For those who don't know, a wiki farm is an internet entity that facilitates the easy creation of wikis. The most prominent example of this is the gigantic Wikia. The obvious advantage of a wiki farm is that you don't have to run your own server or set up the MediaWiki software or anything like that, so that you can concentrate on making the actual content with little risk of being shut down due to lack of money. The main drawback is that the people running the servers get a lot of sweeping power over the software and enforcement of aspects of the web design.
The issue really began to come to my attention when Wikia revealed plans to replace its Monaco skin with a new skin. Last Wednesday, the move became permanent, and Monaco is no longer a usable skin option. The main explanation for this is that they wanted to concentrate on maintaining the new skin without having to keep maintaining the old skin. There was a lot of backlash over this, but this happened before when they changed from Monobook to Monaco, so it's understandable that the Wikia employees have ignored the more, uh, passionate criticisms.
However, there's a difference this time, at least on the gaming front. On February 2010, an alliance of independent wikis called NIWA was formed, one of the founders being Bulbapedia, incidentally. Probably in response to Wikia's actions, NIWA has grown quite a bit all of a sudden. I don't think that I could name all of them offhand. It seems that this time, independent wikis have gained a foothold (at least in gaming), putting a cost to Wikia's "new look". You're definitely a credible rival when you have large wikis for the #1 and #2 best-selling video game series.
NIWA has a more detailed "About" section about what they see as the evils of wiki farming, but the main things, from what I can see, are the fact that people who don't necessarily care about any individual wiki having power over people who do, and the crushing chokehold that Wikia wikis tend to end up imposing on smaller, independent wikis through Google rankings. Unlike Wikipedia, Wikia is a private entity that, other than the the fact that Jimmy Wales was involved in founding the companies behind both of them, they really have nothing to do with each other. However, the misconception that they are connected has arguably contributed significantly to Wikia's popularity over other wikis and even other wiki farms. This profit-based corporatization is a driving force behind NIWA's objection to Wikia.
On the other hand, well, it's questionable whether all this is even a big deal. Yeah, wikis need to adjust their formatting to account for the change, but Wikia is about as open to constructive feedback on their new look as a large corporate entity can be, and some of the changes have been explained well enough IMO. Sure, ads continue to invade the content space, but that's why you get Adblock Plus or something similar. Ultimately, the objections seem to be purely on principle, and the Wikia changes put a face to that principle.
I guess I just wanted to know what people thought of this, because I never saw this as that big a deal until now. Does it matter?
The issue really began to come to my attention when Wikia revealed plans to replace its Monaco skin with a new skin. Last Wednesday, the move became permanent, and Monaco is no longer a usable skin option. The main explanation for this is that they wanted to concentrate on maintaining the new skin without having to keep maintaining the old skin. There was a lot of backlash over this, but this happened before when they changed from Monobook to Monaco, so it's understandable that the Wikia employees have ignored the more, uh, passionate criticisms.
However, there's a difference this time, at least on the gaming front. On February 2010, an alliance of independent wikis called NIWA was formed, one of the founders being Bulbapedia, incidentally. Probably in response to Wikia's actions, NIWA has grown quite a bit all of a sudden. I don't think that I could name all of them offhand. It seems that this time, independent wikis have gained a foothold (at least in gaming), putting a cost to Wikia's "new look". You're definitely a credible rival when you have large wikis for the #1 and #2 best-selling video game series.
NIWA has a more detailed "About" section about what they see as the evils of wiki farming, but the main things, from what I can see, are the fact that people who don't necessarily care about any individual wiki having power over people who do, and the crushing chokehold that Wikia wikis tend to end up imposing on smaller, independent wikis through Google rankings. Unlike Wikipedia, Wikia is a private entity that, other than the the fact that Jimmy Wales was involved in founding the companies behind both of them, they really have nothing to do with each other. However, the misconception that they are connected has arguably contributed significantly to Wikia's popularity over other wikis and even other wiki farms. This profit-based corporatization is a driving force behind NIWA's objection to Wikia.
On the other hand, well, it's questionable whether all this is even a big deal. Yeah, wikis need to adjust their formatting to account for the change, but Wikia is about as open to constructive feedback on their new look as a large corporate entity can be, and some of the changes have been explained well enough IMO. Sure, ads continue to invade the content space, but that's why you get Adblock Plus or something similar. Ultimately, the objections seem to be purely on principle, and the Wikia changes put a face to that principle.
I guess I just wanted to know what people thought of this, because I never saw this as that big a deal until now. Does it matter?
