So, hello all. I was thinking, why are there three separate Wikis? There's Starbounder (the best, imo), Gamepedia, and Wikia. I really think there should be some effort on moving everything from the Gamepedia and Wikia over to the unique host (Starbounder). I only bring this up, as I'm an admin on the Pikmin Wikia, and we're merging with the standalone host, Pikipedia (both two rivaling Pikmin Wikis for 4 years). It's really stupid to have 3 separate things for the same purpose.
I know, but it just seems plain foolish to not try to unite the three. I mean, why have three washing machines in your house for one person?
But in that case, the washing machines are all owned by one person. We'd need to get into contact with whoever runs the unofficial ones, and coordinate with them. Could get messy, considering the differing architecture between wiki platforms.
Actually, the process isn't to dirty. I mean, the wiki my wikia is transferring to has some fancy tech to keep everything organized. All it could take is some Skype chats and a lot of labor. I can help easily with merging, or get guys to help with merging if merging the wikis is something the community wants to see. It would just take time and effort. And possible contact info.
Why not just contribute to Starbounder and help it get content-complete? It's already worlds (ha ha, geddit, space pun) better than the other two.
While, yes, it's better, there are still users who work on the other two. My main point is that them existing is useless, and that getting them all to work on Starbounder would be better, for all parties. Which looks better for Starbound? One professional, efficient wiki, or three non-professional non-effeciant wikis?
It's a nice suggestion @jpmrocks, but I don't think those other wikis are going anywhere. Although they're maintained by individuals, they're owned by companies that make wikis for profit. It's not about what's best for the community, because they're not really involved with it either way. Wikia and Curse also have the resources to stay at the top of Google results, so even if every forum member stopped contributing people are still going to be using them. I'm sure since you're a wikia admin this isn't news to you. In my opinion, like @demanrisu said, the best way to accomplish your suggestion is just to try to consolidate info on one site to make it the best. Making Starbounder the only wiki is unrealistic, but making it the best wiki is totally within our control as a community. If you, or anyone, sees information missing or areas that need improving then jump right in or bring it up in this subforum! Thanks for the support man!
Wikia is easy to break from, that I can easily help with. Curse, I'd need to contact them to see how it'll work.
Its curse asking them to not try to own everything is like asking a dog to share ham... Not going to happen.
Then we'll get wikia to merge, and have curse bite the dust. I know for a fact wikia is easy to leave, but curse's doesn't even get noticed really.
With your powers combined, I am Miss Information! Okay, so my oh-so-topical Captain Planet reference may have fallen flat, but there actually is a point in it. Wikis tend to have a lot of misinformation in them - mostly because contributors are likely to be more eager to add new material than to revise what's already there. An advantage to having three wikis floating around is that they allow users to fact-check suspect info. I've done it myself with the Starbound wikis at least once.
but that's the purpose for having a userbase that manages the wiki. If all users worked on one wiki, there wouldn't need to be the checking of three different wikis for the correct info. And what if all three wikis have different info for the same thing? What then?
You're far, far better off with a concentrated single wiki than multiples. With something as expansive as Starbound, this lets people both specialize in key areas and provide peer review for whatever updates do happen, rather than spreading people's efforts thin. It's what's worked for years at TFWIKI.net. Also, whatever you do, DO NOT USE WIKIA. EVER.
I'm all for avoiding Wikia - I always felt its UI was shoddy at best. However, I still think that we're better off leaving things as they are now (not that there's an alternative... as Katzeus mentioned, the owners have no incentive to shut their wikis down). You can't force players to only use the service you prefer, and you can't prevent them from starting up new websites either. Even if you could, Starbounder is already well on its way to becoming the definitive source for all things SB, since the quality of its information, official sanction, and easy to manage layout makes it the obvious choice. As for your questions, jpmrocks, I'd respoind by saying that reducing users' potential sources of information makes the quality of that information more suspect, not less. It's the same principle that is responsible for the existence of the free press. Sure, if CNN was the only source for news, few people would be inclined to do any fact checking, but that doesn't mean that those facts would necessarily be any more correct. The inverse is far more likely. And if all your sources are giving you different answers... well, then, it seems like time to 1) point that fact out to other users, and 2) get your hands dirty, and dig up that information for yourself.
Wikia won't let you leave. You can only fork, copying the information to Starbounder if it has a compatible licensing. Everything on Wikia will remain and future editors will continue developing it.
From what I've found out about Wikia, if you have a big wikia, and make a big stink about leaving, they let you. And boy, did Pikmin Wikia and I make a big stink. Big enough, we got the managers of Wikia themselves to come in and talk things out. And you legally can take the info from wiki to another, it's there for free game.
Dude, have a bot SCOUR every iota of text you've downloaded from Wikia. They put in linkbacks on ALL pages when you export, including redirects, image pages, category pages, EV-ER-Y-THING, which Google will read and help prioritize their shithole service over yours. When TFWIKI bailed, we discovered over HALF A MILLION links to Wikia embedded in the code. Wikia is scum. Never, ever forget that, and distrust anything they do.
Trust me, we have EXPERTS working on this. We have our own bots that scourge for things like this. They scan the code, copy it to a separate document, rescan, and paste onto our own Wiki. Not only that, but we manually then merge information from the wikia page to the wiki page. The only time we talk about wikia being in our wiki is when we talk about it in our Podcasts.
Never knew wikia was such a bag of dicks (no offense to actual bags of dicks) The more you know I guess
