Minecraft Wiki:Community portal/Microsoft status update

Wiki status update

Microsoft no longer considers the Minecraft Wiki as official and as such requires some changes to be made on the wiki, which are described in detail below.

Back in 2011, Mojang and Curse signed an agreement that gave Curse (later Fandom) the rights to use certain trademarks and branding related to Minecraft. This agreement meant that the Minecraft Wiki in all languages would be considered the official wiki for it.

Microsoft, however, recently notified Fandom that they are terminating the agreement. Fandom's legal team attempted to discuss the matter with Microsoft and find alternatives so that the agreement could be continued, but Microsoft insisted on their position. According to that position, all fan websites they do not host are unofficial (which includes, among many others, the wiki), and therefore subject to their branding and community guidelines.

Being officially declared unofficial does not mean the wiki is no longer in good standing with Mojang or Microsoft. Other than the matters stated below, Microsoft do not require other changes to the wiki. Other opportunities for cooperation, which wouldn't involve the wiki being declared official, are being explored by Fandom, but no guarantees can be made that these efforts will produce results visible to community members.

– Fandom and the Minecraft Wiki administration team

Microsoft requires the following to be done:
 * Remove any reference to the wiki being official in every version of the wiki (which includes the international wikis).
 * Create a new wordmark. It can still say "Minecraft" but cannot be its logo. Fandom's design team is available to make a new one with Minecraft's feeling to it in collaboration with us.
 * Remove all Minecraft logos from the main page, and optionally replace them with screenshots.
 * Remove product packaging artwork and logos from the infoboxes on product pages like "Minecraft", "Minecraft Earth", "Minecraft Dungeons", etc. These can be replaced with screenshots. Artwork can be used elsewhere on the page, but not as the infobox image. It's not entirely clear why this is asked of the wiki, but Fandom thinks it's to avoid making pages look official.
 * Addition of a disclaimer to the footer mentioning it's not an official wiki. Fandom will take care of this.

As the agreement has already been terminated, these changes are to be made as soon as possible, ideally before the end of this week.

The following is a rough checklist of what needs to be done:
 * Remove all mentions of the wiki being official from pages describing the wiki.
 * Remove all Minecraft logos from the main page.
 * Remove all Minecraft logos and packaging artwork from product article infoboxes.
 * Change the wiki logo and icon to not use any Minecraft trademarks.
 * It's fine if it says "Minecraft", but this word must not be represented as the game logo. Using another font (ideally not the Minecraft font) would be necessary.
 * The grass block in particular is quite recognizable, and so the logo shouldn't look like a grass block at all, including any derivations of the Minecraft grass block or other such reproductions.
 * Logos that don't use any graphical materials from Minecraft products at all are a bonus.

The following does not need to be done:
 * It's not needed to remove product logos from other parts of associated product articles, such as galleries.
 * It's not needed to remove block or mob renders from infoboxes in corresponding articles.
 * It's not needed to remove mentions of being official from old talk page messages, old page revisions, log entries, or summaries.

For questions or clarifications regarding the above, please post on the community discussion page or the wiki discord.