GuildWiki talk:Wikia Move/Gravewit's compensation

How Much?
This may seem nosy, but about how much money did you get? And no smartalec answers either. Because if it was alot, I can't help but think it was for the money o-o the imperialist


 * Obviously, from a legal standpoint, I can't discuss this. Sorry. I will say this: It really wasn't for the money. Gravewit 21:53, 10 September 2007 (CDT)


 * I understand... But seriously, I don't understand. It's all been going so well for so long, so why suddenly the change to wikia?  the imperialist


 * It really hasn't been sudden. I know the announcement might seem jarring to you users, but we aren't just jumping into this blind. Gravewit 21:59, 10 September 2007 (CDT)


 * One more thing... will you have any say what happens to this site after the switch to the wikia servers? I mean, can you tell them which policies they can and can't remove etc.? the imperialist


 * The policies are up to the community. This isn't something Wikia is going to interfere in. Angela 12:29, 11 September 2007 (CDT)


 * over-reacting a bit eh? if anything changes, the site will become more popular. &mdash;The preceding awesome-sauce comment was added by Skakid9090 (contribs). 21:54, 10 September 2007 (CDT)


 * Haha, that's the kind of stuff I would expect User:Karlos to say...>.> Seriously though, even if it was for the money (doubt that considering Gravewit's past stuffs), as long as it has no serious ramifications for the wiki, Who cares? Capitalism rules, remember. [[Image:Entropy Sig.jpg]] (T/C) 22:04, 10 September 2007 (CDT)


 * I'm with Entropy here, really, seriously, if it doesn't hurt the Wiki, who gives a damn? Some people may end up not getting a share of the, probably pretty limited, cake, but so what? Is anyone really in this for the money? If it helps the wiki, or at least doesn't hurt it, I'm 100% in favour. PurpleXVI 07:54, 15 September 2007 (CDT)


 * Capitalism and free markets have rendered billions of people inable to put food on their own tables tbh. - [[Image:Candle.jpg|12px]] Krowman (talk • contribs) 01:09, 11 September 2007 (CDT)


 * Oh please, no more political crap , this is why I stay away from politics..Cardsharp 01:21, 11 September 2007 (CDT)


 * Because of disagreement or contest? 0.o Apathy only makes you part of the problem. Get politically involved, get out and vote etc. - [[Image:Candle.jpg|12px]] Krowman (talk • contribs) 10:59, 11 September 2007 (CDT)


 * If they have a table. &mdash; Nova  [[Image:Neo-NovaSmall.jpg]] &mdash;  (contribs) 15:11, 12 September 2007 (CDT)

The question you never answered...
Are you allowed to make money off of our contributions? This site was NEVER supposed to be a for-profit site. We all knew this from day one. You used to ask for donations to pay the bills. Then one day, you quitely took off the books, then shortly after, you took out the ability to donate. I said back then you were making money and you kept quiet.

Now, years later, it turns out you ARE making money, and that you are SELLING that which does not belong to you in the first place, our contributions and work to another site and again making money off of it. Are you allowed to do this? The basic principle in people contributing to this site is that it's NOT for profit. Turns out YOU are makingmoney off of our work (if you just did your server admining part and we did not contribute, how much money you think you would have made?). This is a sham and a shame. I am sure there's a law suit to be made somewhere there. --Karlos 00:00, 11 September 2007 (CDT)


 * Law suit for what? 23c? The contributions made by each user are usually miniscule and tiny. Worth a few pennies, at the most. You really want to start a lawsuit for barely any cash? Unless he's making billions off of this(unlikely) our individual contributions will likely be worth less than $1 for the average user. My contributions would have to be worth $200 before i bother to lift a finger, and i highly doubt they're worth anywhere near that.--Darksyde Never Again 00:05, 11 September 2007 (CDT)


 * Do you really think he's been making $50 a month off of this? You think Wikia will give him stock and cash for a site worth $20? Are you even aware of how big this site is? As far as what you can get out of a lawsuit... How about a little old "justice"? I for one would not mind a lawsuit just to see him cough up all that money in legal expenses. Anyone know of an organization that would champion this? --Karlos 00:09, 11 September 2007 (CDT)


 * (edit conflict) You're completely missing the point Darksyde. Karlos is not concerned that he's not getting any money for his contributions. Karlos is questioning the sale of this wiki and its contents. -- Ab.Er.Rant [[Image:User Aberrant80 Sig.png]] (msg Aberrant80) 00:10, 11 September 2007 (CDT)


 * Justice? Get real. This site has not costed us a thing to use.  What diference does it make if he made $2 a month of $600 a day?  Making money is not against the law.  Who cares if he got some money. Eric368 00:17, 11 September 2007 (CDT)


 * Do you even understand the concept of what Karlos is saying? BigAstro 00:19, 11 September 2007 (CDT)


 * Yes, he thinks that he had no right to sell it because the site is based off contributions, now you have to figure out that I said it doesn't make a difference if he made money or not, he has a right to do whatever he wants with his site. Eric368 00:22, 11 September 2007 (CDT)


 * You speak definitively; are you a lawyer? BigAstro 00:24, 11 September 2007 (CDT)
 * "In English, this means that any original thought you create is yours, but you license it permanently to us. We create derivative works based upon your original content—that's the nature of a wiki. We, in turn, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 license, relicense these works under the same license. This means that, while you retain copyright of your content (you could sell your original contributions to whomever you wanted, or you could license them under different terms somewhere else), we will always have the right to distribute it for free. Further, since we distribute under this license to anybody who accesses this site, everybody in the world will always have the right to distribute your contribution, and any edits to your contribution, for free, provided they are never used for a commercial purpose."


