Doom Wiki

[exl]

spicyjack said:

If it's a new thing, FFFFUUUU Wikia.

I've been seeing that on the Fallout wikia pages for months. Damn them.

[Nameless]

I think you all should keep the discussion about moving, in this forum, lest wikia might decide to lock the admins from their adminpanel. Let it all be normal on the wikia. Always good to point this out.

My two cents.
Also, the new design doesn't bother me at all. Then again, I'm rather flexible.

[Gez]

Uh, that's new, too. Even in Monobook.

If you don't get it, I'm referring to the thumbnails of articles in the category pages. I don't hate it, but it doesn't actually seem really useful.

[Jon]

Gez said:

Uh, that's new, too. Even in Monobook.

If you don't get it, I'm referring to the thumbnails of articles in the category pages. I don't hate it, but it doesn't actually seem really useful.

I quite like that actually. The source ports category isn't a good illustration, http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Games is better.

[Gez]

And apparently they now removed it from the Monobook skin.

[Quasar]

Just to keep everyone posted, installation/configuration of MediaWiki and its various extensions is under way. More info will be forthcoming as it is available.

[Gez]

Bwahahah:

Dear Wikia administrator,

Do you and your community miss Monaco skin?

I want you to know that ShoutWiki has enabled the popular Monaco skin for all wikis. The skin will be freely available for all users on all wikis until 1 July 2011, after which it will be made an ordinary premium (paid) feature.
More information: http://blog.shoutwiki.com/2010/12/merry-christmas/


You can also download and install the Monaco port (a port based on the Wikian skin Monaco) for your wikia. See details here: http://monaco.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Monaco_port
--
Best Regards,
WikiaVisitor

[Reisal]

That's pretty obnoxious, a skin that will only be free until mid year? Who in their right mind would PAY just to have a visual skin?

[hervoheebo]

Greedy assholes said:

Dear Wikia administrator,

Do you and your community miss Monaco skin?

I want you to know that ShoutWiki has enabled the popular Monaco skin for all wikis. The skin will be freely available for all users on all wikis until 1 July 2011, after which it will be made an ordinary premium (paid) feature.
More information: http://blog.shoutwiki.com/2010/12/merry-christmas/


You can also download and install the Monaco port (a port based on the Wikian skin Monaco) for your wikia. See details here: http://monaco.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Monaco_port
--
Best Regards,
WikiaVisitor

I think I puked in my mouth a little.

[Quasar]

I would really like to see the wiki online before the end of the month if at all possible. At this point I really don't know what's holding us back except maybe Manc's schedule :P

[EarthQuake]

I'm still very anxious as well. I've used the wiki probably once in the past few months. I have little desire to work with it anymore in it's current state, so I really hope you guys can get everything through the door. I don't really think there is anything I could personally help with to make things go faster.

[hervoheebo]

Yeah, same for me. I was actually thinking of bumping and asking for a status report but someone beat me to it. I can't really do anything either, but godspeed to the brave men making this happen.

I've seen a fair few wikis migrate from wikia already. How I wish to see the greedy douchebags in ruin.

[Manc]

All of the extensions deemed "critical" and a number of others have been installed. The next steps are going to involve getting the data and everything that means, along with the look-and-feel or "theme" of the wiki.

[Gez]

Great! :)

[tempun]

?

[Quasar]

I really do not think I have the experience or know-how to run these wiki grabber scripts and not screw anything up. And I am completely unaware of what should be done in order to preserve user accounts and give people a proper chance to claim their old one.

We need help or this is never going to get finished.

[Gez]

Is there anyone who would have said experience and know-how? It's not something I've ever done either.

[Quasar]

Gez said:

Is there anyone who would have said experience and know-how? It's not something I've ever done either.

I have PM'd spicyjack since he seemed to be having quite a bit of success with it before. But if he's not able or willing, we may have a problem.

