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Corporate-owned wikis have ads and other issues, so fans have decided to go their own way

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[-] deweydecibel@lemmy.world 205 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

That's fantastic news. It's so lame how there hasn't been any serious move to take wikis off Fandom and make them independent or even just on another platform. Fandom is just the worst, and it's terrible that Google suggests it as the top result now over the independent wikis.

Like, Bulbapedia is head and shoulders a better resource than the Fandom Pokemon wiki. It's been around forever, it's very active, it has far more information, yet Google always suggests Fandom first anytime I do a Pokemon related search. It's gross.

If anyone ever gets annoyed at Wikipedia asking for donations, go spend time on Fandom with ad blockers off, and remember that's the end result of public information wikis relying on ads.

[-] HereticalDoughnut@lemmy.world 72 points 1 year ago

I really cannot stand fandom sites. It always lacks content so pages are filled with useless information such as links to review sites. Also, it’s an atrocious experience on mobile.

[-] yukichigai@kbin.social 33 points 1 year ago

The number of CSS hacks needed to make the site anything but obnoxious even on desktop is obscene. Not just the ads, but the constant pushing of unrelated content and wikis, popovers, auto-play videos... it's awful.

[-] HidingCat@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago

Yea, half of my custom rules in Ublock is all for Fandom.

[-] HidingCat@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

Content is all on the people contributing to the wiki, it's not Fandom's problem.

The shite experience though, totally is Fandom's.

[-] Graphy@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

If there’s a current existing wiki for a game but it’s a fandom then I don’t even try to contribute.

[-] JustAnotherRando@lemmy.world 49 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

One of the few successful fan wikis that got away from fandom has been the Path of Exile community. I don't play the game anymore because it just got to be too much for me and demand too much time, but I really appreciate that they collectively got pissed enough at fandom that they made sure that poewiki.net took off.

Edit: even better, the developers (Grinding Gear Games) apparently agreed to take over hosting of the wiki about a year ago so that the community members that started it didn't have to deal with the financial burden. Definitely a good idea for them to take over hosting so there's no concern of the owners taking a valuable resource offline.

uesp.net is another one. It's actually quite a bit older than fandom but I'm still going to count it.

[-] Jimbo@yiffit.net 8 points 1 year ago

UESP is ancient in game wiki terms, even just internet terms, wasn't it made shortly after the release of daggerfall?

Arena was 94, uesp was 95, and daggerfall was 96. It was originally fansite that followed development news for daggerfall.

[-] HidingCat@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago

Successful games really should have the dev/publisher hosting the wiki. It's better for everyone involved. I'll always appreciate Arenanet for hosting the Guild Wars 1 and 2 wikis.

[-] rambaroo@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

How is that better? They would stop hosting it once the game was old which leads to the same problem.

[-] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago

Heck, Blizzard was doing that in the D2 days, don't know if it's still the case, but everything was there!

[-] EddyBot@feddit.de 16 points 1 year ago

It's so lame how there hasn't been any serious move to take wikis off Fandom and make them independent or even just on another platform.

there is wiki.gg

point stands that Google still favors fandom so high that not many will actually find them

[-] Callie@pawb.social 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

it's fairly annoying how SEO'ed Fandom and Fextralife are. The Don't Starve wiki is borderline useless through both Fandom, but good luck finding the better Don't Starve Wiki being listed through just a google search.

Thankfully we have extensions for browsers like IndieWikiBuddy that redirect to much better wikis https://getindie.wiki/

[-] funnystuff97@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

osrs wiki >>> runescape fandom wiki

[-] M500@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 year ago

I hate fandom with a passion.

[-] TastyWheat@lemmy.world 117 points 1 year ago

Good! Fandom is fucking garbage. So much bullshit on the screen it's hard to find the actual info on the page.

[-] MalReynolds@slrpnk.net 23 points 1 year ago

There's ads on the web?

Get thee uBlock origin or on mobile AdGuardDNS or rethinkDNS

Fandom is still trash tho...

[-] zurohki@aussie.zone 27 points 1 year ago

uBlock Origin works on Firefox mobile.

