Requests for Comment/Abolishing the Dormancy Policy

I think that the Dormancy Policy should be abolished. My wikis are completely inactive, and I am the only contributor. I have requested dormancy exemption three times but the first request was turned down, the second request was unresolved, and the third request was completely ignored. Furthermore, for some reason, people seem to hate it when you try to advertise your wikis. It also prevents new users from coming in and contributing if the wiki is already closed. It seems like the Dormancy Policy has done more harm than good, which is why I am suggesting that it should be abolished. Blubabluba9990 (talk) 14:25, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Support

 * 1)  As proposer. Blubabluba9990 (talk) 14:27, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Oppose

 * 1)  Uhhhh, what's the point of this request? Sorry, but I'm opposing because of how pointless it is. DarkMatterMan4500 (talk) (contribs) 14:29, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
 * What do you mean by malformed exactly? Blubabluba9990 (talk) 14:30, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
 * What I mean by malformed, I mean the fact that this Request for comment just doesn't feel complete, or have enough reasons to support any of it. DarkMatterMan4500 (talk) (contribs) 14:33, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
 * There are enough reasons. I also forgot to mention that it might be a little unfair to the bureaucrat who made said wiki. If this proposal does not pass, than people should stop complaining about wiki advertising. Blubabluba9990 (talk) 14:34, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
 * How would it be "unfair" to the founding "bureaucrat"? Note that wikis don't belong to any one bureaucrat; they belong to the community, which, often, consists of only user, so that's perhaps where the confusion originates (at least in part). Dmehus (talk) 19:46, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
 * 1)  If we didn't have any dormancy policy whatsoever we'd probably have gone bust. We don't have the resources to host every wiki ever created. (Not sure how many we're approved but we've had over 18,000 requests.)  ~ RhinosF1 - (chat)· acc· c -  14:47, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Ok. But seriously, I am just getting annoyed with my wikis lacking contributors. I want to request another wiki but I need to know that both of my other wikis won't get shut down first. The Wow House Wiki is a fork of a FANDOM wiki (called The Anti-ScumHouse Wiki) I made which still exists and is being semi-actively updated by two users. The Fowl House Wiki on the other hand is a fork of another FANDOM wiki I made, The ScumHouse Wiki, which got closed. You can read about The ScumHouse Wiki here: mh:thefowlhouse:The Fowl House Wiki:History. Blubabluba9990 (talk) 14:52, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Now that's fine and dandy, except the Dormancy Policy has a reason for existing, and removing it would cause big problems. DarkMatterMan4500 (talk) (contribs) 14:54, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't have requested this here if stewards hadn't ignored my third dormancy policy exemption request on Steward's noticeboard. Blubabluba9990 (talk) 14:57, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
 * A point of procedural clarification: the request wasn't ignored; it just hadn't been reviewed yet, though that's now been done. Dmehus (talk) 19:46, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
 * 1)  as the Dormancy Policy is essential for dealing with inactive/abandoned wikis. I get that your request not being answered for a while is annoying, but that doesn't call for the Dormancy policy to be abolished. — Arcversin (talk) 15:02, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
 * 2)  as Dormancy Policy is an essentially community-established policy that regularly removes wikis which are inactive, contain minimal contain, or are otherwise unread by few if any people. Note that even if Dormancy Policy were eliminated, removal of such wikis would fall to Site Reliability Engineering to remove in their sole and absolute discretion, in terms of managing Miraheze's limited resources, which I'm sure the global community would absolutely not want to see happen. Thus, keeping Dormancy Policy maintains community control over this important policy. Dmehus (talk) 15:14, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
 * 3)  I see no reason to abolish the dormancy policy. MacFan4000 (Talk Contribs) 15:24, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
 * 4)  Never. If we are flooded with these abandoned, and/or inactive wikis, our servers will bust down.   Circley  Does Extracter    ( Circley Talk  |  Global   |  Email the Cloud )  18:33, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
 * 5)  Eliminating the Dormancy Policy would result in a ballooning of costs for Miraheze, which is a non-profit organization, burdening infrastructure that thousands of wikis rely upon. The death of Miraheze would be a tragedy for free culture and knowledge on the Internet. I believe Miraheze must utilize all reasonable means at its disposal to ensure its survival. This means (at the very least) resorting to resource conservation measures such as the Dormancy Policy. Furthermore, this policy already provides exemptions for wikis with sufficient encyclopedic value. This RfC seems to be more of an isolated complaint rather than something that would serve the broader community as a whole. Nonetheless, hopefully the consensus this RfC will provide makes it clear the importance of the Dormancy Policy. --SchizoidNightmares (talk) 19:23, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
 * 6)  Abolishing the Dormancy Policy completely is an extreme measure that doesn't make sense. As it has been said above, the policy is necessary in order to manage our limited resources. I find that it isn't difficult to access a wiki and uncheck the 'inactive' or 'closed' boxes even without having an exemption to the policy, which Stewards are either way usually quite lenient to grant if the reason for the request is well articulated. Amending the Dormancy Policy could perhaps be considered in the future if that's necessary, but abolishing it altogether is unrealistic in my view. Reception123 (talk) ( C ) 06:19, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
 * 7)  This seems more like a personal issue that you're trying to get resolved by having a whole policy removed. The Dormancy Policy serves great purpose in upkeeping Miraheze. You must remember that Miraheze runs on a budget, having wikis open and taking up space would mean that more servers are needed to store these useless wikis. Additionally, those wikis might be vehicles for vandalism which would put surely cause CVT to become overworked. Agent Isai (talk) 17:08, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Comments

