And various languages and frameworks have wikis too, like Python, PHP, WordPress, etc.
So there's definitely some interest in wikis outside of fandom topics. The Wiki listing pages on Wikipedia has at least 30% of the page listing wikis that don't involve a piece of media/fiction:
I suspect the disparity is probably because hobbies and fandoms could mostly only communicate via the internet, and naturally went from fansites and hobby sites to wikis. Meanwhile more academic subjects have an audience who seem to be unsure of the value of these sorts of free resources.
Fandom is complete and utter SEO garbage - every single fandom with enough nerds to have sense has moved off of it into an actual independent wiki. IndieWikiBuddy is an extension that actually takes fandom websites, and redirects google searches to the actual community run page. https://getindie.wiki/
Oh I agree. I like to link to non Fandom wikis when their available, use that same plugin in most browsers, and support things like the Nintendo Independent Wiki Alliance.
Sadly quite a few wikis still use the service, and haven't gone independent yet.
https://math.fandom.com/wiki/Math_Wiki https://encyclopediaofmath.org/wiki/Main_Page
And a few about engineering:
https://engineering.fandom.com/wiki/Engineering_Wiki
Plus a few about computer related topics:
https://dataengineering.wiki/Index
And various languages and frameworks have wikis too, like Python, PHP, WordPress, etc.
So there's definitely some interest in wikis outside of fandom topics. The Wiki listing pages on Wikipedia has at least 30% of the page listing wikis that don't involve a piece of media/fiction:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wikis
I suspect the disparity is probably because hobbies and fandoms could mostly only communicate via the internet, and naturally went from fansites and hobby sites to wikis. Meanwhile more academic subjects have an audience who seem to be unsure of the value of these sorts of free resources.