As a bandaid solution we probably just need a good base domain for game wikis attached to a somewhat trustworthy foundation (that won’t sellout to Fandom in a week). Agree that wierdgloop.org is not … great
miraheze.org?
There's a new "Google Jail" for independent wikis
151–160 of 243 posts
Re: There's a new "Google Jail" for independent wikis
#152The bar has been raised on all web content for Google to index, esp new domains like you say but even some subdomains. That answer is quality content (higher than AI or human medians), links and pr and social activity and mentions, and then user experience.
Google may actively prefer AI slop over human quality content: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=II2QF9JwtLc
Obviously Google uses AI to rate sites, because everyone uses AI for everything, and AI has been proven to rate AI-generated text higher than human-generated.
Re: There's a new "Google Jail" for independent wikis
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
The answer is simple. Limit your time on social media the way you'd be limiting a child and focus on IRL interactions.
I also find IRL social interactions also want pacing to some degree. But I don't know, I find my brain is sort of wired for these sorts of novel, pseudonymous interactions from a young age.
Yeah I get that. But treat them like candy - it's okay to eat a small dessert after lunch, it's okay to eat entire bucket of ice cream once in a while, but you know, your main diet needs to be quality stuff.
Re: There's a new "Google Jail" for independent wikis
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
It depends on which part. It is certainly heading down the same route as Wikipedia with all the problems that entails. You're usually better off on a smaller Fandom wiki as it won't have beeb taken over yet. The James Bond wiki is particularly bad, but Memory Alpha seems to be better run.
Well at least Wikipedia doesn't pester you with tons of ads that sometimes make it hard to even find the content (except for the occasional donation banner, but that's a minor annoyance compared to what Fandom does).
Um, have you seen the current Wikipedia donation drive? It's almost as bad as Fandom, and I'm refusing to donate because WP:CANCER.
Re: There's a new "Google Jail" for independent wikis
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's also worth noting that both Wikipedia and Fandom were co-founded by Jimmy Wales.
Well... why? Is he involved with either of them now? Is there a shared persisting influence of some kind?
Fandom used to be Wikia and it was just a thing that hosted wikis. Its story is a bit like Sourceforge's.
Re: There's a new "Google Jail" for independent wikis
#156Google has been removing blogs from its searches for years now. You have to search for them specifically. All part of the de-democratisation of the web.
Try Marginalia.
Re: There's a new "Google Jail" for independent wikis
#157Courts should review past decisions Field v. Google, Inc. (2006) https://www.practicalecommerce.com/Search-Engines-Indexing-a... Authors Guild v. Google, Inc. (2015) https://www.flaglerlawgroup.com/a-new-era-for-fair-use-court...
It doesn't work like that. Past decisions don't get changed. If facts have changed you need a new decision.
Re: There's a new "Google Jail" for independent wikis
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, but the point is that maybe in 2026 we should be looking at ways to pay contributors/creators, rather than steal from them (slightly hyperbolic, but you get the gist)
The financialisation of all hobbies is extreemely toxic and that's what you're perpetuating here.
Interestingly since people brought up the RuneScape wiki, RuneScape is a demonstration. They financialised the game around 2011, it went down the shitter, player numbers dropped, then plummeted once they turned it into a shitty WoW clone. They revived an old backup one day as an experiment and it grew to actually have 5 times more players than the enshittified original. It's not still running the backup - they've evolved it alongside the main game but with players having veto power over almost every single decision. Turns out they know what they like in the game, who knew.
Re: There's a new "Google Jail" for independent wikis
#159I feel like the currency of the future could be shame. Specifically, that a search engine competing with google could show how poorly each result was found by google, or even use lack of representation on google to rank a site more highly since it contains the truth for example.
I also feel like shame correlates strongly with profit. That we're living in an era of lawless lack of accountability, where skirting the law for personal gain is rewarded handsomely. That anyone can make a deal with the devil and rise straight to the top, at least for now in the US until the political pendulum swings from liberty back towards justice.
Re: There's a new "Google Jail" for independent wikis
#160I recently started playing Palworld again with my son. The fan sites are simply terrible. Incomplete information and out of date. Tons of boilerplate nonsense that adds zero value. I used Claude Code to read the game data files and create a personal palworld wiki based on the data actually in the game. Pulled the in-game map assets to use as a foundation and linked between all the things which should have links. Look up a material and you can see all the Pals which drop it. Look up a Pal and you can see where they are found and all the things they drop, etc. Far, far more useful than any of the existing fan sites I found.
I also did this with a far more obscure game which doesn't have nearly as much content online. Lucid Blocks. That game was weird AF and the systems didn't make any sense without tons of experimentation. I started by using CC as a journal for things I discovered to help try to build a coherent world view. Ended up just using CC to build a wiki for the game with all the entities and items based off of actual game data.