Forum:Illogicopedia... now Wikia-free!

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As you may know by now, Illogicopedia is moving to a new home, right here on the wonderful Carlb's servers. I have to say things have gone pretty smoothly so far, but expect there to be one or two hitches with the transition - for example, some edits are missing but we'll deal with that as we go along. Almost all edits are copied across. For the ones that aren't, don't worry - we can port them over from the old wiki on request.

Now for some things you might notice.

• The main thing is that Illogicopedia is now at Illogicopedia.com as well as .org. Update any Wikia bookmarks as appropriate.
• The adverts, Wikia spotlights and New Monaco skin are gone. Woohoo! No more bureaucratic overlords.
• IllogiGames, IllogiBooks, IllogiNews etc. are now namespaces in their own right. This is pretty cool beans, eh? The games still residing in the mainspace such as Invasion of Illogiland will be moved over in due course.
• Interwiki babel links. This means you can also see some articles in Dutch or French, should they exist on Logimalpedie or Irratiopedia.

What you need to do, foo

Seppster now has one less reason to get annoyed. Hooray for that!

• You need to create a new account. For the moment, no user login data is retained from the Wikia Illogicopedia. Your contributions and edits will, however, be retained.
• You may decide to use this opportunity to create a different name on the new wiki, but we recommend you keep the same one for the sake of record keeping and account stealing: if you want to change your name, ask an administrator at illogicopedia.org (yes, admins can now perform name changes, another benefit of the move).
• You might need to adjust your sig settings in your preferences ({{Subst:Nosubst|User:User/sig}}), tick raw sigs box.
• You can port across your watchlist using this tutorial.

Apart from this, treat the site exactly the same as the Wikia version, everything remains the same. Have fun at our new home, and remember to notify other users of the move! -- Hindleyak  Converse • ?blog • Click here! 21:32, 7 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

org == best :D, mainly because it costs me money, but also because of the whole wikipedia link bullshit, and its linked to by everyone, so it might be better to keep it that way, than get google interested in a .com domain too. As carl said, it was just to give the wiki a home because the org wasn't pointing his way, subdomain would have been fine, but hey, im not complaining.--Silent PenguinLeave Me Alone 21:41, 7 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

What a great day for the wiki and a bad day for wikia!--Ben ^Blade 21:43, 7 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

To be honest, I doubt Wikia would care much. We're small fry - they'd rather be meddling with Uncyclopedia. Also, glad to see you back here, Ben - be assured that once we're settled in here, the Site Improvement Drive thing will go ahead as planned. -- Hindleyak  Converse • ?blog • Click here! 21:46, 7 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

Hi guys! I feel better now that I no longer have advertisements stapled to my hands and feet. --THE 22:09, 7 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

Woah this came as soon as i came back but still this leaves me free to say "wikia wankers!"--Teh Baronlolz 12:15, 8 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

Hey, Ben! I thought he had left... -- Dxpenguinman, the Penguinman ...He's e-vile! • Talk • Got An Idea? • GAMESHOW! 06:56, 9 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

However...

Something's been on my mind: new users. The wikia illogicopedia still exists. It's exactly the same as this one. New users will most likely edit THAT version, won't they? Unless they click the linky up at the top. Won't this make our site even more obscure? Not that obscurity is a bad thing. Having a small community means we don't have to deal with vandalism, rape, and other crimes that happen in bigger online communities. So yeah, now maybe we should...get rid of the old wikia illogicopedia, or redirect it here somehow? Although wikia might not let us do that. Okay, now I'm just rambling. --THE 12:17, 8 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

If we mindlessly vandalise the old version once weve got what we want then that would force wikia to give it up ,maybe? Or we could assasinate the bureaucrats? Or Just plaster links everywhere including to create new account page with a picture of mr.t saying "get yo ass over to www.illgicopedia.com you crazy foo or i'll show you ma friend pain! "--Teh Baronlolz 12:29, 8 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

I support 72-point fonts. --Asema 13:06, 8 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

Mindless vandalism... meh, we could just protect the whole site and delete all the articles. I'm sure Wikia will just close the wiki if we ask them.... maybe :) If they ban us all then yes, mass vandalism is the answer... :p -- Hindleyak  Converse • ?blog • Click here! 15:03, 8 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

