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Wikipedia:Verifiability

(I posted the following to Anthere's talk page, following her comments here. I'm copying it here in case the issue's still being discussed.)

Hi Anthere, I saw you express some frustration at the Verifiability policy. This is just to let you know that material that's self-published by Wikia e.g. a press release, or a statement on its website, is allowed to be used as a source in the article. The policy allows self-published material that was written by the subject of the article — with some restrictions, which are listed here — and as that part of the article directly concerns the Foundation, a press release from the Foundation would be acceptable too.

The point of the "verifiability, not truth" provision is just to make sure that Wikipedia is never a first publisher of information. We always need to be able to point to where we took our material from. It helps to keep the project safe.

Hope this helps. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 07:46, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Disambiguation

The following hatnote 

{{Distinguish2|the [[Wikimedia Foundation]]}}

is bad, the template {{distinguish2}} is only meant for disambiguation (I mean word sense disambiguation). The only ambiguity (I still mean "word ambiguity") between the two names Wikia and Wikimedia Foundation is the word "wiki" they have in common. So it's true readers might be confused about these two names because of the word "wiki", but if so, they are strongly likely to be also confused by all the names including the word "wiki", so that's why I suggest the following disambiguation link: 

{{otheruses4|the wiki farm|other similar names including the word "wiki"|Wiki (disambiguation)}}}}

moreover, I disagree with Prodego's argument. The two names "Wikia" and "Wiki" are more likely to be confused than "Micro" and "Microsoft" since the word length difference is only of 1 (there is nothing on this article about the etymology of the name Wikia but I strongly assume that Wikia is only "Wiki + a"). 16@r (talk) 01:30, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Obviously people do misconstrue the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikia, we have all the evidence of that. Also, see how the template 'distinguish' is used, which I would have used, except I needed to add the word 'the' to the template. {{Distinguish}} is very applicable. Thirdly, Wikia, and wiki aren't very similar in my opinion, but I don't care if you keep that, so long as you do keep distinguish. This is the right way to deal with a misconception, not slapping massive tags on it. You can even WP:IAR, if you want, the distinguish template is an improvement if it helps readers who are mistaken, and hurts no one in the process. However, as long as some notice is there, something that isn't ridiculous, that would be fine with me. Prodego talk 01:39, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Obviously people are confusing Wikia/Wikimedia, so it makes perfect sense to disambiguate between the two. I suppose people might also confuse Wikia/wiki, so we might disambig that as well (though I do note wiki is linked in the lead sentence, if that'll do). We needn't make this disambiguation "official" for it to be needed. – Luna Santin (talk) 23:14, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Self-reference

Please argue before removing the self-reference hatnote. IMO, there is no problem to have two pages about Wikia: Wikia (in the main namespace) and Wikipedia:Wikia (in the project namespace) since have Wikipedia (in the main namespace) and Wikipedia:Wikipedia (in the project namespace). 16@r (talk) 01:44, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

And now you see why I wanted to use distinguish. Prodego talk 01:58, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
In most cases, disambiguation and self-reference are separable, in this case, let's try not to mix them. 16@r (talk) 02:06, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
It's fine to have two pages about Wikia. But the page in project space should not be presented as encyclopedic information, because it isn't. The hatnote on Wikipedia clearly states "non-encyclopedic introduction"; it doesn't say "for information about how Wikipedia is X, click here". -Amarkov moo! 07:03, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
Well, let's try a different sentence. Are you OK with my new hatnote? 16@r (talk) 19:58, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
I still don't think that putting in a hatnote for that kind of stuff is a good idea. I mean, it's nice that it is now presented as WMF's opinion. But we would never have a note like that for any other organization, so why do Wikia and Wikimedia get special treatment? -Amarkov moo! 06:47, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't know, maybe because Wikia's founders also work for the Wikimedia Foundation... 16@r (talk) 17:39, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Worth noting Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2008 February 5#Template:Wikia is not Wikipedia where prominent placement of just such an "official" statement was roundly rejected by the community. Granted that this is a far more subtle notice, and I appreciate the effort, but it still brings up some of the same concerns. – Luna Santin (talk) 23:18, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
If we're going to be a neutral encyclopedia, then we can't give any organization special treatment, no matter how close they are to Wikipedia. If the goal has changed from being a neutral encyclopedia to something else, please tell me; I didn't notice that happening. -Amarkov moo! 23:34, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

WP:NPOV is for the encyclopedic content

"All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV)".

