Template:Wikia.com / Fandom.com: Difference between revisions

{{for|those Wikia wikis who left Wikia to re-establish as an independent wiki or on another wiki farm|Category:Ex-Wikia}}

{{for|sub-categories of Wikia wikis by official language portals|Category:De.Wikia|Category:Es.Wikia|Category:Fr.Wikia}}

See also the <code>{{tl|wikia}}</code> [[:Category:Templates|template]].

'''Wikia''', formerly '''Wikicities''', is now a [[wiki farm|collection]] of over 200,000^{[http://www.wikia.com/About]} [[wiki]]s — aka a '{{tag|WikiFarm|Wiki Farm}}' — run by '''[[WikiaSite:community:Community Central:Wikia, Inc.|Wikia, Inc.]]''', and founded by [[WikiaSite:community:User:Jimbo Wales|Jimmy Wales]] – one of the founders of [[:Category:Wikipedia|Wikipedia]], along with [[Angela Beesley Starling|Angela Beesley]] in October {{tag|FoundedIn2004|2004}}.  Its' tagline is ''"Create. Collaborate. Be Original."''  In 2006, [[WikiaSite:community:User:Gil|Gil Penchina]] became the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), and hopes to take Wikia to a new level as he did with [[:Category:eBay|eBay]].  As of late 2011, the current CEO is [[WikiaSite:community:Forum:Craig Palmer, new CEO of Wikia|Craig Palmer]].

[[Wikia]] uses a unique and heavily modified creation of the {{tag|MediaWiki}} {{tag|Wiki Engine|wiki engine}}; and is visually different from regular MediaWiki sites in that it has its own {{tag|custom skin}}, and most notably, complete with a range and variety of embeded {{tag|Advertising|advertisements}}.  Wikia offers free hosting for an individual or community to build a {{tag|free}} content [[WhatIsWiki|wiki]]-based website.  New wikis can be created instantly at http://create.wikia.com.  Hosting and 24&nbsp;hour customer support is free, in return for advertising placed on the pages; but users have little say over the advertisements their website displays.  Support, on both the technical and community aspects of running a wiki community, is provided at [[Wikia Community Central]] (or one of the [[Template:WikiaCommunityCentral|other]] [[:Category:Wiki Language|language]] Community wikis).

Wikia staff and helpers have [[sysop]] powers throughout <u>all</u> Wikia wikis, 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 [[:Category:Wikis with a strong viewpoint|controversial]] wikis like [[Liberapedia]] that attract vandals.

The vast majority of Wikia wikis are currently released under one primary [[:Category:Wiki License|wiki license]] – the [[:Category:Wiki Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike|Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license]] (CC-BY-SA), as explained [[WikiaSite:community:Community Central:Licensing|here]].  However, other licenses are available on Wikia; these include the [[:Category:Wiki Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial|Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial]] (CC-BY-NC) and the [[:Category:Wiki Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works|Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works]] (CC-BY-NC-ND) licenses.

*Wikistatistics.net produces graphical [http://www.wikistatistics.net/wikia Wikia Interactive Statistics]

*WikiStats by s23.org has a tabular [http://s23.org/wikistats/wikia_html.php list of top 250 Wikias]

Unlike other {{tag|WikiFarm|wiki farms}} or website hosts, Wikia will generally <u>not</u> close a wiki if requested by the wikis' creator.  Wikia prefer to maintain [[:Category:Inactive|inactive]] wikis in a [[:Category:Dormant|dormant]] state, and actively seek others to 'adopt' said wikis.  This will happen even when former wiki owners copy their entire wiki project and [[:Category:Ex-Wikia|re-host]] it on another provider or [[wiki farm]]. Wikia wikis are only usually [[:Category:Dead|closed]] in exceptional circumstances, typically if the content or intent of the wiki breaches Wikias' [[WikiaSite:community:Community Central:Closed Wikia|terms of service]].

Wikia offers {{tag|free}} hosting for a community to build a wiki-based website based on a unique and heavily modified version of {{tag|MediaWiki}}, in return for the display of {{tag|Advertising|advertisements}}.  Some registered users complain that they have little say over the placement or content of advertisements their wikisite displays.

Logged-in users don't 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-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.

Until recently, registered users who understood how to use preferences could choose which skin they used, but even this choice will now stop.

The default skin for Wikia wikis used to be called 'Monaco', more colorful and customizable than the default [[:Category:MediaWiki|MediaWiki]] Monobook skin that [[:Category:Wikipedia|Wikipedia]] uses.  While registered users could 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, which was frustrating for some communities.  Wikia says statistics show that Monaco encourages new registered users by making editing easier.  As Monaco is being phased out, it becomes clear that some registered users really did like it.