Hello everyone. I am SoujiroElric, one of the two admins of Medabots Wiki, and the admin of its spanish version, Medapedia: medabots.wikia.com (http://medabots.wikia.com) and es.medabots.wikia.com (http://es.medabots.wikia.com). We have noticed that Wikia wants to make a new layout, a layout we as admins disagree entirely (and not counting the RTE that screws with the page formatting), so one of our options is to move somewhere else, and maybe have our own host. I don't come here looking to be an affiliate of NIWA or something, hence why I post this here, but instead I come here to look for some directions and suggestions since we're really unsure on what would be our best moves, and I figured this was the best place to look for help.
Any help is appreciated. Thank you very much.
EDIT: The wiki has been created! www.medapedia.net (http://www.medapedia.net)
What resources do you have available? This helps you weigh out your options.
1) if you were to go independent, would you be able to afford it (for instance, WikiBound pays $190.80 for a two year contract with bluehost.com (https://www.bluehost.com/)).
2) if you do not wish to go independent, just want to get out of Wikia, ShoutWiki is becoming pretty
3) Ask around the forums for anyone who may provide free space for you to borrow.
Thank you for your reply taco :)
Quote from: tacopill on October 15, 2010, 09:51:56 PM
1) if you were to go independent, would you be able to afford it (for instance, WikiBound pays $190.80 for a two year contract with bluehost.com (https://www.bluehost.com/)).
$190.80? I just see the $6.95 per month which makes around $166 for two years...
Quote from: tacopill on October 15, 2010, 09:51:56 PM
2) if you do not wish to go independent, just want to get out of Wikia, ShoutWiki is becoming pretty
What makes ShoutWiki nice? I saw they use MediaWiki, which is a plus, but what are the advantages?
Quote from: tacopill on October 15, 2010, 09:51:56 PM
3) Ask around the forums for anyone who may provide free space for you to borrow.
This would be an excellent option, if someone is willing to host us of course.
Quote from: SoujiroElric on October 15, 2010, 11:29:46 PM
Thank you for your reply taco :)
You're welcome. And happy to help.
Quote from: SoujiroElric on October 15, 2010, 11:29:46 PM
$190.80? I just see the $6.95 per month which makes around $166 for two years...
That's if you sign a 3 year contract.
Quote from: SoujiroElric on October 15, 2010, 11:29:46 PM
What makes ShoutWiki nice? I saw they use MediaWiki, which is a plus, but what are the advantages?
I don't know specifically, i just hear it is becoming a popular option with wikia-departing wikis. It may just be a rumor.
Quote from: SoujiroElric on October 15, 2010, 11:29:46 PM
This would be an excellent option, if someone is willing to host us of course.
Just got to ask around. you never know what you will find.
If i figure out my financial situation in time, i will be able to offer you my webspace.
Quote from: tacopill on October 16, 2010, 01:34:38 AM
That's if you sign a 3 year contract.
Now a question regarding independent wikis... How are you supposed to upkeep the costs of a host?
Quote from: tacopill on October 16, 2010, 01:34:38 AM
I don't know specifically, i just hear it is becoming a popular option with wikia-departing wikis. It may just be a rumor.
Might use it, if the first option fails.
Quote from: tacopill on October 16, 2010, 01:34:38 AM
If i figure out my financial situation in time, i will be able to offer you my webspace.
That would be fantastic. I will have that option in mind.
Quote from: SoujiroElric on October 16, 2010, 02:06:13 AM
Now a question regarding independent wikis... How are you supposed to upkeep the costs of a host?
Well, most wiki's i know run adds on there site to cover server costs. Not too much; just in the areas people are use to seeing adds,
Quote from: SoujiroElric on October 16, 2010, 02:06:13 AM
Might use it, if the first option fails.
Understandable.
Quote from: SoujiroElric on October 16, 2010, 02:06:13 AM
That would be fantastic. I will have that option in mind.
Sounds good.
Please instruct me, since I'm pretty much a newb at independent servers. How am I supposed to pay for one? Using Paypal or something?
Quote from: SoujiroElric on October 16, 2010, 04:29:24 AM
Please instruct me, since I'm pretty much a newb at independent servers. How am I supposed to pay for one? Using Paypal or something?
