Forum:Move

From Brickipedia, the LEGO Wiki
Revision as of 01:35, 8 February 2013 by Superdadsuper (talk | contribs)
Forums - Move
This page is waiting to be archived by an administrator. Please do not edit the contents of this page.


See why!

Last time, at Forum:Possible move, we decided some stuff about moving. This forum is to decide whether they still apply.

  • Domain - brickipedia.org, also brickimedia.org for other uses
  • Skin - Vector or Deep sea (a skin we will (hopefully) create that will be a slightly more oasisised version of vector/monobook (will hopefully appeal to those who like oasis))
  • Ads - an ad along the left hand side under navigation - google ads
  • Social - socialprofile and wikiforum extensions.
~ CJC 17:45, February 4, 2013 (UTC)

The key thing really to decide is this:

Do we (not just us admins, but everyone) want to move? Just post your general thoughts on moving below:


  • I want to move. Berrybrick 17:48, February 4, 2013 (UTC)
  • Per Berry. User:Legoboy9373/sig 17:53, February 4, 2013 (UTC)
  • I personally do (sorted out deep sea thing) User:UltrasonicNXT/Signature
  • Neutral. I'd probably move if everyone else did. User:BrickfilmNut/sig
  • I would like to move. The wiki may be a little bit worse in the short term but I think there will be significant long term gains. --Brick bobby talk it's a trap! 18:00, February 4, 2013 (UTC)
  • I would like to move, provided we can ensure we will still have a fair portion of our Wikia readership. User:Cligra/Sig
    • Well, there are ways and means, ways and means. (repeating the phrase twice to make it more ominous) ~ CJC 20:46, February 4, 2013 (UTC)
      • See below for another perspective on this :) -- sannse ShoutWiki Staff (help forum | blog) 19:30, February 5, 2013 (UTC)
        • Sannse's rather wrong on this one. While we will have an initial drop, all of the other fansites hate Brickipedia's ads at the moment, and are able to help us direct traffic away from this site and to the new one. Ajraddatz (Talk) 19:32, February 5, 2013 (UTC)
          • Perhaps it's fairer to say that our opinions differ on this one :) I'm going from past experience with other forks from Wikia. As I said below, I can give examples if that helps -- sannse ShoutWiki Staff (help forum | blog) 18:07, February 6, 2013 (UTC)
  • Support moving. User:Captain Jag/sig1 18:21, February 4, 2013 (UTC)
  • Per BrickfilmNut. Jeyo Lord VladekTalk The Forge 19:00, February 4, 2013 (UTC)
  • I support, if this would give us less ads. User:ErkelonJay/sig
  • Support, and willing to provide hosting and technical support. Ajraddatz (Talk) 20:52, February 4, 2013 (UTC)
  • I only support if it will be easy to move all the information. User:Awesomeknight1234/SigbyCP
    • Especially the customs. User:Awesomeknight1234/SigbyCP
      • According to Ajr a few months ago, it is. Berrybrick 20:57, February 4, 2013 (UTC)
        • Ideally, we would also be able to design a better way to make/find customs, and yes everything can be easily moved (including all revisions). Ajraddatz (Talk) 21:01, February 4, 2013 (UTC)
  • FULL SUPPORT. User:Darth henry/Sig 20:56, February 4, 2013 (UTC)
  • Meh. The only thing I like the sound of is the brickipedia.org thing (Before I joined, I used to type brickipedia.com to find this site. That didn't work. :P) Other than that, I'm not so sure. Neutral --LEGO2013Helper (talk) 20:56, February 4, 2013 (UTC)
  • Support. User:1999bug/sig1 20:58, February 4, 2013 (UTC)
  • Support!, but beware on the time it takes to move Soupperson1 Friends are Forever! <3Friends girls.jpg
  • Support - down with Wikia, and in with a new wiki, with a better skin. -Czech

me is likin tis!!1!!!!!!1 if u al go awaie i can be da bigf cat!!1!!1!!!!!1 --I L0ve MeGA bLoKs11!!!11!!!1 (talk) 21:28, February 4, 2013 (UTC)

