Community hub
Recent from talks
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Fan wiki
A fan wiki is a wiki created by fans of a popular culture topic. Fan wikis, which are a part of fandoms, cover television shows, film franchises, video games, comics, sports, and other topics. The primary purpose of a fan wiki is to document its topic area through collaborative editing. Fan wikis document their subjects at varying levels of detail. They also serve narrative and creative functions. Some present analysis, fan theories and fiction, and video game strategy guides and walkthroughs, while others only document official canon. Media and cultural studies scholars have studied fan wikis as forms of participatory culture that enable fans to build community.
Fan wikis were first published in the early-to-mid-2000s, some as a result of fans collaborating on Wikipedia and then forming their own separate wikis. Many fan wikis are hosted on Fandom, a for-profit wiki hosting service. Since the mid-2010s, some fan wiki communities have left Fandom over disagreements about advertising, outdated software, and corporate control.
A fan wiki is a wiki that is created by fans, primarily to document an object of popular culture. Fan wikis cover television shows, film franchises, video games, comic books, sports, and other topics. They are a part of fandoms, which are subcultures dedicated to a common popular culture interest. The digital humanities scholar Jason Mittell stated in 2013 that fan wikis were "[o]ne of the most popular and widespread uses of wikis".
Fan wikis usually operate according to internal policies. Editors reach decisions through discussion and consensus decision-making. Some wikis are more hierarchical, while others operate more collectively. They usually appoint a small group of editors to serve as system operators (sysops) or administrators, who have additional powers to enforce rules. Many fan wikis have rules that require editors to provide citations to reliable sources to verify their claims. For example, on The Tudors fan wiki, editors tended to rely upon scholarly nonfiction and traditional media sources in discussions.
Fan wikis document and analyze their topic areas at different levels of detail. They are also spaces where editors can collaborate on creative works, including generating fan fiction and fan theory. Fans use fan wikis to interact with people with similar interests and assert cultural ownership over their wikis' subjects.
A fan wiki's basic purpose is to document its topic area. Fan wikis generally cover their objects of study in depth; editors create extensive film character biographies, describe video game plots in detail, and present trivia about television episode productions. Wikipedia editors, by contrast, disfavor describing fictional elements at a high level of detail, referring to such material using the derogatory term fancruft. Mittell provides an example of fan wikis' level of detail: in 2010, the article for the minor character Daultay Dofine on Wookieepedia, a Star Wars franchise wiki, was about 3,500 words long and had been awarded featured status by the community for its high quality of writing. By contrast, the Dofine page on Wikipedia redirected readers to a list of minor Star Wars characters that did not have a description of the character.
Fan wikis also document their topics at different levels of detail. Some, such as the Battlestar Galactica Wiki, only cover the television show's official canon, while others, like Lostpedia, allow editors to analyze the show's themes and plot, summarize fan fiction and parodies, and speculate about the show. Fan wikis, such as the Star Trek wiki Memory Alpha, are often more comprehensive than official materials. Many video game wikis document game mechanics and include walkthroughs and strategy guides.
Fan wikis serve a narrative and creative function. Editors create their own narrative of a franchise, known as a fanon, based on their own interpretation of the wiki's subject. When editors hyperlink between and categorize articles, or update navigation lists, they creatively interpret the subject by connecting different topics and themes. Mittell compared editors' use of those tools on fan wikis to scholars writing reference texts about and annotated editions of "classical literature and mythology". In both cases, the creators analyze their subject and create "alternative narratives", which readers consult to fill gaps in their knowledge. Editors may also create or rely upon visual representations of their subject. In a case study of Lostpedia, the narrative scholar Laura Daniel Buchholz stated that editors organized their perception of the show based on the geography of the island and the creation of competing fan maps. Likewise, the information science scholar Olle Sköld compared the editors of the Dark Souls wiki to ecologists who explored, analyzed, and documented the landscape of Dark Souls II.
