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

Hey Wikians. You may have noticed that, over the past year, Wikia has officially begun using the word "wikia" in place of "wiki." You'll see that reflected on Wikia a lot more now, so I wanted to take the time to give an overview of that change and to answer any questions you may have.

When we meet and talk to Wikians at live events, at our office, or online, we often ask what Wikia means to them. An overwhelming majority of them answer with "community," and we agree. Wikia is so much more than a wiki platform. While its foundation was built from MediaWiki, Wikia has grown to include robust community, social, and publishing features that make it much more, and it's important to show that Wikia is distinct from the typical wiki hosting service.

To recognize the uniqueness of Wikia communities, Wikia now refers to wikis as wikias, and we encourage&mdash;but by no means require&mdash;communities and users to do the same. It's a subtle change, and some of you may do it already, but we believe that it helps to establish your work and your communities as distinct and as the best source for fan-generated information across the web.

So, what are our goals here? By defining your community as a wikia, you'll be helping to recognize its firm position as part of The Social Universe for Fans, by Fans. Wikia is home to more than 300,000 communities and has more than 110 million global visitors each month. The information found on a wikia is often the most comprehensive and de facto source of fan-authored content around a topic. Content from a wiki on a generic wiki-hosting service does not necessarily live up to that standard. And as wikis become more and more prolific on the web, and as other media companies build wikis into their services, the uniqueness of the word wiki becomes less special. By telling someone to go to the wikia about a topic, they can know exactly what site you mean.

We also know that Wikia is only as good as its communities, so we're not going to force you into changes that you are uncomfortable with. You will see us using wikia instead of wiki in our space, like official communications and the new global navigation, but we will not be changing your communities' names; Avatar Wiki, for example, will not be renamed to Avatar Wikia, nor will it be referred to as such. We're also not forcing any users to use the word wikia instead of wiki, though we certainly encourage it! When we communicate in public and use the word wikia, we strike a balance between our branding needs and your right as communities to decide what your community's name is.

So now we want to hear from you. Do you intend to make the change? We're not going to change this branding, so feedback like "go back to using wiki instead of wikia" isn't something we're going to act on, but we do want to hear whether you want to use it or not.

Please share your thoughts! 