Hatnote using the template {{selfref}} that you can see before the article, is not part of the article..., it is part of the Wikipedia project. What has to be written in a NPOV is the articles not the self-references or the template messages. In case of fork, these self-references and messages are very likely to be disabled. That's what {{selfref}} is for, and that's why it produces a special style (left margin and italic). As for {{Wikia is not Wikipedia}}, I also think it was a bad idea because it's a self-reference, for which we already have the template selfref... If you think the current style produced by the template doesn't allow to clearly see the difference between the encyclopedic content and the self-references, you might want you to suggest some changes. I don't know, a different colour, or a frame as on the Italian Wikipedia (see Luna for example) or making the message collapsible or a even why not a new tab (has already been proposed, see WT:Self-references to avoid#A new way of handling self references?). 16@r (talk) 01:07, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I've never seen a single policy, guideline, discussion, or even widely supported statement or sentiment that disambiguation notices are in any way exempt from NPOV or other content policies. Since you're arguing for such an exemption, it seems clear you agree (even if subconsciously) that the current notice is not remotely neutral. – Luna Santin (talk) 02:13, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
I make a difference between selfref and disambiguation notices (by the way selfref doesn't use the class "dablink"). Here I don't talk about disambiguation link like {{otheruses}} but about {{selfref}}. And I call tell you fully consciously that indeed the current self-reference is not NPOV. And it's not difficult to notice that, "For Wikimedia Foundation's statements", it's WMF's POV. Selfref are not an exempt, it's just that it belong to the Wikipedia project and we don't write our policies and guidelines for our own project but for the encyclopedic content.
"The goal of Wikipedia is to create an encyclopedia, not merely to perpetuate itself" WP:SELF.
selfref are WP's POV (or WMF's POV), that's why they are disabled in case of forking 16@r (talk) 12:36, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
You've now openly admitted the selfref is not NPOV. On that basis alone, I'm removing it. – Luna Santin (talk) 21:38, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
For the sake of being open, I've posted to the village pump asking if this interpretation is supported by the community. – Luna Santin (talk) 01:58, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikia for Deleted Articles?

I think it would be worth discussing the possibility of changing non-notability deletion policies to include the step of transplanting information not suitable for wikipedia to a suitable wiki if it exists. One could argue that outright deletion is little better than book burning. . . —Preceding unsigned comment added by Carterhawk (talk • contribs) 07:02, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

This is an article about wikia, it's not a place to discuss the usefulness of wikia - you want to try and find a policy page to dicuss this on. --Fredrick day (talk) 10:18, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
This is already done unofficially in some cases, e.g. furry fandom articles to WikiFur, Star Trek articles to Memory Alpha, Star Wars to Wookieepedia. (Article deletion also spurs the creation of such wikis.) Often the target wikis already have articles on the topic, but not always, and Wikipedia's may be superior in some areas. GreenReaper (talk) 16:25, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
MyWikiBiz.com is requesting that articles that are deleted here for COI type reasons to be made available to be moved there. It would be useful to move deleted articles into the user space of the creator of the article whenever reasonable. WAS 4.250 (talk) 11:50, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Disclaimer

See history and TFD for background. There's been some back-and-forth on whether or not to include a disclaimer of a relationship between Wikia and the Wikimedia Foundation in the top of the article. I think this needs wider input from the community, so I am starting this RFC. —Random832 18:26, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Aside from the much-commented TFD, I think #Disambiguation and #Self-reference above are both helpful reading. – Luna Santin (talk) 00:32, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

An outside, neutral opinion on the COI.

To clarify my neutrality:

  • I post over at Wikipedia Review
  • I wrote the essay Anti-Wikipedianism
  • Jimmy Wales himself has called me a troll. [1]
  • Despite the above, I'm not going to argue here that Anthere is in the wrong, because I don't think she is, not entirely.

There seem to be two sides here:

  • One group (largely likely from Wikipedia Review and just general Wiki-haters) trying to subtly put forth the conspiracy theory "Wikipedia = Wikia tax shelter"
  • Members of the Foundation attempting to remove such suggestions, out of obvious self-interest

The edits by members of the Foundation seem to be a COI, but I don't blame them. Wouldn't you do the same thing in their situation? You actually expect the chairman of Wikimedia to put herself at legal risk, simply for the sake of adhering literally to a particular policy, on a website they have legal control over? The fact that they haven't banned you all, set this revision to the revision they want, and hidden your revisions are strong (and verifiable!) evidence itself of how this is a conspiracy theory.

And even if conflicts-of-interest are against the rules, if any rule hurts Wikipedia, it should be ignored. There isn't enough evidence to suggest that Wikipedia is a tax shelter, so the mob that is subtly pushing such conspiracy theories here are not acting in accordance with WP:V because they are engaging in synthesis of published material serving to advance a position, not to mention putting Wikipedia at legal risk, out of a bizarre crusade to take down Wikipedia, and thus they should be ignored.

There may also be some who aren't necessarily pushing conspiracy theories, but are simply pedantic followers of policy who will follow policy completely literally and plainly, as if it were the Bible, and they're basically encouraging this trolling.

With that said, "Verifiability, not truth" isn't stupid but that meme is stupid because there is little or no emphasis on rational and objective verification which should lead to the most reliable ascertainment of the truth.

Verification makes sense, because we could argue over "truth" all day long and we'd get nowhere. On the other hand, though, if articles weren't intended to have substantial truth to them, they wouldn't be "encyclopedic." So, we don't write articles based on our personal beliefs about the truth, but we do objectively verify in such a way that we are working towards achieving the most reliable ascertainment of the truth.

So, the wiki process involves verification, but another core principle of Wikipedia (one that's often forgotten on English Wikipedia) is that it is an encyclopedia, which means it is intended to be a reliable compendium of knowledge, of matters of fact.

