Archive:Wikipedia/Talk:Wikia

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Wikipedia:Verifiability

(I posted the following to Anthere's talk page, following her comments here. I'm copying it here in case the issue's still being discussed.)

Hi Anthere, I saw you express some frustration at the Verifiability policy. This is just to let you know that material that's self-published by Wikia e.g. a press release, or a statement on its website, is allowed to be used as a source in the article. The policy allows self-published material that was written by the subject of the article — with some restrictions, which are listed here — and as that part of the article directly concerns the Foundation, a press release from the Foundation would be acceptable too.

The point of the "verifiability, not truth" provision is just to make sure that Wikipedia is never a first publisher of information. We always need to be able to point to where we took our material from. It helps to keep the project safe.

Hope this helps. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 07:46, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Disambiguation

The following hatnote

{{Distinguish2|the [[Wikimedia Foundation]]}}

is bad, the template {{distinguish2}} is only meant for disambiguation (I mean word sense disambiguation). The only ambiguity (I still mean "word ambiguity") between the two names Wikia and Wikimedia Foundation is the word "wiki" they have in common. So it's true readers might be confused about these two names because of the word "wiki", but if so, they are strongly likely to be also confused by all the names including the word "wiki", so that's why I suggest the following disambiguation link:

{{otheruses4|the wiki farm|other similar names including the word "wiki"|Wiki (disambiguation)}}}}

moreover, I disagree with Prodego's argument. The two names "Wikia" and "Wiki" are more likely to be confused than "Micro" and "Microsoft" since the word length difference is only of 1 (there is nothing on this article about the etymology of the name Wikia but I strongly assume that Wikia is only "Wiki + a"). [email protected] (talk) 01:30, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Obviously people do misconstrue the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikia, we have all the evidence of that. Also, see how the template 'distinguish' is used, which I would have used, except I needed to add the word 'the' to the template. {{Distinguish}} is very applicable. Thirdly, Wikia, and wiki aren't very similar in my opinion, but I don't care if you keep that, so long as you do keep distinguish. This is the right way to deal with a misconception, not slapping massive tags on it. You can even WP:IAR, if you want, the distinguish template is an improvement if it helps readers who are mistaken, and hurts no one in the process. However, as long as some notice is there, something that isn't ridiculous, that would be fine with me. Prodego ^talk 01:39, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Obviously people are confusing Wikia/Wikimedia, so it makes perfect sense to disambiguate between the two. I suppose people might also confuse Wikia/wiki, so we might disambig that as well (though I do note wiki is linked in the lead sentence, if that'll do). We needn't make this disambiguation "official" for it to be needed. – Luna Santin (talk) 23:14, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Self-reference

Please argue before removing the self-reference hatnote. IMO, there is no problem to have two pages about Wikia: Wikia (in the main namespace) and Wikipedia:Wikia (in the project namespace) since have Wikipedia (in the main namespace) and Wikipedia:Wikipedia (in the project namespace). [email protected] (talk) 01:44, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

And now you see why I wanted to use distinguish. Prodego ^talk 01:58, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

In most cases, disambiguation and self-reference are separable, in this case, let's try not to mix them. [email protected] (talk) 02:06, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

It's fine to have two pages about Wikia. But the page in project space should not be presented as encyclopedic information, because it isn't. The hatnote on Wikipedia clearly states "non-encyclopedic introduction"; it doesn't say "for information about how Wikipedia is X, click here". -Amarkov moo! 07:03, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, let's try a different sentence. Are you OK with my new hatnote? [email protected] (talk) 19:58, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

I still don't think that putting in a hatnote for that kind of stuff is a good idea. I mean, it's nice that it is now presented as WMF's opinion. But we would never have a note like that for any other organization, so why do Wikia and Wikimedia get special treatment? -Amarkov moo! 06:47, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't know, maybe because Wikia's founders also work for the Wikimedia Foundation... [email protected] (talk) 17:39, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Worth noting Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2008 February 5#Template:Wikia is not Wikipedia where prominent placement of just such an "official" statement was roundly rejected by the community. Granted that this is a far more subtle notice, and I appreciate the effort, but it still brings up some of the same concerns. – Luna Santin (talk) 23:18, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

If we're going to be a neutral encyclopedia, then we can't give any organization special treatment, no matter how close they are to Wikipedia. If the goal has changed from being a neutral encyclopedia to something else, please tell me; I didn't notice that happening. -Amarkov moo! 23:34, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

WP:NPOV is for the encyclopedic content

"All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV)".

