On IRC we've been bouncing around the idea (for awhile) of leaving Wikia, checking out options, etc... Wikia plans to move us to a new skin in October (phasing out the old Monaco skin) and has already enacted rules limiting customization. Sadly, this leaves little control in the hands of WoWWiki users and admins to make the wiki look like WoWWiki always has and to maintain it in a way that reflect's WoWWiki's own interests. WoWWiki (and myself personally) have nothing against progress or change, but sadly the "new" look is not conducive to the wiki experience (you can see examples if you would like on other Wikia wikis) - the focus is on getting traffic to other Wikia wikis.
In any case, I feel strongly that we need to investigate our options and see if there is another choice. One problem is getting Wikia to let go of the WoWWiki domain name - they own it and may be reluctant to let it go. Most importantly, I want to make sure we have consensus on this; if we "move" the wiki to another host Wikia policy is to continue it on their own servers, so if we move without getting consensus there will be a split involved in the userbase.
Anyway, I would like comments on this. --Pcj (T•C) 00:10, September 29, 2010 (UTC)
- I've been firing off emails of my own in preparation for this forum post (rather, the one I was planning on posting a week from now once more people had a chance to see the new skin)... The new ToU has decidedly pushed me away from the "let's see if we can fix it" stance I've attempted to carry until now. I'm nearly ready to fork at this point, to be quite honest.
- I hardly expect wikia's going to give up the wowwiki.com domain -- we're 10% of their global page views! They would much rather we fork and split contributors than completely move away so that they can still have some ad impressions. (look at tfwiki vs transformers.wikia). Instead I've been trying to come up with a new domain name we can use that'll forward wherever the new wiki ends up.
- Anyway, the skin still is beta and I'm going to try to hold out hope for sanity from wikia for another week or two before I start pushing my hosting proposals along. --k_d3 00:22, September 29, 2010 (UTC)
- Well, if you want to pay for it - and preserve the whole database (all 87,000 articles of it, lol) - be my guest...but if it's a matter of looks, I honestly don't see a problem. As long as we can still read it, and still edit it...then does it matter? --Joshmaul (talk) 00:31, September 29, 2010 (UTC)
- The main problem outside of appearance is navigation is going to suck. I'm on the new skin right now and basically the only way to get around is to type in the URLs. The search box doesn't even show up the whole time. Plus, if we want a change, we're at Wikia's mercy - we can't change most things on the interface now. --Pcj (T•C) 00:33, September 29, 2010 (UTC)
- Well, if you want to pay for it - and preserve the whole database (all 87,000 articles of it, lol) - be my guest...but if it's a matter of looks, I honestly don't see a problem. As long as we can still read it, and still edit it...then does it matter? --Joshmaul (talk) 00:31, September 29, 2010 (UTC)