(account deleted) 13 Mar 2009 00:53
First let me preface this post with a disclaimer that these are MY OWN thoughts, feelings, and opinions about the whole Wikidot situation. I cannot assume what Michal and Piotr intended to do and I am NOT ACCUSING them of anything.
Anyway, I have received a fair bit of criticism about my decision to delete my wiki's after the latest changes made to Wikidot.
Firstly, this was not a rash decision that I have made (despite the accusations of over-reacting on my part). Instead this has come about after several months careful thought and consideration.
I have been generally unhappy with the direction that wikidot has been heading recently.
First with the REMOVAL of features from free accounts, the decision to start CHARGING users (customers?) for what should be basic functionality, and now the decision to place advertising on the free wikis (despite having previously PROMISED not to).
So to be honest with you it is not even about the ads, but the way the developers have gone about it makes me FEEL as though I have been LIED to.
My thoughts about the decision to include ads:
Yes I am aware that I can customise them, colour them and stick them where I want (thanks Phil, but I don't struggle with basic comprehension), but that is beside the point.
I simply DON'T WANT THEM and DON'T WANT TO BURDEN my visitors with them either.
And yes, I am also aware that the ads are not shown to any members, but the thing is I don't have any members (Except for my helpers).
You see the thing is I didn't want to scare people off with the needlessly complicated sign-up procedure, which discourages people from becoming involved.
Heck, I would not bother to go through such a draconian process myself to sign-up, so I figured that other people probably wouldn't want to either.
But this is not about the ads, per se…
Now I don't have an unrealistic utopian vision that "all information should be free."
I understand the importance of paying someone for their labour, and also believe that people should be properly compensated for their time and work.
But this latest decision to include ads FEELS as though it is an opportunistic grab for money.
If we were to take a hypothetical "worst-case scenario," there are approximately 300,000 wikidot wikis now.
Even if each site were to raise $1 per year from Google ads then the revenue would still be $300,000
Granted not every wiki has Google ads enabled, but we are also not even taking into account the money raised from the PRO and PRO+ accounts.
Now I don't know how much it costs to run the service, have no idea of the hardware costs, maintenence, bandwidth, labour for development, but I doubt that the Wikidot deleopers are actually poor or going broke.
But I digress because the whole issue is not even about the money, it is more about seeing the previously free features slowly ERODING.
Just imagine for a moment that you have a jar of jelly-beans.
And every day one of those jelly-beans is being eaten by someone else.
At first you do not concern yourself, because you have so many jelly-beans.
But eventually you realise that you do not have as many jelly-beans as you used to,
So you get angry that someone has been taking your jelly-beans away.
This is how I feel with Wikidot and this is why I am so upset/annoyed/angry.
Now you discover that your younger brother/sister is the one that has been stealing your jelly-beans.
Their argument is that you could always go out and buy some more jelly-beans.
And they are right, you could buy more jelly-beans if you wanted to.
But you shouldn't have to. And for that they deserve a noogie. 
I could pay for the additional features (that I previously had)…
I could pay to remove the ads (that were promised not to be used)…
But that is not the point. I should not have to.
Now, for those that would argue that "they are not charging much for what you get," I agree.
Having now investigated other wiki providers, I can tell you that most others charge a lot more an offer a lot less features.
However my CONCERN is if I do pay for a subscription, what else might be taken away?
Will I find myself losing more of the features and functionality that I previously had unless I upgrade my account every 12 months?
Ultimately it is this growing UNCERTAINTY that now turns me off of Wikidot.
At least if I sign-up with another wiki provider, I know where I stand.
Granted I have invested a lot of time and effort to getting my wiki established here, but it is nothing that can't be resurrected somewhere else.
Lastly I just wanted to thank all of the kind members that helped me to make Smileypedia one of the most visited wikidot sites (according to Alexa), and also made the Wikidot forums such a great place to hang-out.
Especially Ed Johnson, Erich Steinboeck, Gerdami, Helmuti Pdorf, James Kanjo, Phil Chett, Timothy Foster, and probably others that I have forgotten too.
Regards,
BradLee
