Fandoms, to whom, or where they are, by definition, are a subculture composed of fans characterized by a feeling of camaraderie with others who share a common interest. There are many, hundreds of fandoms, and such wiki entries on Wikipedia. They're all over the world! If you're from China, have you hit up 银河科幻大会? There are so many articles, with their growing entries on Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons, yet we are here to discuss where they are, what they are doing and, importantly, the biggest issue around them.

The fandoms in this case, which for those who believe that's too vague of a description on Wikipedia, are explicitly the passionate fans of the very beloved games, Five Nights at Freddy's, or watchers of all-time favorite shows such as Doctor Who, or Link Click, if you will, have called for a more flexible Wikipedia. Despite being a world-renowned encyclopedia, Wikipedia seems to have fallen short in the department whose enjoyers are those with high levels of influence, and even purchasing power, no doubt. Fandoms have existed as long as Wikipedia. As two parts of the internet, and a very expressive one at that, fandoms on Wikipedia are rather thought to be not so full-fledged. Wikipedia and the fandoms go a long way, and the main point of interest for many editors, including me, is that I started Wikipedia because of my love for Five Nights at Freddy's, my excitement for TwitchCon, along with my interest in politics, which made me first read, then become curious, and eventually edit. Fandoms connect us to our interests and make them more accessible, thus their problems, or knowing what's happening, are important. (Unless you're interested in the meta parts, cause man, that's beyond me.)

Now, why is quite complicated here, but fandoms have several ways to infest and reinforce themselves, that is, art, knowledge and interest. Now, when fandoms discuss, they use Fandom the Website, but despite the websites out there having massive problems, a lot of fandomers in Gaming, art, and the media tend to not use Wikipedia as a primary source of their fandom discussion, excluding the knowledge of knowing something very specific itself rather than the fandom. "But we do have fandom articles!" I hear you say, and you are absolutely right; Wikipedia does have Five Nights at Freddy's, or Poppy Playtime and all that! Yet, they're very surface level and not primarily used, A major project that is WP:Video games has made efforts to bring a larger cooperation of editors to Wikipedia, yet, the project is focused on video games in a broader term than one may think. Globally, French Wikipedian friends over at the Projet:Animation et bande dessinée asiatiques are focusing on Anime and Manga-alike fandoms. If you're a fan of Boys' love, or as we Wikipedians say, Yaoi, Spanish Wikipedians have already made their article on a fandom convention that is Yaoi-Con, which you can find more alikes by Spanish Wikipedians over at the Categoría:Convenciones de anime y manga, but these are only examples I can count on one hand. So, if you wish take a look at these, media-wise, check out Category:Fandom by country. Now, we have concluded the main reason is flexibility of Wikipedia articles, which isn't really much when its wikis, because there's so many non-niche, and very mainstream fandoms that yet to primarily use Wikipedia as form of information gathering. Now Wikipedia is probably not gonna be somewhere where you learn about a game in-depth, you'd watch a YouTube video! cause it's more deep-leveled. (to be said, there are very in-depth fandom articles out here! not to undermine anyone)

Fandom-based wikis such that is were called out for being AI-slop and Advertisement filled, yet they have not seen any competition and still attract many people across the internet without one drive-through our Wikipedia. (Didn't get the reference? Internet is actually made of bunch of restaurants that we drive-through). Unfortunately, the Gemini AI that Google introduced slowed the usual traffic pace to Wikipedia, which is already well known. However, fandom-based wikis also took damage from it. Yet, fandoms themselves rather opened up their own independent or officially run Wikipedias instead of moving here or to fandom-based Wikipedias. For a lot of fandoms, having their own Wikipedia is a hard-notch job, so while this is not very popular yet, it may become a new traffic trend away from well-established wikis. A Much well (and obviously known example) is the Minecraft Wiki, which is completely run by the Minecraft community, partly-offical, and used to be on an established fandom wiki instead.

Another great example is the Spanish-based, countryball fandom, Polandball Hispana, who moved to it's own domain, from already established Wikipedia, Fandom the website.

You may not be so surprised to find out that a group of people who use their part-time to write on the internet are also part of large online or real-time communities with a special interest. You can even say I like FNaF.. Well, despite the high numbers of fandom involvement, the shaky yet inactive future between fandoms and Wikipedia looks even shakier. Now the question is whether what those Wikipedians do and think, are Wikipedians even around writing for their fandoms? Really, how many Wikipedians even took a great look at their favourite fandoms, interests, and even unfamiliar territory? Comes another problem; unlike fandom areas, Wikipedia does not have any centralization of what fandoms are, where they are, and how to reach them.

Wikipedians are a very well-fandom-dwelling bunch (well, as far as I'm aware!), and a lot of articles and projects have been raised by the editors in projects such as WikiProject Video games who have raised an eye-gabbling 2,600 GA-Class articles, including my all-time favourite Among Us. With that said, many fandom convention medias which you can find under . , have an example of what we call yearly following; a furry convention, that is anthrocon, has been consecutively archived as a form of Wikimedia in Category:Anthrocon at least since the big-old 2004! That's also subsequently connected to the Wikipedia:WikiProject Furry. Wikipedians are not only going to conventions themselves, they have a long history of doing so and consecutively following that determination. But that's only here; globally, French Wikipedians over at Categoría:Wikiproyecto:Ciencia ficción/Artículos have made some mouth-dropping 1200+ articles on fan conventions.

Conventions of multitude media, such as PAX, Gamescom, Convención anime or Comic Con, are a primary source for our eagle-eyed editors who might like to find images for the Wikimedia Commons, or press notability support for their favourite articles, that is. Especially for indie games, looking for examples. A primary example is the Undertale, particularly the article's usage of events and cosplays, and fandoms, or just simply have an eye around at the fandom article and the sheer amount of support conventions and gatherings did.

Now, we also have to adress all of this, while unfortunetly theres no one-project covering all of this, the gaming and fandom conventions tend to be under Trade shows; which the ones that's most influential articles that are e.g. Comic Con fall under the Wikipedian Project WP:Popular culture, which have raised or associated with many articles. A big project includes WP:Anime and manga, which has raised a somewhat unbelievable amount that is 43,687 Articles, and covers conventions such as AVCon and Anime Expo, which have also contributed to Wikimedia.

It's time to rip off the band-aid, cause is this even solvable? One may say that wikipedia is not meant for fandoms, and it'll never be a home, but I'd like to agree to disagree (partly), cause I believe that the main problem is that we are unable to document a much more personal aspect of that fandom, and we cannot grab them from their ankles and run-a-marathon with it! Theories make fandoms another unsuited gentleman, but we have one play-down: Conventions! and your projects. Project that brings us all together such as Wikipedia:WikiProject Anime and manga, for those who are interested in culture, Wikipedia:WikiProject Popular culture, or for table-toppers Wikipedia:WikiProject Games, if you're a TV fandomer, check out Wikipedia:WikiProject Television, or a very specific fandom fan? check out your own native wikipedia!; Fandoms are wide, and colourful, they're somewhat everywhere and you should give their project a try, while Wikipedia is yet to have any centralization on Fandoms, all of these already make-up those fandoms! so, we encourage all editors to check them out today!

While Fandoms and Wikipedia have long and historical ties to hold, the relationship came at a crossroads where the fandoms have to somewhat centralize on Wikipedia, in both reader and editor standpoints.

By yours, truly, CatPencil