Fandom (website)
wiki hosting service and domain / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Fandom (previously known as Wikia and before that, Wikicities[source?]) is an organization for making websites that are wikis. Wikia was started in 2004 by Jimmy Wales,[3] who also started Wikipedia, and Angela Beesley. The name of Wikicities was changed to Wikia on March 27, 2006 to prevent other people from mistaking it for a wiki on cities, and then renamed again on October 4th, 2016 to Fandom for an unknown reason. At the time, it was called "Fandom powered by Wikia" until June 2018. Since October 2018, most of the URLs have changed from x.wikia.com to x.fandom.com this does not include wikis based on serious topics which instead changed to x.wikia.org.
.png) Main page of Fandom.com website | |
| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Foundation date | 2004; 20 years ago (2004) |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California, U.S. |
| Founder(s) | Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesley |
| Products | Wiki hosting |
| Employees | 127 (September 2011)[1] |
| Website | www.wikicites.org (October 18, 2004 to March 27, 2006 www.wikia.org (March 27, 2006 to October 2016) www.wikia.com (October 2016 to June 2018) www.fandom.com (June 2018 onward) |
| Alexa rank |  140 (July 2013[update])[2] |
| Type of site | Wiki farm |
| Advertising | Direct and advertising networks |
| Registration | Optional |
| Available in | Multilingual |
| Launched | October 18, 2004 (2004-10-18) as "Wikicites" March 27, 2006 (2006-03-27) as "Wikia" October 4, 2016 (2016-10-04) (unofficially)/June 2018 (officially) as "Fandom" |
| Current status | Active |
Wikis hosted on Fandom are about something which many people will like. All content on Fandom is released under a free license, such as the GNU Free Documentation License or the Creative Commons. Anybody can change pages on wikis at Fandom, so that no single person "owns" or is "the boss" of a wiki, and so that large communities can be made. The software used is MediaWiki.[4]
Fandom uses advertisements to generate money.
Articles on Fandom are often written in more "in-universe" style; meaning that fictional characters and plots are written as if they are real. Some projects on Fandom are more for people who are very interested in the topic.
In August 2010, they said that a new look was coming,[5] making some people take their wikis off the service.