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Wiki Rules
Hi Everyone!

Welcome to Orain! I want to start a thread outlining Wiki Rules.

Obviously, there's going to be some guidelines that each wiki will need to follow, such as:


 * Absolutely no attack wiki's will be tolerated. This includes wiki's created to disparge, attack, humiliate, harass, or otherwise cause harm to an individual, corporation, organization, etc.
 * With that being said, it's obvious that we will not censor wiki's. Personal opinions are allowed, and as such, you're free to have whatever content you wish to have - within reason. Obviously, threats made against others, attacks, etc. won't go unnoticed.
 * Dormancy. At what time will a wiki be considered dormant? How should that be handled? Should there be a timeline? What if someone else wants to revive the wiki? What process should be followed?

This is only a start, but let's start! :) D u s t i *poke* 22:20, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Terms
I've written drafts for the Terms of Use and the Privacy Policy. What does everyone think? Kudu (talk) 14:59, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I approve. D u s t i *Let's talk!* 07:13, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Ditto John (talk) 15:04, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Suggestions
I don't see too many wiki farms survive longterm without sustainable finances. That usually means ads or deep pockets. Otherwise, the regular staff person or persons burns out over the years. Longevity of my wiki is far more important to me than ads on my wiki. That is because moving a wiki can be a lot of work, and one loses hits when links go bad due to moving.

I really don't think most people with wikis mind ads as long as they don't have to see them when logged in. A wiki farm can be non-profit or semi-profit, and use ads. See wikipedia:WP:Funding Wikipedia through advertisements.

I would like to be able to provide my email address in my preferences so that I can get a password update email when I lose my password. And more importantly, so that I can get notified of changes to my watched pages. I don't regularly check watchlists on wikis I edit on infrequently. --Timeshifter (talk) 21:37, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Ads are horrible to me. That's why I left ShoutWiki, and never create an account on Wikia. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 04:47, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm currently the individual that's funding Orain. I can assure you that we're not going to be going offline anytime soon. As of right now, I don't believe we'll be using ads. We'll be running off of my funds as well as any donations that we may receive. Kudu, do you mind enabling the last request Timeshifter made? I believe that's a reasonable request. D u s <font color="#0000ff">t <font color="#6600cc">i *Let's talk!* 07:12, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Email is now ✅. Kudu (talk) 14:51, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Timeshifter, you should come on IRC sometime. I assure you that we're going to be around for a while and that we'll be more successful and therefore more sustainable by keeping it ad-free and donation-based. Kudu (talk) 15:12, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for enabling email in preferences. It is good to know that your funding is longterm. Many people will want to know this before starting a wiki. Maybe you could have opt-in ads for people like me who can not donate money, but are willing to put up with ads on their wiki in order to do their bit on funding. Google AdSense is easy to enable.

Some wikis will get popular at times, and you will get slammed. Bandwidth needs and costs will go up and down. See the info at the top of my Wikipedia user page: wikipedia:User:Timeshifter. It is not technically necessary to use servers one owns. There are many large commercial server farms with servers spread worldwide that could handle the bandwidth needs. They have dynamic load balancing and can handle any fluctuations in bandwidth needs. --Timeshifter (talk) 17:23, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Opt in ads are possible and I may consider that should there be a strain on funds. I've already gotten the site approved for adsense and we do have an account. Thanks for the suggestions on bandwith and such. Do you have a wiki in mind that you're thinking of bringing to Orain? <font face="MV Boli"><font color="#ff0000">D <font color="#ff6600">u <font color="#009900">s <font color="#0000ff">t <font color="#6600cc">i *Let's talk!* 18:53, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Opt-in ads are a good idea, although we would have to code an extension for that. We're currently on such a server farm (Amazon EC2), and we would definitely love to auto-scale once we have the necessary funds. Kudu (talk) 19:36, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

I may possibly fork more stuff from Wikia. I don't know. I forked some stuff to ShoutWiki. I may fork some other stuff to a different wiki farm so that I can keep each wiki more highly focused.

