Minecraft Wiki has decided to leave Fandom(minecraft.wiki)
minecraft.wiki
Minecraft Wiki has decided to leave Fandom
https://minecraft.wiki/w/Minecraft_Wiki:Moving_from_Fandom
209 comments
2022: Former Curse/Gamepedia execs create wiki.gg and start poaching wikis from Fandom as a cheap vehicle to expose those audiences to ads of their new videogame publishing company.
Satisfactory recently migrated theirs from Fandom to wiki.gg and the improvement was night and day. Same exact content, but instantly it was way easier to use.
It's for sure a big improvement from Fandom and the fact that they have a commercial interest in running the farm means it should continue to see good support.
Fandom, Quora, Linkedin. Absolutely unusable without adblocker.
Excellent. I hope to see more games following suit away from the bloated messes of fandom/fextralife. At times they feel unusable on mobile. And I don't think a single user has wanted to see the embedded twitch streams when they're just trying to get some information quickly.
> fextralife
Yes, please let us get away from them. If you've ever browsed Twitch, you'll see them with tens of thousands of viewers... but when you join the channel, engagement is sparse.
The reason this happens is because they embed their Twitch stream into every. page. you. visit. This is slimy, annoying, and slows the loading.
Yes, please let us get away from them. If you've ever browsed Twitch, you'll see them with tens of thousands of viewers... but when you join the channel, engagement is sparse.
The reason this happens is because they embed their Twitch stream into every. page. you. visit. This is slimy, annoying, and slows the loading.
How is this not illegal / grounds for having the channel deleted?
Why is Twitch not blocking a method for delivering their embedded video ads onto unrelated websites? Yeah, no idea.
The Twitch drops literally cause people to watch for X hours when they don't voluntary want to. I often have it running in my browser because I want the exclusive, yet I don't listen or watch.
Path Of Exile Wiki has also moved about two years ago and GGG is providing hosting for a year now.
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3292958
https://www.poewiki.net/
The old fandom wiki is quite dead but it's impossible to get rid of it, alas.
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3292958
https://www.poewiki.net/
The old fandom wiki is quite dead but it's impossible to get rid of it, alas.
OSRS also moved to oldschool.runescape.wiki and AIUI jagex pays for their hosting and provides some kind of content access to make updating/syncing easier.
Plus they have RuneLite cooperating with crowdsourcing things like droptables and drop rates. (And of course mods often will outright tell them what certain droprates are or how they function).
Plus they have RuneLite cooperating with crowdsourcing things like droptables and drop rates. (And of course mods often will outright tell them what certain droprates are or how they function).
OSRS wiki isn't the best example. Jagex does not fund it, and is recommending they move to fandom/ad based support.
Despite the OSRS wiki being legitimately the best website I use every day, it's leadership has been sounding the death knell every few months, always to an alarmingly quiet response.
They have no money, have no revenue generator, and have a full staff that needs to be paid. The last post they put to the community mentioned moving back to fandom (crazy) or injecting ads at a pretty insane volume.
So yes, fandom sucks. But also, a "normal" wiki takes expertise, and usually, compensation.
Despite the OSRS wiki being legitimately the best website I use every day, it's leadership has been sounding the death knell every few months, always to an alarmingly quiet response.
They have no money, have no revenue generator, and have a full staff that needs to be paid. The last post they put to the community mentioned moving back to fandom (crazy) or injecting ads at a pretty insane volume.
So yes, fandom sucks. But also, a "normal" wiki takes expertise, and usually, compensation.
I think you might have some of the facts wrong here - the post you're talking about never mentioned moving back to Fandom (nobody would ever entertain that option), and we ended up putting one pretty small ad in a pretty non-disruptive place, not "injecting ads at a pretty insane volume".
In reality, we are doing fine on revenue, and more than covering the full-time labor costs by serving one ad to about 35% of users (really more like 20% after you account for ad blockers). It's still a bit icky compared to doing something donation-based or working directly with the studio, but neither of those would pay the bills. It turns out that a pretty small amount of advertising pays the bills just fine, which really puts into perspective how insane Fandom's monetization is.
You can read more specifics/numbers in my post here: https://meta.weirdgloop.org/w/Forum:Mid-2023_business_update
In reality, we are doing fine on revenue, and more than covering the full-time labor costs by serving one ad to about 35% of users (really more like 20% after you account for ad blockers). It's still a bit icky compared to doing something donation-based or working directly with the studio, but neither of those would pay the bills. It turns out that a pretty small amount of advertising pays the bills just fine, which really puts into perspective how insane Fandom's monetization is.
You can read more specifics/numbers in my post here: https://meta.weirdgloop.org/w/Forum:Mid-2023_business_update
It's also available via the osrs.wiki URL. Also, it's the highest quality wiki I've ever encountered.
It's absolutely infuriating that Google can't fuck the old fandom wiki off the top of every search result despite it having completely outdated information and zero updates.
You're telling me with all the fancy algorithms and their zillions of engineers they can't manage to notice that an entire subdomain hasn't had any updates to it's pages in 2 years and that every single person that clicks the search result ends up doing another search 20 seconds later?
You're telling me with all the fancy algorithms and their zillions of engineers they can't manage to notice that an entire subdomain hasn't had any updates to it's pages in 2 years and that every single person that clicks the search result ends up doing another search 20 seconds later?
They can probably do anything, but why would they when Fandom puts 3 gigabytes of their ads on every page of every wiki on their site? That's their bread and butter. You don't kill your livestock until you have to.
Yeah, super appreciate the fact that GGG were able to help out on the hosting of that!
That Starfield launched with https://starfieldwiki.net/ from the same people that have been running the (blessedly old school) Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages (UESP)* has been amazing -- being able to avoid Fandom is a top 10 feature of any game for me at this point.
* https://uesp.net/
* https://uesp.net/
> And I don't think a single user has wanted to see the embedded twitch streams when they're just trying to get some information quickly.
The embedded Twitch stream is there purely as a way to artificially boost viewer counts on their channel. Almost every time a new game comes out, you can go to its Twitch page and see Fextralife at the top with tens of thousands of viewers, with a dead chat because almost nobody is actually watching, it's all from the embed. Twitch-endorsed pseudo-viewbotting to farm ad revenue is a growing trend, there's even several systems on Twitch itself that encourage it, like the drops system.
The embedded Twitch stream is there purely as a way to artificially boost viewer counts on their channel. Almost every time a new game comes out, you can go to its Twitch page and see Fextralife at the top with tens of thousands of viewers, with a dead chat because almost nobody is actually watching, it's all from the embed. Twitch-endorsed pseudo-viewbotting to farm ad revenue is a growing trend, there's even several systems on Twitch itself that encourage it, like the drops system.
Don't advertisers care that they're wasting money? Or are they just unaware?
The latter, mostly.
Yeah I really don't "get" fandom. It's an extremely steep price to pay for free hosting and config!
One big, big benefit is they handle account creation & anti-spam. Anti-spam is the hardest part of hosting, it's a serious problem and time-sink.
I hosted the Path of Exile wiki for a while and account creation and anti-spam wasn't overly arduous.
Terraria moved their wiki and it's a much nice experience.
I wish Valheim would follow suit
It's a much much better experience, wiki.gg is a plain old wiki farm that just works
Somewhat relevant, but I know Baldur's Gate 3 is a huge game currently and seems they've done the same. bg3.wiki is infinitely more usable than the fandom one.
The Feed The Beast Wiki (https://ftb.fandom.com), a general-purpose modded Minecraft wiki, is also planning to move away in the next month or two.
https://ftb.fandom.com/wiki/Project:CD#Forking_from_Fandom
(n.b. I'm an admin there.)
(n.b. 2, we've collaborated with MCW on several occasions)
https://ftb.fandom.com/wiki/Project:CD#Forking_from_Fandom
(n.b. I'm an admin there.)
(n.b. 2, we've collaborated with MCW on several occasions)
Star Citizen is another. I don't know if it "moved" so much as someone not connected to the earlier fandom wiki said "This sucks, I made a new one."
https://starcitizen.tools/
https://starcitizen.fandom.com/
And a recent post on reddit about the wiki's funding appears to have gotten their patreon up to $140 compared to $110 server costs.