 * I think that pretty much covers it. The content we submit is and still will be free, and is not being sold, ergo no breach of liscense, and no grounds for a lawsuit.  You would literally be laughed out of the courtroom, and probably fined for bringing a frivolous lawsuit. -Gildan Bladeborn 00:44, 11 September 2007 (CDT)


 * I am neither a lawyer nor a judge, thus I have no idea whether the case would stand in court or not, but ethically speaking it's ugly as hell. "It hasn't costed us a thing to use"? You are missing the big picture, sir, you aren't seeing that thousands of editors have contributed to this site, have helped it grow; you are forgetting the fact that Karlos and other major contributors have dedicated thousands of hours to this wiki, literally building it from scratch. All that work has been done for free, in good faith, and with the intention to have this information freely available to the GuildWars community. For someone to make a profit off the work of others is simply morally corrupt.
 * As for whether Gravewit has a right to legally sell this content, does the "NonCommercial" bit in "Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0" hold no weight? Everyone that contributed to this wiki released their contributions under that CC license (with a minority also dual-licensing as GFDL, for use on the GWW). Isn't Gravewit selling this site to Wikia a commercial use, thus violating the license? --Dirigible 01:06, 11 September 2007 (CDT)
 * No. He's selling the domain names, URLs, and the portions of the code that are his. The data is going to them free - as is perfectly acceptable under the BY-NC-SA license. It would be a commercial use of the content if, for example, Wikia started charging for use of that content; as long as they're giving it away for free, you have no right to complain about the move, legally speaking, whatsoever. Also, any money he's been making off the site - you may have noticed him mentioning it in the post - is from ad revenue. Frankly, if you click on banners, and buy something, from his site, that you would otherwise not have purchased, you got the product, the seller got their money, and Gravewit got a commission on the referral. This is how ad revenue on the internet works. Google, you may not have realized, has quite a successful program for such advertising. The users, you see, buy stuff from the ads, and then Gravewit makes money. Since this is NOT a use - in any way - of user effort, and strictly a use of HIS PERSONALLY OWNED WEBSITE, he is perfectly entitled to keep that money, and the traffic to the site - and thus the associated ad revenue - is another asset to be considered in the sale. NONE of that is any reflection on, or use of, the user-generated content. Seriously, guys, what's the problem? Do you honestly not understand how there's a difference between the site and the content on a wiki? Gravewit is selling the site; the content is specifically licensed to the site owner - in this case, now Wikia - under specific condition that it be distributed free of charge. Which means that Wikia doesn't get to change the rules, or alllllll that content *poof* magically goes away, when the users remove it pursuant to licensing violations. So, what's the problem? Are you seriously expecting to be reimbursed for content you gave away for free, that's being redistributed for free, in exact compliance with the terms of the licensing agreement you agreed to when you posted it on here, just because someone else is taking over the domain name? Come to your senses, really. When you&#39;re really in it up to your neck, just think (WTF) 17:49, 12 September 2007 (CDT)


 * As i understand, he is selling the domain name, urls and the "labor" of doing the dump. Users I am not sure about but the data can be transfered to another location if it that is not being sold, which is why full db dumps are available for free. Is Wikia using the db dump for profit? -- Xeon 01:11, 11 September 2007 (CDT)


 * Technically, he is selling the website and the database. However, even the wbesite, it would not have been worth a dime if not for our work. People spent hours a day editing categories, sorting species and fixing articles, not to mention authoring, this is what made the wiki what it is, what gave it all those hits, not his URL, so he is selling the URL of OUR work, not just some random URL that wikia likes because it sounds pretty. --Karlos 01:48, 11 September 2007 (CDT)


 * (edit conflict)First, I just want to make it clear that I have little understanding of the licensing that governs this wiki or content distribution law in general for that matter, and that I am not pursuing this conversation for any malicious reasons. Back on topic, to the portion you quoted, wouldn't the sale of the site (transfer of money in exchange for the data) be a "commerical purpose"? And you're not even quoting me the full license, but rather a paraphrased version written by contributors on this site. Here is the current version of the Creative Commons license, but the bottom of this page indicates this wiki still uses version 2.0. Regardless, is anyone on the wiki even qualified to make such determinations regarding the legal matters here? We could go back and forth forever arguing about the common sense interpretations of the license, but that has little bearing on the reality of the situation and the law itself. Perhaps someone has a reliable source on the matter? BigAstro 01:13, 11 September 2007 (CDT)


 * Who cares if he made money off this? He has invested a great portion of his time, maintaining this site. Not one person, have I seen pitch in for Server Costs. Not even one. Besides, we edit the Wiki as a hobby, not a career. If you contribute, you are giving of your own time to help out. If you find this unfair/unjust, then QQ he deserves this opportunity. Readem (talk *contribs ) 03:27, 11 September 2007 (CDT)


 * Readem, you have no idea what you're talking about. Archive.org copy of Ledger (now deleted). That's what was happening until, go figure, they stopped accepting donations. --Dirigible 03:57, 11 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Probably because the ad revenue paid more than enough? Biscuits [[Image:Biscuit.png]] 06:44, 11 September 2007 (CDT)

As far as I'm aware gravewit giving a data dump freely and then discontinuing hosting should be legit, he's being paid to stop the servers and discontinue the domain registration, not to move data. --Tankity tank 06:32, 11 September 2007 (CDT)


