Template:Wikia.com / Fandom.com

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For the Wikia wiki sites which dealt with the administration and management of the whole Wikia project by specific language, see: Wikia, Wikia-De, Wikia-Es, Wikia-Fr,.

For the Wikia community portal wiki sites in various languages, see: Wikia Community Central.

For those Wikia wiki sites who left Wikia (forked) to re-establish as an independent wiki or on another wiki farm, see: category: Ex-Wikia.

For sub-categories of Wikia wiki sites by official language portals, see: category:De.Wikia, category:Es.Wikia, category:Fr.Wikia, category:It.Wikia, category:Ja.Wikia, category:Nl.Wikia, category:Pl.Wikia, category:Pt-Br.Wikia, category:Ru.Wikia, category:Sv.Wikia,.

See also the {{Wikia boilerplate}} template.

original Wikicities, 'hosted by' mini banner

original Wikicities logo

subsequent Wikicities logo

Wikia wordmark

Wikia, currently branded as Fandom, and originally known as Wikicities (until 27 March 2006), is a collection of over 250,000 wiki sites. Known as a 'wiki farm', it is owned by its parent company Wikia, Inc. Wikicities was founded 18 October 2004 by American internet entrepreneur Jimmy 'Jimbo' Wales (who had previously founded Wikipedia), and his then British business partner Angela Beesley (now known as Angela Starling). Its original tagline was "Create. Collaborate. Be Original." In 2006, Gil Penchina became the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), and hoped to take Wikia to a new level as he did with eBay. In late 2011, Craig L. Palmer was appointed as new Wikia CEO. In late 2016, the entire Wikia wiki farm was rebranded from 'Wikia' to 'Fandom', and also launched the non-profit sister site Wikia.org. As of October 2021, the current Fandom CEO is Perkins Miller.

Wikia, Inc., now Fandom, Inc., is a company registered and incorporated in the State of Delaware, United States of America (corporate number C2935209). Its registered office is at 130 Sutter Street, 4th Floor, San Francisco County, State of California 94104, United States of America.

Wikia.com / Fandom.com

Wikia.com (and now Fandom.com) uses a heavily modified and customised creation of the MediaWiki wiki engine software, to the point of making it unique. It is visually different from conventional MediaWiki sites (such as Wikipedia), in that it has its own exclusive custom skin, and most notably, is embedded with a range and variety of graphic and dynamically animated advertisements. The fundamental business model of Wikia / Fandom is the offering of free hosting for an individual or wiki community to build a free content wiki-based website, on virtually any subject. New wiki sites can be created instantly at https://www.Wikia.com/Special:CreateNewWiki. Hosting of wiki sites, and 24 hour customer support is free – in return for advertising placed on the pages; but editors and users have little say over the advertisements (both content and placement) their wiki site displays. Support, on both the technical and community aspects of running a wiki community, is provided at Wikia Community Central, now known as Fandom Community Central (or one of its related other language Community wikis).

Wikia staff and helpers have global sysop powers throughout all Wikia / Fandom wiki sites, as well as several types of automated detection and blocking tools to help deal with vandals and spam on individual wikis. This can be helpful for controversial wikis like Liberapedia which tends to attract vandals.

Editing

From its creation in 2004 (originally known as Wikicities), all Wikia-hosted wiki sites had unrestricted editing privileges for all editors, known as 'open edit'. This meant, that whilst Wikia welcomed users to register for an account and create their own username, anonymous folks were equally welcome and able to edit without the need to create an account and / or log-in. As was the norm throughout the developing wikisphere, individuals from this latter group became known as an IP editor, due to them being identified by their IP address from the edit history of any wiki page they had edited. This 'open edit' ethos continued as a fundamental basis until July 2013; when it was deemed that 'open edit' was not compliant with the 'Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998', commonly known as COPPA, which became effective 21 April 2000, and is overseen by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). As a result, in order to comply with COPPA, all new Wikia wiki sites were required to implement all users to register for an account before being able to edit, known as 'log-in to edit'. Those existing Wikia sites created before July 2013 are also required to convert to 'log-in to edit', thus effectively ending one of the founding wiki fundamentals of being 'open to all'.

Registered Wikia / Fandom users with new 'talk' messages on any Wikia / Fandom wiki site will get a talk page notification about that message on any other Wikia / Fandom wiki site where they have a tab or window open. If a user has different usernames for different Wikia / Fandom wiki sites, then logging into a different account for one can change the account for all.

