Forum:A message from Fandom

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Note: This topic has been unedited for 248 days. It is considered archived - the discussion is over.

This is a very difficult post to write. As you may know, I have been a big fan of Uncyclopedia for a long time. I used to be very active here, to the point of being made an admin. I have written three featured articles and created four featured images. This is a place I’ve loved to spend time.

Unfortunately times have moved on, and there are aspects of the wiki that have become increasingly a problem over the years. We've always given Uncyclopedia a lot of leeway, despite many pages being outside our Terms of Use. And it's not just random bad images and articles, but some of the genuine content that should be on Uncyclopedia, but not on Fandom. We’ve ignored these things for years, but we need to really improve the acceptability of content on the site. So we are looking again at Uncyc’s content, and have decided that it’s not the sort of thing that we want to host anymore.

Examples include the n-word and articles such as Child Porn, Why?:You_should_kill_yourself and Category:Intentionally Offensive.

Trying to clean up Uncyclopedia would be impossible, and would involve deleting valid (but problematic) article like these. That simply isn't feasible.

Of course you have options, and we want to help this change go smoothly. You may want to talk to the fork about merging in, we could provide a database dump of all articles created here since the fork, or you could be more selective taking only the best new articles. Or you could go to alternative hosting there are many available]. I can't recommend one, but I know that a few wikis in a similar situation have gone to Miraheze.

We can't provide a dump of the images for copyright reasons - what's likely fair use here would be violating the original copyright if provided in a data dump. But you may be able to use sometihing like https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Exporting_all_the_files_of_a_wiki to help.

Again, I'm sorry this is happening, and will help as much as possible to make this a smooth transition. - Sannse <staff /> (help forum | blog) 17:24, February 26, 2019 (UTC)

An idea for me

Keep Uncyclopedia available on Fandom. Just delete the pages containing adult content. If the wiki is going to be shut down all together, I wouldn't accept this. It'd be better if you change the rules and make the content more family-friendly, and comedic at the same time. ~Signed JustLeafy ( ͡| ͜' ͡| ) USER - WALL {{SUBST:{date|18:03, February 26, 2019}}} 18:03, February 26, 2019 (UTC)

Much as I like your ideas...

Just delete the pages containing adult content.
change the rules and make the content more family-friendly, and comedic

These weren't exactly opportunities afforded to other nuked projects like AnimeBaths (shut down in November) so it wouldn't really be fair and balanced treatment to take a "page by page" approach to other projects. Anything edge/controversial (even if merely a HISTORY of it, if you are open to amending whatever is given as examples of offensive content) seems to be grounds for closure. talk2ty 18:11, February 26, 2019 (UTC)

This is one of the most informative wiki you have and the one where the rest of Fandom can be lampooned talk with the owner of the wiki because we're just visitors here. You might be offend by the nature of the articles being informative as well as they are funny but Craig admitted he was wrong banning one member when he was accused of whitewashing history read Paula Deen and fact check this.--Factfinder510 (talk) 18:36, February 26, 2019 (UTC)

Hey could someone post on Unmeta about getting all the existing Uncyclopedias transferred over there? Especially Esperanto. I can't post there due to the weird spamfilter not working on my browser. Draketo (talk) 18:38, February 26, 2019 (UTC)

I don't recommend Carlb's servers. I have heard complaints from the Portuguese community for him being late on dealing with all the technical issues. As a member of Miraheze, I think using us is a better option.--The Pioneer JP (talk) 18:42, February 26, 2019 (UTC)
That's reasonable; I agree that they are slow with technical issues. Would you be able to take on the Esperanto Uncyclopedia? Draketo (talk) 18:59, February 26, 2019 (UTC)
You can simply make a request for it. However, it seems that Lyrithya also welcomes Uncycs to move to her server (which is the same as .co), so it's up to you (and each individual communities), I guess.--The Pioneer JP (talk) 19:32, February 26, 2019 (UTC)
The Uncyclopedia on my servers will be going nowhere. The Pioneer JP is a troll who only seeks to undermine my work. Carlb (talk) 19:39, March 3, 2019 (UTC)
It's worth noting the Uncyclopedia on your server (as well as UnMeta) was completely offline for close to 24 hours yesterday. Un-Supergeeky1 (talk) 19:50, March 3, 2019 (UTC)
I'm not sure you're talking to the real Carlb. Notice this was posted from Carlb82195, while Carlb has already commented on this forum as Carlb. I have asked if this is him. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr talkcontribs • 21:30 3 March 2019
It is a sock account from someone keen to cause problems here and elsewhere see http://meta.uncyclomedia.org/wiki/Forum:Reorganization_of_the_whole_Uncycs#Miraheze_Concerns --Laurels.gifRomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 23:10, March 3, 2019 (UTC)

Comment

I've found out that the same message has been posted not only here but also, at least, on Spanish, Italian, and Polish Uncyclopedias, so I guess this time they are serious. Besides, maybe it's maybe a good idea for both of us if we reunite with uncyclopedia.co . There we can use the latest version and our good-old monobook/vector skins with interwikis updated. However, Fandom should secure our SEO scores by giving our new wiki a proper redirect if we do this, and I'll ping him/her about this part.--The Pioneer JP (talk) 18:40, February 26, 2019 (UTC)

Agreed about reuniting with uncyclopedia.co! Let's get all the wikis that aren't over there yet transferred. Draketo (talk) 18:41, February 26, 2019 (UTC)
Surely it will work for the English one, but I think we need a further discussion for other remaining communities.--The Pioneer JP (talk) 18:44, February 26, 2019 (UTC)
Realize that .co split off in 2013. That means a lot has been edited in very different ways at each site. Which version gets to live and which doesn't?; neither site carries more than one article per subject. Merging articles is not a snap. Further if it comes down to a vote at .co, all your edit/rewrite work here is probably gone. If you were only at .co, you'd keep the .co version, right? --Nigel Scribbler sig2.png (talk) 01:53, February 27, 2019 (UTC)
I also agree with also need to cut down on inappropriate content here and potentially copyrighted content. In my case, I have sourced for free-use images like on wikimedia commons or elsewhere. I also, being a teenager here, don't find the sexual jokes here funny at all; it throws the reader off. About .co, I have contributed significantly to the (North) Korean articles including adding a nice infobox over here, but when I got to .co, the changes doesnt happen there. I suggest, actually, we create a sandbox at .co and transfer the versions of here over to the site, then we can discuss on how to merge the versions if possible, or debate which one is better.--Zhenkang123 (talk) 02:14, February 27, 2019 (UTC)
You have a point, but I'm not sure what that has to do with the issue at hand, unless you're suggesting we go over all 32,000+ articles with a fine-tooth comb to make sure they meet the terms of use -- which... no. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr talkcontribs • 02:51 27 February 2019
You can't use ping here because we don't have Echo/Notifications. I don't think a merger is likely or a good idea, as I said below. Those familiar with the history should understand. For some of us, at least, there can be no reconciling. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr talkcontribs • 02:51 27 February 2019

en.uncyclopedia.co

Well, since 'conflict of interest' is no longer a problem, I'd strongly recommend making ties with uncyclopedia.co. They would probably maybe be fine hosting original articles and sections that they don't have. Maybe we could request them to make wikia.uncyclopedia.co to host a database dump, for a transition. --— Imdill3 (talk) 20:14, February 26, 2019 (UTC)

