Blog:Farewell to Fandom

We are making a tough announcement today about the future of the South Park Wiki on Fandom.

Our wiki has been home on Fandom since it was WikiCities way back in 2005. As the 835th wiki on this platform. We have an undeniable rich history here. As a community and some of us personally with Fandom. I myself have a deep history with Fandom, including on a professional level. Our wiki, even more so given its tenure on the platform.

The South Park Wiki on Fandom is considered one of the most organized and respected on the platform. Our wiki is praised by the South Park fanbase as the gold standard for South Park information on the web, despite what the parent company of this show may think. But despite all of the history and even past working relationships. Our treatment from Fandom as our host has left a lot to be desired, and despite putting up with it for years. We now feel a boundary has been crossed by the first point I'll outline below in our five points. Our community has spoken, and it's time to step up and take action that allows us to get the respect our wiki deserves, and the respect the South Park fan base deserves. We believe that can only be achieved off of the Fandom platform going forward.

That's why I'm announcing today that the South Park Wiki is moving to Wiki.gg. Effective immediately, today October 9th. (southpark.wiki.gg)

I plan to explain what this means and why Wiki.gg later in this post. But I want to make it absolutely crystal clear to the community, the fanbase, and to Fandom as to the reasons why we made this decision.

Censorship of Content.

The censorship issue has been a problem with Fandom for years. From not being able to post content that is (literally on another wiki on this platform) to not being allowed to screenshot key scenes in episodes. Fandom has been inflexible and strict on images for years. Despite pleas for flexibility. However, their censorship of words is where a line in the sand has been drawn. We noticed in April that we were no longer allowed to edit scripts and episode pages that have been on this wiki for years. Because they contain “terms of use” violations.

A few weeks ago, Fandom announced a strict, non-negotiable, and inflexible “Offensive Terms Policy”. This is the straw that has broken the camel’s back. Let me be clear, I fully understand and agree with the policy at face value. Nobody should be going around on any wiki, this one included, blurting out the N-word or F-word; it is common sense.

BUT Fandom's stance on being non-negotiable is where we take serious issue. Fandom has made clear twice that they will not budge for any wiki, for any reason, with this policy. Fandom's Director of Community Safety, Tim Quievryn, told me in discussions that he acknowledged it would be a “point of contention”. But Fandom would not budge on the policy for us. Their own policy page also stated this. Fandom’s general viewpoint on this is that we can ‘convey’ what we want to say through “censorship”. The F Word and With Apologies to Jesse Jackson are just two examples, of many, that show clearly we cannot effectively document this show with any type of censorship.

Fandom further stoked this situation by having **volunteers** (also known as the SOAP team) go around the wiki and star out/remove complete words, putting the edit description as “non-undoable”. Such actions like that mean we would never again be permitted to uncensor that word on that script page. We also didn’t have the capability to undo the SOAP members’ edit, and even if we did, it would mean that the page would be “frozen” due to the Abuse Filter, and nobody would be able to edit the page again without starring out or removing the offensive word.

Fandom Staff also hid what they called "offensive" edit revisions also across the wiki. Both of these extreme changes were done with zero communication prior to local staff or community-at-large by Fandom Staff, our Community Manager, or even by the SOAP member who performed such actions. We are talking about South Park here, not SpongeBob. This policy disproportionately affects us more than any other wiki on the platform, but again we see the pattern of this company overlooking this community in policy decision making and in the execution of a new change or policy, which has been a problem since 2017.

Anybody who watches South Park knows that the show always has and always will stand against censorship. We feel morally obligated to document the show fully and stand with South Park against censorship. Fandom has made clear that we are not welcome to do that here.

A clear lack of support

It’s astonishing to think we went from being on Community Central helping Fandom on something that solely made revenue, to where we are today: leaving. Fandom used to even go as far as to do South Park-themed events around the site to help the wiki. There was even a time Fandom staff conducted giveaways and even offered to promote the wiki. Those days are far gone. Since 2019, Fandom has ignored this wiki. Critical releases like Snow Day and Paramount Specials were met with zero support. Requests made to Fandom in the past, including for promotion, assistance with furthering our relationship with Paramount, or assistance during key events and releases in the past few years, have been ignored, rejected, or haphazardly done. Fandom does still give wikis on the platform special treatment akin to the examples I showed you above. But they are only reserved for gaming communities or the usual suspect TV/Movie wikis like Wookiepedia, Rick and Morty, and Game of Thrones wiki, as examples. The company has also excluded us for the past two years from the Community Connect conference as well, not inviting a single member of our administration or editor base despite us being a large, long-standing community on the platform.

