Dear Ganiman, (op updated)

[ringthree]

ringthree, there's no need to repeat yourself, other than your personal need for conflict.

Personal need for edification of the ignorant. Sure, I may be bashing my head against the wall, but I am laughing all the same.

[Ryko]

Their way of "dealing" is calling a scam artist a douchepipe, if you don't like it, tough, the words were said, deal.

Scamming implies some sort of intent. Care to elaborate?

You're a retard. The "intent" as stated was to buy new servers, doing anything else with that (either in hindsight or otherwise) is a deception on his part. Instead of buying them, fine, they were rented. Then with a balance of thousands left over something that they were approached about beforehand (and if you disagree with this perhaps you should actually read before spouting off again like you always do defensively when anything remotely revolving around your pet project is made fun of) suddenly starts looking very good. That said the OP wasn't even saying the money should be given back but rather an inquiry as to what the rest of the money will be spent on. Your argument here should not be the intent, you're better off letting ringthree talk because at most you're going to do what you always do in a confrontation, read what you want to then go "nuh uh" for 40 pages.

[Luto]

Uh, they spent nearly $2k out of a $9k total on shitty t-shirts and mouse mats to give away?

Wow.

Fckya. I never got my shirt.

[divisortheory]

Their way of "dealing" is calling a scam artist a douchepipe, if you don't like it, tough, the words were said, deal.

Scamming implies some sort of intent. Care to elaborate?

You're a retard. The "intent" as stated was to buy new servers.

Who's the retard? lol you can't even read a simple announcement of what they're going to do with the money. This was never their intent.

[Riel]

Their way of "dealing" is calling a scam artist a douchepipe, if you don't like it, tough, the words were said, deal.

Scamming implies some sort of intent. Care to elaborate?

We get it. It can't be *proven* at this point that there was an intent to move to Wikia at the time of the fundraiser. Does this mean there couldn't have been intent? No. Even if there was no intent at the time, is saying one thing then doing another dishonest? Yes.

You should understand why people are calling this a scam. Seems like you're trying to use this semantic debate to rationalize dishonest behavior.

[Sasarai]

The reasons for the fundraiser are still there, it clearly calls for people to donate so FFXIclopedia could afford its own servers and not have to move (sell) to Wikia. Over and over Ganiman told us how bad it would be if it had to go to Wikia, this was undeniably the reason behind a LARGE amount of donations.

Now FFXIclopedia is on Wikia, not one of us donated that money for fucking mousemats and free shirts, thus it is a scam.

[Ryko]

Their way of "dealing" is calling a scam artist a douchepipe, if you don't like it, tough, the words were said, deal.

Scamming implies some sort of intent. Care to elaborate?

You're a retard. The "intent" as stated was to buy new servers.

Who's the retard? lol you can't even read a simple announcement of what they're going to do with the money. This was never their intent.

Nuh uh! Like I said, you do yourself a disservice every time you attempt to argue with anyone.

[Sonomaa]

Just out of curiosity, how much does it cost per month to run these forums? Not like it's anyone's business but I think that could be comparable to the wiki's costs.

It's not even close

our server doesnt run bloated software that rapes CPU and bandwith, its optimized to run as smooth as a baby mithras tail. Not saying a wiki is bad, but wikis themselves run like shit on servers

[ringthree]

because they did purchase new servers, etc. That money is gone. Deal.

No they didnt, you can read the first announcement thread on their forum, and he says they rent them. When you rent servers, it's in a server farm far away from your actual location, and it's done monthly.

You are missing the most important part of that statement. (The "etc," was to imply that something was done with the money, I did not know what happened to the money, which is completely irrelevant to the discussion.)

The money is gone.

Deal.

Once you handed over the money to the Wiki people, it was no longer yours. They have no accountability to you, or anyone. They are not a charity. You gave money to a friend, they used it.

If you want to know what happened to the money, just ask. They will either answer you or they wont. This forum is just basically a high school after school drama production anymore, ready to jump on anything to provide them with entertainment.