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/16bo02n/star_c...
https://starcitizen.tools/
https://starcitizen.fandom.com/
And a recent post on reddit about the wiki's funding appears to have gotten their patreon up to $140 compared to $110 server costs.
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/16bo02n/star_c...
There are times where if you stay on a fandom wiki too long on mobile you'll have a noticeable dent in battery percentage and a distinctly warmer phone. "Unusable" is being generous.
For some background, the old wiki was hosted on Fandom. All the major volunteer contributors are moving to minecraft.wiki, but the old page will almost certainly stay up, frozen in time, throwing trackers and ads on kids not savvy enough to locate the new link.
It is interesting to me how many games, Minecraft in particular, rely on wikis - they're very different experiences, sometimes almost unplayable, if you don't read up on how to make progress.
It is interesting to me how many games, Minecraft in particular, rely on wikis - they're very different experiences, sometimes almost unplayable, if you don't read up on how to make progress.
I remember in 2009 or 2010, when I first came across Minecraft. It was not hugely popular yet, but it already had quite an active community.
I played quite a few hours of the game, both alone and together with a couple of friends.
One day, after a couple of weeks or something, I learned about a crafting wiki that told you how to craft different items.
At the time, at least for me, it was not clear how you figure out what items you can craft and what items need to be combined in what patterns to craft those new items.
So for me, that crafting wiki became quite essential.
Maybe other people were figuring out how to craft things by trial and error? Or maybe there was something in the game that told them how to craft specific things?
I played quite a few hours of the game, both alone and together with a couple of friends.
One day, after a couple of weeks or something, I learned about a crafting wiki that told you how to craft different items.
At the time, at least for me, it was not clear how you figure out what items you can craft and what items need to be combined in what patterns to craft those new items.
So for me, that crafting wiki became quite essential.
Maybe other people were figuring out how to craft things by trial and error? Or maybe there was something in the game that told them how to craft specific things?
If you want to see an almost entirely unspoilered playthrough of Minecraft, Japanese player PiroPito has a long series of videos on Youtube (with English subtitles):
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbqkLu2V1bJJUQ2aLZjFd...
This series is notable for inspiring the addition of Ruined Portals, as construction of a Nether Portal had no in-game hints at the time, and was the only thing he needed a spoiler to figure out.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbqkLu2V1bJJUQ2aLZjFd...
This series is notable for inspiring the addition of Ruined Portals, as construction of a Nether Portal had no in-game hints at the time, and was the only thing he needed a spoiler to figure out.
He also needed a hint for spawning the Wither. The game already has a hint for this but it's obscure, so he was given a hint for where to find the in-game hint. Tragic but funny result when he eventually figured it out.
There was not. There is now but for the better part of a decade it was just... Something you were supposed to have learned from a youtube video or a friend or something.
People figured out from friends how to craft things or looked at the wiki. Then NEI came out (successor is now called JEI) which showed every item and its recipe. Game changer.
Vanilla now has a recipe book, and it's also now "gated" by things you find in the world.
But NEI (and of course, NEI in GregTech New Horizons) is the only way to play.
Because what is Minecraft without regular expressions in your inventory?
https://wiki.gtnewhorizons.com/wiki/Not_Enough_Items#Search_...
But NEI (and of course, NEI in GregTech New Horizons) is the only way to play.
Because what is Minecraft without regular expressions in your inventory?
https://wiki.gtnewhorizons.com/wiki/Not_Enough_Items#Search_...
> Maybe other people were figuring out how to craft things by trial and error?
Certainly my experience. I don't think there was much/any guidance in-game at the beginning.
Certainly my experience. I don't think there was much/any guidance in-game at the beginning.
I think Wikis are hugely important for games. This opinion came from playing Guild Wars 1 and 2. Arenanet supported the game wikis, no ads. The wiki is even integrated into the game you can pass /wiki an in-game item or even a search query and a browser window to the official wiki will open up.
Sometimes I forget how to build a gate versus a fence in MC, the trial and error takes just about the same time as search the MC wiki, I still search the wiki more often than flail.
Sometimes I forget how to build a gate versus a fence in MC, the trial and error takes just about the same time as search the MC wiki, I still search the wiki more often than flail.
Never having played Minecraft: does this game not come with a manual? (even if it's in PDF form or the like?)
The main way the game teaches you how to play is the "advancements" system. It's a tree of achievements, starting with "walk around" and "chop down a tree", and ending with "defeat the final boss" or "bake a cake", each with a one-line description.
There's also a "recipe book", which tells you how to craft[1] items. More recipes get added as you collect the ingredients needed to make them.
However, these systems were only added in 2017. (For contrast, the game started development in 2009 and reached 1.0 in 2011.) Before that, how to progress was a lot less clear. It was assumed you had someone teaching you how to play, that you watched videos of other people playing, or that you read the wiki.
[1]: The process of combining the items you've collected, by slotting them into a 3×3 grid in a specific pattern (the "recipe"), to make new, more useful items.
There's also a "recipe book", which tells you how to craft[1] items. More recipes get added as you collect the ingredients needed to make them.
However, these systems were only added in 2017. (For contrast, the game started development in 2009 and reached 1.0 in 2011.) Before that, how to progress was a lot less clear. It was assumed you had someone teaching you how to play, that you watched videos of other people playing, or that you read the wiki.
[1]: The process of combining the items you've collected, by slotting them into a 3×3 grid in a specific pattern (the "recipe"), to make new, more useful items.
no, and there's no tutorial or anything. it's weird to jump right into the game without prior experience. you sort of need a friend to explain it to you.
And for the group I played with this was an essential element of the fun. The chaos of trying to survive the first few nights when you knew nothing about the game. The fear of the unknown as darkness falls, panic induced by sightings and sounds of threats unfamiliar. I’d love to be able to forget all I know and re-experience this version of the game.
There was a tutorial level in early console versions, but that's gone from console versions now: https://minecraft.wiki/w/Legacy_Console_Edition_tutorial
Not at the time. Now there's a guide structured as quests, as well blueprints in the crafting ui
>but the old page will almost certainly stay up, frozen in time, throwing trackers and ads on kids not savvy enough to locate the new link
Eerily reminiscent of w3schools for people getting into web dev.
Eerily reminiscent of w3schools for people getting into web dev.
You might enjoy this citizen science dive into the relationship between WoW and wikis, titled "Why It's Rude to Suck at Warcraft".
One of the premises is that wikis are required reading; because if you aren't min/maxing, you're breaking the social contract with your guildmates. It's a totally emergent and novel way for a game to become 'unplayable'!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BKP1I7IocYU
One of the premises is that wikis are required reading; because if you aren't min/maxing, you're breaking the social contract with your guildmates. It's a totally emergent and novel way for a game to become 'unplayable'!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BKP1I7IocYU
Here's a good summary of controversy surrounding Fandom and why fandoms tend to leave: https://www.koopatv.org/2022/10/why-people-dont-like-fandom-...
And it doesn't even really touch on how Fandom, sometimes, refuses to delete the old wiki for traffic purposes, and leaves it up as a "zombie" wiki that smothers the new wiki due to SEO, or the more serious conflicts between some admins and contributors in some other specific fandoms.
And it doesn't even really touch on how Fandom, sometimes, refuses to delete the old wiki for traffic purposes, and leaves it up as a "zombie" wiki that smothers the new wiki due to SEO, or the more serious conflicts between some admins and contributors in some other specific fandoms.
I don't even care about any of that. I care that literally everytime I click a fandom link, I immediately regret it; with my browser coming to a crawl and being forcefed a dozen ads. And even if you tried to ignore them, any interaction immediately triggers some sort of lazy-loaded/interactive ad to take over.
It's one of the worse possible website experiences there is, that isn't actively clickbait or a scam and it's annoying as hell that actual good content continues to flock to that trash platform.
It's one of the worse possible website experiences there is, that isn't actively clickbait or a scam and it's annoying as hell that actual good content continues to flock to that trash platform.
