Minecraft Wiki:Moving from Fandom

This page serves to conclude the discussion which will decide where the Minecraft Wiki will fork to. This discussion will remain open until August 14, 2023.

Overview
A few weeks ago, we started a discussion about whether to fork the Minecraft wiki and which host to go with. The result was a clear consensus that we needed to fork. However, a lot has happened in the meantime and we believe more discussion is warranted. We've received a significant amount of outside coverage from YouTubers and even media articles, which was largely unexpected. We also increased our presence on social media platforms in an effort to expand our outreach with the community. As a result, we got in contact with many people who are very experienced with independent wiki hosting and forking; in particular we received an additional hosting offer from Weird Gloop, the company that hosts the RuneScape Wikis.

We believe that it would be inappropriate to disregard the help and expertise as well as this additional hosting offer that we've received, so we are holding this second discussion to decide which host the Minecraft Wiki will fork to. This is a very important decision for the future of the wiki and needs to be made carefully. Please note that the previous discussion did not go to waste, as it has shown that the support for the fork has been truly abundant and overwhelming. We believe that we have the support of our community and other communities behind us, which is what will allow the fork to succeed.

Please see the first message in this community portal discussion for a detailed list of arguments for why this fork is happening.

Options
There are four hosting options that are being considered.


 * wiki.gg is a wiki farm host run by Freedom Games, a game publisher formed by former Curse/Gamepedia and later Fandom executives and staff, and is hosting gaming wikis such as the Official Terraria Wiki.
 * Bulbagarden hosts multiple wikis such as Bulbapedia and NintendoWiki.
 * ABXY hosts several gaming wikis including Inkipedia (Splatoon), StrategyWiki and Zelda Wiki.
 * RuneScape Wiki hosts itself, the OSRS Wiki, and the RS Classic Wiki.

ABXY, Bulba, and RuneScape Wiki are "semi-independent" hosts, meaning they provide much greater freedom to the wiki with certain aspects such as skin customisation, while a separate entity manages backend tasks such as hosting and finances.

See Minecraft Wiki:Wiki host comparison for a detailed comparison between the various hosts. It's also encouraged to visit wikis hosted by the four host options as linked above, 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.


 * Important notes
 * ABXY, Bulbapedia, and RuneScape Wiki allow us to have any skin and visual appearance, with full customization - they do not have a single visual layout. As such, the layout seen on either of the example wikis are not reflective of what a forked Minecraft Wiki would look like.
 * All proposed hosts use MediaWiki as the wiki software.
 * Bulbapedia have offered to host Minecraft wiki separate from Bulbapedia, and as such it would not be part of Bulbagarden. This would be a similar arrangement as they currently have with Nintendo Wiki and F-Zero wiki for example.
 * We are in possession of the  domain, if either ABXY, Bulba, or RuneScape Wiki were to be the chosen host, said domain would be where the wiki would be located.

Any suggestions to be hosted by any host not already considered an option will be refused, this is to prevent the discussion being delayed due to a possible new host, a situation that has already occurred.
 * Further host suggestions
 * Miraheze is not being considered due to it proving itself to be an unstable platform for wikis, as just recently there was a very serious scare of it shutting down and forcing all of its wikis to move elsewhere.
 * WikiTide and Telepedia are not being considered either as they would be unable to host our wiki.
 * Fully independent (the Minecraft Wiki hosting itself completely) is not being considered due to it currently being unrealistic, we do not have the specific people necessary to make this option happen.

Before discussing
Before deciding which host you prefer, we recommend reading the host comparison page, arguments given by other responders, and the arguments given for each host under this section. We also recommend participants join our Discord server for updates.

The final decision will be made purely based on the strength of arguments.

This discussion will stay open for two weeks, meaning it will be closed on August 14, 2023.

For additional comments that do not directly express an argument, such as clarification questions, please use the section or join our Discord server. These would also be the appropriate locations to give a statement on the fork on behalf of a language wiki.

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. According to a Senior Community Manager at Fandom, language wikis that do not fork will be allowed to point their interwikis towards the forked English wiki.

Below are the main discussion sections. Arguments for each host are presented, they exist to persuade and to outline factors of the hosts that cannot be outlined in a neutral point of view on the host comparison page. You must write your responses in the discussion section below the argument for the host you wish to give an opinion on.''

Argument for
ABXY provides all of the key features the Minecraft Wiki would want from a host, that being a very small amount of ads (just one at the top and bottom of the screen), anonymous editing, full skin control, incredibly free extension control, a mobile skin etc. This is to show that ABXY is not lacking in any important departments.

