Forum:Moving?

Forums: Grand Lodge > Moving?

This conversation started on another thread, but really deserved its own, so I've moved/transcribed a whole bunch of stuff from here to get us started:

…Can we seriously look into some other hosting options? We were ad and Wikia free before moving here, and there are still few enough of us that we could move pretty easily without much problem as far as splitting the community goes.

yoda8myhead 08:32, October 15, 2010 (UTC)

…It would probably be a good idea to know what our options are. Would anybody like to volunteer to look into this? We should probably start a new forum thread for this discussion, but here are some points to prime it with:

• Why did we move to wikia in the first place? Too much hassel maintaining a server and mediawiki install? Too costly?
• What other services are available? ShoutWiki is one. Others exist. If they use the mediawiki software, that would be ideal since importing would be much easier.
• Moving images is always going to be a pain... lots of work there.
• New service may not have all of the mediawiki extensions that we are used to/rely on (I can't think of a concrete example, but I'd be willing to bet that we're in pretty deep with at least one feature that isn't stock). Also, no monaco, no achievments, no shoutbox. We'll almost certainly be back to basics with the mediawiki stock skin (whatever it's called).
• What happens to the wikia wiki? Rumour is that wikia staff have been known to lock out admins of larger wikis that attempt to make a move.

For now, I'll continue to concentrate on making the best of the worst situation here at wikia. I am, however, open to a move (despite the work) if we find a good solution elsewhere and/or can't get things sorted out here.

Aeakett 12:06, October 15, 2010 (UTC)

I've started to suffer eye strain with the new skin as well. As it was, I was personally considering leaving Wikia altogether, and having to say farewell to any projects that remained on the network. I don't believe this is caused by our color scheme, and I still love the new theme you've developed, Aeakett; I've been getting headaches regardless of the project I'm looking at, with themes ranging from ours, to the black background of WoWWiki, to the default colors on numerous other projects. I even dread the central community wiki now, due to the effects I've experienced while viewing it for any real length of time. The fact that Wikia denies the claims of anyone experiencing similar fatigue as a result of the new skin doesn't sit well with me, either; this is a real concern that many people have, but Wikia seems to think it is better to say users are exaggerating these symptoms rather than addressing them directly.

As to the concerns that have been mentioned, I do know a few answers:

• There are numerous wiki farms that would accept us, of which ShoutWiki is only one. A list and comparison of several can be found on the forum page that houses the Anti-Wikia Alliance. Additionally, we can look into funding the project ourselves once more.
• Moving would necessitate our return to the use of Monobook, MediaWiki's default skin. I don't see this as too much of a negative, though; Monobook may not be a customizable as Monacco, but it is certainly sufficient for our purposes. Additionally, we would lose things like the shoutbox and achievements, though some of these features could be returned over time through the use of extensions. Ultimately, what it boils down to is that I feel Monobook is better than Wikia's new skin, despite what it may or may not include.
• All our existing content would remain on Wikia, and we would take a copy with us to our new home. Admins who left would likely lose their Admin privileges here, and if none remained the project would be put up for adoption. We would be unable to provide notices on the project that we have moved; Wikia has deemed such action as vandalism, and this is one of the primary actions that Admins have been blocked for.

Heaven's Agent 14:48, October 15, 2010 (UTC)

While we wouldn't be able to announce here that we've moved, we can certainly announce on Paizo.com, twitter, facebook, etc. that we've moved. Users would still get directed here from google, but I am confident that our editing base is in contact with one another well enough that we could move somewhere else and not leave anyone here making updates. Someone could choose to adopt the project, but if there's anyone out there as dedicated as us, they'd already be part of the project.

Wiki does not own pathfinderwiki.com as they do other prominent wiki names like memory alpha, wookkiepedia, and wowwiki, and we could easily start advertising the original site name in Wayfinder and on other topical sites.

Furthermore, I don't think any of the features we'd lose by leaving are the things we're really concerned with. The site did fine before achievements and blogs and I think it can actually help focus the project to not have those being huge distractors to the primary goal of the page.

Without someone updating new material, which we all know comes out very rapidly, and in vast quantities, an abandoned project would run little risk of being a threat to the main project and whether admins are blocked from actively "vandalizing" the site, unless significant changes are made, it will obsolete itself simply by being an out of date project.

