Forum:Domain overhaul - And what do you think?

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This proposal has been passed and closed as of October 17th, 2010. For more information, please see here. This is plainly a text copy of the vote, no links are in this copy

Hi everyone,

As of recent the administration has engaged in a private discussion debate about moving Halopedia away from wikia, back to its original domain location, by the means of merging our content with halopedian.com. We've seen a number of reasons for this, which I will state below.

Pre-amble

For those of you who don't know about Halopedia in its early days, Halopedia was moved to wikia in 2006 due to server problems in terms of finance. Wikia has certainly provided us a stable host for a considerable number of years, for which we are all grateful for. However, with due respect to them, we feel that moving off back to our original site will bring us benefits that we can't have while hosted by wikia, for many reasons.

The why

As Porplemontage, the halopedian.com domain owner and operator has recently brought the site back up and running, the opportunity was seen to re-merge. Aware of what happened back in 2006 when he sent the wiki to wikia, he has been asked, and has replied with confirmation that he is positive he can support us as we currently are, based on our statistics, with the backing that he now possesses a much better server and server power in reserve.

So, what will change?

  • In terms of user rights, nothing. All users who have some form of user right (sysop, rollback, etc) will be guaranteed their rights on the other side. Additionally, this means that such members of our community will merge with their counterparts -- that is, users who may already hold rights on halopedian.com. But this will not have any negative effect on us as it is.
  • As our wiki will be independent, this means that any software updates or anything in the technical area will be handled by the administration, as opposed to a form of staff (in our case, wikia staff).
  • Pertaining to the above point, we will also have our own developer support, as I myself have seen to. Because things like addition of features, wiki software, etc would be developed only for the single wiki, it will be easier to base it on community input from that particular wiki. Therefore, community feedback and suggestions can be taken into better consideration for the developing in the technical area, which can effect just about anything in regards to the wiki.
  • Our articles, policies and guidelines will remain the same. Everything that we currently have implemented will be exported from here and imported to the new site. The move will have no effect whatsoever on any of the listed.
  • Elimination of most ads. As many of you know, wikia's income comes from the advertisements it hosts on its wikis. While a promise that halopedian.com will never utilize ads cannot be made, if it ever does, they will be much more sparse and only for logged out users.
  • Community-related: As the wiki will be an independent, standalone site, we can say that the community will be brought closer together. For the administrators, administrating the site will also be easier as they will have access to extra tools for further anti-abuse measures. These will not be used for the settling of disputes, for threatening of users, or otherwise for anything that goes against the administrator's code of conduct. Their use will only be for the security of the site, which altogether will be for the better for the community. As there will be a lack of outlanding-staff, the administration will, with any necessary assistance from developers, be able to handle queries ranging from the simple type that is often given by everyone, to the technical aspects. While not every admin will be able to help in all areas, all areas will be covered. This also will not make the admins higher up the food chain in any way than an ordinary user. Everybody is equal on a wiki regardless; admins are simply individuals that have extra trust.
  • Finally, I should probably mention about wikia's plans to enforce a new skin upon all of its wikis. Nothing wrong with that, right? While this is not the primary reason for the move, I can at least say that it has played as a factor. With due respect to the wikia developers of the skin, some of its changes are very sharp and dramatic. As I've already brought up with my colleagues, the 50% narrowing of article space, the complete redesign of the layout and the theme designer. I myself am part of the beta testing program, and with regards to the Wiki theme designer, after messing around with it for a while, I've found that it is very restricting and a somewhat ill-suitability for Halopedia's theme style. Moving over to our new domain means we move away from the new skin, and my sole personal opinion is such a move would be beneficial. Of course, this would differ from person-to-person as everyone has an opinion about it - similar or different, thus this reason has been kept as much of a minor factor as possible. On the topic of skins -- halopedian.com currently has the options of Vector (wikipedia's skin) and Monobook; we also plan to install Monaco when and if a move is made, so users will be given more options between their skin preferences.

Will we lose anything?

