Minecraft Wiki:Moving from Fandom/First discussion

This page serves to begin a discussion which will decide whether or not the English Minecraft Wiki will fork from Fandom, and if so, where it should fork to.

It is requested that all editors discuss and give opinions on this matter, as it is a drastic change for the Minecraft Wiki and will affect all editors and readers in some way or another.

Overview
The Minecraft Wiki is discussing forking to another host due to various discontents with the situation on Fandom, including the reader experience, actions taken by Fandom, and reputation of the wiki in the wider Minecraft community from being on this platform. Please see the first message in this community portal discussion for a more complete list of arguments, as well as concerns related to forking.

There are three alternative options that are being considered. One is wiki.gg, a wiki farm run by former Gamepedia staff members hosting some gaming wikis such as Terraria. There are also two semi-independent hosts: the host of Bulbapedia/Bulbagarden, and ABXY (host of several wikis including Inkipedia, StrategyWiki and Zelda Wiki). In the latter cases, a separate entity manages backend tasks including hosting and finances (e.g. negotiating with advertisers), but leaves the wiki on its own in other regards. This gives greater independence than being on a wiki farm (e.g. greater leeway to customize the wiki skin), while putting more responsibilities on community members as opposed to sharing it with the staff of a wiki farm, but not nearly as much as if the wiki were to host itself.

See Minecraft Wiki:Wiki host comparison for a detailed comparison between the various hosts. It's also encouraged to visit wikis hosted by the three host options, in order to gain a fuller sense of how advertisements are organized, as well as to get a rough idea of how the wikis function under the respective host:
 * Terraria Wiki - Wiki.gg
 * Bulbapedia - Bulbapedia
 * StrategyWiki - ABXY

Note that this discussion only applies to the English wiki. Other language wikis do not necessarily have to move with the English wiki; some have opted to remain on Fandom or fork at a later date.

Before discussing
Before participating, please read the following two pages (also linked above) to get important background information and be able to form an informed opinion:
 * Community portal#Move to a different wiki host? - the first message in this community portal topic details the reasons behind why forking the wiki is being considered
 * Host comparison page - this page details the many differences between the four hosting options available, it is essential to read if you wish to decide where you think the Minecraft Wiki should fork to

In the section below, please rank each host option from in order of preference and give your reasoning in the format shown below:
 * Rank #1 – ~

You may also rank multiple options equally or leave out options.

Both the votes and the arguments given will be factored into the final decision. The vote you give should be representative of your own opinion on the matter, and not the general opinion of an entire language wiki.

For additional comments that do not directly express a vote, such as clarification questions, please use the section.

This discussion will be closed two weeks from the discussion's start date, on July 17, 2023. If the discussion still has active participants near the end of these two weeks, the duration of the discussion will be extended by one week, closing on July 24, 2023 instead.

Discussion
''This is the main "voting" section. Both the votes and the supporting arguments will be taken into account.''


