Forum:Moving the Wiki to Curse Networks

I address this to all users of this Wikia, both SysOp, Registered, and Unregistered.

I know that I have not been around personally much over the recent past, however, my dedication to the fans of this great game remains unwaivered by the passage of time, and I always do all that I can to look out for not only the interests of this wiki, but the users of it, too.

I have come to propose that we move away from Wikia to Curse Networks. Curse are as passionate about games as we are about playing them, and we would make a natural partner for them.

I'm sure many of you have noticed that the skin that Wikia operates, and refuses to deactivate, has led to many Wikis seeking better hosting, Wowpedia being a notable casualty. The new skin is also driven to increase revenue for Wikia, while at the same time decreasing the quality of the content we have to offer.

The road after we've moved won't be as easy as turning on a switch. We stand to lose some things if we move.

What we Lose

• Shared Login with Wikia. Curse would operate their own Login system independent of Wikia.
• Monaco would be *gone*. We would instead have a much friendlier skin system that complements our card article pages.
• Ads. Curse's goal is for every Wiki to be as add-free as possible. We might not *completely* get rid of ads, but they would be far less intrusive than they are now.
• Avatars, Facebook Connect, MyHome and the like, all of the Wikia social features would be gone.
• The automated welcome bot would be gone. If there is enough interest, Curse may code one for us.
• The Rich Text Editor would be gone. CategorySelect (easy-add/remove categories) would be gone too.
• "Following" articles would likely change to "Watching" as per the standard Wiki terminology for MediaWiki.
• Shared help - help pages from the Wikia Help wiki - would not be available.
• It is worth noting that Wikia would retain a copy of all content on their server at the same location.
• We will inevitably lose some users, but I hope the vast majority of you will join us in this transition.

But we also stand to gain things.

What we would gain

• Site speed. Far less extensive and latency-prone squid caching means faster page accesses.
• Stability. No unannounced code changes to MediaWiki code, for example.
• More direct control over the backend of the site means upgrades and extension additions will go much faster.
• Account renaming would be far simpler, especially for users who wanted to pick up their old name after the Wiki move.

What we would keep the same

• Every byte of content stays the same. Images and Articles both included, including edit histories.
• SemanticMediaWiki would remain, and would continue to power the heart of the site.
• All relevant extensions will be kept.
• Any relevant JavaScript and CSS code will be kept.
• Rules, Policies, and User Rights should all remain the same.
• I will endeavour to ensure that a stable Mobile skin be available for use.

I will be here to answer any and all questions posed by users, and to help allay any fears that this move will ultimately present.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 19:36, November 17, 2012 (UTC)

Addendum

After speaking further, have some additional information to share:

• If your username is already taken on Curse's login system, you'll be required to create a new one (which I would think is unlikely for the vast majority of users), however, it would seamlessly update everything you've ever edited or uploaded with your new name, so your fingerprint on all relevant work would be unchanged.
• Curse do not envisage any problems with our content conflicting with Konami if they were to be brought on board, and we are of the agreement that our content would be seen as a positive expansion of Konami's audience.
• We would aim to have the site up and running by mid-December. Talks with Konami would commence in January.
• Data would be seamlessly transferred between this site and the new site. All edit histories, articles, and images would be 100% preserved in their current format.
• Mobile access is planned for 2013, this would be a dedicated system to allow mobile-orientated content to be displayed on mobile devices. This would be tailored for use by us and the rest of Curse's sites, but would allow for much easier showing of mobile content than the method we would have to use here.
• A Chat Room would continue to operate, and would be on IRC, with the option of a WebClient being linked to from the site. This is a vastly superior option to administer than the current chat incarnation, which is too closely integrated with the Wiki. An IRC Channel for Dueling will also be on there.
• For all users who want to join the move, they would have the same rights as they would have here. The only change would be chat moderators, who would instead be made Ops on the new IRC channel.
• Unregistered users would still be able to edit without needing to register a Wiki account.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 23:39, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

More Information

• Remember that the wiki will not move, rather it will fork off into 2 separate sites, that would both be in competition for readers and users. One would be hosted by Wikia and the other by Curse. ---Dark Ace SP (Talk) 16:04, November 22, 2012 (UTC)

Poll

Please add in your username or IP address (preferrably Username) and voice where you stand on this issue, remember to give a good reason why you take your position and then sign your post with 4 tildes (~~~~). ---Dark Ace SP (Talk) 00:21, November 22, 2012 (UTC)

Fork to Curse

• i believe we should move to curse. curse is very passionate about other games. Yugioh is one of these games that can be promoted even more by curse. 71.252.19.107 (talk) 00:58, November 24, 2012 (UTC)

Don't Fork to Curse

• I don't believe the issues with Wikia are grand enough to warrant a move. Our traffic will be split between a new Wiki and this already established Wiki, and we likely won't catch-up for years. Overall, to me, it just isn't worth it.--YamiWheeler (talk • contribs) 00:42, November 22, 2012 (UTC)
• We'll lose viewers, and Wikia will still get more traffic than us, and the biggest reason to move was the possible recognition by Konami, but if Wikia can also try to get that as well, then why should we move? The other issues like too many ads or bad skin can be modified in the preferences, and add-ons for most modern browsers also block ads. I just don't think it's worth it right now, I'd much rather try to improve the current wiki, rather than trying to create a new one. ---Dark Ace SP (Talk) 00:51, November 22, 2012 (UTC)
• If we do move then the new Wiki will be a shadow of its formor self, which in my mind would be horrible for the entire community on here. We wouldn't want to start a new community from scratch just to have a possibility of being recognized by Konami. Yes the Wikia has its flaws but if we were to fork/move Curse would then inherit those flaws and possibly make more. As Ace has said we can improve on this Wiki instead of creating a new one, if we were to make a new one that would only cause for more troubles in the future. Hastydemon2 (talk • contribs) 04:45, November 22, 2012 (UTC)
• Hi. Just to note that Wikia is a worldwide recognised network. The Staff are also making improvements to Wikia in general every week to try and make a wikian's life easier. They are also constantly adding new features to Wikia (video etc) and are also getting in contact with many of the top gaming developers to see if they can come to sort of agreement. Maybe we should wait until they do that with Konami? And, I also want to note how hard people work to become an Admin or even a Chat Mod on a Wikia Wiki. They spend ages editing pages, breaking up arguments and generally helping people out. I worked extremely hard to earn Chat Modship on this Wiki because this is a Wikia Wiki and it is one of the most developed Wikis on the network - this place was and is filled with very friendly people who are happy to have a laugh (this is what I notice across most Wikia wikis). All of the Admins here have tens of thousands of hard fought edits to make this Wiki a better place and they worked very hard to obtain the Admin position on this huge and developed Wiki. I speak to tens of people on the main Wikia hub (Community Central) everyday and every time I mention the "Yu-Gi-Oh! Wikia", they say how great that Wiki is and how much they look up to it - it is one of the biggest Wikis ever! :) I have made over 1100 edits here which is a huge milestone for me as I am constantly juggling with school work and it is something I am generally proud of. Yes my edits will remain on this site but this site will no longer become the main Yu-Gi-Oh! database and I'll have to start all over again. TTF: If you do decide to move to the Curse networks then I will still respect your decision. Thank you. --Spongebob456 ^(Talk) 07:57, November 22, 2012 (UTC)

• I have nothing to say other then what the other 3 have said. Shardsilver (talk • contribs) 09:55, November 22, 2012 (UTC)

• Sorry, but like Shard said, they already said it all. --E.G.G. (My Contributions) 12:37, November 22, 2012 (UTC)

• Given what Neoarkadia has just said, forking to Curse is a really bad idea if the information allowed to be posted will be limited to such a degree he mentioned; all just to get recognition. Some people may consider the wikia a joke, but there're also an equal amount (possibly more) that refer to it for rulings and is generally accepted as a good source of information from the people I asked. There's also no guarantee that Curse would even be able to get Konami to recognise the wikia, leaving the Curse version with much less viewers with no differences from the wiki version. Overall, given how Konami's recognition would come at a hefty price, and how moving to Curse would result in less viewers, it seems like a lose-lose situation to me. Neos01 (talk • contribs) 14:54, November 22, 2012 (UTC)

• It's just too much of a long shot with uncertain benefits at best. IMO it's far better to try to work things out here (who's to say Wikia won't ever listen?). Some people may regard this Wikia "a joke", but people who actually care about the Yu-Gi-Oh franchise value it as an irreplacable resource. I personally prefer to listen to the latter and ignore the former, and not damage that resource for things that don't matter that much. --Eps01 (talk • contribs) 18:15, November 22, 2012 (UTC)

• I too am against it. Seems like a waste of time plus I agree with the above statements. TheScarecrow14 (talk • contribs) 19:28, November 22, 2012 (UTC)

• I too am against it for all of the above reasons, and I also feel programs are available for dealing with some of the most annoying aspects of the wiki (e.g. for the ads, get anti-ad software).--50.0.66.234 (talk) 00:57, November 23, 2012 (UTC)

• To summarize what I've said in my earlier posts - skin is really a personal preference and can be changed by registered users and is a too trivial reason to fork a project. As I thought of it more, I agree with other users that partnership with Konami might not be so good - now, we have all images of Cosmo Blazer - do you think that Konami would be happy for spoiling every next set when we would affiliate with them? Final Cannon Dyskusja 20:22, November 23, 2012 (UTC)

• Me too. Mostly because of losing traffic. I don't have any major issues with Wikia. MadRest 21:33, November 23, 2012 (UTC)

• Against. It seems like we'd be risking a lot to get a little. Rod (talk • contribs) 01:18, November 25, 2012 (UTC)

• Against. While I was inititally positive towards the idea, risking that much for such minor reasons is absurd. --Durango95 (talk) 12:11, November 25, 2012 (UTC)

• I think I already said all my reasons, against it...Jaggo 80 (talk • contribs) 14:14, November 26, 2012 (UTC)

• I am strongly against this idea. Sorry. --iFredCat 18:36, November 26, 2012 (UTC)

• I'm againts the fork. It makes no real sense to move a perfectly good establish wiki to another site.--Veriteo (talk • contribs) 18:54, November 26, 2012 (UTC)

• Against. Based on traffic statistics shown from the WoW Wikia to WoW Curse split and the high search engine response rate to searching character and card names pointing to the Wikia still (i.e. Leeroy Jenkins, despite being a meme, ranks sixth for Wikia and eighth for Wikia if you misspelled the name for the WoW #198 card; while for Curse after ~20min of checking it's not even in the top 350 search responses), I think the community split would be too severe for the potential gain of Konami backing that isn't even a certainty. TheDesertRunner (talk • contribs) 15:17, November 30, 2012 (UTC)

Neutral

-- I dont really mind about if they move or if they dont move as it doesnt effect me that much :) 58.111.71.87 (talk) 23:53, December 1, 2012 (UTC)

Comments

Hmmm... I would like to see that they have to offer first. Can you give me a direct link to something Curse Networks has so that I can fiddle around on there? (The only association I have ever had with Curse before this was Minecraft, and it just seems devoted to videogames, not necessarily card games.) Also, what would happen to the wikia in the meantime? Would the site be shutdown? 1 other thing... In lieu of categories, how would we be able to arrange things in lists, like the monsters that could be searched via "Sangan" for example? --UltimateKuriboh (talk • contribs) 20:05, November 17, 2012 (UTC)

Categories would still exist, but the extension CategorySelect would be unavailable, which is not a major loss. The SMW searching functionality would also remain. As for something that Curse operates, Wowpedia is one of their largest acquisitions, and go a long way to proving that Curse know how to take care of Wikis under their command.

