5 Fan Wikis Which You Should Definitely Take a Look At.
The Internet has undergone many transformations since the public began to use it seriously. The biggest revolution could have been the creation of open tools that would make it easier for anyone to participate.
Wikipedia is probably the best example of this. It is a human-written encyclopedia that has produced a surprisingly authoritative online text. Wikis like Wikipedia democratize knowledge and, with the wisdom of the crowd, self-adjust its content as people explore and resolve conflicts.
Now imagine if this amazing power of community applies to something less serious? This is where the Fan Wiki finds its niche. Created by numerous avid communities, these fan wikis are dedicated to some of the most popular (or little-known) cultural treasures in the world.
Authors are deadly serious about documenting just about everything anyone would want to know about the fandom, and there are many things we can’t imagine that someone would want to know.
Wookieepedia
Star Wars is one of the largest fandoms in the world. It’s hard to imagine that anyone on the planet would not even know the name “Star Wars”. However, the depth of the Star Wars fandom goes far beyond the conventional films that make Disney billions.
There is a vast universe of books, games, comics, and more. Wookieepedia is the most comprehensive documentation of all of Star Wars, with a wealth of detail. Star Wars is notorious for the fact that nearly every on-screen object, robot, alien, and human has a detailed backstory.
The guy who loses his hand in the Mos Eisley cantina? It turns out he’s a renowned criminal surgeon who turns out to have deep connections to the Star Wars storyline. Yes, it’s a retcon, but you’ll find both canonical and non-canonical factoids like these, lovingly detailed on the Wookieepedia fan wiki.
Alpha Memory
Star Wars can make a lot of money these days, but Star Trek contains just as much in-depth knowledge and additional content that is neither a TV show nor a movie. It may not have such a large collectible market, but Star Trek fans love nothing more than a detailed study of the starship schemes and the fictional history of Gene Roddenberry’s utopian Federation.
Memory Alpha is the largest and most complete collection of canonical lore and Star Trek information on the web. Note the word “canonicalâ€Â, there is actually a separate site known as the Memory Beta that stores non-canonical information about Star Trek.
For those looking to deepen their knowledge of Trekkie, Memory Alpha is a must-see fan wiki site.
Television Awards
A “trail” is a general element or concept of a story that can be found in specific genres or an entire medium. In many ways, tropes are the main building blocks of stories, but sometimes the term has a negative connotation, which means that something is derivative.
Understanding tropes is incredibly important to both the people who love to consume stories and those who create them, so any fiction fan needs to bookmark TV tropes. It’s a wiki-style site where trails are documented, defined and attached to specific examples from every medium imaginable.
Just keep in mind that once you upgrade to TV Tropes, you could lose more hours than those abducted by the aliens from the X-Files.
LyricWiki
Whatever music you are, you will surely find the lyrics among the two million titles documented on LyricWiki All genres and even a few little-known names. It is also very useful if you are a fan of heavy metal bands like Amon Amarth but really can’t figure out what they are singing.
It has interesting user blogs, additional features like Song of the Day and a list of popular songs on iTunes. Artist pages include only their discography and full song lists. This is a fan wiki site with lyrics and nothing else, which is good.
However, on the artist pages, you will find direct links to their official website, Wikipedia article, and any other social networks. So it’s still a great place to get to know the music of a specific group or solo artist.
WoWWiki
If you haven’t lived on the moon, you’ve probably heard of World of Warcraft. The game is still hugely popular and never seems to die. While developer Blizzard has tried to make it as easy as possible for new players to enter battle, the truth is that WoW is insanely loaded with knowledge and the learning curve is still pretty steep.
This is why the community-created fan wiki called WoWWiki is such an invaluable resource. If you just want to learn more about the game without playing it, or are trying to become a new player. Heck, even WoW veterans will find a lot of things they didn’t know about.
WoWWiki is absolutely huge. With over 300,000 pages and 100,000 articles on offer, there’s no reason to worry about having to ask other players for answers. If you really want to connect with the community, WoWWiki has a section with forums and discussions that make an already exhaustive resource all the more.
There are many contenders for MMOs today, but they still haven’t reached the breadth and depth that WoW offers.
By the people to the people
Wiki is a great example of how millions of people who don’t know each other can come together to create something amazing. The only thing these fans have in common is their passion, they donate millions of man-hours just to keep everyone else at their fingertips with the most incomprehensible fandom-related information. We applaud them and hope these wonderful fan wikis never die.
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