Forum:Hosting options for Uncyclopedia (wikia)

Forums: Index > Village Dump > Hosting options for Uncyclopedia (wikia)

Note: This topic has been unedited for 2069 days. It is considered archived - the discussion is over.

On the 31st March 2019 or shortly after, uncyclopedia.wikia.com will look like that above mock up screenshot. The existing data held on the Wikia/Fandom is likely to be deleted.

Since the initial announcement (see here Forum:A message from Fandom), this website has backed up the data so nothing is expected to have been lost. This backup will include words and pictures with page histories and other data.

After extensive communications between the Uncyclopedia Administration Group and other parties, these are the considered options:-

• Uncyclopedia.wikia moves to the servers run by Lyrithya. The existing database will therefore join the existing arrangement there which sees illogicopedia and uncyclopedia.co sharing the same servers. This can be referred to the 'co' option.

• Uncyclopedia.wikia moves to the servers run by Carlb. Carlb was one of the earliest Uncyclopedians and hosts other foreign language uncyclopedias in the style of the original. This can be referred to as the 'Carlb' option.

• Uncyclopeda.wikia moves to a server run by Miraheze, a wiki farm. The contact is The Pioneer JP. This is the Miraheze option.

• Uncyclopedia.wikia moves to a server to be administered by Llwy-ar-lawr who is an active administrator on this website.

Voting:Users and administrators/bureaucrats will have equal value as regards the vote count.

Restrictions:No I.P. voting permitted. No account created here after 25th February 2019 will be able to vote either. Uncyclopedians who have been active administrators (five edits or more) at uncyclopedia.co from 25th February 2017 to 25th February 2019 are also asked to recuse themselves from voting here as that would be a conflict of interest and could effect the the outcome.

The length of voting will be shorter than normal as there is limited time to come to a decision. I suggest this vote is wrapped up by Tuesday 19th March.

See below for new closing date --RomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 10:20, March 16, 2019 (UTC)

Since there has been a number of user impersonations this year, extra vigilance will be force when coming to this vote. --RomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 23:25, March 12, 2019 (UTC)

And also:

• Must have five edits to this site before 26 February 2019.

  This means you must have five or more edits to uncyclopedia.wikia.com before that date.

• Active editors on the fork must have five edits to this site between 1 January 2018 and 26 February 2019.

  This means if you are active on uncyclopedia.co, you must have five or more edits to uncyclopedia.wikia.com in that period. (Llwy)

  (See below as posted by Fandom Staff Sannse: "As they restrict voting to active editors, I'm happy." That means active editors on this Fandom site, not on another website that does not belong to Fandom.) DAP Dame Pleb Com. Miley Spears (talk) 01:58, March 14, 2019 (UTC)

❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 01:21 13 March 2019

Voting Here

***VOTING IS NOW CLOSED*** -- (talk) 10:25, March 24, 2019 (UTC)

This is a vote for hosting options, NOT merging or disbanding this website. In alphabetical order. One user one vote (see above for terms and conditions).

Carlb Server Option

More info

Score: +1

* For. I think CarlB is probably the best qualified to host the site and deal with the issues we've got.
(My other favorite would be Llwy-ar-lawr but as I'd be a technical consultant in that case, and hence share in the supply of rotten tomatoes that will inevitably get thrown at whoever ends up with this hot potato, I'm going to go for an SEP option.) Snarglefoop (talk) 20:58, March 16, 2019 (UTC) Bernie Sanders is clearly not going to win so I'm changing my vote. Snarglefoop (talk) 20:17, March 22, 2019 (UTC)

• For. Expert 3222 21:05, March 22, 2019 (UTC)

Llwy-ar-lawr Server Option

More info

Score:

Uncyclomedia.co, Lyrithya (Athyria) Server Option

More info

Score: +10

• For.  King of the Internet Alden Loveshade??? (royal court) 
• For. Dǐll Kevlar (talk)
• For. ◄► Tephra ◄►
• For. DAP Dame Pleb Com. Miley Spears (talk) 22:29, March 16, 2019 (UTC)
• For. Matt lobster (talk) 22:50, March 16, 2019 (UTC)

* For. _Mohicans says ^hi 00:13, March 17, 2019 (UTC)

• Insufficient edits (total 4) (one (1) before the announcement) on this site before Fandom announcement. See below. (edit by  King of the Internet Alden Loveshade??? (royal court)  16:12, March 18, 2019 (UTC)

• For. If you can save the pages that have the most research involved, don't let Fandom go and express their raeg because they saw something of themselves in Fan Fiction and Fantard. I am waiting for them to protest White people. --Factfinder510 (talk) 15:05, March 17, 2019 (UTC)
• For. Co. Devil Details (talk)
• Boner. Hopefully my vote counts this time. If not, I apologize for the inconvenience. ~[ths] UotM 00:40, 03/18/2019
• For. I honestly believe this is our best option at this time. -- Simsilikesims(♀GUN) Talk here. 04:51, March 18, 2019 (UTC)
• For.. My preferred option (Carlb) didn't get the voter traction. I will also ensure that ex-uncyclopedia.wikia will continue on the new hosting option as offered by Lyrithya/Athyria. --RomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 09:46, March 24, 2019 (UTC)

Miraheze Server Option

More info

Score: +8

• For. Changing my vote to someone with a chance of winning. (Sorry about sticking this at the top but it's too hard to find the bottom of this interminable section at this point.) Snarglefoop (talk) 20:19, March 22, 2019 (UTC)
• For. Hyper Nintendon't World (my talk page)
• For. IvanRider
• For. The only option presented in which one or several Uncyclopedians will not be de facto owners of the franchise. Assurances given by the Forkers are due no weight by anyone who might come to be regarded as a "toxic presence." This includes Lyrithya's statement that the two databases will be maintained separately. Miraheze is technically able to host us and has a disinterested group of Stewards to hold sensitive powers such as checkuser. Its finances are precarious. This solution might not be the right one forever; true about all the options, as it was about Wikia too. Spıke 🎙️14:03 16-Mar-19
• Thought about it some more. As an off-and-on editor on All The Tropes, a similarly large wiki, I think Miraheze is pretty good and would have a lower rate of technical problems than the other options. It's run by a team of stewards, so the support is less thinly spread. ATT seems to work well aside from the LiquidThreads/Flow issues, which (I hope) wouldn't apply to us. We don't know they're going to go down in eight months. They've lasted three years so far, and they do get donations. Wikipedia runs on donations too and they're still around after almost two decades. Likewise we don't know that the upload problems will persist or that this reflects the overall state of the service. If they don't work out for whatever reason, we can take the content and leave. I plan to back it up with the available scripts if we go there, and I encourage others to do so as well. What does worry me, though, is the leaving part. Could we all agree to leave and not have somebody keeping the old site open? If we did, would someone come by and "adopt" it? Whatever we do, I hope we at least go to the same place in the end.
  Carlb and me are my second choices. I'd put "second choice" votes in those sections, but I suspect somebody would complain. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 00:58 17 March 2019
• For. Although I'm active on both Uncyclopedias, I'm not an admin of .co and have the voting right, according to the given regulations (thus casting a vote). After following all the discussions, I find that the proposed reunification by .co doesn't seem to work, and even if the vote goes to .co, it's likely that someone pro-Miraheze (or anti-.co) will request another Uncyclopedia after all (which, technically we cannot decline based on the policies). This makes me think that going to Miraheze is the best option so far, at least to prevent further split of the English community. Those who are pro-.co, IMO, are mostly pro-reunification as well, and they can reunite with folks on .co at their own free will, even if the Fandom community (as a whole) goes to Miraheze. Though we do have the issue of limited disk space, we have plans to resolve it by saving some available spaces and by having a new disk for it.--The Pioneer JP (talk) 12:02, March 17, 2019 (UTC)

  Hello, I was wondering if I could get a clarification on the rules please? The voting rules are very clear about excluding active administrators of the 2013 English Uncyclopedia Project Fork aka uncyclopedia.co from voting here, but they do not mention active administrators of the 2018 English Uncyclopedia Project Fork aka Uncyclopedia 2.0, which Pioneer is under the username "開拓者". It seems there must be a mistake if Pioneer, a user with 10 main space edits on this wiki, is allowed to vote and users who have seven years worth of contributions are not. Thanks, Zombiebaron (talk) 14:53, March 17, 2019 (UTC)

  Uncyclopedia2.0 is rather a completely new project than a direct fork of Uncyclowikia or Uncyclopedia.co, as it doesn't share any main contents of the other two Uncycs (unless the writer themselves agree), although it uses the name Uncyclopedia. As I already said elsewhere, I do support the idea of reunification personally, but seeing the discussion here on Wikia tells me that trying to reunite under .co will likely result in further split, which is why, as for now, Miraheze will be a better option.--The Pioneer JP (talk) 15:03, March 17, 2019 (UTC)

  I understand that is how you see things as one of the co-founders of Uncyclopedia 2.0, but the Main Page clearly states "Uncyclopedia 2.0 is the brand new English Uncyclopedia on Miraheze," which seems to contradict you. There is also the fact that you use a version of the Puzzle Potato logo and have imported many pages from other English Uncyclopedia projects which further muddles the issue. I'd like to hear what the Fandom Uncyclopedia admins think about this. *Edit: I have removed a link that stated that Psl361 tried to poach users from this wiki, it turns out he was being impersonated, although it is unclear by whom.* Zombiebaron (talk) 15:19, March 17, 2019 (UTC)

  Uh, I'm not the co-founder, and merely a user given high permissions. The imported stuff are not the main contents but the infrastructures to support editors. Yeah, we do use the potato logo which is a public domain image, but after all, it's a PD image and no one can stop that, and it doesn't mean that our aim is to destroy or attack the other communities. Though I do feel tired of Psl not writing articles and trying to invite other users from other Uncycs, that's that, and, to be fair, some users on .co has asked him to invite editors from other Uncycs on our Discord. Psl seems to be an inexperienced wiki user, and the case might be that folks on .co tried to frame him to do so.--The Pioneer JP (talk) 16:01, March 17, 2019 (UTC)

  Uncyclopedia®, Desciclopédia® and the puzzle potato logo are most emphatically not in the public domain; while the content is available under a free licence, that bit of Creative Communism has some attribution requirements. The puzzle potato's copyright belongs to Ryan C. Murphy. "Uncyclopedia 2.0" should not be claiming to be us and should not be copying us without attribution. carlb (talk) 17:26, March 17, 2019 (UTC)

  To prevent this overspilling anymore, refer to Vote(s) Challenged below.--RomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 18:31, March 17, 2019 (UTC)

• Everybody, there's comment sections below for comments. This section is for voting. That's my comment.  King of the Internet Alden Loveshade??? (royal court)  16:07, March 17, 2019 (UTC)
• For. The previous edit was by PuppyOnTheRadio (Talk).
• For. Changed vote again. -- (talk) 01:28, March 24, 2019 (UTC)

  I believe the actual count should now be 9 for Miraheze. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Nigel Scribbler (talk • contribs)

  As far as I know, the voting period already ended the day before your vote change, per the deadline below. I assume it's currently being decided which votes are getting tossed before the thread is closed. Un-Supergeeky1 (talk) 05:03, March 24, 2019 (UTC)

  The vote closes midnight Hawaii time. --RomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 09:36, March 24, 2019 (UTC)

  And it is now about a half hour past midnight, Hawaii time, March 23 2019.-- (talk) 10:29, March 24, 2019 (UTC)

Changing Votes and Deadline

Those above have clearly stated a vote on the server option but unlike the real world, votes can be changed by a user at the last moment. If you think you have made your intentions clear, please add your vote above.

New deadline for votes to be cast will be Saturday 23rd March. Since we're all in different time zones, I suggest when it's midnight in Hawaii, that will be the end of the voting.

Further explanations on the options available are included in the comments below. --RomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 10:15, March 16, 2019 (UTC)

Comments

Please keep exchanges civil. Comments that were originally under the postings of Romartus, Llwy-ar-lawr and Miley Spears start here...

I now see you edited my post to delete the phrase "on the fork" from "active editors on the fork". I should have noticed earlier. As I said in my email, it does not make sense that way. It is meaningless. You are placing a restriction on an undefined group "active editors", while not restricting anyone else. You did not ask me or anyone about this or mention it anywhere. I've restored it to what it said before, as this is what was agreed on and I don't want my words edited like this. Let's please not have any more edit warring until Sannse replies. I realize my wording was ambiguous ("the fork" = uncyclopedia.co, "this site" = uncyclopedia.wikia.com) and maybe you thought you were clarifying it. I hope I have now sufficiently explained my intent in the below sections. Sorry for the mess. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 22:02 14 March 2019

Romartus: did you mean to leave this part out? I thought we'd agreed on this. I will consider it not to apply until you answer. Everyone else: you might have seen Sannse's comment that "the vote should be for the community of this wiki". My rules were meant in this spirit, as I thought it was reasonable. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 07:19 13 March 2019

Vote here - See above

• Miraheze---- Hyper Nintendon't World (my talk page) 23:35, March 12, 2019 (UTC)
• Miraheze —IvanRider 00:14, March 13, 2019 (UTC)
  • Note: I've copied my most major contribution to this site to the Dozerfleet Database, pending slight rewrites.
• Uncyclopedia.co  King of the Internet Alden Loveshade??? (royal court)  00:59, March 13, 2019 (UTC)
• Uncyclopedia.co --— Dǐll Kevlar (talk) 01:07, March 13, 2019 (UTC)
• Miraheze. It is the only option presented in which one or several Uncyclopedians will not be de facto owners of the franchise. Assurances given by the Forkers are due no weight by anyone who might come to be regarded as a "toxic presence." This includes Lyrithya's statement that the two databases will be maintained separately. Miraheze is technically able to host us and has a disinterested group of Stewards to hold sensitive powers such as checkuser. Its finances are precarious. This solution might not be the right one forever; true about all the options, as it was about Wikia too. Spıke 🎙️01:17 13-Mar-19

  Wow, it's the real Spike! Glad you could get in. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 01:50 13 March 2019

Spike, my first reaction to your expressed desire to go to Miraheze and your opposition to a private server (any private server) was that your concerns were ill-founded. However, after watching some of the drama in this forum which was convened for the rather straightforward task of picking a new host, I realize you may be right, and not just for the reasons you've cited. Any individual taking on the task of hosting this site is going to be subject to attack by everybody who thought they had a better idea (whether it was to shut down the site and "merge" with the Fork, or something else). Only a disinterested third party -- such as, for instance, Miraheze -- is likely to escape that. My concerns about Miraheze still stand (so I'm not changing my vote) but I certainly recognize the validity of the arguments for going there. Snarglefoop (talk) 03:54, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

Spike voted before the restriction of not accepting votes from inactive editors was put in place. His vote, by precedent and by approval of Fandom staff, is grandfathered in and will stand. DAP Dame Pleb Com. Miley Spears (talk) 01:03, March 14, 2019 (UTC)