I can't reveal *too* much about their plans, but know this: We fit in perfectly for what they have planned next.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 20:08, November 17, 2012 (UTC)

Hmmmm this seems good; I think it's great that the layout for Wowpedia looks very similar (if not identical) to this wikia. What new domain name would our wikia go under? Also, would it be alright for me to suggest this idea to 1 other wikia? I don't know how feasible it would be for them, but just to put it out there... Or would you rather this remain an independent notion? --UltimateKuriboh (talk • contribs) 20:31, November 17, 2012 (UTC)

You are free to broker the suggestion, of course. For note, the new Skin that the Wikia would use would be very similar to Wikipedia. As for a domain name, we haven't got that far yet in discussions. Stay tuned for information later on that.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 20:35, November 17, 2012 (UTC)

CategorySelect was disabled from this wiki many years ago at our own request.

How we would be able to arrange lists like that "Sangan" one would be exactly the same on both sites. -- Deltaneos (talk) 20:39, November 17, 2012 (UTC)

Can you link me to it?--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 21:11, November 17, 2012 (UTC)

Sangan: Searchable Cards or Forum:Removal of the CategorySelect tool? -- Deltaneos (talk) 21:14, November 17, 2012 (UTC)

Concepts would stay, as we would keep SMW. The searching functionality would remain unchanged from what it is now.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 21:21, November 17, 2012 (UTC)

The only major advantage I see to forking is that we'll have a choice of a different default skin, which is much less obstructed by ads; most likely either Monobook or Vector. Our current default skin the Wikia skin and the old skin Monaco will most likely not be options.

There are a lot of features Wikia insist on wikis using that are more social networkish than encyclopedic. On Curse we wouldn't have to use those. Most of them wouldn't even be an option. But most of them on Wikia are optional. They can be switched off with community approval. A few, such as the default skin, are not optional.

Just to point out the disadvantages. If this goes ahead, the wiki doesn't exactly move, it forks. This means that there will be two wikis, the one here on Wikia and the one on Curse. Wikia most likely will not close this wiki or allow a notice to be left pointing readers and editors to the new site. The two sites will then be in competition for readers and editors.

• The site here on Wikia appears very high in search engines and is linked to from countless other sites. If we split far more people are going to find the Wikia site than the Curse one. Here's traffic stats for one wiki, WoWWiki/WoWpedia, a World of Warcraft wiki, that forked to Curse before; Wikia copy, Curse copy. Two years after the fork, the Wikia copy still gets well over twice as much traffic. Plus the Curse version of that site is endorsed by the creators of WoW and it's easier for a wiki on an MMORPG to reach out to its readers to inform them of the fork. We don't have either either of those options. I don't think we'd come close to half the traffic Wikia would still be getting after two years if we do fork.
• People are inevitably going to continue to edit here. There will essentially be two sets of people working on two different sites. This could mean a lot less work gets done. Potential new editors are also most likely to find the Wikia site first.

-- Deltaneos (talk) 20:39, November 17, 2012 (UTC)

Actually this was a concern of mine as well, but one I neglected to put down. How would we notify users that we officially moved moved to Curse? And from what TwoTailedFox mentioned, it seems that this wikia will also exist, and cannot/will not be shutdown. --UltimateKuriboh (talk • contribs) 20:48, November 17, 2012 (UTC)

I 100% agree with Deltaneos - Wikia copy will get more traffic that the new one. I'm an admin of Wikia-wiki too, and I was considering a fork when the Oasis was implemented as well. However, I decided to stay and bear with all Wikia's (unneeded) changes to the skin rather than compete with Google ranking and the existing copy. And Wikia will likely prohibit you for giving any pernament notice about wiki move. They done it to many wikis that decided to do so. Final Cannon Dyskusja 20:54, November 17, 2012 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, WoWpedia got as many fansites as they could to inform people of the move. Aside from advertising the wiki in other places there's not an awful lot that can be done. If the Curse wiki is kept more up-to-date on new material, that material might appear higher on search engines. But there's no guarantee that people won't continue to add new material to this site. -- Deltaneos (talk) 20:57, November 17, 2012 (UTC)

Just to make a quick comment: As a WoW user who used WoWWiki and switched to WoWpedia when it forked, I can safely say that, while people still use and occasionally edit WoWwiki, it's generally much more deserted than WoWpedia, not to mention significantly behind in terms of information. Considering this is happened on a larger and, as Deltaneos pointed out, much more publicized change, the best-case scenario for the two Yugioh sites would be the wikia site being kind of a confusing relic of sorts, albeit one with higher traffic. While this isn't a guarantee, it's what it looks like would happen, looking the past as an example. Not that this is necessarily a deciding factor (the Curse one would still be current), it's still kind of a thing. Of course, I'm also all for this change; I just thought I should throw my two cents in. --Alsius (talk • contribs) 22:59, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

One other advantage would be the search bar. Currently when you search a page, you'll be taken to a page of results rather than directly to the page even if you type the exact page name. In Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-under-the-hood, if you tick "Enable Go-Search", it will work the old (good) way. If we go to Curse, it will work the old way by default. I have been hoping Wikia will sometime allow us to put it back the old way by default. -- Deltaneos (talk) 20:57, November 17, 2012 (UTC)

Are those people in charge of hosting Bulbapedia ? HPZ - O.N.E. - Captain Moe FTW ! (talk • contribs) 21:00, November 17, 2012 (UTC)

Bulbapedia is hosted by Bulbagarden.net. Curse does have a Pokémon wiki though pokemon.marriland.com. -- Deltaneos (talk) 21:05, November 17, 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, wrong link; wiki.marriland.com. -- Deltaneos (talk) 21:09, November 17, 2012 (UTC)

Delta is quite correct. We would have no option *but* to fork. The core idea would be to keep the new Wiki as up-to-date as possible, and spread the word as much as possible to the new site. Traffic will still be an issue, with Wikia getting the lion's share, but as we can see with WoWWiki, that doesn't mean it will be a better site.

This will require effort, co-ordination, and persistence. At the end of day, I am 100% confident that the Curse-hosted alternative is superior than the status quo under Wikia.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 21:06, November 17, 2012 (UTC)

I'm quite suprised by this idea of splitting. I have to say that some of the wikis that moved to Curse now have little activity. The wiki I spent time with split itself, the one at the Curse now has barely 50 edits per day and around 10 active users, while the one on Wikia has much more numbers. Oh, and I have to mention that it has been since 1 year when that event happened. So please, think what you can lose. Energy X ∞ 23:16, November 17, 2012 (UTC)

I'm kinda mixed on this. I do think that Curse will offer us a better user experience, but not having enough people that can edit and keep everything up-to-date will totally not help us. ---Dark Ace SP (Talk) 23:12, November 17, 2012 (UTC)

If every single person reading this moves with us, that will pay for itself very quickly.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 23:12, November 17, 2012 (UTC)

Ah, but the problem is that how many will read? And if they do, how many are going to go there? People who visit this wiki are happy to have this one, no need for another one. I feel that The Vault (the wiki that split itself I mentioned earlier) has little visitors, because it is hard to navigate and very unpractical to the viewer. Energy X ∞ 23:16, November 17, 2012 (UTC)

I don't think site navigation counts as a hindrance issue.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 23:18, November 17, 2012 (UTC)

It could be, the easier a site is to navigate and use, the more people will probably use it. ---Dark Ace SP (Talk) 23:23, November 17, 2012 (UTC)

I'm against the move for the reasons Deltaneos put forth. I don't like the new changes on Wikia, but I feel we'd lose more from forking that from staying where we are. If the wiki does fork, I will of course go with it; I love this community.

I think forking would be better for the editors. In my opinion, our primary concern shouldn't be those who edit, it should be those who don't. The readers. The people who use this site as a reference. I feel forking would hurt them. However, On that note, if we fork, we would do well to inform everyone we can of it. Post on any and all YGO-related forums about it. Those who use Dueling Network can stick a link in their profiles or something too. Cheesedude (talk • contribs) 23:37, November 17, 2012 (UTC)

Just to reference an answer below to this, the readers would be the greatest benefactors from this move. We would finally have a default Wiki layout that conforms to the best possible browsing experience for new readers.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 19:23, November 18, 2012 (UTC)

Two questions: Would both sites continue to be updated, and does Curse support mobile access as much? Tarix3245 (talk • contribs) 03:04, November 18, 2012 (UTC)

I can't promise that this one will to the same standard, but the new one definitely will. I have raised mobile access to Curse directly.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 20:32, November 18, 2012 (UTC)

TTF, you mention that this would tie in perfectly with a planned future move of Curse. I have a direct line of communication with a Curse employee (I kinda have to, considering I'm an administrator of the Minecraft Wiki), and have actually asked her in the not-too-distant past how Curse would likely respond to a request from us to move, and she said it would be likely that Curse would turn us down, since their primary focus is video games, and ours is not. Does your statement mean that Curse has a shift or broadening of focus planned or something? (You can email me if this isn't something that can be discussed publically yet, or point me to the Curse employee I should get in touch with for more information.)
I've also broached the subject with Delt in the past (around the same time I did so with my Curse contact), and his reservations largely haven't changed since then. They're valid points, and having had time to think about them, I largely have to agree with him. We do have one thing that could massively help, though; if we could manage to make the move coincide with the deployment of the new card article layout, so that the Curse fork uses the new layout but this wiki still uses {{CardTable2}}, I think that would massively help convince people to move with us. Another possibility that I also touched on in that forum discussion is a Wikimedia Wikidata-like setup: if Curse could set up a central repository for media files and for basic information (basically, just about everything we currently stuff into SMW properties), it would greatly reduce the amount of work that would have to go into setting up new language versions; Curse seems to love the idea of offering different language versions of their wikis, if my experience on the Minecraft Wiki is any indication. The only problem with that is that the original implementation of the Wikidata concept is currently still in its infancy, only handling interwikis, though infobox information (and possibly other types of data) is planned for the future.
One last point: Wikia has previously shown no hesitation to strip editors' userrights on wikis that have forked. I have no data, anecdotal or otherwise, to back this up, but it's not too much of a stretch for them to jump from this to stripping userrights on other Wikia wikis or even globally, and there's also the possibility they could this as a reason to refuse future requests (such as a wiki adoption or bot flag request) from such editors. I would like to think Wikia is generally too reasonable for this to actually happen, but I still hesitate at the thought of it. 「ディノ奴千？！」^{? · ☎ Dinoguy1000} 06:06, November 18, 2012 (UTC)

The new CardTable template would be something that would help the move immensely. My curse contact is Donovan Duncan, who is the current VP of Marketing and Sale for Curse. I can have a greater depth of conversion on the Chat channel rather than here. As for Wikia stripping editor's of their rights, I can't conclusively say what they would do. Some editors from WoWWiki did get their rights revoked, however.

I refer to my point below, and to one of the points I raised above; the current Wiki experience we have here is not a good one, especially for new people. The default layout is ghastly, and was rolled out despite objections. It's also far too heavily invested towards social media, which is a cheap and laughable idea. The entire concept of Wikis on Wikia is to generate revenue; Curse have even acknowledged in the past that they believe Wikis are a poor choice of website to earn revenue from.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 19:22, November 18, 2012 (UTC)

Wikia hasn't been too kind to us lately, but it's not that bad. Moving everything seems like it would be a bit of a hassle. Also, would this site be deleted if we did move? Would it simply stop being updated? --DARK 07:55, November 18, 2012 (UTC)

The site would stay as it now and anyone who still wanted to edit it could and its more likely that this site would get new editors than the new one, since Wikia pops up much higher on Google search results than any other wikifarm would.

