Community talk:Hub/Oasis: Difference between revisions

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== The future direction of this wiki ==

OK, with mass deletions going on, it seems we are at the point where admins here need to decide. Are you willing to either carry on building this wiki as a full resource about Grand Theft Auto, or to leave it alone to carry on without you? Or, are you intending to try and damage and diminish this wiki? If the latter, then you are no longer welcome on Wikia. I am removing Gboyer's rights here and removing all bureaucrat rights until this is settled.

Gboyers, I know you are claiming to be deleting in order to change the direction of this wiki, but let's be frank: that's just a way to remove this wiki in favour of the fork. If you want to create a separate wiki for mods, you are welcome to. This is not it.

Everyone else, you are very welcome to stay, or to keep your rights and edit elsewhere - as long as you do not harm this wiki or prevent those who wish to continue here to do so. As always, the decision is yours and we respect that. Staying here to damage the wiki is not an option.

Thanks -- [[User:Sannse|Sannse]]<staff /> ([[w:c:community:Forum:Community_Central_Forum|help forum]] | [[w:c:community:Blog:Wikia_Staff_Blog |blog]]) 14:51, October 17, 2010 (UTC)

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:Firstly, there is the difference in opinion between GTW's staff and active community, and Wikia. The community has decided to change host, whilst Wikia sees us as an illegitimate fork to be denied and competed against. I can see we aren't going to agree on that point, but note it nontheless.

:Behind the scenes, two GTW staff have expressed a desire to maintain this Wikia site in some form, in addition to GTW. They decided to run this site as a modding-focused wiki. For GTA, modding is a huge subject area that accounts for over 90% of traffic at many GTA fansites. The external GTAModding wiki is a purely technical resource, and does not provide the community with the information, directories and support that we could.

:It was agreed that this wikia site would cover everything to do with modding and technical support, whilst GTW would cover the more general storyline and end-user information. By separating the subject area into two very real wikis, we felt it would offer better experience for all those concerned.

:This means that this Wikia site would continue to run, would continue to maintain the vast majority of its content, and would be opened up to a subject area largely untouched at the moment. It would work in a close partnership with GTW, referring users in both directions, without competing or splitting the user base into two.

:GTA-mysteries asked to lead this new mod site, and was appointed the bureaucrat for the new wiki, and decided on the name Grand Theft Wiki Mods. He has taken the lead on this project and we voluntarily relinquished control to him.

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:* ''"Wikia is a collaborative publishing platform that enables communities to discover, create and share content on any topic in any language."'' - The [http://www.wikia.com/Wiki_Creation_Policy Wiki Creation Policy] doesn't say anything about "if Wikia staff like the idea", so I'm not sure with what authority you are imposing your will on this community.

:*''"Text on Wikia sites is available under a free content license, meaning the information you put on the wiki can be copied and reused by anyone. This is very important to our goal of increasing the amount of free content in the world"'' - This doesn't tally with your intention to disrupt Grand Theft Wiki, maintain duplicate content, and split the community.

:*''"Wikia are community projects"'' doesn't match up with you ignoring the community's desire to not be subject to the Oasis skin nor the feature changes nor terms of use changes that Wikia is forcing.

:*''"Consensus and cooperation should be the primary means for organizing a wiki."'' - this is EXACTLY what '''we''' have been doing all along, and is precisely what my main aims amount to. After a lengthy run-up to the new skin and features, it was clear that a huge portion of the community was vocally dissatisfied with them. Yet Wikia has completely ignored the consensus, refused to cooperate or compromise, and are forcing its will on the community. Banning and demoting staff members, altering content and structure, these are not the actions of hosts, but of an absolutist, dogmatic, authoritarian regime, completely opposed to its community for its own ends. Don't be that.