His vote is not "grandfathered in". The rules were meant to allow people like him to vote. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 01:12 14 March 2019

• I'm offering to host the site because I'm the only one I know is willing and able to retain the full history, or close to it, and I'm regularly available for tech support. Logs and file histories in particular contain important parts of the past. Carlb and Miraheze are second choices. Carlb is obviously reliable because he's been running his wikis for over a decade, and he's free, but he still hasn't fixed the thumbnail problems. I would like to know if Miraheze is willing to import anything other than page content and current images. If so, cool, that addresses my concern and I don't have to do the work. I can run the grabber scripts on the new site, so if they go down, we have a backup that we can take somewhere else.
  As for the fork, I don't consider this a real hosting option because the full history won't be retained and they just want us over there to facilitate a "merger", which means shutting the site down. Yes, the history will still exist, but this site would be incomplete without the fork, and pre-2013 pages present here but deleted there would be gone from both.
  I think who has the power and how it is used is more important than whether the site is privately owned, but that's me. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 01:50 13 March 2019

  I believe Lyrithya's more recent statement on the history issue, though it should be perfectly possible to retain only that part. Just use the startdate parameter for grabNewText. That works here because our recent changes seem to go back as far as you want. I was able to start it at January 2005. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 23:54 13 March 2019

• For the spoon merging with the fork, Uncyclopedia.co DAP Dame Pleb Com. Miley Spears (talk) 02:29, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

  This vote is on which host to choose, not merging Miley Spears. That will be decided later (see below for Lyrithya's comments). --RomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 10:59, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

• Either Carlb's server, or Llwy-ar-lawr's "new server" option. See discussion below (where I stupidly "voted" to start with) for the reasoning. Snarglefoop (talk) 02:35, March 13, 2019 (UTC)
• Either keep me posted either way. How pissed is Fandom at you? --Factfinder510 (talk) 04:44, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

  It's a long, tragic-comedy story. --RomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 11:06, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

• I say Uncyclopedia.co. Hey, remember me? ~[ths] UotM 05:04, 03/13/2019

  I am very sorry to do this, but unfortunately TheHappySpaceman voted after the rule was put in place: "Active editors must have five edits to this site between 1 January 2018 and 26 February 2019." That addition was accepted by Fandom staff. So sadly the vote had to be striken. TheHappySpaceman has made many edits here, but unfortunately not during that time period. I've very sorry about that, and hope wherever Uncyclopedia goes that you come back and edit! :) DAP Dame Pleb Com. Miley Spears (talk) 01:20, March 14, 2019 (UTC)

  Funnily enough, at least I do. --RomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 11:06, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

• Merge with Wikipedia. Black Enforcer (talk) 19:23, March 13, 2019 (UTC)
• Heard about sad turn of events from Romartus. Go with LaL. The Acceptable  Cainad  (Fnord) 20:02, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

  I really hate to do this to the person who adopted me here, but Sannse who's Fandom staff has now approved the requirement that voters be currently active editors before the announcement of 26 Feb. 2019. You haven't edited here in years, so unfortunately your vote has to be struck. Dǐll Kevlar's vote stands by Romartus' recognizing the Grandfather Clause and Fandom staff agreement because that editor voted before the editing window was posted. I'm really sorry about that! I really hope wherever Uncyclopedia goes that you decide to come back here you're a great editor and I'll always appreciate you adopting me here! DAP Dame Pleb Com. Miley Spears (talk) 00:49, March 14, 2019 (UTC)

  Strike undone. Please reread the rules. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 01:11 14 March 2019

  Don't get your panties in a bunch. Let the strike stand. Devil Details (talk) 01:26, March 15, 2019 (UTC)

  I'm not sure whether Cainad's vote is still being counted given the drama below, but it's worth pointing out that it was actually added by Devil Details, who also voted for .co. Cainad himself hasn't edited since 2010. I dunno if it was a weird mistake or something else entirely, but it's clearly not legit and shouldn't be counted. Un-Supergeeky1 (talk) 23:08, March 14, 2019 (UTC)

  Ah... strange. They voted for me to begin with. We can worry about which votes to count later. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 00:57 15 March 2019

  It would probably be wise to settle on a solid set of rules and decide which votes count sooner rather than later, either with the existing submissions or by starting fresh. I've spoken with several users who have no idea whether they're actually eligible to participate in this vote, and there's a very real concern that the votes will just be cherry-picked by the administration after the fact if the results aren't satisfactory for certain users. I understand there's a limited amount of time, but a clear consensus on this kind of thing is necessary for everyone involved. Un-Supergeeky1 (talk) 02:02, March 15, 2019 (UTC)

  Sorry about that; got confused with my old and new accounts, didn't know which sig to use. Changed my mind because of all the infighting here. Part of the reason I left originally. Less drama on the spoon than here, so go with them. They have a proven track record of hosting. Devil Details (talk) 01:20, March 15, 2019 (UTC)

  I see -- understood. Sorry we've given you that impression. In my experience this community is the more peaceful one, and I do not blame it for what happened in this forum, which in any case has subsided. By the spoon do you mean .co? Usually we call this Wikia site the "spoon" and the other one the "fork". :) ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 04:06 15 March 2019

• Co. Devil Details (talk) 21:08, March 13, 2019 (UTC)
• Llwy-ar-lawr. Ability and interest proven without all doubt when she was the only one to step up and repair Uncyclopedia when broken by FANDOM due to EU standards compliance. Has been the sole real onsite tech since. -- (talk) 21:54, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

  Well... I would say this is a different level of challenge from that. I think #Llwy's option gives a better idea. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 23:54 13 March 2019

• Uncyc.co. No reason for us to have two Uncyclopedias. --_Mohicans says ^hi 01:15, March 14, 2019 (UTC)
• It is sad that there seems to be even more infighting here on the fork than there was when I was more active here. So maybe it would be best if we go with an Uncyclopedian off site like Carlb or Lyrithya but I don't know which. I don't know if we can vote 1/2 for each? If not tell me and I can change my vote. Binky The WonderSkull (talk) 02:36, March 14, 2019 (UTC)

  I think you will have to choose which one you prefer (see above for votes). You can change your mind upto the date deadline --RomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 17:27, March 17, 2019 (UTC)

• Carlb or Llwy-ar-lawr. I think Miraheze is not a good place for a wiki this size. In addition, they now are "low on storage for uploads" (see sitenotice). Expert 3222 19:21, March 14, 2019 (UTC)

  Expert3222 Please not that Miraheze is a non-profit, so it depends on users' donations. A fundraiser is to be organised soon, allowing us to assure that we have the funds. I think that rather than paying for another host monthly, it will be simpler for Uncyclopedia to join MIraheze, and donate whatever you see fit (if you would like to). We also host other large wikis, including our largest one so far (AllTheTropes) so I don't think the size is a problem for us. Reception123 (talk) 06:05, March 16, 2019 (UTC)

  There is currently a sitenotice up informing users that uploads are failing due to lack of space. How exactly is a 150GB wiki (that's just the data) not going to be a problem? Athyria (talk) 13:48, March 16, 2019 (UTC)

  You weren't supposed to notice that, Lyrithia! If allthetropes.org (Alexa #752306, vs. the original tvtropes.org at Alexa #2012) is their largest wiki? They're smaller by traffic volume than uncyclopedia.co (#270919), uncyclopedia.info (#73898) and desciclopedia.org (#53165); they're half the size of this wiki by image count and maybe a quarter the size by number of revisions on the database. Is it really worth the hassle just to avoid paying $60-70/month to put a computer (a real computer, not a virtual RamNode) in a datacentre somewhere? carlb (talk) 18:08, March 17, 2019 (UTC)

  Uncyclopedia.co There can be only one. It's getting a bit silly otherwise. Matt lobster (talk) 21:16, March 14, 2019 (UTC)

  This vote is on where the current uncyclopedia.wikia.com will be hosted, not whether it will be shut down or merged with another site. Maybe the options presented aren't clear enough. There's been a lot of miscommunication. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 21:31 14 March 2019

  I take your point, but if it was taken to Uncyclopedia.co it would be odd not to merge. So that's why I think there. Matt lobster (talk) 22:26, March 14, 2019 (UTC)

  That's fair. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 00:57 15 March 2019

• Uncyclomedia ◄► Tephra ◄►
• I think we can move to the uncyclopedia.co domain. I have edited the uncyclopedia.co domain without any problems when I was blocked over here. Plus, it means that we can get the legacy skins again and not run into issues with ToU violations and legal problems. Awesome Aasim 21:35, March 15, 2019 (UTC)

Discussion

(Immediately below is in reference to Dill Kevlar voting)

• Not eligible. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 01:21 13 March 2019

  Under what term? --— Dǐll Kevlar (talk) 01:24, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

  Oh, disregard the question. I guess your reader community doesn't matter. --— Dǐll Kevlar (talk) 01:25, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

  The restrictions are laid out above. This vote is for editors of this site, not the "reader community", which you do not represent anyway. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 01:50 13 March 2019

  Someone brought to my attention that you added a rule after my vote was added. That is super scummy. In addition, you are incorrect about me representing the reader community. I am retracting the strike. --— Dǐll Kevlar (talk) 02:17, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

  "Voting:Users and administrators/bureaucrats will have equal value as regards the vote count." It says "users" not "article editors." DAP Dame Pleb Com. Miley Spears (talk) 02:27, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

  Romartus and I already agreed on that part by email. I would have added it before Dill's vote if I'd seen the forum in time. Dill is not here in good faith and should not get any more attention. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 02:39 13 March 2019

  You eliminated many uncyclopedia.co users and myself because you already knew what their vote would be. These terms that you fabricated are biased and this vote's result should not be taken into consideration by Fandom. My posts are in good faith. In fact, I'd like to think "my unfaithful contributions" just exposed some shady behavior. --— Dǐll Kevlar (talk) 02:53, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

  Llwy-ar-lawr, maybe that's the way you run things when you're in charge, but that's not the way Fandom works. Two people are not in charge of this site. It belongs to everybody who comes here. That's in Fandom ToU which overrules anything posted here. DAP Dame Pleb Com. Miley Spears (talk) 02:55, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

  So do you also have a problem with Romartus's account age and IP rules and his agreeing to what I suggested? This is not about me or how I "run things". I already explained myself in the email discussion. Take it up with him. I'm done with this thread. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 03:08 13 March 2019

• I understand that point well, Llwy. Unfortunately, I can not and would not vote to give the impression of a conflict of interest. I put my arguments shortly on the other forum about this vote. Rhubella Marie, the rat sockpreppie preppiedits 02:08, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

• Either Carlb's server, or Llwy-ar-lawr's "new server" option. CarlB's servers have shown signs of being substantially faster than they were in the past, and I trust his ability to fetch the entire site and keep the site going, as well as his general level headedness. I also trust Llwy-ar-lawr to successfully pull the whole site to a new server and administer the new site effectively, though the actual, physical server on which it would reside remains unclear.
  Miraheze makes me nervous for a number of reasons, not the least of which is their extremely fragile financial situation. I'm also not convinced we could get the entire site contents moved there without a great deal of assistance from the sysadmins, which I'm not convinced would be forthcoming.
  Lyrithya's servers remain a proven option, but I'm not aware of any assurance that the entire site would be pulled in (as opposed to the parts which are considered to be "different" in some way from what's currently on the Fork), and I'm not at all happy about the implication that it would be a stepping stone to a so-called "merger". In other words, moving to Lyrithya's servers seems a little too much like turning it into a "parts car" for use in maintaining the Fork.
  With all of that said, I'd ultimately find any arrangement that keeps the site alive and functional to be a Good Thing, and probably an improvement, at least in terms of functionality and appearance, over the current Wikia version (which rather looks like a flock of geese have been pecking at it -- ugh!). No doubt we'll lose search engine rank-ness as a result of leaving Wikia, but so it goes -- that can't be helped. Snarglefoop (talk) 02:31, March 13, 2019 (UTC)
• "Uncyclopedians who have been active administrators (five edits or more) at uncyclopedia.co from 25th February 2017 to 25th February 2019 are also asked to recuse themselves from voting here as that would be a conflict of interest and could effect the the outcome."

  Somebody who's active both here and there shouldn't be restricted from voting. That is totally not fair! DAP Dame Pleb Com. Miley Spears (talk) 02:44, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

  Ok, it doesn't say they can't vote, they're just being asked not to vote. That's like somebody of one political party standing outside the voting booth and telling people of another party they don't want them to vote. That's called intimidation. Try doing that in American and you can arrested for it. DAP Dame Pleb Com. Miley Spears (talk) 02:47, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

  Not my idea, not my problem. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 02:49 13 March 2019

• You can vote for a merger if you like, Miley, but that's not one of the options. The site will remain separate for now; we're deciding where to put the content. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 02:55 13 March 2019
• Llwy-ar-lawr: If you think there's a problem with the voting, then you need to check with other admins and see if there's a consensus among admins. Otherwise this is now one admin reverting another admin's edits. If admins can't work together, we'll need to have Fandom staff make a decision. DAP Dame Pleb Com. Miley Spears (talk) 03:17, March 13, 2019 (UTC)
• If you can successfully reunite with users on .co, it will definitely be the best option. One great Uncyclopedia again. However, if it isn't going like that, Miraheze will welcome your migration (though you might want to think about what to do with other Uncyc and Uncyc-inspired wikis there).--The Pioneer JP (talk) 04:16, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

• As much as I hate to say it, Miraheze does not look to be capable of hosting a project of our size.

I own actual servers and rent space in a datacentre to host some of the largest Uncyclopedia projects, such as Desciclopédia (Alexa # 53294) and uncyclopedia.info (Alexa #73845). I just upgraded the main database server at the beginning of this month to add a pair of terabyte SSD drives; the images and backups are stored on other servers in the same facility. I have as much space as I need.

Uncyclopedia.co also has the ability to devote at least an entire server to the various Uncyclopedia projects (although the hardware may be rented, not owned). They're already hosting uncyclopedia.co (Alexa #274148) - a project the same size as this one as they are a fork of this project.

