Forum:Migrating from FANDOM to a new host

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hello i think it is time for The Sims Wiki to consider migrating from FANDOM to a new host.

FANDOM runs an old version of the wiki software that is not updated anymore and forces extensions that you dont seem to want such as Related Videos.

FANDOM staff are not helpful, take a long time to respond, do not allow freedom for the community and only care about money.

if you move to a new host you will have freedom, you wont have to use extensions you dont want and you will have full control to do what you want with your wiki.

i am willing to donate $10 and if everybody here gives some money then this will be a success.

what do you think?LaVemNana (talk) 11:47, March 9, 2019 (UTC)

Discussion

I was hoping to try to keep discussion about this quiet for a bit, but I guess I should spill the beans...

While I am well aware of the arguments against migration (and they are still very valid and reasonable points), I was most put off by the migration of holocaust.wikia.com to holocaust.fandom.com, which pretty much did it for me.

So, I would like to unofficially officially say that The Sims Wiki is currently working on a possible migration away from Wikia onto a new wiki hosting platform. We are planning on moving to a service called Miraheze, a non-profit wiki farm that runs on donations. We at The Sims Wiki don't need donations (although we do appreciate the support); however, Miraheze certainly does. If you would like to help support the future of The Sims Wiki, the best way you can do so is to donate to Miraheze. —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 20:00, March 9, 2019 (UTC)

But Miraheze is very unstable with frequent outages and security issues. Why would you want to move your wiki there? 135.0.165.219 (talk) 19:30, March 10, 2019 (UTC)

Then do tell us about a better wiki farm if you know one. Miraheze allows for a lot of customizability and their support is better than ShoutWiki, which is why I chose them over ShoutWiki. —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 19:34, March 10, 2019 (UTC)

The holocaust wikis has been added to the wikia.org migration list. When the first pass of wikis slated for wikia.org was done, that wiki did not get picked up in the filter. That has been corrected. MisterWoodhouse (talk) 16:58, March 11, 2019 (UTC)

Hey gang! I'm Will and I'm new on the Gaming Community Team here on Fandom, coming in from Gamepedia team as a result of the Curse acquistion. Wanted to discuss what we can do to help improve the situation. Cheers. MisterWoodhouse (talk) 16:53, March 11, 2019 (UTC)

I dislike being blunt, but one thing that can be made better is if Fandom allowed communities to leave its ecosystem and supported their decisions to migrate, say by allowing wikis to be redirected, and not simply buying out companies that are hosting wikis that have left so they can be reintegrated into the ecosystem. It is these kinds of malicious business practices that make me not want to continue contributing here anymore. —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 17:21, March 11, 2019 (UTC)

I am in a pretty unique position to speak to this, having come over in the acquisition. Many of the identified Crossover games so far indicate that they wish to have the combined community reside on Gamepedia. While it's now part of the ecosystem, it's operating as normal, with community-focused improvement on the horizon. Part of what's happening with the company right now is that we're evaluating past mistakes and moving forward with this community-first focus. MisterWoodhouse (talk) 17:29, March 11, 2019 (UTC)

To clarify (this goes for everyone reading this) this thread and my above posted comments do not constitute an official or definitive statement. Details on this migration are still scarce and there is even the chance it may not actually happen. All I can say is that we do have plans to migrate, but there is no knowing when such an event will actually occur, if ever. The current plan is to stay on Wikia for now. However, personally I am supportive of migration due to a long history of grievances with Wikia that I feel have been consistently failed to be addressed. This does not mean that the migration will for certain happen. Of course, if Wikia improves themselves to the point that it is supportive of wiki communities and editors and not simply catering to fans under a "fandom" label, then yes, we can stay, but as of now I personally doubt the needed changes will happen. —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 17:53, March 11, 2019 (UTC)

So, let's talk! Beyond Featured Video (program is being worked on to improve based on NUMEROUS points of feedback) and MediaWiki upgrades (no news on this), where are areas we can improve to make you happy? Right now, we're working on bad ad reporting, partnering with the Warframe wiki to see how we can improve the process (to report bad ads, click here ). We're also studying the admin workflows on Fandom and Gamepedia to see where there's room to improve the lives of our admin users. MisterWoodhouse (talk) 18:07, March 11, 2019 (UTC)

I don't know if it's really my place to be commenting here given that I retired almost 5 years ago and mainly just lurk on Discord nowadays, but hey be bold and all.

