User:MetallicKaiser/LeavingFandom

'''Hey everyone. Today we'd like to announce that we're officially moving off from Fandom's website onto a new server. The new wiki is live at https://jojowiki.com. We've discussed leaving Fandom for years and now we've finally decided to take the opportunity.'''

We apologize that we've had to keep it a secret for a while to get everything set up, but we believe it's ready for launch.

Forking off from Wikia/Fandom will allow us to be independent from Fandom's policies regarding customization, javascript, and many more. We can also add any extensions we want and create our own skins. We hope to see everyone over on the new wiki.

What is forking?
Forking is the process of leaving https://jojo.fandom.com and moving to our own domain https://jojowiki.com. All of the admins, moderators and many of the active editors have already moved onto the new site.

If interlanguage wikis (such as the Russian, Spanish, French, and Portuguese JoJo wikis) are interested in moving with us, we may have a solution for that. However, for the time being, the English wiki is the focus until we are stable.

Why?
Short answer: To move away from Fandom.

Longer answer: Here are a few reasons:


 * Wikia/Fandom's movement away from wiki content to click bait blogs and editorials. Their rebranding from "Wikia" to "Fandom" only confirms that they want the site to be less of an encyclopedia and more like a social media site.
 * Fandom's increasing control over our site content, such as reviewing the Javascript we add, limiting how many links we can add in the top navigation bar, forcing obtrusive ads and pushing their own "Featured Videos" over the actual articles.
 * Speaking of the videos, they are made by Fandom staff with content that we have no control over. While there is an option to disable them for logged in users, guests of the site will still see them and the majority of our viewers are guests.
 * Fandom's security allows vandals and trolls to easily remove content from pages and there's no way for us to see IPs to handle these cases more easily.
 * Fandom's MediaWiki software is extremely out of date and relies on a heavily modified version of it. MediaWiki 1.19 was released in 2012 and many custom extensions are not supported, nor can we add any ourselves without having to email Fandom. However, they do have plans to update to the latest version but who knows how long that will take.
 * Fandom doesn't care about us nor do they care about JoJo. Our community voluntarily edits and handles the site daily for free while they're reaping the benefits from all the advertisement revenue.
 * On January 2020, they will forcibly remove all Forums and replace them with their social media-like 'Discussions' feature.

Who is running the wiki?
Vish and MetallicKaiser.

Why didn't you talk about this sooner?
We have kept this under wraps for several reasons:


 * Fandom knowing too early could have been problematic.
 * We couldn't have too much traffic on the site while getting everything ready.
 * We didn't know how long it will take to get everything ready and the actual process of migrating all the articles and images while fixing various bugs took some time.

Do I keep my account?
Yes. You will need to create a new account but just follow the short, easy instructions in this thread. Your username doesn't even need to be the same if you want to change it. Then Vish can reassign your edit history and contributions to the new account.

What happens to the old wiki?
Well, we plan to stop editing it. It'll be moderated for vandalism, but without proper article progression and quality control, it'll eventually become obsolete. We'd also like to note that all JoJo Wiki-related social media such as the Twitter or the new Discord will now be affiliated with the new wiki.

Is this why the background and favicon changed recently?
Yes.

What about SEO and traffic?
SEO will be a problem since Fandom is basically all over Google, but we hope the traffic we get on the new site after this announcement will bring our search position higher. We believe the new wiki's domain (jojowiki.com) and it's improved mobile functionality will assist us in this endeavor. That said, we would be truly grateful if the JoJo community supported us with this project by spreading news of the new wiki's existence.

What changes?
We've tried to add all the custom features Fandom had with their own extensions. The only thing missing right now is the Special:WikiActivity page but Special:RecentChanges still exists which is primarily the same. We've also included new extensions such as a new point system, the ability to upload several pictures at once via drag & drop, being able to thank other users for their edits. Without fandom restrictions, we'll be able to continue adding new features to the site in the future.

What's next?

 * We plan on adding a Dark theme soon, among other useful extensions.
 * Several new pages will be introduced such as an updated interview archive, a model sheet archive, a pose reference gallery, and more.
 * If you'd like to discuss the new server and ways to improve it, please check out the new forum, contact us on twitter, or join our new public Discord server.

Final Note
This decision wasn't an easy one; some of us have been working on this website for over 7 years. However, we've also seen how wikia / fandom's policies have changed over the years and have a pretty good idea of where it's going. We'd like to continue providing information about the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure series as it comes out and we'll absolutely need your help to do it. Thanks again for your support and we hope on the new wiki.