FANDOM Staff Blog

Hey hey, we're halfway through the Summer months already, and the last week of July also brings the second Technical Updates blog of July. With this blog series we aim to inform you about some of the bugs that have been fixed the past 2 weeks, experiments we are running or are about to run, and other general platform changes we may have made. The comment section also gives you another platform to reach out to us with questions or concerns.

• Having tested and retested it, both with and without the help of several helpful communities, the CodeMirror update is being rolled out to all wikis. This extension provides the syntax highlighting in MediaWiki's wikitext editor. Those using the 2010 source editor will notice some changes in the layout as …

Hello everyone!

Fandom’s biggest product commitment this year has been to build a better user experience, and we believe that a better ad experience is central to achieving that. As we talked about with our users throughout Community Connect, we understand that the ad experience for logged-out users has been a sticking point for a number of communities.

We’ve continued to make incremental improvements on the ad experience throughout the year.

• We’ve audited the technical performance of our ads and made performance improvements to improve page loading speeds as well as avoid memory concerns on users’ devices.
• Dramatically lowered situations where an ad loading could unexpectedly shift the position of content on a page.
• We have been strengthening …

Welcome back to our monthly* Community Partnerships blog series! Previously, we shared an introduction to gaming partnerships back in March and followed that up with an introduction to entertainment partnerships in April. *We missed May and June, and we apologize for that, but rest assured our team has been hard at work building relationships with gaming and entertainment partners.

Today, we’re excited to delve into another area of partnerships: how the Community Partnerships team builds collaborations between advertising partners and wiki communities to highlight upcoming releases, obtain cool perks for wiki editors, and more.

• 1 Bringing Advertising Value Directly to Communities
• 2 Assassin’s Creed: Shadows Activation
• 3 Building Stronger Connectio…

Are ya ready kids?

I’ve covered two fandoms in blogs so far - one about space wizards, and another about emotions fighting each other. In the year that is 2024, it makes sense to cover a certain fandom that’s behind my very creative username.

There’s one number that’s funnier than 24… SpongeBob SquarePants is 25 years old today! This is the first day Season 1 premiered on Nickelodeon back in 1999 (yes, that long ago). Now, before you ask, the show did technically premiere on May 1 at the 1999 Kids' Choice Awards (I’m writing this blog before the results come out, but congrats to SpongeBob winning the KCAs again in 2024). Nonetheless, it’s fitting to celebrate the show today as it’s summer and everyone’s happy, and the fandom has been having a…

Hello all!

Last month, we launched a Mobile Drawer experiment for logged out users. (Read more about it here!) Based on data and feedback, we're ready to test new variations on how the Drawer appears.

Experiment Name: Mobile Drawer: Variants

Test Launch: Thursday, July 18

Test Closes: 1 week

Will Be Tested On: 12% of logged out users (each variant will be shown to 3%)

Hypothesis: We believe the Mobile Drawer provides a convenient way for users to engage with Fandom's offerings. By testing variants, we aim to find the most impactful and engaging version.

Variants: We will be running four variants of the Mobile Drawer:

V1: Compact on page load, slides open on scroll.

V2: Compact on page load, remains compact.

V3: Default on page load, compacts on scro…

Eyo, my lovely people. Time keeps flying by. Feels like yesterday that I posted the last tech blog for June, and now we're already 2 weeks further, so I'm here with the first tech blog of July! As you know, we use these technical update posts to keep you all in the loop of what's happening on the platform by providing you with insights on some of the bugs that got fixed, changes we rolled out, and experiments we're running. If there's anything not clear or you have something to report, don't hesitate to reach out in the comments!

• 1 Notable Changes
• 2 Recent Fixes
• 3 Development Updates
  • 3.1 Engagement
  • 3.2 News & Ratings (N&R) team
  • 3.3 User-Generated Content (UGC) team

• Announced in May already but in effect since this week, non-emailconfirmed accounts are n…

As you may well know, the United States, where Fandom is headquartered and where the majority of our community lives, is having a Presidential election this fall.

It’s not Fandom’s role to discuss an election, so we’re not going to do so. Adjacent to that, though, is the topic of today’s blog, which is an overview and reminder of Fandom’s rules about politics and its role on the Fandom wiki platform.

One of the core strengths of Fandom wikis is that they are, most prominently, encyclopedic reference sites about the topics they cover across gaming and entertainment. What brings users to Fandom wikis is a shared celebration of a common interest, and that’s the fandom itself – whether you want to look up a piece of information, contribute conte…

Hello hello,

At Fandom we're committed to fostering a safe and inclusive online environment for everyone, especially our younger users. As part of our ongoing efforts to enhance child safety, we're excited to announce an important change coming to our platform on Monday. This change was anticipated in some of our Tech Updates in May, but it's time to give more details.

When creating a new wiki, you have the option to designate it as "for kids," which activates special protections to ensure that participating users have verified their accounts and are properly identified. The Fandom staff can also add this label later, the admins can request it by contacting us.

Up until now, users without verified email addresses have been able to contribute …

Hey everybody!

We have been publishing information about the experiments and tweaks in the Fandom Stars Wiki. After some conversations, we have decided to move the blog posts into Community Central to make them more visible to our users and give all of you the possibility to ask questions, make suggestions, and follow the changes.

This blog post is about a new experiment that we will run in the upcoming weeks.

• Experiment name: Suggested Pages

• Test Launch: Next week

• Test Closes: 3 weeks

• Will Be Tested On: New editors - to push them towards becoming loyal editors - and regular editors - to keep them active -

• Hypothesis: Providing editors with a call to action and links to potentially relevant pages after each edit, will increase editor retention and nu…

If you've visited our Closed Wiki page recently, you might have noticed it's been feeling a bit... well, closed off from the rest of Fandom. We heard your feedback, and we're excited to announce that a major refresh is underway! Our UX team is transforming this page to reflect the vibrant Fandom brand and say goodbye to that little remnant of the Monaco skin on Fandom in the middle graphic. Sorry, Monaco!

Tweak: Closed Wiki page design update
Launching: Next week
Premise: The Closed Wiki page is undergoing a much needed redesign. The update aims to modernize the page's aesthetic, aligning it with the current Fandom brand identity.
Designs