User blog:Icelilly/The future of Hetalia Archives

For those of you who read my Twitter page, you would know that I would be posting an important blog post today. While this blog post is not a mandatory read, it is certainly an important post all of you should read as the decision may affect you and Hetalia Archives as a whole.

I've been holding off the idea since September in case if a change were to happen but it appears that this isn't the case. I hate it, you hate it and I'm sure half of this community hate it too. Yes guys, I'm talking about that.

Oasis.

If you guys have been following any of Wikia's major news stories, it would be the forced madantory imput of Oasis and the removal of Monaco. Our logged-out users and anons are now running on the new skin (as of last week) while the default of our skin, Monaco Spring, will run out on November 3rd (which is about a week and a half from now). So you're probably thinking to yourselves, "Where are you getting at Lilly?" It's quite simple guys. But I will admit, it may be shocking to some users and it will probably bring about future wank in the coming weeks.

I'm thinking of moving this site to another server.

Yes, I said it. I'm thinking of moving our little community off of Wikia's servers for a better host. I've been doing some digging around and I think ShoutWiki might be the best host for us. It's a new wiki farm that showed up sometime last year and it functions very well. The coding would stay much of the same and they are no ads (well, there is a small one if you are logged out but if you're running on ABP then you don't see any ads regardless). We would be working on Monobook but it would be fully-customizible so we can keep a similiar look if we decide to move. The people who work there are also very kind and response pretty quickly. I got a response from them in about 24 hours.

In case if you were wondering, we are not the only wiki who has decided to move. Dragon Ball Wiki, Bleach Wiki, WikiSimpsons, and the third largest Wiki on Wikia's servers, WoWWiki. WikiSimpsons is moving soon (waiting for database dump) while WoWWiki moved last week under the new name Wowpedia.

Pros and Cons of Moving
Here a list of the pros and cons of changing servers:

Pros

 * No more Oasis.
 * Their Monobook functions better than Wikia's Monobook.
 * Rumors are going around that ShoutWiki will be providing Vector and Monaco skins.
 * Pretty much zero ads.
 * Database dump can be done that will include pages (includes user pages!) and templates.
 * Administration is very friendly and quick to response. They can also communicate with users in a variety of different languages that include English, Finnish, Swedish, German, French and Spanish.
 * We can customize the skin anyway we like compared to Wikia's new look.

Cons

 * We would lose the address hetalia.wikia.com.
 * No more unified log-in with the rest of Wikia.
 * No more blogs (however, I have a solution for this (see below))
 * Future competition if Wikia decides to put this place up for adoption if we decide to move out.
 * We may lose people. Either because others don't want to move or people are just not aware of the move.
 * Lots of wank.

Message from ShoutWiki
I sent over a message to them sometime last week or the week before to answer some questions. This is the response I got. Hopefully, this will help you guys answers some of your questions.

Hi there Lilly,

Thank you for your interest in ShoutWiki, and you did send this to the right group of people (Customer Support). When your wiki is imported it will also include templates and userpages. Unfortunately images are not included in the database dump, but don't worry, we have a tool that enables us to import the images for you as well. Account information will not be included in the import, but this is not a problem, because we have a special extension to the MediaWiki software that allows users of the old wiki to log in to the new ShoutWiki site as if nothing ever happened. This allows the users to resume editing almost as if there never was any move. And, since the import will include full article histories, your contributions and edit count will not be affected by the move after your initial login to the ShoutWiki site You will be given the choice of several different skins: Monobook, Cologne Blue and Modern. And you will be allowed to customize the skin as much as you prefer. As for the database dump, that is up to Wikia. You will have to request them to update the current dump (dated January 5, which is quite old), you can request a new dump on special:statistics. (http://hetalia.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Statistics). Once Wikia has generated a new database dump, you can contact us via email or by filing a bug requesting for the wiki to be imported on our Bugzilla (http://bugzilla.shoutwiki.com/). Bugzilla requires a separate login, but once you've made that you can file your bug under imports ("Enter a new bug" -> "ShoutWiki" -> "Imports"). Your wiki will then be added to our import queue and the Tech Team will see that your wiki is imported. If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to contact us. We hope this response has sufficiently answered your questions. If not, please do not send another email. Instead, reply to this email or login to your account for a complete archive of all your support requests and responses.

Thanks and regards, -- Jedimca0 Customer Support Team, ShoutWiki http://www.shoutwiki.com

Replacement of blogs and Hetalia Answers
As you may know, blogs and Hetalia Answers would not be transfered over. However, I have decided to bring back the forum idea that will combine both features. The forum will also be shared with our sister site, Kitayume Archives. The forum would mostly likely be called Hetayume Forums to represent that. In terms of Hetalia Answers, that will be shut down and the forum will have a Q&A section that will contain a master list of all the listed questions so far to avoid repeats. In terms of blogs, I will preserve the important blogs and copy and paste them onto the forum or in a sandbox.

Future of Kitayume Wikii
There may be a possible move from our sister site to the same host. However, regardless of what happens, Kitayume Wiki and Hetalia Archives will remain as seperate sites and we will always be sister sites with them.

It Rests With You
Now here comes your part in this. I can't function with the new skin without my computer nearly crashing but if the community decides on not moving servers, then I will respect the community's wishes and I'll do my best in what I can do to make this place better. I understand that this is a lot of information to swallow but it's important to think this through. Your decision will affect the outcome of this.