Wowpedia talk:Domain

See the Village Pump for terms and conditions, described by Gil (talk). This vote is about the domain of the website, being discussed primarily for advertising/funding concerns, potentially the very future of the wiki. The primary discussion of the topic can also be found at the Village Pump.

Vote yes if you would like to keep the current domain (www.wowwiki.com). If you vote yes, please nominate or support an existing nomination as a representative.

Vote no if you would allow wowwiki to move to a wikia domain (*.wikia.com).

IF YOU WISH TO PARTICIPATE, PLEASE VOTE ON OR BEFORE JANUARY 31, 2009.

Votes

Yes

1. Yes Sky (t · c · w) 21:01, 31 December 2008 (UTC) - (See response in discussion.)
2. Yes PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 23:05, 31 December 2008 (UTC) - (Fandyllic)
3. Yes g0urra[T҂C] 23:12, 31 December 2008 (UTC) - (Fandyllic)
4. Yes Murph (talk · contr) 05:40, 1 January 2009 (UTC) - (Fandyllic)
5. Yes Armagon ( )  14:04, 1 January 2009 (UTC) - (Fandyllic)
6. Yes SWM2448 04:41, 2 January 2009 (UTC) - (See comment.)
7. Yes Sssssssssssssssssssssssss For Pony! ^{{TDon't hiss at me.•CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.)} 07:44, 2 January 2009 (UTC) - (Fandyllic)

No

1. No foxlit (talk) 22:00, 5 January 2009 (UTC) - ("Not yes"; Murph)

Neutral

1. Neutral Howbizr (talk) 18:05, 31 December 2008 (UTC) - (Nominated)
2. Neutral Ragestorm (talk · contr) 18:16, 31 December 2008 (UTC) - (no comment)
3. Neutral Ose ^talk/₃₇₂₁ 16:40, 1 January 2009 (UTC) - (See comment.)

Status

Under our voting policy, Yes has won as of 14:04, 4 January 2009, by holding 5 votes to 0 (and 3 abstentions) for 3 days. If one side outnumbers the other by five votes for three days, that side is declared the winner.

Having said that, I think it would be in the best interests of the community to leave the vote open until at least 15 January (or even 31 January, but that's probably not necessary, unless anyone feels strongly that we should do so), due to the significant nature of this vote. We don't want to leave anyone feeling excluded, particularly since the festive season has only just ended, so some may not have returned from any absence. --Murph (talk · contr) 08:23, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Comments

---

I'm alright with either direction, but I didn't get that impression from everyone else. So if the community decides to stay with our current domain, I'd like to nominate  Fandyllic (talk · contr), if he would accept the responsibility, to be our non-Wikia representative. -Howbizr (talk) 18:05, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't care either way, but I concur that Fandyllic and either PCJ or Sandwichman should be representatives.--Ragestorm (talk · contr) 18:17, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I also concur with Fandyllic, and think I'd probably lean more toward Murph, for having gotten this whole thing started as well as the spirit of finding the middle ground. --Sky (t · c · w) 21:00, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Since Gil mentioned 1 or 2 reps, should we pursue that course of action, I'll second Murph as well. -Howbizr (talk) 22:51, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

While I am honored and understand why the representatives are being chosen, I have little idea what I would actually do if selected. That said, I third Murph, second Pcj, and also nominate Gourra.--SWM2448 23:49, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I honestly wasn't looking for an official position for myself in this, but I'm happy to accept the nomination, and do my best to represent the community. I'd like there to be at least 2 of us in this role, as it's a controversial subject and really needs more than one person to carry the responsibility. Two reps is probably sufficient, although I've no objections to there being a 3rd, and I can't see Wikia objecting to that if it's presented as a team that will endeavour to present a consistent message. I've nominated Fandyllic above, although I'd be happy to work with any of the admins on this, if selected. --Murph (talk · contr) 05:50, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

If we're voting/nominating representatives while we're at it, I support Fandyllic,as he is a long time contributor and admin and Murph as he has been very involved in this discussion. Ose ^talk/₃₇₂₁ 16:40, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Right, that's 8 for Fandyllic, 4 for Murph, 2 for PCJ, and 1 for Gourra, feel free to check my math and update. --Ragestorm (talk · contr) 16:46, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm scared. What is it that I'm representing again? Anyway I can serve as an advisor, but I'm not sure what message we want to communicate. I am actually not opposed to having a *.wikia.com dprimary domain with www.wowwiki.com or wowwiki.com as a redirect, but I'd like more time than Wikia has given (like 2 weeks from today rather than "I now have a date for when this is planned: Jan 7th." --Kirkburn). I'm not going to vote, since I've already gotten alot of votes as a representative. -- Fandyllic (talk · contr) 2:10 PM PST 5 Jan 2009