 * Any money he is making off of this (selling the domain name, selling the stopping of hosting the domain name, selling his position as server admin, ...) is based on OUR success as a community and our contribution. Success and contributions that were made under the "non-commercial" clause in the license that said that all contributions cannot be used for profit. There's no way he would be given a penny if he was selling these same sites sites 2.5 years ago. For God's sake, even the other wikis on the gamewikis.org domain are OUR ideas. --Karlos 11:14, 11 September 2007 (CDT)
 * On GWW, a-net claim they could not purchase guildwiki, so made their own. "Technically, it's not possible for Phil (Gravewit) to sell the content of GuildWiki." Not actually sure whether thats relevant, since I'm not even sure what it is he's selling ;). Lord of all tyria 11:22, 11 September 2007 (CDT)

Karlos, tell me, when you came to Gwiki did you ask yourself "I wonder if my contributions are going to make me own this site"? I'm pretty sure you didn't. If he weren't selling it, you wouldn't be up in a bitch, he's been making money off of the ads and you never bitched about that, so i think you're just looking to cause a problem, so it'd be best if you dropped this. He owns the site, and our contributions do not make it our site. Just because you contribute to wikipedia doesn't mean you own any part of wikipedia.--Darksyde Never Again 11:28, 11 September 2007 (CDT)


 * Actually, Mr.Oblivious, I have been complaining about this since day one (actually since about November of 05 when he started acting shady). I PAID money to support this site, this guy took donations from me and many others to set up a site which was supposed to be "fan supported" and "not for profit" and then he turned around, took the ledgers off the record, stop accepting donations and turned it into a commercial franchise. You can't do that under any law. If you want me to go dig up the countless, countless posts I have made against Gravewit's hiding of the financial records, suspected profit making, and inappropriate way of running things, I can go dig them up. Basically, legally speaing, I have a "share" in this site if it's possible to rewrite intentions after the creation of a franchise like he did, then my donation to the site can be rewritten as a stake in the franchise. Do you understand? This is a legal joke if you stop to think about it. --Karlos 11:46, 11 September 2007 (CDT)

Hi there. I am obviously coming in fairly late to the discussion, so my appologies for that. I would say that both Jimmy Wales and I are big fans of what you've been doing and our goal is to support the community and offer better tools, more up-time and generally make the experience here more fun. Looking at the site it was pretty clear that there were ads on it - and that users were submitting their content under cc-nc-sa with the knowledge that the hosting site would be and was placing ads on it. This is fairly similar to our uncyclopedia.org site in that respect. I agree with Karlos that the information is not "for sale" and we respect that. What we asked Phil to do was sell us a URL and assist in helping us make the information available on our servers. We do public data dumps on a regular basis, to make sure that the information is available to the community if we ever violated your trust or had too many technical issues... so this is no different than most wikis in that the information is your, ours, and anyone's to use and share. I know change is scary, but hopefully we can show you over time that we respect and love communities and that we're trying to create a safe, fun and pleasant place for you to contribute and increase your love of the game. There are over 400 gaming wikis on Wikia today at http://www.wikia.com/wiki/gaming and we're starting to release special tools for gamers, including the Playxpert in-game tool that lets you reach the wiki while in game. Feel free to contact me directly as Karlos has already done if you have concerns or want to see things change. Gil


 * Gravewit owns the servers and the domain name, he can sell those. The problem is he is selling the data, our contribution even if you are saying you are only buying the domain name. I know that legally that will protect him but it's morally wrong.  Until now, I thought he couldn't even do this.  Also the lack of transparencies make it look fishy.  If he came clean and said he was loosing money, who here wouldn't have donate?  I'm with Karlos with this, a bit more transparencies would prevent a lot of doubt.&mdash; ├ A ratak ┤  12:25, 11 September 2007 (CDT)


 * To me, it looks like he's selling the community. If it wasn't for the money he could have just shut down the site and given out the DB dump and possibly link to anyone planning on importing it so the users could decide where they want to go. Instead, Wikia, takes over the domain name so they can put their own ads on here and keep everyone here. It's ironic how GuildWiki has a more anti-commercial licensing than the official Guild Wars Wiki, however GuildWiki is the one with the ads. --77.232.66.107 12:54, 11 September 2007 (CDT)


 * I have donated to other wikis as well - HRwiki being one, so I completely understand the point  ├ A ratak ┤  is making. I'm all for transparency here, so Phil and I agreed that we should talk to the community before doing anything - as it's certainly possible for data to be migrated without even announcing it and that would be wrong.  If there are other things I can do to make this process MORE transparent, please let me know.  We will provide data dumps after the migration, as we do for all communities.  Rest assured of that.  If there are things you feel are most important to have said or committed to, I'd love to hear it as well Gil
 * You know, the word transparency means that you can see right through something, or that you can't see it at all.--Gigathrash 16:43, 11 September 2007 (CDT)


 * Gil, Wikia's management or stewardship over the servers is not the issue and never was. I guess it can be discussed in and of itself separately. The issue at hand here is that he is making money off of content that was provided under a non-commercial license. The issue is that he took "donations" for a non-profit communal effort that turned out to be a business. i.e. he scammed me. Are you guys comfortable with that? --Karlos 15:59, 11 September 2007 (CDT)
 * No. He is making money off of the fact that he was providing a hosting service for this data- the domain name and whatever else he's stopping. THAT is what is being transferred. There is absolutely nothing preventing Wikia from just straight lifting all of the content from here and re-hosting it from their own place (disregarding the effort involved)- except that everyone would stay here through inertia. Explain exactly how the domain name and such are under a non-commercial license. 24.127.51.40 16:30, 11 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Are you privy to the details of the monetary transaction involved? We have only Gravewit's word that he's not striking it rich on our backs. Frankly, after his stellar performance running the wiki the last year and a half, I am not given to trust his word. To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't give a shit if it was Fyren who was being remunerated instead of Gravewit; he actually bothers to show up. 193.52.24.125 16:47, 11 September 2007 (CDT)

