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Thursday, October 20, 2022

Why People Don't Like Fandom Wikis

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - The problem is the company.

I totally admit it's a genius business model, and it's obviously working: Fandom, a for-profit business, lets fans across a variety of media types (gaming, books, comics, TV, film, etc.) make free wikis with their software, also known as a wiki farm. Fans manage the wikis as a community. Specificity and detail are encouraged with as many pages on as many minute topics as possible in that IP. That gets a LOT of long-tail search keyword results on search engines, and that's why hundreds of millions of people visit wikis on the Fandom network. Fandom does have a staff that sometimes polices wikis (such as preventing duplicates that might divide communities and harm search results) and may have proactive outreach on things like search engine optimisation (SEO)... but for the most part, they just maintain the wiki software, set network-wide policy, and put up advertisements and profit from the work of fans who make content for them.

In an exciting development for the Zelda Wiki, they just regained independence from Fandom after Fandom acquired them a few years ago. The comments on the tweet have universal acclaim:



There exist a group of Nintendo-based wikis that strive to be high-quality while being independent from corporate influences called the Nintendo Independent Wiki Alliance, or NIWA for short. These independent wikis often compete directly with Fandom counterparts and are often superior in quality and user experience, such as the Fire Emblem Wiki versus the Fire Emblem Fandom Wiki. Fire Emblem fans tend to know that the Fandom wiki is worse in quality, but the Fandom wiki is the one that tends to be first in the search results. Other household name Wikis have pretty clearly won their fight versus their Fandom counterparts, including the Super Mario Wiki, SmashWiki, and Bulbapedia.

But let's get specific using the Zelda Wiki as an example, and what may come for some of Fandom's recent and very aggressive acquisitions.


As you can read in the embedded tweet, Zelda Wiki was independent, and then moved to the Gamepedia wiki platform. And then Fandom acquired Gamepedia, claimed there wouldn't be “immediate impact to your user experience on either site”, and then merged all the Gamepedia competitors with existing Fandom counterparts. A few weeks ago, Fandom make a similar move to acquire several gaming sites from Red Ventures, a feckless venture capital firm that had itself had recently acquired those gaming sites (but didn't seem to do much about them) from ViacomCBS, including GameSpot, GameFAQs, Giant Bomb, and Metacritic. They claim they're figuring out what to actually do with this acquisition, but apparently they're going to want to advertise Fandom wikis on the recently acquired sites, which definitely sucks for them. (And I'm an active GameFAQs user!)

Advertisements are a very touchy subject for Fandom users, because they're... everywhere and obnoxious. We can do a very fun comparison between the two versions of the Zelda Wikis, since the Fandom one still exists. Try to guess which one is which... though they're labelled in the address bar. ...And it should be really obvious.


Zelda Wiki Tingle page Fandom desktop layout ads autoplaying videos advertisements sidebars
There are other advertisements you don't see because they're actually underneath other advertisements, like a “sponsored by” Fandom ad page on the Popular Pages right sidebar.
The left sidebar is a Fandom network-wide “feature” trying to plug irrelevant content.
If you scroll all the way to the bottom, there is a “Fan Feed” with more Fandom content from other websites and sponsored stuff; much of it is not The Legend of Zelda-related.
The videos you see are actually auto-playing and follow you as you scroll through the page.

Zeldapedia Zelda Wiki Tingle desktop page kooloo-limpah
No complaints on this.


Here's the two side-by-side on mobile:

Fandom wiki mobile layout ads Zelda Zeldapedia
The Zeldapedia (non-Fandom) Kooloo-Limpah section on mobile is SO nonintrusive that you can actually fit the whole thing on one screen.
There's a decent chance if you try to close those ads on your mobile device that you'll actually end up opening them.


Fandom is powerful because there's a strong allure of free software and hosting. Other free alternatives exist, but Fandom has been acquiring a lot. And some media properties, unfortunately including Ace Attorney, don't have viable alternative wikis and are stuck on Fandom. By the way, I was pretty nice and euphemistic to Fandom in my opening paragraph. They've been known, once a wiki grows big enough to catch their attention, to make changes (in the name of better SEO and/or revenue, as opposed to user experience or fan culture) without consulting or even notifying fans, including outright changing URLs of wikis. And, of course, the fans on the Fandom wikis don't like how unusable the sites get with all of the videos and ads of irrelevant crap. I highly recommend having ad-blocking software and JavaScript disabled whenever you go on a Fandom site, and don't use browsers that have it on their roadmap to break ad-blockers.

