Draft for Habitica Wiki announcement

(This will either be posted to a blog post on Habitica Wiki, my userspace there, or the main page's talk page, and then it will be linked to via both the announcements extension (which will notify anyone who has edited the wiki in the last 90 days) *and* the sitenotice (which will be shown to all site users who have not dismissed a sitenotice with that ID).)

# Loss of Habitica guilds and Tavern: Discussion of implications for scribes (working title)

Hello, all! I was really reluctant to make this announcement, because I know people hate seeing notifications on their Wikia/Fandom account for announcements (especially if they're not particularly active editors for the wiki in question), but this felt too important. Therefore, I decided to draw extensive attention to it in order to bring more eyes and potential discussion surrounding it.

As I am sure many know by now, guilds and the Tavern are going away effective August 8 (that's today!), and alongside this, many contributor types, including wiki editing (scribes) are no longer going to be considered for tiers. These twin issues create some things we need to consider regarding how the wiki talks about things. That's the reason for this announcement; it concerns the wiki deeply enough that it warranted a direct statement and discussion *on*-wiki, where people who edit the wiki will *all* (theoretically) frequent and see it.

One last note: I know I'm not the only one with the ability to edit (most of) these mentioned pages, but I have written these proposals based on what *I* would do, so they are phrased in terms of edits I might make. This doesn't mean I'm the person who has to make all these changes or that other people who are currently making changes need to stop.

## Mention of Wizards of the Wiki guild

I plan to go through using AWB (AutoWikiBrowser, a semi-automated editing tool) to find all instances of the guild link or group ID for Wizards of the Wiki. I know at least one of these has been updated to point to a Discord server, but I think alongside this, redirections from what used to point to the guild should be updated to also up encouragement to use on-wiki discussion spaces like talk pages. I'm suggesting this because it's possible some wiki editors might not also be into using Discord for discussions like those (I'm not big on that use case even though I like Discord), but *every* wiki editor edits the wiki. However, I do think that this should be up to consensus and not just something I personally try to force through without consensus, which is why I bring it up here for discussion, instead of just doing it.

## Mentions of other guilds

I *can* search with AWB for groups/guild style urls (and might do this for mainspace pages but won't do it for the keep or userspace or any other non-mainspace link), though what happens to those links will probably be dependent on what their purpose is. I will not be personally making any changes to any guild mentions outside mainspace unless *extremely* imperative. (I think there should be a clear expectation of the basic ways they might be dealt with, though, hence my bringing it up here.)

## Deprecated contributor types

I've noticed banners have gone up on some guidance pages; I think that this kind of banner can for most potential uses be turned into a template so that its raw code doesn't have to be pasted/adapted on each relevant page. (Templates are going to be a recurring theme, here. XP) Edits to page content may also need to be made (and in some cases have already been made! great job!).

## Pages which can only be edited by admins

There are pages with full protection (or which otherwise are locked by the software so that only admin/sysop users can edit them); these are often high-traffic pages (like the main page), pages that control parts of the interface (like the page that populates the navbar), or pages with policy implications (there is a specific rules page on-wiki that is full protected to ensure it continues to adhere to a global Fandom/Wikia policy). These will be edited by me in line with other similar decisions above or by users commenting on this page, where appropriate when they mention guilds or the Tavern (i.e. the mentions could be removed or could be adjusted where a new location is relevant and appropriate). I'm very open to suggestion on the best ways to work with these kinds of mentions so please let me know!

### Specific case: The Knights Chambers keep page index page

Unless there is another suggestion or idea, I plan to add a note or template to the top of the page sometime in the next few days noting the retirement of wiki tiers (but noting the page is kept for historical reference), as well as hide the creation link that autofills a new page for users. I think this makes more sense than deleting the page, plus I'm not sure what deleting the index page might do to pages listed by it since I'm pretty sure the page is part of structure of pages defined by a wiki-style forum extension enabled on this wiki.

## Mainspace pages directly relating to guilds

Unless there are objections, I plan to create a "kept for historical reference" template that encompasses mainspace pages (i.e. Guilds or Tavern) directly and irrevocably related to these removed features, so that information about them can continue to live on. I think this is a better alternative than, say, deleting them or anything like that.

It is *technically* also possible to full protect these pages so that they can no longer be edited, but I don't think that sort of "frozen in time" option is a solution that makes sense here unless the pages suddenly become targets for persistent disruptive or malicious edits. I think the chances of that occurring are extremely low; this wiki is a pretty good bunch and practically runs itself!

## Other concerns

Please **please** raise other concerns you may have in reply to this. This was mostly things that I have the power and tools to deal with, but other concerns are welcome as well! Thank you!