Forum:Halopedia vote for Halo Nation to join us



'''This is the vote for if Halo Nation should merge into us. Please read all the details below including the "Disclaimer" and "Vote Info" to avoid any issues.'''

Disclaimer
Halopedia would like to remind people to not harass or attack people regardless of their choices. (This includes the staff of Fandom) And to specify what harassment and attacking means, we mean no ad hominem attacks, spamming or otherwise disrespectful behaviour. We also would like to remind people not to vandalize Halo Nation. Anyone caught doing the stuff mentioned here may risk a ban according to the Blocking policy. Halopedia does not support defacing other sites and also plans to keep in good relations with Halo Nation regardless of the choices made here, and on their end.

Vote info
1. This vote will be active for 2 week as of this posting.

2. As per all Halopedia votes, a version of the Voting policy is in place. Due to the importance of this vote however we will be clear on a few minimums of 25 article edits and being a member on Halopedia for at least 3 weeks. You can however say your opinions regardless of edit count and member age in the "Comments and Suggestions" area.

3. Halopedia and Halo Nation admins and patrollers will be available during the entire voting period to answer questions that may be had by everyone, those will be handled in the "Comments and Suggestions" area.

Proposal
Halo Nation has announced that they plan to vote on leaving Wikia/FANDOM. To which Halo Nation is hoping to make us an option they would like to potentially merge into. We are here to set a small vote if the Halopedia Community would like that. To that end we have been discussing with their admin team for a few weeks now regarding how a merger into us would happen if it were to happen.

Why Halo Nation asked us
Wikia/FANDOM has not been the best host for them, adding auto-playing featured videos, and a lot of other stuff the community and admin team there have been vocal against, and the admin team are hoping to leave so they can continue work without having to worry about the host forcing stuff without question, something we can offer as our host Porplemontage hardly ever pushes changes unless we ask.

The October 2010 split
Now its common knowledge that in October 2010 a split happened between Halopedia and Halo Nation that was not the nicest split ever, which lead to the two wikis not being on the best terms. Though 7 years most issues and hostilities ended over time though us not chatting much at all. And for the remaining issues we'd like to state we been in talks with Halo Nation since June 2017 and managed to fix up those issues that were still had between the two wikis, and in August 2017 our FAQ was added to suit that these issues were fixed up.

Since then the admins of both wikis have been in discussions on how to do several articles, working together on small projects, and even helping each other when a wiki had trouble on it. We even were the founding members of a Discord Group called the "Halo Wiki Alliance" a group for Halo Wiki admins dedicated to improving Halo Wikis. Showing that the wikis have never been this close since we were together in 2010.

What they can offer us
Halo Nation has a lot to offer us. Here is a list of pros that would come from a merger with them:
 * Halopedia staff will grow in size with people who are already knowledgeable in the Halo universe, franchise and community.
 * A bigger team will allow us to work on and create complex and far reaching projects.
 * A bigger team would allow us to pursue bigger community projects. For example Halo 101 where we simplify a subject to make it accessible for all fans.
 * This will also lead to better patrolling and more content being added.
 * Any skills the admins of Halo Nation have can be used on the wiki if they choose to use them.
 * Any assets/articles Halo Nation has that we are missing can be used on Halopedia.
 * Halo Nation may have content that can be used to make Halopedia look even better if used correctly.
 * There will be less confusion from new people to the franchise as one wiki will be worked on heavily for the first time since the release of Halo: Reach.

Cons of a merger
There are a couple cons to a merger, however:
 * There will still be two wikis, FANDOM will still have a wiki on their service. This means it is possible the abandoned wiki may grow again.
 * However, we will still remain friendly with them.
 * This is something we have already dealt with since the first split in 2010, except this time we will have almost the whole admin team at our side instead of a fractured admin team.
 * The merger will be done largely by hand. This may take a while pending how fast we all work on it.
 * However, this will be done on a test wiki to ensure the merger has no disruption to Halopedia or the Fandom site.

