Combine OverWiki and The Vault Leave Wikia

[ZeaLitY]

Interesting news from the fansite realm; The Vault and CombineOverWiki (compendiums for the Fallout series and Half-Life, respectively) are leaving Wikia. The Vault has already transferred to their new location http://www.falloutwiki.com/Fallout_Wiki, while CombineOverWiki is set to move before the year's out. Among the reasons The Vault moved was the presence of far too many ads on Wikia. CombineOverWiki is moving as to gain freedom from Wikia's sometimes-prohibitive policies and intrusive, unwanted design changes. Are we seeing a return to the old fansite paradigm? Sometimes, the Compendium's founders like to mention that it was probably one of the last independent, old-style fansites (with a Wiki, though) to pop up and claim a piece of the net before Wikia came to dominate fandoms. We never considered going to Wikia (though invited), as it would have ruined the community, blocked a lot of content freedom, and forced ads on the site. We welcome these sites' defection from Wikia and wish them the best.

[FaustWolf]

Whoa, awesome!

[chi_z]

amen. how exactly is this site funded anywho?

[ZealKnight]

THANK LAVOS WE DON'T HAVE A WIKI!

[ZeaLitY]

amen. how exactly is this site funded anywho?

Always paid out of pocket. Usually by Ramsus.

[Ramsus]

amen. how exactly is this site funded anywho?

Web hosting costs have dropped dramatically over the years. Originally we had to host the site off my cable connection on an old desktop tower running FreeBSD to save on costs. Then we used GoDaddy hosting for a few years before our traffic made it unbearably slow, and then we switched to WebFaction, where I've already prepaid for a 5 year chunk of hosting.

After that expires, I'll probably upgrade my Linode account and move the site over there.

Honestly, there's no excuse to let someone else host your site in return for ad placement. You can make just as much if not more than the cost of the hosting services your site needs very easily by placing your own ads, so really you're just putting money in someone else's pocket.

[ZealKnight]

^Wow Ramsus!? You're the man. The things you do for the the stuff you love. The Entity indeed! Thanks for everything!

[xcalibur]

a number of other communities have been leaving Wikia, including the World of Warcraft and Doom wikis.