There are many long-running issues that communities tend to have with Wikia, some of which are dating back years and despite their attempts to communicate their grievances across, they ultimately feel ignored and betrayed that their thoughts are seemingly not taken into consideration. I understand that it's impossible to please everybody, but I'll go ahead and list some key issues that communities, including but not limited to The Sims Wiki, have with Wikia:

• Skin options - Wikia only has one skin available to use, which is the proprietary Oasis skin which was developed by Wikia. While I have no problem with the skin existing, users would like a choice. They want to use the Vector skin, used by Wikipedia, Uncyclopedia and pretty much every stock MediaWiki installation, but this is not and never was offered by Wikia. Monobook was removed allegedly due to GDPR violations (please enlighten me - this is not a problem for any other wiki on the internet whatsoever) and this move was extremely unpopular (Google "wikia monobook gdpr" and you'll see what I mean). Grievances regarding skin options also date back to when Monaco was deprecated back in 2010, so this is nothing new.
• Forcing unpopular/unwanted extensions - Seeing this as the first thing when I load up the Community discussions forum speaks volumes. People tend to consider videos autoplaying on articles and following you as you scroll down to be a nuisance. There's also the fact that the Visual Editor is enabled by default unless users switch their Preferences to Source mode - not an option for anons and can make it easier to completely mess up an articles formatting as a result. Any requests to have these disabled per community consensus are denied, and if we use CSS/JS to disable them, we are reverted for breaking ToS. Even if Wikia gave communities more flexibility over what extensions they want to use - similar to what Miraheze has in place - it would at least be a step forward.
• Preferential treatment of some wiki communities over others - When I was an admin, I often liased with Wikia staff to get new tools and features onto The Sims Wiki. They managed to meet me halfway on some of these issues - AbuseFilter (after multiple attempts), Gadgets, Bureaucrats flagging bots... I even enquired into the possibility for us to have local check users, even if it was just two or three admins, and I was declined every time citing privacy concerns, and while I can see why that would be a sticking point, other wikis seem to be exempt from this. We don't want these tools because we're power hungry or just for the sake of it - we want them so that we can work more effectively. So that we can better track problematic users. So that we can make our communities a better one to be a part of. I am a local check user on another wiki and the tool has been extremely valuable to me when it comes to dealing with problematic users. Same with Nuke, Revision Delete, AbuseFilter, you name it. I don't see why it is okay for some wikis to be granted these tools while others of similar sizes are left in the cold (I understand other hosts such as Miraheze and ShoutWiki also don't allow for local check users, but I'm not here to talk about those).
• The direction of Wikia as a company - Look, I get it. Wikia wants to diversify and they've made that clear with the FANDOM branding. Fine. They can do what they want. What they need to understand is that in the process of moving towards more news outlet-like content, they are also alienating a significantly large portion of their userbase that know Wikia as a wiki host first and foremost. The rebranding has also been a major issue especially with URLs. Holocaust, Genocide, Terrorism... do I really need to explain what is wrong with this? A wikifarm that previously enabled you to write about anything, whether it be books, gaming, films, music, medical advice, historical events, stock trading, really isn't a suitable candidate for re-branding into a pop culture-influenced entertainment site.
• Outdated software - Wikia runs on a frankenstein of MediaWiki 1.19 which is ridiculously out of date. New extensions won't work and security fixes have to be backported, and even then it doesn't always work because the base is so antiquated. The current stable build of MediaWiki is 1.32. Routine software updates are not only great for adding new features to the site but also contain vital security updates which are a must in this day and age.

These are just a few of the reasons why communities are looking to jump ship. People are generally passionate about the subject matter of their wiki, hence why they work to make it a better source of information. Whilst a more open minded approach towards what editors are saying as well as perhaps a more flexible approach to allow communities to tailor their wikis to what they want, such as with extensions and user rights, would be a step forward, I feel that ultimately the Wikia/FANDOM platform in its current state is not an optimal solution for hosting a wiki that wants to evolve on their own communities' terms.

May I suggest that if Wikia really does want to move towards being an entertainment site before anything else, then maybe consider spinning the wikifarm part of the business out and let developers and volunteers who are passionate about wikis and want to have the most technically forward, most secure and most flexible wiki platform manage this themselves? -- Lost Labyrinth • (c) • (b) 01:03, March 12, 2019 (UTC)

Most of these concerns have been on our radar for a while and either are in process of being resolved or being looked into.

The inappropriate subject matter + Fandom combination issue is being resolved with a migration to wikia.org domains. Those two examples you gave are basically dead wikis, so they did not get picked up in our filter for wikia.org conversions.

I will look into VEditor default settings change for the entire wiki.

When I have more news on other concerns, I will report back or you'll see an announcement. - MisterWoodhouse (talk) 01:13, March 12, 2019 (UTC)