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::::What, you're trying to say this is simply a staffing problem? I'm sure there's plenty of people willing to help look after this wiki. Look, it's as simple as this: if you no longer wish to stay here, sod off and stop sabotaging it for people that do. Yes, of course it'd be better as a single wiki but it's too late for that - you've already made the wiki fork into two wikis. Users will now have to visit two sites or choose one wiki over the other. And over time, the latter is inevitable. But that still doesn't mean you get to choose for us. We, as individual visitors, get to choose which wiki we go to. And as much as I hate the new skin, the way you lot have been behaving, you've done Wikia a massive favour by making them look like the lesser evil. [[User:Rodney88|Rodney88]] 14:01, October 18, 2010 (UTC)

:Rodney - I understand and sympathise with your position. I agree it would be so much better for there to be one single wiki which everyone worked on. I personally believe that having two duplicate wikis is damaging to the community, and I would rather there be one at a consensually-determined location. We (as a community) decided to change host. Not to fork, not to split into two, but to move. I think the community and staff combined ''do'' have the right to move the wiki - the community owns it, not Wikia. As above, that was not imply due to disliking the skin, but the control that Wikia is exerting over the wiki, removing more and more rights from the community and its staff, and ignoring the many comments on the skin and new features. However, Wikia decided to keep running a copy of the wiki here as a fork from GTW. One of our staff members decided to stay behind and keep running this, and decided to point it more in the direction of mods. There was no vandalism, it was intended to be simply deleting the pages that are irrelevant to either wiki. I wasn't threatening to sue, please don't read too far into my comments. There are many issues with licencing on specific pages and images on this wiki. Many things are copyright and permission exists only to host these on GTW, not wikia's copy. I absolutely agree that each individual member of community has the right to choose whether they edit or not. We want to give everyone a fair chance to choose between the two, not for Wikia to commandeer the domain we've been using and pretend that the community is solely hosted there. I absolutely agree that Wikia are free to copy (most of) GTW's content and host their own version, with different staff. However, pretending that the site hasn't moved, denying the existance of GTW, and copying its logo and name are not fair actions on their behalf. [http://www.grandtheftwiki.com/user:gboyers Gboyers] [http://www.grandtheftwiki.com/User_talk:Gboyers talk] 14:19, October 18, 2010 (UTC)

:Rodney - I understand and sympathise with your position. I agree it would be so much better for there to be one single wiki which everyone worked on. I personally believe that having two duplicate wikis is damaging to the community, and I would rather there be one at a consensually-determined location. We (as a community) decided to change host. Not to fork, not to split into two, but to move. I think the community and staff combined ''do'' have the right to move the wiki - the community owns it, not Wikia. As above, that was not imply due to disliking the skin, but the control that Wikia is exerting over the wiki, removing more and more rights from the community and its staff, and ignoring the many comments on the skin and new features. However, Wikia decided to keep running a copy of the wiki here as a fork from GTW. One of our staff members decided to stay behind and keep running this, and decided to point it more in the direction of mods. There was no vandalism, it was intended to be simply deleting the pages that are irrelevant to either wiki. I wasn't threatening to sue, please don't read too far into my comments. There are many issues with licencing on specific pages and images on this wiki. Many things are copyright and permission exists only to host these on GTW, not wikia's copy. I absolutely agree that each individual member of community has the right to choose whether they edit or not. We want to give everyone a fair chance to choose between the two, not for Wikia to commandeer the domain we've been using and pretend that the community is solely hosted there. I absolutely agree that Wikia are free to copy (most of) GTW's content and host their own version, with different staff. However, pretending that the site hasn't moved, denying the existance of GTW, and copying its logo and name are not fair actions on their behalf. [http://www.grandtheftwiki.com/user:gboyers Gboyers] [http://www.grandtheftwiki.com/User_talk:Gboyers talk] 14:19, October 18, 2010 (UTC)

:Gboyers: Actually, we see you as a totally ''legitimate'' fork. However, that doesn't mean that we should allow the parent wiki to be damaged in any way. The two admins who want to start a wiki about modding are very welcome to. In fact, I've [[w:c:gta-mods|created the wiki for them]] and will be happy to help with getting any content copied over they want to have there (with full attribution to this wiki of course).

:For this wiki, my question to all admins remains. What do you want to do? Are you willing to stay and look after this wiki, with its current content and focus? Or are you willing to go and edit elsewhere leaving this wiki in peace? Or should I remove all rights now? This wiki will remain for readers like Rodney88, anons and casual editors, past editors, future editors, and anyone else who chooses to remain. They are a community too, and this is their wiki. – [[User:Sannse|Sannse]]<staff /> ([[w:c:community:Forum:Community_Central_Forum|help forum]] | [[w:c:community:Blog:Wikia_Staff_Blog |blog]]) 23:27, October 18, 2010 (UTC)