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Fandom (formerly known as Wikicities before 2007 and later Wikia before 2019) is a
wiki hosting service A wiki hosting service, or wiki farm, is a server or an array of servers that offers users tools to simplify the creation and development of individual, independent wikis. Wiki farms are not to be confused with wiki "families", a more generic t ...
that hosts wikis mainly on entertainment topics (i.e. video games, TV series, movies, entertainers, etc.). Its domain is operated by Fandom, Inc. (formerly known as Wikia, Inc. until 2019), a for-profit Delaware company founded in October 2004 by
Jimmy Wales Jimmy Donal Wales (born August 7, 1966), also known on Wikipedia by the pseudonym Jimbo, is an American-British Internet entrepreneur, webmaster, and former financial trader. He is a co-founder of the online non-profit encyclopedia Wikipedi ...
(co-founder of Wikipedia) and Angela Beesley. Fandom was acquired in 2018 by TPG Capital and Jon Miller through Integrated Media Co. Fandom uses MediaWiki, the open-source wiki software used by Wikipedia. Fandom, Inc. derives its income from advertising and sold content, publishing most user-provided text under copyleft licenses. The company also runs the associated Fandom editorial project, offering pop-culture and gaming news. Fandom wikis are hosted under the domain ''fandom.com'', but some, especially those that focus on subjects other than
media franchises A media franchise, also known as a multimedia franchise, is a collection of related media in which several derivative works have been produced from an original creative work of fiction, such as a film, a work of literature, a television program or ...
, were hosted under ''wikia.org'' until November 2021.


History


2004–2009: Early days and growth

Fandom was launched on October 18, 2004, at 23:50:49 (UTC) under the name Wikicities (which invited comparisons to Yahoo's GeoCities), by
Jimmy Wales Jimmy Donal Wales (born August 7, 1966), also known on Wikipedia by the pseudonym Jimbo, is an American-British Internet entrepreneur, webmaster, and former financial trader. He is a co-founder of the online non-profit encyclopedia Wikipedi ...
and Angela Beesley Starling—respectively chairman ''
emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...
'' and advisory board member of the Wikimedia Foundation. The name of the project was changed to Wikia on March 27, 2006. In the month before the move, Wikia announced a
US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...
4 million venture capital investment from
Bessemer Venture Partners Bessemer Venture Partners (Bessemer) is an American venture capital firm. The firm has over $19 billion under management and invests globally, with offices in San Francisco, Redwood City, New York City, Boston, Israel, India, and London. Bessemer ...
and First Round Capital. Nine months later, Amazon.com invested $10 million in Series B funding. By September 2006, Wikia had approximately 1,500 wikis in 48 languages. Over time, Wikia has incorporated formerly independent wikis such as LyricWiki, Nukapedia,
Uncyclopedia Uncyclopedia is a satirical online encyclopedia that parodies Wikipedia. Its logo, a hollow "puzzle potato", parodies Wikipedia's globe puzzle logo, and it styles itself "the content-free encyclopedia", parodying Wikipedia's slogan of "the fre ...
, and
WoWWiki The WoWWiki or World of Warcraft Wiki was a wiki about the ''Warcraft'' fictional universe, and one of the largest wikis about a specific subject. It began as an independent project in November 2004, and in 2007 joined Wikia. In late 2010, most o ...
.
Gil Penchina Gil or GIL may refer to: Places * Gil Island (disambiguation), one of several islands by that name * Gil, Iran, a village in Hormozgan Province, Iran * Hil, Azerbaijan, also spelled ''Gil, a village in Azerbaijan * Hiloba, also spelled ''Gil, ...
described Wikia early on as "the rest of the library and magazine rack" to Wikipedia's encyclopedia. The material has also been described as informal, and often bordering on entertainment, allowing the importing of maps, YouTube videos, and other non-traditional wiki material.


