Wikia is "completely separate", {{fact}} Options

[thekohser]

Interesting discussion is being waged on Jimbo's Talk page. There are some concerns why Jimbo says Wikia is a "completely separate" organization from Wikipedia.

Note that User:WAS 4.250 makes some points about the Foundation needing to "know the real names of Wikipedia's admins".

Greg

[Kato]

Perhaps objectors on Jimbo's talk page have been consulting the latest Mimbo Jimbo Review, where a couple of intrepid Reviewers have locked links to highlight that particular anomaly. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/wink.gif)

I notice that college student User:Titoxd defends Der Jimbo by stating:

..the Wikimedia Foundation goes out of its way to not get its nose in content disputes or decisions in Wikipedia.

Is that true? I mean Jimbo himself certainly gets into content disputes, just check his contributions. Some of his recent forays have been very controversial, and more than a couple continue to bite him in the ass.

[GlassBeadGame]

Perhaps objectors on Jimbo's talk page have been consulting the latest Mimbo Jimbo Review, where a couple of intrepid Reviewers have locked links to highlight that particular anomaly. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/wink.gif)

I notice that college student User:Titoxd defends Der Jimbo by stating:

..the Wikimedia Foundation goes out of its way to not get its nose in content disputes or decisions in Wikipedia.

Is that true? I mean Jimbo himself certainly gets into content disputes, just check his contributions. Some of his recent forays have been very controversial, and more than a couple continue to bite him in the ass.

Not true but a key fiction in asserting Sec 230 immunity. Pushing this fiction to it's ultimate extreme you have a situation where WMF simply provides the software and bandwidth and the "community" just sort of showed up out of nowhere independent of WMF. The interesting thing about this fiction is it results in the "community" taking the form of another entity altogether. A voluntary association with "partnership" liability, vicarious liability for the actions of all members deriving from the actions any individual member and no protection of individual assets by corporate limited liability. This is a complete fucking nightmare from a liability aspect worthy of a first year exam essay in a torts class. If admins and editors grasped the indifference to their interests and well being implicit in this theory they would run away in droves.

[WhispersOfWisdom]

The idea of a separation between Wikia and Wikipedia is like saying Britney's mom should be able to "monitor" her daughter in a neutral and objective way.

I have said this many times, but I will say it again: When there are corporate projects out there bidding dollars with numbers followed by 10 zeros, the greatest divides become one with each other in the universe.

WP will be changed and wrapped up and sold with all content intact. The Foundation, which has very little money, will go along for the ride of a lifetime. Jimmy will, of course, vote with the various boards. Welcome to Google World meets MySpace meets Wikipedia meets Facebook! All one big family!

This post has been edited by WhispersOfWisdom:

[anthony]

The line Jimbo keeps using when he describes Wikia is "Wikipedia is the encyclopedia and Wikia is all the rest of the library". I thought the rest of the library was supposed to be the other WMF projects.

[KamrynMatika]

Well, it's hardly surprising that Wikipedia addicts would refuse to believe that there is a conflict of interest present. Their argument seems to be along the lines of, "Oh, so members of the board aren't allowed to participate in other organisations now?!". The nice strawman hyperbole is a clever tactic, but it's pretty clear that:

• Wikia isn't just 'another organisation'
• Jimbo uses events where he is meant to be talking about Wikipedia to promote Wikia
• Angela and Jimbo actively encourage people to post content they posted on Wikipedia to Wikia
• Wikipedia has thousands and thousands of links to Wikia, even though Wikia isn't a reliable source and usually has poor substandard articles
• Wikia links are immune to nofollow
• Blah, blah etc... I don't need to repeat it

However, Wikia doesn't seem to be catching on much in the general public. Wikias are only really frequented by the people who are writing the content.. I doubt that they have much of a readership [apart from perhaps Uncyclopedia].

[Derktar]

Well, it's hardly surprising that Wikipedia addicts would refuse to believe that there is a conflict of interest present. Their argument seems to be along the lines of, "Oh, so members of the board aren't allowed to participate in other organisations now?!". The nice strawman hyperbole is a clever tactic, but it's pretty clear that:

• Wikia isn't just 'another organisation'
• Jimbo uses events where he is meant to be talking about Wikipedia to promote Wikia
• Angela and Jimbo actively encourage people to post content they posted on Wikipedia to Wikia
• Wikipedia has thousands and thousands of links to Wikia, even though Wikia isn't a reliable source and usually has poor substandard articles
• Wikia links are immune to nofollow
• Blah, blah etc... I don't need to repeat it

However, Wikia doesn't seem to be catching on much in the general public. Wikias are only really frequented by the people who are writing the content.. I doubt that they have much of a readership [apart from perhaps Uncyclopedia].

The only Wikia site that I sometimes use is Wowwiki, and the size of the base can be mostly attributed to the large amount of WoW players that there are.

[anthony]

However, Wikia doesn't seem to be catching on much in the general public.

