Talk: Community portal

Combat Tests

Proposal: Should we consider Combat Tests experimental snapshots? As of now, they're listed simply as snapshots, despite having everything in common with experimental snapshots: they're not found in the launcher, they need to be downloaded from minecraft.net, they're forks of existing versions, and are mostly not compatible with other releases.

Affected pages: Category:Java Edition Combat Tests snapshots.

Deadline: March 26, 2022. – Unsigned comment added by Spectrogram (talk • contribs) at 05:11, 14 March 2022 (UTC). Sign comments with ~~~~

 Oppose - they are explicitly not referred to as experimental snapshots. BDJP ^(t|c) 15:22, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

 Neutral They were never snapshots, but they are also not experimental snapshots. I would be  More happy with putting them to "Tests" category.

Additionally,  Strong Support for removing their reference from main page's "Development versions" section (they seem to be long dead) and removing the section in {{Java Edition versions}}. Instead, there should be a link to the general page at the top of the infobox.--TreeIsLife (talk) 15:26, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Separate Wikis for Legends and Dungeons

With Legends coming very soon, I wanted to open this discussion again.

I don't think this wiki should hold every game in the Minecraft franchise, right now I think it's okay to have all the games here, but with Legends and most likely more spin-offs in the future, this wiki is going to become incredibly cluttered with five different games in one wiki. All of these games are incredibly different from each other, the only similarity is that they are minecraft games.

This tweet by Marc Watson (a developer for Dungeons) is also pretty telling, even a developer has complained about it https://mobile.twitter.com/Marc_IRL/status/1425440132807680005. I understand this tweet is old, however nothing has changed since the tweet's creation, so it still applies.

I only mention Legends and Dungeons in the topic title as I believe they are top priority if we are to move other games to separate wikis. Ideally, all games should have their own wikis, but Earth and Story Mode are discontinued games, so I don't think they're as important to move. Also because I imagine it would be hard to find people to manage those two wikis, I very rarely see any edits on either of those namespaces. HMPilatus (talk) 11:35, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

 Strong Support, but

1. The new wiki has to have "Hydra features" enabled
2. The new wiki should have dicussions turned off by default
3. There should be some sort of "alliance" between MCW, MCD Wiki, MCL Wiki, FTB Wiki and MC Servers Wiki
4. And of course, there should be some more promotion of MCSM and MCE subwikis here.

--TreeIsLife (talk) 12:38, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

 Strong oppose:

1. "this wiki is going to become incredibly cluttered with five different games in one wiki" -> What do you mean by "cluttered", and what actual problems does it cause?
2. "This tweet by Marc Watson (a developer for Dungeons) is also pretty telling" -> On a single occasion, a developer tweeted that, using internal wiki search on default settings, Dungeons entries come second after main game entries. To my knowledge, this is a very uncommon use case; the primary navigation method for readers is external search. It hardly justifies an extensive effort such as a wiki split. As well, if such an issue with internal search is worthy of consideration, there is no state of a wiki, or a pair of wikis, where no such issue arises. On a united wiki, either Dungeons or main game results come first. In case the wikis get split, people might still expect to find spin-off game content here, but would either find non-functional soft redirects, or nothing at all.
3. There are no other arguments presented in favor of an external wiki.
4. I believe there is no way to enable any "Hydra features" on new wikis. I am also not sure these are relevant, given how it's likely further unification would erase all differences in software configuration between Gamepedia-original and other wikis.
5. I am not sure a request to disable Discussions would be approved by staff. Please correct me if recent Discussions updates have changed things around this.
6. I am not sure why any "alliance" is suggested, what kind of structure it is supposed to have, what problems it is supposed to address to justify its operational costs, and why it is believed an alliance is necessary and effective at solving these problems.
7. I am not sure more promotion of abandonware is a useful idea, given the presumably lower reader interest in these topics; furthermore, I am not sure it is within the scope of this conversation, and regardless of that, without any specific ideas of "further promotion", no action can be taken.
8. Points against a separate wiki:
   1. A separate wiki would require duplicating a significant part of the support structure (policies, admin and patrol teams, templates and modules, CSS and JS, abuse filters, and probably others). This would also require requests to staff to enable the relevant configuration (sitewide JS and abuse filters are disabled on new wikis by default; the future of mobile CSS is uncertain).
   2. A separate wiki would not carry the authority of a merged wiki.
   3. A unified wiki makes it easier for the editor community to be united and is less conducive to factionalism.
   4. In particular, the technical and SEO considerations of moving existing, maintained, and non-duplicative content to a separate wiki should be evaluated with staff assistance.

--AttemptToCallNil (talk) 13:26, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

 Comment So few comments about your points

3 - So what will happen, if we keep adding new namespaces. You see, there'll eventually come a time, when we won't be able to create a new NS due to some reason. That means will have to either a) remove the old subwikis or b) make separate wikis anyway. I am sure this isn't the last discussion about this, whenever the separate wikis will be created or not.

4 - if you read a blog about FandomDesktop, you would find a section about the Gamepedia legacy badge, which "would be toggled by a staff setting". This staff setting actually does much more, than just add a badge. Thanks to it, this wiki can have FandomMobile.css to load at least, can have Gamepedia-specific extensions, user profiles and achievements.

6 - it would be some sort of cooperation on a much higher level, than the current MCW-FTB partnership (which is just Xbony, who is BTW not in MCW server any longer). That should solve your issues 8.1 and 8.2.

7 - for example, an anonnotice, which would list these wikis.

Not sure about the 5th point though. I hope it would be possible.--TreeIsLife (talk) 16:36, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

3 - I am not sure why you believe such a reason is more than hypothetical. As I understand, MediaWiki theoretically supports a lot more namespaces than we currently use; I suspect the most likely obstacle is Fandom staff choosing not to add further namespaces even upon our request, and even that seems very unlikely to me. As well, you're missing the option of using a non-namespace based content structure (such as a subpage-based one).

4 - I find it very unlikely the "Gamepedia-original" setting would be toggled for a new wiki, even if that new wiki is a split-off part of a Gamepedia-original wiki. As I understand, this setting wouldn't be toggled for a new non-English wiki, for example.

6 - I'm looking for a more detailed specification. Your baseline is "one person who isn't even in our Discord server anymore"; it's basically one step above "not even a concept we recognize". It wouldn't be hard to beat that.

7 - That appears possible to implement in theory, though I doubt a banner is as effective as one might think; its effectiveness is likely to be undermined by banner blindness. Good social network outreach might be a better option, but I'm not sure we even have social network outreach.

--AttemptToCallNil (talk) 17:10, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

 Strong oppose per AttemptToCalNil. BDJP ^(t|c) 15:42, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

 Weak support From an outside perspective (as is probably demonstrated by the fact that this is my first post on a talk page), I've found it to be a bit annoying to use the wiki with all the different games on it. For a single page search it works wonderfully, but as soon as I start to search on fandom rather than from an outside search engine it becomes a bit of a drag to sort through which game I want or don't want. Now, I'm quite sure that there is a way to search better, but I don't know how and I can't imagine most users would either. Let's just say it isn't the best user experience when the best way to search the site is by opening a new tab and searching straight from a search engine. Another example is the "random page" function; if I want to just browse to try and find something new about the game it takes 4-5 tries before I get a page about the game I want (in this case, Minecraft java).

