Fandom updates - Admin Plus and External Platform Guidelines
Hi all! Hope you're all enjoying your summers - a couple of quick updates from me this July. Diving in!
Admin Plus is a course designed to teach admins the fundamentals of building and maintaining a wiki community on Fandom. It covers three core areas:
- Technical Foundations
- Content Development
- Community Building
Any users can watch the videos to learn how to contribute to their wikis, but please be aware that Fandom awards badges of completion only to admins who:
- Have served in an admin role for at least 90 days
- Manage wikis that have 100 pages or more
This was brought in due to feedback from wiki admins who wanted to know more about what being an admin entails. Admins have also been putting their adminship status on their resume or CV. With Admin…
Interactive Maps are here!
Hey all!
Fandom recently announced that Interactive Maps are live on the platform. As a recap, Interactive Maps is a feature available on Fandom where communities can design their own customized maps. You can place pins on an image that will lead to wiki articles when clicked on!
Interactive Maps are available to all communities, accessible from the the "Explore" menu on the local navigation, or by visiting Special:AllMaps directly in the URL. Currently, only admins can create Interactive Maps and here is a useful help page to do so. Of course, we encourage all community members to play around with existing maps and see how they work! If you notice any bugs, please contact me or go to Special:Contact.
If you're excited about this feature and would…
Fandom Wiki Rules and Blocking policy updates
Hey guys!
Recently, Fandom staff posted updates to the Fandom Wiki Rules and Blocking Policy. As a reminder, this is a global policy to aid the wellbeing of communities that all wikis have been following since 2021. These new changes go into effect on April 4th.
- An added section outlining what it means to be a good admin. Some tips include being open to users asking for advice, not acting as if you are the “owner” of the wiki, assuming good faith etc
- The “Need ideas for rules?” section was moved to its own page and added more example rules to be used if needed.
- An added section requiring a pathway to adminship. This is a system your community can set up to allow for long-time users who care about the wiki and community to eventually become admins…
The Downstream - September 10
Hey again folks!
Fandom is holding another edition of The Downstream on September 10, 2021 at 11am EST.
This 2-hour event is held on Twitch at https://twitch.tv/Fandom and is a bit like a mini Community Connect 4 times a year. Fandom staff brief viewers on what is happening on Fandom, with the latest news and updates.
In this edition, guests include:
- Joey Merkel, Director of Social Strategy & Operations, who will be presenting on how Fandom approaches social media and answering questions about how admins can manage social media accounts for their wikis.
- Maggie Owens, Sr. Analyst - Site Analytics, who will be explaining how Fandom tracks traffic trends on the platform and connects them to external events, like how the Spider-Man trailer caused certai…
The FandomDesktop opt-in is LIVE
Hey all,
FandomDesktop is available for users to opt-in and test NOW!
To access the new skin, you need to do the following:
- Go to Special:Preferences
- Click "Appearance"
- Click "FandomDesktop"
- Click any FandomDesktop preferences you want such as light/dark mode, content width, and right rail
- Click "Save"!
There you go, you're on the new skin! Now not all wikis will have theming set up and templates may look different. To help with this, there is a Preparation Guide to help admins prepare their wikis.
If you have any FandomDesktop bugs please comment below! Be sure to look at the Preparation Guide to make sure it's not a fixable styling issue. With bug reports, I need the following information:
- What browser are you using (Chrome, Firefox, etc)
- What editor? Vi…