RLWiki:RLWiki NEO: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 14:21, 6 May 2026

Codenamed RLWiki NEO, the Rolling Lounge Wiki is migrating from Miraheze to Rolling Lounge's own website. The wiki is now self-hosted on an Ubuntu Virtual Private Server (VPS) on Oracle Cloud, managed by AZMindroma.

Reasons for the Migration[edit | edit source]

Bigger reasons[edit | edit source]

Slow performance[edit | edit source]

Miraheze is a large wikifarm that hosts over 8800 wikis^[1] and understandably so, needs the adequate processing power. While it is a wonderful project and the ones powering it deserve all the credit they get, it does load relatively slowly.

Self-hosting the wiki allows the server to concentrate on putting the appropriate processing power on the wiki, which has faster load times.

Dormancy policy[edit | edit source]

Miraheze has a dormancy policy in which a wiki can get closed down or even deleted if it's inactive for too long.^[2] While this is an understandable process from Miraheze's side, the RL Wiki is not guaranteed to have sufficient activity to avoid the process - in fact, the 60-day threshold has been reached multiple times already.

As there is no such policy when self-hosting the wiki, there is no need to worry about the data getting deleted due to inactivity.

Smaller reasons[edit | edit source]

Full autonomy[edit | edit source]

While Miraheze does grant a lot of autonomy already, it's incomplete. For example, its extension list is a predefined set of extensions that are sufficient for most use cases, but adding any extension not included in the list would require requesting it.^[3]

Self-hosting gives us full autonomy over every single aspect of the wiki without being bound to anyone else.

More personalized domain[edit | edit source]

Since the rollinglounge.net domain is in our ownership, we're able to use a more personalized domain: wiki.rollinglounge.net.

Additional improvements[edit | edit source]

Together with the migration, some improvements have been made to the wiki. While all these improvements could have already been done in the Miraheze wiki, the migration gave us a good opportunity to implement them.

Better infobox "backend code"[edit | edit source]

Most of the templates and modules in the RL Wiki are carbon copies from Wikipedia. The templates have only been adjusted as little as possible until they worked with our use cases with little knowledge on how these templates were made. This, however, had resulted in a lot of redundant and useless code left in these templates and the need to import more templates and modules from Wikipedia than needed.

Especially infoboxes - there was code left for handling IRL maps in the infoboxes for people.^[4] This has been fixed in the new wiki, with infobox code only (for the most part) including necessary elements.

Better infobox naming[edit | edit source]

In Miraheze, the infoboxes often had some weird names. Most notably, "RSplayer," which was a generic infobox for Rolling Lounge members.^[4] There were also unnecessary duplicates for templates that, in essence, had the same purpose.^[5]^[6]

New Discord Access System / WGASO[edit | edit source]

To prevent irrelevant discussions from the Discord channels (which cannot be moderated often), a manual approval system was put into place. Now it's possible to self-assign access to the Wiki by going to the RL | WGASO server and entering the WGASO code "RLWIKINEO" (without the quotation marks) to gain access to the RL Wiki channels.

Better backup abilities[edit | edit source]

Due to us self-hosting the wiki, it's easier to make backups of it as well. There is a Special page to get data dumps from Miraheze wikis, but is limited to text. Within self-hosted wikis, this process becomes significantly easier due to ownership over all files for the wiki.

Challenges[edit | edit source]

Spam attacks[edit | edit source]

As a Miraheze wiki, the Rolling Lounge Wiki had the various spam protection mechanisms from Miraheze. On a self-hosted instance, this is not the case, and this had already resulted in a massive spam attack towards this wiki. To combat this, several extensions have been installed and configured:

StopForumSpam[edit | edit source]

Every day, the wiki fetches the latest IP blocklist from StopForumSpam.com.

Cloudflare Turnstile[edit | edit source]

As a better alternative for hCaptcha, the used captcha service is now Cloudflare Turnstile. According to MediaWiki, the effectiveness of Turnstile is very high.^[7]

Autoconfirmation requirements[edit | edit source]

The new requirements to be autoconfirmed on the wiki is now having an account that is at least 4 days old AND has 10 edits. Only then is it possible to bypass the captcha.

References[edit | edit source]

[1] ttps://miraheze.org/

[2] ttps://meta.miraheze.org/wiki/Dormancy_Policy#Process

[3] ttps://meta.miraheze.org/wiki/Extensions#Disclaimers

[infoboxrsplayer-4] 4.0 ^4.1 https://rollinglounge.miraheze.org/wiki/Template:Infobox_RSplayer?action=edit

