Wikipedia

User:Gmartin1122/Wikia

< User:Gmartin1122

Wikia is an advertisement-supported free wiki hosting service and the parent company of Fandom. The site is free of charge, [1] deriving its income from advertising, and publishes most user-provided text under copyleft licenses. Wikia hosts several hundred thousand wikis using the open-source wiki software, MediaWiki. Its operator, Wikia, Inc., is a for-profit Delaware company founded in late 2004 [2] by Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesley Starling—respectively Chairman Emeritus and Advisory Board member of the Wikimedia Foundation—and headed by Craig Palmer as CEO. [3]

History edit

Wikia was launched on October 18, 2004, under the name "Wikicities" (which invited comparisons to GeoCities),[4] but changed its name to "Wikia" on March 27, 2006. [5] In the month before the name change, Wikia announced a US$4 million venture capital investment from Bessemer Venture Partners and First Round Capital.[6] Nine months later, Amazon.com invested US$10 million in Series B funding.[citation needed]

By July 2007, it had more than 3,000 wikis in more than 50 languages.[7] Over time Wikia has incorporated formerly independent wikis that joined Wikia, such as LyricWiki, The Vault, Uncyclopedia and WoWWiki.[8] Former CEO Gil Penchina described early Wikia as "the rest of the library and magazine rack" to Wikipedia's encyclopaedia.[9] 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.[10]


By 2010, Wikia communities were able to be created in 188 different languages.[1] In October 2011, Wikia announced that Craig Palmer, the former CEO of Gracenote, would replace Penchina as CEO.[3] On February 8, 2012, co-founder Beesley Starling announced she was leaving Wikia to launch a startup called ChalkDrop.com.[11] At the end of November 2012, it was announced that Wikia had raised another US$10.8 million in Series C funding from Institutional Venture Partners and previous investors Bessemer Ventures Partners and Amazon.com.[12] Another $15 million was raised in August 2014 for Series D funding, with investors Digital Garage, Amazon, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Institutional Venture Partners. The total raised at this point was $39.8 million.[13][14] On March 4, 2015, Wikia announced its appointment of Walker Jacobs, who was the former Executive Vice-President of Turner Broadcasting System, to the new position of Chief Operating Officer.[15] On January 25, 2016, Wikia launched a new entertainment news site named Fandom.

Services and features edit

Wikia communities primarily consist of online reference works, each one specialized in a particular subject or theme. Although Wikia allows almost anything to be the main focus of a wiki, the most common interest of Wikia internauts is in popular fiction franchises of books, films, games and other media,.

The main purpose of articles in a Wikia community is to cover information and discussion on a particular topic in a much greater and more comprehensible detail level than can be found in other reference works (such as  Wikipedia articles).[16] Other examples of content that appear frequently in Wikia include topics of video games, detailed instructions, gameplay details, plot details, and so forth. Wikia 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 Wikia communities).[citation needed]

Wikia requires all user text content to be published under a free license;[17] most use the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license, although Memory Alpha and Uncyclopedia use a noncommercial variant and some use the GNU Free Documentation License..Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).

As of August 2015, Wikia uses a heavily modified version[18] of MediaWiki software, based on the version 1.19[19] of MediaWiki, which was officially marked as obsolete in May 2015..[20] It has more than 250 extensions installed,[19] most of them created by Wikia’s own staff of developers, to add social features like blogs, chat, badges, forums and multimedia,[21] but also to remove features like advanced user options[22][23] or skins other than their default custom skin and Monobook (available only for personal use),[24] which are often used by advanced users but that new users may find confusing.

Other products, acquisitions, and ventures edit

Fandom edit

Launched in January 2016, Fandom is an entertainment news and media property that combines original editorial with links to external sources of content and articles written by Fan Contributors. [citation needed]

Wikia Gives Back edit

In November 2015, Wikia announced “Wikia Gives Back”. This corporate social responsibility program includes charitable giving, volunteer time off for its employees, and in-kind donation of an ad-free platform for charity-focused communities. [citation needed]

Answers from Wikia edit

In January 2009, the company created a question and answer website named "Wikianswers". [25] In March 2010, Wikia re-launched the site as "Answers from Wikia", where users could create topic-specialized knowledge market wikis based upon Wikia's own Wikianswers subdomain.[26]

ArmchairGM edit

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, the site was bought by Wikia for $2 million.[41] ArmchairGM's architecture was applied to other Wikia sites, effectively discontinuing ArmchairGM in its original form.[citation needed]

OpenServing edit

OpenServing was a Web publishing project owned by Wikia, founded on December 12, 2006,[27][28] and abandoned in January 2008.[29] Like Wikia, 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.[27][30][31]