Orain and MyWikis are the only other free MediaWiki wiki farms left standing that I know of. See: I may start a separate wiki on ShoutWiki. So that I have 2 wikis there. There are a lot of things I like about ShoutWiki. They allow what is called a "private" wiki that leaves all decisions in the hands of the original founder. Including deletion, who can edit, who can see the wiki.
 * Category:Free MediaWiki wiki farms

I created a wiki that the public can view. But I determine the scope of the wiki, and what new pages are allowed. I let anybody edit including anonymous IPs. If I need to leave ShoutWiki I can delete the whole wiki. That is a big advantage to Wikia. I have duplicate pages on Wikia that I no longer edit, and so they are out of date. ShoutWiki now has a forum that is just beginning. Central forums are very important in my opinion. Forums with pages that can be individually watchlisted. Wikia's forums are a huge help. They have a great community of CSS and JS experts.

My main wiki is at ShoutWiki, and that wiki gets a huge number of hits for a few months every year. I would be unlikely to move that wiki again because I need to be sure the wiki farm can handle the bandwidth. My other idea for a wiki would not have such bandwidth fluctuations. But right now I am just thinking ahead. Nothing is likely to happen right away until I get other things in order. --Timeshifter (talk) 20:28, 9 August 2013 (UTC)


 * These are the types of ideas that we need :) Thank you for bringing them forward! The private wiki option is certainly do-able. Our focus is on creating the area, options, and security that you need and want. Private wiki? ✅. The ability to delete your wiki if you want to move? ✅. Forum options ✅. I'm not going to say no to any reasonable request.


 * As far as bandwidth goes, I don't believe that's a concern. I'll let Kudu answer that. <font face="MV Boli"><font color="#ff0000">D <font color="#ff6600">u <font color="#009900">s <font color="#0000ff">t <font color="#6600cc">i *Let's talk!* 21:01, 9 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Like Dusti said, all of those things can be arranged. As for the servers, we put a lot of thought into our platform, and we're constantly upgrading our infrastructure. As for the central forum, we're planning to add one very soon. Kudu (talk) 21:04, 9 August 2013 (UTC) (revised at 22:03, 11 August 2013)


 * I helped figure out some bugs with the forum software just enabled at ShoutWiki, and used in the past, at Wikia. See mw:Extension:DPLforum, and see the discussion here. --Timeshifter (talk) 00:02, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
 * DPLforum is what we were planning to use. It's been checked into our repo, and it should be enabled in the settings sometime soon. Kudu (talk) 04:14, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Post-login text error
When one logs in, the text still reads "You have been automatically logged into other projects of the Wikimedia Foundation." I think this is the MediaWiki:Centralauth-groupname message. Samwilson (talk) 08:14, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's the correct message - however, it's already correctly set, and I didn't change anything since your post. Please tell me if it happens again. Kudu (talk) 14:43, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Looks like John got there before you (at 12:29). :-) Looks better now. Thanks! Samwilson (talk) 22:45, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Been seeing a lot of 504 errors
I've had a lot of page "time out" while editing on my wiki, and speed is generally slow when opening more than one page at a time, even here on the Orain Meta wiki. Arcane (talk) 19:12, 15 August 2013 (UTC)Arcane
 * Our automatic monitoring system isn't reporting any such errors, but let us know if it happens again. Kudu (talk) 22:02, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Merger Notification
17 August 2013 • FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Orain.org and TropicalWikis.com proudly announce that they are merging. This merge comes after careful consideration after the two WikiFarms began talks several weeks ago. Orain.org will be taking over responsibility for the TropicalWiki farms and ensuring that the end user still receives the best customer service possible. Current farms on TropicalWikis will be undergoing a review and wikis that are currently inactive according to Orain’s inactivity policy will either be merged and locked to prevent spam or discarded.

No changes will be taking place in regard to user accounts. Accounts will be moved over to Orain’s servers and user preferences, passwords, etc. will remain as they were on TropicalWikis.

Any notifications regarding a wiki’s status will be sent over the next couple of days.

Questions can be sent to any TropicalWiki or Orain staff member.

