6 ms·

Oh god this is worrying. Fandom has already made Wikia an absolutely unusable, ad ridden nightmare, to the point many communities set up their own wikis to avoi

by CM30 4y ago

Oh god this is worrying. Fandom has already made Wikia an absolutely unusable, ad ridden nightmare, to the point many communities set up their own wikis to avoid dealing with it. I hope they don't apply that same monetisation to GameSpot, GameFAQs, etc. Otherwise those sites will die almost overnight.

24t 4y ago
Agreed, though somehow fextralife manages to be even worse
mjr00 4y ago
> to the point many communities set up their own wikis to avoid dealing with it. Which is a good thing honestly. There's such a big difference in usability between the independent internet that exists out of genuine passion/interest and the internet that's run by advertising companies and people looking to make money off advertisements.
- CM30 4y ago
  True. Wikia's existence meant things like the Nintendo Independent Wiki Alliance and Square Enix Independent Wiki Alliance could put out some actually good wikis about the games they cover. Stuff like Mario Wiki, Bulbapedia, the Super Smash Bros Wiki, etc are significantly better than their Wikia/Fandom counterparts, and have proved you can defeat the service in the Google rankings by providing a better service. Just hope your owners don't decide to cash out and sell the site to Wikia/Fandom later on, otherwise the whole branching stuff will have to be done all over again.
  - iamacyborg 4y ago
    > Bulbapedia Curse used to traffic the ads for this site, at least in 2016 when I worked for them. They may very well still be getting trafficked by Fandom who have since acquired Curse Media.
bdw5204 4y ago
GameFAQs has already been dying for the last 10-15 years. Its amazing how most of their user reviews are from 2000-2005 or so and how frequently they don't even have guides for games anymore. Their message boards went from being notoriously overmoderated with tons of silly rules like a ban on profanity to notoriously undermoderated with very few rules (but what few they have are still enforced bureaucratically) and lots of trolls. CBS did not do a good job of running it especially after the site's founder left so its good that they're selling it. Its just probably not good that Fandom is buying it.
- the_lonely_road 4y ago
  I was a heavy user of gamefaqs for many years but had almost forgot they existed. The YouTube let’s play completely replaced it for me and I’m guessing for most of their userbase as well.
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    YouTube only replaced it for me only in the sense that sometimes it's easier to wade through a 10-minute video to find one tiny piece of info than deal with most of the non-GameFaqs faq sites that come up in search. Best result is a Steam forums link, second best is YouTube, third is Wikia and all that crap (why would you auto-play an unrelated video and make that take up a third of the screen in a sticky div if I scroll down?!?!). Fourth are seemingly machine-generated garbage results that don't contain anything useful but try to look like they do. Gamefaqs would still be the best on desktop but it doesn't show up in searches so I kinda forgot they existed and also text FAQs suck to navigate on mobile, and 99% of the time if I'm looking up how to find the Yellow Key or whatever it's on my phone, because I'm either not at my computer, or am gaming on it. Some other comments here make it seem like they don't have content for a lot of modern games, anyway.
  - 1980phipsi 4y ago
    YouTube is great for those situations where a written explanation just doesn't quite cut it, but I prefer it more as a supplement to than a replacement of a good gamefaq.
  - 4y ago
spywaregorilla 4y ago
I casually end up on a fandom wiki every now and then. What's the main criticism?
- Macha 4y ago
  1. Autoplay videos done by fandom editors who may not have read the source material or even their own wiki article inserted at the top of pages just so they have video to justify video ads 2. Large portions of the page dedicated to "engagement bait", e.g. related articles in a permanent sidebar (mixed with ads), piles of random forum discussions/elsewhere on fandom links at the end of the page. 3. Open a fandom page with your adblocker off. Video ads in the header, in a floating overlay, randomly mid article, etc.
  - giantrobot 4y ago
    4. On mobile I can't get images to display without disabling my ad blocker. 5. Despite nominally being Wikis the Fandom wikis have effectively zero Wiki-like intrapage or interpage navigation. I remember the likes of Wookiepedia and Memory Alpha before they got Fandomed. They are sad ghosts of what used to be very good fan oriented Wikis. Fandom is a dumpster fire and I wish them nothing but ill fortune.
    - mynameisvlad 4y ago
      #5 is entirely dependent on the wiki itself, which is community-driven. Fandom only provides the infrastructure and platform, which support the feature.
      - PaulHoule 4y ago
        But the platform affects the contributors. The dark patterns must drive many people away completely. You have to fight them every step of the way if you use the site. Who wants to see their creative work featured on such a site for sore eyes? If it paid some people might overcome all that but to do it for free?
Macha 4y ago
Fandom is just rebranded wikia, for what it's worth
dbingham 4y ago
I feel like Fandom and Wikipedia provide a fantastic case study in the difference of outcome between non-profit, mission driven organizations and for-profit capital driven organizations. They were both founded by Jimmy Wales. They both have the goal of organizing information using crowdsourcing. And look at the difference in outcome.
- capableweb 4y ago
  I had no idea Fandom/Wikicities/Wikia was also founded by Jimmy Wales. I agree, would be amazing to see a academic comparison between the two, one clearly had a bigger impact on humanity as a whole. On that note, I wonder if Fandom contributes back any funds to the Wikimedia Foundation. If so, it might actually make sense to have two branches of the same software, if the commercial arm can fund the non-profit one.
  - antisthenes 4y ago
    > If so, it might actually make sense to have two branches of the same software, if the commercial arm can fund the non-profit one. The inevitable problem with these schemes is that the MBAs at the commercial part will eventually try to "optimize" the funding channel towards the non-profit section.
coldpie 4y ago
I believe the content on Fandom's wikis is all permissively licensed. I've often thought about making a read-only mirror of their wikis that just scrapes updates and serves the content without all the BS. Once it scales to the point where hosting is expensive, put up a donation jar. If it pays for itself, consider opening up editing and creating a fork with the end goal of killing Fandom's godawful wiki sites.
reset-password 4y ago
Today I am thankful for Kagi having a feature which allows me to remove or downgrade certain sites from search results. It has already saved me countless clicks to fandom and can be easily expanded to include other sites as the fandom cancer grows.

