Saturday 8 November 2008

Eight reasons why Wikia sucks the move will benefit Illogic

Some people (granted, they are in the minority) may have questions as to exactly why Illogicopedia is moving from its 16-month-long home at Wikia. Well, it was always an intention for Illogic to go independent... oh, right, I've said that bit loads of times before. Here are some very good reasons why Illogic is better off without Wikia:
  1. Bureaucracy. Now Monaco - we didn't agree to it but they forced it upon us anyway. Not fair, eh? We get the impression Wikia never wanted us there in the first place, they were highly reluctant and seemed to see us as a second rate piece of rubbish. They eventually accepted us into the community when they saw we attracted users, but how dare they doubt us!
  2. Adverts and Wikia spotlight. Yep, we were forced to include adverts: they were somewhat bearable but not really ideal. Both are now gone, and you can't disagree it looks miles better without them.
  3. Design Customisation. We're now free to install a selection of extensions, should we decide to use them, to improve the wiki. Aside from this, we make our own decisions about the wiki's default skin.
  4. Namespaces. At Wikia, it was difficult to install new namespaces without fuss so IllogiGames, IllogiNews, IllogiToons etc. had to reside in the mainspace. This was partly laziness on the part of the administrators, but the move allows us to readress the issue and make a 'fresh start' with it, so to speak. Now each of these is a space in their own right meaning you can search each individually via Special:Search, and they don't pop up when you hit Random Page.
  5. Interwiki Babel links. Same as above: we might have been able to do this at Wikia but the new servers make it much easier to link between the three Illogicopedias. It means that, should there be a corresponding article in French or Dutch, you will soon be able access it through the English language page.
  6. Greater links with Uncyclopedia. Carlb's servers host foreign language Uncyclopedias, so Illogic's Intercyclopedia relationships can only be strengthened by the move. Extensions and resources can be easily shared between the wikis without too much fuss, and we would have the support of the Uncyc community (well, some of it) should any problems occur. In addition, it could potentially make things easier for people to find Illogic through Uncyc.
  7. Admins can now change usernames. Binclin, Jojo Randomise, David. What do these users have in common? That's right, they've all had to create new accounts because Wikia didn't like people changing their usernames. Admins now have the power to do this freely, meaning you won't lose any edits. Wonder how long it'll be before User:Bcbkye comes along?
  8. Pageview counters. In terms of gauging Illogic's popularity, this could be rather useful. There's also a popular pages link similar to the one at the old Editthis wiki, and the reset user list gives us a chance to see exactly how many regular users Illogicopedia has. Yep, it isn't quite as advanced as Wikia's stats pages but it is quite exciting, isn't it? I'm clutching at straws here, aren't I?
Hopefully, all this has left you in no doubt that the move was right for an ever-growing wiki of our size. There's been almost universal praise of the move so far and it's easy to see why.

This post was voted post of the year by a selection of Monkeys with Typewriters and was mentioned in the news article 'Up Ya Jacksie' printed in the Daily Cheese. Also, if you are reading this, Wikia, yes it might be a bit harsh but hey, remember the old adage "Carrots overflow the burning cookie accumulator". Erm, yeah...

4 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. They're right, the move is not yet completed. There's still a bunch of users that need to be told of the new wiki and I probably have to copy across some images that were not (properly) ported.

    The Wikia wiki will stay open for a while yet, but...

    "Wikia told me that illogicopedia is still a wikia wiki and that 'the move isn't completed'"

    Where'd you hear that? The chatroom?

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  3. Made some changes. Upon revision, the posts weren't technically correct.

    AID EPOC IGOLLI

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  4. Still too much of this sort of editing going on - www.wikia.com/index.php?title=Illogicopedia&diff=190575&oldid=189941 - in which Wikia staff are removing information that individual wikis have left. Fortunately, there are basically no links to the Wikia fork of Illogicopedia from sites outside Wikia, so their attempt to steal Illogicopedia traffic for their advertisers might be an uphill battle.

    I wonder if the best solution would be for authors of individual Illogicopedia pages which were forked to print off the Wikia versions of the pages (with the ads) and attach them to a nice first-class letter to the individual advertisers explaining the situation and asking that the ad be removed from the page. No guarantee every advertiser would comply, and certainly no legal opblication, but I'd expect that Wikia would have some explaining to do if even one advertiser had no idea that this thing is an abandoned fork using content over authors' objections and cared to enquire further.

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