User blog:Jspoelstra/Proposal merge Nukapedia and The Vault

Hello all,

A week ago our community was contacted by Tagaziel, bureaucrat from Fallout wiki The Vault at Gamepedia. As you may have heard, about half a year ago, Gamepedia was acquired by Fandom, making both wikis grow closer to eachother, as they are now under the same roof, paid by the same employer and not so much competitors anymore. For this reason, The Vault has proposed we look into a merger of both wikis, making it the best Fallout wiki that can be, combining our content. Important note to detail, mainly due to our high traffic, Gamepedia is prepared to merge their content to our wiki, here at Nukapedia, Fandom.

First this proposal came to our bureaucrats, and our initial response was positive to quite positive. Because when we look at the service to the general Fallout community worldwide, there can only be positive effects. As explained below by Tagaziel, both wikis have areas where they have the stronger content, and combining those can only improve our strength. And joining forces again means The Vault users will come over here, the activity will pick up, creating more content, the Fallout community is together once more. After some discussion by the bc's, we have dropped the news in Discord's Overseer's desk, so all of our admins could respond to it. With some reservations we believe we can overcome, they are also positive about giving this merge an honest try.

Obviously, with such a large merge, there are bound to be problems. First of all, the scale. 7,5 years of differences is quite a lot to catch up with. Then we have both our content to combine. Who's to say who has the better content? We expect this can become one of major issues, with discussions between editors from both sides. Guideline is, generally Nukapedia has the better gameplay content, The Vault has the better lore/background. We will do our best the make the right decisions and see how it goes, going along. Due to these expected problems which will soon come to light, there would be regular evaluations between the wikis, to see if they can be overcome.

So it's not all easy-going and there will be problems, but the administration feels they are well outweighed by the positive result that can come of it, a unified Fallout wiki with strong content, the family back together!

Concluding I'd like to say, note that this is a proposal from The Vault, with our administration's response to it, and not yet a done deal. We are a community oriented wiki, and we are now asking for your opinions about the plan before we go further detailing it. Below, the document proposal we received from Tagaziel, give it a read. Cursive we have made our remarks where applicable.

Summary
The Vault Fallout Wiki was moved to Gamepedia in 2011 as a new platform, helmed by Ausir. The split effectively divided the wiki community into those who moved onto the new platform, retaining The Vault name and brand, and those who remained at Wikia, reorganizing into Nukapedia under new leadership. Eight years later, the two wikis remain active with dedicated contributors and a (relatively) up to date body of content. However, in the light of Curse’s acquisition by Fandom, there is no need to remain separate. Unifying the wikis would allow everyone to focus on the goal of making the ultimate guide to Fallout and leveraging the skills of editors on both sides. That is why we are gathered here today, to bring about a reunion of sorts to both wikis through various proposals and discussions.

Proposal

 * 1) Merge wikis on a single platform through Fandom’s official Project Crossover.
 * 2) Unify content and template functionality with a focus on quality.
 * 3) Do so in such a way that permits the continued use of social media accounts.

Platform
The merger will require picking the platform to meet at, assuming that the two platforms will continue to be distinct.

Platform decided to be Fandom

Branding
The decision on branding is critical:
 * 1) The option to just strip one wiki’s branding and go with the other would effectively render social media for that platform unusable (The Vault has a 181 user Discord; fan pages on Facebook and Tumblr with 5130+ followers and 16000+ followers respectively; Nukapedia has a 164 user Discord and Twitter with 2500+ followers).
 * 2) Stripping the branding and just calling it the Fallout Wiki would theoretically permit the continued use of existing social media profiles as long as an explanation is included. (Potential continuation of using both names, with some kind of informative distinction?)
 * 3) United branding (The Vault/Nukapedia, Nukapedia + The Vault, The Nuka Vaultopedia etc.) would be a straightforward option, but cumbersome in the long term.
 * 4) A new branding for the unified wiki is another option.

Social media accounts are continued to be used separately, three months into the merge an evaluation, with possible choice which to choose.

Decision for combined name logo for a year or earlier if merge is completed sooner, then a vote between three options.

Content
Merging the content would require a clear set of criteria and a focus first and foremost on quality. All editors are already informed that their contributions are subject to merciless editing and changing as part of the license. However, mergers should not be a matter of overwriting, but a matter of merging article versions to take the best from both wikis. In other words, it should be a consensus, rather than a compromise: An article with a hundred references would serve as basis, augmented with well-written passages from an article that has fewer references, but is easier to read. (However, references that clearly relate to each and every subject should be condensed into subsequent articles, Ex: “APA was developed by the Enclave [1] ”, rather than having “catch-all” articles that could lead to misinformation and confusion.)

User rights
Administrators and editors will transfer with their user rights intact. Any existing bans from active users are lifted as a gesture of goodwill on both sides and we begin again, wiping the slate clean in terms of interpersonal relations. (Should any long-term inactivity of users or continuation of unprofessional/rude behavior continue on the part of either platform, their bans or accounts will be quickly disciplined or blocked.)

Users from The Vault get the same rights on Nukapedia.

Lifting existing bans as goodwill is still a point of discussion.

Timeframe
The migration would have to take place fast and with minimal disruption to services. Note that the communities will not be left to fend for themselves: There will be official support both from wiki managers (Tephra and Tagaziel), as well as other members of the staff.