 * ABXY Bulba  Fandom  wiki.gg - I  an eventual move. No notifications in wiki.gg is an immediate blocker. Anon editing will help with wiki interaction. MetalManiacMc, French Minecraft Wiki Administrator 18:34, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
 * wiki.gg N/A  ABXY, Bulba  Fandom -  For me, the lack of notifs isn't that much of deal. Most of the messages I had received with Echo were useless, however I agree some may see it from a different POV. Bulba has more ads than Fandom. I mean, one of the biggest responses from the community was how Fandom has so many ads and I cannot imagine that we would come and say "Well, have even more ads". Additionally, we won't get anon editing and we will also take legal responsibility for actions we (as a community will do). ABXY does not have cookie notice, which is recipe for disaster. Once we would raise awareness, we would be in some legal trouble. Additionally, it lacks widgets extension, which would require even more time to perform the fork. And ads are shown to logged in too, which is not such a huge problem overall, but could be a pain point too. TreeIsLife (talk) 18:47, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I've changed my vote. One of the ads ABXY has is in-content and it is not very visible it is an ad. This one is located above infobox, pushing it down and degrading the entire user experience. I also have to remind you that registered users will be seeing ads too, which will definetely going to affect my workflow in negative way TreeIsLife (talk) 21:30, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Fandom N/A  N/A  N/A – I do not support forking simply because having two similar wikis on different platforms is disastrous, especially when the most known and visible one is out of date (Fandom if we move). For most non EN wikis the editor base is really small and one-time editors will likely edit the Fandom one. And it would bring so much work and so many issues that I don't find it worth it.  Fusion thermonucleaire (talk) 19:02, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
 * wiki.gg ABXY  Bulba  Fandom - Agreed with TreeIsLife, the ads on Bulba are excessive and the lack of the cookie notice in ABXY is concerning. Personally I'm not affected by the lack of notifications. Overall I  the move to any host other than Fandom.--Capopanzo (talk) 19:05, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
 * wiki.gg ABXY  Bulba  Fandom - I also agree with TreeIsLife, I do not like many ads on websites and also I never really use notifications so the lack of notifs doesn't affect me. PotatoMan3525463 (talk) 19:12, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
 * wiki.gg ABXY  Fandom  Bulba – wiki.gg is planning on adding notifications soon so the loss of notifications would most likely be temporary and I agree not having a cookie notice is pretty concerning. BayYouGoon (talk) 19:17, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
 * forking (preferred options: ABXY and wiki.gg, approximately on the same level) — Frankly, my vote would not fit into a strict "1 better than 2, 2 better than 3, 3 better than 4" scheme that Template:Vote mandates (and it doesn't even support less than four options that easily). I have never edited Bulbapedia and ABXY wikis. My user experience is skewed by always having my trusty ad blocker enabled (and I don't feel like disabling it just to find out how terrible ads are on Fandom or anywhere else). I already have some experience on wiki.gg as a Terraria Wiki editor, but it's nowhere as extensive as on the Minecraft Wiki, so I'm not well knowledgable about the issues that specific host has (I do happen to follow notifications on MCW, however, which are reportedly lacking on wiki.gg). But I do think that under Fandom, things have taken a turn for the worse for our wiki, and I support forking all the way for both English and Russian wikis simultaneously. If we keep sustaining the efforts to maintain our projects' state of quality and public profile, I think we could go over the inevitable split that is entirely Fandom's fault. Out of semi-independent hosts, I guess we could give ABXY a try; while lack of widget support and the cookie issue are fair concerns, I am optimistic that they could be resolved or worked around, sooner or later. Regardless, wherever the community chooses to move (or stay), I will follow. — BabylonAS 19:36, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
 * ABXY wiki.gg  Bulba  Fandom – I'd support a move away from Fandom. A lack of cookie notice is pretty concerning, but I think the positives outweigh the negatives in that case. Not having many ads on websites is also a big deal to me, so I'd support not having as many. Osfanbuff63 (talk) 19:38, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
 * ABXY Bulba  wiki.gg  Fandom - I personally greatly value the prospect of being independent, something which cannot be attained under a wiki farm such as wiki.gg. Being independent and free to completely customise and run the wiki the way we please, while not having to worry about legal issues and monetisation, seems like the best idea to me. I also understand that notifications will be implemented soon, but they will only be implemented because we are requesting them. I dislike this philosophy that wiki.gg holds, that of only implementing heavily requested and essential features when it encourages a wiki to fork to them, this happened with visual editor, and now with notifications. About ABXY's negatives, I don't think the lack of widgets will harm us, as FileURL can be replaced by TemplateStyles, and RadioButton can be replaced with TabberNeue or JS, as I understand this allows the sprite templates to still function perfectly well. For the cookie notice, it has been said that ABXY is working on implementing one, so any concerns about that will be made null soon. Overall, as long as we fork to somewhere other than Fandom, I'm going to be happy with the result, my preference is just with ABXY. -   Harristic   |  Talk  |  Contributions  19:46, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
 * ABXY wiki.gg  Fandom  Bulba - It seems like Bulba would just make things even worse, but even if not, it's very unlikely to be worth the effort. The cookie notice can probably be added reasonably soon if we just ask for it and explain that it's legally required. Lack of notifications on wiki.gg is pretty significant, even though I personally barely use them on this wiki. I definitely prefer the MediaWiki software over any other one I've seen so far. Fabian42 (talk) 20:11, 3 July 2023 (UTC)


