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Helping wikis move away from Fandom

weirdgloop.org

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Re: Helping wikis move away from Fandom

#141

Post by michaelt »

ta1243 wrote: post #17
GJim wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are these 'ads' of which you speak?

Assuming you're not on an adblocker, what's really odd is every page has a video about the subject. Not an advert, just a video that you aren't interested in. I don't get it. If I'm looking up a specific year in the star trek universe, say 2381, to see what happened, why would I want 14 minute video on "a history of star trek". Then why would I want it again when I check the next year

As I understand things, video ads produce more $$$ - the advertiser pays more per view, and per click; and the click-through rate is higher. I've heard claims of video ads making 5x more.

I assume the irrelevant video is included to give Fandom more video ad space to sell.

Re: Helping wikis move away from Fandom

#142

Post by Svip »

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 was approached about a decade ago to combine The Infosphere with then Wikia's Futurama wiki. I asked it was possible to do a no-ads version of the wiki, and while initially they seemed like that might be possible, they eventually said no, and so we said no. So now there are two Futurama wikis online. I still host The Infosphere, haven't checked the Fandom one in years.

Fortunately for me, Futurama isn't as popular as Minecraft (for some reason!), so I've been able to pay out of my own pocket.

Re: Helping wikis move away from Fandom

#143

Post by diggan »

mossTechnician wrote: post #131
ryukoposting wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Wikia is a great example of enshittification - provide great value to users, then take it away from users and hand it to other businesses (eg advertisers), then take it away from businesses too. Will Weird Gloop inevitably suffer the same fate? I hope not.

> Will Weird Gloop inevitably suffer the same fate? I hope not.

Unless explicitly structured to prevent it, my bet is it will. If it's backed by a for-profit entity, it'll eventually need to turn a profit somehow, and users/visitors are the first to lose their experience at that point.

However, if Weird Gloop is a properly registered non-profit with shared ownership between multiple individuals, I'll be much more likely to bet it won't suffer the same fate.

I skimmed around a bit on the website to try to get an answer to if it is an non-profit, but didn't find anything obvious that says yes/no.

Re: Helping wikis move away from Fandom

#144

Post by diggan »

pjc50 wrote: post #98
oreally wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Cloudflare get the best deals on bandwidth. It will usually be cheaper to serve a terabyte from Cloudflare than to do it yourself: you could probably run the wiki on the free plan!

> Cloudflare get the best deals on bandwidth.

If you want to pay for bandwidth then yeah, CloudFlare is a great option.

Otherwise, if you like the experience of not paying per GB/TB, go for a dedicated server with unmetered connection that has the same price every month, regardless.

Re: Helping wikis move away from Fandom

#145

Post by Drakim »

tombert wrote: post #68
dvngnt_ wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

laughs in ublock origin

I use ublock now too, but it's this really annoying feedback loop; people use ad blockers, making the websites less money, so they add more advertisements for the people who don't have ad blockers, and making the website worse and more likely for them to install an ad blocker etc... I know that running a website isn't free, so I understand the need for ads. Fandom is just a terrible version of it.

The feedback loop doesn't work like that. You are implying there is some target revenue that the website aims to hit, and if it fails to meet that target it adds more ads.

But that's just nonsense, if a website can get more revenue from more ads, they are gonna put more ads right away, they aren't gonna wait until their revenue drops under some magic number before they do.

Re: Helping wikis move away from Fandom

#147

Post by kbolino »

Dwedit wrote: post #129
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…

Ah Cloudflare, where you constantly get captchas for attempting to read a web page .

Even better, you can get a captcha before you're allowed to see 404 Not Found.

Re: Helping wikis move away from Fandom

#148

Post by vman81 »

Hey, as long as they don't have those dark pattern cookie consent forms, I'm a happy camper. The EU should really have specified that accept all/decline all should be a top level choice instead of "Accept all" with the alternative being "learn more" leading to submenus for every one of the 891 "partners".

Re: Helping wikis move away from Fandom

#149

Post by linux2647 »

otterpro wrote: post #136

The only wiki in Fandom I actually go to is the Vim Tips Wiki ( https://vim.fandom.com/wiki/Vim_Tips_Wiki ). But how did Vim get in a Fandom in the first place? I hate going to Vim Wiki, even though they have good tips not found anywhere, due to all the things that were mentioned in the article. 50-70% of screen real-estate is filled with ads or distractions. I hope that vim will get its own wiki instead.

> But how did Vim get in a Fandom in the first place?

It was created back when Fandom was Wikia, back when it was a good place to host a wiki

Re: Helping wikis move away from Fandom

#150

Post by red-iron-pine »

rideontime wrote: post #121
yakz wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are objectively bad for some definitions of bad. What do you want for them? Universal respect? Just because taking something good and making it shitty is one way to make money doesn't mean that it is the only way to make money.

I think the point is that if we want this to stop happening, we have to address the cause of the problem, not just complain about its effects.

to put a finer point on it: capitalism.

"then the MBAs got involved" is a cop-out, it's a systemic issue.

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