Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-20644-20141110180435/@comment-5448890-20141111164528

I have an interesting standpoint here. I don't think the name "Wikia" as used to refer to a platform, community, and brand is inherently distasteful.

On the other hand, making giant huge bold Wikia, Inc. Property spaces with the word "Wikia" to refer to all three at the same time is confusing as hell, and I'm fairly sure that most users trust whatever they see on Wikia's official space--what they see on most wikis. And now, most wikis will always use "Wikia". "Start a wikia", "Have a problem with this wikia?", etc. This definitely will cause problems. New users who don't know the difference will insist that the wiki change how it represents itself (due to the human life-form's natural desire for fluidity), and that will induce, eventually, permanent change.

In addition, I'm also strongly against the overbranding of Wikia as a platform. It already offers hundreds of honestly unnecessary features for a content site. Features that aren't replicated on virtually any other wiki farm. You don't need to continually shove "Wikia's WIKIA and it will always be Wikia and there will never be anything like WIKIA so ENJOY WIKIA!" down our throats. As a new user back in 2012, it took me a grand total of two hours (after staring at Zeldapedia for most of it) to figure out that Wikia was a broad wiki host. Wikia is branding itself and placing this emphasis far above editing, and even above community.

Wikia claims that its content is what makes it unique. It is. However, overbranding the side and ensuring that no one wants to view the specific content and just wants to surf Wikia for hours is not helping your case. It's hurting it. It's preventing otherwise valuable editors from getting the encouragement they need to add factual content and, lately, even opinion content.

An example is w:c:worldoftanks. I adopted this wiki in 2013. I've been trying lately to convert the site over to a new tank template, but that's beside the point. In the tank and map pages, we strongly encourage users to post and edit posted opinions on them--anything from "the player's" point of view. Because this requires little encyclopedic knowledge, this is usually preferred to posting it. However, now, due to the popularity of wikia surfing, people just want to glance over those opinions (if they even see them) and go on to the next page or the next site. They don't want to contribute.

'''I don't need views. The average user doesn't need views. The average user and admin wants edits. '''