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That would be great. We're also going to post about it at Zelda Informer as well, so naturally it should be reported on (or we would appreciate it being reported) about the new management.

Yup. A lot of discussions and wok went into making this, and while a hard decision for me on a personal level, I have to always keep in mind what is best for Metroid Wiki's future.

http://www.zeldainformer.com/2011/03/rest-in-peace-joshua-paul-lejeune-aka-axiomist.html

ZI's farewell letter. Written by our staff member Dathen (you guys know him better as Mel) who's hard work here, and at ZI, both are pretty much direct results for his early inspirations he took from Ax on the ZU boards ages ago.

I still am lost at what to think about it. Just hope his family is coping well, and that his baby, WiKirby, will be well taken care of.

Axiomist, known as Joshua P. LeJeune in real life, passed away on March 18, 2011. His sister left a commemoration note on his Facebook yesterday, and after a bit of research, I found that it is in fact true. His viewing is slated for March 22 in a funeral home in his hometown.

He was the first admin I became close with on the site, and the one who really got me consistently looking forward to working at ZW - I didn't know many users back then. I will miss him greatly.

Here is the funeral home's site: http://web1.lovinghonors.com/cgi-bin/CompanyInternal?stdout+115+johnsonfuneralhome.net+102+4+9105:Lcgi_html/

^

I was just made aware of this via the private Zelda Wiki staff boards. He passed away on Friday, March 18th. The cause of death has not been released by the family, but there is the obituary and funeral visitation information. The family has also posted it on their own facebook accounts. So, at this juncture, hoping that this is a farce seems unlikely.

He will be missed.

I know this may sound odd coming from me given MW's recent down time due to lay payment of bills (which is fixed btw!), but uh, if you are every looking for new hosting due to this our doors are wide open. We can discuss fees later, or I can simply set you up on our server for a set cost a month, with upgrades to that server done as needed (or, better yet, set you up with your own server). Your own server is going to run you between 30 and 40 dollars a month with our set up, but the real cost I guess is in the intial server setup. These servers are raw, so unless you know anything about setting them up we'll need to buy a new cpanel license for you, and install all the needed scripts. We would then be available for customer service at a cost if it's anything that requires serious work, but for the most part you cna self manage EVERYTHING through WHM once we set you up.


In the end, it ends up being cheaper than VPS, more reliable, and has better service. This is regardless of joining us on MW's server for either a "cost" or simply for putting our kontera ad code on your site, or simply having your own private server.

Just wanted to throw this out there. IT's really available for most any semi-successful wiki. Unfortunately, we wont take the risk of hosting really tiny wiki;s on servers simply because, well, every new site we are not operating ourselves is an additional security risk.

NIWA and DAWN can co-exist, NIWA can do what NIWA wants to do and DAWN can do what DAWN wants to do; neither organization should attempt to mold the other.

Agreed.

Sure, we can coexist. I think the fundamental problem, really, is that both networks are essentially aiming to add the same members. I think our "original" mark for amount of articles was 200. I remember when founding Metroid Wiki that it was the goal to hit 200 before inclusion, and even in doing that we already had massive support from NIWA. We had guys from Zelda Wiki, Bulbapedia, and Super Mario Wiki that were all helping us out. It was rather amazing really. While the support may not be as heavy fromt hose 3 as it was at the start, the overall support has grown much wider. Fact is, a lot of us "major" staff members at other wiki's have interest in other games, so we are more then happy to help newer/under utilized wiki's out.

On the point of secrecy - I don't think it's that bad. In fact, I have been kept up to date on the ongoings at times simply by reading the NIWA PUBLIC Skype chat. A chat that more than just staff uses, and I hear staff discussions there. We're pretty open and free verse with what is going on. While we may have talks like redesigning the hub page that isn't public, does it need to be?

In terms of what is actually private - it's mainly just the inclusion and disclusion of a specific wiki. If you can't tell - our doors have been pretty wide open. In just one year we grew from 3 wikis to 16. At the continued growing rate we'll be close to 40 by the end of 2011.

I don't have an issue with co-existing, and I am always one up for new ideas. I like the concept of "open discussion on everything" - it's actually a concept we use in running ZI. We are a free verse, open to all community. We have a staff room which we use primarily to organize everything more so than to make decisions. We pretty much let everyone, staff, fans, even haters, have a say in how our site operates... with an occasional surprise. We also have one loose rule on the forums, which has lead to great success for us.

Point is that even with how open we are, we still have staff boards because, frankly. it's really hard to organize something when you have "thousands of people" trying to talk at once. We will listen to those people, adn then we'll organize it behind the scenes so as not to get things derailed. We'll then go from there with any changes people suggest.

We've changed a lot on our site at the whim of people simply asking - be it comments or on the forums, or through email.

While I wished NIWA to run similar to ZI, fact remains that for a place to work the way we function requires just the right "type" of people in charge. It wont work for everyone. It wouldn't work here.

I am well aware oft he reputation NIWA has (on the negative side) and honestly, that is mostly through misperception or people simply forming an opinion without actually ASKING what is going on. Frankly, if any of you pm'd me and ASKED me straight up what is going on with x - I'll look and give you a direct answer. I'm not hiding anything from anyone. I doubt any of us are outside of happy surprises.

So, whats the problem here folks? Oh another network inspired by us wants to form with a new concept? Cool, good for them. Just going to be slim pickems because either way you slice it, we're "competing" for the same wikis.