Fandom, since 2021, has been given various attempts to try to repair its damaged relationship with our community. While I won’t sit here and claim they did absolutely nothing for us since then, I have to say that the amount of support we received was not what we expected for a wiki or show our size. It’s been clearly apparent in the last two years specifically that the company does **NOT** support or consider our community in anything it does, and the Offensive Terms Policy, which disproportionately impacts us more than any wiki on Fandom, is just an example of that lack of care.

Fandom’s corporate missteps

Fandom, on a corporate level more broadly, is on shaky ground. It’s long been documented, seen, and discussed how bad the ad experience is on the website for logged-out users. On top of that, Fandom adds unnecessary videos, AI-generated content, and a trivia feature that serves you ads and disrupts your article viewing experience. Fandom has been known to shoot up CPU usage on devices and can load slowly for folks with bad internet connections. On mobile, which accounts for ~70% of usage on SPA, the experience is just plain bad. You jump from one part of the page to the other as all the ads and extra content load, not to mention again the high loading times, ads, and extra unnecessary content.

Outside of the site, experience is just the corporate-level issues with this company. They have shown time and time again that wikis aren’t their priority. Laying off its support and community members, as well as their Wiki Representatives. A Glassdoor Review for Fandom from June of this year says, “There were multiple rounds of layoffs every year that I worked at Fandom. With a remote/global workforce, there was also poor communication around these events, so it was not uncommon to find out that someone was laid off when you tried to Slack them.” Of course, it is really a surprise to anybody after Fandom purchased MetaCritic, GameSpot, TV Guide, and others in a 50-ish million dollar deal.

Another problem is that they do not seek user feedback. Their Fandom Stars program and other feedback methods are dead ends. They do not discuss major changes (such as the Offensive Terms Policy) beforehand, only allowing for feedback on small changes. Their staff and Community Managers also do not pass on beforehand notice of significant site or policy changes. By the time you find out about a significant change (this has happened time and time again from Featured Video to the AI-generated “Quick Answers” to the Offensive Terms Policy). It’s from you finding it on your wiki wondering what the hell this is. Not from a beforehand notice or discussion or heads up. Their model of how they make changes and disruptive experiments is fundamentally flawed and disrespectful. This is just the surface of issues with Fandom’s policies and corporate-level issues. I encourage everybody to check out this video for more details.

Charting our own destiny forward and building the best place for fans.

With all of the reasons outlined why Fandom won’t work, I want to explain a little more about our philosophy and why we’re finally making this push to change things now. Fandom exists to make money and grow as a corporation. The goal of the South Park Archives? To serve the fans of South Park. Fandom (and while we’re at it, Paramount) simply do not understand what the good of a website is that documents all things South Park. But we’re all South Park fans, and we know the fans. We know what the fans want: to be able to find that script, that background character, that episode, or that song. They don’t want videos on some random game trailer or another reminder that you can subscribe to Paramount+. All we want in return for our hard work is support. We feel the love and support of the fans. Do we feel love from Fandom? Absolutely not? Do we feel any love from Paramount or the studio? No. We feel the passion of each other as South Park fans, and any opportunity for us to serve each other better with less BS from corporations that at this point haven’t done squat for us, less ads, less distractions, less censorship. That’s an opportunity we can’t and won’t pass up on.

Why you MUST take matters into your own hands to get anything accomplished

We have worked with Fandom for years and been involved in dozens of programs (Wiki Rep, Wiki Video Program in 2022, Fandom Stars, etc.) with Fandom, but they have virtually never advertised us, offered direct support, and rarely given us direct assistance with any matters of importance. We have not been included in events like Community Connect in the past two years, and our feedback has been ignored in numerous failed policy decisions, including the Offensive Terms Policy. Despite repeated requests for Fandom to help us create a connection with the studio for collaboration, they have ignored us. Our staff have gone out of their way through other avenues to create connections with Paramount, and they, too, have failed to offer us advertising or support. Without the support of either of these companies, whom have done nothing to help over the years, we feel we have to take matters into our own hands and do what is right for our community, and that is charting an independent path.

Why Wiki.gg

There aren't many competitors in the wiki landscape. It’s a space dominated by Fandom. The only other challengers to them are Wiki.gg, Miraheze, WeirdGloop, and Self-Hosting. Miraheze was unfortunately just not a viable platform in our view, although we’ve looked at it before. WeirdGloop, home to the RuneScape and Minecraft Wikis, makes some of the best-looking wikis on the web. But it’s pretty clear to see they are likely never going to expand beyond their current wikis, or at least the gaming vertical.

Self-Hosting is not a viable option either, due to the technical and expense constraints such a move could pose.

So that leaves Wiki.gg, the platform that launched in 2022, which was made primarily for gaming wikis. I had initial conversations with Wiki.gg staff earlier this year, and even though it was conveyed that they did not take TV Show wikis, we continued active discussions. As time went on, they warmed up to the idea, and so did our community as a whole after the release of Snow Day earlier this year when we really felt the abandonment from the two companies mentioned above in the previous section. I had the opportunity to speak with their senior management, who were excited about the opportunity to welcome us as a part of their community.

