User blog comment:Brandon Rhea/Wiki domains will be changing from wikia.com to fandom.com in early 2019/@comment-366087-20180821151500

Bad marketing modeling. As mentioned by others, "wiki/wikia" delivers a message that a site is usually of a professional, encyclopedic nature, while "fandom" implies a lessor, forum/social nature.

Which *may* work for some topics while being disastrous for others.

If there is this insistence that "Fandom" is to be the new branding, what y'all should do is allow each wiki community to decide for themselves which URL they wish to be known for instead of forcing a change for all.

Personally, for a while now, "social media-like" venues have generated a less-than-positive experience for me and my family. Facebook, Twitter, etc, which has only grown worse since the news of Russian bots with unsavory intentions flooding the internet. DeviantART has been slowly shifting from its original intent to a social media "hang".

"Fandom"—I still *think* of it as "Wikia"—does not need to shift its paradigm to some form or clone of a social network.

My suggestion? Let "Fandom" URLs be the "News/Headlines" arm/side of the service, and allow Wikia URLs to remain the more professional encyclopedia branch that it's always been. At best, allow each wikia to decide which side of the company they wish to be viewed as part of.

After all, EVERYTHING has at least 2 sides. Two sides of a coin is still THE Coin. Two sides of a flag is still That Flag. Even a ball has two sides, inside and outside, and is still That Ball.

Fandom & Wikia can be two sides of The Same Great Service.