New mandatory wiki skin

[Young Ned]

I logged into the wiki tonight for the first time since June, and found I had a new message addressed to all admins regarding a "new look" that Wikia will be releasing soon. It links to this Wikia blog post (http://community.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog%3ASannse%2FImportant_Updates_on_Wikia%E2 %80%99s_New_Look), which gives full details. The user responses to it seem to be uniformly negative, and many people are even talking about moving their wikis to another provider altogether -- ShoutWiki was mentioned more than once.

So I thought I'd better make sure our other wiki admins and users have seen this and get a discussion started. It was just posted on Sep 28, so probably most of us haven't seen it yet.

[shadowblack]

I've seen the blog post, but have not yet checked the new look. Is it really that bad?

[Oldschool]

Thanks Young Ned.

The link in Young Neds post which I'll repeat here,

http://community.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog%3ASannse%2FImportant_Updates_on_Wikia%E2 %80%99s_New_Look

is pretty informative and has some ACTUAL examples of the new skin you can view as well as a community test wiki. Keep in mind my wiki know how is very limited but one of the biggest things I noticed was that admins won't have as much "creative control" over "their" wikis.

Personally regarding the look I'm gonna say I'm on the fence. While I prefer and am used to the current look I'm guessing like the previous switch I'll get used to the new one. Not that I'm apathetic about it - it's more of a leave it to the folks that will be affected most. That being the real editors and admins that put in the time and effort to make it what it is.

Because truthfully it seems like while the look will affect everyone the customization aspects are the main issues. Those issues would affect the Wiki Admins/Editors more. With that in mind I'll support whatever the core wiki staff decides.

And good luck to Scarbrow and the rest of the Wiki Artisans (and I mean that sincerely) dealing with this latest development.

[Scarbrow]

Oh, God. Not. Again.

My first reaction is plainly negative. Wikia seems to be emphasizing more and more the media component in wikis - and ours is basically just text. We don't use almost any feature added to the wiki since we moved in, yet they are still forcing more and more things upon us.

I'm tired of this. Sick of it. And if it weren't for the fact that is too big a project, I would be stepping up to lead us away from there. Frankly, it's almost too much. Granted a project should evolve, and Wikia is a big project. Even Wikipedia changed their skin to a more modern one. But it should be a decision for each community to make.

Too soon for more comments, let me feed the fire inside me a little bit more, and then let it steep. I'm too angry right now to make useful comments. :mad::mad:

[Young Ned]

I've seen the blog post, but have not yet checked the new look. Is it really that bad?

I don't know that the look is that bad, but people seem to be the most steamed about the new restrictions:

Admins will no longer be able to completely remove core features for all users by using custom CSS or JavaScript. This is to protect the universal layout and functionality of every wiki on Wikia and ensure that users have access to all of the features available in the new design. Remember, these new terms only apply to the CSS of the wiki as a whole -- they don’t apply to your personal pages.

To give a few practical examples of what this means: 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.

That sounds pretty restrictive to me -- especially since I think we did something to remove the right sidebar on content pages (while leaving it on the wiki's main page). Or at least moved it from the right side to the left.

Edit: I went and looked at some of the wikis that are already on the new look. Having a fixed width makes a lot of space get wasted on my widescreen laptop, so that seems pretty boneheaded...

[Oldschool]

Here's the FAQs about the "new look".

http://community.wikia.com/wiki/The_new_look

[Scarbrow]

I don't know that the look is that bad, but people seem to be the most steamed about the new restrictions:

That sounds pretty restrictive to me -- especially since I think we did something to remove the right sidebar on content pages (while leaving it on the wiki's main page). Or at least moved it from the right side to the left.

Edit: I went and looked at some of the wikis that are already on the new look. Having a fixed width makes a lot of space get wasted on my widescreen laptop, so that seems pretty boneheaded...

The right sidebar is specific to the main page - we didn't remove anything from the rest of them. However, the Sidebar is going to be horibly crippled no matter what we do.

I'll add some links to Oldschool's:

http://community.wikia.com/wiki/The_new_look
http://community.wikia.com/wiki/Transition_map
http://community.wikia.com/wiki/Transition_guide
http://community.wikia.com/wiki/Forum:Anti-Wikia_Alliance
http://www.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Forum:Anti-Wikia_Alliance

And even WoWWiki is thinking about leaving Wikia! http://www.wowwiki.com/Forum:Should_WoWWiki_leave_Wikia%3F

Please, everybody, we need thoughts and ideas here. This is a matter that affects all community. Even if the bulk of either moving or adapting will be done by a few of us (and I obviously plan to be among them) all of us should have a say about this. After all, the change will strike all of us.

Please put links on your sigs and/or do whatever you might think of, to drive discussion here.

[shadowblack]

So, has anyone checked ShoutWiki yet? If so - does anyone have any info on how importing wikis from Wikia works? I know that some wikis already moved from Wikia to ShoutWiki and others are thinking about, but that's all I know right now.

In any case most people seem to REALLY not like the new skin, with one of the main complaints being the new fixed 660px width for articles, which leaves a lot of unused space (even on my screen 660px seems a bit too little). Another complaint I have seen are some limitations that come with the new skin. And of course there's the fact that the Wikia staff are doing a TERRIBLE job at convincing people that the change is for the best, or even a good idea...

[Oldschool]

Folks do us and yourself a favor and take a look at some of the test wikis and see for yourself. Then weigh in here or on the blog if you feel the need to - no need to log in or be registered as anonymous comments are accepted.

http://community.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog%3ASannse%2FImportant_Updates_on_Wikia%E2 %80%99s_New_Look

Part of the reason for the change seems to force ads (even if registered and with Firefox's extensions possibly). Another thing I noticed on looking at the test wikis is the annoying pop up frames (not ads per se), visualizations, etc... This was both if I was and wasn't logged onto my account.

The more I tinker around with the test wikis the more I dislike the new look. Annoying comes immediately to mind - and that's just from a end user point of view. I imagine it would be compounded exponentially from an editing point of view.

From my layman perspective it seems like the biggest most noticeable change is as has been mentioned the page width/layout.

Bear with my terminology or lack thereof....

The actual useful textual page is squeezed much narrower so it can sit inside and atop a background. And it may be because these test wikis are new because they've seemed to underwent some significant tweakage since I last looked a day or so ago. Anyway the visualization apsects are not only annoying but in some of the cases (again it may be because they're still under development) downright hard to deal with because of contrasting/non contrasting background/text, etc....

There's much discussion about this change and from what I've seen most of it's against the change being FORCED on folks. I'm going to repeat one of Scarbrow's links - there's even an Anti-Wikia Alliance, http://community.wikia.com/wiki/Forum:Anti-Wikia_Alliance

One thing it seems a significant number of wikis are considering going elsewhere.

And folks keep this in mind. If you use other wikis you're going to be affected as well as it seems this change is going to happen.

[Scarbrow]

Damn, I had a really long comment written and I lost it. Now I'll have to write it again from scratch. Don't hold it against me if it turns out to be much shorter.

In short, there are several terrible things with the new layout. Some of them, like having the "Recent Changes" placed in a DIV tag outside of the screen (check the source code if you don't believe me) are just classic problems of beta designs. Others, like the fixed width, are deliberate blunders.

See, I'm not joking:
<div style="position: absolute; top: -1000px">
<a href="/wiki/Special:Watchlist" title="Special:Watchlist" accesskey="l">Watchlist</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:RecentChanges" title="Special:RecentChanges" accesskey="r">Recent changes</a> </div>


Also, when you make your window smaller than the fixed size (like I do at work, where I can't devote more than a quarter of my screen to the browser), the right part of the page disappears without leaving a horizontal bar to scroll it. Most vexing, it is, even if the right-hand column holds almost nothing of value.

If you want to check the new skin, you must look at one of the beta wikis, I'm using the Muppet Wiki (http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Muppet_Wiki). Then you must either
a) Log out
b) Log in and select "New Wikia Look" on the "skin" tab on your Preferences

Whet I'm particularly livid about is the Sidebar. The Sidebar on the Monaco skin is the single most effective, most powerful navigational aid for our wiki. And we're going to lose it either way, because if we keep with Wikia they'll shoot if down, and if we move to another provider, they won't have it. Either way, the navigation loses. Darn. The new navigational bar on the top of the screen is much worse:
a) Text links are in horizontal, so you can just fit four or five items
b) You can't nest more than a level (our Sidebar is four or five levels deep in some points)

@Shadowblack
Moving to another Wikimedia provider would be much easier and painless than the previous move from PBWiki was. We wouldn't need to copy-paste content. We would just take a dump of the full page database (available at http://sryth.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Statistics) and restore it at the new location. We wouldn't be able to do that with the user database, though: Users would need to register at the new site, and admin privileges re-established. In the page I linked previously about WoWWiki, some of the most tech-savvy users (Pcj being the foremost one) have most of this already covered.

I haven't examined Shoutwiki yet, but I'm looking into options, including establishing a paid server for our wiki so we won't be ever again subject to the whims of another wiki provider. We're small as a community, and our databases are not too big (just below 20 MB compressed, editing hystory included), so we wouldn't need anything expensive. However, it's still early to say anything for sure. Anybody please feel free to give suggestions.

We should keep in mind, however, that our current working copy will be kept on Wikia. They don't erase wikis, even if the community moves away. So that would be our second historical wiki, and this one cannot be sealed as the old one was. It's another reason to head to a definitive destination, should we move.

EDIT: I'm testing ShoutWiki right now. I'll start a private wiki to play a little bit. I've also contacted staff with some issues. There is also another free provider linked at the Anti-Wikia Alliance: Wikkii (http://wikkii.com/wiki/Free_Wiki_Hosting)

[Young Ned]

Whet I'm particularly livid about is the Sidebar. The Sidebar on the Monaco skin is the single most effective, most powerful navigational aid for our wiki. And we're going to lose it either way, because if we keep with Wikia they'll shoot if down, and if we move to another provider, they won't have it. Either way, the navigation loses. Darn. The new navigational bar on the top of the screen is much worse:
a) Text links are in horizontal, so you can just fit four or five items
b) You can't nest more than a level (our Sidebar is four or five levels deep in some points)

Why wouldn't another MediaWiki-based provider have the Sidebar, if they have the Monaco skin? Was that a Wikia-made extension? If so, why would they get rid of a feature they added themselves?

@Shadowblack
Moving to another Wikimedia provider would be much easier and painless than the previous move from PBWiki was. We wouldn't need to copy-paste content. We would just take a dump of the full page database (available at http://sryth.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Statistics) and restore it at the new location. We wouldn't be able to do that with the user database, though: Users would need to register at the new site, and admin privileges re-established. In the page I linked previously about WoWWiki, some of the most tech-savvy users (Pcj being the foremost one) have most of this already covered.

Excellent. MediaWiki has some very cool features.

I haven't examined Shoutwiki yet, but I'm looking into options, including establishing a paid server for our wiki so we won't be ever again subject to the whims of another wiki provider. We're small as a community, and our databases are not too big (just below 20 MB compressed, editing hystory included), so we wouldn't need anything expensive. However, it's still early to say anything for sure. Anybody please feel free to give suggestions.

