Forum:Uncyclomedia's complaint on Wikia

WARNING!

The following message is a very controversial and heated debate about Uncyclomedia. Please click here to go back and avoid any further controversy.

Dear Wikia, Staff and community,

I look at this site community.wikia.com for maybe the 101rst time in my life. Not for watching anything, nor for editting or any kind of contributing. No, I'm here to solve a problem (again). Not only a problem, it's a problem which has been there for years (since 2006). Like B. Obama says: "it's time for a change". In my opinion it's time here too. I'm not going to beat around the bush anymore, and to explain the truth well, you should read this in detail. You may believe it or not, but I swear that this is the fact about Uncyclopedia.ORG. Facts should be taken seriously, and facts cannot be distorted. If so, people tell lies.

The following text is a letter which I sent on June, 24 to community@wikia.com, Angela Beesley, Jim Wales and Gil Penchina (by user mail). No one has ever replied, but Angela (after I had left a message on her talkpage). She wrote that it isn't "her" business and referred me to Lisa Carter (see below).

Letter
Dear Wikia Staff,

Since 2006 Uncyclomedia.org has assisted the Uncyclopedia-concept in multilingual coordination, it has served as a central wiki to request adoptions and creations of new languages. Sadly, Uncyclopedia moved to Wikia, but Wikia abused (and still does) the concept by giving people the opportunity to create new languages and by commercialising the concept. That was no part of the deal. The umbrella organisation is Uncyclomedia (often abbreviated as UnMeta), Wikia stole Uncyclomedia’s role for its commercial purposes. Also, Wikia just took over Uncyclopedia’s domain name .org. As Wikia is commercial, the company has no right to use such domains. Unfortunately, indeed, many wikis moved to Wikia and new languages were created on it. Many people got very angry about this injustice against Uncyclomedia and some Uncyclomedia users started up Complaintwiki.org, where they posted their complaints about Wikia. I refer to the license Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Generic, that the work may not be used for commercial purposes. The ‘work’ also includes de concept itself, so Wikia is not even allowed to create new languages.

I, CartoonistHenning, have had very bad experiences with Wikia.com, according to the fact that I made a lot of efforts to let close some copied Uncyclopedias/Illogicopedias in other languages. The Uncyclopedia-concept is meant to be a Wikipedia parody, which also includes the freedom of ads (non-commercial), the freedom of users (bureaucrats cannot do on their wiki what they want to do) and the default skin (no Monaco). On page two of this letter I explain why Wikia Inc. never deserved the acquisition of the Uncyclopedia-concept.

Therefor we postulate that the abandoned Uncyclopedias in other languages on Wikia will be removed and that Wikia will no more accept new Uncyclopedias in other languages. Wikia should no more be involved with the Uncyclopedia-concept in other languages, except the wikis that asked for a move and that are active on Wikia. The same goes for another non-commercialised project, like the Illogicopedia-group, which will not be afflicted by Wikia anymore, despite the rude copy which is today called Wackypedia. To make sure that this requirement is confirmed by Uncyclomedia users - who share the same opinion -, people can read this document too and tell in a forum if they agree, like a petition.

Sincerely,

Henning VD, CartoonistHenning

-- page 2 --

Reasons and arguments why Wikia does not care about a project concept, but only (ab)uses projects to make money out of them and the people.

 §1. The agreement concerning the hosting is unilaterally enforced:

Once people want to make a new language of the Uncyclopedia-concept, for instance, (ignorant of the truth about the fact that Uncyclomedia is the real hosting) they make a domain for free on Wikia, but they do not realise that A: they commercialise the name of (the) Uncyclopedia(-concept); B: if they do not want to have the Uncyclopedia-version on Wikia anymore, they are planning to move, or they start realising Wikia commercialises the concept in a unfair way, it is too late to start over again. Wikia let projects never go and (ab)uses the Wikia wiki as a direct competition, kept by Wikia users who requested the adoption for the wiki. The content of the abandoned wiki will remain, so Wikia does not give people the freedom in what they do. Users should read a kind of manual before creating a wiki on Wikia. But no, the green inviting button above each wiki “create a new wiki” leads you directly to the creation scheme, without any warnings. C: they even have never heard about the Uncyclomedia Foundation, because Wikia is so predominant in Google, that they didn’t find any information about the real organisation. This is actually all about selling your soul to the devil: once in Wikia, never out.

 §2. Wikia is playing a game with people when they talk about the ‘community’:

“Our community wants you; we are happy to see you joining our community...” and nonsense. This horse manure is a typical trick to attract people to Wikia. The company claims that you and your early community will be safe with your Uncyclopedia-version and you and your community can decide everything on your project. In fact, Wikia means with ‘community’ something totally different than you expected: the community is the team of janitors and staff members who control you, your wiki and your community to lead everything like ‘they’ want to. A clear example is the complaint according to a fight between User:D. G. Neree and User:Manticore about home rules on the creator’s wiki, a complaint which can be found on Complaintwiki.org. Janitors and staff members just come over to your wiki and do inappropriate edits. Administrators are chosen in the understanding that they know the wiki’s general policy very well, but these janitors and staff members do not seem to worry about that wiki’s policy. They have their own rules, haven’t they? It appears that Wikia has a goal to become the largest communistic society on planet Earth, as they claim to love a big and grand community of hard working people, but actually gain money on these volunteers, who eventually have nothing as compensation (except irritating ads, no freedom in ruling their wiki like they want, etc...). Maybe you can interpret ‘community’ in two different ways, as following: - a large group of volunteers that is oppressed by the company, to make as much money out of them as Wikia can. You will join this ‘community’ and be a small part of the commercial company yourself, without receiving any compensation for it. That is why Wikia wants you. - Wikia itself, which includes the staff, the janitors and everyone who gets paid for the volunteer’s work. The ‘community’ decides? Certainly not: the staff members and janitors do!

