Talk:Fandom (website)/Archive 3

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wikicity

Has Wikicities (or what-ever it is now called) changed its URLS or has it shut down? Using links from Wikipedia and typing in URLS, I get an error message. Kdammers 07:24, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

This was a temporary error due to downtime in the early hours of Monday. GreenReaper 13:35, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Pronunciation?

Wikia (no official pronunciation[2]; originally "Wikicities") Does that mean it's pronounced differently than it is spelled? 70.118.88.184 15:24, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

It means there is more than one way to pronounce the word that is written "Wikia", just as there is more than one way to pronounce "tomato". GreenReaper 16:49, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

The odd comment about pronunciation is obviously leading to confusion. I don't think it needs to be included. Almost nothing in English has an "official" pronunciation and it's nonsensical to say that in the article. Angela. 05:51, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Angela and have removed that sentence. --Xeeron 15:58, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikia is not Wikimedia

I think there should be something in the opener to communicate the fact that Wikia is not Wikimedia. this has caused much confusion in the wiki world, and it needs to be clarified. Best, --Gp75motorsports (talk) 23:53, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

The third section of the lede is already about how Wikia is connected with Wikimedia . . . if you read that, I think you can get a good idea of the relationship between the two (though it could probably be a little clearer). GreenReaper (talk) 04:23, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I think you could also consider an additional section or paragraph further down in the article named something like "Media confusion between Wikia, Wikimedia and Wikipedia" addressing this further and citing all the press reports that have gotten this wrong. An example is the recent coverage of Wikia Search, often referred to as "Wikipedia's new search engine". --A. B. ^(talk) 21:46, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure if this spam

but, can comebody preferably an admin try to put all the templates in here, as i cannont because im not an admin.Thanks. Sunderland06  21:19, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

If you need help with that wiki, please contact me on my talk page there since this talk page is only for discussing the Wikipedia article about Wikia. Angela. 07:50, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Why are for-profit Wikia, Inc. stakeholders using non-profit server space on Wikipedia to engage their customers? Contact them offline or on-Wikia, for God's sake! Would we tolerate this if customers of Denny's were asking for refunds or purchasing gift cards via Talk:Denny's? I think not! - Delaware Valley Girl (talk) 23:19, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

They're not trying to. The user asked a question. He received an answer, and it was an answer doing exactly what you wanted - directing the user to talk to Wikia directly for any further conversation, as this was not the appropriate place. GreenReaper (talk) 23:29, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I guess. Thanks. Delaware Valley Girl (talk) 02

30, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Firefox search engine plugin

Is there any plugin available? I will give Wikia Search a try! 84.173.251.165 (talk) 10:56, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Errors

This claim here about Michael being Wikimedia's Treasurer is no longer true, and also not relevant in an article about Wikia. It's adding to the confusion between Wikia and Wikimedia. Angela. 00:11, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorry; I'd spotted the error in the one near the top of the article; I hadn't noticed it duplicated lowed down. Now removed. --AlisonW (talk) 00:58, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Then it needs to be dated, not removed. The two organisations are deeply connected, this is of historical interest. Rich Farmbrough, 21:21 5 February 2008 (GMT).

You are so mistaken. The organisations are not "deeply connected", they aren't even "connected"!. As to "historical interest", to whom? We don't list the past staff of any other incorporated company, we don't even list their current staff in most cases. Removal is, clearly, the correct option for incorrect data. --AlisonW (talk) 21:39, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

There are numerous and various types of connections between all sorts of organization, including wikimedia, wikipedia, wikia, creative commons, the free software foundation, etc. Web links, board of director links, employee links, contributor links, shared information, shared values, shared friends, shared software, shared concerns. Who would have thought that people engaged in creating and promoting free culture would share? Amazing!! - WAS 4.250 (talk) 15:08, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

COI

I have added a COI tag because of the {{Wikia is not Wikipedia}} template. Rich Farmbrough, 21:05 5 February 2008 (GMT).