Nah, just leave it open as a way to offer an alternative to the ruthlessly heavy-handed moderation style which currently tyrannizes this wiki. If here, mean ol' admins block users just for vandaU R SO GAYZ LOLOL!!!1!!!lizing hundreds of pages with personal attacks, blanking valPWNZ0RR3Zid content and flooding the wiki with slandMY TEECHER KISSED HITLER IHN TEH TOILETanity - the old wiki should be turned into the inverse, a place where your thousandth persEWE ARE ST00PIDonal attack in a day doesn't get you banned, but opped. (Heck, just +s everyone, infibanned or not.) A place where content which was featured on this site is speedily deleted, while every useless bit of rubbI HATE SPELING CLASS ITS DUMish made up in school some day makes its way onto the front page. That way, it's different enough not to be competing directly with this wiki anymore, yet it isn't a delete *.* which would just get reverted by Wikia staff. They get their ever-increasing pagecount and mark the wiki a great success, while anyone who doesn't like the new format just abandons Wikia and comes here. ;) --Carlb 16:15, 8 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

Well, I'd still rather kick Wikia in the teeth to be honest... :) -- Hindleyak  Converse • ?blog • Click here! 16:23, 8 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I say we should have wikia just shut down the old site, or maybe we should delete everything on the old one and have the main page be a link to the new domain. That way we'll avoid the confusion and strangeness of having two websites that are exactly the same. Although before we do anything like that we should probably wait until our transition is complete (meaning until the rest of the users transfer over succesfully--I still don't think Fonchy or Testicles have, to name a few). --THE 16:49, 8 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

No, I'm here. I'm just waiting for the transition malarkey to end before I can get back to editing as usual. --Testostereich 17:09, 8 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

Rebranding the old wikia?

Given the various precedent cases in which Wikia has refused to close a wiki after the community has moved elsewhere, perhaps it would be best to rebrand the old wiki with some other name and identity - something that won't be confused with Illogipedia in its new home. Renaming the old version to Vandalpedia would be accurate, in that the abandoned versions do fill with vandalism and rubbish once no one is there to clean the mess. Possibly, though, Wikia would object to the name... not because it's in any way misleading but because it's accurate; that's what abandoned Wikia in general begin to resemble -- vandalism. --Carlb 17:10, 8 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

I'd hesistate to do something like that. I'd much rather give the old one some closure than leave it out there for others to vandalize. I'm thinkin' we should maybe just get rid of all the content on the old version, except the main page which would say "illogicopedia has moved to <insert link here>". But hey, we've got some time to decide what would be best. --THE 17:14, 8 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

So what would happen to retro week? :P --Testostereich 17:19, 8 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

THE's idea sounds good, though doubtlessly wikia would revert a bot if we sent one through to redirect everything to the main page or deleting everything, i say we try howling at wikia for a week. I mean everyone, force them to place a permanent redirect, none of this artsy fartsy "pweeze" stuff. i mean really get on everyone's nose at wikia till someone gets their finger out their butt to do it. if we fail then we delete everything and put a javascript redirect in on the main page. after we have made sure we have all the pages of course, our count here is reading around 500 pages lower. Dunno if anyone else noticed that.--Silent PenguinLeave Me Alone 17:24, 8 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

@CarlB: It's an idea, and an interesting one at that. I for one would like to see what would happen at such a wiki.... unfortunately I doubt Wikia would - if memory serves I think similar ideas have been rejected in the past. Unless a) all articles are deleted or b) it is turned into an Illogic mirror, I would object to my content staying there. THE's idea is good and, since Wikia will be reluctant to close it at first, any stragglers that find Illogic via the Wikia site would still have time to find our new home. Otherwise, they'd load the page up and it'd say 'Wiki not found' and they'd be like, "wha?" -- Hindleyak  Converse • ?blog • Click here! 17:28, 8 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

@Seppy: Yep, I noticed the article count is lower. This is due to the creation of new namespaces which a bunch of the articles were automatically placed in when we imported the content here - the article count doesn't include alternate namespace pages. Any other discrepancies I would guess are also due to importing-related issues.