2010–2015: New management

By 2010, wikis could be created in 188 different languages. In October 2011, Craig Palmer, the former CEO of Gracenote, replaced Penchina as CEO. In February 2012, co-founder Beesley Starling left Wikia to launch a startup called ChalkDrop.com. At the end of November 2012, Wikia raised $10.8 million in Series C funding from
Institutional Venture Partners Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) is a US-based private equity investment firm focusing on later-stage venture capital and growth equity investments. IVP is one of the oldest venture capital firms, founded in 1980. History While Reid W. Denn ...
and previous investors Bessemer Ventures Partners and Amazon.com. Another $15 million was raised in August 2014 for Series D funding, with investors Digital Garage, Amazon, Bessemer Venture Partners, and
Institutional Venture Partners Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) is a US-based private equity investment firm focusing on later-stage venture capital and growth equity investments. IVP is one of the oldest venture capital firms, founded in 1980. History While Reid W. Denn ...
. The total raised at this point was $39.8 million. On March 4, 2015, Wikia appointed Walker Jacobs, former executive vice-president of Turner Broadcasting System, to the new position of chief operating officer. In December 2015, Wikia launched the Fan Contributor Program.


2016–2018: Fandom brand

On January 25, 2016, Wikia launched a new entertainment news site named Fandom. On October 4, 2016, Wikia.com was renamed "Fandom powered by Wikia", to better associate itself with the Fandom website. Wikia, Inc. remained under its then-current name, and the homepage of Wikia.com was moved to ''wikia.com/fandom''. In December 2016, Wikia appointed Dorth Raphaely, former general manager of
Bleacher Report Bleacher Report (often abbreviated as B/R) is a website that focuses on sport and sports culture. Its headquarters are in San Francisco, with offices in New York City and London. Bleacher Report was acquired by Turner Broadcasting System in Aug ...
, as chief content officer.


2018–present: Further acquisitions and inclusivity

In February 2018, former
AOL AOL (stylized as Aol., formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City. It is a brand marketed by the current incarnation of Yahoo (2017â ...
CEO Jon Miller, backed by Private equity firm TPG Capital, acquired Fandom. Miller was named Co-chairman of Wikia, Inc., alongside Jimmy Wales, and TPG Capital director Andrew Doyle assumed the role of interim CEO. In July 2018, Fandom purchased Screen Junkies from Defy Media, and in December of that year, they had acquired the media assets of
Curse LLC Curse is a network of gaming websites. The company is headquartered in Huntsville, Alabama, and has offices in San Francisco, New York City, Los Angeles, Brighton, and Berlin. Curse initially focused on offering mods for various video games. As ...
, including wiki services Gamepedia, D&D Beyond, Futhead, Muthead, and Straw Poll. In February 2019, former StubHub CEO Perkins Miller took over as CEO, and Wikia fully changed its domain name to ''fandom.com''. Various wikis had been tested with the new domain during 2018, with some wikis that focused on "more serious topics" having their domains changed to ''wikia.org'' instead. In June 2019, Fandom began an effort to rewrite its core platform, which was written based on MediaWiki version 1.19, to base it off a newer version of the software. On March 11, 2020, Fandom released the Unified Community Platform (UCP), based on MediaWiki 1.33, for newly created wikis. In November 2020, Fandom began to migrate Gamepedia wikis to a ''fandom.com'' domain as part of their search engine optimization strategy, with migrations continuing into 2021. In February 2021, Fandom acquired
Focus Multimedia Focus Multimedia Ltd is a multi-faceted publisher and retailer of video games, consumer software and mobile apps. Founded in 1995, the company is headquartered in the town of Rugeley in Staffordshire, England, and has about 30 employees. The c ...
, the retailer behind Fanatical, an e-commerce platform that sells digital games, ebooks and other products related to gaming. In late March 2021, Fandom updated its terms of use policy to prohibit deadnaming transgender individuals across their websites. This policy was in response to a referendum on the ''
Star Wars ''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop-culture Cultural impact of S ...
'' wiki
Wookieepedia Wookieepedia: The ''Star Wars'' Wiki is an online encyclopedia for information about the ''Star Wars'' universe—including information on all the films, as well as '' Clone Wars'', '' The Clone Wars'' and its introductory film, ''Rebels'', t ...
to ban deadnaming, which triggered a debate around an article about the non-binary artist Robin Pronovost. In response to the deadnaming controversy, Fandom also introduced new LGBT guidelines across its websites in late June 2021 which include links to queer-inclusive and trans support resources. In June 2021, Fandom began to rollout ''FandomDesktop'', a redesigned theme for desktop devices, with plans to retire its legacy ''Oasis'' and ''Hydra'' skins once the rollout was complete. Two months later on August 3, Fandom rolled out a new look, new colors, new logo, and introduced a new tagline, "For the love of fans." In late November/early December 2021, all remaining wikis under the ''wikia.org'' domain migrated to the ''fandom.com'' domain. On October 3, 2022, Fandom acquired GameSpot, Metacritic, TV Guide,
GameFAQs GameFAQs is a website that hosts FAQs and walkthroughs for video games. It was created in November 1995 by Jeff Veasey and was bought by CNET Networks in May 2003. It is currently owned by Fandom, Inc. since October 2022. The site has a databa ...
, Giant Bomb, Cord Cutters News, and Comic Vine from
Red Ventures Red Ventures is an American media company, which owns and operates brands such as Lonely Planet, CNET, ZDNet, The Points Guy, Healthline and Bankrate. Red Ventures focuses on sites that dispense news, advice, and reviews. The company's corporat ...
.


