FWIW I'd be interested in discussing hosting them on startrek.website if anyone here has a connect.
The Memory Alpha "bureaucrat" is user "sulfur", who has their Discord listed as sulfur#3610 on their user page.
The Memory Beta head administrator I believe is Captainmike, who has their Discord listed as Captainmike#1381 on the user profile page.
Other than that, there's also the List of Administrators on Memory Alpha.
The GamingWikiProject, while largely about game wikis, also helps people who want to build up an indie wiki project: Click here
Are they willing to help with the move? Or are they against leaving fandom?
I don't see a reason why any self-respecting editor of an extensive wiki would like to stay on Fandom. It provides no benefits, and they have regularly sabotaged wiki projects.
I assume it's the standard inertia-type reasons: doing nothing is easier than changing a bunch of stuff, not changing involves fewer unknowns, and they probably have ad blockers and custom rules that mean they don't personally have to deal with the worst of it.
If hosting them here, perhaps using a federated wiki software such as hubzilla would be of interest?
I think they would likely have significant storage and bandwidth needs - more significant than the examples provided.
... which other projects easily manage with donations.
The word "easily" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
I feel like it's basically...someone needs to just start it and "if you build it, people will come" kind of situation
I always like the Ultranomicon for Star Control. Simple Wikipedia style layout:
Not likely. It has been at fandom since 2005. They were the largest wiki site fandom had before they were fandom. Not sure if that's still the case but I doubt they would give up a cash cow.
But Fandom is not operating the wiki, the community is. They couldn't care less about "the cash cow" it is. Being the largest wiki by far makes them a prime contender to move over to another solution.
Fandom does care about cash cows, and will almost certainly do the same thing they've done with several wikis that have left: take it over, remove references to the move, and continue attempting to compete with the new wiki, leveraging their better SEO.
But if anything, Fandom considering Memory Alpha a cash cow would be even more of a reason to leave, considering that Fandom tends to cover those wikis with ads (that's why Minecraft Wiki moved).
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