As for forcing Wikia, I say we don't do it yet: let people know we're moving first, but THEN give em both barrels and leave a message in their dump saying "We have left. These are the reasons. Close the site now." -- Hindleyak  Converse • ?blog • Click here! 17:32, 8 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

Many namespaces which exist here (such as IllogiNews:) don't exist as proper namespaces on the old wikia, causing their pages to be miscounted as mainspace content in the old wiki. It is possible to tell MediaWiki to count pages in any arbitrary set of namespaces (just let me know!) but the default is mainspace-only. --Carlb 17:44, 8 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

Ahh, yes, of course never thought of that, yeah, why not, lets make the wiki look better than it is :P as for the forcing, i never suggested we did it now, though i know some people are trigger happy :P. word has already reached others that we have moved, which is pritty cool :D. But why wikia wont supply a 300 redirect permanent redirect is beyond me, it would be very helpful and uses bugger all in terms of server resources, less than say the wiki it was hosting in the first place. --Silent PenguinLeave Me Alone 17:55, 8 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

Meh, in recent times we haven't really cared that much about article count. I know about 130 pages will have been knocked off this afternoon as I moved the Invasion of Illogiland pages into the IllogiGame space. Also, who are these 'others' that have heard of our move? :) -- Hindleyak  Converse • ?blog • Click here! 18:12, 8 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

I second the idea that we ask Wikia to rebrand the old site. --Nerd42 00:04, 10 Ditzimber 2008 (UTC)

Ow...

Some WHAT!? 22:46, 8 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

As long as we all stick at it we can do anything, cuz we have one of tha best wikia communitys ever!

I think we need to bother about getting this new wiki good and makeing it look cool and better before we bother with the old one. Reasons: 1.Theres stil*l work to do on this new wiki(I Think, and if there is plenty, how can i help) 2.If we make this wiki new and better, people would rather come here than to the old one, thus hopefully stopping new users from editing THE WRONG WIKI!

Also, i have a question-what would happen if a bunch of losers users 'took over' the old wiki? would it be good or bad for us?--–|TBL | 12:41, 9 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

Theoretically, if a bunch of users took over the old wiki it would probably remain open, but we don't want that to happen. Also, yeah! Damn right, we've got the best wiki community in the world, so we can achieve anything! First, though, I'm going to finish this game of marbles. -- Hindleyak  Converse • ?blog • Click here! 13:13, 9 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

Marbles taste nice with chili sauce--–|TBL | 13:16, 9 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

Oh no, I think I lost 'em! -- Hindleyak  Converse • ?blog • Click here! 16:25, 9 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

Marbles do actually contain a balanced nutritional suppliment :) What, this isnt the healthy eating website? awwww damn this happens every time. *slumps to the floor and, with some effort, eats a cheese toastie and laughs maniacally* User:Darkflame667/sig 22:08, 12 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

What happened to the site notice?

The site notice on the old site has vanished. IP users will innocently start editing the wrong wiki. --THE 21:16, 13 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

Never mind. I can see that there is a site notice, it's just in a smaller font. I'm dumb. --THE 21:17, 13 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the drones are taking over Skelepedia. -- Hindleyak  Converse • ?blog • Click here! 17:09, 14 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

On a less goofy note...

It has become clear that Wikia is gonna scramble against shutting down the old wiki. They wouldn't even let us leave that big sitenotice up at the top. Instead, we've got a barely noticeable sitenotice that tells new users that "some" of our community has decided to move, but they can edit the old version if they want. I think we need to consider whether this move is really in our best interests. If wikia wants to leave the old version of the site exactly as it was, there's not really anythign we can do. Wikia's a huge company and we're tiny. I think having two identical sites, one of which we continue to moderate and "preserve," will weaken BOTH sites. Not to mention that it sounds foolish, excessive and goofy. What if we just moved back to wikia? I'd personally rather go back to having one illogicopedia than get stuck in this bizarre state of half-existance with two sites. I think we should seriously consider going back to wikia so we don't have to deal with the ridiculousness of two identical sites, the only difference between them being some small ads in the corner. --THE 21:40, 13 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