In this case, I think some compromise should be in order that would lead to a better article. I haven't seen any version that I think is completely neutral, but I think the attacks on Anthere are somewhat unwarranted. I could try to edit the article myself, but before I do that it'd probably be best to wait to see what people here say about it. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 17:24, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

It's been two days and nobody says anything, so there are one of three possibilities here, logically:

  • I'm correct and nobody objects to my statements above ("Silence equals consensus").
  • People disagree with me but they're too lazy to respond or they think it wouldn't accomplish anything.
    Forcing people to choose between two sides oversimplifies the issue. GreenReaper (talk) 19:17, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Nobody's really watching this talkpage, because it isn't in the mainspace.

No matter what, I'm working on revising it now.

☯  Zenwhat (talk) 18:57, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I made changes here. [2] Most likely, they will be reverted in full by a first-time anon editor who is unwilling to discuss their changes but completely willing to edit war, and with the edit summary, "revert vandalism." Nevertheless, it was fun to actually attempt to make this article NPOV. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 19:29, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Nothing in your edit immediately jumps out at me as problematic, I'd say. Kudos for taking a shot at it. – Luna Santin (talk) 00:34, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Looks I was right, mostly.

This sentence was tagged as OR by an anon:

Despite this, their management teams and finances are separate, and their offices are in different cities.

Then User:Discombobulator (who claims on their user page that they founded Wikipedia) removed it as OR.

I've re-included the sentence. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 01:41, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

OK. So, you have somebody removing a fairly reasonable claim which isn't sourced [3] (but it's illogical to remove on the claim that it "isn't sourced", because Wikia and Wikipedia both mention the office locations of both groups -- if this isn't a "sourced" claim, why doesn't he remove the info from both articles?)
Then, on the other hand, you have somebody who just removed a sentence which was pretty well-sourced [4], not based on what the source actually says, but by his interpretation of what the article is intended to be for? Baffling.
Neither of these two people (or the anon above) have any rational justification for their changes and neither have commented on the talkpage here about their edits. And so, yes, as expected from the outset, I didn't accomplish anything. But it was fun. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 18:17, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
I think the phrase that's appropriate here is Interlocking directorate. --John Nagle (talk) 19:32, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
Yes, although flag of convenience (business) would also apply if Wikia is claiming to be based in Delaware. I have no idea why they are making this claim if they have no connection with the state. --66.102.80.212 (talk) 22:56, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
There's nothing to that. It's very common for businesses to incorporate in Delaware, due to the difference in various US state laws. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 23:17, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Weird comments

I don't quite know what this is but it seems an odd POV unsourced comment that isn't true and doesn't make sense. It's also misleadingly placing text before a ref tag to make it look sourced when it isn't. Angela. 10:36, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Removed... but I'm not quite sure why you didn't do it yourself.happypal (Talk | contribs) 15:08, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
Because people would accuse me of WP:COI. Angela. 02:29, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
Hadn't though of that. Makes sense.happypal (Talk | contribs) 05:27, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

wikia's recent changes

last time i was on wikia it was just like the other wikis but now its all weird and i dont know how 2 do anything there. 1 of my friends is on there but i cant get 2 her page... can someone help me with that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by ShinkisRule (talk • contribs) 13:55, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

This page is only for discussing the article about Wikia, so I'll answer your question by email. Angela. 13:07, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

It seems Wikia's change in ad policy and the spiff with the Transformers Wiki has made the news

link How exactly should this be added? --FortMax (talk) 02:50, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I'd suggest it makes a good start for a "Criticisms" section. Or there could be a section about the controversy itself, using the article as the basis of notability, but including links to other seceding Wikis where there's been discussion about the matter. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 12:56, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

(Transformers Wiki has now moved: they're tfwiki.net) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.102.80.212 (talk) 19:02, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Moving is the sort of thing that people discuss in private - often what you see is the tip of the iceberg - but here's a list of public discussions on the larger sites:
Negative and discussing moving
Negative but not discussing moving
Neutral/mixed
Positive
Leaders of smaller sites probably only contributed their opinion at the main forum for this topic (see archives) or the mailing list. GreenReaper (talk) 16:09, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Illogicopedia has moved, as of early November 2008. Uncyclopedia has always been split by language, with about half of the languages non-Wikia, as this sort of thing from Wikia's founders does not endear the company to Taiwan's uncyclopedia.tw. No bridges left to burn in some cases (uncyc.zh-tw left in 2006, splitting from en: after Wikia tried to lump them into uncyclopedia.wikiachina.cn - a site now banned in China). There were also removals of a few people from their Wikia posts in October, as the problems are worse than this (biased by its dreadful incompleteness) WP page cares to reflect. Wikia is still registering domain names which the respective communities wanted to use on their new non-Wikia sites (take a look at who.is/desciclopedia.net and who.is/desciclopedia.info, then look at the mess in Creatures Wiki, just more of the same...). The chronology (based on looking at the various wiki threads, the Guardian media coverage, the coverage on Valleywag and a few other sites tracking the Wikia layoff/firing spree) looks like:

June-July 2008:

  • Wikia turns the site into an unusable mess of ads, using a forced reskin of wikis which it calls "New Monaco". People begin to leave. By the time The Guardian picks up the story (July 2008), the damage already has been done.
  • Wikia's Alexa rank begins to tank by late-June '08 as disgruntled editors leave the site. That distant hope of becoming or remaining one of the largest 300 websites in the world quickly fades to black.
  • The suits begin to realise they have a problem as Alexa traffic to other similar sites (such as non-Wikia wikis) is steady while Wikia is dropping like a rock. It's now not just authors but some entire wikis leaving or talking about leaving.