u can b tigr Berrybrick 21:31, February 4, 2013 (UTC)
he shuld b liun dey culer dey r awsum man kk User:1999bug/sig1 21:35, February 4, 2013 (UTC)
Did you kow homans can tell wat a setance shuld rad as long as the frt and lat letrs are crct? ~ CJC 21:50, February 4, 2013 (UTC)
no i culdunt tehl culd u tehl i culd nut mon u r rite u smart homan. User:1999bug/sig1 01:59, February 5, 2013 (UTC)
y we talkng liek dis? u noobs!1!!1!!!! wat is dis world comng too... User:LSCStealthNinja/RealSig
  • I give my support. It would be nice if the Brickipedia looked a little different. User:Legosuperheroesfan/sig5
  • Support per Cligra NovaHawk 21:51, February 4, 2013 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure. Both sides have advantages and disadvantages, though I'm beginning to lean toward becoming independent simply because of the ads. User:SuperSpyX/Sig3
  • Full support! If we can ditch trouble makers we can have a good wiki again.. NuffSaid was here and there LIEK A BAWS (talk) 01:31, February 5, 2013 (UTC)
    • I don't get your logic.. normal people will still be able to edit the wiki, so "troublemakers" are still an issue.. it isn't that hard to follow us there. User:1999bug/sig1 01:59, February 5, 2013 (UTC)
  • Oh, and just curious, but when should we let Huw know so he can advertise for us/give us moolah? User:Cligra/Sig
    • Probably once we've decided that we're absolutely sure we want to leave. User:Captain Jag/sig1 03:43, February 5, 2013 (UTC)
      • Not until we've got it all working and looking nice though, theres no point getting all the trafic after we've just moved and it all looks horrible. User:UltrasonicNXT/Signature
  • Under normal conditions, I would support a move, but, unfortunately, if we were to split, I'd doubt that I'd want to create yet another account in order to join yet another seperate website (since I have enough trouble keeping track of the ones I'm already a member of). Sir_REX Strikes Back 05:49, February 5, 2013 (UTC)
    • Your account will be moved as well, so you will just need to log in. User:Captain Jag/sig1 07:05, February 5, 2013 (UTC)
      • To clarify this, Wikia doesn't give your passwords to the new wiki. It's possible for the fork to duplicate accounts and get you to enter your password there (and then verify it's the same as the Wikia one by logging in with it). But I want to make sure it's clear that we don't share your password with anyone. -- sannse ShoutWiki Staff (help forum | blog) 19:25, February 5, 2013 (UTC)
  • I think that the only way for us to grow is to move. Be done with these silly advertisements we don't get to choose, and also just be able to customize what we want. klagoer 13:33, February 5, 2013 (UTC)
  • I'd love to be able to get rid of all the ads, and being able to customize it would be awesome, too. How much of the Wikia skin will we be leaving behind, though? Will there still be blogs, chat, and other features? If there is, I'll support. If not, I'm neutral. Drewlzoo
  • 1 question the fourm was talking about cake so.... erm :S User:NuffSaid1995/Sig
    • Here's your cake, sir. CJC definitely knows how to get user's attention. :P Drewlzoo
  • Not Really I see nothing wrong with this wiki. Sure we have ads and spammers, would we all be able to edit the next website? No more chat on the next website? And what happens to our accounts? User:LazerzSoH/signature
    I've tried explaining accounts, but will leave it to someone technically. I will say that, yes, anyone could edit and that I'm not sure where the misconception that people won't be able to edit is coming from. ~ CJC 18:03, February 6, 2013 (UTC)
  • Why move the wiki? Wouldn't that mean the pages and templates would need to be remade? Also what about the Chat? RaceLord talk, Time To Craft Some...Thing.
  • More reasons than I care to go into right now. No. Nothing about the chat will change. Berrybrick 03:51, February 7, 2013 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) The pages and templates would all be moved across easily. We could use IRC. And btw, when I came, there was no chat -__- User:Captain Jag/sig1 03:53, February 7, 2013 (UTC)
  • what about accounts? RaceLord talk, Time To Craft Some...Thing.
  • And the accounts. Your password wouldn't be moved across or something, but it will be verifiable. User:Captain Jag/sig1 04:28, February 7, 2013 (UTC)
  • Personally, I would rather stay on this wiki. Wyplash talk 04:14, February 7, 2013 (UTC)
  • Note to people not thinking that this move will be beneficial - there is a reason why a vast majority of people here support the move. We are trying to be a LEGO fansite, but the restrictions that Wikia gives us are honestly too much for that to happen. I'll try to expand on this later, I'm in a bit of a rush to get sleep right now :P Ajraddatz (Talk) 04:45, February 7, 2013 (UTC)
  • I support the decision to move. If we do, we need heaps of coders to help set up the new site.Then a bunch of people to move all the pages over to the new wiki

