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Ever since I've become interested in 40k I've been using Warhammer 40K wikia as a source of inspiration or simply just to read about as much of the Warhammer 40K background as possible. Having recently joined Dakka and read a few disparaging comments about the wikia, I wondered just how reliable it was as a source of background knowledge. I mean, most of the info I've read up on seems to correlate with what others say (especially about the Imperium), but I'm not sure if others take this as canon or if the wikia is prone to people editing it with utter rubbish.

Really I was just wondering how others perceived it - it makes no real difference to me, just to sate my curiosity

Not reliable at all. Lexicanum is a much better alternative.

 Coolyo294 wrote:
Not reliable at all. Lexicanum is a much better alternative.

+1 to this, I've never really found any errors on Lexicanum. Some pages aren't quite as complete as I'd like them to be, but I'd take a lack of info over incorrect info any day.

Citations are not necessary to make articles on 40k wiki and it uses fanart. Not very reliable. Lexicanum requires proper citations, though older articles (usually pre-2008 before stricter citation rules were enforced) have reliability issues.

The reason lexicanum articles tend to be so short is they work only with what GW says, and because you need to cite everything specifically and this drives away more casual contributors.

40k wikia is good for inspiration, that I'll agree. But when it comes down to the nitty gritty, Lexicanum is far more adherent to the actual fluff.

Hmm, Is Lexicanum a Wikipedia based site, with sort of grey background? I used to use that, but after finding the Wikia I switched. Problem is, many of the articles I read about on Lexicanum are exactly the same (I mean word for word) the same as the articles on Wikia, so which can I take as being true? Is Lexicanum using Wikia info? Or vice-versa? I'd rather read the Wikia as it's a bigger database, and more eye-friendly (Lexicanum is a bit harsh for prolonged reading), but if Wikia is unreliable I best switch back...

Thanks for the help, I may just keep a bookmark for both and if i'm not sure of something on Wikia - i'll cross reference it with Lexicanum.

This is Lexicanum.

@Coolyo294 - Yep, thats the one I used to use. IT seems like a worse version of Wikia, but i'll take all the above advise and switch back to it if it's more reliable. Thanks for the help people, much obliged.

That wiki is fanfiction- their bureaucrat even admits it. They allow fanfiction artwork to be used in article images, and users are allowed to write about speculation and make assumptions about how things work. They don't require footnotes at all, which are essential for ensuring accuracy. Most of the time they don't even require citations for claims. Usually when you look at the bibliography, they just throw out the name of the rulebook, the codex, and maybe a random novel.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
You also don't want to be using Wikia. You can go to Wikkii and ask the people who use that service about Wikia.

To give a brief explanation-

When you create a wiki at Wikia, they don't view it as yours, no matter what. The staff there view it as theirs, and you're just an admin on it. They don't even give you proper access to configure the wiki. If you ever do anything that the Wikia staff doesn't think is in line with what they want, even if you are the founder, they will remove you as a bureaucrat or sysop permanently and block you for "vandalism."


Automatically Appended Next Post:
What that means is that you shouldn't feed into the corporate machine by looking at their pages and giving them advertising money.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Warpig1815 wrote:
Hmm, Is Lexicanum a Wikipedia based site, with sort of grey background? I used to use that, but after finding the Wikia I switched. Problem is, many of the articles I read about on Lexicanum are exactly the same (I mean word for word) the same as the articles on Wikia, so which can I take as being true? Is Lexicanum using Wikia info? Or vice-versa? I'd rather read the Wikia as it's a bigger database, and more eye-friendly (Lexicanum is a bit harsh for prolonged reading), but if Wikia is unreliable I best switch back...

Thanks for the help, I may just keep a bookmark for both and if i'm not sure of something on Wikia - i'll cross reference it with Lexicanum.

The users at Wikia blatantly plagiarized large parts of Lexicanum, so that would be why.

Lexicanum is more accurate.

The 40k wiki has more pretty pictures.

 LoneLictor wrote:
Lexicanum is more accurate.

The 40k wiki has more pretty pictures.

This sums it up really. I myself only use said site

 Warpig1815 wrote:
Hmm, Is Lexicanum a Wikipedia based site, with sort of grey background? I used to use that, but after finding the Wikia I switched. Problem is, many of the articles I read about on Lexicanum are exactly the same (I mean word for word) the same as the articles on Wikia, so which can I take as being true? Is Lexicanum using Wikia info? Or vice-versa?

I'm a regular at Lexicanum, we have a problem with the wiki plagiarizing lexicanum material. However recently the sole admin at 40k Wiki has finally started deleting plagiarized material. Admittedly, we've also had cases of people using 40k wiki information on articles in an attempt to expand them but they quickly get deleted.

For a while 40k Wiki was a valuable tool for people who wanted to create and document fanfiction, but these days there's a more devoted site to fan-fiction: http://warhammer40kfanon.wikia.com/wiki/Warhammer_40,000_Wiki. If you want to post fanfic online, I'd recommend using that site instead of the 40k wiki, whose fan-fic policy is less blatant.

Of course any new contributors to Lexicanum would improve its quality, particularly in the area of Black Library Novels which are very hard to constantly update given that several come out every month and there is a lack of contributors. It's like me and 4 other dudes.

Harriticus wrote:The reason lexicanum articles tend to be so short is they work only with what GW says, and because you need to cite everything specifically and this drives away more casual contributors.

