Fandom (website): Difference between revisions

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Revision as of 00:28, 16 July 2019

Wikia, also known as Fandom and FANDOM powered by Wikia, is a wiki hosting service founded in late 2004 by Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesley. It is notable for hosting many fanwikis, such as WoWWiki and Wookieepedia. However, many wikis have left the site due to discontent over policies such as advertising and the (at the time) new "Oasis" skin, implemented against the majority of the community's will.

Tropes used in Fandom (website) include:

Ad Nauseam: A long string of forced reskins, which crowd out content to make room for more paid display advertising and more advertising for other Wikia projects.
- Unwanted Internet Ads for Real Money Trade (such as "buy gold", if placed against Guild Wars or World of Warcraft content as an invitation to cheat at these games) has been an issue in the past.
Anthropomorphic Personification: These folks used to be fine with the Furry Fandom and others, back when they were still small and needed the traffic. The community has since parted ways.
Author Existence Failure: Can Wikia really exist when they're out of users?
Awesome Personnel Carrier
Broken Base: There's a long list of communities which have voluntarily left. In most cases, Wikia leaves the old project open as a direct competitor, permanently fracturing the community.
Censorship Bureau: The Wikia staff routinely censor info about splits from old wikis to prevent users from finding the new project.
Content Warnings: Especially the spoiler warnings.
Deal with the Devil: Wikia's sneaky fine print, by which they contract themselves out of the "non-commercial" terms of various Creative Commons licences for existing communities, such as Memory Alpha.
- The backroom deals by which they have the one individual who controls the domain name for an existing wiki sell it, agree to delete data, agree not to speak out publicly and agree not to relaunch a competing wiki also fit the trope. Too many communities have found that they've lost editorial control of their project by seeing Wikia's name turn up on a 'whois' query.
Don't Make Me Destroy You: Admins.
Even Evil Has Standards: Wikia retaliates in various subtle ways against communities who try to leave, but they're utter angels compared to Internet Brands, who sued their own users for trying to leave Wikitravel for Wikivoyage in 2012.
Everyone Is Gay: Depending on the Wikia's topic...for example, in the Winx Wiki majority of the population are girls.
Fair Use: Stretched pretty much to its limits or beyond. Most of the wikis are commentary on well-known copyrighted entertainment franchises, which use large numbers of images from the original work.
Grammar Nazi: Yes.
Hot Linked: Particularly with deleted images
Inn of No Return: A group of wikis, including WoWpedia, left Wikia for a competitor (Gamepedia, which ended up part of Curse Media) – largely due to intrusive advertising. Wikia then bought Curse Media, so ultimately "they check in, but they don't check out".
Insistent Terminology: Wikis hosted on Wikia are not wikis, they are wikias.
Law of Wiki Expansion
Locked Pages
Moral Guardians: Ongoing staff censorship of content within individual projects, plus a long list of wikis shut down outright lest their content offend Wikia's advertisers. Aggravated by Wikia's use of SEO and duplicate content penalties to prevent the affected communities from leaving; they've blocked users site-wide for saying "Uncyclopedia has moved" to prevent users from finding the new project.
All The Tropes:Strong Language Usage Rules
Post Count: The editcount.
Reading Your Rights: Admins and Bureaucrats.
Rule of Cautious Editing Judgement
Screwed by the Network:
- Wikia can and has deleted whole wikis out of the blue. Among the communities thrown under the bus, some of whom were with Wikia almost from the beginning: Spanking Art (2008), Anime Bath Scene (2018), Fetish Fuel Wiki (2019) and roughly twenty-two languages of Uncyclopedia (2019).
Stillborn Franchise: Wikia Search.
Someday This Will Come in Handy: Has been known to cause attempts to invoke this trope.
The Wiki Rule: Wikia is one of the major reasons this Trope exists.
Vitalizing Edit
Walkthrough Mode: Especially in gaming wikis.
Wikia Will Ruin Your Life: Of course, the same can be said for other wiki hosts (such as Shoutwiki or Miraheze).
Wiki Magic
Wiki Curator
Wiki Vandal

@@ Line 12: / Line 12: @@
 *  [[Censorship Bureau]]: The Wikia staff routinely censor info about splits from old wikis to prevent users from finding the new project.
 *  [[Content Warnings]]: Especially the spoiler warnings.
+*  [[Deal with the Devil]]: Wikia's sneaky fine print, by which they contract themselves out of the "non-commercial" terms of various Creative Commons licences for existing communities, such as [[Star Trek|Memory Alpha]].
+** The backroom deals by which they have the one individual who controls the domain name for an existing wiki sell it, agree to delete data, agree not to speak out publicly and agree not to relaunch a competing wiki also fit the trope. Too many communities have found that they've lost editorial control of their project by seeing Wikia's name turn up on a 'whois' query.
 *  [[Don't Make Me Destroy You]]: Admins.
 *  [[Even Evil Has Standards]]: Wikia retaliates in various subtle ways against communities who try to leave, but they're [[We Suck Less|utter angels]] compared to [https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/10/business/media/once-a-profit-dream-wikitravel-now-bedevils-owner.html Internet Brands, who sued their own users] for trying to leave Wikitravel for Wikivoyage in 2012.