The people behind the most well-known and important Minecraft database have had enough. They want to leave – and are currently voting on it.
Minecraft has become increasingly complex in the years since its original release. Those who do not play regularly may fall behind on all the new features and find elements in the game world that are new and unfamiliar.
A glance at the internet often helps to clarify – such as the well-known English “Minecraft Wiki”. However, those who keep the wiki alive and up-to-date are fed up. They want to move the project because, in their view, the beautiful site is deteriorating more and more.
What has happened? The Minecraft Wiki is hosted by Fandom, which has been owned by TPG Inc. for several years now. The company has acquired many other similar services in recent years, so the wikis for The Witcher or World of Warcraft (“Wowpedia”) are also part of it.
The most popular Minecraft trailer so far:
The writers of the Minecraft Wiki have been complaining for months about a decline in page quality, which primarily affects users. A small Discord conversation ultimately turned into a large discussion. The main criticisms of Fandom are:
- Too much advertising even within wiki entries, which is designed to look like part of the entry.
- Negative experience for logged-out users, such as pop-ups asking for the reader’s age to serve personalized ads.
- The unwanted addition of features like “Quizzes” at the beginning of each page.
- A large, non-customizable sidebar that does not match the wiki design and bothers many.
- Links to other Fandom wikis, sometimes with questionable content.
What do the wiki writers plan to do? They are currently considering moving the wiki entirely and rebuilding it with another provider. However, they cannot simply “take everything with them” or link to the new page – this is only allowed for a few weeks.
In essence, it’s about the decision of whether to start anew for the sake of a good wiki experience, which is often aimed at younger audiences, under better conditions.
The wiki editor “Sonicwave” knows that they might be cutting into their own flesh:
The Fandom wiki [for Minecraft], even though it no longer has any of the current writers, will remain open without any indication that it has moved. It will likely compete with the new wiki and surpass it in Google results because Fandom has such good SEO.
How the wiki creators ultimately decide remains to be seen. However, it is clear that they probably will not put up with everything and desire to create a clear and informative site for Minecraft fans.
