Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-20644-20141110180435/@comment-20644-20141110193818

Cook Me Plox wrote: You realize that the global navigation is using MediaWiki pages, right? Yes. I'm assuming you mean that you can change what it says? If that's the case, that won't be allowed under the customization policy. The global nav is Wikia space.

Hedgeg wrote: Say what you want, but on Wikia (as on Wikipedia) simply does not exist a large cohesive community, although some exchange of experience and communication is exist (present?!). Good feedback. I would say that depends on what you mean when you say the word community, because there's a lot of different ways you could define it. If it's about everyone on Wikia interacting together, then you're right. Not all wikias interact in one big global community.

However, community is also defined by shared experiences and shared ideas. On Wikia, most people are here because they're passionate about something and because they love something. Whether it's a movie, TV show, video game, hobby, clothes, sports, or anything else, most people have that shared sense of fandom.

By defining Wikia communities as 'wikias,' it acknowledges that communities here stand apart from communities most everywhere else and that Wikia is the home of superfans.

Tupka217 wrote: I'll admit, for a long time, I was the grumpy guy saying "a wiki is an encyclopedic database, not a social network". But not everyone is an edit machine who can churn out encyclopedic content or maintenance. People want to air their opinions, review things, play puzzles and games... Wikipedia doesn't offer that. Some wikis used to have separate, off-wiki message boards (from proboards and the like) and IRC channels. Adding those features to Wikia adds transparency. Since you are the only wikifarm that offers it, branding is an important thing to think of.

Well said! Communities on Wikia are often different from wikis on a generic wiki host&mdash;but, going back to Cook's point, they can always still stick to the basics if they want to and not use all of the tools that we offer.