A paid server could work, but we'd have to install and set up the MediaWiki software ourselves, wouldn't we? That could be messy, from what I hear.

I took a very quick look at ShoutWiki and saw that it is indeed MediaWiki-based, so that would simplify the migration quite a bit.

We should keep in mind, however, that our current working copy will be kept on Wikia. They don't erase wikis, even if the community moves away. So that would be our second historical wiki, and this one cannot be sealed as the old one was. It's another reason to head to a definitive destination, should we move.

Couldn't we delete all the pages (except the main one) once everything was transferred over? Maybe you could modify your bot to do that, to speed up the process. And of course we'd modify the main page to tell everyone to go to the new new wiki, the way we did with the old wiki.

EDIT: I'm testing ShoutWiki right now. I'll start a private wiki to play a little bit. I've also contacted staff with some issues. There is also another free provider linked at the Anti-Wikia Alliance: Wikkii (http://wikkii.com/wiki/Free_Wiki_Hosting)

Glad you're on the case, and thanks! http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v735/Old_Ned/icon_cool.gif

[Oldschool]

Glad you're on the case, and thanks! http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v735/Old_Ned/icon_cool.gif


A big resounding ditto - Scarbrow have a rep for your concern and diligence.

[scout1idf]

I only looked briefly (got to go to bed)

{just an observation, not an approval}
As far as no horizontal scroll bar when you resize the screen. If you are using a mouse with the center wheel (who doesn't), click it and you can scroll left to right. Annoying, I know, but doable.

I can see what you mean by wasted space on the right side of the screen.

Has anyone informed Wikia that they are about to loose a bunch of communities? Do they not care?

If they need ad space, there has to be a better way.

**[I sent them the nasty face for my feed back, no comment, just the face]

[Oldschool]

Yeah they're getting a lot of negative feedback - much of it hostile. I also gave 'em my two cents worth. Since I forgot to log on and it was anonymous I may do so again.

[shadowblack]

http://community.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Susan_Taylor/Fixed_Width,_Sidebar,_and_the_Removal_of_Monaco - so far that's their only answer.

[Scarbrow]

http://community.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Susan_Taylor/Fixed_Width,_Sidebar,_and_the_Removal_of_Monaco - so far that's their only answer.

<GODZILLA ROAR>

And I'm tempted to leave it at that. However, I have news to share.

ONE: I've been testing Wikii.com. They seem still very new, and seems like a one-man company too. However, they allow for a fully own-operated (http://wikkii.com/wiki/Advanced_Hosting) Mediawiki install, with all its (dis)advantages. It's an interesting perspective, but I would probably still prefer a paid hosting under a custom domain name, should we got to that. And it's quite daunting, in fact. I for one would like some support from professional Mediawiki hackers. Although this might be a golden opportunity to become one. Anyone excited by these possibilities? I'm not sure if I could do it alone, since my online time is limited lately.

TWO: I've received answers from Shoutwiki.com. It seems their premium options are still not completely fleshed out, so I would wait for them to establish the pricing scheme before commiting. As you can see, I'm all for having a wiki with no ads: we've had enough of that at Wikia, so if we end up moving, I'd like to put all that unpleasantness behind. Other than that, they seem to be quick, attentive and supportive, and they obviously know about this business. I have a good feeling about that. They also run wikis with the barest extensions, and then install additional ones on demand. They're not like Wikia, and do not add unrequested features site-wide. An altogether good option, if we're going the externally hosted route.

THREE: The Monaco skin is a Wikia development. And yes, they are shooting down their own creation. Shadowblack's last link really explains everything. The good news is that Shoutwiki is aiming to allow Monaco skin as one of their premium features. By copying, adapting, or duplicating Monaco's functionalities, I don't know. Maybe it's not possible at all. But there's a slim ray of hope there.

FOUR: I got the GameMaster's input about this problem. He's basically open about options we might suggest. One of the main questions I posed him was the possibility of him hosting our wiki. He has accepted that possibility, including a custom domain, but has also pointed the possibility of using another provider, like I'm exploring. It's still early to decide, but it's good to know that, if necessary, we can count on him as support. I obviously don't want to rely too hard on that (especially, I wouldn't burden him with wiki administrative tasks, that role has to be filled out by the community), since his most valuable time is at the development of Sryth itself.

In short,

Moving from Wikia or staying with them through the changes?
If moving, a self-operated Mediawiki installation (our own host, basically) or an externally supplied one? And relatedly, a free service or a paid one without ads?. And finally, deciding about a provider
In case we were going to run our own Mediawiki server, if we should take advantage of the GM's offer.

What do you think about all this?

[scout1idf]

My personal opinion is to take advantage of the GM's offer.



It's his game. Over all control would be his if need be.
If something would happen that Wiki admins would happen to leave for whatever reason, the GM would be able to replace them easily. He's not going anywhere, I hope. (old forum in mind here)
Obviously, we, along with many others, are tired of changes being made that we don't like and have no control over. (Wikia's latest blunder)
Any ads on the Wiki would benefit the GM, not Wikia or whoever else we might pick for our host.

That's all the reasons I can think of at the moment, I'll probably come up with more when I'm less tired.

[kzero]

Here's my subjective thoughts:

We don't have any urgent need to decide on anything, much less a permanent solution, right? In that case, I would go from the least hassle to most extreme options.

We stay on Wikia and see how it goes. I'm assuming we don't really lose our content, and thus can port it to the next option if necessary. We can't really predict how the changes will affect users and editors until we try it out for a while, and there shouldn't be any harm with waiting.

Then, if it doesn't work out, we look to ShoutWiki or a similar provider that offers close to what we had before. Honestly, the biggest loss is the sidebar (I don't think anyone wouldn't use it if they could), but if the new provider can closely duplicate it, that'd be ideal.

The last resort is a separately hosted wiki. This entails huge change with a steep learning curve, likely GM involvement in some fashion, and continued behind-the-scenes maintenance (although possibly minimal like the forum).

I'm hoping we can find a way to stay with Wikia though..

[Oldschool]

Scarbrow's post gives a lot of food for thought.

Keep in mind my knowledge is limited but it seems like a considerable amount of other folks that are talking about leaving are mentioning ShoutWiki. Whether that's because of it's similarity to our current one, popularity, etc... I can't say.

At this early stage I'm on the fence re: the GMs involvement. Especially since IF so we don't know what that involvement might entail or more to the point might evolve into entailing. As Scarbrow aptly stated administrative functions should be left to the community for the stated reasons. And quite honestly the game is the GM's livelihood.

The big sticking points about the new skin seem to be the loss of the sidebar, the smaller window and the ads. Not to mention the creative control of the admins/editors. Browsers and/or extensions can probably take care of the ads. Although there are still visuals on the test servers. While they aren't ads and they're site related, to me they're reminiscent of ads and aggravating. Not to say I couldn't get used to ads especially if the GM/Sryth benefited from them.

This is where my limited knowledge is even more limited. What about other web hosting services - the net is full of em.

[Havoc]

My own 2 cents:

I'm in favor of moving to a new, ideally paid host, or at least away from wikia.

I'm a bit surprised that Wikia is pulling this though. I remember Scarbrow and I being pleasantly surprised at the great 'customer' service when we started out, particularly for a free outfit. I guess they weren't able to meet their bills.

That said, I do not expect to have time to help out with the move. Just moral support from me. :)

[Scarbrow]

[...] I'm in favor of moving to a new, ideally paid host, or at least away from wikia.

I'm a bit surprised that Wikia is pulling this though. I remember Scarbrow and I being pleasantly surprised at the great 'customer' service when we started out, particularly for a free outfit. I guess they weren't able to meet their bills.

That said, I do not expect to have time to help out with the move. Just moral support from me. :)

Those were the days... I'm also surprised, but it seems the change of course is permanent and company-wide. I'm starting to think even some of the staff aren't really on it, that is just being imposed on everybody. I had so many high hopes on Wikia... it was almost too good to be true. But they've become greedy, and drifted away from us, just as PbWiki did. When they started to develop for business wikis and forced a WYSIWYG editor on us, we escaped almost in the nick of time - with our hard-worked wikicode. Now Wikia will force more ads and fixed width on us - should we escape? At least, we don't have to rush the decission: our code will still be there.

Thanks for the moral support anyway.


My personal opinion is to take advantage of the GM's offer.



It's his game. Over all control would be his if need be.
If something would happen that Wiki admins would happen to leave for whatever reason, the GM would be able to replace them easily. He's not going anywhere, I hope. (old forum in mind here)
Obviously, we, along with many others, are tired of changes being made that we don't like and have no control over. (Wikia's latest blunder)
Any ads on the Wiki would benefit the GM, not Wikia or whoever else we might pick for our host.

That's all the reasons I can think of at the moment, I'll probably come up with more when I'm less tired.

Scout raises some very valid points. About the GM being able to insert his own ads, it would be wonderful that we could help the game in such a way. However, doing this would be the GM's sole decission: let's remember he likes the "fan" sites not to be officially affiliated with Sryth.com or EpicImagination, so we have disclaimers stating just that. We can't just assume he would, just offer it to him.
About his GMness having any control, I refer to my previous statement: while he is granted Administrative control over this forum, he does not use it. He has also never wanted administrative control over the wiki (although he has been offered such). His view is that fan sites should be run by fans, not him.
About wiki admins disappearing, right now it's not a problem. Wikia allows people to adopt wikis, and can grant administrative privileges if needed should no active Bureaucrats remain in the site. It could became a problem, however, should we move to a private server.
About changes, I fully share Scout's view. A wiki host should do just that: host, and maybe offer technical support. They should not force changes upon users, beyond the minimum ones needed to patch bugs and upgrade versions.



At this early stage I'm on the fence re: the GMs involvement. Especially since IF so we don't know what that involvement might entail or more to the point might evolve into entailing. As Scarbrow aptly stated administrative functions should be left to the community for the stated reasons. And quite honestly the game is the GM's livelihood.

I think if we were to move to a private host, and use our own Mediawiki server, we would do it way better in the GM's hands than anywhere else. He's proved time and again to be considerate to his fans, technically apt, and to listed to feedback. However, his involvement with running the wiki server should be minimum, and if possible at all, nil, so as not to steal time from the game.

I would not support doing this until at least one of us is confident enough that (s)he is able to install, troubleshoot, configure and run a Mediawiki instance without help.


I've left kzero's comment for the end because I find it most interesting. So far, he's been the only voice with a firm defense of staying. And I must say, I agree with many of his points too.


We don't have any urgent need to decide on anything, much less a permanent solution, right? In that case, I would go from the least hassle to most extreme options.

That's my line all right. Since we're not losing our code, we are in no hurry to move. Before all is said and done, we should probably wait to see how the New Wikia skin will look for our wiki, in a couple of weeks. Maybe we'll be able to cope, adapt and even enjoy the change. I'm just not confident at all that will happen.

Then, if it doesn't work out, we look to ShoutWiki or a similar provider that offers close to what we had before. Honestly, the biggest loss is the sidebar (I don't think anyone wouldn't use it if they could), but if the new provider can closely duplicate it, that'd be ideal.