Gravewit DID NOT SELL THE CONTENT OF THIS WIKI TO WIKIA. He sold the domain name. In the name of all that is great and golden about capitalism, he has a right to do that. He has just as much of a right to do that as Wikia has a right to UPLOAD EVERY LAST PIECE OF DATA FROM THIS WIKI INTO ITS OWN DATABASES. Because the contract states that ANYBODY (even Wikia) can use this wiki's content for any reason as long as it is not bought with money, there is nothing wrong here. So, either stop being a rebel without a cause and get with the program, or cut ties with this wiki.--TheDrifter 18:36, 11 September 2007 (CDT)
 * I personally don't consider the whole issue worthy of argument ... but I can see Karlos' point, so here are a couple clarifications ...
 * First, as you said, anybody can use copies of the database content, but that's provided it's still used under a compatible licence to that under which it was initially contributed (by-nc-sa). This is why the data could not be directly copied or bought by GWW, their license permits the data to be linked to from within a game that they sold - this site's license would not permit that.
 * Second, yes Gravewit has a right to sell the domain ... but what is it's value? If not for the contributed data, it would be worth no more than the cost of registering it.  The data contributed under the by-nc-sa license is what drove traffic to this site, and that traffic is what is being seen as the value for the sale.  I doubt a lawyer would pick up this issue just on this point, but it could be argued that the site's license makes it so that the value to the domain name generated by the content is not sellable.  He could transfer it or sell the domain at cost, but that's about it.
 * But then comes the third point. In this wikis earliest days, a small group came together to create this wiki - Gravewit just happenned to be the one who handled getting the server and domain name.  In those days, bandwidth and hosting costs were paid by donations from the site users (one of which was Karlos - which I believe is what drives his complaint).  It wasn't just their time, other users contributed cash.  Later, Gravewit stopped accepting donations and stopped updating the site ledger (which until that point tracked contributions and expenses for the site).  He then began placing ads, but there was never transparency to see how much wwas being earned or what expenses existed, finally, Gravewit sold the domain.  Those who contributed cash were never reimbursed or bought out - so, it could be argued, that their cash contributions effectively made them stateholders or partial owners, and they should be given a share of the sale - or even a voting right on if the sale should even take place.
 * Again, I don't see a lot of value in this argument ... but for those arguing it, I can see their point. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 19:01, 11 September 2007 (CDT)
 * I think the value of ad placement is being drastically underestimated. This wiki has over 200 million views, the fifth highest of all MediaWiki wikis (sort by views if you don't believe me), more than 3 times as many as the mighty english Wikipedia itself. I really doubt this is being transferred for peanuts as many people seem to think. Also, I realize the legal reality is that he is only selling the domain and perhaps some services related to the migration, but come on, one person is getting a chunk of cash for selling a community that is only valuable because of the efforts of many people. I don't particularly care really and I don't feel like I am entitled to anything, but I don't see how anyone could deny this. BigAstro 19:17, 11 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Holy crap! FIFTH!? More than Wikipedia itself!? This makes me suspicious... does Wikia want that ad revenue? It would be pretty hard to turn down and not have any ads at all. --Macros 20:42, 11 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Wikipedia is one of the ten most visited sites on the Internet. This Alexa graph shows the traffic here is less than to wowwiki and much less than to Wikipedia. That list of largest wikis page on meta is inaccurate for Wikimedia and Wikia sites since page views are not accurately recorded in the stats the creator of that page uses. Angela 10:43, 12 September 2007 (CDT)
 * First of all, Wikipedia is not on your graph - you have Wikia.com there. Second and this is the big one, you're comparing ALL of Wikia to ALL of gamewikis which is not even close to the comparison made in the link I provided. You need to compare the individual wikis, which is precisely what my link is doing. Third, my link clearly shows the WoW wiki with greater traffic than this site, but I suppose it's useful to point out something which wasn't disputed. Fourth, you imply that MediaWiki's ranking is inaccurate when it's actually based on data from the sites' internal statistics whereas Alexa rankings are based on a browser toolbar that many people either don't have to begin with or uninstall. While a useful tool, Alexa is certainly not always good a judge of web traffic. It's strange that there's such a disparity between them, but Alexa's rank is based on both reach (number of visitors) and individual page views. It's entirely possible that Wikipedia gets more visitors, but GuildWiki has more views. For example, if Wikipedia gets 1000 visitors that each look at 2 pages (2000 views), and GuildWiki gets only 200 visitors who each look at 20 pages (4000 views). Anyway, I don't really know enough about web analytics to continue, but simply providing a link to Alexa doesn't disprove what MediaWiki says. BigAstro 12:10, 12 September 2007 (CDT)
 * And that's the point. Page views are more important than number of people who visit, if you're talking about ad income. The way I understand ads is: every time an ad loads, you get money. You get MORE money if they click on the ad. So it makes sense that the more pages viewed, the more ads that load, and thus, the more money you get. I'm not saying this site is more popular than Wikipedia, but judging from Astros link, this site gets more ad revenue than Wikipedia. --Macros 12:20, 12 September 2007 (CDT)


 * WHAT? Wikipedia gets NO ad revenue. For good reasons: their community revolts every time ads are mentioned even in passing. BftP 13:07, 12 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Oh, I just assumed they had ads, since I'm not a regular user and have most ads disabled anyway. The point remains: this site does have ads and unless Wikia gets rid of them, they will be making a lot of money, imo. That's if anyone will still use this site, of course. --Macros 16:31, 12 September 2007 (CDT)