 §3. Wikia has no respect for the Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license:

I will not explain it over and over again. The license does not allow to use/copy non-profit organisations for commercial purposes. Wikia Inc. is commercial. Obviously, Wikia is a very crafty business.

"Reply"
So, I contacted Ms. Carter on her talk page and she replied me back by the community@wikia.com mail. This is what she said:

This is no answer on Uncyclomedia's complaint. Therefore, I like to have a reply which is organised, well-answered on any argument and question in the letter. AND I like to have an answer on the things UnMeta postulates.

Notes from Carlb
Carlb is the hoster of almost all non-profit Uncyclopedias in other languages.
 * On Uncyclopedia.wikia.com:
 * If Wikia is going to engage in overly-aggressive attempts to market itself to wikis with perfectly-good existing non-Wikia servers, they should leave the name of the English-language Uncyclopedia out of this. A pitch that "you should turn over project ownership of your language's uncyclopedia to Wikia because en: and a few others already have" is highly misleading as the en.uncyclopedia.org domain name being sold out from under us was something done by one individual (not a sole founder, as Uncyclopedia has multiple founders) in secret and without the consent of anyone else in this community.
 * The wording of the license is "4c. Restrictions - You may not exercise any of the rights granted to You in Section 3 above in any manner that is primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation...". While that brings the nebulous question of intent into the definition (and determining primary motive beyond a reasonable doubt is like trying to nail gelatin to a tree) the inevitable reality is that anything which is not "...primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation..." would be unsaleable to investors. Uncyclopedia (when originally launched as an independent) had no outside for-profit investors to appease and likely was not intended to do anything more than break even or operate at a slight loss. The same is not true of any Wikia-owned entity, or of anything else where outside venture capitalists are in control; they want their money back with interest, and that's their only interest in the project. Nature of the beast. This and the non-commercial CC-BY-NC-SA license cannot be reconciled; there's more hope of oil and water successfully mixing (something BP has been working on for months now...). CC-BY-NC content should not be here.
 * As the second-largest member of the Desciclopédia® family, we are in no position to claim that "this is the main Uncyclopedia". Nonetheless, I am concerned that the issue of en: content being crossposted (as-is or in translation) to other wikis under an incompatible license has remained unresolved since mid-2005 (if that's when the original request to create fr:Désencyclopédie was rejected by Wikia because of their unwillingness that it be created under an Uncyclopedia-compatible non-commercial license). I have more than 10,000 edits here (which used to be a large number back in the days when en: was still the largest Uncyclopedia) and do not appreciate being turned into an unwilling, unpaid employee of some for-profit enterprise through my non-commercial contributions to the original en: being reposted under commercial licences for-profit in some other language. A translation of a copyrighted work is still subject to the original copyright; the same is true of the hundreds of pages which were dumped from Babel: namespaces to individual wikis over the years. As for the separate userlists? That's a question that had been raised repeatedly on en: (as our separate userlist had long been something that Wikia was seeking to take away from us) and there has traditionally been very little support for a system that renders names unavailable just because a similar name is in use on some other wiki with precious little or nothing to do with en.uncyclopedia.
 * The effort to "get hold of communities" goes well beyond blindly looking the other way while a random "someone" creates a wiki with a similar name to an existing non-Wikia project. There have been complaints from everyone from 백괴사전 (Korea) to Oncyclopedia (Netherlands) that Wikia staff had been aggressively approaching admins or even users on various projects, attempting to get them to leave independent hosting and turn ownership of the site and userlist over to Wikia. Evidently these are worded in such a way as to make it appear that Wikia is offering to "host" the site, not disclosing that Wikia's intent is to "own" domain name, user list, inbound links, project name and anything else over which it can gain control for commercial purposes. Not all take kindly to being asked to hand over the fruits of a community's hard labours for free in this manner, although to Wikia control of a site's web traffic is commercially valuable to the point where it has made backroom deals with individual founders on sites to buy domains for several tens of thousands of dollars. Uncyclopedia is neither the only case or the worst case; a look at the history of guildwiki and its now-disgraced guildwiki:user:gravewit is worth looking up as it's an eye-opener. GuildWiki was, like Uncyclopedia, built by many and protected by a non-commercial license. Worse yet, much of its early expansion was funded by donations from individual members of the community. The domains and database were sold out from under the community by one person, who then promptly left the project. Sound familiar? The contractual details: for a price in the upper five-figures, this one individual agrees to sell and turn over to Wikia the domain name, database and userlist and then delete all files from his servers. He is contractually prohibited from saying anything publicly about the deal or what has happened, with the exception of vague and general praise for Wikia. He is prohibited from starting another site on the same or similar topic for years to come. The contractual details are to be withheld from the community, while the names of every user who'd ever registered on the site are sold to Wikia as nothing more than a commercial commodities, so that Wikia can claim to advertisers "we have n registered users" with no regard to whether these users want anything to do with Wikia or its hijacking of their community.
 * The end result was a strongly-alienated community and a loss of most of the users to competing project wiki.guildwars.com; Wikia attempted to buy back the respect of the community by repaying some of the donated money, but at that point it was too late as the damage had been done. I only mention the incident because it explains much of what had gone wrong here in Uncyclopedia a few years ago; Germany used to be on its own domain (uncyclopedia.de), but inexplicably its founders shut it down and turned the domain and data over to Wikia. The move was presented as Wikia hosting the defeated master race out of the goodness of their hearts, but what happened next? The Germans turned over the database and images, then deleted the originals. The copy of the images as turned over to Wikia turned out to have been corrupted somehow, and the deletions meant that there was no recovery. Wikia staff then start popping up on other wikis in the series, asking that we try to dig up images to re-illustrate and re-Bild the German wiki. Other, stronger German-language projects such as Kamelopedia are meanwhile laughing their Aryan heads off at the mess that Wikia has made of their longtime rival - images missing, ads everywhere, formatting of many pages broken badly. It wouldn't take even the level of intelligence in an average Stupidedia page to see that something is wrong, but why did this happen? A look at the contracts Wikia was imposing on founders as they betrayed their communities is telling... the document requires that the original founder delete absolutely everything after handing everything from database to trademarks to domains over to Wikia. We have no idea what (if anything) was actually signed as the German document of surrender, but in retrospect something just doesn't look right. And yes, Stupidedia and Kamelopedia have long since left de.Uncyc in the dust. Perhaps there are advantages to being in the West, outside the wall and free...
 * On Illogicopedia.org:
 * When Wikia manages to alienate a contributor or group of contributors (in Illogicopedia's case, that would've been pretty much all of the active authors on this site) eventually those contributors will take their content and go elsewhere. Not that I blame them, evidently. At that point, expect to see Wikia, Wikia's staff or Wikia apologists offer nonsense along the lines of "they're not members of the community anymore, they left... so their concerns may be ignored" and possibly even removal of information as to where all those once-key contributors had moved. At that rate, what is the "Wackypedia community" in Illogicopedian terms? Sounds like the sound of one hand clapping. The only difference between nonsense like "In regards to seniority, I definitely have more than you seeing as how I haven't only edited on my talk page or in forums that are anti-Wikia for several years. I know the full history of the site and even how you actually made a single feature. I've also put some of your articles on VFD before. That's what all those red links are on your page. I'm thinking of rewriting everything you've ever made just to spite you now." (on en.uncyc's version of this discussion) and Wikia staffers' claim that "the community" at the now-abandoned Wikia verson of Illogicopedia just conveniently is anyone except those who moved here after Wikia destroyed the site with forced, ad-heavy reskins is that Wikia would have omitted the counterproductive personal attack and just stuck to the (albeit implausible) pretext that "the community" may be skewed to mean "the community, ignoring a long list of regular contributors who are leaving or have left because they have been alienated by what we have done". Amazing what one can do statistically if you can choose whatever self-selected sample serves your ends, no?
 * The petition text probably could've focussed more specifically on the one specific issue: Wikia's use of claims that "other Uncyclopedias, including en:, are hosted there" in their repeated attempts to pressure individual admins or even individual users into turning ownership of various non-Wikia projects over to them is dishonest, as en: did not choose to have their domain sold out from under them. That was done in secret, by one of the founders (not a sole founder) at UnclePete, and met at the time with very strong objections from users and contributors. It was not appropriate that one individual act to undermine what was the work of many. That those objections have consistently stopped just short of forking the entire project to move the site elsewhere is not the point; read the archives, this is still a rather serious matter and Wikia might want to consider simply leaving en.uncyclopedia's name out of their over-aggressive sales pitches as this borders on deliberately misleading.

