Hey guys, Atrumentis here.
As you may know, I am a forum moderator over at Diablofans.com. And well, turns out Diablofans is creating its own Wiki (called Diablopedia).
After much consideration, I have decided that I will join Diablopedia fully and resign myself from this wiki. Sorry, don't think I am abandoning you guys, because you're all more than welcome to join Diablopedia too. And any admin from here who does join Diablopedia would also be granted wiki adminship over there, seeing as you've already proven to be skillful admins.
I am excited about Diablopedia because we'll be starting again, and I love the feeling of starting fresh (I create new Diablo characters all the time just for the fun of it). But I'm also excited because the new wiki will have a bigger active community involved. Or at least, thats the plan.
But most importantly, thanks to everyone for making this wiki a lot of fun and a damn good experience, even if you guys pretty much did all the work, hehe.
~ Atrumentis 09:20, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- You know... I kinda saw this coming. No really. I've had some discussions about this with Atru earlier and I hate to break it to you guys :( but I'm sorry to say that I have plans to shift there as well. But I'm yet to make a solid decision, seeing that the wiki's not even announced to the general public. There is only one condition that I have, any wiki should allow anon edits - like this wiki does :) (in fact, no other big wiki allows anon edits :() And Atru has said that anons will be allowed there, until they cause some serious trouble... But I still have apprehensions, for one, I'll join there only as the biggest n00b in the world, not like the already wiki-experienced admin who wants to be admin, so I don't need adminship there :D Anyways, I don't have enuff time y'all. The main reason I wanna shift is the community... No I'm not saying you're not the most politest, sweetest, happy-go-lucky-... est people that I so enjoy to be with. But the community here is a tad small innit?? Only one active admin, no active bcrats and at the most 3-4 average editors. Now there, looking at the forums, anyone can imagine the sheer size of the peepulz there. I won't add any thank yous and sorries right now (who knows, when it's launched, it may not be what I thought it to be :D) that's for when I'm actually leaving. Right now, I'm still a member of this community and will help out in any way possible (provided I have some time :P) And Atru should pass on bcracy to Danrr. Wiki should have bcrats ;) "The Diablo Wiki needs you 4L!!!", Mobokill 04:09, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- Okay, yeah, I'll grant bcratship to Dan. Atrumentis 04:31, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- I want to join too. As the content of this wiki is under the GNU FDL, will the new wiki copy it? Or better yet, we could move the wiki, export all the pages and then import them. Make the Diablofans wiki a continuation of this project and not a competitor. What license will the new wiki use? - DanTalk 08:43, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- Okay, yeah, I'll grant bcratship to Dan. Atrumentis 04:31, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- OMG lol, Dan, did you actually agree??? I thought you'd give the stiffest resistance to something like copying from this wiki :) considering how we'd go bashing all the other fansites :D But you sure read my mind there. I asked Atru the same thing earlier and he said it wouldn't be nice from a moral point-of-view, but in the end, he says the guys there are ready to copy some of the things in this wiki, but if we move large chunks of info, they'll have to add this wiki in their credits. Considering how hard some of the earlier users worked, I somewhat agree with that. But, it'd be wise to ask JoePlay or some other wikia staff about this. Maybe the entire wiki can be transferred there so that users who try this link can redirect there. I know that's impossible :P but something like that can be done. And now, to complete the triad, all we need is Master Houdini's word on this. And does ENG know what's happening here?? He doesn't check the RC list or the Shoutbox often it seems. Once JoePlay replies, my mind won't rest. But tell me Dan, what're your reasons for the shift. Not that you have to tell us but I'd like to hear some of the other problems with this wiki other than the tiny community. "The Diablo Wiki needs you 4L!!!", Mobokill 09:53, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- Hey, I just realized ... Diablofans is THE official fansite of the Diablo series. So that means that wiki IS THE OFFICIAL WIKI OF THE DIABLO SERIES!!! Think about the possibilities. It'll be like Wowwiki, only much much better :D Hey, I wanna be admin now. No wait, lemme think about it. "The Diablo Wiki needs you 4L!!!", Mobokill 09:59, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