  • Attempts have been made to minimize losses as much as possible. As far as our unique features are concerned, the Social Profile extension has been successfully implemented along with the points system over at halopedian.com. The only feature that we will lose is the Blogs due to the code being unusable. While the forums can be used for anything forum-ish, we're hoping that we'll have an alternative as soon as possible.
  • All pages along with their history will be copied from here and imported to the new domain. This includes all articles of all namespaces, so nothing lost there.
  • Traffic: Wikia staff will not close down halo.wikia.com, for legal and policy reasons. While this means that traffic on the new halopedia will be at first, considerably less, this shouldn't be an issue once the dedicated community switches its involvement from here to the halopedian.com and the articles are implemented. After that's done, traffic there should increase to pretty much the same volume that we currently have here. To explain this a little, the goal is to have it promoted above the halo.wikia.com in terms of search results etc, while leaving halo.wikia.com as a simple branch-off with little activity. This in itself can be beneficial to both us and anyone who might pass by, which I can explain if anybody requests so.

So what now?

We, as a community, have come a long way. Everything's in its nutshell. Whether or not this will be carried out will largely depend on the input given out on this forum thread. We know that this is an extremely huge change, and expect that there will be a lot of mixed opinions about it and we want to hear those opinions from the community as a whole, as it is a necessity for a conclusion to be made. All input will be considered and if necessary, discussed. We've done a lot and feel we have done the best we can to make workarounds for issues that would arise from this. I'm happy to say that we can almost if not completely cancel out all issues we can foresee so far. The community is strongly encouraged to make any suggestions and/or questions for anything they are concerned about.

Regards,

- Nìcmávr (Tálk) 12:13, October 2, 2010 (UTC)

Questions

Have any concerns, questions? Anything not covered above? Feel free to ask here

So do we keep our user accounts or do we have to make new ones?--Soul reaper 13:42, October 2, 2010 (UTC)

Where will we find the money to run halopedia.com? CF001 14:59, October 2, 2010 (UTC)

What happens with the editcount? Apparently halopedia.org has an editcount of its own. What about the wiki editcount? I reckon it's going to become glitched? Are the halo wikia edits going to be removed or what?- JEA13 [iTalk] 14:19, October 2, 2010 (UTC)

@Soul reaper: User account data will be imported to halopedian.com, so no, you don't need to make a new one.
@CF001: As far as I know, Porple imports finances from his other sites via ads. If halopedian.com has any of these, they will be much more sparse, and only for logged out users. Having stated that he is capable of hosting it, server operation is in good hands.
@JEA13: All of the wiki content will be imported from here. That includes the articles and their histories and by extension, editcount. Obviously it will add on top of the current editcount halopedian.com has at present, but that's no issue. - Nìcmávr (Tálk) 15:11, October 2, 2010 (UTC)
I mean my personal editcount. Assuming I have 4000 edits on this wiki and 9000 general, what happens after the move? Does my general get reduced to 5000? Does it stay on 9000, but stops counting further halopedia edits? Does it stay on 9000, and keeps counting halopedia edits as it did with the halo wikia? - JEA13 [iTalk] 15:15, October 2, 2010 (UTC)
That includes personal editcount. Since we're exporting data only from here, yes, you will have 4000 edits on halopedian.com plus any edits you make there. - Nìcmávr (Tálk) 15:22, October 2, 2010 (UTC)
And so my general WIKIA editcount gets reduced to 5000? - JEA13 [iTalk] 15:26, October 2, 2010 (UTC)
No, your wikia editcount remains untouched. As said above, the halo wikia site won't be taken down by wikia due to their policy. Therefore the move would not have any effect on any of your wikia settings of any kind. - Nìcmávr (Tálk) 17:23, October 2, 2010 (UTC)

I'm on the fence about this, I see and understand both sides of the spectrum and am in more incline to agree with a move, but one nagging problem will persist: Funding. How how does the staff plan on avoiding what happened the last time. I often see domain switches happen that end in disaster. And asking, or relying on the community for funding, won't always go as well as you plan, or think it will. And I am wondering how does the staff plan on handling a worst case scenario if it happens.

My other question is what happens to this place. You mentioned that for legal reasons you, and wikia can't just delete this wiki so what happens to it? do you lock every article and just move on or can you hide all of the content and replace the entire page with a redirect or a blank "we've moved!" page? Durandal-217 23:30, October 2, 2010 (UTC)