I won't pretend I know anything about the logistics of moving a bunch of stuff around (again, new here) but the way it is now the user experience is rather limited. Even if we don't actually split the wiki, I wonder if there is a way to separate the pages more cleanly. Ishbosheth (talk) 19:26, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

For internal search, if you're going to the separate search page rather than just using the search pop-up, you should be able to use namespace selection by selecting "Advanced" (right of the search bar on the page) to exclude/include specific game-associated namespaces. The random page feature is known to support rather limited configuration. There is no "random in namespace", so the best you can do is probably Special:RandomInCategory/Minecraft_Dungeons (which still isn't all MCD articles; it might be possible to include all MCD articles in a separate hidden category to allow that special page to work without that limitation).

And yes, moving pages around en masse is rather discouraged, given how Google (and other external search engines) take their time to adapt to large-scale changes. --AttemptToCallNil (talk) 20:54, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

This is what I mean by the wiki becoming cluttered. As Ishbosheth said, and as the tweet I linked to said (and I'm sure there's more than just these two people that have had problems with it), the multiple namespaces make searching internally a pain. If searching is already a problem it will be a much bigger problem if there is then also a Legends namespace, or a sixth namespace. Advanced options exist but they're seemingly not being used. Separate wikis solve the search problem, search engines may take some time to adapt, but once they have the problem will be solved. Overall I think that the work required to separate the Wikis would be worth it, the purpose of a wiki is to provide information for readers, creating separate wikis benefits the readers. While yes you are correct some users may be confused that namespace pages are no longer present, that is a minor and temporary problem that will solve itself compared to the current more permanent problem.

Also, in the case of Legends, we wouldn't have to move any pages if we were to create its own wiki now. It is inevitable that at least some separate wikis will have to be made in the future (putting an entire game under sub-pages doesn't sound like a good idea) as it is likely more spin-off games will be made in some years, so starting with Legends would be a good idea.

I also don't think this wiki should be a franchise wiki in the first place, none of these games are anything like one another, if these games were Minecraft 1 Minecraft 2 Minecraft 3 then it would make sense to have them on one wiki but they are not. Also, separate wikis solves the issue of all namespace pages having Minecraft GameName: in front of their name, obviously this is not a main point its just something to note. --HMPilatus (talk) 22:22, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

I am not sure about the emphasis on internal search. Based on information I was previously presented by Fandom, it is mostly used by advanced users, and much less by regular readers. According to Fandom, most readers come from external search engines.

I suspect if advanced options are not used, but would have helped, it's generally because it's not very apparent that they can be used for that purpose.

For search engines, as I understand, the damage to rankings can be hard or impossible to reverse, especially given how association with an established wiki tends to contribute positively to rankings. (Conversely, lack of such association would contribute negatively.)

Is there any other way separate wikis benefit the readers other than internal search difficulties and random page selection quirks? (Both cause problems mostly for rather advanced use cases.)

I suspected the "lack of other-game pages" confusion to be permanent, rather than a short-term effect. As I thought, simply based on the idea that a "Minecraft" wiki would also cover spin-offs, people might reasonably expect to find spin-off content here, and if the wiki were to be split, that assumption would not hold.

What makes you think it's "inevitable" that new wikis will actually be required? The scenarios previously presented are purely hypothetical; there is nothing that suggests any probable hard requirement to create new wikis in the future.

Why do you call the namespace in front of the name an issue? --AttemptToCallNil (talk) 04:09, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Extra note for those who want random pages in a specific namespace: you can do this, somewhat, but it's a bit convoluted. See the code in Special:Diff/2215657? You could place something like that on a user subpage. However, it is cached internally, so refreshing the page will not change the list. If you, however, select the "Purge" option from the three-dot menu (on FandomDesktop) and confirm the page cache purge, you should see a new list. --AttemptToCallNil (talk) 07:17, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

1.20 Guide

Can anyone create a 1.20 guide sandbox?119.236.254.162 15:00, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Update to the wiki to comply with COPPA

We (at Fandom) have a backend setting to mark wikis as being Wikis Directed to Children. On the advice of our Legal team, we’re going to be marking the Minecraft wiki with that designation.

Why this is being done:

In the United States, case law around COPPA (the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act) is getting stricter and as a US-based company we’re required to periodically make changes to our policies to comply. In reviewing the reasons for the ruling, our Legal team determined that the Minecraft wiki would be marked as a WDTC. This includes all language variants, as we’re a US-based platform regardless of the language of any particular wiki.

So, what will happen?

There will pretty much be almost no change, as most of it is on our backend. But the one thing you will notice is that we have to disable anonymous editing. Anon editing is disabled on Wikis Directed to Children because it opens up the option for anyone of any age to contribute, whereas account registration has an age gate.

--

We're doing the best we can on our side to be compliant with the law. I hope this makes sense to the team here and apologies for any inconvenience this might cause.

Itsjieyang (talk) 22:51, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

 Oppose, per the previous unusual IP disabling incident at Minecraft_Wiki:Admin_noticeboard/Archive_37#Where_did_the_anonymous_IPs_go??. LDM640145test (talk) 10:48, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

I doubt community opposition to the change can make them reverse it. Per the announcement, this was done by advice of their legal team. As I understand, the message was meant solely to notify, not provide an opportunity to dispute the change. --AttemptToCallNil (talk) 11:04, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Even if they wont undo it you guys should at least discuss moving to another service, not that you "have" to but this wiki was made years ago when the service was wikia and focused on that, now its fandom and full of those extreme restrictions and focus on anything but being a wiki, a proper transfer carries over all content so dont sit back and just let the site decay if you feel it, at least give it a good discussion amongst yourselves and consider it seriously, cause other game wikis changed not too long ago due the terrid state they got into Zooboomaafer (talk) 01:33, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Wikia and Fandom is the same service. As people said, it is nearly inpossible, and Fandom knows this. No dev support, no community support and the support here isn't big either. --TreeIsLife (talk) 11:37, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Disabling anonymous editing will also cut down on vandalism and other persistent problems. I agree that users should log in or sign up if they wish to contribute to this wiki. Bianche2006 (My Messages My Edits) 01:54, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

I personally think we should wait until Simple English Wikipedia at least to disable anon editing before taking any action. McEndu (talk) 05:58, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Negative Gamepedia points?! 💀

Anyone know 'ow I somehow seem to have negative Gamepedia points? GK1H ^(P/T/C) 17:54, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

Gamepedia points are a deprecated system. They're all but completely unmaintained by Fandom. I think negative points are a known issue, and I doubt Fandom will fix it in the foreseeable future. --AttemptToCallNil (talk) 17:56, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

Sad, if only they added a Fandom points system and merged the Gamepedia points system into it... GK1H ^(P/T/C) 17:58, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

Just gonna check real quick me new signature. GK1H ^(P/T/C/MCF) 18:00, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

Entire CurseProfile is discontinued. Fandom is looking into replacing CurseProfile, since they have some problems with "Message walls" and "Blogs" tab. The points will lose its purporse, since logged-in users will soon have ad-free experiences, without need for Gamepedia PRO (which was granted for achieving 150 points in a month). Other things (like Gamepedia's notifications system) will get eventually merged with Fandom's one and achievements... nobody knows yet.--TreeIsLife (talk) 20:34, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

