Talk:Fandom (website)

Connection with Wired

Two of the images associate Wikia with Wired (magazine). What's the connection? If there isn't one, we shouldn't imply that there is. But if there is, we should spell it out. yoyo (talk) 04:32, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Adding to the Wikimedia Family

Looking at it, this would be suited better if it were a Wikimedia project. It would serve as 'A collection of Wikis' or something like that. Analyi|(talk) 21:58, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Updating the Wikia article

Hi there. My name is Greta, and I am disclosing up front that I have a COI around this article - I am currently working at Wikia. I was asked, along with my colleague Philippe (an employee of Wikia, who is also disclosing a COI related to this article) to work with the Wikipedia editor community to see if we could get the article on Wikia updated. There are several things on it that are quite outdated, and we believe that there is a strong "coatrack” effect. A number of details could potentially be cleaned up because they are no longer relevant.

We thought it might be easiest if we started with our edited version of the "ideal" article from our perspective, presented it, and then worked with anyone willing to reconcile the differences between the two. Philippe has put together our draft, and we welcome any comments or suggestions. We want to emphasize that we've made no attempt to "whitewash" anything - we haven't rewritten much, we've just trimmed and edited. Any additions are minor. We have the utmost respect for the Wikipedia process (as you all know, I'm sure, Philippe was on staff at the WMF for 6 and a half years) and want to work within the rules, and our management shares our commitment to this.

Please let us know if you have any feedback. In the meantime, what is the best way for us to proceed?

Gmartin1122 (talk) 22:06, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Since there's been no response here, I'm going to try {{Edit request}}. -Philippe (talk) 14:54, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

@Gmartin1122 and Philippe: I'm willing to work with you two to update this article. -- MorbidEntree - _{(Talk to me! (っ◕‿◕)っ♥)}(please reply using {{ping}}) 03:38, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

@MorbidEntree: Thanks so much for your offer! My name is Nikki and I work at Wikia as well. I'd love to work with you on this if you're open to it (Greta has moved on from Wikia). As Greta mentioned, we have the utmost respect for the Wikipedia process. We have some upcoming fact-based updates that I think would make sense to include in the article. I want to be respectful of your time. Does it make sense to work together once we have that information? Thanks again!

Thanks, @MorbidEntree:, but I have also moved on from Wikia. While I continue to declare a COI as they were my previous employer, I am no longer working on that article. :) -Philippe (talk) 05:56, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Rebranding

The Wikia platform (the part with the wikis on it) is rebranding to "Fandom powered by Wikia" on October 4th. It's for corporate branding reasons more than anything else, but judging from their blog it also has a bit to do with internal organization.

In case anyone was considering it, I don't think that's enough to warrant a rename of this article. The rebranding received an extremely negative response from users on Wikia, so I find it very unlikely that anyone (on Wikia or elsewhere) will deign to call it "Fandom." The word Fandom also has existing (and often negative) meaning among the general public, so renaming this article would be confusing to the vast majority of readers - the word will never become truly associated with Wikia. Furthermore, Wikia is not changing their URL or the names of individual wikis.

Even if you ignore all that, the corporate name is going to remain "Wikia, Inc." So essentially, almost everything is staying the same - the page shouldn't be renamed, and Wikia should still always be referred to as Wikia because doing anything else is and will always be confusing to readers. —Atvelonis (talk) 14:55, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

My two cents

I don't like the change to fandom myself. However, looking at the article it seems the article is more about the platform Wikia itself, rather than Wikia, Inc. There are several places where they are used interchangeably. Due to Wikia, Inc officially renaming the wiki platform to "Fandom powered by Wikia" I think it is fitting to call it such if the article is meant to be about the platform itself. If this is the case the non-wiki news magazine, hosted under Wikia's umbrella that is also called Fandom would likely need to be differentiated or included in the article. I am not sure about the naming policy, this is just my feedback to state that since they are officially renaming the article (if about the platform not the company) may need to reflect the change. In Christ, Superdadsuper, Wikipedia Editor; Bible Wiki Administrator & Bureaucrat — Preceding unsigned comment added by Superdadsuper (talk • contribs) 23:11, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

In my personal opinion, Fandom content in the company history should be moved to a new section with headings - considering that the rebranding is a symbolic diversification to the wiki hosting service that Wikia offers. I think the move should happen sometime from a neutral perspective, but the article needs more content to be split into "Fandom" and "Wikia". The reaction was rather mixed on the Fandom rebranding to be fair.

A suggestion for history sections:

1. ===2004–2006: Wikicities===
2. ===2007–2009: Wikia rebranding and Monaco===
3. ===2010–2014: Wikia's expansion and Oasis===
4. ===2015–present: Fandom project and rebranding===

The article's history section also needs limited objective information about the skin implementation - they weren't objectively absolute in controversy and there's no information on Oasis in the article at all. Including Discussions would be good, but more detail on products seems unfair.

 Speeditor talk  23:33, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, that's a possibility. Having a more detailed history section with the headings you gave, but not renaming the actual article, would have the most positive effect on readers' understanding of the topic. —Atvelonis (talk) 03:01, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

I think that a redirect to this page, from Fandumb Fandom Powered by Wikia or whatever, would be a good idea. Scientific Alan 2^{(What have I said?)(What have I done?)} 22:08, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

The for-profit arm of Wikipedia

I know that in the past there was some dispute about how Wikipedia's article about Wikia characterized its relationship with Wikipedia and/or the Wikimedia Foundation. There was a lot of argument back and forth about whether Wikipedia and Wikia were more closely tied than the Wikipedia article was letting on about. It seems that the inside leadership of the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikia eventually prevailed, so that the current reader does not get any strong idea that Wikia and the Wikimedia Foundation were at one time very closely affiliated. I'm kind of astounded, then, to see this recent video -- http://www.tubechop.com/watch/8452762 -- of Jimmy Wales nodding his head in confirmation that Wikia is "the for-profit arm of Wikipedia". If the co-founder of both project cannot himself interject and say "well, not exactly", what the heck is going on here? - Truth about MVNOs (talk) 17:01, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

"For-profit"

I'm not associated with Wikia and I'm a small volunteer editor for WMF. This was my first time reading the article, and the lead section feels harsh. I get it, it's "for-profit" and it "deriving its income from advertising and sold content" and yes, it's parent is a "for-profit Delaware company." I simply don't see the need to hammer that in during the lead section. Yahoo! is a "for-profit" company "deriving its income from advertising" but its article certainly doesn't open up that way. Truthfully, and this being my first read of the article, it came across as Wikipedia editors being vindictive. Just wanted to get the conversation going about it. Drewmutt (talk) 07:34, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

It's not inaccurate, and it's certainly not something that they're very open about. They tend to portray a lot of decisions that are obviously profit-focused as being "for ease of use of consumers", even when the consumers are vehemently complaining about them.50.194.115.156 (talk) 15:52, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

List of largest wikies

What do you think about including in this article ranking of largest wikies? Dawid2009 (talk) 07:29, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Piracy

Does Wikia support piracy? I often see many articles which contain obvious copyright infringement. Such as copyrighted images (obviously beyond fair use) as well as videos or ebooks. 2600:1:F15E:448C:A19E:4DD1:75AD:25C1 (talk) 15:51, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

Admins on English Wikipedia has no jurisdiction over Wikia network. If you want to report copyright violations on Wikia, follow this link. And, most importantly, please note that the talk page is for discussions related to improving the article, not general discussions regarding the topic. -- ChamithN (talk) 16:24, 12 February 2018 (UTC)