User talk:ExtremoMania: Difference between revisions

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:I've made some article edits here and they've been nice to me.  And frankly I think grandtheftwiki is better than GTAWikia.  Staff has a better command of the in-game facts, and because they have far fewer new editors coming in they're much better able to teach new editors how to be good editors.  I think the difference in the wiki is most sharply illustrated by comparing grandtheftwiki's [[Vehicles in GTA V]] article to Wikia's [http://gta.wikia.com/Vehicles_in_GTA_V "article"]. <b>[[User:McJeff|Jeff]]</b> <sup>[[User talk:McJeff|(talk this way)]]</sup> / <sub>[[Special:Contributions/McJeff|(stalk this way)]]</sub> 00:45, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
:I've made some article edits here and they've been nice to me.  And frankly I think grandtheftwiki is better than GTAWikia.  Staff has a better command of the in-game facts, and because they have far fewer new editors coming in they're much better able to teach new editors how to be good editors.  I think the difference in the wiki is most sharply illustrated by comparing grandtheftwiki's [[Vehicles in GTA V]] article to Wikia's [http://gta.wikia.com/Vehicles_in_GTA_V "article"]. <b>[[User:McJeff|Jeff]]</b> <sup>[[User talk:McJeff|(talk this way)]]</sup> / <sub>[[Special:Contributions/McJeff|(stalk this way)]]</sub> 00:45, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
Firstly, you use the word "beat" as if having more articles makes the wiki better. It doesn't. We pride ourselves on having ''higher quality'' articles that are easy to understand and have detailed and useful information.
Yes, Grand Theft Wiki has [[Special:Statistics|7,032]] articles, whilst GTA Wikia has only [http://gta.wikia.com/Special:Statistics 6,881]. The count of articles is a good measurement as it excludes stubs, talk pages and other non-content pages. GTA Wikia has more ''pages'' but these could simply be useless stubs, user pages and talk pages.
But as for languages, only the English Grand Theft Wiki moved away from Wikia. The English one is the only one that I founded and had any real involvement with. The other languages were started completely separately, by different people, have different staff, different policies, and have not moved. They are completely separate wikis that all happen to be hosted at Wikia. So it would be up to those communities whether they chose to move or not.
As for users/contributors - it's true that GTA Wikia gets more edits and more visitors. This is because of the size of the Wikia network, and how many different sites they have under the "wikia.com" domain. This means Google sees all of Wikia as one huge site, and wrongly perceives it to be a very large and popular site. This means that every Wikia wiki is shown at the very top of Google results - even if they are tiny wikis that have never been edited. Have a look at the Google search for [https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=microsoft+wiki Microsoft wiki] - this shows the Wikia site (that I also founded) even though the wiki is very small and nobody ever edits it!
Here at Grand Theft Wiki, we don't mind having a smaller number of users, because our goal is to have high-quality and useful information about GTA. Wikia is a company, and (by definition) their goal is to make profit, so they want lots of page views and adverts, even if the quality and usability is not as high as this site. That is why we left, and we are very happy that we did! [[User:Gboyers|gboyers]] <sup>[[User_talk:Gboyers|talk]]</sup> 16:45, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Revision as of 16:45, 26 March 2012

Welcome ExtremoMania

Hi , welcome to Grand Theft Wiki! I hope you like the place and decide to stay.

We're pleased you've chosen to come to Grand Theft Wiki. We are a little different to many other sites, because we pride ourselves on encouraging every user to pitch in and help out, not just the experts.

Even if you're new and don't know much about how wikis work, we encourage you to get stuck in and start editing away! Any edit can be can be reversed, so don't worry about breaking things too much! Have a practice in the sandbox too if you like.

  • If you do need help, check out our Help section.
  • If you want to know more about Grand Theft Wiki, see our About page.
  • If you're interested in our rules and the way we do things on Grand Theft Wiki, check out our Policy.
  • If you'd like to interact with the rest of the community here, check out our Community Hub.
  • If you want a safe place to test out editing, have a play around with our Sandbox

Whether you're brand new to wikis or are more experienced, check out our Tasks page, which shows you the sorts of things we need you to help out with on here.

I hope you enjoy being a part of this wiki, and that get involved in the community here! If you need help, ask any of our Staff members and leave a message on our talk/discussion pages. Have fun!

-- gboyers talk 15:25, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Re: Can I Edit

In reply to Can I Edit

Hi Karl. Just to give you the background, I created the GTA Wikia back in 2007. In 2010, the community chose to move away from Wikia, because of a number of reasons. However, Wikia did not allow us to move, and decided to keep a copy of our wiki, copy all our content, and run it without any of the users or staff. They also kept the URL that we were using, so a lot of our visitors don't know we moved here, and Wikia refuses to let us tell them.

We do not hate the wiki, because we created it. We just dislike Wikia (the company) for how they have treated us. Almost all of the content on that wiki was created by us and our users. However now, we believe we have the better site.

Of course you may edit here - so long as you as being helpful and positive, there's nothing wrong with that. Just remember that our policy is slightly different, and we do do some things slightly differently. Also, please do not link back to Wikia. Good to see you here - gboyers talk 12:56, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

I've made some article edits here and they've been nice to me. And frankly I think grandtheftwiki is better than GTAWikia. Staff has a better command of the in-game facts, and because they have far fewer new editors coming in they're much better able to teach new editors how to be good editors. I think the difference in the wiki is most sharply illustrated by comparing grandtheftwiki's Vehicles in GTA V article to Wikia's "article". Jeff (talk this way) / (stalk this way) 00:45, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Firstly, you use the word "beat" as if having more articles makes the wiki better. It doesn't. We pride ourselves on having higher quality articles that are easy to understand and have detailed and useful information.

Yes, Grand Theft Wiki has 7,032 articles, whilst GTA Wikia has only 6,881. The count of articles is a good measurement as it excludes stubs, talk pages and other non-content pages. GTA Wikia has more pages but these could simply be useless stubs, user pages and talk pages.

But as for languages, only the English Grand Theft Wiki moved away from Wikia. The English one is the only one that I founded and had any real involvement with. The other languages were started completely separately, by different people, have different staff, different policies, and have not moved. They are completely separate wikis that all happen to be hosted at Wikia. So it would be up to those communities whether they chose to move or not.

As for users/contributors - it's true that GTA Wikia gets more edits and more visitors. This is because of the size of the Wikia network, and how many different sites they have under the "wikia.com" domain. This means Google sees all of Wikia as one huge site, and wrongly perceives it to be a very large and popular site. This means that every Wikia wiki is shown at the very top of Google results - even if they are tiny wikis that have never been edited. Have a look at the Google search for Microsoft wiki - this shows the Wikia site (that I also founded) even though the wiki is very small and nobody ever edits it!

Here at Grand Theft Wiki, we don't mind having a smaller number of users, because our goal is to have high-quality and useful information about GTA. Wikia is a company, and (by definition) their goal is to make profit, so they want lots of page views and adverts, even if the quality and usability is not as high as this site. That is why we left, and we are very happy that we did! gboyers talk 16:45, 26 March 2012 (UTC)