If I weren't permanently banned from en.uncyclopedia.co I'd also say go for it. Right now, the community there is led by Zombiebaron, Un-Supergeeky1 and Aimsplode, so those are the people you should contact about any sort of reintegration. – roza (talk ☭ ctbslog) 20:37, February 26, 2019 (UTC)
Posted a thread here. --— Imdill3 (talk) 20:38, February 26, 2019 (UTC)
Roza, you have your own Uninspired. You can work with it, and I don't think it's a good idea to campaign negatively against .co .--The Pioneer JP (talk) 20:45, February 26, 2019 (UTC)
Hello. I would like to say that the uncyclopedia.co administration has been working for months on a proposal for the reunification of our projects, and we sent an email communicating this to the UncycloWikia administration earlier this week. We are very supportive of a reunification and are open to listening to what it would take for your community to join us in the promised land. Zombiebaron (talk) 20:55, February 26, 2019 (UTC)
With all due respect, I am merely directing users on Wikia to seek help from the three most active admins on the .co site, and disclosing my current status there as banned. I apologize if this was seen as a smear against uncyclopedia.co. – roza (talk ☭ ctbslog) 20:56, February 26, 2019 (UTC)
I don't think it is factually correct that the three admins you listed are the "most active admins". PF4Eva, Un-Kakun, Lost Labyrinth, Kip the Dip, Hotadmin4u69, Bizzeebeever, DWIII, Cat the Colourful, RAHB and Lyrithya are all very active administrators on both the .co wiki and discord server. Zombiebaron (talk) 04:03, February 27, 2019 (UTC)

Contact the rest of the Uncyclopedia community

Here's some links to Discord servers where you can get in contact with other Uncyclopedia users. – roza (talk ☭ ctbslog) 21:37, February 26, 2019 (UTC)

  • UnMeta — hub for almost all Uncyclopedia communities
  • Uncyclopedia — en.uncyclopedia.co server
Thank you for the links Roza. --Laurels.gifRomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 22:07, February 26, 2019 (UTC)

Uncyclopedia Wikia

I trust we can keep this a civil conversation all round. I don't want Uncyclopedians go in for another drama as was experienced in January 2013. On the record, I can confirm I received an email from Zombiebaron and Uncyclopedia.co yesterday which I shared with the admins here. I hadn't realised this was now a pressing issue as regards hosting so this is now public knowledge. As a question to Sannse and Wikia/Fandom I would like to know what happens to the domain name(s) they own as regards Uncyclopedia. I presume these will be given up since there would be nothing to host at those addresses in future? Also, how long have we got here before the lights are switched off?? Therefore it seems the choices this hosted Uncyclopedia has are the following:

  • 1. Nothing and everything on the site dies.
  • 2. A merger with Uncyclopedia.co
  • 3. Export the database to another third party site if they want it via the methods outlined by Sannse.

Depending on how much time we have got, I would all registered contributors provide constructive suggestions and possible safeguards for all users in a future uncyclopedia. --Laurels.gifRomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 21:41, February 26, 2019 (UTC)

There have been no decisions about the URLs at this point. But I would like to know, if we were to give them up, who would own them?
The time-scale depends on how quickly you can organize whatever you need to organize. I would say we should aim for a month. As I said, we want to make this as smooth as possible, so aren't gonna chuck you out tomorrow! -- Sannse <staff /> (help forum | blog) 23:13, February 26, 2019 (UTC)
Ok a month sounds fair..so we're talking about the 31st March. Regards ownership of the domain names, I don't know as yet as that also includes a responsibility over the content of the information. Regards ownership of the site name(s) (how many are we talking about?), that would be part of the arrangement as to where the current content goes. If I recall from my earlier trawl of Unc history, the domain name issue caused the first split back in the day before the 2013 schism over whether Chronarion had the right to profit from it when he sold the domain to Wikia. --Laurels.gifRomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 00:20, February 27, 2019 (UTC)
On how many URLs: the only non-wikia.com URL for this wiki is uncyclopedia.org. As I said, no decision has been made for that, but I will bring it up with the BTBs. Interestingly, http://uncyclopedia.wikia.mcdonalds.pepsicola.youradhere.wikia.com also works. -- Sannse <staff /> (help forum | blog) 17:06, February 27, 2019 (UTC)
I see but what happens to the Uncyclopedia sites with 'wikia' in them - like this one. Will it go to a blank page or redirect to another Fandom site ('Family Friendly Uncyclopedia')?? --Laurels.gifRomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 17:58, February 27, 2019 (UTC)
Yeah, I link here through http://uncyclopedia.wikia.mcdonalds.pepsicola.youradhere.wikia.com all the time. Much easier to type.
Seriously, to me, where uncyclopedia.org goes is a major issue. That was, as far as I know, where it all started, and there are several old professionally-published articles still online that point to uncyclopedia.org. I suspect a significant amount of traffic will go there. King Admin Alden Loveshade, by proclamation of Sannse most noble ruler of the Internet King of the Internet Alden Loveshade??? (royal court)  19:36, February 27, 2019 (UTC)
When we close the wikia.com/fandom.com URLs will point to a "closed wiki" page. Unfortunately there's no option to redirect our URLs to the new wiki. You are welcome to put up a notice on the main page (or elsewhere) pointing to the new wiki. That can stay up until the wiki is closed -- Sannse <staff /> (help forum | blog) 23:20, February 27, 2019 (UTC)
Understood. As it happens, though, the registration for uncyclopedia.org expires on 15 March 2019, in a little over two weeks, according to tucows.com. It's registered through tucows.com, and I just checked at their site which sent me to https://www.tucowsdomains.com/whois-result/ So a transfer of domain name is entirely possible. King Admin Alden Loveshade, by proclamation of Sannse most noble ruler of the Internet King of the Internet Alden Loveshade??? (royal court)  Alden Loveshade (talk) 01:56, February 28, 2019 (UTC)

Wow, I was not expecting this. I don't think merging with .co would be a good option. The two "sides" do not get along and are too different, as has been noted in the past. If we go to Miraheze, I wonder what domain we would pick because uncyclopedia.miraheze.org is already taken. Maybe uncyc.miraheze.org. Custom domains on Miraheze are free and only require going through a process to get them set up, so if Wikia is willing to give up uncyclopedia.org, maybe we could use that. Someone would have to buy it, register it and go through the custom domain process. We could also have our own private MediaWiki instance and keep the user accounts, but someone would have to pay for that and set it up (I could, maybe), and there's the issue of whoever does that having too much power.

If we go with option 3, we'll have a tough time with backlinks and search results. I have interwiki access on several of Carlb's sites, so I'll update those to point to wherever we end up. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr talkcontribs • 01:33 27 February 2019