It is important to note that the status of certain factors have changed since the last vote, for example: ABXY saw criticism due to its lack of cookie notice and how logged in users still saw ads, both of these concerns have been remedied, as a sufficient cookie notice has been implemented and logged in users will not see ads by the time the Minecraft Wiki has forked. It has also been expressed by ABXY that it would be unlikely for the amount of ads on the Minecraft Wiki to need to increase, meaning no in article ads would be implemented.

ABXY’s differentiating factor is its history and the large amount of independent wikis it hosts. It has been running for a decade and a half with the sole purpose of hosting independent wikis and is currently hosting eleven wikis, covering a wide variety of games. ABXY would be a secure and safe home for the Minecraft Wiki.

Argument against
ABXY does not currently have global CDN, which may negatively affect the loading times of the wiki. It also would not allow the use of the widgets extension, meaning they would need to be converted into other extensions.

Discussion
Put responses relating to ABXY as a host in this section.
 * They have experience in wiki hosting, for sure. The only real disadvantage I can think of is that they do not have widgets, but I've heard converting our templates isn't really hard. I like that they allow any skin and we could even install multiple ones. If the ad amounts won't be increased and logged-in users don't have them, it's even better. I don't like ads on websites, so having fewer would be nice. Overall the best option to me, as both a reader and editor. I greatly value being independent, just look at the wikis, no ABXY branding to be seen. Gugalcrom123 (talk) 19:49, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

I personally the move to ABXY. I have been in contact with multiple communuties from forked wikis that have only praised the host. For me, the main avantage over WeirdGloop/RuneScape, the other main option, is the fact basically no technology needs to be changed upon forking. -MetalManiacMc, French Minecraft Wiki Administrator 19:48, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

ABXY was my previous favorite option in the semi-independent sector, but the lack of a global CDN compared to RuneScape (or even wiki.gg) is a deterrent that I'd like to point out as a non-English user. If there is an opportunity to give a higher quality of service to readers and editors throughout the world, why would we miss that out? — BabylonAS 19:54, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
 * That's something I was worried about but, I tested in Europe the delay is barely noticable. And thanks to the decrease in ads, it actually loads faster than Fandom. -MetalManiacMc, French Minecraft Wiki Administrator 23:30, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Argument for
Bulbapedia is a large wiki that has existed for over 18 years, making it the oldest and longest running host available to us. It also has experience hosting non-Pokémon related sites and wikis such as the NintendoWiki. This longevity and experience with hosting is what the Minecraft Wiki needs from its host. Bulbagarden is also very lenient with which extensions it allows; all extensions currently used by the Minecraft Wiki would be allowed to be used, meaning no time would need to be spent converting widgets into extensions, or finding other alternatives to extensions that may not be allowed under other hosts.

Currently, Bulbagarden is at a near zero risk of being bought out by Fandom, which is a real fear for some other hosts, mainly wiki.gg. This is because Fandom has tried to buy out Bulbagarden multiple times in the past, each time these offers have been declined. Therefore, while Archaic (the current head of Bulbagarden) is the head of Bulbagarden, the Minecraft Wiki would have zero worry of being forced to return to Fandom.

Bulbagarden are also incredibly serious operators that will give us invaluable advice about limiting liability.

Argument against
Bulbapedia does not allow anonymous editing, while the decrease in vandalism due to this is welcome, vandalism is not difficult to deal with. The activity increase provided by anonymous editing, as it lowers the barrier of entry for editors, is very valuable to us.

Discussion
Put responses relating to Bulba as a host in this section.
 * Good second option after ABXY. They do offer widgets as a bonus, which is nice. They have many ads, but they're disabled by logging in so it's not an issue, at least to me. As independent, if not more, than ABXY. I'm not too sure about the reported frequent downtimes, though. Gugalcrom123 (talk) 19:49, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Argument for
In terms of tech infra, RuneScape Wiki is the fastest and most reliable. They are the most transparent about infrastructure, funding, and business operations. They have the most mature global caching and CDN based on Cloudflare, guaranteeing fast access worldwide. They document their choice for cloud VM, the reason behind the choice, and the testings they do to keep it performant while economic in great detail. Their system admins, who are hired full-time, can provide support with both wiki customization and server. They also have experience setting up the type of corporate structure that will prove useful to the Minecraft Wiki.

They currently only have one ad, and it's the least obstructive among all (it's below the fold, i.e. you have to scroll for it). For editors, there are no ads. If you're in the EU, there are no ads, because of that, cookie banners are not needed. They keep their books open, proving their financial stability. If no more revenue is generated from today, they have enough funds to keep the site up for at least 6 months, but they have space not yet used to increase services and funding.

