Migration to MicroWiki.org.uk

Message on the main page of the old MicroWiki website on Wikia telling the reader to go to the new domain at MicroWiki.org.uk, March 2011 (nearly five months after the move)

The migration to MicroWiki.org.uk, also known as the migration from Wikia and the "Mass Exodus" occurred in November 2010 when users of the wiki migrated from the wiki hosting service (wikifarm) Wikia—now Fandom—to an independent domain hosted at MicroWiki.org.uk. MicroWiki was one of nearly fifty wikis to leave Wikia in protest of unpopular changes made to the website.

On 17 October 2010, Wikia implemented several unpopular changes, including a new skin called Oasis which was to become mandatory and replace the then-present skins Vector and Monaco on 3 November. Upon the announcement of the upcoming changes, they immediately proved very unpopular with the users of MicroWiki, who began brainstorming alternative wiki hosting services to Wikia. That same day, administrator Aldrich Lucas reserved three domains for MicroWiki on the wiki hosting services Wikkii, ShoutWiki and Referata, so that the users could deliberate on which would be the best to host MicroWiki's content. A database dump was made to ShoutWiki on 20 October, awaiting approval from a ShoutWiki administrator. On 4 November, it was discovered that the import could not work due to ShoutWiki requiring all XML files to be less than 1.8 megabytes, with MicroWiki's files being slightly over said limit.

On 6 November, Referata was chosen instead. Manually imported, Referata reached 749 articles by the early hours of 7 November. However, that same day a major issue arose as it was discovered that Referata had a maximum storage of 100 megabytes worth of files, whilst MicroWiki had over 200 megabytes worth of files in use. On 14 November, the domain MicroWiki.co.cc was registered by Petya d'Égtavie on behalf of her MicroWiki Internet Committee, with the intent of having it be a temporary domain until a better one could be agreed upon by the users of the wiki. By 2 December, the domain MicroWiki.org.uk was formally chosen to be the new domain of the community. On 17 November, former MicroWiki administrator Kyng Fyrst attempted to take over the old Wikia website and turn it into a separate community run by himself. This decision was met with harsh opposition, and by January 2011, Fyrst was finally ostracised from the community as the administration of MicroWiki.org.uk regained control of Wikia and turned it into an archive.

In April 2012, a new community successfully formed on the old Wikia website to rival MicroWiki by claiming to be the "true MicroWiki", deleting the archive and causing a feud between the two wikis. The schism would eventually end in 2018. On 7 November 2013, MicroWiki switched to the domain micronation.org, and switched to its current domain, micronations.wiki, on 20 October 2016.

Background

Further information: History of MicroWiki (website)

Upon MicroWiki's foundation on 27 May 2005, it was hosted on the wiki hosting service (wikifarm) Wikia—now Fandom. Though wiki's are granted some autonomy, Wikia is ultimately responsible for a site's layout and graphical user interface, including the skin—custom graphical appearance—sidebar, page width and the running of advertisements. On 17 October 2010, Wikia implemented a new skin called Oasis which was to become mandatory and replace the then-present skins Vector and Monaco on 3 November. Very little customisation of the new skin was permitted, and site customisation with CSS and JavaScript were disabled. There were also several other changes, including increased and larger advertisements, a reduction of the article display width, a fifty percent wider sidebar and numerous limitations to what changes individual wiki administrators could implement. These changes negatively affected MicroWiki; the reduced article width due to the Oasis skin caused infoboxes to appear in the top centre of articles and precede the text. Users also complained of the now larger space of the user interface that was granted towards advertising.

The search for an alternative wiki hosting service

Upon the announcement of the upcoming changes on 17 October 2010, they immediately proved very unpopular with the users of MicroWiki. That same day, MicroWiki administrator Philip Fish made a post to the community portal concerning the future of MicroWiki, proposing two options—either stay on MicroWiki and bear the changes, or move to an alternative wiki hosting service to better fit the needs of the community. That same day, Aldrich Lucas, another administrator, reserved three domains for MicroWiki on the wiki hosting services Wikkii, ShoutWiki and Referata, so that the users could deliberate on which would be the best to host MicroWiki's content. On 19 October, following the overwhelming support for an alternative to Wikia, Fish announced that MicroWiki would be decidedly moving to a new wiki hosting service within the next "few days". Fish intended for the move to be done via a database dump as opposed to being done manually—a strenuous task.