[1] may be relevant - it does seem that people involved in Wikia are among the top editors to this page, and some review for NPOV might be a good idea. krimpet✽ 22:15, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

nofollow

I've read somewhere that Wikia is exempt from the nofollow that we use here? is this correct? if so, is there a RS about it? --Fredrick day (talk) 23:28, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Links that use the interwiki link map are exempt, which include Wikia along with many other wikis. GreenReaper (talk) 04:01, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

But it's a for-profit organisation isn't it? do we link to any other for-profit wikis? --Fredrick day (talk) 10:13, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Many - check the map for yourself, but WikiHow and (I think) Comixpedia spring to mind. Why should Wikipedia prefer not-for-profit organizations? That sounds like bias to me. If anything, I would expect a bias towards open content, which Wikia satisfies as site content is under GFDL and editing is open to all. If you're interested, I suggest looking at the criteria for proposed additions. GreenReaper (talk) 19:21, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Yes. Click interwiki link map and see for yourself. Go to "Proposed removals" at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Interwiki_map to discuss removing Wikia and other for-profits if you wish. By the way, the software allows interwiki links to any web site, not just wikis. You think if this were widely known, we'd get a lot of requests for interwiki links to sites that want our "link juice"? Hmmm. Maybe we could make some money by charging to be on the list? Wonder if money has ever changed hands to get on the list? Nahhh. The list would be 10 times as big if it were being used like that. WAS 4.250 (talk) 19:38, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Copied from http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Interwiki_map:

WAS 4.250 (talk) 19:46, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia difference

I think it would be a benefit to mankind if someone with greater knowledge than myself would add a paragraph to this article explaining exactly how Wikia is different from Wikipedia. They sound the same. --IceHunter (talk) 02:22, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

It's, err, a HIGHLY contentious subject :-(. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 03:55, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Read Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, and Wikia. It's a good thing we have this handy dandy encyclopedia available to answer such questions. But if you want it in one sentence: Wikia is a for-profit corporation that makes money on advertising on pages of copy-left English language wikis that it acquires; while Wikipedia is a copy-left multi-language encyclopedia project with no advertising operated by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation that has the goal of providing free educational information to as many people as possible for free for ever and has the Wikipedia as only one of its many projects. WAS 4.250 (talk) 08:11, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Please stop spreading this false information. Most Wikia sites start at Wikia - they're not "acquired". Wikia is in around 75 languages, not just English. The statement you put in the article about sharing hosting and bandwidth is no longer true. You're citing out of date information as though it were current. Angela. 09:35, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Do you have a reliable published source for this? You do realize you are a biased source, right? By "most" are you counting by content or do you count a wiki with two articles as the same as say unencyclopedia? I'll bet most the content started off elsewhere first ... some at Wikipedia. 75 languages? Is there a page where I can see this for myself? I'd love to be able to put in the article that Wikia and Wikimedia no longer share hosting and bandwidth. When did this happen? Why? What was the financial arrangement while they shared? Is there an independent entity (audit, whatever) that says so? Don't blame me for YOUR lack of transparency. WAS 4.250 (talk) 09:50, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

That's very funny - you make up this statement and then say I need a published source to dispute it. Considering there is no source for what you're saying, and no person who believes it other than you, why would I need a source to claim it's not true? We have 5000 wikis, with more than 1 million articles between them and only a handful of wikis that started outside of Wikia. The main way we get wikis is through people requesting a new site be started at requests.wikia.

Category:Languages shows the 75+ languages were have wikis in and this fact is mentioned in all of our press releases. Angela. 02:21, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

So you say. But I followed your link and the pages I looked at that were supposed to be non-English did in fact have much of their content in English. You don't have a profit motive to exaggerate do you ? Oh that's right, you do. Guess we'll need a RELIABLE source, then. WAS 4.250 (talk) 09:12, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

The links from the category page point to the description pages about the wikis, not the wikis themselves. You need to follow the "visit the wiki about..." links on those pages. Angela. 10:18, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I did. I looked all over. Most pages I saw that were marked as non-English were in English about setting up or navigating to non-English pages and the ones with some content in non-English still had most the words on the page in English. WAS 4.250 (talk) 10:37, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

