Forum:General Discussion of the Fork

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General discussion

Just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has worked on this fork. A huge achievement. FractalDoctor ☎ 20:31, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

I agree. I think if we can just get our SEO in a good place, this is the start to a new golden age of this Wiki. OttselSpy25 ☎ 23:26, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

I mean I found out about this after seeing an admin's talk page not knowing anything about it so I'm sitting here insanely curious CodeAndGin ☎ 23:54, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

It only launched properly today I believe, and has (so far) only really been publicised on social media. I'm not sure if we're allowed to advertise over on the Platform We No Longer Mention. FractalDoctor ☎ 23:58, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

Given That Platform's proclivities, yeah that tracks. Also, big in favour of this, I've been privately hoping for an indie fork to happen for ages, because That Platform's usability has always been Not Great (TM) CodeAndGin ☎ 00:13, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

We're not supposed to, no. I should bring up here, as I did elsewhere, that IndieWikiBuddy is useless for SEO, afaik. If you click on a fandom link you click on a fandom link, still counts. It does redirect you, but we want to encourage people to go out of their way to click on links to the new wiki and to never ever click on fandom links. Najawin ☎ 00:15, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

You can set IndieWikiBuddy to simply *hide* Fandom results from search pages, instead of using them as redirects, so in that sense you can use it to prevent accidentally going to one of their wikis. Hannah GBS ☎ 21:45, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

I also want to add that I'm childishly amused by all the talk of forking today. About forking time. FractalDoctor ☎ 00:18, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Why can't we mention this new wiki on the old one? What are Fandom going to do? Delete the old wiki? 172.69.43.208^{talk to me} 02:15, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

It's against their forking policy (point #2), possibly maybe. Not entirely sure tbh. Maybe a short announcement can be made, but we also don't want to piss Fandom off. Not worth it. — Fractal Doctor • 02:21, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

They'll just remove it and block anyone that tries. There are some subtle ways you can leave breadcrumbs to the new wiki, but any large notification would be impossible. Najawin ☎ 02:23, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

I'm impressed, surprised, and slightly annoyed because I was in the middle of a big category editing spree that didn't get carried over, but I'll live. I did want to ask about a few things:

Are the CAPTCHAs going to stay forever? I understand why you have them, but they're driving me nuts.
Can we get a "create page" button somewhere?
~~Can we get the categories made visible on the pages? Right now there's no way to see what categories a page is in and that's not super helpful for navigation.~~

Also, congratulations on the work. SilverSunbird ☎ 05:01, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Never mind that last question. I just noticed where the categories are now. SilverSunbird ☎ 05:07, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Another thing: I noticed that if a redlink is created as a page, the link stays red on other pages unless the new page is saved, and that might need a fix. SilverSunbird ☎ 05:33, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Interesting! We'll look into it. And we plan to most likely move categories in desktop back to their more traditional location, on all browser widths.

Welcome to our new home!
× SOTO (☎/✍/↯) 06:09, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Also, when there's time (and I realize this is low on the priorities, don't worry), putting a link to Guides under Community in the sidebar might be nice. Might increase work in that area. I've thought about a guide for new editors, for one. Najawin ☎ 07:23, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Welcome all!

I assume @FractalDoctor's references to "the Platform We No Longer Mention" were in jest, but for the avoidance of doubt, I'd like to note that we're keeping the high ground over Fandom over this one i.e. it's perfectly allowed to discuss or link to the old host directly if relevant.Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 10:58, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Jest confirmed! The new fork is great. — Fractal Doctor • 10:59, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Hi everyone. This has been a long time in the works. Sorry about the lack of prior warning: this was the best way to avoid retaliation from Fandom. Also sorry about the lost week of edits. The plan was to launch with minimal (maybe a few hours) of edit loss, but we had to push back the launch for various reasons.

I've added the guide index to the sidebar. I will look into a create page link, but it won't be as smooth as on Fandom. I will speak with our tech team about the CAPTCHAS.

With Indie Wiki Buddy, I would like to point out that Fandom's SEO is only improved if clicking on a link in a search engine: clicking a link from elsewhere, as far as I know, will not count towards there SEO. On search engine's themselves, if you're using Indie Wiki Buddy, the Fandom results are crossed out and replaced with links to the fork. We definetly want to encourage use of the extension.

Bongo50 ☎ 16:16, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

I've seen some people question why the homepage is a little outdated. Just wanted to share the ongoing discussion about it here, if anyone wishes to join in. Changes and updates will be along in due course - and hopefully 15/Ncuti/Ruby/etc will be well established on the main page in time for Series 14/Season 1/Season Fnarg II. — Fractal Doctor • 20:54, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Chipping in (a bit late) to send a massive congratulations to the admin team on the fork. Never edited much with this account on the old wiki but as an on-and-off user of the site back when it was still called Wikia I'm painfully aware of the anti-user, ad-revenue-driven antics that have been plaguing the company for far too long. For a wiki as large and as prominent within the FANDOM banner as TARDIS to pull off a successful fork is both a massive undertaking and a tremendous morale boost for other large wikis looking to take the jump. Wookieepedia next? ;) Diplotomodon ☎ 02:12, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Ah, thinking about it. A policy that Fandom had that we were forced to follow should probably be addressed. There was an "anti harassment" policy that would allow users to insist that other users couldn't interact with them. It never came up on here except when DiS/Corrie weaponized it to prevent other people admonishing him for his edits. Obviously harassment is bad. But we should probably make clear that, as Scrooge said at the time,

a user sending you objective messages about editing the Wiki is not harassment. Belittling you or claiming you're willfully ignoring the rules, yes, all these things are covered by T:NPA or at least our rules on assuming good faith. But you do not have standing to demand that he stop messaging you at all, provided the messages were to-the-point about editing the Wiki, were polite, and assumed good faith. [...] the spirit of [anti harassment policies are] for more intently malicious sustained messaging

(Just in case DiS cares to join us here, or someone with a similar disposition.) Najawin ☎ 06:23, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

Just visited Wikipedia's pages for the latest episodes of the show, and how cool to see them linking to "TARDIS Wiki" in the bottom of their pages - and linking here rather than Fandom. I hope that remains! — Fractal • 10:10, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Disney+ and Fandom/Fork

Just a heads up that we need to keep this Wiki as up to date as physically possible once the new season begins airing. I've just spotted that D+ want to work with the Fandom Wiki, including a new design, official assets, etc. Whilst this can be shrugged off, it does seem like they'll use it to their advantage. (Not a jab, but I have noticed fewer edits being made over there, and a slight increase in spam and new editors making strange and often incorrect edits - not sure if that's intended sabotage, just people being silly, or newbies genuinely not understanding how the Fandom Wiki works and its policies, etc. - so the more up to date and accurate we can keep this forked Wiki, the better!) Linky here to the mention of D+ supporting the Fandom Wiki. • Fractal • 21:19, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

It's not ideal, but equally these corporate deals are restrictive (a very similar agreement is the reason we were stuck with an outdated home page for years!), and cut against the neutral, "by fans, for fans" vibe we're looking for. So, like, I think we'd have refused that deal if we'd still been at Fandom? Certainly I'd have argued and voted against it if it had come to a discussion. (Yes, even despite the offered free Disney+ subscription for admins. Which is a realy seedy thing to offer to sweeten the pot, and honestly, a further reason to say no out of principle.) --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 21:32, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Fair points there, Scrooge. As far as I can tell, the agreement has been made by very minimal users there (maybe even just 1 person). But my main point of note is that they're going to be as up to date as possible, and so we need to just ensure we're on the ball too since it's going to be a busy time of people potentially googling the show, etc. — Fractal • 21:35, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

I do find it very funny that Nate is the one who responded to Spongebob's requests, and Shambala completely ignored them. (Also that Czech didn't just give the go ahead, lmao.) Najawin ☎ 21:56, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

[Apologies. I saw this forum edited and didn't spot that this section had been moved down the page, and thus marked my reverted edit as "Vandalism/removed content." This is incorrect, as it was moved down the page rather than removed. My bad. As you were.] — Fractal • 09:33, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Well, if the sum total of them working alongside D+ is... changing a bit of the colour scheme, a tiny bit of homepage text change, and the background image, I don't think we have much to worry about! — Fractal • 17:46, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

~~The background is rather nice, though.~~ Aquanafrahudy 📢 🖊️ 18:05, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Based on what Spongebob said on Shambala's talk it seems that they're going to have people making pages for things as well. Najawin ☎ 20:50, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

We have more than enough current editors to create pages for things in the new season if we stay on the ball. (One thing I dislike on the Fandom crossover with D+ is the idea that off-Wiki people will come in and create content for it, tbh. I'm all for help and assistance, but it sort of takes away the whole community-led notion of a Wiki if they have 5 people in an office (or whatever) all churning out content for it, IMO.) — Fractal • 21:21, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

With that said, the area where we can really beat them is plot summaries. And so I would encourage everyone to contribute their thoughts to Forum:CC BY-SA 4.0 so we can perhaps get resolution on that prior to the new series, so they can't copy our summaries. Najawin ☎ 21:25, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Great to see everyone working together to get plot summaries out relatively quickly after each episode. — Fractal • 20:23, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Bugs/fixes/etc.

Do we have anywhere currently that we can collectively share any kinks/bugs/things that may need resolving? If no, is it worth at least having this section so people can post anything they feel may need changing? — Fractal Doctor • 20:38, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Tabbed galleries in infoboxes

I believe this is already known to admins/in the pipeline, but figured I'd note it anyway - the tabbed galleries in infoboxes need tweaking so they're either larger or work as a scrollbar, similar to how they were on the other site. And I believe a visual editor is also in the pipeline for release at some stage? — Fractal Doctor • 20:40, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Tabbed infoboxes will be improved, yes. Visual editor should be coming at some point. That blocking thing should just be a caching issue. Let us know if it happens again. You should be able to edit your own talk page when blocked. It's not ideal, but it'll do while we think of a better solution. In my eyes, feel free to add those categories. Protection settings should have carried across. Odd. I'll run a bot to fix it when you're done. Bongo50 ☎ 14:39, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Unexpected "you're blocked" message

I just encountered a bug while trying to edit that gave me a "you're blocked" message intended for an IP that definitely doesn't belong to me (one of the two that got blocked yesterday I think?). It went away after a couple refreshes. BlueSupergiant ☎ 23:22, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Weirdly, I had that too this morning. I posted on Bongo50's talk page about it. What it did alert me to, however, was the fact that when I was blocked I couldn't even post on an admin's talk page... so if someone gets a block, is there just zero way for them to contact admins now to discuss it? — Fractal Doctor • 23:29, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Every thread in the Panopticon Archives is editable by anyone. This is, incidentally, a chance to solve a small problem we've had for years, where there are ~150 threads that are unsorted in the categories in the existing archives. Doing so is largely just a matter of busy work, and I'm willing to do this tomorrow if admins are fine with letting regular users fiddle with it, check their work, and then lock the threads afterwards. I've spent enough time staring at the archives to have a rough idea of what should go where. Najawin ☎ 09:32, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Okay, so, interestingly, some of them were protected, even if most weren't. There are 15 at the bottom, primarily, though, not entirely, from the 2023+ era, that I can't add the categories to. There are another 1-2 that don't really belong in any section. And I would, of course, greatly appreciate anyone to check my work. Not being an admin in some instances this does feel a little too like deciding on consensus for my liking, even if the threads in question have already been closed, sometimes for over a decade. Some of those were really messy to categorize. Najawin ☎ 08:05, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

I am also running into the "blocked but on an IP that doesn't belong to me and it goes away after a few refreshes and I can't even edit my own user page or others' talk pages before it goes away" bug - CodeAndGin | 🗨 | 22:44, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

View recent changes links to FANDOM

The "View recent changes (for all boards)" link in the forums homepage links back to FANDOM atm - CodeAndGin | 🗨 | 01:35, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

Button to easily add categories

Will there be a way to more easily add categories? On Fandom, it was possible to click "+Cat" in the categories section at the bottom of the page to add them without having to go into the full page editor. I can see we now have a categories box at the side of the page, but there doesn't appear to be a way of adding to these without editing the page. Just wondering if that's something that might be implemented? (Congratulations on the work that's been done with the fork. This new site looks great!) 66 Seconds ☎ 16:55, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I intend to set something up in the near future. Bongo50 ☎ 21:31, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Desktop/mobile view

I really don't like the new desktop look. It just looks like a slightly different version of the mobile view. I'm an old-fashioned weirdo who prefers to do his phone-based edits on what looks like a desktop monitor because he finds the mobile view too constricting. WaltK ☎ 14:50, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Can you elaborate on what you don't like? Mobile and desktop should look quite different, so it's possible you're getting served the mobile skin on desktop by mistake. Bongo50 ☎ 15:28, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi WaltK, I accidentally clicked on to mobile view while I was on desktop and it puzzled me for a minute. You can scroll to the very bottom of the page where, on the right, it should simply say "Desktop". You can click this to revert it back to the desktop theme. It's a toggle. Desktop: https://tardis.wiki/w/index.php?title=Doctor_Who_Wiki&mobileaction=toggle_view_desktop / mobile view: https://tardis.wiki/w/index.php?title=Doctor_Who_Wiki&mobileaction=toggle_view_mobile — Fractal Doctor • 19:27, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Just to add to the above, Bongo, maybe it would be helpful if the "Desktop" link in the bottom right of desktop was made a little clearer by saying "Desktop view" or "Toggle: Desktop version" if this can be edited? Or maybe even two extra links on the left hand sidebar that say "Desktop view" and "Mobile view" under an "Accessibility" heading? Just a thought. — Fractal Doctor • 19:29, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Changing that text is easy. The link now says "Mobile view" on desktop and "Desktop view" on mobile. Bongo50 ☎ 19:37, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

So it turns out, in order to get the new desktop view to more closely resemble the old one, I just have to turn my phone to landscape. Which is… not ideal (I'm very much used to doing everything in portrait), and even this new iteration isn't perfect; the contents box now takes up the entire space between the pages intro and first section. WaltK ☎ 20:22, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Assuming I've read you correct, WaltK, you're using your phone but using "desktop view"? If this is the case, I've attached a screenshot (right) of what I see. Is this not what you're seeing? / Is this not what you're wanting? — Fractal Doctor • 20:30, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Have some images:

Old desktop, in portrait and landscape.
New desktop in portrait.
New desktop in landscape. Looks pretty close to the old…
…but then it gets wonky. Here we have a bunch of blank space below the intro for the remaining duration of the infobox.
Followed by the big honking contents box.

