User blog comment:Geoshea2000/ANNOUNCEMENT: We may move to Miraheze/@comment-961279-20200625154733

When looking at the two pages that list problems, keep in mind that some items are no longer applicable and some are complaints about individual users instead of the company. A few of the items that are n/a now are down in the "Redeeming Qualities" section but they don't mention that the running on outdated MediaWiki is being addressed via the UCP.

Personally, I like the cleaner look presented by Wikipedia and Miraheze, and I avoid the main pages of wikis here whenever possible because of the bouncing that occurs as the ad is inserted at the top of the page. That's typically the only advertising I see other than the suggested articles at the bottom and I don't remember taking any special steps for ad blocking or the like.

I also have a "functionality over aesthetics" philosophy, so I can identify with some of the complaints. But the funny thing is, it's actually harder for me to read pages on Wikipedia because I have dual widescreen monitors. I can liken it to the difference between a book where the words are printed across two pages together versus individual pages. I get around it by shrinking the web browser window down to a comfortable width.

There will be problems with individual users and administrators no matter where you go. You can't change that. They'll find things to hate simply to hate them. Unless you've got a very active team of admins who can catch them quickly and self-police their group, going to a different wiki host won't mean you wouldn't have problem users/admins. If you want to avoid pages with "poor and sloppy editing", that takes involvement from everyone, users and admins together, working consistently to improve them.

I don't really have any experience with toxic communities other than one instance with a bad administrator. A few months later, the community started proceedings to demote the admin, but they demoted themselves and left, expressing what kind of sounded like they thought they'd been betrayed. When I looked into it later, I learned what I bumped into was part of a consistent pattern of poor behavior and self-importance/exaggeration. My general impression is the wiki got better once that admin was gone.

The philosophy behind Miraheze as a wiki host is different: a non-profit organization versus a for-profit company. Beyond that, I think Fandom has more legal concerns driving their actions. A US-based company that is accessed worldwide has to do what they can to navigate the laws of more than just the US, including situations where country A has a law about a subject that country B doesn't. For example, if a Fandom staff member says, "We globally blocked that person because of X, Y and Z", it becomes a statement from the company, potentially opening them up to lawsuits.

I guess to wrap this up, I'll say going to Miraheze may have advantages, even if it's nothing more than the grass looking greener. But don't look at it as the answer to all problems, nor expect that some of the same problems you run into here couldn't happen there in the future.