Services and features


Present


Wikis

Fandom communities consist of online encyclopedias, each one specializing in a particular subject. Although Fandom allows almost anything to be the main focus of a wiki, the most common interest of its users is in popular fiction franchises of films, TV shows, games, books, and other media, partially attributable to the limitation of such detailed information under Wikipedia's notability policies. This contributed to the service being renamed to ''Fandom''. The main purpose of articles in a Fandom community is to cover information and discussion on a particular topic in a much greater and more comprehensive detail level than what can be found on Wikipedia articles. For example, Spiteful Crow, an enemy character in ''
EarthBound ''EarthBound'', released in Japan as is a role-playing video game developed by Creatures (company), Ape Inc. and HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The second entry in the Mother (video game s ...
'', may have its own article on the ''EarthBound'' Fandom, whereas the character may not be considered notable enough for a Wikipedia page. Also, the writing style is mostly directed to those familiar with specific vocabulary and terminology rather than to the lay and general public of Wikipedia; the ''
Harry Potter ''Harry Potter'' is a series of seven fantasy literature, fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The novels chronicle the lives of a young Magician (fantasy), wizard, Harry Potter (character), Harry Potter, and his friends ...
'' wiki, for example, is written from the perspective of everything in the franchise universe being real, thus the article about the character
Ronald Weasley Ronald Bilius Weasley is a fictional character in J. K. Rowling's ''Harry Potter'' fantasy novel series. His first appearance was in the first book of the series, '' Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', as the best friend of Harry Pott ...
starts by describing the subject as "a pure-blood wizard, the sixth and youngest son of Arthur and
Molly Weasley The Order of the Phoenix is a secret organisation in the '' Harry Potter'' series of fiction books written by J. K. Rowling. Founded by Albus Dumbledore to fight Lord Voldemort and his followers, the Death Eaters, the Order lends its name to th ...
" instead of "a fictional character in the Harry Potter series". Other examples of content that is generally considered beyond the scope of information of Wikipedia articles includes Fandom information about video games and related video game topics, detailed instructions, gameplay details, plot details, and so forth. Gameplay concepts can also have their own articles. Fandom also allows wikis to have a point of view, rather than the neutral POV that is required by Wikipedia (although NPOV is a local policy on many Fandom communities). The image policies of Fandom communities tend to be more lenient than those of Wikimedia Foundation projects, allowing articles with much more illustration. Fandom requires all user text content to be published under a free license; most use the
Creative Commons Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...
Attribution-ShareAlike license, although a few wikis use a licence with a noncommercial clause (for instance Memory Alpha,
Uncyclopedia Uncyclopedia is a satirical online encyclopedia that parodies Wikipedia. Its logo, a hollow "puzzle potato", parodies Wikipedia's globe puzzle logo, and it styles itself "the content-free encyclopedia", parodying Wikipedia's slogan of "the fre ...
and others) and some use the
GNU Free Documentation License The GNU Free Documentation License (GNU FDL or simply GFDL) is a copyleft license for free documentation, designed by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) for the GNU Project. It is similar to the GNU General Public License, giving readers the r ...
. Fandom's terms of use forbid
hate speech Hate speech is defined by the ''Cambridge Dictionary'' as "public speech that expresses hate or encourages violence towards a person or group based on something such as race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation". Hate speech is "usually thoug ...
,
libel Defamation is the act of communicating to a third party false statements about a person, place or thing that results in damage to its reputation. It can be spoken (slander) or written (libel). It constitutes a tort or a crime. The legal defini ...
,
pornography Pornography (often shortened to porn or porno) is the portrayal of sexual subject matter for the exclusive purpose of sexual arousal. Primarily intended for adults,
, or copyright infringement. Other material is allowed, as long as the added material does not duplicate Wikimedia Foundation projects. Wikis are also not owned by their founders, nor does the founder's opinion carry more weight in disagreements than any other user's opinion. Consensus and cooperation are the primary means for organizing a community on Fandom. However, Fandom may take decisions affecting the community even if there is no consensus at all.


