Memorandum of Understanding with Weird Gloop

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The following is a copy of the memorandum of understanding that was created to regulate the hosting relationship between Weird Gloop and the Minecraft Wiki community until a legal entity for the Minecraft Wiki is created that can enter a legally binding contract.

Memorandum of Understanding: Hosting Minecraft Wiki

This is a memorandum of understanding between Weird Gloop Ltd and a group of Minecraft Wiki community members. The community members wish to engage Weird Gloop to host the Minecraft Wiki, and this document outlines the mutually agreed-upon parameters of a future contract that will define that business engagement.

For the avoidance of doubt, this memorandum is not legally binding - the community members do not currently control a corporate entity that could enter into such an agreement, but both parties intend to negotiate a legally binding contract once such an entity exists. Throughout the rest of this memo, it is expected that in the future contract, references to "community members" will be replaced by references to whatever successor legal entity is created.

General terms

Weird Gloop intends to host the English version of the Minecraft Wiki on infrastructure that is highly similar to that which is used to host the RuneScape wikis. Currently that includes a MediaWiki installation on Google Kubernetes Engine, file-serving through Google Cloud Storage, and various Cloudflare layers. These infrastructure specifics may change at any time and aren't subject to approval by the community members.

The community members are responsible for the content on the wiki. Weird Gloop does not intend to influence or control the content of the wiki, and would only intervene in the following two circumstances:

  • If Weird Gloop, or community members, become the subject of current or threatened litigation related to operation of the Minecraft Wiki, or operation of the Minecraft Wiki becomes unlawful, Weird Gloop reserves the right to temporarily remove the disputed content, or in extreme cases, temporarily shut down the Minecraft Wiki
  • If specific content or code on the Minecraft Wiki threatens the technical stability of the Minecraft Wiki or Weird Gloop's overall operations, Weird Gloop reserves the right to make on-wiki changes to restore the previous service level

Community members may request changes to the Minecraft Wiki’s MediaWiki configuration, including new extensions. Weird Gloop is not obligated to implement these changes, but generally will unless there is a substantially good reason to the contrary.

Weird Gloop will inform the community members in advance of any wiki maintenance that is expected to have visible consequences for readers or editors of the Minecraft Wiki.

Additional wikis

Other Minecraft-related wikis are likely to be transferred to Weird Gloop's infrastructure and hosted on minecraft.wiki in the coming months or years. These transfers require the joint consent of:

  • Weird Gloop
  • The community members
  • Whatever decision-making body, process or persons that can be reasonably ascertained to speak on behalf of the transferring wiki

For non-English versions of the main Minecraft Wiki, Weird Gloop's consent has already been given.

Advertising and revenue

Weird Gloop intends to display advertisements on the Minecraft Wiki on the sidebar or footer of desktop pageviews for logged-out users not residing in the EU/UK.

User-visible changes to the advertising configuration will not be done without consent of the community members, other than the following exceptions:

  • Weird Gloop may change their display advertising partner at any time
  • Weird Gloop may start serving display ads to EU/UK users (in the same configuration as shown to US users) without approval of the community members

For either of those exceptions, Weird Gloop will communicate the changes to the community members, but may make those changes without consent of the community members.

Additionally, community members agree to:

  • Not make changes to the wiki's default desktop appearance for logged-out users that results in the display advertisements disappearing or otherwise significantly changing from their intended position.
  • Configure the sidebar in such a way that the average vertical starting position of a sidebar ad placement (averaged over all relevant pageviews) is approximately 1150px or less. This can be accomplished by limiting the height of the sidebar contents, collapsing sections by default, allowing the ad to interrupt the sidebar, or any other method that community members decide on in the future.

Weird Gloop is not obligated to share any specific portion of advertising revenue with community members. If operating the Minecraft Wiki is profitable, Weird Gloop intends to fund some projects related to the Minecraft Wiki community (perhaps including merchandise, or the incorporation-related costs of the community members' upcoming legal entity, estimated at less than €1000), but it is highly unlikely that this funding would rise to the level of employing anyone to work full-time on Minecraft Wiki.

Termination

For avoidance of doubt, this section refers to terms of termination of the future business engagement, not the termination of this memorandum (which is not legally binding).

Both parties do not see termination as a particularly likely outcome, but prefer making it straightforward for either party to terminate at any time, rather than exhaustively listing out obligations that, if not met, would constitute a breach of contract.

Either party may terminate the agreement, for any reason, at any time, with 30 days notice. The specific mechanism for giving notice will be decided in the future contract.

Upon termination by either party, Weird Gloop is obligated to:

  • Cease operating any version of the Minecraft Wiki
  • Transfer ownership of the minecraft.wiki domain to the community members
  • Provide dumps of Minecraft Wiki databases and image repositories, and any of Weird Gloop's MediaWiki configuration that is specific to Minecraft Wiki
  • Assist in transferring to the community members any domain-adjacent assets or accounts that cannot reasonably be acquired without Weird Gloop's cooperation
    • This does not include any of Weird Gloop's core MediaWiki code, Cloudflare configuration, or accounts/relationships related to advertising or sponsorships

If terminated by community members, community members are obligated to:

  • Remit to Weird Gloop 33% of gross advertising/sponsorship revenue, if any, arising from operating the Minecraft Wiki during the first 12 months post-termination. This obligation is waived if the termination occurs after 24 September 2025.
  • Reimburse Weird Gloop for the domain registrar cost of minecraft.wiki, prorated for however much time is left on the registration.


Signed on September 28, 2023 by

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