Discussion
I continue with this till Wikia takes consequences. UnMeta (which includes any non-profit Uncyclopedia in any language) is not happy with the current situation | CartoonistHenning 17:14, July 20, 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi there. I'm sorry, but I think you're in the wrong place: this is the Community Central forums, we provide editor-to-editor support for other wikians across the Wikia network. Your complaint/statement above addresses Wikia staff, we, other members of the community, are unable to help you with that. That said, the only places you can go to contact Wikia itself is to use Special:Contact or [mailto:community@wikia.com email community@wikia.com] directly. There is nothing anyone on these forums can do other than refer you to one of those two methods. Sorry, but I hope you can resolve your problem through the appropriate channels. Joey (talk) 17:39, July 20, 2010 (UTC)
 * Okay, I'll mail them once again through the contact form. But don't delete this. I cannot write that long textes in mails, you see... CartoonistHenning 17:43, July 20, 2010 (UTC)
 * Okay, First, you cant create uncyclopedia.org because you do not fully own uncyclopedia, it is under Wikia Inc's control therefore you cannot have that domain, however you can try to talk to the staff and have Uncyclopedia.wikia.org, Second you are under the CC-BY-SA and dont try to change that cause you will be violating copyright rules and if you do violate the copyright rules uncyclopedia may be terminated and your user banned. Third if you dont like Wikia Inc's policys and domain and any other problems you may be having with Wikia, then ask for deletion of the uncyclopedia and then create a new uncyclopedia using media wikia software.--Andrew Schlieffen Executive Administrator of Modern Wikia and Valkyrie Movie Wikia 17:55, July 20, 2010 (UTC)
 * No, you don't get it. Did you read this carefully? Uncyclopedia is already created. I want to have it removed from Wikia. I never talked about owning a domain for myself. It belongs to UnMeta. The point is that Wikia should never had bought the domain of J. Huang, because the company was never allowed to buy it from Huang (because of our license) | CartoonistHenning 18:07, July 20, 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah, i see, if you want it removed, then just ask staff using special:contact and they will gladly remove it, just be sure you use a good reason to remove it.--Andrew Schlieffen Executive Administrator of Modern Wikia and Valkyrie Movie Wikia 18:39, July 20, 2010 (UTC)
 * Sadly, that's not going to be easy. Wikia generally doesn't remove wikis | CartoonistHenning 18:41, July 20, 2010 (UTC)
 * Then I can only supply you with 3 options:
 * 1) Violate the terms of service and copyrights
 * 2) Permanently remove it by destroying all of the CSS
 * 3) Ask the staff to remove it and leave a good reason
 * --Andrew Schlieffen Executive Administrator of Modern Wikia and Valkyrie Movie Wikia 18:47, July 20, 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not an admin on Uncyclopedia.wikia.com | CartoonistHenning 19:02, July 20, 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry CartoonistHenning, unless you take your argument to the admins of Uncyclopedia, you will get no sympathy from me. Without some constructive action, most of the above is just a pure rant. -- Fandyllic  (talk &middot; contr) 1:11 PM PST 20 Jul 2010
 * Baseless rant. Wikia acquired Uncyclopedia. If the contributors had a problem, they could of prevented the sale. They did not. Wikia is not required to do anything. It seems you're having problems with wikia due to a Me attitude, when wikia is a Us company. 23:10, July 20, 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, baseless rant. Apart from the license, there is nothing he can do. With the license, there may be an issue. -- Random Time  23:17, July 20, 2010 (UTC)
 * I went over to "their" site and really don't see what the problem is. The licensing is actually fine, because when Wikia takes over a wiki they keep all the history of those versions the same. This rant has nothing for a wikia staff member to waste their time worrying about. The more I researched it, the more it just looked like a sense of ownership entitlement on a user's end. 03:09, July 21, 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry Hooper, but the your argument only applies if the complaint violating the "BY" of the license. but that not complaint, it's the NC (Non-Commercial) -- 03:51, July 21, 2010 (UTC)
 * That would take a courtroom to decide, as defining the extent of any possible commercialization is something that we can't quantify until there is legal precedence. 04:04, July 21, 2010 (UTC)
 * Hi, thanks for replying. Fandyllic, I went to Uncyclopedia's admins, but I got permabanned because I explained it to them. They didn't want to see the truth. Kinda arrogant, isn't it? Hooper, the point is that the community didn't have the chance to vote/protest. Jonathan Huang sold the domain to Wikia without the green light from the community and the host. And it's not about the current licensing, it's all about violating the old one. I'm not talking about myself by the way, I'm UnMeta's representative. It's not about an individual problem... I see there is a misunderstanding about what I (we) complain for, and Roguebfl was that kind to send you on the right track. Wikia broke the old license by buying it, and using it for the company's own commercial purposes. Haven't you actually ever asked yourself why Wikia is so enthousiastic about Uncyclopedia, have you? If there will be a courtroom about this case, I will find that a shame for the company, whether Wikia will solve it by doing what we ask for | CartoonistHenning 13:14, July 21, 2010 (UTC)
 * I like to respond to the "§2. Wikia is playing a game with people when they talk about the ‘community’" section. I've been editing at Wikia since September 2008, which while it is not as long as many, it has given me some insight into the issue. I don't know how the deal went down, but it was decided as a whole at the wiki(s) by the personnel at the time that ran them. I doubt wikia has done anything wrong in this case. I see a clash of ethics and a user that can't figure out the program. I'm glad you know how to type long paragraphs full of demands. But every collective has rules, and obligations to fulfill. Wikia for the most part has never told any of the wikis I edit at "How it is" and most of the time the helpers have done just that when asked which is help. The rules however state and everyone should know this...... that all submissions become part of Wikia and they have the right to do what they see fit. Users are allowed to make wikis, edit content, and build pages. If you didn't read this in the rules, then I don't know what to say, but when you joined wikia, and whatever wikia makes/owns follow under these basic rules. This is life. Get over it! Devilmanozzy  (Talk Page)  05:43, July 22, 2010 (UTC)
 * Also, Wikia for all the flaws has allowed this very thread to live that is clearly against Wikia's interests, because they allow free speech. That is a ethic that really tells me that wikia does care what the users think. They could have deleted this thread, and banned you and erased you from wikia itself, but no they let you speak here. Devilmanozzy  (Talk Page)  05:59, July 22, 2010 (UTC)
 * Is that the way you talk to people? There are still limits on accepting wikis. Wikia knows goddamn well that it breaks our license, but it doesn't care about the complaints, because the company knows that no one can't protest (they know beforehand that they won't respond to those users). Don't you understand? No because you're all f*cking brainwashed. Don't you find it odd, that I never succeeded to communicate on a serious manner with the people of Wikia, when I want to talk about the other wikis on Wikia's side? I NEVER GOT A SERIOUS ANSWER OF THEM FROM THE FIRST TIME. THERE IS NO SINGLE WAY OF GOOD CO-OPERATING WITH WIKIA. Every communication should go through mail. And then... it is just hoping that I got an answer. And when I see that Wikia's staff replies messages as "OMG, I really love Wikia. <3 <3" and doesn't have anything to say on my suggestions, I feel ignored. When Wikia ignores me or others from .org wikis, it automaticly ignores Uncyclomedia and its entire wiki-family. This is NOT how Uncyclomedia works. Users and admins should go to UNCYCLOMEDIA.org to ask for help, not WIKIA. Every large decision taken should be discussed with the local community and AFTERWARDS with UNCYCLOMEDIA.org! Can't you put that in your bloody stubborn minds???
 * Wikia has to let me speak. You're talking about a privilege which is factually an obligation. I already explained that Uncyclomedia is the central board. But if Wikia ignores that, I feel obliged to talk about it here. Quit kind of me, isn't it? That I'm taking my time to represent Uncyclomedia. And you want to know what? I'm a VOLUNTEER who never asked a single dime for the project. That's because I care. I care about the Uncyclopedia communities. It's almost a father-to-son relationship: always caring about it, and never giving up to protect it. I want to protect all Uncyclopedias against any form of abuse. I'm watching this | CartoonistHenning 16:57, July 22, 2010 (UTC)
 * I seriously don't understand why you are not reading what we all have said. If Uncyclomedia or whatever it is, is part of wikia (bought it) then they CAN do what they want with it. Unless you actually owned the wiki before hand, your going to have to learn to live with wikia. You should have researched wikia and then voicing your outrage with the owner of Uncyclopedia, and it is over. You have only three choices, deal with the fact wikia owns the wiki and deal with the helpers for now on, or give up on building it at all, or Restart somewhere else on your own. You lost this battle the second wikia bought the wiki. Like noted before, you don't have any proof to what you have to do with the wiki in question. The real world needs proof. You paragraphs of demands and allegations don't have any weight. They are long and wordy and lack substance. Devilmanozzy  (Talk Page)  20:51, July 22, 2010 (UTC)
 * You aren't making a cohesive, easy to follow argument. For the sake of trying to see what you're saying, can you do the following?:
 * Explain to me at what point in time, and on who's authority, this UnCyclomedia you keep referring to was ever put "in charge" or given authority status over the UnCyclopedia project? If ever?
 * Because, the way it looks through going through the hard-to-follow UnCyclomedia site is that it was never officially given authority over UnCyclopedia, and just got reflexively mad when it lost it's only large wiki. If I'm wrong here, please provide direct links to where the owner of UnCyclopedia and it's community agreed to a deal that gave UnCyclomedia authority over it before it was sold. If you can not do that, right now, then your argument falls. You can complain about potential legalities of CC-XX-SAs, but if you can't provide proof that UnCyclomedia ever "owned" UnCyclopedia then your argument that wikia owes anything to it is invalid. 17:36, July 22, 2010 (UTC)
 * Because, the way it looks through going through the hard-to-follow UnCyclomedia site is that it was never officially given authority over UnCyclopedia, and just got reflexively mad when it lost it's only large wiki. If I'm wrong here, please provide direct links to where the owner of UnCyclopedia and it's community agreed to a deal that gave UnCyclomedia authority over it before it was sold. If you can not do that, right now, then your argument falls. You can complain about potential legalities of CC-XX-SAs, but if you can't provide proof that UnCyclomedia ever "owned" UnCyclopedia then your argument that wikia owes anything to it is invalid. 17:36, July 22, 2010 (UTC)