Licensing

The overwhelmingly vast majority of Wikia / Fandom wiki sites are currently released under one primary wiki license: specifically, the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 Unported license (CC-BY-SA 3.0), as explained here. However, other licenses are available on Wikia / Fandom; these include the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial (CC-BY-NC), as used by Memory Alpha, and the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivative Works 3.0 unported (CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0) licenses.

Historically, when Wikia was founded (originally as Wikicities), it used the GNU Free Documentation License (GNU FDL or GFDL), just like Wikipedia did.

Wikia / Fandom portals

Early Wikia Gaming portal logo.

Wikia / Fandom wiki sites are grouped under differing portals, or 'hubs', as displayed in the bottom centre of every page within individual wikis. These have varied over time, and have previously included 'Books'. In line with the current Fandom branding, along with their most common 'Community' portal, these presently include:

• Games
• Movies
• Television

Wikia / Fandom backups

The entire Wikia project consisting of all Wikia wiki sites used to be available as a globally combined backup file here. ^{[permanent dead link]} Individual Wikia / Fandom wiki sites may also backed up, and their database backup files will be available near the bottom of their relevant Special:Statistics page, as explained on their database download help page. However, whilst all Wikia / Fandom wiki sites have a Statistics page, complete with the 'Database dumps' section containing appropriate placement for their backup file links, those Wikia / Fandom wiki sites which show 'unknown' for where the actual URLs are expected definitely have not been backed up! Local administrators do have the option to request a new, or updated dump. The reality is that a vast proportion of Wikia / Fandom sites do not have individual dumps available, and for those sites that do have live URLs to their backup files, they are invariably outdated, typically by many months, though some are outdated by many years (mid-2017 is frequently found to be the last time any backup was created, as of May 2024). Originally managed internally by Wikia, Inc., and found at WikiStats.Wikia.com or Dumps.Wikia.net, as of 2018, Wikia / Fandom wiki site backups are provided by Amazon S3 from Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS).

Statistics

Because all Wikia / Fandom wiki sites are powered by MediaWiki (albeit an outdated but extensively modified and customised version), they all have a Special:Statistics page, which provides a standardised set of statistics specific to individual Wikia / Fandom wiki sites. These include page count statistics (content pages, all pages, and uploaded files), edit statistics (total number of edits since creation of specific wiki, and average edits per page), and user statistics; though it should be noted that the sources used in the third section are inconsistent. Specifically, active users, administrators, bureaucrats, and bots correctly report data for their actual wiki site; whereas the registered users output reports ALL registered users of ALL wiki sites throughout the entire Wikia / Fandom project!

In respect of data for determining wikiFactor (wF) values; originally found at Special:PopularPages, and subsequently at Special:MostVisitedPages; this is now unknown and unavailable, because Wikia, Inc. globally disabled the required page to output that metric. In order to preserve the individual wikiFactor value for separate Wikia / Fandom wiki sites, it would be helpful to update the |wikiFactor URL=  field in the {{Size}} template with the last known 'good' archived URL from either Archive.org, archive.is, or any other archiving service.

In respect of global statistics for Wikia, the following were previously available:

• ##Wikia IRC statistics generated by GreenReaper, last updated 2013, were a wide variety of very interesting and geeky graphs and charts analysing many different aspects of the Wikia IRC chat channel activity using mIRCStats, from Briton Laurence Parry, who edits under his GreenReaper moniker;
• Wikistatistics.net used to produce graphical Wikia Interactive Statistics, last available 2016 (via Archive.org);
• mutante, creator of WikiStats at S23.org, has a tabular list of Wikia wiki sites (previously at list of top 250 Wikias on the S23-Wiki), now known as Wikistats v2.2 and found at 410,703 Wikia sites (caution: this will take a LONG time to load, and may fail to load), hosted by Wikimedia Cloud Services (WMCS).

Wiki site age

The exact date of founding of individual Wikia wiki sites was previously available at /Special:WikiStats (long since globally disabled on Wikia). Current alternative methods to determine the age of a Wikia / Fandom site can be sought at Special:AncientPages, or by examining the earliest edit version of revision history of its main page at /Main_Page?dir=prev&action=history. The latter example may also be a good place to discover the founder of the individual Wikia / Fandom wiki site.

List of wiki sites

Here is their list (from 2007, via Archive.org), for the fan of WikiIndex to add from!

