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[DeKaFu]

So apparently Wikia just introduced a mandatory change to a new, unmodifiable wiki skin that has a lot of people upset. As a result, a lot of Wikia wikis (including big name sites like WoWwiki) are trying to move to a new host. Emphasis on trying.

See, Wikia doesn't want people to leave. As a result, the staff is taking an active role in:
 - Removing any links and notices about the site move and new location (this is apparently "advertising a competing site")
 - Reverting any attempt to remove pages from the Wikia wiki (vandalism)
 - Banning/Revoking admin rights of anyone who takes part in the above or is just vocal about their intention to leave (because if they intend to leave, they obviously shouldn't be admins, right?)

Essentially this means that actually moving the site is impossible, and instead the best that can happen is a "fork" where the wiki community moves to the new site, but the old site remains on Wikia, generating ad revenue and misdirecting google searches.

Now, the reason this affects me is that my sister is heavily involved in two extremely small Wikia wikis, one of which she's a co-admin for. They're currently in the middle of moving to a privately hosted mediawiki, but now she's worried about how to progress. The intention was always to leave a message on the main page linking to the new wiki while including contact information for anyone who wanted to take over the wikia, but now she's afraid even that may get her in trouble.

What do you guys think about this? I'm interested in seeing how this situation progresses.

[ein]

SSDD.
Business as usual.
Let it be, they'll kill themselves off eventually.

[Cthulhu]

Nethack managed to make a clean break, although the old wiki is still there.  Maybe ask one of their admins.

[KaguroDraven]

Ah yes, that new skin. Even if it where modifiable it would annoy me with it's set up. I'm actively looking for other wikis for things I want to look up stuff for now, just becouse that skin pisses me off.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Wikia will break. They can't preserve all of this stuff forever, and it won't be long untill their staff can't keep up with the deletions. They'll either have to let their skin be modded, or let their wikias leave. Chances are that they're going to lose some revenue over this.

[The Merchant Of Menace]

This isn't really new news. Wikia introduced the new skin a few months ago, with a clear warning that it would become mandatory.

[DeKaFu]

WoWWiki was an interesting example, because it was one of their largest and most valuable (revenue-wise) sites. Wikia actually made a special exception that ONLY applied to WoWWiki, allowing them to change to a larger screen width. This was a last-ditch effort to get them to stay, and wasn't offered to any other site on Wikia.

It didn't stop them from moving to an off-wikia site (though Wikia refused to give up the WoWWiki domain name, so it's now Wowpedia). Blizzard has linked to Wowpedia, and most of the community has apparently migrated there, but WoWWiki is still up and has no links to Wowpedia.

Should be interesting to see how that plays out.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Chances are that people will just keep regestering dummy accounts and breaking down the old sites untill they become unrecoverable, to get back at Wikia once their pages are copied elsewhere.

[ChairmanPoo]

Wikia is programmed to receive. You can check out any time you want, but you can never leave.

[ToonyMan]

Yeah I like the old wikia skin a lot more.  I found that turning off javascript and zooming in a bit makes it at least usable which is fine with me.  I have no idea what those guys were thinking with making that skin mandatory though.

[nenjin]

A host of reasons, probably. Maybe they want to license it and fear that making it moddable will allow people to subvert features. Maybe they're concerned about security.

Anyways, this is an interesting test of the value of information. We tend to assume we own content put up on the internet...but as was said, it's not necessarily who has the information, but how it's used to interfere with site direction traffic or split user bases.

[Leafsnail]

Huh, I did see that the Touhou wiki was moving.  Although they have a massive link to the new site on their front page.

Maybe you could try whittling away the content on the pages gradually, until nothing's left?  Or just repeatedly merge them until its unusable?

[nenjin]

Maybe you could try whittling away the content on the pages gradually, until nothing's left?

I'd assume some of that content is still stored somewhere, and admins could revert the page? It would add to their labors, certainly.

[ChairmanPoo]

Why so destructive? 

[nenjin]

If you mess with the info bull, you get the data horns?