Wow I've looked up stuff on the vampire survivors wiki on fandom a lot in the last year and this comment surprised me. Going to that website in regular ol' chrome without an adblocker was an experience indeed. I had no idea. You might find joy just putting a little bit of time into your browser setup. I was blissfully unaware of how bad that user experience was. Hope this helps!
I had one of these moments where I was like "Why does anyone use apps like tic tok/instagram/whatever and not just surf the web? Then I browsed on the web without on a computer without an adblocker after years of having it on my phone and computer. My thought was then reversed, "Why isn't the web dead, why do people that don't know how to adblock subject themselves to this crap".
Currently, the availability of ad blockers is limited on smartphones, which are used by many people for web browsing. In some regions, web browsing may be restricted without using a VPN. In such cases, smartphones cannot be used in combination with a VPN and a standalone ad blocker such as AdGuard. As a result, some people may give up using ad blockers. DNS-based ad blockers can achieve some of the same goals, but they are less effective than standalone ad blockers and are more likely to be detected by anti-ad blockers.
You can ask an important related question:
Why are there people that don't know how to adblock?
Usually information this important will spread to the people that need it. That hasn't happened here. What's blocking it?
Why are there people that don't know how to adblock?
Usually information this important will spread to the people that need it. That hasn't happened here. What's blocking it?
Its not default.
My mother doesn't know how to turn off the phone, toggle airplane mode/wifi or use the app switcher... She refuses to learn because its not worth her time. I have family, friends and such that similarly refuse to learn basic things, much less go seek out an ad blocker and learn how to use it for an interface (the web browser) they think they rarely use.
Also, on mobile, it is kinda tricky because you can install an adblock browser, but the app selection is kinda iffy, and it won't replace the unfiltered system webview.
My mother doesn't know how to turn off the phone, toggle airplane mode/wifi or use the app switcher... She refuses to learn because its not worth her time. I have family, friends and such that similarly refuse to learn basic things, much less go seek out an ad blocker and learn how to use it for an interface (the web browser) they think they rarely use.
Also, on mobile, it is kinda tricky because you can install an adblock browser, but the app selection is kinda iffy, and it won't replace the unfiltered system webview.
Agree that it's not very easy for average user. Also it sometimes causes problem due to false positive or ad blocker blocking.
On Android, WebView provider can be changed. On iPhone, SafariView supports ad blocking so it's a problem for apps that uses iOS WebView. Most apps should use SafariView for displaying external websites.
On Android, WebView provider can be changed. On iPhone, SafariView supports ad blocking so it's a problem for apps that uses iOS WebView. Most apps should use SafariView for displaying external websites.
I just use Firefox Focus when I want to keep it simple. Works fine on both android and ios.
> I don't even care about any of that.
You care about the quality of the wiki's content though. These kinds of business decisions detract from that.
You care about the quality of the wiki's content though. These kinds of business decisions detract from that.
The side-by-side view in that article is the key user experience reason to leave. The Fandom wiki sites tend to be slow and covered in ads. I avoid them if possible. I'm glad to see more and more groups take their wikis back.
The Runescape wikis left Fandom a few years ago. The improvement to quality and features has been massive. I'm not sure how much traffic the Minecraft wiki gets, but the Runescape wikis got over a billion page views in 2021 [1]. These are not insignificant losses for Fandom.
[1] https://weirdgloop.org/2021-year-in-review/
The Runescape wikis left Fandom a few years ago. The improvement to quality and features has been massive. I'm not sure how much traffic the Minecraft wiki gets, but the Runescape wikis got over a billion page views in 2021 [1]. These are not insignificant losses for Fandom.
[1] https://weirdgloop.org/2021-year-in-review/
> I'm not sure how much traffic the Minecraft wiki gets
A lot. Its the 800lb gorilla of gaming, and it requires a lot of reference to play.
I used to joke that 1/4 of Youtube is Minecraft videos, and I'm not even sure thats a hyperbole.
A lot. Its the 800lb gorilla of gaming, and it requires a lot of reference to play.
I used to joke that 1/4 of Youtube is Minecraft videos, and I'm not even sure thats a hyperbole.
It is probably not true today, but it may well have been true in 2010 or so, when Youtube started prioritizing watch time over raw views for the very first time. Back then, let's-plays were the cheapest content to produce in large volume, so the algorithm pushed it hard. And it just so happened that Minecraft released around that time. It's quite possible that Minecraft would not have become the phenomenon that it has become without this lucky coincidence.
Anyone who tries to worship Jimmy Wales for Wikipedia should know that if he really have his way, he'd turn it into this horrible mess of Fandom, which he also founded. Luckily the volunteers rightfully take Wikipedia from him. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/wikipedia-spanish-fork
There have been shenanigans where articles describing fictional lore have been taken down or merged with other articles due to being against Wikipedia policy ("Wikipedia is not a game manual"). e.g. see endless discussion on the Dungeons and Dragons Plane article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Plane_(Dungeons_%26_Drago...
For instance, under that policy, this article was taken down https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Plane_of_Shadow&o... and "merged" (with loss of information) to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plane_(Dungeons_%26_Dragons)#P...
I saw a comment accusing Wales of enforcing this policy in order to direct traffic to Fandom. I thought when I read it that the accusation was uncalled for, but given Fandom's intransigence about taking old wikis down and the money-grubbing quality of its UX, I have wondered. Whatever the merits of this policy, it is applied inconsistently or not at all to topics not likely to be in Fandom.
For instance, under that policy, this article was taken down https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Plane_of_Shadow&o... and "merged" (with loss of information) to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plane_(Dungeons_%26_Dragons)#P...
I saw a comment accusing Wales of enforcing this policy in order to direct traffic to Fandom. I thought when I read it that the accusation was uncalled for, but given Fandom's intransigence about taking old wikis down and the money-grubbing quality of its UX, I have wondered. Whatever the merits of this policy, it is applied inconsistently or not at all to topics not likely to be in Fandom.
Surprise surprise the rich aren't our friends
I find this site so bloody confusing. I was on here recently while looking up something I was stuck with on Zelda, what a shambles. I got pissed off and left before I found what I was looking for, it just seems like such an incoherent mess
The part of that summary I like the most is the screenshot of the Zelda fandom wiki, which shows that it can fit 23 words (of the actual content) on screen at once.
I still maintain an independent Futurama wiki from Fandom. Back when they were called Wikia, they wanted to merge with our wiki, but I insisted on a no ads policy. So talks basically went nowhere. They still have a Futurama wiki, and ours is still online. Though, these days, it's mostly other editors filling in the content, I am just a system administrator at this point.
I am still happy with our decision, because Wikia/Fandom has since then just gotten worse.
I am still happy with our decision, because Wikia/Fandom has since then just gotten worse.
They really have gotten worse and it's incresibly frustrating that DDG seems to ignore the Infosphere (and WikiSimpsons) entirely in favor of the fandom sites.
I agree, but I also don't want to waste too much of my life chasing SEO. Fortunately, some people find our site.
A few games I play have DDG bangs that take you directly to the fandom sites, even though the games now have their own self hosted wiki. Perfect exactly would be _minecraft_. If you search for "!minecraft dirt" it takes you to the fandom page. Will DDG update the bang to search via the official wiki? probably not! Maybe now is the time to switch to Kagi
Reminder, you can exclude any site from search results on at least Google and DDG, e.g. '-site:fandom.com' will exclude *.fandom.com from results.
There's also a 'ublacklist' extension which lets you block sites from search results as well. I think this edits the results to erase matched sites, though - you're not communicating to Google, et al. that you don't want to see that site.
There's also a 'ublacklist' extension which lets you block sites from search results as well. I think this edits the results to erase matched sites, though - you're not communicating to Google, et al. that you don't want to see that site.
ublacklist only works on google, and the OP was using DDG though.
It supports Bing, Brave, DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, Qwant, Searx, Startpage.com, Yahoo! JAPAN and Yandex.
https://iorate.github.io/ublacklist/docs
https://iorate.github.io/ublacklist/docs
Kagi makes it easy to essentially delist entire domains. So nice for when you find a content farm or for sites like pinterest. They even provide a list of the most blocked domains: https://kagi.com/stats (Click "Domain Insights")
It's probably safer to lower this one's ranking, rather than absolutely block it. There's more than a handful of things for which fandom.com is the correct result—the only actively-maintained wiki.