Suggestion to your community

Hi, Im not an usual contributor of this wiki but would like to give a suggestion in case you guys are interested or unaware of the possibility: many other wikis have moved to other services over the last few years following wikias buyout and conversion into fandom, as it got much worse for the wiki side of things and they constantly get in the way or do extreme changes that users may not like, like the recent removal of anon editing etc. Maybe you guys dont want to or dont care but I think its important to at least discuss and be aware of how doable it is, since the community may want to at least discuss the possibility between yourselves, maybe vote or leave to mods consideration etc, as far as Im aware a proper transfer would keep all the content and allow more freedom to the userbase depending on which of the alternative services/sites/servers are chosen, I know many game related wikis moved on not too long ago and it was for the better, while other big ones have maintaned themselves off it from the start, so I dont think you should worry about losing functions etc as long as the move is well thought out, just think its REALLY worthy at least discussing it amongst yourselves as the service owner becomes less and less like wikipedia and more and more like some weird clickbait news site agregators who also censors everything. cheers Zooboomaafer (talk) 01:29, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

I think your perspective of this platform is unnecessarily negative. It's not as bad as people like to believe. Jack McKalling (talk) 10:16, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

There's a number of concerns with moving, mainly that the Fandom wiki will be kept open and receive better visibility in Google search results than the new wiki, splitting up the traffic from readers and editors. We are unlikely to receive official support to direct people to the new wiki (as Terraria has, for example), and we also barely have a presence in the community to do the same. –Sonicwave ^talk 22:01, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Portable infoboxes

Request to allow strategy to be listed on MCD pages

I am requesting for it to be allowed that Minecraft Dungeons namespace pages can have tutorial information listed on them, without needing to be on a Tutorial subpage. As I understand, this is currently disallowed. This could be listed in a "Strategy" section of the page, however it could also be a sub-section of "Usage", I am unsure on it's location in the article currently. I only plan to add strategy information to item and enchantment pages. Please note that even if this is accepted, it will take me an incredibly long time to add all of this information. Of course, I hope others will help, but I find it likely that I'll end up doing this myself.

Reasoning:

1. The official Minecraft Dungeons discord server is a better source of information for Dungeons than this wiki is, mostly. That is because in that server people can find out what enchantments they should put on their weapons, on this wiki, that information will never be found. A majority of the official discord and the MCD reddit is full of people asking what enchantments they should use, it is what people want to find out. If the Dungeons wiki is ever going to be good, it needs to have that information listed on it.
2. Minecraft Dungeons functions very differently to regular Minecraft, there isn't much you can say about strategy for the netherite sword for example, but for Minecraft Dungeons, paragraphs can be written about recommended gear and strategies for just one item, and many people have done just that. The rules on tutorial information should be different for the two games as the games are very different.

The only rebuttal to this request I can think of is that the strategy information is subjective, and this wiki seems very against showing any hint of opinion on articles. I think my two points already explain why it should be allowed despite it being subjective. I will also note that I will not be getting this strategy information from purely my own experience, I will be getting this information from experienced community members. By that I mean, the strategy information listed will be as close to "objective" as it can get. HMPilatus (talk) 22:04, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

 Comment: I have my own set of issues with how tutorials themselves here are difficult to find, but in general, I  Support this proposal. About being subjective, I agree it's difficult to find a balance on a strategy section, but we can ask players how they do something, what is the best results they got, and use that on the wiki, and thus it becomes less subjective and more objective, based on actual in-game results. --Thejoaqui777 (talk) 18:37, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

 Oppose. Strong oppose, in fact. This wiki used to be considered "official" until Microsoft objected. However, I would like to see it continue to remain a source of verifiable factual information about the game, not tutorial advice because that goes down the slippery slope into subjective opinions rather than facts. Even in the base game tutorials I periodically have to pare down ridiculous opinions given to defeat a monument or whatever (no, you don't need a Netherite sword) and many tutorials are still full of such crap.

The other problem with tutorials is that they tend to become a magnet for people who want to promote their YouTube channels by posting videos. We have stricter guidelines for videos in articles, but if we start allowing tutorial advice in MCD articles, again, we're sliding down a slippery slope to articles becoming nothing more than YouTube directories. A separate group of Tutorial pages would address the two points made in the proposal above.

Relevant tutorials can always be linked from the information articles, as they are in the base game (for example, Tutorials/Iron golem farming is linked from Iron Ingot#Mob loot). Amatulic (talk) 14:46, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

I believe the problem of "becoming a magnet for people who want to promote their Youtube channels by posting videos" would be non-existent to be blunt, either that or it would be so easy to combat that it would be a non-issue. Same for "becoming nothing more than Youtube directories", that's a very vague phrase that doesn't mean much in reality. Do tutorials make things a Youtube directory?

As I mentioned, and as you have not mentioned, Minecraft Dungeons is a wildly different game to Minecraft. When two games are extremely different, I think it makes sense for the policies on the information shown to be different between the games. Yes, information about needing a sword for a monument is quite silly and not needed, however Minecraft Dungeons is a game built on gear and strategy, so strategy information is more valuable for Minecraft Dungeons than it is for Minecraft. And the strategy listed would be far more detailed than your example.

I see no need for all of the strategy information to go to tutorial subpages. That would mean hundred of pages would have to be created. If a reader wants to find out what gear works well with a certain enchantment, they're going to expect that information to be on the respective pages. The opinionated information would also be clearly marked in a section all about opinionated strategy, so its not going to get confused with facts. A lot of these MCD pages are also quite small, namely the enchantment pages, and could do with more information.

The Minecraft Dungeons Wiki will continue to be a subpar source of information about the game unless strategy information is allowed. I say that as someone who's worked for months on the namespace, someone who is active in the community, and someone who has played the game for hundreds of hours. That opinion also comes from people in the community, namely some of the most experienced players of this game. - Harristic (talk) 16:30, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

To be blunt, I remain unconvinced that article pages won't start getting filled with subjective opinions rather than factual information about the game. The fact that Dungeons is different from the base game is immaterial. If the content of articles becomes becomes subjective advice and tips, that's a degradation of quality regardless of how different the games are.

It is also surprising to me to claim that youtube video pollution would be a "non-issue", when it most certainly has been an issue that has not been easy to combat in the base game tutorial pages. I say this because I know, I've done my share of work cleaning up some pages. On the other hand, we do have a video policy for articles, which would help mitigate such problems in article space.

I wouldn't object to starting out small, like you suggest having a section in gear and enchantment articles showing relationships between gear and enchantments. I would draw the line at advice on the "best" way to defeat a mob or complete a mission, however. Amatulic (talk) 04:31, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

 Weak support If it would increase wiki's usage, OK. But I still have my own feelings about quality of tutorials on wiki, but if somebody thinks he'll fix it (and he'll do so), then we may try. --TreeIsLife (talk) 14:11, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Response for Suggestion Request

Hello everyone, If you see a game suggestion in any talk page, you should respond by being polite, redirecting them, explaining why, and reminding them that this is a colabrative Community project and that mojang developers do not often go through this wiki and may not look or see your comment. Please be supportive and kind, no matter your opinion. An example of a correct response is:

"Hi there, if you would like a suggestion to be added to the game itself please go to to Mojang's official suggestions page here, continuing to make suggestions here is futile and unlikely to be heard, this wiki is not run by Mojang, Microsoft or Affiliates. The minecraft wiki is a collaborative community project."