Having my userights stripped here from forking makes me very uneasy. If we did fork, I wouldn't put it past myself to edit both Wikis if I'm particularly bored. I edit other Wikia wikis on occasion and even considering putting forth an adoption request on an inactive one at one point. Cheesedude (talk • contribs) 12:10, November 18, 2012 (UTC)

I rejected the "Curse" site option, as it's just pointless and waste of the time. If you wish to argue, go read Delta's comment up above, he struck the good points. --iFredCat 13:21, November 18, 2012 (UTC)

Not if you're an unregistered user. Part of the reason for the move is to make the site look better for new people. I really don't think that's pointless.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 19:22, November 18, 2012 (UTC)

My point was this: How many new people would see the new site? Again, they would end up on the Wikia site first in most cases. Moving would hurt new users because they wouldn't be able to find us. Those that do would have their experience improved, yes. Let me clear: I hate the Wikia skin, I hate the social media stuff, but I consider them to be necessary evils to deal with. Cheesedude (talk • contribs) 21:30, November 18, 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I think we will be able to spread the word to many, many people. Will lots of people still come here? Yes, that's inevitable and unavoidable. I don't consider those evils to be necessary, and the more that join in this transition, the easier it will be.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 21:33, November 18, 2012 (UTC)

Many people? Yes. Enough people? No. You keep talking about "this transition" as if its definitely happening. Which it isn't until this discussion is through and more people have weighed in. Cheesedude (talk • contribs) 21:37, November 18, 2012 (UTC)

I think we would be able to get enough people to go to the new site. But I need your help to do that. Same applies to every editor here. You're the people that have helped keep this place alive, and you are the people that would help it to flourish with a new host. I'm not willing to accept a second-rate Wiki experience for convenience, and neither should anyone else. We should be striving for the best, not sticking around for the mediocre.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 21:42, November 18, 2012 (UTC)

I'm willing to help. As I said, if we fork, I will come along. The majority of my free time is spent on this wiki, in this community. If it forks, I'll go with it, even if I don't fully agree with the idea. You haven't convinced me yet - and I want to be convinced. Cheesedude (talk • contribs) 21:50, November 18, 2012 (UTC)

We have a range of forums, social media, and fansites to carry the word. Reddit, Gamefaqs, Pojo, to name just a few out there. Wikia is seen as a community laughing stock at the moment, and that alone turns some people off. If we put forward the reasons above to move, I'm am very sure that they will side with us. They, like us, are passionate about the game. I understand the concerns, especially those by Delta, and I'm not saying that it will be roses overnight, but I believe that the more that would join us, the easier it would be. I know that we hate change sometimes, but sometimes, it is for the best.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 21:56, November 18, 2012 (UTC)

If the site on Wikia cannot be shut down, then it's pointless. We'd just give the current content over to other editors, and then try to compete with our own work. Plus, don't you think it would be wise to wait for that "what Curse have planned" to actually come into life before comitting? The user experience here isn't that bad. We should only take such drastic measures if Wikia forces something really bad. --Eps01 (talk • contribs) 22:06, November 18, 2012 (UTC)

The skin is bad enough, really. Wowpedia also did the exact same thing, and they're doing absolutely fine. Also, we would have what this Wiki does not have at the moment; official information direction from Konami (such as newsfeeds, etc), and official recognition from Konami as a fan site that is part of the Curse Network.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 22:11, November 18, 2012 (UTC)

Wait, wait, wait. What?! I don't know much about Curse, but that would be part of the deal? Contact with Konami and official recognition? Can you explain this further? Cheesedude (talk • contribs) 22:31, November 18, 2012 (UTC)

It wouldn't be immediate, but Curse seem very, very confident that can get Konami on board for the above. It would include news and events direct from Konami, and it would also mean that we would be recognised as a fan site, whereas right now, we don't even have a nod from Konami indicating we exist. It's win-win, we get the nod from Konami, and we further expand the reach of their audience.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 22:37, November 18, 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, very interesting, but it leaves me curious how it would affect our anime and manga stuff. I somehow can't see Konami endorsing our use of screencaps, manga scans and the like, though. Cheesedude (talk • contribs) 00:48, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

Very easy to cover that under fair use for factual documentation.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 00:50, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

I was under the impression that fair use was a thing specific to wikis that wikis use to avoid copyright infringement. A quick google search reveals I was wrong. I'd honestly not heard of fair use anywhere but wikis before. Cheesedude (talk • contribs) 00:58, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

If we were hosting, say, entire episodes, or linking to them on YouTube, or scanning entire manga pages, that wouldn't be fair use, because we'd be using more material than we needed. By only using parts of it, say, cards, or very specific scenes to highlight a character, we are only using what we need.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 01:20, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

I'm not really familiar with this "fair use" law, but if the criteria is that we only use "what we need"... Well, there's an expression in the law that "reasonable minds can differ" on the interpretation of different phrases. We might decide that certain scans from the Manga are "necessary," but Konami might disagree. I'm not saying there would be definitely be a disagreement about the meaning, but when one gets into vaguely worded legislation, isn't it a potential issue? Also, even if lawyers haven't pressed charges in similar cases in the past, that's no guarantee that they wouldn't press charges here. If Konami's people decide that they've got a case and that pressing charges would be beneficial to them, they might well choose beneficial action over maintaining the status quo. (By the way, if I'm misunderstanding "fair use" laws, please just ignore me.)--50.1.51.42 (talk) 01:06, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

As several companies have found out, there are very few benefits to legal action against a community; Konami would end up hurting their audience, and that could have potential negative repercussions. Curse strongly believe that the content on the Wiki as it stands would stay as it is without modification or amendment to existing content.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 01:13, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

All right. Thanks so much for the informative answer! One more thing: I noticed a recurring argument here where one side argues that a switch will lose some of the internet traffic to the site, and the other side responds by arguing that the switch will make the wiki easier to use. In my mind, this wiki exists to help people find out whatever they need about Yugioh. If a switch causes a fall in traffic, less people will be helped by the wiki. On the other hand, if we stick with the current, worse format, a certain number of fans will be discouraged by the format and leave. So, from where I'm standing, it looks like either way this community won't be able to enhance as many people's Yugioh experience; in other words, it won't serve its purpose as well. Do you see a solution to this problem?--50.1.51.42 (talk) 01:51, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

It's the nature of forking a project that's already highly placed on Google, etc, any new site will take time to build up traffic. With Konami on board, I believe that will lead in a lot of traffic to the new site that would otherwise not have been possible.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 01:58, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

Konami getting on board is also possible on Wikia, as has been pointed out. Is there no interest in pursuing that venture here instead of on Curse? Sure, any new site will take time to build traffic, but do have any solid numbers on this? Another site in a similar situation that did build up enough traffic. Anything like that? "I know we'll get more traffic isn't good enough for me". As I've said, I'll move with the wiki if the fork happens, but I can still be against the fork itself. Cheesedude (talk • contribs) 05:09, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

Wikia have pointed out that they feel that Japanese companies, in their experience, ask for too much control for their involvement. Curse, on the other hand, are very confident they can have Konami on board, and still maintain 100% autonomy for the Wiki.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 23:04, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

I realize that and that's what we do now - we use what we need. My point was would Konami still want us to do that if we were actually affiliated with them? Cheesedude (talk • contribs) 03:27, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

I don't see why they'd have a problem with it.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 03:35, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

Attorneys will always find a problem, even if there is none :) . This is a matter of interests. I'd imagine they wouldn't be fond of spoilers for the anime and manga. --Eps01 (talk • contribs) 12:12, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

If there was a major problem with it, legal action would already have been taken. Not only against us, but against a range of other sites as well.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 14:49, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

That's not the point. Would the English branch of Konami want a site affiliated with them spoiling anime and manga information that has not been dubbed/released in English? Cheesedude (talk • contribs) 15:16, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it's a significant issue at all. Otherwise we'd have to scrap to entire synopsis for GX Series 4. I really don't think that's going to be a barrier.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 15:50, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

Maybe, but it makes it so that we cannot count on Konami's support without sacrifices. --Eps01 (talk • contribs) 18:39, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

I have addressed your point at the top of this article.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 18:52, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

Would we be able to keep the same account log in as we do in this wikia? EQ1 (talk • contribs) 22:57, November 18, 2012 (UTC)

Yes. Usernames would however, need to be claimed, as they would be saved with a prefix. The process with Wowpedia was very smooth when it came to users claiming their original names.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 22:58, November 18, 2012 (UTC)

How would we claim a username anyway, just post on a page somewhere in the *possible* new wiki? Also, if Konami might actually recognize us as a fansite, I'd totally be in for it. ---Dark Ace SP (Talk) 01:43, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

On the new Wiki, there would be a link to just claim your previous username. It uses the login system, and it quite seamless.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 01:51, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

From what I understand, you would enter your name on the new wiki, that would give you a code made of random letters and numbers. You then edit your user page on this wiki while logged in and mention that code in your edit summary. That would prove that the person trying to reclaim the account is its owner. -- Deltaneos (talk) 22:53, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

Would we still be able to edit trivia page, making talk pages and stuff like that? --E.G.G. (My Contributions) 15:25, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

Absolutely.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 15:50, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

And what about unregistered users? Will it still be possible for them to edit pages? Dunkles Magiermädchen (talk • contribs) 19:23, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

Based on Wowpedia, no, they would need to register a Wiki account in order to contribute. This would drastically cut down on vandalism from anonymous users that have plagued this Wiki in the past.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 19:31, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

That's unfortunate. We have a number of unregistered users who are great contributors. They simply prefer to contribute anonymously. Most IP edits are not vandalism, they're simply the edits everyone notices the most. Is it possible that was just a personal choice by Wowpedia editors and wouldn't be necessary. I see more disadvantages to disabling anon contribution than advantages. Cheesedude (talk • contribs) 21:09, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

Policy by Curse. I don't see there being a massive issue registering to contribute, many wiki's have that in place. This way, Curse can focus more on keeping the system stable, and less time having to revert anonymous vandalism. I see your point, but there are reasons behind the lack of anonymous editing, especially given the press coverage the new site would have. Without registering as a barrier, it would invite a lot of anonymous damage.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 21:15, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

The ability to let unregistered users edit is optional. GulidWiki is on Curse and allows unregistered editing. The World of Warcraft wiki disallowed unregistered editing while they were still on Wikia and maintained that after the fork. -- Deltaneos (talk) 22:50, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

Will raise that.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 22:57, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

Have now confirmed that unregistered users will still be able to edit.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 23:25, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

Looking at the What we section, and if we get official recognition from Konami, it might be worth. One question: will this Wikia redirect the users to the Curse website? For example, you go to a page, then somewhere in that page will be a link saying something like "You can find more information in (...)" or "Check also this page in (...)", or it will be only announced on the Main Page that the users should use the other website? --Missign0 (talk • contribs) 16:45, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

The Wiki would not redirect, but we can add a link to the CardTable advising more information can be found elsewhere. WoWWiki still does that with other sites, I'm sure we can.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 17:12, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

Wikia would not permit that link in the card table. They've removed similar stuff from other wikis that forked for using the Wikia service to advertise a rival site. -- Deltaneos (talk) 22:50, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

One other thought I just had: what would be the possibility of the French, German, Polish, and Spanish wikis from here also moving? Needless to say, this would require discussions on each of those wikis to establish consensus for the move, and if the timeline of moving this wiki in mid-December is to be kept, they'd probably have to be moved later, but if it happened that would help with supporting more international editors (e.g. Dunkles heavily edits the German wiki currently). --Dinoguy1000 (talk • contribs) as 67.58.244.82 (talk) 19:51, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

There would be no barrier to those Wikis being brought over, I would think.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 19:54, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

Questions

• We already have an IRC channel. Would the hypothetical new one be on another server or what would be the advantage of creating another one?
• What is it Curse can do to get endorsement from Konami that we can't do while being hosted here? Wikia did talk with FUNimation about sponsoring the Soul Eater wiki. Although, nothing seems to have happened there.
• The biggest problem with the mobile skin here is that we can't edit the CSS, through internal, external or inline styles. If we have access to the CSS, I think we could fix every problem with the skin. Has anyone ever contacted Wikia about enabling that much? I know they gave us the <mobile> and <nomobile> tags, but given the order stuff gets parsed in, there is very little use for them.