Hatnote using the template {{selfref}} that you can see before the article, is not part of the article..., it is part of the Wikipedia project. What has to be written in a NPOV is the articles not the self-references or the template messages. In case of fork, these self-references and messages are very likely to be disabled. That's what {{selfref}} is for, and that's why it produces a special style (left margin and italic). As for {{Wikia is not Wikipedia}}, I also think it was a bad idea because it's a self-reference, for which we already have the template selfref... If you think the current style produced by the template doesn't allow to clearly see the difference between the encyclopedic content and the self-references, you might want you to suggest some changes. I don't know, a different colour, or a frame as on the Italian Wikipedia (see Luna for example) or making the message collapsible or a even why not a new tab (has already been proposed, see WT:Self-references to avoid#A new way of handling self references?). [email protected] (talk) 01:07, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I've never seen a single policy, guideline, discussion, or even widely supported statement or sentiment that disambiguation notices are in any way exempt from NPOV or other content policies. Since you're arguing for such an exemption, it seems clear you agree (even if subconsciously) that the current notice is not remotely neutral. – Luna Santin (talk) 02:13, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I make a difference between selfref and disambiguation notices (by the way selfref doesn't use the class "dablink"). Here I don't talk about disambiguation link like {{otheruses}} but about {{selfref}}. And I call tell you fully consciously that indeed the current self-reference is not NPOV. And it's not difficult to notice that, "For Wikimedia Foundation's statements", it's WMF's POV. Selfref are not an exempt, it's just that it belong to the Wikipedia project and we don't write our policies and guidelines for our own project but for the encyclopedic content.

"The goal of Wikipedia is to create an encyclopedia, not merely to perpetuate itself" WP:SELF.

selfref are WP's POV (or WMF's POV), that's why they are disabled in case of forking [email protected] (talk) 12:36, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

You've now openly admitted the selfref is not NPOV. On that basis alone, I'm removing it. – Luna Santin (talk) 21:38, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

For the sake of being open, I've posted to the village pump asking if this interpretation is supported by the community. – Luna Santin (talk) 01:58, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikia for Deleted Articles?

I think it would be worth discussing the possibility of changing non-notability deletion policies to include the step of transplanting information not suitable for wikipedia to a suitable wiki if it exists. One could argue that outright deletion is little better than book burning. . . —Preceding unsigned comment added by Carterhawk (talk • contribs) 07:02, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

This is an article about wikia, it's not a place to discuss the usefulness of wikia - you want to try and find a policy page to dicuss this on. --Fredrick day (talk) 10:18, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

This is already done unofficially in some cases, e.g. furry fandom articles to WikiFur, Star Trek articles to Memory Alpha, Star Wars to Wookieepedia. (Article deletion also spurs the creation of such wikis.) Often the target wikis already have articles on the topic, but not always, and Wikipedia's may be superior in some areas. GreenReaper (talk) 16:25, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

MyWikiBiz.com is requesting that articles that are deleted here for COI type reasons to be made available to be moved there. It would be useful to move deleted articles into the user space of the creator of the article whenever reasonable. WAS 4.250 (talk) 11:50, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Disclaimer

See history and TFD for background. There's been some back-and-forth on whether or not to include a disclaimer of a relationship between Wikia and the Wikimedia Foundation in the top of the article. I think this needs wider input from the community, so I am starting this RFC. —Random832 18:26, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Aside from the much-commented TFD, I think #Disambiguation and #Self-reference above are both helpful reading. – Luna Santin (talk) 00:32, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

• Could you be more clear, more elaborate on what the issue is, and what it is you would like to receive comments on?  — Xiutwel ♫☺♥♪ (speech has the power to bind the absolute) 22:49, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

An outside, neutral opinion on the COI.