You can also consider downloading browser extensions like the Indie Wiki Buddy, which will hide Fandom from search results and promote independent Wikis when they are available.



Ludwig uses non-Fandom wikis whenever he can for information, though sometimes it's not very possible to do so. The closest thing KoopaTV has to a Wiki is its TV Tropes pages that get very few edits, despite editing it being a rewardable activity in the KoopaTV Loyalty Rewards Program. Remember that the latest round ends at the end of October, and a spot in KoopaTV's Nintendo Switch Online Family Group is at stake! Ludwig chose Tingle's page for his screenshots because he wanted to do a The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker reference, and from there it went into a Tingle thing. Ludwig had to turn off his extensions on his mobile browser, and used Edge for the desktop screenshots because there aren't any blockers installed on that.


Once upon a time, KoopaTV ran AdSense on the site for a year and a half. It accomplished nothing for the site besides a worse user experience, so KoopaTV stopped and never went back to that again.
If there's more story you want out of Ludwig supporting Tingle, he did (and still does) have Tingle as his most wanted The Legend of Zelda newcomer in Super Smash Bros.
Ludwig wrote about the Indie Wiki Buddy browser extension, and the accompanying BreezeWiki technology, that keeps you away from Fandom.

28 comments :

  1. I edited an article on Zelda Wiki, once. It was a cool geek moment for me. I'm definitely glad that they're removing themselves from Fandom. Once the Yu-Gi-Oh wiki went on Fandom, the ads got so cloying that the pages would regularly freeze! Other Fandom wikis don't seem as bad as that but still yikes.

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    1. My screenshots and user experience on the existing Zelda Fandom wiki was better than some earlier experiences, so it's...gotten a little better, if you can believe it.

      Delete
  2. Lets hope blogger doesn't somehow end up getting bought by Fandom. This is a very happy development indeed.

    On a side note, you that despite being a complete hypocrite who frequently makes grammar mistakes, have resigned to a life of persistent dedication to the cleansing of such egregious errors from KoopaTV. As such, i think this line "a feckless venture capital firm that had itself had recently acquired those gaming sites (but didn't seem to do much about them)", should have the 'about' replaced with a 'with'. About implies that the recently acquired sites did something bad or at any rate needed to be fixed in some way. It reads fine, but as you know the loyalty rules implore us to help spot these rare instances. And it's easier than writing a tv trope! If that isn't good enough then "I highly recommend having ad-blocking software and JavaScript disabled" could be confusing for those who weren't aware of either program beforehand. Should you have one and disable the other, or disable both? Please forgive my stinginess.

    On another side note, i did not know that you liked Tingle so much. He is awfully interesting, in a way. I don't think he appeared in breath of the wild but i could be wrong, still haven't beat the game. Have you played his "Tingle's Rosy Rupee Land Game", now that is weird! Actually, come to think of it i can't think of the land really weird Nintendo game to release. Rhythm Heaven, Chibi-Robo, Warioland. I guess the new Warioware counts, but most of the really weird Nintendo games seem to be rather niche. I suppose that makes sense, gotta make what sells

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    1. Neither of your correction attempts are of actual mistakes.
      I'd say there were several things wrong with the sites that Red Ventures acquired and did nothing to resolve. GameFAQs has had its userbase dwindle for several years now, for example. Like, it used to be a big brand and now it's quite niche. And since Red Ventures acquired it, there hasn't been another contest. (Probably because fewer and fewer people are visiting GameFAQs to vote.)
      It's just Fandom is poised to make things worse.
      As for ad-blocking software and JavaScript, I'd hope people on KoopaTV would know what both of those are. Certainly ad-blocking software. (Not that you need it on KoopaTV.) You'd have a point if there were three items, but with only two, what I wrote is grammatically correct.
      I don't forgive your stinginess.

      As for the "land really weird Nintendo game to release" (see, that's a real typo there), how about Part Time UFO?

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    2. And no, I haven't played Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland, since it never released outside of Japan and Europe.

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    3. Part time UFO is more of a HAL than main Nintendo, although I guess the port counts. I know that HAL mostly only makes games for Nintendo, but I feel like all of their franchises are weirder than usual anyway. The MOTHER series, for instance, isn't as weird as Captain Rainbow, but it does have some much more common odder elements than a Zelda, Mario, or Pokémon game. I suppose what qualifies a game, would be it's distinct lack of a central theme. Zelda is always sort of medieval, and Metroid is always space/alien stuff. Anything goes in these games.