The inappropriate subject matter + Fandom combination issue is being resolved with a migration to wikia.org domains. No, the easiest solution to this was to not have started with the migration in the first place. There was no good reason to change the name of the entire site to Fandom when Wikia, a tried and true original name, worked well for so many years. Wikia evidently showed the company to be a wiki hosting service; Fandom does not. The rebranding to Fandom was setting out to fix a great mighty problem that didn't exist, and it has clearly created more problems than it has "fixed". Is there a reason why the entire ecosystem needs to have two domain names now? What does that even accomplish? Everything was fine being under wikia.com. Why on earth are wikis suddenly now either on fandom.com or wikia.org? The reasoning for this rebranding? And it clearly does not "reflect what we do as a community". The Sims Wiki is a wiki. Our primary goal is being a wiki, a knowledge base containing information about The Sims. We are not a "fandom" or a "collection of fans"; we may all be fans of The Sims series, but that doesn't make us a "fandom". We are here because we want to build a knowledge base, not to be a social gathering of fans. That is not our main purpose. Wikipedia editors are not necessarily fans of whatever they are writing about, so if a Wikipedia-like wiki existed on Wikia, what is even the rational basis on migrating them to the "Fandom" brand? Are you seriously going to tell me that the Bible Wiki (which got migrated to fandom.com, inexplicably) exists because of a gathering of people who were fans of the Bible? Madness! The main page of the wiki even writes: Bible Wiki is a database covering people, places, books, doctrine and history of the Bible. I don't see how "fandom" fits in with that mission, and Christians do not refer to themselves as "fans" of their religion. If it doesn't work for the Bible Wiki, it doesn't work for us. See too on our own Main Page: The Sims Wiki is a collaborative encyclopedia for everything related to The Sims series. We are first and foremost an encyclopedia, not a fandom.

The solution is not to provide the wikia.org solution as an opt-in basis... the "fandom.com" migration should never have been a thing. This whole migration is an absurd waste of time that makes me feel like the company as a whole is having an identity crisis in that it doesn't know what it wants to be. It wants to be a "fandom" entertainment website hosting "fan" articles (look at https://www.fandom.com/ and you'll see what I mean) while also trying to be a wiki farm that hosts different wikis of a wide variety of topics ranging from more than just entertainment and gaming. If the company does want to start hosting fan articles, fine—I have no objections to that. Just make "Fandom" a subsidiary of Wikia (or even better, its own separate company) rather than a full-on rebranding; the wiki farm remains Wikia and isn't dragged into this "Fandom" nonsense, which is incompatible with what we're trying to do building an encyclopedia of The Sims series here. The company can go ahead with building "fandom.com" as a totally different enterprise; just keep it away from the wiki communities where it evidently doesn't belong.

I am not simply talking about The Sims Wiki alone (and as such, granting us the exemption from fandom.com by allowing us to get a wikia.org domain while everyone else remains stuck on fandom.com doesn't sell it for me); I'm referring to the wiki farm as a whole. I edit actively on at least one other wiki that had its URL changed (not the domain name, but the wiki name) silently by staff without consultation or even a notification, and I am still furious about that. I'm still furious that we had autoplaying featured videos forcibly plastered onto the top of select pages without editor input (there is a forum thread where the general consensus to have them completely disabled, and I would say they should be disabled on all of Wikia, not just The Sims Wiki, because even readers dislike it—I've asked people on other Sims-related Discord servers and they don't like the videos either—and it clearly isn't just us that are annoyed by them too). I'm still furious over the same "We're listening to your feedback" spiel that has been repeated numerous times over the years, which should in theory have resulted in better service, but in reality has resulted in this "Fandom" nonsense that makes me feel like the Wikia of today has devolved into an absolute mess compared to the Wikia I joined back in 2011. As such, telling me more about how "Staff are listening" doesn't convince me anymore, because I'm being tired of being constantly deceived and lied to, or be told that my feedback hasn't been actioned on at all (I sent in two technical support tickets reporting bugs that were acknowledged but neither has had any technical progress made on them. By contrast, I've reported bugs on Miraheze in their Discord server—not even using Phabricator—and they had fixes being rolled out the next day. On Miraheze I feel like I have a much more direct access to their staff, and the fact that their development is entirely open, open source, and easy to see as code changes are announced on IRC, is one of the reasons why I'm starting to like them a lot more).

I feel like this is starting to devolve into a rant, and I should definitely stop as this has gone well off-topic from what this thread originally was started for (as an interesting side note, if you look at the OP's contributions, this thread should've been closed as a troll thread given how they haven't contributed anything but nonsense) (plus I've written too much for past 11pm having been up since 5:30 in the morning), but if Wikia really is community first, why are we not allowed to, as a community, leave Wikia and allow for our old site to be redirected to the new one if we feel it will be better for our wiki? I'd like for this question to be answered, brutally and honestly, and I am well aware that this may be a difficult question for Staff to answer, but I want them to answer nonetheless. If it's community first (and believe me, I feel like it's the shareholders who are first around here), why are we essentially being imprisoned into this ecosystem? —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 03:50, March 12, 2019 (UTC)

If you talk to the Gamepedia editors community, you'll find that I'm a straight shooter and don't overpromise or say more than I should.

All of the branding decisions you've referenced were made before I joined the company, so I cannot answer questions about their making with any authenticity. I do, however, have more info on the status of the two wikis you've mentioned which are bad branding examples. The terrorism wiki was created after the Fandom merges began, so it was never a Wikia domain. The genocide wiki was made in 2007 and has 5 pages. It looks to be a good candidate for deletion.