My 2 cents
GuildWiki, my primary wiki - is another CC-NC-SA wiki that was purchased by Wikia. This caused, understandably - a lot of drama. We, the users are - fairly content with the deal we got, which is an arangement by Wikia to host the wiki. A lot of the features that Wikia has added have been, annoying. Forced monaco was met with more annoyances, particularly as we received a message during the settlement of the sale to wikia that "We want to offer you some new features and skins, but that's never mandatory" (Jimbo Wales, GuildWiki talk:Wikia Move). The content, however - has remained the same. GuildWiki hasn't had any branding issues to speak of (we're not as high traffic as Uncyclopedia) - and I'm not too sure about the spesifics of the Creative Commons license (the way it was explained to us was, adverts are to pay for the hosting).
 * As for the things we were promiced, they never arrived. Monaco was forced on us. It's true, most of the other stuff wikia puts in can either be disabled, or asked to be disabled, or simpialy ignored. It was stated that:
 * "We will publish an annual report on the revenue and costs of running the guildwars wiki. Revenue can easily be tracked by ads sold. Costs can be calculated by the total cost of running all wikis and selling their advertising (servers, bandwith, engineer’s salaries, QA for bug fixes, ad sales, accounting, customer support, etc) and then calculating the percentage of total page views generated by guildwars vs. the rest of Wikia to determine the portion to be allocated to guildwars. Any profits will be taken at the end of the year and spent on give-aways to guildwars visitors or users" (Gil Penchina GuildWiki talk:Wikia move.
 * However, this never happened - I can only assume that Wikia is still making a loss on GuildWiki, but I can't say that with certainty, nor have I - or indeed any other sysop ever followed it up. TBH, we're not that fussed.