September 2008:

  • Wikia takes its frustrations out on communities like en.uncyclopedia.org, redirecting its domain traffic in an attempt to inflate wikia.com's traffic statistics. Alexa stats show traffic counts for en.uncyclopedia.org drop from that of a top-10000 website to basically zero as Wikia appropriates that traffic for its own main domain in late-October.
  • en.Uncyclopedia is pushed almost but not quite to the point of getting a backbone, packing up and leaving. As half of the non-English versions are already on co-located servers or hosted independently, the only thing Uncyclopedia is missing should they move en: is the uncyclopedia.org domain name (which one of the co-founders secretly, stupidly sold to Jimbo in July 2006).

October 2008:

  • By late October, Wikia is widely reported to be laying off staff - about 10% (3 of its 43 paid worker bees) get the axe.[5][6][7][8] Wikia claims to still be hiring, primarily in sales and marketing, despite the October 20, 2008 layoff announcements.
  • At the end of October 2008, a gossip story circulates[9] about why Jimbo Wales was no longer CEO of Wikia as of mid-2006, [10] although a Wikia venture capitalist investor issues a denial that he had been sacked for cause.[11]

November 2008:

  • Illogicopedia.org moves off-Wikia in early November. Wikia operates the old wiki as a direct competitor to the new one over the direct objection of its authors and even tries to get the license for new articles on the new wiki changed to GFDL (every scraper site operator's dream) instead of the non-commercial CC-BY-NC-SA which was adopted for new content after transition. Illogicopedians refuse. Wikia staff begin to remove information from the old wiki about the (now-completed) move [12] and even took the +sysop flag away from one user.
  • Various other wikis remain in various states of transition, including WikiFur (where all new languages are non-Wikia), or are acquiring domains and web space for an eventual move.

There's a lot of info out there that isn't in this article... and the omissions are glaring. --66.102.80.212 (talk) 18:30, 18 November 2008 (UTC)


I'd be very interested in more information (I'm sometimes a journalist), feel free to contact me at sethf at sethf.com -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 19:22, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Correction request from someone who doesn't have the credentials to edit the page

As of October 23, 2008, Uncyclopedia is located at Uncyclopedia.wikia.com, for the expressed purpose of bumping Wikia's Alexa ranking. WoWWiki admins have stated (on Uncyclopedia, so it's probably satire...) that they've been contacted and told they would be moved to, and Wikia has announced plans to move every single wiki they host to .wikia.com subdomains. Also, if this page wasn't locked, I'd be all adding a comma after "Memory Alpha", but that's just me. --152.3.141.108 (talk) 01:08, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Removed Uncyclopedia. We've also been informed that Memory Alpha and WoWWiki will be moving to the Wikia domain in due time. -- Manticore (talk) 07:44, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