 * Angela, I just noticed who you actually are (well assuming your userpage on this wiki isn't a falsehood), and concede you are more knowledgable than me on wiki matters. However, I would like you to explain how exactly the table from MediaWiki is inaccurate. In your response above, you say Wikipedia is one of the "most visited", but don't mention page views specifically. Are you saying that Wikipedia actually does have more page views than GuildWiki or the WoW Wiki and not simply more unique visitors? If so, why is that site maintained and presented as is? That page is still the first hit on Google for a search of "list of largest wikis" and if I recall correctly was hosted on Wikipedia itself way back when leading me to believe it probably isn't inaccurate. I don't know precisely how Alexa rankings are calculated or if their samplespace is even reasonable anymore, but I know exactly what the data in the MediaWiki list represents. Can you elaborate further? BigAstro 17:41, 12 September 2007 (CDT)


 * GuildWiki isn't even in the same league as Wikipedia in terms of site visits. The reason Wikipedia's statistics are screwed up is because most people never even get to the MediaWiki part: most of Wikipedia's data is served from squid caches. Special:Statistics is not designed to reflect the sort of distributed architecture Wikipedia uses. Wikipedia has never bothered to figure out how they might calculate unique visits because only ad companies care about that. According to this chart, across all clusteres there are an average of 26.5K requests per second. That's about 2.3T requests per day. In other words, Wikipedia beats our 200G total figure by a factor of 100 every day. BftP 19:10, 12 September 2007 (CDT)


 * That was exactly the information I wanted to know. Thanks for your explanation. BigAstro 22:27, 12 September 2007 (CDT)


 * Their slow response to answering what they plan to do with the ads is making me suspicious too. --Macros 20:50, 11 September 2007 (CDT)

It doesn't matter if you think what he's doing is underhanded (I personally commend him for a shrewd move). The fact is, is that he is not breaching any contracts contrary to what Karlos and others have said.--TheDrifter 19:29, 11 September 2007 (CDT)


 * And what makes this fact a "fact"? Just because you prefixed it with the phrase "the fact is"? --Karlos 23:20, 11 September 2007 (CDT)

The right thing for Gravewit to do is to reimburse all the donations he received. It's the least he could do, really. That would demonstrate he has some realization that he's profiting from the work of others. It would show he appreciates the kind and generous support he received early on. Let's face it, Gravewit has been an absentee "owner" of this site for a LONG time -- he's making the money but has put in relatively little work on this wiki. He just had enough forethought to get the business niceties and legalities lined up for himself. Without the contributors, and especially those donations, he'd have nothing to sell to Wikia. Much as he and Wikia say they're only buying the name, etc, they all know full well that the domain is not the valuable part of the site. They're very lucky the content licensing works to their favor. I wonder, though, if Wikia understands how much this wiki has already faded in the light of the official wiki. It's too bad, but of course Gravewit has done nothing to help -- one look at his user page will tell you how badly he's managed this wiki that he suddenly finds so valuable. And that was just one of the most visible problems. I would very much like to see Gravewit's response to the request that he repay the donations, and I hope he finds it hard to explain why he won't. (I am not a donator, BTW, nor a contributor to any GW site any longer. I have no stake in this other than hating to see Karlos and the others being wronged, even if the wrong is perfectly legal.) — HarshLanguage 04:02, 12 September 2007 (CDT)

So Karlos, what makes your fractured legal knowledge a fact? It is clear he is not in breech of contract. The moral thing to do may be to reimburse the donations, but he has no legal obligation to do so. And like HarshLanguage said, Guildwiki has seen better days. I personally use the offical wiki much more then Guildwiki. If you really hate Gravwit and Wikia so much maybe you will take solace in the fact that they'll be shooting themselves in the foot with this purchase. Beacuse as we all know, guildwiki is really the only gamewiki with any value (Obliviwiki and furywiki were made when better wikis already wikis already existed).--TheDrifter 05:45, 12 September 2007 (CDT)
 * It is hardly "clear" that he is not in "breach of contract". From my reading, he is expressly prohibited from primarily making money by selling the database (clause 4(c)). The best thing gravewit can do is come fully clean on how much money he is making, and if it is more than (amount he spent on hosting - amount he earned from ads and donations), to distribute the balance by weight among those who originally donated money, or to return it to Wikia, or even to give it to a worthy charity that the wiki community can decide on. 193.52.24.125 09:20, 12 September 2007 (CDT)

Well there were risks in building a Wiki, maybe it paid off this time but he very well could have lost a lot of money. If you're angry Karlos, why don't you host a new wiki and see how much you mak e. --66.131.53.220 17:42, 12 September 2007 (CDT)


 * Because I was scammed. I was told this is a not-for-profit endeavor, I was told this is a community project. Had I known I was working for Gravewit's benefit, believe me, I would not have made a single edit in this wiki. --Karlos 21:30, 12 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Scammed? I doubt gravewit got back even half of the money he spent keeping servers up.--Alari 21:37, 12 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Read a few comments up, the links I posted to the copy of the ledger and the edit where Gravewit stopped accepting donations. How about this discussion? It'd probably be better to get some background on the story before making such wild claims, Alari, especially with nothing to back them. --76.65.31.5 21:54, 12 September 2007 (CDT)
 * I claimed nothing. You are putting words in my mouth, read my line carefully, "I Doubt", speculation. You are the one making wild accusations...--Alari 21:58, 12 September 2007 (CDT)