The wiki can be moved, with page history and everything else using the export/import page option. There are some wikis that have moved completely from wikia. I remember Linux wiki moving and some others. And why give credits, when the new project can be branded as a continuation of this one?- DanTalk 10:10, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- Well, this wiki IS wikia's so it'd atleast be in good faith to ask one of them before doing anything that requires blatant copy-pasting. About 550 pages of this wiki are purely made by members other than we three (or four if we count Atru too) so come on... Think of what wikia would do if they found that one of their potential sources for ad revenue is gonna be left to rot. "The Diablo Wiki needs you 4L!!!", Mobokill 10:21, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- facepalm* I think you misunderstood what I said :P I didn't say we can't copy from here, only discussed whether it'd be right to take someone's work without asking. I've just had some very unpleasant realizations, I, myself, have blatantly copy-pasted much content from the other wiki ~_~ So, I have no right to go all preachy like I did :) So, yeah, I'm all for it. LET'S DO IT!!! Anyways it also depends if they want our info :P "The Diablo Wiki needs you 4L!!!", Mobokill 11:46, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
Well yes, I assume the new wiki will be under GNU FDL. Even if they were planning for it not to be, they would have to make it that way or else we wouldn't be able to copy things from here. If we did move this whole wiki... well, I suppose Wikia can't stop us, because according to them "no one person owns the content on Wikia". But it would probably have to be a somewhat unanimous vote. But the other thing is that they don't allow advertising in any form, so we can't post a link to the new wiki. I suppose we could announce it, but not say exactly where we are going, just leave it for them to figure out? And if we did export/import it... well, that would be perfect, because it would have all the page history there. Thats pretty much the main reason for giving each page that we take from here individual credit: just so we can keep a track on who edited what. So as long as everyone currently here agrees, I don't see why we can't. Of course, JoePlay could be completely against it... but I don't see how. Atrumentis 14:18, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- Saying that "The wiki has moved to ..." isn't exactly advertising, so I think that it can be done. - DanTalk 14:22, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- Okay, well, we're just waiting on JoePlay's advice. Atrumentis 15:28, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
So, just like a tailpiece, I'm posting some more points that bug me. Suppose we're successful in exporting everything to the new place and adding a link to the Dpedia over here, now what does wikia do when someone comes up and says they wanna start a Diablo Wiki (think Trifton)??? They just redirect them here right? Now what does the asker do when he/she finds out that this is a ghost town, which redirects to the Dpedia?? Either he goes to Dpedia and starts contribs there or he complains to Wikia that this is a dead wiki and he wants bcracy (brings back memories, doesn't it Atru??) Then what?? This wiki starts growing again (hopefully) and the Dpedia becomes for them like Diii.net's wiki is for us - competition. And then, the cycle continues... Just want your comments on this. Not a problem exactly but I somewhat hate the cycle thing. "The Diablo Wiki needs you 4L!!!", Mobokill 16:33, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- Would it really be much of a competition though? They would have to win over a fairly big community to really compete. Oh man, JoePlay has been active here but still hasn't replied. Atrumentis 05:32, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
- Hey guys, I run the gaming vertical, and work closely with Joe here at Wikia. I see that you are considering moving to another wiki, but I'm a little confused, as the reason. Though the community here is small(for the time being) I promise it will pick up with the game getting closer to launch. Is there an issue with this wiki that is causing you all to consider moving? I would love to talk to everyone about this :). -- Doug (talk) 01:43, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
- Oh hai! Although I made a lot of edits here over the last couple days, I was using a program called AutoWikiBrowser to make a bunch of minor clean-up edits, so in reality I wasn't actually "here" browsing the wiki, which is why I'm just now seeing all this discussion. Anyway... like Doug said, we'd really like to find out what problem all of you have with this wiki (that you've turned into a top-notch Diablo site) to make you want to leave. I can understand Atrumentis's reason, since he's a moderator at diablofans.com (being an admin at their wiki and this one would be a conflict of interest), but I'm confused as to why you other admins are so quick to jump ship. JoePlay (talk) 02:25, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
Popularity
How will this site get popular? I might think it's worthwhile if it ever gets popular enough. --ENG 09:59, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
