On the subject of Zelda Wiki no longer being independent

[eientei95]

A year ago, ZeldaWiki moved under the hosting of Gamepedia. Apparently discussions were had regarding its membership under NIWA and no-one minded as they were still "technically independent"^[1]. However I believe there are some conflictions regarding the level of independant-ness of ZeldaWiki. The owner, Jason (also goes by GoldenChaos#6532 in Discord), apparently works for Curse^[2], Gamepedia's parent company^[3]. The director/senior editor^[4], Tony is also currently being compensated by Gamepedia, one of his contract stipulations being restricted to at maximum 2 hours on the staff chat.

Given these allegations, how is it that Zelda Wiki is given a free pass, as it is "technically independent"? To me personally, the lining of the pockets of the owner and the director go against NIWA's policy of being independent.

I await any further questions or statements, preferably from Jason, Tony or the NIWA admins.


¹ See "SnorlaxMonster_1.png", attached.
² See "SnorlaxMonster_2.png", attached.
³ https://www.gamepedia.com/about "Owned and operated by Curse"
⁴ Tony's Gamepedia user profile, also on his user page.

[Cody]

To clear something up, Tony isn't being forced into a restriction on staff chat time by a contract - he's decided on his own to schedule his time out clearly, probably so that he can organize his life better. Gamepedia isn't pushing any such restrictions. Aside from switching to their shared account system which we sorted out when we merged, they haven't demanded anything from staff or changed any of our work schedules in this past year since this was last brought up - they essentially just act as server technicians. They've made some minor contributions to Wiki policy like suggesting better SEO ways for us to list some of our pages, but again, I said "suggestion" and not "restriction" or "forced" - there have been no attacks on our independence.

Also, things like the owner getting money from the site are irrelevant to NIWA I think as I don't remember NIWA having anything against site owners spending their surplus ad money however they like.

[Justin]

Listen, I personally have very mixed feelings about Zelda Wiki moving. However, it cannot be denied that Zelda Wiki helped to found this very organization (I should know; I was there on day 1 when we launched). In addition, the staff members are still in charge of the operation of the wiki, and I have spoken with Gamepedia staff since I came back from hiatus. They offer assistance when asked and will occasionally make suggestions, but they take absolutely no role in the operation of the site.

Now many of you probably understand exactly how hurt I must feel about the site being sold. I've spent nearly a decade of my life helping the site in some capacity. Despite how I feel, I still choose to support it. NIWA was a very different place 7 years ago, full of hopeful kids and young adults with big dreams. Unfortunately, time has presented new challenges that couldn't exactly be solved in the most ideal of ways. Throwing Zelda Wiki to the wayside because of this is plain unfair to the efforts of those who heartily fought to make this dream a reality, especially those who are no longer with us. I think they can certainly get a pass on this one, for whatever my opinion is worth.

As a disclaimer, I'm not a Zelda Wiki staff member anymore. I'm currently acting independently, although I am helping them again.

[Espyo]

My opinion, which as I gathered seems to be the opinion of most people on Discord, is that the entire situation is shaky, but unless something really shady happens, we have no good reason to remove Zelda Wiki from NIWA. The drama and stress involved in doing so is not worth the "just because" reasoning. There are good reasons for both sides, but until something big happens, I don't think anybody is going to flinch, really.

[Reboot]

http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2018/12/13/gamepedias-parent-company-has-been-aquired-by-fandom

"Fandom", of course, being better known under its being-phased-out name. Wikia.

[ArcticFromClosed]

My opinion, which as I gathered seems to be the opinion of most people on Discord, is that the entire situation is shaky, but unless something really shady happens, we have no good reason to remove Zelda Wiki from NIWA. The drama and stress involved in doing so is not worth the "just because" reasoning. There are good reasons for both sides, but until something big happens, I don't think anybody is going to flinch, really.

Something big? You mean like Fandom/Wikia buying out Curse? By the way, this is the same Wikia that NIWA was started to get away from. The Zelda Wiki should've been removed from NIWA a while ago, but now it is especially necessary to do so.

Source: http://community.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Brandon_Rhea/Fandom_and_Curse_Media_are_joining_forces

[Espyo]

The future is still being decided. It is entirely possible that Zelda Wiki has to return to the world of independence, in which case, they will need NIWA's help. Not being rash and removing them earlier this year might be what stopped a disaster.

[ArcticFromClosed]

The future is still being decided. It is entirely possible that Zelda Wiki has to return to the world of independence, in which case, they will need NIWA's help. Not being rash and removing them earlier this year might be what stopped a disaster.