The last resort is a separately hosted wiki. This entails huge change with a steep learning curve, likely GM involvement in some fashion, and continued behind-the-scenes maintenance (although possibly minimal like the forum).

We have already had two wiki providers. I for one I'm tired of changes: I though the Sryth wiki had reached its final place to be on Wikia, and I obviously don't want to move. However, I also don't want to keep accepting whatever changes our provider tries to force upon us. The sad truth is, after such a brisk change of policy from Wikia, I feel I can no longer put my complete trust on providers. That's why, if we were to move from Wikia, I'd support moving directly to a separately hosted wiki. And who could be a better host than the GM, if he chooses to accept it? Provided we could handle the server without bothering him, he would truly provide the final living place for the Sryth wiki.

All of that nonwithstanding, if we are unable or unwilling to install and administer our own Wikimedia server, the best option would be a Mediawiki host like Shoutwiki, where we could move without losing too much, and without needing too much work to either migrate or maintain it. But I 'm starting to think that would be a less desirable option than either Wikia (if at all bearable) or our own server.

I'm thinking we could use the "extra feature" service from Wikii to try a "practice run" of installing a Mediawiki server and running it without support. Would anybody be interested to join?

[Young Ned]

Lots of good points, too many to quote.

While I understand that after two providers (PBWiki and Wikia) have changed their policies so drastically on us, people are starting to get leery of wiki providers, I still have to say... third time's the charm?

Certainly, having our own MediaWiki installation would eliminate the chance of the provider going south on us, but I worry that the amount and difficulty of work involved could be prohibitive. I like the idea of a "test run", but my time is limited these days so I would not be able to help with it.

And I agree that it can't hurt to try out the new skin and see if we can live with it. Maybe there'd even be a way to provide the functionality of our sidebar in a different way.

I hadn't even noticed that Wikia had ads, incidentally. Thank you, AdBlock Plus!

[Oldschool]

I hadn't even noticed that Wikia had ads, incidentally. Thank you, AdBlock Plus!

DITT:) it's easy to get used to and overlook the good job it does. Every now and then I'll use Explorer and realize what I'm not missing. Although I admit every now and then I'll temporarily disable it on a few sites like Sryth just to see what ads are being used.

[spencer]

I am sorry, but I am so lost here. I just discovered this thread and will just say that I trust Scarbrow, Shadowblack et al who are the wiki mavens. I will be able to provide some limited help if we move and if we stay, I am sure that we can make it work. Sorry to be so wishy-washy, but I just don't have enough knowledge to make a reasoned decision here.

[Scarbrow]

Don't worry, Spencer. It is by nature a technical discussion, and not everybody is so immersed in how the wiki works to be able to help with the pros and cons of some options. However, everybody can comment on the grounds of personal likes/dislikes about the new interface we're about to have. Compare the current one (http://sryth.wikia.com) with one of the beta wikis (http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Muppet_Wiki).

[kzero]

Oh, I forgot that Wikia is the 2nd wiki host. So maybe the move to e.g. Shoutwiki isn't as preferable as directly moving to an independent host. But with Mediawiki as a base, it might be less painful than the 1st migration...?

And about the new sidebar, I thought I read somewhere that it can't have menus more than 1 level deep. But I've seen on the red dead wiki (http://reddead.wikia.com/wiki/) (which is supposed to be using the new skin) that the new sidebar looks the same. If so, the only practical difference that I can see is the fixed width, which may not be too bad. (The home page does look cluttered, but beyond that, content pages are okay.)

[Chareos]

I saw that Scarbrow wanted opinions on the new wiki setup. I am sorry but I really don't have a clue about half the things you guys are talking about. I can see that having large sidebars will scrunch up the articles and make them less user friendly but that's about it I'm afraid.

With all the work you guys have put into the Wiki I would give my full support to whatever you guys want to do.

I have a question though, when you mention a paid wiki, does that mean that we would have to pay towards it? If it does, then I would suggest that the GM includes that in the membership fee? Obviously the fees would have to go up slightly to pay for the additional costs but all monies will be centralised and there can be no issues of people forgetting to contribute.

I hope this is of some help but I may have been barking up the wrong tree entirely :-)

[Scarbrow]

I have a question though, when you mention a paid wiki, does that mean that we would have to pay towards it? If it does, then I would suggest that the GM includes that in the membership fee? Obviously the fees would have to go up slightly to pay for the additional costs but all monies will be centralised and there can be no issues of people forgetting to contribute.

It's still early to discuss this. If the time comes we move to a paid wiki host, we would have several alternatives, including bundling up with the GM, accepting donations (I for one would contribute for this), or making a sort of (small) foundation to run it. As of now, it's still too early to say, but thank you for your ideas.



By the way, you can already see how the Sryth wiki looks with the new skin. Just go to your Preferences (http://sryth.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Preferences), and on the Skin tab select "New Wikia Look". I'm testing it right now. For the moment, the look is surprisingly good to navigate, provided you have

Logged in to reduce the amount of ads (this will be worse for logged-out users, once they roll that out)
Completely squashed them with AdBlock

Then you just have to ignore the fixed width and the removal of the Sidebar.

I still feel the same about the Sidebar removal: It reduces the functionality and navigability of our wiki, and as so, it's bad. Yes, yes, we have the top bar. But it's not nearly as good, and it only has one level deep.

Then the fixed width, it's not completely bad, except:

If you browse with the window size set to lower than the wiki width, you lose part of the content. Explicitely disabled horizontal scrollbars. Only way to move is with the mouse central button, a trick not many users know.
if you browse it with a maximized window, you have a lot of unused blank space on both sides, making pages longer than necessary


And with the removal of the Sidebar comes the removal of the Toolbox.

"Recent Changes (http://sryth.wikia.com/wiki/Special:RecentChanges)" is now hidden. To access it, you must first go to that watered-down version called "Wiki Activity (http://sryth.wikia.com/wiki/Special:WikiActivity)" and then click on "see all activity"
Special pages (http://sryth.wikia.com/wiki/Special:SpecialPages) are also hidden. You can access them from your Toolbox (a floating bar at the bottom of the screen), but they're not there by default. You must configure the toolbox to suit your needs. And the interface is just horrid: having to type what you need, and you have to check on a list that is on another page for the available commands. (**retching sounds**)


But not all is just removing good things from us: They've also added some "useful" things. Like the Wiki activity marquee on every page. Listen, I know what's happening on my wiki. And if I want to know more, I have my watchlist and my Recent Changes pages. I can monitor on real time, if I want. So pray tell me, why I darnly need to HAVE that thing open when I just want to browse a single quest!? Then there's the extremely useful addition of a Gallery on every single page. See at Kingdom of Tysa (http://sryth.wikia.com/wiki/Kingdom_of_Tysa). Oh, sure, how useful. Only pictures on our wiki are maps from quests. This a wiki about a text-only game. Yet, we're stuck with galleries.

So yeah, it's not so bad, except it's :eek:horrible:mad:. Oh, surely we could get used to it and retrain our editors and whole user base. And be on the lookout for the next monstrosity they throw our way.

In short, they have worsened considerably, and improved nothing (at least for the editors). Adblock is a practical necessity now, when before it was just a convenience. And many simple actions require two or three clicks instead of one (this might seem a trivial complain, but try to edit for three hours straight, and then multiply your clicks three times, and see if it still looks trivial to you)

I, for one, am ready for the move.

[Oldschool]

Scarbrow just a thought and keep in mind my knowledge on it is fairly limited. But the Element Hiding Helper for Adblock, https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4364/ might be able to be used to block the activity Marquee.

Although if it's possible I doubt that serves much of a useful purpose from an administrative perspective since it would a) have to be individually implemented by the user and b)the dead space would be just that dead space and not reclaimable.

Alright just took a look, actually my preferences were still set for the new skin. Not as bad as I thought on our wiki as the test wikis. I agree losing the sidebar inhales sharply. And as Scarbrow mentioned the page width issues will take getting getting used to.

First I turned Adblock off then I set my preferences to view all ads with the new skin. Then I looked at the old wiki skin the same. Pretty obvious to me why the change or at least part of the reason - ads.

Although I've done some editing, very minor especially when compared to the "heavy hitters", like I said before and others have said I'll support whatever the core editorial staff decides. After all it's these folks and anyone else that chooses to follow that will have to navigate the new stuff.

[Havoc]

I agree losing the sidebar inhales sharply.

Can I just say I love this euphamism. :)

More to the point, I completely share Scarbrow's annoyance with the fixed width. Also, where are the links to edit the main page?

[Scarbrow]

Can I just say I love this euphamism. :)

More to the point, I completely share Scarbrow's annoyance with the fixed width. Also, where are the links to edit the main page?

I also got a good chuckle.

The Edit button is in blue, just next to the right to the title of the page. The same button condensates the rest of the possible actions, including administrative ones.

Check http://community.wikia.com/wiki/Transition_map for a rough roadmap of the changes

[Scarbrow]

Several new details I've noticed:

The wiki can no longer have its own logo. Instead it has a "wordmark", adjustable via the Theme Designer.
"Email a user" still works (for the moment), but it is hidden. You can use this link: http://sryth.wikia.com/wiki/Special:EmailUser/Scarbrow, and change my name in the URL to the wiki user name you prefer.
Sitenotice no longer works. I've set up a space on the main page for notices
External links are no longer marked as such - now you can't see when a link will take you out of the wiki
Headers below level 2 are no longer formatted in bold - this will break a good number of page formats. This, along with the new "Edit" icons moved to the left instead of the right, make pages with big Tables of Content look... well, see for yourselves (http://sryth.wikia.com/wiki/Game_Updates_2010)
They've also reworked how space is managed around headers in general, giving it a more cramped (for that is too much to say "compact") look. We should not start to "fix" that yet, though: our time with Wikia might be ending, and there are better ways to spend our energies.
Not only the Sidebar has been crippled to the new Topbar - the items are limited to four in width, seven in depth - no matter size or length of word!
They've added another useless namespace: Top 10 lists! (http://sryth.wikia.com/wiki/index.php?search=&fulltext=0). That is just bad taste. And they limited us to three custom namespaces, when they already have 4 we don't use? (Forum, Video, Blog, and now Top 10)
Due to color changes, the link suggestions (when you're writing a link and are through "[[Quest:The caves of" and the page suggests automatically "[[Quest:The Caves of Westwold]]") merge with the background, making it difficult to read and use


I've updated the Topbar (for lack of a better word) to at least show the most important links of the old Sidebar. Luckily we have a strong navigation already built. I've added a link on the "Community and Help" section to a new index page (http://sryth.wikia.com/wiki/Sryth_Wiki:Index) made from the old Sidebar, so we have another collection of links, if only it has to be browsed manually.

[Young Ned]

Man, this is sounding worse and worse. I agree that we should move somewhere else -- I get the distinct impression that Wikia will go ahead and implement this no matter how many negative responses they get.