 * 1) Without the Dormancy Policy, what's the point? DarkMatterMan4500 (talk) (contribs) 14:30, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
 * To what are you referring? Blubabluba9990 (talk) 14:31, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
 * This wiki would be a giant mess if we get rid of the Dormancy Policy. DarkMatterMan4500 (talk) (contribs) 14:35, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
 * True, but wikis just getting left behind just seems a bit neglectful. I mean look at DuchessTheSponge, he owns a bunch of wikis, many of which are closed or inactive. It is kind of stressful to have to look after one wiki when you are the sole contributor, let alone two (like both of my wikis), or however many wikis Duchess has requested. Sometimes the user who requested the wikis ends up getting globally locked, which also puts stress on wiki owners. Also, I want to keep my wikis and I don't want them getting adopted. Blubabluba9990 (talk) 14:39, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Blubabluba9990 Hrm? You want to attract contributors to your wiki, yet you don't want to have your wiki potentially eligible for adoption at requests for adoption? I'm having trouble squaring that circle. Dmehus (talk) 19:33, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
 * There's no chance of it passing anyway. DarkMatterMan4500 (talk) (contribs) 14:40, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Well then maybe people should stop getting annoyed with people advertising their wikis. I may end up having to close both wikis if I don't get an influx of contributors soon, and I don't want them to be deleted, I worked so hard on both of those wikis. Even though The Wow House Wiki is a fork of a FANDOM wiki, I wanted to cut my ties with FANDOM. Luckily there are two users keeping the FANDOM version of The Wow House Wiki (called The Anti ScumHouse Wiki) updated. The Fowl House Wiki, on the other hand, is a different story. That wiki is a revival of a closed FANDOM wiki called The ScumHouse Wiki. Blubabluba9990 (talk) 14:43, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
 * 1) Fine, I withdraw this. I just wish someone had some useful suggestions as to how to keep my wikis alive, otherwise I will have to close them both. Blubabluba9990 (talk) 18:47, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
 * While you can withdraw permissions requests you make or for which you're nominated, discussions are a different matter. An uninvolved Steward will need to assess the consensus of this discussion in a few days. In terms of suggestions, please see my reply to you at stewards' noticeboard. I would additionally recommend using Special:DataDump to regularly generate an XML dump and image backup of your wiki's images. Once a month should be sufficient, I would think. Also, please note that Reception123 regularly posts XML dumps of public wikis to The Internet Archive, so your wiki would be included in this so-called wikibackups backup set. Hope that helps. Dmehus (talk) 19:30, 13 June 2021 (UTC)