Everybody at Wiki.gg has offered, immediately out of the gate, something Fandom hasn’t truly offered in years: Ironclad support of this wiki and our mission to document all things South Park. I am truly grateful to EVERYBODY at Wiki.gg for their support, assistance, and hard work in helping us get to this day. I am super excited for our community more broadly to introduce ourselves to their growing platform and the over 800+ wikis on the Wiki.gg platform. We have full confidence in Wiki.gg as a great, stable platform, now and into the future, and in Indie.io as a company. We would not be making this move of such a storied, major community if we did not.

What Happens Next

Before I go any further, I want to be clear that this was a community decision. Our community at large feels the abandonment and is ready for change. Voting was conducted in August, and active members with the Editor role were notified to vote on Discord. We also reached out to current editors who were not in Discord to notify them to join Discord, via Message Wall, so their voices could be heard.

Voting was conducted on Survey Monkey and had 17 total votes.

The votes ended after one week as 17-0. With all 17 voters voting to move to Wiki.gg.

Voters included all current active editors and editors who also had other roles in the community, including Discord Mods, and by the admins.

Voters had approximately one week to vote and provide their input.

I again want to emphasize this was not an easy decision to make and that if we believed we had a viable path forward on Fandom, we would’ve stayed and tried to see that path through. We all know how Fandom responds to such moves. They will maintain this wiki regardless of our votes and preferences as a community. If you choose to remain on this community on Fandom, I cannot guarantee that it will be updated, who will edit it, or who will lead it in the future. I cannot guarantee that it will even stay up, as the risk of Fandom finding something offensive about every episode of South Park in a few months is only growing. However, you are more than welcome to do whatever you feel is best for you. If that means continuing to contribute here, that is perfectly fine, and we wish you the best of luck if this is what you choose.

I want to reiterate that forking means that most of our active editor base, our community at large including our Discord, and our staff will move on to the new community at Wiki.gg. With Fandom refusing to close this wiki, the South Park Studios wiki still somehow up and readable and is moving, there will be a three-way battle for SEO and your attention for edits and views. It’s an utter disservice to the fans on the parts of the two other platforms/websites mentioned. But we’re prepared to spread the word with the fans on our side and compete vigorously to build the most successful version of the South Park Wiki on the web. We can ultimately only control what we can control. It’s incredibly frustrating and disheartening to see Fandom keep this wiki up and also continue to use the branding of this community even after we leave given how little they actually care about this show, wiki, community, and fanbase. We all know the reason why they do this though, and getting this wiki removed is an impossible task. I mean again, they won’t shut the wiki because it needs to “have a home on Fandom,” but you don’t want the community to have a TRUE home on Fandom when you ignore the community and censor their content with glee. Make it make sense. It’s only for monetary purposes, and it’s disappointing.

So again being clear, this wiki will stay up. We wish it the best in the future, but as I said, you know where to find the most active and up-to-date information for all things South Park. There’s only one place, and it’s on Wiki.gg.

A note to Fandom Staff

This is particularly challenging for me, considering my previous connections with Fandom. I started here as an admin, and was able to work my way up to the Community Council and Fandom Stars feedback programs. At one point, I even had the opportunity to work as an employed contractor for Fandom. In 2020 and 2022, I attended two in-person Community Connect events. I’ve made friends here and have always given credit to the staff at Fandom for being cool. However, it’s disheartening that no one has ever truly gone above and beyond for our community. Nevertheless, it’s important to acknowledge the two individuals who made a genuine effort for our community: our former Wiki Rep, Kylara, and the Movies and TV Head for Fandom, Mandy. I genuinely appreciate their help over the years. There were others, like Isaac and Becky, who also contributed in helping us over the years. To the people at Fandom who did try, I want to express my gratitude and thanks. We do appreciate your efforts. It shouldn’t be surprising that I’m also leaving the Fandom Stars group and the Fandom Discord, effective immediately, since I only contribute to the South Park Community on the Fandom platform. I want to express here my gratitude and well wishes to my fellow users I’ve met both online and in person over the years from the Stars group and the Community Council.

Thank You

This wiki has had an incredible journey on this platform, and don’t get me wrong, we thank Fandom for being a place for this community over the past years. As we look to the future, though, I am optimistic about this wiki’s future on Wiki.gg. We have the power in our hands to do what is right for the fans, and we will continue to fight for the fans and to make the best South Park Wiki on the web. On behalf of all of us at South Park Archives, we thank you for your support over the past 18 years. We look forward to the next 18 over on Wiki.gg.

Thank you again for your support of our community.

-The South Park Archives Administration