(For people who aren't familiar with the grand old tradition of indenting responses, this is a response to the top post). I don't want to say I told you so, but...I told you so! A few of saw this happening a couple years or so ago when Wikia officially became Fandom.
Before that were the battles over content. Then there was the warning before you could see anything on Uncyclopedia because it was "adult," which so many people objected to it was removed--meaning this site was doomed.
I was inactive before the Spoon-Fork War, but I read through the history. The big problem seemed to come down to Wikia was putting restrictions on content so some people wanted to leave so they could be free to do as they wanted VS. some people wanted to stay here to keep the site from being ruined by somebody else.
That major issue is now over. Uncyclopedia as it's been will not remain here. Both the spoon and fork have had problems getting more people involved; merging would solve that issue. If you just try to move this somewhere else, you're going to push this site further off the radar.
Yes, a merger will mean personality conflicts, disagreements, etc. (I was once blocked for a while and fully deserved it for being argumentative). But Uncyclopedia was at its participation and creative peak when those conflicts were in full bloom. Comedy is a nasty business; it has to be, or it's not funny. Like it or not, conflict is good for comedy. (If you think you ran into a lot of conflict here, just try doing it professionally).
I've written articles for both the Spork and Foon (whichever is which), and think there's cool people at both sites. This site is going, and might as well merge back with it's other half.
I has spoken. Alden Loveshade, Uncyclopedian Priest and Buccaneer Admiral of Uncyclopedia Imperial Colonization Project IC Buccaneer Admiral A.L.??? (stratagems)  03:34, February 27, 2019 (UTC)
This. Merging with Uncyclopedia.co would be the better option. Wikia/Fandom is excellent at grabbing new users, while Uncyclopedia.co has a pedigree of skilled contributors. Database dumping, such as on Miraheze, would only appeal to the best users here and not much else. I would hope the Uncyclopedia.co community would be willing to amend many previous bans. --— Imdill3 (talk) 04:03, February 27, 2019 (UTC)
Uncyclopedia was at its peak before wikis stopped being trendy and popular. The two sites don't just have insufficient participation -- they're declining. At least they were last I checked. They're not alone in that; so is Wikipedia. Illogicopedia has been declining for years but may have hit a plateau. Neither of those is competing with active forks. If we combined them, we'd get a site that had a larger userbase but was still going downhill and much smaller than it was before. This isn't because of anything specific to Uncyclopedia. It's the medium. It's not cool anymore. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr talkcontribs • 05:43 27 February 2019
I was a crat on Uncyclopedia.co for two years or so, until the clique that runs the site removed my userrights through Discord voice chat, no vote at all. I spent years of my life tolerating their harassment, their constant bullying and trolling only to be permabanned and the work I did for the site reverted. It is a toxic shithole run by sentient canker sores and you should avoid it at all costs. Now with that being said, reintegrating with .co is the logical choice for the Wikia community, and the least complicated one too. Trying to fork on Miraheze would only lead to the community becoming split, yet again. It's better to come together for once. – roza (talk ☭ ctbslog) 07:05, February 27, 2019 (UTC)
It's a horrible place but you want us to move there anyway? What? The community is already split, and there won't be any more site here for more people to split to. Some people might not stick with us through the move, but they'd still only have two choices of site. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr talkcontribs • 07:37 27 February 2019
we get it llwy you got offended when geeky posted a shock image get over it --Mohicans says hi 00:44, February 28, 2019 (UTC)
As proof, FANDOM recently published a graph of overall site use. No scale was given of whatever metric was used, but the trend has been clearly downward for years now for all their wikis. FANDOM may be good at getting new users (that follows with new wikis being created) but the graph means they're losing older ones faster. Merger is not a solution to that trend. Again, 2 different cultures, 2 different approaches (with .co not basing themselves around Wikipedia parody these days), and 2 divergent content histories since 2013 also say merger will not work well. --Nigel Scribbler sig2.png (talk) 08:42, February 27, 2019 (UTC)
I did say Roza, can we keep this a civil conversation. People here can disagree about issues forcefully without resorting to abuse. --Laurels.gifRomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 10:39, February 27, 2019 (UTC)
I apologize for my harshness. I was just upset I've been shut out and ghosted by a community I was a part of for years. To be honest, I'm sickened by their talk of "community" and "togetherness" considering how poorly they've treated me. Anyway, if you do want to fork to Miraheze I'd be more than glad to help, I have some experience with their site. – roza (talk ☭ ctbslog) 15:00, February 27, 2019 (UTC)

Notice

We have created a forum on UnMeta to centralize the information regarding this kick by Fandom. After a conclusion is drawn, we'd like it to be posted there so that all the information will be visible on a single page.--The Pioneer JP (talk) 11:23, February 27, 2019 (UTC)

That's fine. --Laurels.gifRomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 11:47, February 27, 2019 (UTC)
Thanks.--The Pioneer JP (talk) 05:11, February 28, 2019 (UTC)

An essay from a fork admin or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Spork

Fork admin here, though I'm not very active despite reports to the contrary. I just wanted to drop in and offer the perspective of someone who's been working to reunify the two wikis for a while. I assume a post will be written at some point by the fork's server higher-ups in regards to potentially hosting as many foreign language refugee wikis as needed, but my understanding is that the logistics are being worked out and all concerns are being considered before any official promises are made.

As mentioned above, an email was recently (and by complete coincidence) drafted by several of our administrators and sent to Romartus to be shared with the admins here. Uniting the two Uncyclopedias has been a priority for us for a while now, and we're willing to do pretty much whatever it takes to see that it becomes a reality. Obviously there are issues with conflicting articles and edits made since the split. I've spoken with several users on the matter and we're prepared to go through each and every individual edit and manually combine conflicts if the situation ultimately comes to that, should you guys decide to merge with us. Considering activity has dropped off over the last several years for both sites, manually combing through conflicts and performing a clean-up in the process could very well be a breeze, but more pain-free solutions are being considered.

In regards to any differences in opinions or ideals between the userbases, all of us are striving for the same goals and none of these differences (which I personally feel are very overstated) would prevent us from operating as part of a single community once again. Most of us are adults and capable of collaboration and compromising, and while comedy is subjective and our standards are always changing, both sites are still trying to remain a Wikipedia parody first and foremost. That's what sets Uncyclopedia apart from the rest. I've always felt that labeling the fork's content as immature was slightly unjustified (but only slightly), and if it's any consolation, some of the content that Sannse references (primarily the 300+ articles containing the n-word, most of which I imagine doesn't have any comedic merit) were the subject of a recent discussion pertaining to a possible Forest Fire Week-style cleanup of 2008 edgelord cruft, once again by complete coincidence.

Mistakes were made in 2013, and maintaining a better relationship between each side is a big priority for the fork at this point regardless of where this site ends up. But I strongly feel that moving to Miraheze would be a gigantic mistake in the long run. Both of our sites have enough third-party forks, clones, mirrors, off-shoots, and other competitive Uncyclopedias to contend with on Google, and if Uncyclopedia has been struggling to maintain activity and technical quality (such as the Featured Article system being broken) on Wikia, I'm not sure it's going to fare much better on an even smaller wiki farm like Miraheze. Post-split, this community has seemingly focused more of its efforts on writing new articles than the fork's userbase has, so combined with the fork's tech expertise, updated templates & infrastructure, and its social media presence, all of us stand a pretty good chance of coming out on top by working together on this instead of letting these differences in opinion or old interpersonal conflicts get in the way of that. It's entirely possible Uncyclopedia as a whole will fall off in another two or three years regardless, so we might as well make the most of it now and try to prevent that.

If anyone has any questions or concerns, or if you just wanna get to know some of the fork people (taste like fork, talk like people), I definitely recommend hitting us up on either of the two Discord servers posted above. Un-Supergeeky1 (talk) 14:41, February 27, 2019 (UTC)

At the time of the fork (which was 2012-13 or so), I'd considered going there but saw that many articles which I'd found amusing when I was active in en.Uncyclopedia had been deleted and the worst of the deletionism (such as that ridiculous "forest fire week") had migrated to the new site, in spades. The issues with admins being quick to demote or block longtime contributors are also a concern. While I don't necessarily agree with Wikia having kept projects open as competition to communities which have reached a consensus to go elsewhere, there are issues which go beyond the Wikia problems and no easy answers. carlb (talk) 18:13, February 28, 2019 (UTC)

My life as an Uncyclopedia preteen drama queen

Sannse's one of my favorite people on the entire Internet. She helped me grow up online.

I started editing here when I was 12 or 13 and got this account shortly after I turned 14. I was here one day when my parents found out, and kicked me off. My controlling parents gave up trying to control me, sent me to my aunt nannie and uncle commando's house, and I got back on.

A couple admins here kept chewing me out. Another admin kept posting horrible stuff, things that could get a jihad after you. Another one was sexually aggressive to me, and that's when I was 14. I liked the porn, just not the aggression. When I got upset and complained, admins said I was just being a drama queen.

But that's not why I left. I left because my commando uncle insisted on security and privacy, and uncyclopedia didn't like private connections. I had so much trouble logging in I gave up.

Then I came back. I ran into an admin here who was on a power trip, so went to the Fork. They were nice, but that power admin here left. I admin half a dozen wikia wikis, so I came back here.

None of the admins I had problems with on the spoon or the fork are active anymore. Merge Uncyclopedia. Gooble Gobble one of us! Admin DAP Dame Pleb Com. <font="Times New Roman">Miley <font="Times New Roman">Spears (talk) 17:58, February 27, 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind words :) -- Sannse <staff /> (help forum | blog) 17:15, February 28, 2019 (UTC)

The then owner of Fandom connected with me on Linkedin.com when I revealed what those were doing when they where edit warring the truth as they didn't want this out there. Sannse I saw people blanking pages when research that was original was made too as we when I decided to give a hand with a few of them and the first time expanded article (easy their longest articles) was featured! Check out White people and you will gain some insight about Florida and the use of the n-word it irks me so I had to address the Paula Deen issue first hand. Fan fiction then Fantard then Encyclopedia Dramatica (Website) gets spiked. --Factfinder510 (talk) 06:44, March 2, 2019 (UTC)

A million questions...

  • If a community reaches a consensus to move to another host (whether it be Miraheze, uncyclomedia.org, uncyclopedia.co, one of the various independents, whomever...) will Wikia be turning over a copy of the actual wiki database to the new host? The XML link for download on Special:Statistics doesn't seem to be pointing to a current version of the data (in some cases, the last update was 2017) and is missing the deleted articles.
  • What about images? Wikia isn't posting one big downloadable file per-wiki (like the ones on download.uncyc.org) but is it willing to turn the whole bundle over to whomever the respective communities select as a new host?
  • What happens to the domains? Certainly uncyclopedia.org is the biggest issue, as a faithful parody of xx.wikipedia.org would require the xx.uncyclopedia.org subdomain for each language point to a proper MediaWiki (with the stock Vector/Monobook skins) which looks like the corresponding language 'xx' on WP. There are other affected domains, including uncyclopedia.de, desencyclopedia.com and a couple which infringe Desciclopédia's name in .net and .info which I believe are still owned by Wikia. These need to be transferred to the new project, not merely dropped and lost to cybersquatters and spammers.
  • What happens to the userlist? I recall these issues came up years ago when the "Spanking Art wiki" was one of the first to be abandoned by Wikia over a content dispute; they were given their data, their images and a piece of the userlist which contained just their active users so that they could rebuild elsewhere. Will we be extended the same courtesy?
  • Once the Wikia versions are closed, will the old URL's return some meaningful response so that users and search engines will be able to find the new "canonical" URI for the moved site?

I believe I have enough servers, trademarks, domain names and other bits and pieces to be able to put some sort of site back together for the communities being made homeless by this move, but I shall need to export the data and images to make this happen. It would be much easier if these were turned over as one bundle, instead of having to deal with years-outdated XML dumps and request every image individually. carlb (talk) 16:55, February 28, 2019 (UTC)

I would suggest that you don't do anything yet, not until the wikis have decided where they want to go. Some wikis seem worried about support on your server, so are looking at alternatives. Not that that's my business of course, it's between you and the users on the various wikis.

On your questions:

  • The database dumps can be updated on request - just click the button next to the most recent dumps. We don't give out the full database, just a dump of the current articles (with or without histories). The user database is definitely not something we would ever share.
  • As I've said above, we can't give a dump of the images for copyright reasons. There are solutions out there though, which will copy all images and transfer them to a new site. See https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Exporting_all_the_files_of_a_wiki
  • As I also said above, there's been no decision about the non-wikia/fandom.com URLs. My main concern is who we would transfer them to.
  • As far as I recall, we did not give the userlist to Spanking Art or anyone else. There are ways of verifying that a user is the owner of the Fandom account, I don't know the details, because it's not something we've had to do, but I'm sure you could find the info with a search or six.
  • The wikia/fandom.com URLs will go to a "closed wiki" page. But most non-regulars come to the site via Google, and you would be able to build SEO more effectively without the competition from us. In the meantime, this wiki is welcome to put up a main page message or other notice about the move -- Sannse <staff /> (help forum | blog) 17:29, February 28, 2019 (UTC)
I hope that answers everything
I've looked at Special:Statistics (for instance, [1] hasn't been updated since 2014), and from c:Help:Database download it appears that only an administrator can make a request for a dump to be made. That's not very helpful; archiveteam.org has expressed concerns as far back as 2017 but been pointedly ignored. I'm also concerned that even these outdated, incomplete dumps will disappear as soon as the projects are closed.
I request that Wikia provide a current dump for each of the affected projects, whether they are currently active or not, so that I may obtain a copy of the data (and put it up for download here) before it's all lost. Once the data is out of harm's way, the respective communities will be free to decide what to do with it - but the task of preserving the data must come first. Thank you. carlb (talk) 18:05, February 28, 2019 (UTC)

Post discussion here not privately

People are asking questions here that have already been answered in private group emails. And then people are asking technical questions in those private emails that somebody who sees this might know the answer to!

I already talked about it there, so I will here too. Post discussions here. Unless it's something that has to remain private ("We're having a party at Romartus' house and here's his address") please post it here! Admin DAP Dame Pleb Com. <font="Times New Roman">Miley <font="Times New Roman">Spears (talk) 17:45, February 28, 2019 (UTC)

Don't forget to bring a bottle Miley Spears! --Laurels.gifRomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 23:18, February 28, 2019 (UTC)

From the Uncyclomedia.co/Illogicopedia hosting team

Basically: we're on this. We currently plan to host any language project that wishes to move to our servers, and are currently working on making space/figuring out what all this requires on our end, as well as what to expect on yours (in particular, how long things would actually take).

For en (this wiki): Our current plan is to simply set up a new, separate wiki for all post-fork content, importing everything since the beginning of 2012 (and latest revision of other pages just to avoid breaking things?), if you agree. You will be free to continue to use it as an entirely separate project or maintain it instead as a staging ground from which to merge things to the en.uncyclopedia.co wiki, at your leisure. What domain you want to use is up to you, either a subdomain of anything we already have, or whatever you want to provide. Basically, let us know if this seems reasonable, and we'll make it happen, and you can do whatever with it.

For other projects: Standard move process, basically what en.uncyclopedia.co and illogicopedia.org did in the first place. We copy over all content via db dumps, api, and whatever, using various scripts. Each project shouldn't take more than a couple of days, but during any move process I would recommend keeping page moves and deletions in particular to a minimum - we can rerun revision and file imports to get new edits done during the duration easily enough, but moving things around is a bit more difficult to handle.

Things to consider:

  • We will handle the actual move process for you, you just need to agree to it and give us whatever access you decide on, and be willing to put up with the fact that we haven't done this in awhile and might take a few tries to do everything perfectly.
  • All visible content will be maintained. This includes files, full revision history, and logs.
  • We can also copy over deleted content, but this requires project permission to do so - in particular, we will need a local admin account to actually access it, and whether or not you want to provide this may depend on why you've deleted things in the first place (probably not, but I don't know what security policies you might have).
  • User accounts will not be copied over as a part of this, but it is possible to enable an extension for users to import their wikia account settings as part of the login process, if they choose (essentially, you log into the new site by authenticating via wikia's api, and then the account info is imported at that point)
  • All projects will default to a lang.uncyclopedia.co url, but can use any other url they have access to as the canonical url by pointing it at the server and telling us about it. We can also set up other subdomains of any other domain we own as well, if you, say, want something shorter (like, I dunno, des.uncy.org or something).
  • We are running MediaWiki 1.32, with some extensions on 1.33/master. Some content will break (especially DPL). We generally maintain either current LTS or the most recent stable release, as determined by our whims, random security concerns, and how homeless our sysadmins are at the moment.
  • The servers are hosted mostly in france, occasionally in canada, and not in germany because we have too many swastikas on them already. This probably won't affect you, but if you think it might, let us know.

I've probably missed stuff. I'm also not even sure what all projects are affected by this, so any information on that would also be useful, and if anyone also wants to forward this to those communities directly, please, please do so.

For the technical cabal,

--Athyria (talk) 19:26, February 28, 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for your message Athyria (others will remember you as Lyrithya on this site). --Laurels.gifRomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 23:20, February 28, 2019 (UTC)
Who's Lyrithya? A.L.???| loves Lyrithya! A.L.???| marries Lyrithya! A.L.???| divorces Lyrithya! A.L.???| doesn't remember Lyrithya! 00:13, March 1, 2019 (UTC)
Thank you for explaining the technical side. Good to know that you would have a separate copy of the site and preserve logs. If we did use it as a continuation of this one rather than just a source of copied content, it seems more desirable to have all pages and history before 2012 as well for completeness. Thanks for the link to the grabber page, also. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr talkcontribs • 02:35 1 March 2019
Part of the problem with duplicating it all is just that uncyclopedia is big, but there is of course still an issue with things being moved around, and whatnot, so you're not wrong about it being preferable to have the older stuff too for completeness' sake. I'm just not sure how feasible it is in practice. Frankly it'd be really nice if people could just work out their differences, since that seems to be more of an issue at this point. Athyria (talk) 22:38, March 1, 2019 (UTC)

A Modest Proposal

The Reunification of Uncyclopedia

I was thinking about other reunifications, specifically East and West Germany. When they combined, neither East Germany nor West Germany lost any seats on the United Nations; they all kept their seats.

So why not do the same thing here. Everybody who's an admin and/or bureaucrat here becomes an admin and/or bureaucrat there. That would eliminate the "us vs. them" thing, because them would be us. And visa versa. Balance of power and all that.

What think? King Admin Alden Loveshade, by proclamation of Sannse most noble ruler of the Internet King of the Internet Alden Loveshade??? (royal court)  01:31, March 1, 2019 (UTC)

I think you're either spying or mindreading again. See the below. :D Admin DAP Dame Pleb Com. <font="Times New Roman">Miley <font="Times New Roman">Spears (talk) 03:16, March 1, 2019 (UTC)
(edit conflict) AFAIK that's what they're planning to do anyway. However, I think there are admins here that wouldn't be wanted there, so it's unlikely to work out well. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr talkcontribs • 03:20 1 March 2019
But the proposal (see below) is that they would make all admins/bureaucrats here there too. That's what they're proposing! So that must be what they want. :) Admin DAP Dame Pleb Com. <font="Times New Roman">Miley <font="Times New Roman">Spears (talk) 03:41, March 1, 2019 (UTC)
Yes, I saw that. You know I already got kicked out of that position, so I can't see why they'd want me back. That also means Spike, Puppy and Sannse. Spike and Puppy have longstanding, intractable disagreements with them, Sannse is Wikia staff, and Spike and Sannse don't even have accounts. But all means all. They'd have to find a way and face the consequences. Would they want to? Would we? They can probably guess that all four would refuse. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr talkcontribs • 04:32 1 March 2019
Coincidentally, uncyclopedia.co is planning to hold a VFS starting March 1st. I am planning to nominate all the current Wikia admins and bureaucrats for their respective user rights, and it will be up to a community vote on each individual. I hope that we can leave past disagreements behind all of us and focus on our shared passion for Uncyclopedia. Zombiebaron (talk) 04:58, March 1, 2019 (UTC)
Okay. Your original email was a little confusing on this point because you said there would be a vote and also that "all administrators will be made administrators". It sounded like they would be either guaranteed the rights or voted on collectively. Maybe you meant this is what would happen in the case of a merger. If they're going to be voted on in any case, though, I don't see how that could work. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr talkcontribs • 16:16 1 March 2019
In the original email we said, "we intend to hold a vote that would transfer over any user rights belonging to your members". Currently that vote is taking place on UN:VFS. Zombiebaron (talk) 17:10, March 1, 2019 (UTC)
There was a de-op vote in progress 5 years ago over issues that would be considered ancient history nowadays. Considering the vote ended prematurely with your resignation, an official outcome was never reached and you can technically request your rights back at any time. With the VFS mentioned by Zombiebaron right around the corner, I doubt anyone from this wiki (you, Spike, Puppy, and especially Sannse included) would receive opposition given the circumstances. As far as personal issues go, a few of the people from the fork (myself included, having been involved in that nonsense) have tried getting in touch over the years to make amends long before merging was even an option, and it's everyone's sincere hope that past issues such as these can be discussed and resolved in private if need be, or at least set aside for the benefit of both communities going forward. Un-Supergeeky1 (talk) 05:07, March 1, 2019 (UTC)
You know I never read minds without asking the person permission first! That doesn't work too well with spying, though (seriously, that is either a weird coincidence, or I picked that up somewhere and forgot about it, or, what I'd like to think, great minds think alike. But it's probably the second).
In any case, to me it would seem to resolve the issue to the point I rather wonder what people are still arguing about. In Internet terms, five years ago is a long, long time. Maybe best to let sleeping dogs lie. King Admin Alden Loveshade, by proclamation of Sannse most noble ruler of the Internet King of the Internet Alden Loveshade??? (royal court)  05:35, March 1, 2019 (UTC)
Regards to admin nominations, I would expect all those users who have been admins here from 2013-2019 would carry those rights over to any merged site if that is indeed the outcome. There would be no need for re-elections. --Laurels.gifRomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 11:01, March 1, 2019 (UTC)
See Zombiebaron's reply above. Your idea is not what they're going to do. As for letting sleeping dogs lie, I would love to never discuss this again and never have anything more to do with them or their site, but apparently that's not good enough. The first person to specifically mention my history here was someone from the fork, probably trying to troll me. I'm not going to just ignore the past and act like it didn't happen. I know I wasn't perfect, but their language implies there was "violence on many sides" when there absolutely wasn't. They won't accept responsibility or show they've changed. It seems they just want to talk us into joining them because we could be useful and we wouldn't be a competitor anymore. (And August 2014 was only 4.5 years ago.) ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr talkcontribs • 16:16 1 March 2019

The Uncyclopedia Reunification Plan

This is the private email Zombiebaron sent to Romartus: EXPOSED! (By Zombiebaron's permission)

Hey Romartus,

I am writing on behalf of the uncyclopedia.co community. We have discussed reaching out to you for years, and in light of recent events on your side and a large resurgence of activity on our side, the decision has been made to send this email. We are really sorry to see how poorly you've been treated by Wikia/Fandom in recent months in regards to the forced skin and domain name changes to the site, and their unwillingness to cater to Uncyclopedia's unique needs. I know some of us have had our differences in the past, but we are all very sympathetic to your cause and dislike seeing what was once our community treated so poorly. We believe it would be in the best interest of all of us to reunify the Uncyclopedia community at en.uncyclopedia.co.