New Monaco

Something needs to be added about the New Monaco fiasco and associated resulting departures/actions. Here's the most notable story I can find so far, but from searching the archives of Wikipedia I can see Mr Finkelstein's association with Wikipedia may well be a frosty one, so I might need some guidance on citing etc. Certainly two wikis have moved from Wikia - tfwiki.net and illogicopedia.org which may very well gain some more news coverage soon. -- Hindleyite (talk) 15:26, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Er, apologies for not reading the rest of the talkpage, seems I was rather hasty in adding this message before checking someone else hadn't already. -- Hindleyite (talk) 15:44, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
I think it's a matter of, let us say, sensitive political nature. I suspect people without an interest in this issue don't want to risk the abuse and retaliation that may accrue from possibly being perceived as giving aid and comfort to those critical of Wikia. While on the other side, it's not worth gotchas of COI!. As the saying goes, "Do you feel lucky, punk?" Seth Finkelstein (talk) 00:28, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
In any case, it looks like we don't have a "controversy" section even though there is now an entire wiki, created to archive gems like http://complaintwiki.org/wiki/Main_Page#Transformers "just one week after the Transformers wiki community abandoned Wikia, an interview with Jimmy Wales was published in which he used the Transformers wiki alone as evidence of Wikia's success (see Jimmy Wales: Make Your Brands Authentic: In the age of participatory media, Wikipedia's co-founder touts transparency and engagement, Brian Morrissey, AdWeek, Sept 23, 2008). "You have to be sincere about allowing for community control," he advised." Apparently Wikia's blatantly misleading claims to other wiki communities that the ad-heavy New Monaco reskin had increased TFwiki's traffic were a key part of the decision of the community to move elsewhere.
You can't make this stuff up. Transformers is now http://tfwiki.net --66.102.80.212 (talk) 21:39, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
Yes, there really ought to be some sort of controversy section, provided it is written in a neutral manner. Personally, as someone who feels like they have been stamped on by Wikia somewhat, I'm probably not the best good position to give a neutral view on the subject. I may give it a go, though seeing as your link to the complaint wiki got vaporised, I'm not massively optimistic of my text staying there. Do I feel lucky indeed :P -- Hindleyite (talk) 12:33, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
One issue that desperately needs to be addressed is that of wikis which were independent before Wikia makes a backroom deal with one of the project's founders or co-founders, taking control of the domain over the objection of (usually) all others in the affected community. I think there were a couple of cases where a wiki was under a non-commercial license (such as Uncyclopedia) or its initial establishment was funded largely with donated money (such as GuildWiki). These raise the question of whether one individual has the right to "own" the finished product and resell it to Wikia or anyone else. It would seem to be a rather clear violation of the non-commercial license, but other than the affected wikis themselves I'm not sure what to use as a source for this topic. The outside media have yet to pick up on the issue, and I can't use something like complaintwiki as a source as it is an archive, not an origin for information. --66.102.80.212 (talk) 00:35, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
The content isn't being sold, but whether or not it will be hosted on a specific server, under a specific domain controlled by a specific person. As far as I know, there's no law against paying someone not to host a website, or for the service of sending you a backup of free content, or for the transfer of a domain name which they established. If they did so with donated funds that might be an issue, but probably not unless there was a contract forbidding it. You can't take back gifts.
Ultimately, these issues revolve around control of the name. To avoid them, the community needs to form a non-profit corporation and register the domain and service mark, rather than relying on individuals. The trouble is, founders have the most to gain and are in the best position to register, as their actions establish a strong claim to the term. In practice, they would have to sanction such an organization for it to succeed, and would probably have to set it up themselves. They may only do so if it is in their interest to, perhaps because communities withhold donations or refuse to participate further without it. (As with furry conventions after the collapse of the privately-run ConFurence.) GreenReaper (talk) 21:42, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
From the five pages or so of ugly legalese on wikia:guildwars:GuildWiki:Wikia Move (which begin "draft domain and content assignment contract" and "contract for assignment of domain and related content", then get worse from there) it is very clear that Wikia's intent is to buy the content - even though the rightful owners of that content (its authors) are not a party to these backroom deals and are explicitly being kept in the dark about the terms of the deals. The content, in almost all of these cases, is not an individual project's cofounder's to sell - to Wikia or anyone else. I know Uncyclopedia has a non-commercial Creative Commons license, I think GameWikis.org may have been non-commercial license as well. (And yes, all this info has been backed up off-Wikia, just in case the originals disappear). I'm just not sure (other than by citing wikia:ownership and juxtaposing it against the actual situation in wikia:c:guildwars:GuildWiki:Wikia Move or other affected projects) how to source this in a form suitable for a "controversy" section. The issues of advertisements displacing content and of communities leaving (almost always to find Wikia operating the abandoned wiki in direct competition with the new project) are easy enough to cite from the two Guardian pieces - but all three stages (acquisition, operation with often-inappropriate advertising content or placement, interference with communities leaving) need to be addressed - even if it's just a sentence or two each. To leave the info out leaves an incredibly one-sided article (which has already drawn enough attention for its overt bias), but to properly document all of this requires sources, which preferably should be something a little more stable and trustworthy than just the hundred twenty megabytes or so of wiki page archives documenting individual community complaints. --66.102.80.212 (talk) 23:53, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

This is a complicated issue, where buying the domain name functions as a de facto way of buying the content in spirit, but not in letter. Wikia has many aspects like that. In my column on "Wikia Search", I had a line about the resources for a nonprofit that were supposedly open to everyone, but only Wikia used them - "It's not quite the case that, as a wag might jest, a charity has made a substantial donation to a venture capital-backed startup.". I've gotten flack for that, since technically it wasn't exclusive to Wikia, so various people kept saying what Wikia was doing was completely legal. And I don't disagree, but still consider it relevant to point out the practical effect and how it fit into Wikia's strategy of shifting costs onto others while intending to keep profit for itself. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 03:57, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I supposed the biggest single "donation by a charity" would be the MediaWiki software itself; admittedly used on many sites (not just Wikia) but certainly one manner in which for-profit Wikia stands on the shoulders of non-profit Wikipedia. --66.102.80.212 (talk) 06:18, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
That's not what I was addressing in that line. MediaWiki is widely used, by many sites. It's a general tool which has Wikia as one of many users. In the case of Wikia Search, Wikia has been the only user of the donated resources, and it'll likely stay that way. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 06:52, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

