Board Thread:Support Requests - Getting Started/@comment-24.237.192.87-20170321101348/@comment-5811199-20170321110254

I don't think Patreon is the answer for a large online company like Wikia. While it has its benefits, especially for small content creators like YouTubers and other people in the entertainment or arts industry, it isn't appropriate here.

I think it's about the same as placing a paywall for certain special content like Fandom articles (and even Wikia articles..) - which they could implement directly on the site rather than through an external service.

Creating an account, as Ciencia points out, lets you view nearly all pages without ads through an toggle option in your user preferences. So, in a way, ads are a choice that users with an account can switch on and off.

What I can see is that they're currently improving the ad experience. You can take a look at Making Ads Better and Intro to Wiki Modernization for some details in what they're making to reduce the amount of ads shown to readers.