May I draw your attention to this page. However I urge you to respond here, on this wiki (unless you want to directly address Kyle) since that's where the community is and will be staying. Note my 'heated debate' with the considerate Kyle and my suggestions for compromise. I also know that Nerd has prepared an official letter on similar terms, to be sent to Wikia whenever the fnurdle we feel like it. Also, chongotuphah! -- Hindleyak  Converse • ?blog • Click here! 22:55, 13 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for the link. I'll keep an eye on how he responds, and I'll adjust my whining accordingly. I hope wikia will listen and delete the old wiki so we won't be stuck in the bizarre situation of having two identical sites. Not that we can do anything about it now, but shouldn't we have checked if wikia would be willing to delete the old site BEFORE we went and made a second illogicopedia? --THE 23:32, 13 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

Anons will slowly erode the old site until it is unrecognizable from this one, traffic will decrease and then wikia will admit defeat and shut it down - unless they are feeling really mean and keep it open just because you ask them not to. Jезка 10:15, 14 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

Well, asking them to shut it down would be a pretty futile exercise, judging by past experience. Why do they have to be so awkward about this? I can only think it's about money rather than respecting the wishes of the community who created the content. Unfortunately, under the stupid GFDL, we have no frigging rights to our content! Awkward, just awkward. Needless to say, the wider community of Wikis must be made aware of this. -- Hindleyak  Converse • ?blog • Click here! 17:04, 14 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

True, this info needs to be brought to the attention of every wiki community that ever considered moving to Wikia - and perhaps those looking to move from Wikia really ought to know what's taking place here so that requests from authors to have their own stuff removed can be handled before those communities make any decisions. I'm still wondering if posting this whole question to consumer-complaint sites (such as ripoffreport) or sites critical of Wikipedia (there are many) would get a response with some useful suggestions.

In the meantime, the default license for new articles originating here is non-commercial (sorry Wikia!), so legally new articles created from this site can't be forked for Wikia's version without consent of the individual authors. Better late than never.

A reverse-fork strategy was tried by Wikipedia when the Spanish left to start Enciclopedia Libre at the University of Seville. We don't want that to happen to newly-created pages here, I'd hope. One also must be aware of the Achilles heel of GFDL text: scraper sites take random paragraphs of your free content, surround it with their spam and advertising, then repost it in the hope that search engine hits which belong to you go instead to spam city. Some Wikia communities are having this problem now, as (predictably) is Wikipedia itself.

Legally, anything brought here from Wikipedia (as a GFDL source) will still need to be {{GFDL}} tagged. The same is not true of our old content unless the authors of those specific pages want GFDL retained on those pages. After all, the author owns the content and can license under whatever they prefer. There is also the minor detail that plenty here is not GFDL and should not be GFDL (anything from various Uncyclopedias, for instance). Wikia really does need to remove any Uncyclopedia-originated content, its derivatives and its translations from all sites on which they run advertising or operate for commercial advantage - including their fork of Illogicopedia - unless and until consent from all of the original authors can be obtained. --Carlb 18:32, 14 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

Well, modifying the Wikipedia template to link to a license disclaimer would be simple enough, methinks. Wikia have legal rights to the content, of course, under that blasted GFDL. However, there is nothing to stop us complaining to consumer watchdogs - in fact, there is a program here in the UK called 'Watchdog' which sides with the consumer on many things. It's shown at prime time (ish) on the BBC, so an appearance on there would be the best way to get our opinions heard. They might also persuade Wikia to respect our wishes and shut down the old site completely. To the consumer watchdogs [woof]! -- Hindleyak  Converse • ?blog • Click here! 19:18, 14 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

It all makes cents sense now

The Guardian piece is one last piece of the puzzle, and the chronology all fits together:

