Stop using Fandom
Stop using Fandom
Stop using Fandom
You're viewing a single thread.
The biggest insult is that Jimbo Wales of Wikipedia helped create fandom because he was fed up of people using Wikipedia to create detailed articles about fictional characters and video games. Wikipedia now has an artificially strict notability policy where things are falsely declared as not notable so they can be monetized on Fandom, all while Jimbo Wales has the gall to ask for money for his "non profit" Wikipedia while he makes the real money on Fandom.
I'd be very curious to hear more details on this, do you happen to have a source handy, or any recommended reading?
In fairness, the money he gets from being a scumbag with fandom probably can't be used to fund Wikipedia unless he wants to donate the money he's making from his business to run his nonprofit. It's not surprising he wouldn't do that (even if thats the way the world ought to work) and I don't presently have reason to believe he personally gets anything out of the donations that are given to keep Wikipedia running
I love hearsay and dramatic "quotations".
If this is real I'll be genuinely glad I haven't donated to wikipedia yet.
I mean the conspiracy theory side of it is questionable but the basic facts are true:
Now, the question is whether he did (1) in order to drive profitable users to (2). That's where the conspiracy question lives. And I tend to assume good faith. People's morals erode over time, not all at once. Since both (1) and (2) are totally legitimate, but profit motive encourages the millimetre-by-millimetre enshittification of Wikia into the horrible thing it is today.
It doesn't seem so devious to me. He wanted Wikipedia to be considered a serious source of information which admittedly, detailed pages for video games, fictional characters and such would work against that goal. Being a non profit also works towards being taken seriously in the eyes of some.
So he created a secondary company to host that content and profit from it. Why not, I would argue. Don't use the product If you don't like it. I personally hate wikia. It's slow and covered in ads. The question I ask is why is there no competition in the space? Jimbo's not on the hook for that.
The video posted is actually all about what the competition is like :) its hard to compete with a huge company like wikia/fandom, but folks are making it work anyway, and that's pretty cool. I really enjoyed the video