Oh! I see what you're saying, WaltK. In order to get it to look like it does in my screenshot above, I had to change my browser setting on my phone itself to "desktop site", rather than just hitting "desktop view" on this Wiki, if that makes sense. Does your phone browser have that option, as it may work better for you? — Fractal Doctor • 20:36, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Is anyone else having it that cite links are going haywire at the bottom of the pages? Like on the Second Doctor page after the "Habits and quirks" subheading. BananaClownMan ☎ 20:35, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

I think I get what you mean, Fractal. But alas, it just doesn't want to play ball. WaltK ☎ 20:47, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

To BananaClownMan: yes, I'm aware of this issue. I fear that there may be no good fix other than to either:

spend more money to upgrade our hardware
split these longer pages and enforce harsh page-length limits on any page using {{cite source}}

To WaltK: I can probably make an option to not have the desktop version adapt to smaller screens. I will see what I can do in the next few days. Bongo50 ☎ 20:48, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Hey, switching off "Enable responsive mode" in Special Preferences > Appearance already does this. Only thing is, it applies to mobile and desktop, with no distinction made.
× SOTO (☎/✍/↯) 12:05, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

Cite links

Is anyone else having it that cite links are going haywire at the bottom of the pages? Like on the Second Doctor page after the "Habits and quirks" subheading. BananaClownMan ☎ 20:35, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Ah yes, me too. Just a small screenshot, but it's throughout more of the page/s. — Fractal Doctor • 20:52, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I'm aware of this issue. I fear that there may be no good fix other than to either:

spend more money to upgrade our hardware
split these longer pages and enforce harsh page-length limits on any page using {{cite source}}

Bongo50 ☎ 21:57, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Is this an issue of page length, or of number of instances of using {{cite source}}? If the former, we can try to do the biography subpage trim sooner rather than later. If the latter, we can enforce strict policies on number of sources to be cited for each statement. Najawin ☎ 22:21, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Just tested on Forum:Rule 4 by Proxy and its ramifications: considered in the light of the forum archives, one of the longest editable pages I know of that doesn't have a substantial number of instances of {{cite source}}. It worked fine, so it seems that the issue comes from number of calls to {{cite source}}. My suggestion: If a page has a substantial number of citations on it, when citing a statement that has multiple sources that could be listed, use one of each prefix type at most for that particular statement, then say ("et al" or "etc", depending on Forum:Etc. vs et al.). The exception to this rule being when it requires two sources together to imply the statement we've written, so neither source in isolation actually shows the thing we're saying. Call this policy "T:CLEAN CITE" or something, and whenever we trim things down use that as the edit summary, so if we ever get better servers people can go back through the history and put back in the info by just looking for that policy. Najawin ☎ 03:02, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Yes, the problem is very much the number of {{cite source}} uses. That solution would probably do the job. Other solutions would be to trim the main page biography so that some sources are excluded (controversial, I know), or to split other sections that use citations into their own subpages. We could also consider combining multiple of these solutions if none remove enough uses by themselves. No solution is ideal. Bongo50 ☎ 13:56, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

I mean, my view on the first option is very well known. But that was on Fandom, this is here. Different restrictions for different hardware. If it's necessary to do that, and the other options don't work, you'll have no complaint from me. But I'd like to try the other options first. (Note:I feel the same way about image storage. We increased size limits on images b/c of Fandom's ability to handle them. If we need to decrease it again, I think that's fine.) Najawin ☎ 04:01, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

If the problem is the number rather than the length, that won't fix it for articles that require listing stories, liker List of appearances or timeline theory pages. Sure, subpaging is an option, but it's a rather short term solution. I think the best two ways to solve this particular conundrum would be to either A) Pay up for upgraded hardware and accept the cost as the price of independence, or B) go back to the old citing and cease using {{cite source}}, which continuous to course more problems than it fixes, despite the advantages it has. BananaClownMan ☎ 09:46, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

Appearance lists don't use {{Cite source}}, though. Aquanafrahudy 📢 🖊️ 09:51, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

Also, let's just note here, Peri Brown has most of its citations converted (331) and it's working fine. Second Doctor has 941 calls to the template. There are only a handful of timeline pages that are on that level, and they really can be dealt with on a case by case basis. Najawin ☎ 11:14, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

Is it within policy to split off the "Psychological profile" and/or "Appearance" sections into their own subpages, cause I reckon that would really help. Aquanafrahudy 📢 🖊️ 11:40, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

"Physical appearance" certainly is — see Tenth Doctor/Physical appearance. I don't recall "Psychological profile" being covered in that thread but seems of apiece, so I'm not opposed to making a small addendum to cover it as well. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 12:01, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

With image file sizes, we're actually fine, for now at least. We massively overestimated how much we'd need and we have plenty of storage. This may change in the future but, by then, hopefully we'll be able to afford better hardware. (For the record, all of our hardware is currently being payed for by 1 person out of her own pocket. Donations will offset that, but it feels unfair to push for further hardware upgrades unless we can support those with donations, or potentially small numbers of ads in the future). Bongo50 ☎ 19:17, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

(I quite agree, and think a limited number of ads are the way to go when we can set that up. Give it a few months to a year to be more established, maybe run some randomized surveys about purchasing habits of people coming to the site - if they've bought audios / books / DWM, if they've even heard of them, etc, then use those to pitch to people in the space.) Najawin ☎ 21:55, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

I already love the separate subpage tabs created on the Second and Tenth Doctor pages. Helps fix the bug, and also makes the incarnation pages much less of a beast to wade through. × Fractal • 21:07, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

[edit conflict]

The recent edits to Tenth Doctor have solved that page nicely (I found the limit that the CS usage has been violating. It's "Lua time usage" which is limited to 7 seconds. Tenth Doctor is now down to 4.120 seconds). Doug86 tried fixing Last Great Time War by splitting half of the page into a template. This didn't work as there is a limit to how much text on a page can come from a template and having half of the page's text come from one was way over the limit. I think the solution here might be to create more pages like Origins of the Last Great Time War. I don't know what these pages would be called, but I do think it would be the most effective way to solve this issue on that page. Other pages with this issue (along with some other, unrelated, issues) are collected at Category:Pages with script errors. Some potential solutions:

Eleventh Doctor could probably be solved in a similar way to Tenth Doctor (and it's probably worth doing this for all other incarnations as well, regardless of whether it's needed immediately).
The Doctor could probably be solved by shortening the biography. Perhaps we could {{main}} out to the incarnation page's #Biography sections? Alternatively, and this is a little more out-there, we could move it all into a new page called something like Biography of the Doctor and {{main}} to that? Either way, I don't think that section serves much purpose being that long when each incarnation has their own biography.
World War II could probably receive some of the same treatment as Last Great Time War, perhaps with pages like Origins of the World War II? We could also probably shorten sections that already have their own, {{main}}ed, pages.

They are it, for now. Bongo50 ☎ 21:14, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

(whispers in hushed tones) We could just use it selectively, instead on every link ever. I'd hate for the Wiki to lose its sense of fun and instead just resemble a college essay littered with clunky eyesore-ish "+" signs akin to an essay trying to meet reference requirements. Also, IMO, some of them just provide extra information that seems unnecessary and would be easily gained anyway by clicking on the link to begin with (eg. those that cite writer/network/year, etc.) But anyway. Just throwing that into the ether, and I suspect I'll be in a minority here. (vanishes into the void) × Fractal • 21:44, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

I feel strongly we should make a sibling policy to T:OVER-WIKIFY, which states that you should only {{cs}} a particular story once per section.

I'm also opposed to simply removing the Doctor's general biography section from the wiki. Given how in-depth each Doctor's biography is, and the unique possibilities from describing the Doctor's timeline from this POV.

Looking at it now, it does seem more bloated than when we originally created it, though. The Fifth and Sixth Doctors have far too much content, I think.

We could always trim it down, seeing as the reason behind it is only to follow details which inform the Doctor's overall arc/growth or to highlight unique periods in the Doctor's life, like their time with UNIT (as well as giving a broad summary to help readers understand how different periods fit together).

A subpage could work, so long as the overview section isn't shunted off into it.
× SOTO (☎/✍/↯) 02:56, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

I've wondered ever since I first came to this wiki if maybe the citation policy shouldn't be completely overhauled. If we shifted to using ref tags with a reference list at the bottom, then we wouldn't need to use {{cs}} more than once per page for every story referenced. SilverSunbird ☎ 03:08, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

I wondered similar if we could perhaps reference a source via cite once and then used regular links for further references to it. Would seem a shame to compromise our coverage of large topics to fit around cite limits. --SherlockTheII ☎ 11:13, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

I visited the Last Great Time War page earlier and this has so many broken links down the page. We might have a simple fix for Doctor pages (maybe splitting into biography/etc) but what of pages like the Time War where it's essentially one long timeline? × Fractal • 10:46, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

I have at least partially fixed this issue by changing the way {{cs}} works. Instead of the citation text being loaded when the page is loaded, it is instead loaded dynamically through JavaScript as the relevant citations are expanded. This is much more efficient and leads to shorter pages and less time generating them. There are still a few pages with this issue (e.g. Dalek, Eighth Doctor, Thirteenth Doctor), but it is fewer than it was. I'm going to try and optimise the template a bit more tomorrow, but it may be necessary to just split these remaining few pages. Bongo50 ☎ 21:49, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Faded infobox fields

Hopefully just a minor one that can be easily fixed; infobox fields are now really faded and hard to see, at least on my end. WaltK ☎ 09:37, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

This was a temporary issue which is now resolved.
× SOTO (☎/✍/↯) 12:10, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

I've found something similar on Big Ben, where some of the text (next to text with a link in it) is displaying as grey in the infobox. Cookieboy 2005 ☎ 14:37, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

Grey text in the infobox of Big Ben.
Pale text (bottom) while highlighting an image on Big Ben.

I've found another instance of pale text on a white background, after clicking an image on an article. (For which I have again used Big Ben as my example page) Cookieboy 2005 ☎ 01:12, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm aware of this issue and will be fixing it soon. Bongo50 ☎ 20:56, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Some broken videos?

The videos in the right hand sidebar appear to be broken on the Regeneration page. Not sure if this is an isolated case, but thought it was worth mentioning. × Fractal • 20:32, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

That's because that page uses an infobox not used by any other page, User:OncomingStorm12th/Sandbox 3, so I forgot about it when setting up the new video system. I'll fix it now. Bongo50 ☎ 20:57, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Excessive sources / neatening up

Was reading through a couple of the notable pages and this in particular stood out to me as being potentially user-unfriendly (see screenshot on the right). I recognise that we like to source things but this seems very excessive. Combined with the new feature which allows you to hit the "+" symbol, this at first glance not only looks like an impenetrable wall of text but is also just plain hard to read. It's more source than actual text. Is there a way to neaten things like this up, so it's easier on the eyes and less intrusive when it comes to multiple/excessive sourcing? × Fractal • 20:36, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Oh, that's just outside policy as it stands. It's very much Wiki policy that you shouldn't have more than three or four sources in a single citation at most — hence the "etc." or "et alt." thing.) --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 23:21, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Infobox header font styles

Is there a reason for different font styles in some episode infobox titles?

The_Mind_Robber_(TV_story) has its title in italics and underlined.
The_Mind_Robber_(TotT_TV_story) has its title standard with no underline.
Earthshock_(TotT_TV_story) has its title in italics with no underline. × Fractal • 10:45, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

I believe the difference there is that the OG Mind Robber is simply using the automated function that turns a "X (TV story)" page-name into the title of the infobox, while the others, due to the non-standard "(TotT TV story)" dab term, make use of the |name= variable. The automated thing automatically italicises and underlines, while |name= gives neutral formatting by default and you have to actually write ''Earthshock'' to get it italicised. This was done at Earthshock but forgotten at TotT!Mind Robber. That much can be fixed manually. The issue remains that the automated title is automatically underlined, which the manual titles won't replicate, though… but then do we want infobox titles underlined? Hmm. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 19:27, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Terms of use

I just noticed that the information on the edit page about sharing personal info still links to Fandom's Terms of Use, which should probably be changed soon. SilverSunbird ☎ 04:54, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, and a fair bit of our [[HELP:]] pages link to Fandom as well. We should get on this at some point. Najawin ☎ 05:05, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Good spot. We don't (yet) have our own terms of use so we may be best off creating local policies for anything we want to keep from Fandom's ToS and linking to those instead. (Also note that me, Scrooge and SOTO have agreed to a hosting agreement which will also need to be written into policy at somepoint (although it's nothing particuarly new or unexpected)). Bongo50 ☎ 19:54, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Forum main page

For the last week or so the forum landing has looked like… this.