-- Deltaneos (talk) 22:50, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

• We could use the existing IRC on Freenode.
• Curse already work with them in some areas. Far easier talk with someone like Konami when you have the clout that Curse have. It's not something we could accomplish on our own.
• I don't think Wikia would be open to having us touch the skin, that's why they give the tags out.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 22:57, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

Curse Networks are primarily aimed at games; as such, the sites are categorized as "Games" sites. Many institutions and jobs block game sites, mine being one of them. People will have more difficulty accessing the site under Curse than our current one (which is listed as "Reference" according to this site) during the day if they work or go to school if we go under "Games" as opposed to "Reference". --Golden Key (talk • contribs) 23:37, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

With all due respect, that's a matter between you and your employer. A website cannot make decisions based on an employer's choice to block a particular series of websites or domains.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 23:50, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

With all do respect, you're missing my point. Our target demographic, children and teens, will not be able to log on to our site during their lunch breaks or while they're at the library to look up rulings on our site while they Duel with their friends anymore. Anyone with a job won't be able to check out the site on the coffee breaks. Currently, as a "Reference" website, we're open to viewing from anyone anywhere. We're going to lose people who like it here if we move. We're going to lose people because we'll no longer be the top result in Google searches if we move. We're going to lose people because because the site will no longer be as accessible to people everywhere if we move. You didn't even seem bothered when we thought unregistered users wouldn't be allowed to edit. Just how small are you trying to make the community? --Golden Key (talk • contribs) 00:05, November 20, 2012 (UTC)

Let's break down those one by one:

I have already acknowledged that we will lose people; Also, "anywhere"? My previous employer blocked all .net domains, regardless of content. I couldn't access this site from work, even though it never had a "Games" categorisation (which, by the way, is completely arbitrary, and is down to the software that the Employer uses. You make it sound like a committee decides what category a website gets). I was, however, able to browse other Curse sites, which really puts your claim to bed. Not every employer blocks gaming websites.

We are a top result in Google, but so is WoWWiki; Wowpedia is still the superior site by a huge, huge margin, as our new site would be. We are not accessible everywhere in our current form, either.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 00:14, November 20, 2012 (UTC)

I believe this site to be pretty good anywhere; it is mainly a database for Yu-gi-oh. That will not change wherever it goes, and I hope fans stay loyal to the site. I know I will be staying (Not as a common editor, yet) with the site no matter where it moves, and hope that more people come over, even if they can not do so at work. --TechGenusMaster (talk • contribs) 00:29, November 20, 2012 (UTC)

I do not think that the wiki should change. While I do not actually edit the wiki (forgive me for that), I do use it when me and my father play cards when we need a question answered. I feel that the wiki is fine the way it is and that there is no need for a change. Did something happen or what? Is there a problem with the way it is now? Although I don't know anything about these "curse networks", I see no reason for anything to be different. If it did change I might be unhappy. Though from other comments I see that this curse thing is not very popular. We want somthing everyone can use easily, without having to go in loops and twists. —This unsigned comment was made by SynchroKingSharkDrake (talk • contribs) 02:06, November 20, 2012‎ (UTC)

There are many good reasons to move, which I shall list for you.

1)Wikia has made is plainly clear that they are not interested in the userbase of the Wikis; the New Wikia skin was introoduced (which dramatically reduces available article sizes) was rolled out, despite objections across the Wikis. Wikia has also refused to comply with the CC-By-SA 3.0 license, by refusing to release a copy of the Images stored on this Wiki. Those two reasons alone make Wikia a very untrustworthy hosting partner.

2)Curse will be able to get Konami to recognise us; I don't know about you, but the ability to directly get information from Konami is a big, big plus.

3)The way the wiki is edited now will not change. The Skin will be different, which will greatly enhance the appeal of viewing it.

4)There are no twists or loops. You would not be required to get a new account if you wanted to view, or edit articles.

5)I realise a lot of this may not seem significant to a lot of people who casually use this site, but the issues outlined above make a compelling case to move, and I hope you will share that reasoning--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 02:54, November 20, 2012 (UTC).

Hi guys. My names called Michael and I'm not a Yugioh Wikia contributer but I'm here to help out with this question. I think the layout of 'Wikia' is nice but is the layout of this web-site going to be the same? Also I don't like the ads in 'Wikia'; it tends to be very annoying but the other 'Curse' thing doesn't have it which is good. I suppose sticking with 'Wikia' even if there are ads because it's not really a big problem. Also as said, old users would lose their accounts which I personally think is bad.

I seriosuly think communicational tabs or applications are very vital in web-sites because it makes a typical web-site become more popular and diverse by sharing various pages from this web-site.

Also; if people type in yugioh, they would still know the 'wikia' one and they don't know the one with 'curse' so they can't find this web-site anymore or if they do click the 'wikia' website, is the team going to put a link to access the new web-site? If it was there, I would think it's a virus so I wouldn't bother clicking on the link.

Even if it's faster, I think the layout of a web-site is very important. Thanks Duelists and I really love Yu-Gi-Oh! --60.241.18.76 (talk) 05:47, November 20, 2012 (UTC)

In my opinion, forking an existing (and really good) project mainly because of the skin issues is not the best idea. Someone will hate the skin while the other will like it; there are people that have learnt to deal with it (like me). Anons are likely ignoring the skin while the more experienced ones register and choose the Monobook in their prefs. IMHO, skin is too trivial issue to make such overhaul in the community. The only worthy argument of the fork I noticed in the earlier comments is the official recognition by Konami. Final Cannon Dyskusja 11:24, November 20, 2012 (UTC)

I got a question about the users part. It's been said that we keep our accounts; I'm not registered in curse, I tried to see if I was registered and I'm not, so how will that work? --E.G.G. (My Contributions) 19:07, November 20, 2012 (UTC)

Curse's Wiki Login system is independent of Curse's normal login system (as used on sites like GuildPortal, etc). You'd just be re-taking your old wiki name (if available), registering with Curse outside of the Wiki isn't needed.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 19:42, November 20, 2012 (UTC)

The skin is very vital though in my opnion. Can anyone please show me the layout? If it's the same then I go with 'Curse' but there's other points too listed in my comments. :( Thanks,

--60.241.18.76 (talk) 03:48, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

It makes no sense why we should move Wikia is fine as it is.--Veriteo (talk • contribs) 13:25, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

Anyone notice that there is another yugioh wiki being hosted on wikia?

http://yugiohzexal.wikia.com/wiki/Yu-Gi-Oh!_ZEXAL_Wiki I guess hosting another fork is just how wikia treats us. --Deathpyre (talk • contribs) 01:51, November 22, 2012 (UTC)

Anyone can create a wiki on any subject. They aren't pre-approved or screened. I would guess that there are many other Yu-Gi-Oh wikis out there, just as there are many on all of the popular topics. But unless the founder is able to come up with an interesting and original slant to the new site (and is willing to put in a lot of time and effort), a new wiki is extremely unlikely to surpass an established one.

I'm not sure if yugiohzexal is a fork or just a wiki with the same topic - but if they are copying articles from here, and not giving the correct attribution, then let us know and we can talk to them about it -- sannse (help forum | blog) 05:08, November 24, 2012 (UTC)

I decided to check one of the character pages and cross-check it to ours, they're similar (They are about the same show and same character), but organized differently than ours (Slightly) and they focus exclusively on the English version. Also, if you google Yu-Gi-Oh ZEXAL, the first link is to this wiki. ---Dark Ace SP (Talk) 14:05, November 24, 2012 (UTC)

It honestly wouldn't surprise me if that wiki straight-up copy/pasted from what we have. That wiki's founder has tried to get people here to edit there and I recall him also asking us to remove ZEXAL content from this wiki. Cheesedude (talk • contribs) 19:33, November 24, 2012 (UTC)

They asked me directly to remove all Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL content from this Wikia so they could make a fork, and I flat out refused to grant that request. They have copied content from our Wikia (such as CardTable2, cut-down, but with a lot of SMW stuff still left in there). I have submitted a request for a direct link back to here from all articles derived from our site, but the author has not yet responded to that request. If he ignores it, I will submit that to Wikia.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 17:06, November 26, 2012 (UTC)

If they refuse to comply, that puts them squarely in violation of the CC-BY-SA license that all text on Wikia is licensed under, which provides us (and Wikia) a legal course of action should we choose to take it that far (though I'd much rather not, myself). 「ディノ奴千？！」^{? · ☎ Dinoguy1000} 22:29, November 26, 2012 (UTC)

As it stands, there is now a link on their cardtable (which shows on both the template, and any cards that use it), that shows the template as originating from here. However, there have been further allegations of copying from a former admin of that Wiki, and ideally I'd want an audit of what has been copied and what hasn't, but that would be time consuming.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 22:33, November 26, 2012 (UTC)

A similar thing occurred between runescape.wikia and the Runescape Wiki by Jagex. For their argument, runescape.wikia used several compare/contrast examples, some of which can be seen here. --UltimateKuriboh (talk • contribs) 22:44, November 26, 2012 (UTC)

The problem is worse than I thought. Nearly every page I've come across has used our work (usually when it was first created) and not provided credit to us.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 23:47, November 26, 2012 (UTC)

We need to take time stamped screenshots that we will compile as evidence. Then we can wreak our revenge........--Deathpyre (talk • contribs) 03:24, November 27, 2012 (UTC)

A (long) comment from Wikia

Hi all, that's quite a discussion :) I've been going through it to see where I can add another perspective, and where I can clear up questions.

The first thing I have to disagree with, is TwoTailedFox's allegation that the quality of content has been somehow damaged here by being on Wikia. This is a wonderful project, with a great community and top-quality content.

I think I should talk next about our policy on forking. We absolutely respect your right to fork. Of course, that doesn't mean we like it when it happens, and naturally we would prefer it didn't! But the open source movement has always allowed for the possibility of forks, where enough people feel that's the right thing to do. What I hope, is that I can give you enough information and support to help you make the decision not to fork.

As has been said here, when a wiki forks the existing wiki on Wikia remains open. People who want to stay, and those who find the wiki in the future, become the wiki's new community, and choose admins and policies for themselves (or keep the ones already in place). We do not remove rights from people for talking about forking, or for actually forking. We do remove rights from people who try to damage the wiki they have left, or who try to use the existing wiki to advertise the fork, or who visit multiple other wikis to try and encourage them to fork too! We also remove rights if the remaining/new community asks us to. One thing we do ask is that all messaging (including the current notice on the main page) acknowledges that this wiki will remain and that everyone has the opportunity to stay here.

