A fan wiki is a wiki[a] that is created by fans, primarily to document an object of popular culture. Fan wikis cover television shows, film franchises, video games, comic books, sports, and other topics.[1] They are a part of fandoms, which are subcultures dedicated to a common popular culture interest. The digital humanities scholar Jason Mittell stated in 2013 that fan wikis were "[o]ne of the most popular and widespread uses of wikis".[2]
Fan wikis usually operate according to internal policies. Editors reach decisions through discussion and consensus decision-making. Some wikis are more hierarchical, while others operate more collectively. They usually appoint a small group of editors to serve as system operators (sysops) or administrators, who have additional powers to enforce rules.[3] Many fan wikis have rules that require editors to provide citations to reliable sources to verify their claims.
Fan wikis were first published in the early 2000s. Many fan wikis formed out of Wikipedia over disputes among editors about the level of detail that should be provided in articles.[4] These included fans of the television show Battlestar Galactica[5] and the Star Wars franchise, who founded Wookieepedia after facing complaints about the "overabundance of minutiae related to Star Wars appearing on Wikipedia".[4]
In 2004, the Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales and the former Wikipedia board chair Angela Beesley founded Fandom under the name WikiCities, a for-profit wiki hosting service that hosted regional wikis for cities. In 2006, the company attracted venture capital funding and changed its name to Wikia.[6] Wikia then began to assimilate independent fan wikis, such as Memory Alpha (a Star Trek fan wiki) and Wowpedia (a World of Warcraft fan wiki).[7] In the late 2010s—after Fandom and Gamepedia were acquired and consolidated by the private equity firm TPG Inc.—several wikis began to leave the service, including the RuneScape, Zelda, and Minecraft wikis. Those wiki communities cited Fandom's advertising methods, issues with security and outdated software, and corporate control as reasons for migrating.[8]
The following list summarizes fan wikis with articles on Wikipedia.
Forked from Nukapedia in 2011 after Dembowski joined Curse LLC as an employee; hosted by Curse LLC to early 2019, when Curse's Gamepedia wiki hosting service was acquired by Fandom; archived by Fandom
Forked from WoWWiki (then hosted by Fandom) in October 2010 following community vote; hosted by Curse LLC from founding to early 2019, when Curse's Gamepedia wiki hosting service was acquired by Fandom; forked to Warcraft Wiki following community vote in October 2023
^A wiki is a form of hypertext publication on the internet which is collaboratively edited and managed by its audience directly through a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages that can either be edited by the public or limited to use within an organization for maintaining its internal knowledge base.[1]
Jones, Henry (2021). "Wikis". In Baker, Mona; Blaagaard, Bolette B.; Jones, Henry; Pérez-González, Luis (eds.). The Routledge Encyclopedia of Citizen Media. Critical Perspectives in Citizen Media (ebook ed.). London: Routledge. ISBN978-1-315-61981-1.
Mittell, Jason (2013). "Wikis and Participatory Fandom". In Delwiche, Aaron; Henderson, Jennifer Jacobs (eds.). The Participatory Cultures Handbook (ebook ed.). New York: Routledge. pp. 35–42. ISBN978-0-203-11792-7.