 * 1) Addressing the points by the OP, Wikia does own Uncyclopedia, and all the branding associated, from what I can gather, which means they can do what they want with it, it might not be in the spirit of what you want to do, but in the end, it is what they're doing, and I think it's unreasonable to demand nobody can start a wiki with the word Un in front of it without asking you.
 * 2) Perhaps I'm a sucker, but I genuinely believe Wikia is community oriented. Sure, they're a company, and they have there bottom line to think about (as we saw with monaco, a skin created primarily for advertisers' benefits), but with no community comes no wiki edits, so - wikia does help foster communities.
 * 3) I'm not sure about the CC licence, to be honest. If Wikia makes no money off of it, it might not be classed as "commercial" - but, even if Wikia does make no money, it could be argued that UC draws attention to the Wikia brand, and makes money that way (I don't know, don't have data about the amount of money Wikia makes). GuildWiki had advertising on it before it joined Wikia, to pay for the hosting, that - we assumed, didn't break the license - as it was helping to fund the hosting. The content is still free (libre) - you can take the content and do what you like with it, even start a parallel wiki with it, if you felt so inclined, as long as the licence remained with the proper attribution.
 * It seems more straightforward to go with the direct wording of the licence. The content may not be used "in any manner that is primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation...". Now, it could be argued that Wikia purchaced UC for purely philanthropic reasons, and just wanted to sustain the hosting (and recoop the costs of that hosting) for the site. This, of course is bogus. Wikia Inc. is a company, and they purchace things to help the company succeed in buisiness. Therefore, wikia's use of the content is "primarily intended for... commercial advantage".
 * I really don't know what I'm arguing for here, I've just re-read this and it's not very clear. I'll post it, anyway - as I've taken the time to read it.
 * Tl;dr;


 * Wikia's purchace of UC (and GameWikis) was for commercial reasons, even if these reasons are indirect), this could potentially break the NC clause of the CC license.
 * Wikia is not evil.
 * I can't make a good argument
 * -- Random Time  22:52, July 20, 2010 (UTC)


 * With the way Wikia treats the Community Central Forum, I think the sense of "community" is diminishing. I would say more, but it would probably just get me into trouble. -- Fandyllic  (talk &middot; contr) 6:40 PM PST 20 Jul 2010
 * Randomtime, thanks for telling Guildwars's story | CartoonistHenning 14:18, July 21, 2010 (UTC)

Whoa guys, that's a looong page.

Cartoon Henning: I'm sorry if my last reply wasn't clear. We obviously have very different views on many aspects of Uncyclopedia, including its history and the role of Uncyclomedia. I don't see any way to resolve those differences however long we make this page. The community on Uncyclopedia has already discussed this on their forums, and I would rather move on and spend time on supporting them and the wider Wikia community.

