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All content is licensed under a Creative Commons by-nc-sa license, unless otherwise noted. All other information, art, skill images, are Copyright to their original creators, NCSoft, or ArenaNet.

In English, this means that any original thought you create is yours, but you license it permanently to us. We create derivative works based upon your original content--that's the nature of a wiki. We, in turn, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 license, relicense these works under the same license. This means that, while you retain copyright of your content (you could sell your original contributions to whomever you wanted, or you could license them under different terms somewhere else), we will always have the right to distribute it for free. Further, since we distribute under this license to anybody who accesses this site, everybody in the world will always have the right to distribute your contribution, and any edits to your contribution, for free, provided they are never used for a commercial purpose.

The first paragraph says that most of the substantive content of the Guild Wiki is licensed by-nc-sa, which governs what visitors (but not necessarily contributors) can do with the Guild Wiki content. The second paragraph (beginning with "In English,") purports to decode the legalese of the first paragraph, but what it actually does is sloppily add a bunch of new principles about user contribution. In unclear terms, it seems to come close to saying that user contributions are given under a permanent, unlimited license.

A contributor might think that (thanks to the CC stamp) they are giving their contribution under a by-nc-sa license, but what they are actually doing is giving it under a permanent, unlimited license. By-nc-sa refers to Guild Wiki's choice to restrict the rights of anyone wanting to use the materials originally licensed to it by Guild Wiki's contributors.

However, because Guild Wiki didn't use the word "unlimited" in describing the license automatic to any user contribution, it's ultimately unclear as to which copyrights the contributors were supposed to be waiving when they decided to post. The only thing word that Guild Wiki uses to explain the license is "permanent." This is like me telling my neighbor that he can BLANK my lawn mower for however long he wants.

It's ugly, and I would bet that any attorney approached by either party will immediately (a) facepalm, then (b) explain why the case is not likely to be easy.

The screenshots may not fall under fair use, but the verbatim copies of text is not all that essential for the Wiki.

Here's an example... Everything here should be OK under fair use: http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Profession (even the profession icons are custom, not ripped). Everything here should probably also be OK, because it's only a small cropped part of a screenshot: http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Weapon . I'm not sure about things like these though, which has excessive quotes as you say: http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Lord_Darrin However, assuming they filter out the screenshots, and these quotes that are actually quite non-essential to the wiki in giving game advice and stats, they'll be much better off at least as for the fair use thing. By far most is clearly user contributed here and not "ripped".

The screenshots may not fall under fair use, but the verbatim copies of text is not all that essential for the Wiki.

Here's an example... Everything here should be OK under fair use: http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Profession (even the profession icons are custom, not ripped). Everything here should probably also be OK, because it's only a small cropped part of a screenshot: http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Weapon . I'm not sure about things like these though, which has excessive quotes as you say: http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Lord_Darrin However, assuming they filter out the screenshots, and these quotes that are actually quite non-essential to the wiki in giving game advice and stats, they'll be much better off at least as for the fair use thing. By far most is clearly user contributed here and not "ripped".

The screenshots may not fall under fair use, but the verbatim copies of text is not all that essential for the Wiki.

Here's an example... Everything here should be OK under fair use: http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Profession (even the profession icons are custom, not ripped). Everything here should probably also be OK, because it's only a small cropped part of a screenshot: http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Weapon . I'm not sure about things like these though, which has excessive quotes as you say: http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Lord_Darrin However, assuming they filter out the screenshots, and these quotes that are actually quite non-essential to the wiki in giving game advice and stats, they'll be much better off at least as for the fair use thing. By far most is clearly user contributed here and not "ripped".

(note: reposted because I forgot to login the first time - sorry)
Many aspects of the initial story here are flat out wrong.

First, the old owner sold the domain, and is handing over management of the wiki's content. Wikia will likewise make downloads available to anyone who wants it.

For a better understanding of the history of the wiki, see this posting: http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/User_talk:Gravewit#An_Open_Letter

For a better understanding of one of the complaints raised about the sale, see this posting: http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/User_talk:Gravewit#Hoping_to_ride_this_one_out_too.3F

For the one slim hope the community retains to either create their own wiki, or to at least redirect traffic to a community supported site, see this posting: http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/User_talk:Tanaric#WHOIS_lookup_on_.22Guildwiki.org.22

(note: reposted because I forgot to login the first time - sorry)
Many aspects of the initial story here are flat out wrong.

First, the old owner sold the domain, and is handing over management of the wiki's content. Wikia will likewise make downloads available to anyone who wants it.