Wikia Search edit

Wikia, Inc. initially proposed creating a copyleft search engine.  The "public alpha" of Wikia Search web search engine was launched on January 7, 2008,[citation needed] from the USSHC underground data center.[32] This roll-out version of the search interface was roundly panned by reviewers in technology media.[33] The project was ended in March 2009.[34] Late in 2009, a new search engine was established to index and display results from all sites hosted on Wikia.[citation needed]

Controversy edit

Wikia communities have complained of inappropriate advertisements, or advertising in the body text area.[35] There is no easy way for individual communities to switch to conventional paid hosting, as Wikia usually owns the relevant domain names. If a community leaves Wikia for new hosting, the company typically continues to operate the abandoned wiki using its original name and content, adversely affecting the new wiki's search rankings, for advertising revenue.[36]

Relationship with Wikipedia edit

Wikia has been accused of unduly profiting from a perceived association with Wikipedia.[37][38] Although Wikia has been referred to in the media as "the commercial counterpart to the non-profit Wikipedia",[39][40] Wikimedia[41] and Wikia staff[42] call this description inaccurate.

In 2006, the Wikimedia Foundation shared hosting and bandwidth costs with Wikia, and received some donated office space from Wikia during the fiscal year ending June 30, 2006. At the end of fiscal year 2007, Wikia owed the Foundation US$6,000. In June 2007, two members of the Foundation's Board of Directors also served as employees, officers, or directors of Wikia.[43]

In January 2009, Wikia subleased two conference rooms to the Wikimedia Foundation for the Wikipedia Usability Initiative.

Wikia, Inc. edit

Wikia, Inc. is based in San Francisco, California.[44]The company was incorporated in Florida in December 2004 and re-incorporated in Delaware as Wikia, Inc. on January 10, 2006 [citation needed]

Wikia derives income from advertising. Wikia additionally gains income from various partnerships in its Wikia Fan Studio and its API.

Wikia has several offices around the world,[45] including Germany, Poland, Tokyo, London, Chicago, Los Angeles, Virginia and New York.

Wikia has over 300 employees with several contractors and fan contributors.