There are several ways you can do it:
#1) Place google- or flash-based ads on the site. I personally don't know how to do that. Super Mario Wiki and Bublapedia use this method
#2) Get a service that converts text into link-able ads, like ZeldaWiki or WiKiby
#3) Have a paypal option, similar to WikiBound (http://wikimon.net/Wikimon:Support_Wikimon)
I am going to see if i can get other people to contribute to this thread.
How big/busy is your wiki? TMD offers cheap hosting plans, here (http://www.tmdhosting.com/) and a lifetime free domain name sweetens the deal. Compare your stats to my wiki (http://wikirby.info/wiki/Special:Statistics), and if you are near that or below, then I can say there shouldn't be any problems with using that plan. Don't expect much money from the ads, but if you want me to send you a referral from Kontera, I'll do that, they'll credit me $25 bucks. Which would be cool, and if we stay in touch, I'm thinking to some day get together with several small wikis and split the cost of a more expensive plan on a more powerful machine.
And to pay your initial server costs, you can use a credit/debit card, many will let you send a check/money order, and I'm not even sure about PayPal.
Quote from: tacopill on October 16, 2010, 04:40:30 AM
Quote from: SoujiroElric on October 16, 2010, 04:29:24 AM
Please instruct me, since I'm pretty much a newb at independent servers. How am I supposed to pay for one? Using Paypal or something?
There are several ways you can do it:
#1) Place google- or flash-based ads on the site. I personally don't know how to do that. Super Mario Wiki and Bublapedia use this method
#2) Get a service that converts text into link-able ads, like ZeldaWiki or WiKiby
#3) Have a paypal option, similar to WikiBound (http://wikimon.net/Wikimon:Support_Wikimon)
I am going to see if i can get other people to contribute to this thread.
How do I get started? And apparently the other admin might be okay with anything I tell him, so when I have the chance and the choices done I'll ask the community.
Quote from: Axiomist on October 16, 2010, 04:46:34 AM
How big/busy is your wiki? TMD offers cheap hosting plans, here (http://www.tmdhosting.com/) and a lifetime free domain name sweetens the deal. Compare your stats to my wiki (http://wikirby.info/wiki/Special:Statistics), and if you are near that or below, then I can say there shouldn't be any problems with using that plan. Don't expect much money from the ads, but if you want me to send you a referral from Kontera, I'll do that, they'll credit me $25 bucks. Which would be cool, and if we stay in touch, I'm thinking to some day get together with several small wikis and split the cost of a more expensive plan on a more powerful machine.
And to pay your initial server costs, you can use a credit/debit card, many will let you send a check/money order, and I'm not even sure about PayPal.
The plan looks cheap and nice, and I think I can pay it with my card. For 12 months it looks rather nice, too.
I checked the statistics and we're a little bit lower than your wiki, but what do you mean that there shouldn't be any problems? Could something bigger cause problems?
And sure, if we get to have our own host, a referral will help us a lot, and your idea seems rather nice. ;)
Well I just meant that I haven't had major issues, so I can vouch for every limit I've passed. I don't think anything bigger would be a problem, I plan for WiKirby to grow after all ya know! WiKirby is still only 9 or 10 months old so being on something so cheap is ideal. Adam has us backed up every night at midnight, just in case we break their server. If we do, I'll just upgrade the hosting plan and have our site back online that same day.
Ah, that's perfect! It seems like that webhost is great. What wiki engine do they use?
You get to choose and install it, as far as I know. If I were you, I'd go with MediaWiki. Bc we know development on that isn't going to suddenly stop.
Mediawiki? Sounds excellent. I think I'm gonna ask the community right away.
Great! I hope everything works out so you guys can happily edit your wikis again. Just an idea, you can put the English and Es wikis on the same site, to save money. You can create a new namespace for the spanish language version of each article. Doing so would allow images to be used on both while only having been uploaded once. So it would be extremely efficient.
Quote from: Axiomist on October 16, 2010, 05:59:39 AM
Great! I hope everything works out so you guys can happily edit your wikis again. Just an idea, you can put the English and Es wikis on the same site, to save money. You can create a new namespace for the spanish language version of each article. Doing so would allow images to be used on both while only having been uploaded once. So it would be extremely efficient.
That's exactly what I was thinking to do, and if both wikis agree on moving to an independent host, both wikis will share the same site.
personally, i would prefer to have two sites, just have one as the "primary" domian, and the other as a "add-on".
But then is there a way to give the feel of two different wikis? If not, yeah, tacopill has got a point...