Also, remember that you can make uBlock filters for random bullshit like Fandom's side bars and suggestions, not just paid ads.

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[-] Callie@pawb.social 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Antifandom.com

It strips all the advertising and fandom bs from fandom itself

[-] ono@lemmy.ca 87 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Direct link: https://bg3.wiki/

It's very good already, and as a fan-run site, I'm willing to spend time contributing to it. What a refreshing change it is to get away from Fandom/Wikia and Fextralife. Nice work, Taylan!

[-] Hairyblue@kbin.social 68 points 1 year ago

Hope BG3.wiki gets more attention. The article says it it is getting updated by fans.

[-] DaCrazyJamez@sh.itjust.works 50 points 1 year ago

Amazing the article never once mentions the sites url, or offers a direct link. Bg3.wiki say it again, bg3.wiki .

[-] CheeryLBottom@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Thank you! I thought I was blind :p

[-] Damage@feddit.it 3 points 1 year ago
[-] Anonymousllama@lemmy.world 36 points 1 year ago

I've found most RPG / CRPG games have really good subreddits. Most of time when I've needed to look up how a spell interaction works or how XYZ operations, the top search will usually lead back to Reddit (which is kinda a shame given how shithouse Reddit is now)

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[-] Donebrach@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago

🎵 Down, down, down, by the riverrrrrrrrrr🎵

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[-] deegeese@sopuli.xyz 22 points 1 year ago

What a shit article. They link to everything except the ONE SITE that’s the subject.

[-] stopthatgirl7@kbin.social 15 points 1 year ago

Yeah, that was annoying. I had to go to Reddit to get the link.

Anyway, here’s the link.

[-] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 22 points 1 year ago

...Reddit user Taylan, who created and shared a Baldur’s Gate 3 wiki as an alternative to the existing Fextralife site at the beginning of 2022. “In my opinion [the Fextralife wiki] isn’t a particularly nice wiki,” Taylan wrote. “It shoves ads in your face, and claims copyright ownership over anything you write. (Essentially, if you add something to their wiki, you’re doing unpaid work for their company. Not to be a hater, but I dislike that.)”

The irony and lack of self awareness is thick. To be fair, that was in 2022, before Spez shit the bed.

[-] Cossty@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

There is wiki.gg

Pretty good wiki, a lot of indies use it. For example: Dead Cells, Deep Rock Galactic, Terraria, ARK, Cuphead, Don't Starve, Brotato, Binding of Issac, Satisfactory etc.

Some AAA games are there too. Like Sea of Thieves, Dying Light.

It would be cool if there was some wiki with ActivityPub.

[-] Poggervania@kbin.social 19 points 1 year ago

Fextralife and Fandom can go die in ditches. Fextralife is literally only for pushing views to their shitty Twitch channel so they can pretend they actually have the ~30k viewers, and Fandom is pure cancer to use on mobile.

I implore people to make their own or use alternatives, like WikiDot or Miraheze.

[-] jordanlund@lemmy.one 8 points 1 year ago

FTA:

"(Essentially, if you add something to their wiki, you’re doing unpaid work for their company. Not to be a hater, but I dislike that.)"

Posts to reddit... LOL.

[-] Ashtear@lemm.ee 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It's better than Fextra's, too!

I added upcast info to a bunch of spells last month because I was annoyed that the in-game tooltips didn't have the info on my Warlock's Level Up screen. I was already impressed with their templating and I'm always down to support an independent wiki. I've also been using their item lists and class breakdowns.

[-] totallynotfbi@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago

Here's a pro-tip: if something you're trying to look up is on a Fandom wiki, replace the "fandom.com" domain in the URL with "antifandom.com". This removes all of the ads and autoplaying videos, and generally makes the page cleaner.

[-] teft@startrek.website 3 points 1 year ago

Very awesome. Anyone who hasn't played it yet should buy it and play it. It's so good. I'm almost done with playing through it twice and already planning out a third run.

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this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2023
702 points (98.9% liked)

Baldur's Gate 3

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