[9] The privately held, for-profit Delaware company was founded in October 2004 by Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesley.

Unlike the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organization that hosts Wikipedia, Fandom, Inc. operates as a for-profit company and derives its income from advertising and sold content, publishing most user-provided text under copyleft licenses.

[13] Fandom wikis are hosted under the domain fandom.com, which has become one of the top 50 most visited websites in the world, rapidly rising in popularity beginning in the early 2020s.

[14] Fandom was launched on October 18, 2004, at 23:50:49 (UTC) under the name Wikicities (which invited comparisons to Yahoo's GeoCities),[15] by Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, and Angela Beesley Starling—respectively chairman emeritus and advisory board member of the Wikimedia Foundation.

[27][28] On March 4, 2015, Wikia appointed Walker Jacobs, former executive vice-president of Turner Broadcasting System, to the new position of chief operating officer.

[citation needed] In February 2018, former AOL CEO Jon Miller, backed by private equity firm TPG Capital, acquired Fandom.

[1] Miller was named co-chairman of Wikia, Inc., alongside Jimmy Wales,[32] and TPG Capital director Andrew Doyle assumed the role of interim CEO.

[38] On March 11, 2020, Fandom released the Unified Community Platform (UCP), based on MediaWiki 1.33,[39] for newly created wikis.

[45][46] This policy was in response to a referendum on the Star Wars wiki Wookieepedia to ban deadnaming, which triggered a debate around an article about the non-binary artist Robin Pronovost.

[47] In response to the deadnaming controversy, Fandom also introduced new LGBT guidelines across its websites in late June 2021 which include links to queer-inclusive and trans support resources.

[48] In June 2021, Fandom began to roll out FandomDesktop, a redesigned theme for desktop devices,[49] with plans to retire its legacy Oasis and Hydra skins once the rollout was complete.

[55] On October 3, Fandom acquired GameSpot, Metacritic, TV Guide, GameFAQs, Giant Bomb, Cord Cutters News, and Comic Vine from Red Ventures.

[58][59] The image policies of Fandom communities tend to be more lenient than those of Wikimedia Foundation projects, allowing articles with much more illustration.

In contrast to the blogging feature of individual wiki communities, Fandom focuses on pop culture and fan topics such as video games, movies, and television shows.

In 2012, Fandom partnered with Sony Online Entertainment to create the first "Wikia Official Community" for PlanetSide 2, with the game's wiki slated to receive exclusive content and support.

[78] Fandom made similar partnerships with 2K Games during the launch of Civilization: Beyond Earth[79] and Warner Bros Interactive for Shadow of Mordor.

[citation needed] In 2021 the United States Navy hired Fandom to manage and promote esports tournaments and streams on Twitch.

[83][86][87] OpenServing used a modified version of the Wikimedia Foundation's MediaWiki software created by ArmchairGM, but was intended to branch out to other open source packages.

[85] ArmchairGM was a sports forum and wiki site created by Aaron Wright, Dan Lewis, Robert Lefkowitz, and developer David Pean.

Launched in early 2006, the site was initially US-based but sought to improve its links to sports associated with Britain over its first year.

Its MediaWiki-based software included a Digg-style article-voting mechanism, blog-like comment forms with "thumbs up/down" user feedback, and the ability to write multiple types of posts (news, opinions, or "locker room" discussion entries).

[citation needed] The software powering ArmchairGM was incrementally open-sourced starting in February 2008 with the public release of the SocialProfile MediaWiki extension.

The article's primary contributor, Nathan Steinmetz, complained that the decision undermined his research and efforts and considered Fandom to have set a "really bad precedent" of IP holders' ability to suppress user-generated content with press releases.

[107][108][109] Covering the Minecraft Wiki's departure for PC Gamer, Rich Stanton stated that most of the migrations began after the 2018 acquisition and Gamepedia's move to Fandom.

He noted that the Minecraft Wiki would have to compete with Fandom's better search engine optimization (SEO) and would have a struggle to establish a wider audience after moving.

[106][111][114] There is no easy way for individual communities to switch to conventional paid hosting, as Fandom usually owns the relevant domain names.

Other sales offices are located in Chicago, Latin America, Los Angeles (marketing programming and content), New York City, and London.