One of our users outlined a series of actions he successfully took in getting Wikia's approval for a fork of a relatively popular wiki. While Wikia is vehemently against closing their wikis, they do allow wikis to be renamed after a sufficient amount of community approval. This user in particular asked for his wiki to be given "Simple" as a prefix, as a parody of Simple Wikipedia (https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page), which Wikia granted without question. After forking the contents to an independent domain, he established a new policy that all articles must be simplified, which meant that all articles were reduced in size to the opening paragraphs alone. He also placed a banner on each article linking to the independent copy, essentially turning his Simple wiki into a large scale ad for the independent wiki. Within months, his independent wiki had taken over the original Wikia copy in search results thanks to each article being reduced to a stub, and he's received no pushback from Wikia. See here (http://community.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Contact/wiki-name-change) for Wikia's form for renaming wikis and urls.

Given how dismissive the Fandom staff is of your situation, we see no reason why this wouldn't work for a Simple Uncyclopedia. It's unfortunate that it's come to this, but the fact of the matter is that Uncyclopedia.wikia is unlikely to recover from the skin change without repurposing itself as something other than a Wikipedia parody - now further complicated by Fandom's new decision to force Uncyclopedia to the Fandom domain.

Obviously we haven't held any votes regarding this yet, as we wanted to hear your opinions first. But if this is something that interests you, we intend to hold a vote that would transfer over any user rights belonging to your members and potentially unblock any of your users upon request. All administrators will be made administrators, all bureaucrats will be made bureaucrats, and so on. If you feel any of our content isn't up to the standards you've set in place, we will work to raise these articles to such standards, and any conflicting policies or guidelines can be re-written as necessary with community involvement. Recently, en.uncyclopedia.co has seen a large increase in activity, coinciding with the return of several former users, and restoration of site functions abandoned around the time our communities split. With that in mind, a handful of our tech experts have already volunteered to handle imports to Uncyclopedia and re-writes of Simple Uncyclopedia. At least one administrator will need to remain at Simple Uncyclopedia to maintain the content and ensure all articles fit the new Simple guidelines, but that most likely won't be an issue.

We've worked very hard to evolve Uncyclopedia.co over the years, as evidenced by our updates to the main page (https://en.uncyclopedia.co/wiki/Main_Page) and UnNews (https://en.uncyclopedia.co/wiki/UnNews), and our active social media presence (https://twitter.com/UncycOfficial, and https://www.facebook.com/uncyclopedia). We have around the clock support from our technical staff, so issues like the Featured Article system being broken for long stretches of time will never occur. And above all else, readers don't have to apply difficult browser hacks to read our content the way it was always meant to be read.

If this is insufficient, please let us know if there's anything further we could offer your community. Everyone here feels very strongly about seeing Uncyclopedia succeed, and the reunification of our communities would go a long way to ensure that. Please pass this email along to your fellow administrators. We are very interested in seeing what the Wikia Uncyclopedia community thinks of this idea, something we greatly regret not doing properly when we forked in the first place. Obviously it would be best not to post any details from this email that would raise eyebrows of the higher-ups at Fandom (such as turning one of their wikis into what might as well be an advertisement), but beyond that, we look forward to hearing your thoughts and suggestions, and our administrators and tech experts will answer any questions your community might have.

Additionally, if you would like to communicate with us in real-time, we are all here on the Uncyclopedia Discord server: https://discord.gg/qAUySUC


Thank you and all the best, Zombiebaron, and the Uncyclopedia administration

Posted here by Admin DAP Dame Pleb Com. <font="Times New Roman">Miley <font="Times New Roman">Spears (talk) 03:18, March 1, 2019 (UTC)

In the interests of clarity, this email was sent to me on Monday 25th February 2019 before the news that Wikia/Fandom intended to stop hosting Uncyclopedia (Wikia) aka - The Spoon. I then shared the message with the admin group on this site for comments and views before this forum was created by Sannse from Wikia/Fandom. --Laurels.gifRomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 10:52, March 1, 2019 (UTC)
So they were reaching out before they knew we were on a sinking ship? That makes it even better! I definitely support the merger! Admin DAP Dame Pleb Com. <font="Times New Roman">Miley <font="Times New Roman">Spears (talk) 17:41, March 1, 2019 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Does this pattern of "reorganising" or presuming to decide what's best for various existing communities outside .co extend to non-Wikia Uncyclopedia projects, or is this just about the FANDOM issues? I ask because one user on meta:Forum:Reorganization of the whole Uncycs#General_Principles was trolling me by inferring that an administrator on the fork was endorsing his disruptions, specifically [in the context of a bizarre thread demanding that I shut down everything I'm hosting] "(To Carlb) Hey, I'm not the only one who support the idea. Zombiebaron and other members of .co thinks it's time for a reorganization. Though I'm a member of the fork, I have other permissions on other Uncycs including the Chinese fork which decided to move out of Wikia." and "As I said, it's not only I who think your server lacks in tech support. Zombiebaron is also trying to reorganize Uncycs under their server, to be fair. And what you should do, if willing to continue on your server, is not to attack me but to try to have a better support on reported issues across wikis.--The Pioneer (talk) 03:49, 1 March 2019 (UTC)" In the interests of clarity, I'd like to know if this is one person trolling or whether any of this represents the views of uncyclopedia.co or any of its admins. carlb (talk) 17:47, March 1, 2019 (UTC)
Hello Carl. I believe Pioneer is a good faith actor, he is a member in good standing in Uncyclopedia communities all over the world. All discussions we have had about reunification have, to my knowledge, only focused on the FANDOM projects that need new hosting. Its odd only my name is mentioned as this has been a community effort. Zombiebaron (talk) 18:01, March 1, 2019 (UTC)
I have no idea what's going on with all of that, only that we really should be pooling our resources here, not arguing. If folks are stirring up trouble on any of these, can we just hit them with spoons?
Whatever the case, I do believe my team is probably in the best position to actually do the moves due to our experience with specifically this while preserving as much data as possible, but the service you've been providing securing and maintaining backups is also really useful too, so please keep doing that. We should talk later about ensuring there's backups from all the .co ones, too since that's something we're not doing so well at ourselves (and, hells, if we could eventually work together to consolidate more of our hosting services and pool our resources there, that would be amazing... I can dream, right?) Athyria (talk) 22:42, March 1, 2019 (UTC)
We had a discord chat regarding this reorganization, but ZB told me the post I made on the forum was based on my misunderstanding. I apologize for that, Carlb. However, I do hear complaints regarding technical support globally, and I do wish your improvement on this.--The Pioneer JP (talk) 04:56, March 4, 2019 (UTC)

Technical stuff

This seems to be descending into drama, so before I get started, here are some kittens:

Orange Kitten.jpg 1137228571328.t.jpg Kitty.jpg Tastykittens.jpg Halp-i-not-cheezburger.jpg KITTY.jpg

That's better.

If we want a new separate site, we have three options:

  • Lyrithya's offer of a second site on her server
  • Wiki farm
  • Install one from scratch

If we go with the first, we don't have to do any work. As Lyrithya says above, it would include pages from before 2012 but not their histories due to practical concerns. The histories would be available on the fork, but it's still less than ideal to not have what was once the content of this site all together in one place.

I mentioned options 2 and 3 under #Uncyclopedia Wikia. I haven't looked into wiki farms other than Miraheze. There are others listed at Sannse's link and Wikibooks if you're interested.

With either of those, getting the content and current file versions -- the most important parts -- should be fairly straightforward. Wikia provides the content, and the scripts at mw:Exporting all the files of a wiki let you get the files. Miraheze has a page on moving wikis there, including a section about moving from Wikia. They'll upload the content and images for you if you provide them. They also provide mw:Extension:MsUpload, which enables "drag and drop" uploading of multiple files at once. For another way of getting content and images, that page links to the WikiTeam tools that enable them to be downloaded together or separately.