You may copy the good example ^, don't get close to the incorrect response v.

A example of in incorrect response:

"I think you are stupid and this suggestion is horribly bad and I will delete all of this suggestion."

Or:

"Honestly this Idea would never survive and if it did it would be ignored by all of mojang"

Thanks, MinerMinerMain – Unsigned comment added by MinerMinerMain (talk • contribs). Sign comments with ~~~~

Add "Work in progress from split" template for pages that have been created from a split that need the Work In Progress note

This will help people know that they should grab more information to finalize the splitting.

Task in the Pending Tasks page --Ewrt1 (talk) 02:54, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

That can be accompished by {{WIP|Clean up [[Talk:LINK TO A TALK PAGE|after an article split]]}}, no need for separate template. --TreeIsLife (talk) 16:05, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Suggestions for new bureaucrats

Experimental snapshots and how to handle experimental data packs

Suggestions for new administrator

As discussed in #Suggestions_for_new_bureaucrats, we promote 1 or 2 admins to bureaucrat soon. All current admins don't know Minecraft Dungeons that well, and User:Amatulic suggested that we need a new admin on the admin noticeboard. I suggest User:Harristic as new administrator, because he has experience with the game and is the most active in the Minecraft Dungeons namespace. My only point against it is that he started on the wiki 5 months ago. – Magiczocker (talk) 20:02, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

 Weak oppose for admin rights. I would  Support content moderator rights though. I am not sure, if you had any wiki experience beforehand, since 5 months is not that long of wiki experience for giving somebody admin rights, such as blocking, not at least on the 2nd biggest Fandom wiki. I know you do lot of edits, and generally active, but getting that many rights at once (considering you're not even a patroller) is much in my opinion, especially after my experience of getting admin rights and the issues I had to overcome. --TreeIsLife (talk) 20:20, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

I don't think not having patroller should be a blocking factor, considering that there's no formal process to obtain it and you have to be noticed and suggested by one of the admins or other editors (which might take a while – there haven't been any patroller promotions for more than 2 years). And we've argued against adding content mods (here and here, for reference) on the basis that it's similar enough to admin and would just add extra layers of bureaucracy. –Sonicwave ^talk 20:53, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

The links are the same though

But my comment is basically that I think people shouldn't just jump off the cliff with admin rights and "manage the wiki". That's not the correct aproach. However, if Harristic would use it effectively and correctly (and I mean, I cannot say that he won't be a good admin because he joined 5 months), then I may rethink this decision in the future.

Also, cms and admins are not that similar. Content mods can't view deleted revs, can't block people, can't edit interface and can't nuke pages (just to name a few). Actually, when you compare admins with content mods, content mods have a lot of lsss admin rights. But I respect the decision.--TreeIsLife (talk) 21:09, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

I was the last person promoted to patroller BTW, which was all the way back in January of 2021. I really never knew why we stopped doing patroller promotions anymore, seeing how it could serve as a junior admin role. I  Support Harristic receving the patroller role, but he lacks the tenure (only started editing in late 2022) and potentially some moderation skills required for being an admin. Just want to point out that many of the people promoted to admin were patrollers at the time of their promotion. James Haydon (talk) 21:27, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

The main reason I’d want to receive admin rights, aside from having an admin with MCD experience, is so I could delete files. It would be massively helpful with my Minecraft Dungeons File Renaming project, due to the amount of duplicate files and unneeded redirects present. Of course, another admin can do this, but I think it’d be easier if a person who knows the context of these files were to do it. Also I think you being the last person to be promoted to patroller, two years ago, would explain why I’m not patroller.

However, I won’t push for a promotion if it’s not supported, and it doesn’t seem it is. Especially since, if I’m being honest, it feels like Magic suggested me as a “thank you” for me suggesting him as bureaucrat. I still appreciate the suggestion though of course. - Harristic (talk) 09:20, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Just put a deletion template on the files and an administrator will delete them. There was a big backlog of pending deletions when I became administrator, but now the backlog is quite small. Amatulic (talk) 06:57, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

I'm guessing one of the links is supposed to be to Minecraft_Wiki_talk:Community_portal/Archive_34#RfC:_More_admins? . SLScool 21:30, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Yup thanks, I've corrected the link. –Sonicwave ^talk 22:25, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

On the topic of patrollers, I was the first user who was granted the patroller role, actually. As a patroller you go through the content, and click a button to mark the revision as reviewed by you. And if it was a bad edit, you'd revert it or rollback the user (there's some criterias and guidelines I've used, but I don't know if these were substantiated anywhere). As a patroller you also get the autopatrol right, so others don't need to patrol you in return. It is along these lines that I've always interpreted the patroller role as a "content moderator" all along, because I moderate the content, as opposed to users. Therefor I also don't think there is a need for a new "content moderator" role, we already have this one. In fact, now that there are no IP edits anymore, I think the patroller role could get more effective use out of it. Because before, it was a daunting, tedious and overburdened task to go through and judge all IP edits, but now it could be more feasible to do. We need the patrollers to take away that burden from the admins, and I'm both proud that there were still more than a handful patrollers selected in the end, however also sad that this stopped a couple of years ago. Maybe we can get the role off the ground again with new admins promoting the best people for it.

Personally I'm still not really active enough to consider myself a candidate for an admin role, and for the same reason I don't think I could give a useful opinion about other candidates. But I do believe a new one or two would be nice to have. Jack McKalling (talk) 10:40, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Italicize the "Bedrock Edition"

It is now the official name and should be changed.--Pneuma01 (talk) 14:44, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

 Support changing the italicization site-wide. --TreeIsLife (talk) 14:48, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

 Support - Harristic (talk) 14:51, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

 Strong support BDJP ^(t|c) 14:53, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

 Comment In the edit page of Bedrock Edition, there is a comment stating that "Bedrock Edition should not be italicized unless logo subtitle is added." ManyOursOfFun (talk) 15:47, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

 Support - it's a simple fix, just changing the {{In}} and {{IN}} templates would fix most of the formatting across the wiki. We would have to change the style guide and the Bedrock Edition article too. Amatulic (talk) 06:59, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

And the Main Page too.--Pneuma01 (talk) 00:30, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Should we archive MCW:TASK?

In my opinion, MCW:TASK seems to be a redundant page to other ways of doing things, such as CP, AN or Discord, where we have something similar as part of "wiki requests" channel. Also, it isn't that active and seeing how inactive the last year was (for the wiki as a whole), I don't think we should further split similar discussion to similar pages.

I would like this page to be archived, with a message box directing users to either CP, AN or talk pages. --TreeIsLife (talk) 19:59, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

I'd  Support archiving it. While I don't have any strong opinions on the purpose of the page, all of the discussions on the page are in a white box, or a very light green. And all of the text is a very faint grey, instead of the black text you'd expect on a white background. I'm using dark mode. I'd prefer we archive it and have the discussions be on pages where reading isn't difficult and painful. - Harristic (talk) 20:14, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

The page wasn't designed with dark mode in mind, so I can understand why it doesn't look the best for those who use dark mode. To be fair, this is a styling problem and not a good argument against the whole usage of this page. If there are reasons why the page stays, then those styling problems need to be addressed separately. It was a lot of work to get it to this stage, there were several phases of development prior to what it is now, and together with others I've worked hard on making it work including even with the help of the wiki manager of the time. It's a shame it didn't get used so much while I became inactive. I'm aware that other platforms became more prominent such as discord's wiki requests. I would not know how they work, as it happened during my inactivity. Does it really cover everything that this page was meant to cover?