I understand your anger, as it is something which has been repeated by other communities. We're working to make the platform better and I understand if that will ring hollow to you until you see the results.

As for off-site forks, when we say community first, we have to focus on the communities we serve and can continue to improve for. When a community of editors decides to move off site, they are no longer a community we serve and our obligation belongs to the community remaining on the site. - MisterWoodhouse (talk) 17:02, March 12, 2019 (UTC)

Now let's say we do fork, but that we continue to edit the old wiki here on Wikia/Fandom and thus continue to remain members of the community here. Are we allowed to link to the new wiki in any way or form? I have seen instances where entire ranks of administrators have been desysopped and even globally blocked when they tried to put up links to the new wiki, which seems overly aggressive and completely unlike the collaborative spirit that a wiki should be (definitely has painted onto Staff an extremely negative and antagonistic connotation that will require a lot of work on Staff's end to mend). In what ways are we allowed to link the two wikis together? At the very least the "External links" section should allow for links between the two wikis. If we remain part of the community and the community consents that the two wikis should be linked together, for Staff to overrule that would be going against community consensus (and thus not being "Community First", and the argument that Staff cannot serve forked communities is invalid because we have not left the platform and the community still on the platform has arrived at a consensus to do so). And whatever the case may be, I would argue that such rules should not apply in our fanon namespace, where fanon authors are free to request the deletions of their fanons at any time; they should be 100% completely allowed to replace their fanons with links to the forked wiki if they so choose to do. —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 19:21, March 17, 2019 (UTC)

Let's cross bridges when we reach them. Exploring every possible hypothetical is not productive when we could be working to improve the situation and make them all moot. - MisterWoodhouse (talk) 13:23, March 18, 2019 (UTC)

As someone who has no idea what's going on behind the scenes I would like to know how this migration would affect regular users? Do we get a say in this? Would we have to sign up to a new site? What about the Sims Wikis in other languages?

Personally, I don't mind the rebrand too much but I think it's very inapropriate for Wikis that aren't popculture related. Also, I agree that it should be possible to remove the videos that are added to some pages. Things like this are just annoying.

Lastly, I've noticed an offensive Wiki that's not really active but I still think that should be removed completely but I don't know how to report it. —Gvaudoin 💬 20:23, March 17, 2019 (UTC)

@Gvaudoin: Details are still scarce about the migration (if it ever happens) but rest assured that another forum thread (more properly detailed than this one) will be created to get community input. —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 20:30, March 17, 2019 (UTC)

I understand the frustration of FANDOM, and a lot of things (if not all) you're pointing out I agree with @k6ka 🍁, but I do think that migrating to another host will cause more problems (right now) than it will solve them. I know you said nothing is definite, but I do think that having a conversation with the people from Wikia/FANDOM might be a better move than moving hosts. Just simply thinking about editors/audience on this wiki you might lose by transferring to another one. Then there is also the interwikis...

I might not have a lot of right talking here, since I've been highly inactive on TSW for a few years now, but as an admin on the Dutch Sims Wiki and often checking out other interwikis of TSW too I did feel like I have to say something here. FANDOM is a relatively new company, it still needs to figure out quite a lot (you kinda pointed this out too). If FANDOM is ready to have that talk with TSW I would definitely sayhave that talk first before just moving the whole Wiki and perhaps losing a great part of your members. DeSims ^(talk) 02:02, March 18, 2019 (UTC)

While I have not been active in my administrative duties in recent times, or engaged with Wikia Staff in any way, I can say that those who have, in particular k6ka, have tried to initiate dialogue with Staff for quite some time. They have had this kind of conversation numerous times over the years as Wikia gradually slid into its current state. The response from Staff across the board has been arrogant and dismissive at best.

Thinking about the members of The Sims Wiki community is precisely what motivated the proposal of migration to begin with. It does not seem that Wikia is prepared to have a frank and transparent discussion about the direction of TSW as a part of the Wikia network now, or indeed anytime soon. Their recent activities really are not helping our perceptions of Wikia's intentions.

It is interesting that you think of FANDOM as a "relatively new company". That's what it feels like, isn't it? Wikia as it is now seems to be an entirely different platform to what it was before the transition to the FANDOM brand. But FANDOM, legally speaking, is the same entity founded in 2004. Its change from network of collaborative databases to a focus on popular culture and entertainment news to me seems to be a diversification of the company's business in an entirely unnecessary attempt to compete in an industry that, before the change, it had nothing to do with.