Miraheze, on the other hand, appears to be using multiple virtual machines (ramnode.com) because they own no computers. Each of these virtual private servers has limited resources (about 150Gb of space); that's bad if our database unpacks and imports to 100Gb and our images eat another 15-25Gb. Miraheze is already lacking available space to the point of having problems handling uploaded images for projects they're already hosting. Two Uncyclopedias (Russian-Olbanian and Polish) have already had to abandon Miraheze due to various severe limitations and pay to get their own independent hosts.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Carlb (talk • contribs)

Couldn't the images be split off onto a second server? If they're providing space in 150 gb chunks that's what I'd expect them to do. That doesn't help if the sql doesn't fit all by itself, of course, but that's probably not going to be an issue for a while yet. Snarglefoop (talk) 21:07, March 16, 2019 (UTC)

Yes. I'm doing that here (but with actual physical servers instead of virtual ones). The backups are also on some other server, by design. Nonetheless, if the database alone is 100Gb, that doesn't leave much wiggle room - especially since Miraheze is already out of space for images. carlb (talk) 21:17, March 16, 2019 (UTC)

I am concerned that Wikia is leaning toward giving ownership of the uncyclopedia.org domain name to whomever ends up hosting this project - especially if that ends up being Miraheze. The domain needs to belong to someone who is actually a member of this community, so that the site can be moved to another host later if whatever we initially choose turns out to be inadequate. I realise that there are huge political differences that go back to 2013 or even 2006 between various factions within this project, but handing the reins to Miraheze on the presumption that they're a "neutral" entity makes no sense if they're technically incapable of handling this project. carlb (talk) 17:07, March 16, 2019 (UTC)

• I do not understand how I should vote. It is confusing to me. I do not understand the six choices. Lanardos (talk) 10:12, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

  Four choices (see below). --RomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 10:51, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

A more detailed discussion of the options

The options as laid out are as follows:

1. Miraheze
2. Carlb
3. Uncyclomedia (Lyrithya)
4. Llwy-ar-lawr

It is important that the Uncyclopedia community on this site be fully informed about the proposals presented here. For those of you who don't know me, I am Lyrithya (also Athyria and Isarra) and I have been a part of Uncyclopedia.co's technical team for the last six years. I currently work as a MediaWiki developer for various third-parties as well as on grant-funded projects for the Wikimedia Foundation, and have considerable experience working with MediaWiki, both as a developer and a sysadmin hosting numerous wikis. Athyria (talk) 05:08, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

Miraheze

Non-profit general wiki host.

Pros:

• Has a team, so no dependence on a single person for handling bug reports, updates, etc.
  • Has its own phabricator for reporting technical issues.
• Multiple servers in various locations.
• Has regular backups, and can also do them on request (but does not provide a public XML download area like [1])
• CentralAuth. You can visit other Uncyclopedias on Miraheze with a single account, as you are now here on Fandom, or like WMF wikis.--The Pioneer JP (talk) 08:34, March 17, 2019 (UTC)
• Locally customizable features. You may choose which extensions to have for your own through ManageWikiExtensions, configure permissions through ManageWikiPermissions, set your own logo, favicon, and License through ManageWikiSettings, etc. Almost everything can be done by yourselves. Flow and VisualEditor are part of the options but not mandatory.--The Pioneer JP (talk) 08:45, March 17, 2019 (UTC)
• Can take both XML and SQL dumps and everything in them. Void told me so on IRC. This means they could preserve the full history, except for old file versions (probably), users (which we can't get anyway) and abuse filter histories (which we also can't get anyway, and I haven't figured out how to get grabAbuseFilter.php to work yet, though you can always import filters manually). I can dump my backup wiki and give them the file to handle. It's got most of everything at this point. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 22:14 19 March 2019

Cons:

• May not actually have the space for a wiki of this size. (Current estimates put it at requiring around 200GB of storage, between the database and files, not counting extra space for backups, dumps, etc.)
• Somewhat dubious management history - already failed once and had to rename due to an internal dispute.

  Note: Miraheze is separate from Orain (the site mentioned), it is not a rename! Two sysadmins left Orain as they did not agree with policies, and went to start Miraheze (comment by Miraheze sysadmin). Reception123 (talk) 06:07, March 16, 2019 (UTC)

  Unstriking; even if John Lewis is no longer involved, I find your misrepresentation here of the current storage situation to be incredibly dubious, frankly. Athyria (talk) 14:08, March 16, 2019 (UTC)

  You might want to look at [2][3][4] for a better idea of the history. The domain https://meta.orain.org (mentioned in [5]) points to Miraheze, but three months worth of data was lost to a system intrusion. carlb (talk) 21:25, March 17, 2019 (UTC)

• Cannot maintain the full history (logs, file history, users, etc), requires a separate dump of files to be provided in order to upload them at all (carlb should be able to provide this, though), requires considerable manual effort to import even what they can import.

  Not quite. See above.

• Unclear funding situation - no consistent source of income, despite considerable hosting costs.

  This is because we run on donation (as well as WMF). You may be able to help us by donating by yourselves.--The Pioneer JP (talk) 08:23, March 17, 2019 (UTC)

• Is likely to leave the old wiki open for anyone to "adopt" if we attempt to host here, then decide to move elsewhere. (This has already happened to absurdopedia.wiki)

  That message will be generated automatically when you close your wiki. However, the local community can request a wiki to be deleted immediately on our Stewards' noticeboard on meta.--The Pioneer JP (talk) 08:23, March 17, 2019 (UTC)

• Is prone to hosting many forks of our existing projects; nonsensopedia.org is still open as a fork (main community is independent nonsa.pl and I've been receiving complaints that the domain should be moved there), Miraheze is still looking for someone to "adopt" Absurdopedia (we already have two of them, we don't need three) and The Pioneer JP has been trying to get links to the main ansaikuropedia.org removed from this site and replaced with links to his fork on Miraheze, even though the latter has little Special:Recentchanges activity.
  • Again, we need to make it clear. How do you define the "main" community? According to what I hear from the Polish users, they have once decided to move out from Fandom to Miraheze, making them the "main" community. Nonsa.pl is a community created by those who remained on Fandom, and these two communities have been fighting against each other for months. As the Miraheze side has moved out and has no reason to contact you very often anymore, it may be the case that they just don't know that the users on nonsa.pl are claiming themselves to be the "main" community and trying to remove nonsensopedia.miraheze.org .--The Pioneer JP (talk) 15:43, March 17, 2019 (UTC)
• The issue of Miraheze being flooded with requests which fork or copy our projects does extend to en: - Uncyclopedia2.0 looks to be a poor imitation of this project - and there have been issues with content posted there without proper attribution. The biggest "elephant in the room" concern about hosting with .co is that they exist primarily to fork this wiki (as en.uncyclopedia.co), an awkward conflict of interest for anyone except those who are here primarily to advocate merging the projects or just looking to ensure de.uncyclopedia.org. IN CNAME de.uncyclopedia.co. (a valid objective) gets done. The same concerns still exist here.

  What about your mirror and all those forks from Fandom before this happened? To be fair, though Uncyclopedia2.0 claims itself to be another Uncyclopedia, it is rather a reboot than the direct fork sharing most of the contents (such as .co and your mirror).--The Pioneer JP (talk) 15:43, March 17, 2019 (UTC)

• Is unlikely to be as suited to the fundraising approach as educational outlets like the US Public Broadcasting System ("WPBS-TV: we'll pledge-break soon, thanks viewers!") or the Wikimedia Foundation. WMF asks us to donate to support an encyclopaedia, a clearly-focussed objective which supposedly supports education. Miraheze asks us to support three thousand random wikis, many of which have no connection to us (or, worse yet, are forking our existing content) and many of which are of poor quality. As such, there is no parallel between WMF (which has fundraised millions of dollars) and Miraheze (which spends about $185/month hosting various small wikis, and manages to fundraise about half that).
• Doesn't seem to own any computers, instead relying on renting a long series of small virtual machines (branded as RamNodes). This is already creating capacity issues. While Miraheze does host the "All The Tropes" wiki, our project has twice as many images to upload and more than four times as many page revisions on the database, no small task to import.
• Doesn't provide us with our own independent user list, which means that if (or when) we move later to our own host, that has to be re-created from zero.
• Is an unknown quantity as to whether the content policy will support deletion of content for political correctness; while less restrictive than Wikia (where censorship of content caused a divisive fork of this project in 2013) it's likely more restrictive than getting a computer in a datacentre somewhere.
• Provides less ability to customise than if we were to simply buy a server and dump our patented nonsense on it. If we get our own server, we control the database, we control the domain name and, if we don't like what we see, we can seamlessly take our site elsewhere. If we rely on a server owned by someone else (either the fork or Miraheze) we lose a bit of flexibility in that regard; if we go with either of these, who owns the domain? Who owns the userlist? Do we have access to a full database dump?

  And we all know that you have been anti-Wikia/Fandom over the years. You have replaced the English Uncyc interwiki with .co, and removed Uncyclowikia from your Uncycs. Doesn't that make you another "third party" from the Fandom community?--The Pioneer JP (talk) 15:43, March 17, 2019 (UTC)

While the .co proposal does carry a huge inherent risk of merely being a stepping stone for a merger (and many of those supporting it are advocating exactly that), I have a couple of concerns regarding comments in the voting section here regarding Miraheze. "If the vote goes to .co, it's likely that someone pro-Miraheze (or anti-.co) will request another Uncyclopedia after all (which, technically we cannot decline based on the policies). This makes me think that going to Miraheze is the best option so far, at least to prevent further split of the English community" sounds a bit too much like a threat, "host with us or we fork your project" while " Though we do have the issue of limited disk space, we have plans to resolve it by saving some available spaces and by having a new disk for it." really doesn't inspire confidence. The time to go to the computer store, buy more hard disks and ship them to the datacentre was weeks ago - we shouldn't even be discussing this now. I've made my upgrades. Is it too much to ask that I hold others to the same standard?

In any case, this does seem to have turned into a two-way choice (either join the fork or join Miraheze, even though both of these hosts have their own conflicting objectives). There's been no provision left in this vote to specify a "second choice" so it becomes a question of just trying to support the least-worst option. I won't be voting because, while my contributions go back to 2005, as the absentee slumlord of Desciclopedia et al. I may be in conflict of interest or have too little recent involvement with en: (fork or spoon) to merit a voice here. That said, it's certainly easier IMHO to get a server and the domain (knowing it can be moved later if we don't like what we see) than to hand the project over to a third party and then struggle to regain control later. We already made that mistake in 2006. I don't want to see yet another fork of this project being put up for "adoption" on some host which we tried, only to see it wasn't working out. We already have a fork; it's called .co. carlb (talk) 15:09, March 17, 2019 (UTC)

I am not threatening. I'm talking about the most likely scenario judging from what people here say. At least, I won't be the requester of this wiki on Miraheze.--The Pioneer JP (talk) 15:43, March 17, 2019 (UTC)

• Considering Lyrithya's pros and cons list has transformed itself into a mini-comment section, it's worth noting that earlier this month, all custom domains used by Miraheze-hosted wikis were affected when a staff member gave out a private key associated with the domains, leading to the possibility of compromised user accounts. This took over a week for them to rectify.
• Their current lack of space is a major issue, and according to the staff member I spoke with in their chatroom yesterday, they're completely incapable of importing any wikis approaching the size of Uncyclopedia for the time being, with no estimates for a fix beyond "hopefully soon." Moreover, they've had to put their efforts on hold due to more urgent issues, which is saying a lot given the size of several wikis under their control (All The Tropes is quite considerably larger than Uncyclopedia). All of these wikis are forced to contend with the no uploads situation for an unknown amount of time, and now the potential of compromised accounts. Even after these issues are resolved, their on-going financial situation is of course going to remain an issue in the long-run per above.

From a personal standpoint, unless there are no other options and circumstances are dire, I think it's a bad idea to move any wiki of this size to yet another wiki farm immediately after being kicked out by the last one, and this wiki basically has several reliable and independent server options being thrown at it. Miraheze is (in my opinion) just about the worst option there is for a wiki farm in general at this point, let alone as an option for Uncyclopedia in particular. I like a lot of the people involved (The Pioneer JP included, I guess count this as a pro), but I don't think they're being very forthright about these facts, and these fears of "wiki suicide" are an almost certain reality if neither the content nor userbase are safe from being mismanaged by whoever ends up hosting this wiki. Un-Supergeeky1 (talk) 17:44, March 17, 2019 (UTC)

The upload function has been restored by a temporal fix. For further solutions and updates, this phabricator task will tell you how things are moving forward. And you can find that we are aware of what we need there; more donations which will allow us to have more storage.--The Pioneer JP (talk) 15:55, March 18, 2019 (UTC)

In other words, Miraheze isn't even capable of meeting its obligations to its existing users. Why, then, do you post demands like this claiming that Desciclopédia, Ansaikuropedia, Uncyclopedia Taiwan and a long list of other projects (which are on a dedicated co-located server now) must move to you? Your capacity and budget are actually lower than those of the existing host. If I need disk space, I go to a computer store and buy some. (I then get jeers because the main database server was offline during the hardware upgrade. Par for the course.) If Miraheze needs disk space so they can fork our projects (Uncyclopedia 2.0, Nonsensopedia, Ansaikuropedia and also Absurdopedia as even in "To adopt this wiki please go to Requests for adoption and make a request. If this wiki is not adopted within 6 months it may be deleted." status it's still taking space) they send you to beg here? From the support ticket, "Also what remediation are you looking for? The only thing we would need to do is extend the storage which can easily be done but we are lacking funds to do it." Miraheze has had three years (since the orain.org fiasco) to get its act together; I had high hopes for them but this is discouraging. I hate to say this but, if you knew that Miraheze didn't have the ability to handle this and continued to advocate moving wikis that are either too large for your capability or which already have access to hosting elsewhere, you are actively harming the project. I can see you wanting to harm ansaikuropedia.org (as your wiki is a fork of their project and there have been ongoing vandalism and long-term abuse complaints for months) but please refrain from breaking the English-language Uncyclopedia to make a point. carlb (talk) 17:00, March 18, 2019 (UTC)

OK, I'm not a tech staff and wasn't aware of this issue back then. It came to light after I made that post, at least from my position. I'm not planning to break any communities. I do hope it will be solved by our tech team if we actually decide to move there. I've been supporting the Japanese fork because I hear issues with the original community, including but not limited to false-positive and long-term-wide-range blocks. Abusurdopedia on Miraheze can be deleted immediately if they make a request at our SN (or phab), which we haven't received AFAIK. What they say is simply that they are moving elsewhere, and they haven't made clear regarding the deletion of the Miraheze version.--The Pioneer JP (talk) 17:16, March 18, 2019 (UTC)

Carlb

Hosts the mirror uncyclopedia as well as quite a few actually active other-language Uncyclopedias and all of the non-english Illogicopedias.

Pros:

• Uncyclopedia hosted by an Uncyclopedian
• Reliable backups, provides automated dumps of all wikis hosted.
• Is probably not going away anytime soon - has been around the longest of any of the forks.
• Will help you regardless of where you wind up going; values Uncyclopedias as Uncyclopedias.

Cons:

• Managed by a single person, and thus cannot always respond quickly to things or do as much as a full team could.
• Issues with uptime and server capacity - can almost certainly fit the project, but there have also been processing limitations, historically.
• Cannot maintain the full history (logs, users, etc), but would still be more complete than Miraheze.
• Edits (mainly on talk pages) will often result in error 524 or anything like that.--The Pioneer JP (talk) 08:31, March 17, 2019 (UTC)
• You will not have the permission to create an abusefilter that is blockable. At least, that's the case with other Uncycs.--The Pioneer JP (talk) 08:37, March 17, 2019 (UTC)

Um, you do realise that User:AbuseFilter is a MediaWiki extension and not an actual user? It was installed at the request of Ansaikuropedia, to deal with an ongoing vandalism problem. carlb (talk) 16:08, March 17, 2019 (UTC)

Yes, but, technically, local admins can create a filter that can block users if necessary. It will require abusefilter-modify-restricted permission, which you don't allow on your wikis.--The Pioneer JP (talk) 16:17, March 17, 2019 (UTC)

I see abusefilter-modify-restricted on both the pages you link to. Was it changed after this comment? ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 01:30 20 March 2019

• Will be under the same server as the mirror, another (claiming to be merely an archive, but still) English Uncyclopedia.--The Pioneer JP (talk) 16:17, March 17, 2019 (UTC)

Uncyclomedia.co (Lyrithya)

My team.