Now, on to some practical information. I know a couple of people have mentioned the traffic implications of forking. On the Wikia side, we've found that traffic can be affected, especially at first, but that it's also very likely to recover over time. On the side of the fork, it's likely that it will never get up to the levels of the existing wiki. For example, to use the three that have been mentioned already: The fork version of Fallout (The Vault) currently has just under 600,000 pageviews a month. The version on Wikia has fully recovered its community, and has more than 26 million pageviews a month. For Wowiki, the numbers are around 5 million monthly for the fork, and 20 million monthly for the Wikia wiki. And for the Pokemon wikis, it's about 370,000 pageviews for the fork hosted by Curse, and more than 26 million pageviews for the version on Wikia.

It would be good to give comparisons of the editor numbers too, but I can't access those for the forks. But it's certainly fair to say that all of the Wikia wikis mentioned above have active and healthy communities.

On ads: I would encourage you to look at Curse for yourselves, and remember that we show almost no ads for logged in users.

There was a point about how "following" can be changed to "watching". This can be changed via your site mediawiki messages. For example, MediaWiki:Watching is one of those that can be tweaked. It takes a bit of searching to find the right pages sometimes, but we can help with that if you're stuck.

Speed and stability. This is something we work hard on, and I'm very proud of all the progress we've made. Yugioh in particular uses the Semantic MediaWiki extension which is very heavy on the servers, and which we've done a lot of work to support. We've also changed the way images load on the site, and made a lot of other tweaks to improve stability. Here's a blog post about one of the changes – lots of little ones like this mount up!

I'm not sure what TwoTailedFox meant about renaming accounts being easier... the only thing I can think of is the time it takes to check all wikis and change your contributions on them where you've edited. Because Curse does not have single sign on (you have to register a new account for each of their wikis), the process here is a little more difficult. But either way, name changes can be done simply by asking us via Special:Contact. If I've misunderstood, please let me know.

Delaneos: We have more data on search now, so it's possible the time might be right for allowing a change there, I can certainly investigate the possibility for you.

Something that came up a few times is the experience of the site for new users. This is interesting, because it's been a key factor in our development of the site. What we found was that new users were being scared off by the old look, and less likely to jump in and try an edit than we would like. New users are the lifeblood of the wiki of course, so it was very important to get that right. I think it's important to separate "I don't like this, it's not what I'm used to so it's harder" from "a person who is new to wikis won't like this". Wikia's, and this wiki's, growth seem to suggest we are getting things right (although, of course, your contributions are a bigger factor in the wiki's growth!)

It's interesting to hear TwoTailed fox talk about official recognition from Konami, because that sort of arrangement is something Wikia is very interested in for wikis here. It's not always simple, for example we have found that some Japanese companies want a level of control over the content that we just won't accept. A company that becomes affiliated with us and with a wiki on Wikia has to agree that the community members have the freedom to contribute the content they choose to contribute, as well as manage the communities. And, as Cheesedude mentioned, some companies aren't always keen on being associated with wikis that use fair use images, or who write about areas not directly associated with them. But that said, we've already had some wonderful successes with things like the official status of EQ2i Wiki with Sony Online Entertainment, a community interview with a Faster Than Light developer, and even one wiki that had a live chat with one of the actors they had written about. The Planetside wiki is another Official Community for Sony and is a little different than EQ2i as the Planetside wiki was built from scratch as an Official Community.

Two of the people involved in this word are Eric Moro,on the Entertainment side, and George Jones on the Gaming side. It's their job to seek out these sort of affiliations, and offer our communities the best opportunities to get content and connections with the people behind their subjects. They both have a lot of good contacts, and know the right people to talk to when we want to do something new and exciting. And it's important to us that we can provide support for Entertainment as well as Gaming (and others), we don't want to be limited to just one type of community. George has already had contact with someone from Konami (rather than talks starting in January for Curse) and we definitely intend to talk to them again.

If you'd like to learn more about what these guys do, George talks about some of our Official Communities and other stuff he's been working on here, and Eric's next big thing is a major event that's planned for Spring next year - I can't wait for that one!

So this has been a very long response, and my only excuse is that you wrote more ;) I very much want to help, and to answer any other questions you have, so please let me know if I can. Thanks all -- sannse (help forum | blog) 02:45, November 20, 2012 (UTC)

<moved from within my comment>

Should be pointed out that WoWWiki is a shadow of it's former self after the fork. Traffic levels do not a better site make.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 02:54, November 20, 2012 (UTC)

Curse show no ads for unregistered users on their Wikis. Curse also don't have intrusive skins for new users, like the one you introduced despite overwhelming rejection of it.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 02:54, November 20, 2012 (UTC)

Registering an account would not necessary for editing on any new site, FYI.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 02:54, November 20, 2012 (UTC)

<end of moved text>

As an addendum, please explain why you have refused to comply with the CC-BY-SA license in my earlier correspondence with Wikia.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 02:55, November 20, 2012 (UTC)

TwoTailedFox: I've moved your comments out from the middle of mine, it makes it harder to parse if you insert yours that way, so I ask that you leave my full comment intact. Thanks

On licensing, I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean. Can you explain? or give me more details to search for past mails with? -- sannse (help forum | blog) 03:54, November 20, 2012 (UTC)

[Edit Conflict] On trafficking, the only concerns were how much traffic Curse Networks could obtain from the wiki. I didn't see any comment here worrying about traffic being taken away from the wiki; rather, I saw comments worrying about how much traffic we could take with us from the wiki. I liked how you answered the question from the opposite side of view. Clever ;). In any case, the only reason I would want the shift is if we managed to bring the fanbase with us, and of course, official Konami affiliation and support, both of which you seemed to answer efficiently in your well-thought out statement. I think I will let others take it from here, but 1 last thing: I am curious as to how you found out about this. Naturally, it is in your best interest to resolve situations like this ASAP, but still. In advance, thank you for the time you took in addressing our concerns. --UltimateKuriboh (talk • contribs) 03:01, November 20, 2012 (UTC)

I'm should be able to pull up those numbers too - although it will be easier to do so tomorrow, when I'm in the office. I'm about to sign off for the night, but will see what I can find out in the morning. For your other question, I'm not actually sure how this discussion came to our attention - someone pointed it out to someone, who pointed it out to JenBurton, who asked me to look. -- sannse (help forum | blog) 03:54, November 20, 2012 (UTC)

On mobile. Sannse, my point wasn't about the quality of the content, but about the actual brand being tainted. Wikia in a lot of the wider world is seen as a joke. That new skin is partially the reason why.

TwoTailedFox: Obviously I disagree strongly with your opinion of Wikia, and I disagree that your opinion is widely shared. I have always respected you and thought well of you, so I'm sad that you feel this way. I suspect there's nothing I can do to change that right now, but if there is some way I can help, please let me know. -- sannse (help forum | blog) 03:54, November 20, 2012 (UTC)

As you can probably tell from my registration details, I was around when Wikia was Wikicities. For the vast majority of my time, I have been a strong advocate of Wikia and all that it represented; I would not have raised this issue without just cause and concern, and a lot of that is brand perception. Wikia has damaged itself, quite badly, in the eyes of many in the gaming community, not just with the new Skin, but because of what has seemed like a paradigm shift in how Wikia regarded Wikis; previously, Wikia was genuinely seen to be fostering communities, as opposed to now, with many people disliking what is seen as treating Wiki communities as a source of revenue. We can argue back and forth over how right or wrong this is, but this is what I have heard from people I've spoken to. You can ignore this if you wish, however, as a company, I would at least advise this be investigated.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 18:59, November 20, 2012 (UTC)

I' definitely don't want to argue back and forth, as you say. We have different perspectives here, and I don't think that can be resolved. I will say though, that I definitely don't want to ignore anybody - happy or unhappy. -- sannse (help forum | blog) 21:32, November 20, 2012 (UTC)

As long as quality of the articles and frequency of the updates remains the same, I'm not phased either way. Forced to pick, I'd prefer to stay on the Wikia as the background, ads and search engine don't bother me.

TheDesertRunner (talk • contribs) 13:42, November 20, 2012 (UTC)

Getting recognized by Konami is a BIG plus. The database feature that this wiki has will still be present no matter where the wiki goes; why not take benefits and gt rid of the defects the Wiki has? I hope the fans stay loyal and realize that NOTHING will change; this wiki will be the same awesome wiki (or website) no matter where it is. --TechGenusMaster (talk • contribs) 14:29, November 20, 2012 (UTC)

no!!!!!!!!!!!!!—This unsigned comment was made by 98.211.49.248 (talk • contribs) 20:42, November 20, 2012‎ (UTC)

I was wondering, why don't we make a poll to see if people want the fork or not? A simple yes or no on the poll should do. I personally am unaffected by the fork since I don't edit much (sorry about that), and would definately try to help to spread the word if such an event were to occur. Neos01 (talk • contribs) 21:11, November 20, 2012 (UTC)

I was suggesting that too, but I think it's clearly obvious a poll would be made anyway. --E.G.G. (My Contributions) 21:13, November 20, 2012 (UTC)

Its definately better than counting the comments and seeing which would qualify as yes or no, given that some people are quite neutral about this. Neos01 (talk • contribs) 21:17, November 20, 2012 (UTC)

TechGenusMaster, Wikia has advantages in developing relationships with game and entertainment companies as well as others. We've already had success doing so in cases I mention above. It's wonderful to have people like Eric and George working directly with industry partners to help Wikia communities. So I certainly don't think that Curse's ambitions here are a good reason to fork.

Don't forget this wiki will still be here on Wikia whatever happens. The only question is whether there will be another, duplicate one elsewhere on the web. I don't believe that that would be a good thing for the fan base.

UltimateKuriboh: I've managed to get some information on pre vs post fork pageviews. They are quite difficult to interpret because there are likely to be other factors causing fluctuations (for example, pageviews always go up when a game is released). I looked at pageviews two months before a fork and then six months after - to give a good span for things to settle. That showed that pageviews on WoWWiki fell by 55%, and on Fallout by 44%. Pokemon is more recent, so I took the last full month's page views, which were down 12% when compared to 2 months before the fork.

The first interesting and important thing here is that, unsurprisingly, a fork affects a wiki. This wiki will be damaged by a fork, with less pages viewed. It's also interesting that most of those page views don't go to the new wiki. As I mentioned above, the forks didn't pick up many pageviews, especially compared to the original wiki's numbers. So my reading of this (putting aside the possibility that some of this is natural fluctuation with the topic's activity) is that forks damage the original wiki, and don't benefit the new wiki. Many fans simply walk away. That's what I'm hoping we can prevent here. -- sannse (help forum | blog) 21:32, November 20, 2012 (UTC)

I want to agree with both Sannse and Fox, to me Wikia, is a company and should make profit, but the majority of ads on this wiki I see without AdBlock are just random and for stuff like cars and whatnot. That kinda interferes with my own user experience, and I can see why Fox would want to move as a reason for it, and the wikia skin does make articles pages longer than they need to be. I don't see why you guys wouldn't be able to create a skin that's easy to navigate, but also improves the displaying of information on the wiki itself. Also, people do at times think of this wiki as a joke or false, even if we don't actually have any fan fiction or bogus rulings, and take care to use official rulings and information, but I think that's just an image problem that we haven't addressed. The main reason I wanted to move was the possible recognition by Konami as an official reference site, but if Wikia can try to get us that as well, and will actually try, then I don't see why we can't stay and let them try, even if some of the updates have been a little unwanted here, like Message Walls. ---Dark Ace SP (Talk) 22:32, November 20, 2012 (UTC)

Don;'t forget that, if we did fork, there would be no ads, for either or unregistered users, and the New Wikia skin would also be gone for both registered and unregistered users (meaning that people who may be new to the site don't get turned off by advertisements, and they see the Wiki how it was designed to be right off the bat). The image problem comes because we are classed as unofficial; that would disappear with recognition of a new site, and it's something the Curse team believe they can 100% get Konami on board with.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 01:00, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

Unless you're referring to Wikia spotlights, the kind of ads you see are dictated by things like your geographical location, the subject of the page you're reading, other stuff you've visited or whatever can be used to guess your interests. It's controlled by companies like Google AdSense. If you personally, don't like the ads, you can switch then off in your preferences. If you're worried that they're irrelevant in general, that would result in Wikia earning less revenue from ads.

Well, Message Wall is optional and hasn't been switched on here.

More of a curiosity than something relevant, but Sannse, how come Wikia have blocked traffic stats for all .wikia.com sites on Quantcast e.g. quantcast.com/yugioh.wikia.com?

--Deltaneos (talk) 00:17, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

It's data that we would rather keep private from our competitors which, unfortunately, means putting it out of view. But we know how interested everyone on wikis is about stats, so we're looking at ways to bring what we can directly on to the wiki. That's one to watch for in the future :)

While I'm here, I want to go back to a question I didn't understand earlier. TwoTailedFox, when you talked about the CC-BY-SA license, I think you were talking about your request for a copy of the images from this wiki? I know Sean replied to you on that, but just to reply to the question you left here too: the images on the wiki are not generally under the CC-BY-SA license. Mostly they are used here as "fair use", and while that works for you, Wikia can't necessarily use fair use for those same images in another form - and certainly can't use it for those images in the form of a dump for you to download.

Text is a different matter of course, and we provide full copies of the text on request (as you know) -- sannse (help forum | blog) 01:27, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

The confusion arose because I was able to get a dump of images previously from Wikia. It's now been explained that this, essentially, is a policy decision from Wikia, but is one designed to prevent legal confusion, rather than outright because of CC-BY-SA (which would have been a lot helpful in the original email, rather than just citing CC-BY-SA as the reason itself).--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 01:38, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

Just wondering, but should we go ahead and add in a poll, just to see where people actually are on this issue at the moment? ---Dark Ace SP (Talk) 01:41, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

A poll would be a bad idea, unless it was organized in the right fashion. It should not be the simple "yes/no" poll, as there should be an option for the reason why they are voting as well. That way, we could separate votes for silly reasons from the ones for legitimate reasons. Also, in such a poll, you would have to make the questions as unbiased as possible and try to encompass as many broad answers as possible for each question, both of which would be difficult. It would also be best to hide the poll results until voting was concluded, so as not to bias potential voters. TL;DR I am not in favor of a poll; I think it would complicate things further. --UltimateKuriboh (talk • contribs) 01:59, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

The comments are revealing enough as it is. There is clearly some interest for a fork.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 02:01, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

My thoughts: First: The main reason people want to go to Curse is recognition of Konami as an official fan-site but, is it posible? The main issues about official web sites is that they limit the quantity of information given to the fans to keep them "excited" about what is to come, and if they are the TCG obviously they don't give a damn about OCG, so EVERYTHING that has to do with OCG won't be allowed (manga, anime, cards), the use of certain images and spoilers won't be possible. Think about it (If it were important for Konami, Why is not on their official site? (in the US as, I don't know, "News of things to come" or "Check the Gameplay in Japan"). Second: (at least for me) is that Curse is mainly a Game Site, so there is the question in my job of blocking all those sites, so I won´t be able to connect in the morning and I don't usually see a lot of action in the night (in terms of answering questions for the rulings and other stuff). I know that TwoTailedFox doesn't care about it because he will be able to do so (as he already answered to another user), but for me is an issue. Third: The thing about Wikia-YuGiOh being a mock among other communities. I don't see it really, at least here in Mexico all the questions about rulings, things to come, OCG gameplay and all other good things that has this community are respected among the duelists (even if we are not recognized by Konami), a 80% of the information that I can consider reliable comes from this site and I respect that. Fourth: The advantages of this sites is that you can complain about Konami without restrictions (things like BKSS and all that stuff that we like to complain about) and some "Oficial Websites" have their terms that doesn't allow this kind of behavior. We have the freedom of talking and do almost everything as a community because we are not under any "laws" or "directives". Five: A pole is necessary because most of the users see this post and won't do anything to express their opinion, but I assure you that they are thinking about it too. Thanks. Jaggo 80 (talk • contribs) 15:05, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

This discussion doesn't even matter, and here's why: If a fork didn't happen, everything would stay the same. If a fork did happen, everything would still stay the same.

The Wikia version would remain in either event. The only difference would be that if a fork happened, there would be a very minimal loss of traffic for the Wikia version, which would recover in a matter of weeks/a few months (this wouldn't even be a blip on Wikia's radar given the traffic generated by all their other Wikis). This would of course coincide with a steady decline in the Curse version. This has been demonstrated in the past on numerous occasions. The Curse version would inherently be doomed to be a tiny shadow of the Wikia version in terms of number of editors, amount of traffic, and eventually even in amount of content.

This whole discussion boils down to the fact that certain people feel they're entitled to have total control over the look, feel and policy of this site. Guess what: If you wanted that you should've hosted this site yourself. Of course that wouldn't be possible for a project of this size, which is why you have to accept the policies, ads, skins, and everything else which Wikia has the right to change on the fly and of course as corporation has the right to sustain itself with and make money from. The free hosting is what you bought into, and therefore Wikia's decisions are what you're stuck with if you're interested in being a part of a site that won't be essentially dead within 6 months. Frankly, this whole threatening to leave thing... the average user doesn't care and to be honest it comes off as bit of a temper tantrum when a child doesn't get what they want.

I know it's hard to hear but the reality is that there really isn't a choice to discuss. This Wikia version will ALWAYS be the largest, most active, most popular and therefore better Yu-Gi-Oh wiki on the web. If people really want to make an off-shoot site that's doomed to fail, that's their time to waste. Better off not even involving non-contributors with a poll because the average user isn't even invested enough to care. They just occasionally want to look up a card or two. And this site will always be higher when they type that card's name into a search engine. Hopefully my post doesn't get deleted as I am speaking simply as an average, occasional user.

To sum up my long post: The average user doesn't even care, do what you want because it won't make any difference anyway. Randomtempaccountname (talk • contribs) 16:47, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

OK, let's address these points individually.

Both myself, and Curse believe it is 100% possible to have Konami on board, and still have editorial independence.

About blocking sites, it's not that I don't care, it's that a website cannot be placed in a position where it's hosting location is a factor because of people at work, or at school using the site, and finding it blocked. It's all down to the software, and usually the default website block filter that the company behind the software uses. As for my "answering" another user, if you looked carefully, you will notice I said previous employer. My current job has no ability for me to access the internet at all. The website moving for me changes nothing on that front for me personally. I gain nothing from the site move whatsoever.

You may not see it, but I have personally seen many a comment against this Wikia, just for being "unofficial".

And there would be no "laws" or "directives" with another host. Things would remain as-is.

I'd much rather hear opinions, than just a blanket answer with no background.

A Curse site doomed to a tiny shadow of what the Wikia site would be? Wowpedia is arguably the better site of the two (between itself and WoWWiki) in terms of content. A larger editor base does not a better website make.

The policies of Wikia have changed a lot since 2005, when the website was first launched. We had Monobook by default, and we had no ads. I think a better user experience can be provided. I also challenge your notion that the website would be dead within six months

If I didn't think people cared, I would never have voiced this proposal. Also, I find your "temper tantrum" comment to be highly offensive.

The size of the Wikia's userbase has never been up for debate, but you're making the classic mistake of thinking more users automatically means it would be better than a new site with a different host with smaller traffic numbers and userbase. Wowpedia really puts your case to rest on that front--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 23:04, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

I ask you this: What's the point of having superior content if a far smaller amount of people are going to see it? Cheesedude (talk • contribs) 00:19, November 22, 2012 (UTC)

Now I'm starting to think about the time that people will waste just for looking at the same page in two different sites just to confirm if they have the same information (because, after the fork, some users will stay editing the Wikia, and others will start editing only the Curse, and there will be different information where shouldn't have to).--Missign0 (talk • contribs) 17:59, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

I think that's a good point. I wouldn't be surprised if a large percentage of the Curse version's traffic would just simply be, for example, seeing if there are any additional tips for a card. Having to go between two sites is not beneficial to the user. It would be better for the user for all data to be in one location. Based on examples of other forked sites, it's pretty obvious that one location can't be a Curse version. Let's face it: forking is only in the best interests of editors.

My example of card tips also makes me wonder what would happen when say, a new and big card came out. I'd be willing to bet the two sites would be essentially stealing tips from each other, along with bits of trivia, various card arts, etc, etc, etc. because there is absolutely no stopping that from happening. It might go beyond "big" cards, and carry on to just about everything. This makes me think, not only would a Curse version be doomed to fail but it's existance would also be outright redundant/pointless. Randomtempaccountname (talk • contribs) 18:15, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

A question on polls: do you use the old-style wiki polls here? It's the style that's often used for new admin discussions and so on. There's a space for people to say "for", "against" or "neutral", but also room to say why and to sign your opinion. That makes it easier to look at the full picture, and understand the background to the votes. It also allows for people changing their mind as the discussion evolves, which I think is important. There's an example here, and an example from Wikipedia here. I'd definitely recommend it for this.

Jaggo 80: I'd definitely agree that any company we partner with should not have control over content. That was a really important point in EQ2i and Planetside 2 getting official status, we had to be sure that Sony Online Entertainment understood that they couldn't decide what was on the wiki, and that there might be criticism of them on the site. Any conversations Wikia has with other companies, including Komani, will have to include those points. What the companies do get is contact with some of their biggest and most dedicated fans. And what the community gets is things like beta codes, game developers visting their chat, and blogs on the wiki directly from SOE.

