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Fandom (I really prefer their old name, "Wikia") is a great concept. Deal with hosting the wiki so you can focus on content. The problem is that they need to ma

by jjice 3y ago

Fandom (I really prefer their old name, "Wikia") is a great concept. Deal with hosting the wiki so you can focus on content. The problem is that they need to make money, and to do that, they do it with some of the most obnoxious ads on any reputable site on the modern internet. Using their site on a mobile browser is one of the worst web experiences I've ever had. Autoplaying video ad banners on the top with a smaller ad banner on the bottom while I scroll past an ad in the middle of the article. I'm all for seeing wikis leave them because it'll be a huge usability win. Fandom can still fill the gap for small niche wikis that don't want to deal with hosting and such, but larger established wikis using their own platform will be great.

doublepg23 3y ago
Indeed, it's hard to overstate how bad of an experience it is. The Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages (UESP, a wiki) https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Main_Page https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Main_Page vs the Elder Scrolls "Fandom" website https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/The_Elder_Scrolls_Wiki https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/The_Elder_Scrolls_Wiki is night and day in terms of usability and user respect. I think Google is partially to blame as it seems to rank Fandom pages way higher than self-hosted wikis.
apohak 3y ago
"The problem is that they need to make money" Stupid question, why do they need to make money? I thought they are maintained by volunteers. For hosting?
- jjice 3y ago
  Content is volunteer, but I believe the company's infrastructure and software (I believe they use a modified MediaWiki based on an HN comment from an employee a few years ago) are all from a for-profit company. Wikipedia and the Wikimedia foundation are the non-profits you may be thinking of. From the Fandom Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fandom_(website) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fandom_(website)): > The privately held, for-profit Delaware company was founded in October 2004 by Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesley. Fandom was acquired in 2018 by TPG Inc. and Jon Miller through Integrated Media Co. But note that Jimmy Wales was a founder as well.
- somesoftdev 3y ago
  The content is created by volunteers. But fandom is a for-profit company. In its early days when it was known as Wikia, they maintained a fairly small team of people running the site. So they just had to make enough money for paychecks and bills. Here's my take on what went wrong. Throughout the years they grew. Because the company grew, they hired more hr people - more money needed. So they hired marketing teams, data science and so on. The costs skyrocketed. So now they're putting ads everywhere because they don't have that much more traffic than 10 years ago but the company is much larger.

by jjice 3y ago

doublepg23 3y ago

Indeed, it's hard to overstate how bad of an experience it is. The Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages (UESP, a wiki) https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Main_Page https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Main_Page vs the Elder Scrolls "Fandom" website https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/The_Elder_Scrolls_Wiki https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/The_Elder_Scrolls_Wiki is night and day in terms of usability and user respect. I think Google is partially to blame as it seems to rank Fandom pages way higher than self-hosted wikis.

apohak 3y ago

"The problem is that they need to make money" Stupid question, why do they need to make money? I thought they are maintained by volunteers. For hosting?

jjice 3y ago
Content is volunteer, but I believe the company's infrastructure and software (I believe they use a modified MediaWiki based on an HN comment from an employee a few years ago) are all from a for-profit company. Wikipedia and the Wikimedia foundation are the non-profits you may be thinking of. From the Fandom Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fandom_(website) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fandom_(website)): > The privately held, for-profit Delaware company was founded in October 2004 by Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesley. Fandom was acquired in 2018 by TPG Inc. and Jon Miller through Integrated Media Co. But note that Jimmy Wales was a founder as well.
somesoftdev 3y ago
The content is created by volunteers. But fandom is a for-profit company. In its early days when it was known as Wikia, they maintained a fairly small team of people running the site. So they just had to make enough money for paychecks and bills. Here's my take on what went wrong. Throughout the years they grew. Because the company grew, they hired more hr people - more money needed. So they hired marketing teams, data science and so on. The costs skyrocketed. So now they're putting ads everywhere because they don't have that much more traffic than 10 years ago but the company is much larger.