Pros:

• A team, so no dependence on a single person for handling bug reports, updates, etc.
• Almost 100% uptime over the past six years, possibly better than wikia. Sorry. Fandom.
• Is not going away - has been around for the past six years, and is also bringing on several other language projects, and thus we owe it to them all to continue.
• Will maintain full site history, including old revisions, deleted content, and logs, and have clear history demonstrating our ability to do this. (We wrote the scripts which do this.)
• Responsive to community concerns; heed consensus even when it's stupid.
• Definitely have the space, processing capability, and skills to actually do this.

Cons:

• We will totally gloat about moving the site in under a week if we manage to pull off what we have in mind for how to do it.
• Same server as the fork, technically.
• Sysadmins are all poor and dying, and seem to prioritise uptime over their own sanity.
• Reported errors on en.uncyclopedia.co of some pages not fully loading (at least, for weeks).
• No clear financial report available other than what Lyrithya says by herself. So it may or may not be financially stable.--The Pioneer JP (talk) 08:29, March 17, 2019 (UTC)

The uncyclomedia.co server and finances have been stable since 2013, much like uncyclomedia.org has been stable since 2006. The only "elephant in the room" issue with .co is the inherent conflict of interest - en.uncyclopedia.co is a direct fork of uncyclopedia.org but with about two thousand fewer pages. This wiki risks becoming a merger target or a poor cousin of the other one. carlb (talk) 16:13, March 17, 2019 (UTC)

The thing is, I can't find any documented Financial reports on you and Lyrithya's Uncycs, while we do on our meta. If you guys do, please share them to us.--The Pioneer JP (talk) 16:26, March 17, 2019 (UTC)

• You will have more spambots. See their recentchanges or abuselog. It's just terrible. Yes, Illogicopedia has reduced these spammers using the abusefilter, but still, their abuselog is messy as well.--The Pioneer JP (talk) 18:11, March 18, 2019 (UTC)

The choice of mw:Extension:ConfirmEdit#FancyCaptcha (which Wikipedia and .co use) or mw:Extension:ConfirmEdit#ReCaptcha (which Miraheze uses) is one trivial configuration item in one extension. It can be easily changed by sysadmins. carlb (talk) 18:42, March 18, 2019 (UTC)

• The operators of .co have a long history of fierce opposition to any project which might compete with them in search engine ranking. They're also prone to this sort of drama. Zombiebaron's response to "Uncyclopedia 2.0" was "because this fork constituted a massive violation of our copyrights and might one day compete with us for Google ranking we should contact Miraheze staff and try to get it taken down." As much as I disagree with Un2.0 claiming to be us when they're not us or using our content without proper attribution, the attitude that anything which competes with the fork for Google ranking must go could just as easily be turned against this project - and, if they own our domain name and control the servers, game over.

If Dill Kevlar's proposal for this wiki "is to back it up, dump the trash, and keep a few of their community members" that sounds more like letting the zombies eat this wiki's braaaaiiins than an attempt to keep it as a living, breathing community. Of the nine who voted for .co on this thread, at least three (the others being Miley and Matt Lobster) have publicly said that their end goal is a "merger" - which I suspect is a euphemism for shutting this wiki down to eliminate a competitor for the fork. I'd be sad to see this as this wiki is the original project which I'd joined in May 2005, it's been around for many years, has a couple thousand more articles and a takeover or "merger" would end in us losing quite a few people who are valued, active contributors here but have left the fork because they were de-opped, blocked, pressured to resign or simply run out of town on a rail on the other site.

Yes, having two users (Reception123 and Pioneer) come over here to beg for donations for Miraheze was blatantly self-serving, but the votes from people who don't have any intention that this wiki (the original from which a long list of projects in other languages were spun off in 2006, and from which .co forked in 2013) remain a going concern are just as self-serving.

I'm disappointed that the vote has come down to a decision between this and Miraheze. Either option places the future of this community in the hands of outsiders whose interests don't always coincide with those of this wiki. After more than a dozen years under Wikia's thumb this community has a rare chance to claim some independence; if all of the "we'll host you for free" offers amount to "we have big plans for owning you, your project and your domain" is is really worth it just to save the $60-70/month cost of getting an entire dedicated server in a data centre? I have serious concerns about Miraheze's capacity to handle a project our size but, at the same time, "hey diddle diddle/the fork ran away with the spoon" is a huge conflict which is likely insurmountable. carlb (talk) 16:14, March 19, 2019 (UTC)

Good points. I think you're probably the best choice, as you're the only candidate who is clearly reliable, trustworthy and qualified. Unfortunately everyone knows you've got Hillary's emails on your server, so you're not going to win, and the Democrats are split between Sanders and Clinton so the vote goes to Trump. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 22:14 19 March 2019

• Mostly Lyrithya doing the technical work, and she's not around much and leaves bugs unfixed for extended periods. This is my impression from Illogicopedia. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 22:14 19 March 2019

Some notes to address other concerns that have been raised:

1. We would absolutely be getting the full history - not just since the split, but all of the content before as well. Prior messages indicated otherwise for feasibility reasons, but having looked into the matter more thoroughly, it won't actually be feasible not to do it this way, as the sites have not just diverged in terms of new edits, but also page moves and deletions. So yes, this would be the full site history.
2. Despite this being the same host as the split wiki, there will be no requirement of merging, one way or the other. That would only happen later if both communities agree to... whatever. Seriously, please figure it out.
3. People seem to think this is the same team as the current adminship on uncyclopedia.co, or people you may have had unfortunate experiences with in the past, and this would put you under their control. That is not the case. This is the team:
   • Isarra
   • Bizzeebeever
   • Jack Phoenix
   • legoktm
   • Skizzerz
   • Various other devs we manage to rope in from time to time

   We heed consensus, on all the projects we work with, because we believe it is the only way to move forward in a way that maintains the integrity of the projects themselves. As such, we also need to be clear on what the consensus actually is. That means open discussion and clear options, whether it's a specific proposal or RfC, a task to add or remove a feature from the site, or responding to community concerns.

Llwy-ar-lawr's site

Pros:

• Uncyclopedia hosted by an Uncyclopedian.
• Plans to maintain full site history, including old revisions, deleted content, and logs.
• Would only be hosting this wiki, not splitting time and energy between many of them. (Assorted personal projects don't count.)

Cons:

• Managed by two people, and thus will not be able to respond quickly to things or do as much as a full team could.

  Others are welcome to help me out. I can point you to instructions if you want to learn how.

• No proof of concept or portfolio of prior experience provided; unclear technical capabilities or server capacity.

• Unprofessional regard for other community members; removes votes she doesn't like and changes the rules at the same time in order to justify it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lyrithya (talk • contribs)

  That is an extreme mischaracterization. Either you did not read what I said or you chose to ignore it. I assumed the absence of my restrictions, which are still clearly laid out above, was an oversight on Romartus's part. I suppose I should have asked him if he meant to leave them out, but it was very late where he is and I didn't expect this reaction. The vote remains unstruck for now in any case; it can be counted or not at the end. I thought you'd let go of your feelings toward me. Apparently not. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 07:05 13 March 2019

  Lyrithya, you can punch me to. --RomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 10:36, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

  Since that error was mine, can you Lyrithya strike through your last bullet point under Llwy's site option? --RomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 10:44, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

  I'm... not even sure how to respond to this. The diff is clear, but these responses aren't. Are you two saying you privately agreed that should have been the rule, but then forgot to post it until someone violated it?

At this point, I think I would recommend simply restarting the vote, with the rules firmly established first, on the wiki. Keep discussion in the open, especially when it affects more people than you - this concerns everyone who has contributed to this site since the split, and all of their work. Perhaps sannse might be able to help you come up with some guidelines for better handling this, as a relatively neutral third-party? She knows a thing or two about this stuff. Athyria (talk) 13:53, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

The issue on voting was discussed in a wikia admin group, not a private one between myself and Llwy-ar-lawr. I don't mind Sannse contributing to this discussion as you are correct that she has far more experience on wikis than either of us I would imagine. It was my mistake as regards not including the original guidelines. --RomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 14:25, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

I see; striking the point. Will you reach out to sannse, then? If we know wikia is on board with how this is being conducted now, it would greatly help allay our concerns as well, as a potential new host ourselves. Athyria (talk) 14:46, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

Thank you Lyrithya. I have left a message on Sannse's message board and her email contact requesting a 'visitation' to this forum. --RomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 14:58, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

I was going to strike my last two sentences, but now my whole comment is struck. Oh well. That works. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 15:02 13 March 2019

If you want to change that, go right ahead. Obviously your comments are your own; I was just going for consistency. Athyria (talk) 15:07, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

Let's keep that as settled. BTW, Lyrithya, you can still punch me. --RomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 15:47, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

It's fine. Don't worry about it. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 16:43 13 March 2019

I'm not sure whether you'll see this, Llwy-ar-lawr, as you said you were done with this thread, but would you be able to clarify your hosting option/experience running MediaWiki? You mentioned GoDaddy and being locked at version 1.22. Is that still the case? I ask primarily because I've previously hosted a much smaller wiki with GoDaddy several years ago, and even with only 2,000-ish articles, it was a fairly nightmarish experience, especially with my limited knowledge of MediaWiki. I'm not sure how well a wiki of this size will fair with GoDaddy's limitations and seemingly being stuck at an older version for the foreseeable future, and even with the knowledge I've gained since hosting with GoDaddy, I can't imagine taking on a wiki half this size by myself. Can you post some details about your server, like space, bandwidth, memory, etc. and perhaps elaborate on your experience? Not that I don't trust your capabilities on this, but I'd have a hard time trusting any one person to run a wiki of this size. Thanks. Un-Supergeeky1 (talk) 21:24, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

That was a different thread. I've posted a section below to address people's questions or concerns about this. As I said in your link, GoDaddy doesn't provide a version of PHP that's up to date enough for 1.31+. My wiki there is also strangely slow (it's much smaller than this one FWIW). Because of these factors, I would not use them as a host. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 23:27 13 March 2019

An issue of trust

After reading the above discussion of the options, I think it might be worth recalling that the history of the two sites has not been all rainbow unicorns and fluffy puppy dogs. As Lyrithya mentioned, having the new site on the same server as the fork may be considered a distinct con from some points of view.
It is also worth going back up this page, and re-reading Spike's vote. Spike may not be flawless, but he's intelligent and perceptive, and has a lengthy involvement with Uncyclopedia. His comments regarding assurances of even handed treatment of the sites, when they're both being run by the Fork "software team", are something to consider.
Such a move would put this site (the original Uncyclopedia) entirely under the control of Fork personnel. A few days ago we were told the Wikia bits could be hosted on the same servers as the Fork, until the two communities could be merged. Now we're told there would be no "requirement" that they merge, unless there was consensus to do that. But consensus as judged by who? And which set of assertions do we accept as more truly representing the opinions of the Forkers, who would be running the show afterwards? Snarglefoop (talk) 08:11, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

Thank you! Judged by, I think, Zombiebaron and backed by one or more flash votes where our numbers are overwhelmed by voters we've never heard of.

The context for this is a six-year campaign to get us to suicide so the Fork could claim to be us. It has involved treachery and impostors and still does. The battlegrounds have gone from search engines to filing charges against editors at Wikipedia. This Forum is the latest battleground. Miley is an overt advocate, not that we move to a specific server (the question before us) but that we cease to exist as a separate website. She is contributing revert wars and threats.

The voting procedure set out by Romartus and Llwy reflects consensus of the Admins reached over email, consistent with Sannse's call to vote. It seeks to measure where the people who have carried this website want it to move, not what the Forkers want, we know what they want, nor how many casual readers feel their votes should be counted Spıke 🎙️11:31 13-Mar-19

I did say...can we tone down the language please? --RomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 14:33, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

Hi SPIKE, it has been several years so I'm glad you're doing well. Since you namechecked me I feel I should give you a response. I would certainly not be the judge of any merging vote, consensus is judged by the community last I checked. If both communities were to vote together I think you would be pleasantly surprised at how many of our users you have heard of: our entire community is made up of pre-2012 Uncyclopedians. I don't believe there has been any "six-year campaign to get [you] to suicide", and if there has I certainly have never heard about it. I voted for you in the January 2013 VFS because I knew you would lead this wiki well, and I take umbrage with the insinuation that our two sites are somehow at war with each other, that's certainly not how I have ever felt. It would be incredibly sad if this unique Uncyclopedia project's distinct history were to be lost from the public internet forever due to what boils down to years of misunderstandings. I want this project to continue, and I've even been assured by the uncyclopedia.co server staff that we can install Oasis on our servers so nothing has to change. Zombiebaron (talk) 17:56, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

The only thing that isn't going to happen is the Oasis skin post-Wikia. Also..joke..--RomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 18:08, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

ZB -- OMG WHY?? WHY would you install Oasis on the new wiki?
Or any Wiki, for that matter?
What a horrible thing to say -- that was completely uncalled for! (Also, you stranded Romartus with one too many colons, so I joined the colon war and removed one.) Snarglefoop (talk) 19:13, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

I'm sorry if I was unclear, I never said Oasis would be installed, I said it could be installed. I was trying to illustrate how the .co servers can be used to keep this Uncyclopedia project intact in all ways, despite some users here who believe that is not the case. Zombiebaron (talk) 20:23, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

Satire :) --RomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 10:50, March 14, 2019 (UTC)

So, is Forum:A message from Fandom#The Uncyclopedia Reunification Plan satire or did they mean every word? carlb (talk) 15:36, March 14, 2019 (UTC)

Splitting ownership of the server from ownership of the project

I'm a bit confused by the way this question is framed... is this a discussion of who should own the server (the computer) or is this a discussion of who should own the Uncyclopedia website (ie: a copy of the database, the user list, the domain name and whatever else would be needed to seamlessly move the site from one host to another if needed)? The two are different entities which do not necessarily need to be controlled by the same person - and it may make sense to place them separately. That would keep control of the domain name for this wiki in the hands of active administrators of this wiki, who would be free to change hosts at will... a bit of autonomy which we lost when User:Chronarion sold the domain in 2006 and never fully recovered. carlb (talk) 07:28, March 14, 2019 (UTC)

I think the issue of who owns the server is linked with issues like the possible abuse of checkuser to chase down an editor you don't like and harass them that way off a website. --RomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 11:09, March 14, 2019 (UTC)

The distinction is important for reasons which have little to do with checkuser (as checkuser is the least of our problems). Control of the domain name equates to control of traffic from all of the inbound links from external sites which point to that name. It also amounts to ability to move the site to another server or webhost with no one being the wiser. For instance, there's a huge difference between these two outcomes:

• I lend one computer in a datacentre to Llwy-ar-lawr; she sets up an Uncyclopedia on that machine with her own domain name and her own group of sysadmins. The project outgrows that server; she's free to mysqldump the whole mess and take it to another host, another server, another datacentre. I own a computer, I don't own the project.

vs:

• I buy the domain name myself in a backroom deal, appoint myself as the lone sysadmin, dump the data on that same machine and continue to operate as I have for more than a dozen years on whatever other Uncyclopedia-related wikis I'm hosting. The computer is the same, but the outcome - at least in the freedom accorded to the community to move elsewhere if they outgrow the server - is not.

