Requests for Comment/Abolishing the Dormancy Policy

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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
Withdrawn/Now unanimous opposition to the proposal. Either way, no consensus has been established to proceed with this proposal. -- Void Whispers 20:46, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

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[edit | edit source]

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

Oppose[edit | edit source]

  1.  Strongest oppose 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)
    Blubabluba9990 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)
    Sorry for the late reply, but that user might not want their user rights taken away. Also, I have lost interest in this proposal, but this proposal needs to be closed before I can make my new one. Blubabluba9990 (talk) 21:08, 24 June 2021 (UTC)
  2.  Oppose 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 - (on) 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)
    Blubabluba9990 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)
  3.  Oppose 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)
  4.  Strongest oppose 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)
  5.  Oppose I see no reason to abolish the dormancy policy. MacFan4000 (Talk Contribs) 15:24, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
  6.  Strongest oppose Never. If we are flooded with these abandoned, and/or inactive wikis, our servers will bust down. CircleyDoesExtracter(Circley Talk | Global |Email the Cloud) 18:33, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
  7.  Strongest oppose 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)
  8.  Oppose 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)
  9.  Strongest oppose 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)
  10.  Strongest oppose This would dramatically increase Miraheze's resources. —MarioMario456 19:46, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
  11.  Strongest oppose It would cause lot of spam and unused wikis to increase and cause Miraheze to have resource issues. --Mike9012 (talk) 23:07, 20 June 2021 (UTC)
  12.  Strong oppose DuchessTheSponge (talk) 15:19, 25 June 2021 (UTC)
  13.  Oppose You know what, I think that these points are valid. I have a better idea for a proposal, though. Blubabluba9990 (talk) 18:49, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
    I don't think we need any other proposals regarding Dormancy Policy. If you have some ideas, please reach out to me privately on either Discord or IRC, as on-wiki communication is sub-optimal and time-consuming. Thank you. Dmehus (talk) 18:52, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
    Well I was going to propose getting rid of any restrictions on Dormancy Policy exemption, as it is too stressful to constantly be updating wikis every single month to make sure they don't get deleted. Blubabluba9990 (talk) 17:36, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
    @Blubabluba9990: As you may read in the Dormancy Policy, wikis are deleted a minimum of 194 days after your last edit. That's half a year. If you don't edit your wiki in half a year, chances are, you'll probably never edit the wiki again. Wikis are also only closed after 2 months (60 days), which is plenty of time to edit it. I think the Dormancy Policy is more than generous, especially since Miraheze is free. Agent Isai (talk) 20:39, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
    But what if I am busy and do not have time to be constantly updating my wikis. Also, it gets marked as inactive after 45 days, which is 1 month. Blubabluba9990 (talk) 21:12, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
    @Blubabluba9990: As far as I know, being marked as inactive does not affect wiki functionality and is only there to warn you about possible actions if you don't edit your wiki. Additionally, 45 days = 1 month and a half. And even if your wiki is closed after the 2 month grace period, you are informed about it via email and you can always just mark it active on Special:ManageWiki and done. If your wiki is closed, I doubt anyone would be affected, especially if it hasn't had any edits made in 45 days. Even so, you still have 134 days (~4 months) after your wiki is closed to edit it and save it. I still believe that the Dormancy Policy should not be changed. Agent Isai (talk) 21:39, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
    Ok. Blubabluba9990 (talk) 21:53, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
  14.  Strongest oppose Idem--Angelo Pisani (talk) 21:51, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

Comments[edit | edit source]

  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)
  2. 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)
  3. Can someone close this I think this discussion has run its course, it is clearly not passing. And I have a better idea for a proposal anyway. Blubabluba9990 (talk) 18:48, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
    This is on my todo list today to have another Steward close this and assess the consensus. There is no need to make further replies, including to this reply. You can acknowledge my reply here with a thanks click. Thanks. Dmehus (talk) 18:50, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section
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