MicroNations Fandom:Community Portal

This is the main discussion forum used for community-wide discussions about MicroWiki's operations, policies, design, and improvement.

All members of the community are welcome to contribute to this page. Please sign and date your post by typing ~ or clicking the signature icon in the edit toolbar. If you would like to start a new inquiry, please place it at the bottom of the page with a two-tier (==) heading.

In addition, past discussions from the Community Portal can be found at:
 * CP Archives lists all of the past discussions from the Community Portal page, including major discussions and chronlogical archives.

= IMPORTANT:Future of MicroWiki =

Stuff that is happening
As many of you may be aware, Wikia are going to forcibly change every wiki's forum skin on Wikia to a new one called 'Oasis'. If you haven't yet had a chance to look at it, please do so under 'Preferences' --> 'Skin'.

There has also been a lot of uproar over this decision by Wikia Staff to make the skin compulsory for guests with the following being major concerns:


 * Article width is fixed to only 660 px. This really screws up a lot of articles, especially ones with infoboxes and other templates
 * The alignment for a lot of the templates (especially infoboxes) is screwed up, meaning that all of them are now aligned in the centre.
 * More and larger ads (including a large Wikia banner at the top).
 * Wiki administrators are no longer allowed to place site notices (or anything else) along the top of the wiki's pages.
 * Wiki administrators are no longer allowed to remove 'core features' for all users by using custom CSS or JavaScript.
 * Image attribution is enabled for all wikis. This means that every image displays the name of the user who uploaded it right in the article. Because of the above rule, this behaviour cannot be disabled for the wiki globally.
 * The logo area has been resized.
 * The sidebar is now almost 50% wider, causing it to use up almost 1/3 of the already reduced screen area.
 * The sidebar has been moved to the right side of the page.
 * It's going to stuff up widgets.
 * All the links currently accessible at the top of each page (i.e. 'history', etc.) are now only available in a drop down box (like the 'Vector' skin)
 * All wikis are being forced to transition to the new look
 * Only one wiki, Uncyclopedia, which has been exempted from the switch, for reasons unknown.
 * The staff is unreceptive to repeated pleas from editors not to make this skin mandatory.
 * Almost no customisation of the new skin is permitted.

What's this got to do with us?
The new skin screws up our wiki, more than some other wikis, because we have one heck of a lot of infoboxes and other templates on our pages, which the new reduced width stuffs up.

We are also burdened with the responsibility of having one of the largest and most well-known community of micronations based around this wiki, and, as a result, a major screw-up like this could bring it down in activity and membership or even split it off altogether (I'm not trying to scaremonger here - just being realistic).

A lot of other wikis are moving: http://community.wikia.com/wiki/Forum:Anti-Wikia_Alliance#Lists.

Our options and opinions
We have the following options:


 * 1) Stay here and bear the changes.
 * 2) Move to another wiki farm

Please add your signature (and a short reason/comment if you want) to the relevant sub-heading below.

I would like for MicroWiki to move to another host and I will move with it

 * If it stuffs up our articles, we need to move. § A-One § Your friendly neighbourhood Admin (Talk • Contribs) 11:41, October 17, 2010 (UTC)


 * Tom Turner 11:45, October 17, 2010 (UTC) (A move is odviously nescecary if articles are going to mess up).


 * Definitely--Eleytheria (T / B / C) 11:56, October 17, 2010 (UTC)


 * Count me in, it's for the good of the community, so we need to get the hell outta Dodge. Knight990 12:01, October 17, 2010 (UTC)


