When will Memory Alpha/Beta move from Fandom to an indie wiki?

Hey there,

as many of you might know, there’s an ongoing mass community effort to move away from the free wiki hoster Fandom (what used to be wikia or gamepedia) to self-hosted wikis. It’s a similar campaign to the move to Lemmy, albeit much more successful.

Fandom is a predatory marketing and ad company that uses auto-play videos, has banners obscuring the content to a ridiculous degree, does not respect the work the editors put into their wikis, and after all makes their own sites super slow to use from all the ads, with ads loading in just as you want to click on a link, making the entire layout move to make you click on the ad after all. They’re constantly trying to make the site into something of a “social media page” and are a prime example of so-called “enshittification”.

Examples of these self-hosted anti-Fandom wiki efforts are the Baldur’s Gate 3 wiki and the Elder Scrolls Pages. Even the Star Trek Online wiki has moved from Fandom to their own self-hosted variant, although their slow server choice leaves some things to be desired, and of course this very instance (startrek.website) also is a self-hosted indie initiative.

Memory Alpha and Memory Beta stand out in the world as excellent wikis that categorize most details about one of the most extensive franchises ever. They really deserve a clean, ad-free, self-controlled experience. I wanted to contribute to them forever (adding to Memory Beta as I read novels), but the idea of supporting Fandom with an active account makes me uncomfortable.

Does anyone know why they have not moved yet?

Admin,
@Admin@startrek.website avatar

FWIW I’d be interested in discussing hosting them on startrek.website if anyone here has a connect.

LtLiana,
@LtLiana@startrek.website avatar

The Memory Alpha “bureaucrat” is user “sulfur”, who has their Discord listed as sulfur#3610 on their user page.

The Memory Beta head administrator I believe is Captainmike, who has their Discord listed as Captainmike#1381 on the user profile page.

Other than that, there’s also the List of Administrators on Memory Alpha.

The GamingWikiProject, while largely about game wikis, also helps people who want to build up an indie wiki project: Click here

AuroraBorealis,
@AuroraBorealis@pawb.social avatar

Are they willing to help with the move? Or are they against leaving fandom?

LtLiana,
@LtLiana@startrek.website avatar

I don’t see a reason why any self-respecting editor of an extensive wiki would like to stay on Fandom. It provides no benefits, and they have regularly sabotaged wiki projects.

Deebster,
@Deebster@lemmyrs.org avatar

I assume it's the standard inertia-type reasons: doing nothing is easier than changing a bunch of stuff, not changing involves fewer unknowns, and they probably have ad blockers and custom rules that mean they don't personally have to deal with the worst of it.

ThatOneRedshirt,
@ThatOneRedshirt@startrek.website avatar

If hosting them here, perhaps using a federated wiki software such as hubzilla would be of interest?

Klanky,
@Klanky@sopuli.xyz avatar

I always like the Ultranomicon for Star Control. Simple Wikipedia style layout:

wiki.uqm.stack.nl/Main_Page

AuroraBorealis,
@AuroraBorealis@pawb.social avatar

I feel like it’s basically…someone needs to just start it and “if you build it, people will come” kind of situation

teft,
@teft@startrek.website avatar

Not likely. It has been at fandom since 2005. They were the largest wiki site fandom had before they were fandom. Not sure if that’s still the case but I doubt they would give up a cash cow.

LtLiana,
@LtLiana@startrek.website avatar

But Fandom is not operating the wiki, the community is. They couldn’t care less about “the cash cow” it is. Being the largest wiki by far makes them a prime contender to move over to another solution.

ipacialsection,
@ipacialsection@startrek.website avatar

Fandom does care about cash cows, and will almost certainly do the same thing they’ve done with several wikis that have left: take it over, remove references to the move, and continue attempting to compete with the new wiki, leveraging their better SEO.

But if anything, Fandom considering Memory Alpha a cash cow would be even more of a reason to leave, considering that Fandom tends to cover those wikis with ads (that’s why Minecraft Wiki moved).

ValueSubtracted,
@ValueSubtracted@startrek.website avatar

I think they would likely have significant storage and bandwidth needs - more significant than the examples provided.

LtLiana,
@LtLiana@startrek.website avatar

… which other projects easily manage with donations.

ValueSubtracted,
@ValueSubtracted@startrek.website avatar

The word “easily” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.

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