Their way of "dealing" is calling a scam artist a douchepipe, if you don't like it, tough, the words were said, deal.

Sure, sure, we can all say what we believe, I have no real problem with that. I am just pointing out the flaws in their logic, I have yet to see someone point out the flaws in mine.

I just think that you will get better answers from the wiki people with honey rather than vinegar. People should be asking what happened, especially those that donated (which I believe are very few and far between in this thread), but to toss around names and hyperbole before anything is clear is just plainly immature, as I said before. If people like being immature, have at it, I think its funny.

[Ryko]

because they did purchase new servers, etc. That money is gone. Deal.

No they didnt, you can read the first announcement thread on their forum, and he says they rent them. When you rent servers, it's in a server farm far away from your actual location, and it's done monthly.

You are missing the most important part of that statement. (The "etc," was to imply that something was done with the money, I did not know what happened to the money, which is completely irrelevant to the discussion.)

The money is gone.

Deal.

Once you handed over the money to the Wiki people, it was no longer yours. They have no accountability to you, or anyone. They are not a charity. You gave money to a friend, they used it.

If you want to know what happened to the money, just ask. They will either answer you or they wont. This forum is just basically a high school after school drama production anymore, ready to jump on anything to provide them with entertainment.

Their way of "dealing" is calling a scam artist a douchepipe, if you don't like it, tough, the words were said, deal.

Sure, sure, we can all say what we believe, I have no real problem with that. I am just pointing out the flaws in their logic, I have yet to see someone point out the flaws in mine.

No offense but your logic is a non-sequitur and largely irrelevant to what they're pissed about. You don't justify someone's dishonesty by stating that other people running charities are at least accountable for what they do. That alone implies that they would have given the money to a charity in the first place. If you give someone who says he's going to buy a group of people (including you) lunch 50 bucks for the intent of buying lunch and he comes back with 5 sticks of gum and pockets the rest of it, you're going to be pissed regardless of whether or not someone else would have done the same, it doesn't absolve them in the slightest.

[Riel]

Sure, sure, we can all say what we believe, I have no real problem with that. I am just pointing out the flaws in their logic, I have yet to see someone point out the flaws in mine.

I just think that you will get better answers from the wiki people with honey rather than vinegar. People should be asking what happened, especially those that donated (which I believe are very few and far between in this thread), but to toss around names and hyperbole before anything is clear is just plainly immature, as I said before. If people like being immature, have at it, I think its funny.

Your logic seems to be "they have no accountability so they did nothing wrong." Who needs to point out the flaws in that? It's blatantly obvious.

[JoOeetheplatypuS]

Sure, sure, we can all say what we believe, I have no real problem with that. I am just pointing out the flaws in their logic, I have yet to see someone point out the flaws in mine.

Flaw in your logic: People will always squander any money donated to them and any money not spent DIRECTLY towards the given task is not money well spent.

Get this: People don't ALWAYS lie!

[ringthree]

We get it ringthree, you think that everybody who wants donations is a douchebag and there is no such thing as a good charity.

No, actually, I think there are tons of great charities that do awesome work around the world. I would even venture to say (and this might be my own ignorance) that most charities are not fraudulent and are run by dedicated people that care and pour themselves into their work.

What I am saying, and I don't really understand how this could be missed because I even italicized it. Is that the wiki is not a charity (loving italics today). Charities have legal responsibilities to their donors and the recipients. The wiki is just a website that was asking for money, nothing more.

[Dank]

[quote=Ryko]

because they did purchase new servers, etc. That money is gone. Deal.

No they didnt, you can read the first announcement thread on their forum, and he says they rent them. When you rent servers, it's in a server farm far away from your actual location, and it's done monthly.

You are missing the most important part of that statement. (The "etc," was to imply that something was done with the money, I did not know what happened to the money, which is completely irrelevant to the discussion.)

The money is gone.

Deal.

Once you handed over the money to the Wiki people, it was no longer yours. They have no accountability to you, or anyone. They are not a charity. You gave money to a friend, they used it.