Trust the search engine to do the signal/noise calculations for you. You are no longer on Google. Kagi is your agent, not your adversary.
Trust the search engine to do the signal/noise calculations for you. You are no longer on Google. Kagi is your agent, not your adversary.
And while Fandom/Fextralife are both irritating sites, they often are the only way to get a certain bit of knowledge on a topic. They've kind of moved into the niche previously occupied by things like Geocities fansites. They're nasty, ad-riddled experiences, but they DO have the information.
Only sites I block on my Kagi are sites that outright trick or lie to the user; keyword content farms, pinterest, and StackOverflow cloners
Only sites I block on my Kagi are sites that outright trick or lie to the user; keyword content farms, pinterest, and StackOverflow cloners
I have fextralife in my lower list. As you say, sometimes it's the only place. But when there are any other places, I want those in front.
There's an add-on called BreezeWiki which redirects you to an annoyance-free mirror of Fandom sites, which makes it at least a little less annoying to visit those wikis. It can also redirect you to a community-run wiki if it exists.
I found it through Libredirect which is the same idea but for more sites, but some of the alternative sites don't work as well in my experience.
I found it through Libredirect which is the same idea but for more sites, but some of the alternative sites don't work as well in my experience.
Ublock filter can remove fandom results:
google.*###rso .MjjYud a[href*="fandom.com"]:upward(.MjjYud)The RuneScape Wiki and OldSchool RuneScape Wiki left Fandom in 2018, for similar reasons: https://runescape.wiki/w/Forum:Leaving_Wikia
I think the move has been really successful. They've managed to add lots of exciting game-specific features to the wiki, like tracking requirements for a quest, or historical item prices. It also didn't seem to take long for the new wiki results to rank above the Wikia/Fandom results on search engines.
Good luck to the Minecraft wiki and its contributors!
I think the move has been really successful. They've managed to add lots of exciting game-specific features to the wiki, like tracking requirements for a quest, or historical item prices. It also didn't seem to take long for the new wiki results to rank above the Wikia/Fandom results on search engines.
Good luck to the Minecraft wiki and its contributors!
Fandom (I really prefer their old name, "Wikia") is a great concept. Deal with hosting the wiki so you can focus on content. The problem is that they need to make money, and to do that, they do it with some of the most obnoxious ads on any reputable site on the modern internet. Using their site on a mobile browser is one of the worst web experiences I've ever had. Autoplaying video ad banners on the top with a smaller ad banner on the bottom while I scroll past an ad in the middle of the article.
I'm all for seeing wikis leave them because it'll be a huge usability win. Fandom can still fill the gap for small niche wikis that don't want to deal with hosting and such, but larger established wikis using their own platform will be great.
I'm all for seeing wikis leave them because it'll be a huge usability win. Fandom can still fill the gap for small niche wikis that don't want to deal with hosting and such, but larger established wikis using their own platform will be great.
Indeed, it's hard to overstate how bad of an experience it is.
The Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages (UESP, a wiki) https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Main_Page vs the Elder Scrolls "Fandom" website https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/The_Elder_Scrolls_Wiki is night and day in terms of usability and user respect.
I think Google is partially to blame as it seems to rank Fandom pages way higher than self-hosted wikis.
I think Google is partially to blame as it seems to rank Fandom pages way higher than self-hosted wikis.
"The problem is that they need to make money"
Stupid question, why do they need to make money? I thought they are maintained by volunteers. For hosting?
Stupid question, why do they need to make money? I thought they are maintained by volunteers. For hosting?
Content is volunteer, but I believe the company's infrastructure and software (I believe they use a modified MediaWiki based on an HN comment from an employee a few years ago) are all from a for-profit company. Wikipedia and the Wikimedia foundation are the non-profits you may be thinking of.
From the Fandom Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fandom_(website)):
> The privately held, for-profit Delaware company was founded in October 2004 by Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesley. Fandom was acquired in 2018 by TPG Inc. and Jon Miller through Integrated Media Co.
But note that Jimmy Wales was a founder as well.
From the Fandom Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fandom_(website)):
> The privately held, for-profit Delaware company was founded in October 2004 by Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesley. Fandom was acquired in 2018 by TPG Inc. and Jon Miller through Integrated Media Co.
But note that Jimmy Wales was a founder as well.
The content is created by volunteers. But fandom is a for-profit company. In its early days when it was known as Wikia, they maintained a fairly small team of people running the site. So they just had to make enough money for paychecks and bills.
Here's my take on what went wrong. Throughout the years they grew. Because the company grew, they hired more hr people - more money needed. So they hired marketing teams, data science and so on. The costs skyrocketed.
So now they're putting ads everywhere because they don't have that much more traffic than 10 years ago but the company is much larger.
NetHack did this when Fandom was still called Wikia. Luckily, the new forked site won search engines over easily and nethackwiki.com easily comes on first results if you search for NetHack stuff.
Unlike NetHack, the Minecraft Fandom site is probably a lot more lucrative in ad revenue.
I randomly was checking on Fandom's wikipedia page and noticed: "On October 3, 2022, Fandom acquired GameSpot, Metacritic, TV Guide, GameFAQs, Giant Bomb, Cord Cutters News, and Comic Vine from Red Ventures."
I had no idea they've been collecting sites like infinity stones. I guess ads pay handsomely? Ugh.
Unlike NetHack, the Minecraft Fandom site is probably a lot more lucrative in ad revenue.
I randomly was checking on Fandom's wikipedia page and noticed: "On October 3, 2022, Fandom acquired GameSpot, Metacritic, TV Guide, GameFAQs, Giant Bomb, Cord Cutters News, and Comic Vine from Red Ventures."
I had no idea they've been collecting sites like infinity stones. I guess ads pay handsomely? Ugh.
> I randomly was checking on Fandom's wikipedia page and noticed: "On October 3, 2022, Fandom acquired GameSpot, Metacritic, TV Guide, GameFAQs, Giant Bomb, Cord Cutters News, and Comic Vine from Red Ventures."
Enshittification as a service.
Enshittification as a service.
They also made a chunk of money from selling dndbeyond which they bought for peanuts from Twitch.
> I had no idea they've been collecting sites like infinity stones.
Katamari Fandomcy.
Katamari Fandomcy.
Starfield is currently undergoing a bit of a wiki arms race. There's at least four that I know of, plus an honorable mention:
• https://starfieldwiki.net
• https://starfield.fandom.com
• https://starfield.wiki.fextralife.com
• https://www.starfielddb.com
• https://www.ign.com/wikis/starfield (this is the honorable mention)
None of them are complete, and all have vastly different ideas on how it should work and look. Want to know what the best shield generator is? Some wikis will have their own page on them, others just have it stuffed into a table called "starship components", maybe divided by category.
---
Whats interesting is that Ward Cunningham saw all these problems YEARS ago, and started pushing for a federated wiki experience. Doesn't seem to have caught on outside a very small niche circle, sadly. IMO because the various wikis that implement the federated wiki are lacking a lot of features that other wiki engines provide
• https://starfieldwiki.net
• https://starfield.fandom.com
• https://starfield.wiki.fextralife.com
• https://www.starfielddb.com
• https://www.ign.com/wikis/starfield (this is the honorable mention)
None of them are complete, and all have vastly different ideas on how it should work and look. Want to know what the best shield generator is? Some wikis will have their own page on them, others just have it stuffed into a table called "starship components", maybe divided by category.
---
Whats interesting is that Ward Cunningham saw all these problems YEARS ago, and started pushing for a federated wiki experience. Doesn't seem to have caught on outside a very small niche circle, sadly. IMO because the various wikis that implement the federated wiki are lacking a lot of features that other wiki engines provide
If game developers question how to design something, I suggest checking how Wube (Factorio developers) did it: https://wiki.factorio.com.
