Forum:The founder of another wiki blocked me

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FORGIVE ME IF I HAVE PUT THIS IN THE WRONG CATEGORY.

Hello guys! I own the Rock Lee Springtime wiki w:c:rockleespinoff. It seems there is a competition with the another wiki Rock Lee's Springtime of Youth WIki w:c:springtimeofyouth. The founder User:ManikWorld accuses our wiki of copying the contents and even taunted me: see w:c:rockleespinoff:User_talk:IndxcvNovelist#Wiki. He abuses his administrative powers and even blocked my co-admin of no reason. When you head to my profile @ his wiki he stated no reason. I would admit I blocked him but recently as a warning, and I unblocked him today. —IndxcvNovelist (Talk to Me|My Wiki) 13:36, May 12, 2012 (UTC)

Generally, issues of user blocking are not commented upon publicly. You should submit your problem to Staff directly. Use the Special:Contact form. As an aside, you should be careful thinking you "own" any part of Wikia. All content is submitted through a CC-BY-SA license, which means that "ownership" in any traditional sense of that word which implies exclusivity, is a practical impossibility. Everyone and no-one owns w:c:rockleespinoff. czechout ☎ ✍  fly tardis  14:08: Sat 12 May 2012 

I will say this, though: it sure looks to me like your wiki did copy this revision of your character Infobox from w:c:springtimeofyouth:template:character Infobox. I mean, it's extremely unlikly that two people working independently would have both arrived at a font size of .90em, a line-height of 1.5 and various bottom-left-radiuses of 7px. Even less likely is the possibility that two independent coders would have both arrived at the exact same shade of green: #228822. You really shouldn't try to sound so indignant and offended that the other wiki is accusing you of copying their stuff. You, or your team, obviously did copy their stuff.

Notice, though, that I said "copied" not "stole". You can't steal what someone doesn't own. And the CC-BY-SA 3.0 content means that if you put up something on your wiki, I can take it for my wiki — but I have to give credit where credit is due. At a minimum, you must put a link to the page of the wiki you copied from in the edit summary. So in this case, you should have put something like "this is a modified version of w:c:springtimeofyouth:template:character Infobox" as the edit summary. Then, the other wiki would have no grounds for complaint. As things stand, however, your wiki is in the "wrong", however technical that wrong might be. czechout ☎ ✍  fly tardis  14:34: Sat 12 May 2012 

Thank you! But I have no idea that the infobox was indeed copied. I would edit that. And how about blocking? —IndxcvNovelist (Talk to Me|My Wiki) 09:56, May 13, 2012 (UTC)

Generally speaking, blocking done at the local level is something that gets handled at the local level, even if you report the problem through Special:Contact. My suggestion is that you take responsibility for your past actions, as well as those of your co-admin, and you essentially call a truce. Create a minor edit in template:Character Infobox in which you can embed a summary note that credits their wiki. Explain to them that you will credit them in future, should you copy their work again. Tell them you were wrong to block them, even as a warning. Ask them, in a calm and rational way, why they blocked your co-admin. Then have your friend apologise for that mistake. (He or she will probably have to go to a neutral wiki, like this one, in order to leave a message of apology for the other admin.) Then hope for the best. If they don't choose to unblock your co-admin, after a calm but full apology, there's not a lot you can do really.

If, however, they give you a blocking reason that is not clearly spelled out in that wiki's policies, then you may have grounds to appeal to staff with a Special:Contact form. Staff are pretty reluctant to get into local disputes, but they might if the block seems arbitrary. You might stand a chance if it's over this copying business, because it's not really a violation of the broader Wikia Terms of Use. You and your friend may simply not have known that you were supposed to give credit.

Finally — and you're probably not going to like this — I would strongly consider abandoning your wiki and joining their team. It looks to be the same content, and their wiki predates yours. I'm not seeing that much difference between them. Four people working on the same wiki will grow a bigger wiki than two teams of two working on separate wikis. If you're already copying their style, and your content is materially similar, I'm not seeing much of a point to your wiki except, well, the fact that you're in charge. You need to decide whether it's better being in charge of a small wiki than to be a part of a larger one. Where will you have the bigger impact? Which is the better use of your time? czechout ☎ ✍  fly tardis  14:03: Sun 13 May 2012 

I like the two options though I can't simply abandon my wiki or if he would agree. I would ask my co-admin Salil dabholkar to apologize to ManikWorld. —IndxcvNovelist (Talk to Me|My Wiki) 08:19, May 14, 2012 (UTC)

The version that you showed does look very identical to his infobox at that time. But later we changed our infobox and so did he. If you compare the current versions of our infoboxes, they are completely different. The only similarity seems to be the size, rest all is different. —¤ S@lil ¤ File:Uchiha Symbol.svg (T@lk) 08:55, May 14, 2012 (UTC)

Sorry for bothering you. The problem is solved now ^_^ —¤ S@lil ¤ File:Uchiha Symbol.svg (T@lk) 16:18, May 14, 2012 (UTC)

I'm glad things have resolved, but I do want to point out that you still have to give credit at the point you take something from another wiki. It doesn't matter that you later evolve it into something different. There has to be an acknowledgement of the revision(s) at which you borrowed from another wiki. It's just being polite, really. czechout ☎ ✍  fly tardis  19:58: Mon 14 May 2012 

Okay, thank you so much! I would add it that it was from his wiki. —IndxcvNovelist (Talk to Me|My Wiki) 04:08, May 15, 2012 (UTC)