Its traffic rank according to Alexa is 706, which is pretty high up, but then again that only means about one tenth of one percent of internet users visit the site, compared to 30% for Yahoo or Google.

I could see it going either way, if they stick with copying off Wikipedia and Geocities. If they let Jimbo waste too much of their money on pipe dreams like Openserving and Search Wikia, then dot bombhood is more likely.

This post has been edited by anthony:

[GlassBeadGame]

A couple of months ago I spent some time on Wikia looking for examples to bust them of overtly trading on WP's reputation, name, trademark or good faith. What I was looking for was "Based on the same technology as Wikipedia" or "lead by the sole flounder of Wikipedia." There aren't any. None. Which tells me they have seen this issue coming. Of course there is still the reality behind it all, that WP is the only reason why anyone would bother with Wikia.

Also the content was pretty lacking, other than couple exceptions, which include Uncyclopedia. Most of the wikis appear to be abandoned or barely developed.

[badlydrawnjeff]

Are Wikia links still lacking nofollow?

[guy]

A couple of months ago I spent some time on Wikia looking for examples to bust them of overtly trading on WP's reputation, name, trademark or good faith. What I was looking for was "Based on the same technology as Wikipedia" or "lead by the sole flounder of Wikipedia." There aren't any. None.

Where did you look?

Wikia's staff have over 60 years Wikipedia experience among them! Wikia was founded by Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesley in 2004.

http://www.wikia.com/wiki/About_Wikia

[KamrynMatika]

http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Wikipedia

Wikipedia is the origin of the MediaWiki software, so Wikia users have adapted some of the Wikipedia policies and help pages for Wikia.

The Wikia creation policy states that Wikia will not be created if the content would fork the content of Wikipedia or its sister projects. However, wikis that make use of Wikipedia content in a way that Wikipedia would not allow may be permitted. Content can be shared between Wikipedia and Wikia since both are licensed under the GFDL. Please see Wikipedia:Copyrights for details on how to use Wikipedia's content here.

Wikipedia is run by the Wikimedia Foundation, which Wikia, Inc. supports by advertising its fundraising drives on Wikia.

If you would like to create an encyclopedia in a language not supported by the Wikipedia community, please see Wikia creation policy on encyclopedias.

See the Wikimedia article for an explanation of the relationship between Wikia, Wikipedia, and the Wikimedia Foundation.

Two former Wikipedia sites are now hosted by Wikia. See Toki pona encyclopedia and Klingon.

Completely seperate.

Are Wikia links still lacking nofollow?

It depends if they are being included as interwiki links or a link in the external links section. In the World of Warcraft article it appears as:

CODE

<li><a href="http://www.wowwiki.com/Main_Page" class="external text" title="http://www.wowwiki.com/Main_Page" rel="nofollow">WoWWiki</a></li>

This post has been edited by KamrynMatika:

[tarantino]

I like Seth Finkelstein's on-target comment regarding this subject on Jimbo's talk page.

Folks, the deep reasons for the song-and-dance about never-the-twain-shall-meet are 1) avoiding "self-dealing" between a charity and for-profit corporation 2) getting people to work for free is very difficult and it's dangerous if the idea takes hold that volunteers' work is being monetized. Now, regarding "self-dealing", remember, though Jimmy Wales may present a guru-dreamer image for press interviews, he's a former options-trading firm employee and a reasonably successful Internet businessman. It is absurd to think you're going to catch him committing serious IRS law violations for a trivial amount of money. He's completely clean there. People tend to "think small", imagining bottom-feeding ways of squeezing some chump-change via tawdry tactics like spammy links or penny-ante tax tricks. That's not what it's about.

[GlassBeadGame]

A couple of months ago I spent some time on Wikia looking for examples to bust them of overtly trading on WP's reputation, name, trademark or good faith. What I was looking for was "Based on the same technology as Wikipedia" or "lead by the sole flounder of Wikipedia." There aren't any. None.

Where did you look?

Wikia's staff have over 60 years Wikipedia experience among them! Wikia was founded by Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesley in 2004.

http://www.wikia.com/wiki/About_Wikia

Wow, not everywhere apparently. That is the kind of thing I was looking for.

[thekohser]

It's interesting that Jimbo has been not only utterly silent on this Talk page thread, he's been entirely missing from Wikipedia edits. I suspect he's just waiting for the thread to be safely archived, then he'll rejoin Wikipedia.

By the way, if you want a nice example of how some Wikia pages aren't tended too carefully...

Greg

[The Joy]

Wikia's got itself into some trouble with its buying out of the Gamewikis community. Even Gil Penchina and Jimbo tried to dissuade their fears, but, as you can see, the community is planning an open coup d'etat and have ousted their God-King. Lawyers are in play here too with Wikia's tendency to want only GDFL licensed wikis under its power and not the CC by NC or whatever it is.

If you want to see Wikia kill a community, now is your chance!