The "Neutral" votes puzzle me greatly -- they're not for "keeping the current domain", and yet, somehow not for "allow wowwiki to move to a wikia domain". The way the vote is phrased makes this a fairly binary choice: either "keep" or "don't care" -- not quite sure what would be more "Neutral" than "don't care". -- foxlit (talk) 21:46, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

It's the epitome of apathy! --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 21:48, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I see the Neutral votes as more or less "Don't care, but I don't want to counter a Yes vote". --Murph (talk · contr) 09:29, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Note, while I'm aware and watching this, I'm taking a backseat for a while due to my obvious conflict of interest :) Also, you don't need me rehashing my talking points :P Kirkburn  talk  contr 14:01, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

In my own case, a vote of neutral means "I don't give a Kobold's rear whether or not the change goes ahead, but if it doesn't this is the appropriate solution."--Ragestorm (talk · contr) 15:25, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Foreseeable effects of domain change...

This post also appears in the middle of the Domain name thread on the Village pump, but I'd prefer discussion happen here.

Yikes, I take a short break from WoWWiki during the end of the year and a monstrous thread like this appears! Anyway, although I understand the sentiment of not wanting to change the primary domain from wowwiki.com, I'm not has vehemently opposed to it. I think we should ask ourselves the question (and try to answer it): What will be the observable effects of changing the primary domain? I will try to give some answers, but I'd like others to pitch in. After we get a reasonable list, I'd like to discuss how truly harmful these effects would really be.

• You will see *.wikia.com (* being warcraft, wow, wowwiki, etc.) instead of wowwiki.com in your URL address on your browser.
• When you try to go to a wowwiki.com/rest of URL link manually it will probably go there, but then the address will change to something starting with *.wikia.com.
• If you lose DNS access or have a DNS problem, wowwiki.com/rest of URL may not work.
• Traffic rank sites will no longer give stats based on wowwiki.com alone and instead give *.wikia.com aggregate statistics (which I think is what Wikia really wants).
• We might see ad links to WoWWiki use the *.wikia.com address rather than the wowwiki.com address.
• Somehow (although I suspect unlikely), people will start to refer to WoWWiki based on the *.wikia.com address more than they used to as either wowwiki.com or just WoWWiki.

So that's my off the top of the head list. Anything heinous that I missed? I'd also like to ask again that Kirkburn or some other Wikia representative start a vote on alternative *.wikia.com domains (warcraft, wow, wowwiki, etc.) which I did earlier and seems to have been forgotten or lost. -- Fandyllic (talk · contr) 2:37 PM PST 5 Jan 2009

I haven't voted yet because I'm having trouble seeing the problem other than a sense of losing power and identity, which may or may not be unfounded. Thank you Fandy for making a succinct list. Can anyone that has a problem with any of these things... or anyone that wants to add to the list, please comment? They don't seem that bad to me, but I wonder if that's because I'm a little clueless about things like DNS issues. It would be kind of sad to see "WoWWiki" lose site ranks, but the only way to prevent that would be to break off from wikia and strike off on our own again which would require someone to take on the enormous amounts of time and financial responsibility that comes with that. If people can type in the old URL and get redirected to the new site, I think I'm ok with the move. Unless someone can point out a strong reason why that's bad? -- Mordsith - (talk|contr) 21:52, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Wowwiki.com is part of our identity. Would you still visit Wowhead at www.geocities.com/~wowhead? I wouldn't. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 21:57, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Assuming you could still use the wowhead.com URL, I wouldn't care about something as petty as the contents of the browser address bar while I browse the same content. -- foxlit (talk) 22:02, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

It's a matter of respect towards a website, too. You certainly get a different amount of visitors when your url changes. For example, my old bookmarks contained about 300 websites. WoWWiki was never one of them because i just typed the url by heart. I'm a lot more likely to visit a good website if it has an url i can remember after the first time I leave it, rather than 8 months later going back in my bookmarks and finding it.

It's a pretty solid reason why domain names are quite a big business, why domain parking exists, why it's important to have short urls... (and why php sucks). User:Adys/Sig 07:05, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Am I wrong in thinking that www.wowwiki.com would still be active? I thought someone said that somewhere. And users who typed that in would just be redirected to the new domain. If that remains the case, there would be no problem with old bookmarks or remembering a new url. -- Mordsith - (talk|contr) 15:44, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

As a random website user: If I could get there by typing www.wowhead.com I don't think I would even notice. At least not at first. And if the site looked and acted the same, I don't think I would care.

As a wowwiki editor: It feels like we'd be becoming more subservient to wikia, but I think that's just a feeling. As long as wowwiki looks and acts the same as it always did, I don't see how we lose anything that we haven't already given up by transferring the site to wikia in the first place. -- Mordsith - (talk|contr) 22:06, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Here are the key negative points as I see them to changing the domain. I think this is probably moot, however, due to the likely outcome of the vote above and the proposal by Gil to allow us to keep our domain, but work with them on making the advertising more successful.