What would happen?
If Halo Nation was successful in voting us to merge into the following would happen:
 * For existing users nothing will change on Halopedia. Users can still edit articles, and add images without a issue at all. A normal day in the office.
 * An option to help merging the wikis will be given to all users however, but it wont be forced at all.
 * Halo Nation admins would be made "Patrollers" for a month in a trial period to get used to the wiki, and as show of good faith from us to give themselves a chance to show they are a good fit for the wiki. At the end of the month the current Halopedia team will evaluate the activity of the Halo Nation admins via Request for Adminship to see if the are suitable to become an admin or not. (This is more just us going though things officially on the wiki based on our policies, their Halo Nation stats will be considered, and as they are considered trusted members on Halo Nation, this information will be considered also)
 * If an admin was inactive during the trial period, they may need to push though a Request for Adminship themselves if they want to become an admin.
 * After the trial period, if the admin wished to stay as a Patroller they can.
 * Though throughout the trial period they would be treated as admins.
 * The Halo Nation team will make introduction pages about themselves. This is so you all can learn about who they are.
 * Both Halopedia and Halo Nation admins/patrollers will go through all the assets on Halo Nation and add/merge stuff that is appropriate.
 * This would be done via a test wiki to prevent inconsistencies and any disruption to Halopedia or the Fandom site.
 * After a merger policies may be adjusted to account for stuff Halo Nation was doing, pending if they are superior to ours.
 * There will be discussions between the admin teams in how the social media will be handled.

CIA391
- I 100% support a merger between Halopedia and Halo Nation. This would help a lot in stopping the community being confused on what wiki to use and ultimately have 1 singular wiki to work on. This would also be a great opportunity to get started/restart several projects that lacked the manpower to do, stuff I am hoping everyone here would love. Plus Halopedia and Halo Nation has been chatting for over a year, the relationship between both wikis is at a all time high and can only get better if we were to merge.-CIA391 (talk) 10:10, 21 October 2018 (EDT)

Dragonclaws
- Aside from things becoming degraded through the march of time, nothing has changed since the last time we approached this matter. I am skeptical as to our chances of subverting Wikia/FANDOM, but if it can be accomplished, I give my full support. --Dragonclaws (talk) 17:29, 8 November 2018 (EST)

NightHammer
- As per the others --NightHammer (talk) 20:49, 4 December 2018 (EST)

Rusty-112
- It will be good to expand our user base with passionate Halo fans. As long as it's clear who is joining who, I can't object. - Rusty-112 (talk) 22:25, 20 November 2018 (EST)

Sith Venator
-Per the others.-Sith Venator (talk) 09:06, 9 November 2018 (EST)

Tacitus
- This has been a long time coming, and I'm glad our communities have gotten to the point where we're actually able to pull it off.--Tacitus (talk) 13:28, 9 November 2018 (EST)

Arcmind
I've always been a huge fan of Halopedia, although to be completely honest, my first introduction to the world of halo came from HN. Nevertheless, I believe a merging of the two wikis would do us all good. Aside from the lack of ads which tend to slow or even crash my devices thanks to Fandom, having everything on a single website with a lot of credibility with both 343 ad other sources. Not to mention a lot of Halo nation staff are good friends with myself and others on Halopedia's side. Having everyone contributing their vast knowledge and understanding of the halo universe towards the same things would only make our collective efforts even better than splitting that manpower on something already done on one site or the other. Of course, I'm not very experienced on this wiki admittedly with most of my time being devoted to work and Destinypedia when I can spare it, but that's just my two cents. The merge has my support. Arcmind (talk) 15:53, 9 November 2018 (EST)

Subtank
A bit late to the party. My comments are as follows
 * I'm okay with the Halo Nation's administrators being given patroller rights. However, I am not fond of giving them administrator rights after the trial period. The Halo Nation's administrators should only be made administrators once they have gone through Halopedia's proper process and procedure.
 * This should at least be publicly announced on Halopedia, just like when we initiated the migration out from Wikia in 2010. The Halopedia community ought to have a say on this migration. I doubt they'll oppose it. In any event, I hate things being decided in secret. This is not the Halopedia's way of doing things. Things should be decided in a transparent and fair manner.
 * As I previously indicated when I was in Halo Nation (before I was kicked out by Wikia in 2010 - 2011), Halo Nation ought to be a community-focused wiki while Halopedia remains the canon wiki. We would still need to maintain the Wikia version so that we can manage the traffic between the two wikis. At the end of the day, Wikia paid for SEO whereas Halopedia relies on good will.