 * wiki.gg Bulba  ABXY  Fandom – Money plays a strong factor in wikis, the storage cost isn't free and it will cost more each month when new content gets released. To avoid costs and setting up a Patreon or Discord Subscriptions, wiki.gg is the best alternative.  -- Azgoodaz (talk) 20:51, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Semi-independent hosts have deals with advertisers in the same way that wiki.gg does, advertisements will bring enough money to pay server costs no matter which host we choose. That's why this factor isn't mentioned on the host comparison page. -   Harristic   |  Talk |  Contributions  21:11, 3 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Anything Fandom - Anything but this horrible website. — Thomanski | t | c | 21:31, 3 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Somewhere Else Fandom - I do not feel like I have the know-how to decide where this wiki should move to, but I do trust my instincts in saying that this wiki should run far, far away from Fandom. Weighing the differences between the potential hosts, I cannot come up with a good conclusion on my own, but if the option is simply "fork or no fork", I choose to fork. Independence is a value I hold deeply, and if moving away from Fandom would allow more freedoms for this wiki, I will always support it. // Shock Micro // 21:50, 3 July 2023 (UTC)


 * wiki.gg ABXY  Bulba  Fandom – I vote for the eventual move, but I want to ask why Bulba was considered an option when Bulbapedia/Bulbagarden is mostly focused on Pokemon specifically and not just being a "wiki host"? Wiki.gg's worked well for the Terraria wiki, while ABXY and other NIWA-affiliated wikis have been thriving on their own, but I feel that Wiki.gg is the best because it's probably the closest to the wiki's roots of Gamepedia, and appears to allow free-er "ownership" of the wiki from the little i've gathered. Adr451 (talk) 22:10, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
 * - Bulba is under consideration because it offered to host the wiki when it forks. And since Bulba is a semi-independent host, it technically allows "freer ownership" than a wiki farm like Fandom or even wiki.gg. ManyOursOfFun (talk) 07:30, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Assuming that by "freer ownership" you mean more control over the wiki and how it functions, semi-independent hosts (ABXY, Bulba) provide much more freedom in that regard than wiki.gg does, though wiki.gg still provides more freedom than Fandom does. -   Harristic   |  Talk |  Contributions  16:41, 4 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Fandom N/A  N/A  N/A – . I don't think moving this wiki to a new website would be helpful, but it would be more destroying than you can believe. All readers of the English Minecraft Wiki are still habituate to the fandom plateform, and would always read in fandom and may not be habituate to go in the new website. Also, it would be a problem for all the fandom-foreign wikis who uses the English images, if one day the Fandom version of MCW EN is deleted. The developpers can do what they want, but I STRONGLY OPPOSE this operation. Thanks for understanding and reading my opinion. Reverse88 (talk) 22:24, 3 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Fandom N/A  N/A  N/A – I  the idea of forking the wiki because it will have a negative impact on both readers and contributors. Additionally, it will create division within the communities on both wikis, particularly affecting non-English wikis with limited active users. Even if Fandom is bad, I believe that the proposed fork is still an unfavorable solution. Ideally, a complete transition of the entire wiki, across all languages, by removing it from Fandom and redirecting it to wiki.gg would have been a better approach. Unfortunately, it appears that this option is impossible. Brandcraft06 (talk) 22:30, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
 * moving away from Fandom. I deeply regret not making an account during the Gamepedia days. Fandom is a horrible site which keeps a great distance from making contributions. SWinxy (talk) 22:59, 3 July 2023 (UTC)


