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Helping wikis move away from Fandom

weirdgloop.org

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Re: Helping wikis move away from Fandom

#81

Post by bombcar »

oreally wrote: post #70
citricsquid wrote: post #38

As the person ultimately responsible for the Minecraft Wiki ending up in the hands of Fandom, it is great to see what Weird Gloop (and similar) are achieving. At the time of selling out, the Minecraft Wiki and Minecraft Forum cost tens of thousands of dollars per month to run and so it didn't feel too much like selling out, because we needed money to survive[1]. 15 years later, the internet is a different place, and…

> with the availability of Cloudflare, running high-traffic websites is much more cost effective. sidetrack but how does cloudflare make things cost effective? wouldn't it be cheaper if i just hosted the wiki on a simple vps?

Ten years ago bandwidth was expensive. Still is, even if not as much. A simple VPS gets overwhelmed, but a simple VPS behind cloudflare can do quite well.

Re: Helping wikis move away from Fandom

#82

Post by teddyh »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #54

Everyone complains about Fandom, but it's the only reason 99% of the communities on its site have a wiki. Take a random game like https://endlesslegend.fandom.com/wiki/Endless_Legend_Wiki That game is 10 years old and its wiki was built in the height of its popularity when it had people to build it. The developer moved on, the community moved on. If its wiki weren't on Fandom, then its wiki would depend on some rando…

If there actuallt exists a community, they can scare up somebody to host some infrastructure the community depends on. Otherwise the community is dead, and it’s archive.org you should be thanking.

Re: Helping wikis move away from Fandom

#83

Post by bombcar »

candiddevmike wrote: post #23
dcow wrote: post #18

The Runescape wiki is simply amazing. It’s one of the most well built fit for purpose pieces of quality software+content that I have ever come across. It’s clean and crisp visually and well organized at the IA level despite being exactly the type of content problem that resists such attempts by nature. What a solid community. The software doesn't fell clunky, it’s fast and responsive and still feels modern. I can onl…

Factorio and Rimworld have amazing wikis as well. And they're both maintained by the developers AFAIK...

The Dwarf Fortress wiki https://dwarffortresswiki.org is perhaps the most impressive I've seen, as it maintains namespaces to maintain (and update!) information about particular versions, because many players end up staying on a version for various reasons.

Re: Helping wikis move away from Fandom

#84

Post by sph »

A thing that bothers me is that Jimmy Wales, a founder of and arguably the face of Wikipedia, is also the founder and president of Fandom, Inc. (2004–present)

I respect the work of Mr. Wales immensely, and I cannot explain how he has allowed his creation to become synonymous with ad-ridden borderline unusable gaming wikis.

Re: Helping wikis move away from Fandom

#85

Post by yakk0 »

It think it's been changed, but I believe the Transformers wiki on Fandom started out as a copy of the superior [TFWiki](https://tfwiki.net). TFWiki has been referenced by many official creators and Hasbro designers themselves and has proven to be a great resource. I have no idea what their infrastructure or backup plans are, but I dread the day they go down.

Re: Helping wikis move away from Fandom

#87

Post by ryukoposting »

citricsquid wrote: post #38

As the person ultimately responsible for the Minecraft Wiki ending up in the hands of Fandom, it is great to see what Weird Gloop (and similar) are achieving. At the time of selling out, the Minecraft Wiki and Minecraft Forum cost tens of thousands of dollars per month to run and so it didn't feel too much like selling out, because we needed money to survive[1]. 15 years later, the internet is a different place, and…

I remember reading the Minecraft wiki back in the early 2010s, back when Fandom was still Wikia. It would have been much more appealing at the time than it is today - not just for the reasons you list, but because Wikia actually kicked ass in the early 2010s. It was sleek, modern, and easy to use. And today, it isn't.

Re: Helping wikis move away from Fandom

#88

Post by hbn »

dvngnt_ wrote: post #26
tombert wrote: post #6

Fandom is one of my least favorite things now. The site ends up having more ads than the average porn or piracy website, it manages to slow down my relatively beefy laptops without even trying. I love the idea of fan wikis, but Fandom is basically the worst possible implementation of that idea.

laughs in ublock origin

Ublock doesn't block the AI generated FAQs without manually stepping in, and it certainly won't block all the bad info as the more dedicated and knowledgeable fans move to other wikis.

Re: Helping wikis move away from Fandom

#89

Post by sph »

dcow wrote: post #18

The Runescape wiki is simply amazing. It’s one of the most well built fit for purpose pieces of quality software+content that I have ever come across. It’s clean and crisp visually and well organized at the IA level despite being exactly the type of content problem that resists such attempts by nature. What a solid community. The software doesn't fell clunky, it’s fast and responsive and still feels modern. I can onl…

I have seen cookmeplox, one of the admins of the Runescape wiki, round these parts. Thank you for your work, as a gamer and new Runescape addict. For an MMORPG as massive as OSRS, having a good wiki is crucial and probably the reason why it's seen a resurgence over the past few years.

Re: Helping wikis move away from Fandom

#90

Post by layer8 »

xcode42 wrote: post #44

By the way, you can replace the fandom in the url with breezewiki and get a much more pleasant experience without ads. it's not that much of a difference on desktop, and the layout might debatably be uglier, but it's a godsend on mobile where the search bar doesn't even work half the time for me.

Does anyone know of an iOS Safari extension that allows to freely configure such substitutions?
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