NWNWiki talk:Community portal/Wikia move

Moving to Wikia (discussion before move)
After much deliberation, I have decided to move NWNWiki & NWN2Wiki to Wikia. For those that don't know, Wikia was founded by Jimmy Wales (who started Wikipedia) and Angela Beesley and hosts over 3,000 wiki communities -- including many game wikis like WoWWiki (35,000+ articles). They even host a Forgotten Realms wiki, which is germane to NWN.

Besides the fact that it's free, Wikia will offer us better support and tools -- including improved spam and vandalism protection. They'll also be faster to update the MediaWiki software and offer more extensions than I have.

I considered a number of options, and I think Wikia is the best fit for us. I hope you'll agree.

The transition will occur in a few days and should be pretty seamless. When we're ready, I will lock the wikis to disallow new edits, so that I can send the database and other files to Wikia to bring up on their servers. The nwnwiki.org & nwn2wiki.org domains will then be redirected to their servers and we're back in business. User accounts and everything will still be in place. The transition should only take a day or two, but even when it's locked, the wikis will be accessible for reading.

For most users, I bet they won't even notice the change (besides some improved performance). We'll still have full control over the wiki content.

Thank you to all the editors and admins who have made our wikis such a valuable resource for the NWN & NWN2 communities. I'm sure this partnership with Wikia will be a success. With less headaches for me regarding software and technical issues and -- for everyone -- less time spent fighting spammers, we should all have more time to do the real important work: improving and expanding our database!

Thanks again. -- Alec Usticke 20:06, 19 July 2007 (PDT)


 * I am the founder of the Neverwinter Nights Wikia. The content there has been little and so I am glad that this merge is taking place.  I will be happy to assist in the merge and the running of the wiki.  Thank you for choosing to come to Wikia and bringing the  articles with you.  --Leon2323 20:15, 20 July 2007 (UTC)  P.S. I was unable to create an account on this wiki or add any links as the CAPTCHA doesn't seem to work.


 * Thanks for the note, Leon. I look forward to working with you.
 * Sorry the CAPTCHA blocked you, but I just tested it and confirmed it's working. It is a bit confusing though, because you need to get the capitalization exact with no spaces. For example, it will be something like "WizardDwarf"; "Wizard Dwarf" or "wizarddwarf" will fail. I could have used something easier, but I stubbornly insisted on using a system with NWN words and (the hard to read) font. It has meant a big improvement in blocking spammers, but it's a pain for new users. I'm glad I soon won't have to worry about such technical issues with Wikia hosting. :) -- Alec Usticke 13:27, 20 July 2007 (PDT)

Hopefully we'll be able to make the move this week. The URLs will change to nwn.wikia.com and nwn2.wikia.com, but the old URLs will redirect to the proper article (www.nwnwiki.org/Wizard --> nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Wizard). -- Alec Usticke 16:08, 30 July 2007 (PDT)

Sorry for the false start with the Wikia move. We began it last week, but some unexpected delays pushed the transition back. We'll try again shortly. Article editing has been re-enabled in the meantime. Sorry about that! -- Alec Usticke 17:54, 7 August 2007 (PDT)


 * Ok, I've now got an account! Anyway, the latest with the move.  From what I can gather, all of the pages from this wiki has been moved to Wikia.  The content is being merged and a few things are being updated.  Wikia's wikis normally use a skin called QuartzSmoke.  However, it looks like this one is going to be using MonoBook, the same as on this wiki.  Probably because it will make users less confused.  Now, I must say that I did a lot of hacking with the system messages so there are a lot of changes.  The first thing you'll realise is that I've changed the MonoBook skin a bit.  Now, you might decide to get rid of it so go ahead if you feel that's best.  There are also a few other things I meddled around with.  Let's just say that I made the wiki a mess.  A lot needs sorting out but I hope that we can create a free open-source NWN resource.  Thanks everyone for contributing!  --Leon2323 12:15, 13 August 2007 (PDT)


 * Yeah, TOR started the transition, but he fell ill before finishing and now I'm on vacation until next week. (I'll be at Gen Con in Indianapolis.) Hopefully we can resume the transition and finish it quickly when I return. I see the customizations you did; we'll need to sort that out. I'd appreciate your help, Leon. -- Alec Usticke 13:49, 13 August 2007 (PDT)


 * Ok, nothing much seems to have happened and I'm not really sure what's going on... I'll try and help with the merge when I can though.  Happy editing!  --Leon2323 12:24, 20 August 2007 (PDT)


 * I'm back from Gen Con today, so hopefully we can proceed with the move this week. Sorry for the delay. -- Alec Usticke 21:29, 20 August 2007 (PDT)