That's why we need to know what this vote is about: is it asking who should get the domain name (which should probably be an active admin on this project) or is it asking which computers are the least-worst for hosting a wiki of our size (a different question, which would get a different answer)? carlb (talk) 16:30, March 14, 2019 (UTC)

I feel like maybe we need to clarify a different between individuals, communities, and perhaps some sort of 'trustees'. Because nobody owns most of these sites, let alone the communties on them - it's how we've gotten so splintered in the first place. But the fact of the matter is you do need someone you can trust not just to not hold these things over the community (or any piece of it), but also to technically handle it correctly. And that presents a bit of a problem. Perhaps we need to define some sort of actual organisation here, with clear governance such that it accounts for all our splintered bits of Uncyclomedia communities, that can thus properly entrust the technical aspects to those qualified, while still ensuring protections against anyone, well, trying anything? Athyria (talk) 16:51, March 14, 2019 (UTC)

This vote cannot be enforced

All right, somebody's been brave enough or wise enough or both to bring up something I'd thought about but didn't post because I was afraid it would make the battle even bigger. This vote is effectively meaningless. It amounts to "Do you vote for 1 (which is already being done anyway whether you want it or not), or do you vote for 2 (which is already being done anyway whether you like it or not), etc."

Anybody who has the database for this Uncyclopedia, as long as they follow legal restrictions (which for the most part amount to giving credit to contributors, typically in the edit history, although there is some restricted copyrighted material), they, in practice, own the site. All of them do.

If two or three or four of them decide--individually with no input needed from anyone else--to put up the site where they want it, they can do so. This vote cannot change that.  King of the Internet Alden Loveshade??? (royal court)  18:07, March 14, 2019 (UTC)

Of course. No worries about getting hyperyelled for saying that; you're totally correct about the fact that nothing here can be "enforced". But the real question isn't one of enforcement; rather, it's "Is there enough interest to justify putting the bits on an entirely new server someplace or other, and if so, what would be a good place to put it?", and it's ultimately an advisory thing.
Given how much work it takes to put up a new copy of the Wiki (and the fact that it takes cash to rent space for it), the advice is likely to be heeded -- if nobody wants the new Wiki, nobody's going to put in the effort to set it up.
By the same token, voting on whether "the community" should "merge" with the Fork is kind of useless -- it's a herd of cats, and each cat is going to make up its own mind. Snarglefoop (talk) 18:17, March 14, 2019 (UTC)

Good points. Although this site has been copied elsewhere already, so there may be even more after this one closes. Perhaps this should have been posted as an opinion poll instead of a vote.  King of the Internet Alden Loveshade??? (royal court)  18:28, March 14, 2019 (UTC)~

Aaaaannnddd the issue of what to do about domain name ownership is something else again, and may be much stronger than merely "advisory", but that's a swamp I don't feel competent to swim into. Snarglefoop (talk) 18:19, March 14, 2019 (UTC)

Now that I did mention near the beginning of this debate.  King of the Internet Alden Loveshade??? (royal court)  18:30, March 14, 2019 (UTC)

From Romartus

First, thank you Lyrithya for organising the options to vote more cleanly than I initially set them out.

I did make an oversight as regards the voting issue when writing the above forum. I re-checked the emails in the Admin Group. As far as I can see, this only effects one user Dǐll Kevlar who made two edits before the 26th February. Since this is my mistake, I will let his participation stand in this forum. Also, can contributors on this forum please keep exchanges civil between each other. --RomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 10:13, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

From Sannse

Supremes Court

I'm not sure what you want from me, some sort of Supreme Court judgement? Or just comments? I'll assume the latter.

As I've said before, I'm very keen that this vote should only be made by current members of the community on this wiki. To me that means those who have been active editors here within the recent past.

That said, I am no longer one of those people. I wandered off from being an active admin and contributor here some time ago. And, as a staffer for Fandom, I certainly shouldn't have a say in how you depart us. Given that, the active admins here are the people I believe should set the rules - even if that means changing the rules if they think it necessary. I hope very much that you find the right solution - especially as I have a half written article somewhere about cockroaches being archaeologists -- Sannse <staff /> (help forum | blog) 16:16, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

A Supreme Court Judgement would be nice. Then we could start a petition to change the Constitution. Then when we win, we could throw out all the rules and make me King of the Internets! That would be nice.  King of the Internet Alden Loveshade??? (royal court)  16:49, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

I can just declare you King of the Internet right now. Congratulations Your Majesty -- Sannse <staff /> (help forum | blog) 17:52, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

Gee, thank you, loyal subject! You all heard it here, I am now officially King of the Internet! Time to make a new signature which should show up right after this post. And, by the power vested in me, I hereby declare Sannse to be Lady in Wikiaiting.  King of the Internet Alden Loveshade??? (royal court)  22:39, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

Romartus has clarified that he wants my opinion on the rules for voting. As they restrict voting to active editors, I'm happy. The point that readers are part of the community (I forget who said that) doesn't work because there is no proof that any individual is a reader. Similarly, there are issues with anon votes and the ability to simply switch IP as needed. Anyway, the the norm on wikis is for "community" to refer to the active editors. So I'm happy with the conditions as listed by Rom -- Sannse <staff /> (help forum | blog) 17:52, March 13, 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Sannse! While Romartus is out (I just blocked him), he asked me to watch this for him. (Really he asked me for a joke block cuz he's busy.) I wanted staff opinion on this vote, and we got it from Sannse who's one of the best. So it will stand as it is! :) DAP Dame Pleb Com. Miley Spears (talk) 00:40, March 14, 2019 (UTC)

Sannse, there seems to be some confusion here that comes from terminology used by some editors here that not all of us (including me) understand. So for everybody's benefit, I'm going to ask what seems a simple question, but may help clear up some confusion.

To clarify, is your understanding of the rules that "restrict voting to active editors" mean voting is restricted to active editors on this website or to active editors on a website that is not part of Fandom/Wikia?  King of the Internet Alden Loveshade??? (royal court)  03:11, March 14, 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I'd like to know if we understand them the same way. This is what I meant by those rules. I wasn't trying to restrict it to active editors on this site, but apparently I wasn't clear enough. Sorry all. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 04:38 14 March 2019

BTW this is the rule that was giving people trouble: "Active editors on the fork must have five edits to this site between 1 January 2018 and 26 February 2019." This seems to have come across as meaning that only active editors on the fork are allowed to vote, or something, but that's not what I was trying to say -- "this site" is uncyclopedia.wikia.com, not the fork (uncyclopedia.co). My point was that if someone is active on uncyclopedia.co, they should also be active on uncyclopedia.wikia.com if they want to have a say. If they're not active on uncyclopedia.co, they don't have to be active here -- they just have to be established (the rule before this). I should have written something more like this:

• You must have made five or more edits to uncyclopedia.wikia.com before 26 February 2019.
• If (and only if) you have made five or more edits to uncyclopedia.co between 1 January 2018 and 26 February 2019, you must also have made five or more edits to uncyclopedia.wikia.com in the same time period.

If this isn't ok, we should agree on that and change it to something we like better. If we want to restrict voting to active editors on uncyclopedia.wikia.com, I suggest reducing these to one rule: "Must have five or more edits to uncyclopedia.wikia.com between 1 January 2018 and 26 February 2019." I was originally going to propose something like this but decided I didn't want to shut out everyone who was part of this community in the past. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 22:42 14 March 2019

Yes, when I say this wik, I mean Uncyclopedia.wikia.com (or .fandom if that happens before the move). I really think that was clear, as it's this wiki we are currently on. Those who forked all those years ago should not have the right to vote about a wiki they left. Except, of course, that they have the right to vote whether to allow this wiki to join theirs. -- Sannse <staff /> (help forum | blog) 20:12, March 15, 2019 (UTC)

Llwy's option

I realize you've been presented with a pig in a poke, so I'll try to address this.

I've installed and configured MediaWiki several times for personal use, and at this point I have it pretty much down. This kind of import is new to me, but I now have a working copy of this site I've been running the grabber scripts on that is fairly close to complete. It's running MediaWiki 1.31 on Ubuntu 18.04. I have content and edits running up to the 11th or so, all the logs, and the block list. I'm working on the deleted content and the files. The file script is running as I type this. It's on the S's.

I would not in fact be solely responsible for the site. Snarglefoop has been helping me with this process and has advanced technical knowledge of his own.

I don't know yet what hosting service I'd go with. It needs lots of space. VPS would be nice but tends to be quite expensive. MilesWeb MediaWiki hosting could be a good choice. Since they'll install and upgrade it for you, this means I could include others in the management process.

As for how I'd run the site, I would avoid making significant software changes (other than upgrades) without consensus, and I would not use my position to enforce my will on internal matters from "behind the curtain".

My wiki is not accessible from the internet, but the plan is to get dumps from it and upload them to a public one. Even if we don't go with me, I'll keep working on this project just so there's a backup somewhere. We can use it later if whatever we do choose goes down.

And if you're curious, it looks like this at the moment:

❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 23:20 13 March 2019

I'm not sure what to make of VPS, given our space requirements. That XML dump may look small, but actually grab everything and stick it into mariadb? I'm seeing space consumption of 75-100Gb for the database and close to 25Gb for the images.

VPS looks inexpensive in small quantities, then goes up in cost once one inevitably asks for more. At my upstream provider (eStruxture Mtl1) a virtual server with 1 CPU, 1Gb RAM, 25Gb HDD space is $25/mo, but ask for 200Gb HDD and it's suddenly $60/mo - as expensive as the cost of renting a 1U space in the datacentre rack (computer not included - for shared colocation) and almost as expensive as renting the smallest whole computer ($70/mo for an Intel Core i3 with 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD on a 100Mbps unmetered connection) in the same facility.

Miraheze uses RamNode, where they rent "containers" which are somehow above regular shared hosting but not quite a true VPS. From [6][7] it looks like they had 15 of these at the end of 2017: each "512MB CVZ" container is advertised as 512MB Ram, 2 CPU Cores, 1 IPv4 address, 150GB HDD space, 2000GB/month bandwidth for $5/mo. One is too small for our needs, but two might do?

In any case, we do need to preserve the ability to move the site and its content (a full image and SQL dump with all archived and deleted revisions, user list everything) to another server seamlessly on the same domain name with the same content if we're not satisfied with what we're seeing or if we outgrow a host. That's part of what makes me hesitant of wiki farms - be they Wikia, Miraheze, whomever. We can move a domain we own, but if the same content is also available on some other domain (like uncyc.miraheze.org or whatever) there's the risk that someone will try to be overly helpful and adopt the abandoned wiki, re-opening it after we leave. We've already encountered a similar issue with Nonsensopedia (Polish); they tried Miraheze, had issues with a bungled import which included some Nonciclopedia pages (a big balla Italiana spaghetti) and went to their own server nonsa.pl; one user is keeping the old site open, so this Polish joke is now forked. carlb (talk) 05:15, March 14, 2019 (UTC)

I noticed that about VPS. They seem to expect that if you need a lot of disk space, you're a business with lots of money. Well, darn, I'm not a business. RamNode looks interesting. Little short on memory, though, maybe.

Wasn't even thinking about deciding to leave Miraheze. I do hope we wouldn't end up with another fork. I don't think we could afford it. Shame about Nonsensopedia, but I guess it's their business. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 07:22 14 March 2019

As a brief technical observation (which is probably already well understood by all parties), 1 core is inadequate. A lot of modern software is written with spin-waits in it; they assume everything's multithreaded and there are multiple physical cores, and breaking out of a spin is faster than waking up. The consequence is that with one core you can see performance that is vastly worse than you'd get with two cores, as the whole system apparently locks up for multiple milliseconds while the spinner's time slice runs out.
Second, I'm not sure how much memory we need, but half a gig is almost certainly too little. One gig is likely to be marginal, at best. At the other end, four is probably adequate for something that's just running a website. So, I suppose we should be looking at memory in the one to four gig range. This, and the CPU requirement, are going to rule out "storage VPSs".
I haven't got hard numbers to back these assertions up but I'm reasonably confident that they're not too far off.
And, yeah, the unpacked DB is something like 90 gigs by itself so assuming we want nice stuff like images we're looking at between 100 and 150 gigs minimum of disk space, and we'll sleep better at night if we have at least 200. (And don't forget to budget space for a swap file -- it shouldn't happen, but if you run out of swap on Unix you're pretty much dead.) Snarglefoop (talk) 13:59, March 14, 2019 (UTC)

Maybe Miraheze gets away with this little because their total traffic (across 3000 wikis) isn't that much more than the total traffic for one wiki in the Uncyclopedia family and it's split across multiple VPS instances on different machines?

Server memory requirements depend largely on the number of requests currently in process. Apache spawns a thread for each incoming connection and each of these threads seems to take about a hundred megabytes of RAM. A dozen simultaneous connections can wipe out a gigabyte of RAM with ease, and the database server is consuming memory too. Oddly, a server with a faster processor and solid state drives has been observed to need less memory for the same workload than a slow computer with clunky mechanical hard disks as, the sooner a request is completed, the sooner it's removed from memory and those resources freed for other requests.

Demand initially will be low, as users getting "This wikia has closed" here instead of being told where we've gone won't find us initially, but eventually we need the option to scale up to an entire machine in a datacentre if and when we get the traffic to justify one. carlb (talk) 14:55, March 14, 2019 (UTC)

Your point about SSDs is well taken -- faster disks reduce the need for more memory; I had not thought of that. I have no experience with computers with SSDs (I'm stuck in the 2000's here, all HDDs). Half a gig still sounds tight to me; if, as you said, it costs 100 MB per query, that would mean our performance could degrade badly with more a few simultaneous queries. OTOH with an SSD for swapping we might still not be completely dead (as long as we don't run out of swap space, of course).
As to the disk space needed, with a fully unpacked and largely updated copy of Uncyc here we're using 128 gigabytes of space in '/', .... plus another 47 gigs for an SQL dump file, which brings the total to 170 something. The dump is obviously not needed for regular operation but may be relevant to the question, "How do you set the thing up to start with?" And that total includes everything -- OS, assorted applications, and some user files for the admin account. Snarglefoop (talk) 15:46, March 14, 2019 (UTC)

SSDs are optional - if you fully leverage ram caching it doesn't really matter a whole lot either way, but you definitely are going to need a few gigabytes at least to do anything meaningful with it (we're using around 20-30GB on average, and we're not doing much to begin with). But the real problems you're going to run into will be with storage and the software - the database alone is 100GB, the files another 50GB, and you'll need space for caching the rendered pages, different file renders, and automated backups. Even if you're not rendering xml page exports (which you should), the database dumps themselves take considerable space, and you'll want to keep even some of the rather older ones on hand at all times just in case things get really screwy, so I'd recommend at least a 500GB server for this, plus something for secondary usage (offsite backups, using as a fallback, etc).

