Board Thread:News and Announcements/@comment-3495717-20170401131530

After more than a decade of activity, the admin team at the MUGEN Database have made the painful decision to close the wiki down. Yes, this may come as a shock to many of you, maybe even those who hold negative feelings towards this place, but we feel it's the right course of action after reviewing activity from both here and other M.U.G.E.N websites. Before you instantly think this is another silly April Fools prank just because of the day we chose to announce this, be aware that we wanted to make sure the wiki didn't get closed on April 1st, so we sent the closure request to Wikia on this day to guarantee it gets closed after that; we don't actually know how long it takes for Wikia to process such a request, so we didn't want to send it through before today in the event that it coincidentally closed today.

Putting it bluntly, we barely get any visitors these days, much less contributors, meaning people simply aren't interested in a wiki about M.U.G.E.N and its content.

Realistically, there are better places to get M.U.G.E.N content these days; M.U.G.E.N forums like the Guild and MFFA see plenty of great releases that honestly deserve more attention, plus there's the MUGEN ARCHIVE. Yes, the MUGEN ARCHIVE has been the subject of criticism over the last year or so, but when you put things into perspective, all they're doing is preserving M.U.G.E.N content and making a little cash on the side, most of which I'm sure is going towards paying for their servers, especially since servers don't come cheap.

In addition, the MUGEN ARCHIVE recently reopened their wiki pre-loaded with far more content this we currently have, essentially beating us by a country mile right off the bat; we simply cannot compete with their sheer number of quality articles that give the reader more than what we offer them, and this is one of the major reasons why we feel the need to close.

Longevity doesn't mean anything when you hold onto old practices and don't embrace the modern era, which is evident by our strong feelings against Wikia's push to mobile, hence why this wiki doesn't work overly well with their mobile skin; but that is our problem for not accepting that it's sadly the way forward, and as such, we have been left behind and will soon be forgotten.

For the record, this doesn't mean we don't appreciate everything our contributors have done for this wiki over the years; quite the opposite, in fact. To all of you who have documented whole creations, ripped animations, or simply fixed up typos, you have our gratitude.

Of course, this does essentially mean all those hours spent improving this place have been a waste, we are sorry to say. I, personally, have probably wasted the most time improving this place, so at least you can be safe in the knowledge that none of you have wasted more time than myself.

Obsolete is what this wiki has already become thanks to the greater manpower of other places. To everyone who has ridiculed this place over the years, you're right, this place is terrible and we're simply being horribly stubborn for not taking on board all your improvements; to not list frame data of characters, to not list a character's moveset as it appears in the ReadMe, to not list the undoubtedly important Command Normals...this is our fault for being too stubborn to realise that you were right all along.

Lastly, some of you may ask why we don't simply incorporate these changes now that we know we were wrong for rejecting them, and that ultimately boils down to the unshiftable negative reputation this place has built up over the years; the MUGEN Database name (or Mugen Wikia, as it is often known) is a name that has been run through the mud for years now, to the point where it is instantaneously associated with anything bad in the M.U.G.E.N community.

So what happens now? Although this place will be closing, don't forget that the MUGEN ARCHIVE's wiki, which is far superior to ours, needs more contributors, so if you've still got a passion for editing wikis, go help them out! The MUGEN Database Discord, which has suddenly become Gensokyo, shall remain open for the foreseeable future, though it's very likely its name will be changed to something else. This is PlasmoidThunder, signing off. 