Minecraft Wiki
Advertisement

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.

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, 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.

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 #Discussion section below, please rank each host option from most preferred (1) to least preferred (4) and give your reasoning in the format shown below:

* {{subst:Vote|Rank #1|Rank #2|Rank #3|Rank #4}} – <reasoning> ~~~~


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 #Additional comments 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  Support 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 ABXY Fandom Bulba - 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. And also lacks widgets extension, which would require even more time to perform the fork. TreeIsLife (talk) 18:47, 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  Support 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)
  •  Support 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)

Additional comments

This section is for additional discussion separate from the main vote.

Advertisement