8 ms·

This is a shame because Fandom is frequently terrible, but also consumes all the oxygen.

by KingMob 26d ago

nephihaha 26d ago
It depends on which part. It is certainly heading down the same route as Wikipedia with all the problems that entails. You're usually better off on a smaller Fandom wiki as it won't have beeb taken over yet. The James Bond wiki is particularly bad, but Memory Alpha seems to be better run.
- einpoklum 26d ago
  > It is certainly heading down the same route as Wikipedia with all the problems that entails. Can you elaborate on what that means? i.e. what aspect of Wikipedia, and in what way Fandom is heading there?
  - nephihaha 25d ago
    The main issues I have are with the administration. I have noticed: * Admin enshittifying content that they have no knowledge or interest in. For example, I have witnessed admin trying to get articles about certain rugby union teams deleted, because they were amateur. (Before the 1990s all rugby union was officially amateur, and some notable clubs still are, especially in places like Argentina or Scotland, where professional clubs are not the norm.) They succeed in many cases. * Administrators may develop a particular dislike for a user, and their decisions may be based on that. I have witnessed personal vendettas and stalking behaviour from them. There are also cliques of friends and other conflicts of interest. Neither of these are professional if we are thinking purely in terms of content. Encyclopaedia Britannica, for example, would get articles cross-checked by people who have an interest or a knowledge of that particular subject. I have seen quotations "corrected" on Wikipedia from their original wording. As for Fandom, it varies from site to site. Some are better than others. In recent years, Fandom has adopted some community guidelines which are questionable and are being applied across the board. Wikimedia did the same in a top-down power move with no mandate whatsoever. It was a fait accompli. Neither are better for it. The Broad Scots and Scottish Gaelic Wikipedias both have horrific administration issues, brought on partly by people correcting native speakers. The former created a minor international scandal in the media. The Greenlandic Wikipedia was hijacked by a German who ended up shutting it down. (He deleted other people's articles constantly, instead of improving the content and then wondered why he was the only person left in the room.) Either way, both remind me of the infinite monkey idea... Except those on the typewriter aren't even getting peanuts unless someone is paying them to write shill articles (and there are many of those.) I'm sure I'll be voted down for making these comments which is why I was reluctant to post earlier.
- rob74 26d ago
  Well at least Wikipedia doesn't pester you with tons of ads that sometimes make it hard to even find the content (except for the occasional donation banner, but that's a minor annoyance compared to what Fandom does).
  - thaumasiotes 26d ago
    > except for the occasional donation banner, but that's a minor annoyance compared to what Fandom does Well, I guess that's true. It's worth noting, though, that wikipedia's donation demands cover more than the entire screen on a phone.
    - account42 26d ago
      It's also worth noting that both Wikipedia and Fandom were co-founded by Jimmy Wales.
      - thaumasiotes 26d ago
        Well... why? Is he involved with either of them now? Is there a shared persisting influence of some kind?
        mitxela 26d ago
        Fandom used to be Wikia and it was just a thing that hosted wikis. Its story is a bit like Sourceforge's.
        thaumasiotes 26d ago
        Ok, but... what is it that we're taking note of?
  - pndy 26d ago
    There were memes ridiculing Wales and all that annual effort regarding supporting Wikipedia - probably that did the job
- pndy 26d ago
  > Memory Alpha seems to be better run. Some few months ago I couldn't find actors credits for particular roles they had in Star Trek franchise. For whatever reasons these bits were removed but still were present within Wayback Machine. Then again, in the past I've seen hostile take-overs of fan made wikis into wikia/fandom "infrastructure". In one case wiki was copied, in time articles were slightly edited and new content was added containing... unsolicited fan theories. The other case: wiki was copied 1:1 due to some inside disagreements, then incorporated into fandom and in approx. 2 years abandoned. The original died as well but someone managed to restore it from Wayback - this time in read-only mode
  - Izkata 25d ago
    I have no idea what happened behind the scenes, but Memory Alpha used to have its own hosting and was migrated to the hosted wikia, I think between 2010 and 2015. The old domain still redirects: https://memory-alpha.org/ https://memory-alpha.org/
rob74 26d ago
One hand washes the other: they buy ads from Google (I think), so Google prefers them in the indexing process, so they get more traffic, so Google prefers them even more.
sph 26d ago
Fun fact: Fandom was co-founded by Jimmy Wales "On February 4, 2026, Jay Sullivan was named the new CEO. In a public statement following the arrival of Fandom's new CEO, the company's president, Jimmy Wales, mentioned that they intend to incorporate additional AI tools into Fandom Wikis to adapt to internet searches". No comment.
- swiftcoder 26d ago
  It was certainly an interesting way to squander much of the good will generated by being a wikipedia founder. On the other hand, fandom made him rich, so it's all swings and roundabouts
wink 26d ago
Things change. I'd been involved with some game wikis long enough ago that moving there was a good idea (if you had no one who wanted to do server admin and no hw/vps sponsors)

This is a shame because Fandom is frequently terrible, but also consumes all the oxygen.

by KingMob 26d ago

This is a shame because Fandom is frequently terrible, but also consumes all the oxygen.