Technology

Fandom uses a heavily modified version of MediaWiki software, based on the version 1.37.6 of MediaWiki. It has more than 200 extensions installed, most of them created by their staff of developers, to add social features like blogs, chat, badges, forums, and multimedia, but also remove features like advanced user options or skins. The personal choice of using the Monobook skin instead of the default custom skin was removed on May 25, 2018, alluding GDPR compliance. In August 2016, Fandom announced it would switch to a service-oriented architecture. It has also removed many custom extensions and functionality for specific wiki, has created certain features to fill those needs.


Entertainment news

In 2016, Wikia launched Fandom, an online entertainment media website. The program utilizes volunteer contributors called "Fandom Contributors" to produce articles, working alongside an editorial team employed by Wikia. In contrast to the blogging feature of individual wiki communities, Fandom focuses on pop culture and fan topics such as video games, movies, and television shows. The project features fan opinions, interviews with property creators, reviews, and how-to guides. Fandom also includes videos and specific news coverage sponsored or paid for by a property creator to promote their property. In the same year, it was also announced that the entire Wikia platform would be rebranded under the Fandom name on October 4, 2016. A leak from Fandom's Community Council was posted to Reddit's /r/Wikia subreddit in August 2018, confirming that Fandom would be migrating all wikis from the ''wikia.com'' domain, to ''fandom.com'' in early 2019, as part of a push for greater adoption of Fandom's wiki-specific applications on both iOS and Android's app ecosystems. The post was later deleted.


Wiki partnerships

Fandom has created several official partnerships to create wikis, vetted by the corporation as being the "official" encyclopedia or wiki of a property. In 2014, Fandom partnered with Roddenberry Enterprises to create the Trek Initiative, a Fandom hosted wiki community site that features video interviews, promotions, and other material about Star Trek to celebrate its 50th anniversary. In 2013, Fandom partnered with SOE (now called
Daybreak Games Daybreak Game Company LLC is an American video game developer based in San Diego. The company was founded in December 1997 as Sony Online Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Computer Entertainment, but was spun off to an independent investor in ...
) to create official wikis for several of their games such as '' Free Realms'', '' PlanetSide 2'', and the '' EverQuest'' franchise. Fandom made similar partnerships with
2K Games 2K is an American video game publisher based in Novato, California. 2K was founded under Take-Two Interactive in January 2005 through the 2K Games and 2K Sports labels, following Take-Two Interactive's acquisition of Visual Concepts that same m ...
during the launch of '' Civilization: Beyond Earth'' and Warner Bros Interactive for '' Shadow of Mordor''. Fandom also has partnerships with Lionsgate Media to promote
Starz Starz (stylized as STARZ since 2016; pronounced "stars") is an American premium cable and satellite television network owned by Lions Gate Entertainment, and is the flagship property of parent subsidiary Starz Inc. Programming on Starz consist ...
and Film franchises through wiki content, fandom articles, and advertisements.


