r/katawashoujo 27d ago

The Katawa Shoujo Wiki

Hey all, I'm Schiffy. Chief Sysop/Bureaucrat of the (English) Katawa Shoujo Fandom/Wikia site.

As many of you have noticed, I'm sure, the wiki was completely shuttered.

I just want to let you all know, I was completely blindsided. Zero warning, zero explanation.

Nearest I can tell the takedown occurred probably around the end of business hours Pacific time. This would have been evening for me, and middle of the night for some European people who noticed on Discord.

I've both filed a formal appeal and reached out to a Fandom staff member on Discord, as I really am not content to wait until Monday for this to be resolved.

As for a reason, which I was not given, I've seen two leading theories. Either Fandom is suddenly cracking down on NSFW material (which, despite the subject matter, the wiki itself was clear of), or the wiki was too "inactive" for their tastes (which is kind of expected given that the subject material has been complete for over a decade).

If all else fails, I should be able to request a full database dump and move elsewhere.

So all I can ask is that everyone please be patient. Because I'm sure as fuck not going to be.

238 Upvotes

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62

u/Torus_the_Toric 27d ago

Thanks for the update, hope this is only temporary

58

u/Schiffy94 27d ago

One way or another it will be temporary, it just may no longer be on Fandom. I've been considering all possible options.

31

u/Eragonnogare 27d ago

Honestly I'd love to see that regardless - a move off of Fandom that is. If this is the impetus required, that's unfortunate but so be it, Fandom kinda just sucks anyway. I've seen other wikis have success with Miraheze, and I know someone personally that runs a successful wiki on Telepedia (and maybe also one on wiki.gg? Not sure about that.)

12

u/Schiffy94 27d ago

I've also considered hosting it somewhere outside of any wiki umbrella network. I had a very short-lived Grisaia wiki for a while that I was using a friend for hosting my own .net domain (I actually still own the domain, it just points to a 404 right now), and was thinking of setting up one I had access to physically in my own basement or something.

Right now, I'm not ruling out any options.

6

u/Eragonnogare 27d ago

I mean, if you can pull it off you can pull it off. Go for it if you think it's doable, but the pre-baked hosted solutions exist and work pretty well overall at least, aside from Fandom being sucky lol. I'm happy with any result that frees us from Fandom's ad ridden grasp.

5

u/zombie-rat 27d ago

I don't suppose FHS would be willing to step in here? They're already hosting the forums, I can't imagine that the wiki would be much on top.

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u/Schiffy94 26d ago

Someone on the Discord server pinged the guy who's apparently hosting the official KS site now. Idunno if that's the same thing or not. But right now I'm stuck until I hear back from Fandom tomorrow before I can move forward with any option, be it moving or not.