[Ladna]

The recommended way of moving stuff from one MediaWiki to another is mwdumper. I didn't want to run that (Boooooo Java), so when I moved the IDL wiki from MySQL to PostgreSQL I just copy & pasted the pages from one to the other hahaha. I can setup a test MySQL instance for myself and work on using mwdumper to import the XML dump that I got from Wikia, if spicyjack is gone forever.

EDIT:

Also I don't know what to do about the images. I didn't see a place to grab all of them at once from Wikia, but I looked for about 3 minutes.

[DooMAD]

It shouldn't be too much of a problem if the user accounts can't be carried over. Anyone who supports the move isn't likely to have a change of heart just because they have to sign up again. Or is it more to do with preserving the edit history?

Either way, surely there's no harm in giving it a try as best you can and seeing how it turns out before getting too pessimistic about the end result. If it does go wrong, you can always delete it and try again later.

[Xeriphas1994]

DooMAD said:

Anyone who supports the move isn't likely to have a change of heart just because they have to sign up again.

FWIW I completely agree with this (and I have a *lot* of wiki edits at stake  :>

The revision histories are included in the dump AFAIK, but for security reasons the account passwords are not.  So what Quasar is saying is that after the move, matching people up with their Wikia handles will be impossible anyway, because no one has a workable method for verifying our RL identities.  But I think we'll get over it.

MediaWiki supposedly has some s33krit extension that can update your entire edit history when you change your name (though not your signatures etc. on talk pages).  They use it on Wikipedia.  Maybe now that we're independently hosted, our admins will have greater technical control and can at least *consider* such a procedure.

[Quasar]

Xeriphas1994 said:

FWIW I completely agree with this (and I have a *lot* of wiki edits at stake  :>

The revision histories are included in the dump AFAIK, but for security reasons the account passwords are not.  So what Quasar is saying is that after the move, matching people up with their Wikia handles will be impossible anyway, because no one has a workable method for verifying our RL identities.  But I think we'll get over it.

MediaWiki supposedly has some s33krit extension that can update your entire edit history when you change your name (though not your signatures etc. on talk pages).  They use it on Wikipedia.  Maybe now that we're independently hosted, our admins will have greater technical control and can at least *consider* such a procedure.

There is supposed to be *some* way of at least giving people the opportunity to reclaim their old account name, because whenever somebody DOES sign up with a given name, they will automatically acquire the existing edit history. Without something in place, we will have "claim jumpers" taking other peoples' accounts, possibly for malicious reasons.

[DooMAD]

Couldn't hurt to maybe message one of the admins of a wiki that's already jumped ship from wikia. See how they got it all figured out. I'm sure they'll be more than willing to help others escape, heh.

[Gez]

Earlier in this thread a blog post was linked to which explained a script used to make people register using their wikia account and querying Wikia to validate the password. The result was that stealing account wasn't possible.

[spicyjack]

Quasar said:

Just to keep everyone posted, installation/configuration of MediaWiki and its various extensions is under way. More info will be forthcoming as it is available.

Slowly but surely things are happening. Quasar, Manc and myself have all the needed Perl modules installed for MediaWikiDumper (I think), Quasar will verify, then next step would be to set up MediaWikiDumper (modify all of the files with the correct URLs and user account info) to get everything ready for The Big Scrape.

Quasar would like the new wiki online before the end of this month, and right now, to me, that looks like a do-able goal.

I'm going through the previously posted links in this thread ATM to look for ideas on how to link users back up with their accounts once the wiki data is uploaded.

If you want to follow the play-by-play, we're in #doom-tech on OFTC.

[spicyjack]

Quasar said:

There is supposed to be *some* way of at least giving people the opportunity to reclaim their old account name, because whenever somebody DOES sign up with a given name, they will automatically acquire the existing edit history. Without something in place, we will have "claim jumpers" taking other peoples' accounts, possibly for malicious reasons.

The GTA Wiki is using an edit by the original user on a Wikia page to solve any disputes over usernames.