• Loss of public credibility. We might be the same site with a changed domain name, but we lose one of the key things that a major web site should always have - a second level domain which is consistent with the site branding. I can't think of any large, independent, and serious web sites which accept domain branding of site.someone-else.com.
• Competitors / peers. Our most important peer sites (effectively our competitors, although nobody is directly competing with us, that I know of) are wowhead.com, thottbot.com, allakhazam.com, wowinsider.com, and various other warcraft-something.com / wow-something.com sites (apologies to anyone missed there, I can't list you all). We are currently on an equal footing to them in URL space.
• DNS failures. If wowwiki.com was just a redirect to wow.wikia.com, a DNS problem or failure with wowwiki.com might go unnoticed for longer (by major contributors who are better placed to get something done about it). When it's our primary domain, it would be unlikely to go unnoticed for more than a few hours.
• Brand regognition in external links. When browsing other web sites, I often look at where a link points to by hovering over it and checking the browser status bar (it's not always obvious from the link text). I often make my decision to visit a link based on the domain it's pointing to, and I'm fairly sure a significant number of end users will follow a similar process. Initially, this wouldn't matter, as all external links pointing inward to us should currently use wowwiki.com. In the future, however, people creating links to us would end up linking to wow.wikia.com (assuming they use the canonical URL from their browser address bar, then cut and paste it). We already have instant recognition of our domain in the vast majority of our target audience - it would take quite some time for wow.wikia.com to gain the same recognition. wikia.com does have brand recognition with end users, but I don't think it's anything like the same level with the majority of our audience. This also applies to Google search results - levels of spam in the results causes savvy end users to put equal weight on the domain of the result as the page title.
• Wikia brand promotion. We don't need to change our domain to help Wikia's brand recognition - the new default skin does that already. I think we are already providing about the right level of promotion for the name Wikia and wikia.com, helping them gain recognition, but if any changes are necessary to help them, the skin is the place to do it. Hell, I'd even be for making a minor tweak to the old monobook-derived wowwiki skin to add a discreet "Wikia Gaming" logo/link beside our logo, as long as the left column width remains unchanged (sorry to say it, but I still love the old skin over the new). Tweaking the old skin, probably isn't necessary, I'm just thinking out loud there.
• Brand dilution. It dilutes our brand due to the common practice of people using the URL hostname as the site brand in conversation, regardless of the actual branding within the site. I think this is a more important point than you anticipate, Fandyllic. Our existing brand built on wowwiki.com is sufficiently well recognised, respected, successful, and powerful that it's used by Jimmy Wales and by Wikia as a reference case (yes, he's co-founder of Wikia, but he has also spoken of us when acting more as (co-)founder of Wikipedia than of Wikia).
• Negative community reaction. We've already seen plenty of this, including from some significant contributors. There could easily be others in the silent majority which have similar feelings to those who are prepared to stand up and be counted.

--Murph (talk · contr) 09:27, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

I understand the opposition to being branded. I wasn't around when this site was transferred to wikia, so I don't know what all was involved in that deal. I'm actually kind of surprised we've had as much freedom as we have. With them taking care of all of the costs involved in maintaining this site, we have given them power over decisions like this. They seem to be going out of their way to work with us though. In this situation, the only alternatives I've heard from them involve more ads and bigger ads which I think is worse than redirecting users to a new domain. If we had a real choice here, I would of course vote against a domain name change. But I'm not hearing any good alternatives. -- Mordsith - (talk|contr) 15:38, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Going by the current state of the vote, it looks to me like sticking with wowwiki.com (good), but with increased advertising (bad, but something has to fund us) is the current compromise we are likely to be going with. It's rather early to speculate just how far the ads will need to go to meet the needs, but some of the changes need not be too intrusive (336x300px vs current 300x250px for the box ad, top right of the page was something Gil mentioned on the pump thread). It also seems likely from what's been said so far that registered users will not be seeing huge quantities of ads, quite possibly none (as at present). That's all speculation, of course, we need to see what Wikia propose for ads once this vote is concluded and reps have been appointed to work with them on the way forward. As long as the ads don't actually prevent the primary functions of the site from working reasonably, they are a necessary evil. The only way that WoWWiki could realistically be completely ad-free is if we found funding/sponsorship from an interested corporation (e.g. Blizz) or a rich philanthropist that wanted to fund public knowledge resources (much as Carnegie did with the public libraries, in his day). --Murph (talk · contr) 16:10, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

I know Uncyclopedia is considering a Wikimedia Fundation-like thing but I don't think the non-profit scheme is for us. The only way I see that sort of funding is from Blizzard (unlikely) or a ZAM-like corporate entity, which may or may not be worse for us than Wikia. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 16:14, 6 January 2009 (UTC)