Another good example is the TeamFortress wiki:
https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Main_Page
Started as a community wiki, and then Valve started hosting it and supporting it a few years later. They leave most of the admin up to the community, but do step in as needed for Terms of Service.
https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Main_Page
Started as a community wiki, and then Valve started hosting it and supporting it a few years later. They leave most of the admin up to the community, but do step in as needed for Terms of Service.
The Path of Exile wiki made a similar move a few years ago. Fandom was such a limitation for the community and the ads and page speed were awful. Now the Minecraft wiki will have to spend effort beating the Fandom site on SEO so that people get directed to the actually updated wiki. For Path of Exile there was a browser extension that would hide the Fandom from search results and redirect you to the new community wiki.
Are you thinking of the "Indie Wiki Buddy" extension? They have already added support for the new minecraft wiki: https://getindie.wiki/listings/
It's pretty incredible that Fandom/Fextralife have driven people to developing browser extensions just to avoid everything they touch...
It's pretty incredible that Fandom/Fextralife have driven people to developing browser extensions just to avoid everything they touch...
No, there's a Path of Exile wiki specific extension also.
It's slightly counterproductive from an SEO perspective as it redirects Fandom clicks to the new wiki, which gives Fandom all the SEO benefits of receiving those clicks.
It's slightly counterproductive from an SEO perspective as it redirects Fandom clicks to the new wiki, which gives Fandom all the SEO benefits of receiving those clicks.
Indeed, which is I suspect why fandom still ranked so highly above poewiki for many searches for far too long, and initially even appending poewiki would often return no results or just the fandom result.
Thankfully there's been a notable shift in the past 3-6 months.
What has finally helped I think is the sheer amount of stale or missing data on fandom, so as a really basic current example, it doesn't have mention of tattoos, a fairly critical aspect of the current league.
Thankfully there's been a notable shift in the past 3-6 months.
What has finally helped I think is the sheer amount of stale or missing data on fandom, so as a really basic current example, it doesn't have mention of tattoos, a fairly critical aspect of the current league.
The biggest reason was simply that we were being penalised for having duplicate content, which Google are able to detect.
We definitely over index on content added post-fork, which makes sense given that we're not competing with Fandom for those searches.
According to Google Search console, in the last 3 months we've had 32.9M impressions and 4.39M clicks, which is nothing to sniff at.
We definitely over index on content added post-fork, which makes sense given that we're not competing with Fandom for those searches.
According to Google Search console, in the last 3 months we've had 32.9M impressions and 4.39M clicks, which is nothing to sniff at.
Are there any headers added by the extension so you can detect natural vs redirected traffic?
I don't believe so, we never implemented client or server side tracking on the wiki though so it's not like we'd look at it anyway.
Critically, the developers of PoE also provide hosting for the wiki pro-bono. The service is so beneficial for players I imagine they figured the game would benefit from an ad-free (and therefore more usable) community wiki. Personally I have recently started seeing the correct wiki at the top of searches so I think the SEO battle is winnable with community effort. It helps that Fandom wikis are uniquely unusable without an ad blocker running.
It's currently my 5th result for "minecraft wiki" on Kagi, after I decided to penalize fandom.com's ranking on a whim.
(Also, the 2nd result is an official Mastodon post which mirrors this announcement, so it would be easily discoverable. Not too bad!)
(For Google, it's the 7th result for me, below three different versions of fandom.com).
(Also, the 2nd result is an official Mastodon post which mirrors this announcement, so it would be easily discoverable. Not too bad!)
(For Google, it's the 7th result for me, below three different versions of fandom.com).
I was embarrassingly excited to edit my Kagi Personalized Results with a block for Fandom and a pin for minecraft.wiki. This was yesterday and for me searching "minecraft wiki" and some obvious wiki things was not yielding the new wiki on any of Google/DDG/Kagi.
Got me thinking it could be interesting for Kagi to release personalized packages, like say you get into a new hobby (Minecraft) and you can quickly peruse/apply sensible personalization.
Got me thinking it could be interesting for Kagi to release personalized packages, like say you get into a new hobby (Minecraft) and you can quickly peruse/apply sensible personalization.
Good. Fantom is a plague. And unlike Pinterest, it actually contains stuff I'd be interested in. These ad-traps can't die soon enough.
>Our new host has better built out infrastructure that makes the site load significantly faster than Fandom, especially in different parts of the world and with slower internet connections
I'm reading this over the ultra-slow[1] airplane satellite wifi. The wiki loaded reasonably quickly. I don't even want to try opening any fandom wiki (it probably wouldn't load at all). Congrats!
I had to search for this information a bit, but looks like the new wiki is powered by MediaWiki. I wonder if there's a market for fandom alternative that would offer easy to onboard instances to various groups (so they don't get locked into fandom early).
[1] Because I bought the cheapest plan, of course.
I'm reading this over the ultra-slow[1] airplane satellite wifi. The wiki loaded reasonably quickly. I don't even want to try opening any fandom wiki (it probably wouldn't load at all). Congrats!
I had to search for this information a bit, but looks like the new wiki is powered by MediaWiki. I wonder if there's a market for fandom alternative that would offer easy to onboard instances to various groups (so they don't get locked into fandom early).
[1] Because I bought the cheapest plan, of course.
UESP is the gold standard for wikis.
https://uesp.net/wiki/Main_Page
https://uesp.net/wiki/Main_Page
Bethesda enjoyers are blessed with this wonderful wiki. And action RPG fans have fextralife - another solid gold standard for wikis. It's a great time to be a fan.
https://fextralife.com/
https://fextralife.com/
I never thought I'd see fextralife called a gold standard. It's also quite bad... better than "Fandom" though I guess.
For example, Bloodborne has a "Fandom", a fextralife, and an actual high-quality wiki at https://www.bloodborne-wiki.com/
For example, Bloodborne has a "Fandom", a fextralife, and an actual high-quality wiki at https://www.bloodborne-wiki.com/
Fextralife is worse than fandom, by far. The forced twitch view botting along with the horrendous site layout make it one of the worst wiki sites that exist.
That's a fair point. Worse than fandom, I am not sure. Fandom takes up 80% of your screen on mobile with ads. I've had all of the ads blocked on fex for so long, I forgot they existed. Thanks for the reminder!
They also spun up a Starfield wiki, still no salvation for the Fallout players out there https://starfieldwiki.net/
I'm hoping this is the one that takes off. It's very young, and the information is very hit-and-miss, but its growing, and since its a young wiki, its easy to add information that's missing
And yet Fandom outranks them, and "steals" contributors:
https://www.google.com/search?q=lydia+skyrim
https://www.google.com/search?q=lydia+skyrim
Yeah, Fandom just has better SEO unfortunately.
Good, Fandom wikis are a nightmare to use.
Crazy thing is that Fandom is (now) owned by Jimmy Wales!
Can you imagine if this kind of advertisement came to Wikipedia? Would make the fundraising banners look like nothing.
Can you imagine if this kind of advertisement came to Wikipedia? Would make the fundraising banners look like nothing.
It was founded by Jimmy Wales but was sold to a PE group. Wales is president of the company though.
I believe that organization was TPG. Was just serendipitously reading about it this morning after another frustrating attempt at using Fandom. Founded by Jimmy, and now he's the president. I'd say he deserves the lion's share of the blame, regardless of who owns it now.
I wish more wikis would take this step - Fandom (ex-Wikia) has become so ad-infested that I honestly avoid looking up stuff there as much as possible (which is a shame, because lots of fans put a lot of work into building those wikis).
It's pretty usable with an ad blocker, and NoScript makes it perfectly fine. But yeah, it sucks that that's necessary.
The problem is 'Fandom' (a gross brand name I would refuse to say without airquotes) always has better SEO. The Elder Scrolls has an excellent independent wiki, UESP, but normal people click the first Google result and have no way of knowing it isn't the 'right' wiki
Fandom is a fantastic name for this kind of thing...
I've always wondered why a wiki needs to monetize so hard. Most of their content easily cacheable and produced by volunteers, plus the technology hasn't really changed in 20 years. The whole site could probably be maintained by a single dev and a few admins. It seems natural that these sites are going to eventually be replaced because of this. Maybe I have an incorrect view of the costs/revenue.