If it is no longer true that "The Wikimedia Foundation shares hosting and bandwidth costs with Wikia, Inc." then why did the Wikimedia Board of Trustees approve of a finacial audit that was JUST RELEASED HOURS AGO that uses the present tense: Wikimedia Foundation 2006-2007 Audit page 9 says "The Organization shares 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." - WAS 4.250 (talk) 10:01, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

It might have been released a few hours ago but it was clearly about the 2006/7 period which as that document states ends in June 2007. Angela. 02:21, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

But do we have a reliable source that things are different from june 2007 because obviously that statement is only upto that date? and therefore we can only comment upto that point if reliable sources don't exist. --Fredrick day (talk) 02:25, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Why don't you just say in the article that it was true for part of 2006/7 which is what the source says? Angela. 05:51, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Angela, we are using the EXACT wording of our source, which is reliable for this claim. Saying it is no longer true is ORIGINAL RESEARCH. Like saying Jimbo is the sole founder of Wikia. WAS 4.250 (talk) 08:34, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Until december 2006, Michael Davis, who was both the treasurer of the Foundation and the COO of Wikia, was working from the Foundation office in Florida. He had one office room in which he was alone, but working for both organisations. As such, Wikia was paying part of the total rent of Wikimedia Foundation office. Michael moved out of WMF office in january 2007. Last I heard, he was working part time from his home, and part time from Wikia office, in San Francisco. Michael stopped being on WMF board in fall 2007. WMF remained alone in the Florida office from january 07 till january 08. WMF now moved on the west coast and the Florida office has been closed. The only staff member left in Florida, for another two months or so, is Oleta, the accountant.

So, in effect, there has been no office space sharing for over a year now . According to Tim Starling, there is no more hardware hosting sharing now either.

The only serious remaining relationship between the two is Jimmy, being on the board of both organizations. Which definitly may constitute a conflict of interest if WMF and Wikia make deals together. But is not sufficient in itself to pretend there is an organizational relationship between the two. We are two independant organizations, operated with different teams, different goals, different principles. We may also argue that Angela being a wikipedian and chair of WMF advisory board, and staff and co-founder of Wikia, could also be a sort of link; but it would frankly be of little sense.

It is important to realize that the Foundation and Wikia were both interested in removing the ties between the two companies, which existed in the early days of Wikia. And we have been removing these links. Please also use [2] as a source if necessary.

Anthere (talk) 08:41, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

We can use that source when a reliable publisher source like the New York Times uses it. The English language Wikipedia policy is that we must have a reliable third party source for something like this. You understand, I'm sure. Get on the phone. Help us get that third party reliable published source to report what you say is so. WAS 4.250 (talk) 09:12, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd agree - needs a better source than that. --Fredrick day (talk) 10:28, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure how more reliable to have, say, the New York Time, publish an article stating "Wikimedia Foundation and Wikia are independant organizations", based on Angela and my explaining them that we are independant; than in having both organizations state that they are independant from each other. Is not that secondary source based on a primary source which you already consider original research ? Certainly, introducing a third party is not white-cleaning the information (unless they really investigate the case... which journalists rarely do).

The only TRUELY independant statement will come from the audit next year, based on june 07-june 08 operations.

Meanwhile, what is today reliable and verifiable information is 1) board memberships in the two organizations. Afaik, this is recorded information. 2) high management (also recorded official information). 3) location of offices (known and official information as well). 4) Current audit information (which is valid only till june 07, not beyond). Anthere (talk) 10:50, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Edit by Anthere

See here. "Neither is true." ? This isn't compliant with our article policies. Lawrence § t/e 08:30, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

that was a quick fix to an erroneous statement which was confusing. You are welcome to fix my text. Anthere (talk)