 * Definitely. Ouch.jars, His Royal Überness Prince Jeremy Oakes of Optima 12:19, October 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * If the things said here are true, this is what we should do.QuentinWyvern 13:09, October 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * I will move with it, if all the Articles and things are kept and nthings deleted, because people, including me have put a hell of a lot of hard work into some of the Articles. - Ken H
 * I just switched over and I must say, it is absolute crap. The quicker we leave, the better. (For the record I also think the current Monaco theme is butt-ugly :P) --SerCenKing Talk 13:47, October 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * can you spell "adios" I agree with Ken H, I've put a lot on here and I don't want to re-write it by memmory. I can look around for a new host if you want me to, save you some work. King Jackson Alexander I 14:16, October 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * Well the design is quite nice, however it is bad for our wiki, as it has been mentioned above. So I think we should move. But then it would be a matter of redoing all of the articles :| Crobak1 14:17, October 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * The new skin is actually pretty good, I think, but it's terrible for our wiki. We need something that does not stick to a certain size, that can have infoboxes without having the text look all cramped. The new skin would make everything look terrible. I'm in support of a move, but fist I want to speak with ze Admins and check where we shall move. --Cajak [ ★MicroWiki Admin★ ] 15:03, October 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * Secundomia (talk),(Contributions),(blog),(followed pages) 15:06, October 17, 2010 (UTC) I am going to have to agree. Stupid wikia.
 * Jeez, can't a guy plan his own micronation without the wiki hosts fiddling with the system? I've already noticed many of our micronation pages are now being squeezed to the point there's the article name, infobox, THEN the information. All they need to do is to tweak the skin so that we have more room to edit. Those light blue bands aren't being used for anything, after all. I do notice, however, that the old theme still renders...wouldn't it be a matter of all users just switching the old skin back on? I don't know, but I'll try it and get back to you about it. Daniel Anderson, Premier of the Federal Commonwealth of Sirocco since 2010. Nemine Contradicente. 19:21, October 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * This new design seems to be bad news for us, why does Uncyclopedia get to be exempted? that wiki is stupid and useless. If the Wikia people are going to act like this then good bye, Tschüs, au revoir arrivederci, vaarwel and don't let the door knob hit you where the good lord split you. King Anthony, King of Zealandia HMZ Government 19:39, October 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * I'll be moving. e-Sam (Talk*Edits) 20:21, October 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * Ditto everyone else. I was a beta tester for the new skin a fair time ago and came up with similar complaints in the beta testing forums and other ways of feedback. Most of the other comments by other Wikia users were complaints and most people don't seem to like it. I ended up switching back to Monaco (the second newest skin) by the end of the day. If they kept Monaco on as an optional thing, I'd probably be fine with it. But as you may or may not know, they're removing the option to use Monaco as a skin on November 3rd. Meaning we're all stuck with Oasis, the codename for the new skin. Like everyone's said, it doesn't suit our Wiki, and it's pretty ugly anyway. However, I should probably mention I was never a huge fan of Monaco, it's just that it's far better than Oasis. Oasis is ugly, Oasis is crap, I don't want it. Hence a couple of weeks ago, I reserved a few domain names in case we decided to move. ;p wikkii.com, shoutwiki.com and referata.com subdomains have all been reserved by me. For when we all come to a consesus we have to move. =D Also, before you all complain about having to copy and paste everything over. This explains how to copy over anything and everything. I'm not sure exactly how much it copies over, but Special:Statistics says that for the larger file, it copies over the current pages as well as history. So more or less everything. I see a database dump has been requested recently, so it should be okay. I tried it earlier, but I couldn't seem to get it to work as the connection just got reset while trying to upload it. Maybe someone who knows what they're doing will have better luck. Yabloko coa.png Aldrich Lucas talk  contributions 20:27, October 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree. I think the current format is fine and we've all become accustomed to it. So we're in favor of the move. Madam Secretary of State Victoria Bristow Starland 03:11 October 18, 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree. Monaco is ugly enough, but the new 'Oasis' theme is like being sodomised in the optic nerve. Let's find a farm that uses Monobook. Pmrcalaby 06:16, October 18, 2010 (UTC), Prime Minister of Optima.
 * I agree. This will WRECK our wiki, so I'm in favour of moving.Westlandian 06:58, October 18, 2010 (UTC)
 * All of the above, probably... Joe Foxon(MicroWiki Admin) 14:28, October 18, 2010 (UTC)
 * Same as everyone else. Were are the rednecks? James Thomson 20:51, October 18, 2010 (UTC)
 * I hate change. A lot. We're moving. And that's final. AuburnAttack21 02:15, October 19, 2010 (UTC)
 * I hate change. A lot. We're moving. And that's final. AuburnAttack21 02:15, October 19, 2010 (UTC)



I don't mind the new skin and we should tolerate it, but I will yield to a community decision

 * It's not that bad, i can vaugely remeber beta testing it too. Vitcash 12:06, October 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * The Kingdom of Theodia can deal with it, but we aren't entirely against moving anymore.
 * Where, exactly, are we planning to move? If we do move, it should be to a location where MicroWikiers have complete and total control over so that it can be optimized and tailored specifically to the Micronational Community. We should keep MicroCommons, however - in this way we can cut down on the total storage space at the new location. It should also be a location that has a WikiCode that is very similar to that of Wikia's. This will help to make editing more familiar and comfortable for those of us who prefer to edit the code directly. ~fleg.pngÐa Þȷåd wo Þeodıa 16:26, October 17, 2010 (UTC)


 * Many wikis have gone through similar changes, and I believe this is only a minor problem that will be easy to tolerate eventually. Kyng Fyrst [[Image:SlinkyEmblemRoyalBlue.svg|30px|link=User talk:Kyng Fyrst]] 17:47, October 18, 2010 (UTC)
 * Look, I'm using this very skin right now. To be honest, it runs faster on my PC because it's less cluttered up with HTML crap and the adverts have been placed in a better location. If we move, a lot of people will have to go through a lot of pain to move every picture etc. and some of us do not want to face rewriting every single article. We have built a magnificent community here on MicroWiki, and to see us having to move with the luggage including the kitchen sink is REALLY not practical for a lot of us. I'll leave you to decide. --James Puchowski, Premier of the Landashir'n Government, MicroWiki Patroller (User:cplandashir) 16:11, October 19, 2010 (UTC)

I like the new skin and don't want anything to change

 * Maybe I'm stupid but I like the new skin. About infoxes: it can be on the center of site and text will be down. Patryk Adam Bronisz 12:39, October 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * O.o--Eleytheria (T / B / C) 15:45, October 18, 2010 (UTC)

They took our Freedom!! Where are the Redneck Pissed off white conservatives when you need them?

 * Brad1201 12:31, October 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * I am with Bradley on this one. Why the hell are they doing this to us?! We were happy and we should just stay as we are.
 * James Wilary of the People's reformed States Republic 18:52, October 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * They may take our wiki, but they may never take our freedom! Actually, I matters little to me what happens, as my nation isn't bound to the wiki, though it is the most useful tool for any micronationalist to get noticed and legitimized quickly. However, why must we giveway? The status quo is compatible and complete; don't fix what ain't broken, Wikia! "I'm as mad as Hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" I'm going to wait and watch, if you don't mind a stick in the mud. Son3 01:06, October 18, 2010 (UTC)
 * I understand them being fasionaly progressive, but screwing up our wiki? Now that is just unconscious tyranny. M.J.K. 15:24, October 18, 2010 (UTC)

Result
Overwhelmingly, it seems that we are going to move. We will prepare our new home for a few days and see if we can upload the database dump to the new wiki to avoid having to manually move everything (a well neigh impossible task) over to the new place. Thank you all for your participation :) § A-One § Your friendly neighbourhood Admin (Talk • Contribs) 23:01, October 19, 2010 (UTC)