To clarify my neutrality:

• I post over at Wikipedia Review
• I wrote the essay Anti-Wikipedianism
• Jimmy Wales himself has called me a troll. [1]
• Despite the above, I'm not going to argue here that Anthere is in the wrong, because I don't think she is, not entirely.

There seem to be two sides here:

• One group (largely likely from Wikipedia Review and just general Wiki-haters) trying to subtly put forth the conspiracy theory "Wikipedia = Wikia tax shelter"
• Members of the Foundation attempting to remove such suggestions, out of obvious self-interest

The edits by members of the Foundation seem to be a COI, but I don't blame them. Wouldn't you do the same thing in their situation? You actually expect the chairman of Wikimedia to put herself at legal risk, simply for the sake of adhering literally to a particular policy, on a website they have legal control over? The fact that they haven't banned you all, set this revision to the revision they want, and hidden your revisions are strong (and verifiable!) evidence itself of how this is a conspiracy theory.

And even if conflicts-of-interest are against the rules, if any rule hurts Wikipedia, it should be ignored. There isn't enough evidence to suggest that Wikipedia is a tax shelter, so the mob that is subtly pushing such conspiracy theories here are not acting in accordance with WP:V because they are engaging in synthesis of published material serving to advance a position, not to mention putting Wikipedia at legal risk, out of a bizarre crusade to take down Wikipedia, and thus they should be ignored.

There may also be some who aren't necessarily pushing conspiracy theories, but are simply pedantic followers of policy who will follow policy completely literally and plainly, as if it were the Bible, and they're basically encouraging this trolling.

With that said, "Verifiability, not truth" isn't stupid but that meme is stupid because there is little or no emphasis on rational and objective verification which should lead to the most reliable ascertainment of the truth.

Verification makes sense, because we could argue over "truth" all day long and we'd get nowhere. On the other hand, though, if articles weren't intended to have substantial truth to them, they wouldn't be "encyclopedic." So, we don't write articles based on our personal beliefs about the truth, but we do objectively verify in such a way that we are working towards achieving the most reliable ascertainment of the truth.

So, the wiki process involves verification, but another core principle of Wikipedia (one that's often forgotten on English Wikipedia) is that it is an encyclopedia, which means it is intended to be a reliable compendium of knowledge, of matters of fact.

In this case, I think some compromise should be in order that would lead to a better article. I haven't seen any version that I think is completely neutral, but I think the attacks on Anthere are somewhat unwarranted. I could try to edit the article myself, but before I do that it'd probably be best to wait to see what people here say about it. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 17:24, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

It's been two days and nobody says anything, so there are one of three possibilities here, logically:

• I'm correct and nobody objects to my statements above ("Silence equals consensus").
• People disagree with me but they're too lazy to respond or they think it wouldn't accomplish anything.

  Forcing people to choose between two sides oversimplifies the issue. GreenReaper (talk) 19:17, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

• Nobody's really watching this talkpage, because it isn't in the mainspace.

No matter what, I'm working on revising it now.

☯  Zenwhat (talk) 18:57, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I made changes here. [2] Most likely, they will be reverted in full by a first-time anon editor who is unwilling to discuss their changes but completely willing to edit war, and with the edit summary, "revert vandalism." Nevertheless, it was fun to actually attempt to make this article NPOV. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 19:29, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Nothing in your edit immediately jumps out at me as problematic, I'd say. Kudos for taking a shot at it. – Luna Santin (talk) 00:34, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Looks I was right, mostly.

This sentence was tagged as OR by an anon:

Then User:Discombobulator (who claims on their user page that they founded Wikipedia) removed it as OR.