- Lolwot??? :D You're kidding right? Diablofans is the second most popular Diablo series fansite after Diii.net (which never pays any heed to lore. It's the best place for game stats and the like though. Try their forums for some ree-hee-heeallly cheesy D3 storylines) :) "The Diablo Wiki needs you 4L!!!", Mobokill 11:04, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
- I think he's talking about this wiki, not that fansite :) Wikia is no small community, and WoWWiki is also located here (and links to this wiki). In addition, we have a dedicated team to getting the word out about the wiki, plus like other fansites we are in contact with Blizzard (indeed, I met Bashiok at BlizzCon and WWI). We certainly aren't going to forget about you, especially as Diablo III is coming... Kirkburn (talk) 18:15, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
- Sorry Kirk :P Didn't see yer response between this mess :) Hmmm... Now why would ENG think this wiki's worthwhile if he's already an active member here. That's what I thought anyway :D OK. And about the community, well, when I say small, I mean this wiki's community, not the wikia one. Gosh, wikia's community pwns over all the big D's fansites put together ... TIMES 10!!! No doubt about that. Hope that clarifies something :) "The Diablo Wiki needs you 4L!!!", Mobokill 03:46, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
A Mobo reason
Well, you finally replied :) And we have visitors!!! Ok, now why am I shifting base?? I'd be lying if I said I didn't wanna be admin :D But I still think that this wiki's community doesn't compare (in respect to sheer humongousness) to Dfans community. There're some people there that I'd luv to get to know better. And no, they won't come here, loyal fanboys, all of em :D Otherwise, this is a much better developed place, which they're still lagging behind on. I'd rather be here than Diii.net's wiki though (for reasons that are obvious to some members :D) And yes, I said it before, I'm not leaving this wiki until they become what I think they wanna become. I'll be checking out both wikis from now, but my contribs will go here, until they're done with the GUI and they start importing this stuff. When the official announcement's made, I have a few questions to ask em too, like ads, for instance. Otherwise, hearing Atru talk about it, I regard it as an extension of our wiki (only not Wikia controlled, sorry folks :)). He has most of the details though. And finally, I find no other drawbacks (actually, I never did, even when everyone was complainin bout the ads) other than the lack of a proper community here.
Oh, and Doug, you seem like a nice guy :) When you say that the community will pick up near the game's launch, I'm too skeptical. For one, yes, the community will pick up, but won't that be an overstatement?? I'm really sorry, no I really am, but the BlizzCon experience has left me shaken. How could everyone desert us like that??? :| A new user comes by, makes a few edits and poof ... He's gone. I've seen it happen too many times :( Maybe it's because while events like that tend to make the community grow, it makes the entire community grow, including all the other fansites. So, whatever net growth we have over here never compares with the traffic Dfans, Planet Diablo and Diii.net get. So, those're my reasons, sorry bout boring y'all, but I really spilled my heart out here *sniff* "The Diablo Wiki needs you 4L!!!", Mobokill 10:02, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
- Mobo, you my friend are awesome! Thank you for your response, and I appreciate your honesty :). The rather unfortunate side of having dozens and dozens of really great communities is that I don't get a chance to stop by, explain what we are all about, and how we are here to help.
- But that said, I would like to take a moment and explain my role here at Wikia, so as the sr. marketing manager, it is my job to make sure we have enough outreach, great events, and traffic to all the core communities. The whole idea of "if you build it, they will come" will only get you so far. Through a combination of press, viral marketing and online events, we strive to boost traffic and bolster the communities we touch. Most of my attention has gone to Fallout in the past couple of months (meeting with the developers for official support, planning online events and getting swag from developers/publishers, making sure our SEO ranking was top notch, giving our admins support and helping out on the wiki are all ways I help out...I talk to the admin on a daily basis), but Diablo is on our list, as evident by the redesign, and all of Joe's efforts, and we have big plans!
- I share your concerns for growing our community, and I have some great ideas (that have proven successful for WHO, Fallout, The Witcher, AOC, WoW, Soul Calibur, GTA etc...) that I would love to work on with you guys. There are all sorts of methods that we will focus on to build out the community and drive massive amounts of traffic here to the Diablo Wiki. As someone with experience in the world of wikis and games, I promise you, what you are experiencing is more than normal.