I believe we can customize monobook with at least colors via css, if not as intricately as on monoco, at least more than we can make the new oasis skin look like we want. Now that I'm employed again, I'm not opposed to helping fund the cost of hosting if we think that's the way to go. I think there will be a lot of chatter about the site changing look (and losing a lot of its ease of navagability and use as a result) on the 20th when the new skin goes live for anons. Perhaps we wait and see what the Pathfinder community reaction is then. I have loyalty to Pathfinder fans, authors, developers, and potential fans way more than I do to Wikia.

yoda8myhead 02:01, October 16, 2010 (UTC)

So, my big questions of the day are: Why are we here at Wikia? Where were we before? Why did we move?

I'm just really wondering "What if the next place we move has a giant lapse of common sense too?" Other than the cost what are the issues of self-hosting? Is maintaining the software a huge problem? I think I'm going to check in with the guys that run the Greyhawk wiki and see what their experience has been.

Aeakett 00:03, October 18, 2010 (UTC)

I'm waiting to hear back from a few people about their experiences with self-hosting. Has anybody had a chance to look over the various hosts that Heaven's Agent linked to? Opinions about moving to another farm vs. self-hosting?

Aeakett 00:31, October 20, 2010 (UTC)

I think we should avoid farms. If we're going to move it should be to something we control. If not, we're at the mercy of another company to stay in business and to not make unilateral decisions that hinder our ability to run our wiki the way we want.

yoda8myhead 05:56, October 20, 2010 (UTC)

I agree that self-hosting is probably the ideal solution. The main concerns are:

1. The amount of work involved in keeping the server software maintained
2. The cost. It looks like about $10-$12 a month assuming that I haven't underestimated our needs. Further to this, I think that under the CUP we're allowed to undertake various money generated schemes, just as long as we don't profit.

We were self-hosted before right? My impression is that Alfred took care of things. If that's the case, does anybody know how to contact him, so that we could pick his brain?

Aeakett 17:31, October 20, 2010 (UTC)

He shows up on twitter pretty regularly, I'll shoot him a direct message about this thread, and see if he has some input.

Cpt kirstov 20:06, October 20, 2010 (UTC)

Hello there everyone. Thank you Cpt kirstov for dropping me a line so I could contribute to this discussion. Previously the PathfinderWiki website was hosted by Netfirms using an account that I purchased and setup. At the time Netfirms was rather limited in its options and when we tried to upgrade to a newer version of MediaWiki there were massive problems, data loss, and much headache. After getting the upgrade up and beginning to restore the data that had been lost, Netfirms began experiencing some outage issues. It was at that time that it was suggested that the site be moved to Wikia and that www.pathfinderwiki.com just redirect here. I provided the Wikia staff with all of the access and data they needed to port the database over and within a few days everything was up and running here.

So that's the background. Today I still have the pathfinderwiki.com domain and will continue renewing it every year as it comes up. I no longer have any service with Netfirms or any other web hosts, rather I am currently hosting my blogs using my own web server at home. I would gladly offer to host the site, but my only concern would be bandwidth since I am just using a residential data connection (AT&T U-verse, but still). I agree that self hosting is a much better choice than a wiki farm for all of the reasons stated above. If there is any way we can have Wikia do a database dump then I can help facilitate a migration to a self host if you guys want. I am not embarrassed to say that I was a bit green behind the ears a couple of years ago when all of this started and I have learned a great deal since.

Let me know if there is anything I can do to be of assistance. I will monitor this thread and continue posting while this issue is debated.

Alfred 23:55, October 20, 2010 (UTC)

I think one key to self-hosting is sharing server access among admins or bureaucrats so that anyone on the project with tech knowledge can make fixes and upgrades without everything needing to funnel through one person, who may have other things going on. Looking at our traffic data from wikia, I think we're getting enough hits a month that we should consider a well-respected and stable hosting service, because we do get a sizable number of hits. We're no Memory Alpha, but we do decently. I'd be worried that someone hosting from home would be unable to handle the load.

yoda8myhead 02:05, October 21, 2010 (UTC)