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The first language wikis have moved from Fandom!

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We are excited to announce to the Minecraft community that the first ten non-English language versions of the Minecraft Wiki have also moved to their own new websites! You can now also find the following languages here:

Since these wikis are all on the same host now, if a wiki article has counterparts in different languages, you can now find links to them near the top of the page you're reading, as well as in the sidebar. This helps you find the non-English versions of articles!

Some remaining language wikis are currently preparing the move as well and will follow to the new site in the coming weeks. Other language wikis (Czech, Greek, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Turkish) have more serious problems with being inactive and outdated, and do not have many editors or admins. If you’re interested in helping out with any of these and potentially moving them over to minecraft.wiki as well, get in touch with us via Discord!

Help the new language wikis thrive!

New search filtering in the latest version of the Indie Wiki Buddy browser extension

If you speak one (or more) of these languages, or if you know people who do, we once again need your help to make these wikis a success!

  • Spread the word! Tell your friends that the language wikis moved to a new place!
  • Don’t click on Fandom links. In search results, always pick the minecraft.wiki links instead of Fandom ones. This tells Google and other search engines which site is better for users.
  • Don't use the old domains. Change any existing URLs for these languages (“<lang>.minecraftwiki.net”, “minecraft-<lang>.gamepedia.com”, “<lang>.minecraft.wikia.com”, or “minecraft.fandom.com/<lang>”) to <lang>.minecraft.wiki – this helps us become more established and show up higher in search results.
  • Help improve the wikis! At the new language wikis, you don’t even have to create an account to make edits! If you need help with editing, most wikis have Discord servers or common discussion spaces where you can ask questions and get support from other editors.

Indie Wiki Buddy

We heavily recommend using the Indie Wiki Buddy extension if you want to get redirected to the new Minecraft Wikis more easily! It also hides Fandom search results on Google and other search engines, and provides links to our new wikis instead.

It recently got a huge update which makes it work even better! Get it here, for all common browsers: Indie Wiki Buddy.

Our issues with Fandom

If you do not know yet why we decided to leave Fandom, there were many reasons including intrusive ads and actions that Fandom has taken towards wiki communities over the years. You can read more about this on our original move announcement for the English Minecraft Wiki. If you would like a higher-level explanation, Hollow Knight YouTuber mossbag made an excellent video about Fandom and why so many wikis are moving away (including the Hollow Knight Wiki itself):

However, to add to the situation, we also came across some more issues with Fandom’s decisions regarding moving wikis, which we do not agree with and feel like are too important not to mention:

Fandom changes policies and acts arbitrarily

Before the English Minecraft Wiki moved, we were told by Fandom staff that language wikis on Fandom would be allowed to link to their English counterpart, even if it is not on Fandom. Some language wikis would have preferred to stay on Fandom but link to the new English wiki. However, once the English wiki actually moved, they reversed this policy, even though we had explicitly clarified before that this was allowed. Additionally, Fandom enforced this policy by completely removing the ability for administrators on all Minecraft language wikis to change URLs to other language wikis. This forced the international Minecraft Wiki community at large to either accept becoming separated from each other, or to move over to the new host as a whole (the latter of which is happening now).

We asked Fandom staff for the reason why they ended up not allowing language wikis linking to the new English wiki. We were being told it was because of SEO. However, when we asked Fandom's SEO team, they told us they did not know anything about this and redirected us to community management, who did not give us a proper reply.

Aggressive censorship

A global spam filter was set up on Fandom which disallows adding any links to our new wiki site (minecraft.wiki) anywhere on Fandom, which means that it wasn’t even possible to properly discuss moving on some language wikis. Similarly, they recently disabled all links to a competitor, wiki.gg, another large wiki site founded by former Gamepedia staff which hosts many official gaming wikis, including the official Terraria wiki and the Aether mod wiki.

Making it more difficult for wiki communities to decide for themselves

Fandom just changed their “Forking Policy” which outlines how wikis are allowed to move away from Fandom. In particular, Fandom wikis are no longer allowed to have any on-wiki announcement about moving at all, which had previously been allowed for two weeks. They are only allowed a link on the front page to the discussion about whether or not to fork (not the new URL directly), which must follow a specific format, be approved by Fandom staff, and will be removed as soon as the wiki actually moves.

This was enforced on the Minecraft language wikis, even though it was silently implemented only two days prior and the localized versions of the policy had not been updated yet. This holds wiki communities captive on Fandom and makes it much more difficult to escape.

All of the above shows that Fandom is actively working against the desires and wishes of wiki communities, and that leaving the platform in the first place was the right move. However, their aggressive crackdown on wikis that attempt to leave makes it difficult to do so, so it needs everyone’s support to be successful!

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