But for some more context, just so you have a better idea just what you'd be getting into here: if you are doing your own servers (dedicated or VPS), that means you'll also be running your own services, and will need to worry in particular about the specific aspects of your configuration and installation to maximise security and performance, and this hard (professionals make very good money on this for a reason). Even if you're not going for maximal performance, having adequate security is a must, so you need to know how to do things like block ports, set up your services correctly (they shouldn't even be listening externally unless you have a very good reason, for instance), sanitise inputs, review what you deploy, maintain access policies, mitigate attacks, monitor and respond to outages, and back up configs in a way that allows you to re-pull it without exposing private data, and all in some manner that persists through updates. And you also need to stay on top of updates, too, because most of the vulnerabilities you need to deal with will come out of the packages you have installed, and as soon as this happens, they need to be promptly patched as well. Athyria (talk) 16:15, March 14, 2019 (UTC)

Which is why we should really all be working together on this. Historically, we're awful at that, but that really needs change. I'd say more, but right now I still need to get a couple of the grabber scripts working again with the current sites (changes'll be in gerrit, don't worry), so I dunno. Ideas welcome. Athyria (talk) 16:27, March 14, 2019 (UTC)

(Got edit-conflicted saving this, so now that I'm saving it it's a little out of date; if I seem to have missed a point or two with this comment that may be why.)
Yes, cooperating sounds like a great idea! All we need to do is ... let's see ... avoid screaming at each other, and try not to sound too arrogant. I'm OK at not-screaming but I suck at the not-sounding-arrogant; I'm working on that.
I'm not going to get too lathered up about security issues. Configure IPTables to block everything but the ports we need (that's just normal -- I even do it on my desktop) and you're most of the way there. There won't be any financial information on the site (I mean, unless somebody posts their credit card number on a wiki page for God knows what reason) so a "breakin" wouldn't be a three alarm panic anyway. And in any case a major part of the reason for putting a wiki out there on a VPS rather than sitting in the livingroom with an SDSL line is to isolate it from other systems we care about.
SSH access with public-key-only logins (passwords disabled) seems pretty secure to me -- good enough that I wouldn't be losing sleep about someone guessing my private key, anyway. (And maybe have it listen on a non-standard port just to avoid constant hammering on port 22 by Bad Guys.)
As to staying up to date -- yeah, of course. That's one reason for going with 1.31; it's an LTS release so staying up to date is at least an option.
As to the backups, yeah, that's an annoyance. I dare say the dumps are going to have to go offsite. That'll be a headache to set up but shouldn't be too impossible -- once it's off the wiki, it's going downstream rather than upstream, and that's the "fast" direction for consumer internet connections. Off-wiki disk space is, of course, essentially free, so storing dumps offsite is not a big deal. Another option for backups would be to maintain an offsite mirror, somewhere inaccessible to the Internet but with lots of disk space for regular full dumps. That might work pretty smoothly, and the grabber scripts would make it feasible.
And yeah, we already addressed the issue of disk space. Your 500 gb number seems a little high to me, given that the wiki and associated OS files only take up about a third of that space and the database dumps would be stored remotely. Snarglefoop (talk) 16:51, March 14, 2019 (UTC)

Come to think of it, OS choice is also an issue. For a home system it's kind of a no-brainer (Ubuntu's so easy it's not worth considering anything else), but for a dedicated web server Centos, Solaris, or BSD might be better choices. Lyrithya, what do you folks run? (Not MS BackOffice, I hope! ;-) ) Carl, I think you run a Unix shop -- but which flavor? Snarglefoop (talk) 17:10, March 14, 2019 (UTC)

My primary MediaWiki 1.31 server is a 1U Supermicro (2 x Opteron 6276, 16 cores each, two WD Blue 1TB SSD's in RAID1, two WD Blue 500GB SSD's, 32Gb DDR3 ECC RAM) running the "server" version of Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (which is stripped down, no GUI, as these machines run headless in a datacentre). This server is hosting most of my Uncyclopedia-related wikis, except for static content (images.uncyc.org) and a few tiny bits and pieces which are non-wiki or haven't been upgraded to MW1.31 yet. The rest of the servers are CentOS - which I had used for years, but which tends to ship with outdated versions of key bits of software like PHP that would need to be replaced. carlb (talk) 17:28, March 14, 2019 (UTC)

That. Athyria (talk) 17:34, March 14, 2019 (UTC)

Um. If you mean MS BackOffice, I'd just like to say sorry, I wasn't trying to poke at you for using it; that was just a feeble attempt at humor. I actually thought you ran a Linux shop.
In any case, I also realize that MS has some major advantages over Linux, not least of which is that, in my experience, you can do a version upgrade on Windows with nearly 100% assurance that you'll get a working system afterwards. With Linux I've found it's more like 60%, and the other 40% of the time you get to spend a fun afternoon with a recovery disk. (YMMV -- I'm sure it depends on the hardware you're running on and on the level of expertise of the user.) Snarglefoop (talk) 19:42, March 14, 2019 (UTC)

Er, I meant ubuntu LTS server for the main ones. Same as carlb. Athyria (talk) 13:19, March 15, 2019 (UTC)

What about VPSDime? Their "storage VPS" option provides 500 GB of disk space, 2 GB of memory and 4 CPU cores for $7 per month (that's the one selected by default -- see the page for their other plans). They claim to use SSD, so this could be enough memory, and it's a lot more than RamNode. I'm now noticing that RamNode's "massive" OpenVZ, which is the only one that looks big enough for us, uses HDD rather than SSD. VPSDime seems to have mostly good customer reviews. Apparently they're so cheap because it's totally unmanaged. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 21:20 14 March 2019

Depends how much traffic you expect the site to receive? If no one can find us because Wikia is telling everyone the wiki is closed (instead of saying we've moved) then anything we deploy might be overkill - so long as it has the storage space. carlb (talk) 18:51, March 16, 2019 (UTC)

Please follow the rules

Llwy-ar-lawr, Romartus asked me to keep an eye on the voting for what happens to Uncyclopedia. He said votes were grandfathered in, and nobody disagreed with that. I'm being objective here; I just struck a vote that agrees with what I want, but I have to play fair. I ask you to do the same. Please do not violate the agreement we have with staff and the responsibility Romartus handed temporarily to me. DAP Dame Pleb Com. Miley Spears (talk) 01:26, March 14, 2019 (UTC) (comment above restored and revised after being removed by Llwy-ar-lawr)

Llwy-ar-lawr, removing another editor's comments, whether an admin or not (which I am), from a discussion like this not only violated Uncyclopedia policy, it violated Fandom ToU which are rules we have to follow.

I suggest you go read them now before you make any more edits. By rights, you should be blocked for doing that, but I don't want to give an impression of an admin war. But please read the rules we are all required to follow and do not do that again. DAP Dame Pleb Com. Miley Spears (talk) 01:41, March 14, 2019 (UTC)

I restored those comments myself immediately after removing them. See this diff. (You did something similar in these diffs.) Yes, I did roll back your edits rather than picking through them and fixing what you'd done. In fact, you removed my comments. You can see in this diff that I am restoring two comments by me that you removed. You removed another of my comments here and failed to restore it, as well as calling my strikeout of the vote you agreed with "vandalism".

Originally you unstruck a vote that you agreed with. Then you struck a vote you disagreed with. Now you claim you are being "objective" by striking votes on both sides; I am being equally objective by reverting all those strikeouts. I also notice you removed one of those votes rather than striking it, namely the one by The Last of the Mohicans.

Here is what I said about the rules on my talk page:

The rules say:

• No I.P. voting permitted. No account created here after 25th February 2019 will be able to vote either. This means that no IP editors are allowed to vote and no one can vote from an account created after 25 February 2019, which means 26 February 2019 or later.
• Must have five edits to this site before 26 February 2019. This means any time before 26 February 2019. It does not mean in 2019. It does not mean in 2018. It could be any time at all, even before 5 January 2005 if that were somehow possible.
• Active editors on the fork must have five edits to this site between 1 January 2018 and 26 February 2019. This means active editors on the fork must have five edits in this time period. Not editors who are not active on the fork; they are only subject to the restriction before this.

The rules do not say voting is restricted to currently active editors on this site. I intended to include inactive established editors. I said so. You removed my comment saying this. Sannse may have slightly mischaracterized the rules, but she agreed to them as written. They are written as I say above; check the page. You are the one not following the rules and making stuff up. Whether it's due to inattention or malice, I don't know, but you are. If you have a problem with the rules, you should say so, not enforce your personal unwritten opinions or act like this is all my fault and I'm some evil control freak pushing an agenda. Better yet, you should have objected back when these rules were actually discussed and agreed on. You got the emails and said nothing. Your conduct is disruptive and unbecoming. If you can't refrain from behaving in this manner, I suggest you step out. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 02:18 14 March 2019

It seems you are having trouble getting along here. Maybe if would be best if you each went your separate ways. Binky The WonderSkull (talk) 02:38, March 14, 2019 (UTC)

Hi Binky! I'm doing just that. I'll come back later and see how things are going then. DAP Dame Pleb Com. Miley Spears (talk) 04:08, March 14, 2019 (UTC)

I do not want to get in an admin war. I understand that you may have removed comments accidentally during an edit conflict and I might have done that too. I am sorry about that. DAP Dame Pleb Com. Miley Spears (talk) 04:00, March 14, 2019 (UTC)

Ugg, seems I made a mistake. I mixed up the second and third rules, and thought that the vote was limited to those who are currently active. Frankly, I think allowing long-gone contributors to vote is a mistake. Of course, this is just my opinion, and I do not claim any control over this vote (I'm not sure anyone else is totally in control of it either >_< ) -- Sannse <staff /> (help forum | blog) 20:20, March 15, 2019 (UTC)

You aren't alone; a lot of us were (and are) confused about the voting. I also think allowing long-gone contributors to vote is a mistake. I think the voting should be restricted to people who edited here in the year or so before Uncyclopedia closing down was announced. Otherwise you have a situation where people who haven't been active here in 2, 5, 7, 10 years can come in and overrule the people who are active.  King of the Internet Alden Loveshade??? (royal court)  05:22, March 16, 2019 (UTC)

My Two Cents

As I posted before, I was in the email discussion about the vote before it was even posted here and I still couldn't figure out what the vote was supposed to mean. I worked as a journalist covering local politics and was also a state board member representing 10 colleges in the state capitol, and I was still confused by the description. So it's not surprising other people would be confused as well.

For one thing, there's this assumption that everybody who edited Uncyclopedia knows what the "fork" is. As I've posted in this discussion before, I have no idea what you mean by the fork or the spoon or the spork or the whatever, and Sannse probably doesn't either.

Sannse obviously read the rules the same way I did: the rules for voting are for http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com. If she thought you were talking about some other website that is not a part of Wikia/Fandom, I doubt very much she would have expressed her views as a Wikia/Fandom staff member.  King of the Internet Alden Loveshade??? (royal court)  03:01, March 14, 2019 (UTC)

By the fork, I meant en.uncyclopedia.co, which split from uncyclopedia.wikia.com (sometimes called the "spoon") in 2013. Sannse was around at the time of the split between this site and that one, so I'd think she would understand. I'm open to rephrasing the rule to replace "fork" with "en.uncyclopedia.co" if that's satisfactory. The vote itself is about where to host the content of uncyclopedia.wikia.com. It is not about en.uncyclopedia.co or a merger with them.

The meaning of my second rule does not seem to have come through. My intent was that people active on en.uncyclopedia.co but not here should not get a vote but people inactive on both sites should. The latter, to me, are still part of this community, while the former are not because they have moved there. Sannse said that the rules meant only active editors here should vote, but that wasn't what I meant. Romartus invited several inactive editors to vote here, some did, and their votes were stricken. This is not fair.

We need to agree on what the rules are and what they mean, and we need to stop assigning blame and just work it out. Maybe Lyrithya is right and it has to be started over. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 03:52 14 March 2019

We do need to agree. Really I think editors should have had a chance to approve the way the vote would be done before it started. Then we could have straightened things out before it ever became a problem.

I see Sannse has been asked. I'll wait and see what she says. DAP Dame Pleb Com. Miley Spears (talk) 04:06, March 14, 2019 (UTC)

Separate Vote Forum

I think a forum/page just for voting but linking back here for information on the options and discussions should be done. The Vote page should also be protected the same way as this one. --RomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 12:06, March 14, 2019 (UTC)

So would that mean restarting the vote?

If we restart it, I suggest there is no more striking out or removing of votes. We can decide determine 03:47 which ones do and don't count at the end when they're tallied. The fighting over strikeouts is counterproductive and risks discouraging participation. It was my idea that there would be "enforcement" needed. I was wrong. There's more than one way to do it. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 20:50 14 March 2019

I agree with that as regards not striking out votes until the ballot closes. In that light, perhaps the time limit for voting can now be extended. I know this makes it tight for the end of the month (and it being Easter too) but I think as long as the decision has been here, we will be given enough time for a back-up and an official closing of this particular url (that being uncyclopedia.wikia.com). It also gives me a chance to alert more users who have been inactive for sometime. I would also prefer that the ballot page just sets out the parameters and four headings for the options to be voted on. Links back to this page for discussions. --RomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 00:15, March 15, 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps just highlight the vote section so editors can cut to the important part without having to leave the discussion page. Bar strikethroughs anywhere. I would say extend the time but that should be 3-4 days at most. Agreeing to the end of the month (if it is even that) painted Uncyclopedia into a corner.

Realize in America, this is March Madness (NCAA basketball, even now thought the tournament doesn't start until the 19th) and tax prep time. People are generally involved with those in a major way. -- (talk) 02:08, March 15, 2019 (UTC)

It's also Easter coming up. Regards the vote, so we highlight the vote and put all comments underneath? --RomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 13:04, March 15, 2019 (UTC)

We do need to be clear what is being asked and who is eligible to vote. Is this a vote on what happens to the uncyclopedia.org domain name, is this a vote on whether this wiki should be dismantled as spare parts for the other one, is this a vote on who has the least-worst servers? I see quite a few votes which basically amount to "vote for .co" with the intention of shutting the project down or merging it into the fork; is that consistent with the question being asked? carlb (talk) 17:00, March 15, 2019 (UTC)

This forum is about where to host uncyclopedia.wikia, not about mergers or closing it down. Regards the domain name, that's up to Fandom. I presume they have renewed ownership today otherwise this site will be floating in space right now. I think we are clear as regards the electorate as well. --RomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 19:57, March 15, 2019 (UTC)

On the uncyclopedia.org domain, I still haven't confirmed that we will hand it over, because I don't know who we would hand it over to. I asked the question somewhere: if we were to give the URL to the the current contributors of uncyclopedia.wikia.com, who would actually hold it?

