Forum:Why so many hub wikis?

I noted with some disappointment the creation of another Wikia hub wiki. Along with Entertainment and Gaming, that makes at least three separate wikis from Central for their individual hubs. Wikia (correctly, in my opinion) preaches the benefits of a more united community working together on a single project, but for some reason finds the need to split off hubs from time to time away from Central.

This is not beneficial to the overall Wikia hub navigation. Since the hubs now reside on separate wikis, it is more difficult to move from hub to hub. Users may not realise that they are now on a separate wiki, particularly because of all of these wikis now having an identical skin. This does not help users engage in the wider Wikia community.

It is also difficult for users who maintain hubs and try to keep them effective, looking good, and up to date. As a rule, it is always harder for someone to maintain a system if it is spread far-flung across multiple places. This results in unkempt hubs that often have dodgy information. Entertainment, for instance, has a hugely inflated list of wikis that simply is no longer effective. It also has a large number of directory pages that really are redundant and should have been deleted.

The general effect this also has is making Central less of a community hub than it should be. By splitting the community up into smaller sections, the potential of Central is greatly reduced. I would prefer that Central did not simply become a wiki wholly focused on support via forums and very little else. While support is certainly important, I believe that it does not fill out the whole ideal of what this wiki should be, and it does not fill out the meaning of its name - Community Central.

I urge that Wikia reconsider its continuation of making new wikis every time a hub of wikis becomes big enough. I instead advise that Wikia centralise more of its efforts in the name of community development. Wjxhuang, the 888th Avatar  {Talk} 10:49, February 24, 2010 (UTC)


 * 888Th Avatar, your concerns appear related to my earlier comment about hubs and central being broken, with Entertainment and Games and Sport now being the on three linked from the left menu bar along with Biggest Wikis . But the More link gets you to the Hubs Category which has 25 entries. !!


 * I would propose that some of the more specialist groups should be sub-hubs of one of a more limited number of true (main) Hub groups - all of which should be on the Left menu bar to help users find the smaller interest groups.


 * The Entertainment and Gaming sites appear to be being promoted heavily by wikia (obviously from biggest wikis these are popular sites) But they also appear to be easier to find than the more niche interest grouping and have the biggest numbers of editors. Hobbies appears to have been split into several other group, but was a natural heading like entertainment.


 * When i founded my wiki it did not fit in any real grouping to me so selected Hobbies as the most appropriate but it is also tied to several other groupings so I've added it to them to increase the chances of poeple finding it.


 * A related issu is what actual counts as a biggest wiki as there is no definition of what fits in the top 'featured' part of the page and i note it is growing steadily.


 * I agree moving them to separate sites appears to breaks the community up not unify it, a central way to navigate sites was logical - BulldozerD11 17:01, February 24, 2010 (UTC)


 * I would also add it seems as if the staff does not even frequent these hubs, as I've left comments at the Entertainment hub that have never been addressed. -- LordTBT Talk! 05:37, February 25, 2010 (UTC)
 * These hub wikis are mostly under the control/jurisdiction of the content teams. It is upto them to manage the content there as they see fit. As always, if you need a prompt staff reply, Special:Contact. --Uberfuzzy 19:36, February 25, 2010 (UTC)

New Style (Wiki) Hubs
It would appear that the left Menu has now been updated with the new (wiki) hubs and Lifestyle added with a lovely new look that promotes blogs and has a new scale of counting for the smaller wikia sites so we have an inconsistency between differing groups of wikis on the new hub wikis as to how they rate !

Wikia like supermarkets which have moved from selling food to also selling Cloths, Electricals, and Books, CDs, DVDs, Financial services etc. Wikia is moving from its core business of being wikipedia for Fan sites and other subjects that are classed 'What Wikipedia is Not' to try and sell every thing to every body with blogs and social networking features tacked on to everything. - BulldozerD11 19:21, February 25, 2010 (UTC)
 * Firstly, Wikia is unaffiliated with Wikipedia, and secondly, it isn't selling anything. --Yowuza yadderhouse | meh 19:31, February 25, 2010 (UTC)
 * Hi Yowuza - I think you misunderstood/misinterpredted my post to some extent, as I know that;
 * 1 - True Wikia is not directly connected with wikipedia. They are chalk and cheese (opposites but with some common trait's, i.e cheese and chalk are both high in calcium, but generally you would only consider cheese edible.)
 * a - Both started by Jimmy Wales.
 * b - Both have open editing and use the wiki / wikimedia software
 * 2 - Wikia is selling something - Advertising space & to a degree promotion for products such as the games, comic books and TV shows featured in the fanons in return for providing wikia contributors/editors with free space (in that you do not pay cash) to write, record and generally share your passion / love for a particular subject, which promotes the producers product on the net (popular things get more publicity and sell more product). In return the advertises get viewers from the many passive readers of the various wiki sites that are hosted by wikia. (as google, yahoo and others offer free search engines and other services 'products' for advertises paying to reach the eyeballs of those users / viewers).
 * Wikipedia and wikia run different business models and target different users. I was not saying they were the same. I was saying that material that was not acceptable to wikipedia under the guidance / policy wikipedia:wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not is material that wikia is targeted at (some - 'not all such material' as the policy covers a wide range of areas).


 * My analogy to supermarkets was that originally they sold basically food and household products and now sell avast range of products but they only deal with a few of them and dont offer the full range that a specialist shop does hence supermarkets are watering down the overall choice for consumers as other specialist shops close down. Long term it is not good, as you end up with less choice or in this case a watered down product.


 * - This was probably not as clear as it appeared to me when i wrote it, but it was what sprung to mind as a similar thing with diversification diluting the original product and ultimately damaging far more, focus and rivals are lost.


 * Right after my occasional visit to central / community wiki or what ever it is this month to see what is happening, Im off back to building a wikia - BulldozerD11 22:14, February 25, 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion
Having looked at the 'new' hub wiki's the tabbed sub division of the gaming wikis hub helps break it down into logical groupings and create sub levels.

I would suggest that this layout / idea should be used to consolidate the many outher groupings into 2 or 3 more main groups at the most with the existing ones below on the tab levels. So the current splintering of groups is reduced into a more hierarical arrangement.

- BulldozerD11 18:02, February 26, 2010 (UTC)