User blog comment:JustLeafy/Wikia VS Wikipedia/@comment-896291-20170914173033

Most of the time, I prefer to visit Wikipedia for just the most basic information. Their website design is simple, easy to navigate, easy to read (and can be modified if it isn't) and ad-free like nobody's business. They rely on user support and for lack of a better word, they get it, and seem listen and take heed of suggestions from their userbase instead of ignoring them. On top of that, a lot of their articles, while they do face vandalism and less-than-stellar edits, are almost always top-quality in terms of readability and 101-information.

Wikipedia.org is the website Wikia.com should strive to be. Wikipedia.org is the website a lot of fan-encyclopedias on Wikia want to be because Wikipedia.org isn't interested in becoming a hubspace for any one particular fan subject, and, honestly, they set the standard for all Wikifarms that followed. The site's standard of quality is demanding for anyone who wants to "hit-and-run" edit without providing backup on what they add to an article, but everything on the site comes out better for it, and I say this as someone who used to edit on the site for obscure things that were stub.

The best thing about Wikia is that there's a Wiki for almost any subject you like that Wikipedia is brief on for the sake of necessity or readability, not just cartoons, games or movies. I don't visit Wikia unless I'm on the wikis I'm moderating. My biggest problem with Wikia is by and large, a lot of wikis on the site are pretty borked in terms of organization, quality articles, and formatting, so I avoid them. There are a lot of places with visually impairing backgrounds, or color schemes that simply hurt my eyes and there's no real consideration to be people with visual disabilities on that end. A Wiki can have over a thousand articles, but the place will be a mess and admins struggle to get the place in order because their user base tends to be of the less-than-dedicated kind.

The fact that are quality Wikipedia-quality Wikis like the Dark Souls and Bloodborne Wikis (just as an example), is a huge miracle, because, man, does that take some dedication to the site from the admins, the users, and the subject material.

To make a long story short, I appreciate Wikia for the things Wikipedia isn't interested in doing, but in general, Wikipedia.org is a way more focused website in terms of usability and readability. Wikia.com has a lot of negatives that make this place less than fun to be, largely because I feel like feedback is ignored to the determent of the site in favor of revenue. The fact that there's no staff drama (from what I know) on Wikipedia.org is another plus.