Metroid Wiki has it's own nice, but small, contributing community. Some of them are from ZI, some of them are just random people who found us through other means. It's really neat the small contributing community we have and they work very hard to make MW relevant.

I know many of you offer skills that we already have, but one thing I would like to see is people helping advertise MW. While we are doing pretty decent given what we have (250 unique hits a day), we know we can and should be getting much more, especially with Other M around the corner.

So I bring this topic back to light for one reason - advertisement!


Maybe the best thing I am good at online is getting sites noticed. I realize activity at NIWA has... diminished greatly.

Metroid Wiki is getting more traffic then NIWA, and to me thats just not acceptable.

Honestly, I think it's rather premature to consider purchasing advertising. If we were going to though, some of us have industry contacts who, while maybe not able to give us any discount on the rates, could at least point us at the right people.

http://www.gaebler.com/Nintendo+Power-magazine-advertising-costs++29633

That was all found in one very simple google search. It's roughly 16,000$ to get a simple one page, black and white, advertisment in the megazine. I don't even think bulbapedia, the biggest wiki on the network, produces that sort of money.

A lot of the rumors were actually proven at E3, was pretty great! Only ones that are for sure false was the title, and the ice temple being the demo. Woo! Some other stuff was confirmed though.

Oh, and the post was not originally by me. It was by Damir... SOMETHING (his last name makes me cringe) - it had like...150 comments or something. Then someone hacked the news post, so I reposted it. So, as a note, I was not the original poster.

Not that it matters.

OH MY GOD THEY'LL GIVE US STOCK OPTIONS 

You know, I really wonder... would they have been able to stand the amount of load we were under? If TPE were anywhere near our level of quality and stuff?

Yes, they would of. Remember, wikia hosts wiki's that, believe it or not, get a higher volume of traffic and has more quality content than Bulbapedia. You guys are indeed big, but wikia does have bigger wiki's then you. IE WoW Wiki.

They would of had zero problems with the server load.


Still, gotta love the persistence right?

they did originally, but the site had errors, and they decided to stay at wikia without even letting me fix it

So? Errors happen. I am sure the zi fanbase isn't happy right now ( http://www.zeldainformer.com ) that the site is down due to errors int eh upgrade and would prefer we go back to the older version to have the site online, but despite the b****ing they may have, when we DO return they will be VERY happy and surprised. Sometimes, the users like to act rash, thats why they are the users, not the people running the site.

Also in reply to Super Mario guy:

The entire concept of the NIWA was to support, fully, independent Nintendo wiki's. Not partially, not your this, then a member: The idea was to support them period. While affiliation does that, member does it more, and thats the flaw in the logic. The only agreements made when NIWA came into existence is this:

- NIWA exists to support, equally, independent nintendo wiki's
- One wiki per franchise
- Everyone's equal

Thats about it. Affiliates are not equal to Members, hence to me, the logic is flawed. We either FULLY support eachother, affiliates sounds like partial support. If a time arises when say, there is an independent wiki that is better then whatever x wiki we have, we can worry about it then and sort out of the current wiki is truly trying. On top of that, it IS elitist. According to the current standards being set in place, the only wiki's that qualify for member are the 3 founders - that does seem right to me. Sorry.

The only purpose for affiliate status should be for wiki's who wish to support the NIWA but are NOT Nintendo wiki's. you know, like a sonic wiki, ratchet and clank, etc - where they are litterally not Nintendo wiki's, but wish to be affiliated. Sort of like how a Fan site about Zelda can be affiliated with one about Final Fantasy, but that doesn't mean they get to join Stone Watchers. They are just supporting the overall site/network.

In that regard, affiliate sites make sense. For things like independent Nintendo Wiki's? Thats the idea of our existence, why would we make them a lesser status then members? And who said Nintendo wiki's HAD to be factual? They are independent, they may function exactly how they deem best. We don't determine the content of wiki's, we just show support for them. NIWA is a support network, not a disclusion network. Were suppose to be inclusive, and Fantendo fit the mold perfectly. It was a fan fiction wiki based on Nintendo stuff - what was wrong with that? It's not like there would 7 different fan fiction wiki's, it would be THE fan ficiton wiki we supported.

I digress, it's pointless. We don't agree. Not much more to say.

No, were not part of the NIWA, and thus shouldn't have staff access. I think we only have it since we are all part of ZW and helped get NIWA setup.

I was thinking we should limit the vertical size a bit more. It should be like this:

Code Select Expand

[img height=100 width=600]*example sig*[/img]

I think height of 250 is way too much.

Most forums have it at 300 height. If your internet sucks, you can go to forums via the mobile layout, or can simply turn images off.

I siad this in staff, might as well say it publicly:


I do not support the affiliate - member BS. You're either good enough to be part of NIWA or your note. Personally, I will not be allowing http://www.metroidwiki.org to be some sort of affiliate. We are either good enough to be a member, or were not and need to continue working to that level.

Sorry, just my two cents. It's just overcomplicating things, and I can say safely people in staff can't even agree on what privledges an affiliate verse a member even has. To me it's simple: If you're on the hub page - your an official NIWA member and wiki. Screw this affiliate program of being some sort of sub member that needs to work up to member. It's an elitest attitude, and I don't like it. It means "well you're a nice wiki, but not as good as this, this, and this."

I don't like it.

http://www.zeldainformer.com/2010/02/videocast-003-legend-of-neil-official-nintendo-magazine-forum-merger-and-niwa.php#more


Enjoy the extra mention!