Ten largest wiki sites

This section needs updating

• LyricWiki – music lyrics (closed)
• Wikianswers – general questions and answers (closed)
• Familypedia – genealogy
• Wookieepedia – Star Wars
• Marvel Database Project – Marvel comics
• EQ2i – Everquest video game
• The Third Turn – NASCAR
• Recipes Wiki – recipes
• DC Database – DC comics
• RuneScape Wiki – RuneScape video game

Closure of Wikia / Fandom wiki sites

Unlike other wiki farms, Wikia / Fandom will generally not close a wiki site if requested by the wikis' creator / founder, and / or community of editors. Wikia / Fandom prefer to maintain inactive and abandoned wiki sites in a dormant state, and actively seek other Wikians to 'adopt' said wiki sites. This will happen even when the original owner(s) of a Wikia / Fandom-hosted wiki site copy or 'fork' their entire wiki and re-host it; either independently, on another provider, or another wiki farm. Wikia / Fandom wiki sites are only usually closed in exceptional circumstances, typically if the content or 'intent' of the wiki site breaches Wikia / Fandoms' terms of service.

See also: category: Ex-Wikia due to censorship.

Problems between Wikia / Fandom and its users

For those registered Wikia / Fandom users having problems logging into Wikia / Fandom, a solution is to disable scripts from Wikia / Fandom, then clicking on the 'sign in' link which will send you to sign-in webpage.

Advertising

Wikia, Inc. / Fandom, Inc. offers free hosting for a community to build a wiki website powered by a unique and heavily modified version of MediaWiki, in return for the display of advertisements. Registered users have complained that they have little say over the placement, or the content of advertisements their wiki site displays.

Logged-in users do not have to see the advertisements unless they choose to. Users may set their preferences to see advertisements on Wikia / Fandom in order to see how a page looks to logged-out and / or non-registered Wikia / Fandom users. A prominent advertisement is placed at the top right hand side of most pages, but when there is also a picture on the top right hand side of a page, the layout for users who see the advertisement can be poor especially on short pages. Logged-in users may not realise this when they add pictures.

Wikia / Fandom currently uses the following types or formats of adverts on pages within Wikia / Fandom wiki sites:

• A banner at the top of the page;
• A large square advert in the sidebar, which may often be a video advertisement;
• On large pages, a tall skyscraper-style advert is placed inside the end of the sidebar;
• On large pages, two large (or three slightly smaller) square adverts at the end of the page before the footer;
• On various content pages, Wikia / Fandom also sells 'Sponsored links', which are a section of links that look like an 'External links' page content section, but are placed below the category bar;
• Wikia / Fandom places a floating social bar at the bottom of the screen for anon users — a square advert may pop out of the left of this bar;
• Occasionally Wikia / Fandom may make use of take-over adverts which replace the background image;
• They rarely show up, but have been more common recently; Wikia / Fandom has tried placing in-text advertising in page content occasionally.

As of September 2012, Wikia, Inc. was worth an estimated US$13.93 million to the advertisers, with a daily page view of more than 6,358,000; since all three links have nearly the same figures, it must be for the whole of Wikia.com.

Wikia / Fandom skins

When Wikia was originally founded in 2004 (as Wikicities), it used 'Monobook' as its default skin; identical to the MediaWiki skin that Wikipedia (and all other Wikimedia Foundation wiki sites) then used at that time. Subsequently, Wikia developed their own unique customised skins, with an emphasis on accommodating their plethora of various in-wiki on-screen adverts.

Following this change of skin, previously,^[when?] registered users of Wikia who understood how to use their wiki preferences could choose which skin they used (this facility was obviously unavailable to IP editors). This option was however, subsequently changed, so not even Wikia / Fandom registered users were able to change the skin on their own wiki site.

Monaco

The second default skin for Wikia wiki sites was called 'Monaco'; more colourful and customisable than their original default 'Monobook' skin. While registered users could previously view Wikia sites using the Monobook skin (by choosing it in their preferences), Wikia did not allow it to be chosen as a default skin for all wiki visitors, including IP editors, which was frustrating for some long-standing Wikia communities. Wikia staff stated statistics showed that Monaco encouraged new registered users: by making editing easier. However, many existing Wikia members disagreed, and left Wikia nonetheless.

Oasis

Expand section.

Wikia, Inc. subsequently introduced a third new skin called 'Oasis', which became widely unpopular with registered users. To the people complaining about the new look documented user disdain. This new Oasis skin became compulsory for all Wikia users and wiki sites. Because of this change, many Wikia users have now left, often taking their wiki site and community members with them. Oasis would later become the only skin available to users of all wiki sites on Wikia. This caused heavy criticism, with some users criticising Fandom, then known as Wikia, for taking away their choices of skin. This Oasis skin would later be retired and replaced with FandomDesktop.