Edit: I just noticed, while playing around with the new skin in the Sryth wiki, that the right-hand sidebar (with "Recent Activity", pictures, and links to other wikis) doesn't appear on Quest, Item, or Category pages -- only on pages in the general (default) namespace. Since the vast majority of our wiki is Item pages, seems like this unremovable sidebar won't be nearly as obtrusive as I was thinking. Here are the counts as shown on the home page:

Page Type|Count
Item pages|2,402
Quest pages|208
general (main) pages|298
Categories|160

[Ankhmahor]

So I finally have the "New Look!"

I am in this state now:
Ug. Whut? :eek:

Mah granny used to say "If it is not broke don't fix it." Pfft. I shall fiddle a bit with it but my first impressions are - lets get the Neverness out of here.
*points his FoD at the responsible Wikia Staff*

What actually makes me wonder is if so many users dislike it why isn't there a response from Wikia? Hm. Unless you count the one message I mange to find where they said that they were taking the comments into consideration and thanking the many positive "WOW GREAT JOB!" responses. Pfft.

[zmflavius]

Right now, I can't actually use the wiki (or any other wiki, for that matter), due to the pages not displaying properly (which I presume is due to the new skin).

This really sucks.

edit: never mind, it appears to have been a technical problem.

[Young Ned]

Mah granny used to say "If it is not broke don't fix it." Pfft. I shall fiddle a bit with it but my first impressions are - lets get the Neverness out of here.

Well, according to Wikia there were a lot of problems with the old (Monaco) skin due to its great complexity, so to their minds it was broke and they had to fix it. I would be fine with them introducing a new simplified skin, if they would just leave the old one available for those wikis that weren't having any problems... it's the mandatory loss of functionality that really burns me.

[kzero]

I agree, wish they'd leave it as an unsupported skin at least. And the problems probably were due to the skin's lack of robustness, and the decision to start over instead of fix it seems strange.

Looks like almost all that has been said is pretty accurate after browsing with the new skin. Haven't edited yet though. It seems more a shock for people used to the old skin to use the new skin. I feel that we can work around the Sidebar, and the fixed width possibly might spur consistent and well-formatted articles (although most look weird with the new skin now). Our item and quest boxes may need tweaking to display well if we stick with this fixed-width though.

I should able to help with any migration if that's the direction we go. But if migrating (independent or provider) means no Monaco skin, I'm not too sure we gain anything essential. Wikia still provides a functional wiki... I just really really hate the Edit icon and placement and hope they right-justify it eventually. Of course I may have more to add after some more time with the new skin.

[thingirl]

I do not like the new skin at all. I don't have time to go into everything, but my biggest annoyances are:

1) The mandatory Wikia top bar. It's one big rollover ad. I hate rollover ads, and I always go to that instead of the wiki-specific nav. bar.

2) The removal of the sidebar. This wouldn't be so bad if the top bar could stack. Sometimes I'm just looking up one thing and I know exactly where to find it in the sidebar and I'm too lazy to spell/type it.

3) The search bar. It doesn't "remember" what you searched for. What I mean is, with Monaco, if you search for something, you can edit the search terms without having to retype everything. This might not seem so bad, but consider this: Let's say you're looking for something and you don't know it's name. You have a general idea, but nothing specific. So you search for it with keywords. When I do this, I usually have to change the words 5 or 6t times before I find what I'm looking for. Also, imagine if you have my spelling skills. Yeah, you can't find a darn thing unless you spell it right. Which is easier to do if you can see how you spelled it the first time.

I can probably think of more when I'm not so pressed for time. But for now I think that we should move, but I will leave that final decision to others. :) But, if we do decide that, tell me what to do and I'll help.

[Scarbrow]

I should able to help with any migration if that's the direction we go. But if migrating (independent or provider) means no Monaco skin, I'm not too sure we gain anything essential. Wikia still provides a functional wiki... I just really really hate the Edit icon and placement and hope they right-justify it eventually. Of course I may have more to add after some more time with the new skin.

That's right, nothing will give us Monaco back (except some other provider developing it for themselves, or us developing it from scratch if we moved to a wiki of our own). The problem is, a wiki skin is not just a lot of CSS. It also holds a considerable amount of server-side PHP. Although maybe Scout could help with that, and I can do CSS. It would be a hard challenge, of course, although we could also finally develop the custom Sryth skin, with everything we want from it, including the looks.

You're right: we wouldn't gain anything essential. Saved the freedom from the next forced change they'll impose on us. And from the ones they've already imposed. But as I said, a move is neither urgent nor possible to fit at the moment in my limited schedule. For the moment, let's hope some of the most egregious but easily solved problems are fixed with time. Or at least, some restrictions are relaxed to let us style some of them as we want it.

[Scarbrow]

A few more problems, as I encounter them:

- We don't have any longer a link to the article from the article itself. I used to use that one to open new tabs. A minor nuisance.
- Many of our "tag" templates are broken. This is due to changes in the CSS, since Common.css is no longer used. I expect to be able to fix this by tweaking things a little bit for the new skin, mostly wikia.css.

EDIT: I've moved the code from common.css to wikia.css, and our custom tables and templates are working again. I'm trying to correct some blatant problems with CSS, for example, I've moved the "edit section" links back to the right side. Please ask for changes you might see necessary.

[Oldschool]

Scarbrow have an advance rep for your work - and thanks.

[Oldschool]

Just added the latest game update to the wiki and where's the editing "cheat sheet".......!? Guess it went with the sidebar.

Not too big a deal. It'll just take some getting used to - just another downside to the new skin.

[shadowblack]

Update on the new skin: http://community.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Sannse/New_look_roll-out_--_phase_II

[Scarbrow]

They've received so much flak they're not even allowing comments. Now that's a comment on itself.

[scout1idf]

They've received so much flak they're not even allowing comments. Now that's a comment on itself.
You would think that they would change their minds with that much negative feedback...

[Oldschool]

Well I often quote this and sometimes it's been known to elicit some "excitement" as when quoting it around the office when contradicting wrong opinions with unpopular but correct facts. :rolleyes:;)

Anyway imo this sums up wiki's decision to not accept comments in a nutshell,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yB7J7DYi6M :cool:

[Young Ned]

At least they've made some improvements to the skin based on the feedback. Not that it helps us much...

[shadowblack]

When you are on http://sryth.wikia.com/wiki/The_Ruined_City_of_Tarn look at the line where it says "The Ruined City of Tarn" - to the right of that text is an EDIT button; to the right of said button is a number (currently 42) and then the word "Talk". Click on Talk and congratulations - you have found what you're looking for :)

By the way, the Quest Spoiler Warning template on that page looks really ugly because of the fixed width - there's not enough space for the location template and the spoiler warning template. :(

[scout1idf]

When you are on http://sryth.wikia.com/wiki/The_Ruined_City_of_Tarn look at the line where it says "The Ruined City of Tarn" - to the right of that text is an EDIT button; to the right of said button is a number (currently 42) and then the word "Talk". Click on Talk and congratulations - you have found what you're looking for :)

By the way, the Quest Spoiler Warning template on that page looks really ugly because of the fixed width - there's not enough space for the location template and the spoiler warning template. :(

Are you looking at it logged in or logged out?

Logged in it looks "OK". Logged out, I agree it looks bad.

Also, I'm using FireFox.

Would it be possible to move the templates to separate lines? That might make them look better.

[shadowblack]

I'm constantly logged in. But after I logged out I saw no difference - maybe because I have Adblock active and so don't see the ads. Still, if that's "OK", I'd rather not know what "bad" is like...

[Scarbrow]

Moved to separate lines. And almost gone crazy from the combination of a quirky Internet Explorer with the floating bar at the bottom of my screen. I just couldn't reach the bottom of the page to click the "changes" link, had to save and check in history. :mad:

[scout1idf]

Moved to separate lines. And almost gone crazy from the combination of a quirky Internet Explorer with the floating bar at the bottom of my screen. I just couldn't reach the bottom of the page to click the "changes" link, had to save and check in history. :mad:

I think it looks better on separate lines now.

It's still not rite to have to restructure all of the pages to accommodate Wikia.

[shadowblack]

I don't know about you guys, but I find the History link to be at a very unintuitive place. It used to be its own link, but now it's part of "My tools" for some reason...

[thingirl]

My thoughts.... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_jgUgTZ-C0)

I'm the monster. Wikia is the first dad... get the picture?

[Young Ned]

My thoughts.... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_jgUgTZ-C0)

I don't like that bedtime story either... :(

[Scarbrow]

I've been exploring several options for wiki hosts.

Among them, Siteground (http://www.siteground.com/mediawiki-hosting.htm) seems like a very good paid hosting company. I've already contacted them, and so far it seems all good. We would have a shared server (more than enough for us), a custom domain, a clean Mediawiki installation we could tweak any way we wanted, and tech support service for it. They even have a service for unattended migration: it would be automatic. And we could install extensions and other technical maintenance tasks ourselves, instead of having to ask an external provider. Also, we would be finally owners of the site: we would be able to shut it down, move it, delete it, etc. as we've never been able with free providers. The downsides would be:

Having to register users again, since the user database would not move with us
Change of skin, probably to Monobook (wikipedia's old skin, and Mediawiki default) or to Vector (Wikipedia current skin) until we could develop our own
Unexpected behaviour changes/problems until we get it "just right", derived from the clean instalation. Improbable but possible.


If we are going to move, I'd suggest a transition period when we would try to "lock" the Wikia wiki (remember that, like with the old PbWiki wiki, we won't be able to delete it, and it will be forever accessible and editable) while we finish setting up the new one. Then we can start user-testing it before the final move.

I'd like your input on this. Do you know the hosting company? Can you think of any potential problems? (I'll answer if I already asked/solved that problem in advance, it's to be able to ask them more questions I haven't thought before).

[Lyrehc]

Have you looked at webhostingtalk.com? I've been maintaining a few different sites and when I've needed web hosting I've gone there. My experience is that if the site isn't reviewed by the users there, it doesn't have enough of a track record. I can't find Siteground when I search.

If you are looking for shared web hosting I have been with the same web host for over 2 years for my (active) blog and a couple forums for different needs. http://www.elief.com/ I cannot say enough about how fantastic their customer service is - they have bent over backwards time and again to help me, even when it wasn't something that should be expected. For example, I chose to migrate my blog from wordpress to b2evolution because I prefer that platform for blogging - it would have cost over $200 to pay someone to migrate (I checked) but they did it for free. They also have 1 click application install if you want a clean install of mediawiki - and if you want to PM me I can help give you a lot more information.

If you want to PM me I can give you a

[Scarbrow]

Have you looked at webhostingtalk.com? I've been maintaining a few different sites and when I've needed web hosting I've gone there. My experience is that if the site isn't reviewed by the users there, it doesn't have enough of a track record. I can't find Siteground when I search.

I've found several reviews of them. Some of them good, many of them not so good. But it's curious: I cannot find complaints newer than 2008. And that's ancient history on the Internet. Also, all the matters they are complaining about seem to be corrected on the new ToS. Doesn't look bad to me, for the moment. Anyway, I'm going to check a few more sites there, and the the other one you're recommending. I'll do this "soon" ;)

[Lyrehc]

Here are three review sites that appear to have mixed reviews.

http://www.clickfire.com/siteground-review/
http://www.webhostingjury.com/reviews/SiteGround_Hosting
http://www.webhostingreviews.com/siteground-reviews.htm


I'm not saying Siteground is definitely bad, but the reviews appear more current. And there's enough there that I'd be very nervous about trusting them.

