From Star Trek to Star Wars, Marvel to Muppets, Batman to the Beatles, Fandom.com probably has a wiki about it. According to the company, it has 385,000+ communities with 50,000,000+ pages. The wikis cover topics from the extremely popular to the highly obscure. According to Wikipedia, Fandom.com is one of the 50th most visited websites on the Internet.

Fandom, edited mostly by amateurs but also by professionals, began on October 18, 2004. Or on October 19, 2004, depending upon the visitor’s timezone. Except, in a way, it didn’t.

History of Fandom.com

Wikicities was launched in October 2004 by Jimmy “Jimbo” Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, and by Angela Beesley Starling. Starling had recently been elected to the board of the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization that oversees Wikipedia.

Wikicities changed to Wikia in March 2006. That was after investments by other companies. By September 2006, Wikia had approximately 1,500 wikis in almost 50 languages. While Wikipedia was encyclopedic, Wikia’s CEO Gil Penchina described Wikia as “the rest of the library and magazine rack.” It became so successful that other wikis joined it. These included the popular LyricWiki (song lyrics), Nukapedia (Fallout fictional universe), Uncyclopedia (Wikipedia parody), and WoWWiki (World of Warcraft).

Then things changed again. With corporate deals leading to January 2016, Wikia launched an entertainment news site called Fandom. And, in October 2016, Wikia itself was renamed “Fandom powered by Wikia.” So, in a sense, Fandom turned 8 this month.

Then in October 2022, Fandom acquired TV Guide, Metacritic, and GameSpot, among others.

But the change from Wikia to Fandom was much more than just a name change.

Corporate Restrictions and Closed Wikis

With corporate changes from Wikia to Fandom, there were more restrictions on what could be posted.

The issue had begun earlier. Uncyclopedia had been one of Wikia’s most popular wikis. But, due to increasing restrictions, some Uncyclopedia administrators and other editors left in 2013 to start an offshoot. By May 2019, the limits had gotten strict enough that Fandom removed the entire Uncyclopedia wiki. (Although elsewhere the first offshoot remained and others followed.) Ironically, one of Fandom’s own staff members had been an Uncyclopedia administrator.

Editing on LyricWiki was blocked in April 2019 because of concerns that not all the song lyrics and images were “family friendly.” In September 2020, LyricWiki was completely shut down.

WoWWiki had been the largest Fandom wiki and the second largest English-language wiki of any kind (behind Wikipedia). But it was archived in May 2020. (Although a merged version remains.)

Controversies

Apparently when historically accurate representations of mermaids happen to include ventral punctuation, it can be a problem. But just look at those abs. Man, she’s cut. -ed

Every popular website has controversies and disagreements, and Fandom is no exception. In November 2017, Fandom removed the official heraldic device or “coat of arms” of a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA). That was because the mermaid’s chest showed two dots. Three Fandom administrators appealed the decision. A helpful Fandom staff member consulted with a supervisor, and the image was restored.

In 2021, an image of a cartoon character with her tongue sticking out was removed. That’s because a Fandom staff member thought the cartoon character looked under the age of 18. (Others thought the image looked like a young adult). The image was allowed to return – provided the “underage tongue” was censored.

But with all the “family-friendly” concerns, Nukapedia, renamed Fallout wiki, remains. That wiki talks about foreplay, a sexpert (“having sex ten times”), and shows a partially covered cartoon couple having sex.

And the wiki says that, if you want to earn the title Childkiller? You have to kill at least three children. (In the game Fallout.)

Perhaps coincidentally, GameSpot, owned by Fandom, promotes Fallout.

Today

With all the controversy, Fandom.com remains one of the Internet’s most popular websites. Looking for Doctor Who, Discordianism, or Disney? Or Game of Thrones, Church of the SubGenius, The Supernatural, Sherlock Holmes, Harry Potter, or any of the above? You can find them on Fandom. Not to mention parodies….

DON’T LEAVE JUST YET. WE NEED YOUR HELP.

SCIFI.radio is listener supported sci-fi, fantasy, comics and
horror fandom news and radio. We’re a fan-operated venture,
and we live or die on your donations alone.
Be the 1%. Click this button to go to our
Patreon page and pledge your support.

Alden Loveshade is an administrator of sca.fandom.com, trynser.fandom.com, and gurps.fandom.com. As Eldwin Nightowl, Alden was the consulting herald on the mentioned heraldic device created for Eldwin’s SCA mother. In the SCA, the “coat of arms” broke a previous precedent and set a new one.

Alden Loveshade

Alden Loveshade first thought of emself as a writer when in 3rd grade. E first wrote professionally when e was 16 years old, and later did professional photography and art/graphic design. Alden has professionally published news/sports/humorous/and feature articles, poems, columns, reviews, stories, scripts, books, and school lunch menus.

http://AldenLoveshade.com