 * "He made a wild accusation! No, he made a wild accusation first!"
 * Childish banter aside, there is no doubt he has been making money, he took the ledger off when the site started breaking even, there's no doubt that the ad revenue has been increasing between January of 06 and now. This has been my complaint all those years. That he has not been providing a ledger of where the exctra money is going and that instead of stashing it in ihis pocket he should be riderecting it into a bank account for the non-profit that is the wiki. Like Wikipedia does. Instead of always skimming a profit and then always being late about server upgrades and NEVER ever making an upgrade before hand, before a major rush for edits and searches hits town. His answer was to put Fyren in charge and stop caring altogether. --Karlos 11:10, 13 September 2007 (CDT)

OMG YEAH! Not only that, but Oswald really didn't shoot Kennedy, it was the guy Castro and the KKK hired who was hiding in a fly saucer overhead! Conspiracy! Honestly, do you have any proof he was making a profit? And by proof, I mean proof not speculation. Since there's no proof he was making a profit from the ads, and we already know he ONLy sold the domains for guildwiki and NOT the content, there was no breech of contract and nothing illegal about Gravwit's actions. Whine all you want, but if it weren't for him throwing away hundreds of dollars of his own money in the first palce, guildwiki wouldn't exist. And how much did you really donate? $50? $100? If you donated more then that, then there's really nothing more I can say except you weren't doing intelligent things with your (hopefully) hard-earned money.--TheDrifter 20:20, 13 September 2007 (CDT)


 * Let me remind you that he makes plenty of money off of ad revenue. Google says it'll place ads on your page, and you get 2cents for everyone that loads, and 10 cents if people click on it.  With over 20million pages views, and people clicking on ads, he's certainly not going to go broke anytime soon.  Wiki (should) be paying for itself. And let me remind you the definition of profit.

net income usually for a given period of time Certainly he wouldn't sell this site for a loss. ;) the imperialist


 * Do you have something personal against Karlos, Mr. Drifter? He is allowed to express his opinions (ie. "whining" as you say) and I see no reason why you should go out of your way to persecute him for that, especially if it devolves into petty insults such as saying his donating ("hopefully hard-earned") money to GWiki was unintelligent. Just as Karlos (or anyone else) can't give conclusive hard evidence that Gravewit was making a killing in ad revenue, you can't give conclusive hard evidence that Gravewit wasn't. You can debate the legal nitty-gritty all you want, but that is not the issue. We're trying to argue about a moral grievance here. [[Image:Entropy Sig.jpg]] (T/C) 20:40, 13 September 2007 (CDT)

Karols insisted on bringing in his financial habits in as part of his discussion, so I'm discussing them. And, I don't find accusing Gravewit of being a crook very nice either. But that's not important really. The imperialist states that Gravewit makes 2 cents per add, and with 20 million page views, that adds up. It does. But what he forgets is that it takes ALOT of money to maintain a website that get 20 million page views. Donations and google adds can definitely cover alot of the costs, but it is very likely that Gravewit was alot least paying a few dollars a month out of his own pocket. Maybe he did make a profit from the domain name sale, but it certainly couldn't have been significant. And I think he earned it, having to deal with server maintenance and bills for these two years.--TheDrifter 21:06, 13 September 2007 (CDT)
 * It would have made more sense if you said "Fyren had to deal with server maintenance for these two years". Other than that, I think that your reply does illuminate one thing...no matter how much we banter numbers around, none of us has any real figures to work with. Without some more transparancy from Gravewit himself, I think we will just keep on arguing back and forth about the speculative financial nature of this Wikia move, ad revenue, the costs to maintain a site like GWiki, et cetera ad nauseum. As you have pointed out, this will only lead to more blacklisting of Gravewit and a proportional backlash from his supporters. Until we can get away from the "Very likely", "Probable", "In most cases", and other such relative terms, this argument will go nowhere. [[Image:Entropy Sig.jpg]] (T/C) 21:13, 13 September 2007 (CDT)


 * I don't understand why people bother get into a discussion with such zeal if they don't intend to read and understand. Read wha tI said again, check the ledger link that Dirigible provided above or go read the open letter that Tanaric posted. Gravewit took the ledger offline just as the ad revenue was pouring in. Gravewit told Tanaric that ads are making profit. There is aboslutely NO DOUBT anywhere in the world (except in Drifter's mind) that Gravewit IS making money off of this even before the Wikia sale and being given cash + stock. Do you think Wikia would have bought the site if it was NOT making good ad money? What was his sales pitch other than that? "I'll let you guys manage Karlos and Drifter"?
 * Wake up and smell the roses, please. There is a ton of evidence posted here that he is and was making money off of this since January of 06. Let's not pretend that this fact is somehow in doubt. --Karlos 01:57, 14 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Lies! If I were a for-profit corporation, I'd totally buy a site out of the charitable kindness of my heart and let it siphon away money.  Never mind that I have stock and an obligation to my investors to boost, or at least maintain, the stock value.
 * The only good counterpoint to this all, in my opinion, is that it detracts, rather than contributes, to the wiki. At the same time, however, this is definitely relevant to members of GuildWiki, as it relates to, at the very least, the legal status of the use of our contributions.  Not that I've made many actually meaningful contributions, and the bulk of that small amount of content I've actually added has been in the talk pages so other people can add it to the main page.
 * Even so, regardless of the value of contributions I've made in comparison to those of others, I did so under the explicit understanding it was solely to aid others in a not-for-profit venture. I'm also likely one of the few people in this day and age that knows of the existence of the adblock plugin, but does not use it intentionally.  Advertisements are one of the few modes of breaking even or raising funds for non-profit sites, and small-time for-profit sites out there, and what prevents the only sites on the internet from being controlled entirely by those who have the money to pay for them.  Every time I loaded a GuildWiki page with ads, I was under, once again, the explicit understanding that this is a not-for-profit site.  I still load the ads for for-profit sites, but the issue is the principle of the matter.  I despise the strawman, employed aggressively by politicians and their supporters, as well as businesses, that deceptive practices are OK as long as they're "not that big a deal."  Do I have a problem with making money?  Heck no.  Do I have a problem with lying about non-profit vs for-profit status?  You better believe it.
 * I don't expect anyone to care, consider the minimal involvement I've had with the GuildWiki community, but beyond watching this story unfold, I'm done here. Trust and respect are easy to lose, but hard to regain.  Merengue 10:48, 14 September 2007 (CDT)