WaltK ☎ 16:46, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

On my end the box that says "The forums are back, baby!" is in front of the text, but it's definitely not formatted properly. Najawin ☎ 19:59, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

For me, on the page Forum:The Panopticon, in the light theme, the headers of the columns are colored white on beige, which is very hard to read. To clarify, the headers in the table in the section Thread list are "Begun", "Topic", "Last edit", and "Last author". —⁠andrybak (☎) 15:54, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Bold text

Is it just my imagination, or does bold text not stand out nearly as much as it should anymore? WaltK ☎ 22:08, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Looks fine to me. Aquanafrahudy 📢 🖊️ 22:13, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Disambiguation links

{{Dab page}} is making the links in it unclickable right now, defeating its reason for existence. SilverSunbird ☎ 22:35, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

H2 headers in light theme

It is hard to read H2 headers in non-Real World articles. For example, Russell T Davies (a Real World article) is fine, but on Fifteenth Doctor in the light theme, "Biography" appears in color rgb(60, 72, 84) on top of background-color rgb(46, 64, 116), which looks like this: Biography. —⁠andrybak (☎) 17:11, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Done! As far as I can tell, this has been fixed. —⁠andrybak (☎) 21:37, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

Errors on the edit page

The box with all the character shortcuts below the edit window is broken; all the buttons have "Invalid tag extension name: charinsert" boxes where they ought to be - CodeAndGin | 🗨 | 23:55, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

This has been fixed. Bongo50 ☎ 09:41, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Spam

So one thing we might want to do in the future, and I recognize that we're very limited on resources here, is improve spam prevention. I think the attack tonight showed the benefits of maybe having some extra automated filters put up. But doing so properly would be a bit complicated, I'm sure. (Or maybe we might bring back a captcha for page/account creation, idk, that's an elegant solution.) Just making a note.

Oh, I've left all the pages/accounts that need to be purged as of writing as a hidden comment in this section so admins can have a record, in case recent changes moves to the point where some of them are obscured by the time admins are up. (Feel free to delete when everything is gone. EDIT: The comment is now gone.) Najawin ☎ 07:03, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm on it, to the best of my ability from my phone. Bongo50 ☎ 08:18, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

All spam pages have been deleted and all spam accounts have been blocked. Thank you for providing your list. It was very helpful. I don't think automated filters are going to be very practical as I didn't see any defining characteristics to these edits that we could filter for.

The site has crashed a few times recently for no apparent reason. To try and investigate and fix this, our sysadmins disabled a number of extensions temporarily to see if this improves things. This included the extension that provided our captchas. I've asked them to re-enable it.

We may also want to consider limiting page creation to autoconfirmed users (accounts with more than 10 edits that are at least 4 days old). Bongo50 ☎ 09:40, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Ah,I did notice that the site had been more stable recently. :P Najawin ☎ 20:13, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

1960s theme

I wondered for a while why pages for the First Doctor and Second Doctor seemed off. I realise I have the "1960s theme" gadget turned on. It's a cute styling addition, but it could do with some tweaks. I've attached a screenshot to show that things seem a bit off (apologies if this is an ongoing work in progress). • Fractal • 20:46, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

This gadget is on by default. I think I'll make it not default while it is still being worked on. Bongo50 ☎ 21:14, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Random invisible sub-header

The Worldbuilding section on the Wonder Chase page seems have a sub-heading whose existence is only indicated by this edit button. WaltK ☎ 19:01, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

I made an error. That should now be fixed if you clear your cache (usually ctrl+f5). Bongo50 ☎ 19:22, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Image replacement delay

Whenever an image gets replaced or updated with a better version, it always takes a while before the image starts showing up on whatever pages they're used on as the new version. Kind of annoying. WaltK ☎ 17:35, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

This is probably caused by caching. It is in place at the moment to improve performance in anticipation of the increase in traffic we hope to see with season 1. Bongo50 ☎ 18:28, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

yes, sysadmins have set up caching rules to improve performance as Bongo says above --Tardis sysadmin ☎ 19:41, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Image gallery sizes

Would it be possible for each box in an image gallery to be the same size, even if the images aren't? WaltK ☎ 20:21, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

To be honest I wish the boxes would just be removed. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 23:38, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Quite agree. Najawin ☎ 23:55, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Page formatting tweaks

Is it just me seeing some design/code issues on certain pages? Have attached an example, see right. — Fractal • 20:32, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

Category page error

For the past day or so I've been seeing this whenever I try to visit a category page on the wiki. SilverSunbird ☎ 23:57, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

This should now be fixed. -- Original Authority ☎ 00:45, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

"Main page" button in odd ("Talk") namespaces other than ns:1

Currently, there's a very convenient button in the toolbar of ns:1 pages which links to the corresponding ns:0 page. Is it possible to add such a button for/make this work for other odd namespaces? Thank you.

jsmith5504^{talk to me} 21:03, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Do you mean {{subpage tabs}}? Or this? Because the latter is already available in various talk namespaces. Najawin ☎ 21:54, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Hm. I suppose it's only a problem on the mobile/Citizen theme, which I hadn't noticed. But I mean this:

And it does indeed appear only in ns:1, I checked.

jsmith5504^{talk to me} 23:04, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

This is very strange. Investigating, the button is on the page but just does not have an icon. I've tested this on another wiki using Citizen and it's the same there. As such, this seems to be something outside of our control. However, I have filed a bug report so this will hopefully be fixed: https://github.com/StarCitizenTools/mediawiki-skins-Citizen/issues/867. Bongo50 ☎ 14:49, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

I can't really believe how quickly this all happened, but the bug was fixed mere hours after I reported it. We were then able to update to this latest version of the extension in the maintenance last night. As such, this should be fixed (it appears to be in my end). Bongo50 ☎ 12:44, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Image uploads

In general I'm against restricting IP users from editing the site, but might we want to make image uploads available only to those who make an account? That seems an area ripe for abuse. (And, indeed, we've been having an incident where an IP user who refuses to make an account to talk to us keeps uploading images that violate T:GTI over and over.) Maybe it's unnecessary, but it's something to consider. Najawin ☎ 21:49, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

I'm open to this. Perhaps a dedicated thread would be a good idea? Bongo50 ☎ 17:03, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Link suggestions not working in source editor with syntax highlighting

Source edit with syntax highlighting showing the bug

Source edit with no syntax highlighting showing the expected behaviour

Hi I've encountered a bug when working in the source editor with syntax highlighting activate. When using this mode when trying to add a link to a page. It works when not having the syntax highlighting activated, so it's not something that's completely broken. I've recently noticed that syntax highlighting button and it's helpful for me to spot when I've missed a closing bracket or missed the closing of an italic block etc. Please see the images attached. Thanks AdricLovesNyssa ☎ 15:00, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

This is known and expected (e.g. not a bug), but it is very fustrating. I have spent some time looking into alternatives but I have not yet managed to find one that works. If anyone can find a functioning workaround or alternative, please let me know but, at least for now, syntax highlighting and link suggest are mutually exclusive. Bongo50 ☎ 17:01, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks Bongo50 for the update, looks like it might be a problem with the Wiki software itself than our specific instance. It's not too much of a problem just means I have to be extra diligent. AdricLovesNyssa ☎ 14:13, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

Navbox glitch

I can't open this particular navbox because the open button overlaps the title. WaltK ☎ 16:13, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

I can't replicate this. What dimensions are your monitor? Bongo50 ☎ 18:21, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Ahhh, it looks like it's only on this template, I'm guessing because the title's especially long. WaltK ☎ 18:39, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Aaaand it turns out I can get around it by turning my phone to landscape. WaltK ☎ 18:42, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

I didn't think navboxes worked on mobile (certainly they never used to). Aquanafrahudy 📢 🖊️ 18:57, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

They don't work on the default mobile skin (Citizen), but they do work if you use Timeless (the desktop skin) on a mobile device. Bongo50 ☎ 18:21, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Zero Room

The Zero Room thing that pops up if you follow a link to a non-existent page (say I accidentally linked to the latest episode but without the closing bracket off site for example) is unreadable in Dark Mode without highlighting the text. It's fine in light mode tho. - CodeAndGin | 🗨 | 20:14, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Infobar on image previews stuck at a fixed height

See the attached image. The info bar stays locked at that position on the page across window resizes (meaning on smaller windows it's either in the right place or cut off below the bottom of the window) - CodeAndGin | 🗨 | 21:49, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Images on pages getting placed strangely

Images that are in the text for Plot appearing much further down the page on The Church on Ruby Road ^[+]Loading...["The Church on Ruby Road (TV story)"]

Using the recent edit to TCoRR for demonstration, but it happens on other pages too. Images are not consistent in their placement on pages across different window sizes, sometimes even drawing over body text at certain window sizes. (My monitor is 2K, for the record) - CodeAndGin | 🗨 | 18:43, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

This is because images cannot appear level with the infobox or ToC, and will get pushed down to the earliest possible spot. This was already the case on the Fandom site and is a flaw in the MediaWiki software itself (although the images appearing over text is an us-specific glitch). --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 19:17, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

If you notice any images being placed over text, please let me know the specific page and image and I can fix it. Bongo50 ☎ 17:02, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Post-update

Hey. Did we lose the background image during the server upgrade/update? My "up arrow" symbol is also missing in the bottom right. Unless it's just my end? — Fractal • 22:48, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

A few images aren't showing, across multiple pages. On this page, the initial infobox image won't show, "realworld.png" isn't loading, and there are various other image bugs. — Fractal • 22:52, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Should be fixed? There has been a change in image URLs so some are still pointing to the old directory. All images in the body of articles should be fixed, but you might have to kick the cache with ?action=purge if some aren't showing and that should resolve it. -- Original Authority ☎ 23:01, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

All good, apart from the "return to top" arrow. — Fractal • 10:20, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

That should be working now. I forgot about it when changing links over last night. I had to disable and re-enable the gadget for it to update, though. Bongo50 ☎ 11:04, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Is there a particular reason why being under the aegis of Finnish copyright law is good? Najawin ☎ 17:39, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

No, it's actually slightly worse than being under French law from what I've read. Bongo50 ☎ 18:19, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Common EU copyright L. Najawin ☎ 19:40, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Yeah the US's laws would be the most accomodating for a wiki like ours. Legally, we're under Fallout Wiki LLC which is US-based, but international copyright laws are a messy thing. Bongo50 ☎ 20:41, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

@Najawin Isn't France also EU? Aquanafrahudy 📢 🖊️ 22:14, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

I said it was common. :P Najawin ☎ 23:08, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, misinterpreted that. Aquanafrahudy 📢 🖊️ 10:27, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Image upload failing

Any attempt to upload images right now brings up this message:

Could not create directory "mwstore://local-backend/local-public/archive/7/7c".

WaltK ☎ 15:42, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

This has been reported. Bongo50 ☎ 16:55, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

This should now be fixed. --Tardis sysadmin ☎ 18:18, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Back again

Are we back? What happened? Did Sutekh temporarily dust the Wiki? Is the background gone forever? And the "back to top" arrow? Hello! — Fractal • 17:57, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Hello! Put shortly by someone who couldn't code his way out of a shoebox and merely observed proceedings: something went wrong with the new server, we scrambled around for a bit to restore partial functionality back on the old server to tide ourselves over. The background issue and misc. other glitches won't be a concern once we move to the new server over again; whether they will be fixed before then, I couldn't say for sure. The official Twitter account had news on some of this. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 18:34, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, sorry about that whole outage. From now on, I will try to provide up-to-date information about downtime at https://status.tardis.wiki which you may have noticed the wiki automatically redirected to near the end of the downtime. I've just fixed the image thing. It's simply because images are stored on a different location on the old server compared to the new server so their URLs need switching over. Everything should now be functioning again and we plan to move back to the more powerful new server soon. Bongo50 ☎ 10:01, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Minor visual issues

Just noting a few minor visual issues:

When creating a new user page in dark mode, the banner text "You're creating a new user page or subpage" is the same colour as its background. The banner also has a second, square border overlapping its rounded border in a way that seems unintentional. The light mode version of this page has neither of these issues.
While using the Recent Changes page in light mode, both the "Live updates" toggle and the date range options (ex:"250 changes, 30 days") appear white-on-white and are unreadable.
The sorting arrows in sortable wikitables are difficult to see in light mode and don't seem to appear at all, regardless of background colour, in dark mode. (The arrows can still be used while invisible, they just make all the header text appear mysteriously misaligned.)
Reference notes placed in wikitable headers using {{Note}} or <ref> are difficult to see in light mode.
While viewing an edit preview in dark mode, the text "PREVIEW" appears in-line with "Article", "Talk Page", etc. In light mode, the text "PREVIEW" instead appears a row below these options.

Can provide screenshots if desired. Fennel Soup ☎ 02:01, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

General questions about the Tardis Wiki fork

Adding this section for any questions about the fork/the new version of Tardis Wiki that people may have.