(including userpages and accounts). This is the hard part, as then we'd need a bunch of admin to delete the moved pages. We only have, what is it, 18 admin now? we would need a whole bunch of users to become admin to delete the 26000 moved pages. I think this move is an awesome idea, and even though I'm not an admin, I volunteer to lead "Project delete" if this goes through. (If this suggestion has been said before, I haven't read the whole page so sorry) BrikkyyTalk

    • Yeah, Wikia won't allow 26000 pages to be deleted :P ~ CJC 09:32, February 7, 2013 (UTC)
  • I think it is time to move on and it will be interesting and fun to experience a new Brickipedia. --BrickSticks (talk) 07:39, February 7, 2013 (UTC)
  • I don't really know! --Sibo2808 Chima Lion Long Live The Chi! 11:28, February 7, 2013 (UTC)

From Wikia

(sorry if this is a bad place - I wanted to comment, but obviously I'm not someone who can vote here :)

Hi everyone. For those who saw the discussion last time, this is a bit of a repeat from me. But it's really the same things I need to say - that we very much hope you will decide to stay, but that we respect your right to fork, of course. I'm here to answer any questions or help in any other way I can.

I think the first point I can comment on, is Cligra's comment about whether a fork would retain readers from Wikia. Our past experience shows that some readers will find the new wiki, but it's likely that more will not. We've had several wikis recover well from a fork now, with a new community growing where the previous one was. Where that's happened (and even sometimes where it hasn't) there are many more visitors and pageviews on the Wikia version than on the fork. I can give some examples of this if it's helpful, just let me know.

That's not to say that forks don't hurt a wiki of course. They are always painful things for any community to go though, and I hope we can avoid one here -- sannse ShoutWiki Staff (help forum | blog) 00:13, February 5, 2013 (UTC)

lol, you found this pretty quickly. Nice to know any attempt we make to move will now be impeded. Ajraddatz (Talk) 00:34, February 5, 2013 (UTC)
If you mean I'll try to give good reasons not to move, and honest information on why it would be better to stay on Wikia, then yes :)
But I think you know from the previous times that the community has discussed this, we talk things out and try to solve problems, that's all. Wikia was created as part of the open source movement. In fact, part of the reason for its creation was to show that open source and for-profit could successfully work together (which, I would say, it has done). But the open source movement has always had the option of forking, if enough people feel that's the best thing to do for the project. So what I hope, is that I can supply enough information and support to help you all make the decision not to fork.
Aj, I know you have been increasingly unhappy with Wikia, although I'm not totally clear on what went wrong. But I hope our past conversations will help in us talking about this.
And, of course, I'm happy to answer questions from anyone else too, and to talk specifics about the practicalities of forking. -- sannse ShoutWiki Staff (help forum | blog) 19:18, February 5, 2013 (UTC)
Actually, I think we can handle this fork very well by ourselves. I am well aware of the boundaries that Wikia has for forks, and we won't break them. Ajraddatz (Talk) 19:23, February 5, 2013 (UTC)
  • Hi Sannse, just some random general thoughts:
    • Firstly, I presume the boundaries haven't changed since Wikisimpsons left?
    • Main points now, Re: why people feel a need to move.
    • I think its been bubbling, with some admins especially, for a while (I'm sure we first considered, albiet fleetingly) back when Oasis was introduced.
    • Its felt - especially by older users - is that we have less choice over the wiki now. In many senses that isn't true - things like WikiFeatures have expanded our control in some areas. But there are other things people want to do and also other features we had no choice in - I hate to sound like I'm holding this against you (I'm not) as I brought it up with you before, but the new Wikia search. Its a minor thing - but its something that affects how people use the site and just sorta happened without (correct me if I'm wrong) much notice before or after it was enabled.
    • Of course the main thing is advertising. I'm not sure if the levels have gone up or it is just more intrusive (with the likes of video ads and giant banners). I'm not going to discuss this much as I'm sure you've heard it many times before.
    • An issue caused by the advertising is the effect it has on the wider LEGO community - Our reputation was never great, because of the quality of information. Now it seems that people like the site as a resource, but are put-off by the advertising.
    • Perhaps, it just comes down to wanting to feel like edits are more valued as well. There gets a point editing here (one I've reached and I'm sure others have) where you don't see the use in editing. Partly it is because of my wish that things be perfect, which goes against my urge to do as little as possible. But I think a contributing factor is the idea that Wikia is a for-profit company.
    • I've sorta rambled, and I apologise for the bullet points, I was intending to write paragraphs when I started :P ~ CJC 21:52, February 5, 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for laying it all out like that CJC it's very useful. I've passed this on to others at Wikia, and hope to hear their thoughts soon.
On forking boundries: I'm not certain what was said during WikiSimpsons' fork, but iirc it's all the same. If we get to that point, I can confirm the details -- sannse ShoutWiki Staff (help forum | blog) 18:41, February 6, 2013 (UTC)