The RuneScape Wiki has had great success beating Fandom's SEO, being the most successful forked wiki off of fandom, and are greatly familiar with the process we are going through. Their help would be invaluable to us if we wish to succeed in the SEO battle against Fandom.

Argument against
The RuneScape Wiki is the strictest with which extensions it would allow, meaning multiple extensions currently used by the Minecraft Wiki would need to be replaced.

Discussion
Put responses relating to the RuneScape Wiki as a host in this section.

I find RuneScape Wiki to be a very obvious choice for a host. As the "argument for" says, their expertise and knowledge in a large amount of factors (SEO, setting up a legal entity, etc.) will be immensely invaluable to us. If we choose RuneScape Wiki, I think beating Fandom's in the SEO battle in a relatively good amount of time is very possible. Why is that? RSW's fork was very successful, they beat Fandom in the SEO battle, they gained knowledge from that fork that they didn't even possess when it was happening. With their help, I truly believe we can have a fork as successful as theirs.

As for other factors, like the stuff laid out on the host comparison page, RSW has every single thing we'd want: global CDN, anon editing, allowing language wikis, allowing a custom domain, complete control over the skin, etc etc. One very important thing to note is the almost non-existent ads. One ad is placed below the fold (meaning you have to scroll to even see it), this ad isn't shown to mobile users, and is not shown in the EU. It isn't shown in the EU, because that means that no cookie notice is required, meaning the Minecraft Wiki would not have a cookie notice and it would not be a concern.

The one single negative, is that they're quite strict with what extensions are allowed. However they clearly communicate why they're not allowed, and all extensions that are not allowed can be replaced, and RSW will be the ones doing the bulk of the work to replace them. So I barely consider this a negative.

Overall, I think the choice is clear. I greatly support the Minecraft Wiki being hosted by the RuneScape Wiki. -   Harristic   |  Talk |  Contributions  18:37, 31 July 2023 (UTC)


 * . Out of semi-independent options, RuneScape Wiki is the way to go.
 * As a person not from the European Union, I'd still say that a cookie notice (and the ability to choose cookies) would still be a good thing to have.
 * With Widgets not being an option with RSW (or ABXY for that matter), I'd suggest starting testing replacements for widgets if they're already available on Fandom (but not implement them right away, as this way both Fandom and RSW/ABXY versions of MCW would use the same technology, probably impacting SEO). However, the single greatest offender on the extensions front is Cargo, used for crafting recipes and the like on some language versions of MCW. The English wiki doesn't use Cargo, while the language wikis won't be forked right away, meaning that before those would convert to the RSW-approved altenative that is Semantic MediaWiki, we could perhaps make it running here and come up with designs and ideas that might be used later by other language wikis. — BabylonAS 19:09, 31 July 2023 (UTC)


 * I'm all in for good SEO, but 1/4 of our important extensions would need to be disabled. Also, they only host RuneScape wikis currently, which I do not like as it does not show that they have experience maintaining external wikis. Multiple skins would help to customise the experience. I do not like the crippled skin they have on the RS wikis. And no widgets either. My third choice, I do not prefer it but it's much better than wiki.gg. Gugalcrom123 (talk) 19:49, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Argument for
While wiki.gg may have been launched very recently—in March 2022—the employees have had experiences with wikis years prior to wiki.gg. Also, wiki.gg hosts a large amount of former Gamepedia wikis, though it also includes some wikis for games they publish, wikis for their partners and wikis from Miraheze. There are currently more than 200 wikis, notable ones being Terraria Wiki and ARK Wiki. There are also two Minecraft related wikis - Aether Wiki and Minecraft Discontinued Features Wiki.

When it comes to benefits, wiki.gg only shows ads for games their parent company (Freedom Games) publishes or game studios they are partnered with (have wikis on wiki.gg, e.g. Re-Logic's Terraria). Due to this ad model, there is literally never a concern about "bad ads", which is something to worry about with all other hosts. Currently, there are three places - header, footer and right sidebar. Furthermore, it allows anonymous editing, there is a customization control, nearly free extension control (they allow the majority of extensions), have good loading times and stability.

And while wiki.gg has no dedicated mobile skin (MinervaNeue), it uses highly customizable Vector 2010 skin, which bears resemblance to the Hydra skin we've used back on Gamepedia with similar structure. wiki.gg wikis have shown me the true power of Vector 2010 and how you can make amazing mobile interfaces without the need for a mobile skin.

Other notable things to mention are a very gentle onboarding experience, a theme toggler extension, great community support, and much more freedom than Fandom provides.

