Damn, another push to centralizing and walling off user content in 'fandoms', 'reddits' and other closed communities?
Have the internet cards been handed out now, and are we in the end-game?
Will old domains resell for premiums like low-background-radiation steel?
/edit
It appears this is no longer the case and the extension does things a lot better than it used to!
I've been looking for explicit alternatives to Fandom for some content and it's annoyingly sparse.
Just the other day I saw some meme about how if we saw as many ads taking over sites like we do now, that was a sure sign of having your machine getting infected with a virus.
Generally I've found a good portion of websites that block users with ad blockers tend to be the worst offenders with aggressive ads...
That used to be the reality around decade ago for those who don’t know. Some applications changed the default front page of the browser, hijacked other websites to inject popups and so on
Two decades now actually. By 2016 we were already seeing the mass transition to browsing on phones instead of PCs, Windows 10 was already out and for reasons I am not quite sure of the old homepage and toolbar hijackers were on the decline and adblockers were on the rise although I am sure there were still people using malware ridden Internet Explorers for years after.
I'm noticing that Ad-Shield is becoming a continual fight these days with pageloads that complete then they fly in with a "ha ha here's a fake error report turn off your adblocker aye?".
Every time their live support chat is open (why would the anti-adblock firm even offer one), I send them Goatse.
Unfortunately there is little chance that a human is anywhere near the other end of that chat these days, so your evil is somewhat wasted.
> (why would the anti-adblock firm even offer one)
They want to appear to care. And appear to be a company of real people, who you might like if you met in real life, who will be out of pocket if you don't look at their ads.
I launched a website that is niche a few weeks ago, but totally unique. After a couple of weeks search console wakes up to tell me that they have indexed one page in 80. And that the top search term that is finding my site says exactly the name of one of my pages, yet Google is showing my homepage in search!
Way to help your users
Dear Jim,
At Google, our intent is to help our stockholders, not our users.
Sincerely,
Alphabet inc.
Google just reported their first negative cash flow quarter. Forecast: an increased chance of e14n.
But it ended up being the only reasonable place we owned where we could put Fortnite, Overwatch and Valheim wikis that wouldn't get crushed by this new Google jail situation. Of course the alternative is what the parent comment suggests ("probably just need a good base domain for game wikis") - but you have to get THAT domain out of Google jail first. Chicken and egg.
> Of course the alternative is what the parent comment suggests ("probably just need a good base domain for game wikis") - but you have to get THAT domain out of Google jail first.
So why not get such domain, wait out until it is let out of Google Jail and then put all the wikis on subdomains?
I imagine you would quickly gain trust and people would immediately recognize the links and know that this is the place to go. As opposed to the current state where the wikis have separate domain names and for each game we need to learn which one is the "good one".
⸻
Second question: Any thoughts on liberating non-gaming wikis from fandom, such as TV show wikis?
It sounds like the issue isnt for "independent wikis" but for wikis competing with an existing domain already hosting one on the topic, in this case fandom.com's.
The James Bond wiki is particularly bad, but Memory Alpha seems to be better run.
Well, I guess that's true.
It's worth noting, though, that wikipedia's donation demands cover more than the entire screen on a phone.
Can you elaborate on what that means? i.e. what aspect of Wikipedia, and in what way Fandom is heading there?
OTOH if the goal is to monetize other people's contributions then yes, I totally get why the "Google jail" would be bad for that, but I'm just not sure that its a cause worth fighting for- that road basically leads to a new Fandom.
I've hit this on a few wikis where, for some (at the time inexplicable) reason, I'd get only the crappy Fandom wiki with above queries, and a good wiki when searching only for "<game> wiki" after seeing a link to it on reddit.
When the reason is to move away from Fandom, get people what they are looking for, and perhaps attract contributors, this is an issue. Your average gamer won't route through the Wiki's main page, rather rely on the top Google search result for their issue.
There's a ton of historical evidence of wiki migrations (1) starting out with all of the editors and none of the readers, (2) not doing anything to get those readers to the new site, and (3) ultimately losing the whole war because the reader->editor flow was still happening on the Fandom wiki. "Invisibility" is absolutely not desirable here, even if your only goal is maximizing the amount of good contributions.
So yeah, when my goal is to search for content that would be in a wiki, I'm ecstatic when I get an independent wiki over fandom. The Google Jail is the opposite of what I'd want.
Nowadays, I use Kagi which is better than Google but it's still not to the level of Google in 2010.
That answer is quality content (higher than AI or human medians), links and pr and social activity and mentions, and then user experience.
Entertainment studios can often turn a blind eye to use of their properties when it's by fans, for fans, and promotes those franchises. They are not sending C&D to people making avatars, or cosplaying, or memeing their screengrabs into notoriety.
It is weird to think that the WMF and Wikia/Fandom had a common founder and origin.
Field v. Google, Inc. (2006)
https://www.practicalecommerce.com/Search-Engines-Indexing-a...
Authors Guild v. Google, Inc. (2015)
https://www.flaglerlawgroup.com/a-new-era-for-fair-use-court...