[5] ttps://rollinglounge.miraheze.org/wiki/Template:Infobox_RSLevel

[6] ttps://rollinglounge.miraheze.org/wiki/Template:Infobox_RJLevel?action=edit

[7] ttps://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ConfirmEdit

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-Codenamed '''RLWiki NEO''', the Rolling Lounge Wiki is migrating from Miraheze to Rolling Lounge's own website.
+Codenamed '''RLWiki NEO''', the Rolling Lounge Wiki is migrating from [[mw:Miraheze|Miraheze]] to Rolling Lounge's own website. The wiki is now self-hosted on an [[wikipedia:Ubuntu|Ubuntu]] [[wikipedia:Virtual Private Server|Virtual Private Server (VPS)]] on [[wikipedia:Oracle Cloud|Oracle Cloud]], managed by [[AZMindroma]].
+[[File:Screenshot_2026-04-30_at_09-29-53_Rolling_Lounge_Wiki.png|thumb|583x583px|alt=A full screenshot taken of the new RL Wiki's homepage in light mode|Screenshot of the new RL Wiki's [[Main Page]], taken on April 30th, 2026.]]
 == Reasons for the Migration ==
@@ Line 6: / Line 7: @@
 Miraheze is a large wikifarm that hosts over 8800 wikis<ref>https://miraheze.org/</ref> and understandably so, needs the adequate processing power. While it is a wonderful project and the ones powering it deserve all the credit they get, it does load relatively slowly.
-Self-hosting the wiki allows for the server to concentrate on putting the appropriate processing power on the wiki, which has faster load times.
+Self-hosting the wiki allows the server to concentrate on putting the appropriate processing power on the wiki, which has faster load times.
 ==== Dormancy policy ====
 Miraheze has a dormancy policy in which a wiki can get closed down or even deleted if it's inactive for too long.<ref>https://meta.miraheze.org/wiki/Dormancy_Policy#Process</ref> While this is an understandable process from Miraheze's side, the RL Wiki is not guaranteed to have sufficient activity to avoid the process - in fact, the 60-day threshold has been reached multiple times already.
@@ Line 19: / Line 20: @@
 === More personalized domain ===
-Since the rollinglounge.net domain is in our ownership, we're able to use a more personalized domain: wiki.rollinglounge.net
+Since the rollinglounge.net domain is in our ownership, we're able to use a more personalized domain: '''wiki.rollinglounge.net'''.
 == Additional improvements ==
 Together with the migration, some improvements have been made to the wiki. While all these improvements could have already been done in the Miraheze wiki, the migration gave us a good opportunity to implement them.
 === Better infobox "backend code" ===
-Most of the templates and modules in the RL Wiki are carbon copies from Wikipedia. The templates have only been adjusted as little as possible until they worked with our use cases with little knowledge on how these templates were made. This, however, had resulted in a lot of redundant and useless code left in these templates.
+Most of the templates and modules in the RL Wiki are carbon copies from Wikipedia. The templates have only been adjusted as little as possible until they worked with our use cases with little knowledge on how these templates were made. This, however, had resulted in a lot of redundant and useless code left in these templates and the need to import more templates and modules from Wikipedia than needed.
 Especially infoboxes - there was code left for handling IRL maps in the infoboxes for people.<ref name="infoboxrsplayer">https://rollinglounge.miraheze.org/wiki/Template:Infobox_RSplayer?action=edit</ref> This has been fixed in the new wiki, with infobox code only (for the most part) including necessary elements.
@@ Line 33: / Line 34: @@
 === New Discord Access System / WGASO ===
 To prevent irrelevant discussions from the Discord channels (which cannot be moderated often), a manual approval system was put into place. Now it's possible to self-assign access to the Wiki by going to the [https://discord.gg/BuZ8XpTuzG RL | WGASO] server and entering the WGASO code "RLWIKINEO" (without the quotation marks) to gain access to the RL Wiki channels.
+=== Better backup abilities ===
+Due to us self-hosting the wiki, it's easier to make backups of it as well. There is a [https://rollinglounge.miraheze.org/wiki/Special:DataDump Special page] to get data dumps from Miraheze wikis, but is limited to text. Within self-hosted wikis, this process becomes significantly easier due to ownership over all files for the wiki.
+== Challenges ==
+=== Spam attacks ===
+[[File:Screenshot_2026-04-30_at_08-36-28_Version_-_Rolling_Lounge_Wiki.png|thumb|alt=A screenshot showing a list of various MediaWiki extensions used to protect the RL Wiki from spam attacks|New antispam extensions as seen from [[Special:Version]]]]
+As a Miraheze wiki, the Rolling Lounge Wiki had the various spam protection mechanisms from Miraheze. On a self-hosted instance, this is not the case, and this had already resulted in a massive spam attack towards this wiki. To combat this, several extensions have been installed and configured:
+==== StopForumSpam ====
+Every day, the wiki fetches the latest IP blocklist from StopForumSpam.com.
+==== Cloudflare Turnstile ====
+As a better alternative for hCaptcha, the used captcha service is now Cloudflare Turnstile. According to MediaWiki, the effectiveness of Turnstile is very high.<ref>https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ConfirmEdit</ref>
+==== Autoconfirmation requirements ====
+The new requirements to be autoconfirmed on the wiki is now having an account that is at least 4 days old AND has 10 edits. Only then is it possible to bypass the captcha.
 == References ==
 <references />