by CM30 4y ago

24t 4y ago

Agreed, though somehow fextralife manages to be even worse

mjr00 4y ago

> to the point many communities set up their own wikis to avoid dealing with it. Which is a good thing honestly. There's such a big difference in usability between the independent internet that exists out of genuine passion/interest and the internet that's run by advertising companies and people looking to make money off advertisements.

CM30 4y ago
True. Wikia's existence meant things like the Nintendo Independent Wiki Alliance and Square Enix Independent Wiki Alliance could put out some actually good wikis about the games they cover. Stuff like Mario Wiki, Bulbapedia, the Super Smash Bros Wiki, etc are significantly better than their Wikia/Fandom counterparts, and have proved you can defeat the service in the Google rankings by providing a better service. Just hope your owners don't decide to cash out and sell the site to Wikia/Fandom later on, otherwise the whole branching stuff will have to be done all over again.
- iamacyborg 4y ago
  > Bulbapedia Curse used to traffic the ads for this site, at least in 2016 when I worked for them. They may very well still be getting trafficked by Fandom who have since acquired Curse Media.

bdw5204 4y ago

GameFAQs has already been dying for the last 10-15 years. Its amazing how most of their user reviews are from 2000-2005 or so and how frequently they don't even have guides for games anymore. Their message boards went from being notoriously overmoderated with tons of silly rules like a ban on profanity to notoriously undermoderated with very few rules (but what few they have are still enforced bureaucratically) and lots of trolls. CBS did not do a good job of running it especially after the site's founder left so its good that they're selling it. Its just probably not good that Fandom is buying it.