> Maybe I have an incorrect view of the costs/revenue.
I run Weird Gloop (the group hosting the Minecraft/RuneScape wikis) and your view is generally correct. The content is extremely cacheable and the infrastructure costs have extremely strong economies-of-scale. The labor costs are a bit less obvious, but past a certain baseline (of, say, having enough people for a reasonable oncall rotation), the marginal labor cost of hosting additional wikis is quite low.
I run Weird Gloop (the group hosting the Minecraft/RuneScape wikis) and your view is generally correct. The content is extremely cacheable and the infrastructure costs have extremely strong economies-of-scale. The labor costs are a bit less obvious, but past a certain baseline (of, say, having enough people for a reasonable oncall rotation), the marginal labor cost of hosting additional wikis is quite low.
Thanks for hosting the OSRS wiki! It's amazing, out-of-your-face, and just works.
And the osrs wiki is pretty special too imo since there is custom code (like calculators and integrations with RL Plugins). Best wiki I've seen.
Because Fandom is owned by these guys: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TPG_Inc.
That's a good point. It's very likely that TPG demands constant growth meaning more profits each year. So Fandom has to put ads everywhere to meet the goals.
> "needs"
What if the monetization is the point, not the content?
What if the monetization is the point, not the content?
If you charge over the market rate you will get undercut by competition? Seems risky to make your site borderline unusable for cash you don't need.
Previously: "Minecraft Wiki considers move away from Fandom to new platform" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36648325
Thanks! Macroexpanded:
Minecraft Wiki considers move away from Fandom to new platform - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36648325 - July 2023 (25 comments)
Minecraft Wiki considers move away from Fandom to new platform - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36648325 - July 2023 (25 comments)
Its shocking how unusable Fandom is if not using an ad-blocker. I don't know why developers just don't host their own mediawiki installation.
The Paradox Studios wiki's are the best: https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Europa_Universalis_4_Wiki
The Paradox Studios wiki's are the best: https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Europa_Universalis_4_Wiki
I always wondered why the wiki was so complete yet so shitty at the same time. I though MS was extracting value via ads. I was wrong.
In MCs case a wiki is such integral part of the game it should almost be integrated.
In MCs case a wiki is such integral part of the game it should almost be integrated.
The "complete" part is thanks to thousands of fans contributing content, the "shitty" part is "thanks" to the company that makes money from that crowdsourced content. It's the same sad story for lots of wikis, some of them pretty high profile like Wookiepedia (Star Wars), Memory Alpha (Star Trek) etc.
In fact, Mojang actually somewhat recently removed the "official" status from the wiki. Although that was probably because of the Fandom stuff.
[deleted]
Yeah, I recently replayed Minecraft vanilla and I really don't understand how you are supposed to discover The End with regular play. They do have some light hints for constructing a nether portal but I couldn't find anything pointing at how to discover the end.
Terraria also moved, in a similar move.
https://terraria.wiki.gg/wiki/Terraria_Wiki
The same announcement on their official Mastodon account if you prefer (or if the Twitter link ever becomes difficult/impossible to access): https://wikis.world/@MinecraftWikiEN/111121512237906439
"The new Minecraft Wiki will be hosted by Weird Gloop, the company that hosts the RuneScape wikis."
OSRS set the bar pretty high: https://oldschool.runescape.wiki/
Clean, concise, and accurate.
OSRS set the bar pretty high: https://oldschool.runescape.wiki/
Clean, concise, and accurate.
WoWWiki (now called Wowpedia) is thinking about leaving Fandom too [1], which is interesting when you consider their past.
Back in the day, WoWWiki started as its own thing before it shifted over to Wikia (what we now know as Fandom).
Wikia was even worse than Fandom today. They had this set layout that didn’t work for many of the wikis they brought in. This led some folks from the community to branch out and create Wowpedia, which was on its own again.
Later, Wowpedia joined Curse's Gamepedia, kind of like Wikia but not as in-your-face.
But here’s the twist: in 2018, Fandom/Wikia bought Gamepedia. So, Wowpedia landed back with Fandom. At some point, they decided to archive WoWWiki so there is only Wowpedia now.
----
My personal opinion in general about this topic is that Fandom is a very bad host (Wikia used to be worse, to be fair), but the worst is having two competing wikis.
At least in this Minecraft's case, it looks like the majority of contributors moved together.
The situation of WowWiki/Wowpedia at the time was just sad, a lot of hard work went down the drain.
And speaking of which, isn’t the Terraria Wiki going through something similar right now?
Out of two wikis:
https://terraria.fandom.com/wiki/Terraria_Wiki https://terraria.wiki.gg/wiki/Terraria_Wiki
I can't figure out which one’s busier right now. I understand that terraria.wiki.gg now is the "official" one, but if you check out their recent change frequencies, they seem pretty close.
I can’t help thinking there's a lot of duplicated effort here too.
[1] https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Forum:Vote_to_Leave_Fandom
Back in the day, WoWWiki started as its own thing before it shifted over to Wikia (what we now know as Fandom).
Wikia was even worse than Fandom today. They had this set layout that didn’t work for many of the wikis they brought in. This led some folks from the community to branch out and create Wowpedia, which was on its own again.
Later, Wowpedia joined Curse's Gamepedia, kind of like Wikia but not as in-your-face.
But here’s the twist: in 2018, Fandom/Wikia bought Gamepedia. So, Wowpedia landed back with Fandom. At some point, they decided to archive WoWWiki so there is only Wowpedia now.
----
My personal opinion in general about this topic is that Fandom is a very bad host (Wikia used to be worse, to be fair), but the worst is having two competing wikis.
At least in this Minecraft's case, it looks like the majority of contributors moved together.
The situation of WowWiki/Wowpedia at the time was just sad, a lot of hard work went down the drain.
And speaking of which, isn’t the Terraria Wiki going through something similar right now?
Out of two wikis:
https://terraria.fandom.com/wiki/Terraria_Wiki https://terraria.wiki.gg/wiki/Terraria_Wiki
I can't figure out which one’s busier right now. I understand that terraria.wiki.gg now is the "official" one, but if you check out their recent change frequencies, they seem pretty close.
I can’t help thinking there's a lot of duplicated effort here too.
[1] https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Forum:Vote_to_Leave_Fandom
Out of curiousity: In what ways was Wikia worse than Fandom?
Their fixed-width layout.
This is their link to their more detailed reasoning: https://minecraft.wiki/w/Minecraft_Wiki:Moving_from_Fandom
>Unfortunately, because Fandom does not close wikis that have moved away, the old Fandom wiki will remain in place and continue to appear in search results.
Wow that's vendor lock in right there.
Fandom should have features to make the wiki read only, disable new posts, also a feature to pin a permanent banner for announcements, in this case for announcing the new home/link.
That will be a much better migration path.
Wow that's vendor lock in right there.
Fandom should have features to make the wiki read only, disable new posts, also a feature to pin a permanent banner for announcements, in this case for announcing the new home/link.
That will be a much better migration path.
What incentive do they have to do that when they can just keep the old outdated site up and collect ad revenue from Google pointing people their way.
I always considered fandom a great resource..
.. for practicing your element blocking technique in uBlock Origin.
.. for practicing your element blocking technique in uBlock Origin.
A similar situation happened with the Spanish Pokémon wiki. (now WikiDex) [1]
And if you look for "fandom" in the wiki's search, it redirects to an entry about a location in the game called "Castelia Sewers". [2]
[1]: https://www.wikidex.net/wiki/WikiDex:WikiDex_ya_no_forma_par...
[2]: https://www.wikidex.net/wiki/Cloacas_Porcelana
And if you look for "fandom" in the wiki's search, it redirects to an entry about a location in the game called "Castelia Sewers". [2]
[1]: https://www.wikidex.net/wiki/WikiDex:WikiDex_ya_no_forma_par...
[2]: https://www.wikidex.net/wiki/Cloacas_Porcelana
Url changed from https://twitter.com/MinecraftWikiEN/status/17060040782061039..., which points to this.
Submitters: "Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Submitters: "Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
In all seriousness, what fuck is going on in Fandom? It has soooo much ads!