Fandyllic: your comment on the forums is an important one. We've tried hard recently to focus the (still small) Community Support team on the blogs and on making sure we reply quickly to all email. We see the forum as primarily a place for users to help users. That's not to say we don't see it as important, it's vital! That's exactly why we blogged about you and some of the other helpful and active forum users. We want to make sure we help as many people as possible, and that the community becomes stronger by helping each other. If you want to talk more on this, let's move it to another page rather than mixing it with the above.

Thanks -- sannse (help forum | blog) 00:08, July 22, 2010 (UTC)
 * This is absurd. You never mentioned a word about the license Wikia broke. You don't have any arguments on that, have you?
 * Supporting what community? Uncyclopedia? I got permabanned there, which is a very respectless action against an Uncyclomedia admin. "We're not Uncyclomedia anymore, so why should we be ashamed?"
 * My (Our) question is simple: Wikia may not be involved anymore in our projects. That includes the following:

We have the right to claim back those sites on Wikia.
 * Wikia may not accept Uncyclopedias in new languages from new wiki creations anymore.
 * Dead/inactive Uncyclopedias in other languages on Wikia should be removed (see list beneeth).
 * Every active Uncyclopedia community on Wikia should refer to Uncyclomedia: we are talking about interwiki links that also should contain non-Wikia Uncyclopedias.
 * People from "the Wikia community" may not adopt/create Uncyclopedias. They HAVE to be refered to Uncyclomedia.org.
 * List of Uncyclopedias to be removed:

I will continue with this till those wikis are removed | CartoonistHenning 01:02, July 22, 2010 (UTC)
 * http://desciclopedia.wikia.com - empty copy of .org/dead
 * http://nl.onnieuws.wikia.com - mistake/dead
 * http://ikkjepedia.wikia.com (already on .org)
 * http://uncapaedia.wikia.com (already on .org)
 * http://io.neciklopedio.wikia.com - mistake/dead
 * http://nunyepedia.wikia.com - dead
 * http://valenciclopedia.wikia.com - dead
 * http://ndhablek.wikia.com - dead
 * http://su.goblogpedia.wikia.com - dead
 * http://keinziklopedie.wikia.com - dead
 * http://simpleuncyclopedia.wikia.com - mistake/dead

I read above about him selling the domain (and if nobody has said this above), if he was paying for it, he does not have to talk to the community about it, his money, his domain.. unless you had a written contract... --Lcawte 06:15, July 22, 2010 (UTC)


 * Alot of demands. No reason to listen to them though. 12:15, July 22, 2010 (UTC)
 * Lcawte, it isn't about "who is the owner". It's about the permission of 'selling' it. If one chooses our license CreativeCommons, one can't sell it to a commercial company.
 * Hooper, that's no argument. Wikia is breaking our license and I do whatever I can to revert a bit of the caused "damage" | CartoonistHenning 16:16, July 22, 2010 (UTC)

Sue them? Otherwise I see no reason why wikia would even consider listening to you. -- Light Daxter -  Talk  16:21, July 22, 2010 (UTC)
 * OKAY! YOU HENNING IS GETTING NO WHERE!! YOU CANT SUE THEM YOU WILL JUST LOOSE BIG TIME, YOU WILL OBEY THEY COPYRIGHTS OR BE BANNED, YOU ARE JUST A USER ON UNCYCLOPEDIA AND THE ADMINISTRATORS NOR WIKIA WILL DELETE IT BECAUSE THEY HAVE CREATED GREAT PROGRESS OF MORE THAN 10,000 ARTICLES!! DO US ALL A BIG FAVOR AND JUST END THIS DISCUSSION AND WALK AWAY BEFORE YOU GET INTO SOME REAL TROUBLE!!!--Andrew Schlieffen Executive Administrator of Modern Wikia and Valkyrie Movie Wikia 16:45, July 22, 2010 (UTC)

Andrew, please don't yell, it's unkind and unnecessary. Yeah, I better stop coming to this page, as I am neutral and so Wikia please don't ban my account! Jeffwang16  (Talk)   (Contribs.)  Email 16:47, July 22, 2010 (UTC)
 * People are too fightned about a ban. I'm not. Mr. Schlieffen, if you want to protect me from a possible ban, sorry man, but I keep going. Wikia should know that the company has harmed the communities of Uncyclomedia. Wikia just doesn't want to admit it. And that's why this is so controversial | CartoonistHenning 17:03, July 22, 2010 (UTC)
 * Wikia wont admit anything, neither will they remove uncyclopedia, you are just wasting your time, you can keep talking about this and they wont care. Good luck trying to permanently remove uncyclopedia.-- Andrew Schlieffen (talk &middot; contr) 16:56, July 23, 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think he wants to remove it, it's too big to remove it. I think he wants to move it instead of remove, move to an other namespace, maybe rename. And I think he and the whole Uncyclomedia-family wants justice. That's because this whole thing is happening. I know, Uncyclopedia who is at Wikia, it is already done, it is sold, but it is still a copyright-crime and a illegal thing (according to above prove - i believe in it) while nobody cared about it, about the last i don't know how many years. Now they realised, and they do care. It is the same effect as an unknown guy who is stealing your child and grow him/her up somewhere else when the original parents are depressed for life (some of them not, but though), 'till they got it back, íf they find him/her. That's my point on this case. Have a nice day,  Roye7777777  &middot; Discuss?
 * He has yet to prove anything. He has not shown us the direct link to where the owner and community of Uncyclopedia EVER gave Uncyclomedia "ownership." So there is no proof. Additionally, as a parent, never ever make such a comparison again. I won't even begin going into how off-base it is. 20:26, July 23, 2010 (UTC)

