The Hollow Knight community, in anticipation of the launch of Silksong, has decided to shift its entire fan-base wiki to a fresh virtual destination. In a public announcement made via Twitter, the fan-generated wiki team expressed its collective frustration, along with that of numerous readers, over the "aggressive ad campaigns" launched by its erstwhile host, Fandom. As a result, the past wiki has been effectively 'abandoned', with its complete content getting transferred to the newly minted website, hollowknight.wiki.
This move comes at a rather auspicious moment, right when the community is eagerly awaiting the release of Hollow Knight Silksong. Though a long time in the making, there is hope that the end of this waiting period is in the near future. In May, Team Cherry announced that the game's release would be deferred beyond the first half of 2023. While a specific release date isn't out yet, the timeline does suggest that the finish line is not too far.
This is crucial for the newly-created wiki, which will be the exclusive hub for Silksong content post its release. The Fandom wiki, while it can't be entirely shut down, has been advised against by the statement, both for visiting and editing purposes. The likely outcome is a considerable shortage of Silksong content, rendering the Fandom wiki mostly useless for the Hollow Knight community in the future.
Over the years, Fandom's exorbitant ad campaigns have faced increasing disapproval. This dissatisfaction led other major communities, such as Minecraft wiki and Wowpedia, to shift platforms a few months back. Their migrations demonstrate that the cyberspace need not be monopolized by a select few profit-seeking behemoths.
The Hollow Knight community's decision to leave Fandom is by no means an isolated incident. As was highlighted by independent developer and contributor mossbag, communities such as Minecraft, World of Warcraft, RuneScape, Terraria, and Fallout have also abandoned Fandom. This is largely due to the overwhelming quantity of ads and a lack of control over auxiliary content displayed on a wiki page.
It's not a rare sight to see disclaimers stating that wiki editors lack authority over the videos showcased on their pages. This issue, among other factors, is driving an increasing number of communities away from Fandom. As the anticipation for Hollow Knight intensifies, the game is slowly but surely becoming one of the most sought-after titles on Steam.
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