The change in Wikia's focus means they will no longer be able to pay attention to the needs of its wikis' editors (they'd be too busy managing FANDOM publications). We are seeing this happen, with the indiscriminate, clumsy and careless migration to fandom.com; the lack of updates to MediaWiki; and the introduction of features the userbase neither asked for nor like (Exhibit A: Featured Videos). I believe that Wikia for this reason is no longer the right host for The Sims Wiki, which is why I wholeheartedly support migration. I am open to changing my mind, but the way things are going now, I don't see anything happening on Wikia's part to change my opinion anytime soon. — THE TIM TAM IS MY SPIRIT ANIMAL ^{(TSW • AH • MGW • Contribs)} 16:25, March 18, 2019 (UTC)

Stay tuned. We're very refocused on the core wiki business and we'll be demonstrating that quite a bit in upcoming projects. - MisterWoodhouse (talk) 16:31, March 18, 2019 (UTC)

Why can't you give the answer now? Why do you give answers that seemly work around answering the questions that people are answering? It seems like you don't care much about this wiki from the perspective of other users on the wiki. Matthew Cenance (talk) 01:57, March 20, 2019 (UTC)

I can only answer questions for which I have answers ready for public eyes. - MisterWoodhouse (talk) 15:48, March 20, 2019 (UTC)

They're still tired of how you run this website, you know. It's almost as if you're trying to emulate Amino's bad reputation. Matthew Cenance (talk) 21:23, March 20, 2019 (UTC)

I've been here for about 7-8 weeks. You've yet to see what I can do :) - MisterWoodhouse (talk) 15:50, March 21, 2019 (UTC)

I figured I'd weigh in here as well.

First, I want to thank you, MisterWoodhouse, for your willingness to talk with us regarding the grievances spelled out above. I understand that you are not necessarily in the position to immediately address 100% of what is listed (and I can appreciate that, as Lost Labyrinth above said, it's impossible to please everybody) but the fact that you're willing to engage in a dialogue and not just dictate what is and will be, gives me some measure of comfort. I also want you to understand that (and I'm sure I speak for everyone here) I want to hear you and communicate with you in good faith, as long as you are willing to do the same. Please understand that so much of the anger that seems to jump out of what is written above is not directed at you personally; it is anger born of frustration and a feeling of hopeless futility, over years and years of top-down decision-making by people who do not seem to understand or do not accept the fact that each wiki community is different and wants different things from their host. These fires have been burning for quite a long time, and the whole subject is a pretty emotional one for many of us who have sunk literally years into building this project (for instance, this year marks my 10th anniversary editing The Sims Wiki). I think it only makes sense that we would be angry, but again I want you to know that we're not angry at you.

A big problem we as a community have had is that there are so few members of staff who seem to be able to act as you are acting. We on a local wiki level (and this applies to most wikis, not just TSW) only become aware of corporate-level ideas once staff as a whole have already decided on a course of action, so response from staff in the past has tended to be of the "we hear your concerns, but we're doing it anyways," variety, which despite assurances to the contrary, does little to convince us that staff is actually hearing us. For what it's worth, I don't interact with staff on a regular basis, but the interactions I've had with individual members has for the most part been positive or, at the very least, diplomatic. But at the same time, staff members are not regular contributors to on-wiki dialogue; most staff contact tends to be between a single administrator and a single member of staff via Special:Contact. On the occasions when staff have tried to start discussions or participate in discussions on The Sims Wiki, they demonstrate how little they understand our community: posting discussions in the wrong locations; directing questions that require community consensus to individual administrators instead; Expecting an administrator to take unilateral action on a particular proposal, when said proposals require at the very least a community dialogue, if not outright consensus. This again goes back to the top-down operating style that staff tends to operate by, and a lack of understanding the unique properties of individual communities under the Wikia/FANDOM umbrella.

I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time bemoaning the various changes that have taken place on this site in the last 10 years. I think the people above raise very valid points and grievances. I could add a few to the pile: the locking of MediaWiki page editing to local admins; the overzealous push to "mobile"-ize wikis, often to the detriment of the wiki's look and feel on traditional desktop/laptop screens... but again, I don't want to pile on the complaints. Bottom line, I understand that businesses and websites need to evolve in order to survive. I understand that Wikia/FANDOM is a for-profit operation and relies on ad revenue to survive. I understand that nothing that Wikia/FANDOM does will ever satisfy everybody. And I understand that there are occasions when staff must take unilateral action or implement changes for the good of the whole website, even if such actions/changes work to the detriment of local communities.

The problem is that Wikia treats its individual communities less like volunteer partners, and more like property. Wikia seems to forget that it is nothing without its wiki communities.. We are not just little subsets of a larger website; we are thousands of autonomous, industrious communities who want to see our wikis thrive, and want to see our host thrive, too. All the editors here are unpaid, and contribute and collaborate out of a shared love of the subject matter and a love of the community we've created. But Wikia doesn't see this; it only sees subsets of its larger domain, there only to generate ad revenue and to create new content for free. Eventually, communities like The Sims Wiki will be fed up with the status quo and they will splinter off, either with or without Wikia's approval. The end result of that will be almost certainly be a weaker community and a weaker Wikia. Wikia does not have enough staff - could never hire enough staff - to maintain the thousands of wikis it hosts if all the volunteer editors decided to jump ship. Wikia needs us. We don't need Wikia.