Emphasis made. My is premised on the above. Subtank (talk) 23:00, 14 December 2018 (EST)

Spartan331
- Sorry about the delay, I hope I'm not too late. I don't see any major problems that may come from unifying the wikis. A unified wiki would do the fanbase some good too. But as Subtank mentioned, the process needs to be transparent, and done properly (especially in terms of admins and patroller roles). Full support from me. Oh, and happy new year, everyone. Spartan331 (talk) 07:42, 7 January 2019 (EST)

BaconShelf
As who could (as far as I know) be considered the newest member of staff on either Halopedia, Halo Nation or Destinypedia combined, I'm not sure for what my view is worth in comparison to some of the more experienced members here. However, all I can say for my part is that Halo Nation combining with Halopedia has my full support. While I'm not an active contributor on HN, I do admin the Titanfall Wikia so I can relate first-hand to some of Wikia's... drawbacks as a platform. Collating the two wikis' image banks is a project that particularly excites me, and I've had nothing but positive interactions with the HN staff in my albeit brief interactions with them. If it all goes through, I look forward to the merger project and hopefully a more active Halopedia with both wikis' userbases combined! BaconShelf (talk) 19:00, 8 November 2018 (EST)

Spartacus
- As a longstanding member of both communities, this would be extremely beneficial for both sides. Wikia/Fandom have proven for many years that they care nothing for their users and only for their bottom line. A larger admin team is something that has been desperately needed, but due to the split could never come to fruition. I support this measure one hundred and ten percent.-- Spartacus 15:04, 12 November 2018 (EST)

Community Votes
Please vote here!

Support (19/10) Sysop
Please use # - if you support this


 * 1) - This is wonderful news. We need to be united. This news should be spread on Reddit, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.TheEld (talk) 13:32, 7 January 2019 (EST)TheEld
 * 2) - I spent a lot of my youth on Halopedia. Our contributors fortunately offered me the opportunity for me to lead and more intimately curate the wiki. I’m still salty that Wikia forced our hand, splitting the project into competing communities. Halopedia’s split played a large part in a lot of old timers reducing their commitment or entirely quitting wiki curation. I’ve lost touch with so many good friends from our shared youth. I wish we could’ve done better for y’all.
 * 3) - I joined after the split happened, so I have no idea what that practically entailed, but I can only see good in the long run from merging the wikis. More people working on the wiki, provided patrolling and regulation standards are maintained, can only be a good thing.--D9328 (talk) 14:35, 7 January 2019 (EST)d9328


 * 1)  - Halo has a promising future ahead of it and I think it should be complimented by unity on all fronts of the community, and one of the most important things would be having one simple united go-to hub for information and lore that combines everything we already had, just this time together and undivided. We should be thinking foremost of the future of Halo as an entity and community; there's everything to gain.
 * Not a registered user.-- 17:04, 7 January 2019 (EST)


 * 1) - 100% support, the more unity the better!
 * 2) - Halo has seen an uptick in new lore and having two wikis is confusing for possible newcomers. Having one big/high quality wiki is ideal IMO. Oh and HeyGuys! Snark without a bark (talk)
 * 3) - Individually the wikis are weak, like a single twig, but together we form a mighty bundle of sticks.  Lord Susto  23:49, 7 January 2019 (EST)
 * 4) It a good idea. Hard to believe i was there before the split happen C F 0 1 15:54, 9 January 2019 (EST)
 * 5) - The Halo Nation people, in my experience, have never been the friendliest of users, but all in the name of having more manpower for a more complete wikia Flood12345 (talk) 20:01, 10 January 2019 (EST)
 * 6) - I look forward to the combined strength of both wikis at a time that will hopefully see Halo's rise to even greater prominance --Weeping Angel (talk) 15:16, 20 January 2019 (EST)

Neutral (3/1) Sysop
Please use # - if you are neutral to this


 * 1) - I largely echo the concerns that Nicmavr raised in the comment section, in that unless the Wikia community is either re-formatted to serve a different function as to not continue to split traffic, such as by making it Halo community rather then Halo lore focused, or otherwise to ensure that Halopedia is used as the primary site for canonical information, that this split is fairly pointless. If anything, it would be negative, since it could leave the chance that the Wikia site will continue to get the most traffic and stay on the top of google searches, yet will cease to be updated or will only be updated by unqualified editors. I think it is imperative that prior to any decision being made, a concerete plan be made regarding what will happen to the Halo Nation wiki, and that it be verified that such plans will be not be interfered with by Wikia. My vote will remain neutral until anything changes; and I will change it to be support if it happens, or Oppose if it becomes apparent this cannot happen. Jabberwock xeno (talk) 15:15, 7 January 2019 (EST)
 * 2) - Admittedly my opinion is mostly based on my past interactions with the Halo Nation admins. IMHO, it would be best if they joined like normal users instead of instantly being given a position of authority within a month. AlertFiend - Warning, my comments may appear passive aggressive. (Converse) 16:58, 7 January 2019 (EST)
 * I actually agree with you here. I have seen a very abusive admin(s) on Halo Nation. That said, I know a few good admins as well. Editorguy (talk) 05:43, 16 January 2019 (EST)
 * In my time on HN I've gotten to know many of the admins quite well and have observed very few if any cases of abuse (one clear case in 2012). Much of it has been simple misunderstandings. That being said, should the merge be approved each admin would have a trial period whilst an RfA is held for us to decide on their adminship.-- 10:40, 16 January 2019 (EST)