I was curious - is the "topical pages" on the sidebar hand picked by admins? Or is it like the old host whereby it'll update with regularly visited pages, etc? (I'd also like to note that I think it might be worth adding "Cybermen" to "Other useful pages", so the "big three" of Daleks/Master/Cybermen are together. Maybe even "TARDIS" too?) — Fractal Doctor • 20:38, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

The entire sidebar is handpicked and can be updated by admins at MediaWiki:Sidebar. I'm very open to suggestions. I will add Cybermen now. Bongo50 ☎ 14:40, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Good to know. I like that it's completely customisable - especially the topical pages. — Fractal Doctor • 18:36, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

What does this mean for swear words? I know Fandom was quite strict and censored articles like f*ck and f*ck buddy where they had previously been uncensored. Now that this wiki is independent, will these articles be uncensored? Other words like shit remain so afterall. 172.70.85.26^{talk to me} 04:21, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

Are we still planning on doing the whole Rassilon/Visionary/Atropos archives split on the forums? I spent like 20 minutes trying to find an archive forum thread (that I didn't 100% remember the exact name of) that ended up being in the "Atropos archives", which aren't set up / the category was never created, so I can't get to it without using search. Najawin ☎ 23:05, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

I believe that SOTO is going to go back to working on forum archives soon. Bongo50 ☎ 09:57, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Sure, I just meant that categorization scheme/split. Just curious! Najawin ☎ 10:05, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

It seems you can now only add categories to pages via the source editor, as opposed to just adding them directly into the category bar at the bottom… WaltK ☎ 14:57, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

That's correct. A replacement for that feature is planned. Bongo50 ☎ 19:18, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

The JS Wiki was working a few days ago, but isn't anymore. Did something happen to it, and what can we do to fix it? Doug86 ☎ 23:00, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

Oh, odd. I'll look into this. Bongo50 ☎ 17:30, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

I think I have found the cause of the issue and I've raised it to our volunteeer sysadmins. I'll let you know when I hear back. Bongo50 ☎ 18:57, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Is the Fandom site going to be shut down at some point? There's still quite a bit of activity going on there from people who have no idea that their contributions are basically worthless now. WaltK ☎ 19:15, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't think it can be. Fandom don't allow sites to be removed, I don't think? Best to just let it gather dust and sadly leave any editors who choose to stay thee just remain. × Fractal • 19:37, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Won't that just cause some serious brand confusion? "Come to the TARDIS Wiki! No not the Fandom one that's way more likely to come up first in search results". WaltK ☎ 20:08, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

It's just a case of time. We can try and persuade people to come to this one, readers and former/new editors alike, but Fandom won't take down their Wiki because, hey, it still gets them clicks. We just have to hope that this, eventually, becomes the go-to one, the more dominant one, and the most updated one. × Fractal • 20:13, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

@WaltK, for dealing with search results, I recommend browser extension Indie Wiki Buddy. It does multiple things to redirect the user to a FANDOM-less wiki when possible. It is configurable to be less or more aggressive: e.g. banner vs forced redirect on the actual pages of the wikis. Another feature is removal of FANDOM from search results. It supports a lot of different wikis and search engines, and because of that the extension's permissions can be scary. —⁠andrybak (☎) 16:20, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Is there any plan to include a total page count, like Fandom had, as I found that quite useful for tracking the progress and growth of the old wiki? Gingerfool ☎ 17:48, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

There is one on the main page. Bongo50 ☎ 17:59, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Constant logging out/loss of session data

WaltK speaking here. I'm making this post without logging in because today I've been constantly in the middle of making long-winded edits only to find I've been logged out due to "loss of session data", and I always have to wait a little while before logging in again because it won't let me straight away. 86.11.223.35^{talk to me} 01:06, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Yes, this is a known issue, being discussed at Forum:Issue_with_saving_edits. Very annoying. Scrooge over here, by the way. Alas. --2A01:CB0C:80BA:E100:B03E:7D48:1E72:155F^{talk to me} 01:12, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Our sysadmins have been working really hard to locate and fix the issue causing this and it should now be fixed! Let me know if it persists. Bongo50 ☎ 19:44, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

March 12 updates

Block bug

I've also started being randomly blocked when I edit. WaltK ☎ 16:17, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

I've had this multiple times and reported it previously. Today, I've battled with it multiple times, to the point where I've given up trying to make a couple of edits because I had to refresh so many times. Is this a fixable bug on each users' end, or is it something server-side? × Fractal • 20:29, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

This is being investigated. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 02:00, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Design glitches

The Navigation and Wiki Tool icons have, at least on my end, suddenly shifted to the bottom of the page and look all glitchy. WaltK ☎ 15:53, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Now it's glitched out differently. LOL. WaltK ☎ 16:11, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm also seeing a very glitchy "Categories" section (see screenshot on the right hand side, down a little), unless this is all a bit of a design work in progress? (Plus the whole site seems to scroll slower than usual unless that's an issue on my end?) × Fractal • 19:40, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

(Thought I'd add a new section because it's getting a little messy above.) There are a few bugs and glitches that have come with the March 12 design update. I assume these can and will be ironed out. I've also shifted WaltK's comments into this section so all the newer bugs/glitches are together for ease. A small gallery of weird issues: × Fractal • 19:52, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Random blocks (multiple users)
Toolbar glitch
Toolbar glitch 2
Spacing issue
Spacing issue 2
Blue highlights on light mode
Categories section glitch

I'm a bit disappointed that the page creation thing on the right is now gone. Would anything like that be returning? SilverSunbird ☎ 03:31, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Do you mean the box where you can enter a title and click "create page"? If so, that appears to be in place - on the left, under "Community" but before "Wiki Tools". × Fractal • 17:22, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm not seeing it anywhere on my computer. SilverSunbird ☎ 18:01, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Depending on my monitor size, I see it in two places (see right). Probably also worth mentioning that the desktop layout on my smaller monitor made it so "Navigation", "Wiki Tools" and "Page Tools" appeared at the top but, as my screenshot shows, they look weird. × Fractal • 18:59, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

SOTO has been completely redoing the desktop skin. There are a lot of bugs. They will be fixed soon, if not by them, but by me when I have time to do more extensive edits in a few days. Bongo50 ☎ 19:01, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Light theme

The light theme has a completely transparent background for me now, so all the text is displayed across the roundels and is impossible to read or view the Wiki. I've had to flick to dark mode for now. (Also, thanks for the update, Bongo.) × Fractal • 15:17, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

I believe SOTO has fixed this. Bongo50 ☎ 17:10, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Page Sizing

For the last couple days, I think, the wiki looks zoomed in (like I'd changed my browser zoom settings), but only when it's being rendered in a window roughly bigger than 1080p. At first, I thought it was just for readability on larger monitors but I noticed that the spacing between elements gets all messed up by it, like on the forums Index page - CodeAndGin | 🗨 | 19:02, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

how the forums page looks in a maximised window
how the forums page looks in a floating window

Calling out

Okay, I've let this stand far longer than I should of, but I think it's time the real discussion took place now that there's talk of pirating editors and viewers from the Fandom wiki. This independent wiki's doomed to fail! It's underfunded, you can't deny it's got glitches and bugs, there's no advertisement for it so all links and searches head straight to the Fandom wiki, and now you're asking people for cash donations in an age where giving money to unknown parties online is advised against. Why would people pay to keep this wiki up and running when there's a free alternative? And to bring in adverts for revenue just brings in what many are citing as the main beef with Fandom. You'd essentially become what you fought against. Speaking of beef with Fandom, the only reasonable explanation given for this split is the absence of forums and one Fandom staff member not doing anything about it, as highlighted on JDPManjoume R's Twitter thread, even though Forums were replaced with an alternative and most the topics on that Twitter thread (the splitting of the Master page) where resolved with an old fashioned Talk page. It looks like the few made a drastic decision that effected the many over a pitiful, and frankly embarrassing, slight that didn't have much an effect on everyone else.

Now before talks of poaching editors and viewers takes place, I recommended you all take a good look at the situation and consider whether you were all just caught up in an act of passion and revolutionary fervour spurred on by some anti-Fandom statements, which for all we know is just a scam to get our money through PayPal, and stop dismissing the Fandom wiki as it's doing very productive editing when you lot are just adding death dates and birthdates to character templates, which really goes against the templates with holding ambiguous information (even the show pokes fun at its ambiguous dating!).

Think about how independent you'll be when you they ask for your money in order to keep their power going. BananaClownMan ☎ 21:01, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, but this just comes off as very bitter (particularly your closing remark about us dismissing the Fandom Wiki and then saying that's doing productive editing whilst this one isn't - I think that's highly unfair and inaccurate on both sides). I think this fork has been a long time coming. Fandom is increasingly implementing crappier policies. More and more Wikis are going independent (frankly, I feel it took way longer than it should've done, but I'm glad it's finally happened). Sure, the Fandom Wiki shows up first, of course it does, and it will for probably a long time to come, but we're happy to take on that battle because independence from Fandom is so worth it. Time will, of course, tell. Nobody's taking the old Fandom Wiki away, and nobody is stopping as many people as they want from editing it and using it either. There are many reasons that many Wikis are moving away from Fandom.

We would advertise on Fandom itself but, quelle surprise, they don't allow it. Fair enough, so we rely on social media, word of mouth, and a slower uptake of people discovering us. Other wikis started from the ground up and are now thriving. Yes, we have some bugs and glitches, but what new site doesn't? We have a lot of people working hard to resolve stuff. Many of them are fixable, and some of them are simply design tweaks to be corrected. And if we do rely on adverts eventually, at least we'll be able to take some control over them, and I'd reckon that at least they won't be intrusive the way Fandom's are. YMMV. × Fractal • 21:10, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

"No advertisement", also known as a stickied thread on the /r/doctorwho subreddit, announcements on prominent Doctor Who Discord servers, several widely-shared social media posts, etc.? No advertisement? Come on. Nor was this a decision taken by "a few". Dozens of long-time editors, including a majority of the admin team, participated in lengthy discussions off-Wiki, for months, before we reached this point. And indeed, whatever your personal feelings, it seems a majority of the active userbase has come to agree with us.

And as Fractal said: there are many, many advantages to being independent, which go well beyond any individual issues with the way CzechOut used to run things, though that certainly didn't help matters. The sheer, and ever-growing hostility of Fandom towards forking attempts was also a major factor in this move; "however nice the cage, when you see the doors closing, get out" is pretty good advice to live by. Moreover, your summary of the Forum issue is overly simplistic. In the first place, the main offence was not the loss of the discussion platform itself, but the loss of the archives, so the existence of alternatives like Discussions and Talk pages was of minimal relevance. In the second place, no, the Master-split was not resolved on a talk page — it was resolved in the Temporary Forums.

The truth is that for many years, Fandom have been growing more and more interventionist, reducing design options for Wikis, forcing new features upon them without leaving them a choice, even interfering with actual coverage in some limited respects. I don't even hold them to be particularly nefarious; that's just the reality of a profit-driven company optimising for high numbers and brand unity. One can't really morally object to them not prioritising the wishes of communities. But we deserve better, and independent, crowd-funded hosting is the way to get it.

The infobox dates thing is a complete non sequitur. It was a routine talk page proposal, which I would have just as quickly enacted at the old host as I did here; it has nothing whatsoever to do with the move. (And for the record, only uncontroversial dates are meant to go in those fields, as per the broader policy you cite. Just like uncontroversial species, planets of origin, and so on. Why should birth and death be singled out?)

And crikey, that there have been some minor glitches is only to be expected when we've only just started. It has little to do with being "underfunded", and everything to do with smoothing out unexpected problems as we discover them.

Finally, your attempt to paint crowdfunding as somehow sinister is equal parts offensive and laughable. Many, many great websites are funded, partially or totally, through donations, starting with, you know, Wikipedia. It's not some outlandish, untrustworthy concept we've introduced out of nowhere. Nor are we exactly talking big bucks here — you must remember that, unlike Wikipedia or the Internet Archive, we have no staff to pay or the like. It's all going towards server costs, which are significant, but ultimately limited. The current monthly costs… specific figures are subject to change, but they're nothing that the admin team alone couldn't put together by ourselves if outside donations came up short someday. Heck, I could pay them myself. I wouldn't like it, but I could if I had to. Running ads is a very distant possibility — and even then, they would be in a much less obtrusive concentration than what we see at Fandom; "no ads vs. so many pop-ups you can hardly see the page on mobile" isn't a binary.

In short we are by no means as precarious as you seem to think we are; we're being as transparent as possible with the donation process as we can; this was a community decision, prompted by a number of carefully-weighed pros and cons rather than any one issue; and I do not appreciate your accusatory tone. (T:NPA is as valid here as on the old host, you know.) You're entitled to wishing the move hadn't happened, but it has, and it's here to stay, whether you like it or not. There is nothing cliqueish or factional about this move — it isn't, and never was, about old grudges. You yourself are perfectly welcome here — and so is User:CzechOut, should he join us by some miracle! Join us, or do not, as you wish — but we are not scammers, we are not a minority, and we are certainly not "doomed to fail". --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 21:32, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Just to weigh in as a regular editor who had no role in the migration; I’m quite happy here. I have seen the move advertised (wouldn’t have known otherwise) and the reaction to said news has seemed overwhelmingly positive, no-one has asked me for money, and I like to think my edits so far including updating the somewhat neglected Time Lord timeline have been fairly significant. Each to their own I suppose. --SherlockTheII ☎ 22:02, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Also, may I note that you're not an uninterested party here, BCM. You've applied to be an admin on the old wiki. Surely it's a conflict of interest to try to interfere with the operation of this wiki while trying to gain permissions on the other? (And might I note, for future reference, that while I'm in favor of Shambala, Czech, etc, retaining their perms should they decide to join us, I'm decidedly against any new admins chosen on the detritus over at Fandom then gaining those permissions here. And if they continued to edit here from time to time as a regular user while being an admin there post fork, well, I don't think that's technically against Fandom's forking policy, but it is something we should probably discuss.) Najawin ☎ 22:25, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

I agree that anyone who becomes an admin on the Fandom site in the future shouldn't automatically gain admin rights on here. × Fractal • 23:26, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

As directly named in your concerns, BCM, I would start by again reminding you - as I did clarify upon your Talk page on this wiki - that I am a regular editor. A frequent one in times before the incident which I related on X/Twitter. A long-running matter. Not to mention that there was also, for my part of concerns, a separate thread of general concerns about FANDOM that I could also draw your attention to.

But let me take this one bit at a time... "the real discussion took place now that there's talk of pirating editors and viewers from the Fandom wiki." - there is absolutely nothing within FANDOM's Forking Policy to stop myself, as a regular editor, contacting by any means other editors to allow them to be aware of the fork. Especially in light of the 'tightening' of discussions allowed on FANDOM spaces in relation to this (changes made in November), I have exercised a personal freedom to contact people. People have been informed, but nobody has been forced, and indeed - admins and rightsholders aside - nobody here has actually been outright prohibited from editing on their Wiki and ours.

"you can't deny it's got glitches and bugs," - nobody is. And those have been getting logged and fixed as things progress.

"Speaking of beef with Fandom, the only reasonable explanation given for this split is the absence of forums and one Fandom staff member not doing anything about it, as highlighted on JDPManjoume R's Twitter thread," - a several years issue, I would like to remind you. And one in which I will say, for all I only noted my own frustrations, there are other regular editors here who shared this same feeling. I merely did not feel it correct to in such a public manner name other fellow regular editors (and even tried to evade names of the admins, beyond Czech).

"a drastic decision" - I would take issue with saying that this was at all done drastically.

"stop dismissing the Fandom wiki as it's doing very productive editing when you lot are just adding death dates and birthdates to character templates" - I will take this in good faith of you having perhaps not checked the Recent Changes log, but speaking just for myself:

I have completed a page on Colin Jones, and uploaded a exclusively-negotiated picture for him.
I have done an entire Events Rotation subpage for Lost in Time.
I have done a list of contributors to DWFC issues from 1-81, as I begin to improve our coverage in that regard.
I have begun a proper detailing of issues on the fanzine page for Celestial Toyroom.

