Fandom: Difference between revisions
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===User freedom=== | ===User freedom=== | ||
{{Quote|''"Admin or not, the staff doesn't care about it, neither do the filters. If Fandom staff wants the word censored: you don't have any rights to be against it. Not even us"'' - Message posted by one of the [https://archive.ph/IWuY5 SOAP moderators], which was sent following a complaint from Fandom's automated system.}} | {{Quote|''"Admin or not, the staff doesn't care about it, neither do the filters. If Fandom staff wants the word censored: you don't have any rights to be against it. Not even us"'' - Message posted by one of the [https://archive.ph/IWuY5 SOAP moderators], which was sent following a complaint from Fandom's automated system.}} | ||
[[File:Fandom Wiki - Zionist Ads.png|alt=Fandom Wikia Zionist Ad|thumb|Users do not have the right to restrict or decide which advertisements appear on the pages. Fandom would sometimes insert advertisements from [https://archive.ph/KB8yo political organizations] without prior consultation with the editors involved.]] | |||
Users on Fandom have little control over the content they upload to the platform. Furthermore, Fandom staff clarify that all content uploaded by users to the platform is their property,<ref name=":0" /> and they can modify or alter it without the prior consent of the writers involved. | Users on Fandom have little control over the content they upload to the platform. Furthermore, Fandom staff clarify that all content uploaded by users to the platform is their property,<ref name=":0" /> and they can modify or alter it without the prior consent of the writers involved. | ||
Fandom had previously replaced entire pages with advertisements without consulting the users involved. Among them are paid advertisements from corporations such as McDonald's to remove part of the historical data of their products for promotions. | Fandom had previously replaced entire pages with advertisements without consulting the users involved. Among them are paid advertisements from corporations such as McDonald's to remove part of the historical data of their products for promotions. | ||
At the end of 2024, Jonathan Lee, part of the ''Weird Gloop'' platform staff, published an article about why they were helping several groups of editors migrate from Fandom.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Lee |first=Jonathan |date=2024-10-10 |title=Why we're helping more wikis move away from Fandom |url=https://weirdgloop.org/blog/why-were-helping-more-wikis-move-away-from-fandom#why-ditching-fandom-is-cool-and-based |access-date=2025-08-19 |website=Weird Gloop Blog |quote=If a wiki community is unhappy, and they have a better option somewhere else, they should be able to leave and take their stuff with them. We won't prop up the old wiki, Weekend-at-Bernies style, abusing the dominant Google position that the wiki editors built up while they were on our platform.}}</ref> Lee explained the advantages of migrating to independent host servers, noting that after the migrations, the number of edits increased significantly compared to their counterparts on Fandom in the case of the RuneScape and Minecraft wikis. He explained that one of the main problems with the platform was that users had no control over the content they published. Each wiki hosted by Weird Gloop has several clauses and memorandums in agreement with the editorial team, where there are protocols in place in case the community leaves. | At the end of 2024, Jonathan Lee, part of the ''Weird Gloop'' platform staff, published an article about why they were helping several groups of editors migrate from Fandom.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Lee |first=Jonathan |date=2024-10-10 |title=Why we're helping more wikis move away from Fandom |url=https://weirdgloop.org/blog/why-were-helping-more-wikis-move-away-from-fandom#why-ditching-fandom-is-cool-and-based |access-date=2025-08-19 |website=Weird Gloop Blog |quote=If a wiki community is unhappy, and they have a better option somewhere else, they should be able to leave and take their stuff with them. We won't prop up the old wiki, Weekend-at-Bernies style, abusing the dominant Google position that the wiki editors built up while they were on our platform.}}</ref> Lee explained the advantages of migrating to independent host servers, noting that after the migrations, the number of edits increased significantly compared to their counterparts on Fandom in the case of the RuneScape and Minecraft wikis. He explained that one of the main problems with the platform was that users had no control over the content they published. Each wiki hosted by Weird Gloop has several clauses and memorandums in agreement with the editorial team, where there are protocols in place in case the community leaves. | ||
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===Anti-competitive practices=== | ===Anti-competitive practices=== | ||
{{Quote|''" | {{Quote|''"People on the fandom wiki are taking a bunch of new pages from http://jojowiki.com that I and other editors spent lots of time creating just to have it on their site. They aren't explicitly plagiarizing (they tried to before) but the content and layouts are really similar. This time it's FANDOM's own employees getting paid to take our pages and replace words with synonyms. I wouldn't mind if they at least credited us (which they are supposed to do as per our copyright policy), but they have a filter that bans anyone who links to our site."'' - Quote from [https://archive.ph/rDtMx @Vishkujo], administrator of the JoJo's Bizarre Encyclopedia (2021)}} | ||
