Forum:CT:Domain and forums

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The result of the debate was inconclusive. –SentryTalk 08:20, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Domain

I've been thinking about having a domain for our site, and wanted to see what y'all thought. What do you think would be a good one? Here are names available that I checked:

  • wookieepedia.com (I can't believe .org is taken! Somebody's probably trying to make a buck.)
    1. Here's my vote. WhiteBoy 02:28, 8 Aug 2005 (UTC)
    2. Ditto. .org would be even better if we could manage to get ahold of it, though it would almost certainly cost more. .nets are 'cool' in a way, but there seem to be a lot of people who have a hard time remembering them. The same people would probably have a hard time remembering a .org, too, though. .com is probably actually the safest bet. And 'wookieepedia' rocks. – Aidje talk 03:52, 8 Aug 2005 (UTC)
    3. My vote. Though if we can afford it, we should probably look at registering wookieepedia.net and wookieepedia.info too, to redirect to wookieepedia.com. --Azizlight 04:35, 8 Aug 2005 (UTC)
    4. My vote. Only concern is people not being able to find it. Too bad starwarswiki.com is taken, that would've bene my prime choice. Kuralyov 04:52, 8 Aug 2005 (UTC)
    5. My vote goes here. I really hope this will be a successful venture --Imp 08:53, 8 Aug 2005 (UTC)
    6. Since .org is taken (what the heck? probably the owner can be [Force-]persuaded to transfer it...), .com is probably the best choice. - Sikon 09:37, 8 Aug 2005 (UTC)
    • Send an email to cantrell@pobox.com. He's the registrant of wookieepedia.org
    1. I'm fine with this. --SparqMan 20:47, 13 Dec 2005 (UTC)
  • wookieepedia.net
  • wookieepedia.info
  • starwarswiki.net
    1. MarcK 03:06, 8 Aug 2005 (UTC)
  • #SparqMan 14:35, 8 Aug 2005 (UTC)
  • starwarswiki.info
  • swwiki.org
  • swwiki.net
  • swwiki.info
  • thestarwarswiki.org
  • starwarswiki.org - this is currently held but expires in January '06
(If I remember correctly, expired domains don't immediatly become available for re-registration).--beeurd 13:25, 7 Sep 2005 (UTC)

Add any others you want, and vote for the one you want most. WhiteBoy 02:53, 8 Aug 2005 (UTC)

Who would pay for this? I believe that the Wikicities does not allow the use of an outside URL (http://www.wikicities.com/wiki/Domain_name). We could set it up as a redirect, or if we could scrounge up the financing, we could liberate our content and ourselves from those awfully placed Google Ads. --SparqMan 05:31, 8 Aug 2005 (UTC)
  • Domains are cheap so I don't have a problem springing for that out of my pocket. If we decide to host it ourselves, I don't expect it to be expensive, but I would setup a PayPal account or something and ask people to contribute. But I would rather not host it ourselves...WikiCities has been more than generous with their support since the beginning, all free of charge to us. And I want to stay loyal to that if possible. And the Google ads are there, but I don't even see them anymore.  :) That's the (very small) cost of getting all this for free. WhiteBoy 06:15, 8 Aug 2005 (UTC)
    • I don't mind ads, but I do mind that it smashes the content box an extra two inches. What about Wikicities' rule on domain names? --SparqMan 06:26, 8 Aug 2005 (UTC)
      • Yeah, I dunno. It doesn't sound like it's definitely forbidden, but I just need to ask. WhiteBoy 06:46, 8 Aug 2005 (UTC)
        • I don't particularly feel I need to pay for this, and the Google ads are not nearly as annoying as say some flash ads I see on plenty other sites. -- Riffsyphon1024 14:28, 8 Aug 2005 (UTC)

It's interesting to find this discussion since I emailed Jimmy Wales a few days ago about moving this wiki to its own domain. Sadly, the one I was thinking about Wookiepedia.com has just been registered by someone called Paul West, so something else is needed. Wikia is more than happy to pay for this and if it is a domain that we own or is transferred to us, then we would be happy to put the wiki at that address rather than only redirecting it. If the domain isn't owned by us, there is too much risk of the domain being lost to spammers or to people the community didn't trust, though originally being registered by the wrong people or by not being renewed on time, that we would not host any more wikis on unsecure domains (ones we don't own). Star Wars is now the largest Wikicity, and I'd love to see it on its own domain, in the same way Uncyclopedia and Memory Alpha are.By the way, the Terms of use state you're not allowed to turn off the ads for the whole site. Individual users are not the whole site. ;) Angela (talk) 19:16, 6 Sep 2005 (UTC)

  • Once the vote seemed to be heading toward it, I went ahead and bought the wookieepedia.com domain (notice the different spelling). Hey, domains are cheap and figured I'd grab it before someone else did. Luckily Paul West misspelled it when he registered his domain.  :) I would rather hang on to it myself rather than sell it to Wikia. And I hope that I'm someone the community trusts.  ;) WhiteBoy 16:31, 7 Sep 2005 (UTC)