If you want to know what happened to the money, just ask. They will either answer you or they wont. This forum is just basically a high school after school drama production anymore, ready to jump on anything to provide them with entertainment.

Their way of "dealing" is calling a scam artist a douchepipe, if you don't like it, tough, the words were said, deal.

Sure, sure, we can all say what we believe, I have no real problem with that. I am just pointing out the flaws in their logic, I have yet to see someone point out the flaws in mine.

No offense but your logic is a non-sequitur and largely irrelevant to what they're pissed about. You don't justify someone's dishonesty by stating that other people running charities are dishonest. That alone implies that they would have given the money to a charity in the first place. If you give someone who says he's going to buy a group of people (including you) lunch 50 bucks for the intent of buying lunch and he comes back with 5 sticks of gum and pockets the rest of it, you're going to be pissed regardless of whether or not someone else would have done the same, it doesn't get them off.[/quote:c8f78]

If it was that new Dentyne blast gum I wouldn't be pissed >.>

Anyway, this argument should be stopped until one of the admins over there posts here, which is supposed to happen soon from what was posted earlier. You're all getting your panties in a bunch without knowing all the facts.

[recuperi]

did everybody just miss fallso's post last page?

[Sonomaa]

Anyway, this argument should be stopped until one of the admins over there posts here, which is supposed to happen soon from what was posted earlier. You're all getting your panties in a bunch without knowing all the facts.

<Fallso> Hey
<Mierin> ??
<Fallso> I was gonna ask you something
<Mierin> ok
<Fallso> As you know ffxiclopedia transfered to wikia...so what happened to the donation money that was going to be used for the servers when ffxiclopedia was going to host itself
<Mierin> I'm reading the thread
<Mierin> I see many people have made extremely incorrect assumptions
<Mierin> Once I'm done reading the thread, I will respond
<Mierin> But in short
<Mierin> The servers were leased, as we stated we would
<Mierin> We raised roughly $9k
<Mierin> We've spent roughly $5.5 on leasing the servers
<Mierin> We spent roughly $1.9k on the t-shirts and mousepads that we gave out as thank yous
<Mierin> We have roughly $2k left
<Mierin> Now that we have moved to wikia, we are working on various ideas on how to give the money back to the community
<Mierin> We are debating doing a raffle where we buy a lot of WotG expansions and give them out.
<Mierin> But it is still in the discussion stages.
<Fallso> Ah I see
<Mierin> Taj is in idiot

FFXIclopedia IRC chat.

Please read the bold part.

Now, I like the wiki, BG as a forums helped build the wiki, I wont lie when I say that gani did try to deny that at one point but the proof is in the pudding regardless. Was this situation handled in the best way regarding letting people know that they got too low on money and HAD to move to wikia? No, it wasnt, thats why there is this thread. However they had to move there to continue providing us with a wiki experience, thus we have to deal.

We would all like an official statement from the wiki admins regarding this, not just an irc chat, so if one of them could PM myself or even hit me on aim, make a nice cordial note, Ill be glad to give it a post and a sticky. This was a valid question, people didnt exactly like donating to prevent something then have it happen anyway, but thems the breaks.

I will unlock this thread after a short time but I want everyone to try to be a little more cordial in understanding the situation on both ends, now that we have a semi-official response, we can wait for the official one.

[Elmer the Pointy]

Unlockering for Mierin's response. (In IRC with Meirin)


And just as a personal note, I understand some of the frustration and I too was curious about the donations/move. But I think there's a lot of people getting caught up in the mob and getting angry when they're really not. There are legitimate concerns on both ends, but really with all the different numbers being thrown out of alleged donations, server costs, hoarded cash monies, no one can really tell what's going on.

Bottom line is, BG and wiki get some real good information out there and work best when they work together. Each party tends to attack the other over stupid stuff every now and then. Here, we have a real issue but because of that it should be handled in an appropriate way. I realize it's just the nature of the forums though, and even the most vocal wiki hater could be happily visiting them day to day.

Just thought I'd throw that in, ok here we go

[Mierin]

Hello, my name is Mierin, and I'm an administrator at FFXIclopedia.org.