Notes edit

References edit

  1. ^ a b John K Waters and John Lester (2010). The Everything Guide to Social Media: All you need to know about participating in today's most popular online communities. Adams Media. p. 171. Retrieved September 17, 2014.
  2. ^ Pink, Daniel H. (2005-03-13). "The Book Stops Here". Wired (13.03). Retrieved 2007-08-01.
  3. ^ a b Marlowe, C. (2011-10-13). "Wikia names ex-Gracenote Craig Palmer as CEO". Digital Media Wire. Retrieved 2011-10-16.
  4. ^ Gussow, Dave (4 April 2005). "Global villages convene in wiki town halls". St. Petersburg Times.
  5. ^ Pete Cashmore (28 March 2006). Mashable (ed.). "Wikia - Build Your Own Wiki". Retrieved 13 May 2015.
  6. ^ Hinman, Michael (10 March 2006). "Venture capitalists invest wiki-millions". Tampa Bay Business Journal. Retrieved 10 March 2006.
  7. ^ Shannon, Victoria (28 September 2006). "Wikipedia Founder Staffs For Profit Wikia Spinoff". International Herald Tribune. Archived from the original on 21 October 2006. Retrieved 28 October 2006. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  8. ^ Warschauer, Mark; Grimes, Douglas (2007). "Audience, Authorship, and Artifact: The emergent semiotics of Web 2.0". Annual Review of Applied Linguistics. 27: 1–23. doi:10.1017/S0267190508070013.
  9. ^ Matthew Barton and Robert Cummings (2009). Wiki Writing: Collaborative Learning in the College Classroom. University of Michigan Press. p. 14. Retrieved 17 September 2014.
  10. ^ Lon Safko (2010). The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools, and Strategies for Business Success. John Wiley & Sons. p. 491. Retrieved 18 September 2014.
  11. ^ http://community.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Angela/Leaving_Wikia
  12. ^ Friday, November 30th, 2012 (30 November 2012). "With 1B Pageviews Under Its Belt, UGC Giant Wikia Raises $10.8M From IVP, Bessemer & Amazon". TechCrunch. Retrieved 10 December 2012.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  13. ^ Dan Primack (28 August 2014). "Term Sheet -- Thursday, August 28". Fortune Magazine. Retrieved 18 September 2014.
  14. ^ Ingrid Lunden (27 August 2014). "User-Generated Content Portal Wikia Raises Another $15M To Crack Into Asia". TechCrunch. Retrieved 18 September 2014.
  15. ^ PRNewswire (4 March 2015). "Wikia Appoints Walker Jacobs Chief Operating Officer". PR Newswire. PR Newswire Association LLC. Retrieved 17 August 2015.
  16. ^ McNichol, Tom (March 2007). "With Wikia, a Wikipedia founder looks to strike it rich". Business 2.0 Magazine. Retrieved 24 June 2008.
  17. ^ "Wikia:Licensing". Retrieved 9 February 2010.
  18. ^ Garczewski, Lucas (12 June 2012). "MediaWiki Upgrade". Community Central Wikia. Retrieved 4 August 2015.
  19. ^ a b "Version information". Community Central Wikia.
  20. ^ "End of life announcement - 1.19.x LTS". mediawiki-announce mailing list archive.
  21. ^ "Tour of Wikia Features". Community Central Wikia. Retrieved 4 August 2015.
  22. ^ "What happened to thumbnail image size in my preferences?". Community Central Wikia. Retrieved 4 August 2015.
  23. ^ "UserPreferencesV2 extension code". GitHub code repository. Retrieved 4 August 2015.
  24. ^ "Wikia's new look - FAQ". Community Central Wikia. 15 September 2010. Retrieved 4 August 2015.
  25. ^ Schonfeld, Erick (2009-01-31). "Jimmy Wales Quietly Launches Wikianswers". Techcrunch.com. Retrieved 2009-07-17.
  26. ^ "''Free wiki hosting company Wikia to let you create your own question and answer sites''". Digital.venturebeat.com. Retrieved 2011-12-03.
  27. ^ a b "Wikipedia founder remakes Web-publishing economics". Reuters/USA Today. 2006-12-12. Retrieved 2007-10-04.
  28. ^ "Wikia Announces Free Wiki Hosting". TechCrunch. 2006-12-11.
  29. ^ "Wikia's OpenServing Project Dies a Quiet Death". Mars Magazine. 2007-10-10.
  30. ^ "Wikipedia to share collaborative software". Daily Times. 2006-12-18. Retrieved 28 May 2014.
  31. ^ "Wikia Unveils OpenServing - the Mother of All Freebies". Business Wire. 2006-12-11.
  32. ^ Rich Miller. "Wikia Search Launches From Iowa Data Bunker". Data Center Knowledge.
  33. ^ Manjoo, Farhad (2008-01-07). "Wikipedia founder's search engine gets bad reviews". Salon.com. Retrieved 2008-01-07.
  34. ^ Needleman, Rafe (March 31, 2009). "Wales giving up on Wikia Search". Webware. CNet. Retrieved 2009-07-17.
  35. ^ Finkelstein, Seth (2008-09-25). "Read me first: Wikipedia isn't about human potential, whatever Wales says". The Guardian. London.
  36. ^ Finkelstein, Seth (2008-07-31). "How will Wikia cope when the workers all quit the plantation?". The Guardian. London.
  37. ^ "Wikipedia: Special Treatment for Wikia and some other Wikis". TechCrunch. April 28, 2007.
  38. ^ "Living in the Digital Age - Shift - DW (Arabia) - 25.09.12 - DW.DE". DW.DE.
  39. ^ "Wikipedia founder says to challenge Google, Yahoo". Reuters. 2007-03-09.
  40. ^ "Community websites take wiki path". BBC News. BBC. 2006-12-12.
  41. ^ "Wikia, Inc. is not the commercial counterpart to Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Foundation". Wikimedia Foundation. Retrieved 2008-02-26.
  42. ^ "Wikimedia". Wikia, Inc. Retrieved 2010-02-09.
  43. ^ Wikimedia Foundation 2006-2007 Audit page 9 says "The Organization shared hosting and bandwidth costs with Wikia, Inc., a for-profit company founded by the same founder as Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Included in accounts receivable at June 30, 2007, is $6,000 due from Wikia, Inc. for these costs. The Organization received some donated office space from Wikia Inc. during the year ended June 30, 2006, valued at $6,000. No donation of the office space occurred in 2007. Through June 30, 2007, two members of the Organization’s board of directors also serve as employees, officers, or directors of Wikia, Inc."
  44. ^ "San Mateo-Based Wikia Lands Investment from Amazon.com". Silicon Valley Wire. 2006-12-06. Retrieved 2007-03-08.; California Business Portal, Agent for service of process address; Go Daddy, Registered domain address.
  45. ^ "About". Wikia. Wikia Incorporated. Retrieved June 15, 2014.
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