 * wiki.gg ABXY  Bulba  Fandom –  Fandom is terrible, and anything else would be an upgrade. The constant ads (especially on mobile where I can't use an ad-blocker) as well as the intrusive sidebar make it very annoying to use the site. I don't edit here ever (I only have an account to have custom CSS to remove the previously mentioned sidebar) but I am a frequent reader, and the mobile performance of the site is terrible. I assume this is from the generous  amount of ads Fandom has, but I don't know for sure. From the 3 other wiki options provided, I think wiki.gg is the best because it has the most features, and the ability to do things the others can't (I'm also very partial to the Vector 2010 skin used on the website). ABXY and Bulba are both good too, anything that isn't Fandom will be a change much appreciated. Williamist0 (talk) 22:57, 3 July 2023 (UTC)


 * ABXY Bulba  wiki.gg  Fandom - Since the discussion on the community portal I've had a slight change of heart regarding ABXY vs. Bulba, where I now have a small preference for ABXY than the latter on the basis of in-content ads (although the noises are that it's unlikely this wiki will have to deal with that, given its still-present popularity). I'll take the lack of Widgets for what it is, as solutions have been proposed such as TemplateStyles and other extensions. Regardless, they're so close together that I wouldn't mind either, as, despite the mandatory ads, they give a high degree of independence. I have that less with wiki.gg. In any case I'll take those rather than staying with Fandom, per the points raised on the comportal, especially by Frisk and Violine. DarkShadowTNT (talk) 00:48, 4 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Anything Fandom - Many wiki admins sell out their community and migrate here, but I have no idea why the best-selling video game has this sort of garbage website. - Ionface (talk) 01:00, 4 July 2023 (UTC)