I can see there are many gross misperceptions flying about this board, and I want to clear a few of them up.

First off, the move:

When we were originally approached by Wikia, Gani and I were fresh off our battle with Wikipedia over the noteability of FFXIclopedia. We had a very sour taste in our mouth. On top of that, they offered us absolutely nothing we could use. They would not provide space for our forums, blogs or IRC chat. It appeared that they saw us get popular and just wanted to latch onto the popularity and give us a pitance in return. In addition, we were just off our fundraiser and we felt confident about where we stood. However, we did realize that we would need to do a fundraiser every year, and this year we fell way short of our goal, and we could only see things getting worse. Our costs were soaring and our connection speed was dropping due to the mass volume. Thus, Gani gave a very nasty and public negative response.

However, Wikia would not be assuaged, and they came back to us and apologized and explained to us more about Wikia. Wikia is an amazing conglomeration of wikis, all in the same place. First off, we did not realize that they were separate and apart from Wikipedia. More importantly, they wanted to work with us to make us the best possible site we could be. In short, they worked with us to ensure that all the amenities we wanted would be brought along. They worked with us on where and what kinds of ads would be placed, and also offered us numerous other amenities. The biggest bonus is that they wanted Gahoo, Gani and I to remain in charge. They would essentially just be the hosts and we would still run it 100% the way we wanted. This was the most important part for us. After much negotiation, we agreed to the move. However, don't think it was dollars that changed our minds. That never is or was our goal. To us, the functionality and the user base was most important. We started the site because we loved FFXI, and the most important thing to us was giving the community a better site than Alla. And we feel we have done that.

However, what does moving to Wikia bring for you all? Well, now Wikia will be working with us to give FFXIclopedia more publicity. We are working with Wikia and SE to send people to Fanfest and other events as press to both obtain better access to SE and to publicize the site more. Hopefully we will have more exclusive interviews with SE like we did for the WotG release. And the best part about this all is, that Wikia will not be meddling with the administration of the site, so you get all the same stuff, plus more with our new move. This is what we did not realize when first approached, and this is why we finally agreed to the move.

Now, for the concern of this thread, where did the money go:

We never were buying the servers. We could not afford to buy them. The goal was to lease three servers. I don't understand the technical logistics behind it, but there were be some master server and two others that switched back and forth and somehow made the whole thing faster. The goal was $12k. That would last us for leasing fees for 12 months, we hoped.

We only raised $9k, which only got us two of the servers. As you can see above, Fallso posted the details I gave him in IRC chat. We have used those funds for leasing the servers. We did exactly as we said we would. But, yes, we do have funds left over. And yes, we do want to give it back. It is not going to Gani's private fund. It is not going to Wikia. In fact, Wikia is working with us, and made add some funds, to help promote any give away that we come up with to return the funds. We don't know how or what we plan to do, but rest assured, it will be returned in one way or another.

So, as I stated above, the lynch mob, again, is full of ignorant people. Why don't you just ask us what happened rather than breaking out your pitchforks and torches. We didn't run off with the money. We did exactly as we said we would. And yes, you will get your money back in one way or another.

In closing, as I told ElmerthePointy on IRC, we at FFXIclopedia do like BlueGartr. Some of our best contributors come from this site. But when you all get in a frenzy over misinformation and ignorant beliefs, you run away with yourselves. Calm down and ask us next time before tossing the noose over the tree branch.

...

Oh, and the two last things: 1) I'm a guy, and 2) divisortheory is an jr. admin of the wiki is about 90% correct on everything he said.

[JoOeetheplatypuS]

We just want to be accountabilibuddies

Thanks Mierlin for the clarification. It does make more sense now, but I hope you can understand the frustration people have thinking their money was wasted. I personally use FFXICyclopedia a lot and love the site but I hate to see people get screwed over, which it seemed like (and honestly still seems like a bit.) Don't take this the wrong way, but you aren't going to be let off the hook until you can successfully do something with that 2k.

[Ryko]

A little less than half of it was, unless you count t shirts mousepads and 2k left over good eatin.