Announcement about the Fandom Wiki Representative program

Update March 25, 2024: Check out our latest Staff Blog post, "Welcoming Fandom's newest Community Managers," for an announcement about the Wiki Reps who have converted to full time Fandom Staff members.

Hi everyone, I have some difficult but important news to share with you today. Over the next several weeks, we will be winding down and ending the Wiki Representative program as we head in a new direction with how we support the Fandom community—which includes bringing on a number of new, full time Community Managers to Fandom staff, sourced directly from the Wiki Rep program.

As of today, a number of Wiki Representatives have been impacted by this change. This blog will be the first in a series of updates over the next several weeks that goes into why we made this decision and how we will continue to support our wikis into the future.

As many of you may know, the Wiki Representative program—previously known as the Wiki Manager program—is a part-time, contract staffing model that began on Gamepedia and was brought over to Fandom in 2019 after Fandom and Curse Media joined forces.

The program has had a long history at Fandom. Still, first and foremost the best part about it has been the talented group of people who have been Wiki Representatives and Wiki Managers over the years. Before we get to anything else in this blog, I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge and thank all of them for everything they’ve done for Fandom, our wikis, and our users. They have been core parts of the community before and during their time as Wiki Reps, and we’ve enjoyed our time working with each of them. Their hard work and dedication have been truly appreciated, and we wish the departing Wiki Reps nothing but the best moving forward.

The reason we’re making this change is that, since last year, we’ve been working on overhauling our community support strategies, processes, and mission to make sure that we’re providing the best service possible with a team structure that we can bring to its full potential. That’s something that the Wiki Rep program, despite its many benefits, was not set up to be – even in its earliest forms. So we want to ensure that, as the platform continues to grow, the Community team is set up for long-term growth too, in a way that supports everyone involved as best as possible—including the community and staff.

We’ll go into more detail between now and Community Connect about what that strategy and mission looks like, but the most important thing to know right now is that we are shifting to a full-time staffing model and bringing on multiple new Community Managers who are joining us from the Wiki Rep program. These are talented individuals who should all be familiar faces, and you’ll get to know them even more in the coming weeks as they begin their new roles. You’ll hear more about that in a Staff Blog soon.

Over the weeks leading up to and after the program’s retirement, you’ll see the transition from the Wiki Rep program to this new support setup. As we work through this process, there might be a brief gap in time before wikis hear who their new points of contact are. We apologize for that in advance and appreciate everyone’s patience during this necessary but admittedly bumpy part of the transition. Supporting wikis is at the heart of what our team does, so we’ll be working to reach out as efficiently as we can.

I would also be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that many of you may have questions about the Wiki Specialist program. We are currently continuing with that program to provide content coverage and partnership support, so you will still see Wiki Specialists working within the community uninterrupted.

I recognize and appreciate that there are probably a lot of questions right now about what this announcement means, and a lot of blanks looking to be filled in. I can commit the following actions to you, taking place in early to mid-April, as part of that:

• We will introduce the new Community Managers to you, so you know who those new team members are who are joining our community support efforts;
• We will post more here in the Staff Blog about how our Community team operates, as the team setup has changed since last year even beyond this announcement;
• We will reach out directly to wikis that have a Wiki Representative to discuss how best to find support from April onward;
• Our Customer Support team is and remains always available to answer any questions you may have, whether your wiki has an assigned point of contact or not.
• We will discuss a number of aspects of the Community team setup in even more depth at Community Connect, taking place at the end of April.

If there are any questions I can answer in the comments, I will do so, but I apologize in advance if I’m not able to. This is a big announcement, and we want to make sure that we give it the space it deserves before we get into the details of what comes next.

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog, thank you to all of the Wiki Representatives who are departing for all of their contributions over the years, and thank you to all of you for your patience as we make this transition.

Brandon Rhea

Fandom Staff

Hey I'm Brandon, VP of Community at Fandom.
I'm a huge fan of Star Wars, Star Trek, and Marvel.

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