--For the staff, Dustin Muniz <font face="MV Boli"><font color="#ff0000">D <font color="#ff6600">u <font color="#009900">s <font color="#0000ff">t <font color="#6600cc">i *Let's talk!* 16:42, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
 * If you need to contact TropicalWikis staff, you can ping me on IRC (Tux). --Tux (talk) 17:03, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Google Adsense
After reviewing estimated monthly costs and such, I've decided to seek assistance from the community. We are going to be enabling Google Adsense globally. Initially, I believe we're going to have it set to anonymous users only. We'll see how that works and if, with community feedback, users are okay seeing the ads logged in - we can continue it in that sense. I am largely against ads, and I don't wish to do this - however, to ease the financial aspects with running the site - I believe ads will help. It will be a small, non-imposing ad at the bottom of the toolbox. I welcome your comments and input. <font face="MV Boli"><font color="#ff0000">D <font color="#ff6600">u <font color="#009900">s <font color="#0000ff">t <font color="#6600cc">i *Let's talk!* 15:47, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't have too many objections to that, as long as the ads don't compromise Orain's wiki flexibility policy in regards to content. As for the amount of ads, that seems eminently reasonable, and I don't object at all to their proposed placement. Arcane (talk) 17:58, 20 August 2013 (UTC)Arcane
 * We have the ability to filter the type of ads that are displayed. I think, with us being technology oriented and such, that ads along those lines would be the ones that will be displayed.
 * about ads. This is exactly why I left the other farms. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 09:54, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Adverts don't bother me. I use ABP, NoScript, and WOT to help decide if any piece of script should be allowed to run on my computer. Mostly I just say no to ads. I understand the reasoning for them though, and I sympathize with webmasters who rely on them to "keep the lights on" on their sites. But the Internet is a funny place. The webmaster's POV is that they provide a service, so it is only fair that visitors to their site should help pay for it, and that it doesn't really cost surfers anything anyway. The average web surfer's POV is that websites live or die on traffic volumes alone, so you're lucky to have me visiting your site. My own POV is that I have a data capped Internet connection, so I'd rather use my bandwidth for viewing content that I actually want to see, rather than paying for adverts to come down my pipe. <font color="#000" face="Times">Augur <font color="#33f" family="Arial">NZ <font color="#000" size="4">&#x2710; <font size="4" color="#000">&#x2315; 10:25, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Even though for anonymous users how could a small ad under the toolbox part of sidebar be dangerous, but eh its better than having it on your pages or on top of wiki like Wikia does.--Tyreek (talk) 22:58, 24 August 2013 (UTC)
 * In regards to the ads - wikis will have the option to request the ad box not be shown on their site. Also, as stated above only anonymous users will see the ads. Logged in users will not see the ads unless they opt into it from their preferences. I've put a lot of thought into this - as I don't want to drive individuals away from the site and I only want the ads to assist me with the overall costs of hosting this project. I chose the smallest possible box from the adsense site to keep them as non-intrusive as possible. <font face="MV Boli"><font color="#ff0000">D <font color="#ff6600">u <font color="#009900">s <font color="#0000ff">t <font color="#6600cc">i *Let's talk!* 23:10, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Site favicon
Orain doesn't currently have a favorites icon (favicon), so i created one by resizing the site logo:

This is just a proposal, but it here in case anyone wishes to render an opinion on it. Arcane (talk) 13:21, 21 August 2013 (UTC)Arcane
 * I actually kind of like it (: Thanks! <font face="MV Boli"><font color="#ff0000">D <font color="#ff6600">u <font color="#009900">s <font color="#0000ff">t <font color="#6600cc">i *Let's talk!* 13:48, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Glad to know, Dusti. I wanted to make a footer link "Hosted by Orain" box as well since i figured we needed one of those as well, but a favicon was far easier to make, pleased to see you like it. Arcane (talk) 16:07, 21 August 2013 (UTC)Arcane

User-based JS and CSS
I have recently enabled user JS and CSS pages on the wikiteamwiki via pull request #2, but made the global default to be disabled since that was the default setting in MediaWiki. This is a feature that is already enabled on Wikimedia wikis for a few years and I honestly don't think there is much harm in enabling this. Would everyone be okay about having this enabled globally so that everyone can benefit?

If this is successful, I would be glad to help out on creating global user pages (similar to Synchbot on Wikimedia). This bot is already running on the wikis of the Wikimedia Labs cluster. --Hydriz (talk) 15:08, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I would support this wholeheartedly. I already requested this be enabled on my own wiki, but I don't see any harm in the feature being enabled globally, since it only causes changes visible on a user to user basis. Arcane (talk) 16:07, 21 August 2013 (UTC)Arcane