[Scarbrow]

http://www.clickfire.com/siteground-review/I agree with this one, I also found several of their Terms of Service a little odd. Although I'm used to abuse on web services, so that wouldn't hold me back unless other hosts are much clearer in theirs.

http://www.webhostingjury.com/reviews/SiteGround_Hosting
As you said, mixed reviews. It strikes me as odd that the reviews are very polarized, I mean, the supporting ones are generally 5/5 in everything, but the critic ones are usually 1/5 in everything. I also find notable the good quality of English in the supporting ones vs the regular/bad grammar of most critics (common trend, there are exceptions). This is consistent with the other critic reviews I read yesterday. I wonder if there is really a problem with support, ie. they're assuming knowing customers so less proficient ones feel that support is insufficient.

http://www.webhostingreviews.com/siteground-reviews.htm
Also very, very polarized. Most of the complains are from new users. Consistent with previous reviews. Again, mentions of their ToS. Do people not read their ToS, I figure? I did even before considering them as a host!

If they are so big as they brag about (>250k sites) some problems are bound to appear. While the ToS could be slightly difficult to navigate, they don't pose a problem for a Mediawiki install, unless we had huge numbers of images, which we don't. All in all, for our small wiki they seem good enough. However, a direct recommendation from you is also very valuable, so I'm going to review http://www.elief.com/ (or any other site any member would be so kind to recommend) with the same care.

Could you please provide some similar review links for Elief, while I search on my own for more?

EDIT:
So far I've found:
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=887859
http://ratepoint.com/profile/17632 - Unanimous shining reviews. If anything, I distrust unanimity. Just rational caution, of course.
http://www.earnersblog.com/hosts/elief/ - another good one
http://www.web-hosting-top.com/web-hosting/web-hosting-top.elief.com-reviews - This seems to show they're pretty small as web hosts. Also, 57.000 Google results for Elief against 11,600,000 for Siteground. As I said, size does matter when it comes to angry/disappointed customers. Case in point, Wikia.
http://www.webhostingstuff.com/company/Elief.html - mixed ones
http://hostjury.com/reviews/elief+ - More downs than highs here

I also tried to find reviews where you pointed:
- Clickfire.com haven't reviewed Elief (their reviews (http://www.clickfire.com/viewpoints/reviews/webhosts/))
- webhostingjury.com haven't reviewed Elief (and they've reviewed a lot of sites (http://www.webhostingjury.com/reviewedwebhosts.php), )
- webhostingreviews.com also didn't review Elief
- Seems like your host Elief is pretty active on your reference site webhosttalk.com, as a user and under its own name. I can even see when they asked themselves for a review (http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=672395) back in 2008. But that was above all on design.

Apart from Elief, I also found this comparative of several brilliantly-ranked web hosts:
http://www.webhostingstuff.com/category/Top-10-Web-Hosting.html

Now I'm going to evaluate Elief with my own eyes.

EDIT2:
Been there, reviewed that. My first impressions:
- Standard, rather than customized, web design. Hard to find things. Looks like a dignified brochure, with all links conveying to either "Purchase" or "Open ticket" forms.
- No access to the Terms of Service (at least, I couldn't find them)
- Small "knowledge base", only covering Cpanel administration (and just 7 resources)
- "Live chat assistance" takes you to "Open ticket". I hope it works for customers, but it's misleading for new users. Ive contacted them with several questions
- A little expensive, 10$ a month for a shared server, $5,95 if you sign up (and pay forward) for 24 months

[Lyrehc]

I think you found just about everything I know of reviewing elief, except a blog post I wrote - and I will admit to a certain bias where they are concerned.

I changed my blog linking system and haven't gotten around to adjusting for it yet, but if you go here: http://alittlechaostheory.com/?blog=1&paged=10 - the post "Today I am Thankful For" is my personal review of their services.

If it helps, other web hosts that I've had personal experience with include (and they all offer a good product):

Steadfast.net
totalchoicehosting.com
asmallorange.com
Slhost.com
inmotionhosting.com

It's not that I move around a lot. Totalchoicehosting.com and Steadfast.net both hosted my blog, but I've been with elief for over 2 years now. I also have been the administrator for mommy boards, a debate board, and a game board - so I've dealt with web hosts for those too.

[Scarbrow]

It's been a month since we last discussed this, so I though a bump was in order.

Also, the Anti-Wikia Alliance has reached us to remind us to move to "Moved Wikis" or remove us from "Pending".

My personal situation still doesn't allow me to lead the change, unless there is a prior consensus on a web host. Also, it seems like Shoutwiki have managed to create/recreate Monaco. I'm not sure about Shoutwiki, because last time I contacted them they still hadn't a clear payment policy to remove advertisements, but I'll write again to them.

Thoughts?

EDIT: Shoutwiki's announcement (http://blog.shoutwiki.com/2010/11/monaco-coming-soon-to-a-shoutwiki-near-you/) about the upcoming Monaco skin. They also state that they still haven't defined the premium features' price, so I can save myself a mail. They seem to be developing at a fast rate, but are still far from mature. They're absorbing much traffic from Wikia. I still think we should look at independent web hosts so we do not depend on a wiki farm, but that's just my personal opinion. Although maybe a wiki farm would be better for us because of the included technical support, since we don't have many users proficient enough in Mediawiki software itself. Yes, I'm still undecided

EDIT2: Wikia is adding yet-another-forced-unneeded-and-downright-useless-for-us (http://community.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Toughpigs/Coming_this_week_-_Related_pages_and_Category_galleries) feature. Just to remind us again why we want to move, I guess

[Scarbrow]

Sorry for being impatient, but I hoped to get at least a couple answers. I hope it's not that the interest have waned, but that nobody has anything new to add.

Disclaimer:
Although in the following paragraphs I'll use expressions like "decide" and "must", this is only my personal viewpoint and I understand I cannot assume I represent the whole community. In due time, a discussion or poll will be presented for all to vote.

The situation
Anyway, after thinking a lot about it, I've decided that, unless somebody steps up with enough time and willingness to technically administer a Mediawiki installation, we should move to another wiki farm. I can't make any promises about my time availability, so I can't drag the wiki community to a host where the wiki could be compromised by any circumstance and I could be unable / unavailable to help. So we need customer support, and that means a wiki farm.

And it can't be just any wiki farm. It has to be one with Mediawiki, to ease the transition process (almost required, since I'm simply not able to move almost 3,000 pages by hand, not counting non-content pages, which would increase the number to over 4,500). An automated process it almost the only option. Also, we need them to agree to add two custom namespaces (Item and Quest)

Optionally, it would be ideal if our new host would offer us:

The ability to delete our wiki later if we switch providers again
Use of a custom domain, so if we change of provider we won't have to update links (mainly, links from the forum)


Options
From the available wiki farms with Mediawiki, I've singled out these three:

Shoutwiki (http://www.shoutwiki.com/): Pros: They're absorbing wikis from Wikia (so they know how to do it), they make all the work of the transition (less work for us), and they have the Monaco skin. Also, they have less ads than Wikia. Just a banner under the search box and Google Ads at a right-hand column (both are hidden by AdBlock Plus). They also have a very interesting extension called MediaWikiAuth (http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:MediaWikiAuth), which would allow us to keep our usernames and historic contributions (although that extension is a general MediaWiki one, so maybe all providers could offer it, I have confirmed they install it on request.) They have single sign-on for all of their wikis.Cons: They are the youngest company, they are currently under a lot of strain for the increased workload and traffic absorbed from Wikia (although they have recently upgraded their servers to cope). They still haven't decided their pricing scheme for premium features like the complete removal of ads and the Monaco skin (currently free, but scheduled to go premium in six months). They are a little irregular with customer support: sometimes it's very quick, but sometimes it takes a while for them to answer (from my limited experience). State of evaluation: They still have to answer a few questions. I have the talk page of one of the staff, if they don't answer in a few days I'll take it to personal level.
http://wikkii.com (Wikkii): Pros: They have even less ads (just a banner under the search box, can be hidden with AdBlock). They have their "advanced" plan in which we get a full Mediawiki installation to play, just as if we signed up with a web host, but free of charge (ads, of course, will remain). Cons: They don't have single sign-on for all of their wikis, you have to register for each one of them you want to edit. They have very little information on their page about details of their services. State of evaluation: I've submitted a batch of questions, let's wait for the answers.
Referata (http://www.referata.com): Pros: Well-established service, oldest of the three. Their semantic extensions, appropriately used, could improve our Items database structure, although I've still not delved enough into them to be sure. They offer great amount of control over the wikis to administrators. They have a clear policy for paid models (http://www.referata.com/wiki/Referata:Features). They don't run ads on basic sites (which are also free!). The ad-supported option would allow the wiki to contain Google AdSense Ads with benefits going to the owners of the wiki (not sure if our traffic makes it worth, but we can discover it because they offer site traffic monitoring with Google Analytics). Great FAQ (http://www.referata.com/wiki/Referata:FAQ). We could have a custom domain, although that requires at least ad-supported level. They also ensure deletion of the wiki on request. Cons: The main con is they share a common code base among all wikis. That means the same LocalSettings.php (where most wiki options are) and the same extensions for everyone. That could make harder to install custom extensions we may find useful. They also have captchas for anonymous editing, although this could be also listed as a pro. State of evaluation: I've submitted a batch of questions, waiting for the answers.


EDIT: Just adding a link to a Mediawiki Dumper (http://absurdopedia.net/wiki/%D0%A3%D1%87%D0%B0%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BA:E dward_Chernenko/MediaWikiDumper) to have all my links in the same place.

EDIT2: Wikia hasn't released a database dump of our wiki since January 2010. How nice of them. Maybe we'll need to resort to the previous tool, as WoWWiki (now WoWpedia) had to do.

[Young Ned]

Sorry for being impatient, but I hoped to get at least a couple answers. I hope it's not that the interest have waned, but that nobody has anything new to add.
I suspect that people are busier than usual with RL because of the holiday season, what with Chanukah ongoing and Christmas coming up fast.

Anyway, after thinking a lot about it, I've decided that, unless somebody steps up with enough time and willingness to technically administer a Mediawiki installation, we should move to another wiki farm. I can't make any promises about my time availability, so I can't drag the wiki community to a host where the wiki could be compromised by any circumstance and I could be unable / unavailable to help. So we need customer support, and that means a wiki farm.
That makes lots of sense. I agree.

Options
From the available wiki farms with Mediawiki, I've singled out these three:

Shoutwiki (http://www.shoutwiki.com/)...
http://wikkii.com (Wikkii)...
Referata (http://www.referata.com)...

You've obviously done a lot of work so far in defining our needs and researching wiki farms. Thanks very much for that! All three sound intriguing in different ways, so it will probably depend on their answers to your additional questions.