I cannot say that this is not productive. And beyond myself, I am not in agreement that others are being unproductive in their edits either, whether large or small in size.

To round this off, editors still present on the FANDOM Wiki have relayed to me that you are currently putting yourself forwards for an administrative position there and looking for support; which does slightly raise my concerns as to both why you would continue to be here (given their Forking Policy rules for admins), and in terms of coming here to present such a perspective on the situation.
JDPManjoume Regular Editor ☎ ✍ 22:14, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

To pre-empt...

"Since then I've been absent from the Independent Wiki, and I choose not to go there, so there is no threat of breaking the forking policy from me, though I do plan to leave a farewell message of sorts on their forking discussion page, since I've only just noticed that my warning about their glitches has been misunderstood. ... In any event, that message has been misconstrued and plan to reply to it to explain what I was trying to say them after they talked of working to get the Fandom Wiki shut down, an equally personal attack against the editors who have chosen to remain."

BCM. You titled this section "Calling out". Don't be silly. You devote one sentence to talks of glitches. This is revisionist. Come now. Najawin ☎ 07:08, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

None of BCM's message was misunderstood by me. I still see it as resentment or bitterness. And, ultimately, whatever goes on over on Fandom - between him and admins/editors there now - is nothing to do with this independent Wiki. × Fractal • 22:25, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

IP/Email

Alright, after like 9 days of anxiety I've gotten around to dealing with this issue and I just need to bring it up now that I've personally gotten past it. Why are we requiring email verification/not allowing IP users to edit? Surely this is precisely what we don't want to do while we're growing the wiki, as it's just a hurdle for prospective editors. Najawin ☎ 21:53, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Not sure what's happened there; temporary security measure I assume. Definitely not supposed to be permanent, especially as far as blanketly banning IP edits goes. (Email confirmation I'd like to do without, but while your personal struggles with it are noted, it is something that Fandom also requires when creating an account, so t seems less urgent to scrap it if it comes to that.) --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 17:15, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, yeah, I get the email verification. Not thrilled with it. But I fundamentally understand it, you know? The blocking off IP edits is just weird to me though. Najawin ☎ 20:30, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

IP editing should be enabled again. Bongo50 ☎ 19:50, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Notification emails

Does this wiki have an email notification feature, like what Fandom has, that I need to activate somewhere? WaltK ☎ 22:46, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't think so, unfortunately. Our email infrastructure is temporary and doesn't really have the capacity for much more than email confirmations and password resets. This is a priority to improve. Bongo50 ☎ 19:52, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Subpages on "Doctor" pages

I've noticed that the Fandom version of the Wiki has now started splitting their Doctor pages so that "Biography", for example, has its own subpage. This would reduce the amount of walls of text massively, and may even help any issues with source codes/bugs. Implementing this would also help readers stay active and clicking around the Wiki, to different pages, etc. I wouldn't ordinarily suggest point-blank copying somewhere or something else, but I have noticed that our Tenth Doctor page has been split so that "Physical appearance" and "Psychological profile" have their own subpages, and I feel this was an inevitable change anyway. Would it also be worth doing this across all Doctors, and maybe even doing similar for "Biography"? (Figured I'd discuss this here to save doing it across multiple Talk pages, and because a lot of traffic is already here for big decisions and discussion. If an admin feels this deserves its own forum page, please feel free to move it. But I also feel it shouldn't be a huge discussion as I think it has more pros than cons? × Fractal • 11:25, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

As per the current form Tardis:Subpage policy, "Physical appearance" and "Psychological profile" can certainly be split for all Doctors.

The /Biography split is one which the Forum thread which established our current policy put strict conditions on: it could only be split off if we retained a version of the biography on the main page that is shortened, but still included every source. This was done because some among us, such as User:Najawin, felt that to permit a "highlights"-based main-page biographical summary would encourage breaches of T:NPOV.

(BananaClownMan never agreed with this ruling, and is basically just breaking T:BOUND on the Fandom one by implementing his preferred version now that there are no admins to stop him.)

Of course, this was all before we had to deal with the too-many-CS-calls bug. Under the circumstances, other options (such as biting that bullet so long as we agree that "the highlights" doesn't necessarily include every TV story-of-the-week, or simply not having a biographical summary on the main page) could certainly be discussed, and/or the basic objection revisited, but that would take a thread.--Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 14:40, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm not even sure it's that BCM didn't agree with the ruling so much as he didn't understand it. Like. I pointed him to Forum:Temporary forums/Subpages 2.0 right before the fork and he actively claimed that his trimming of pages was compatible with the ruling there. But it's not. It's in clear violation of it. (And, of course, it's in clear violation of T:NPOV.) Najawin ☎ 23:58, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Just to highlight / illustrate the pages with excessive size there's the useful Special:LongPages. While it can be skewed by the amount of images on the page, it is largely useful to narrow down which Doctor (or other pages) might benefit from targeted editing. --Tangerineduel / talk 14:07, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

T:DON'T COPY and Fandom

So some work is being transferred back and forth between this wiki and the Fandom one, and I think we should clear up our stance on this. Generally, I've understood the wiki's view of T:DON'T COPY to mean that even if we have a right to copy stuff as it's Creative Commons, unless it's our own work we should avoid doing so and we should endeavor to write our own content. Some edits on the Fandom wiki have been copied over here, saying "from editor such and such, on the Fandom wiki". I believe this technically violates the spirit of T:DON'T COPY, if not the hard and fast rule. (Note, I do not mean importing work that another user has done as they've migrated their account. I mean someone copying over another user's work when that user has not migrated their account.) I'm of the opinion we should put an end to this.

Moreover, while I believe this is technically allowed, under Fandom's policy on attribution, which says that by contributing to Fandom you agree that a list of contributing authors counts as attribution, I don't believe we've set up any policy on how to handle the reverse situation, where someone is copying information and edits from this wiki and using it on Fandom. Per the strict text of the license, I'm pretty sure they actually have to link here, and the people currently doing so are not, they're just referring to "the forked wiki". Albeit, while noting the users in question. Should we consider this sufficient? Should we require any edit summary to have a link here? I certainly think that if the edits simply refer to "the forked wiki" and there's no discussion on the Fandom wiki of what that means (because they've forbidden it), they're in clear violation. But I think it's best to have this discussion before taking any hard line stance. Najawin ☎ 06:40, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes I agree, I too would like to see a blanket ban on taking any content from the Fandom wiki. Anyone remaining on the old site has now had notice of the fork and ample time to move, and I think it's a safe assumption to make that they've chosen to stay and we should respect that. Not to mention the negative SEO implications - scraped content violates Google's spam policies and worsens this site's uphill battle to appear in the search results. Guyus24 ☎ 10:20, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

I did get a bit of amusement that the same user who in a discussion on this very page was criticising the quality of edits here is now duplicating some across to Fandom. Nice to know my edit to Seventh Doctor met their standards I suppose. But more seriously I support the idea here. We’ve gone our separate ways to Fandom so should focus attention here rather than keeping half an eye on what’s going on over there. --SherlockTheII ☎ 11:11, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

I've just had a nosey and seen what you're referring to, SherlockTheII. I laughed at the hypocrisy and the audacity. I'm all for saying we should make it so anything directly copy/pasted from here should be linked, but realistically how can that be enforced? We can't force anybody on Fandom to link here, and Fandom won't care if it's one of our own policies? But I do think it should be done as common courtesy - if you copied stuff elsewhere, whether online or in physical media, you'd source it directly (just putting "from a website" wouldn't cut it, so should "from the forked Wiki" cut it? I don't think so). I also agree we shouldn't directly copy/paste stuff from Fandom to here - or if we do allow it, it should be with the original editor's consent and a proper link? • Fractal • 17:50, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with the view that we should not be copying edits over from the Fandom host.

In terms of T:DON'T COPY, my view is that it should not apply here, because the Fandom Wiki is not another website. It is Tardis Wiki — it is part of us — it is the ungainly husk left behind when we shed our skin. In terms of style guides, we have yet to diverge to such an extent that copying edits from there will "stick out" once transplanted here, so there's no risk of dilution. In terms of courtesy-to-not-hoover-up-oxygen-from-another-resource… we owe them none of that.

Insofar as we are trying to overtake them in SEO, sucking up oxygen from the Fandom Wiki is precisely what we are trying to do. We should certainly keep everything above-board and practical — no vandalism, no petty vendettas — but that is all. While people have the right to keep an offshoot of Tardis Wiki up at Fandom, as much as we had to move — for that is what Creative Commons means, and it matters — it is nevertheless our hope that their duplicate will decay into non-existence — or at least into irrelevance — over time. Letting them build up exclusive, productive material that we would be forced to recreate from first principles is inimical to that end.

Until such a time as the Fandom husk goes down, the least we can do is give ourselves the freedom to transport what few good edit misguided editors might make to the husk onto the live version of the site. I view this as equivalent to, say, moving edits over to the main-namespace page if someone accidentally made productive edits to somebody's sandbox duplicate thereof, and (for whatever reason) could not be reached to dispel the misunderstanding personally. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 19:27, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree with you Scrooge MacDuck. What is the process for importing good edits from the Fandom husk to the real Tardis Wiki? Should everyone do it with a standard edit summary template or should the admins do it with admin tools? If it is the latter then what is the process for requesting a transfer from the admins? I assume of course that the same process would apply albeit less often to other wikis such as Wikipedia or say the Hitchhikers wiki. WarDocFan12 ☎ 20:00, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

So to clarify, while the user in question is the most prominent person doing this, they are not the only person doing this. I've seen others.

As for what can be done, again, I believe as things currently stand, the way people on Fandom are approaching this it's a violation of copyright. Since they're not providing proper attribution, it seems. Clarifying what this wiki would consider proper attribution is, I believe, the best first step.

While people have the right to keep an offshoot of Tardis Wiki up at Fandom, as much as we had to move — for that is what Creative Commons means, and it matters — it is nevertheless our hope that their duplicate will decay into non-existence — or at least into irrelevance — over time. Letting them build up exclusive, productive material that we would be forced to recreate from first principles is inimical to that end.

Surely this is precisely what they'd say about doing the same with our work, no? If this is what we want, I mean, so be it. I think this is a bad idea, and I think that the better approach is trying to convince Shambala and Czech that T:DON'T COPY applies to our work here. (I think Shambala would be amenable to this, personally. Though I could be very wrong.) But at the very least we need to clear up the attribution issue, because the way people are handling things on Fandom is very much not sufficient. Najawin ☎ 20:40, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Oh, I absolutely agree regarding the attribution. But as others have said, we can't actually sanction Fandom users for things done on Fandom. They have no incentive to listen to us; there is nothing we can do to threaten them, short of literally threatening legal action. So I'm sort of unsure how to proceed.

If we find that we can alter their behaviour, though, I think requesting links to the specific original pages is a reasonable and indeed desirable outcome as something that we could standardise to "on both sides". It covers the legalities; it asymmetrically incentivises Fandom against copying from us (because they'd have to spread awareness of us to do so, while obviously people using tardis.wiki know about Fandom already); and it has benefits for us even if they bite that bullet (i.e. increased visibility of the fork to the remaining Fandom users). --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 21:26, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

I think we should change the license of Tardis Wiki to CC-BY-SA 4.0. Creative Commons says on its page for 3.0 that "Compared to previous versions, the 4.0 versions of all CC licenses are more user-friendly and more internationally robust. If you are licensing your own work, we strongly recommend the use of the 4.0 license instead." So it is common sense. Also this would not affect our ability to transfer from Fandom since Fandom uses 3.0 which is compatible with "BY-SA 3.0, or a later version of the BY-SA license".

However I bring it up in this discussion because this change would have an adversarial side effect which we might not want. 4.0 is only compatible with "BY-SA 4.0, or a later version of the BY-SA license." So Fandom would not be able to take edits from this wiki.

I am still interested in knowing how to transfer edits from Fandom to this wiki or whether these requests must go through an admin and if so how. WarDocFan12 ☎ 21:53, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

That's something that's been on my agenda to look into for a while. There's a good breakdown of the differences between the 2 versions at metawiki:Terms of use/Creative Commons 4.0/Legal note which includes some stuff we'll ned to consider. Bongo50 ☎ 22:43, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

I just glanced at the issue, and would suggest people read here and here (there's a lot in that second link related to CC, too much to link to specifically, but not all of it). Not everything is transferable to our situation, but a lot of it is probably helpful to glance at. Najawin ☎ 22:52, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Fundamentally different approach to the fork it would seem. I actually think it is misguided to say that the Fandom Wiki is on its way to becoming a husk. It's not going anywhere. Why? For the simple reason that hardly any major forked wikis shrivel up and die. They all keep chugging along, eventually attracting new editors over time and remaining prominent in search results. It's a common dream that I think every fork goes through, but it simply doesn't line up with history, and I think the quicker we all realise that the better. Like I said, we just have to assume at this stage that those editing the 'old' site have chosen to do so, i.e. have chosen not to edit here, and we should respect that. If I began copying over edits here en masse to the Fandom version there would, rightfully, be outrage. From their point of view the same holds. As far as I see it, you need to commit to the move and you can't keep ducking back and pinching the "good edits" when you feel like it. As an aside, it's not misguided to not want to be here either - personally, for me, I just want to edit where people will find and read my work, and have fun while doing so, and at this stage the Fandom site actually serves me better in that regard.

In case you don't believe me about forked wikis finding new life, let's have a look at some of the more prominent recent forks and see how the Fandom site is doing. Yes, ok, it's looking at the problem a bit backwards to define a wiki's success by how many editors it has, but it's an indication - if you believe that about 1% of readers make edits, which I believe is the usual conversion rate. I'm using the active users stat from Special:Statistics on the relevant wikis. Terraria: 78 editors; Minecraft, 245 editors; Fallout, 224 editors; Wowpedia, 53 editors; Zelda Wiki, 107. The only wikis to have really shrivelled up with no editors are the Runescape ones. Hell, I know it's still fresh but we're now past the 30 days mark for this fork, and the Fandom wiki has 204 active users. This version actually only has 136! Maybe we're the misguided ones!