By the way, does anyone know how I can get in touch with "GraveWit" - I'd like to ask him about that contract mentioned above. There's a strange aspect to it, in item 4.3 - "options on $3,000 of shares of Wikia stock". Stock options are usually X options at Y price per share. The phrase "options on $3,000 of shares" is pretty vague in a contract for a non-public company. I could see it being used informally in a news article to summarize a complicated contract. But as a contract term itself, it would raise a huge red flag to me if I were on the other side of it. In a company cofounded by a former options trader, they can't be unsophisticated about these things. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 04:12, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Try the info on his userpage. Or try to get hold of one of the people he interacted with off the wiki (e.g. [13], [14] or possibly [15]). --Xeeron (talk) 14:15, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
There's also an address "Yeah, it's zero at zerolives dot org" listed here. There has been no activity from this user on any of the affected wikis in more than a year (understandably, given what he's done) and he is no longer admin on GuildWiki itself due to inactivity. I did find one source, a slashdot entry at http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/15/0327236 (there's also a "How a Wiki Community Dies" forum thread on Wikipedia Review, but that wouldn't be WP:RS). --66.102.80.212 (talk) 19:31, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
Great, thank you for that information (and thanks to the people who have contacted me earlier who I need to get back to, sorry). -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 23:19, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Selective removal of information

It would appear that a user, User:John_Reaves, has been selectively removing sources and information from this article in such a way as to remove links to controversy and turn this page effectively into a one-sided advertisement. I've moved the issue here, Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Wikipedia.27s_article_on_Wikia as this page is turning into a WP:COI on a scale which reflects very poorly upon the project as a whole. --66.102.80.212 (talk) 22:53, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Woah, he edited the page once and the last edit before that was in 2007 (and had nothing to do with sources). Aren't you jumping the gun here? --Xeeron (talk) 23:02, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I, too, am forced to view this as a slight overreaction or exaggeration. Please, could you provide more specific examples of his "controversial" edits? Also, while certainly not necessary, it might be best if more proper links to your own talk be provided and you sign in to your account. Thank you! Soccerrox62 (talk) 10:31, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikia vs. Wikimedia

Wikipedia: Special Treatment for Wikia and some other Wikis, Nik Cubrilovic, TechCrunch, April 28, 2007 should be cited in the portion of the "controversy" section (currently tagged [who?]) to support the claim that Wikia is perceived to benefit unduly from being seen as associated with Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Foundation. It's not the only instance of the question being raised, but a usable example. --66.102.80.212 (talk) 03:30, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

List of Wikis

I know it would be very long, but I think we should have a list of wikis on wikia with links. What do you think? Pirakafreak24 ( Leave a Message ) I can sing! Ha!. 20:02, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Wikia has (according to their homepage) over 1500 wikis. That is a definite no, especially, since they a list of their wikis is the first thing you'll see if you visit the homepage. --Xeeron (talk) 20:59, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
Furthermore, most of Wikia's many wikis are abandoned garbage dumps, like this, or like this, so there is not much point in listing them. -- 3 Good 1 Comment (talk) 06:20, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
The larger wikis are on m:List of largest wikis, in dark green. If you want a list, the ones there might be suitable. GreenReaper (talk) 17:29, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
Someone added a list of wikia wikis, apparently without further discussion here. In my opinion, it needs to be removed. It is an ugly and unneeded (http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Hub:Big_wikis just one click away) list that risks growing ever longer. If we absolutely need a list of wikia wikis on wikipedia, it should be on a separate article, e.g. List of wikia wikis. --Xeeron (talk) 10:57, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
So fix it! :-) Any list on here is likely to go out of date and is of little use as the truly notable ones tend to be linked already. Many of the blue links on there redirect to this page. Perhaps a category and a link in see also would be suitable. GreenReaper (talk) 21:21, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
Giving people a chance to argue their case for inclusion first. But I will remove it shortly if there is no dissent. --Xeeron (talk) 21:42, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Technical problems with wikia

Over the past 2 months, wikia has been experiencing technical problems (interrupted service, downtime during peak hours, locked database, ...). It seems to me that this would fit into a growing pains or current website section. 76.199.103.57 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:54, 13 April 2009 (UTC).

This was a temporary issue, addressed here: http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Forum:Site_performance_issues_and_improvements — Catherine\talk 16:44, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
I would note that the link above is in fact a first party course.   «l| ?romethean ™|l»  (talk) 13:38, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Updates to article

As an employee of Wikia, I'd like to suggest some updates to this article. Wikia has changed its wiki creation policy, so that wikis no longer need approval before creation. The word "selective" can be removed from the lead, and the phrase "most widely-scoped community projects are accepted" can be removed from the "Topics and wikis" section. Thank you! — Catherine\talk 16:44, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

While we're on the topic of updates, can you say how many paid employees + paid contractors does Wikia have nowadays? (can that number be sourced reliably?) Hasn't it gone down because of the demise of Wikia Search? -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 17:59, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
Removed the first, changed the second. --Xeeron (talk) 19:16, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
There's no longer a source for this, so the '42' should be removed from the infobox. Angela. 03:34, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
While we're on the topic of updates, can you say how many paid employees + paid contractors does Wikia have nowadays? Hasn't it gone down because of the demise of Wikia Search? I'll see if I can include it in an acceptable source if you supply the information. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 03:59, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

License

The first paragraph mentions licenses. This will be out of date as of Friday as Wikia migrates to a Creative Commons License. Instead of

Wikia is free of charge for readers and editors and licenses user-provided text content under the GNU Free Documentation License or, in the case of Memory Alpha and Uncyclopedia, a Creative Commons license (CC by-nc-sa).