I read this on my talk page

The way to correct a problem is to correct the reality and not just spin-doctor the issue. You want wikipedia to republish a reliable published report that wikia and wikimedia are seperate? Then get a reliable publication to say so. New York Times would be good. A news release from an involved party saying so is worthless. WAS 4.250 (talk) 08:42, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Mind you... I KNOW that our office is not hosting ANY Wikia staff member. I do not think I should PROVE that I am correct. I think YOU should prove YOU are correct in stating that we are NOW hosting someone from Wikia. In most reasonable places, the burden of proof is in the hands of those who are accusing, not on those who are defending. If you can not prove that we were sharing office space in 2007, then drop the statement. If you can prove, using reasonable references that WMF and Wikia have been using office space in 2007, then, by all mean, do it. If you can prove that WMF or Wikia are using office space now, in february 2008, then, by all mean, do it. But do not make statements without proving them. I do not think you will be able to find any proof that we are now sharing office space with Wikia. Anthere (talk) 08:48, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

This wording is 100% compliant with local policies for content that I can see. No disrespect intended, but your last edit included what appears to be original research. This isn't meant as a dig, but even Foundation employees or Board members are constrained by content policies, especially on a conflict of interest matter like this. The mass of editors watching this article can make it work. What might be a good idea is to use media contacts at the WMF to cover this independently. Lawrence § t/e 08:57, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I do not intend to violate any policy. My problem is that the current version implies that there are relationships between the two organizations, which do not exist NOW. It is more than confusing to claim that the two share office spaces, when it has not been the case for over a year, and that any search in yellow pages can show you that we have separated spaces. It is also pretty easy to see that management is separate. Gil and Sue are two different people, both have been seen by many people over the world as separate individualities. Our problem is precisely that media keep confusing the two organizations, and this article will simply further convey this non sense. I'll drop the matter for now, but I feel greatly the frustration of all those who have biographies in Wikipedia about them, when the biography states something hugely false about them, and they can not get the error to be corrected, because the burden of proof relies on them to prove that the editors are wrong. If something kills Wikipedia one day, it will be precisely this. The inability to admit that something is wrong, unless the contrary is mentionned in the mainpress. The press does not care about stating something correct. There will never be in New York Time article with headlines such as "Breaking news: Wikia and Wikimedia Foundation are truely separate organizations !". I would be glad that you join the dozen of editors on OTRS press queue, who need to contact press over and over and over again, to ask them to correct the title saying "Wikipedia launches a search engine". Requesting corrections over and over again is mostly due to the confusion between the two companies, and next time you see such title, appreciate you played an active part in the confusion. I do not think there is much to add. Anthere (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 09:18, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

You have a clear conflict of interest - please refrain from editing the article and rather inform editors of your concerns here. --Fredrick day (talk) 10:54, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I will not edit the article any more. My concern has been stated: the policy "verifiability, not truth" is stupid. Anthere (talk) 11:08, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

"The Organization shares hosting and bandwidth costs with Wikia, Inc."

The just released financial audit says "The Organization [Wikimedia Foundation] shares hosting and bandwidth costs with Wikia, Inc. This is present tense. Above there is a lot of "look over there" talking about shared office space. The audit was very clear that office space sharing ended but said not word one about computer resources no longer being shared. Last I heard, Wikia paid for some Mediawiki software engineering efforts. Do any of Wikimedia software personnel receive money from Wikia? Is there a third party that can verify the extent that hosting and bandwidth is or is not being shared? There was mention of Yahoo donating bandwidth. Does this play a part? WAS 4.250 (talk) 09:37, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

since Wikimedia Foundation and Wikia are separated organizations (‹The template Talkfact is being considered for merging.› ), could you discuss donations of bandwidth to Wikimedia Foundation in ... Wikimedia Foundation talk page rather than Wikia page ? Thank you Anthere (talk)

1. Wikia pays a number of engineers to work on various things, including mediawiki software development. 2. There is no requirement for Wikipedia's purposes that a third party be used to verify such a thing. You can have it one of two ways (arguably), but you can't have it both ways. First, you can say that (somehow) going directly to published financial statements is NOT original research. But if you say that, then you have to also concede that going to directly published statements by the Foundation (for example, the chair of the foundation telling you point blank that something is not true) is also ok. OR you can say that both things are original research, and simply remove the whole thing. It is nonsense to defend keeping falsehoods in the article by relying on original research that you like, while rejecting original research that you don't like. The amount of hosting and bandwidth which is shared by Wikimedia and Wikia is zero. The amount of office space shared by Wikimedia and Wikia is zero. 3. Yahoo's donation of bandwidth has absolutely nothing to do with Wikia, and indeed predates the existence of Wikia.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:49, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Also, minor point of English grammar. Anthere writes that the two organizations are "separated" which might be read to mean that they were formerly the same organization. In fact, they are simply "separate" meaning they have never been the same organization.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:52, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Jimbo, thank you for informing us that The amount of hosting and bandwidth which is shared by Wikimedia and Wikia is zero. That was the only concern I had here. The audit should have made that clear. But at least it is clear now. Thanks again. I am much relieved. WAS 4.250 (talk) 16:10, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