I've re-included the sentence. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 01:41, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

OK. So, you have somebody removing a fairly reasonable claim which isn't sourced [3] (but it's illogical to remove on the claim that it "isn't sourced", because Wikia and Wikipedia both mention the office locations of both groups -- if this isn't a "sourced" claim, why doesn't he remove the info from both articles?)

Then, on the other hand, you have somebody who just removed a sentence which was pretty well-sourced [4], not based on what the source actually says, but by his interpretation of what the article is intended to be for? Baffling.

Neither of these two people (or the anon above) have any rational justification for their changes and neither have commented on the talkpage here about their edits. And so, yes, as expected from the outset, I didn't accomplish anything. But it was fun. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 18:17, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I think the phrase that's appropriate here is Interlocking directorate. --John Nagle (talk) 19:32, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Weird comments

I don't quite know what this is but it seems an odd POV unsourced comment that isn't true and doesn't make sense. It's also misleadingly placing text before a ref tag to make it look sourced when it isn't. Angela. 10:36, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Removed... but I'm not quite sure why you didn't do it yourself.happypal (Talk | contribs) 15:08, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Because people would accuse me of WP:COI. Angela. 02:29, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Hadn't though of that. Makes sense.happypal (Talk | contribs) 05:27, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

wikia's recent changes

last time i was on wikia it was just like the other wikis but now its all weird and i dont know how 2 do anything there. 1 of my friends is on there but i cant get 2 her page... can someone help me with that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by ShinkisRule (talk • contribs) 13:55, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

This page is only for discussing the article about Wikia, so I'll answer your question by email. Angela. 13:07, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

It seems Wikia's change in ad policy and the spiff with the Transformers Wiki has made the news

link How exactly should this be added? --FortMax (talk) 02:50, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I'd suggest it makes a good start for a "Criticisms" section. Or there could be a section about the controversy itself, using the article as the basis of notability, but including links to other seceding Wikis where there's been discussion about the matter. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 12:56, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

(Transformers Wiki has now moved: they're tfwiki.net) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.102.80.212 (talk) 19:02, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Moving is the sort of thing that people discuss in private - often what you see is the tip of the iceberg - but here's a list of public discussions on the larger sites:

Negative and discussing moving

• Furry (WikiFur) - Transformers (Teletraan-1) - Star Wars (Wookieepedia) - Creatures - GuildWars

Negative but not discussing moving

• Bionicle

Neutral/mixed

• World of Warcraft - Tibia (x2) - Runescape - Final Fantasy XI - Halo - Cyber Nations - Star Trek (Memory Alpha) - Yu-gi-oh - EverQuest 2 - Naruto (x2) - Halo Fanon

Positive

• GTA - Dofus

Leaders of smaller sites probably only contributed their opinion at the main forum for this topic (see archives) or the mailing list. GreenReaper (talk) 16:09, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Illogicopedia has moved, as of early November 2008. Uncyclopedia has always been split by language, with about half of the languages non-Wikia, as this sort of thing from Wikia's founders does not endear the company to Taiwan's uncyclopedia.tw. No bridges left to burn in some cases (uncyc.zh-tw left in 2006, splitting from en: after Wikia tried to lump them into uncyclopedia.wikiachina.cn - a site now banned in China). There were also removals of a few people from their Wikia posts in October, as the problems are worse than this (biased by its dreadful incompleteness) WP page cares to reflect. Wikia is still registering domain names which the respective communities wanted to use on their new non-Wikia sites (take a look at who.is/desciclopedia.net and who.is/desciclopedia.info, then look at the mess in Creatures Wiki, just more of the same...). The chronology (based on looking at the various wiki threads, the Guardian media coverage, the coverage on Valleywag and a few other sites tracking the Wikia layoff/firing spree) looks like:

June-July 2008:

• Wikia turns the site into an unusable mess of ads, using a forced reskin of wikis which it calls "New Monaco". People begin to leave. By the time The Guardian picks up the story (July 2008), the damage already has been done.
• Wikia's Alexa rank begins to tank by late-June '08 as disgruntled editors leave the site. That distant hope of becoming or remaining one of the largest 300 websites in the world quickly fades to black.
• The suits begin to realise they have a problem as Alexa traffic to other similar sites (such as non-Wikia wikis) is steady while Wikia is dropping like a rock. It's now not just authors but some entire wikis leaving or talking about leaving.

