Template:Wikia.com / Fandom.com

Description

Wikia is a collection of over 7000 wikis (a WikiFarm) run by Wikia, Inc, founded by Jimmy Wales, one of the founders of Wikipedia, and Angela Beesley in October 2004. In 2006, Gil Penchina became the CEO and hopes to take Wikia to a new level as he did with eBay.

Wikia offers free MediaWiki hosting for a community to build a free content wiki-based website. Hosting is free but users have little say over the advertisements their website displays. Requests for new wikis which have the potential to appeal to a wide audience are welcomed. Support on both the technical and community aspects of running a wiki community is provided. Wikia janitors have sysop powers throughout Wikia and help deal with vandals and spam on individual Wikis when needed. This can be helpful for controversial wikis like Liberapedia that attract vandals. The janitors also deter vandals though the extent of this can't be measured. If users get a new message on any Wikia wiki they will get a note about the message on any other Wikia wiki where they have a window open. If a user has different usernames for different Wikia Wikis then logging into a different account for one can change the account for all. Different computers react differently.

Bureaucrats were not entirely independent

Wikia bureaucrats could promote an ordinary user to sysop. Bureaucrats couldn’t afterwards demote a sysop. Wikia central demoted a sysop only if there had been serious misconduct. This led to a more equal relationship between bureaucrats and sysops. It could also make bureaucrats cautious about promoting sysops as this is a one way step. Caution can be a good thing. Demoted former sysops can feel so humiliated that they stop editing the wiki altogether. Only useful editors are likely to become sysops so driving them away is unwise. Wikia wikis may potentially have had cautious bureaucrats and few sysops. The wikis may have stayed dependent on Wikia janitors and found it difficult to move if they ever wanted to.

Problems between Wikia and the Wikis it hosts

ComplaintWiki has been set up expressly to look at problems that Wikia users have. Users are advised to look at that Wiki for a more detailed review.

Uncyclopedia

Now (since late October ’08) there are problems at Uncyclopedia to the author’s knowledge. Uncyclopedia is sensitive about a change in its URL. [1].

Monaco skin

Wikia has a controversial Monaco skin which displays advertisements effectively. Wikia claims Monaco encourages new users by making editing easier. ComplaintWiki disagrees and compares Monaco to New Coke. The comparison may be valid since many users like Monaco or don’t mind it while some dislike it intensely. Time will tell how far Monaco is or isn’t like New Coke.

Logged in users don't have to see the advertisements unless they choose to. For example, users may choose to see advertisements on Wikia in order to see how a page looks to other users. When logged in users work unpaid to improve wikis, letting them avoid advertisements is very reasonable. Monaco skin has a prominent advertisement at the top right hand side of most pages. Usually this is fairly acceptable. 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 small pages. Logged in users may not realize this when they add pictures. Has Wikia considered moving advertisements to the left of a page? Can MediaWiki software detect a picture and move advertisements away from pictures? Wikia please note this.

List of wikis

Here is their list, for the fan of WikiIndex to add from!