moment of silence for everyone who relied on AI chat bots for research when it’s going around saying shit like this.
[image description: search that reads “country in africa that starts with K”. the featured snipped is from www.emergentmind.com and reads “While there are 54 recognized countries in Africa, none of them begin with the letter "K". The closest is Kenya, which starts with a "K" sound, but is actually spelled with a "K" sound. It's always interesting to learn new trivia facts like this.” /end ID]
[I.D. an edited image of a group of cats standing in an elevator and looking at the viewer. text above them reads "please keep scrolling (we are in a hurry)". end I.D.]
gets paid by US Navy to advertise their events (one, two)
Alternative free wiki hostings (aka wiki farms)
Miraheze - started in 2015, non-commercial - no ads and runs on donations, wide array of MediaWiki features, wide array of allowed types of wikis and content, much autonomy for projects, custom domain and private wiki options
wiki.gg - started in 2022 by former Gamepedia staff, limited to video games, accent on involvement of game devs and thus hosting official wikis, has ads for anons (but only of games having wikis here)
Telepedia - started in 2022, limited to entertainment (although might allow other themes upon review), has ads for anons, replicates Miraheze structure
WikiTide - started in 2023, no ads and runs on donations (but also tied w/ premium version called WikiForge), largely replicates Miraheze but has stricter content policies, custom domain option
Other free options I'm aware of are either too limited in allowed content or are very outdated/unstable in technical department to recommend here (or in case of Neoseeker - I'm completely unfamiliar with it, and can't say anything about it), but you still can check them out, alongside paid hostings, on this MediaWiki page.
If you (or your community) are brave and dedicated enough you can go with self-hosted MediaWiki instance (aka independent hosting), like JoJo Wiki (who started on Wikia and succeed at overtaking the SEO) or NIWA wikis. This option, of course, requires funding and technical knowledge, but it's still very much possible.
How to find existing alternative/independent wikis
try to use "-fandom" filter for search query in Google, or use other search engines like Bing or DuckDuckGo
Indie Wiki Buddy browser extension - it modifies search engine results and performs redirects based on its centralized list of independent wikis; a new indie wiki has to be requested/submitted to get added [ Firefox / Chrome ]
Redirect to wiki.gg browser extension - same as IWB but for wikis moved to wiki.gg (as I understand, works automatically without dedicated listing) [ Firefox / Chrome ]
(simple) Redirector browser extension - in case the wiki is neither on IWB or wiki.gg, and it doesn't filter out search results - only performs redirect on whatever you get; a redirect has to be set manually - see this tutorial [ Firefox / Chrome ]
Fuck FANDOM, support real people, support indie wikis
Chinese sellers on Aliexpress are trying to sell giant land snail eggs as "Little Hatch Toys" which is adorable and hilarious except of course that this is the most illegal animal in the United States and even a zoo or scientific institution would get in trouble for having any
The fact that snails are top tier invasive species threats is such common knowledge in all the nature hobbies and sciences I constantly forget that I need to explain it. Why wouldn’t they be? They’re just non-stop eating machines that breed exponentially and the bigger they are the fewer predators they have.
To put it in perspective I bought 2 (legal) pet land snails in April and I now have several dozen because they reproduce asexually and nonstop.
Do not buy snails online unless you're absolutely sure about their legality in your state or country and are prepared to deal with culling offspring. You CANNOT let them go outside.
anyone else incapable of not thinking "wow the amount of people and layers of work that went into this" anytime anything ever happens or exists? and i mean anything. think about any random thing right now. think about the phone in your hands, your favorite blanket, a game at a stadium, an arctic expedition, an app nobody uses. all the designers, planners, organizers, manufacturers, sailors, pilots, drivers, any and everyone involved in getting that thing to you or to exist. everything manmade that exists in this world wouldn't be possible without hundreds or thousands of people being involved in its process. and I think that's nuckin futs
I highly recommend the book Thanks a Thousand by A.J. Jacobs! He decided to personally thank every person involved with the production of his daily cup of coffee and quickly realized how difficult that really is! He started with his barista and tracked down everyone from the farmer who grew the beans to the driver of the truck who delivered them to the cafe to the construction worker who paved the road for the truck to drive, and so on. It's an excellent read :)
![Zelda Wiki twitter: Fandom refused to take this wiki down after we returned to independence and now it looks like they are using generative A.I. for "quick answers" which are spreading misinformation. Please stop using Fandom. We do not approve of our past work being used like this. [Screenshot of FANDOM Zelda Wiki with Quick Answers feature]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/55df791ecf5b885002a8ef164826ff07/cca355bad3b8715c-54/s1280x1920/948ce234abb745ea67c95d7bc58aade423eb7712.jpg)
![Zelda Wiki twitter: IN one case, it provides "answers" for a completely unrelated franchise. [Screenshot of FANDOM Zelda Wiki with Quick Answers feature]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/dba0adad0a30f2d590ae05c4f7c0a839/cca355bad3b8715c-7d/s1280x1920/e7de260bae3d90e01cad8ae1a3e6032e202e3c79.jpg)
