Pirate Discussion > BootlegGames Wiki

Moving from Wikia to another host

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Y2K05:
Sorry to start out on this forum like this, I believe Bootleg-Games Wiki should be moved outside of Wikia. The Wikia wiki skin gives me a headache and the visual editor easily wrecks articles. In other words, I think we should re-host the wiki elsewhere, like independently or on another wiki farm (like ShoutWiki).

Wikia wikis are unfortunately more prone to spam. Users also do not have as much control over the wiki if on Wikia, because Wikia staff will involuntarily shove new features down others' throats, like the notorious Oasis skin on November 3, 2010. It caused major wikis like Wikisimpsons and Animal Crossing Wiki to move out of Wikia and become independent hosts.

See here for steps on how to move out of Wikia: AWA guide. The linked wiki site is anti-Wikia itself, explaining bad experiences users have had with Wikia and when the Monaco wiki skin was removed. Try having a look into the wiki. It's on another wiki host—ShoutWiki (which isn't a bad one). I'm also currently banned on Wikia.

So Anti-Wikia Alliance explains why the users have left Wikia. Most of it is because of the new Wikia skin that everybody dislikes. You cannot set the default Wiki skin to even vector... WoWWiki & Uncyclopedia even forked. Quote: "Wikia will continue to make changes against your wikis best interest as they have in the past."

That being said, the community here doesn't seem to have control over their content, and all wikis are forced a CC-BY-SA license. ShoutWiki does allow you to choose a license & a wiki name that does not end in "wiki". Comparison of wikis on Orain: Wikia vs. ShoutWiki vs. Orain.

And I'm not a troll, by the way. I myself am also interested in bootleg games, specifically Donkey Kong ones. I mostly know about Super Donkey Kong 2 for the NES & how it only has three levels.

We should make sure to make database dumps of the wiki with this Python script (Python 2) and post it on the Internet Archive. Wikia wikis are a pain to back up as well—no images are backed up either. Even this tool doesn't always work on them.

As the one who started this discussion, I support the wiki's move. ShoutWiki or Orain sound like the best option for a new wiki host to me.

taizou:
well it's an idea that's been thrown around before but its not as straightforward as all that. wikia has its problems but they have been going for a long time and they seem to know what they're doing; i'm fairly confident that they won't go out of business overnight or lose our wiki to some kind of unrecoverable technical problem. i would absolutely not have the same confidence about orain or shoutwiki at this point. wikkii, another once-touted alternative, seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth taking all its wikis with it. (edit: and another, tropicalwikis)

my preference probably would be a self-hosted option - i do have somewhere to host it and enough experience to pull it off (hopefully), although that still leaves it reliant on me, and if i were to suddenly disappear or become unable to pay the hosting bills it would be much harder to hand it off to someone else (effectively we'd have to do *another* full wiki move)

there are also plenty of issues on wikia's side that would make a move problematic - as you say it's a pain to back up a wikia wiki with images (although it's worth noting that shoutwiki currently does not offer a database dump feature at all due to unspecified "technical issues"). wikia also (unless their policies have changed since i last checked) don't permit you to close down an existing wiki, or even to advertise the new one on the old one, which would fragment the (already fairly small) community; there'd be people still editing the wikia-hosted wiki completely oblivious to the existence of the new one. wikia's one would also continue to dominate google results for bootleg game-related topics as it's been established for longer and wikia in general is ranked highly by google, so new people would probably be more likely to find the wikia one than the new one.

so yeah really it's a lot of hassle and there are a lot of issues to be overcome, and at this point i'm not sure if it's worth it; personally i have no major problems with wikia's current skin anyway, most other mediawiki skins look about 15 years out of date (shoutwiki's "aurora" in particular is hilariously ugly) with the exception of vector, which has the unfortunate side effect of making every site that uses it look exactly like wikipedia.

NintariousFamicreep:
taizouJan 3 2015, 05:48:16 PMwell it's an idea that's been thrown around before but its not as straightforward as all that. wikia has its problems but they have been going for a long time and they seem to know what they're doing; i'm fairly confident that they won't go out of business overnight or lose our wiki to some kind of unrecoverable technical problem. i would absolutely not have the same confidence about orain or shoutwiki at this point. wikkii, another once-touted alternative, seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth taking all its wikis with it. (edit: and another, tropicalwikis)

my preference probably would be a self-hosted option - i do have somewhere to host it and enough experience to pull it off (hopefully), although that still leaves it reliant on me, and if i were to suddenly disappear or become unable to pay the hosting bills it would be much harder to hand it off to someone else (effectively we'd have to do *another* full wiki move)

there are also plenty of issues on wikia's side that would make a move problematic - as you say it's a pain to back up a wikia wiki with images (although it's worth noting that shoutwiki currently does not offer a database dump feature at all due to unspecified "technical issues"). wikia also (unless their policies have changed since i last checked) don't permit you to close down an existing wiki, or even to advertise the new one on the old one, which would fragment the (already fairly small) community; there'd be people still editing the wikia-hosted wiki completely oblivious to the existence of the new one. wikia's one would also continue to dominate google results for bootleg game-related topics as it's been established for longer and wikia in general is ranked highly by google, so new people would probably be more likely to find the wikia one than the new one.

so yeah really it's a lot of hassle and there are a lot of issues to be overcome, and at this point i'm not sure if it's worth it; personally i have no major problems with wikia's current skin anyway, most other mediawiki skins look about 15 years out of date (shoutwiki's "aurora" in particular is hilariously ugly) with the exception of vector, which has the unfortunate side effect of making every site that uses it look exactly like wikipedia.[/quote]Sheesh, Use Wikimedia and call it a day!  :pandamad:

taizou:
wikimedia is the organisation that owns wikipedia, they don't host random wikis.

NintariousFamicreep:
taizouJan 3 2015, 06:18:36 PMwikimedia is the organisation that owns wikipedia, they don't host random wikis.[/quote]Oh...

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