User:ManyOursOfFun/sandbox/summary of forking discussions

This community portal topic serves to educate voters on the three other hosting options available for the Minecraft Wiki, the risk of forking, and how those risks can possibly be alleviated. You are strongly encouraged to read the first message in this community portal topic as it provides a list of reasons for why a fork is being discussed and voted upon.

The Minecraft Wiki has four options for hosting:
 * 1) Stay at Fandom, a wiki farm
 * 2) Fork to wiki.gg, a wiki farm
 * 3) Fork and be hosted by Bulbapedia, a semi-independent host
 * 4) Fork and be hosted by ABXY, a semi-independent host

The main positives for wiki.gg include:
 * Wiki.gg
 * Better skin control
 * Anonymous editing being enabled
 * A lower amount of ads than Fandom (one at the top and bottom of pages and in the right sidebar)
 * Ads being disabled for logged in users

The main negatives for wiki.gg include:
 * Complete lack of notifications
 * Wiki communities under wiki.gg not being independent due to its nature as a wiki farm
 * Being limited to Vector 2010 for skins
 * Not having an official responsive skin for mobile

The main positives for Bulbapedia include:
 * Bulbapedia
 * Complete skin control
 * Wiki communities under Bulbapedia being semi-independent
 * Ads being disabled for logged in users

The main negatives for Bulbapedia include:
 * Anonymous editing being disabled
 * A large amount of ads (in both left and right sidebars, floating video, floating ad banner at the bottom, and in-article ads) for non-logged in users (the vast majority of readers)
 * The wiki community having partial legal responsibility for the wiki

The main positives for ABXY include:
 * ABXY
 * Complete skin control
 * Anonymous editing being enabled
 * A far lower amount of ads than Fandom (one at the top and bottom of pages)
 * Wiki communities under ABXY being semi-independent

The main negatives for ABXY include:
 * Ads being enabled for logged in users
 * Lack of access to widgets (however, workarounds can be implemented so that sprite templates are still available)
 * Lacks proper cookie notice banner

You are encouraged to look through User:MarkusRost/fork and this Google spreadsheet, as they provide even further comparisons between the hosting options available to us.

We also encourage you 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
 * Zelda Wiki - ABXY

Regardless of what forking host may be chosen, one major issue arises when forking. Fandom's forking policy states that the original Fandom wiki must stay intact and separate from the forked wiki. The forked wiki cannot be linked to on the Fandom wiki, and a notice alerting readers of the fork will only be allowed to be displayed on the Fandom wiki for two weeks, after that time period it will be removed.

In addition to any possible splitting within the community, SEO is commonly cited to be a major issue. Fandom currently has superior SEO out of the other forking options, meaning that the Fandom wiki will outrank the forked wiki in search results for a significant period of time. Additionally, Google will consider the forked wiki a "duplicate" of the Fandom wiki, meaning it will be hidden from search results. Major amounts of edits across large amounts of articles will need to occur for the forked wiki to no longer be considered a duplicate by Google. The forked wiki will be advertised through content creators and online social spaces such as Discord and Reddit in order to raise awareness for the fork.

It is requested that all editors vote 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. The vote you give should be representative of your own opinion on the matter, and not the general opinion of an entire language wiki.