The purpose of this page or its successive system, is that it becomes possible to delay or relay tasks to other people, that are too heavy or tedious for you. Tasks that you know need to be done but you don't know if you're the right one to do it. So other editors who are more capable and appropriate for it can choose to do it from a catalogue, without you having to find out first whom to relay the task to. Supposedly you notice a problem somewhere, and you know how that problem should be approached, but you need help in making it happen. Then this system is there so you can leave the task in a documented state, without having to go out and get into contact (or even find) the one who can take on the task. A sort of "leave it to others and forget" kind of deal. And as the other half of the cooperation, the system offers a way for people who don't know what to do but want to help, to find a task they might be interested in doing with instructions on how to do it. A kind of "what shall I do, oh this might be fun" deal.

So the system takes care of both sides of the communication problems that would arise from endless wiki discussions or votes or ideas that get lost due to people becoming inactive, or stalling discussions because they don't get to a clear decision. If both of these two halves of the system are already entirely accomplished with the discord or other alternative systems for the wiki, then I guess the page indeed serves no purpose anymore. But I can't say or tell whether this is the case, so I wanted to explain in full here what the page really is for. It would be a shame if all my work on this gets wasted because people didn't understood the purpose. Or if some other system were used in its stead, which still not addressed all of these points. Jack McKalling (talk) 13:32, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

The styling has just been adjusted to be compatible with dark mode. Could you confirm this is indeed what you had in mind, Harristic? Jack McKalling (talk) 05:40, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

That looks infinitely better. That was my only issue with the page, so I no longer really have an opinion on this discussion. - Harristic (talk) 22:19, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

@Jack McKalling: The dark mode issue just pointed out how inactive the page has become. If the page was needed, every second link on this wiki would link there and dark mode would be fixed. I would say that there is no "actual replacement", as it's inpossible. However, what I say is that lot of the stuff have been replaced with Discord and rest stuff goes to "other pages" (ex. talk pages).

I know the idea is actually very good and useful, though our wiki is just too inactive to have even more community splits, especially at a time people are migrating from talk pages to Discord, and as I haven't seen many people being interested in MCW:TASK. Before this proposal, I've visited that page 3 times and always felt the same, as not much of activity has happened there, even though 2020 and 2021 were one of the biggest years in wiki history.

In the end, if people think this page is important, I would say the best option would be to add its functionality to other page, such as MCW:CP page, as for me its not ideal to have lot of places to discuss nearly the same thing, while few months ago the wiki had the lowest number of editors in at least a decade. --TreeIsLife (talk) 20:55, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Well those things may be true, but I don't agree that people using Discord instead of the wiki for important discussions is a good thing. I was under the impression that it is still stimulated to keep important discussions on the wiki and that is the main reason why the task page is here. That its functionality could be attached to existing pages would be a different discussion. I like the idea, but at the same time I feel it's better to keep a single page dedicated to these tasks, considering how large it could become, and finding stuff on it is easier if there isn't also unrelated discussions on it. But if the scope of this system is increased to fit the discussions typical for the CP, somehow, if that would work, then I guess it could be merged there. But I'm very sceptical about how and whether that would work. There're a lot of task properties, such as who posted, who is working on it, categories, all of which has nothing to do with general discussions that aren't tasks. It would need a complete overhaul to make it work in a bigger scope, but I would support that if there are great ideas for it. Jack McKalling (talk) 09:25, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

How'd I get so many negative wiki points?

I haven't looked at my own profile in at least a year or so. Today I looked at UserProfile:Amatulic and in the top right corner there's a huge negative number. Where did that come from? I recall I used to be up there among the top 10-20. Amatulic (talk) 22:14, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

That's a glitch that started occurring July of last year, where anyone who's reverted edits at any point would get a large decrease in their total WikiPoints. Fandom is aware of the issue, and there's currently no plans to fix it since the system that WikiPoints rely on is deprecated and will eventually be either removed or replaced – JEC _talk @ 22:41, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

I see. So I guess I built up that large negative number by reverting a lot of unconstructive edits. Amatulic (talk) 23:18, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

That bug description is not fully correct. It is intended that the person being reverted loses the points for that edit again. However the bug is, that everyone who ever edited the page gets their points for their most recent edit on the page removed, instead of just the user actually being reverted. It also means that multiple reverts on the same page can cause you to lose the points for your edit on that page multiple times as well. That's why even long inactive users are getting a lot of negative points and why it's more noticeable for users who edited a lot of different pages with bigger edits worth more points. MarkusRost (talk) 23:35, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Where should be the article about the wiki?

Minecraft Dungeons Tutorials

I was looking at Minecraft's seas of tutorials and then looked at MCD's tutorial section. Nearly blank. While I like whomever put up that farming section, shouldn't there be more tutorials other than the level guide and button controls, which shouldn't even really belong? There used to be a couple for the levels, for example to get poison-enchanted daggers for Redstone Mines. Could we try to bring back helpful pages like that? Some possible ideas include item suggestions for different levels, one for how to unlock the secret levels step-by-step, ways to beat bosses, etc. Orbisculating Seaborgium (talk) 15:45, 22 April 2023 (UTC)Orbisculating Seaborgium

Go ahead and start writing a tutorial! I've written a few myself. As they say on Wikipedia: be bold!

Just try to bear in mind that tutorial pages should not rely on YouTube videos. Personally I prefer descriptive text, diagrams, and screenshots. Too many tutorial pages are basically YouTube directories to videos, which were added to the tutorials by people with a conflict of interest. Amatulic (talk) 15:33, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Would be greatly appreciated. I’m genuinely surprised that no one has bothered to make tutorials for dungeons despite it being out for nearly 3 years now. I guess making tutorials take me a lot more effort than I thought. Wish you the best of luck when making them! James Haydon (talk) 15:44, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Closing and merging wiki projects

Loading All Items for a Long List, Instead of Multiple Pages

Is it possible to load a single web page showing all the pages it links to, rather than having the list broken across multiple pages? For example, the list of Java versions spans 4 or 5 pages - can the entire list be displayed on a single page instead? (Even the printable PDF stops at the list's breakpoint.)

The second and following pages have a pagefrom query key to tell the page where to start (e.g. https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Java_Edition_versions?pagefrom=Java+Edition+1.4.1#mw-pages for the second page). Is there a key to tell the page to display everything, or to tell it not to break the list apart?

Thanks.

Norb333 (talk) 20:13, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

I asked over on Wikipedia, and the short answer is no, it's built into the wiki software. More detailed answer here. Amatulic (talk) 15:45, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Pitcher plant

What happened?

I returned to the MCPE Wiki for the first time since 2015, and everything is admin-locked and all the users have left? Can someone fill me in on what happened while I was gone?

