Comment on Stop using Fandom

EyIchFragDochNur@feddit.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

• simple@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

  The video pretty much describes why Fandom is so bad and why many games are moving their wikis to alternative services, and why you should stop using it in general. Some examples include:

  • Ads everywhere, including autoplaying video ads that play another ad when they’re done. There are also ads sneakily inserted in the middle of articles that are related to the wiki, like a Gamespot review (Gamespot is owned by Fandom)

  • A sidebar you can’t remove that promotes their content

  • Fandom hijacked the community’s Mcdonald’s wiki to turn it into a giant advertisement

  • Accounts that are 4 days old can bypass restrictions and easily vandalize pages

  • Fandom sometimes introduces things nobody wants, such as AI generated answers that are usually wrong, take up the top half of the page, and with no way for wiki admins to remove it. They removed it after a lot of backlash but still…

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  • GrammatonCleric@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

    Fandom seems like my experience on Fextralife

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    • buddhabound@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

      And then you learn about Fextra’s embedded twitch player that artificially inflates their twitch view count and pushes out smaller content creators who are actually trying to engage with a game’s audience.

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      • simple@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

        God, I hate constantly seeing their channel with 50k+ views on Twitch. It’s insane that embedding the player throughout their entire website isn’t against TOS.

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      • captainphatty@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

        The good thing is that they are going to stop abusers of the embed system like Fextralife, the new policy was announced at TwitchCon blog.twitch.tv/…/everything-we-announced-at-twitc…

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  • EyIchFragDochNur@feddit.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

    Thank you

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  • Paradachshund@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

    Seems like on that last one someone could go through and change all the content in every page to a link to the new wiki. A PIA? Certainly, but at least it would get the ball rolling and use the built up SEO from fandom to help your new site get views.

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    • ysjet@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

      Unfortunately they just use a bot to revert those. You’re not allowed to truly migrate off fandom, all you can do is fork your own data and try to out-SEO the fandom wiki, because as soon as you put it.on fandom, fandom owns it too.

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      • Paradachshund@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

        I wonder if you could use a bot and AI to write fake information and post that instead. Seems like fandom wouldn’t have enough game specific info to judge the accuracy, especially if it happened over time.

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  • Th3D3k0y@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

    Oh yeah… Gamespot, that place existed and it was terrible always. Then you look at the other things Gamespot own and realize they all got butchered in terms of reliability and impact.

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    • 108@kbin.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

      When the OG crew left, so did I.

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  • Zoidsberg@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

    Accounts that are 4 days old can bypass restrictions and easily vandalize pages

    What can we do with this information, I wonder…

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    • CoderKat@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

      The video also calls out that one of the challenges in moving off of fandom is SEO. The fandom sites often are above the new sites even when the fandom site becomes a pile of unmaintained, vandalized garbage. This suggests that vandalism actually helps fandom.

      The best thing we can do is not visit the sites and don’t link to them, instead using and linking to their new sites.

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  • ThrowawayPermanente@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

    You’re the best, thanks

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  • theneverfox@pawb.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

    Nice write-up, I appreciate it

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• NightAuthor@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

  • Hyper aggressive ads
  • Restricted access to moderation and admin features of wiki
  • Restrictions in layout/formatting to maintain compatibility with ad placements
  • Forced addition of an AI generated section in wikis which contained gibberish or straight up wrong information

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• T4UTV1S@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

  Worst TL;DR:

  Fandom is a wiki farm, meaning it hosts a bunch of wikis. Also they run on freely available software mediawiki.

  Fandom has a couple main problems:

  1. Barriers to entry are super low, verification for users takes place 4 days post account creation, with no other steps needed by the user. Paired with the limited options that moderators have for editing access on wikis and you have a wiki that is much tougher to moderate.

  2. Ads. Fandom is for-profit. And that means super obtrusive ads that we’ve come to expect. But fandom also shoved ads in the middle of wiki pages, with admins having no control of where those should be placed. There’s also the matter of sketchy ads that are served to minors. Also, some of the ads are outdated but are for subsidiary companies of Fandom.

  3. The Grimace Incident. Basically Fandom took over and turned the McDonald’s and grimace wikis into huge advertisements, wiping out the hard work that the actual wiki maintainers did. They also put in a bunch of factually incorrect information, literally going against the whole purpose of a wiki and really worrying other wikis, because what’s stopping Fandom from getting paid again and repeating the event with their wikis?

  I’m sure I glossed over a bunch of the details but that’s the best I can do from memory.

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• Skasi@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

  How about an alternative Link to the same video? inv.vern.cc/watch?v=qcfuA_UAz3I

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  • EyIchFragDochNur@feddit.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

    [deleted]

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    • wildginger@lemmy.myserv.one ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

      What does this even mean

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  • Pringles@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

    How do you find these? You search alternative video players or is there some site where you enter a youtube url and it gives you alternatives?

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    • Skasi@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

      Personally I use a browser extension called LibRedirect.

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    • cherenkov@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

      It is called individious, there are many hosts you can choose from. In any instance, a youtube link you paste in the search bar gives you that video in individious. If a certain video is not working, you can use “Switch Individious Instance” to quickly jump to another.

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• H1jAcK@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

  Stop using Fandom

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  • EyIchFragDochNur@feddit.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

    Why?

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    • H1jAcK@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

      Sorry, that’s the best summary I could find up with

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    • snooggums@kbin.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

      Did you stop using YouTube because of the intrusive ads and monetization?

      Same issue with Fandom.

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      • EyIchFragDochNur@feddit.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

        Tbh mainly because of dumb content. I grew up with free TV so i understand and can life with some ads if the content can be used for free. Also tbh i still sometimes use it for music and that one video gaming magazine’s channel that i really like.

        I feel like I’ve become somehow allergic to youtubers and such.

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• NightAuthor@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

  Where’s that bot w the fedi links for videos?

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  • Th3D3k0y@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

    Be the change you want to see.

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    • NightAuthor@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

      You want me to be pipedbot ?

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      • Th3D3k0y@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

        Yes, integrate yourself with the digital world! Translate the videos for us!

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• WeLoveCastingSpellz@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

  summarize.tech

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