Crossover between WoWWiki and Wowpedia | Fandom

Pcj·5/22/2019 in WoWWiki general

Crossover between WoWWiki and Wowpedia

*blows the dust off account*

Taking this discussion from userspace and speaking as a Wowpedia admin here. I'm also the wiki manager for Wowpedia and spoke briefly to Sitb about coordinating.

Frankly, I feel that it is pretty obvious that as far as content Wowpedia is now vastly more developed and if one wiki should be shut down it will need to be WoWWiki. Just getting that out of the way and trying to speak objectively there. Trying to get the content on WoWWiki up to date would just be an utterly monumental task. And moving Wowpedia as a separate wiki back to the Fandom platform would similarly be folly.

That said, there may be some older data, mainly pictures, from vanilla WoW that were later replaced/deleted that are now irretrievable on Wowpedia that we now want back (for WoW Classic mode) and I might expect WoWWiki could be beneficial in that respect.

I also had the idea that WoWWiki could be re-tooled to focus more on fan-developed content. Certainly Fandom's community tools would be a more conducive experience to that goal.

Finally, I don't think we should need to feel any pressure from Fandom/Gamepedia to merge/close one wiki. But I do believe WoWWiki's days ought to be numbered. Splitting the community isn't great, especially when one wiki is fairly well maintained for current content and the other... well...isn't.

(edited by Pcj)

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Fandyllic·5/1/2020

Mira Laime wrote:

Given recent events, I can't even guarantee that we'd be able to dig through the data in a timely manner.

This data isn't urgent. If the request can be put in the queue, that would help. However, posing the Catch-22 scenario where we need to act on analysis that we don't have before that analysis can be done is not helpful.

Mira Laime wrote:
Is anyone here NOT okay with me locking editing on this wiki putting the Crossover banner up next week?
It would prevent more anonymous edits here, would hopefully funnel some of this wiki's traffic to Wowpedia, boosting the community there, and it would signal to our SEO team that this is really happening and it's in Fandom's best interest to check if we're at risk of dropping in rankings because some particularly good bits of content are on the now-archived wiki.
The existing content wouldn't go anywhere. We'd just have to move any further conversation to Gamepedia, because forums and walls would be locked as well.

I'm fine with the lock down, but I can't guarantee I will be responsive on Gamepedia, since I only login rarely and I'm not that motivated to discuss things on their primitive discussions setup (even though I did that for many years).

(edited by Fandyllic)

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Ddcorkum·5/2/2020

This looks like it might be my last post on WoWWiki then. Thank you to everyone who took the time to participate in this discussion during the last 12 months. To those who remain with us on Wowpedia: welcome. To those who part ways, I wish you good luck.

Fandyllic, you are still one of Wowpedia's most significant lifetime contributors because of your pre-fork contributions. From time to time I come across your name in page histories as I'm working on something. So for you in particular, thank you.

DDC (talk) 00:41, May 2, 2020 (UTC)

(edited by Ddcorkum)

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TessaVarzi·5/2/2020

Mira Laime wrote:
Is anyone here NOT okay with me locking editing on this wiki putting the Crossover banner up next week?

Do what you want. I stopped caring as this discussion and the vote that was started has made it clear a takeover was inevitable.

Should Fandyllic choose to revoke my Patroller permissions, that's fine by me. TessaVarzi 00:54, May 2, 2020 (UTC)

(edited by TessaVarzi)

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Ddcorkum·5/2/2020

TessaVarzi wrote:
I'm gonna be blunt about this and say that i will not support a crossover/merge [...]
If however a crossover/merge does occur, i will not be sticking around as i'm convinced that will be a colossal disaster.
walks out of the room

(23 May 2019)

I have made a very strong effort to almost "mediate" this conversation as a random nobody user amongst giants with tens of thousands of edits and different priviledge levels on different sites. I hope people recognize I'm honestly trying to be helpful and constructive.

I do not feel you are bringing the same attitude of constructiveness to this discussion.

(edited by Ddcorkum)

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Your efforts are certainly appreciated Ddcorkum. You've been doing a lot of leg-work and asking the right questions to help make this transition go smoothly, while remaining positive and civil throughout the process. I'm thankful that the occasional pessimistic attitudes of others don't affect your resolve.

It has been made clear more than once that any WoWWiki editor is welcome on Wowpedia, whether they choose to accept that invitation or not. It is unfortunate (and probably inevitable) that a scant minority will refuse to accept this as a consolidation of fan communities benefiting the overall Warcraft fan-base, and instead will treat it like a battle to be won.
- Sitb ^{(Message wall / Talk page)}

(edited by Sitb)

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Fandyllic·5/2/2020

I just want to clarify things for people who have not been around for the history of WoWWiki... WoWWiki is in the state it is in now largely because of actions by Wikia/FANDOM, so it shouldn't be surprising that many WoWWiki users are skeptical of that party urging them in any direction. Like TessaVarzi, I believe it is a fait accompli. I don't think it is fair to criticize people for not being all for this future move or not enthusiastic. Asking people for their genuine opinions and then disparaging them for giving them is not constructive either.

(edited by Fandyllic)

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Celess22·5/3/2020

Right

(edited by Celess22)

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Mira Laime·5/11/2020

I won't blame anyone for being suspicious of this move, since it's what Fandom supports, and we have pushed agendas in the past that were not in the very best interest of our communities - though I do think the overall community benefits of merging are substantial and pretty clear no matter how you look at it.

So, in the absence of any alternative plan, I'll follow through and put the archive banner up tomorrow. As I've said before, this would not remove any content or change the wiki in any way - except that it prevents new edits and posts here and incentivizes readers and potential editors to go to Gamepedia instead.

(edited by Mira Laime)

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Fandyllic·5/11/2020

Sounds good. I guess this is the last thing I'll post. Gamepedia not having any good forum features kind of sucks, though. Also, I've been having lots of problems logging into Gamepedia, but I don't find the motivation to figure it out.

So will the lockdown also lock WoWWiki Discussions?

(edited by Fandyllic)

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Mira Laime·5/12/2020

It will, unfortunately. Its closure is linked to the archiving banner. I have posted a last post there and created an announcement to notify users who may have missed this discussion. They should see the banner anyway, but it's pretty small on Discussions and could be missed there otherwise.

If there is something I forgot, you can message me on my Wall on Community Central!

(edited by Mira Laime)