It depends on which part. It is certainly heading down the same route as Wikipedia with all the problems that entails. You're usually better off on a smaller Fandom wiki as it won't have beeb taken over yet. The James Bond wiki is particularly bad, but Memory Alpha seems to be better run.

einpoklum 26d ago
> It is certainly heading down the same route as Wikipedia with all the problems that entails. Can you elaborate on what that means? i.e. what aspect of Wikipedia, and in what way Fandom is heading there?
- nephihaha 25d ago
  The main issues I have are with the administration. I have noticed: * Admin enshittifying content that they have no knowledge or interest in. For example, I have witnessed admin trying to get articles about certain rugby union teams deleted, because they were amateur. (Before the 1990s all rugby union was officially amateur, and some notable clubs still are, especially in places like Argentina or Scotland, where professional clubs are not the norm.) They succeed in many cases. * Administrators may develop a particular dislike for a user, and their decisions may be based on that. I have witnessed personal vendettas and stalking behaviour from them. There are also cliques of friends and other conflicts of interest. Neither of these are professional if we are thinking purely in terms of content. Encyclopaedia Britannica, for example, would get articles cross-checked by people who have an interest or a knowledge of that particular subject. I have seen quotations "corrected" on Wikipedia from their original wording. As for Fandom, it varies from site to site. Some are better than others. In recent years, Fandom has adopted some community guidelines which are questionable and are being applied across the board. Wikimedia did the same in a top-down power move with no mandate whatsoever. It was a fait accompli. Neither are better for it. The Broad Scots and Scottish Gaelic Wikipedias both have horrific administration issues, brought on partly by people correcting native speakers. The former created a minor international scandal in the media. The Greenlandic Wikipedia was hijacked by a German who ended up shutting it down. (He deleted other people's articles constantly, instead of improving the content and then wondered why he was the only person left in the room.) Either way, both remind me of the infinite monkey idea... Except those on the typewriter aren't even getting peanuts unless someone is paying them to write shill articles (and there are many of those.) I'm sure I'll be voted down for making these comments which is why I was reluctant to post earlier.
rob74 26d ago
Well at least Wikipedia doesn't pester you with tons of ads that sometimes make it hard to even find the content (except for the occasional donation banner, but that's a minor annoyance compared to what Fandom does).
- thaumasiotes 26d ago
  > except for the occasional donation banner, but that's a minor annoyance compared to what Fandom does Well, I guess that's true. It's worth noting, though, that wikipedia's donation demands cover more than the entire screen on a phone.
  - account42 26d ago
    It's also worth noting that both Wikipedia and Fandom were co-founded by Jimmy Wales.
    - thaumasiotes 26d ago
      Well... why? Is he involved with either of them now? Is there a shared persisting influence of some kind?
      - mitxela 26d ago
        Fandom used to be Wikia and it was just a thing that hosted wikis. Its story is a bit like Sourceforge's.
        thaumasiotes 26d ago
        Ok, but... what is it that we're taking note of?
- pndy 26d ago
  There were memes ridiculing Wales and all that annual effort regarding supporting Wikipedia - probably that did the job
pndy 26d ago
> Memory Alpha seems to be better run. Some few months ago I couldn't find actors credits for particular roles they had in Star Trek franchise. For whatever reasons these bits were removed but still were present within Wayback Machine. Then again, in the past I've seen hostile take-overs of fan made wikis into wikia/fandom "infrastructure". In one case wiki was copied, in time articles were slightly edited and new content was added containing... unsolicited fan theories. The other case: wiki was copied 1:1 due to some inside disagreements, then incorporated into fandom and in approx. 2 years abandoned. The original died as well but someone managed to restore it from Wayback - this time in read-only mode
- Izkata 25d ago
  I have no idea what happened behind the scenes, but Memory Alpha used to have its own hosting and was migrated to the hosted wikia, I think between 2010 and 2015. The old domain still redirects: https://memory-alpha.org/ https://memory-alpha.org/

rob74 26d ago

One hand washes the other: they buy ads from Google (I think), so Google prefers them in the indexing process, so they get more traffic, so Google prefers them even more.

sph 26d ago

Fun fact: Fandom was co-founded by Jimmy Wales "On February 4, 2026, Jay Sullivan was named the new CEO. In a public statement following the arrival of Fandom's new CEO, the company's president, Jimmy Wales, mentioned that they intend to incorporate additional AI tools into Fandom Wikis to adapt to internet searches". No comment.

swiftcoder 26d ago
It was certainly an interesting way to squander much of the good will generated by being a wikipedia founder. On the other hand, fandom made him rich, so it's all swings and roundabouts

wink 26d ago

Things change. I'd been involved with some game wikis long enough ago that moving there was a good idea (if you had no one who wanted to do server admin and no hw/vps sponsors)