Randomtempaccountname: I think it's fair to say that there would be damage to this wiki if there were a fork. As well as the potential of losing good editors, there would likely be a drop in traffic. I agree that the wiki could recover from that drop, but we don't know how well or how fast that might happen. The best way to avoid that drop is, of course, for the fork not to happen. But even if TwoTailedFox copies the wiki without community agreement, the drop can be avoided by you and others here deciding to stay on the Wikia version. It's a community that makes a wiki, so it's you who decide if the real core of the wiki, the people, stay on this wiki. - sannse (help forum | blog) 18:45, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

<moved from within my comment - sannse>

In any pursuits, the editing team on the Wiki would have full control of the content. That will not change.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 23:04, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

So then tell me this. What if Curse is wrong and to be affiliated, Konami would demand some form of control over the wiki's content? What happens then? We go through with it and let them? Or do we back out of the affiliation? If it's the former, I want no part of this and I couldn't even guarantee my moving to the new wiki. Don't tell me "I don't see it being it an issue" or "its not likely". This is a what-if scenario. What if it is an issue? Cheesedude (talk • contribs) 00:19, November 22, 2012 (UTC)

<end of moved text>

That's the important point. It would be a "fork" of people and not so much content. You can get active editors to subscribe to the idea, but the average users that provide the bulk of the traffic are a whole seperate story. It would be a monumental task to not only inform them of the new site but to have content that's so superior to everything else they'll want to walk away from Wikia and never turn back. Is it really worth it for the sake of cosmetics and uncertain support? --Eps01 (talk • contribs) 19:08, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

I think we can use the old way here, it probably would work best. Not sure where to put it, at the top of the page (Optimal) or somewhere in the middle? ---Dark Ace SP (Talk) 21:55, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

The top would make sure people saw it, and would leave the space below for any longer comments anyone wanted to leave. I'd say that's probably better than further down where it might get lost -- sannse (help forum | blog) 23:35, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

Several Things

Several things

1. The main issue I have with the Wikia representative's (is his name Sannse?) post, is the fact that they don't want a forked wiki advertising the fork on the old site. I see this as very selfish. If Wikia truly respects a wiki's right to move, then it's only fair that said wiki should be allowed to inform its users that they have moved. 2. If this wiki were to move, and were to get recognition from Konami, could we not ask Konami to provide a link on their site to the Curse wiki, just like they do for their own strategy site and coverage page? That would probably help to mitigate the loss of viewers. Not entirely, of course, but nothing's perfect. 3. I personally think all wikis should be ad-free, no question, without having to resort to something like this. I think it violates the idea of a wiki to have ads, and if Wikia is going to force its wikis to have ads, then they should all do something about it: move, petition, etc., until Wikia is forced to make all its wikis ad-free. 50.51.16.46 (talk) 19:15, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

1) I respect Wikia's right to control what they host. 2) That is also something we could be looking to get, similar to Blizzard's links to WoWpedia on it's Armory site. 3) Curse also share that view, in that they recognise that Wikis are primarily a source of information, and a poor target for revenue generation.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 23:04, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

You must be new here; if you had looked at her profile, you would have seen that "he" is actually a "she." Anyways, this is not necessarily selfish, as she is not demanding or forcing us to abandon this idea of forking; she's offering potential ways to resolve this crisis (for the interest of Wikia that she represents, of course) and offering us reasons to not move.

What I want to know from Sannse is, how would she go about achieving recognition from Konami for us (I realize you are not in charge of this; rather Eric Moro and George Jones are, and I would appreciate if you could bring one or both of them into this discussion)? --UltimateKuriboh (talk • contribs) 19:33, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

You are sort of right about my being new here (I use the wiki a lot for info, but barely if ever edit), and I apologize for calling "her" a "him." Also, I was not saying her whole post was selfish (in fact, I thought the post as whole was very constructive), only the fact that Wikia will not allow forked wikis to inform users of the fork where it would make the most sense for them to do so: on the original version of the wiki. We really have quite the dilemma here. If this wiki wants to provide the best experience for its readers and editors, then it seems they would have to move to Curse. But in doing so, they lose a large portion of these readers and editors, because Wikia will not close the old wiki. To me, there are 2 possible ideal solutions:

1. Wikia removes the default skin, the search thing, and all the other things that we would be moving to Curse to resolve.

2. We move to Curse, and Wikia takes down this wiki. That avoids many of the problems that moving without taking this wiki down would cause, such as splitting the community, and new users finding this wiki before the real one. 50.51.16.46 (talk) 19:52, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

Wikia has absolutely no obligation to close the Wiki down. After all, we'd be the ones moving away from them. Why would they help us do that? What's 'better' for the userbase is completely subjective. Some people, like myself, don't see the benefits to moving to Curse Networks as outweighing the loss. This roadblock is to be expected and what we have to deal with if we choose to move to Curse.--YamiWheeler (talk • contribs) 19:59, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

Curse say they plan on keeping ads to a minimum, not removing them outright. WoWpedia have less ads than us, but not massively less. I'd imagine this site would have the same volume of ads as them if it was to be hosted on Curse.

If all wikis should be ad-free, how would they pay for things like hosting? Advertising is Wikia's main income source. They wouldn't be able to afford to put all their sites up, not to mention pay their workers, without ads. Wikipedia can get by without ads because they get a lot of donations. But a non-profit encyclopedia on all branches of human knowledge is bound to attract more benefactors than popular culture fansites, hosted by a for profit company. Wikia do allow some wikis to go ad free for, iirc, $20 US, a month, but this site is too big to avail of that. -- Deltaneos (talk) 22:43, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

Revenue would be generated through the non-wiki portions of their site complex. Curse also has things like Curse Premium that provide it with revenue.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 23:04, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

Personally, a site like curse would be a bit easier on those of us with less than perfect computers. the sheer volume of noisy video adds has often caused issues with my flash plugin. So, if curse means less/ quiet adds, it will defintiely be a perk. Also, yugioh players care more about the quality of info them most other gamers, after all, 2 words in a ruling or card effect can drastically change a game, as opposed to pokemon or some video game wiki. So, if we can get info directly from konami, that would be very helpful. --Deathpyre (talk • contribs) 19:39, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

That is something that we would be very much looking to have.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 23:04, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

I actually like the Wikia skin and have grown accustomed to it over time. The Monobook skin is really dull. If that's what it'll look like on Curse Networks, I can't imagine it attracting a wider audience. This isn't Wikipedia, this is a Yu-Gi-Oh! Wiki. I personally don't think there's any need to move, in fact, I think it'd be detrimental in the long-term for this Wiki if we moved. We'd be competing with ourselves for web traffic. We've already established ourselves on Wikia, everyone knows that this is "the Yu-Gi-Oh! Wiki." That mentality isn't going to disappear easily. Some people are easily turned away by change, too. Ultimately, disregarding the functionality issues, which are only a problem for a very small percentage of the userbase, the skin can be changed or simply adapted to and the ads can be blocked if they become that big of an issue. We stand to lose much more than we gain and we will be playing catch-up with ourselves for months, maybe years, all for things that aren't massive issues to the userbase.--YamiWheeler (talk • contribs) 19:48, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

The skin cannot be adapted to where it removes a large portion of screen space from use. And ads can only be turned off by registered users to the site, the problem would persist for unregistered users. As for your taste for the skin, I can't argue with it, but I will say that, from an aesthetics point of view, the card articles look better in Monobook. We would use Vector as the Skin initially, but I can see the CSS being customised over time to something else if the Vector look doesn't appeal.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 23:04, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

Also, and sorry if this was asked already, but what kind of "Konami endorsement" would Curse be able to bring us?--YamiWheeler (talk • contribs) 19:54, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

Recognition as an official fan site, as well as news, events, and card information direct from them.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 23:04, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

50.51.16.46: I think the best comparison is something like: Mars respects your right to eat Hershey bars. But that doesn't mean they are going to add an advert for Hersheys to every Mars bar ;) You could call that "selfish", or just... normal.

I definitely don't think there is something intrinsically non-wiki about being ad supported. Wikipedia is a non-profit, but that's just one wiki (albeit the biggest). I'd say most wikis now are financed by ads - it's a good way of making wiki hosting a viable business, while keeping them free for those using them. By the way, you are editing here without an account - do you know that most ads are removed if you log in?

UltimateKuriboh: Basically, by talking to them :) Eric and George meet with various people, talk about what Wikia is and what we do, and then work out where we can work together. There will be variations every time of course, but that's the basics.

Deathpyre: you shouldn't get any ads here with auto-playing sound. If you do, please can you send us the details, and we'll investigate. You also shouldn't be seeing many ads if you are logged in. I think it's just the ones on the main page at the moment, all the article ones should be hidden. Are you seeing something different? YamiWheeler mentioned blocking the ads... I believe there are plug-ins for most browsers that do this (we ask that wikis don't block ads, but what you do for yourself on your own computer is your business of course :)

One other thing I'd like to say is: it's true that we have not said we are 100% sure we will build a partnership with Konami. That's because I'm being sure to be honest and upfront with you, and mention the challenges as well as the possibilities. I'm not going to make any promises I'm not certain I can keep. I think thats best for us and for this community. -- sannse (help forum | blog) 23:31, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

I hope no one thought it was 100%, that would be kinda unintelligent of them, but we do want someone to try now that it's been brought up and exposed to everyone's minds. ---Dark Ace SP (Talk) 00:14, November 22, 2012 (UTC)

I for one would prefer to pursue this with Wikia before trying a move. The biggest reason to move is to get affiliation right? If there's chance we can fulfill that goal without moving the whole thing, why not try it here first? Cheesedude (talk • contribs) 00:19, November 22, 2012 (UTC)

That's also something I posted further up on this page as well Cheesedude. -Dark Ace SP (Talk) 00:23, November 22, 2012 (UTC)

Dark Ace SP, we are definitely going to try :) George is going to be talking to Konami next week (a very early stages talk of course, I'm not expecting to hear anything exciting beyond "we talked" at this stage) and I've also heard that our CEO is going to be visiting Japan early next year, and will meet with Yu-Gi-Oh people while he's there (now this bit I'm a little confused about, he said "the Japanese owner, not Konami "... so that's Shueisha? Well, he knows who to talk to, even if I don't ;). Actually, we should probably start a new forum thread on this, especially to talk about what you would want from a partnership. I'll be back in the office on Monday, and will post then -- sannse (help forum | blog) 05:08, November 24, 2012 (UTC)

As far as I know from a few google searches, Konami owns rights to the card game, while Shueisha owns Shonen Jump. Kazuki Takahashi still has the copyright for the actual designs and the original manga was published in Jump. So it makes sense Shueisha would be better to ask in some form as well, seeing as we use manga pages and such here as well. ---Dark Ace SP (Talk) 20:21, November 24, 2012 (UTC)

Coming from the perspective of a user of the wiki, I there should only be one authoritative yugioh wiki. Actually, I think I may have picked the wrong battle here. I really shouldn't be arguing for Wikia to let this wiki leave a notice, I should be arguing for Wikia to take down this wiki. Here's how I will phrase this: you say you respect this wiki's right to move. But, moving and forking are 2 different things. If you force them to fork by leaving this version of the wiki up, you really aren't respecting their right to move, because they wouldn't be moving, they would be forking. But, since I realize that this is directly counter to the interests of Wikia, I wanted to take the middle ground and argue for the more reasonable option: that if Wikia won't take this wiki down, the very least they could do is let this wiki leave a notice, so that people know they aren't at the real yugioh wiki, only the ghost-town wiki that was left behind when they moved. I also shouldn't have used the term advertisement. It's more like if a store changes location, they leave a sign telling people their new address, so people looking for them don't get lost.

I have to confess, I was using Wikipedia as my basis for that statement. I only use 2 wikis on a regular basis: Wikipedia, and this one. Rereading my post, I admit it looks a little (ok a lot) unreasonable. I also did not know that getting an account would remove most ads. 50.51.49.93 (talk) 23:47, November 22, 2012 (UTC)

If you look at my first comment, what I said was "We absolutely respect your right to fork". We don't take wikis down after a fork for several reasons, the most important being that we know they can and do revive. A fork is not necessarily going to result in a "ghost-town" and arguing which is the "real" wiki is pretty futile :) -- sannse (help forum | blog) 05:08, November 24, 2012 (UTC)

Dont move the page.

