Game wikis just aren't as popular anymore?

BlanketsWithSmallpox@lemmy.world to Games@lemmy.world – 130 points –

Has anyone else noticed that Wikis for most games just aren't as complete anymore?

I'm the one helping to fill in stuff these days when I swear most games had pretty fully Wiki pages within a week of release. Have most of these just moved to actual Gaming article websites? They sure as hell haven't gone to Gamefaqs lol.

I've recently played Diablo 4, Remnant 2, 30XX, Armored Core 6, and just started Have a Nice Death... and I've had to help with additions on nearly every free Wiki... Never used to have to do this...

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I wonder how much it has to do with how much of a shithole the Fandom network is. Between the godawful UX, aggressive SEO to bury competing wikis in search results, and scummy business practices that effectively prevent wiki admins from migrating to other hosts, the idea of maintaining a game wiki probably isn't all that appealing these days.

I miss Wikia...

I am forever grateful that halopedia rolled their own wiki and was spared from the fandom plague.

Another stark comparison is UESP vs. Fandom for elder scrolls lore. Fandom is absolute cancer, poor UX even with an adblocker.

Yeah I find it completely unusable. I can't use wookiepedia anymore because it is just awful to use. Like you said, it's awful even with an ad blocker

Would you care to elaborate on what's preventing wiki admins from migrating?

They don't actually let admins shut down their wikis or remove content from them. They can leave and start a new wiki, but they have to leave the old one in place (for which Fandom could potentially just find new admins), and they can only link to the new wiki from the Fandom wiki for a period of two weeks. With Fandom's SEO, there's a good chance the Fandom wiki will still be ahead of search results of a new wiki even after migration. Source

Man this was an issue already some 10 years ago when touhou wiki went self-hosted. It took a whole year for google to get memo and link the new one above the old.

Nowadays I assume it's pretty much impossible to reverse the flow unless if your game is huge and highly sought after.

I wonder if this could be mitigated (or even nullified) by a cooperative game developer, through DMCA takedown notices sent to Fandom. There is a lot of art on these wikis, after all, and I imagine the copyright holder has some say in who is allowed to distribute it.

What are they going to do? Ban them?

Honestly if I was migrating away from Fandom I'd do everything I can to burn every bridge. Go through and edit every page to have every link redirect to the better wiki. Ignore their 2-week period, and don't inform the Fandom overlords that the wiki is being shut down (it's not like they're going to check without being prompted).

I'd make them ban me, and then good luck finding an admin.

It's not too hard to roll back changes on a wiki. Any attempts at sabotage wouldn't be very difficult to undo.

Thank you. I've been dabbling with the idea of establishing a non-profit for my lemmy instance. I'm not a user of game/movie/etc wikis, but I do love looking after my servers. I wonder if a non-profit owned wiki site bear any weight over time.