 * ABXY Wiki.gg  Fandom  Bulba – I  the fork because I think that there is a large opportunity to renew the perception of the Minecraft wiki. I place ABXY at the top because I believe it gives us the greatest opportunity for making the Minecraft wiki the best it can be. The biggest problem I can see with ABXY is the ad situation, which is better than Fandom, but not ideal. Given that specific ad negotiations still have to happen, I hope that if this option is chosen we as a community are able to push for no ads inside the content of the page, but I don't know if that is necessarily possible. The other negatives to ABXY seem to have workarounds or solutions, so I do not count them as negatively. The ad situation on Wiki.gg comparatively is much better, but that comes at a slight cost of customization. This certainly isn't the biggest factor, but I for one find the idea of a custom url for the wiki appealing - something that would be prevented on Wiki.gg (along with several other customization options). I value the independence of ABXY over Wiki.gg. On the other hand, Wiki.gg gives a boost to SEO that none of the other host options (except Fandom, obviously) would give. I say this from the standpoint of -as a general wiki reader- I had not heard of wither ABXY or Bulba before discussions started. The stability and prestige of Wiki.gg is not something to be scoffed at. Finally, the placement of Bulba and Fandom in my rankings are quite related. The ad situation on Bulba is worryingly similar to Fandom, and this added to the fact that Fandom's wiki would stay up and split the community makes me feel like Bulba is not an option that is worth it - whereas ABXY or Wiki.gg would be a net positive in my opinion. Fandom has a very bad reputation as a wiki host site, and I think forking gives us the needed opportunity to revitalize the wiki and make it better than it has been before. Ishbosheth (talk) 01:38, 4 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Anything else N/A  N/A  Fandom – From what I've observed, a fork is probably needed, but afaik all these options have, in a sense, ads that somehow are in content (wiki.gg has a large ad on the top of at least the main page on Terraria Wiki, ABXY has in-content ads, Bulba has excessive ads), though Fandom is fixing on some of the problems that we've mentioned before, I still, personally, suspect that these small fixes would eventually not fit our needs. The only problem for anything else is that being fully independent isn't a good choice for us as I do think most of our admins has no experience on self hosting a wiki and that do not have time or money to maintain a separate server, and if we ended up like Wikipedia who, in some people's opinion, excessively asking for funding, that's not what we want. --  Lakejason0  (Talk • Contribs) 02:31, 4 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Wiki.gg ABXY  Fandom  Bulba – There was a sense of security and stability under Gamepedia that I don't think has carried over with the migration to Fandom. After hearing that wiki.gg was created by the former management of Gamepedia, my trust for them immediately skyrocketed. I think it's not an unpopular opinion to say that Fandom does not respect their community. They've been shoving ads and pointless features in our faces since day 1. Gamepedia knew how to run a wiki farm. They kept this wiki strong for over 10 years and clearly cared a lot for the communities surrounding their wikis, and just generally had a deep connection with the communities surrounding them. And checking out wiki.gg's current wikis, this ideal still shines through. They offer the most freedom for their wikis out of the bunch, and their ads are the least intrusive of the four (ABXY has in-content ads and even ads for registered users, so that's a no for me). This is why I trust wiki.gg. Hands down, they are the only wiki farm listed here with such a deep-seated respect for their community. They get my vote and I sincerely hope they're the site this wiki goes to. -MisterSheeple (talk) 04:03, 4 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Wiki.gg ABXY  Bulba  Fandom – I am strongly in favor of forking to any other wiki platform. Fandom has been getting worse and worse lately. Fandom presents itself as more than just a wiki farm, but "not just a wiki host". Usually, with a similar trend of the company, the quality of the main activity drops, because other activities are preferred. In Fandom, this is exactly what is observed, the wiki host is becoming less and less stable, controversial innovations are being imposed, and what has been broken for a long time is not updated or deleted (for example, CursedProfile). The sea of advertising, there is an aggressive propagandistic nature of the advertising itself (for Russia). Deanonymization of age for the sake of advertising. As a result, this is no longer a wiki farm, this is an advertising platform. I vote first for wiki.gg, as I have experience of participating in the Terraria Wiki on wiki.gg (I am the administrator of the Russian-language wiki). Restricting the Vector style does not affect much, as it can be changed significantly (much worse on Fandom). Although this is a wiki farm, its main bias is, in fact, in wiki hosting. For other wiki hostings, I can't say much. Less advertising is better. Since only the English wiki is expected to be forked, I hope it succeeds and look forward to seeing both the Russian and Ukrainian wikis fork behind the English wiki. — MakandIv (кортамс|сатовск) 04:41, 4 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Wiki.gg ABXY  Bulba  N/A  -   leaving Fandom (for any better-managed and less corporate platform, really).  Fandom's actions demonstrate that it cares about profits over quality and editor freedom, to the detriment of this wiki.  It's time to go.  I'm confident that the team will find ways to mitigate the pain of migration.  Memetics (talk) 08:11, 4 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Fandom/wiki.gg/ABXY/Bulba N/A  N/A  N/A – Well, personally the reason I'm putting everything on the 1st place is that I'm not really a member here, I'm mostly an user who sometimes visits this place to read and to get info for the spanish wiki. I can't really say I support or oppose the fork, because I have my own set of concerns, but it's not really something I should even be voting on. I can give my support whatever you end up doing, though, and I hope the best for you -- Supeika  (contáctame) 14:46, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Additional comments
''This section is for additional discussion separate from the main vote. See also the previous discussion on the community portal.''