 * 1) -  As I have mentioned before, we would still need to maintain the Wikia version so that we can manage the traffic between the two wikis. At the end of the day, Wikia paid for SEO whereas Halopedia relies on good will. See more on my comment to Nicmarv's below. —  subtank   11:27, 12 January 2019 (EST)

Against (1/0) Sysop
Please use # - if you are against this


 * 1) - I like the idea of having user choice, the two sites operate completely differently with different formats, community etc and it offers friendly competition and user choice. It would seem a shame to move that. --343 TheGuiltyProphet (talk) 16:47, 7 January 2019 (EST)
 * User does not meet voting criteria (at least 25 edits).-- 17:04, 7 January 2019 (EST)
 * Sorry, I missed that part about the voting criteria. Thank you for removing for me. --EliteForceRecon (talk) 08:35, 8 January 2019 (EST)


 * 1) - I like both Halopedia and Halo Nation. However, the major issue with merging is that a lot of Halo Nation's pages and content will be removed as both wikis have subjective disagreements. I would hate to see Halo Nation's differing content (while factual and cited) be removed due to subjective disagreements between: what a Halopedia user deems necessary, or what a Halo Nation user deems necessary. Editorguy (talk) 05:26, 16 January 2019 (EST)
 * This isn't really the case. The content is going to be copied to a temporary wiki so we can better merge it. Think of it as keeping the best of both sites.-- 10:40, 16 January 2019 (EST)

Comments and suggestions
Please put any comments or suggestions for this here.CIA391 (talk) 10:10, 21 October 2018 (EDT)

Dear all,

While I may have been out of the spotlight in recent years as a retired admin, I won't officially submit a vote as per the voting policy, but for what it's worth I will nonetheless provide my 2 cents, as I was the admin who was responsible for initiating the original 2010 split.

First of all I am happy to see that this has finally been proposed as it shows that there is now an even stronger opinion among the Halo wikis' communities that wikia's treatment is incompatible with community-orientated projects. This was a viewpoint that myself, Subtank and other supporters back in 2010 tried to urge everyone to realize during wikia's introduction to major changes such as the Oasis skin and other detrimental policy changes. I can see that Halo Nation's admin team still has some members (I will not mention names but those whom I am talking about may message me privately if they feel that I am misjudging) who originally disagreed with my proposal back in 2010, and I now thus hope that there will be an unanimous agreement towards a merger if it goes ahead. An unanimous agreement within the administration team(s) is crucial to ensure that a proposal as major as this can go ahead and be as successful as possible.

Secondly, I do want to advise caution on how this will be executed; from my own experiences in the original split, Wikia is not a company that will concede towards any community demands and they will always put their profits and only their profits first. I know this is an obvious statement, but I cannot stress enough that it involves a possible conflict with them if they see this as a move that would "damage" their income or wiki traffic. The plan of the original split was to rename halo.wikia.com to Halo Nation, and to add community-orienatated content while retaining only major canon articles and allowing Halopedia to focus on being the canon wiki; this would give us 2 wikis, one with a "canon" goal and one with a "community" goal, but with a common community for both. Unfortunately, wikia saw the removal of the said smaller canon articles as "damaging" and kicked us off. While the wiki was renamed to Halo Nation, it remained a carbon copy of Halopedia with the exact same goal, dividing the community and wiki traffic. As such I wish to stress that any plan to execute a merger should take this into account to avoid a possible repeat of these incidents. I do trust that you have thought all this up however, so I give my strongest support to you all :)

Best of luck,

Nicmavr (talk), 7 January 2019


 * Thank you for the advice Nic! We'll be sure to keep that in mind and hopefully we will be successful.-- 17:04, 7 January 2019 (EST)


 * Because it may be useful to show. Our Twitter announcement of this vote has support from numerous members of the community and content creators in its replies. It just shows how so many folks believe this is a good idea and how we'd have the backing of so much people if we were to merge. Sure there is the concern of the other wiki remaining, but this however does lower the risk as the community it seems is willing to support us during this.-CIA391 (talk) 12:32, 9 January 2019 (EST)


 * In addition to Nicmavr's concern, I propose that the current administrators of Halo Nation to consider my old 2011 proposal. I wouldn't want another repeat of Wikia's forced resignation to happen to the current administrators of Halo Nation.— subtank   11:33, 12 January 2019 (EST)