What a load of senseless garbage. Where's the banhammer already?-- 22:39, July 23, 2010 (UTC)
 * Hoboy, the level of drama here is off the charts. Bet ED is having a field day with this. - ZS 10:43, July 24, 2010 (UTC)
 * Launchballer, you're scared about seeing the truth, aren't you? ZS, I don't care what ED thinks about this. No Hooper, you're asking me to find "evidences". It isn't that. I've - especially for you - searched for over two days now, and I didn't find any forums with a kind of voting. Your lazy mind says there has to be an evidence (if not, I fail). But what if there is no evidence? Huang owned the domain opf Uncycopedia, I'm not that stupid, but if he did, he couldn't do whatever he liked. He, and Wikia, broke the license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ ) by acquiring it to a commercial company. And like the license tells us all: "You may not use this work for commercial purposes. " That it is. You may ask me for other evidences to "let me fail", but license is right, and you can't distort this rule. If you don't respect that, you break it. And to answer you're question "Did the community want that?" I can say that many users (I dunno how much) left it after the sale | CartoonistHenning 11:17, July 24, 2010 (UTC)
 * Okay, listen closely and read slowly, as you're obviously not getting it. If you want to argue whether the license was possibly broken (again, it hasn't been proven) than get a lawyer. However, as you've just acknowledged you can find no proof that Uncyclomedia ever owned Uncyclopedia, than actually Uncyclomedia has no right to request any Uncyclopedia project be moved from wikia, or for wikia to stop hosting it. Wikia owns Uncyclopedia, and therefore has a right to operate in any language with the site that it so chooses. So, in conclusion: stop demanding anything from Wikia. If you truly believe the license was broken, seek legal council. This conversation is over. 13:07, July 24, 2010 (UTC)
 * The conversation is not over. Perhaps with you, but not with he Wikia Staff, founders and CEO. The license has been broken because Wikia uses the project for commercial purposes . Read the license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ CartoonistHenning 13:51, July 24, 2010 (UTC)
 * It claims it owns Uncyclopedia, but if Wikia bought it for commercial purposes, it hasn't the right to own it. Defacto is Wikia not allowed to own it. Everyone let this injustice happen, that's not right | CartoonistHenning 13:59, July 24, 2010 (UTC)
 * What "commercial purposes"? The burden of proof is on you to provide evidence that any content given before the buyout is directly being used in a commercial manner. Find a lawyer, or give up. The conversation is over. 14:03, July 24, 2010 (UTC)
 * The discussion is not over. OMG, what is Wikia than? Haven't you noticed the adsenses and the subdomain .wikia.com before? A commercial purpose includes also having it on wikifarms where staff etc. get paid for it. I won't give up till staff understands this (I think they do) and can explain why they broke the license | CartoonistHenning 14:10, July 24, 2010 (UTC)
 * I think you should be quiet for once. GO TO COURT AND DO ALL THIS. YOU ARE WASTING YOUR TIME HERE. WE DON'T NEED A DISCUSSION HERE, IT SHOULD BE MOVED TO COURT. Just to let you know, this is bothering my life, so I'm going to request this to be shut down, because this is too annoying. Jeffwang16   (Talk)   (Contribs.)  Email 14:15, July 24, 2010 (UTC)
 * This is bothering your life because it just appears on the Recent Changes? Just ignore this discussion, right? CartoonistHenning 14:18, July 24, 2010 (UTC)
 * That is a vague reasoning that you'd have to argue in a court of law to prove. You keep making vague and bias accusations with no solid, direct, proof. Proof is needed. You admitted above that you had none. Get a lawyer, or leave it be - as your argument is based on perception, not facts. Wikia staff are busy assisting users with real issues, and have no need to respond to this unless you can provide proof. So go get some and stop wasting our time. Until you have direct proof, this conversation is over. 14:18, July 24, 2010 (UTC)
 * What proof? The proof is that Wikia bought the domain from Jonathan Huang and thereby used it for its commercial purposes... CartoonistHenning 14:23, July 24, 2010 (UTC)
 * What proof? The proof is that Wikia bought the domain from Jonathan Huang and thereby used it for its commercial purposes... CartoonistHenning 14:23, July 24, 2010 (UTC)

I have requested this to be shut down because it is too annoying. It's not that I come here to get myself annoyed, you're in the wrong place. Go to court. Get a lawyer. And here you can be quiet. Jeffwang16  (Talk)   (Contribs.)  Email 14:24, July 24, 2010 (UTC)
 * That is not proof CH. Proof would be showcasing and proving that Wikia has made an income based off of a particular or other submissions from Uncyclopedia that were there before the purchase. In order to do this, you would need a lawyer and a court room. Period. We can't make this anymore simple. Just the fact that they bought Uncyclopedia does not mean that you can prove they made a commercial profit from it.
 * And, of course, as stated earlier, Uncyclomedia has yet to provide how it has a right to demand anything, as you can't provide proof that Uncyclomedia ever owned or had an interest in Uncyclopedia other than sharing contributors. So, you have made numerous claims on this. One part of those claims is that wikia should shut down certain Uncyclopedia projects and hand them over to UnMeta. As I've just showcased, until you provide proof that Uncyclomedia ever owned Uncyclopedia, these are baseless demands that need no response.
 * Your other demand is centered around an alleged but not proven breaking of the former license. In order to get a response from this, you will need a lawyer. So, if you are not devoted enough to this idea to go get one, then you should leave it be. I can't say it any simpler than you have not provided any proof for your demands, and the more you make demands without providing proof, the worse you look.
 * Even if you went the legal route, and even if you proved it, all that would happen is you and whoever else was a contributor to the old license who signs on will have the content removed. It wouldn't be enough to reverse the sale of the site to wikia. 14:39, July 24, 2010 (UTC)
 * Listen, license changes happen all the time on the web today, deal with it. And really, I havn't examined the licenses too clearly, but when they brought the rights to the copywrite.. if the old one had been allow commercial use, then Wikia said no, you can't use it commercially, that would be a problem, but its not that way around.. --Lcawte 15:47, July 24, 2010 (UTC)
 * Just read this. There is a lot of information you can think about. This is not my problem, it's a problem of many people | CartoonistHenning 15:58, July 24, 2010 (UTC)
 * These people need to move on, and improve that wiki (its terrible!), life is cruel, licenses change, deal with it. -- Lewis Cawte  (Talk - Contact) 16:08, July 24, 2010 (UTC)

