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Blastfrog

Doom Wiki should get a new name IMO

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Voluntarily split off from this thread to avoid derailing it.

Jon said:

We already suffer from accusations of impartiality (and get referred to as "the doomworld wiki").

I don't follow the wiki's happenings very closely, so that's news to me.

Regardless of who administrates what, I do think that a closer association would strengthen the notion that it's the "proper" community-run version and not a denounced knockoff.

If a newbie searched for a Doom wiki right now, they'd see the Wikia version prominently, and the official one would appear to be the "knockoff" because it's just some identically named clone that doesn't appear nearly as prominently on search engines. Making it the "Doomworld Wiki" would help to mitigate that, as Doomworld is the unquestioned community hub of all things classic Doom, making Wikia look more generic in contrast since they "serve" many communities.

Regardless of association with DW or keeping its own identity, using the same name as the old wiki is a problem. It'd be nice to see it with equal or greater status on search results while keeping the name, but that battle has been lost for years and continuing to use the name will not solve the problem.

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Well, if it does wind up needing a new name, how about WikiDoom? That's the only name I could come up with. (I googled Doompedia, and it's already taken.)

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I think "Doomworld Wiki" or "The REAL Doom Wiki" are both great changes. What Soda says is unquestionably true, it appears as a knockoff to those who don't know any better.

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I like The Real Doom Wiki

Random ideas:
Tei Tenga Wiki (unique to Doom)
Union Aerospace Corp or UAC Wiki
Doomworldki (lulz)

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Lots of people have learned that searching for "x wiki" is an easy way to find a community-run information site about topic x. Changing the name to something arbitrary would be counterproductive.

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I sure wouldn't assume Doomwiki was a knockoff of Doomwikia. Mainly because it runs vastly superior, because it doesn't have STUPID ADS ALL OVER THE PLACE.

Honestly, anything to help the real Doomwiki would be a blessing.

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Linguica said:

Lots of people have learned that searching for "x wiki" is an easy way to find a community-run information site about topic x. Changing the name to something arbitrary would be counterproductive.


I agree. I think the real concern for most people is that Doomwikia always steals the spotlight, when really, it is just a worse-running version of the wiki. The wiki is just so nice and clean.

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obake said:

I sure wouldn't assume Doomwiki was a knockoff of Doomwikia. Mainly because it runs vastly superior, because it doesn't have STUPID ADS ALL OVER THE PLACE.

Right, but not all new users will be that perceptive. Less experienced viewers will notice search engine prominence more than the things you noted. Also, some users run adblockers.

Linguica said:

Lots of people have learned that searching for "x wiki" is an easy way to find a community-run information site about topic x. Changing the name to something arbitrary would be counterproductive.

It should have Doom in the title somewhere, but having an identical name to a product we're trying to divert as much attention away from as possible doesn't seem to be the best course of action.

Perhaps the Ultimate Doom Wiki? Because it's not just better, it's the end-all-be-all. Or something. I dunno.

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We DO have a proper name. DoomWiki.org. Or in full, "The Doom Wiki at DoomWiki.org".

Changing to anything else would be legitimizing the other site, not going to happen.

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Sodaholic said:

Perhaps the Ultimate Doom Wiki? Because it's not just better, it's the end-all-be-all. Or something. I dunno.

Wouldn't we also need a Doom 2 Wiki, Final Doom Wiki and (shudders at the thought) Brutal Doom Wiki?

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Quasar said:

Changing to anything else would be legitimizing the other site

Heavily agreed. The name conflict is necessary, else we give up the identity to Wikia for good.

On a less-philosophical note, changing the name certainly wouldn't improve the ranking for anyone searching for "Doom wiki" (which is what people are going to type, plain n' simple), and folks would gravitate toward the Evil Wiki(tm) simply for this fact.

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GreyGhost said:

Wouldn't we also need a Doom 2 Wiki, Final Doom Wiki and (shudders at the thought) Brutal Doom Wiki?


I wasn't aware that id Software were behind Brutal Doom.

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Sodaholic said:

Right, but not all new users will be that perceptive. Less experienced viewers will notice search engine prominence more than the things you noted. Also, some users run adblockers.

It should have Doom in the title somewhere, but having an identical name to a product we're trying to divert as much attention away from as possible doesn't seem to be the best course of action.

Perhaps the Ultimate Doom Wiki? Because it's not just better, it's the end-all-be-all. Or something. I dunno.


I'm not sold on a name change but "The Ultimate Doom Wiki" is my favourite suggestion so far.

As for search engine prominence, I think we need to address that with quality content, especially in areas wikia is weak (doom 4), and play the long game.

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Truth be told, I was too stupid to notice a difference. Now I don't know which site I always went to for info. Perhaps it's because I also use the zDoom wiki and often use the wikia of other games. >.<

Now that I know I can easily see the difference, but I suppose the only way to advance the search priority of the DoomWiki is for more people to use it than the other one. A name change seems like it will only hurt things, making it harder for returning users to find, not to mention if it screws with DNS settings, well, it can suck to have to use afterward. Take this site's recent move, I had to download Firefox solely for DoomWorld because I cannot reset the DNS cache on my phone short of a factory reset. My phone was, (ironically) of course, built for chrome. Because we all know how superior chrome and Google are. The only name change that would make sense would be straight-up "Doom Wiki" because that's what people will search for and the wiki might be able to get the edge on the competition with a 100% name match, or maybe I'm just dumb and no name change is the only way to go.