I just turned off my ad blocker and literally only 21% of the page is content and the remaining is ads. After 2 seconds, it got replaced by a full screen ad. What? How? What are the people at fandom thinking? This is completely unusable without adblockers!
Don't believe me, here are the screenshots I just took: https://imgur.com/a/sNg3IlJ
I just turned off my ad blocker and literally only 21% of the page is content and the remaining is ads. After 2 seconds, it got replaced by a full screen ad. What? How? What are the people at fandom thinking? This is completely unusable without adblockers!
Don't believe me, here are the screenshots I just took: https://imgur.com/a/sNg3IlJ
Nice. Before this, I was using BreezeWiki[0], which is frontend for Fandom.
[0]: https://breezewiki.com/
[0]: https://breezewiki.com/
Search seems to be totally broken?
https://breezewiki.com/dota2/search?q=Chaos+Knight
Exception raised in Racket code at response generation time: string::2: bytes->jsexpr: bad input starting #"You are not allowed to access this resource " context...: /home/cadence/racket/collects/syntax/readerr.rkt:15:2: -raise-read-error /home/cadence/racket/collects/racket/contract/private/arrow-higher-order.rkt:375:33 /home/cadence/breezewiki/src/page-search.rkt:70:2 /home/cadence/racket/collects/racket/contract/private/arrow-higher-order.rkt:375:33 /home/cadence/racket/share/pkgs/web-server-lib/web-server/dispatchers/dispatch-lift.rkt:11:0 /home/cadence/racket/collects/racket/private/more-scheme.rkt:163:2: select-handler/no-breaks [repeats 9 more times] /home/cadence/racket/share/pkgs/web-server-lib/web-server/private/dispatch-server-with-connect-unit.rkt:141:2
https://breezewiki.com/dota2/search?q=Chaos+Knight
Exception raised in Racket code at response generation time: string::2: bytes->jsexpr: bad input starting #"You are not allowed to access this resource " context...: /home/cadence/racket/collects/syntax/readerr.rkt:15:2: -raise-read-error /home/cadence/racket/collects/racket/contract/private/arrow-higher-order.rkt:375:33 /home/cadence/breezewiki/src/page-search.rkt:70:2 /home/cadence/racket/collects/racket/contract/private/arrow-higher-order.rkt:375:33 /home/cadence/racket/share/pkgs/web-server-lib/web-server/dispatchers/dispatch-lift.rkt:11:0 /home/cadence/racket/collects/racket/private/more-scheme.rkt:163:2: select-handler/no-breaks [repeats 9 more times] /home/cadence/racket/share/pkgs/web-server-lib/web-server/private/dispatch-server-with-connect-unit.rkt:141:2
Reminder that all Mojang and Minecraft accounts were deleted last Tuesday.
The fact that they are removing a the ability for people to access a game they paid for is unacceptable and should be illegal.
The fact that they are removing a the ability for people to access a game they paid for is unacceptable and should be illegal.
Huh? What accounts were deleted from where? As a base reading of what you said sounds like "all Minecraft accounts were deleted Tuesday" which surely would have been major news.
>What accounts were deleted from where?
All Mojang and Minecraft accounts were deleted from Mojang's servers.
>which surely would have been major news.
I wish it was. In a few months people will want to revisit the game and then realize they have to rebuy the game if they want to play it again.
All Mojang and Minecraft accounts were deleted from Mojang's servers.
>which surely would have been major news.
I wish it was. In a few months people will want to revisit the game and then realize they have to rebuy the game if they want to play it again.
>All Mojang and Minecraft accounts were deleted from Mojang's servers
As somebody who's never touched Minecraft, surely all Minecraft accounts are Minecraft/Mojang accounts? If everybody playing suddenly needed to rebuy the game Tuesday it would have been big news.
As somebody who's never touched Minecraft, surely all Minecraft accounts are Minecraft/Mojang accounts? If everybody playing suddenly needed to rebuy the game Tuesday it would have been big news.
Minecraft now only supports Microsoft accounts as they deleted all other accounts.
Minecraft accounts were the original account system that minecraft used. Once Mojang was working on Scrolls they created the Mojang account system to span all of the studio's games. After the acquisition by Microsoft it was changed so that people buying Minecraft would instead use Microsoft accounts.
Minecraft accounts were the original account system that minecraft used. Once Mojang was working on Scrolls they created the Mojang account system to span all of the studio's games. After the acquisition by Microsoft it was changed so that people buying Minecraft would instead use Microsoft accounts.
I assume the ability to create new "Mojang" accounts has been closed a looong time ago in favor of the Microsoft logins. The migration from those accounts started over a year ago and they have sent multiple emails about this migration.
I have a low end to play Minecraft, hence I could choose either play or browse fandom (Linux, Firefox) because fandom so much slowed down it. However other sites seem okay. So in this way I'm glad the Minecraft wiki is faster now. Need to check the performance. However the money does not come from the sky. I understand you have to have ads on your site to haven't it funded and I wonder who funds minecraft.wiki
Is there some reason they can't just edit the Fandom wiki and modify each page to point at the new one? (Maybe Fandom would revert the changes?)
Yeah it's against fandom rules. Wikis aren't allowed to link to their replacements
Ugh.
I always hesitate before browsing to a Fandom wiki because the user experience is so full of dark patterns. I guess this is just another facet of that...
I always hesitate before browsing to a Fandom wiki because the user experience is so full of dark patterns. I guess this is just another facet of that...
Thank you and the other repliers who answered. It wasn't a hard guess, as you can see, but it was an important bit of information to be sure about to understand the story.
Would probably qualify under "vandalism"
> Maybe Fandom would revert the changes?
That is precisely what they do.
They also, in some cases, ban the mods/contributors making the change.
That is precisely what they do.
They also, in some cases, ban the mods/contributors making the change.
Browser userscript (e.g. Tampermonkey) redirect:
// @match https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/*
window.location.hostname = "minecraft.wiki";
^https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/(.*)|https://minecraft.wiki/w/$1Fantastic, I'm really interested in how it goes since the fandom wiki might be the single largest fan wiki project I've ever seen. I'd be surprised if they ever hit parity, but assuming people don't keep updating fandom (why would they?) then it'll be _the_ resource in no time at all.
Doesn’t the domain name clearly infringe on Microsoft’s trademark? Even as someone who is knowledgeable, I can see this causing confusion. As useful as this is, I don’t see site lasting for very long at the current domain without an agreement from the trademark owner.
They are likely wise enough not to threaten a community that’s doing tons of valuable free work for them.
IANAL but I would assume that, since they're moving from "minecraft.fandom.com" to "minecraft.wiki", it should be no more infringing than what they previously had, unless second-level domain names are subject to more scrutiny than third-level domain names. And if that's the case, then I would expect that the infringing party would be their domain name registrar, for being the one to sell them the hypothetically infringing name (which isn't to say that the operators of the server couldn't be subject to trademark claims for other reasons unrelated to the domain name).
The previous domain was minecraftwiki.net, and I don't see a big difference here?
minecraftforum.net has been up for well over a decade at this point.
the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure's wiki left fandom in 2019: https://jojowiki.com/Special:WikiForum/Leaving_Fandom
Anyone else thinking of making a service that can easily fork and host a fandom like this?
I fear such a service may simply tread the same path as Wikia.
Also, any hosting platform has to balance user control over extensions and customisations, on the one hand, with system reliability on the other. You can't easily delegate control of extension installation to Wiki administrators, unless you give them console access.
The Minecraft Wiki is currently hosted by Weird Gloop which is the entity responsible for the forked RuneScape Wikis, and they manage the servers directly: https://weirdgloop.org/
The harder bit is convincing people to move, and trying to beat Fandom on Google. One of the reasons they picked Weird Gloop is the experience in this space - they've pretty much won the battle in respect of the RuneScape Wikis, which have sat dormant for years.
Also, any hosting platform has to balance user control over extensions and customisations, on the one hand, with system reliability on the other. You can't easily delegate control of extension installation to Wiki administrators, unless you give them console access.
