Template:Wikia.com / Fandom.com

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Template:Wiki Farm

This Template: Wikia.com / Fandom.com is either empty, or sparsely populated,
and needs to be 'populated' with articles, stubs (and / or other categories)
relevant to the subject matter of this specific category.

Include an article page in this category via one (or more) of three methods:
a. add Wikia.com / Fandom.com in the appropriate field of its infobox template
b. 'tag' a word within the prose of the article, eg. {{tag|Wikia.com / Fandom.com}}
c. add [[Template:Wikia.com / Fandom.com]] at the bottom of its edit box.

For the Wikia wikis which deal 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 wikis in various languages, see: Wikia Community Central.
For those Wikia wikis who left Wikia to re-establish as an independent wiki or on another wiki farm, see: category: Ex-Wikia.
For sub-categories of Wikia wikis 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' banner
original Wikicities logo
another Wikicities logo

Wikia, currently branded as Fandom, and originally known as Wikicities, is a collection of over 250,000[1] wiki sites. Known as a 'wiki farm', it is owned by its parent company Wikia, Inc.[2] Wikicities was founded in October 2004 by American internet entrepreneur Jimmy 'Jimbo' Wales (who had previously founded Wikipedia), and his then British business partner Angela Beesley Starling (now known as Angela Starling).[1] 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.[3] In late 2016, the entire Wikia site was rebranded from 'Wikia' to 'Fandom',[4] and also launched the non-profit sister site Wikia.org. As of October 2021, the current Fandom CEO is Perkins Miller.[1]

Wikia, Inc. is a company registered in the State of Delaware, United States of America (corporate number C2935209). Its registered office is at 360 3rd Street, Suite 750, San Francisco County, State of California 94107, United States of America.[2]

Wikia.com

Wikia.com uses a unique and heavily modified customized creation of the MediaWiki wiki engine software. 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 dynamic advertisements. The fundamental business model of Wikia / Fandom is the offering of free hosting for an individual or community to build a free content wiki-based website, on virtually any subject. New wikis can be created instantly at https://www.Wikia.com/Special:CreateNewWiki. Hosting of wiki, 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 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, all wiki sites hosted on Wikia 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 wikis 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 users with new 'talk' messages on any Wikia wiki will get a talk page notification about that message on any other Wikia wiki where they have a tab or window open. If a user has different usernames for different Wikia wiki sites, then logging into a different account for one can change the account for all.

Licensing

The overwhelming vast majority of Wikia wiki sites are currently released under one primary wiki license: 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; 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.[5]

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

Wikia portals

Early Wikia Gaming portal logo

Wikia wiki sites are grouped under differing portals, or 'hubs', as displayed in the bottom centre of every page within individual wikis. In line with the current Fandom branding, these presently include:

Wikia backup

The entire Wikia project consisting of all Wikia wiki sites used to be available as a globally combined backup file here . Individual Wikia wiki sites may also backed up, and their backup files are available near the bottom of their relevant /Special:Statistics page, as explained here. However, whilst all Wikia wiki sites have a Statistics page, complete with the 'Database dumps' section containing appropriate placement for their backup file links, those Wikia 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 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 July 2021). Originally managed internally by Wikia and found at WikiStats.Wikia.com or Dumps.Wikia.net, as of 2018, Wikia backups are provided by Amazon S3 from Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS).

Statistics

Because all Wikia wiki sites are powered by MediaWiki (albeit an outdated but extensively modified and customized version), they all have a /Special:Statistics page, which provides a standardized set of statistics specific to individual Wikia 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; whereas the registered users output reports ALL registered users of ALL wiki sites throughout the entire Wikia project!

In respect of data for wikiFactor (wF) figures, originally found at /Special:PopularPages and subsequently at /Special:MostVisitedPages, this is now unknown because Wikia globally disabled the required page to output that metric. In order to preserve the individual wikiFactor value for separate Wikia 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 or archive.is.

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

Wiki age

The exact date of founding of individual Wikia wikis used to be at /Special:WikiStats. Alternative methods to age a Wikia 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 will also be a good place to determine the founder of the individual Wikia site.