May I point out that Wikipedia has disallowed legal threats. I've heard of "Please be a giant dick, so we can ban you" but this is actually getting quite ridiculous.-- 16:14, July 24, 2010 (UTC)
 * Launchballer, you're making some personal pointless arguments about 'behaviour'. I'm telling the truth which no one here seems to understand. Or doesn't want to understand. Hear to the voice of others and accept a conflict with your original thoughts. Imagine something: imagine you're sittig in front of the live-news on TV and suddenly reporters say that Martians destroyed NY city, Paris, London, ect. But you don't believe it, because you ever thought this has been fiction. You just laugh at this and watch some MTV in stead. But in real those cities are destroyed, and people are in panic everywhere. That's because you don't want to accept new information, 'cause you're afraid to see the truth and reconsider your thoughts. Well, that's just the same | CartoonistHenning 16:40, July 24, 2010 (UTC)
 * Just the same? Can an admin tell me if calling someone an idiot is improper? I need to know for relevant reasons. 17:02, July 24, 2010 (UTC)
 * You're contradicting yourself. First you say I should take a lawyer, on the other hand you mention that this is the right place? You don't like the site because it's telling the truth. And there you were: I gave you evidences, but you ignore them | CartoonistHenning 17:41, July 24, 2010 (UTC)
 * That was not evidence. A lot of it was just a big red herring (something that complaintwiki admits to if you're smart enough to find the right page). So it was hurting your case. This is/was the place. You failed. Get a lawyer. Until then, good day. 17:43, July 24, 2010 (UTC)
 * "You failed". You are so convinced you're right, aren't you? Uncyclopedia HAS NO PAGE / FORUM about its move. It happened secretly. That's the truth, and if you don't see that... well, than I declare you naive. You know what? Just live in your world of "happy living with the Wikia community - Wikia is cool and lovely" and other nonsense. I won't reply you anymore, because you don't seem to want to view the other side of this company | CartoonistHenning 17:54, July 24, 2010 (UTC)
 * If Uncyclopedia has no page for this, it means that the admins probably like the switch and if they like the switch there is nothing anyone can do other than live with it. From what is sounds like, all you want to do is make us, wikia users, feel guilty. Which I think you realize isn't working and most are just angry or annoyed. Lastly, your example of being blind is terribly inaccurate. You've explained to us that you were permabanned after telling the wiki's admins "the truth", maybe that should show you that they like it here. -Bluethunder <font color="#FFD23C">Contact 18:53, July 24, 2010 (UTC)
 * [[File:License.jpg]]
 * Here, right under your noses... CartoonistHenning 23:21, July 24, 2010 (UTC)
 * That is still not proof. I made it so clear a three year old could of got it. It could be equally argued that their purchase falls under the "free to share" portion. Get a lawyer or shut up. The end. 23:54, July 24, 2010 (UTC)
 * CartoonistHenning, I don't think you understand how these licenses work. If Uncyclopedia references this license, it doesn't mean Wikia who owns Uncyclopedia can't use the content for commercial purposes, it means anyone who wants to re-use Uncyclopedia content can't use it for commercial purposes. Do you understand this? -- Fandyllic  (talk &middot; contr) 8:05 PM PST 24 Jul 2010
 * Sorry Fandyllic that only work if uncyclomedia.wikia.com existed before uncyclomedia.org switch to NC lieances. -- 03:23, July 25, 2010 (UTC)
 * Unless the ownership of uncyclopedia.wikia.com (there is no uncyclomedia.wikia.com or uncyclomedia.org, so you're already inaccurate on those points) by Wikia legitimately disputed (and so far it is not), as soon as Wikia took over ownership of uncyclopedia.org which redirects to uncyclopedia.wikia.com, they could change the license to whatever they wish. You don't seem to understand either, Roguebfl. -- Fandyllic  (talk &middot; contr) 9:57 PM PST 24 Jul 2010
 * I have never been there so i was guess on it's name bassed on what writted here. Second that exactly what being disputed, namley because of the NC licence the community contributed based on the expectation there work would not be turned to commetial intrested that said sale WAS invalid. -- 05:59, July 25, 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, but nothing is going to get solved here, especially when you don't have your facts straight and you're probably disputing the wrong issue. -- Fandyllic  (talk &middot; contr) 7:20 PM PST 25 Jul 2010

I'm at a loss as to why Cartoonist is still here.-- 09:15, July 25, 2010 (UTC)

Hey people, he wants to resolve this thing and you treat him like he's out of his mind. Can't this be done more professionally? <font face="monotype corsiva" color="goldenrod"> -VezonThunder  (keskustelu) 09:34, July 26, 2010 (UTC)

Because he quite clearly is out of his mind. -- 14:09, July 26, 2010 (UTC)
 * I stroke your comment, you're never allowed to spread maledictions about people, please keep that in mind. Just go away if you don't have anything valuable to add. VezonThunder, I really hoped I got more professional help, but Wikia Staff doesn't seem to care. If an open conversation is out of the question and there is no way to talk about this matter seriously, I'm quit with Wikia and I'll take consequences. If I had money, I would really consider to sue Jimbo Wales and Jonathan Huang. But Wikia knows no one can do something, because they're almighty and they're feeling themselves too good to co-operate with any .org. Wikia, you have the domain, you have the rights (have you? can I see an evidence? an assignment? a contract?) to have it. But you never got the content, as it belongs to the whole community (syn. world, not only Wikia's communistic part of the world). The content you can't commercialise. Maybe you can consider me as mad (according to my 50 articles on Dutch and 20 articles on Norwegian Uncyclopedia, and because I administrate approximately 25 of those uncycs), still I'm not silly | CartoonistHenning 15:36, July 26, 2010 (UTC)
 * Please, don't lead this to an edit war | CartoonistHenning 17:12, July 26, 2010 (UTC)