The whole +/- thing again

+

  • Article Ratings Extension! Many of you will not know, but NXT created an extension to handle the article rating system a lot better than current. (It allows only certain users (QCG) to change ratings (preventing vandalism), and is generally better, there are a lot of places we could go with it.) I did ask Wikia back in the summer if they could implement it here, but nothing's happened. If we have our own place, we could implement it straight away, and updates and improvements would be almost instantaneous (they would take AGES (if it ever gets implemented) here.)
  • Ad flexibility
  • Extension flexibility
  • Skin flexibility
  • Better forums

-

  • There will still be ads.
  • Possible drop in traffic.

Comments

  • @ NXT's extension- so is it ready to go? I was under the impression that Wikia only denied it because there were problems with it NovaHawk 22:11, February 5, 2013 (UTC)
    There were problems that Wikia had with it, but it works. Ajraddatz (Talk) 00:25, February 6, 2013 (UTC)
    • I've looked at the ticket... apparently there were a few problems that made us feel it wasn't ready. The example in the ticket is that the version we looked at, would not be able to keep the ratings with the article if the article were moved. NXT may have worked on it since then though, so we can always re-assess -- sannse ShoutWiki Staff (help forum | blog) 18:35, February 6, 2013 (UTC)
      • Well a week or so after I submitted it, I was given some feedback, I submitted an improved version, but haven't heard back since. (That moving issue is a good one Sannse, I didn't think of that (interestingly enough, the first edition would have coped with that, but not the revised one (but that's an issue for another place))) User:UltrasonicNXT/Signature
        • Hummm.. that's odd. It was the version which would have the move problems that was mentioned on the ticket (I assume, as that was the example) so you should have got the feedback on that one. I can ask someone to contact you and sort that out - sannse ShoutWiki Staff (help forum | blog) 22:49, February 7, 2013 (UTC)

On chat

BrickfilmNut, on this reversion... yes, it does change the meaning a fair amount, because the current meaning is misleading. The chat here will not be available as an extension of the new wiki. If the fork goes ahead, the chat here will belong to this wiki's community - which will be made up of anyone who chooses to stay and/or any future community that develops. I won't revert your reversion, but perhaps you could correct it above? Thanks -- sannse ShoutWiki Staff (help forum | blog) 00:19, February 7, 2013 (UTC)

I reverted my edit. :) I only reverted yours earlier because I figured that either it was something that was going to be discussed further somewhere else on the page before a change was made or that the change of meaning was unintentional. Sorry. :) User:BrickfilmNut/sig
np, it was an understandable revert. Thanks for the fix -- sannse ShoutWiki Staff (help forum | blog) 22:56, February 7, 2013 (UTC)
  • Wait so people who moved couldn't use the chat here? User:Darth henry/Sig 04:12, February 7, 2013 (UTC)
    • It depends on how the people who take over the wiki feel about us. :P 50.99.249.72 04:13, February 7, 2013 (UTC)
      • This seems to preclude us staying behind to use the chat. If we are still using the chat here, what else would be "this wiki's community"? Ajraddatz (Talk) 04:43, February 7, 2013 (UTC)
  • I'd hate to be misreading it, but that seems to imply that any users who leave will be banned from using chat. ~ CJC 09:33, February 7, 2013 (UTC)
    • (This doesn't mean anyone leaving will have their account banned or anything will it? I still intend on using Wookieepedia... NovaHawk 10:57, February 7, 2013 (UTC))
      • (No) ~ CJC 19:57, February 7, 2013 (UTC)
  • Will it be possible to develop our own extension? I know some people do not like chat but it may be needed to convince some users to move. --Brick bobby talk it's a trap! 20:24, February 7, 2013 (UTC)
    Working on that as we speak :-) Ajraddatz (Talk) 20:26, February 7, 2013 (UTC)

I'm definitely not saying that people who use the new wiki will be banned from chat. I'm saying that it's not as simple as saying "we'll edit over there, and chat over here". You can't use Wikia to promote another wiki - so, for example, if people in the chat were linking people to the fork, then that would be a problem. And, ultimately, the chat would belong to whatever community is active on this wiki. So those people would be the ones to decide who used chat and in what way (as long as it's within Wikia's overall ToU and so on, of course)