You would register with your existing username on the new wiki, and have a temp password e-mailed to you so that you can log in (and hopefully change it to a permanent password); if your username already exists (someone else registered it), you register a temp username on the new wiki, then go to the old Wikia Doom Wiki, edit a special page, use the signature code (four tildes, or ~~~~), which causes MediaWiki (the wiki software) to insert a link to your homepage on Wikia, thereby "verifying that you are who you say you are". It is up to the wiki admins at that point to rename the two users involved in the dispute.

Documented on:
http://www.grandtheftwiki.com/Grand_Theft_Wiki:Move_from_Wikia/accounts
http://gta.wikia.com/GTA_Wiki_talk:Usernames <-- where existing users "prove" they have rights to their usernames on the new wiki

Pros: no modification of PHP required
Cons: it's manual labor for the wiki admins, extra work for the person who is disputing the username, but IMO should be pretty manageable

Transformers wiki has basically created a "login proxy"

The "proxy" goes and attempts to log in to Wikia using the credentials entered in to the new wiki site; if the login is successful, then you are who you say you are, and you get the same username on the new wiki.

Documented on:
http://deriksmith.livejournal.com/30305.html (usernames)
http://deriksmith.livejournal.com/30899.html (scraping wikia links out of cloned pages)

Pros: not as much intervention required by wiki admins
Cons: you have to hack up MediaWiki PHP; if editing PHP makes you sqeamish, it's probably better to use the GTA method, i.e. disputes over usernames are solved by having the user in question making an edit over on Wikia to resolve the dispute, and then admins making changes behind the scenes.

One other thing, since I have a personal copy of the Doom Wiki already, we have a testing copy that can be used to experiment with in order to do things like get rid of the Wikia links. If I blow my copy up, no big deal. Actually, if we blow the "real" copy up, you slick the database and perform another clone :)

Oh, and on a completely random note, Wikia is hiring

[Xeriphas1994]

spicyjack, thank you for doing all this work on the community's behalf.

Are user preferences preserved in the fork?  E.g., if I've been receiving automated emails about articles on my watchlist, will I start getting them for the new wiki also?

[Quasar]

spicyjack said:

The GTA Wiki is using an edit by the original user on a Wikia page to solve any disputes over usernames.
...
Oh, and on a completely random note, Wikia is hiring

I have to say that although a purely automated method would be the most convenient, the GTA method sounds the most workable to me. After all, we have a relatively limited number of people who are actually going to make the jump and NOT be able to claim their username properly, and once they're taken care of, the migration cases should be very limited.

And damn, did they have some serious turnover or what? :P And also, why do they need so many "content editors" - are they going to start running the wikis on their own now?

[Xeriphas1994]

Quasar said:

And also, why do they need so many "content editors" - are they going to start running the wikis on their own now?

In fairness, this is a longstanding method Wikia uses for indoctrinating new staff.  You make a few thousand tedious, semi-gnoming edits to learn your way around the software and the "community relations" stuff.  (Unpaid positions, I believe, unless you have previous coding experience.)  If you can collaborate with the volunteer editors for ~18 months without losing your temper, and if you're learning to help with the backend maintenance, you get hired permanently.

User:Toughpigs, one of the people the AWA loves to hate, started out this way.  Wrote hundreds of awesome stubs about Sesame Street.

[spicyjack]

Quasar said:

I have to say that although a purely automated method would be the most convenient, the GTA method sounds the most workable to me. After all, we have a relatively limited number of people who are actually going to make the jump and NOT be able to claim their username properly, and once they're taken care of, the migration cases should be very limited.

That's about what I figured too. If there were issues with the extra PHP, it would be a pain to troubleshoot remote/3rd party like we've been doing the setup tasks.

And damn, did they have some serious turnover or what? :P And also, why do they need so many "content editors" - are they going to start running the wikis on their own now?

Apparently they're live in multiple languages, so I would guess their headcount ratchets up appropriately.