Forum:The Vault is moving

Dear Vault Dwellers, both anonymous and registered,

The Vault has been around as the best source of information about the Fallout series for more than six years, originally at Duck and Cover, and then at Wikia. We, The Vault bureaucrats, have now decided to open a new chapter in its history and again move the wiki, which will now be hosted by Curse at FalloutWiki.com. Some of you might have heard about my new job as Curse's Lead Wiki Manager, but it was just one of many factors that influenced the decision to move. While we have enjoyed our relationship with Wikia in the past, given the direction Wikia has been taking lately, we feel that it is no longer the direction we want. The wiki now has more space for content (with 807 compared to Wikia's 660px width), and the move gives us more freedom to decide how the wiki is run. We will be able to create a more user-oriented environment, with fewer advertisements, new forums and a host of other, exciting new features (coming soon).

All of your user pages, user rights, forum posts, talk page entries and, of course, articles and media files have already been transferred to the new server and the site is fully functional. The transition is still a work in progress and we, The Vault's bureaucrats and administrators, as well as Curse staff, are still working hard on some of the functionality. All users who contributed to The Vault with their Wikia accounts can reclaim their usernames using this account migration tool. We are confident that The Vault, now at its new address, will remain the prime source of information about Fallout game, especially once the next game in the series is released.

Wikia will continue to host a copy of all of the wiki's content (up to this date), and any users are, of course, free to go with us to the new location or to stay at Wikia. As the people who created The Vault, including its name and logo, at Duck and Cover before we brought it to Wikia, we now intend to keep it, and we expect Wikia to respect our rights to these marks and to rename their copy of the content to just "Fallout Wiki" or anything else they wish to name their site.

All things considered, we thank Wikia for their years of providing hosting for The Vault. We bear no ill will towards you, and part on good terms. All of Wikia staff members and users will always be welcome at The Vault. We hope that the same will be true for any Vault users and staff members that may have responsibilites on other Wikia wikis. Thank you and farewell.

The Vault (the Vault of the Future, if you wish) is now available at FalloutWiki.com and is open and free to all! Ausir 17:43, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Comments from bureaucrats
Well I would just like to state my reasons for agreeing with the fork. It really stems from certain areas and how the intrests of the Vault and Wikia as an organisation are becoming more diverged and almost counter productive.

The community of Wikia, as I view it, isnt really a community. Wikia Community Central exists as a place to appease the community that provide the content for Wikia, in there pursuit of simply increasing there revenue. This is most evident on blog posts regarding up coming additions to Wikia sites, which has culminated in the creation of the Anti-Wikia Alliance. Where the vast majority of user responces are always negative to the new additions and concerns are never address. Most new additions to Wikia are forced upon the users, only warranting responces from Wikia along the lines of "this is how it going to be, and your are going to like it". Something that I think Porter has pointed perfectly, that are voices are not heard by Wikia. Who here honestly likes the new admin dashboard for example?

As for the direction of Wikia and The Vault, Wikia is gearing more towards the social networking aspect of the site, where the content is becoming a secondary aspect to there concerns. They are trying to use the content as a hook for new users while becoming more like Facebook (no doubt they want the same kind of success Facebook has had). Instead of trying to innovate and improve the wiki content, they are imitating a completly unrelated franchise (marketed as an extension at present), but at what cost to the content. If the current trend continues Wikia will become a social network where the content is nothing but an extentsion (just like apps in Facebook), rather than its purpose. The Vault has been and will always be about focussing on the content. To put it in context, Wikia is slowly becoming the New Coke disaster in my eyes.

But I will keep this short and just end it there. User Avatar talk.png 23:27, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Comments

 * Banner ads on every page? Even on an edit page and when logged in. This is more advertisments than before, not fewer as you stated above. Is it teething troubles, or is this a permanent feature? I do not see how this is an improvement. Distracting, and slowing down page loading. Is there a way to turn these off? Given that people are contributing their time and effort to provide content for free, please detail where the advertising money is now going. I don't mean to sound confrontational, but this is a concern for me. Thanks for your time, --FourWayDiablo 20:18, 19 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, there is ads for both logged in and out users, but the top and bottom ad is as much as it gets, which to me is a good trade off. Compared to Wikia at present for logged out users (I currently count 8 min ads at present), it is a lot less. Also the future of Wikia looks very bleak, for example they are trialling (and we all know what that means, the Wikia wiki is going to get it sooner or later, whether it is wanted or not, just like everything else) in-line ads (broken links will now be ad links with pop up when you hoover the cursor over it) and a floating banner add that follows you down the page. User avatar tag.gif Avatar talk.png 20:34, 19 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, there are banner ads, but they are not very obtrusive. While it is true that Wikia currently displays fewer ads to registered users, this is what some Wikia wikis already look to unregistered ones. The advertising money is going to Curse, which is hosting the wiki. While at the moment I cannot promise anything, I'll look into the possibility of making them display for unregistered users only here as well, although it might take some time. Ausir 20:36, 19 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you both for your replies. I can understand your reasoning - it was just a little jarring to see when I logged in. But as you've shown, it could be worse. Given the ratio of registered editors to readers (I obviously don't know the actual figures), I'm sure it could be argued that a "no ad display for reg. editors" option would not dent revenue noticably, but would make it a nicer place to "work", if you see what I mean :-) --FourWayDiablo 21:26, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
 * It's true, and I understand your concerns, but it's simply not technically possible here at the moment, as here the ads are hardcoded into the skin, not displayed via a MediaWiki extension that checks whether a user is registered. I'll look into whether this can be changed, but I cannot promise anything for now. Ausir 21:30, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Plus here offers a lot more benefits for the wiki. We have more room for the content, so no more squashing the tables up etc. We have a lot more freedom of controlling over the actual wiki as well. Just to name a few benefits. User avatar tag.gif Avatar talk.png 21:36, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Ausir: If the site's been designed to advertise, I guess I'll take that as a "no" and try ad-blocking. ;-)
 * GhostAvatar: Yes, I agree and can already see the layout advantages. Much better. It really was just the adverts which concerned me. :-)
 * I noticed the pages here are older than those on the previous site. Just an update issue? Which ones should we edit? FourWayDiablo (talk) 22:02, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Edit this one. And the pages shouldn't be any older than 4 hours, if they are, just let me know which ones and I can sort it for you. User avatar tag.gif Avatar talk.png 22:07, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

