Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-1946079-20130802020921/@comment-4674838-20130802023452

The What Wikia is not article briefly mentions this topic. There may be better articles elsewhere. Here's a basic breakdown:


 * Similarities
 * Both companies were founded by Jimmy Wales.
 * Both sites use the open-source MediaWiki software.
 * Both are wiki websites consisting of community-created content which is available under a free license (CC-BY-SA).


 * Differences
 * wikipedia.org is owned and operated by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation.
 * wikia.com is owned an operated by Wikia, Inc, which is a for-profit company that makes most of its money from ad revenue.
 * The two websites and companies are not affiliated with one another.
 * Wikipedia can be thought of as "a single wiki website", whereas Wikia is more like a "network of wiki websites". Each Wikia community is able to set its own guidelines and manage its own content. Two Wikia wikis A and B might have completely different rules, userbase, and content. This is in contrast with Wikipedia where it is all ONE website, ONE community.
 * Wikipedia is an encyclopedia website, whereas Wikia is not necessarily like that. Basically what this means is that Wikipedia has strict rules about which type of content you can post on their website (Wikipedia:List_of_policies#Content) &mdash; in order to ensure encyclopedia-quality content. On Wikia on the other hand, you have much more freedom in the type of content you can post and write about, since each Wikia wiki is able to set their own rules and it doesn't have to be an encyclopedia. Wikia does have some global rules called the Terms of Use that all wikis must abide by, but these are not nearly as strict as the rules on Wikipedia, generally speaking.