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Helping wikis move away from Fandom

weirdgloop.org

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Re: Helping wikis move away from Fandom

#401

Post by Aeolun »

iamacyborg wrote: post #338
epiccoleman wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time I wind up on some garbage Fandom page I reminisce about the good old days of Wikia. I remember many a fun night trawling through pages while playing Fallout or Skyrim or whatever - all the information you could ever need, right there at your fingertips. It's an ethos you don't see so much on the modern net.

It’s funny that people are now looking back at wikia fondly because at the time most folks thought it was full of ads and shit. To the point where Curse/Gamepedia managed to get serious market share by not screwing with the community in the same way at the time. Funny how they somehow managed to make it worse.

I remember thinking that wikia sucked at the time, but at least it didn’t actively hinder me from finding what I was looking for. I just don’t open fandom pages because it locks up my phone.

Re: Helping wikis move away from Fandom

#402

Post by Aeolun »

Reason077 wrote: post #306
atomicnumber3 wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"that is just what the owners usually decide to tell the company to do" Because the entire system encourages it. The market rewards growth FAR more than it rewards a consistent dividend payout. (See: companies growing 40% YoY command a significfantly higher earnings multiple than those growing 10% YOY). So imo this is a like saying "people could decide to just invest money and then not seek the best returns possible.…

Elon Musk is another CEO in total control. Although Tesla is a public company and therefore has a board, it’s stacked with Elon’s allies/appointees and answers to him, not the other way around. Despite Elon not being a majority owner of Tesla stock. And when he took over Twitter in 2022, he immediately dissolved the board and fired the executives who were on it.

When he took over twitter he owned 100% of the stock.

Re: Helping wikis move away from Fandom

#403

Post by Aeolun »

madeofpalk wrote: post #176
diggan wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 lik…

Can we flip it? Some companies are explicitly structured to guarantee enshittification. Venture capital/private equity is what causes this. We've been poisoned to believe that websites should exist purely to achieve hyperscale and extract as much money as possible. When you look at the real physical world there are tons of small "mom and pop" businesses that are content with being self sustainable without some specia…

I work for private equity, and while we have a lot of layoffs, we don’t necessarily pursue short term gains (at least, as far as I can determine not as a factor of being PE anyway)

Re: Helping wikis move away from Fandom

#404

Post by karaterobot »

echelon wrote: post #336
Svip wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Their growth people emailed me again and again and tried to do the same with StrategyWiki decades ago. Here's one of their emails: > [Redacted] mentioned that your site was very cool - and that you're heading off to college. As you may know, Wikia is founded by Jimmy Wales (of wikipedia fame) and we are trying to become THE resource for all gamers > I was wondering if you'd consider moving over to wikia now that you'…

We would like 2 squeeze what u made until all the money runs out + underpay u :-)

Re: Helping wikis move away from Fandom

#405

Post by Akronymus »

paradox460 wrote: post #367
EcommerceFlow wrote: post #12

Google giving Fandom powerful rankings bothers me too, since their intrusive ads clearly go against Google ranking factors. Still, I'm glad for some competition. However, even after browsing their site, is contacting them the only way to get something up and running?

One of the first sites I downrank in kagi is all the fandom sites. I don't outright ban them, sometimes they're all there is, but I try and make it so any other result shows up ahead of them

https://getindie.wiki/ this has been a really helpful extension for me.

Re: Helping wikis move away from Fandom

#406

Post by taurath »

johnklos wrote: post #247

This illustrates a problem that I wish more people would see. People, usually businesspeople, consider adding some craptastic thing such as intrusive ads, to make more money. Who doesn't like more money? They add the thing, and revenue goes up! What they don't see is the effect that comes when fewer people visit the site because they're too annoyed to come back over time. They see and take credit for the small increa…

> If people and companies took the bigger picture in to account, they likely wouldn't do these things.

Its important to denote that this decision occurs at the moment they decide to take someone else's money and promise them a return on their investment. The loss of control and need to produce a return on that investment (or often, to "show growth" to get the next round of investment in a never-ending game of musical chairs) is what produces mandates like massive ads and enshittification.

Does Fandom need to own all wiki's? Do they need 300 employees? Do they need to own TVGuide, Metacritic, Giant Bomb, GameFAQs and a thousand different media publications? Hell no they don't, if their goal was to provide a useful service.

Re: Helping wikis move away from Fandom

#407

Post by russelg »

xahrepap wrote: post #324
johnklos wrote: post #247

This illustrates a problem that I wish more people would see. People, usually businesspeople, consider adding some craptastic thing such as intrusive ads, to make more money. Who doesn't like more money? They add the thing, and revenue goes up! What they don't see is the effect that comes when fewer people visit the site because they're too annoyed to come back over time. They see and take credit for the small increa…

I’ve wondered about this wrt public transportation. They keep raising prices, making it less affordable for people. Eventually basically no one is riding, so they … raise prices. It seems needlessly expensive to me to run empty busses. I’d like to see if cheaper transportation can actually make more money.

A couple states in Australia have experimented with fee reductions for public transport.

In Western Australia, right now public transport is free for all students, and is free on Sundays for everyone. They also capped the cost of cross-zone travel to 2 zones, i.e. you'll never pay more than $5ish for a ride. Furthermore, unlike a lot of places, the airport train does not have any extra fare.

In Queensland, right now all public transport is capped at 50c. Not sure how long this will last, seems it's a bit of cost-of-living relief, and a bit of an election sweetener.

Re: Helping wikis move away from Fandom

#408

Post by taurath »

EcommerceFlow wrote: post #12

Google giving Fandom powerful rankings bothers me too, since their intrusive ads clearly go against Google ranking factors. Still, I'm glad for some competition. However, even after browsing their site, is contacting them the only way to get something up and running?

Just as an example - the stardew valley offical wiki is massive and complete, and nearly everyone uses that, but google still directs users to the fandom site for almost any specific search. Its one of the main things that has led me to think that using Google gives far less useful information than competitors.

Re: Helping wikis move away from Fandom

#409

Post by permo-w »

echelon wrote: post #336
Svip wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Their growth people emailed me again and again and tried to do the same with StrategyWiki decades ago. Here's one of their emails: > [Redacted] mentioned that your site was very cool - and that you're heading off to college. As you may know, Wikia is founded by Jimmy Wales (of wikipedia fame) and we are trying to become THE resource for all gamers > I was wondering if you'd consider moving over to wikia now that you'…

the way this is phrased reminds me so much of IOI from Ready Player One
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