In a blog post published in 2025 by editor Violet, who had previously worked on moving Death Battle Wiki to the non-profit host ''Miraheze'', he explained that one of the reasons for moving the wiki to a different host was due to Fandom's attempts to remove links or mentions to wikis on different platforms, explaining that this has led to a lot of internal discussion regarding external links, where editors are forced to promote dead wikis that are still hosted on Fandom instead of independent options that are actively maintained.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2025 |title=Leaving Fandom |url=https://deathbattle.miraheze.org/wiki/DEATH_BATTLE!_Wiki:Leaving_FANDOM |access-date=2025-08-19 |website=Death Battle Wiki! via Miraheze |quote=Aside from this dodgy language being used to try and justify their anti-competitive practices, this also actively hinders our own editing by preventing us from providing external links to wikis that have migrated out of Fandom and are being actively supported, which means we are not "organically sharing" accurate information for franchises acknowledged by the show like, say, Terraria, Bendy, and Guilty Gear.}}</ref> | In a blog post published in 2025 by editor Violet, who had previously worked on moving Death Battle Wiki to the non-profit host ''Miraheze'', he explained that one of the reasons for moving the wiki to a different host was due to Fandom's attempts to remove links or mentions to wikis on different platforms, explaining that this has led to a lot of internal discussion regarding external links, where editors are forced to promote dead wikis that are still hosted on Fandom instead of independent options that are actively maintained.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2025 |title=Leaving Fandom |url=https://deathbattle.miraheze.org/wiki/DEATH_BATTLE!_Wiki:Leaving_FANDOM |access-date=2025-08-19 |website=Death Battle Wiki! via Miraheze |quote=Aside from this dodgy language being used to try and justify their anti-competitive practices, this also actively hinders our own editing by preventing us from providing external links to wikis that have migrated out of Fandom and are being actively supported, which means we are not "organically sharing" accurate information for franchises acknowledged by the show like, say, Terraria, Bendy, and Guilty Gear.}}</ref> | ||
===Business Model=== | |||
{{Quote|''"I briefly worked for Fandom last year, and I worked closely with GameSpot and TV Guide. After ten years in the editorial industry I had never seen editorial brands treated so poorly. Fandom is fundamentally a company that ONLY knows how to operate using an army of unpaid volunteer editors and have no clue whatsoever how to manage paid writers and editors. It was an absolute nightmare of mismanagement, and while I was going to bat hard for the editors (like what do I care about Fandom after a few weeks of working there, I literally only care about journalists being resourced well enough to keep their jobs and do great work) my management started drilling down on me pretty quickly. I wound up going on disability because the working conditions there exacerbated a mental health crisis (having to do with the nightmare layoffs at Condé that I'd just gone through), and eventually I left"'' - Quote from a former FANDOM Employee in the article [https://gemvidio-navi.neocities.org/Tech/fandom-working-environment Behind the moderation of Fandom Wikis: Controversies, incidents, and toxicity]}} | |||
In mid-2008, the British newspaper The Guardian published an article about the ''[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2008/jul/31/wikipedia Transformer Wiki]'' migration, which was the first formal piece of criticism that the company described as “The typical digital sharecropping website is a capitalist's fantasy,” explaining that users who contribute to Fandom wikis do not receive rights, protections, or remuneration for the work they contribute to the website, while Fandom claims 100% of the ad revenue generated by user-generated content. | |||
==Incidents== | ==Incidents== | ||
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===McDonald's Fandom Advertising (June 2023)=== | ===McDonald's Fandom Advertising (June 2023)=== | ||
In June 2023 the [[McDonalds|McDonald's]] corporation paid Fandom to completely change the McDonald's Fandom wiki into an advertisement for their recent relaunch of the Grimace Shake as well as other McDonald's products. These changes were made against the wishes of the McDonald's Wiki editors including the original author of the Grimace page. The changelogs left by Fandom stated “switching over the entirety of Grimace article at McDonald’s request, just for the length of this campaign in 2023,”.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Grimace Fandom Page |url=https://mcdonalds.fandom.com/wiki/Grimace?oldid=29634 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230617204844/https://mcdonalds.fandom.com/wiki/Grimace?oldid=29634}}</ref> | In June 2023 the [[McDonalds|McDonald's]] corporation paid Fandom to completely change the McDonald's Fandom wiki into an advertisement for their recent relaunch of the Grimace Shake as well as other McDonald's products. These changes were made against the wishes of the McDonald's Wiki editors including the original author of the Grimace page. The changelogs left by Fandom stated “switching over the entirety of Grimace article at McDonald’s request, just for the length of this campaign in 2023,”.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Grimace Fandom Page |url=https://mcdonalds.fandom.com/wiki/Grimace?oldid=29634 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230617204844/https://mcdonalds.fandom.com/wiki/Grimace?oldid=29634 |archive-date=2023-06-17}}</ref> | ||
===Online grooming and sexual harassment (November 2023)=== | ===Online grooming and sexual harassment (November 2023)=== | ||