[GlassBeadGame]

It's interesting that Jimbo has been not only utterly silent on this Talk page thread, he's been entirely missing from Wikipedia edits. I suspect he's just waiting for the thread to be safely archived, then he'll rejoin Wikipedia.

By the way, if you want a nice example of how some Wikia pages aren't tended too carefully...

Greg

I didn't know the Upanishads addressed Wikipedia.

[Daniel Brandt]

Wikitruth is getting into this discussion with a new page:

If this sounds like a pretty smelly basket of fish, it most definitely was. So perhaps it comes to no surprise that when Wikia applied for tradmark status in February of 2007, [3] nary a peep was heard from the Wikimedia Foundation. Browsing the history of the Wikia trademark, one can see that there were 90 days given for any outside entity to contest or question the uniqueness and non-misleading nature of the trademark. [4]

We contend, quite strongly, that the Wikimedia Foundation should have definitely contested this trademark. A wiki-providing company, with millions of dollars of investment, calling itself "Wikia", is on its very face exploiting the "Wikipedia" trademark for its own gain.

One might ask, why was Wikimedia Foundation's counsel asleep at the switch? The counsel was aggressively playing the Protector of the Wikipedia Trademark role the whole time he was employed by the Foundation, until his resignation took effect on March 31, 2007.

Oh, that's right, I forgot. Brad Patrick was hand-picked by Jimbo, and it would have been inconvenient for him to object to Wikia's trademark application.

[GlassBeadGame]

Wikitruth is getting into this discussion with a new page:

If this sounds like a pretty smelly basket of fish, it most definitely was. So perhaps it comes to no surprise that when Wikia applied for tradmark status in February of 2007, [3] nary a peep was heard from the Wikimedia Foundation. Browsing the history of the Wikia trademark, one can see that there were 90 days given for any outside entity to contest or question the uniqueness and non-misleading nature of the trademark. [4]

We contend, quite strongly, that the Wikimedia Foundation should have definitely contested this trademark. A wiki-providing company, with millions of dollars of investment, calling itself "Wikia", is on its very face exploiting the "Wikipedia" trademark for its own gain.

One might ask, why was Wikimedia Foundation's counsel asleep at the switch? The counsel was aggressively playing the Protector of the Wikipedia Trademark role the whole time he was employed by the Foundation, until his resignation took effect on March 31, 2007.

Oh, that's right, I forgot. Brad Patrick was hand-picked by Jimbo, and it would have been inconvenient for him to object to Wikia's trademark application.

That is a remarkably high level of critique for Wikitruth. I am impressed with the effort. The problem is that the common origin of both words, "wiki," is not owned by WMF. Still it seems obvious that trading on the good faith and reputation of Wikipedia is the most valuable asset of Wikia, however subtle they are in accomplishing this.

[thekohser]

Wikitruth is getting into this discussion with a new page:

If this sounds like a pretty smelly basket of fish, it most definitely was. So perhaps it comes to no surprise that when Wikia applied for tradmark status in February of 2007, [3] nary a peep was heard from the Wikimedia Foundation. Browsing the history of the Wikia trademark, one can see that there were 90 days given for any outside entity to contest or question the uniqueness and non-misleading nature of the trademark. [4]

We contend, quite strongly, that the Wikimedia Foundation should have definitely contested this trademark. A wiki-providing company, with millions of dollars of investment, calling itself "Wikia", is on its very face exploiting the "Wikipedia" trademark for its own gain.

One might ask, why was Wikimedia Foundation's counsel asleep at the switch? The counsel was aggressively playing the Protector of the Wikipedia Trademark role the whole time he was employed by the Foundation, until his resignation took effect on March 31, 2007.

Oh, that's right, I forgot. Brad Patrick was hand-picked by Jimbo, and it would have been inconvenient for him to object to Wikia's trademark application.

That is a remarkably high level of critique for Wikitruth. I am impressed with the effort. The problem is that the common origin of both words, "wiki," is not owned by WMF. Still it seems obvious that trading on the good faith and reputation of Wikipedia is the most valuable asset of Wikia, however subtle they are in accomplishing this.

Speaking of trademarks, I still have the October 8th, 2006 e-mail from "Jwales@wikia.com" that told Wikipedia Review:

You are inappropriately using our trademarks in commerce, and this must stop immediately.

The nature of our website's "inappropriate" use of the trademark was to mention the word "Wikipedia" in terms of reference (that these were the types of articles we wrote), plus we used a tiny screenshot of a Wikipedia "before" and "after" page which was intended as a Sandbox demonstration of a blank article page versus one written by Wikipedia Review. The Wikipedia logo was barely visible in the low-quality reduced-size image.

Not to mention, Jimbo had been aware of our website since at least early August 2006, but he waited until a few days after I questioned him about the development of the WP:COI policy (October 5th) to issue a legal complaint against our site.

There was no mention of Wikia on the Wikipedia Review website, so I'm not sure what Jimbo meant by "our trademarks" when he e-mailed me from a Wikia.com address. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/rolleyes.gif)

Greg

This post has been edited by thekohser: