Talk:Fandom (website)/Archive 5

Comments

Baltic states Wiki [[1]] has 86 pages and Althistory Wiki [[2]] has 16,750 pages.86.24.13.136 (talk) 17:08, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Please allow file Wikia Block User.jpg

What is going to happen if I place File:Wikia Block User.jpg? And, articles should be filled with Images, right? Can anybody reply to me? Dipankan ^{In the woods?} 05:44, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

As I mentioned in my edit summary, the image is not noteworthy, nor indeed specific to Wikia (being a screenshot of MediaWiki software). There may also be copyright implications. For what reason should the image be included? What does it add to the article? — Manticore 13:25, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

MediaWiki is free software. →Στc. 21:36, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I tested it in my sandbox, and it does not exist. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Walex03 (talk • contribs) 01:37, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Or at least in the commons no.

[[File:Wink.jpg]] (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 20:17, 25 February 2012 (UTC).

Unverifiable allegations

I apologize for removing large parts of the controversy section without discussion, but the claims that Wikia made changes "against contributors' wishes" and many of its wikis revolted because of that seem contrived, and the only sources that back these statements up are wikis, which are naturally unreliable. If anyone can find a real source to prove that there's been criticism as a direct result of these changes, I'd be glad to keep the information intact, but we should keep it out until then to avoid hurting the company's reputation. ~jcm 19:26, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

They aren't all wikis. References 53-58 are news references. I think you'd be better off taking this in chunks rather than trying to attack the entire controversies section at once. Ryan Vesey Review me! 19:32, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

I had taken those into account during my edit, and I simply modified the paragraphs that were adequately sourced to better reflect those sources. The part I mostly have a problem with is everything under Domain and skin assimilation, since that's where most of the bad sourcing comes in. ~jcm 20:00, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, I agree with you there; however, I feel the information is very useful (if not a little longer than necessary) and should be kept if it can be supported by more reliable sources. What would you think of either hiding the content or moving it to the talk page for it to be worked on? Ryan Vesey Review me! 20:04, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

I'll fully support whichever option you think works best. I agree with what you said about the information being useful, and with a little cleaning up and more verification, it would fit into the article nicely. ~jcm 20:20, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

I have moved the material to the talk page. So it can be supported by more reliable and/or third party sources. Ryan Vesey Review me! 20:27, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

If you follow some of the links you will find they also have sources, and while in some cases not meeting Wikipedia's sense of a reliable source, they are still ones more permanent than wiki articles. The best example I can give is http://doomwiki.org/wiki/Doom_Wiki:Departure_from_Wikia - as a member of the team that worked for nine whole months on migrating this wiki off Wikia for all of the below mentioned reasons, I can assure you that the outrage was both very real and very widespread. The majority of the wikis listed below wouldn't exist if Wikia hadn't forced migration to their horrible new "Wikia" skin against widespread objections. The now-defunct Anti-Wikia-Alliance was formed on Wikia's own admin area, until it was kicked out by hostile mods. Wikia's reputation doesn't need any help becoming bad, they ruined it long ago with their own profit-minded actions. Follow my link and you will find, for example, a link to a news post on doomworld.com referencing the wiki move and the reason for it. --QuasarTE (talk) 05:05, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

The Anti-Wikia alliance still exists at http://awa.shoutwiki.com and there is an earlier archive of Wikia-specific issues at http://complaintwiki.org which dates from the first batch of forced reskins in 2008. The article also needs to mention the Russian (2010) and English (2013) Uncyclopedias have left Wikia. K7L (talk) 19:18, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Domain and skin assimilation

File:FingerLakesWiki.png

The main page of a Wikia site with the defunct "Monaco" skin.

File:RedDeadWiki.png

An article as seen with Wikia's new skin.

Wikia has merged separately founded wikis, such as Uncyclopedia, to subdomains of wikia.com against contributors' wishes, citing a need to boost its attractiveness to advertisers. The company intended to merge Memory Alpha, WoWWiki, and Zelda Wiki in a similar fashion; the proposal was successfully opposed by users of all three sites. Zelda Wiki is still an independent wiki, while WoWWiki and Memory Alpha were merged but allowed to keep their domain names.

In June 2008, Wikia adopted a new skin, Monaco, intending to implement it as the default on almost all hosted wikis. The skin had an uneven reception, with issues over the prominent branding, in-content format-altering ads, and the mandatory nature of the change. Many wiki users felt the choice of skin default should remain their own. The switch went ahead, but some wikis retained Monobook as their default. In September 2008, the Transformers Wikia moved content to their own server, citing the format-altering ads and mandatory changes as reasons for their departure. WikiFur moved likewise in August 2009.

In May 2009, Wikia removed the ability of individual users to choose a skin other than Monaco or Monobook, claiming a testing burden and relative lack of features. Soon after, Wikia removed the option to set the default skin to Monobook, with the exception of certain large wikis, namely, Uncyclopedia.

In August 2010, Wikia announced a new mandatory skin change, this time to a new look nicknamed "Oasis". The new skin omitted several features, such as the popular shoutbox. On September 23, 2010, Wikia introduced the new skin in public beta with the option to be the default skin for certain wikis, like Muppet Wiki. Wikia also revealed the official name of the new skin, Wikia. The Wikia skin became the default skin on Wikia on November 3, 2010. Wikia also changed the Terms of Use, prohibiting any modification that changes the default layout of the skin. As a result of the skin change, some users have proposed to move their wikis to another wiki farm and have created an "Anti-Wikia Alliance" with comments against the new skin, links to wiki farms and a database to keep all the moving wikis. Some wikis, like Guildwiki, have moved from Wikia to Curse.com, but decided to leave a presence on Wikia, but with a different purpose from their main site on a new host. Some large wikis like Halopedia, Club Penguin Wiki, WikiSimpsons and Grand Theft Wiki have already moved, while others such as MicroWiki, SmashWiki, WoWWiki, The Vault, Touhou Wiki, the Doom Wiki, and Half-Life Wiki (known as Combine OverWiki) have all moved from Wikia also. The new look has been described by Wikia as "sleek" and is supposed to be helpful to new users, but many of the changes have drawn criticism from older users. One such criticism is the greatly reduced width of page content, causing infoboxes and other templates to break the page if they go beyond the fixed margin. Because of this, subdomains such as Marvel Database and DozerfleetWiki have put notices on their front pages strongly encouraging users to switch their personal preferences to Monobook to make the sites easier to use.

References

More than 10 million additional funding

New info for article: "For-profit Wikia raises $10 million third round" "Wikia Inc. ... has closed a nearly $10.9 million Series C round of funding ... The San Francisco company, which has now raised about $25 million ...." -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 21:38, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Biggest Wikis/WAM

IMO We should add a section about biggest wikis. http://wikia.com/WAM should have the info relating to that. Should I add that in? Tech Addict, Fan-Fiction Writer, and Aspiring Filmaker 17:37, May 15, 2013 (UTC)

Bloat

Why Wikipedia comparing to Wikia is so overwhelmingly overbloated with its rules? Wikia rule is simpler. As long as you do not gibberish and do not adulterish, as long it's ok. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.229.235.250 (talk) 13:38, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

This isn't the place for policy discussion. Wikia allows individual wikis to create most of their own policies. Thus you'll find that many wikis there are lax and some are more restrictive. Even different language editions of Wikipedia have different sets of polices, so it isn't really fair to compare the English Wikipedia to an entire collection of wikis. 71.60.164.66 (talk) 03:00, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

"People who use Wikia..."

The sentence "People who use Wikia are called Wikians." should be reworded. People are people and nothing else depending what they use and not use. --CheatCat (talk) 08:10, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Says the Wikipedian. GreenReaper (talk) 15:45, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

WikiProject Wikia?

There a WikiProject for Wikia? -- 70.50.151.11 (talk) 00:24, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm having a lot of fun at Wikia. My username is Variousthings3251.82.114.35.202 (talk) 13:36, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Wikia is like the cancer of the Internet. Like bonjour, mon amore~ 23:20, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Marketing spending

In November 2006, Wikia claimed to have spent only $5.74 on marketing, while generating 40 to 50 million page views

That's what the source says, but it can't possibly be true:

Until the ArmchairGM acquisition, Wikia's more than 1 million users came almost entirely through word of mouth. Penchina said he's spent a mere $5.74 on marketing to generate 40 to 50 million page views during November, roughly on par with several major newspapers' Web sites.

