After several discussions, we are excited to announce that the Minecraft Wiki has now moved from Fandom to minecraft.wiki – all of the information about the game can now be found at the new location!
a core issue for moving wikis is that Fandom refuses to delete the old wiki so you 1) have to fight an SEO war against them; and 2) have to contend with directing everyone to the right place or else you have two competing wikis (one of which will gradually lapse out of date). it’s very irritating.
ugh yeah. especially the SEO war thing, the new website doesn’t even register on DuckDuckGo yet. at least there’s this extension called Indie Wiki Buddy which will hide Fandom results from search engines and redirect you to an independent wiki if you end up on Fandom anyway
The only thing more rage-inducing than getting stuck in a game and needing to Google the information I need… is finding that information on a Fandom Wiki composed of 90% ads and 10% useful content. Especially since I’m usually searching for that information on my phone, due to not all games handling Alt+Tab particularly well, and Fandom is somehow even worse on a phone. I have genuinely had moments where I’ve just closed a game and stopped playing because the information I need isn’t in the game but has to be found on a Fandom Wiki.
SEO wars only go so far when the user experience on Fandom is so awful that plenty of players would rather scroll down to use the #2 entry in the search results if it means not having to click a Fandom link. They’d only need a few occasions when the #2 entry is a better experience than using Fandom, and they’ll start using the independent Wiki purposefully.
they’ll revert that and ban you for “vandalism” (i assume they have automated sensors for checking this), and/or turn your wiki over to new administrators.
Most Terms of Service don’t do that, instead asking you to provide a “perpetual” “irrevocable” “transferable” license for your content – and while some absolutely stretch the terms to allow them to use it for things like language model learning or shifty monetization practices, such a license is also legally necessary for the website to function at all.
For “open-source” websites like Wikipedia or OSM, the terms are usually even simpler - you agree to license your posts under the same license that they use to distribute it.
As for Fandom specifically, they seem to mostly operate on the latter model – though you still need an additional commercial use waiver if you want to submit to NC or ND-licensed wikis (which once again goes into the “legally necessary” box).
The same open-source license that lets people edit the wikis and fork them to independent websites without having to ask permission from every single contributor also lets Fandom admins reject attempts to delete or redirect pages.
a core issue for moving wikis is that Fandom refuses to delete the old wiki so you 1) have to fight an SEO war against them; and 2) have to contend with directing everyone to the right place or else you have two competing wikis (one of which will gradually lapse out of date). it’s very irritating.
ugh yeah. especially the SEO war thing, the new website doesn’t even register on DuckDuckGo yet. at least there’s this extension called Indie Wiki Buddy which will hide Fandom results from search engines and redirect you to an independent wiki if you end up on Fandom anyway
What if there are no alternative wikis?
it redirects you to BreezeWiki, a no-bloat frontend for Fandom (example)
Hm, I guess it’s an alternative. I’ll give it a try. The Fandom & Fextralife wikis constantly being at the top search results often pisses me off.
The only thing more rage-inducing than getting stuck in a game and needing to Google the information I need… is finding that information on a Fandom Wiki composed of 90% ads and 10% useful content. Especially since I’m usually searching for that information on my phone, due to not all games handling Alt+Tab particularly well, and Fandom is somehow even worse on a phone. I have genuinely had moments where I’ve just closed a game and stopped playing because the information I need isn’t in the game but has to be found on a Fandom Wiki.
SEO wars only go so far when the user experience on Fandom is so awful that plenty of players would rather scroll down to use the #2 entry in the search results if it means not having to click a Fandom link. They’d only need a few occasions when the #2 entry is a better experience than using Fandom, and they’ll start using the independent Wiki purposefully.
what if someone pushes thousands of edits with random AI generated garbage from thousands of accounts?
Unfortunately they’re likely well equipped to deal with that kind of situation as it’s not all that different than normal wiki vandalism.
Hmm. Is there something against linking external wikis on every article you create?
they’ll revert that and ban you for “vandalism” (i assume they have automated sensors for checking this), and/or turn your wiki over to new administrators.
wait. they have something in their Terms of Service that prevents you from deleting stuff you posted? That sounds illegal.
It almost certainly is in the EU.
Not if their ToS makes you surrender your copyright to them.
Most Terms of Service don’t do that, instead asking you to provide a “perpetual” “irrevocable” “transferable” license for your content – and while some absolutely stretch the terms to allow them to use it for things like language model learning or shifty monetization practices, such a license is also legally necessary for the website to function at all.
For “open-source” websites like Wikipedia or OSM, the terms are usually even simpler - you agree to license your posts under the same license that they use to distribute it.
As for Fandom specifically, they seem to mostly operate on the latter model – though you still need an additional commercial use waiver if you want to submit to NC or ND-licensed wikis (which once again goes into the “legally necessary” box).
The same open-source license that lets people edit the wikis and fork them to independent websites without having to ask permission from every single contributor also lets Fandom admins reject attempts to delete or redirect pages.