Forum:Leaving wikia

well i think its time for the sims wiki to consider leaving wikia/fandom as the direction being taken by wikia is not suitable for a wiki.

recently they have brought in new notifications that make the place seem like facebook and they are very pushy with advertising. you can't view the sims wiki on an iphone anymore without an ad interrupting your viewing.

now they are doing portable infoboxes and everybody hates it. they even ban people from wikia if they dare speak up or interfere.

i love the sims wiki and think it deserves better than fandom. i think you should get some servers in, install mediawiki and fork the database from wikia and start a new.

you can find cheap servers on lowendbox.com. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.169.85.202 (talk • contribs) 21:52, May 14, 2017‎ (UTC) - Please sign your comments with ~

Discussion
This is not the first time where we have considered forking from Wikia. An example of one such discussion can be found at Forum:New Wikia layout discussion. There are benefits to forking, sure, but do they outweigh the countless consequences? Not saying that I like Wikia's recent developments — quite the opposite, actually — but unfortunately Wikia's best business practice is opening their doors to seem like a great choice and then "trapping" users so they can't escape without paying the consequences. — k6ka  🍁 ( Talk ·  Contributions ) 02:24, May 15, 2017 (UTC)
 * Oh, and for the person curious about the "banning people for 'interfering'", w:Thread:1237595 and w:User blog:Ciencia Al Poder/Portable Infoboxes, the first step into Wikia taking control over our content make for some good reading. — k6ka  🍁 ( Talk ·  Contributions ) 02:28, May 15, 2017 (UTC)
 * Wow, talk about drama!


 * To respond to the initial proposal though, unfortunately my answer to the question "should we leave Wikia?" (err, excuse me, "should we leave Fandom powered by Wikia ?") remains the same: "I see leaving Wikia as dooming TSW to certain death."


 * Forking TSW to a new site would split the editor base of the wiki, with some, especially those more familiar/comfortable with (Fandom powered by) Wikia, choosing to stay, and others who are disgruntled with the direction that (Fandom powered by) Wikia has taken choosing to leave. This is to say nothing of the wiki readership, which is directed here largely by the wiki's established reputation within the greater Sims community and through search engines; a migrated TSW on a new platform would have to compete for readers with the current TSW, and the new TSW would likely lose in the process. The problem of migration is exacerbated by the fact that TSW currently has very few active admins (I, for instance, had not edited in well over a month prior to this post) to manage the transition, and those admins would have to take on additional technical and management responsibilities that they may or may not have the expertise, time, or energy to deal with. This is to say nothing of the costs of running a website, either. The technical and financial hurtles are two very strong arguments in favor of utilizing a wikifarm instead of starting an independent website; Wikia handles these issues so we don't have to. Even if TSW were to migrate to another wiki host that would assist in the technical management of the site and provide free hosting, we would lose out on a significant chunk of readers and editors. --  LiR talk · blog  ·  contribs 07:01, May 15, 2017 (UTC)


 * Moving to another wiki host like ShoutWiki would solve the technical headache of maintaining servers, but not the technical headache of making sure all our templates and Javascript gadgets still work (They run a newer version of MediaWiki, one that's drastically different from Wikia's heavily modified version, and some Javascript extensions would need a rewrite). ShoutWiki Staff can help with the imports, fortunately. We must also consider the fact that ShoutWiki, from what I've seen so far (I created a wiki there to mess around and check things out), certainly appeals to the experienced, seasoned editor that can write wiki markup in their sleep, but those who are new to MediaWiki or those who are on mobile may encounter some difficulties. ShoutWiki Staff can be contacted and we can talk to them about this, but it's worth considering.


 * MrBenC, an experienced channel op on the IRC channel, has the technical knowledge needed to host The Sims Wiki ourselves, so we're in good hands. However, if we did that, we'd lose the benefits that ShoutWiki can offer us, and it would probably be more work and headache than if we just stayed. It would also mean that we'd have to find our own source of revenue to keep the servers humming along, and if the readerbase doesn't follow us to the new wiki, advertising revenue will be quite paltry.


 * Yes, I know we dislike Wikia aggressively forcing these half-baked features down our throats. But even if we left Wikia, that wouldn't stop Wikia from keeping this wiki open, where they'll continue to have free reign over it. It also leaves the Wikia wiki open to vandalism, and if there are no editors actively monitoring this wiki for vandalism, things go downhill pretty quickly. Feed The Beast wiki forked from Wikia, but Wikia refused to allow them to replace their pages with "We've Moved" banners, and so the Wikia wiki remains to this day, with no active admins to clean up the vandalism there and no active community to clean up the poor quality pages that are starting to build up. — k6ka  🍁 ( Talk ·  Contributions ) 14:14, May 15, 2017 (UTC)