Questions and answers site

In January 2009, the company created a
question and answer website The following is a list of websites that follow a question-and-answer format. The list contains only websites for which an article exists, dedicated either wholly or at least partly to the websites. For the ''humor'' "Q&A site" format first popul ...
named "Wikianswers", not to be confused with the preexisting WikiAnswers. In March 2010, Fandom re-launched "Answers from Wikia", where users could create topic-specialized
knowledge market A knowledge market is a mechanism for distributing knowledge resources. There are two views on knowledge and how knowledge markets can function. One view uses a legal construct of intellectual property to artificial scarcity, make knowledge a typic ...
wikis based upon Fandom's own Wikianswers subdomain.


Esports

In 2021 the United States Navy hired Fandom to manage and promote
esports Esports, short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, individually or as teams. Although orga ...
tournaments and streams on Twitch.


Past services


OpenServing

OpenServing was a short-lived Web publishing project owned by Fandom, founded on December 12, 2006, and abandoned, unannounced, in January 2008. Like Fandom, OpenServing was to offer free wiki hosting, but it would differ in that each wiki's founder would retain any revenue gained from advertising on the site. OpenServing used a modified version of the Wikimedia Foundation's MediaWiki software created by
ArmchairGM Fandom (formerly known as Wikicities before 2007 and later Wikia before 2019) is a wiki hosting service that hosts wikis mainly on entertainment topics (i.e. video games, TV series, movies, entertainers, etc.). Its domain is operated by Fandom, ...
, but was intended to branch out to other open source packages. According to Fandom co-founder and chairman
Jimmy Wales Jimmy Donal Wales (born August 7, 1966), also known on Wikipedia by the pseudonym Jimbo, is an American-British Internet entrepreneur, webmaster, and former financial trader. He is a co-founder of the online non-profit encyclopedia Wikipedi ...
, the OpenServing site received several thousand applications in January 2007. However, after a year, no sites had been launched under the OpenServing banner.


Armchair GM

ArmchairGM was a sports forum and wiki site created by Aaron Wright, Dan Lewis, Robert Lefkowitz and developer David Pean. Launched in early 2006, the site was initially US-based, but sought to improve its links to sports associated with Britain over its first year. Its MediaWiki-based software included a Digg-style article-voting mechanism, blog-like comment forms with "thumbs up/down" user feedback, and the ability to write multiple types of posts (news, opinions, or "locker room" discussion entries). In late 2006, the site was bought by Fandom for $2 million. After the purchase was made, the former owners applied ArmchairGM's architecture to other Fandom sites. However, Wikia had "dropped support" for the custom software innovations by ArmchairGM by January 2010. From September 2010 to February 2011, Fandom absorbed ArmchairGM's encyclopedia articles and blanked all of its old blog entries, effectively discontinuing ArmchairGM in its original form. The software powering ArmchairGM was incrementally open-sourced starting in February 2008 with the public release of the SocialProfile MediaWiki extension. This process was complete by August 2011, when the original ArmchairGM codebase (internally codenamed ''wikia- ny'') was released in full. Since 2008 the ArmchairGM innovations, nicknamed "social tools", have been developed by volunteer developers of the MediaWiki community and they are available under the GNU General Public License, version 2 or later, which is a free and open source software
license A license (or licence) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another party (licensee) as an element of an agreeme ...
. The source code is hosted on the Wikimedia Foundation's web servers and
mirrored ''Mirrored'' is the debut studio album by American experimental rock band Battles. It was released on May 14, 2007 in the United Kingdom, and on May 22, 2007 in the United States. ''Mirrored'' marked the first album in which the band incorporated ...
to the popular source code hosting platform GitHub.