I think you should take Google's spam policies seriously though. Would certainly explain the wiki's continued absence from any non-branded search terms. Google takes spam seriously, and by violating that there is a non-zero chance that tardis.wiki just gets deindexed entirely. I don't want to see that happen. Now, yeah, sure, we can't help most of it - that's just the nature of forking. But we can choose what happens from now. Guyus24 ☎ 07:50, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

To be fair, the metric you're looking at here is unhelpful. Since for each of them it includes Revan, who's one edit for each is to migrate his account here. Also, "active users" include editors who have simply made an account. The act of making an account places you on that list, even if you do nothing else. And given how much emphasis Fandom places on this, the metric is useless. Not even largely useless, just completely useless. If we limit it to users who've contributed 50 times or more in their entire user history, we get 105 on Fandom, and a substantial number are people who transferred over. Now, by no means should we consider everyone in the list here an "active user" under this sort of standard, looking at >50 lifetime edits. (Not that we can easily filter that here.) But it's far more nuanced when we do any sort of analysis. (And, again, I agree that we shouldn't take edits from there, but for other reasons than that.) Najawin ☎ 08:15, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Well it's not really the point I'm trying to make, I just thought it was an interesting stat (and I very strongly disagree with tying a wiki's community to just how active its editor-base is). But, for the most part, when wikis fork the original one doesn't shrivel up and die, and so it's baseless to assume that this wiki's Fandom counterpart will. Just a cursory glance at RecentChanges on those wikis will tell you that. Guyus24 ☎ 09:06, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

I didn't necessarily mean that we should expect the Fandom husk to actually shrivel up and die any day soon (not unless Fandom itself goes down, anyway), merely that, like, we want it to. It would be good if that happened. So our relationship to it is always going to be fundamentally different from our relationship to the unrelated Who fansites that T:DON'T COPY was originally written about, with whom we are interested in long-term, happy coexistence. You know?

Either way, I fundamentally do not understand the idea that we should "respect" continued Fandom editor's choice by not copying their edits. Not in the sense that we should disrespect them, just in the sense that I don't think there's any disrespect in copying (quite the opposite, since we're paying their edits a de facto compliment!). They are, again, working under Creative Commons. They are releasing work under an open-source license, in the full knowledge that it can be copied by anyone at any time for any reason, provided they give proper credit. It is simply not a thing that you write things on a CC-BY wiki under the expectation that it's only ever going to appear on that Wiki; it's not a betrayal or an outrage to copy it somewhere "else". If people dislike it, they have only themselves to blame — their feelings are no more sensical than someone giving money to a homeless person, seemingly with no strings attached, then trying to police what they do with it. You've donated your work, it's Part Of The Commons now, it belongs to the people. You don't get to dictate where it goes or does not go!

And, as I said, I wholeheartedly bite the bullet that the Fandom holdouts have an inalienable right to copy our work (so long as our licenses remain compatible and they give proper attribution). Creative Commons is a beautiful thing, and I just can't help but view this kind of hand-wringing as antithetical to its information-wants-to-be-free ideal.

With all of that said, SEO impact is concerning and worth discussing. I just don't think T:DON'T COPY as it stands, or the idea of "respecting Fandom users' choices", really stand up to scrutiny in this matter. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 09:33, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

(To be clear, my position here is not that we should "respect these users choice". I think it's a tactically bad idea, as the editor asymmetry means that they'll be incentivized to copy from here far more than vice versa.) Najawin ☎ 09:38, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm sorry, Scrooge, but no you don't get to have your cake and eat it too without getting pushback. You got your own little group together and decided to fork without a community discussion, and now you say that copying said community's edits is fine and dandy? Nope, not having it. You wanted separate from Fandom? That means doing the work that Fandom has done and attracting your own editors to do make their own edits. You do not get a grace period while you wait for the Fandom site to shrivel up, not when you are already befitting from years worth of their marketing and other people's edits. You don't get to call us misguided simply because we don't want to join you or because we don't think an independent fandom wiki will be sustainable long term, and you certainly don't get to act like you are paying us a compliment. Sure, you are right that you are allowed to copy edits with the right credit, no one can stop you, but the amount of disrespect and disregard for the people who, not so long ago, you were an admin of is very worrying. LauraBatham ☎ 11:52, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

We didn't "decide to fork with a community discussion". The discussions were had — but we had to have them off-Wiki, with as many editors as we could coax into such off-Wiki spaces to discuss the matter, because Fandom's parameters on how to have such a discussion are worse than nonexistent.

(To wit, there is an absolute two-weeks time limit with no possible repeats; and that's a real damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation. Two weeks is nowhere near enough time to get a functional fork going, put funding together, etc., so you'd need to have done it all in advance before you presentd the thread; yet this stuff costs money and considerable effort, and who would pay for that without prior assurance that the community will actually go for it? There's no good option, and there never will be until Fandom allows unlimited discussion of the possibility of forking on-site.)

Moving was not my idea. Many can testify I was initially sceptical, as were others. We were won over by a community consensus of participants to the discussion, over considerable time. This was a move, not a schism; or at least, to the degree that it's turning into a schism, that was never our intention.

I really am sorry for the cloak-and-dagger measures we had to resort to; but I never did, and never will, intend any disrespect or ill-will to those editors whom we were not able to make a part of those discussions. It is the nature of every big policy decision that 1° not everyone participated in the discussions, and 2° not everyone likes the final outcome; it's never a comfortable place to be, but please believe that this is, as far as I'm concerned, what has happened here, to you and other Fandom holdouts. Nothing more or less.

Regardless, the point stands that Creative Commons is an ideal, an ethos. Working under Creative Commons isn't just a legal footnote, it means you're participating in a global initiative for free information. I still don't see how you can be part of that, and yet insist it's disrespectful to see it reused. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 12:07, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

I do understand what Laura's said. I decided very early on not to take it personally, but I've edited Tardis Wiki for nine years and only found out about the forking several days after it went live thanks to a tweet I happened to come across. I've been a regular editor for almost the entirety of those nine years and was easily contactable via Discord.

If I hadn't happened across that Tweet, I would have remained on a wiki that editors here believe is going to die a death and been blithely unaware that my edits were being cherry-picked and transferred over. Legally, fine. Morally, not a good move in my opinion.

It does sometimes feel that there is a divide between your average editor and the Select Few who get to be in the know and add info on each other's spinoffs of spinoffs of spinoffs of Doctor Who here for exposure. Nothing wrong with that, but it does feel like there is a divide there.

But a lot of this is off-topic. I think, as a general rule, we should try to copy and paste edits over from the Other Wiki as little as possible. Jack ☎ 12:18, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

The disrespect is in the way you are talking about us like we are misguided fools and yet still wanting our work (something for which people are rightly calling out BCM for). It's in your open wish for our community space to "shrivel up" in favour of the one that you are controlling. Its not about the edits - those are free information that (provided credit is given) is free to use - it's about your attitude. LauraBatham ☎ 12:50, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Some responses

@Jack: We did attempt to contact you on Discord, and failed — I think the ID presently still available on your Fandom account is no longer valid following Discord's username format change some time ago. (I retried it just now, and got the same error message.)

I agree that a number of long-term, valued editors having had to find out overnight like this was suboptimal, and that you all deserved better — but I can only repeat that we did our best to reach out to everyone we could. User:Najawin will testify (and talk page messages will bear out) that I went to considerable length to finally get him on the line in a private, off-Fandom space even though his online habits were not at all amenable to it. It was in no way a matter of a deliberately chosen "Select Few" who "got to be in the know", I promise — notwithstanding the obvious exceptions of CzechOut and Spongebob, we wanted as many people to know as possible.

(Indeed, the people who frequent the Doctor Who Discord #wiki chat will be able to testify that it makes a much broader circle than the smaller, loosely-federated faction of writer-editors to whom you refer — and invites for the server had been openly posted on n8's user page for years! Insofar as we creative types amount to a coherent, specific group, we certainly hold no specific knowledge or power in a way that might have impacted the way the move was handled. User:Bongolium500 was the primary actor without whom none of this would have been remotely possible, and he's no spin-off writer — nor do I know him socially in any way outside of Wiki-related matters. I do understand why you would get the impression you gesture at, but truly, I believe you have the wrong end of the stick regarding our intentions, actions, and backgrounds in all of this.)

@Laura, I never called any of you "misguided fools". "Misguided" was meant to be anything but insulting! It's the word you might use to describe someone whom you deeply respect, but who you believe to be making a mistake. And that's just what I believe is happening here. I believe that most editors currently editing the Fandom host are making an unfortunate error of judgement — specifically unfortunate because I respect them and wish they would come over. No contradiction, no hypocrisy, and no intended insult. Granting that I believe that it would ideally have been best if the entire community had migrated over to the new host — and I don't see that I can very well believe anything else under the circumstance — I'm not sure how you would want, or expect me to talk about people who remain at Fandom…? They're doing something which I earnestly think they oughtn't for the long-term health of the Wiki. Again, turnabout is far play, if they believe that we, by editing the forked Wiki, are doing something which is detrimental to the long-term health of the project, then I am entirely fine with them calling us "misguided". I don't think anyone is arguing that having two parallel Wikis is a desirable state of affairs, so each side kind of has to believe that the other one is acting in error. We can and should be polite and respectful about it, but one does have to call a spade a spade…

I also want to make it very clear that I don't "control" this space any more than I controlled the Fandom Wiki. I'm just one of many admins — crikey, I'm not even a bureaucrat! We have bureaucrats; if anyone has 'control' here it's User:SOTO and User:Tangerineduel. They outrank me! I'm not in charge! Or if you want to go one rung up, we are at some level 'controlled by' the server sysadmins — but they're very hands-off about the actual contents of the Wiki (much more than Fandom Staff were), and, again, I'm not one of them. I don't tell them what to do. Not a bit. Don't have that power, don't want it. The fork has not put me any more or less in charge of anything than I ever was.

Nor, obviously, do I wish for the community to shrivel! The community is wonderful! But that's precisely why it is my fondest wish that the entire community would migrate to the new, and, in my view, clearly superior, host. "I wish the Fandom Wiki would go away" is the very opposite of saying "I wish User:LauraBatham (et alt.) would go away"; I keep hoping for all valued editors to move here so that all that's left on the other side truly is an inactive/unmodded "husk", and we can carry on just as we were before, only on a functional platform with no intrusive ads or forced features. A remarkable number of you migrated to help us bring ever closer to that dream; and I am eternally thankful to every single one of you.

Rivalries and factionalism are the very opposite of anything I've ever wanted, and that is why I react so strongly — perhaps too strongly? — to accusations of personal vendettas or favouritism being in play. We are — should be — the same old Tardis Wiki with a new URL. That's all I've ever hoped for. Reality will always fall short of perfection, but I am in favour of anything that brings us closer to that dream. SEO concerns aside, importing good edits for those editors who have not, as yet, come to trust the new host, seems to be one of those things. That's al.

And sure. Perhaps some of you just don't believe we can do it. The practicalities of keeping such a big indie Wiki up indefinitely are daunting; I took some convincing to take the leap, myself, as I mentioned earlier. I hope our hopes and confidence aren't misplaced. Time will tell; it always does. And perhaps, in two, five, ten years, you'll come to see that we're here to stay. God, I hope so.

But in the meantime — even if you still think we're going to fail — please, I beg you, at least don't misconstrue what we're trying to do here. What the dream is. I truly, deeply believe that the best way forward is the "basically everyone moves, things pick up as normal" scenario, and we've gotten wonderfully close to it, perhaps closer than we dared hope at the start. If one believes as I do, then of course people still editing the old host are "misguided" (in an innocent, sympathetic but tragic way). And of course bringing those edits over is a well-meaning move, not an attempted slight. Again, I'm not asking you to believe in that dream; but please understand the mindset. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 14:07, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

I feel the need to be transparent mention that I actually did have Jack's Discord prior to the fork and could have contacted him about it, but that it entirely slipped my mind. I'm really sorry about that. Bongo50 ☎ 14:15, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

For the record, I've only been importing missing edits from users who have migrated (and from not those who have migrated but continued to be more active on the Fandom Wiki, which is BCM and Laura, as much as we're missing you both).

Other intervening edits necessarily also get imported when I import page histories for specific users' edits, of course (and even if we could get around this somehow, it wouldn't satisfy CC BY-SA 3.0 that way). I don't think anyone else has actively been performing imports.

Those imports are a courtesy to those users (usually directly requested, as well), so incoming users don't need to redo all their edits.

I fully acknowledge that not being able to contact users to announce the fork on the same day was less than ideal. I was personally pushing for a public discussion on Fandom Tardis first... but in the weeks leading up to our announcement, Fandom made their guidelines much stricter, (apparently) seeking to control the local process by requiring the use of a special template you need to put in a private request for.

We were all concerned they would take action to prevent us from enacting consensus and actually fork, unless we did things in this order. Thankfully, we've managed to get through it all very peacefully, with no retaliation (like some of the horror stories we'd heard from other independent wikis).

Anyway, I agree with Scrooge that forging rivalries is very much not on our to-do list, and I was more than a little surprised to see some of the comments here. We certainly didn't fork so that a select group of editors can have "control". It's so that the community can self-govern. And no matter what you choose to do with our new domain, you're still the community, even from afar.
× SOTO (☎/✍/↯) 14:51, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

I can't say that I understand the sentiment that Tardis should "find its own editors", though. I cannot emphasise enough how this is not some cabal that decided to start its own separate thing. Pretty much all admins and two out of three bureaucrats (the third works for Fandom) have migrated, as have the vast majority of active users.

