User blog:Gamedezyner/The Big Move

Ok so by now most of you have heard that we're going to be moving SFW off of Wikia. A lot of you are concerned about what is going to happen with that. Let's see if I can clear it all up for everyone.

The Big Questions
Q: What about all our pages we worked so hard on?

A: All the pages from the wiki will be copied to the new server, so there is no reason to worry about losing anything.

Q: Will I lose all my edits?

A: No. The system will create user accounts for everyone on the new server with all your edit history.

Q: Do I need to stop editing the wiki while we move?

A: No. For now, everyone can pretty much pretend nothing is happening.

Q: What kind of skin are we getting?

A: I'm still doing a bit of research on what kinds of skins I can get on our new server. This will be discussed more at a later date.

Q: Will page history be preserved?

A: Yes

Q: How long will this take?

A: Right now that's still unknown. The actual transfer process is still being tested so we don't quite know until it's gone all the way through.

Q: Where is the site moving to?

A: There's two answers to this question. Physically, the site's data is being migrated to a privately owned virtual server under my management. As far as the web address goes, this is still being discussed at the moment.

Q: Are we going to change names?

A: This is currently being discussed

Q: How do we know you'll actually follow through with this?

A: I have already downloaded every single image from SFW to one of my transfer servers. Several people watched this process live while it was happening.

Q: What happens if you leave?

A: I won't be leaving any time soon, and even if I do, the site is being kept on a server along with some of my other website projects. It's safe even if I'm not active because I need the server for my own websites as well.

''Q: You're doing all this for us... What's the catch?''

A: The only thing I ask the community in return is to have one or two google ad banners on the site under my registration. This is simply to help me afford the server that the site goes on seeing as the server needed to host something this large is quite expensive. The community will be able to decide where they are placed as well, unlike here at Wikia.

Initial Testing
At first I will be testing the transfer programs out in order to see what information I can actually get from the site. This process is lengthy and will take me a while to complete. The process involves downloading everything from SFW on to a "Transfer Server", converting it to a usable format, then uploading that information to the new server. '''No changes to the wikia.com wiki will be made during this phase. '''

Server Configuration
Once the data has been transferred to the new server and the functionality has been verified, we will begin configuring the new server to be as close to the existing wiki as possible. This will probably be the longest part of the entire process. No changes to the wikia.com wiki will be made during this phase.

User Testing
Once the server configuration is complete, we will open the server to the public for testing. Expect a lot of bugs during this process because the User Testing phase is designed to bring them out so they can be fixed. This phase will allow us to be sure that the new site is all that we want it to be, we will hold another vote at this time to make a final decision. No changes to the wikia.com wiki will be made during this phase.

Final Transfer
After the community gives the final OK, we will decide on a date to do a final transfer. On that date, the wikia.com will be CLOSED for edits. Closing the wiki will ensure that nobody edits anything while the servers are copying. While the wiki is closed, ALL DATA from it will be downloaded to the transfer servers, converted, and uploaded to the new server. This will give us an up to date wiki on the new server, and should leave the new server ready to be used. The wikia.com wiki will be closed for edits during this phase.

The Software
The software I will be using to move the wiki uses a large number of PERL scripts. These scripts can interface with the MediaWiki API much better than the built in functions can. Therefore they allow us to pull much more information from the wiki.

The Transfer Servers
I am using a few virtual machines running Windows and Ubuntu in order to perform this move. These servers were set up entirely for this move in order to prevent contamination of files. Once everything is transferred, these servers will be destroyed to keep the data from sitting around.

The New Server
Our new server is a Virtual Private Server hosted at a large webhosting company. This means that we will be on our own private server away from any other wikis.

MediaWiki
Wikia is currently running on MediaWiki version 1.16.5. We will be using that version to ensure compatibility with the data copied from the wiki here.