That's presumably $5.74mln, not price of two beers. Taw (talk) 14:08, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Highly unlikely. I think the source incorrectly implies that the marketing generated the page views, when in fact (as implied by the previous sentence) almost all came by organic search results and links. Maybe they had a tiny AdWords campaign running as well and the figure came from that. GreenReaper (talk) 04:13, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Wikia policies apply to Wikipedia

Hi, does some policies from Wikia can apply to Wikipedia because I want to include an image or signature templates on talk pages? So why this isn't Wikia? --Allen ^talk 05:22, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Wikia is not related to Wikipedia. Both platforms have their own rules.
―PapíDimmi (talk | contribs) 16:40, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia edits COI

I am declaring a COI for my edits on this page. I am working on behalf of Wikia to make edits, and will endeavor to stay fully neutral and within Wikipedia's policies. Yogi Beara (talk) 22:24, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

WHY YOU WORK FOR WIKIA??? Like bonjour, mon amore~ 03:32, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

This

Is it really a Wikia controversy? Wikia has no involvement into the controversy–other than hosting the wiki–and there are plenty of controversial Wikia wikis that have no mention. There's better places to put this, but does it really warrant to be put here? Pyrotle…the "y" is silent, BTW. 23:29, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, it isn't really a controversy – so it shouldn't be in that section. It should be under trivia or something. --Musdan77 (talk) 22:39, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

• Tempted to remove the RFC tag -- This RFC was not worded properly, editors being called in by the 'bot have no idea what you are asking about because the rFC does not state clearly what issues of contention are and what third party opinions you are seeking. Damotclese (talk) 16:03, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
• Delete Trivia that is un-related to the article-subject except in a "connect the dots" kind of way. Not even appropriate for the Creepypasta page, given that the only sources provided are local. We do not have a "crime beat" page covering every local homicide or burglary. CorporateM (Talk) 16:42, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

I have boldly removed the content here for anyone who wishes to see it. I also gave the article a once-over removing primary sources, community pages that are crowd-sourced, junk sources and consolidating the Controversy section into other areas of the page. I am surprised that a page that should be of great interest to a lot of Wikipedians was in such poor shape; the content gave me the impression of mostly being contributed by editors with an agenda to either promote Wikia, create backlinks to their Wikia or use Wikipedia to soapbox their personal gripes. Needs close watchlisting and steady article-improvement. CorporateM (Talk) 17:26, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

• Endorse removal completely irrelevant to Wikia's governance. This RFC should be closed early by the requestor. The bot sent me. EllenCT (talk) 04:13, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
• Endorse removalas irrelevant to the article. QuiteUnusual (talk) 11:05, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

• No clue what this RFC is about. Sorry. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 01:05, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
• Comment - Invited here by a bot. Poorly formulated RFC. Very unlikely to resolve the issue whatever it is. No way to arrive at consensus if there is no clear proposal or question. Jojalozzo (talk) 04:16, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

An unquestioned statement from 2008

From the article:

Wikia [... m]aterial is allowed, as long as the added material does not duplicate Wikimedia Foundation projects. Many of the site's hosted wikis follow the style of Wikipedia, but offer detail beyond what is considered appropriate by Wikipedia's policies. For example, a minor character in a Star Wars film may have its own article on Wookieepedia, whereas the character may not be considered notable enough for a Wikipedia page.