@Durandal: Porplemontage is handling all that. No exact details, but partly the income comes from ads on some of his other sites. While we don't know whether halopedian.com will ever need ads, if it does, they will be much less and more sparse and only for logged out users. Plus logged in users won't be forced to see main page ads, which again is a pro. Don't worry, financial concerns were the first to be addressed and settled.
As for the wikia site, we'll leave a note on the sitenotice to anon and logged in users about the move, which would direct most traffic to the new site. While the wiki site probably won't go totally dead, its like comparing Darthipedia on wikia which moved to Shoutwiki (just compare their recent changes activity). Dedicated members of their community moved while the wikia one is just edited occasionally by (mostly) people passing by - Nìcmávr (Tálk) 07:12, October 3, 2010 (UTC)
I would like to make a suggestion then If I may, if a move did occur, I would strongly suggest permanently locking all articles to avoid problems. Like Tony said the Halo community knows Halopedia at its current domain, and every time you type something Halo related on Google, Halopedia is the first thing to come up.
I won't lie though this is a very difficult matter to come to a conclusion on, its tough moving such a popular site off of a domain that won't let you remove your own site. I don't know anything about Oasis, but from the pictures I've seen, I'm not keen on it at all. At this point as Tony said we should wait and see what the future holds. If things get really bad. Make the move. Durandal-217 16:45, October 3, 2010 (UTC)
We can't lock all the articles because wikia wouldn't allow it (notice a pattern?). But there's there's ways around those concerns: Notes in the sitenotice and anonnotice, for example, to let visitors know that the "official Halopedia" has moved. The wikia counterpart would be a simple branch-off. Also, changing external links that link here (for example, Halopedia's template on wikipedia. Contributing factors, which will gradually direct our traffic and render halopedian.com the "official Halopedia". - Nìcmávr (Tálk) 16:56, October 3, 2010 (UTC)
Wow this domain really doesn't allow you to do much then. Durandal-217 18:32, October 3, 2010 (UTC)
Nope, which is sad. Wikia had the chance to please its community but sadly they decided to ignore them.- 5əb'7aŋk(7alk) 22:37, October 3, 2010 (UTC)


What I want to know is: what exactly is Halopedia.com's capacity? 7,000 articles? 8,000? 10,000? pestilence Phil, pestilence! 23:05, October 3, 2010 (UTC)

FatalSnipe117: There's no limit to how many articles a wiki can have. Depends more on the space it has, but we have plenty of that over at halopedian.com so its not an issue. - Nìcmávr (Tálk) 16:05, October 4, 2010 (UTC)

Now what happens when we abandon this place, is the staff still going to remain here or is there going to be a skeleton crew? because if we leave this place who is to stop all the anonymous trouble makers from inserting the most retarded adolescent level BS into articles? nobody can delete this place, nobody can lock all the articles or remove them, it would be exposed to the elements. Durandal-217 19:18, October 5, 2010 (UTC)

Actually, IP addresses are not able to edit the wiki (wikia did that a while ago). The block log shows vandalism has gone down by quite a few points, and yes, staff have and will always have admin access here. Although we'll leave notices to visitors that "we have moved", they'll probably still be a small number of occasional visitors who might make a few edits. Again, since it wouldn't any longer be the "official" Halopedia, what little of that happens won't concern us much, especially when the volume of traffic to the new Halopedia increases to what it is now on here. - Nìcmávr (Tálk) 19:28, October 5, 2010 (UTC)

Not a really big concern, Nic. But will we still have access to #halopedia on freenode? Rico Croce

Of course. The IRC policy articles will also be on the import list, and we have an IRC app installed on the new wiki. Everything stays pretty much the same IRC-wise :P - Nìcmávr (Tálk) 21:05, October 5, 2010 (UTC)

I assume that the Halo Fanon wikia will remain as is. Therefore my question is, will it still be easy to link to Halopedian articles from Halo Fanon pages like users currently link to Halopedia.org? -TheLostJedi 13:27, October 6, 2010 (UTC)

Yes. The linking system on wikis is universal. If you wish to link to something on halopedian.com, its precisely [http://www.halopedian.com LinkTitle]. Nothing changes in that respect, it works as an external link the same way it currently does. - Nìcmávr (Tálk) 13:40, October 6, 2010 (UTC)

Input vote

Below is the voting, as follows:

  • Support.svg Support = In favor of moving to halopedian.com
  • Halopedia Vote Symbol Neutral.svg Neutral = Not sure
  • Oppose.svg Oppose = Against moving to halopedian.com

NOTE: Prior to voting, users should make themselves familiar with Halopedia's Voting policy. Keep in mind that "Article Edits" are not the same as "Total Edits." The number of total edits is that which is found at the top of your user page. The number of article edits can be found on your Social Profile page, under "Statistics."

Support (34/4 sysops)

  • Support.svg Support I'm all for this move, mainly because Wikia often changes things to what users don't want. Halo Fanon is a good example. Love is Noise Love is Pain