How should we organize votes for non-EN wikis that are willing to fork? – BabylonAS 05:10, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I think that should probably take place as separate votes/discussions on the respective wikis. – Sonicwave talk  05:11, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
 * And what is the best moment to start them? — BabylonAS 05:22, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Presumably whenever those wikis' admins see fit. -MisterSheeple (talk) 08:25, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
 * A fair number of languages have discussed that already. The FR admins have decided a fork won't happen in the foreseeable future there, for instance. --MetalManiacMc, French Minecraft Wiki Administrator 09:06, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

A potential option that I brought up in the above linked discussion, is the hosting by Mojang/Microsoft themselves. We don't know if that option is/will be available yet, since they first need to do some research on it before they can tell if they'll be able to provide the hosting for us. So this option does potentially exist and must not be overlooked. Maybe some people here think it is scary or not an option, but that is not true. They've definitely never said a resolute "no", it's just that they don't know anything about it yet so we shouldn't discard it as an option. It would probably help if we'd made a list of things that we'd want from them should they be able to do it for us, so they can figure out if they can meet it. Things like what we don't want and specifically do want. I'm sure that if they can get past the first barrier of research and we can share what we would expect from them, a public discussion could be formed. Just don't wipe it off the table before having tried. Jack McKalling (talk) 08:43, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
 * One of the main reasons we're leaving Fandom is because the Fandom staff uses wikis for promotional campaigns. Microsoft will do that too. I think being hosted by Microsoft is a terrible idea. --MetalManiacMc, French Minecraft Wiki Administrator 09:06, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Again, don't just discard the idea. You're only making an assumption, and this argument you're using here is a perfect example of what would be on that list of requirements from us. If these points could be gathered, we can literally ask them. Don;t speak for them, speak for yourself please. Jack McKalling (talk) 09:39, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
 * One of the big discussions seems to be how to promote the new wiki as the active version over the Fandom defunct copy that will still get all the clicks. The only way the new fork would succeed with the public is to have the "OFFICIAL!" mark, so every reader can immediately tell where to go.  Mojang need to provide the path for the wiki to achieve that status, for a move to be effective. Otherwise the Fandom wiki will continue to dominate.  Gotta work with Mojang if at all possible.  Belle pullman (talk) 10:58, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm personally not fond of the idea of delaying the fork indefinitely, which is what would have to happen if we want to consider Mojang/Microsoft a host option in this discussion. The priority is leaving Fandom, if in a year or two Mojang/Microsoft have a solid plan for hosting us, we can take that, because these other host options will allow us to migrate off of their platform if we so wish. -   Harristic   |  Talk |  Contributions  13:07, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Language variants of MCW
I'm not sure if I should create a section, but I want to adress something that I think it's important to consider before you proceed to fork.

First of all, the fork, if it happens, will generate pressure on the non-english language variants to fork, a pressure maybe not by the wili editors, but rather the Minecraft community. The whole userbase will expect non-english wikis to also fork, but some of us have our own issues that would worsen if we did fork, as we don't have a strong userbase/community.

That's my main concern, you'll generate a set of people who will complain and keep saying, "why didn't you fork" "why don't you want to do so" "why should I trust you". People doesn't really read things, they just follow a common trend, and so even if we explain it's not certain they'll understand

Let me ask you something, do you find this fair? It's not a matter of whether the community will do this, but instead a matter of why the community wouldn't do that.

A fork sure is beneficial for the reputation you can build for the community, that's possible, but you'll end up creating as well a subset of people who will be saying that we as non-EN are sided with Fandom when we're not.

My only petition, if you end up forking, is that you make sure the community understands and respects our decisions, and that they should not avoid us just because we don't follow you. I have been editing on the ES wiki for 3 years, and I'm doing everything I can to build a community, and for me at least, the fork is concerning not because it's wrong to do so, but instead because the repercussions could get bad if you don't do something to alleviate that.

I hope this message gets read, I'm not the best explaining my thoughts overall, but I did what I could because I worry a lot about ES, so, I'll repeat what I said before, I hope the best for you whatever you end up doing. -- Supeika (contáctame) 15:06, 4 July 2023 (UTC)