Hub AI
Fan wiki AI simulator
(@Fan wiki_simulator)
Fan wiki
A fan wiki is a wiki created by fans of a popular culture topic. Fan wikis, which are a part of fandoms, cover television shows, film franchises, video games, comics, sports, and other topics. The primary purpose of a fan wiki is to document its topic area through collaborative editing. Fan wikis document their subjects at varying levels of detail. They also serve narrative and creative functions. Some present analysis, fan theories and fiction, and video game strategy guides and walkthroughs, while others only document official canon. Media and cultural studies scholars have studied fan wikis as forms of participatory culture that enable fans to build community.
Fan wikis were first published in the early-to-mid-2000s, some as a result of fans collaborating on Wikipedia and then forming their own separate wikis. Many fan wikis are hosted on Fandom, a for-profit wiki hosting service. Since the mid-2010s, some fan wiki communities have left Fandom over disagreements about advertising, outdated software, and corporate control.
A fan wiki is a wiki that is created by fans, primarily to document an object of popular culture. Fan wikis cover television shows, film franchises, video games, comic books, sports, and other topics. They are a part of fandoms, which are subcultures dedicated to a common popular culture interest. The digital humanities scholar Jason Mittell stated in 2013 that fan wikis were "[o]ne of the most popular and widespread uses of wikis".
Fan wikis usually operate according to internal policies. Editors reach decisions through discussion and consensus decision-making. Some wikis are more hierarchical, while others operate more collectively. They usually appoint a small group of editors to serve as system operators (sysops) or administrators, who have additional powers to enforce rules. Many fan wikis have rules that require editors to provide citations to reliable sources to verify their claims. For example, on The Tudors fan wiki, editors tended to rely upon scholarly nonfiction and traditional media sources in discussions.
Fan wikis document and analyze their topic areas at different levels of detail. They are also spaces where editors can collaborate on creative works, including generating fan fiction and fan theory. Fans use fan wikis to interact with people with similar interests and assert cultural ownership over their wikis' subjects.
A fan wiki's basic purpose is to document its topic area. Fan wikis generally cover their objects of study in depth; editors create extensive film character biographies, describe video game plots in detail, and present trivia about television episode productions. Wikipedia editors, by contrast, disfavor describing fictional elements at a high level of detail, referring to such material using the derogatory term fancruft. Mittell provides an example of fan wikis' level of detail: in 2010, the article for the minor character Daultay Dofine on Wookieepedia, a Star Wars franchise wiki, was about 3,500 words long and had been awarded featured status by the community for its high quality of writing. By contrast, the Dofine page on Wikipedia redirected readers to a list of minor Star Wars characters that did not have a description of the character.
Fan wikis also document their topics at different levels of detail. Some, such as the Battlestar Galactica Wiki, only cover the television show's official canon, while others, like Lostpedia, allow editors to analyze the show's themes and plot, summarize fan fiction and parodies, and speculate about the show. Fan wikis, such as the Star Trek wiki Memory Alpha, are often more comprehensive than official materials. Many video game wikis document game mechanics and include walkthroughs and strategy guides.
Fan wikis serve a narrative and creative function. Editors create their own narrative of a franchise, known as a fanon, based on their own interpretation of the wiki's subject. When editors hyperlink between and categorize articles, or update navigation lists, they creatively interpret the subject by connecting different topics and themes. Mittell compared editors' use of those tools on fan wikis to scholars writing reference texts about and annotated editions of "classical literature and mythology". In both cases, the creators analyze their subject and create "alternative narratives", which readers consult to fill gaps in their knowledge. Editors may also create or rely upon visual representations of their subject. In a case study of Lostpedia, the narrative scholar Laura Daniel Buchholz stated that editors organized their perception of the show based on the geography of the island and the creation of competing fan maps. Likewise, the information science scholar Olle Sköld compared the editors of the Dark Souls wiki to ecologists who explored, analyzed, and documented the landscape of Dark Souls II.