Wither28 11:20, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

Fandom bought Gamepedia (its competitor that had the big Minecraft Wiki), started a project to merge duplicate wikis that existed on both Fandom and Gamepedia, and some Minecraft wikis on Fandom were archived in favor of this (Gamepedia-original) wiki. --AttemptToCallNil (talk) 11:23, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

Oh. Are any of the OG users (Darth, db aka Zach, Pigman, MasterofMelons, 707 etc.) still around? {{SUBST:WitherSign}} 12:03, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

None of these names sound familiar to me, so I guess they're not, but I can't be sure. --AttemptToCallNil (talk) 12:05, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

Not familiar to me either. Do note that your signature doesn't work anymore, a lot has changed. You probably need to change it to something else (same happened to me, but I removed my old sig). Jack McKalling (talk) 13:34, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

I think some of the admins may have caused some confusion. Basically, MCBE Wiki has been closed in favor of this wiki's rapidly expanding documentations on Bedrock Edition. It wasn't part of the project to merge duplicate wikis, thought it uses the crossover banner (for whatever reason). However, it is true it was influenced by acquisition of Gamepedia by Fandom.

I won't be able to substitute the template, so I've replaced it with a normal link to your user page.

When it comes to those users, only person I've heard of is Darth as they are/were admin on MCSM Wiki. --TreeIsLife (talk) 14:57, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

Consider moving off Fandom

Fandom is a terrible Web site and you should move off it into another Wiki host.--A n t i F a n d o m (talk) 19:15, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

First, even if someone creates second Minecraft Wiki independent of Fandom, Fandom would retain its copy of the wiki because it's monetized by means of advertisements. Second, I don't believe it's good manners to call any person or entity "terrible" except insofar as you are able to support this opinion with specific factual statements.

However, I'm not saying that disapproval of Fandom is inherently wrong; nor am I saying that Minecraft Wiki definitely shouldn't fork (even if I believe it probably shouldn't). --AttemptToCallNil (talk) 20:13, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

Leaving Fandom has definitely been considered, and it has been discussed for multiple years. However it is not something that can be done so simply. Personally I would love to see Minecraft Wiki leave Fandom, but your comment here only makes that side of the argument look worse. If you want to convince people of your point you must give thought out arguments. -  Harristic | Talk | Contributions 20:24, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

See also previous discussions (1, 2) and a community AMA on Reddit we did discussing this topic. Of course, the situation has changed a bit since then but most of the major concerns still stand. –Sonicwave ^talk 20:25, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

Move to a different wiki host?

Should the Minecraft Wiki fork to another wiki host? This idea has been brought up many times, including in the topic directly above, but recently it has been discussed at length on Discord and has a serious enough possibility that it warrants an on-wiki discussion.

Many editors have voiced some discontent with the current situation on Fandom, including, but not limited to:

• Degraded logged-out reader experience, due in part to the large number of ads (including ads inserted in the middle of wiki content to look like part of it), the obtrusive yellow Fandom navigation bar, and popups, including one asking readers to confirm their age to personalize the ads shown
• Fandom prioritizing its own interests and engagement over those of wiki communities. Examples include:
  • File pages being made inaccessible to logged-out users in order to boost Google rankings (SEO). While not affecting most readers, this makes it impossible for readers to view file histories (a basic functionality available on other MediaWiki wikis), and also hides the link to download the original-quality versions of images, as opposed to compressed versions
  • Adding features like Fandom-created quizzes to the top of pages, often citing vague statistics on "engagement" as justification
  • The aforementioned yellow sidebar, which was justified as reinforcing Fandom's branding, but looks out of place on the wiki, is uncustomizable, and was added without discussion or opportunities for feedback
  • Adding links to other wikis (some of which cover questionable topics) and unrelated Fandom articles in places like the Fan Feed and full-page search results
• A sentiment that the wiki has lost some respect in the larger Minecraft community due to the previous factors. Complaints about the wiki or Fandom appear every now and then on various discussion spaces like r/Minecraft and various Discord servers, often ascribing to Fandom unrelated factors like misinformation or believing that the wiki has actually lost information after the move. Of course, these vocal opinions do not necessarily reflect the general view of the readerbase as people with less negative opinions are less likely to speak up.
• A sense that the number of editors and overall activity has declined after moving to Fandom, even before logged-out editing was disabled. I'd like to get some hard numbers on this if possible.
• Various minor glitches and loss of features that affect editor workflow, such as the loss of CirrusSearch removing the ability to search within subpages (including talk page archives) and namespace shortcuts like "MCW:TALK" not working in the search bar
• The very idea of being independent and not under a wiki farm is also seen as favorable by some

Of course, switching hosts will not be a simple task. Notably, Fandom's forking policy requires the current wiki to be left intact and any links to the new wiki to not be displayed for longer than the first two weeks. This means that we will basically be creating a new wiki with the same content and revision history brought over, and moving the editor-base to the new wiki (assuming the community is aware of and agrees to the move). The Fandom wiki, while no longer having its existing editors, will continue to remain up without any indication that it's moved, competing with and likely outranking the new wiki in Google search results due to Fandom's high SEO.

We will therefore have to promote the new wiki via other means. As of now we don't interact with the larger community much nor have official support. Given the general negative sentiment towards Fandom in the community, it's likely that they will help spread the news and redirect people to the new wiki, but I'm not sure how much this would help. Some editors have also suggested contacting content creators to help with promotion.

The choice of host is another important factor. The three main hosting options currently under consideration are wiki.gg, a wiki farm run by former Gamepedia staff members where some wikis such as Terraria have moved to; the host of Bulbapedia; and ABXY, a host of several wikis including Inkipedia, StrategyWiki and Zelda Wiki. A rough overview of various considerations that have been discussed so far are outlined at User:MarkusRost/fork and this Google spreadsheet, but of course that is not a complete outline of the discussion.

So the main questions to discuss are, should the wiki fork and if so, where should it fork to? –Sonicwave ^talk 05:49, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Out of the alternative hosts, I'd prefer wiki.gg as I already have an account there (I also edit(ed) the Terraria wiki), and I'm unfamiliar with others 😉 As far the transition itself, while Minecraft Wiki is no longer an "official" wiki as such, I feel Microsoft and Mojang would have much easier times popularizing the wiki at its new site (if and wherever would it be) than Re-Logic in case of Terraria; after all, we're talking about the best selling video game, owned by one of the largest IT companies out there. They even have a search engine of their own, though rigging Bing to prefer the new site over Fandom would feel dirty. — BabylonAS 07:28, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

As a Director, I have one main reservation. The French wiki for instance is too small to survive a move, it would be nice if we could have interwikis pointing in and out of Fandom, so the EN wiki links to the FR Fandom, and vice-versa. --MetalManiacMc, French Minecraft Wiki Administrator 08:11, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

That won't be possible unfortunately. Fandom wouldn't allow to link to a wiki on different farm. You'll continue linking to this wiki. --TreeIsLife (talk) 08:18, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Won't the fork be total, i. e. cover all the language sections, not just the English one (with perhaps a few other larger ones)? — BabylonAS 08:41, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

The fork would include all language wikis interested in forking as well. It is assumed that most of the active language wikis are likely to follow the English wiki. Note that depending on the host the language wikis might not be forked at the same time as the English wiki but delayed by up to a few weeks. MarkusRost (talk) 17:12, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