      DRAT! You win this time, but next time I'll be sure to catch you with a devastating error. I should know, I am the expert of them, aheh.

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    4. Nintendo published it on the Switch, anyway.
      How abouuuut Game Builder Garage?

      Delete
  3. Well i used to like the site, but then they treated me like shit, banned me for a shitty excuse and now i got tons of toxic worms harassing me and saying "they abuse múltiple accounts". Well if you didn't blocked people for shitty reasons people wouldn't ban evan to begin with. And that happened me with a lot of sites

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    1. They just recently blocked me over a completely stupid reason, then I get wrongfully accused of vandalism and harassment. I even tried to explain on their talk pages of my reasoning with my edits, but they keep deleting my talk page posts and refuse to listen to me. It literally goes to show that admins will not accept criticism.

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  4. I want to ask for help, to deal with the site.

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    1. Deal with it by no longer dealing with it. Fandom sites aren't worth your trouble.

      Delete
  5. The admins on those sites are literally the worst of them all, the problem with them is that whenever another user says lies about you, the admins believe them and they ban and block the victim. Plus even when they block you, they never give you a single chance to explain yourself before they do it. I was block just recently over a completely stupid reason. Seriously, these sites need to shut down right away, not only are they are destroy peoples lives, they are also stressing people out whenever they get banned over something they never do wrong.

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    1. I think it's very easy for a Fandom wiki to have admins that are on a power trip... which you'd think goes against the spirit of what a wiki should be, but Fandom wikis themselves go against that spirit anyway, so it fits.

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    2. I guess that does make sense when u put it like that, but blocking someone unfairly without them explaining and defending themselves is what makes the situation worse. But like I said, I completely understand what you mean.

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  6. I knew I should have left Fandom a looooooong time ago, because now I see why people hate Fandom sites now. I remember they use to be so good to me in the past, but now I lost all my respect for them now. Because just recently I was blocked and banned over a little dumb reason, on the Disney Wiki. Originally I was blocked once by Graywolf2 because of a misunderstanding, but I was later given another chance after I explained myself to him. Basically what happened was I was wrongfully accused of vandalizing the Hal Smith and Will Ryan articles, but all I was doing was deleting some unnecessary info and was just trying to keep the info Disney related as much as possible. Then user:Takemybreath (who is basically a snitch) comes along and reverts my edits without explaining himself in his edit summaries, I changed the edits back and this time I explained myself in my edit on why I deleted all that info, then a few seconds later he changes it back again without explaining himself and I explained again the second in my edit summaries, I left him a message on his talk page and all I said was asking him politely to stop reverting my edits because I deleted that info for a reason. Then he reverts it again for the third time, then he goes and snitches to DisneyFan789 (who is the most abusive admin of all time) about me and BAM, blocked without explaining myself. He even stated that I was intimidating him, which is 100% not true, I NEVER threatened him at all. Later, I went to the Community Wiki to explain myself on DisneyFan789’s talk page about my edits, he would delete my messages several times before he eventually replied, he then wrongfully accuses me of being a liar and said I started it, which is also not true. He eventually does unblock me but from there it just went downhill again after that. Some afterwords I messaged Arabela13 to unprotected the Hal Smith article because there is some unnecessary info in his years active section in the infobox that I wanted to remove, after that, bam, blocked again for one month without telling me why. So since I couldn’t respond to them on their talk pages on Disney Wiki, I tried again to explain myself on their talk pages in the Community Wiki that user:Takemybreath was the one that causing all this stress towards me, but all of them again, removed my messages and won’t listen as always. Therefore I just gave up after that and I just didn’t have a choice but to force myself to quit Fandom. Because that right there goes to show That they won’t accept criticism and refuse to admit their mistakes, I agree now that it hasn’t been the same like it use to be in the past. Editing on those sites now just feels like a prison. Because it looks like they are going through the Wikipedia route now, which is ridiculous. This is why I can’t deal with these type of users, they give me so much anxiety and stress that it’s not even funny, it’s a serious situation. Because those type of users are the reason why we can’t defend ourselves anymore, it has come to the point that we don’t know what to do anymore because of their behavior. But like I said, I’m not saying all admins are bad, just some of them, not all of them. Therefore, I’m done with Fandom, like I said before, they need to shut down immediately. They are destroying people/users lives… 🙁

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    1. Now that you've vented, I hope that you're able to move on to less toxic places in the future!

      That place probably won't be a Disney-related fan wiki, since it looks like Fandom has a monopoly on Disney wikis.