Not that I'm much of an intelligent person, but id have to say that Ling, Jon and Quasar have got the right idea. Screw the name changes; add content that the wikia is lacking. I just suppose that we may then have to worry about them copy+pasting the info on their site and of course the Doom 4 race will be tight regardless, but if needed, I may learn how to contribute to the wiki with articles and content and whatnot. Anything to beat the competition ;)

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It seems pretty clear that the name is unlikely to change (seeing as how some of the people most closely involved seem to have a preference for that). Ling's point about how people search is a very valid one, and possibly the most relevant comment on this. Changing the name to something else is likely to result in the Wiki slipping even further down peoples' search results.

As for "The Real Doom Wiki": no no no no no! As soon as you say something like that, what you actually set up in peoples' heads is exactly the opposite. "They had to tell us it is the real Doom wiki? It can't be the real one then". A friend of mine who is in marketing says that people do this kind of thing all the time and all it does is increase and accentuate the opposite of the intended effect. The British Army leafleted enemy strongholds with pamphlets saying "we can see you" which was interpreted as "we can't see you" by the enemy. My work received a leaflet about a new and particularly difficult task entitled "it can be done" which immediately made people think "it can't be done".

"The Ultimate Doom Wiki" could well work. Despite the meaning of the word "Ultimate" it doesn't sound as much like the title is trying to persuade the visitor that this is the real one. Also, there is the obvious nod to The Ultimate Doom. That reference may go past the casual visitor of course but it could (perhaps) also make some more clued in people think it was only about the ultimate edition of Doom and that any Doom version other than Ultimate were not part of it. Unlikely, I know, but it could.

Personally, I think the current title is the best.

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Enjay said:

As for "The Real Doom Wiki": no no no no no! As soon as you say something like that, what you actually set up in peoples' heads is exactly the opposite. "They had to tell us it is the real Doom wiki? It can't be the real one then".

The Real Ghostbusters disagrees!

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Personally, I think that also smacks of "not really real".

And, in some ways, that's correct because the whole point of "The Real" in that case was, I think, because there was another Ghostbusters franchise that pre-dated the Bill Murray (etc) movie and was nothing to do with the Ghostbusters that we all know. "The Real" was to distinguish it from the other, unrelated, older IP after a copyright dispute IIRC.

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Obsidian said:

I wasn't aware that id Software were behind Brutal Doom.


So its a doom information center without information about any of the mods, or additional wads ? what does it do to fill its pages ??? document the entire source code ???? Post the credits as seen in the game ???? WHAAAAT !

Spoiler

(this is a joke.)

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Fonze said:

I just suppose that we may then have to worry about them copy+pasting the info on their site


This is quite likely to be a problem, but the old and new wikis are now incompatible license-wise. One cannot legitimately take content from the real wiki and put it on the wikia without attribution, and wikia are not permitting links to the real wiki. However, it's the copyright holder who needs to complain if it happens, and that's the person who wrote whatever was copied. If it happens to your content, you can file a DMCA complaint.

Having said that, one cannot copyright facts, and there's nothing to stop them taking factual information from our site (such as, say, a WAD sha1 sum) so long as it's not embedded in a bunch of text which is copyrighteable.

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GreyGhost said:

Wouldn't we also need a Doom 2 Wiki, Final Doom Wiki and (shudders at the thought) Brutal Doom Wiki?


I see those fuckers have already slipped in Brutal Doom into certain pages.

eg "but in Brutal Doom, Pain Elementals explode when they die SO WATCH OUT WHEN YOU'RE PLAYING AN UNOFFICIAL MOD LOL"

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SavageCorona said:

I see those fuckers have already slipped in Brutal Doom into certain pages.

eg "but in Brutal Doom, Pain Elementals explode when they die SO WATCH OUT WHEN YOU'RE PLAYING AN UNOFFICIAL MOD LOL"

When I see that sort of shit, I erase it. Because I'm a prick.

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I was hoping that was a joke, SavageCorona. But just like real life cesspools, it's not surprising that Wikia is full of shit like that.

Also, Adblock plus racked up a count of 25 on that page. Holy shit

EDIT: Of course, I suppose the lack of Brutal Doom infecting an entire wiki is why the real Doom Wiki is called the Doomworld wiki, because it means the doomwiki doesnt like brutal doom and only the elitist berks at doomworld don't like doodle broom

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Here's an idea. Let's ADD to this kind of defacing and make the info on that Wiki useless. And once it's far enough rename it to 'The BRUTAL Doom Wiki'.
Problem solved. :D

If Wikia lets this kind of information slip through it's finally a means to render that steaming pile of shit useless without getting banned.

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