At http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2008-February/089925.html brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org) says:

Since the audit covers a period of time that's in the past, a few last vestiges of the Olden Days were still in effect during the audit period and are naturally covered.

Today,

• Wikia and Wikimedia don't share any data hosting.
• We don't currently share any office space.
• We don't currently share any employees.

So what is the current relationship?

• We do currently share one board member, Jimmy Wales.
• Wikia sometimes sponsors Wikimedia events or makes other donations to Wikimedia.
• Wikia uses our open-source software, and sometimes contributes back patches or plugins.
• Various people are involved in the communities of sites operated by both companies. (Eg, our target audiences overlap.)

And what was the past relationship? Here's a quick historical summary:

2001-2002:

• Wikipedia is created as a side project that Jimmy Wales kindly operates on servers belonging to his company, Bomis.
• Wikipedia gets dedicated servers, kindly donated and hosted by Jimmy/Bomis.

2003-2005:

• Jimmy moves from Southern California to Florida, taking both Bomis and Wikipedia with him.
• Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is founded to start taking over Wikipedia's resources so it can be operated independently as a not-for-profit.
• For convenience, Jimmy and Michael (pretty much the entire company at the time) share a tiny office in Saint Petersburg, and a hosting center in Tampa, between the two companies. The hosting costs of the two companies are accounted separately.
• WikiCities/Wikia is founded; Bomis "fades away".

[audit period starts here]

2006-2007

• Wikia gets private funding, moves offices and most of their hosting from Florida to Northern California.
• The Florida hosting account and office space are taken over fully by Wikimedia. (That's the one-time donation of office space you see in the audit.)
• A whopping 3 Wikia servers remain in Florida; Wikia pays Wikimedia monthly rent to cover hosting of those servers. (That's the shared hosting costs you see above in the audit.)
• Wikimedia expands its own staff to better handle its growing requirements: tech staff, finance, fundraising, legal, office staff, public relations.

[audit period ends here]

2007-2008

• The last remaining non-Jimmy, Wikia-related Wikimedia board member resigns. (That's the end of 50% of the board overlap you see above in the audit.)
• Wikimedia moves offices to elsewhere in Northern California (*not* sharing office space with Wikia, which is miles away in a different city).
• The last three Wikia servers in Florida are shut off. (That's the end of the shared hosting costs you see above in the audit.)

(There may be minor details off, this is from memory.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org)

WAS 4.250 (talk) 21:34, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Business model section

Article needs one,no? (I saw this suggested at one of the sites that spends all of their time watching us and it seems a sensible suggestion). --Fredrick day (talk) 01:01, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

A quick look around suggest thats "products and services" seems to be the preferred heading we use here. --Fredrick day (talk) 01:05, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Their business model is

1. Foster communities that create copyleft wikis
2. ??
3. Profit

The ?? part is interesting. So far they are selling ad space; but they admit they haven't completely figured out what all they are going to do to generate revenue. Wikisearch is an example of their trying an experiment at figuring that out. Expect other such experiments as time goes on. WAS 4.250 (talk) 21:16, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

How about this article as a starting point: What he does offer is the vision thing, and the vision behind Wikia is pretty simple: Use the wiki model - and Wikipedia's most dependable volunteer editors - to build moneymaking websites. Advertising is provided by Google AdSense, with the click-through revenue funneled to Wales and his investors. If those sites draw even a fraction of Wikipedia's more than 160 million monthly unique visitors, Wales could soon be as rich as he is famous.--Fredrick day (talk) 21:34, 12 February 2008 (UTC)