as close to the "Truth" as possible while you can still remain within bounds of your contract. It just seems that any time we get answers, they are vague, non-specific, generalized, and/or dodge around the question(s)/issue(s) involved.

(T/C) 23:30, 16 September 2007 (CDT)

I just want to say, Gil, thanks a lot for the response here, you have answered a few questions. But yes, like Entropy just said, there are still much more important questions that have been unanswered, and without those answers, the majority of the people posting here will still feel scammed and duped. A few users were closely involved in the very founding of this Wiki, yet only Gravewit is getting paid for this. How much you paid him you can't disclose, but you should at least be able to tell us if the sale was legal, what exactly you bought, and so on. --

Ĵĩôřũĵĩ Đēŗāķō.>.cнаt^

I can't answer every question overnight, but what I am saying is that we acquired the domain name as the primary asset. We specifically did not acquire anything under CC as it is freely licensed, but if there were trademarks or other commercial "things" we typically try to cover ourselves for that in a contract, as we never know. The purchase of a domain is pretty simple legally. What would be particularly helpful to me is if anyone can provide documentation that the site was DEFINED as a non-profit anywhere. I can't find any reference to non-profit, only CC-NC-SA on content. Similarly on the founding, if there were founders agreements, or anything like that. Otherwise, it being a wiki it's hard to really determine who created what value, as it really is a group effort. My understanding is that the asset (the domain) was purchased and paid for by gravewit. That said, I talked to him tonight and will be talking to him again on Tuesday as my goal is to try to get a close to making everyone happy as is humanly possible, while also trying to sort out the legal questions and provide max transparency during the process, with my continued apologies that it seems to move slower than some would prefer. We are looking at CC-NC-SA issues, but I hope you can take my word that as with everything else here, it seems to be more complicated than it looks at first glance. More on Tuesday I hope. Penchina 00:13, 17 September 2007 (CDT)

Move

This page should be moved to GuildWiki:Wikia move and the sitenotice updated accordingly. 193.52.24.125

Talk: Wikia Move

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