And Gravewit has STILL yet to answer... pretty shady. --- 24.158.97.168 There is absolutely NO EVIDENCE, only SPECULATION. The fact is, that since the Ledger was taken down we have no idea how much revenue was coming from donation. And since there is no report on how much was made off of ads. And since we have no way of knowing how much server costs were, the only way we'll know if Gravwit was making money, losing it or breaking even is if he told us himself. Here's a question for you: If Gravewit was truly in this just to make a buck why did he support the "anti gw gold campaign" a while back in which many ads (and thus profits) were purposely blocked because they promoted breaking the EULA? The fact is Karlos, you're in the dark just as much as we are and even though you're acting like you have all the facts, you don't.--TheDrifter 09:22, 16 September 2007 (CDT)


 * Alright, here's some real, tangible numbers for you. A hosting company I work with charges $1 per 1 GB of bandwidth beyond what is included in the base hosting plan.  That means that the $0.02 earned from each ad view (not clickthrough, just view!) can buy 20 MB of bandwidth.  So in order for there to be no profit in the ads on this site, the average article size would have to be 20 MB, which is ridiculous.  The wiki shows a warning if you edit a page larger than 32 KB, so most are probably even smaller than that.  Still, including images, let's assume 200 KB per page.  It would take 100 page views to generate 20 MB of traffic.  From those 100 page views, $2 of ad revenue is generated, but only $0.02 is spent on bandwidth, a profit of 10,000%.
 * I know a lot of those numbers are assumptions, but even acknowledging that, they still show that ad revenue generates a lot of profit if the only expense is bandwidth. And with all the servers paid for, and with Fyren doing all server/site maintenance for free, that's pretty much how it is.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael [[Image:Diablo_the_chicken.gif]] 12:06, 16 September 2007 (CDT)

You really missed a point you yourself pointed out, a point that msot of us have no idea of knowing: how much is charged per month for this "base hosting plan"? Furthermore, how much did Gravewit spend out of his own pocket before the ads were put on the site?--TheDrifter 14:46, 16 September 2007 (CDT)

Termination due to breach of contract
GuildWiki text is released by the site contributors under the by-nc-sa creative commons copyleft license version 2.0. Clause 4(c) enjoins you, that is, gravewit or any corporation that runs guildwiki, from distributing this work for private monetary compensation. As you are very clearly going to go ahead with your plan, you are in breach of license, and pursuant to clause 7(a) your right to redistribute my edits, and probably edits of others of like mind, are terminated. As I retain perpetual original copyright on my contributions, and lacking another active licensing agreement, I hereby declare that my contributions may not be sold to Wikia corporation. As a personal favor to you, I shall let the matter lie with all my contributions deleted from the database dump you hand over to Wikia. There are not that many edits to filter in my case. 193.52.24.125 14:24, 11 September 2007 (CDT)
 * errrmmm i by no means claim to be a lawyer but i belive in the first link in the Guildwiki copyrights thing it says that while everything you submit is yours and you recive copyright for it, by submiting it to Guildwiki you permently license it to them (i belive that's what it says) which i think means basicly they gain any of the copyright rights.....however it does mention for but it also says that the only way they can't distribute it (which this basicly is i supsoe) is that it's never used for a commercial puprpose- which i don't think this is-i think you have a bit of a problem with your argument-don't you think they would have thought these things through-really?PheNaxKian 15:39, 11 September 2007 (CDT)
 * If what Mr 193.52 is saying is what I think it is (forbidding you to sell his contributions) then forbid what happens if Skuld, Entropy, Gem, Karlos etc. did the same the imperialist
 * Skuld intended to do exactly that, actually. Unfortunately he, Karlos, Gem, and many others of us can't do that, because we've dual-licensed our contribs as GFDL, so they could be used on the GWW. =\ -- Dirigible 16:46, 11 September 2007 (CDT)


 * I haven't yet :P But I haven't made very many contributions to the wiki so its not like i'd have an impact...  And someone needs to archive this page, its 39kb :O the imperialist


 * Sweetness, that means that I CAN :D.--Gigathrash 16:47, 11 September 2007 (CDT)
 * No, this is to important to archive, most of the topics are still being discussed from the original posts, will have to live with the length till all of this is settled down. -- Xeon 20:59, 11 September 2007 (CDT)
 * I have only recently begun to contribute so my words may not count for as much as others who have posted much more. I percieve the wiki in general as a public domain space and feel greatfull that this site was hosted for so long, and for free. (Meaning no dues or registration fees) I have written only a few articles with the no intention of retaining any kind of copywrite. What I have added thus far I release to the 4 winds and the 5 gods.


 * My hat is off to those who have posted all the material I have read and used to learn how to play a video game better than I would have without it. Moreover, I also understand that the entertainment I gain in the virtual world is not without its price in the realworld. Hosting web sites is not cheap and I am truly thankfull that this site will continue to grow, under management that has become to overwhelming for just a small dedicated group of diehard cadre.