There is no "us versus them" in any of this. We're just hoping to keep this wonderful community together without these conflicts, which seem to me to be arising out of misinformation. (And as for Fandom, they've profiting off all our hard work for 20 years, at least as much as we've benefitted from their branding. It was a good relationship for a while, but now they're prioritising those profits over the communities they claim to serve. Our first priority has always been to the editors... not to a brand.)
× SOTO (☎/✍/↯) 15:14, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

(Just chiming in to say I appreciate the attempt to contact me and that there's absolutely no need to apologise, Bongo.) Jack ☎ 16:23, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Laura, let me emphasize as well that in spite of you deciding not to edit here, a decision I do not agree with but completely understand, you've been given rollback perms. (tbf, I disagree with the decision to give a bunch of us rollback perms without a forum thread, but that's neither here nor there.) Surely this is incompatible with the idea that you're being condescended to, treated like a fool, rather than simply making a decision we disagree with and hope you'll reconsider, no? I don't love the lack of a two week discussion period, I've made that clear multiple times. But at the end of the day I do understand it, and I can't blame the people involved for Fandom's increasingly dictatorial practices. I worry that there's quite a lot of bad faith interpretations of behavior in how people are treating this split and interactions in it, rather than everyone treating the people involved as rational, motivated (if perhaps sometimes somewhat emotional, let's admit that we can all be so) persons trying to do our best. Najawin ☎ 19:23, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

(And, yes, Scrooge's attempts to reach me were a subject of considerable anxiety on my part. They're still detailed on my talk.) Najawin ☎ 19:38, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

I believe the concerns about 'respect' have mostly been answered by now but I just want to make clear what my thoughts are. For the most part, I don't feel like your average Fandom Wiki editor knows CC BY-SA even is. That's not an insult to be clear - speaking from personal experience, I know I didn't for a long time and I have only really been taking it seriously in the last few years. It's just a site you can edit. And I know, yes, technically you're not really contributing to a particular Wiki and your edits just go to "The Commons", but I really don't think most casual editors know or appreciate that.

I certainly feel that if this wiki wants to continue to copy edits over it should be by properly importing them rather than another user copying them in their own name. Somehow that feels different to me. SOTO's approach sits much better with me with the guardrails that that the user has expressed interest with their edits coming over. But I also note that some users are still coming here with the perception that the Fandom Wiki is the "wrong" one and that their edits have been "wasted", and neither of those things are really right.

On the perceived abruptness of the fork, the whole "discussion can only go for two weeks" thing is actually a myth. The current forking policy makes no reference to time frame at all, mentioning only "the duration of the active discussion" without placing any limit on it. The older pre-November 2023 version of the policy did have two weeks in it, but that was only referring to how long you could leave a link to the discussion on the home page, and not how long the discussion itself could have gone for. So there absolutely could have been an on-wiki discussion about it. But I totally understand if there were concerns with CzechOut playing in to that decision, it's a fairly unique case. Guyus24 ☎ 22:28, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

In regard to the Fandom wiki copying edits from here, I have noticed that does seem to be the case with a lot of articles of the newer episodes recently. There's a few words changed, so they're not exactly the same, but the overall similarities are so close that it's hard to deny they've been copied. For example, the Fandom wiki's article on "Ruby Sunday (73 Yards)" has the body copied from this wiki's Ruby Sunday/Other realities article, along with its infobox being copied from the main Ruby Sunday article. The infobox even includes "The Red Notes" name for her band that is definitely from this wiki, as the Fandom's page has not been moved to that conjectural name yet. Looking at the source, they've even copied the birth date parameter, which of course doesn't even work on Fandom so it does not appear on the page. I don't think there's much that can be done about this, it's just a bit disappointing. BlueSupergiant ☎ 17:48, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Oh, no, the Ruby (73 Yards) one is well over the line. Snivy should know better. Najawin ☎ 20:11, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Wait a second, Snivy uses discord. Why am I the one trying to talk to him using Fandom and potentially skirting an account ban when he has a discord? lmao. Najawin ☎ 13:20, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

sysadmin response

Going to cite the forking policy to further clarify on what happened and regarding the secrecy:

The new wiki's URL cannot be added to pages other than the discussion.
The discussion link may stay on the main page for the duration of the active discussion, meaning from when the discussion (or voting) begins until the outcome is decided and any users leaving the community move.
This includes not posting on message walls with notices directing people to the fork.
Sitenotices and Anonnotices referencing the discussion, the fork, or the new URL are not permitted.

Without the sitenotice and being forced to rely on only the main page while fandom staff is fully aware. Yeah have to inform to get the template and can't just use the template from dev wiki. There's relatively 0 point in having an on-wiki discussion when the policy is ambiguous in regards to informing the community at large of the discussion taking place.

choosing to hold a fork discussion on wiki would mean staff is alerted and staff would be overseeing the discussion. The duration of the thread notice on the main page would be subject to fandom staff's determination of when the discussion dies down. Staff choose to not honor the 2 week sitenotice for Zelda wiki, why would anyone trust an even less clear duration period?
since any such discussion space would include a link to the fork or pending new domain, per the rule of "not posting notices that direct to the fork"; there is an implied restriction on informing the community of any such discussion on user talk or messagewalls. Whether this implied and unfortunate ambiguous rule is enforced is unknown. The fact this is ambiguous proves Fandom is not serious about being open or able to respect such a community decision without confusion or uncertainty.
There is no written policy indicating what happens if an admin led discussion were to fail, a big risk.
There is no indication of how many times a fork discussion can be held, another risk factor

A major factor is how Fandom reacted to Minecraft wiki's fork that was completely out in the open and encouraged staff to give their 2 cents, their wiki rep gave up trying to convince. The result was a completely non-involved admin from the Russian wiki got demoted thus triggering 12 wikis leaving in total.

There was an attempt to get Tardis wiki community onto a private discord server to ensure everyone was aware, this was refused. The purpose was to conduct a discussion in secret. Due to Fandom staff's unpredictability of a response, regardless of what Spongebob456 has assured, and the ambiguous unwritten rules that are enforced; the difficult decision was made to only bring in trusted admins and community members whom intended to support the fork. --Tardis sysadmin ☎ 06:20, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Suggestions

Figured I'd add a new section for suggestions that could be implemented to the new Wiki. Call me lazy, but I was thinking how a "back to top" link at the bottom of each page (or one of those buttons that shows up when you scroll a certain way down a page) might be useful - especially for desktop users as the sidebar remains fixed at the top. If you've scrolled or read down a long page, "back to top" might be useful and I believe wouldn't be too hard to add. • Fractal • 19:44, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

This doesn't seem to hard. I'll try and make it tomorrow. Bongo50 ☎ 20:15, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Could we add "Weeping Angels" to the "Other Useful Pages" panel. They've become as popular as the Daleks, Master and Cybermen in recent years. 66 Seconds ☎ 18:06, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Done: Bongo50 ☎ 18:55, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

I've also put together a back to top button, originally from the Fallout Wiki. To enable it, go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets and select the box next to "Snap To Top". Bongo50 ☎ 20:15, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks Bongo. I'd make it ever so slightly smaller, if it were up to me, but it's a helpful addition :) • Fractal • 20:42, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

I've made it a bit smaller. You'll probably have to clear your cache by doing ctrl+f5 to see it. Bongo50 ☎ 21:16, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Minor point, but with the upcoming relaunch branded as "Season 1", should the sidebar link say "latest season" instead of "latest series"? Also, whilst the season is airing, would it be worth having a subheading "Season 1" with episode page links appearing as each one transmits? Could help drive traffic to newer episode pages, and then we could keep "topical pages" to individual elements (eg. the Doctor, latest villains, specific aliens, etc.) — Fractal • 22:49, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Is anyone else having trouble with the Most linked-to pages link? Whenever I try to load it, I keep getting a timeout. Doug86 ☎ 19:32, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, craps out on me as well. (Bongo, would the change to {{cs}} have done this?) Najawin ☎ 19:41, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

They shouldn't have. Does anyone know if this has worked at all post-fork? It may well be that the page is too resource-intensive to generate with our current infrastructure considering the size of this wiki. Bongo50 ☎ 17:40, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

It did work before, but I don't remember when it stopped working. Doug86 ☎ 19:05, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Hmm. I'll speak to our sysadmins. Bongo50 ☎ 19:45, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

It's been a month; has there been any progress on this? Doug86 ☎ 20:18, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Really sorry but this completely slipped my mind. I've just asked the sysadmins now. Bongo50 ☎ 21:15, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

It seems that it just comes down to this wiki being massive and our hardware not quite yet cutting it. It should be fixed as we upgrade our hardware, but I can't really give a great timeline on when exactly that will be. At the moment, we're looking at doing an upgrade after Season 1 finishes airing as then we can do it on a weekend (when everyone involved has more free time) without disrupting post-episode editing. Bongo50 ☎ 15:43, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Could we get MonoBook as one of the skin options on the wiki? Also, would it be possible to get the theme toggle to work on all skins? I'm currently using a user script to get a Wikipedia-style dark mode, which does the job but causes some elements to look a bit wonky. Look-a-troopa ☎ 03:32, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

Currently, we only officially support Timeless and Citizen (for mobile only). Vector was installed only for testing purposes (as we'd like to support it eventually). I can get MonoBook installed, but I don't currently have the time to style it and get it to a point where I'd be happy to say that it's officially supported.

Eventually, I would like to get the theme toggle working on all skins. However, I'm not sure how easy that will be as the extension we use was designed for Vector and I had to hack it to get it to work on Timeless. I'm unsure how I'd go about getting it working on multiple skins simultaneously. However, for now, as we only officially support Timeless and Citizen, and Citizen has its own light/dark mode system, it is not a priority. In the future, though, I would like to have it working on all (non-Citizen) skins and perhaps even be able to have different skins available for each skin. That will probably require substantially changing how it currently works, though. Bongo50 ☎ 20:07, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

@Doug86 Special:MostLinkedPages should now be working! Bongo50 ☎ 11:14, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

@Look-a-troopa Monobook should now be available to enable in your preferences! Bongo50 ☎ 17:03, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Cheers! I am noticing one issue with it, though, namely that the new personal tools bar in the top right is rendering on top of the page actions bar in the top left, rendering the latter unusable unless I manually delete or block the former's HTML node (which also isn't ideal, considering I use both toolbars pretty extensively). Look-a-troopa ☎ 00:16, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Oh, nevermind, looks like the problem was that the personal tools bar was being pushed down by the theme toggle, managed to fix things by blocking that instead. Look-a-troopa ☎ 00:29, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

The theme toggle is causing a lot of problems. I think I will have to investigate a better solution. Bongo50 ☎ 15:02, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

I quit

I've been meaning to do this for a while, but the last two times I tried, this wiki's URL was nonresponsive, and then I had commitments in the real world that needed attending. But, in honour of the rebirthing nature of spring, I've decided there's no time like the present; I've decided to leave both TARDIS Wikis after nearly 10 years of contributing. This fork has unfortunately divided this community, and I am not liking what I am seeing here. In respect to the users on this Wiki that I still get along with, I've transferred some of my recent edits over to show there are no hard feelings overall, as it is with a select few I have umbrage with, but we'll get to them later.

Initially, I was hoping we could co-exist like the Transformers and NBC' Heroes Wikis, but the comments here about wanting to stamp out the Fandom Wiki and leave this one as the one true wiki has left a "with us or against us" mindset that I simply can't abide by, especially since a few editors here have continuously harassed me on the Fandom Wiki. Just as a heads up, you guys might want to do an IP check on 185.69.145.53, since I believe they edited the Fandom Wiki to bypass the forking policy.

Going back to the "Calling out" post I did a few months that was meant to act as a warning of power going to heads (which in retrospect does come across as being a bitter statement, but I was feeling sickened by the attitude regarding Fandom from Fractal's reply to WaltK), I shall applaud Fractal for showing such maturity to what they perceived to be an attack, which showed leadership skills this wiki could use, and I for one think they should join the Admin ranks, especially since Fractal is a public financial benefactor. I just wish the same could be said about the actual admin, Scrooge MacDuck, who essentially threw a hissy fit that only raised my concerns that they were trying to scam people out of money, instead of alleviate it with a calm discussion. And since then, they continue to advocate an "us or them" message by wanting the Fandom Wiki to "shrivel up and die", while insulting the Fandom loyalists as "misguided". First you all emulated the High Council with your dogmatic approach to policy enforcement when it was against your favour, then you copied the Division's plan by stealing 20 years of hard work to a separate domain ala their Universe Two, and now you have an admin quoting the villain song from The Lorax! How many villains do you lot have to act like before you all realise you're not the freedom fighters you believe you're selves to be?

Now to address the elephant in the room; the constant harassment. It all stems from Scrooge MacDuck again, who took it upon themselves to remove contributions I made to Master pages that they followed, while ignoring edits made to Master pages they did not. When I engaged them in conversation, and they said their beef was edit summery boxes being blank, I told them about my autism making communicating my intentions into words difficult and that I preferred to let actions speak for me. Their response was lengthy, but the part that stuck out was; "I'm very sorry but if you can't bring yourself to do the summary for a given edit for whatever reason, don't do the edit." Essentially saying that I should not contribute for a condition I cannot control, and seemingly elevating them above me for lacking the disability. Such an ableist reply left me dumbstruck, but I decided to calm down before I reported them. By the time I did, the fork had already taken place, allowing them to escape justice, and leaving me to think they rushed the forking to escape retribution when word got out about my plans to report them. In light of recent accusations of ableism on this wiki, you guys might want to revaluate yourselves.

When I learnt of the fork, I decided to check it out, but, after editing the Toymaker's biography to make it less about the Doctor and more about the Toymaker, as was a conclusion I was lead to believe was approved after pointing out the hypocrisy of not extending a similar courtesy to the Masters' pages, not only was this edit also undone, but Scrooge MacDuck took it further by messaging me about edit-waring, despite it being my first edit on he subject, but to also spout nonsense about their view on chronology to lecture me on being a "productive editor", as if all my years of editing before them were for naught. Seeing that my problem with the Fandom Wiki was still present on this Wiki, I decided then to go back to Fandom, even put myself down as a new Admin to lend a hand, only for Najawin to sabotage my offer of help by making it out to be a power play, and I was too busy attending to a sick relative to amount a proper counterargument, costing me the adminship. As if to put salt in wound, they have since continuously messaged me to comment on my discussions with other editors on Fandom Wiki, and have stated their unwillingness to cease with both the harassment and invasion of privacy on the basis that it does not break policy, as if principle and common courtesy were non-existence. It is because of these two and their attitudes that have lead me into my decision to outright leave the TARDIS Wiki Community. A sad outcome; After all these years of adding to the Doctors' psychological and appearance profiles, helping with the timeline theory pages and wishing my fellow users Merry Christmases, to be practically forced out by fans the Abzorbaloff was a satire of as my exit, for I can no longer tolerate their vile and refuse to be absorbed into their toxicity any longer.