True, though I feel temporarily moving them to the Affiliates tab would be a nice middle ground solution until they either become independent again, or fully consumed by Fandom.

[Emma]

This might be a bit controversial, but... whatever. First background. I was an administrator (under my old name -- if you know who this is referring to you can add two and two together for why it changed and I'm sure you understand then why I have not spoken up yet) at Zelda Wiki prior to the formation of NIWA. I was the originator of the idea of forming a wiki alliance. I was told my idea was the stupidest thing ever and (combined with some other unwarranted issues) I was removed as an admin within a few weeks of making this proposal. Most of the staff was against my removal, however the few who wanted it falsely put the support of others behind it and I was thrown out. I find out a few months later that all three of the individuals who told me my wiki alliance idea was stupid were working with Bulbapedia and Mario Wiki to make an actual wiki alliance. Before I came along, the wiki was dead, it had one active staff member who was severely overworked and didn't know how to code. A lot of what the wiki has now, was my doing. Much of its templates and on-wiki coding was my work. I got zero recognition for it. And everything I did was taken and used anyway. It was my idea to have a large staff that can maintain it. Before me they thought "oh, just one or two people is enough" and it barely managed to survive.

Not everyone agreed with the direction the wiki was going. The owner, Jason, consistently mismanaged the wiki. He repeatedly claimed he couldn't afford the hosting bills while he at the same time bragged to his friends on Facebook how rich the sites he owned were making him. He constantly tried to meddle with things he didn't understand and kept forcing bad changes onto the wiki. He kept giving power to make decisions on the wiki to webmasters of other websites who had no wiki experience that also did not have any understanding of how to manage a staff (ironic right?). These people he gave power to constantly meddled for their own selfish reasons and consistently set the wiki back and held back projects they were working on. He clashed with some other people there and some of them decided that they should try to buy the wiki from Jason to take it from his irresponsible hands, or create a new one if he refused to sell. This is how Zelda Dungeon Wiki came to be. Myself and Mases, the leaders of the movement to get the wiki away from Jason, decided that our attempts to buy it from him were a failure and we made our own. I worked extremely hard to get that wiki functioning and it paid off. I know think it's the best Zelda-oriented wiki out there. And it's proud of its independence.

Jason sold Zelda Wiki to Curse without the knowledge or consent of any of its staff or users at the time. He used the sale of Zelda Wiki to actually help him get employed by Curse. Curse is absolutely never going to let Zelda Wiki go, ever. Especially now after Fandom/Wikia acquired it. Wikia has been trying to acquire Zelda Wiki for years. It was its constant purchase proposals they sent Jason that motivated me to suggest the alliance in the first place. It's going to hold onto it and refuse any offers to buy it from them. If you're holding out any hopes of Zelda Wiki regaining its independence, it's never going to happen. It never was independent. It was always the tool of someone who only cared about the money that didn't care about the content or the community. Do not believe the people tho say that there isn't any outside pressure from Gamepedia. There absolutely is. Advertising concerns obviously. But also content restrictions, Things with layouts being forced upon them. And with Fandom/Wikia being in control now that will, over the next couple years, get worse. It's only a matter of time before someone at Wikia notices the navigation boxes for NIWA and does their research and finds out it's an alliance against Wikia and forces Zelda Wiki to remove it. And they will remove it without protest or notification to anyone here at NIWA. They're corporate now.

I worked at a Wikia wiki for months before I gave up. They meddled constantly. One thing they did all the time was removed features I was using that were critical to the jobs I was performing. I had to ask three times for it to be reenabled but they just kept disabling it. I was given essentially no freedom to make the layout suit the content, or be what I thought was appropriate. As the only staff member at the time, it should have been my decision. But it wasn't. They wanted their horrible layout. They wanted functional wiki pages like recentchanges to be hard to access. They wouldn't let me make shortcuts or change toolbars to be more useful for editors. I couldn't take it anymore and I gave up. Remember that it was these bad layouts that convinced so many wikis to abandon Wikia and what actually spawned Gamepedia in the first place. And now Wikia owns Curse, as well as a few wikis, like The Vault, who abandoned them in the first place because of their meddling. This is who owns Zelda Wiki now. You're fooling yourself if you think there won't be meddling.

[Cody]

Zelda Wiki is still sorting out its plans internally after learning about the Wikia move but has nothing to announce yet at this time. We'll let people know when that changes.