User blog comment:Vennu Mallesh/Request: Fandom sidebar be removed from articles/@comment-25739558-20160329051420

I personally don't feel like writing a long explanation about the relationship between Fandom and Wikia, so I'll keep it shorter.

Fandom is not solely a product of Wikia. Fandom and Wikia are projects working together to power each other, and Wikia is the home of most of the web's Fandoms. So, in short–yes, the module is an Ad. Wikia and Fandom are collecting interaction data from the module such as clicks, views, and errors–just the same as when they were finding a new global navigation bar.

Remember that Wikia is still a business, and they cannot solely work for the users and efficiently operate. No company can. Wikia is still growing, and they must find a way to efficiently match the wider Community–not just the percentage of annoyed users.