 * Dusti has mentioned something about Synchbot to me as well, and I'm happy to get No8WiredBot to help out with this. Furthermore, if there is going to be a way for users to have global profiles, there should be a corresponding way to check the users contributions globally. On WikiMedia Meta-Wiki, I'm using Luxo's User Contributions tool on Toolserver.org (see my contributions to WikiMedia globally ). I wonder if that could be beaten into shape for Orain's purposes? <font color="#000" face="Times">Augur <font color="#33f" family="Arial">NZ <font color="#000" size="4">&#x2710; <font size="4" color="#000">&#x2315; 04:29, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I User JS, but I have to say, AugurNZ's edits are mostly unconstructive in his/her own userspace at wikimedia IMHO. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 11:39, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
 * The example I linked to above was to demonstrate the usefulness of having the ability to globally view a user's contributions, not to showcase my own contributions which, understandably, are negligible at present as I have only been active on the WikiMedia Foundation's projects for about a week. The truly "unconstructive" edit here is the one that denigrates another editors' honest efforts without provocation. <font color="#000" face="Times">Augur <font color="#33f" family="Arial">NZ <font color="#000" size="4">&#x2710; <font size="4" color="#000">&#x2315; 18:59, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
 * (Sorry for being a little rude) When I was a kid, I acted exactly like you, having a bunch of accounts that will never use, and gets forgotten after a few years. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 21:07, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Have I done something to offend you Zhuyifei1999? As far as I know this is the first time we have interacted together, so I am left wondering whether this may be a language barrier issue, as I understand that English may not be your native tongue. You apologise for "being a little rude", presumably in your initial reply to my post, then, it seems to me, that you proceed to imply that I am being childish! Interestingly, I see on your user talk page on Commons that you ask contributors there to "Be polite, Be friendly, Assume good faith, No personal attacks". Perhaps you should take your own advice here. Should this continue, I will be seeking an interaction ban. <font color="#000" face="Times">Augur <font color="#33f" family="Arial">NZ <font color="#000" size="4">&#x2710; <font size="4" color="#000">&#x2315; 22:06, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I apologize for doing that. What I not satisfied with is (all facts)
 * You ask people to leave the project to access access your central talk page (which is not encouraged per some policy)
 * You make a lot of user pages (cross-wiki) which are almost identical.
 * You bring hot-cat scripts and edit notices which aren't even going to work on WikiIndex, which make me think of whether you have seen what is the wiki all about.
 * "Be polite, Be friendly, Assume good faith, No personal attacks" is from template, if you inspect the code. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 07:05, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
 * User preferences on other projects have nothing to do with this project. For what it's worth - creating identical userpages is actually recommended - as some individuals (i.e. new users) have no clue what a redirect means. If you continue to be disruptive I'll be forced to block your account. <font face="MV Boli"><font color="#ff0000">D <font color="#ff6600">u <font color="#009900">s <font color="#0000ff">t <font color="#6600cc">i *Let's talk!* 07:36, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
 * - Also - Zhuyifei1999 - there's no need to comment on an individuals contributions outside of this project. AugurNZ has been quite helpful thus far here - and that's really the only thing that matters. While we don't exactly have a AGF policy - it's implied, and I request that you remain respectful. <font face="MV Boli"><font color="#ff0000">D <font color="#ff6600">u <font color="#009900">s <font color="#0000ff">t <font color="#6600cc">i *Let's talk!* 22:36, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

TOS link in the footer
We aren't the Wikimedia Foundation now. Can it be changed? Thanks! --Tux (talk) 00:47, 23 August 2013 (UTC)


 * That's something that will need to be fixed through a commit. Addshore - can you fix that? :) It's also showing on the edit page - stating you agree to the Terms of Use. <font face="MV Boli"><font color="#ff0000">D <font color="#ff6600">u <font color="#009900">s <font color="#0000ff">t <font color="#6600cc">i *Let's talk!* 06:53, 23 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Well, when someone gives me something else to link to I would be happy to make the change ;p Addshore (talk) 12:47, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

First full wikifarm dump created!
Hi all, I would like to take this opportunity to announce that the first content archive of the Orain wikifarm has been successfully created. This archive includes all the content on the public wikis of Orain and any associated images, but does not include any private data such as user preferences.

This archive was created as part of WikiTeam's effort in archiving the world's wikis and as Orain is still relatively new without much content, the full backup was created in less than a few hours. The backup of the individual wikis are available here.

We at WikiTeam will continue to monitor this site and a second archive snapshot will be created somewhere in a few months time, especially when the wikis from TropicalWikis gets moved over. For now, enjoy the dumps! --Hydriz (talk) 10:29, 24 August 2013 (UTC)