Mobile skin

Wikia (now Fandom) also supports a mobile-view specific skin, designed to be used on smartphones and / or tablet computers. This mobile-specific version is automatically displayed when any Wikia / Fandom wiki site is opened on such devices; although there is the option to also view the conventional desktop version using the then Oasis skin via a link at the bottom-centre (footer) of every page (and vice-versa to view mobile layout from a desktop version). It should be noted that using this footer link effectively changes the default of all pages to the mobile view. There is a way to view a mobile page as a 'one time option', by manually manipulating the wiki site URL with ?useformat=mobile at the end of the URL, i.e., https://WikiSiteName.Fandom.com?useformat=mobile, with subsequent pages retaining the default desktop rendered display.

Venus

Expand section.

In December 2014, Wikia, Inc. introduced yet another skin called 'Venus', making it their fourth default, and causing even more controversy among users.

FandomDesktop

With the 'Fandom' branding now well-established, the move to the now current Unified Community Platform (UCP), a universal platform that combined legacy Wikia / Fandom together with the recently acquired Gamepedia.com wiki farm, and also upgraded the core MediaWiki version of Fandom from their long-outdated and obsolete v 1.19 to a more recent v 1.33; Fandom, Inc. introduced a new skin, which is actually based on their much older Oasis skin. This UCP became the default and only skin available for all Fandom.com wiki sites; it built upon the Oasis skin, introducing a fluid layout which allowed users to expand the skin to take up the entire width of their screen. FandomDesktop was introduced largely based on a number of complaints from users who did not like the wide margins either side of the Oasis skin, and also brought elements of the Vector / HydraWiki skin to the entire Wikia / Fandom platform.

Criticism

ComplaintWiki, an independently hosted wiki site, was created expressly to look at problems that Wikia registered users have, and includes comments from communities that have left Wikia hosting; as well as other critics of Wikia and Wikipedia.

The Anti-Wikia Alliance (AWA) wiki site was founded on ShoutWiki to provide ongoing support and advice to the users of a number of former Wikia.com-hosted wiki sites who are now hosted either independently or on another wiki farm.

Wikia.org

See also: Category: Wikia.org.

In late 2016, at the same time as the global rebrand from Wikia to Fandom, its parent company, Wikia, Inc. also launched a non-profit sister site at Wikia.org. Wikia.org also acted as a wiki farm, and used the identical custom-modified MediaWiki software as Wikia.com. However, the most obvious difference was a lack of advertising. Wiki sites hosted on Wikia.org continued to use the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 Unported license (CC-BY-SA 3.0), so whilst Wikia, Inc. itself will not profit from hosting sites on Wikia.org, there was the potential to reuse content from Wikia.org on another external website (as is allowed under terms of the CC-BY-SA 3.0), and those external sites are able to monetise from said re-hosted Wikia.org content.

Wikia.org was subsequently retired November 2021.

Acquisitions

This section requires expansion with info on all of the acquisitions made by Wikia, Inc.; such as Gamepedia.com, D&D Beyond, Cortex RPG, Muthead, Futhead, Fanatical, and Fandomatic.

See also

• Template: Wikipedia / Wikinfo / Wikia / WikiKnowledge — comparison table
• Nintendo Independent Wiki Alliance (NIWA)
• Square Enix Independent Wiki Alliance (SEIWA)
• Gaming Wiki Network (GWN)
• Indie Wiki Buddy — web browser extensions to automatically redirect ad-bloated Fandom sites to ad-free independent equivalents

External links

• View a detailed feature list of Wikia.com / Fandom.com on the WikiMatrix wiki engine comparison wiki-site.
• Fandom (Q17459) — www.Wikidata.org, at Wikimedia Wikidata
• Fandom, Inc. (Q20466202) — www.Wikidata.org, at Wikimedia Wikidata
• Wikia — En.Wikipedia.org, at the English Wikipedia
• Potential Wikia mass exodus — En.Wikinews.org, at the English Wikinews, Friday 1 August 2008
• Category: Extensions by Fandom — at MediaWiki.org
• Web Numbr – Number of active wikis on Wikia (377,007) — from Wikianswers, via WebNumbr.com, archived by archive.is on 2013-11-05
• Wikia (Fandom) code repositories home page — at GitHub.com
• Wikia application code (all 1,820 branches) — at GitHub.com
• List of Wikia app extensions (all extensions) — at GitHub.com
• List of Wikia app extensions (Wikia specific) — at GitHub.com
• Stop using Fandom — by mossbag, on YouTube.com

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