I only have one issue with this place. The recent changes page is hard on the eyes. Any way of making it... easier to look at? Like the Wikia layout, perhaps? Yes-Man 23:35, 19 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Once you get used to it, it is actually a hell of a lot better, especially for lookout out for edits by vandals. User avatar tag.gif Avatar talk.png 02:14, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

I am having trouble reclaiming my account. I edited my profile on Wikia as istructed, but when I type a new password on Wiki, it keeps asking for a new password. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks -- Vault Dweller 5


 * Nevermind I got it to work. The new layout is great by the way. Vault Dweller 5 02:42, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Good to see the move as Wiki had really been bugging me this week accessing the Elder Scrolls Wiki on mobile is not a great experience. Banner ad covering the bottom few lines of content preventing ease to move through categories. Just surprised though there wasn't a poll on the forum. That said I think with the new skin fiasco I think it was clear where the regulars stood. Agent c 22:35, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Just wanted to congratulate everyone involved on the move - I think it was a good one. The amount of ads and junk on Wikia has just gotten out of control. This new wiki seems much better, and I hope it stays that way for a long time. Kaelef 02:07, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Glad to be here, gonna take me awhile to get used to the new skin, and can't wait till the more reliable chat is sett up, i'm just glad to be out of the hell hole that wikia was becoming. -bleep196- 03:00, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I was wondering about the chat. It was a Wikia thing, so it's not like we could bring it with us. Sort of makes chat moderators obsolete for the time being. On a side note, not sure how to get my signature back the way it was. It seems to have reverted to text rather than images. Yes-Man 05:07, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Hey, I'm having the same issue as the gentleman above in regards to reclaiming my account. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong; I'm putting the code thing it provides in the edit summary, and I assume blank space means a blank line somewhere on the page. It wouldn't have anything to do with it being linked to my facebook account, would it? ~CreedOfHeresy @ 5:22 am CST November 24 2011~
 * Not sure - we're using a third-party extension for the migration, so I don't really know anything about its inner workings. However, we're now at a point (due to extensions installed) where I can offer you an alternative if you can't get it to work. Simply follow these steps:
 * Register a new account here (with a name different from your Wikia one).
 * On the Wikia wiki, send me a message with the name of your new account here (so I can verify you're indeed the owner of the "CreedOfHeresy" account).
 * I'll then merge the accounts and you'll be able to log into the "CreedOfHeresy" account with the password you set for the new account.
 * -- Porter21 (talk) 11:36, 24 November 2011 (UTC)


 * woot, thankyou! I finally came to a site where the webmaster knows what they’re talking about. Do you know how many results are in Google when I search.. too many! It’s so annoying having to go from page after page after page, wasting my day away with thousands of people just copying eachother’s articles… bah. Anyway, thankyou very much for the info anyway, much appreciated.


 * I’m having a tiny problem I can’t seem to be able to subscribe your feed, I’m using google reader by the way.


 * So if I do the "account migration", will my account on the Wikia be banned? I mean I totally support going from Nukapedia to The Vault but I'm a Bureaucrat at The Paintball Wiki and wish to retain my title there. Another thing; why have I experienced so much lag while on The Vault? And where is the Blogs section of the site? 10.32.14.175 21:41, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
 * No, your account on Wikia won't be banned. The migration edit just allows your account to be reclaimed over here. As far lagging, I don't know. I haven't noticed it myself. Don't know about blogs either. Great Mara 03:18, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

The account migration tool isn't working for me. I don't know if it's related to the issue above (my account is not linked to FB) or because I'm late to the move. I just found out about the move today. Was there any notice posted on the Wikia hosted site? I only found out about it when I was looking at a mod and one of the links was to this wiki instead of Wikia. I did notice the logo change on the Wikia site. Anyway, when I enter my username and a password, it gives me the code to enter in the edit summary. I edit my Fallout Wikia user page, put the text in the edit summary box, come back here and enter a new password, but it just gives me the same page telling me to edit my user page and a new code to enter in the edit summary. I did it a second time, but again it just gives me another code. --206.255.99.175 14:33, 13 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Yeah, we posted a news item back when the split happened but Wikia naturally isn't all that keen on people being informed of the move so we couldn't message people directly etc. The account migration troubles shouldn't be related to "being late", although we don't really know why the tool isn't working for some people. I can, however, offer an alternative way to reclaim your account - simply take a look at my reply to CreedOfHeresy above. -- Porter21 (talk) 05:53, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

I like the new site I've been a fan of The Vault since Fallout 3 and am glad to see it has its own site now. Plus the new name for the wikia is so lame. Nukapedia really? CodeMyster 13:50, 28 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Glad you like it :) -- Porter21 (talk) 13:37, 29 March 2012 (UTC)