Now, on the occasions in the past when forking from Wikia/FANDOM has been brought up, I've been staunchly opposed to leaving, not because the relationship between TSW and Wikia is rosy, but because the act of leaving is so onerous and fraught with problems, that the end result of doing so would almost certainly be incredibly detrimental to TSW. I can't say that my opinion has changed much; I still think leaving would be detrimental to the long-term success of the project. But that doesn't imply in any way that TSW is dependent on Wikia, but rather gets to the fact that we as a community are held as prisoner; we can't dissolve TSW and redirect it to an external wiki. We cannot collectively decide to leave and then relocate the fruits of our labor to a new host without Wikia propping up TSW's former empty shell. Because ultimately, Wikia views us as property, not as partners.

I can't begin to tell you how this problem gets solved. I think it must involve a real re-evaluation of how Wikia conducts itself, and a re-orientation of priorities in favor of supporting local community needs and wants, ensuring that the volunteers who work on those communities - who are the communities - are happy (or at least reasonably content). Happy volunteers won't want to leave; they'll pour even more heart and soul into these communities, and the end result will be wikis that are more engaging for the readers (drawing more eyeballs for the "necessary evil" ads) and more engaged with the topic's broader internet fandom. I don't know that Wikia/FANDOM truly can undo the damage it has done. -- LostInRiverview ^{talk · blog · contribs} 21:29, March 20, 2019 (UTC)

As much as I understand the frustrations that various users have been having with the changes to Wikia/FANDOM in the past couple of years, I have always felt that migrating to another site would be going a step too far. Indeed I have always disliked how we Administrators have lost the ability to edit all MediaWiki messages. But I have always felt that switching sites would be more work than is beneficial.

That could be simply because I've always felt myself to be rather attached to the Wikia/FANDOM network, but still. I'm not saying "Don't migrate". I'm just saying that I can't really see enough upsides to migrating to really see the genuine need to do it. And even if it does happen, I would still prefer it if those who would sooner remain on Wikia/FANDOM stayed behind and kept this wiki active.

If the said migration were to happen, then I probably would end up contributing to both wikis. But I would almost certainly remain more active here, since it would feel more consistent to remain editing on the same site that holds most of the other wikis that I contribute to. But for the community's sake, I would contribute to Miraheze in addition to Wikia/FANDOM. ― C.Syde (talk | contribs) 11:27, March 24, 2019 (UTC)

The thing I must say here is that MisterWoodhouse hasn't said anything credible yet. Other members have left very long and detailed discussion points and he has dodged answering most of them. Not much better than other staff members tbh, so it's no wonder the community's patience is wearing thin. 74.198.131.130 (talk) 00:46, March 26, 2019 (UTC)

Many of the specific and actionable concerns of which I have knowledge are ones which I cannot speak out of turn to address, as they are rather global in nature. When there's news on these fronts, there will be large announcements. Until then, my assurances that we are working to address most, if not all, of the raised concerns about the platform will have to do. That being said, I fully appreciate that this will not be sufficient for some of you and I cannot provide immediate remedy to that, if at all. I just hope you'll allow me to be judged on my own merits, not on past wrongs to which I was not a party. - MisterWoodhouse (talk) 00:54, March 26, 2019 (UTC)

Yes, and although you may indeed be restricted in what you can say (which is not entirely your fault), it still doesn't change the fact that this is precisely what the community is so frustrated about. We are only ever informed of these changes through big announcements and we're never actually allowed to see the discussions behind these big announcements. In other words we pretty much have no say over what happens, our voices are not in the discussions that occur (you guys say they are, but it's all through a proxy). The lack of transparency is perhaps what frustrates the community the most. Decisions that affect us are made behind closed doors. That's just one of many reasons why people want to leave the platform - they're like oppressed, marginalized people whose voices are ignored for the most part. 74.198.131.130 (talk) 23:49, March 31, 2019 (UTC)

Having a select group of very active, very knowledgable wiki editors and admins to consult on our projects is very efficient. We are working on having more editor notice on in-progress projects, but the level of public input remains to be determined. - MisterWoodhouse (talk) 17:52, April 1, 2019 (UTC)

We're going to have something to share very soon that will interest y'all, directly addressing one of your major concerns. Very soon meaning in the next week or so. - MisterWoodhouse (talk) 23:04, April 2, 2019 (UTC)

You've been saying nothing but that for the entire duration of this thread. Jeez, it is this attitude that makes people so angry. ANSWER THE QUESTIONS PEOPLE HAVE ASKED YOU. 74.198.131.130 (talk) 23:59, April 2, 2019 (UTC)

Plus this thread was originally going to be about leaving the platform. It has instead devolved into one staff member who I'm guessing is trying to convince the community not to migrate off while addressing none of the reasons why we want to leave. Tell us why you're better than Miraheze if Miraheze really does promise all the stuff the community wants. Updated MediaWiki software? "No plans for that"? There you go, that's why we want to leave. 74.198.131.130 (talk) 00:03, April 3, 2019 (UTC)

