Are plans for SmashWiki publicly available, or are they only visible to staff or whatever? I ask because I'm wondering what sorts of actions should I be taking in order to operate most effectively with the current plans; should I just start a discussion on SmashWiki about migration, or what?
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#2
Membership and Affiliate Requests / Re: Alliance Requests
April 09, 2010, 12:48:25 AM
Hello. My name is Shadowcrest, both here and at SmashWiki (http://super-smash-bros.wikia.com/wiki/User:Shadowcrest), where I am a bureaucrat. If I make any newb mistakes in this post, I preemptively apologize- my experience with forums is basically nonexistant. 
A few weeks ago, I was contacted by Jioruji Derako (I don't know if that name means anything to anyone here- I only know he is an admin at Bulbapedia, I have no idea to what extent he is involved at NIWA), who said that there could perhaps be a way for SmashWiki to be rehosted independently of Wikia, which I'd readily support, though I'm afraid my terminology on hosting or whatever might be off a bit. (Bit of background: Jioruji and I are both admins at GuildWiki [http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page], which was sold out to Wikia despite the questionable legality of its sale, so I think I am safe in saying for him also that neither of us are fans of Wikia.) I got on Skype to discuss with some people that I believe were from NIWA about what could happen regarding an independent Smash Bros. wiki, though I don't recall the names of any users there, but no relevant discussion occurred and after that night it was never mentioned to me again, so I assumed the idea had fallen through and wasn't worth pursuing any further.
However, tonight it was brought to my attention by a user of WikiTroid(?) (for reasons I'll detail below) that NIWA is planning on setting up an independent Smash Bros. wiki regardless of whether or not SmashWiki(a) would be willing to support this. As a supporter of a wiki for the Smash series and since I am not-quite-so-supportive of Wikia, I would like to theoretically offer my support in such an endeavor. Many of the long-standing users of SmashWiki have a generally negative view of Wikia, since they too were also bought out (though under different circumstances), and I believe that with effort I could get many contributors to redirect their efforts to a non-Wikia wiki. However, if I were to try and assist in attempting a mass migration of sorts... what reasons would I be able to offer the users who are opposed or even on the fence about moving to persuade them it's a good idea? There are inconveniences such as requiring going through Wikia to request a CheckUser, not being able to remove bureaucrat status from other bureaucrats, not being able to grant bot status without Wikia's approval, and of course the principle of the wiki being truly run by its contributors, but I am wary that this isn't going to convince anyone to take on all the duplication of effort. Are there any other things I would be able to offer in favor of separation that I have failed to take note of? *update, see below
However, there is one issue I've had thus far with NIWA wikis: plagiarism. (Forgive me if I am lumping all NIWA wikis together unfairly.) This ties in particularly well with the duplication of effort bit. The person who pointed out to me that NIWA intended to make their own Smash wiki also pointed out more than one instance of copyright violation, either by copy+paste or paraphrasing Wikia's content. Since as far as I know all NIWA wikis are GFDL and Wikia is (now) CC-BY-SA, this is of course illegal. What level of involvement does NIWA have in their wikis? (I suppose what I am really trying to say is, "Did NIWA know that these wikis were engaging in copyright infringement and do nothing about it?") The 2 wikis I noticed this on both seemed to have taken up "official" stances against plagiarism, though I am not sure to what extent this is enforced. I suppose the main point of this paragraph is that I am seeking reassurance that NIWA does not condone in any way copyright infringement, no matter how much they oppose Wikia, and that the Smash Bros. NIWA wiki (as my primary area of interest with NIWA) will not be copying (directly or indirectly) content from SmashWiki.
I suppose I'm done with this particular wall-of-text for now.
Regards,
Shadowcrest
*Edit: After posting this message, I found this post by Archaic (http://www.niwanetwork.org/forums/index.php?topic=98.0), which is a pretty good list of reasons. Anyone else still have others to add?
A few weeks ago, I was contacted by Jioruji Derako (I don't know if that name means anything to anyone here- I only know he is an admin at Bulbapedia, I have no idea to what extent he is involved at NIWA), who said that there could perhaps be a way for SmashWiki to be rehosted independently of Wikia, which I'd readily support, though I'm afraid my terminology on hosting or whatever might be off a bit. (Bit of background: Jioruji and I are both admins at GuildWiki [http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page], which was sold out to Wikia despite the questionable legality of its sale, so I think I am safe in saying for him also that neither of us are fans of Wikia.) I got on Skype to discuss with some people that I believe were from NIWA about what could happen regarding an independent Smash Bros. wiki, though I don't recall the names of any users there, but no relevant discussion occurred and after that night it was never mentioned to me again, so I assumed the idea had fallen through and wasn't worth pursuing any further.
However, tonight it was brought to my attention by a user of WikiTroid(?) (for reasons I'll detail below) that NIWA is planning on setting up an independent Smash Bros. wiki regardless of whether or not SmashWiki(a) would be willing to support this. As a supporter of a wiki for the Smash series and since I am not-quite-so-supportive of Wikia, I would like to theoretically offer my support in such an endeavor. Many of the long-standing users of SmashWiki have a generally negative view of Wikia, since they too were also bought out (though under different circumstances), and I believe that with effort I could get many contributors to redirect their efforts to a non-Wikia wiki. However, if I were to try and assist in attempting a mass migration of sorts... what reasons would I be able to offer the users who are opposed or even on the fence about moving to persuade them it's a good idea? There are inconveniences such as requiring going through Wikia to request a CheckUser, not being able to remove bureaucrat status from other bureaucrats, not being able to grant bot status without Wikia's approval, and of course the principle of the wiki being truly run by its contributors, but I am wary that this isn't going to convince anyone to take on all the duplication of effort. Are there any other things I would be able to offer in favor of separation that I have failed to take note of? *update, see below
However, there is one issue I've had thus far with NIWA wikis: plagiarism. (Forgive me if I am lumping all NIWA wikis together unfairly.) This ties in particularly well with the duplication of effort bit. The person who pointed out to me that NIWA intended to make their own Smash wiki also pointed out more than one instance of copyright violation, either by copy+paste or paraphrasing Wikia's content. Since as far as I know all NIWA wikis are GFDL and Wikia is (now) CC-BY-SA, this is of course illegal. What level of involvement does NIWA have in their wikis? (I suppose what I am really trying to say is, "Did NIWA know that these wikis were engaging in copyright infringement and do nothing about it?") The 2 wikis I noticed this on both seemed to have taken up "official" stances against plagiarism, though I am not sure to what extent this is enforced. I suppose the main point of this paragraph is that I am seeking reassurance that NIWA does not condone in any way copyright infringement, no matter how much they oppose Wikia, and that the Smash Bros. NIWA wiki (as my primary area of interest with NIWA) will not be copying (directly or indirectly) content from SmashWiki.
I suppose I'm done with this particular wall-of-text for now.
Regards,
Shadowcrest
*Edit: After posting this message, I found this post by Archaic (http://www.niwanetwork.org/forums/index.php?topic=98.0), which is a pretty good list of reasons. Anyone else still have others to add?
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