the_lonely_road 4y ago
I was a heavy user of gamefaqs for many years but had almost forgot they existed. The YouTube let’s play completely replaced it for me and I’m guessing for most of their userbase as well.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  YouTube only replaced it for me only in the sense that sometimes it's easier to wade through a 10-minute video to find one tiny piece of info than deal with most of the non-GameFaqs faq sites that come up in search. Best result is a Steam forums link, second best is YouTube, third is Wikia and all that crap (why would you auto-play an unrelated video and make that take up a third of the screen in a sticky div if I scroll down?!?!). Fourth are seemingly machine-generated garbage results that don't contain anything useful but try to look like they do. Gamefaqs would still be the best on desktop but it doesn't show up in searches so I kinda forgot they existed and also text FAQs suck to navigate on mobile, and 99% of the time if I'm looking up how to find the Yellow Key or whatever it's on my phone, because I'm either not at my computer, or am gaming on it. Some other comments here make it seem like they don't have content for a lot of modern games, anyway.
- 1980phipsi 4y ago
  YouTube is great for those situations where a written explanation just doesn't quite cut it, but I prefer it more as a supplement to than a replacement of a good gamefaq.
- 4y ago

spywaregorilla 4y ago

I casually end up on a fandom wiki every now and then. What's the main criticism?

Macha 4y ago
1. Autoplay videos done by fandom editors who may not have read the source material or even their own wiki article inserted at the top of pages just so they have video to justify video ads 2. Large portions of the page dedicated to "engagement bait", e.g. related articles in a permanent sidebar (mixed with ads), piles of random forum discussions/elsewhere on fandom links at the end of the page. 3. Open a fandom page with your adblocker off. Video ads in the header, in a floating overlay, randomly mid article, etc.
- giantrobot 4y ago
  4. On mobile I can't get images to display without disabling my ad blocker. 5. Despite nominally being Wikis the Fandom wikis have effectively zero Wiki-like intrapage or interpage navigation. I remember the likes of Wookiepedia and Memory Alpha before they got Fandomed. They are sad ghosts of what used to be very good fan oriented Wikis. Fandom is a dumpster fire and I wish them nothing but ill fortune.
  - mynameisvlad 4y ago
    #5 is entirely dependent on the wiki itself, which is community-driven. Fandom only provides the infrastructure and platform, which support the feature.
    - PaulHoule 4y ago
      But the platform affects the contributors. The dark patterns must drive many people away completely. You have to fight them every step of the way if you use the site. Who wants to see their creative work featured on such a site for sore eyes? If it paid some people might overcome all that but to do it for free?

Macha 4y ago

Fandom is just rebranded wikia, for what it's worth

dbingham 4y ago

I feel like Fandom and Wikipedia provide a fantastic case study in the difference of outcome between non-profit, mission driven organizations and for-profit capital driven organizations. They were both founded by Jimmy Wales. They both have the goal of organizing information using crowdsourcing. And look at the difference in outcome.

capableweb 4y ago
I had no idea Fandom/Wikicities/Wikia was also founded by Jimmy Wales. I agree, would be amazing to see a academic comparison between the two, one clearly had a bigger impact on humanity as a whole. On that note, I wonder if Fandom contributes back any funds to the Wikimedia Foundation. If so, it might actually make sense to have two branches of the same software, if the commercial arm can fund the non-profit one.
- antisthenes 4y ago
  > If so, it might actually make sense to have two branches of the same software, if the commercial arm can fund the non-profit one. The inevitable problem with these schemes is that the MBAs at the commercial part will eventually try to "optimize" the funding channel towards the non-profit section.

coldpie 4y ago

I believe the content on Fandom's wikis is all permissively licensed. I've often thought about making a read-only mirror of their wikis that just scrapes updates and serves the content without all the BS. Once it scales to the point where hosting is expensive, put up a donation jar. If it pays for itself, consider opening up editing and creating a fork with the end goal of killing Fandom's godawful wiki sites.

reset-password 4y ago

Today I am thankful for Kagi having a feature which allows me to remove or downgrade certain sites from search results. It has already saved me countless clicks to fandom and can be easily expanded to include other sites as the fandom cancer grows.