The last content dump is from 27 February, and I've downloaded it to my home computer. I will share this if anyone else needs it. You can also get another copy from Special:Statistics. Of course it's already outdated because there have been more edits since then, so we may want to get another one later before we pack up.

Everything else is another matter. By "everything else" I mean:

  • deleted pages
  • file histories -- old file versions, uploaders, and upload comments (we should get the revision histories of the file pages along with the content, but it's not the same)
  • deleted files
  • logs
  • active blocks and protections
  • abuse filters

I'd include deleted revisions, but I've never seen any and RevisionDelete isn't enabled here.

First we should decide if we really want to keep these things. I'd prefer to if possible, but they're not as important and more difficult to get. We'll have (some of?) them with option 1.

Logs can be uploaded with Special:Import as XML. I've done that before. In theory that means we could get them onto a wiki farm, but the file might be too large for that and I don't know how we'd get it in the first place.

The "grabbers" scripts Lyrithya links to can get all of these as well as getting interwikis and user rights and populating the user table with "stub" users (more info on the page). It doesn't look like we can use those with a wiki farm because they "output their grab straight into the wiki's database". Since I don't know of any other way to get this information, if we want it we may have to go with option 3. It might be possible to get it into an extra wiki with database access, dump that wiki's database and upload the result into the target wiki, or it might not.

As for users, Wikia doesn't provide the user table, but we can use mw:Extension:MediaWikiAuth to enable logging in with existing Wikia accounts. This imports preferences and watchlists. We probably couldn't talk a wiki farm into installing this. Miraheze doesn't mention it on their available extensions page.

Alden has noted that uncyclopedia.org expires on 15 March. With either of options 2 and 3, one of us should register it and point it to the new site if possible. Miraheze has a page on custom domains. Getting one is free but requires going through the process described there.

With option 3, someone will have to find hosting, probably paid, and install MediaWiki on it. I've installed and upgraded it before; it was a pain in the butt, but I could do it again. Alternatively, some of the hosts listed on mw:Hosting services are not wiki farms but allow easier installation. I don't know if they would provide the kind of database access necessary for everything I've mentioned.

I hope that clarifies the situation a bit. If you have any questions or anything to add, say so.

PS -- happy St. David's Day :) (still a couple minutes of 1 March left where I am) ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr talkcontribs • 04:58 2 March 2019

At pl:Forum:Wiadomość od Fandom I saw this dire assessment of Miraheze from Magwac:

"It's probably the worst option possible, with Miraheze being horribly slow and unstable. The fork is currently covered in a thick layer of Italian pages that were imported by completely incompetent stewards and after like two months they still haven't dealt with it. Add to this constant technical issues like the one when all images disappeared from from the fork for a week (because of incompetent stewards) and finance that hangs on literally a thousand bucks and you've got yourself a really terrible host. Seriously, in their summary for FY2018 Miraheze has admitted that their financial situation looked unstable and they had money only for the next eight months. Migrating a wiki to Miraheze now wouldn't be a shot in the foot, it would be a shot in the head. We are looking for something stable, something that will survive at least ten years, not a few months."

I also ran across this article about why free web hosting is a bad choice. The points raised here may or may not apply to wiki farms. I'm going to keep looking into this option and others. I have a personal wiki on GoDaddy, but that won't work for us because the highest PHP version they provide is 5.6 and MediaWiki 1.31 requires 7+. My wiki is stuck at 1.22. If we can't be on Wikia anymore, no way am I going to settle for continuing to be permanently downlevel, and you shouldn't either. Some other opinions on this issue would be nice. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr talkcontribs • 22:36 5 March 2019

I've found the source for "literally a thousand bucks" and "money only for the next eight months". Too bad. I like Miraheze, but it's not looking like a good option. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr talkcontribs • 06:22 6 March 2019

The Final Solution

1) Back up everything here you can. That makes sense no matter what else you do.

2) Be open to the offer you've been given (check the links: They want to give you power They are trying to give you power. They are going so far as proposing changing their own rules to give you power).

3) If you decide to accept their offer, you're good. If you decide not to accept it, you've got everything backed up so you're still good.

Frankly, I've been in the writing game a long, long time, and I don't remember seeing a rival make a better offer than what they're offering you (I mean if you don't count offers that involve getting paid).

Father Alden Loveshade, humble rector of the University of Our Lady of Uncyclopedia, Whynersville Queen's Counsel A.L.??? (legal consultations)  07:10, March 2, 2019 (UTC)

Good idea. I'm downloading the images right now. This will take a while. I'll work on other stuff later. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr talkcontribs • 01:49 3 March 2019
One option for backup and sharing is mega.nz - free plans have less space, but I have a paid plan that costs about $6 US currently, and I emailed the Fandom/Wikia admins in the email group from mega.nz with a link to a folder I created that uses that storage space. Currently, 34 GB out of the 200 GB allotment I pay for on a monthly basis are used. Everyone in the email group was given read/write access to an Uncyclopedia folder on my MEGA account. That folder is one option for backing up AND sharing the files, if what I was told via email was correct...that the database backup is about 50 GB. Right now that folder is empty. Anyone can open an account with MEGA for that matter, it doesn't have to be me. I honestly don't have the time to try to figure out the technical stuff...I work as a professional tax preparer, bookkeeper, and payroll specialist, and the more tax, bookkeeping, and payroll clients I take on, in addition to routine bookkeeping and payroll for my employer, the busier I will get, which is good for my household's wallet, but not so good for having as much in the way of spare time. (PS - Drake software works well for filing corporate and non-profit tax returns, but is not always user-friendly.) TBH, I opened the MEGA account because it was the only service that provided enough storage space for all the Sims 4 custom content I have accumulated to be backed up in one place. Going off on a complete tangent, I wish I had enough spare time to learn Python programming just well enough to make my own mods for the game. I did take computer programming courses about 25 years ago, not even counting teaching myself BASIC from the VIC-20 manual when I was 12 or 13. -- Simsilikesims(♀GUN) Talk here. 04:05, March 3, 2019 (UTC)
Is this a different group? I didn't get anything about this. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr talkcontribs • 18:38 3 March 2019
No, only one admin group. I think perhaps Simsilikesims was emailing us individually and forgot to contact you. --Laurels.gifRomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 19:47, March 3, 2019 (UTC)
I've got the images. They take up 15.9 GB. I was going to use the method Sannse suggested, but that requires going through a lot of Special:AllPages and getting the result formatted correctly, so I went with WikiTeam instead. After installing the missing dependencies, I was able to just let it run. There's an issue with it -- when a filename is more than 100 characters, it cuts it down to 100 and adds a 32-digit hex number on the end, probably some sort of hash. If we use this kind of backup, I think the best way around this is to just rename the files. There's no reason for them to be that long. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr talkcontribs • 18:38 3 March 2019
Thanks Llwy-ar-lawr. This all seems like sorcery to this aged user. :) --Laurels.gifRomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 19:50, March 3, 2019 (UTC)
I've put my backups of all things Uncyclowikia online at https://download.uncyc.org/wikia and I'm getting basically the same results as you see. It looks like there is a file uncyclopediawikiacom-20190301-images.txt included with the output from dumpgenerator.py which lists what's been renamed. carlb (talk) 22:44, March 3, 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for helping. I have a file like that too but don't see any renames in it, though it does seem to have the original names instead of the truncated ones. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr talkcontribs • 23:48 3 March 2019
Excellent! Downloading onto a private system preserves the bits, but then they're at the wrong end of an asymmetric cable connection. I had been wondering how we'd get it all onto an internet-visible spot. It sounds like you've got that aspect covered, Carl. Snarglefoop (talk) 04:24, March 4, 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for All the Fish

I heard the roof was falling in and dropped by to see, and yeah, looks like the roof is falling in.