EDIT: Just adding a link to a Mediawiki Dumper (http://absurdopedia.net/wiki/%D0%A3%D1%87%D0%B0%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BA:E dward_Chernenko/MediaWikiDumper) to have all my links in the same place.

EDIT2: Wikia hasn't released a database dump of our wiki since January 2010. How nice of them. Maybe we'll need to resort to the previous tool, as WoWWiki (now WoWpedia) had to do.

Previous tool -- you mean the Mediawiki Dumper? Sounds doable. Is there any way to request a current database dump of our wiki from Wikia?

[Scarbrow]

Previous tool -- you mean the Mediawiki Dumper? Sounds doable. Is there any way to request a current database dump of our wiki from Wikia?

Yeah, I mean the Dumper. It's good to have options. Yes I've requested a current database dump, but I don't know how long it will take. I've also approached tentatively one of the most friendly members of Wikia staff with a couple of concerns about the best way to advertise we've moved (once we've moved, of course) since this has become a notable sore spot for some communities and Wikia, leading even to massive de-sysopping of the previous admins. I wouldn't like that.

So far, only Shoutwiki has answered in full. There is still an unanswered question about custom domains (a little extra, not really needed), but they've agreed to delete the wiki if we request it in the future. They also offer the required extensions and namespaces. They are also entertaining the idea to install the semantic extentions Referata is so proud of. So in short, they are becoming a stronger option with each passing day. If only they had their pricing model already defined as Referata has, I could ask for the GM's input and start the move. I'm tempted to move to Shoutwiki as soon as we get our database dump, and see what happens. Since the Wikia copy won't go anywhere, there's nothing to lose, and with them having agreed to delete the wiki if things go wrong, we could always move again. I expect an almost seamless, or at least not painful, transition.

Will keep updating as data comes.

[Scarbrow]

I've contacted the main administrator of Referata (he holds a position there similar to the one I hold in our wiki, only more so) and I have the answers I required. Basically:

He can set up our custom namespaces
He can't help with migration, which must be done by hand
He didn't knew about the MediaWikiAuth extension, but will try to look into it.
We can change the paid service level at any time, so we could start Basic service (no fees) for some time while we monitor our traffic to see if the Ad-supported one would be worth the hassle. And we can later downgrade, if we start by the paid one and it's not worth it. The main advantage of the ad-supported one (besides it may pay itself) is that it allows for a custom domain.


So, for the moment, and while we wait a little more for answers from Wikkii.com, we have two competent choices: Shoutwiki and Referata.

Shoutwiki is a little younger (2009) and still doesn't have their paid options clear. But they offer the MediaWikiAuth extension (which would allow us to keep our usernames and contribution history from the previous wiki), and may even support the Referata flagship extension, SemanticMediaWiki, in the future. For the moment, they have ads. But they carry on the migration by themselves, without our intervention. They may or may not support custom domains, they still haven't answered that.

Referata is a little older (2008) and has clear paid models with no ads. They clearly support custom domains on the ad-supported version. The main problem would be to install custom extensions, and we would need to migrate on our own. It's almost a one-man company (not that there's a problem with this in this community, isn't it ;)). It's also still not clear if we could have the MediaWikiAuth extension and keep our contribution histories.

You may be wondering why am I insisting so much on the custom domain. There is a clear reason: if we had a custom domain, we wouldn't need to update our links every time we change of wiki provider, or even in the case we would later move to a self-hosted solution as I suggested previously on this thread. It would always be srythwiki.com/whatever. We can update the links from his forum, but not from the old one (it's a lucky thing most of the links from the old one point to the old PbWorks wiki), but it will be a grueling task. I would prefer not to have to do it twice. And why would I like to change the links? Because I don't want to give Wikia a single link (and the related Google repp) if I can avoid it. Right now, for the "sryth wiki" search, Google shows first all Wikia results, then all PbWorks results, and later the game link, and later the forum links. Part of the reason is also the links from PbWorks to Wikia, but I can also take care of it, since I'm still admin of the old wiki. I'll lock down the Wikia copy as hard as I can, that I can promise. And yes, the time passed from the new skin coming up and the fact that I keep editing in it have not made me less angry about it. Maybe even more.

I think I have enough information. I will request the GM's input, and the final decision, for me, will hinge on small things, like the custom domain and the MediaWikiAuth extension. We can also migrate to both of them and test them for a while before making the final jump, since we don't have many edits a day and it's improbable that would risk a fork.

Keep tuned.

[Oldschool]

Nice post Scarbrow and good point and excellent foresight re: the domain.

And I've been wondering and since you mentioned it will the old wiki be affected in any way aside from a mention/link/etc.... regarding the upcoming wiki? I'm guessing no but it doesn't hurt to ask.

[Scarbrow]

And I've been wondering and since you mentioned it will the old wiki be affected in any way aside from a mention/link/etc.... regarding the upcoming wiki? I'm guessing no but it doesn't hurt to ask.

Apart from me running like hell through all the pages to change the links... no, not at all. Since we will keep all history of the current wiki, the old PBWorks one will still be our "old" wiki, and the Wikia one will be just a thing of the past. I was about to say a "regrettable" part, but I must admit I've learned a lot from the experience, and some of the staff have always been very friendly.

[Young Ned]

Apart from me running like hell through all the pages to change the links... no, not at all.

Is there any way you could automate that with a bot? Seems like it should be pretty easy to set up for a bot, as it's a straightforward substitution.

Thanks for the additional details, and again, thanks for all the hard work you're putting in to research all these different sites! You da man. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v735/Old_Ned/not_worthy.gif

[Scarbrow]

Unfortunately, there are no bots in PbWorks. That I'll have to do by hand. Unless you want to help, Young Ned, of course. You still have editing rights on the old wiki, remember?

And on the Wikia one, I'm contacting the staff to see what we can do to signal we've left, since there have been so many problems with external links to competing sites. So I would prefer to keep a low editing profile there, and 4k bot edits is not what I would call "subtle" :rolleyes: We'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

[Young Ned]

We can update the links from this forum, but not from the old one (it's a lucky thing most of the links from the old one point to the old PbWorks wiki), but it will be a grueling task.

Apart from me running like hell through all the pages to change the links... no, not at all.

I didn't realize you were talking about the old wiki in that second quote, because in the first quote you said we couldn't update the links in the old wiki... no, wait a minute, the first quote is talking about not being able to update the links in the old forum. Okay, that's a bit of the confusion cleared up.

Unfortunately, there are no bots in PbWorks. That I'll have to do by hand. Unless you want to help, Young Ned, of course. You still have editing rights on the old wiki, remember?

And on the Wikia one, I'm contacting the staff to see what we can do to signal we've left, since there have been so many problems with external links to competing sites. So I would prefer to keep a low editing profile there, and 4k bot edits is not what I would call "subtle" :rolleyes: We'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Now I'm lost. As far as I can see, the only link in the old wiki that should need changing is the one on the Main Page that says "The new Sryth wiki is in http://sryth.wikia.com". Why would any other links need updating? :confused:

And the same would seem to apply for the Wikia wiki -- once we put a link on the first page that says "The new new Sryth wiki is now located at http://newwiki.url", what else would be needed? In fact, couldn't we simply replace the whole main page with a redirect to the new location?

I can see why you might want to replace all the links from this forum to the old new wiki (Wikia ;)) with links to the new new wiki (we'll really need to come up with less confusing terms for them, too), so people researching gameplay in old threads will get sent to the latest and greatest wiki info. I just don't see why either the old wiki or the older wiki (are those better terms?) would need mass updates. Am I missing something?

You're not talking about updating all the internal links in the old wikis with external links to the equivalent pages in the newest wiki, are you? Because that would be a huge job, and I think it would be overkill in the extreme...

[Oldschool]

Completely missed the point about the links on this forums.

I agree that a link with an explanation on the main page of the second wiki should suffice. And good point YN about confusion re: the names. In that regard until something better's figured out why not first, second, third?

I can see where the links to the current or second wiki on this the current or second forum :rolleyes:;) could pose a problem. Many of them lead to specific pages of the current second wiki bypassing the main page and any explanation/link re: the third wiki. Certain threads definitely need to be changed like the hint's thread for one. And it'd be nice to change them all but even with this forum's search engine I'm not sure we'd get all of them and it would be a bit time consuming. If that's what's ultimately decided I'll be more than happy to help with the links to the second wiki on this forum.

But aside from certain threads like Hints wouldn't a global announcement (if that's what it's called?) with a link to the third wiki suffice. Also once the switch is done I'm sure a new thread(s) will go up. A mention of the situation could be made there as well.

Afterthoughts: Scarbrow this is probably overly redundant but is there a way on the second wiki to universally display something on each page or could a bot do it? I'm guessing no but it doesn't hurt to ask.

Edit: Just done some very preliminary checking but it seems like searching links may not be as hard as I thought. It seems like searching wikia will even show customized links. If that's the case that deals with my two main concerns - customized or named links (not sure about the "verbage" but I'm talking about links such as my sig's), as well as wiki links without the wiki being mentioned in the post.

The only other issue I see which should be easily dealt with by an admin is the search results seem to max at 500. And if the number can't be expanded I'm guessing as links are changed they'll come out of the 500 so as they come out new ones will come in to the results.

5:eek::eek: is a considerable amount imo. And depending on how many plus could be a heckuva lot more considerable.

Again I'll be glad to lend a hand switching them if that's what needs doing but if the ones in threads such as Hints are changed I don't think the bulk of those that remain would unduly impact things/folks. Especially as time goes on and those threads get older and move to the back of the herd so to speak.

[Scarbrow]

Now I'm lost. As far as I can see, the only link in the old wiki that should need changing is the one on the Main Page that says "The new Sryth wiki is in http://sryth.wikia.com". Why would any other links need updating? :confused:

There's a heading in each and every page of the PBWorks wiki with a link to the Wikia wiki. And back then, PbWorks didn't have templates, so it's plain text and plain links, they need to be modified manually and on every page. The reason is:
1) Each link affects Google's Pagerank, and I don't want any to go to Wikia.
2) Links from the old forum (unchangeable) will point to the PBWorks wiki, which in turn should point to the current wiki, to allow a clear path for the ones who could wander into the old forum. In fact they should point to the current page, if possible. I will take care of that in the future, and after the move, of course. After all, the first wiki "only" has 209 pages on it.

And the same would seem to apply for the Wikia wiki -- once we put a link on the first page that says "The new new Sryth wiki is now located at http://newwiki.url", what else would be needed? In fact, couldn't we simply replace the whole main page with a redirect to the new location?
The main problem with that is what I already mentioned: Wikia is being quite ferocious on not allowing people to link to their new places. They even call them "forks", what while technically correct is not very pleasant. They will be keeping a fork of our work, not the other way around. And they are globally banning and desysopping people for those links. I don't want to risk that, so we'll need to be as subtle as possible and work within the system. A main page "hard" redirect, while it can be done with Javascript, is not subtle. They will revert that and ban the one who did it, at the very least. Another, related problem for us is that the Mediawiki software allows to look for external links, here (http://sryth.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special:LinkSearch). While we (currently) have over 2,000 external links to .com alone, a lot of them are into Wikia themselves. But if we add many about a Wikia competitor (like Shoutwiki or Referata) they will notice.

I can see why you might want to replace all the links from this forum
You're not talking about updating all the internal links in the old wikis with external links to the equivalent pages in the newest wiki, are you? Because that would be a huge job, and I think it would be overkill in the extreme...
No, not at all, of course. The internal links will remain as they are now.

But aside from certain threads like Hints wouldn't a global announcement (if that's what it's called?) with a link to the third wiki suffice. Also once the switch is done I'm sure a new thread(s) will go up. A mention of the situation could be made there as well.

There are two separate matters here. One is informing the community. That can be done with announcements in the forum and the main page of the Wikia wiki. The GM will also change the links on the game pages to point to the new wiki, as he did on the previous move. This is top priority, but it entitles little work. It will work for most members, and certainly for all of the active ones.

But for less active members, and to reduce Wikia's fork's PageRank, we need to change as many links as possible. This is a task with much less priority. Fortunately, it seems there is a way (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-289717.html) to do it automatically. It's an admin-only function, and a quite dangerous one if used incorrectly, so you know the drill: slow, cautious, weeks or months will probably pass until I feel confident enough to use it. But for the look of it, it will work as a miracle. Blessed be the VBulletin.

Afterthoughts: Scarbrow this is probably overly redundant but is there a way on the second wiki to universally display something on each page or could a bot do it? I'm guessing no but it doesn't hurt to ask.
Yes, there is a simple way. A template. What I'm planning is (after the move) to do a bot run adding a simple template to the beginning of each page. I'll start by the main namespace, and I'll probably do the Quest namespace too. The Items one... I'll leave it for later. The template will be blank, but after it's added, I will be able to place a message in all the wiki at the same time with just a single edit. Nice and subtle, won't show up (much) in the logs, there will be just a single link and unless there's a member of the Wikia staff monitoring our Recent Changes or the pages themselves, it might very well keep completely unnoticed, or at least unnoticed for time enough to warn everybody, even casual/infrequent visitors. However, I won't be able to directly link the new site (unless Wikia tells me it's OK to link to a custom domain, and we get a custom domain, which is still undecided) because the links on transcluded pages are still listed on the "External Links" report. But I can link to Sryth's homepage so people can follow the "official" wiki link there. We'll see, Wikia staff has still to answer my last batch of questions.

Afterthought: For the Item and Quest namespaces, I could simply alter the "ItemSpoilerWarning" and "QuestSpoilerWarning" templates (which are shown on the top of every Item and Quest page), to show messages for those namespaces. I could then add a message for every page in the wiki in just over 300 bot edits and 3 regular edits. Yay templates!

[Oldschool]

Nice thought out reply Scarbrow - thanks.

Never considered their page rank - that's enough reason for me considering their total we don't care what you think attitude over the new skin and feedback. And that's before I read about the letting folks link issue. Not to mention forks.

Just curious Scarbrow any idea how many folks have left wikia over all this? The changes are one thing but their attitude and reaction to folks legitimate and constructive criticism are another and have probably run as many off as the changes themselves.

I think you touched upon it earlier. Something to the effect of this now... what later...? which is in no small part compounded by their stance on the issue.

[Scarbrow]

Just curious Scarbrow any idea how many folks have left wikia over all this? The changes are one thing but their attitude and reaction to folks legitimate and constructive criticism are another and have probably run as many off as the changes themselves.

Just a rough idea. Wowwiki is the biggest one who left, if I'm not mistaken, and now they are on www.wowpedia.org (http://www.wowpedia.org/Portal:Main), but there are several other big ones on the list. You can check the Anti-Wikia_Alliance (http://awa.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Anti-Wikia_Alliance) wiki and their list of wikis who have left Wikia (http://awa.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Forum:Anti-Wikia_Alliance/linkdatabase).

[Young Ned]

There's a heading in each and every page of the PBWorks wiki with a link to the Wikia wiki. And back then, PbWorks didn't have templates, so it's plain text and plain links, they need to be modified manually and on every page.
Aha, now I understand. I had no idea there were all those separate links on the PBWorks pages.

The main problem with that is what I already mentioned: Wikia is being quite ferocious on not allowing people to link to their new places. They even call them "forks", what while technically correct is not very pleasant. They will be keeping a fork of our work, not the other way around. And they are globally banning and desysopping people for those links. I don't want to risk that, so we'll need to be as subtle as possible and work within the system.
Oh, right, you had mentioned previously that they didn't want people linking to their new sites, but I didn't realize they were being so ferocious about it. Yes, let's not take any risks there.

Yes, there is a simple way. A template. What I'm planning is (after the move) to do a bot run adding a simple template to the beginning of each page. I'll start by the main namespace, and I'll probably do the Quest namespace too. The Items one... I'll leave it for later.
. . .
Afterthought: For the Item and Quest namespaces, I could simply alter the "ItemSpoilerWarning" and "QuestSpoilerWarning" templates (which are shown on the top of every Item and Quest page), to show messages for those namespaces. I could then add a message for every page in the wiki in just over 300 bot edits and 3 regular edits. Yay templates!

Sounds like a plan to me. :)

BTW, now that we've gotten an updated database dump from wikia, shouldn't we hold off on any further updates to the current wiki? Otherwise we'll have to get another updated dump when we make the actual move, won't we?

[Scarbrow]

BTW, now that we've gotten an updated database dump from wikia, shouldn't we hold off on any further updates to the current wiki? Otherwise we'll have to get another updated dump when we make the actual move, won't we?

Don't worry, keep editing. Now we've confirmed they're not actively sabotaging the database dump system (I was beginning to have doubts) if we need to hold off for a week, so be it, but when we're ready. And we're still not, since the GM hasn't answered yet.

Besides, individual changes to the pages can be saved with Special:Export, the good thing about the database dump is that is an export of all pages at once. A commodity, useful but NOT an absolute requirement.

EDIT: Oops, it was "not" an absolute requirement

[demojan777]

I have to admit, that when Wikia made these changes (and I use a LOT of websites that are Wikia-based, besides The Sryth Wiki (http://sryth.wikia.com/wiki/Sryth_Wiki) I like Lyorn Records (http://dragaera.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page) and Wookieepedia, the Star Wars Wiki (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page), among others) I was extremely annoyed by A: the new layout and B: the fact that there were annoying ads everywhere even when I was logged in.

I don't use Firefox much, prefer Internet Explorer (I know, I know, but that's what I like best for some reason), and so I was very lucky to come across this information on the Wookieepedia FAQ (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Wookieepedia:FAQ#I_don.27t_like_the_ads._Can_you_c hange_the_placement.2Freduce_the_number.2Fget_rid_ of_them.3F):

"I don't like the ads. Can you change the placement/reduce the number/get rid of them?

The ads and their placement are forced on us by Wikia. Wookieepedia administrators have no control over the ads, so complaining in the Senate Hall is useless. If you really wish to complain, you can do so on the Community Central Forum or contact Wikia staff directly with your complaint via the form at Special:Contact, but be aware that Wikia staff will likely ignore you. The best solution is to register an account (if you haven't already done so) and switch your skin to Monobook (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Help:Skin); those two combined will eliminate the ads."

After I read this, I followed the instructions and switched my skin to Monobook, and now on every Wikia site (not just Wookieepedia) I get no ads, and the layout is pretty much the same as it was before the change. And I only use Internet Explorer.

Sryth Wiki looks fine to me using Monobook, and I get no ads whatsoever, but I can see how the community may want to move the page just to have more creative control. However, if the GM doesn't respond or doesn't want it moved, maybe an FAQ could be a good thing for Sryth Wiki users.

(Just noticed the post from Anno1404 on the Discussion page for the main Sryth Wiki page, I guess somebody is a little bit touchy about this whole thing. )

So, something to think about, and good info even if the Sryth Wiki gets moved and you still like to use Wikia sites and Internet Explorer.

EDIT: I just checked the Anti-Wikia Alliance page and Scarbrow only stated that we are considering moving, under the list of wikis that are still on Wikia but hate the new skin, however there is this on the main discussion page (http://sryth.wikia.com/wiki/Talk:Sryth_Wiki):

"Is your wiki still planning on leaving wikia?
Hello, someone on this wikia wrote on the Anti Wikia Skin Alliance Moving page, that your wikia is moving. Please remove your wikia's name or add your wikia to the Moved Wiki page.
Thank you. Anno1404 22:29, November 30, 2010 (UTC)".

Plus, checking out the AWA page it seems that when people were registered on a wiki that moved they were banned from all other Wikia pages? Geeze louise, we're only discussing this, nothing is set in stone, and this is the reaction from Wikia (or some anonymous poster who is their mouth, or some strange troublemaker)? I'm all for moving if this is true, but at the same time I don't believe everything I read.

It would really stink if the Sryth Wiki moved and then all of a sudden because I'm registered on it all of my access to other Wikia pages with my user name is taken away, and my account is banned. Is this really happening to people?

Sorry I've been gone for so long, been busy and then my AG subscriptions lapsed and I haven't been able to afford to re-subscribe until today. And then I discover all of this stuff!

Well, regardless, it's good to be back, I've missed the Sryth community, and support whatever is decided 100%.

[texlaw1992]

A lot has happened since you were here last - enjoy the "Mad."

[Oldschool]

Welcome back and congrats on the renewal. :)

[Scarbrow]

Welcome back, demojan777

There are several separate issues here.

About the moving, it's not just the new skin. Wikia has been forcing features down our throats for some time, some of them (like the horrible "Related Pages" stuff that crept on the bottom of each page) can be opted out, but many of them have come to stay. They are also being increasingly unreasonable about these things. So it's more of a principle thing: our wiki, not theirs. I'm personally afraid of what will be the next thing. Also, switching to Monobook is a matter of personal preference, but the new Skin has had some of the best wikiwide communication tools (like the Sitenotice) removed, so that considerable hinders our ability to communicate with players who use the wiki but not the forum.

About the banning, don't worry. Wikia has been banning the users most active against the new skin, especially the ones who have also been promoting Shoutwiki and the AWA. My user won't probably be banned, but still there is a chance. Your user won't have any problem. What will probably happens is that current admins will be desysopped. Again, nothing that should worry you.

To all the rest:
I've been investigating about domains and URL Redirection, and it seems like there are simple mechanisms to register for a generic domain like Srythwiki.com and then point it in the direction of whatever our current host is. The GM has not answered yet. If he doesn't answer for next week, I'll start testing things on my own. And considering everything, our destination will probably be Shoutwiki (will still post a poll, etc, before any rash action)

[Oldschool]

Scarbrow you may have already done so but have you sent him another email? While I myself often don't he's made it clear to resend stuff if you don't get a reply. I've never heard him mention a time frame and don't recall when you first contacted him or if you even said when, but it's a thought.

[scout1idf]

I had to send him 2 e-mails about the calculator before I got a response.

(I only waited 3 days before sending the second :o)

[Young Ned]

Geeze louise, we're only discussing this, nothing is set in stone, and this is the reaction from Wikia (or some anonymous poster who is their mouth, or some strange troublemaker)?