There are others asking about the URL, but it seems fair to me that it should go to the people we are kicking off the network (or, probably better, their new host). But we can't even talk about it until we have a specific person or organization to talk to.

Overall... guys, you've got to get organized. I can keep the wiki open a little longer, but not much beyond the original deadline.

The question of the URL can wait, but the decision of where you, the uncyclopedia.wikia community, are going to go, is an urgent one. The content is already safe (from what I understand) and the community here has alternatives as to where they want to edit when this version is gone. But if you want this community to remain a group, then you need to choose a new home. -- Sannse <staff /> (help forum | blog) 20:48, March 15, 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Sannse for the update. This is just like Brexit! Just checking in. The voting will be done on this page (above all the subsequent votes, these can stand unless peeps object). I also think that there is about enough information this forum to let contributors decide where to go for. The community (ex-wikia) can then decide the issue about who looks after the uncyclopedia.org address. Will re-arrange page when it's daylight again here. --RomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 01:13, March 16, 2019 (UTC)

I just checked before I came here, and Fandom (still listed as Wikia.com), did renew uncyclopedia.org the registration of which would have expired on 15 March 2019; it's registered for one more year.  King of the Internet Alden Loveshade??? (royal court)  05:26, March 16, 2019 (UTC)

Whatever the case, it would be good if whoever the domain goes to can also commit to working with carlb and my team to delegate the subdomains, as we will both be hosting other language projects that can and should be making use of this url. (In particular de: comes to mind, especially as it's also only leaving Wikia as part of this exodus, and was specifically using de.uncyclopedia here.) Hopefully the other communities need not be negatively impacted by the disorganisation of a single language. Athyria (talk) 13:12, March 16, 2019 (UTC)

Whatever the case, working together is usually a good option.  King of the Internet Alden Loveshade??? (royal court)  19:58, March 17, 2019 (UTC)

Ruling?

I will wait to see if I can vote before I will cast an official vote here. Until then, you will have no clue whether I have changed my mind on anything or not. -- Simsilikesims(♀GUN) Talk here. 05:00, March 16, 2019 (UTC)

Yes you can Simsilikesims --RomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 11:24, March 16, 2019 (UTC)

Ok then, for the record, I am split on hosting between Llwy and en.uncyc.co since both have good technical experts. As to the fate of the site once hosting is decided, definitely it needs to remain separate from the original host wiki regardless of where it goes - since in the case of en.uncyc.co their site evolved so much differently from ours, and if it is kept separate, there is less worry about whether we stay "in" with the "in crowd". In the case of Llwy's hosting - she is accustomed to hosting non-English wikis, so that would be a conflict of language, and it wouldn't make sense to merge an English wiki with a non-English wiki.

The advantage of going with en.uncyc.co is that they ALREADY have back up and import of everything 2012 and earlier. The disadvantage of going with en.uncyc.co is the history of personality conflicts and drama that happened right before and after the split. I don't want to go to Miraheze, since their financials seem shaky, and they have posted notices that large uploads are failing - and ours would be a series of HUGE uploads. That would indicate they really don't have the capacity to host a site like this one. I also don't think it is a good idea for CarlB to host the site either, especially given how slow the "trashuncyclopedia" (mirror) has become with 40,000 articles on it (including probably at least 10,000-15000 that are VFD material or QVFD material). Even if we carefully continue to prune our articles, in time the wiki would likely still grow to reach 35000 to 40,000 articles, and performance would become unacceptable. Carl B has however shown the ability to host non-English wikis, that are MUCH smaller than our English language Uncyclopedia. This is one thing that worries me about being hosted by Llwy - it isn't anything personal, but I am concerned that she may be underestimating the size of the project especially if she has to do the technical work behind the scenes alone. The size of this English language project is much larger probably than anything she has ever dealt with before - non-English projects tend to be much smaller with the exception of major world languages such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, French, Spanish and possibly Italian - the more world-wide speakers, the bigger the project. I want to believe that we have moved past the drama that happened right before and after the split, so my vote is to go with en.uncyc.co for hosting, but maintain a separate wiki to minimize the impact of personality conflicts. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Simsilikesims (talk • contribs)

You missed português from your list of "world languages". "Bem-vindos à Desciclopédia - A enciclopédia livre de conteúdo que qualquer um pode editar. - 55470 artigos · 193426 imagens". carlb (talk) 21:55, March 17, 2019 (UTC)

I thought about including Portuguese, but I don't know as many Portugese-speaking people. I am aware they had some colonies though. Apologies to anyone Portugese. Also, apologies to people speaking Indian languages. (India is a huge country.) -- Simsilikesims(♀GUN) Talk here. 22:27, March 17, 2019 (UTC)

I've never hosted a non-English wiki. The handful I've set up are all English. Maybe you're thinking of me being an admin on various inactive non-English wikis, which is a separate issue -- those belong to Carlb, so I have no server access there. Also as I said, I share the technical work with Snarglefoop (though two people isn't very many either). ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 23:31 17 March 2019

Two people still really isn't enough for a project this scope and size. I hadn't heard of the English wikis you host, I would love to take a look at them myself. I was under the impression you were hosting a Welsh wiki. Either way, the import process really needs to start soon - and with CC-BY-SA, really nothing stops anybody from importing anything just about anywhere, though TBH I actually stopped importing stuff from here to the mirror in 2017 once I realized people had issues with it. Also, from my experiences of importing files to the mirror, I know that the export files do not always import as intended, and what is exported never includes the images or audio files (nor any videos in the case of embedded videos which we haven't used here in years). I suspect Uncyclopedia is kind of like a story - sharing it doesn't diminish it, but keeps it alive. Those who want to keep tight control of their work usually don't use CC-BY-SA - they use full copyright protection. -- Simsilikesims(♀GUN) Talk here. 01:50, March 18, 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, there's not much for you to see. None of them are on the internet except the GoDaddy one, and that's not publicly readable. They're all for various personal uses. You can see a screenshot of my Uncyclopedia backup wiki under #Llwy's option. (You're probably thinking of Celwyddoniadur, the Welsh Uncyclopedia, which I have advanced permissions on but is hosted by Carlb. I considered transferring it to independent hosting in 2013, but that didn't happen.) I agree that two people isn't really enough, which is another disadvantage of Lyrithya -- seems to be mostly her running the show, and she's not around much and slow to fix bugs. Illogicopedia had broken math formulas for months and broken thumbnails for years. For having a sufficiently large and available group to work on the site, Miraheze looks like the best option. About site speed, the mirror doesn't tell us that for sure. He has multiple server computers, and he could put this site on a faster one. Desciclopedia is even bigger at over 50,000 pages and appears to run at a reasonable speed from my visit to the main page. He also has a more solid track record. He's been hosting wikis since about 2006 and has many more of them. With the wikis now moving to Lyrithya, the quality of her service could decrease. Not to mention that being hosted by someone who's hoping for a "merger" seems like a really bad idea if we want to stay separate. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 05:40 18 March 2019

I would agree that Miraheze would have a big enough team, but I really don't think their servers can handle the load at this time. There is a global site message on all the Miraheze wikis right now that says UPLOADS ARE FAILING due to lack of space for them. Even if we overlook their shaky financials, this inability to upload is a big red flag for me. -- Simsilikesims(♀GUN) Talk here. 17:47, March 21, 2019 (UTC)

Revote Notification

I attempted to leave a message on the talk page of everyone who voted that they may have to recast their vote for it to count. I would really appreciate it if someone would check and make sure I didn't miss anybody.  King of the Internet Alden Loveshade??? (royal court)  17:04, March 16, 2019 (UTC)

Against

• Against. Two admins deciding how this vote will be done even when other admins and Fandom staff disagree and want it done differently. If no admin on a Fandom wiki has edited in just two months, somebody can adopt the site and get Fandom staff to deop the inactive admins, even the founder. You're letting people who haven't edited here not just in months but in years come back and decide what active editors have to do. DAP Dame Pleb Com. Miley Spears (talk) 22:37, March 16, 2019 (UTC)

  As far as I can see (as of my time stamp), all votes so far cast have been within the guideline rules set out. Fandom rules were referred to Sannse for her advice on the matter with her very wide experience of managing wikis. However, since this site will be ceased to be hosted by Fandom, all their rules as regards a website as you outline Miley Spears need not apply here in total anymore. --RomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 18:27, March 17, 2019 (UTC)

Vote(s) challenged

Please post below:

Pioneer

• Hello, I was wondering if I could get a clarification on the rules please? The voting rules are very clear about excluding active administrators of the 2013 English Uncyclopedia Project Fork aka uncyclopedia.co from voting here, but they do not mention active administrators of the 2018 English Uncyclopedia Project Fork aka Uncyclopedia 2.0, which Pioneer is under the username "開拓者". It seems there must be a mistake if Pioneer, a user with 10 main space edits on this wiki, is allowed to vote and users who have seven years worth of contributions are not. Thanks, Zombiebaron (talk) 14:53, March 17, 2019 (UTC)

I would want to look at contributions starting in 2013 when considering the number of edits for a good faith vote. The reason for this is that if no edits were made to THIS wiki between 2013 and February 2019, there was no clear intention to contribute to THIS wiki, which became separate from en.uncyclopedia.co on Jan 1, 2013. If there is no clear intention to contribute to this wiki, then it begs the question: what is the real reason for voting, if not to contribute to THIS wiki?

Moreover, can somebody who has shown no intention to contribute to THIS wiki truly be considered part of the community of this wiki as of February 25, 2019? Yes, before 2013, those who contributed here were part of the community of this wiki as of Dec 31, 2012. We have missed you, and wanted you to come back and help out within the guidelines our host set and work with the admins. But, if you chose not to do that, you effectively left this community and formed/joined another. Likewise, if you were running a vote to move to another host on your wiki, you would not want people from here coming in out of the blue to try to make the vote for you, even though we had been part of the same wiki in 2012. You are correct however, in that there may be a conflict of interest for Pioneer as well: What goes for long-time admins of en.uncyclopedia.co also goes for admins of other projects that say they are Uncyclopedia but do not have the same community that this site does. At least the Mirror (also known as trashipedia) in fact redirects to more active sites (like yours: CarlB made the ruling on which one to direct to) in its site message, and has never claimed superiority to anything. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Simsilikesims (talk • contribs)

Hello Sims, thanks for the reply. A lot of your message isn't about my request for clarification on Pioneer's eligibility to vote. I believe I understand the community here's feelings on the schism and I do not want to challenge your authority to exclude whomever you want. Based on your comments it seems that Pioneer is indeed ineligible, so thanks for the clarification. As to the rest, I don't believe the Uncyclopedia.co community has ever or will ever be excluding users from our democratic process based on which other wiki communities they are a part of. For example Miley Spears recently proposed a rather significant change to our VFS system. Zombiebaron (talk) 23:53, March 17, 2019 (UTC)

We tend to look at whether they are active here, and only 10 edits really isn't very many. If we go by exactly 5 edits, if you made 5 edits between Jan 1, 2013 and February 25, 2019 to mainspace pages, not counting edits to talk pages and forum pages, then you are active here. Yes, ZB, you made way more than that before 2012. But the question would then be, did you make any edits improving articles between Jan 1, 2013 and Feb 25, 2019? If the answer to that was yes, then you were active here after the split. Pioneer did make at least 5 edits between Jan 1, 2013, and Feb 25, 2019. So no, we are NOT just excluding based on being part of another community, there is also a test as to whether you count as being part of this community. However, his vote should probably be scrutinized, and I will leave the final decision on that to someone else. I said it MIGHT be a conflict of interest, not that he was definitely ineligible. PS - I will be checking contributions here soon and reporting back. -- Simsilikesims(♀GUN) Talk here. 01:23, March 18, 2019 (UTC)

Update: If we DO count talk pages and forum page edits, Zombiebaron DOES have more than 5 edits between Jan 1, 2013 and Feb. 25, 2019. If we DO NOT, then he does not. If we DO NOT count talk pages and forum page edits, Pioneer has almost exactly 5 edits between Jan 1, 2013 and Feb. 25, 2019. However, I think both ZB and Pioneer have already voted. -- Simsilikesims(♀GUN) Talk here. 01:58, March 18, 2019 (UTC)

Good point about edits since 2013. I wish I'd thought of that. However, since the voting is already in progress and the rules don't mention 2013, I don't think we should add it. No more changing the rules out from under an active vote. I'd prefer it be left alone at this point unless people really, really want it changed.