September 2008:

• Wikia takes its frustrations out on communities like en.uncyclopedia.org, redirecting its domain traffic in an attempt to inflate wikia.com's traffic statistics. Alexa stats show traffic counts for en.uncyclopedia.org drop from that of a top-10000 website to basically zero as Wikia appropriates that traffic for its own main domain in late-October.
• en.Uncyclopedia is pushed almost but not quite to the point of getting a backbone, packing up and leaving. As half of the non-English versions are already on co-located servers or hosted independently, the only thing Uncyclopedia is missing should they move en: is the uncyclopedia.org domain name (which one of the co-founders secretly, stupidly sold to Jimbo in July 2006).

October 2008:

• By late October, Wikia is widely reported to be laying off staff - about 10% (3 of its 43 paid worker bees) get the axe.^[5][6][7][8] Wikia claims to still be hiring, primarily in sales and marketing, despite the October 20, 2008 layoff announcements.
• At the end of October 2008, a gossip story circulates^[9] about why Jimbo Wales was no longer CEO of Wikia as of mid-2006, ^[10] although a Wikia venture capitalist investor issues a denial that he had been sacked for cause.^[11]

November 2008:

• Illogicopedia.org moves off-Wikia in early November. Wikia operates the old wiki as a direct competitor to the new one over the direct objection of its authors and even tries to get the license for new articles on the new wiki changed to GFDL (every scraper site operator's dream) instead of the non-commercial CC-BY-NC-SA which was adopted for new content after transition. Illogicopedians refuse. Wikia staff begin to remove information from the old wiki about the (now-completed) move [12] and even took the +sysop flag away from one user.
• Various other wikis remain in various states of transition, including WikiFur (where all new languages are non-Wikia), or are acquiring domains and web space for an eventual move.

There's a lot of info out there that isn't in this article... and the omissions are glaring. --66.102.80.212 (talk) 18:30, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

I'd be very interested in more information (I'm sometimes a journalist), feel free to contact me at sethf at sethf.com -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 19:22, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Correction request from someone who doesn't have the credentials to edit the page

As of October 23, 2008, Uncyclopedia is located at Uncyclopedia.wikia.com, for the expressed purpose of bumping Wikia's Alexa ranking. WoWWiki admins have stated (on Uncyclopedia, so it's probably satire...) that they've been contacted and told they would be moved to, and Wikia has announced plans to move every single wiki they host to .wikia.com subdomains. Also, if this page wasn't locked, I'd be all adding a comma after "Memory Alpha", but that's just me. --152.3.141.108 (talk) 01:08, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Removed Uncyclopedia. We've also been informed that Memory Alpha and WoWWiki will be moving to the Wikia domain in due time. -- Manticore (talk) 07:44, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

New Monaco

Something needs to be added about the New Monaco fiasco and associated resulting departures/actions. Here's the most notable story I can find so far, but from searching the archives of Wikipedia I can see Mr Finkelstein's association with Wikipedia may well be a frosty one, so I might need some guidance on citing etc. Certainly two wikis have moved from Wikia - tfwiki.net and illogicopedia.org which may very well gain some more news coverage soon. -- Hindleyite (talk) 15:26, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Er, apologies for not reading the rest of the talkpage, seems I was rather hasty in adding this message before checking someone else hadn't already. -- Hindleyite (talk) 15:44, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I think it's a matter of, let us say, sensitive political nature. I suspect people without an interest in this issue don't want to risk the abuse and retaliation that may accrue from possibly being perceived as giving aid and comfort to those critical of Wikia. While on the other side, it's not worth gotchas of COI!. As the saying goes, "Do you feel lucky, punk?" Seth Finkelstein (talk) 00:28, 25 November 2008 (UTC)