List of wikis

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

Ten largest wikis

This section needs updating

Closure of Wikia wikis

Unlike other wiki farms, Wikia will generally not close a wiki site if requested by the wikis' creator / founder, and / or community of editors. Wikia 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 former wiki owners copy or 'fork' their entire wiki project and re-host it on another provider or wiki farm. Wikia wikis are only usually closed in exceptional circumstances, typically if the content or intent of the wiki breaches Wikias' terms of service.[6]

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

Problems between Wikia and its users

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

Advertising

Wikia 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. Some registered users complain 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 in order to see how a page looks to logged-out and / or non-registered Wikia 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 realize this when they add pictures.

Wikia currently uses the following types of adverts on pages:

  • 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 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 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 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 may make use of take-over adverts which replace the background image;
  • They rarely show up, but have been more common recently; Wikia has tried placing in-text advertising in page content occasionally.

As of September 2012, Wikia 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. [7]

Skins

When Wikia was originally founded (as Wikicities), it used 'Monobook' as its default skin; identical to the MediaWiki skin that Wikipedia (and all related Wikimedia Foundation wiki sites) then used at that time. Subsequently, Wikia developed their own unique customised skins, with an emphasis on accommodating 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 option was however, subsequently changed, so not even registered users are able to change the skin on their own wiki site.

Monaco

The second default skin for Wikia wiki sites was called 'Monaco'; more colorful and customizable 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 subsequently introduced a third new 'Oasis' skin, 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 users. 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 wikis on this platform. This caused heavy criticism, with some users criticising Fandom, then Wikia, for taking away their choices of skin. This skin would later be sunset and replaced with FandomDesktop.

Mobile skin

Wikia also supports a mobile-view specific skin, designed to be used on smartphones and / or tablet computers. This version is automatically displayed when any Wikia wiki 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 of every page (and vice-versa to view mobile layout from a desktop version).

Venus

Expand section.

In December 2014, Wikia introduced yet another skin called 'Venus', making it their fourth default, and causing even more controversy among users.[8]

FandomDesktop

With the move to the "Unified Community Platform", a platform that combined Fandom with the newly acquired Gamepedia and also bumped the MediaWiki version of Fandom from 1.19 to 1.33, Fandom introduced a new skin based on the prehistoric Oasis skin. This became the default and only skin available for Fandom wikis, and built upon the Oasis skin, introducing a fluid layout which allowed users to expand the skin to take up the entire width of the screen. This was largely introduced based on a number of complaints from users who did not like the margins either side of the Oasis skin, and brought elements of the Vector / HydraWiki skin to the 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 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 Wikia.org. Wikia.org also acts as a wiki farm, and uses the identical custom-modified MediaWiki software as Wikia.com, but the most obvious difference is a lack of advertising. Wiki sites hosted on Wikia.org continue to use the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 Unported license (CC-BY-SA 3.0), so whilst Wikia itself will not profit from hosting sites on Wikia.org, there is 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.

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

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Fandom | About Us; about.Fandom.com; Wikia, Inc.; San Francisco, CA 94107, U.S.A.; accessed 25 October 2021.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Terms of Use | Fandom powered by Wikia; www.Wikia.com; Wikia, Inc.; dated 22 May 2018; accessed 25 September 2018.
  3. ↑ Craig Palmer, new CEO of Wikia; community.Wikia.com; Wikia, Inc.; accessed DD Mmmm YYYY.
  4. ↑ User blog:Craiglpalmer / Wikia is now Fandom powered by Wikia; community.Wikia.com; Wikia, Inc.; accessed 26 May 2018.
  5. ↑ Licensing | Fandom powered by Wikia; Wikia.com; Wikia, Inc.; accessed 25 September 2018.
  6. ↑ Community Creation Policy | Fandom powered by Wikia; www.Wikia.com; Wikia, Inc.; accessed 25 September 2018.
  7. ↑ [1][2][3]
  8. ↑ User blog:Rupert Giles / Prototype for a new article layout; Community.Wikia.com; Wikia, Inc.; accessed 13 February 2019.

External links

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