- With the Blizzard releasing snippets of info on characters and skills, most fans visit forums or blogs to get the quick fix on the latest news. Wikis however offer a comprehensive database (for information that hasn't been released yet) and therefore are not critical...YET.... This is the quite before the storm, and we should be taking this time to make sure everything is solid and set in place for when the time comes I expect over 1M fans to descend upon this wiki every day. The good news is that we will be ready for them, and we are here to help make sure we become the next WoWwiki :). Now that you know I exist, I suspect you will have a ton of questions and great ideas. I'd love to chat with you guys some more over email, Skype or talkpages. Feel free to drop me a line at douglas@wikia-inc.com, and we can discuss the future of the Diablo Wiki together ;). -- Doug (talk) 22:42, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
- There's no denying that Dfans has a huge community, but I guess I'm glad that (so far) that seems to be the only reason for wanting to leave this wiki. I'm sure some or all of you noticed Kirkburn's post about blogs being implemented. Maybe that will be a feature that can generate a bigger community here. I also wanted to ask (mainly directed at Atru) if anyone has tried inviting the Dfans community and/or the Dfans staff to use/adopt this wiki as their own instead of starting a new one from scratch. (I've installed, setup, customized, and filled out a wiki from scratch before (it's how I got noticed and hired by Wikia), and trust me... it's no small task.) One example of this is the guys who run TooHuman.net, which is by far the biggest and best Too Human fansite on the web. Those guys used Wikia to create and admin their own wiki here at Wikia and link to it from their fansite. Similarly, if the admins at Dfans chose to adopt this wiki as their own, they could easily be made into Bureaucrats by Doug. The wiki here could link back to Dfans in several places and vice versa. Just a thought. =) JoePlay (talk) 23:14, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
- OMG, you're pretty high up!!! Collaborating with the admins from Dfans seems very viable. But what would wikia do to their rights?? I mean, if at all the admins there decide to join hands and do it, then how different would it be from having a wiki at their own place?? And Joe, this is the thread that made me come here. And it's where many users have said they'll help, and I've not seen any other thread where we're discussed :( Maybe they're still around, just we don't exactly know who they are O_o Otherwise, I think having a joint effort is great. You guys have to understand that they're still pretty early in development, so talking to them right now may be better than doing so after they've got the bells and whistles running. Whatever we do, we should act fast. I wanna ask Atru to post the url so that these guys here can see their progress. I can't do that in a public forum now, can I?? "The Diablo Wiki needs you 4L!!!", Mobokill 00:55, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
Well, see the thing is, there are huge plans for this wiki, but there are equally huge plans for Diablopedia (and the Diablofans forum). I can't give you all the details, because I'm not even meant to know all of them, but I know that Diablopedia's production is pretty much unstoppable. Okay, in the past, I never really asked Mockery or anyone to adopt this wiki as their own (noone was really enthusiastic about this wiki anyway, I think one of the mods edited a couple times anonymously but that was it). But now that I know Mockery's plans, he certainly wouldn't have accepted the adoption. Oh man, I hate competition like this. I've thought about this for ages, and at first I even decided that maybe it was best if I just don't edit either of the wiki's, to be fair. But at the same time I don't want to put my knowledge in lore to waste. *sigh*, I wouldn't mind talking to you guys on msn or something thats a little more instantaneous. Atrumentis 05:48, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
- Oh BLOODY HELL!!! I feel like my legs're being stretched by being tied to two Panoz GTRs ... IN OPPOSITE DIRECTIONS!!! You cannot imagine the pain I feel in some parts of my body. Ok that was overkill, but whenever you guys start, don't leave me out :) "The Diablo Wiki needs you 4L!!!", Mobokill 06:29, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
Hokay, so now that collaboration is out of question, let's think about the other way. Instead of moving their wiki here, we'll move our wiki there like Dan has pointed out above, huh?? Being under the Dfans banner may work wonders for the wiki. So, instead of us, forcefully grabbing the pages and exportin em, doesn't it seem better to do so amiably, with the support (if you will) of both parties?? I think if Atru trusts us enough to keep an unannounced feature of his site secret, I should trust him when he says that they're working very hard to make it a grand success, and that they're very excited about this ambitious project. Seeing his excitement over it, I have no doubt it will be one, but we need to make this work together now. Phew ... Sometimes I get sooo serious, I scare myself!!! :D But take this into consideration, maybe wikia can still collaborate with Dfans over this, while keeping the wiki there (redirections, links to other wikis, maintenance etc.) I don't wanna leave Joe, Kirk and all the other users over here who have no idea whatsoever of what's going on in this small forum, but I don't wanna leave Atru, Dan and the chance to meet people like Solomir, Anakyn, Elfen and Dimebog. And I'm not ready to double post the same thing for both wikis, especially on a slow wireless connection like mine. So, that's why I'm insisting on keeping one wiki where we're all one huge family (even though we haven't seen each other yet, and we don't dine together but let's discuss that later) "The Diablo Wiki needs you 4L!!!", Mobokill 15:27, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
Diablofans
Greetings all of you. I'm PhrozenDragon, one of the mods over at Diablofans. Atrumentis gave us the link to this discussion, and I came over here to see what you're all thinking and how you feel about a possible merger.