The rules do not mention Uncyclopedia 2.0 (and as above, I'd rather we not add that at this point), so The Pioneer is eligible. He also is not advocating for closing uncyclopedia.wikia down in favor of 2.0, so I personally consider the alleged conflict of interest a non-issue. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 06:09 18 March 2019

Zombiebaron hasn't voted as per guidelines regards conflict of interest on administration grounds. Regards The Pioneer JP, I presume he is an admin on Uncyclopedia 2.0 but this issue wasn't raised before voting started (2nd version) and also whether 'Uncyclopedia 2.0' is more like a mirror than an active site. Perhaps also we have allowed Dǐll_Kevlar's vote to stand because of my original fuck-up on vote (1st version) so the Uncyclomedia option retains that endorsement from this user. --RomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 12:12, March 18, 2019 (UTC)

• According to the written rule at the top of this page, I believe that I am completely eligible. I would rather question this questioning posted by ZB, who everyone knows support the idea of merger. My vote wouldn't have been questioned, at least, by him if I had voted for .co, because he wouldn't have the merit to do so. As a matter of fact, I got questioned by users on .co on their Discord after he notified them that I voted for Miraheze. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by The Pioneer JP (talk • contribs)

  This is complete speculation. The rules state that those with vested interests should recuse themselves, and you have the clearest vested interest of us all: money. Miraheze needs donations, and you are already soliciting the Uncyclopedia community for donations. If you voting on this forum isn't a conflict of interest, I don't know what is. Zombiebaron (talk) 17:06, March 18, 2019 (UTC)

  I'm rather telling the fact than asking to donate. And providing the answer to the financial concern given by the community; we have the right to solve it by ourselves.--The Pioneer JP (talk) 17:26, March 18, 2019 (UTC)

• As I already said, Uncyclopedia2.0 is a different project (or a reboot) than a direct fork. The founder, Psl, has no intention to merge or destroy the existing communities (neither this community nor .co). His intention is focused on building a completely new community. As it looks to me that he is only interested in creating rules and infrastructures than articles themselves, I, though given permissions, almost have no will to support the wiki more than what I would do as a global CVT (which applies to any wikis on Miraheze). Thus, there is no conflict between this community and U2, as far as I know.--The Pioneer JP (talk) 16:30, March 18, 2019 (UTC)
  • I saw what Carlb said, and I should also note that the current Potato logo we use for U2 is created by Isarra and was released as a PD image.--The Pioneer JP (talk) 16:51, March 18, 2019 (UTC)
  • That looks like an error on Isarra's part, here. If the original design belongs to user:rcmurphy, then only user:rcmurphy can change the licence to public domain. He did not. The change "in something like 2006" wasn't to put this in the public domain, it was to allow GFDL (in addition to our licence here, CC-BY-NC-SA) so that the logo could appear in the Wikipedia® article on Uncyclopedia®. The .SVG version, as a derivative work, would indeed remain subject to the copyright status of the original image. carlb (talk) 17:49, March 18, 2019 (UTC)
    • Hmm, we would like to hear what Isarra (Lyrithya) and Rcmurphy has to say on this, to be sure. Thanks for your comment.--The Pioneer JP (talk) 19:03, March 18, 2019 (UTC)

As someone who successfully filed two DMCA take down orders in just the last week, that gives me the right to think I'm an expert on copyright law even if I'm really not. The original poster posted it under a Creative Commons license. That means the burden of proof would be on someone else to show that they owned the copyright before that posting was made.  King of the Internet Alden Loveshade??? (royal court)  19:25, March 18, 2019 (UTC)

So does this mean we need to change up the logo a bit? Would gold plating the potato help? Snarglefoop (talk) 20:14, March 18, 2019 (UTC)

OK, we may be able to add the contributor list for the U2 logo. However, I feel things are kind of mixed up even within Uncyclopedia, seeing that this version was posted by another person and s/he claims that s/he has abandoned any copyrights s/he has.
Meanwhile, I have checked some trademark databases ([8] [9] [10]) and found out that Uncyclopedia is a registered trademark (registered by Carlb), but only in Canada (unlike Wikipedia, which is registered in most, if not all, countries). Since Miraheze is hosted in the US and the Netherlands (where Uncyclopedia is not registered), I don't think the use of the name Uncyclopedia there is restricted, at least, from a legal point of view.--The Pioneer JP (talk) 20:33, March 18, 2019 (UTC)

There was one arbitration case involving Desciclopédia® in Hong Kong in 2008, but copyright is a separate issue from trademark. If the copyright on the Uncyclopedia® puzzle potato belongs to user:rcmurphy and someone else creates a derivative image, you'd need the permission of everyone involved - not just the last person to edit this. carlb (talk) 23:43, March 18, 2019 (UTC)

See Does The Pioneer JP have the right to vote here?.  King of the Internet Alden Loveshade??? (royal court)  17:03, March 18, 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification.--The Pioneer JP (talk) 17:26, March 18, 2019 (UTC)

Does The Pioneer JP have the right to vote here?

Voting requirements:

1) Voting: Users and administrators/bureaucrats will have equal value as regards the vote count.

✓ The Pioneer JP is a user and/or administrator/bureaucrat of this site

2) Restrictions: No I.P. voting permitted.

✓ Has a named account

3) No account created here after 25th February 2019 will be able to vote either.

✓ Created account here on July 11, 2018

4) Uncyclopedians who have been active administrators (five edits or more) at uncyclopedia.co from 25th February 2017 to 25th February 2019 are also asked to recuse themselves from voting here as that would be a conflict of interest and could effect the the outcome.

No check necessary; this is a request, not a requirement (before arguments start on this, I got a call from the Governor of my state asking me to vote for a candidate he specified; even though he's the most powerful administrator in the whole state, I don't have to vote as he requested. For a related reference (and yes, I know this law doesn't legally apply to Uncyclopedia, but the principle is there), see https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/594)

5) Must have five edits to this site before 26 February 2019. (This means you must have five or more edits to uncyclopedia.wikia.com before that date.)

✓ Has five or more edits here before that date

6) Active editors on the fork must have five edits to this site between 1 January 2018 and 26 February 2019. (This means if you are active on uncyclopedia.co, you must have five or more edits to uncyclopedia.wikia.com in that period.)

✓ Has five or more edits here during that time range

Conclusion: The Pioneer JP has the right to vote here on this issue  King of the Internet Alden Loveshade??? (royal court)  16:58, March 18, 2019 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I do not think it's either right or moral that The Pionner votes being a representative of Miraheze. So how do they deny the right to vote to ZB and other .co users but maintain the rights to Uncy 2.0. However I have 5 issues within the period and kept a total number of 389 issues in .co. Anyway, as a representative of UnMeta, I believe that I could not vote because it also influenced the voting. I think the most fair way would be to make it clear that all managers outside UncycloWikia did not vote because of a conflict of interest. Rhubella Marie, the rat sockpreppie preppiedits 00:59, March 19, 2019 (UTC)

I strongly agree with Rhubella. I don't doubt that Pioneer can vote under the current set of rules, but I strongly question whether he should be able to vote. As an administrator on the fork, I've tried staying out of this process as much as possible to avoid giving the appearance that any of us are manipulating the decision, but there's a large number of people who have devoted pretty large chunks of their lives on this site, building it up to be what it is today. In some cases, these people have even spent more time editing this site specifically than they have the fork, and years worth of writing and personal history is contained within. These people aren't allowed to voice their opinions now because they had foresight regarding these issues with Wikia and spent their vote in 2012. This is what they felt was truly best for the wiki at the time, and none of them did it for personal gain.

I also understand why these users are no longer considered part of the wiki, and why their interests elsewhere might conflict with the interests of the current community and its future. What I don't understand is why someone who's never been part of this community but who technically meets the requirements is allowed to voice their opinion. His bureaucrat rights on Uncyclopedia 2.0 aside, Pioneer lists "CVT of Miraheze" as his occupation in the header of his user profile here, and virtually all of his edits to this site are connected in some way to Uncyclopedia 2.0 and Miraheze, as their inter-wiki representative.

I really like this wiki and its community, and based on prior experiences I've had with him, I also happen to like Pioneer. I was present with him in the Miraheze Discord several nights ago when their staff members stated that hosting Uncyclopedia wouldn't even be a possibility for a while, and I was present with him tonight when they clarified that it would cost them twice as much money to double their storage just for this wiki. As often as he's pushing this wiki and the foreign language Uncyclopedias to move to Miraheze, I don't think he's being entirely honest about the benefits and I would really hate to see anything bad happen to any of these wikis because someone personally involved with Miraheze was allowed to capitalize on an oversight in the rules. If people who were major contributors to this wiki for 7 years of their lives are unable to vote because a better opportunity for Uncyclopedia presented itself in 2012, while a high-ranking Miraheze member/bureaucrat of the fork hosted by Miraheze can take advantage of an oversight without making any real contributions to Uncyclopedia, then I question the fairness of these rules and I really hope an addendum is added to prevent any such votes with obvious vested interests from being considered in the end. Un-Supergeeky1 (talk) 02:42, March 19, 2019 (UTC)

I don't know and don't need to know what country you each live in; the moral issue may vary by country. But currently, Uncyclopedia.wikia.com is hosted in the United States of America. In the USA, it is considered legal, acceptable, and often even expected to vote for yourself in local, state, even national elections, let alone vote for something you're associated with.

But in any case, that's immaterial. The question is, is a person qualified to vote by the rules here, no where else.  King of the Internet Alden Loveshade??? (royal court)  03:00, March 19, 2019 (UTC)

With all due respect, you are in no position to complain about someone who has "never been part of this community" getting a vote. The Pioneer has contributed several articles to this site, which is more than you have done. I suggest you return to "staying out of this process as much as possible".

These complaints against Pioneer reek of trying to discredit someone who favors an outcome the forkers don't want. They haven't said a single word against Dill Kevlar or Mohicans, who are only here to push the forkers' agenda. There is nothing in the rules about Miraheze or Uncyclopedia 2.0, there isn't going to be, and putting it in now would be unfair to the voters and serve the purpose of excluding a vote some people don't like. Please, everyone, drop it. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 03:36 19 March 2019

For what it's worth, I don't think anyone would argue against The Last of the Mohicans having their vote stricken. I contacted them prior to this vote and asked them to stay out of it after their participation in the previous forum, and my request apparently went ignored. Nor would I argue that I should be able to capitalize on this vote, having never been a contributor myself and having an obvious interest elsewhere. But as a final comment before seeing myself out, I'm sorry if anyone thinks this is an agenda being pushed in favor of one option in particular. Most of the people calling Pioneer's vote into question aren't actually from the fork, Rhubella included. I also recognize and respect the fact that Pioneer has forked two articles from another wiki to this one, and curiously, both of those are advertising Miraheze wikis, one article being up for deletion.

Considering 1) the vote rules are just now suddenly being locked into place after previously being changed several times due to similar oversights, and 2) additional votes are apparently going to be considered invalid after the vote is over regardless, I would strongly suggest consulting a completely neutral third party like Sannse to help decide which votes are ultimately counted when this is all said and done if the legitimacy of certain votes aren't going to be decided openly now, seeing as she made it very clear this vote should be for members of this community only and not representatives or people employed by others. I know everyone here just wants what's truly best for this wiki and its users, and that could very well apply to Pioneer as well, for sure. Un-Supergeeky1 (talk) 04:34, March 19, 2019 (UTC)

I understood the rules of this poll and left a question, did Carlb vote? I saw that at no time should he have this opportunity taken advantage of. I only saw him defending the pros and cons of the change and the technical qualities of his servants in comparison to the other voting options. Even on this subject we are debating now. And in a way, this bifurcation served as a trap to all those who edit outside the site if foreign editors are those of the bifurcated version because UnMeta has made the official interlink for their wikis.

I'm not saying this only as a representative of UnMeta but as a bureaucrat of a Galician wiki who can not edit any interlink here because of the unique fault of Wikia's incompetence in accepting new wikis that were created from 2007. And from the first that this wiki got rid of Wikia in 2012 I established contact. This was inevitable since the own Desgalipedia was born in Wikia and for lack of the recognition of the part of them requested adhesion to UnMeta. Also unavoidable for the .co version that had to recognize a score of wikis that generally (between inactive or less than 1000 articles in most of them) compose the universe of uncyclopedias today. I am a wiki representative who has about a fifth of articles that this version (number that drops to a seventh recital to .co) a wiki that is version can not recognize for sheer stupidity of Wikia in a fight with UnMeta that already lasts more than 10 years, almost the same 10 of creation of the wiki that I represent (August 17, 2009) or the date of exit from here (November 9, 2009). Trap, because somehow this sudden change made them out of the preference of UnMeta wikis, because if before Desgali could have the interlinks of their articles but not be able to interlink those of the Galician version, today after almost 7 years even that.

I think of this trap in the rules as follows, I (from a user's point of view of this site) can not allow any user outside of this community to vote and change the result in a possible conflict of interest, well, that I understood well, and this applies to any foreign user (not just .co users). Well, I declare that at the first moment I was invited to participate in the UnMeta Discord as I checked the forums about the exit situation of the wikis I quickly realized that UnMeta would hardly benefit from the fall of communism in Wikia and later independence of uncys due to the great knowledge of the weaknesses of its servers. And yes the idea of reunification was in vogue. I also make it clear that there was agreement that there would be help from the different farms to guide the wikis in the way they wished to do from their independence. Well, these voting rules do not only affect any .co users, but the UnMeta users and any other foreign users who will observe how things go here, since even the Russians came to help retrieve the data to be taken to the new house. Well, okay. I know this conversation is long but my point to ask is if Carlb did not vote for being a member of UnMeta and therefore also hit by voting rules because The Pionner was not? Oh, yes (you would say) why she helped this site after abandoning UnMeta and other wikis in the interlinks. But if Carlb, as well as others who have servants, are helping by giving comparisons, pros and cons, including questioning the financial health of their organizations, I can not exactly agree that the only representative I can vote on is someone who is doing the same work that they did and the only reason to vote was precisely to edit this site. For if Carlb, Llwy-ar-lawr, Athyria exempt themselves from the vote because they are actually fulfilling their role as webmaster and tried to offer the necessary help I saw on the UnMeta forum, I believe that The Pionner should abandon this advantage it has to vote and to do the same as they do, because if I were to buy a car and go to 4 automakers it would be highly unethical if my wife rightly worked on one of them and influenced the choice. Rhubella Marie, the rat sockpreppie preppiedits 08:26, March 20, 2019 (UTC)

The Last of the Mohicans

Voted but does not have the required edits. -- (talk) 05:39, March 18, 2019 (UTC)

You are right. The Last of the Mohicans had only 4 edits here before the announcement. Note made against vote and total adjusted. --RomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 10:10, March 18, 2019 (UTC)

No, it's worse than that. He has four edits, total, three are about the announcement (of which two are vote attempts on this page) and the other one is to an article talk page. That gives him one edit before the announcement:

• 20:13, March 16, 2019 . . Forum:Hosting options for Uncyclopedia (wikia) ‎ (→‎([11]) Lyrithya (Athyria) Server Option)
• 21:15, March 13, 2019 . . Forum:Hosting options for Uncyclopedia (wikia) ‎ (→‎Vote here)
• 20:44, February 27, 2019 . . Forum:A message from Fandom ‎ (→‎Uncyclopedia Wikia)
• 23:16, December 5, 2018 . . Talk:Delft

carlb (talk) 15:05, March 18, 2019 (UTC)

Welcome to Miraheze

I just tried making an account on Miraheze.

To begin with, the site wouldn't let me in; I've never been there before, but was still blocked.

So I "bypassed" the block. Then I had to prove I was a real person. I had to click on changing pictures of fire hydrants several times, including eight times in the same square.

Then I tried making my user page. It sent me somewhere else. I finally got there. So I made my user page.

It rejected my user page. It said I was a threat to national security, or some such. I guess that's because I put a link to my own website on my own user page. Horrors!

Then I had to prove I was a real person again. I went through the choosing the right picture thing 12 times, and it still didn't accept me as a real person.

Then I noticed it doesn't even show whether I'm logged in or not. Wikia/Fandom shows me that, Wikipedia shows me that, Uncyclopedia.co shows me that, Discord shows me that, Roll20 shows me that, etc. But not Miraheze.

So I gave up.  King of the Internet Alden Loveshade??? (royal court)  01:50, March 23, 2019 (UTC)

That's too bad. I know they have a CAPTCHA that triggers on external links, but I can't explain the rest. For me it shows whether I'm logged in just the same as any other MediaWiki wiki. I don't know what was going on for you. Looks like you created your account on Meta and then your user page on the login wiki. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 05:14 23 March 2019

Yes, it happens anyway. The best place to create account is for the login version of them. But it becomes bizarre that the Meta version to open a wiki is in another version. Rhubella Marie, the rat sockpreppie preppiedits 20:19, March 23, 2019 (UTC)