For a better understanding of the history of the wiki, see this posting: http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/User_talk:Gravewit#An_Open_Letter

For a better understanding of one of the complaints raised about the sale, see this posting: http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/User_talk:Gravewit#Hoping_to_ride_this_one_out_too.3F

For the one slim hope the community retains to either create their own wiki, or to at least redirect traffic to a community supported site, see this posting: http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/User_talk:Tanaric#WHOIS_lookup_on_.22Guildwiki.org.22

(note: reposted because I forgot to login the first time - sorry)
Many aspects of the initial story here are flat out wrong.

First, the old owner sold the domain, and is handing over management of the wiki's content. Wikia will likewise make downloads available to anyone who wants it.

For a better understanding of the history of the wiki, see this posting: http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/User_talk:Gravewit#An_Open_Letter

For a better understanding of one of the complaints raised about the sale, see this posting: http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/User_talk:Gravewit#Hoping_to_ride_this_one_out_too.3F

For the one slim hope the community retains to either create their own wiki, or to at least redirect traffic to a community supported site, see this posting: http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/User_talk:Tanaric#WHOIS_lookup_on_.22Guildwiki.org.22

Many aspects of the initial story here are flat out wrong.

First, the old owner sold the domain, and is handing over management of the wiki's content. Wikia will likewise make downloads available to anyone who wants it.

For a better understanding of the history of the wiki, see this posting: http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/User_talk:Gravewit#An_Open_Letter

For a better understanding of one of the complaints raised about the sale, see this posting: http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/User_talk:Gravewit#Hoping_to_ride_this_one_out_too.3F

For the one slim hope the community retains to either create their own wiki, or to at least redirect traffic to a community supported site, see this posting: http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/User_talk:Tanaric#WHOIS_lookup_on_.22Guildwiki.org.22

Many aspects of the initial story here are flat out wrong.

First, the old owner sold the domain, and is handing over management of the wiki's content. Wikia will likewise make downloads available to anyone who wants it.

For a better understanding of the history of the wiki, see this posting: http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/User_talk:Gravewit#An_Open_Letter

For a better understanding of one of the complaints raised about the sale, see this posting: http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/User_talk:Gravewit#Hoping_to_ride_this_one_out_too.3F

For the one slim hope the community retains to either create their own wiki, or to at least redirect traffic to a community supported site, see this posting: http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/User_talk:Tanaric#WHOIS_lookup_on_.22Guildwiki.org.22

Many aspects of the initial story here are flat out wrong.

First, the old owner sold the domain, and is handing over management of the wiki's content. Wikia will likewise make downloads available to anyone who wants it.

For a better understanding of the history of the wiki, see this posting: http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/User_talk:Gravewit#An_Open_Letter

For a better understanding of one of the complaints raised about the sale, see this posting: http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/User_talk:Gravewit#Hoping_to_ride_this_one_out_too.3F

For the one slim hope the community retains to either create their own wiki, or to at least redirect traffic to a community supported site, see this posting: http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/User_talk:Tanaric#WHOIS_lookup_on_.22Guildwiki.org.22

Have you read most of the articles on these wikis?

Have you? Let's take a look at a typical page from GuildWiki:

Grand Court of Sebelkeh (Mission)

I would hope it would be patently obvious to you and everyone else that what you've said above is false. Are there screenshots and quotes from the game? Yes. Does this constitute "the vast majority" of the content? Please, not even close. The vast majority of the content on GuildWiki comes from the contributors themselves.

That was exactly my first thought when reading the GuildWiki:Copyrights page. It just says that the posters retain the original copyright, and that it's permanently licensed to GuildWiki. It then goes on to say that GuildWiki relicenses that information under a CC-BY-NC-SA license. If I'm not mistaken, they are completely free to change the relicensing terms whenever and however they want. What is not clear, however, are the terms that the posters originally licensed the material to GuildWiki under--just that a permanent license has been granted. Sorry guys, but legally GuildWiki is fully in the clear here.

Hmm, the PvP[1] in Guild Wars sounds a bit more of a sport than WoW PvP.

Not sure if it'll be something you'd like though: players are capped at lev 20, can only take 8 skills to a battle, you can reallocate your attributes however you like (max on strength or min or whatever), but once in the battle "instance" that's it, it's fairly easy to get max attrib weapons, a bit harder to ge max mods, but no biggie.

I don't think there are any "consumables" that can be useful in a PvP battle.

[1] Example PvP mission descriptions:

http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Fort_Aspenwood

http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Etnaran_Keys

Hmm, the PvP[1] in Guild Wars sounds a bit more of a sport than WoW PvP.

Not sure if it'll be something you'd like though: players are capped at lev 20, can only take 8 skills to a battle, you can reallocate your attributes however you like (max on strength or min or whatever), but once in the battle "instance" that's it, it's fairly easy to get max attrib weapons, a bit harder to ge max mods, but no biggie.

I don't think there are any "consumables" that can be useful in a PvP battle.

[1] Example PvP mission descriptions:

http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Fort_Aspenwood

http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Etnaran_Keys