As someone who joined Wikia recently, I completely agree with Danny. On three occasions over the past seven days I've been unable to work on the wiki I started, and this hasn't created a good first impression. Also, I'm concerned about the possibility of approaching major sites (when the wiki is ready) to ask for them to link to the wiki, only for them to find the wiki either inaccessible or uneditable. However, I don't believe in making judgements on first impressions and I'm willing to give Wikia a few months before making a decision about whether to stay.
Given that the problem apparently affected Wikia's ability to communicate with users via the mailing list, how about they set-up a simple site with another hosting company where they can post news of problems? Dreamhost have one: http://www.dreamhoststatus.com/ I certainly think there should always be some form of immediate communication in the event of a problem, if only to save loads people having to enter the live help to ask the same question. :) Derrick Chains of Reason http://chainsofreason.wikia.com/wiki/Home On 10/7/07, Danny Horn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I think there can be a middle ground between Jamie's optimism and > Sebastian's frustration. > > I work on a bunch of wikis too, and, like Jamie, I'm very happy with the > progress that's been made in the last year. Sebastian, I don't know how long > you've been running your wiki, so you may or may not have seen where things > were a year and a half ago. The issues that come up now are nothing compared > to what it used to be; this is a much smoother running site. > > At the same time, I think it's important to acknowledge the frustration > that some users feel about the tech issues. Sebastian isn't imagining > things; there have been outages of one kind or another just about every > week. > > Yes, Wikia is growing quickly, there are a lot of changes that are being > made technically, and there are always going to be glitches. There's a good > explanation for each problem, and problems get fixed. But that doesn't > change the users' experience, which has been a regular series of outages and > bugs. This is especially frustrating for new users, who aren't comforted by > the thought of how much better it is compared to a year ago. > > Wiki people are a special breed; we put our heart and soul -- and a whole > lot of our spare time -- into building a site that we feel passionate about. > That's the kind of people that Wikia wants to attract, and keep. So that > means that when there are problems that seem to threaten the stability of > the wikis, then those passionate people are going to get worried and upset. > > I think it's important for Wikia to figure out solutions for both problems > -- how to fix the tech issues, and also how to help the passionate users > know that their complaints are being addressed. If Sebastian is feeling > cynical and frustrated, then I'm sure he's not alone. If we want to keep him > around, then we need to listen to him, and take his comments seriously. > > > -- Danny > > > > _______________________________________________ > Wikia-l mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.wikia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikia-l > >
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