• Wikia turns the site into an unusable mess of ads. People begin to leave. By the time The Guardian picks up the story (July 2008), the damage already has been done.
• Wikia's Alexa rank begins to tank by late-June '08 as disgruntled editors leave the site. That distant hope of becoming or remaining one of the largest 300 websites in the world quickly fades to black.
• The suits begin to realise they have a problem. Traffic to other similar sites (including non-Wikia wikis) is steady while Wikia is dropping like a rock, right out in the open where investors and advertisers can watch.
• Wikia takes its frustrations out on communities like en.uncyclopedia.org, redirecting its domain traffic in an attempt to inflate wikia.com's traffic statistics. Alexa stats show traffic counts for en.uncyclopedia.org drop from that of a top-10000 website to basically zero as Wikia appropriates that traffic for its own main domain in late-October.
• en.Uncyclopedia is pushed almost but not quite to the point of getting a backbone, packing up and leaving. As half of the non-English versions are already on co-located servers or hosted independently, the only thing Uncyclopedia is missing should they move en: is the uncyclopedia.org domain name (which one of the co-founders secretly, stupidly sold to Jimbo in July 2006).
• By late October, Wikia is widely reported to be laying off staff - about 10% (3 of its 43 paid worker bees) get the axe.^[1][2][3][4] Wikia claims to still be hiring, primarily in sales and marketing, despite the October 20, 2008 layoff announcements.
• By the end of October 2008, Jimbo Wales is no longer CEO of Wikia,^[5] although Wikia's venture capitalists issue denials that he had been sacked for cause.^[6]
• Illogicopedia, watching the situation in en.uncyclopedia and already at war with New Monaco for violations of its sovereign territories, moves off-Wikia in early November. Traffic counts to Wikia.com, still at levels just as low as they've been for the last few months, likely will not be helped - even though Illogicopedia.org on its own is barely in the top one million by traffic count and therefore unlikely to make a big difference to the huge decline in traffic on wikia.com

Wikia's problems are of their own making. Their forking the Illogicopedia isn't going to get their numbers back up if they're in the tank after the New Monaco fiasco. Wikia has alienated so many communities on so many wikis that this one is a drop in the bucket to them... yet they are getting greedy and desperate by now. If anything, the bad publicity something like this is generating is far worse than any direct effect of Illogicopedia traffic on Wikia's web stats. It's like getting a car stuck in a snowbank somewhere, but instead of getting out the shovel, let's just put the accelerator to the floor and listen to the wheels spin madly. Sure, it's only digging them in deeper when they're already stuck, but in the US business environment where any manager is only as good as the company's last three months reported earnings, this is sadly par for the course. --Carlb 19:38, 14 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

Sorry

I haven't been getting as involved as I want to with the site move. I haven't had much computer time lately and I got some pretty bad sick over the past week. Anyway, yeah. With this whole pseudo-corporate blandness issue, it looks like it would be an extremely easy task to get Wikia off our backs. Where diplomacy would usually be considered compromising, we can easily just rephrase what we say in a more diplomatic way. And, as the illogicopedia admins, we have a right to change site policy. So, y'know, if "illogicopedia" became something like "babblepedia" (thus still adhering to the original reasons for joining wikia), and "We are not funny" became "you are advised to change every page on this site to whatever babblings satisfy your sick pleasure"...... yeah. On an interesting note, I earlier misspelled "diplomacy" as "diplomancy", which could have some pretty cool meanings. MMF!→talk←/→admin(:D) 19:03, 14 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

That's OK Metalflower, we know you're doing everything you can to save us from the wrath of Wikia's capitalist ways. A site name change may be harmful, I dunno, but on the other hand it could be useful to take the site forward. I know some people have a mental a-ssociation between the name 'Illogicopedia' and 'childish nonsense' so in that sense a name change could be a useful step in improving the site's overall image. Just some thoughts - though I am quite attached to the name 'Illogicopedia' and it would of course mean starting all over again with the publicity drives. -- Hindleyak  Converse • ?blog • Click here! 19:24, 14 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

No, what I meant was changing the old site, which is completely permissible by Wikia rules, leaving anyone to abuse it as they wish, thus detracting from their association with us! (through a slow erosion). I too am too attached to have the real site as anything other than Illogicopedia. MMF!→talk←/→admin(:D) 13:27, 17 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

Ahh, right. Then I would have no problem with that, really. In fact, Kyle has suggested it might be a good idea to change the site's name, but I'm trying to stay away from the Wikia wiki at the moment because it gives me the creeps. Too many bad memories (from, like, the last week). -- Hindleyak  Converse • ?blog • Click here! 14:00, 17 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

Hahahaha, classic, last week was a laugh, we should aggravate wikia more often :P --Silent PenguinLeave Me Alone 14:02, 17 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)