Argument against
As wiki.gg is a wiki farm it would provides less freedom to the Minecraft Wiki in terms of control than all other hosts would. Under wiki.gg, the Minecraft Wiki would be located at the  domain, meaning leaving the platform would be incredibly difficult as we'd have to start from scratch in terms of the SEO battle. Additionally, since Gamepedia was sold to Fandom, there are worries that wiki.gg could be bought by Fandom in a similar manner.

Discussion
Put responses relating to wiki.gg as a host in this section.

I find it hard to see any significant positives to wiki.gg that make it worth supporting over other options, especially considering it is a wiki farm. We'd be needlessly limiting ourselves, slapping a brand on our wiki, and making it much harder for ourselves if we ever chose to leave the site due us being forced to use the  domain. When comparatively with any of the other options we are granted more freedom, have no branding on our wiki, and it'd be easy to transition to another non wiki farm host if we wanted to because we'd have a custom domain that we own, that being. -   Harristic   |  Talk |  Contributions  18:56, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm not comfortable with it. Worst choice to me. Not only could they get acquired by fandom, but even if they don't, something could happen, but we won't be allowed to fork. I personally don't like the idea of only customising a skin using CSS. Having multiple skins available could help with editor customisation choices. The ads aren't very nice either (ABXY and RS Wiki have fewer), they're uninteresting to me, and there's this wiki.gg header that could also become mustard yellow and pink, stuck to the left and showing ads one day. Gugalcrom123 (talk) 19:49, 31 July 2023 (UTC)


 * My experiences with wiki.gg are limited to Terraria Wiki only, and they're not as extensive to objectively support or discourage wiki.gg as the hosting option. As I've learned on Discord, Terraria Wiki didn't have a choice of multiple alternative hosts like we have, it was Re-Logic's decision first of all, and I think that wiki's community agreed so long as it meant getting off Fandom. I've only voted wiki.gg as rank 1 in a later comment in the original vote simply because I somehow wanted to have one single option instead of the umbrella "wiki.gg, ABXY or any other decent hoster", and while I've only had symbolic experience with wiki.gg, with other hosts I've had none, precluding from any objective opinion back then. But now, looking back, I can understand why many editors are preferring other options than wiki.gg. — BabylonAS 19:34, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

My main concern with wiki.gg is still around their business model of only getting revenue from sales of their own games. The ads for these games don't directly contribute to revenue aside from creating more exposure for these games, and they don't get revenue from the few 3rd-party ads that they show. While there's incentive in increasing wiki traffic to increase visibility and click-throughs, this relies on constantly having new games and new users to drive revenue, as no matter how many ads a user sees they will only create revenue once for each game purchase they make. – Sonicwave talk  20:15, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Additional comments
''This section is for additional discussion separate from the main discussion about deciding the wiki's host. See also the previous discussion on the community portal.''


 * [...] Telepedia are not being considered either as they would be unable to host our wiki., just following up on this, as the one who runs Telepedia — what was the rationale for assuming that Telepedia would be 'unable to host' Minecraft Wiki? --  Original Authority   [talk] 18:29, 31 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Some of the "arguments for and against" paragraphs in the host descriptions seem biased to me. For example, I don't think anyone here is competent to gauge the likelihood that Fandom or some other company might try to purchase the host. I also have no idea what "tech infra" in the Runsescape Wiki "for" arguments might be, and wonder if it wasn't reaching for something to praise. There are a few other examples of what I mean. I think these paragraphs should be limited to observable facts, with speculations relegated to the Discussion sections where the author can attempt to persuade us. But I hesitate to remove what I see as bias without concurrence from others. — Auldrick (talk &middot; contribs) 19:30, 31 July 2023 (UTC)


 * The only argument that estimates a likelihood that a host is bought is Bulba, and there is a clear argument for why that estimation is made, so it is justified. The only other example is in the argument against wiki.gg, that says people are worried about it getting bought. This is also true, people are in fact very worried, the most worried out of any host.


 * You could say it’s biased, I imagine it comes across that way since they exist to persuade and are written in opinionated manners, but everything said is factual or backed up by facts. Also if your argument about the tech infra thing is that you just don’t know what it is, that’s not a claim to say it’s biased. -   Harristic   |  Talk |  Contributions  20:02, 31 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Idk how to add comments, so feel free to move this comment around if its wrong. Note this isnt meant to be a reply to any above comments. Anyway, I like the idea of it joining Bulba, but it should be a branch so that they dont have to rebrand, yknow? also Sandboxels wiki moved to wiki.gg and the old wiki is still available to edit just for fun, so i think we should do that. -Finnodile. #DemoteHydro


 * Why can't we just stay here? I'm worried I won't be able to find this wiki again once it has been moved. Slimy (talk) 23:51, 31 July 2023 (UTC)