Nothing to say then, I guess? Well then, I hope Wikia is seriously considering actually learning from their mistakes, though I can hardly call them mistakes now, given how you've historically quite maliciously edit warred and even desysopped local wiki administrators after they forked a wiki off Wikia. If this happens here when the wiki does happen to fork, then I can say with confidence that you guys never learned a thing. You guys can have your way about propping a wiki open, but desysopping and globally blocking the admins? That is crossing the line. I think the people here want reassurance that you won't be doing that if they leave. And I don't think they'll be getting any reassurance whatsoever. 74.198.131.130 (talk) 03:57, April 18, 2019 (UTC)

So are we going to leave Fandom? I'm totally down for it. We need more high-profile wikis to leave. 2001:BC8:472C:7A0C:0:0:0:1 (talk) 21:37, April 13, 2019 (UTC)

Miraheze said that their future is uncertain and that they are running out of funds. They have not had any donations made to them since April 2019.

Moving The Sims Wiki to the Miraheze network would be a grave mistake. Wikia is the best place for it at this time. Even if you moved, Wikia would still keep this site open and somebody will step up and run the wiki. MarketingSimmer (talk) 17:01, July 31, 2019 (UTC)

It's not that they haven't received any donations since April 2019, it's that the page hasn't been updated yet. If the platform was running out of money they wouldn't have continued developing the platform, yet they have with a MediaWiki version upgrade (yes, they upgraded to 1.33 earlier this month without any downtime). Your claim is bogus at best, misinformative at worst, and is based on outdated information. You can see here that their finances grew by almost $500, so your evidence was cherry-picked. Wikia is by no means the best place for this wiki; it is, in fact, the worst place for any wiki given its horrendous track record and the severe lack of autonomy. To start a wiki on Wikia is to sell yourself into this ecosystem and agree to allow Wikia to step on you mercilessly without your consent. No idiot is going to subject themselves to that. 2A00:1DC0:CAFF:48:0:0:0:8D2E (talk) 02:19, August 1, 2019 (UTC)

It is time to stop this

As this conversation has been going on for a very long time with nothing to show for it. I think the following actions need to take place:

1. thesimswiki.com at Miraheze should be closed down as an unauthorized copy of The Sims Wikia from FANDOM.
2. All sites linked here should be closed down. These all link to the unauthorized Miraheze copy and only serve to threaten the existence of The Sims Wiki. The owner of these sites thought they were smart by scrubbing their details but I can guarantee if I contact the service provider then the person who owns these sites will have no recourse and may even run the risk of becoming a convicted felon. The same goes for the owner of the .com site known as Benjamin Chandler, of who I assume is also the owner of the other three sites.

FANDOM is a nice place and Wikia has done its upmost to accommodate its communities. Conversations such as these are not constructive and are detrimental to The Sims Wiki as a whole. This only stands to create a rift in the community and I think we all owe MisterWoodhouse an apology for the way we treated him.MarketingSimmer (talk) 20:14, February 9, 2020 (UTC)

FANDOM is not a nice place and Wikia has been anything but accommodating. The migration to the new URL without community consensus, the horrendous site design, Featured Videos fiasco, and intrusive ads are just some of the many valid grievances people have had with the platform. I think, if anything, MisterWoodhouse owes us an apology for persistently dodging questions and failing to answer them. We have had legitimate concerns, and yet he addressed absolutely none of them. What should we apologize for? We were the ones who worked tirelessly in a volunteer capacity to produce content that FANDOM monetized for themselves. Shouldn't they be owing us an apology for being such a jackass to all of us? We are not here to be used; we are volunteers, and we as volunteers have the ability to withdraw our efforts at any time.

And your impressive threats to have the owner of the site convicted is nothing short of marvelous and empty. Not to mention that you are not even a regular contributor to this site, but have only contributed an utterly uninformed forum thread and being concerned for our image despite no evidence suggesting that you actually care about the wiki. Let's have a look at your contributions. What a dearth of contributions to the wiki! Are you a mole working for FANDOM trying to prevent the wiki's legitimate attempts from migrating? You certainly seem like it, since your only contributions to the wiki have been suspiciously to object to the migration, with no real rationale as to why.

Why don't you try contacting the owner of the site rather than threatening legal action? I'm sure you are aware that legal threats actually worsen the situation rather than help it. We are here as a community working at a volunteer capacity; you can leave your legal red tape locked up in your attorney's office where it belongs, and come here without your hubris. Do us a favor and cut it with your witch-hunt. 2607:FEA8:A2C0:578:B5EF:3629:EFF9:CADE (talk) 20:57, February 9, 2020 (UTC)