Search engines

Wikia, Inc. initially proposed creating a copyleft
search engine A search engine is a software system designed to carry out web searches. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in a ...
; the software (but not the site) was named "Wikiasari" by a November 2004 naming contest. The proposal became inactive in 2005. The "public alpha" of the Wikia Search web search engine was launched on January 7, 2008, from the USSHC underground data center. This roll-out version of the search interface was roundly panned by reviewers in technology media. The project was ended in March 2009. Late in 2009, a new search engine was established to index and display results from all sites hosted on Fandom.


Controversies


Advertising controversies

Fandom communities have complained of inappropriate advertisements, or advertising in the body text area. There is no easy way for individual communities to switch to conventional paid hosting, as Fandom usually owns the relevant domain names. When a community leaves Fandom for new hosting, the company typically continues to operate the abandoned wiki using its original name and content for advertising revenue, adversely affecting the new wiki's
search Searching or search may refer to: Computing technology * Search algorithm, including keyword search ** :Search algorithms * Search and optimization for problem solving in artificial intelligence * Search engine technology, software for findi ...
rankings.


Relationship with Wikipedia

In the 2000s, Fandom (as Wikia) was accused of unduly profiting from a perceived association with Wikipedia. Although Fandom has been referred to in the media as "the commercial counterpart to the non-profit Wikipedia", Wikimedia and Fandom staff call this description inaccurate. In 2006, the Wikimedia Foundation shared hosting and bandwidth costs with Fandom, and received some donated office space from Fandom during the fiscal year ending June 30, 2006. At the end of the fiscal year 2007, Fandom owed the foundation $6,000. In June 2007, two members of the foundation's
board of directors A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...
also served as employees, officers, or directors of Fandom. In January 2009, Fandom subleased two conference rooms to the Wikimedia Foundation for the Wikipedia Usability Initiative. According to a 2009 email by Erik Möller, deputy director of the Wikimedia Foundation:
We obtained about a dozen bids... We used averaging as a way to arrive at a fair market rate to neither advantage nor disadvantage Wikia when suggesting a rate. The averaging also resulted in a rate that was roughly equivalent to the most comparable space in the running.


Fandom, Inc.

Fandom, Inc. is headquartered at the
Hallidie Building The Hallidie Building is an office building in the Financial District of San Francisco, California, at 130 Sutter Street, between Montgomery Street and Kearny Street. Designed by architect Willis Polk and named in honor of San Francisco cable car ...
on 130 Sutter Street in San Francisco, California. The company was incorporated in Florida in December 2004 and re-incorporated in Delaware as Wikia, Inc. on January 10, 2006. Fandom has technical staff in the US, but also has an office in Poznań, Poland, where the primary engineering functions are performed. Fandom derives income from advertising. The company initially used Google AdSense but moved on to Federated Media before bringing ad management in-house. Alongside Fandom's in-house advertising, they continue to use AdSense as well as Amazon Ads and several other third-party advertising services. Fandom also gains income from various partnerships oriented around various sweepstake sponsorships on related wikis. Fandom has several other offices. International operations are based in Germany, and Asian operations and sales are conducted in Tokyo. Other sales offices are located in Chicago, Latin America, Los Angeles (marketing programming and content), New York City, and London.


See also

* Comparison of wiki hosting services


Notes


References

* *


External links

* {{Wikis Free-content websites MediaWiki websites Wiki farms American companies established in 2004 Internet properties established in 2004 Online publishing companies of the United States Privately held companies based in California Knowledge markets South of Market, San Francisco Wikis 2004 establishments in California Jimmy Wales TPG Capital companies