In the beginning, there was wikitext. Way back at the end of the last century, who might have suspected that this novel markup language would one day be the framework for the amazing array of fan communities that comprise Wikia, or the vast repository of human knowledge that is Wikipedia? As platforms for collaboration grow and evolve, the tools we use to contribute to them have to do the same. For almost two years, Wikia and the Wikimedia Foundation have been working together on an editing experience that's elegant, intuitive and most importantly, shows the user what the published page will really look like. Today we're excited to announce the first beta release of the VisualEditor feature on Wikia.

Making a first edit on a Wikia community s…

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As we began to define Project Darwin and discuss potential changes in site layout, one thing became clear: the ever-growing number of users on tablets demands a tablet experience that lives up to its use. In August 2013, almost 8% of the total traffic on Wikia came from tablet devices. 6 months ago, that number was just slightly over 6% and current trends point to a steady increase in tablet page views over the coming months.  

Currently (without fluid layout), tablets get what looks like a "zoomed out" version of what you see on desktop computers. This makes an article tiny and hard to read, while links and buttons are small and hard to click. Readers usually need to use multitouch gestures to zoom in on the article content area in order t…

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Have you ever watched a video online, thought it would be great for your wiki, added it and then come back the next day only to find that the video has been taken down due to copyright issues? This happens often with videos from sites like YouTube, where the content is not properly licensed. To offer you another solution, we’ve created Wikia Video, which contains 100% licensed and high quality videos for you to use on your community.

This week we’ve released another tool to make it easier for you to replace your non-licensed videos with our licensed videos—Licensed Video Swap (LVS). This is a new tool that allows admins to quickly swap videos from outside providers to the same (or very similar) video that exists on Wikia Video. How does thi…

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Wikia communities are evolving every day: fresh content is added, new fans participate for the first time, and seasoned experts find different ways to share their knowledge. Change and growth is at the heart of Wikia, and the platform for all of this amazing collaboration must also keep evolving. We’ve been listening to your feedback and collecting usage data about what works in our current product, and where we can make improvements to Wikia's look and feel. After taking a hard, honest look at all of this information, it’s time to start bringing those improvements to life with an initiative we’re calling Darwin.

Darwin will be an ongoing project to improve on a set of goals that are important to all of us: optimizing the user experience no …

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Hello Wikians! It's been a little bit over two months since we published our last Mobile update, where we introduced you to:

• My Wikia: Our flagship app, which allows you to search for your favorite wikis, read interesting articles in an elegant and customizable format as well as bookmark and share articles with your friends.

• Game Guides 2.0:  The ultimate app for quick and easy access to useful, detailed information about all of your favorite mobile and video game wikis.

Since then it's been an interesting two months and I'd like to share with you what we've been working on.

In the last two months we've had:

• ~ 180,000 downloads (iPhone & Android)
• ~ 8 Million page views
• ~ 36,000 Sessions per day
• An average (mean) session length of 3.5 minutes on iPhon…

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This week we're introducing a new way to track the health and well-being of Wikia Communities — WAM! The Wikia Activity Monitor (WAM) gives a Wikia Community a score between 0 and 100, based on a variety of measurements, including page views, contributions, and level of user activity. WAM scores are calculated daily for the top 5000, and the scores are displayed at http://www.wikia.com/WAM. Scores can also be seen on each of our Video Games, Entertainment and Lifestyle hub pages. Like all of the things that factor into the calculation, the scores and rankings are sensitive to real-world events and so will change frequently.

For example, it's no surprise to see the Wikia's Mad Men wiki score going up due to the show's new season starting re…

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I’m Stanley, and it has been a busy day for me! I'm the Mobile Product Manager at Wikia, and today I am happy to announce not only the release of the My Wikia iPad App, but also the second version of our Game Guides app!

Back before Wikia was focused on Mobile, Federico, now our Lead Mobile Developer, had an idea to make an app that would give gamers quick and easy access to the rich information produced by Wikia’s awesome editor community, anytime and anywhere. Federico made Wikia Game Guides as a weekend hack and the Product Team decided to launch the app thinking it would at least get some valuable feedback.

Over 300,000 users downloaded Wikia Game Guides in its first year. This may not be impressive when comparing with heavy hitters in t…

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Exciting news! Today marks the release of the first version of My Wikia for iPad, our official flagship app.

For the past couple of years, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed learning how users first discovered Wikia and ultimately, how they became loyal Wikians like you. A prolific contributor and fellow Product Manager, Trevor (Ohmyn0), became a Wikia-addict as he was watching LOST during college and this led to prominent roles on Scrubs Wiki and Arrested Development Wiki. I often wonder what would have happened if he had never stumbled upon Wikia after watching that one LOST episode. What a shame it would have been for him to never click the edit button?

We should never have to ask that.

What Wikians do on a daily basis is truly amazing and the rest o…

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"Mobile is the future!", "Mobile is the future of the world!", or "Mobile will dominate the future!"

You might have read similarly-titled articles around the web in the last couple of years. From new apps to skins, mobile is the latest big buzz. Here at Wikia, we have been similarly intrigued, and today I am happy to announce we have our own exciting mobile news!

We at Wikia are always looking to innovate and give you, the community, the best experience possible. Whether it's reading, editing, or just enjoying a chat with your favorite wiki community; we're always thinking of new ways for our users to enjoy their content and be proud of what they've created together. That's why we're developing the Wikia App!

This will be our flagship app that …

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At Wikia we're continually exploring different ways to help communities connect, collaborate and grow. An important component of that effort is making sure that readers and contributors know where to start interacting with a community, and how to keep up with all of the latest developments. Many of you have asked when you'll be able to try out the new Forum on your own wikis, and we're pleased to announce that the day has finally arrived! Our new Forum feature is now available to enable in the Labs section of WikiFeatures.

• 1 What is the new Forum all about?
• 2 What happens when you enable the Forum?
• 3 What's next for the new Forum?
• 4 Update: December 3

One word: Communication! This update to the Forum concept is meant to both encourage participation…

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