The ZH wiki has been considering this matter but we simply just couldn't see any better option to us (we have many reasons to move and to not move, but it's a bit complex). Just like the concern of FR wiki, even if EN could move, other languages would face the problem of being too small to survive a fork, and since interwiki to another wiki farm is impossible in Fandom (also considering SEO), it's an all-go or all-stay. -- Lakejason0 (Talk • Contribs) 09:05, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Two main reasons to move are network access condition (it's been too slow recently in China mainland) and the lack of missing IWR for ZH, in other words, permissions (it's due to all members in Fandom Community Central Crew of Chinese simply cannot be employed by Fandom due to either law restrictions or else). To not move of course is also network access condition (all options are not getting this better) and the lack of permissions (all wiki farms now in China mainland are either having little knowledge about MediaWiki compared to Fandom which has been so many years or we couldn't move into due to their policy). -- Lakejason0 (Talk • Contribs) 09:11, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

And yes, that's what we are concerned about - considering SEO and what will newcomers think of the forking action, especially for other languages of MCW. For zh-wiki I don't think forking can solve our main problem, that is, SEO and the acceptance of a new wiki farm, and also how to guide our new comers to access and edit in our wiki.--Lxazl5770_zh.admin（论 ▪ 功） 10:11, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

I support the Minecraft Wiki forking. While either host is a vast improvement over Fandom, I would much prefer we became independent, forking to either ABXY or Bulba. This is for three main reasons:

1. I believe independency should be the goal of any wiki, for editors to have complete control over the wiki and how it functions. While wiki.gg is a much better wiki farm than Fandom, I do not find the idea of being under another wiki farm ideal.

2. Wiki.gg's philosophy of "we will add requested features only when it helps a wiki fork to us" irks me the wrong way immensely. Visual editor, a basic feature that I would consider a requirement for any wiki, was only implemented very recently despite it being highly requested for a long time. Notifications, a useful feature that we have felt the effects of not having due to Fandom breaking them, is not implemented on wiki.gg at all, and would only be added since it would further convince us to fork there. I find this unfair to the other wiki communities at wiki.gg, and I wonder if our concerns and requests will be so important to them once we are in their hands.

3. I am quite active on Inkipedia, an independent wiki hosted by ABXY. My experience on that wiki makes me confident in the idea of independency, more specifically ABXY. -  Harristic | Talk | Contributions 09:53, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

I do not support forking simply because having two similar wikis is disastrous, especially when the most known and visible one is out of date (fandom). For most non EN wikis the editor base is really small and one-time editors will likely edit the fandom one. It would bring so much work and so many issues that I don't find it worth it. Fusion thermonucleaire (talk) 10:15, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

I support forking to a different host, preferably Bulba or ABXY (in that order - I view Bulba just a little more independent wiki-wise than ABXY), due to the high degree of independence we'll be getting, in the same spirit as Harristic. In an ideal world I'd prefer going fully independent. DarkShadowTNT (talk) 12:27, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

 Strong support to ABXY or Bulba.--Arceusgjengen (talk) 13:45, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

If we move to a different host, would that mean that upgrading the software version will potentially become more difficult? A big company like Gamepedia or now Fandom has a much larger technical background and foundation than a smaller independent platform, and so I don't feel confidence in the alternatives mentioned when we want to keep up with the evolving MediaWiki. My preference goes to Mojang/Microsoft themselves. Let them host the wiki themselves, then we can finally call it official. But honestly I'm fine here too. If it were up to me I'd not move at all because I don't have a problem with this platform. Jack McKalling (talk) 17:52, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

As far as I know moving to a different host wouldn't make upgrading the software substantially harder, all of our host options have their wikis on the most recent MediaWiki version. Why exactly would we want to have Microsoft host the wiki? We'd be labelled as official in exchange for being ruled over by a company that cares about us less than Fandom does, and having possibly even less freedom. Also we have no indication that Microsoft would host the wiki, so they're not an option.

-  Harristic | Talk | Contributions 18:20, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

As for Mojang/Microsoft hosting the wiki, that's definitely not not an option. We just need to ask them, and figure out what options are there. Because before you've asked, the answer will always be no. It shouldn't be swept off the table just yet. I'm currently in a conversation with them about this, lets see what they're saying. Jack McKalling (talk) 20:08, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

You are currently discussing the idea of Mojang/Microsoft hosting this wiki with Mojang/Microsoft themselves? Who exactly are you talking to, and why have other community members not been invited into this discussion? -  Harristic | Talk | Contributions 20:27, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

It's not a public discussion, and I'm under NDA there. Let's see if something comes out of it. Which could be anything, including a public discussion. Jack McKalling (talk) 21:03, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Well, that's certainly interesting, forgive my surprise. Although I'm intrigued, I really don't think that being hosted by Microsoft is a good idea, for one we'd all probably be forced to use Microsoft accounts to log into the wiki. In a dream scenario we could be hosted by one of our other host options (wiki.gg, ABXY, or Bulba) while still being considered official and being promoted by Microsoft and Mojang. -  Harristic | Talk | Contributions 21:22, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

I'll warn everyone now that while what I'm about to discuss will sound obstructionist, I'm not against forking the wiki. I just want to know if we have access to people who've done this to another Fandom wiki before, so we could ask how the experience went. What concerns me is that Fandom is a U.S. corporation (right?), and I believe that under U.S. Copyright law, Fandom has what's called a "compilation copyright" on the wiki. A compilation copyright covers making copies of an entire work that is composed of a number of component works, which may or may not have various kinds of individual copyright protections. Fandom hosts the wiki to make a profit. An exact duplicate of the wiki would create competition that eats into that profit. The compilation copyright idea exists specifically to prevent that from happening. So while CC-BY-SA allows you to make copies of individual articles, the compilation copyright can prevent you from copying the wiki as a whole. And even if Fandom choose nots to assert its compilation copyrights in such a case, they can't divest their rights (it's automatic, they didn't have to register or request anything like you would for a patent or trademark). So if in the future they feel like a fork is costing them views, they could change their mind and sue the fork host to take the wiki down and claim any profits it made. The forking policy does sound like they're willing to allow a fork, but it's not legally binding on them to honor it forever. The upshot is, we might have to rewrite a substantial number of articles if they change their mind. I'd like to know if other forked wikis have ever had issues like these.

There's also the question of how much help they'd give us. The forking policy says they'd prefer to work out the issues that make a community want to fork, rather than just let them go. Do we have to go through a process of negotiation before they agree? If they agree, does that mean they'll make a copy of the wiki available to us? And some things, like certain templates, modules, and stylesheets, are their intellectual property; I presume we couldn't copy those.

Admittedly, I am not a lawyer. I'd be very interested if any editors who are lawyers or law clerks would be willing to respond to this. — Auldrick (talk · contribs) 20:54, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

I doubt actual lawyers would give any advice here; that said, I'm not a lawyer either, and this obviously isn't legal advice. I actually doubt Fandom has compilation copyright here - based on what legal texts I could find, it would require Fandom to have made creative value judgements about what to include on a wiki and how to include it; however, these decisions are made by community members. I found nothing that suggests applying compilation copyright to wikis is anything more than an untested legal theory, nor am I aware of other copyright challenges to forked wikis from original hosts.