Well, if you put them in the same wiki, and just different namespace, the main con is that they will be the same wiki
Yeah, but are you going to have a different language namespace for each regular one?
I mean there are 16 to begin with. Are they going to manage 32?
tacopill, it doesn't matter, since it's just two wikis with the same content, one in english and another one in spanish. Not a big deal, I suppose.
I'm sorry for double posting/bumping/etc, but...
I have talked with my community. Some few of them are somewhat afraid about moving, but it seems they totally dislike Wikia's new design. It seems it's up to us to take a decision, and the preliminar decision is that we will move to another server, a private one.
I'll try to look for a server, but I need, over everything, assistance on how should I move the wiki. I also want to give the wiki some kind of restructuration, cleanup, etc. I think it's the perfect moment to give it a new face and a new organization. Should I come up with a moving plan, aswell? And how can I close wikia wikis?
I don't believe you can close a wikia wiki. You can only abandon it if I'm not mistaken.
Ugh, that's lame. I hope no one retakes that wiki or something, what can I do to keep people from editing it?
Pikmin Wiki, Transformers Wiki, and some others left huge notices saying not to edit there, to go to the new site and edit. I'd delete the best articles, one every three weeks, label it as spam/irrelevant content in the deletion summary, "Welcome" new users with a link to the new site, and mix in (some) regular spam deletion, just to prevent the wiki from being adopted.
Quote from: Axiomist on October 24, 2010, 10:50:47 PM
Pikmin Wiki, Transformers Wiki, and some others left huge notices saying not to edit there, to go to the new site and edit. I'd delete the best articles, one every three weeks, label it as spam/irrelevant content in the deletion summary, "Welcome" new users with a link to the new site, and mix in (some) regular spam deletion, just to prevent the wiki from being adopted.
also, keep in mind, if you delete too many, too fast, Wikia may notice.
Quote from: tacopill on October 24, 2010, 10:57:59 PM
Quote from: Axiomist on October 24, 2010, 10:50:47 PM
Pikmin Wiki, Transformers Wiki, and some others left huge notices saying not to edit there, to go to the new site and edit. I'd delete the best articles, one every three weeks, label it as spam/irrelevant content in the deletion summary, "Welcome" new users with a link to the new site, and mix in (some) regular spam deletion, just to prevent the wiki from being adopted.
also, keep in mind, if you delete too many, too fast, Wikia may notice.
Okay. So a moving plan would be:
1.- Use http://medabots.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special:Export&history=1&action=submit&pages=ARTICLE_NAME and http://es.medabots.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special:Export&history=1&action=submit&pages=ARTICLE_NAME to export articles. How often should we do this?
2.- Reorganize the category tree. By the way, does an article within a category also belong to its upper category? And what about articles with several categories?
3.- Design the site again.
4.- Make every possible article template (as far as we can tell). This includes Medarot templates, character templates, videogame templates, related medarot templates, and what else?? x_x
5.- Begin importing. How often?
Am I missing anything here?
to answer #2, a member of one category is not a direct member of it's parent category (e.g. It won't appear on the parent category's page).
However, there are ways to over rides this, if you need to.
Quote from: tacopill on October 24, 2010, 11:36:11 PM
to answer #2, a member of one category is not a direct member of it's parent category (e.g. It won't appear on the parent category's page).
However, there are ways to over rides this, if you need to.
Oh, does this mean that I need to include the article in its category and every parent category?
I don't think so. If Article A is in Category B and Category B is in Category C, there shouldn't be a need for Article A to be directly in Category C. I guess it depends on what you're trying to do, but I can't think of any situation where it would need to be within Category C both directly and indirectly.
Sorry if that explanation was hard to follow.
Thank you vince, I've got things clearer now :)
Quote from: tacopill on October 16, 2010, 04:40:30 AM
#1) Place google- or flash-based ads on the site. I personally don't know how to do that. Super Mario Wiki and Bublapedia use this method
There are extensions that make this really easy... I use one on Wikimon (http://wikimon.net) for some ads on the sidebar.
Quote from: Koroku on October 29, 2010, 03:33:30 PM
Quote from: tacopill on October 16, 2010, 04:40:30 AM
#1) Place google- or flash-based ads on the site. I personally don't know how to do that. Super Mario Wiki and Bublapedia use this method
There are extensions that make this really easy... I use one on Wikimon (http://wikimon.net) for some ads on the sidebar.
cool. Which ones?
Not sure which exact one I used, but this one (http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:GoogleAdSense) might work?
