Istaria Wiki is not Judge Judy

[StalePopcorn]

The Crimson Dawn section of the External Links page on the Istaria Wiki has, despite my pleadings and associated rollbacks, continued to be 'vandalised' by someone from IP address 84.84.74.252 (they hadn't logged in/don't have a login on the Wiki). The updates have been to air a grievance the mystery editor seems to have with Virtrium.

I have no comment to make about the correctness/incorrectness of their statements (you can check the page history on the Wiki to see what they wrote), but the Wiki is not designed as an area to air disagreements that aren't related to the content of Istaria. If the anonymous poster is reading this post - please find another vehicle to pursue your disagreements. The Istaria Wiki is not the right place.

I have tried several times to contact the poster via notes on the Wiki, but they unfortunately haven't responded. There is no way they could have missed my notes - I used BIG LOUD WORDS

I have turned on "Protection" on the page for now so it can't be updated, please lmk if you want to make any changes to that particular page. My apologies for having to lock the page.

If the anonymous poster is (still) reading this - please contact me if you wish to discuss further. The Istaria Wiki is a resource for playing Istaria, not for other purposes.

*** Moderators - please move this post to Rants if you think it shouldn't be in the General forum ***

[Raptress]

I cannot imagine that the anonymous editor missed what you said, no. I also cannot imagine that they did not know that you are the one who basically runs the Wiki, and thus that your words are to be heeded. I'm sorry that you had to put up with that person's actions and had to go so far as making the External Links page the Wiki's first protected page.

[Akrion]

Yeah, I agree, that edit was absolutely unnecessary. Though I feel an edit such as "The owner of Crimson Dawn has shut down fansite services due to disagreements with Virtrium" would be fair.

Also to comment a bit on a point you made on the article: "Losing Crimson Dawn is a blow to the Istaria community, it hardly impacts Virtrium. I fail to see how switching off the site from general access does anything but affect other players. "

Any negative effect on the players as a whole will have a negative effect on Virtrium. With Istaria being as confusing as it is, and with the lack of material to help make sense of some things, that will only serve to make the game more frustrating and make players (especially new ones) more liable to quit.

This isn't the first time a fan doing stuff for the community was turned away from doing so because of some issue with the staff, and the last most notable time I remember this happening was a catalyst in Order's population notably crashing mid to late 2009. So I have to say that stuff like this can negatively impact VI.

[StalePopcorn]

Quite true. Though with statistics like "last time in 2009" and "again in 2011", that's one every two years. Pretty good stats really

Other sites have come and gone as well - Gamers Info, tazoon.com, etc. New ones appear - bristugo.com, HZ Confectioner, etc. That happens with long-running games. Well, with long-running anything on the Internet

It is tough to lose access to such great references so abruptly though, like Chasing's awesome Dragon Guide and other such information sources. But the community such that it is, I'm sure other people have that knowledge and could just write a replacement if they are of a mind to do so.

The Wiki is a good place to put some information, but I generally find that detailed guides are sometimes better presented in one consolidated form. It makes reading from beginning-to-end a lot easier for one thing! And for example, the Horizons Crafting Calculator and Map Pack certainly aren't Wiki-compatible!

[Zanon]

What makes it sadder is a known website that was taken down was brought up. Stale popcorn's wiki website was reccomended

"On a last note we wouldnt recommend using istaria.wikia.com at this time, as the level of moderation(StalePopcorn) is limiting the free flow of information which on our site will never be an issue."


That is see as a low blow. Stale has only placed a limitation to stop an unnamed person from constanly changing portions of the wiki on which he discribed on this thread. it sad so see this go on within the community.

[Draeconis]

While not as extensive as CD's database or Istaria Wiki (which some of the information was taken from), my guild's website has some information, to include the following:

• Bi-Ped Craft Trainers
• Dragon Adv Quests (Which is still a work in progress, and missing the updates for the level 40-70 ability quests)
• Dragon Craft Quests
• Dragon Scales and Packs
• Helian Rite of Passage Walk-Through (Including Quest Dialogue)
• Hoard Requirements and Bonuses
• Lunus Rite of Passage Walk-Through
• Quartermasters
• Timeline of Istaria
• Trophy Hunters

Dragons of Fury website.

[Sigi]

It's also weird complaining about lack of free flow of information. I don't see any free flow in taking something down completely.

[Chasing]

It's also weird complaining about lack of free flow of information. I don't see any free flow in taking something down completely.

Lets see if I can clarify the site being taken down (without breaching the NDA thats been placed on me).

Just need to point out that I am not directly involved with what has happened, I just got indirectly pulled into the middle of it (since the bulk of the site content was built by myself).

1. When the triggering event happened, the party concerned engaged their legal.
2. The legal entity took control of the website/servers and turned it off and placed the message (at the time) on the homepage.
3. When the legal case was dropped, control and access to the site was returned to the site admins.
4. A discussion took place with myself and the other site admin/owner to bring the site back online. This was quite a long and lengthy discussion and involved a compromise.
5. The site was turned back on with an amended home page.

[Sigi]

Chasing, thank you for trying to explain.

I'm still confused - and not amused - by the whole event. A lot of information on the site is the result of combined efforts over the years and I don't think it is right for whatever reason someone can pull the plug and make that information not accesable anymore.

Sorry, I tried to not say anything about it, bite my tongue (but that started to hurt too much )
I understand it's impossible to discuss if you can't talk about it. Again, thanks for the effort and it is great it is back on line again.

[Akrion]

I'm still confused - and not amused - by the whole event. A lot of information on the site is the result of combined efforts over the years and I don't think it is right for whatever reason someone can pull the plug and make that information not accesable anymore.

However it's also not mandatory that Crimson-Dawn be run for the community just because it would be inconvienient to not have it accessable anymore. Assuming you make a guide how is it any more right to expect that someone hosts, at their expense, your content?

[Sigi]

However it's also not mandatory that Crimson-Dawn be run for the community just because it would be inconvienient to not have it accessable anymore. Assuming you make a guide how is it any more right to expect that someone hosts, at their expense, your content?

I never made a guide worthy to share, but if I had I would and could hosted it myself and I wouldn't expect anyone to do that at their expense. However, if anyone else wanted to host it it would be fine by me.

I did not intended to say CD is manditory to host. I'm trying to say it's not ok such information is only accesable through one source only. So if you're the only keeper of that information and you don't want to host it anymore, there should be a way to make it otherwise available, especially if it is information accumulated by a lot of people during a lot of years. Like the mappack is now hosted by bristugo.com too.

[Akrion]

I never made a guide worthy to share, but if I had I would and could hosted it myself and I wouldn't expect anyone to do that at their expense. However, if anyone else wanted to host it it would be fine by me.

It was a rhetorical 'you', I didn't mean you specifically.

I did not intended to say CD is manditory to host. I'm trying to say it's not ok such information is only accesable through one source only. So if you're the only keeper of that information and you don't want to host it anymore, there should be a way to make it otherwise available, especially if it is information accumulated by a lot of people during a lot of years. Like the mappack is now hosted by bristugo.com too.

Well the way I look at it is that all CD did was make a place where most information could be collectively gathered togethor. If they decided to stop hosting it all I see it as no different than if they had decided to not host it to begin with, as all this information would have been scattered anyway, especially when Gamersinfo was dropped.

So I, personally, didn't have any problem with CD taking down their content. Because IMO if anybody has a problem with the lack of a central point for content they can start up their own web site and go around putting togethor the information themselves. CD wasn't preventing people from posting content they made elsewhere, they just gave people a place to put their content.