Please list all wiki pages you believe to be exempt from the CC license, as well as the reasoning from the exemption you believe to exist. --AttemptToCallNil (talk) 05:09, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

I received some information from this week's upcoming technical update to share with you all. It pertains to the one of the initial points "Adding links to other wikis (some of which cover questionable topics) and unrelated Fandom articles in places like the Fan Feed and full-page search results". On desktop (the experiment needs to be rerun on mobile) Fandom actually just productized a change from a successful experiment to only show content in the fan feed from the wiki the reader is currently on. This change was pushed out last week. So no more recommendations from other wikis, at least. — OishiiOnIno ^{( talk )} 23:26, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Another thing I can share with you all is that Fandom has actually been talking about a change to the global nav color for logged out users. I don’t have a final decision to share with y'all just yet, but can confirm the color is likely to change to something more muted. — OishiiOnIno ^{( talk )} 19:02, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

As for my own opinion on forking: I've been pretty hesitant on the idea until recently, primarily due to the fact that the Fandom wiki won't be redirected. Having two competing wikis would increase confusion among readers, potentially decreasing the credibility of both wikis, and I'm unsure how effectively we can redirect readers and editors to the new wiki. As many or most readers likely don't participate in the Minecraft community, it's inevitable that a certain proportion of readers will be unreachable regardless of the amount of promotion we pull off. It's also possible that new editors will actively update the Fandom wiki, although this probably won't happen quickly given the relatively low participation in the wiki from the overall MC community.

On the other hand, if we really want to fork and have good reasons for doing so, I don't think we should necessarily let this factor of "reader confusion" be the blocking factor. My motivation to work on the wiki has dropped in part due to the Fandom changes and the increased negative sentiment from the Minecraft community regarding Fandom and this wiki by extension. I also get a sense that the number of active editors and the overall motivation of the community has dwindled, although I'd like to get some hard statistics on editor count. However, I personally don't share the opinion that full wiki independence is of high importance and that wiki farms should be completely avoided; my concerns are mostly regarding the Fandom platform specifically.

For these reasons, if we do decide to fork my preference would be to go to wiki.gg. I think we'll need all the SEO we can get, and wiki.gg already has some platform recognition for hosting other forked wikis such as Terraria. It's been suggested that wiki farms tend to achieve better SEO than independent wikis, though I'd like someone with more knowledge to confirm this point. I'll give the caveat though that I'm much more familiar with wiki.gg than the other listed options.

Also, this isn't to say that I see wiki.gg as without issue. As of writing they don't seem to have either on-site or email notifications set up, which to me seems like basic functionality for wiki editing. They also don't currently seem to support a proper mobile skin which may be an issue; I think accessibility and having a interface better than Fandom's will be important in getting users over. However, wiki.gg staff and other users in the wiki.gg community may be able to help us with designing supported skins as well as other technical issues. On other platforms, we may have more options regarding customization but will probably be more on our own, and I have doubts about putting this workload purely on community members, given the lack of initiative that sometimes happens (as seen by fact that large discussions move slowly and often stall or result in no action). –Sonicwave ^talk 06:35, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

I suggest that, in order to reduce ads, readers can be guided to use ad filters, but only block ads between page contents. Whatever part of the ads is blocked, some ads should be kept appropriately, after all, a large wiki farm cannot be sustained without any income.

There's also a good idea to actively guide readers to sign up and log in, so they can freely choose whether to hide the "Popular Pages" on the side and/or the "Fan Feed" at the bottom, and can make edits whenever they want, which can help increase active users. Logging in can also reduce ads.

Regarding the limits imposed by Fandom, I think it is impossible to escape from any limits imposed by wiki hosts as long as we are not independent wiki sites. Therefore, we may have to accept some limits and actively communicate with the wiki host to balance the host's measures with our freedoms. Of course, I think it's a bit improper of Fandom to add links of other wikis and their pages (and sometimes something inappropriate) that are completely unrelated to the content of the page.

There are now three options: Move to a different wiki host; Set up an independent wiki site; Stay in Fandom.

If we move to a different wiki host, the first and most immediate impact is the delays of the different wiki hosts. According to the delay test results of chinaz.com website, the delays of other wiki hosts (which I concern more) are 50-100ms more than Fandom in average, which is sometimes the difference between accessing the website and connection timeout for Internet users in China mainland and other countries or regions. However, the flow we may have brought to the wiki host can generate more income for it and use the income to improve the quality of the server connection. The second is the impact to SEO, which I don't know much about, so I won't analyze it. Of course, there is also advantages of this option, one of them is the limits imposed by the wiki host can be reduced.

If we set up an independent wiki site, the first problem is how much budget we need to keep the server sustaining. Perhaps the major ways are donations and ads. Secondly, the moving of SEO and flow may not be as successful as moving SEO and flow to a different wiki host, after all, we set up our own site. There is also a risk of cyber attacks that will affect the website negatively. However, the advantage of this is quite clear - there are almost no limits, and everything is up to us. However, I personally think that this is likely impossible and will be difficult.

To sum up, I think we can stay at Fandom and continue to work to acquire more rights. Of course, above is from the view of an ordinary editor, I might have not taken into account the specific demands from admins.--AblazeVase69188 (talk | contribs) 10:48, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

I think you are overly optimistic that Fandom will implement suggested changes that improve reader experience, and that we will gain more rights. Fandom is actively getting worse when it comes to readers experience, the most recent example being the forced age screening.

I also think you are overly pessimistic about the wiki becoming independent. We have two parties offering to host us, the simple act of them offering to host us proves that the Minecraft Wiki becoming independent is possible and can happen, it would be strange for them to offer hosting without being sure that they could actually host us. Also, I believe the wiki would fund itself relatively easily through ads, the sheer popularity of Minecraft shouldn't be underestimated. As for SEO, in the long term we will achieve the same search result spots no matter where we fork to, that being mostly the second spot, sometimes the first depending on the article. -  Harristic | Talk | Contributions 11:25, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

There is no basis to be certain that any fork would share similar search engine positions. As I understand, the people who said that recovery is certain never explained how they reached their SEO-related conclusions. As such, it's not wrong to retain doubt in that search engine rankings will recover. --AttemptToCallNil (talk) 11:31, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

Us not asking our hosts how they came to those conclusions does not mean those conclusions cannot be a basis for at least some certainty, though the information would be nice to have. -  Harristic | Talk | Contributions 12:59, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

I strongly support the wiki moving platforms to one that has no editing limitations and uses the default MediaWiki theme.--Eduaddad _(talk) pt.Wiki Administrator 16:16, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

I don't support the forking, mainly for following reasons, after discussing with wiki admin team from Chinese:

1. The connection of the website. Well, this is the main problem happened in China, as a foreign website the connection is usually poor no matter where the wiki hosted in.
2. SEO, of course. Similiar to the above one, is really poor.
3. Advertisement. This seems still exists, and we don't know if our community will accept them.
4. The separation between the two administrating team, and even the potential separation of the entire community.

To short, MCW in other languages have their own thoughts and problems about this forking. For the Chinese one, forking will not solve the problem and even make things become worse. That's all about our concern.--Lxazl5770_zh.admin（论 ▪ 功） 16:47, 15 June 2023 (UTC)