It should say something like

Wikia is free of charge for readers and editors and user-provided text content is usually available under a Creative Commons License.

Memory-Alpha and Uncyclopedia are not the only exceptions to the main policy (which will be CC-BY-SA) so there's less reason to list them separately. Angela. 03:33, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I have adjusted the lede and body to reflect the current, somewhat mixed state of affairs. I believe Memory Alpha and Uncyclopedia still have particular relevance as they are under a noncommercial license, unlike GFDL wikis. However, this is not important enough to be reflected in the lede - what matters is that they are all copyleft licenses. GreenReaper (talk) 07:08, 20 June 2009 (UTC)


skins

The article claims that wikia only allows Monobook and their custom skin. I don't know if they've perhaps done something in the preferences, but it seems odd they would do that, but still allow you other skins from useskin= parameter in a url (ex http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/R2-D2?useskin=standard ). Bawolff (talk) 06:46, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Their stated position is that the other skins are confusing to new users, and will not be updated with new features, so they have removed the ability to select them in preferences. The fact that they are still accessible via useskin is compatible with this statement; only advanced users are likely to use it. Note that those who have previously selected a different skin do not lose it unless they change to another one. GreenReaper (talk) 07:04, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

nytimes article

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/23/dining/23recipes.html?8dpc

wikia questions; creating wikis

Hello, i recently created a wiki on Wikia.com, and i was wondering: if you create a wiki, can you be the admin for said wiki? Hmstrrnnr (talk) 17:51, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

If you created the wiki, you should automatically be the local wiki administrator (equivalent to "bureaucrat" and "sysop" levels of access). If you are not, use Special:Contact to talk to the staff. GreenReaper (talk) 19:28, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Memory Beta

The Memory Beta link simply redirects to the Wikia article, I thought it may be better to link to Memory Alpha. That is, if it is unnecessary to have a wiki entry devoted to Memory Beta. Or, is Memory Beta notable enough to warrant a standalone article. Parradudes (talk) 05:45, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Geocities

I'm not sure what the "homage to geocities" is meant to mean, but it's not true. Angela. 06:58, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Seriously? The research for your business plan didn't turn up the fact that there was already a well-known company in the online communities business with "cities" in the title? (raised eyebrows) ErkDemon (talk) 12:47, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
I assumed it meant the site Geocities inspired the name "wikicities". And, knowing I'm contradicting a Co-Founder, nonetheless, it does seem to be true. Here's a reference - Global villages convene in wiki town halls "The truth of it is . . . Wikicommunity might have been better," Wales said of the name, which reflects the popularity of the Geocities sites. "It's the idea of each topic area is a city unto itself." -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 07:47, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps "homage" is not quite the right word. The first visible use of the term (by Mav) was as a "pun of geocities" in May 2002; the domain appears to have been registered shortly after, although it was allowed to drop at one point. The basic idea expressed by Wales was not quite the same as that of GeoCities, which collected multiple sites into topic areas named after real-life cities. It is also the reporter, not Wales, who states a connection between Wikicities and GeoCities. However, it is hard to believe the name was created without the intent to allude to GeoCities, any more than Wikipedia was chosen without consciously inviting comparison to "encyclopedia". A certain co-founder's own Twitter post appears to confirm this (though, in fairness, there's also this). GreenReaper (talk) 19:54, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
I'd say "allusion" is more the proper word than "homage", in the same way Napster spawned many "-ster" suffixed companies (e.g. Friendster). I think the reporter was summarizing what Wales said, as the history seems to be that wikicities was a confusing name. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 20:26, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Wikianswers

In case anyone is not aware of but Wikianswers has been discontinued so should there be a note on this update. -67.171.250.39 (talk) 23:16, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Huh? Maybe you're confusing it with the late, (un)lamented, Wikia Search? -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 00:32, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
Uh, No, Seriously all the questions and answers from Wikianswers are removed from numerous Wikia sites like the Harry Potter Wiki. -67.171.250.39 (talk) 06:22, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
I don't understand what you mean. When I go the Wikia Wikianswers site, it looks fine. There's no announcement anywhere that I saw. If Wikia changed some sort of internal publicity or interconnection, I don't think that would be noteworthy just by itself. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 07:23, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
It's an "SEO play". The idea is that someone types into Google (or another search engine) a question like "How do I make a big pile of money using Google Ads?", and a page on the site ranks highly for that query. So the person visits the site, profit! (presumably that page reads "Set up a site like this one and get people to visit it" :-)). There's several players attempting to do this, with varying degrees of success. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 18:58, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
Answers.wikia.com still exists, but it is in pretty bad shape. Take a look. The disappearance of some questions from that site was due to the establishment of many topic specific answers sites, like harrypotter.answers.wikia.com. The questions didn't disappear, they just moved. --173.13.177.205 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:51, 16 November 2010 (UTC).