It's obvious that, in the end, we all want the same thing, and that's is an extensive database with every bit of Diablo info there is, be it from books or games. Ultimately however, as Atrumentis has already said, I suspect it would be inconceivable for us to utilize Wikia for our own wiki, both because of what we wish to do with it and the fact that I think mockery wants to be in charge of what do do and not to. And that goes beyond just administrative rights.
That being said, few of us mods over at Dfans have any experience maintaining a wiki, and that's why it would be great if we could get you to come over there. In terms of content, you already have an impressive database established here. Competition is good they say, but it doesn't do much if it only works to split the efforts of people who could potentially be working together. It is our hopes that we could combine our efforts, instead of dividing them.
If you have any questions, both I and Atrumentis could relay them to mockery. I don't know if he'll come over here in person, he's quite an elusive guy. I'll ask him if he would consider having a wiki on wikia and see what he says about that though.
Oh, and I think I should clarify something. Diablofans is an official fansite, but not the official fansite. There is no such thing, and never will be I suspect.
- Now "'that was unexpected :) not in a bad way though :D Well, mockery seems like a scary guy :) Didn't know he was the dude of dfans though, you learn something everyday, don'tcha?? Well I give up ... Whatever decision I take (in regards to which wiki I finally join to contrib) will be after Dpedia is announced and I get some answers to my questions about it. Otherwise, in regards to helping out, I'll help ya both :) Whatever contribbing plans I had are on an indefinite hold right now, looking at matters that may be crucial to the future of the wiki. I'll drop by now and then though, helping out people, giving comments and talking. "The Diablo Wiki needs you 4L!!!", Mobokill 18:01, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
Well I spoke to mockery, and he wants to keep the Diablofans wiki running from diablofans.com
Hpwever, I can confirm for you Mobokill that mockery also support anonymous edits, and that this will be allowed on our new wiki. He will also be happy if mutual links could exist between the sites, with the diablofans wiki linking to wikia and wikia doing the same in return.
If you have any other questions of wish to have something clarified, I'll gladly relay it to mockery. --PhrozenDragon 23:10, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
Greetings, I have no problem in contributing to this wiki and diablofans.com, unless I have to choose?? as you, I also want a place where all the info of diablo is well distributed. As it is said on my page I won't be very active for a very long time so I don't think I'll be making big edits to any site, sorry.(and sorry for my english I'm from a unknown country where they don't speak english as their native language (:<)--Bartrex 23:45, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
Clarification
In response to Bartex's reply where he asks "unless I have to choose?" I wanted to make something clear to anyone who may be under the impression that you have to choose between this wiki and any other Diablo wiki. You do not. Although some of the admins of this wiki are going to Dfans to help get their wiki started, this Diablo Wiki will remain here at Wikia where it has been since 2005. It is not moving, leaving, or going away. The Wikia Gaming team has been and will continue to be committed to the Diablo Wiki remaining the premiere Diablo resource. As always, anyone and everyone is welcome, and I encourage all to share their Diablo knowledge here, especially Diablo III news and information as more becomes available. JoePlay (talk) 00:15, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
- I second that, although I thought I'd made it clear when I said, "Although we leave it entirely up to you if ya wanna join" :P So yeah, if anyone still wants to edit in this wiki, you can peepul!!! "Fear me!!!" (f")f --> Mobokill 00:48, 6 January 2009 (UTC)