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

  • deweydecibel
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    10 months 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.

    • @[email protected]
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      7210 months 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
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        3310 months 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
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          910 months ago

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

      • HidingCat
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        210 months 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.

        • @[email protected]
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          310 months ago

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

    • @[email protected]
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      10 months 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.

        • @[email protected]
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          810 months ago

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

      • HidingCat
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        910 months 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.

        • @[email protected]
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          610 months ago

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

        • @Kecessa
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          410 months ago

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

    • @[email protected]
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      1610 months 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

  • @[email protected]
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    11710 months ago

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

  • ono
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    10 months 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!

  • @DaCrazyJamez
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    5110 months ago

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

  • @[email protected]
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    3610 months 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)

      • stopthatgirl7
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        4010 months ago

        Computer RPG. From TTRPG, table top RPG. Same type of game, with dice rolls and turn based (in general), only done on a computer instead of with a DM

      • @[email protected]
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        410 months ago

        There are better ways of asking what something stands for if you don’t know.

        Also, side note, it’s very interesting how quickly your mind jumped to Chinese when nothing here is suggesting thst even.

        • @[email protected]
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          10 months ago

          Given that JRPG is “Japanese RPG” it’s not too much of a stretch to assume CRPG would be Chinese RPG.

        • @[email protected]
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          1710 months ago

          My mind just did the same association even though I knew the meaning.

          If you remember JRPG has a J for Japan, it’s easy for your brain to go with C stands for Chinese, even if that doesn’t make sense when you really think about it.

          Also, side note, just chill out with the conspiracy theories. And actually give the guy the proper explanation of what the term stands for like the comment next to yours.

        • TJA!
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          1610 months ago

          The best and fastest way to get a correct answer is to post something wrong

        • stopthatgirl7
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          1210 months ago

          It’s not really “interesting”? The first time I saw the term, that’s what I wondered if it might be, because of “JRPG” and all the games that had been coming out of China recently.

        • JustEnoughDucks
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          10 months ago

          I think it is somewhat logical as there is literally an entire massive genre of “Japanese RPG.”

          There absolutely is something suggesting that: precedent. Though it could be Czech RPGs, Columbian RPGs, Cuban RPGs, or Canadian RPGs. Though Chinese RPGs would be more likely given the game Dev industry there and population.

          Also the fact that outside of the tabletop community, nobody calls video game RPGs CRPGs.

          • Cethin
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            310 months ago

            The term CRPG is very popular, but it means something different than just RPG video game. Starfield is not a “CRPG” for example. Baldur’s Gate (all of them) are. It’s a conversion of table top RPG style to computers. If it’s supposed to reasonably closely emulate a TTRPG in video game format, it’s a CRPG.

        • Cethin
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          1610 months ago

          No, computer, as opposed to table top, which is the classic.

  • @[email protected]
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    2210 months ago

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

  • Jo Miran
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    2210 months 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.

  • @[email protected]
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    10 months 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
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    1910 months 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.

  • @[email protected]
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    10 months 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.

  • Jordan Lund
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    810 months 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.

  • @[email protected]
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    410 months 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
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    310 months 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.