New "Oasis" skin

Since the new look is protected by an NDA, I am unable to comment further on the skin, and we can only rely on what Wikia says. —I-20the highway 15:02, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Now it is live on select sites. More info can be released. —I-20the highway 20:27, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
The article on Wikia is now very out-of-date as the new skin rollout has caused alot of large wikis (Grand Theft Wiki, Halopedia, WikiSimpsons, WoWWiki → Wowpedia, etc.) to "leave" the site. I put "leave" in quotes, because Wikia will actively prevent deletion of content, so it really mostly means the administration and many active users have moved on to a new host for a wiki that is largely the same and based on the same content. See Anti-Wikia Alliance link database for an informal list of wikis that have left Wikia. --173.13.177.205 (talk) 19:48, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I removed the "Anti-Wikia Alliance" bit because, while I'm no fan of Wikia, it was purely "original research" in Wikipedia terms. Andreona (talk) 03:02, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, there is actually such a thing on ShoutWiki...but I won't delve on the subject. Crimsonraptor | (Contact me) Dumpster dive if you must 21:06, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Wikia and the Wikimedia Foundation

Regarding "who said this" about "Wikia has been accused of unduly profiting from a perceived association with Wikipedia", see for example the Techcrunch article "Wikipedia: Special Treatment for Wikia and some other Wikis". I am NOT endorsing the article itself, as the matter is quite complex. However, it did make the accusation, and that has been a perception problem. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 13:56, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Techcrunch also had another article a while back which touched on the topic - "Wikimedia's 2007 Financials Posted" -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 06:30, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

One bot is constantly reverting everything with anything involving any wikia (and even everything else in all edits)

Like this. Bot being mindless, can not understand how some wikis are NOT covered by #12 "blacklisting" (direct quote: Links to open wikis, except those with a substantial history of stability and a substantial number of editors.). Can someone do anything about it? Thank you. --94.246.150.68 (talk) 11:04, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Wikia Green

The site contains many large and famous wikis. Singling out just this one and giving it an entire section, seems inappropriate. Does anyone object to removal or stubbing to a sentence? FT2 (Talk | email) 11:32, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Removing would be fine by me - Wikia Green only seems significant for its failure -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 07:09, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

New errors

$5.74 million was not spent on marketing in 2006! The $5.74 claimed before that was likely just a joke rather than a figure that ought to be cited here. Someone added "negative" to the line about comparisons to GeoCities but the source given isn't negative about that. Angela. 02:34, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

I reverted the insertion of million as soon as I saw it. I don't know about removing the figure. "Comparisons to GeoCities" is implicitly negative to most people and it would be blatant POV pushing to add it based on what you said. Andreona (talk) 02:08, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
I disagree, especially as you're talking about a comparison that was being made in 2004 when Wikicities had that name. The GeoCities article states "GeoCities was the third-most visited website on the World Wide Web, behind AOL and Yahoo!." - that's not negative. Anyway, the whole thing should probably be removed since most people were not making any such comparisons. Instead, people were assuming it was a wiki site for cities which is why the name was dropped in 2006. Angela. 03:38, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
I don't think the reference to GeoCities should be removed. It's a significant insight into the market thinking at the time. It's a situation comparable to WikiLeaks nowadays, e.g. why they chose that name (PR as the Wikipedia of secrets). -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 03:59, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Merge from ArmchairGM

I suggest ArmchairGM be merged into this article. Wikia bought the site and integrated some of the site's contents into Wikia. The ArmchairGM article itself is very short. --Jtalledo (talk) 18:59, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Srongly Oppose Boo!! --123.192.44.240 (talk) 11:13, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

I really want to say that I oppose the merge, but right now, looking at the facts, I can't. ArmchairGM in its current form is just another Wikia-hosted wiki; it has lost its interesting, unique features and the admins have been gone for a while, too. ArmchairGM just isn't as notable as Uncyclopedia anymore; more like OpenServing, I'm afraid.

As a tech and open source enthusiast, I want to note that some of the unique technology used by ArmchairGM has been released to the public and cleaned up by the community; see mw:Extension:SocialProfile and my blog post about the open-source status of ArmchairGM and how getting ArmchairGM's source code as it was used on the site is pretty much impossible.

In light of these facts, I support the merge of the ArmchairGM article into the Wikia article. --Jack Phoenix (Contact) 21:20, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

After understanding all these facts I support merge.--Ankit Maity 06:09, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Support Its an inactive site in which wikia has pretty must absorbed -- King Curtis Gooden (talk) 23:07, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Merged per consensus. GreenReaper (talk) 18:12, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Wikis that moved

Kingdom Hearts Wiki moved, and it's a pretty large Wiki, so should it be added? 67.80.27.38 (talk) 23:46, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

So should the Sonic News Network. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.163.25.111 (talk) 22:15, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Uncyclopedia's Original Skin Changed

Uncyclopedia.org has been changed to [uncyclopedia.wikia.org], meaning that its skin has been changed. Take a look at its skin change mandatory. JMBZ-12 (talk) 03:12, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

In case it wasn't clear from the date, that was an April Fool's joke by the Uncyclopedia community. Angela. 12:59, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
Oh. Nevermind then. JMBZ-12 (talk) 13:56, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
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