If you're referring to Anno1404, my impression was that this busybody was connected with the Anti Wikia Alliance, not with Wikia themselves.

Sorry I've been gone for so long, been busy and then my AG subscriptions lapsed and I haven't been able to afford to re-subscribe until today. And then I discover all of this stuff!

Welcome back! BTW, you're always welcome on the forums even if your subscription has lapsed.

[scout1idf]

Welcome back! BTW, you're always welcome on the forums even if your subscription has lapsed.
Yea, what Ned said!!

You don't have to leave us because you can't play the game for some (any) reason.

[demojan777]

Thanks for the great welcome back!

I know I should still be active on the forums (it is great fun, thanks to the awesome community), but I have been so busy with work and other projects that I haven't had time for anything that is much fun lately. Luckily the holidays are here so I have some free time to play some games, chat with internet pals, all that good stuff before the insanity hits again.

I will, however, be checking back more often than I have been and supporting the Sryth community more frequently.

@Scarbrow: thanks for the info. I completely agree with these sentiments, and have no idea what in the heck happened to Wikia to turn them from what they were into what they are now (probably new ownership/management, that's always a blast). As stated, I'm behind the community, I just wanted to share how I've been able to cope with Wikia since they've made these changes in case there are others like me who are forced to use them and also prefer IE. Hopefully the Sryth Wiki can be moved and keep the same great content and functions we all want without sacrificing anything.

Is there anything in their ToS or AUP (not that I remember agreeing to one when I created an account, but everybody has one so I'm almost 100% sure there is some sort of agreement) that states that they can ban you for not liking what you say if it isn't vulgar or violent? Their behavior is counter-intuitive, IMHO.

@Young Ned: yeah, that really kind of confused me. That date that the message was left on the wiki was the same date (according to the links in the Sryth Wiki) that the Anti-Wikia Alliance moved from Wikia, so maybe they were trying to get as many people as possible to move with them or something.

[Scarbrow]

Scarbrow you may have already done so but have you sent him another email? While I myself often don't he's made it clear to resend stuff if you don't get a reply. I've never heard him mention a time frame and don't recall when you first contacted him or if you even said when, but it's a thought.

Yes I did. Now to wait a little more...


Is there anything in their ToS or AUP (not that I remember agreeing to one when I created an account, but everybody has one so I'm almost 100% sure there is some sort of agreement) that states that they can ban you for not liking what you say if it isn't vulgar or violent? Their behavior is counter-intuitive, IMHO.

@Young Ned: yeah, that really kind of confused me. That date that the message was left on the wiki was the same date (according to the links in the Sryth Wiki) that the Anti-Wikia Alliance moved from Wikia, so maybe they were trying to get as many people as possible to move with them or something.

Well, technically... they control the site, so they can ban you "just because". I don't think they'll go that far, but as I've said several times previously, I never thought they would become so fierce about the wikis moving, or that they would plainly refuse to delete a wiki once the community had moved.

And you are correct, Anno1404 was (and is) one of the most active AWA members, and he was banned for "spamming" many wikis with messages like that one, to encourage them to move.

[demojan777]

Just looked at a LOT of things regarding the new skin and what happened and how insane this whole thing has been, and I do not blame anyone for wanting to get the heck away from Wikia.

A few things that I found interesting:

1. The Wikia staff telling everyone that it was OK if they wanted to move their wikis, but if they deleted the existing wiki from Wikia that is "vandalism" and would get them banned.

2. Airhogs777, the co-founder of the Anti-Wikia Alliance, was not banned from Wikia yet almost everyone else involved in the AWA was. Also, the Wikia staff made him delete the existing AWA wiki from Wikia when they say that such a thing is "vandalism" in any other circumstance.

3. The WoW Wikia page (which is still there, run by an admin assigned by Wikia, when the majority of the founding community has moved to Wowpedia) was the only wiki that the Wikia staff even considered working with due to how big that wiki was, and they were willing (and it looks like they went through with their offer) to give the WoW wiki special abilities and privileges that NO other wiki has access to after the new skin was forced on the Wikia community.

4. That, due to a "misconception" that if the community supported deleting the wiki after a move, some communities took polls and decided that they all wanted to move their wikis off of Wikia and some came to unanimous verified decisions among all registered users to delete the remaining wiki from Wikia after the move, and all of the people who did the deleting were banned from Wikia (even after a unanimous public poll of all registered users!?!?! which was verifiable!?!?!), with the notable exception of Airhogs777.

It's late and I am tired or else I would BB code in links to all of these things, but a lot of you probably already knew this and I am just coming late to the party, but I didn't realize how weird and nasty this thing has become until coming back to the Sryth community. Thanks for opening my eyes to this!

Although ignorance is bliss, the truth can set you free. ;)

[psychoadept]

Is there any more word on the wiki move?

[Scarbrow]

Sorry, I'm pretty inactive at the moment. No word from the GM, and no time from me, so unless somebody else is willing to take it into his hands, it won't be anytime soon

[scout1idf]

Is there any more word on the wiki move?

Just wondering if the idea of moving has been forgotten or if it's not going to happen.

Personally, it doesn't matter to me, just wondering.....

[Scarbrow]

Those of you who have edited the wiki today will have noticed that Wikia has changed the editor's skin. It's the same Source we had (since we have - fortunately - the Rich Text Editor disabled for the whole wiki) but things have changed around a little bit (or, in some cases, a lot).

I'd like to emphasize that, this time, no functionality has been removed. You may even like it. I don't, but I'm just like that. I'm going to devote this post to explain the changes to those who want to edit on the new editor, and then I'll explain how to disable it (in short, switch to Monobook). You may want to see the official announcement (http://community.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog%3ASarah_Manley%2FNew_Editor_Scheduled_fo r_Sitewide_Release).

Unfortunately I don't have screenshots of the previous editing interface, so I may miss something. Also, most of the Wikia docs is for the Rich Text Editor version.


Editing tools: They are on top of the editing box. Pay close attention to the small "More" button: It holds the codes template, from where you can insert several useful codes (this one used to be in the bottom of the editing text box)
Summary of changes, buttons to see changes, preview and save the page: Moved to the top right corner
New "Add features and media" section (mostly useless for us)
Category box moved from the bottom of the page to a section on the right. This is actually mildly useful, but their code is apparently not quite right yet, so 1) It's disabled on the Templates pages and 2) You can disable it on all pages on your Preferences, section "Editing".
Pay close attention to a thin bar between the Editing text box and the right-hand section: You can use it to expand/contract the editing box. You can change the default state (expanded or not) from your user preferences, section "Editing". I personally think that editing on Expanded is much more comfortable.




Now, on how to disable it, Wikia has allowed an option for the user to opt for the Monobook skin (the old skin of Wikipedia). To activate it, go to your Preferences (http://sryth.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Preferences) and on the "User Profile" section, go to "Site Layouts" and mark "MonoBook" instead of "New Wikia Look". This will only affect your user, and only when you're logged in.

Once you're in Monobook, you'll see several changes around you. I have the intention of talking about them on another post. The important part is that when you edit the page, you'll see the source without manipulations, in a probably much more readable state. However, this simplicity comes at a price: the Wikia extension that allows autocompletion of links does not work on Monobook. You'll have to type (or paste) the full name of the page you want to link.

I'll stop this long post now, and will make another one for the Monobook skin.

[Oldschool]

Just got done updating the updates page and I can't tell a big difference and I do like it. Then again I don't do near the number or the depth of edits some of you do.

Also Scarbrow nice and interesting work on the Ancient History (http://sryth.wikia.com/wiki/Ancient_History) page. Perhaps too interesting (cheap albeit true excuse on my part) as when I go there to see what's been done/added I get sidetracked on the many links.

Take a peek folks as it's extremely interesting. Just make sure you have some time as you may get immersed to the point of being "lost" in it.

Still since I've got the alts "hidden" HoR runs complete and I'm getting closer (about 825k instead of 700'ish) to getting back to the gold cap with Hawk hopefully I'll be able to add some stuff.

Have a rep for your hard work Scarbrow.

[Scarbrow]

First of all, sorry for taking so long to answer and update.

About the conversation with the GM, there has been no further development.

I've been testing Shoutwiki, and the result has been disappointing, to say the least. They've already been down (or at least, locked to edit, which for a wiki is the same, IMHO) several months this year. Until they've seriously improved in stability and technical service, I don't have the least confidence on them.

I haven't tested other providers yet.

Now, apparently Wikia allows us to change to Monobook on a user-by-user basis (I explained how to activate it on the previous post). IIRC that wasn't available before. This has some advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages:

Simple(r) Source Editing
Sidebar (Mediawiki:Sidebar), much more accessible than the current top menu, and with less limitations - Testing but still not ready.
A lot of the social media and other Wikia sites advertising removed, along with most troublesome widgets imposed upon us in the past years.
Less clutter overall


Disadvantages:

The useful suggestion tool for links, which is Wikia-exclusive.
Somewhat older interface


I'll try to update this post later with more information.

[shadowblack]

Just curious: Has anyone checked Wikispaces?

[Young Ned]

I've been testing Shoutwiki, and the result has been disappointing, to say the least. They've already been down (or at least, locked to edit, which for a wiki is the same, IMHO) several months this year. Until they've seriously improved in stability and technical service, I don't have the least confidence on them.

I haven't tested other providers yet.
Sounds like they may have gotten overwhelmed by all the Wikia refugees. They may not have enough server capacity for all those new users, or something like that.

Now, apparently Wikia allows us to change to Monobook on a user-by-user basis (I explained how to activate it on the previous post). IIRC that wasn't available before.

Hm, that's new all right. Before, they basically tried to outlaw Monobook altogether, as far as I can recall. That was one of the main reasons we were trying to find somewhere else.

Just curious: Has anyone checked Wikispaces?

I haven't tested other providers yet.
Nor have I. Anyone else?

[Oldschool]

Me neither and truthfully my neophytic? skills would prohibit me from giving much of a review.

Still I googled Wikispaces, which happens to be based in San Francisco. And I also came upon this comparison of wiki farms which might be of some use.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_wiki_farms

[Scarbrow]

Just curious: Has anyone checked Wikispaces?

I just did. It has a propietary software (not Mediawiki) and it is an all-enterprise, all-WYSIWYG site. For all it matters, to move there we could also move back to PBWorks

I won't support it.

[Scarbrow]

I just stumbled into a free wiki provider, Wikispot (http://wikispot.org/Front_Page)

It seems almost too good to be true, although of course I haven't (yet) investigated them fully. If somebody could do it... although most things are on their system info (http://wikispot.org/System_Info) page

Anyways, there's a big "but"... it's powered not by Mediawiki, but by Sycamore (http://www.projectsycamore.org/Sycamore), another free wiki language. We would have to move, adapt, learn and rewrite... and to say I'm not eager to do it would be a great understatement

[Young Ned]

Unfortunately, it seems not many sites do use MediaWiki. That "comparison of wiki farms" page linked above only listed one site that does, and it's the one we're trying to get away from (Wikia). *sigh*