I know it's not what we want, but I already have www.swdatabase.info registered in my name (and when you guys found me I redirected it to here, lol). By the way, webhosts http://www.easily.co.uk/ currently have a limited time offer on .info domains at £4.99 (~US$9) for 1 year. Not sure how good an offer this is. --beeurd 13:20, 7 Sep 2005 (UTC)

  • Come on Whitey, sell it already! Wikia treats us extremely well, and we don't appear to be leaving them any time soon. --Imp 21:29, 6 Jan 2006 (UTC)
    • Apropos, wookieepedia.org expires on January 24. - Sikon [Talk] 10:08, 9 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Forums

Started to put this on the end of my previous post, but decided it was technically a separate topic. One thing I thought about doing with the new domain was actually setting up a real forums section (discussion pages used as community forums is about the only thing I don't like about MediaWiki)...the "cantina," if you will. This would definitely take a separate hosting for this, but only enough to handle the forums. For example, www.wookieepedia.com could just redirect to starwars.wikicities.com (so nothing really changes there except the look of the URL). Then if someone clicks on "Community Portal" it takes them to a different URL (e.g. forums.wookiepedia.com), which is hosted elsewhere (not by WikiCities, buy by whatever we buy). What would you think about that? Is it worth it (we could probably do this for about $10/month or less)? Is everyone just fine with how it works now? Thoughts? WhiteBoy 06:21, 8 Aug 2005 (UTC)

  • Forums would be an okay addition. Bulleted discussions are not easy to follow. Concerns: moderation, users would have to frequent the forums AND the wiki to keep up to date. I would recommend G&L Hosting running Vanilla. --SparqMan 06:30, 8 Aug 2005 (UTC)
    • Yeah, what I had in mind was just more-or-less replacing the Community Portal with the forums. It wouldn't be of much use to non-Wookieepedians. Have you used G&L Hosting? I have some friends using Host Gator and their $10/month package is pretty feature-rich. But I haven't used them personally yet. I've used Interland and phpwebhosting.com...both have been pretty decent. WhiteBoy 06:55, 8 Aug 2005 (UTC)
      • I was hoping that we would really have the wiki at another domain, rather than simply redirecting to starwars.wikicities.com. If it's just a redirect, I'm pretty sure that I'd never make use of it. As for a forum, Vanilla does look like it could be cool, though I've never seen it before. I'm sure you know about the wonderful phpBB already. As for web hosting, I'd recommend Elixant. For slightly less than G&L, you get way more; look at the bronze reseller package: 2x the diskspace, 10x the bandwidth, 80x the databases, and subdomains, FTP accounts, POP3 accounts and mailing lists are unlimited. And it costs $0.50 less per month. :-) It comes with all the expected bells and whistles, too. – Aidje talk 07:10, 8 Aug 2005 (UTC)
        • I would like to see forums too, if only to deal with shiploads of traffic in the community portal (I pay for traffic). phpBB is a good choice I think, or maybe a free version of Invision (1.x were free and no longer available at the official site, 2.x are paid, but 1.x can still be found outside of the official site). - Sikon 09:37, 8 Aug 2005 (UTC)
      • Unless Whiteboy can secure a deal with Angela or Jimbo, the domain will have to be a redirect unless we choose to leave Wikicities. I've used G&L, and it's very nice. Excellent customer service, really nice guys. My concern is a lack of knowledge on how much bandwidth the wiki traffic requires. As for Vanilla, it blows YaBB, phpBB and vbulletin out of the water in terms of lightness, speed and elegance. --SparqMan 12:47, 8 Aug 2005 (UTC)
        • A project can be hosted by Wikia (Wikicities) and still not be a Wikicity. Uncyclopedia isn't, for instance. It's not even a GFDL project. - Sikon 13:47, 8 Aug 2005 (UTC)
  • Am I the only person who feels all this is really unnecessary? -- Riffsyphon1024 14:34, 8 Aug 2005 (UTC)
    • I don't think forums are all that neccessary either. As for the domain, if Wikia is willing to host it, then why not? --Imp 14:37, 8 Aug 2005 (UTC)

If Wikia were to provide a forum (and I'm not yet promising we can), which free forum software would be best for that? Angela (talk) 19:21, 6 Sep 2005 (UTC)

  • I'd recommend phpBB, as I have run a forum using that before and know it is easy to use and has good support. Although I must admit I haven't used the latest versions since phpBB 2.0.x --beeurd 03:03, 17 Sep 2005 (UTC)
  • PhpBB seems to be a great one. It's the one I'd recommend, too. WhiteBoy 22:12, 30 Sep 2005 (UTC)
  • phpBB is fine, but used everywhere. I highly recommend playing around with Vanilla. It's very slick. --SparqMan 20:44, 13 Dec 2005 (UTC)
  • Vanilla is simply brilliant. Its simple style fits so well with the overall wiki design. As for hosting, I'm sure Wikicities could just host the forum at (for example) http://starwars.wikicities.com/vanilla/ --Imp 15:37, 20 January 2006 (UTC)


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