Forum:I believe Wikia is singular, not plural

The first question in the FAQ is "What are Wikia", implying plural, and I remembered reading somewhere that "the plural of Wikia is Wikia". I don't believe this will "stick", I see lots of evidence that people eventually start saying "Wikia wikis", not "Wikia wikia". Some things to consider: 1. In Wikipedia:Wikia, "External Links", David Cannon in 2004 described the contents of Wikia as "wikis" not "wikia", and in all the edits since then, no one corrected him. I trust the mob. 2. I generally hear people in the #wikia channel talking about wikis, not (plural) wikia, and Cal confirmed that's his sense. 3. The word Wikipedia, like the word Harvard, has no plural, because there's only one. Wikia has the same ending as Wikipedia, and it sounds very much like the word was intended to be analogous to Wikipedia, so analogy would suggest that saying "wikia in Wikia" is like saying "wikipedia in Wikipedia" or "harvard in Harvard" and expecting the first word to sound like a plural...it doesn't. In fact, I can't think of any proper nouns at all with the same form in the singular and plural. 4. If the analogy came from Latin words ending in "a" that are sometimes (rightly or wrongly) used in the singular and sometimes plural (data, media, etc.), that's a false analogy, because no manual of style will accept using them as singular and plural in the same context.

Hope that's helpful, Dan Dank55 05:36, 18 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Some of your points have a few mistakes in them:


 * 1) The contents of Wikia are wiki, as the content of Wikimedia are wiki. Whether you refer to them as wikia, Wikia wiki, or wiki, they are always wiki. Using wikia, or Wikia wiki is a term to distinguish one which is hosted by Wikia to one which is not. Because a wiki is not a Wikia only thing. It's also proper to use the term wiki to refer to what type of content Wikia hosts because wikia is a branding of wiki, not a type of content.
 * 2) We talk about more than just Wikia and it's wiki in #wikia. When we talk about Wikia wiki we use the terms wikia and wiki interchangeably for wiki on Wikia because they both apply (one more generically than the other), and only wiki to refer to a wiki hosted elsewhere. The term "Wikia wiki" is used instead of "Wikia wikia" because "Wikia wikia" doesn't follow the proper logic behind it. Wikia refers to the company, wiki refers to the type of thing which is being hosted, and such "Wikia wiki" stands for wiki hosted by Wikia. The term "wikia" is a shorthand form of "Wikia wiki" used interchangeably depending on how much we want to type, so if you tried to refer to a "Wikia wikia" it would be like saying "Wikia Wikia wiki", no sense at all. It's also not really a good idea to cite minor word differences from IRC Conversations, as in IRC we will all cut corners on our grammar and spelling because we don't have the time freedom that we have when typing something up for a wiki.
 * 3) Wikia and Wikipedia cannot be compared to each other that way. Wikia is a company hosting wiki, and Wikipedia is a single wiki, not a host. The correct comparison is Wikia to Wikimedia as Wikia hosts Wikia wiki, and Wikimedia hosts Wikipedia, Wikinews, Wictionary, and other Wikimedia wiki. Which brings out another flaw, there is in fact multiple Wikipedia. Wikipedia has multiple language versions, in addition to the Simple Wikipedia, of which are all hosted by Wikimedia. As all of the Wikia wiki are hosted by Wikia.
 * The finalized decision on the last discussion as I remember was basically this:


 * Wikia - The company hosting wiki.
 * Wikia wiki or wikia - Individual or multiple wiki hosted by Wikia.
 * wiki - The type of content being hosted by Wikia.
 * But honestly, this is quite a minor issue in comparison to everything going on in the Wikia community. ~ NOTASTAFF Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) (talk) (tricks) (current topic) Dec 18, 2007 @ 08:10 (UTC)

Well, I did make a mistake, I checked WP:Wikia, and I looked around for any previous conversation on the topic, couldn't find it, and assumed it had been deleted...Jack helpfully pointed me to w:Forum:Wikia is plural of Wikia. I will respond to the points made there. I think it's important, because any marketing guy will tell you that the worst thing you can do is to lose control of what your product is called (Coke, Xerox and Kleenex come to mind), but of course I'll yield as soon as the consensus is that it is not important. I won't copy your stuff over to there, DanTMan, because you didn't address my point...that people are not in fact using "wikia" as the plural of "wikia", which is the official position, and that because of certain features of the English language, you're not likely to be any more successful in the future in getting them to do that than you have been so far. (But of course, you're welcome to make your points there.) &mdash; Dan Dank55 15:24, 18 December 2007 (UTC)