I have added the templates because there is nothing in the cited article that backs up the limitation statement (the article is a 2007 business news article on Wikia, not some WP policy). Furthermore, the statement itself seems to me to be false. The original version of it was added in 2008 [3], and it has since been changed to use a different example (a minor character in Star Wars). However, minor characters in fiction do have their own articles on Wikipedia, and that argument is still going on with Pokemon characters,and other places. It certainly has not been resolved by the community at WP as this reads above. See WP:FICTION and WP:Fancruft for the issues. There are a great number of WP:Fiction based articles on Wikipedia, and (for this reason) a great deal of writing that covers the same topics on WP are covered on various sites hosted by Wikia. However, the idea that certain detailed fictional material is too detailed for Wikipedia and thus should be deleted and "covered" on Wikia is pernicious. It tends to intrinsically harm Wikipedia's coverage of fictional topics. For example there are episodes of the original Star Trek on Wikipedia that have gone to ruin, and now don't have a single photo. See Requiem for Methuselah, for an example. Then Google the episode name and compare with the treatment of the same episode on Memory Alpha, which makes money for Wikia. See the point? SBHarris 03:59, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

the example does't have to be fiction. See the wikias for cameras, or model railroading, or carpentry tools. But even in fiction, the is a level of minor below which we do not go, and there is no level of minor which they exclude. It is perfectly factual that most wikias have nothing resembling a notability criterion, and that wikipedia does. DGG ( talk ) 04:02, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

there should be a criticism section on wikia

wikia does have a bad reputation in the fact that they do not remove content i have been reasearching wikia and on here the comments are favorable of wikia http://webtrends.about.com/u/r/od/wikireviews/fr/wikia_review.htm also Shout wiki host the anti wikia alliance http://awa.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Anti-Wikia_Alliance

"All wikias are subject to closure or alteration if necessary. Wikia staff and helpers may contact the community about making changes to the wikia, including the site name or url, to meet our Terms of Use or to improve search visibility and ad display. While a wikia's founder may request that their project be closed, if the topic is of general public interest Wikia generally prefers to leave dormant wikias available for adoption.

"Wikias which have no content, or remain inactive, or have a large overlap with another wikia may be merged with another project, locked from editing, or closed completely. In the case of complete closure of wikias that previously had content, the database of content will be made available for download."

"You understand and agree that others may, but are not obligated to, edit, delete or remove (without notice) any content from the Service, for any reason or no reason." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jonnymoon96 (talk • contribs)

Wikia issue

Today, at about 9am New Zealand Time there was an incident when a Wikia Staff member account was stolen. You can check at Wikia. 115.188.198.32 (talk) 01:39, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Neutrality Flag (dated February 2015) removed by LeoRomero (Dec 2015)

Mabuhay! I tumbled into this page as I was updating my Gratitude list (Page does not exist because I don't really have one), which led me to this page I created on Wikia almost 100 wikiyears ago It's got a bigass ad on it now, but it didn't back then, when we do-gooders got into it, when yawl was just pups. We tried to use Wikia for our do-gooder work, and we did use it, for a year or two.

Then, as Wikia took off, there were even more ads, then even more ads, and even more ads. Most of my friends loathed the ads. I was a bit more understanding: This is a free service alyawl, you gonna pay for all this? Still, I let Wikia know that my kind of do-gooder will not use Wikia wth ads. We object to ads, and the runaway decadent consumerism that's consuming the world, much thanks to advertising.

So I have a Conflict of Interest.

On another hand (I have several hands), I do like ALL the people I met at Wikia (Bill, Sannse, Angela, Gil, Jimmy n em). And some do-gooder friends of mine did stay to do their do-gooding, through Wikia. I guess that balances out my Conflict:

- iLoatheAds + iHeartWikians + WikiaDoesGood = ~ 0

I'm about to remove this waaay old flag [ 9 Earth-Months = 9 Wiki-Years ] I went through both the Article and the Talk page, edit by edit, since 2.25.15 - the date the flag was raised. (I thanked you for the edits that helped me understand the problem, from all available sides - I wasn't just stalking you again) In Talk, there are suggestions to include specific criticism against Wikia. If they haven't already been added into the article, it's never too late criticize all you want. (I think everyone should be free to do pretty much anything they want in Wikipedia; just respect our core rules on content WP:CCPOL; bonus if you're WP:KIND)

I see no need for the flag. Au contraire, bonjour, if there's no WP:POV problem, then leaving the flag would itself be misleading.

Kindest; Loretta/LeoRomero (talk) 04:16, 11 December 2015 (UTC)