As my one really substantive comment on the sad situation, I'd say that "merging" with the Fork is tantamount to just shutting the site down. The folks on the Fork can pick through the remains and pull out any content that appeals to them, but that's been true all along. And anyone who was active on the Wikia site can edit on the Fork. And finally anyone who was an admin can run the gauntlet and see if they get approved as an admin on the Fork. But all of that has been true all along -- nothing really changes in that scenario except that the Wikia site is gone.

So, as I said, the "merger" scenario seems to be just the same as issuing a final
'/sbin/shutdown -h now "I hope you already saved your work bye"'
and walking away.

With that gloomy assessment out of the way, I'd also add that setting up a whole new site seems like it's got some kewl possibilities. It removes the necessity to follow Wikia's occasionally confusing and restrictive rules on the site default skin, and makes it possible to go back to having the site look like an entirely demented knockoff of Wikipedia, which was sort of the point to begin with. (For the past few years it's been looking more and more like an entirely demented knockoff of a Twilight fanzine site, which is not at all the same thing.)

One might also hope that with the advent of An Entirely New Site, some of the old editors might resurface. I don't know if I ever did enough here to qualify as One Of Them, but I'd at least come around and see how things were going and maybe try writing a dumb UnNews or some such now and then. And who knows, Spike might even come back, and IMHO he's fundamentally a Good Guy. (Tho I will also freely admit I'm kind of terrified of Spike -- he had all these rules about High Quality Humor and An Image In The Corner and Relevancy of Content and Search Result Visibility Probability, and I never felt like I could successfully follow any of them for more than a few seconds.)

So, yeah, I guess in all of this matted overgrown mass of verbiage, I actually do have an Actual Opinion: I'd like to see a new site, preferably with the moniker uncyclopedia.org, with as much of the old content as can be salvaged after the ship makes its final run onto the rocks and splits apart, dropping its cargo of laughs into the depths of the Marianas Trench (along with the skeletons of the brave crew, working to keep the lights on to the last).

And I wouldn't care whether the site was hosted on Miraheze, or Lyrithya's servers (I think she's got some?), or CarlB's server, or pretty much anywhere else that lets us go on being us. Snarglefoop (talk) 23:39, March 3, 2019 (UTC)

Snarglefoop..you have just won the UnNobel Prize for Literature. Take a bow Oscar Wilde. :) --Laurels.gifRomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 00:11, March 4, 2019 (UTC)
Unfortunately, Wikia is still hogging uncyclopedia.org and refusing to release it, but I do have uncyclopaedia.org and uncyclopedia.org.uk among others; en.uncyclopedia.info might be an option. Uncyclopaedia Britannica, anyone? :) carlb (talk) 00:46, March 4, 2019 (UTC)
Don't give up on uncyclopedia.org yet. They haven't said whether they plan to hang on to it, and it will expire very soon if they don't renew it. In October (a long way away, yes) we may also be able to get uncyclopedia.com because it expires that month and can't be renewed. I'd really like us to come to an agreement on how to proceed. Then we can ask if they'll give it to whichever of us we decide on. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr talkcontribs • 04:05 4 March 2019
Why can't uncyclopedia.com not be renewed Llwy? --Laurels.gifRomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 21:49, March 4, 2019 (UTC)
The link shows that it has the status "clientRenewProhibited", which is described here as follows: "This status code tells your domain's registry to reject requests to renew your domain. It is an uncommon status that is usually enacted during legal disputes or when your domain is subject to deletion." I don't know what the story is in this case. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr talkcontribs • 04:57 5 March 2019
Carlb: As I've said a few times, wherever I've been asked... there has been no decision about the Uncyc URLs we have. One issue is the question of who we would give it/them to. There are quite a few opposing claims -- Sannse <staff /> (help forum | blog) 21:59, March 4, 2019 (UTC)

Troll Alert!

I have already struck through the comments and banned one troll impersonating Carlb. Double check on user names when contributing to a thread or replying to another user. Also new accounts will be checked. --Laurels.gifRomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 23:55, March 3, 2019 (UTC)

== Let's close this site down ==

I do not support a merger with .co as they are dabbling with pay-to-play and their project needs do not match our project needs. I do not believe .co has the financial resources to survive on a long term basis. I do not support moving to Miraheze due to their dire financial and technical situation. I do not support taking this site independent as I feel we will not make it work and it would be sad to see everybody's efforts go to waste.

We are left with one option. That is to close this site down.

It has been a good run but all good things must come to an end. We should make every effort to go out on a high and be remembered as a good source for comedy.

It is sad to say this but I do not think we have a choice. 186.125.112.80 20:15, March 6, 2019 (UTC)

Trolling from an anon. Forum now restricted to users with an account. --Laurels.gifRomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 21:47, March 6, 2019 (UTC)


People want Child Porn

Sannse said Child Porn was one of the articles that would have to go. Since she posted that, it's now the most popular article here. :D Admin DAP Dame Pleb Com. <font="Times New Roman">Miley <font="Times New Roman">Spears (talk) 22:59, March 4, 2019 (UTC)

Streisand effect, I guess! --— Imdill3 (talk) 23:38, March 4, 2019 (UTC)
Oh great, now Wikia will expect us to remove all the encyclopaedic content from this site and replace it with pornographic fancruft fetishising Julia Child, as that would make better clickbait? carlb (talk) 04:02, March 5, 2019 (UTC)

A vote?

I can't begin to resolve the domain name issue until there is a clear decision on where the current community of this wiki is going to go. It's something that (IMO) should be more than an admin decision, it should be one for the community here. Note that I said (twice) that the vote should be for the community of this wiki. If the communities are to merge, I assume there will be a vote or something on the other wiki too, but that's should be separate -- Sannse <staff /> (help forum | blog) 22:26, March 5, 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Sannse, understood. A full choice of the options available will be made public here for this wiki-based community to decide upon. --Laurels.gifRomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 23:31, March 5, 2019 (UTC)
It has now been two weeks since Sannse announced the wiki shutdown and a vote hasn't even been started. The uncyclopedia.co community have voted for userrights parity, many Fandom users have already joined our community, and the only thing standing in the way of a full merger at this point is a formal vote on this end. A vote takes time, and time is running out. I implore you to start a community vote before it is too late. Zombiebaron (talk) 13:12, March 11, 2019 (UTC)
It's actually 13 days since the announcement Zombiebaron. I received an email from you on the 25th February on behalf of Uncyclopedia.co outlining a merger proposal (see above email as published by Miley Spears) before this forum was created by Fandom administrator Sannse on the 26th February. A vote forum will be created so that all eligible users will see the proposals discussed by the administration group for this site's future.--Laurels.gifRomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 14:03, March 11, 2019 (UTC)
Sorry if I implied that 13 days was two weeks, I merely meant to give an approximate measurement. My concern is when will this vote be created? There are 20 days left in March. It will take much of that time to move the wiki, and ideally you will want as much time as possible after the move to check for and correct any bugs or errors. Zombiebaron (talk) 14:51, March 11, 2019 (UTC)
Stay Tuned. --Laurels.gifRomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 15:19, March 11, 2019 (UTC)

Note: a vote page is now available here: Forum:Hosting options for Uncyclopedia (wikia). Athyria (talk) 00:53, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

Moving to wikia.org?

Has anyone seen the notice at the top saying that this domain is moving to Wikia.org? Awesome Aasim 21:20, March 20, 2019 (UTC)

This is a previously posted notice, repeated. The notice of eviction was given after this first appeared, so this is just a reminder automatically sent to all affected wikis. --Nigel Scribbler sig2.png (talk) 04:17, March 21, 2019 (UTC)
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