The biggest Zelda wiki goes independent to fight "corporate consolidation," urging others to follow suit

By Dustin Bailey
published

The Zelda Wiki is splitting from owner Fandom

Zeldapedia Wiki
(Image credit: Zeldapedia)

Zelda Wiki has announced that it is splitting from its owner Fandom in an effort to help "keep the internet free from corporate consolidation."

Zelda Wiki's editors say that the site's mission is "curating an editorially independent, high quality wiki operated by fans." But they say that they have "come to believe that these ideals are incompatible with Fandom." After "many months of preparation," the wiki now exists as Zeldapedia.wiki. The old Zelda Wiki at Fandom is still live, as well.

The Zelda Wiki is not the first major wiki to drop its association with Fandom. The Official Terraria Wiki went to the newly launched Freedom Games wiki network earlier this year, though that split involved developer Re-Logic and went down without this level of criticism of Fandom. The RuneScape wiki also split with Fandom years ago, back when the company was still called Wikia, citing "horrendous" advertisements and a push for "clickbait editorials" and intrusive video content.

Intrusive advertisements and non-wiki content are recurring criticisms from users of Fandom sites, though that certainly hasn't stopped the company from continuing to buy out independent wiki sites. That latter point, in particular, seems to be a big sticking point for the Zelda editors.

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"Following Fandom's recent buyouts and questionable staffing decisions, we feel we have no choice but to do our part to keep the internet free from corporate consolidation," Zelda Wiki's editors said in a public statement.

"We strongly urge our fellow wiki communities hosted under Fandom to make the same decision, and to help build independent wiki alliances such as NIWA and SEIWA, free from corporate monopolization and control. For those who are currently employed by Fandom, we urge you to unionize while you still can. We can keep the internet free from hegemonic control together, but it must start with us."

Some of the other independent wikis counted among those alliances include well-regarded resources like Bulbapedia and StrategyWiki.

The slow trickle of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom info is certainly going to give the wiki fodder for content.

Dustin Bailey
Dustin Bailey
Staff Writer

Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.