I don't think anyone owes me an apology. I wasn't able to speak out of turn at the time that the questions were being asked because we were in the midst of figuring out our plans for upgrading the platform to the latest version of MediaWiki. Simply put, a forum post on a single wiki is not the place to disclose a massive project like that. I do apologize, however, for not returning to let y'all know about those plans once we announced them . Since then, we've also announced the committments governing our work on the new platform , which will be on MediaWiki 1.33 at launch. It will house all the wiki content in good standing and allow us to implement new features more quickly without the burden of our current technical debt, as well as give us access to modern extensions that would've otherwise had to have been reverse engineered onto the current platform. We should have a big blog post about the Unified Community Platform in the next week or so. In the meantime, Community Connect attendees got to talk a lot of about the UCP with us last month and they are encouraged to discuss it with other editors. No NDA. Also, Featured Video has been altered to focus on promoting the wikis and collecting data that will help build a replacement for the program. MisterWoodhouse (talk) 21:18, February 9, 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for the update. 2607:FEA8:A2C0:578:B5EF:3629:EFF9:CADE (talk) 21:25, February 9, 2020 (UTC)

I do not wish to take sides. But I do need to voice a few of the concerns that have been brought up by myself as well as some of the users that are supportive of the migration. Firstly, there are a number of things that Miraheze has to offer that are not on offer on Fandom. This includes but isn't limited to the following: No ads, Bureaucrats being able to modify usergroup permissions themselves, and having access to certain usergroup permissions that local usergroups on Fandom do not have access to.

One major concern that I must agree with is the number of MediaWiki messages that aren't editable to local Administrators. Most sites including Miraheze allow local Administrators to edit all messages freely. I can understand that there are some MediaWiki messages on Fandom that should not be open for local Administrators to edit, such as the system messages that would affect areas of the wiki that would violate the customisation policy. But I feel that unless there's a very good reason that certain messages shouldn't be editable by Administrators, that general MediaWiki messages should be unlocked for editing.

The way I see it, the reason most system messages were locked from editing was because of a security attack that occurred in August 2015. But it's been ages since that time, and only a small amount of system messages are currently open to editing. The vast majority of system messages don't accept executable code, and are therefore unnecessary to be locked from editing. Personally I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the vast majority of system messages are open for Administrators to edit once we've upgraded to MediaWiki 1.33 and most - if not all - security problems from the current version of MediaWiki are resolved as a result of the upgrade.

It also strikes me how MarketingSimmer has approached this forum in an authoritative tone, despite not being in a position to take action against the migration surrounding it ― C.Syde (talk | contribs) 02:22, February 10, 2020 (UTC)

I highly doubt that MediaWiki messages will become editable. The "security review" for them back in 2015 was just a complete farce. Most MediaWiki system message pages don't accept HTML, especially those used on the login screen. Wikia already uses a separate page for logins so there's no way passwords can be siphoned in that manner. Disabling MediaWiki system message editing is just a way of restricting the amount of customization and frustrating local wiki admins who just want to tinker and play around with things, or easily change the text on their wiki. Frankly if Wikia were to be freshly incorporated today, they would not use MediaWiki as their software. They would most likely develop something more closed down, proprietary, and more frustrating to use that they could easily exert more control over. MediaWiki to Wikia is evidently dead.

And Wikia already claims they're up-to-date on security as they backport many of the security patches from newer versions of MediaWiki, which is like trying to keep a cabin that's falling apart at the seams by sticking chewing gum into the cracks. And I'm not holding my breath on the MediaWiki 1.33 upgrade; it's too little, too late, and Miraheze is already on MediaWiki 1.34, Wikimedia sites 1.35. Even ShoutWiki, with all of its flaws, is on 1.32.

It's been said before but if Wikia wants to repair its tarnished reputation, it has to let its communities leave if they so choose to. Continuing to force them to stay is only going to worsen the divide. Wikia, I know you say you love us, but please get a clue; this is like an abusive relationship.

More and more wikis are leaving for Miraheze mostly because of the increased customizability they offer, along with Miraheze agreeing to keep their hands off wiki affairs and to allow wikis to leave if they so choose to. Miraheze is here to serve, which appeals to wiki communities. Wikia is here to make money. Insert some old-timer's stodgy comment about how "Oh these millennials are all against capitalism", but it's not that; it's perfectly reasonable to be sick of this abusive relationship and want to end it. Frankly if your boyfriend was beating you and tarnishing your name, it's rather stupid to criticize you for wanting to end the relationship. 74.198.131.130 (talk) 17:30, February 10, 2020 (UTC)

Again, I don't want to take sides. But yeah, the lack of system message editing and various other things that have been taken away from us over these years has become a real problem for me. I remember complaining about it from place to place, and more often than not, I ended up getting jumped on by other users who didn't seem to think that losing general system message access was such a big deal.

And some users were actually supportive of local Administrators not having access, as they say that it's best to always assume the worst and not allow access to local Administrators to "be on the safe side". Well if the security issues were all fixed up, then there would be no need to restrict access to "be on the safe side". On top of that, if local Administrators customise system messages to gibberish. Then that's the wiki's problem. Either they picked the wrong Administrator, or the wrong user founded the wrong wiki. ― C.Syde (talk | contribs) 23:59, February 10, 2020 (UTC)