Please Help Save the Gender Wiki
UPDATE: Fandom has told us that their decision is final, and the wiki will be deleted on April 13. (I shouldn't have to say it, but please do not harass anyone about this.)
I'm going to leave this post up for future reference, but some of the information on it (especially about archiving work) is outdated & shouldn't be used. More details can be found on this post.
Hello, Tumblr. I've never posted here, only lurked. But this is one of the most important things in the world to me, and I honestly need to ask you for help. Please reblog if you can.
This will be a long post. It will be summarized with a TLDR at the end, including ways that you can help.
With over 9,200 pages, we are the biggest collection of gender identities on the Internet, especially the biggest source that is readily available. We are a community that has existed since 2009, and has taken off in terms of growth in the last few years.
Today, Fandom decided to close the Gender Wiki. We were given absolutely no warning, and they've only given us a two-week deadline to move the entire wiki to a new host, which we are utterly unprepared to do. The download would also not include any of the 17,000+ images on the Gender Wiki, many of which do not exist anywhere else on the Internet.
Here is a link to the post Fandom staff gave us today, and a paraphrased summary of it below:
https://gender.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000000132176
Fandom staff says that they won't continue to host our wiki because it "spreads harmful misinformation". They believe we have gone too far in "positioning everything as a gender identity", referring to xenogenders. They mention pages with xenogenders referring to suicide/self-harm and violence --- which we, the staff members, were /already/ in the process of deleting before this notice was given to us. They decided that the best solution was not to ask us to delete those pages, or even delete the pages themselves, but instead to remove our entire database.
There are many other wikis on Fandom with much worse references to violence than the Gender Wiki, which Fandom appears to have no problem with whatsoever.
I cannot express enough that this is erasure, and it will absolutely negatively affect the LGBTQ+ community to not have this treasure trove of information readily available.
I am an admin on the Gender Wiki, and I can assure you that our entire staff team is already trying to appeal to Fandom staff. I'll add any updates if they decide to respond to us, but they have no yet given staff any more information than the above
PLEASE help in any way you can. Reblog, spread awareness, or sign this petition if you have a Fandom account, OR sign this petition instead if you don't --- please DON'T sign both, as this causes counting problems & can make the point seem less legitimate. (NOTE added Apr 1: The archiving project is on hold because we've lost the archiving site for an unknown reason. Pages don't Archive correctly. I will update soon with more info.) Archive any Gender Wiki pages, especially ones that don't have pages elsewhere, with the Wayback Machine or alternatively archive.is, or even write posts about them here or on other sites. Archives will be organized on this spreadsheet; please include the archiving site you used so they can be found later. Please help us save this information. It can't possibly be done this quickly without help.
TLDR: Fandom staff decided that, in two weeks, they will close the Gender Wiki, the biggest gender resource on the Internet. They gave us no warning. It will be impossible to save all of the information on the wiki. Please reblog or sign this petition if you have a Fandom account, OR this one if you don't (please don't sign both, it'll cause problems). Help save the data by archiving pages here or here (organized on this spreadsheet). (NOTE added Apr 1: archiving project currently on hold. Archiving sites aren't working.) Help spread awareness. Post about this with #save the gender wiki
Your contribution is greatly appreciated, on behalf of the wiki staff and all users of the Gender Wiki.
kianamaiart
yousharknotpass
pixelskylines
discoholicmusic
izzy806
turnnoffyourmind