I said no dude, I already memorize this webpage and its awesome the way it is. Im fear that if you move the page to anywhere else that are fans from different game boards will attack us, specially fans from Magic The Gathering Trading card game. I'm telling you, dont move it. If we dont succeed to fit in the network you proposed the consequences could be bad. I'm happy to have a that doesn't mix with other websites. Its peaceful and calm. --69.155.118.192 (talk) 23:36, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

I can picture that scenario if we were sending a child to a different school. But I can't really see that being an issue here. You're suggesting that users from other communities hosted by Curse would troll us if we moved to Curse? Wikia has a Magic The Gathering wiki and I can't think of any times when users from that wiki have trolled here. -- Deltaneos (talk) 01:15, November 22, 2012 (UTC)

the Important thing is quality of information. Wikia is important because of it's well organized section detailing rulings info and card errata. If curse networks gets the players better ruling info, then we should move. --Deathpyre (talk • contribs) 01:47, November 22, 2012 (UTC)

All of the rulings we have are from Konami in some way, some of them are pure official rulings released on Konami's site, and others are from Konami based FAQs or ruling emails to Konami judges. The only big thing recognition would do is give us more credibility and possibly more info on upcoming cards, but rulings would probably be something as well. ---Dark Ace SP (Talk) 18:43, November 22, 2012 (UTC)

Poll added

Added a poll to this topic. ---Dark Ace SP (Talk) 00:22, November 22, 2012 (UTC)

Are we sure those are the options we want to provide? It's best we get them labelled correctly before people start filling them in. The first two options given say "move", rather than "fork". That distinction is an important factor in how people would decide where they stand. Also we can't expect everyone to wade through the 100,000 byte discussion before commenting in the poll. We can however expect them to read the introduction before the poll, so the most important points should be in those sections. I don't think they are at this moment in time. Most importantly it doesn't explain the nature of the fork. -- Deltaneos (talk) 00:59, November 22, 2012 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, it actually does mention that the Wikia copy would stay intact. Although I think more details of the consequences of this should be covered. -- Deltaneos (talk) 01:07, November 22, 2012 (UTC)

Fox added in those reasons, I just added the poll after the reasons to fork or not to fork, so maybe you should add in more detail. ---Dark Ace SP (Talk) 15:59, November 22, 2012 (UTC)

Okay, it looks better now with your update. -- Deltaneos (talk) 19:18, November 22, 2012 (UTC)

Hurp De Durp

Reposting this:

Shueisha and Konami will slam the Wikia with Non-Disclosure Agreements and contracts. The Wikia would be utterly gutted. Japanese companies are notoriously secretive and extremely draconian. They plan releases of information almost to down to a tee, and the Wikia would a chaotic element that would have to be tamed, maimed and mutilated to be refit to their wants and desires.

Even Bushiroad, a very well respected company by its player base, runs very much on a ""we decide where and when things get learned, and barely a second beforehand." style of control.

Also, the Database exists. TwoTailedFox, you're basically screwing yourself and cutting off your own damn leg, for some asinine obsession with essentially hearing people go: "Gee Whilkers, I sure am glad the Wiki is official! "

This is an extremely stupid idea, if you chase the Questing Beast of Official Seal of Approval.

NeoArkadia (talk • contribs) 02:09, November 22, 2012 (UTC)

Noted.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 02:33, November 22, 2012 (UTC)

Just realize you'll be destroying years of work, work that I personally respect, even if it's flawed. No matter what Curse has promised you, Konami is a Japanese comapny. Japanese companies run under a far more alien set of rules than Blizzard. NeoArkadia (talk • contribs) 02:45, November 22, 2012 (UTC)

Fox, I cannot believe you could dismiss something like that with a mere "noted". What makes you think Konami won't react this way besides "Curse says they won't". What does Curse know about dealing with a Japanese company that likes to control their products? What makes you think that this is not a valid concern. Cheesedude (talk • contribs) 06:41, November 22, 2012 (UTC)

My apologies, that wasn't intended to be a rebuttal or dismissal to NeoArkadia, I just had nothing further to add to what he said. rest assured, I read everything he said, and took it on board.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 06:38, November 23, 2012 (UTC)

Hey if he wants to go tilt at windmills, who am I to stop him? NeoArkadia (talk • contribs) 06:52, November 22, 2012 (UTC)

"the Wikia would a chaotic element that would have to be tamed, maimed and mutilated to be refit to their wants and desires" < I just want to reassure that this won't happen as a result of the conversations Wikia is having. We would not agree to any partnership or other arrangement unless it left the community with the autonomy it needs to create and run the wiki -- sannse (help forum | blog) 05:08, November 24, 2012 (UTC)

If contact with Konami is made and they don't like what they see, wouldn't they be within their rights to demand we take down content if they want us to? Would fair use really cover everything? Cheesedude (talk • contribs) 10:26, November 24, 2012 (UTC)

On the text side: Facts can't be copyrighted, so as long as you are writing original content, there's no issue with that. Of course, it also can't be libelous or otherwise illegal, but that's not the sort of thing you are writing here anyway. The images are more complicated. "Fair use" is a US thing (although some other countries have something similar) and it's actually a defense to copyright complaints rather than a right of some sort. If someone wanted to complain about a copyright violation, they would send us a DMCA takedown notice. We would then remove the image(s) from the wiki, and then you would have the opportunity to send a counter-notice to say you disagree with the takedown. When we got the counter-notice, we'd replace the images - and then it would be a matter between you and the person claiming copyright. It's at that point where your defense could be "it was fair-use"

So that's the complicated legal side of things. The more important question is whether that's likely to happen. I would say there is no chance that Konami is not aware of this wiki, or at least the existence of fan sites about Yu-Gi-Oh. And there's no sign that they are unhappy with fans writing about them, and illustrating those articles. Most companies are excited to see fans who love a topic enough to spend time building a site about it, and I doubt Konami is different in that. We were talking about the possibility of them being picky with the content of an official or partner site, but that's different. So overall, anything's possible, but I'm not worried about a sudden flood of takedown notices -- sannse (help forum | blog) 02:21, November 26, 2012 (UTC)

Can I just point out, Bushiroad are still very much a tiny company in comparison to the likes of Konami, and therefore leaks are more likely to deal damage to the company's much lower profits. Most of their sales are in Japan only anyway, and while they've released a large number of card games, the only one to see release here is likely Vanguard, as their other games would have huge licensing issues due to being connected to a wealth of different anime, which are all published by different companies overseas. Tazer Silverscar (talk • contribs) 14:51, November 22, 2012 (UTC)

It's not a matter of profits, necessarily. As Ark says, Japanese companies are secretive and draconian. If you dare to leak any of their stuff or post anything they disapprove of, so long as TwoTailedFox goes through with this plan, they will more than likely smash you with cease and desist at the very least. As for Vanguard, you're behind the times, it has been released in America and Europe. Bushiroad's relative situation does not change the fact that Konami is likely exactly the same with regards to leaks.

With regards to TwoTailedFox. You need to give the people proof about the validity of what Curse is promising you or we can't believe you. They're promising a lot, especially @official recognition without any interference from Konami. As we say on NAC, proof or we're not believing. You're asking a lot from wiki users without much in the way of proof that what you're saying is an actuality. --Storymasterb (talk • contribs) 15:17, November 22, 2012 (UTC)

What I was saying is not that Cardfight Vanguard hasn't been released here - I know a few players, and have seen the decks on sale - it's that their other card games haven't. Their only foreign income is exclusively from Vanguard. Tazer Silverscar (talk • contribs) 17:07, November 28, 2012 (UTC)

Anyone complaining about the skin can just switch to MonoBook, which also takes care of the ads & loading time. Not necessary to switch sites when it's likely to be more trouble than it's worth.Swackman (talk • contribs) 03:19, November 22, 2012 (UTC)

I also disagree with this move. Ok, there's a bit to gain, but there's too much to lose! Personally, I don't see the point in this so why do it? The Wiki is fine as it is, so why change it? Power Up! (talk • contribs) 07:48, November 23, 2012 (UTC)

I'm against it

Just reading this article alone, we'll be losing more than what we'd be gaining, and even the things that we would be gaining are trivial, if best. I'm sure there's a better reason for the move that I'm not seeing, but insofar as I'm concerned, the wiki doesn't need to move. --火星 WagesWar 20:37, November 23, 2012 (UTC)

How long is right?

How long should the poll be up and the notice be on the main page? It's important people get a chance to have their way of course, but it seems there should be an end point too.

And on another subject - did I miss any questions? I tried to answer as much as possible, and to add in any information that seemed useful, but if you have anything to ask or if I missed something above, please let me know -- sannse (help forum | blog) 02:25, November 26, 2012 (UTC)

Decision

After reading the replies contained within this thread, it is very clear that there is zero appetite among users or administrators to change the status quo, Wikia themselves have also provided compelling reasons to not fork (in addition to them opening preliminary talks with Konami themselves). Subsequently, in light of that fact, I have decided that I will not be forking this Wikia.

If a new thread could be created to keep us informed on Wikia's situation with Konami, it would be very helpful.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 16:44, November 26, 2012 (UTC)

That's really good to hear, thank you TwoTailedFox.

I've started a thread at Forum:Partnerships discussion. I won't necessarily have much to update on quickly, I don't know yet how long this is likely to take. So I've started the page with a question on what people would like most out of a relationship with Konami or another Yu-Gi-Oh company, and I'll also update on that page when I hear more -- sannse (help forum | blog) 18:31, November 26, 2012 (UTC)

[1] --Golden Key (talk • contribs) 17:01, November 26, 2012 (UTC)

That's lame. --94.64.72.64 (talk) 22:57, November 26, 2012 (UTC)

If it is best for the players (and we'll be able to get info directly from konami) then so be it. Also, what will we do about zexal wiki? That seems to be a more pressing issue.--Deathpyre (talk • contribs) 03:47, November 27, 2012 (UTC)

Oops! sorry for the removals, I'm not quite sure how I did that - I think I must have been on a diff and not the actual article when I hit the edit button >_<

Anyway, on the Zexal wiki, the first step is to ask for the license to be honored. That is, for any pages copied from here to have attribution. Then, if you want to take it further, you can write to us and we'll see how we can help. Sean is the guy that usually deals with these issues, but I'll keep in touch with him to see how it's going -- sannse (help forum | blog) 17:54, November 27, 2012 (UTC)

I have some major concerns over at the ZEXAL Wiki (which I have sent an email regarding); The vast majority of the content there has been copied verbatim (either in part, or in whole), and there is no appetite from the people there to fix it, and they have been dragging their heels since it was first mentioned.--TwoTailedFox (My Talk Page) 19:32, November 27, 2012 (UTC)

The whole wiki is pointless. I would understand its existence if they expanded certain things or did things differently, but as of now its just a straight copy/paste of our content. I'd like to see it resolved simply because it makes no sense its even there. Cheesedude (talk • contribs) 01:51, November 28, 2012 (UTC)

I add my agree with them, it's just a whole copy and paste, AKA Clone Wikia. That arrogant Admins should smashing his their foreheads on the wall to understand what it actually mean and see what they had done. --iFredCat 02:06, November 28, 2012 (UTC)

The admin of that wiki is like 13 or something. ---Dark Ace SP (Talk) 03:07, November 28, 2012 (UTC)

On the bright side, it seems quite difficult to locate. I can't even find a link to the place.--YamiWheeler (talk • contribs) 17:30, November 28, 2012 (UTC)

Me too. The only way I could access it was to go to TTF's talk page and click on that guy's username then he'll obviously have a link to the wikia. I don't think the founder of that wiki even understands what he's gotten himself into. What he's done is practically plagiarism. Neos01 (talk • contribs) 17:33, November 28, 2012 (UTC)

No, what he's done goes beyond plagiarism. As long as he refuses to abide by the terms of CC-BY-SA, it's copyright infringement. 「ディノ奴千？！」^{? · ☎ Dinoguy1000} 17:50, November 28, 2012 (UTC)

If this discussion is going to continue, a new topic should be made. That wikia's existence is unrelated to the original purpose of this topic, and we don't need to keep bumping this. --Golden Key (talk • contribs) 18:20, November 28, 2012 (UTC)

[[2]] New topic has been created, courtesy of Dark ace sp. --Deathpyre (talk • contribs) 01:07, November 29, 2012 (UTC)