If you’re looking up information on any game ever, there is a very good chance that you’ll find what you’re looking for on a fan wiki. And more often than not, that fan wiki will be hosted by Fandom.
Since Fandom has the monopoly on fan wikis, we often have little choice but to go through them – even when the user experience has only kept getting worse over the years. With excessive, intrusive ads that often make it hard to even scroll the page, fan communities are often complaining about Fandom wikis – and now, one of the largest groups out there is doing something about it.
From now on, the GTA Wiki will be independent, leaving Fandom behind. This means that all of its pages have been moved to a new site, with the operators citing issues with the ads and autoplay videos as the reasons behind the move. They were also concerned about Fandom potentially going further with AI, something the team didn’t want for its own wiki.
GTA Wiki Staff Explain Why They’ve Moved Away From Fandom
“It is no secret that Fandom is generally disliked by readers and editors alike,” reads a page on the new wiki about the move. “The appointment of a reportedly pro-AI CEO this February, following internal restructuring at the company, has only made matters worse.”
Many other reasons are given, such as the videos that play on every Fandom wiki page, and take up much of the screen on mobile. The wiki editors say they had no say over the content of these videos and were not happy about them being added. Furthermore, they say they ran into issues with excessive censorship, particularly with the use of slurs, when quoting directly from the GTA games for the purposes of the wiki.
Now, this won’t topple Fandom’s dominance, but it is a huge loss for the site. With GTA 6 just around the corner, any GTA wiki is going to see a huge spike in traffic, as fans look up guides or even just want to read up on stuff about the previous games. Now, if enough fans move over to this new wiki, Fandom might struggle to capitalise on this launch.