It would be a complex situation, and not one that we've ever had to look at before. The tricky part is that sometimes people use chat and don't edit - and that's fine (on most wikis). But at the same time, it's a chat for this wiki, and making it some sort of official chat for the fork wouldn't be OK. How exactly those two things would work out in practice, I don't know yet. -- sannse ShoutWiki Staff (help forum | blog) 22:44, February 7, 2013 (UTC)


Possible solution

Since Brickipedia is large enough you could request Wikia to let you control your own advertisments. The only way they would allow you to do so if you use the money off the advertisements to pay for a site domain which. This is how it works,Brickipedia's Admins inform Wikia of their plan on buying a site domain. After accepting their terms of having a site domain (which will likely include how much a year you must pay and how to get your advertisers to pay to Wikia or pay it to Brickipedia). Once they have done this Brickipedia can have control over their advertisements. Brickipedia may want to limit their ads as much as possible , but the best way to do this is by charging the full price of about 10 dollars for a short term advertisement that may be apriopate.

-13 users

Another version of the +/- question

Or at least, and extension of the "againsts"...

There's been a lot of voting already, and I can see that many people are in favor of forking. I'm also aware that Aj and the others who are getting prepared for this are likely to be a long way towards being ready, and that the fork may happen soon.

So I'd like to have another try at persuading you all that Wikia is the best home for this wiki. Although I believe the wiki can survive a fork, I also know that this is a good and strong community who have made a wonderful wiki. So we would be very sad to see any of you move to a new fork.

I think the major issue I've seen mentioned is the ads. It's always tricky to get the right balance of ads - we don't want to scare people away, of course, but we do need enough to make Wikia successful. It's something we look at often, and we're currently running several tests to evaluate things like “if we remove this particular ad placement, will people view more pages?”. And there's a lot more work on improving our ads that's scheduled for this year too.

But, I also know all that is going to sound rather empty. It's all about possibilities and the future, and not about what the wiki looks like now. So what I want to suggest is that we remove a couple of ad placements for this wiki for a set time, to give us a chance to show you that we can (and will) keep improving on the overall experience on all aspects of Wikia. So the question is, which ads would you most want removed? Hopefully we can identify a group that annoys you most, and that we can agree to remove. Will you work on this with us?

I said I would expand on the "againsts", and I think the biggest one is that you are almost certain to lose traffic by moving. Looking at past forks shows this pattern well. Here's some data I pulled up for another wiki when they were considering forking (they decided not to). So for example, the forked version of Fallout currently receives just under 600,000 pageviews a month. The version on Wikia has fully recovered its community, and has more than 26 million pageviews a month. For WoWiki, the numbers are around 5 million monthly for the fork, and 20 million monthly for the Wikia wiki. And for the Pokemon wikis, it's about 370,000 pageviews for the fork, and more than 26 million pageviews for the version on Wikia. I know that you are expecting links from other LEGO communities to help bring in visitors, but even with that you should expect to leave a significant part of your audience behind.

I realize that it can seem somewhat restricting to be part of a big hosted site, and there's an attraction to being out on your own with all the controls in hand. But I also know that being part of a big site also brings advantages. You get new features like chat, you get an amazing amount of technical and other know-how, you have multiple servers and systems that keep your content fast, you have publicity and events that help build everyone on Wikia's profile and bring in new people to your wiki, and groups like the VSTF to help maintain wiki alongside their admins.

So, I hope you will reconsider and stay with us here. This wiki has a great future, and it would be great if this community, who has done so much to get the wiki this far, would be around to see it. -- sannse ShoutWiki Staff (help forum | blog) 01:01, February 8, 2013 (UTC)

Obviously, the pageviews would go down, but in the longer term it is possible for a moved wiki to surpass the Wikia version - or so happened with the Transformers wiki. It really is a shame that Wikia is the only organized, viable wikihost, but we have a sufficient technical team to maintain us, good virtual servers to keep pageloading fast and reliable.
While it's nice that Wikia finally decides to care about the ads when we threaten to leave, I doubt that any lasting or useful change could come out of this. Quite simply, the skin we have here promotes the other crap all around more than the content - removing a group of ads won't fix this.
In regards to the benefits of groups like the VSTF and Wikia tech team, the tech team has done literally nothing for us over the years - no help with the rating extension, not enabling it, etc. The only useful thing that the VSTF does here is perform checkusers against local policy, invading quite a few user's privacy for little or no reason, and without even letting the local checkusers know. Fortunately, they stay away with their other rights. A bit more to follow later. Ajraddatz (Talk) 01:16, February 8, 2013 (UTC)