While I'll still edit on the Fandom Wiki, it won't be as often as it was before. As for this "Independent Wiki", I'll be sure to close the door on my way out. Yours, BananaClownMan ☎

Responses

I shan't be responding to most of what you said, but why should we play nice with a capitalistic parasite that, given the opportunity, would screw us over to ensure as much profit is made? Modern Fandom is a massive enshitification of Wikicities. And remember, it's not just us who have forked. Major Wikis such as the Minecraft Wiki, the Transformers Wiki, the Grand Theft Auto Wiki, the Animal Crossing Wiki, I could go on and on (~~and explain every natural phenomenon~~). The canary in the mineshaft has sung its last song; the miners are fleeing.

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

11:43, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm a little confused.

"I've decided to leave both TARDIS Wikis"

"While I'll still edit on the Fandom Wiki"

Which is it? Jack ☎ 11:58, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

There's a lot here. The main thing to say is, I suppose, that I'd be sorry to see you go despite it all. You have done a lot of good edits for the Wiki for a long time, and much as we might have clashed about specific actions you took which I thought were in error, or indeed destructive, I have never doubted your overall good-faith. I wish you could find it within yourself to do me the same courtesy.

I also feel I must respond to this I think wholly unawarranted accusation of "ableism". Not least because… look, if there's a neurotypical person in this conversation, it's not me either. But being neurodivergent or having a mental health conditions are not licenses to do anything you like. One has to know one's limitations. It doesn't impinge on their worth as a human being, but if someone can't edit the Wiki in a constructive way then we can't allow those edits to stand! It's not as though I've ever blocked you over such things, or otherwise sanctioned you as a user, either. Just reverted the unwarranted/unjustified edits themselves and tried to make you understand why I had to.

(And as regards the specifics of the Toymaker case, the long-standing principle that one shouldn't timeline-theorise in the main namespace isn't exactly "nonsense". But the specifics of any one case matter much less than the difficulties in getting you to discuss and acknowledge any given disagreement instead of simply barreling onwards with the problematic edits, or else giving up altogether. If you think your way is better in some way that isn't apparent to others, communicate. Start forum threads. Don't just keep trying to sweepingly edit pages to correspond to your standard, then throw in the towel when that gets pushback. I truly do wish you'd stay, but if you do, then you need to understand that.) --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 14:43, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

BCM, you've interpreted my repeated attempts to be helpful, in spite of our disagreements, as harassment. (Such as suggesting you use the forums, to change policy you disagree with!) And I really do think I should underline that if you don't realize that talk pages aren't yours but are merely directed towards you, that itself would constitute a disqualification towards being an admin. (It's also bizarre that this notion of yours that I'm doing something improper came when I cited an admin ordering you to not do something on your talk page, which is precisely the sort of thing that needs to be publicly accessible - see User talk:OverAnalyser for an example of why this is important in how we glean information about interpretation on policy, for instance.)

But even given this I take umbrage at the characterization of what happened during the time you put yourself forward for the position at Fandom. My first objection amounts to a "knock it off" after your message above, that even you admit comes across as bitter - simply insisting that if you're going to become an admin you needed to stop doing shit like that. And the second was me trying to look at some of the older nominations and borrow from them. Since much of the community had left, I felt it was important to bring up some of the metrics used when it was smaller, to encourage that as precedent moving forward, and one of those were edits in a variety of namespaces. I was confident in your ability in every namespace except in the one I mentioned, hence why I mentioned it for others to consider, especially because it's arguably the most important for admins qua admins. Najawin ☎ 15:03, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

I've just had a glance at some of your edits from earlier today, and I struggle to see how these edits in particular are not explicitly violating T:CITE's section on using etc. In light of your comment on Talk:First Doctor/Psychological profile, I want to point to T:POINT and T:BOUND, and second Najawin's suggestion to use the Forums; if you don't like policy, you can try to change it, but it still applies in the meantime. - CodeAndGin | 🗨 | 17:39, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Not a super regular contributor but just want to comment that the only reason the Fandom Wiki continues to exist is because Fandom refuses to honour the wishes of the vast majority of a Wiki's userbase to de-host their content. The 'fork' in an ideal world would have just been the wiki moving to a new domain entirely, no split, so the continued existence of the Fandom wiki and attempts to undercut the move are obviously met with a degree of annoyance as there isn't really even supposed to be two Wikis. This is the main wiki, the original on a new host, Fandom is just refusing to take down an old backup, which is their right ofc but could be seen as frustrating. (At least, that is the theory behind it, in practice, it's obviously a bit more complicated). IRegisteredForTimelines ☎ 00:28, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

As somebody who is also on the autism spectrum, I can sympathise with your difficulty with articulating your thoughts and intentions (just look at the vast majority of my forum thread openings). …but it's for this very reason that I often find myself going to Scrooge directly; if there's a particular large scale edit I want to put into motion that I need to run by people beforehand, but I don't want to open a thread for it because I simply can't find the right words and descriptors in a formal setting such as that, I talk to Scrooge in the more informal setting that is private messaging. And I'm grateful to him for putting up with my yammering!

I will concede, as a minor critique, that Scrooge maybe could have chosen his words more carefully in that particular exchange. Speaking of choosing words carefully; looking back at one of my previous messages on this very thread made me realise that I too could have asked one particular question up there a bit more tactfully without dismissing the other wiki entirely; for that I apologise. WaltK ☎ 20:39, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Server upgrade

Our sysadmins have found an alternative host that can offer better performance at a very similar price to what we currently pay (~$60/month, kindly funded by Kate Aces from the Independent Fallout Wiki). In particular:

more than double the CPU cores
double the RAM
double the bandwidth

This would likely resolve the intermittent downtime issues we've been facing and possibly allow us to install more extensions. The switch would also mean we move from being hosted in France to being hosted in Finland. The copyright laws seem to be about the same, as do the privacy laws, as they're both in the EU and EEA.

In order to switch to the new host, the wiki would need to enter read-only mode for up to 12 hours. During this time, editing would not be possible but the wiki would be fully available to read.

Therefore, in order to proceed, our sysadmins want to get the community's approval. They'd like to get it done as soon as possible in preparation for Season 1.

In addition to this upgrade, I've been informed that, if we can hit funding of $100/month or more, including what Kate Aces is currently paying, we'd be able to improve performance even further with better caching (which would also come with benefits for search engine performance), and we'd be able to improve our search (to the same system Wikipedia uses). This does not need to be discussed immediately but, in the future, we may wish to consider some form of unobtrusive advertising to help hit this. Currently, I'd like to keep this discussion focussed on the potential server upgrade. Bongo50 ☎ 20:28, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

That sounds good to me. Aquanafrahudy 📢 🖊️ 20:31, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Sounds good to me too. — Fractal • 20:39, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Sounds good. Najawin ☎ 21:39, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Ditto.

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

21:46, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Seems like a good idea in the long run, downtime is only a brief annoyance, and the outcome is less downtime. Cookieboy 2005 ☎ 23:35, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

I agree with others, this sounds smart to do soon. TheChampionOfTime ☎ 12:46, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Ditto, ditto - CodeAndGin | 🗨 | 00:40, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

This sounds like a great idea, but there's not a lot of time left to do this before s14 premieres if it would require 12 hours of downtime. SilverSunbird ☎ 17:34, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

Yes. We think we're going to postpone this but keep it in the wings if we think it's necessary. I imagine that it will happen eventually, soon. Bongo50 ☎ 17:38, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

As everyone's probably already aware, this has now happened and, despite it taking a little longer than initially expected, I think it has gone very well. The wiki should now run a bit faster and shouldn't crash as has happened previously. We've also been able to enable a handful of new extensions. Bongo50 ☎ 11:07, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Wiki font

At the moment, we're using Nunito. I saw some use of Maven Pro in the forums (for conclusion posts) and found it to be much more readable. I know this is subjective, so I thought I'd just raise the question - what are everyone's thoughts on the current font (and font size, etc)? I've become used to it, but could prefer something more akin to Maven Pro. — Fractal • 09:42, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

It's fine. No need to change it imo. But if there is discussion of changing font, I do feel obligated to shill for Computer Modern or similar. Najawin ☎ 20:09, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Visual editor

Are there plans to implement a visual editor on the Wiki at some point in the near future? I ask because I know I found it easier sometimes to use that, and for accessibility reasons. I have a fan friend who would join and edit the Wiki but the current source editor puts them off (I guess it's easy to use but only if you know what you're doing, or if you've dabbled with code, or if you've done it for long enough). Just thought it was worth questioning. I think it'd be very beneficial — Fractal • 17:22, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Yes, there are plans to add it when we have sufficient hardware to support it. Bongo50 ☎ 20:53, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Turns out we're able to add it now. As such, it's been enabled on a bit of a trial run. The idea is to test it out for a bit and then to do a forum discussion deciding if we want to keep it. Bongo50 ☎ 18:12, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Obviously I'm still gonna be using the source editor, but is there an ability to edit the visual editor's UI? Like making {{cs}} easier to access / more prominent? Najawin ☎ 21:02, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

I can definitely make it easier to use but I need to investigate more about making it easy to access. Bongo50 ☎ 07:13, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Source editor line numbers

Would it be possible to add a line number display in the margins of the source editor to make tracking where you are on the page a bit easier when using the source editor? - CodeAndGin | 🗨 | 19:37, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Done! Bongo50 ☎ 19:41, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

I'm not seeing it yet - is there a setting I need to tick? - CodeAndGin | 🗨 | 20:14, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

You will need to clear your cache, usually ctrl+F5. Bongo50 ☎ 07:15, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks to the link autofill bug post I've figured this out: The line numbers only show in syntax highlighting mode (which I only just figured out was a thing) - CodeAndGin | 🗨 | 20:55, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Oh, that makes sense. I've always used syntax highlighting so I didn't even know line numbers weren't there with it off. Bongo50 ☎ 21:31, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Talk pages

It seems more and more un-usernamed / unregistered users are using Talk pages like forums, for fan theories, opinions, etc. and not using the Talk pages for what they are designed for. Might it be an idea to have a small notice appear at the top of Talk pages (if this is possible) to notify newer users that Talk pages are for discussion regarding editing of the page, rather than for social use eg. opinions / reviews, etc? — Fractal • 10:00, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

There already is one, at least on my end. Presumably it either doesn't appear for unregistered users or they're just ignoring it. Aquanafrahudy 📢 🖊️ 10:07, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

On my end it appears when I'm logged out too. I'm fairly sure that the recent talk page additions are the same single IP editor; the one who's doing all the clothing/colour/pattern article edits. - CodeAndGin | 🗨 | 14:09, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

And so this continues, with IP users just asking speculative questions on Talk pages. Sigh. — Fractal • 22:56, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Is there any precedent for deleting or removing off-topic threads on talk pages, as well as discontinuity pages, such as Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/Remembrance of the Daleks? SID'gingerfool'RAT - ☎^🔎 |📂|📝 12:22, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

A: Can you please make your sig a template, lol.

B: Well Shambala did it all the time. Najawin ☎ 13:14, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Server upgrade: attempt 2

A few weeks ago, we upgraded to a better server. The move itself went well and led to multiple improvements to the wiki's features and performance. However, following the recent downtime that the wiki experienced, we ended up moving back to our old server. We now plan to move back to the new server. As such, the wiki will likely be in read-only mode for 1 or 2 days. Sorry about this, but the result should be worth it. Bongo50 ☎ 21:28, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Chronic hysteresis! (gulp) I hope not. If it is, we'll be stuck here forever. Good luck with the move! — Fractal • 21:30, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

One thing I've noticed is the new little box in the upper right, and in notification settings there are two new toggles, for "emails from users" and "mentions". Are there plans to implement a DM system or a ping system? In the short/medium/long term? (Cue Keynes quote, etc) Najawin ☎ 05:16, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

For "emails from users", MediaWiki has a built in feature where users can email other users on-wiki using Special:EmailUser. If used correctly, neither user will reveal their email to the other. We disabled this at launch for a technical reason (we were using a Gmail email address for all system emails which is not actually allowed by Gmail so we wanted to limit use) but this has now been resolved (as I set up email hosting for @tardis.wiki) so we might enable this at some point. We're undecided.

For "mentions", this should already be working in theory but the documentation is rubbish and I've not yet tested it. I'm also not sure if this works in the forum namespace and, if it doesn't, it's not clear to me whether we can change that so it does. In theory, linking to any user's user page in the same edit that you sign a post should work, so Najawin should ping you and Botgo50 should ping my bot (allowing me to quickly test if this works), so long as I sign my post at the end. There are future plans to make this easier so you'd just be able to type @Najawin and that will automatically create a ping but that's not yet set up.

In other news, the wiki's logo and favicon (the little icon that appears in the tab) are both broken. I've notified the syadmins and it's a simple fix so, when they're awake and back online, it should be fixed quite swiftly. Bongo50 ☎ 08:18, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Aha, mentions is working and does work in the forum namespace. My bot account received a notification. Hopefully this will be useful and not abused (there is a limit of 50 mentions per message - messages exceeding this will not send out any notifcations). There is also an options to allow pinging users in edit summaries which is currently disabled but might be worth enabling. There are also future plans to allow users to follow discussions meaning that they will receieve notifcations for new messages. Bongo50 ☎ 08:23, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Regular images are also broken. Again, waiting on the sysadmins waking up and coming online. Bongo50 ☎ 09:50, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

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