ShoutWiki and Referata

ShoutWiki was considered first by Fish, and supported by Lucas. Although ShoutWiki did not have the popularly preferred skins Monaco or Vector, a database dump was made to the wiki on 20 October to await importing from a ShoutWiki technical administrator. Users pondered ways to import the Monaco skin to ShoutWiki, such as by uploading a custom .css file. Initially updated weekly, a ShoutWiki administrator stated that the import would take longer due to the sudden influx of database dumps due to other wikis also moving away from Wikia. In the meantime, several users began making accounts on ShoutWiki and manually creating articles themselves. On 2 November, the database dump was ready, however it did not get imported. Lucas announced on 4 November that he had discovered the import did not work due to ShoutWiki requiring all XML files to be less than 1.8 megabytes, with MicroWiki's files being slightly over said limit. Lucas, while advocating for Referata, requested that the users of MicroWiki deliberate on whether to manually copy articles to ShoutWiki or pick an alternative wiki hosting service; on 6 November, the users chose the latter—Referata.

That same day at 05:41 (UTC), Lucas began importing articles to Referata, although several namespaces—including user pages, user talk, files and user blogs—could not be imported due to files having to be manually added to the new wiki. Additionally, Referata did not support the user blogs namespace. Lucas asked for volunteers to register accounts on Referata and aid in manually copying and importing the unsupported namespaces. At 19:08, a user reported that Referata had unexpectedly crashed. By 05:52 on 7 November, Referata had 749 articles. At 15:06, a major issue arose as it was discovered that Referata had a maximum storage of 100 megabytes worth of files, whilst MicroWiki had over 200 megabytes worth of files in use. At 21:48 and 23:43, two users reported that Referata was once again down.

Independent domain

On 8 November 2010, Petya d'Égtavie of Egtavia proposed that the wiki be moved instead to a privately hosted server, and that a committee of nations collectively help pay for the website. On 14 November, the domain MicroWiki.co.cc was registered by d'Égtavie on behalf of her MicroWiki Internet Committee, with the intent of having it be a temporary domain until a better one could be agreed upon by the users of the wiki. It ran on MediaWiki, the same software Wikia and Wikipedia uses. By 2 December, the domain MicroWiki.org.uk was in use. The domain was paid for annually by running advertisements on the wiki, and all articles on Wikia were automatically imported via a database dump.

Attempted takeover of the Wikia domain by Kyng Fyrst

Emblem of the Slinky Empyre, used to represent an anonymous Fyrst

On 17 November 2010, Wikia staff member daNASCAT stripped all administrators, including Philip Fish and Aldrich Lucas, of their administrative roles and put the wiki up for adoption as the administrators were leaving for a private server. Wikia generally continues to operate an abandoned wiki after it moves to a new domain, using its original name and content, adversely affecting the new wiki's search rankings in order to maximise advertising revenue. Lucas applied to adopt the wiki, however was rejected as according to daNASCAT "it would not be in Wikia's best interest to have the adopter be a supporter of the wiki's move to a private server." That same day, Kyng Fyrst, also a former MicroWiki administrator, applied to adopt the server, which was accepted. However, instead of turning the wiki into an archive as was voted upon by the community, Fyrst attempted to start a separate community on Wikia (retroactively MicroWikia) run by himself. That same day, he announced an election for new administrators, personally nominating Alexander Reinhardt, Fish, Lucas, and Petya d'Égtavie. Only Reinhardt accepted, while Fish, Lucas and d'Égtavie withdrew their nominations, with d'Égtavie stating: "We have moved to microwiki.co.cc, and will not be moving back." Fyrst also removed the notice on the main page stating that the community had moved to a new domain. Fyrst received harsh criticism from users of the wiki, with many calling Fyrst's attempted new community "undemocratic" and a "[ploy] for power." On 20 November, in response to a poll on MicroWiki.co.cc attempting to turn Wikia into an archive, Fyrst stated that "the results of the poll will not be considered a fair vote, for they [are] no longer associated with MicroWiki here at Wikia." On 24 November, Fyrst was removed as an administrator on MicroWiki.co.cc. By January 2011, Fyrst was finally ostracised from the community as the administration of MicroWiki.co.cc (by then MicroWiki.org.uk) regained control of Wikia.

Aftermath

Logo of the revived Wikia community between 2014–18, which claimed to be the "true MicroWiki"

In April 2012, a new community successfully formed on the old Wikia website to rival MicroWiki by claiming to be the "true MicroWiki", causing a feud between the two wikis. The schism would eventually end in 2018. In October 2013, concerns began to be raised over MicroWiki's financial shortfalls amidst a significant drop in site visits which meant that running advertisements on the wiki were no longer profitable. UnMicroWiki and MicroWiki Archive, subdomains of MicroWiki.org.uk, were deleted on 20 October in order to free up server resources and save money. On 7 November, MicroWiki switched to the domain micronation.org. MicroWiki switched to its current domain, micronations.wiki, on 20 October 2016.

See also

• History of MicroWiki (website)
• History of the MicroWiki community

References

Citations

• MicroWiki:Community portal/Archive 3 at MicroWiki. Archive of MicroWiki:Community portal. 19 October–17 November 2010.
• MicroWiki:Community portal/Archive 6 at MicroWiki. Archive of MicroWiki:Community portal. 17–23 November 2010.