 * In my opinion, if the key individual whos shoulders (and wallet) bore the burden of my entertainment should recieve monetary compensation for his efforts, while allowing the wiki to continure to grow, then so be it! I have absolutely no ill will nor do I begrudge him his due. I say congradulations, and just let me know when I can post again. The community as a whole will live on! -Lefick Sept. 11 2007


 * Well, actually, according to GW:YAV your comments are just as important as something that User:Skuld, User:Entropy, or other large contributors (too many to name) would say. But yes...I also am fine with them selling the site, as long as it all remains here. I'd like to see what Gravewit said about this... [[Image:PaintballerSig.jpg]] The Paintballer (T/C) 17:35, 11 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Some people just have to find something to complain about don't they?--Alari 17:36, 11 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Yup... pretty sad. [[Image:Riven-sig.png]]   20:31, 11 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Some people don't read the whole story do they? -- Ab.Er.Rant [[Image:User Aberrant80 Sig.png]] (msg Aberrant80) 21:04, 11 September 2007 (CDT)


 * Gravewit was not "the key individual" in this wiki by a long shot. He wasn't even first! By an accident of history, he ended up hosting the wiki when the original guild wars proto-wikis merged in the prehistoric days. If you want key individuals, look at LordBiro, Tanaric, Fyren, and Nunix, who (along with Gravewit) did all the initial work. Or look at Rainith, Karlos, Skuld, PanSola, Tetris L, William Blackstaff, Xeeron, Stabber (and his/her socks), Gordon Ecker, etc. who did all the essential gruntwork of laying out the scope of the wiki. Gravewit's efforts, after the initial few monts, amounted to paying hosting costs and making a token appearance every four months. GuildWiki lived with horrible bugs for long periods of time (anyone remember the image naming bug?) because Gravewit was either too lazy or too incompetent to fix it. Eventually he offloaded all the server maintenance to another site contributor (Fyren) who gave his time freely. All this is anyhow irrelevant; it doesn't matter what you or I think of Gravewit's actions. He is legally prohibited from making a profit off the work released by the site contributors under cc by-nc-sa. I don't hate Gravewit, far from it, but it pains me deeply to see him as the sole profiter of this community effort. 193.52.24.125 09:41, 12 September 2007 (CDT)


 * This is pretty much quite astonishing to me considering monetary compensation is being given for this; if anything, the owner has earned money out of this, and I guarantee you, he did not lose anything. The fact remains that he is selling our efforts for his gain.  Under this breach of contract, the owner is liable to get release statements from every user on this wiki, for every contribution, and the database transfer going on right now is pretty much illegal.  You pretty much need to respond to the OP. ~ Lutz 19:43, 12 September 2007 (CDT)


 * Thats like having the entire school clean-up the city, and then the principal getting paid for it. But on a larger, more illegal scale. the imperialist


 * Software piracy is copyright infringement with the person usually giving away the illegal copies doing so for free or at a loss if we take their bandwidth use into account. And we all know that software piracy is wrong. But here we have someone allowing the infringement and profiting off of doing so. I suggest getting a lawyer to look over this and sending an official letter to Wikia to officially inform them, and to threaten legal action unless they pull down your comments.

For posterity, as I expect this will be my last edit on this wiki, I just want to make it clear that I don't suffer any delusions that my above demand will be met. I am realistic/pessimistic enough to think that Wikia will win simply by lying low and riding it out. There are enough users who simply do not care and will happily continue at Wikia. Karlos and Tanaric are not fundamentally irreplaceable, and any legal threats they are now making are hollow. Or so I hope, at least; not because I think gravewit and Wikia hold all the trumps (well...to a certain extent they do), but because I hope Karlos and Tanaric will not be so foolish as to jeopardize their personal lives for a mere fansite for a video game. 193.52.24.125 02:22, 14 September 2007 (CDT)
 * "I hope Karlos and Tanaric will not be so foolish as to jeopardize their personal lives." Really, no one's lives are in jeopardy here... - [[Image:Candle.jpg|12px]] Krowman (talk • contribs) 22:57, 15 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Just their dignity. -Gildan Bladeborn 12:28, 16 September 2007 (CDT)

Servers
Not sure who can confirm this other than Fyren, but as I read it, GuildWiki and the other GameWikis sites have been hosted on 3 GameWikis-owned, dedicated Web servers. IE, Gravewit used money from ads to purchase those machines, rather than leasing them from the hosting company. And again as far as I can tell, Wikia did not buy those servers, as they have their own hosting. If that's the case, another part of GraveWit's personal profit from GuildWiki is those three Web servers. That's a considerable amount of tangible compensation right there, possibly several thousand dollars' worth. Hopefully someone can confirm whether GraveWit purchased or leased the servers. — HarshLanguage 06:06, 16 September 2007 (CDT) I'd imagine they were leased from the host, but I nor anyone else can be sure of this.--TheDrifter 18:40, 16 September 2007 (CDT)

Scam
About the donations issue, I agree with Karlos that a scam could have taken place. If what Karlos said is completely true, you donated money to support a no-profit community, but after some time the community turned commercial, and eventually was sold to a commercial corporation (Wikia). So, what's appropriate is not a lawsuit, but to press charges. If in the united states scam is a crime, police should be properly informed. I guess those who donated still retain proofs of those money transfers.

About the ads problem.. I think they are compatible with CC-NC licence as long they only cover the mantainance costs. If they produce net profits, those should be declared to the community and used to upgrade the site or given to charities.. under a community consensus. In fact, I do think that gaining profits from a CC-NC wiki is illegal. --Lumenil 20:07, 16 September 2007 (CDT)