The Minecraft Wiki is currently hosted by Weird Gloop which is the entity responsible for the forked RuneScape Wikis, and they manage the servers directly: https://weirdgloop.org/
The harder bit is convincing people to move, and trying to beat Fandom on Google. One of the reasons they picked Weird Gloop is the experience in this space - they've pretty much won the battle in respect of the RuneScape Wikis, which have sat dormant for years.
I'm not sure how much they automate the forking, but a number of these already exist and were contendors for recieving the Minecraft wiki.
https://wiki.gg is probably the biggest, but there's also https://abxy.org and https://weirdgloop.org/, who is now hosting the minecraft wiki
https://wiki.gg is probably the biggest, but there's also https://abxy.org and https://weirdgloop.org/, who is now hosting the minecraft wiki
Wasn't the Minecraft wiki first a MediaWiki site?
The Minecraft wiki was always (and still is) using MediaWiki.
What do you mean? Does Fandom use MediaWiki? I remember them having their own independent website. Maybe I'm thinking of the MC Fandom wiki before the theme changed. It used to look exactly like Wikipedia.
As someone said on YouTube: "fandom is the web equivalent of overpriced laundromats"
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The WoW wiki is also leaving Fandom.
In my experience the Fandom wiki will stay always above the new wiki in google, making this move pointless.
In my experience the Fandom wiki will stay always above the new wiki in google, making this move pointless.
Given how infamously hostile Fandom wikis are to users, most people who have visited any Fandom hosted wiki in the past will understand this. The top position, which I do want to point out does change, doesn’t always mean people will immediately click on it. This automatic behavior of indiscriminately clicking the top result is being disrupted in part due to how many ads google is stuffing on the top now that look like real results, compounded with the fact of how truly awful google search has become. People are beginning to be much more choosy with what site they click through to.
The thing that bothers me is how much weight you are ascribing to organic search given each of the communities’ niche. Being in “the know” here usually comes with the knowledge of where to find the wiki and other resources. If they have to stumble around to find it the first time, maybe they see the old (or replacement) Fandom site and instantly realize what a horrible mistake they made by clicking thru to the trash heap it is.
The thing that bothers me is how much weight you are ascribing to organic search given each of the communities’ niche. Being in “the know” here usually comes with the knowledge of where to find the wiki and other resources. If they have to stumble around to find it the first time, maybe they see the old (or replacement) Fandom site and instantly realize what a horrible mistake they made by clicking thru to the trash heap it is.
> People are beginning to be much more choosy with what site they click through to.
I would love to believe you (especially as someone who exclusively uses Kagi now); but do you have statistical data on this, as it pertains to the median usage of Google results?
I would love to believe you (especially as someone who exclusively uses Kagi now); but do you have statistical data on this, as it pertains to the median usage of Google results?
Nope that remains unstudied. Trust me, I’ve looked. A lot of my assertions are based on how I’ve seen other people behave - which I fully acknowledge is subject to stuff like confirmation bias.
For context, I volunteer at a community center and library helping people use computers (usually focused on kids going into stem field, but the general public uses it too). It’s not a diverse sample as this serves only a only a specific middle and working class neighborhood, and I have not been rigorous in data collection (or have literally any strategy to do so).
For context, I volunteer at a community center and library helping people use computers (usually focused on kids going into stem field, but the general public uses it too). It’s not a diverse sample as this serves only a only a specific middle and working class neighborhood, and I have not been rigorous in data collection (or have literally any strategy to do so).
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The Path of Exile wiki moved off fandom to https://www.poewiki.net and has been very successful. If I google "path of exile wiki" it's the top result for me (in an anonymous window). The creators of PoE even agreed to host the new wiki. The move to the new wiki was heavily supported by the subreddit for PoE, often pointing people that posted links to the fandom version to the new version. I remember there being guides to on how to block fandom with ublock, how to add the new wiki as a search provider in Firefox, etc.
Yugioh wiki also moved to Yugipedia a long time ago. It was a contentious decision at the time but absolutely the right one in hindsight. The obnoxious autoplay videos ads, horrible mobile layout, forced adoption of styles and features all contributed to the decision.
It's totally possible to beat the old wiki on Google! We did it for runescape.wiki, which was the most popular wiki on Fandom before we left in 2018.
Yume 2kki, [doom wiki] and zelda wiki are all at 2nd in the google results. Strangely they don't seem to mention them moving on the front page. I think I heard fandom tries to stop people from moving and takes down messages like that, so that might be why they're still on top.
While you have a point, this move is still in the right direction. This move gives people to power to choose. At least I don't have to use BreezeWiki for minecraft again.
I use adblock rules and the site looks perfectly fine. Every few months I have to add something new, but all in all, I don't have a problem with viewing wikis hosted by Fandom.
OTOH, I refuse to edit wikis in Fandom, because it feels like I'm not doing it for the community but for the Fandom company, which I don't care for.
OTOH, I refuse to edit wikis in Fandom, because it feels like I'm not doing it for the community but for the Fandom company, which I don't care for.
Adblock is and always has been a band-aid, and pulling a “see no evil” doesn’t mean the ads no longer exist, as such it is reasonable to expect that any random user will be subjected to it unless otherwise stated.
My problem with the ad soup that is Fandom is that the community that is providing the content and inhabiting the space is not the one benefiting from the placement of the ads. This creates a perverse incentive for Fandom to maximize ad revenue at all costs. A publisher who is also the steward of the community will typically be more selective with what ads and where to put them.
I find it tragic that after the heyday of self hosted software like forums, we entered what I fully believe will become a dark age for the internet where content is walled away by the larger providers who have every incentive to extract value from users and hoard their data, both given and created, to maximize their own interests.
My problem with the ad soup that is Fandom is that the community that is providing the content and inhabiting the space is not the one benefiting from the placement of the ads. This creates a perverse incentive for Fandom to maximize ad revenue at all costs. A publisher who is also the steward of the community will typically be more selective with what ads and where to put them.
I find it tragic that after the heyday of self hosted software like forums, we entered what I fully believe will become a dark age for the internet where content is walled away by the larger providers who have every incentive to extract value from users and hoard their data, both given and created, to maximize their own interests.
That might be true, for a while. After that, pagerank will move on to the new one.
The doom wiki moved like 10 years ago and it's still below.
Doom fandom wiki is still active, i didn't even know they moved until just now.
This is part of the problem. The community "moves" but the old wiki isn't down, and it picks up contributors from sheer SEO rank.
UESP predates Fandom and was extremely fleshed out, and is frankly superior to the Fandom version at every point in history. But even with the "head start," UESP has really suffered due to the existence of Fandom, for no reason other than artificial SEO dominance.
UESP predates Fandom and was extremely fleshed out, and is frankly superior to the Fandom version at every point in history. But even with the "head start," UESP has really suffered due to the existence of Fandom, for no reason other than artificial SEO dominance.
It takes a while, but it can eventually transition. The OSRS wiki seems to have moved above its old fandom wiki for most pages at this point.
It's kind of like forking a software project, just the wiki contributions are distributed more broadly compared to software where one or two people do most of the work.
The people contributing matter, but it doesn't matter how many people use the other wiki.
The people contributing matter, but it doesn't matter how many people use the other wiki.
A history recap for those who do not know:
2013: Minecraft Wiki migrates from a self-hosted solution to Gamepedia run by Curse. This was a good decision at the time, because Curse was pretty trusted in the community; Minecraft modding centers around CurseForge the way Skyrim does around Nexus.
2016: Twitch buys Curse. The Curse Launcher is rebranded as the Twitch Launcher and turned into a desktop Twitch client that also does Minecraft modding. The wikis are initially unaffected. This sucks.
2018: Twitch starts breaking up Curse, and sells off Gamepedia to Fandom. This also sucks because Fandom starts inserting more ads, but the ads are manageable compared to Fandom proper.
2020: Gamepedia wikis are migrated over to Fandom proper, for SEO. Overnight the site becomes completely unusable. This sucks much worse, and actually manages to damage Twitch's brand (because a lot of people think they're involved, due to it still being called the Twitch Launcher) and they shutter the launcher and sell off CurseForge (the modding part) to Overwolf.