Quote from: Koroku on October 30, 2010, 04:50:21 PM
Not sure which exact one I used, but this one (http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:GoogleAdSense) might work?
thank you *bookmarked*
Looks great. Do I need an adsense account or something?
Yes you do~
Unless you want to use mine! :3
Oh, thank you! Keep dreaming I'm not using yours!
But I'm so close, I'm sure that you could put me over the $100 mark... :mario:
I have to pay for the host and the domain too!! T_T
My server costs more than your server.
Quote from: Koroku on November 01, 2010, 03:34:24 AM
My server costs more than your server.
Which server is that?
Quote from: Koroku on November 01, 2010, 03:34:24 AM
My server costs more than your server.
But still ;_;
Meh, I'm asking my community some few things. I just hope to get enough replies from here to, say, two more days. I'm excited! I want to buy the host already!!
Quote from: tacopill on November 01, 2010, 03:38:49 AM
Which server is that?
The one Wikimon likes to kill. ;o;
Quote from: SoujiroElric on November 01, 2010, 05:43:25 AM
You get too much traffic?
http://wikimon.net/Wikimon:Stats
Not really...
Not really? Yeah, 2000 unique visitors per day is not that big.
Unless, how much bandwidth do they take?
EDIT: We're almost done deciding. I just want to know if somebody else agrees with changing the name of everything as Medapedia and we're all set!
MediaWiki is just a resource hog. :P
And the name sounds kinda weird to me, honestly.
My coadmin wants a name neutral to the Medabots dub and the original, Medarot...
Sorry about double posting, but, the wiki has been created! www.medapedia.net (http://www.medapedia.net)
Best of luck to your wiki! How has being independent been going for your wiki?
We haven't officially opened yet. We're still deciding a lot of stuff, so I can't really tell. But thank you A!
Quote from: SoujiroElric on October 24, 2010, 11:05:38 PM
Quote from: tacopill on October 24, 2010, 10:57:59 PM
Quote from: Axiomist on October 24, 2010, 10:50:47 PM
Pikmin Wiki, Transformers Wiki, and some others left huge notices saying not to edit there, to go to the new site and edit. I'd delete the best articles, one every three weeks, label it as spam/irrelevant content in the deletion summary, "Welcome" new users with a link to the new site, and mix in (some) regular spam deletion, just to prevent the wiki from being adopted.
also, keep in mind, if you delete too many, too fast, Wikia may notice.
Okay. So a moving plan would be:
1.- Use http://medabots.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special:Export&history=1&action=submit&pages=ARTICLE_NAME and http://es.medabots.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special:Export&history=1&action=submit&pages=ARTICLE_NAME to export articles. How often should we do this?
...
Am I missing anything here?
I should probably point out Wikia has full wiki dumps, they're linked from Special:Statistics on the wiki. You can import the whole wiki (no images, logs, or users though) in one go, you may need to use the maintenance script though if you can, Special:Import is a little limited in what it can import over a http post.
As far as I know, the full wiki dump limits the changelog...
Either way we should use this as a chance to review articles and fix them to our new policies. ;)
Quote from: SoujiroElric on November 08, 2010, 09:56:22 AM
As far as I know, the full wiki dump limits the changelog...
Either way we should use this as a chance to review articles and fix them to our new policies. ;)
No, there ARE two dumps (current, and full) the full dump contains the entire history of every article on the wiki (excepting deleted content that you don't see anyways). In fact it's less limited than Special:Export is. Special:Export can sometimes not give you the full history if you try to export too many revisions at once (it was either 100 or 500, either way if a pages history is too long, or you export multiple pages that have a number of revisions that sum up to more than the limit it may trim out history).
Quote from: dantman on November 08, 2010, 12:51:30 PM
Quote from: SoujiroElric on November 08, 2010, 09:56:22 AM
As far as I know, the full wiki dump limits the changelog...
Either way we should use this as a chance to review articles and fix them to our new policies. ;)
No, there ARE two dumps (current, and full) the full dump contains the entire history of every article on the wiki (excepting deleted content that you don't see anyways). In fact it's less limited than Special:Export is. Special:Export can sometimes not give you the full history if you try to export too many revisions at once (it was either 100 or 500, either way if a pages history is too long, or you export multiple pages that have a number of revisions that sum up to more than the limit it may trim out history).
Huh? o_O Okay... If that's true then it's our best bet.