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    2. I agree, I literally don’t have a choice anymore, time to move on. But now for this day forward, I forbid myself and I will NEVER return to any Fandom Wiki related site ever again!

      Delete
    3. To help with that, you should download the Indie Wiki Buddy extension: https://getindie.wiki/

      Delete
    4. I could try that, but I’m afraid I might get threaten the same way again like I did before.

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    5. It's a tool that specifically makes you avoid Fandom wikis, so you won't go on them to get threatened anyway.

      Delete
    6. Oh, now I see. So far the only Fandom Wiki I haven’t had any trouble with is the Locomotive Wiki, so far that’s the only site that hasn’t been all that bad to me.

      Delete
    7. You can toggle it off for when you're hanging out on the Locomotive Wiki

      Delete
    8. Thanks, I appreciate you trying to help me out, but I think it’s kinda best for me to not bother. Because I just don’t trust anyone on these type of sites like I use too, because for example, user:Yellowlightning1996 is just as bad as DisneyFan789. Yellowlightning1996 is admin on the Lion King Wiki, and he/she was giving DisneyFan789 some advice about me, saying:

      “I saw the trouble you had with a blocked user earlier. I understand what it's like. It happened to me before, but the important thing is to not let it get to you. That's exactly what they want you to do. Just ignore what they say and don't unblock them.”

      I thought to myself after I read ll that, “Are you for real!?!?” He’s/she’s giving him advice to not unblock innocent users. I even responded to Yellowlightning1996‘s on his/her talk page on the Lion King Wiki, telling her kindly to stop making me look bad, because it was really stressing me out and I had nothing to defend myself. Yellowlightning1996 then started being in denial with his/her responses, saying he/she wasn’t intending to make me look bad, which is a completely lie, because the evidence is literally on DisneyFan789‘s talk page. Yellowlightning1996‘s responses are just ridiculous, even though he/she said that he/she didn’t know exactly what I did and has the guts to say I “quote” on “quote” need to see a therapist… I’m like “Really…” after I told you guys time and time again that I was only removing unnecessary info from the Hal Smith article. Plus, I never told them the reason why I kept on acting the way I did, yes, I know I shouldn’t have lost my temper with them, but it doesn’t make me do it on purpose. Because the reason why I keep losing my temper and act aggressive is because I’m on the spectrum of autism, that’s why I get so frustrated so quickly when users refuse to listen to the truth and my side of the story on what really happened in the situation and they would go out of their way and throw the blame on me. I literally tell the truth and I’m honest all the time. This is when I’ve started to lost my trust with users, I don’t trust anyone like I use too. I know I’ve been taught to give everyone a chance, but I just can anyone. I don’t know if their gonna be good to me or just betray me. That’s why I don’t trust anyone like I use too anymore. But again, I appreciate you for trying to help me out. But I really don’t think it’s with it for me anymore.

      Delete
    9. I just want to be a friendly comments section pal to those in need. ♪

      But if you want to totally move on, that's also probably a good decision. That said, not trusting anyone from now on may hurt you in the future. Trust is necessary to make it in this world... for you, it may turn out to be a luck-based mission on whether your trust is well-placed or not.

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    10. I know, that’s what my mom says is to give everyone a chance. But unfortunately I just can’t now these days, because I don’t know if the person is gonna be good to me or just betray me, that’s why I have trouble trusting people. With user Yellowlightning1996, I just don’t know, he/she keeps telling me that he/she wasn’t trying to make me look bad, he/she was telling me that he/she was only giving DisneyFan789’s just some advice to not let these type of users get him, because I thought Yellowlightning1996 was including me as one of them. Like I said, I DO want to believe him/her for not making me look bad, but as I said before, I just don’t know anymore because I have trouble trusting users/people now these days unlike I use too.

      Delete
    11. Well, this is outside of my realm of expertise.

      May I suggest the tips here?
      https://www.wikihow.com/Restore-Your-Faith-in-Humanity

      Delete
  7. I know, that’s what my mom says is to give everyone a chance. But unfortunately I just can’t now these days, because I don’t know if the person is gonna be good to me or just betray me, that’s why I have trouble trusting people. With user Yellowlightning1996, I just don’t know, he/she keeps telling me that he/she wasn’t trying to make me look bad, he/she was telling me that he/she was only giving DisneyFan789’s just some advice to not let these type of users get him, because I thought Yellowlightning1996 was including me as one of them. Like I said, I DO want to believe him/her for not making me look bad, but as I said before, I just don’t know anymore because I have trouble trusting users/people now these days unlike I use too.

    ReplyDelete

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