I don't think that's entirely accurate. Lexicanum does, as far as I know, include anything that has been published under the official license, which means GW fluff just as much as Black Library, Forgeworld and Black Industries/FFG.
Which can be a bit of a problem due to the numerous inconsistencies between the various sources, which in turn result out of the lack of an actual canon. Most of the community still seems to be somewhat in denial about this (as I have been up until about a year ago), and from what I've seen, Lexicanum attempts to "merge" the various individual visions into singular articles - which of course may at times result in ideas being meshed together that were never intended to exist alongside each other. I can only assume that the choice of what goes into an article and what is omitted will often be based upon personal preferences (judging from the internets, the "Abnettverse" seems to be a good example for a controversial interpretation of the 41st millennium).

The awesome thing about the Lexicanum, however, is that it actually lists sources, so people can basically use this wiki as a starting point for their research and/or get a rough idea before they might take a look at the actual origins of the various information. For this reason, I suppose it absolutely remains the best place to start at after the actual GW homepage (which contains next to no fluff, but they do have a couple gems hidden in their PDFs ...). I've certainly used it a lot myself, though I noticed that the German articles are often more extensive. Which is surprising, really; I'm used to it being the other way around with public wikis.

@Lynata, while I agree that BL and other non-Codex but GW materials are 'secondary canon', its still a step up from 40k Wiki's fanfic heavy material. And TBH, BL and Co. actually fit in with GW's general rule of accepting personal interpretations of their fluff as general canon. As for contradictions, what are you talking about? This is GW were talking about - even the Codexes contradict each other.

 Lynata wrote:

Harriticus wrote:The reason lexicanum articles tend to be so short is they work only with what GW says, and because you need to cite everything specifically and this drives away more casual contributors.

I don't think that's entirely accurate. Lexicanum does, as far as I know, include anything that has been published under the official license, which means GW fluff just as much as Black Library, Forgeworld and Black Industries/FFG.
Which can be a bit of a problem due to the numerous inconsistencies between the various sources, which in turn result out of the lack of an actual canon. Most of the community still seems to be somewhat in denial about this (as I have been up until about a year ago), and from what I've seen, Lexicanum attempts to "merge" the various individual visions into singular articles - which of course may at times result in ideas being meshed together that were never intended to exist alongside each other. I can only assume that the choice of what goes into an article and what is omitted will often be based upon personal preferences (judging from the internets, the "Abnettverse" seems to be a good example for a controversial interpretation of the 41st millennium).

The awesome thing about the Lexicanum, however, is that it actually lists sources, so people can basically use this wiki as a starting point for their research and/or get a rough idea before they might take a look at the actual origins of the various information. For this reason, I suppose it absolutely remains the best place to start at after the actual GW homepage (which contains next to no fluff, but they do have a couple gems hidden in their PDFs ...). I've certainly used it a lot myself, though I noticed that the German articles are often more extensive. Which is surprising, really; I'm used to it being the other way around with public wikis.

Fluff inconsistencies are dealt commonly with a "canon conflict" section that gives both accounts.

Tadashi wrote:while I agree that BL and other non-Codex but GW materials are 'secondary canon', its still a step up from 40k Wiki's fanfic heavy material. And TBH, BL and Co. actually fit in with GW's general rule of accepting personal interpretations of their fluff as general canon.

Aren't you contradicting yourself there?
Whilst it is true that Gav Thorpe himself said that BL fluff is just as valid as any player's homemade Space Marine Chapter, doesn't that essentially validate fanfic?

The problem I see is that a lot of people will think differently. We all have our own ideas of what we want to accept as a "valid source" for our personal interpretations. Which is why I think the perfect solution would be a wiki that separates its contents into segregates sections (together with a note on where it's from) rather than mixing it all up in a single article. Interestingly, some Lexicanum articles do have "canon conflict" sections, but they should be much more numerous.

Tadashi wrote:As for contradictions, what are you talking about? This is GW were talking about - even the Codexes contradict each other.

I'd say GW is relatively consistent, though yes, even the studio changes its opinion from time to time (see Newcrons or GK Sorcery).
However, wouldn't it be beneficial to limit these contradictions somehow? The fact is that the more sources you add, the greater is the volume of conflicting information.
It is also my personal observation that some "outsourced" publications deviate far greater from GW's vision of the setting than their own codices in-between editions (excepting 1E, though even from the Rogue Trader era a lot of stuff has survived until today). Naturally, you will at times also have a novel that fits in nicely, but from what I have seen, a lot of authors just like adding stuff from their own imagination. And more often than not, this is the kind of fluff that contradicts with either GW's material or some other licensed product.

The old saying "too many cooks spoil the broth" holds true. The only solution is to "deal with it" and pick what you like, really, just like GW does it when they occasionally add some author's idea to their books but ignore others.

Harriticus wrote:Fluff inconsistencies are dealt commonly with a "canon conflict" section that gives both accounts.

That I noticed (actually mentioned it in this post before seeing your reply, hence the edit), but if you want to be consistent there, about every second article would have such a section. Perhaps it is that many editors aren't aware of the differences, or is it because some of them accept that various sources are capable of "overriding" another? How do you handle such conflicts, exactly? Are there different "weights" you people attribute to various sources? Say, Goto's "multilaser marines", for example. Or Mitchell's interpretation for the Schola Progenium. Dark Heresy's power gap between Astartes and "civilian" bolters.
Speaking of which, I've just replied in the Deathwatch thread, and now take a look at the Deathwatch article on Lexicanum. It lists FFG in the list of sources, yet the organisation is still as per the original GW vision. So clearly somebody must have cherrypicked, as there's no conflict section there.

 Lynata wrote:

Tadashi wrote:while I agree that BL and other non-Codex but GW materials are 'secondary canon', its still a step up from 40k Wiki's fanfic heavy material. And TBH, BL and Co. actually fit in with GW's general rule of accepting personal interpretations of their fluff as general canon.

Aren't you contradicting yourself there?
Whilst it is true that Gav Thorpe himself said that BL fluff is just as valid as any player's homemade Space Marine Chapter, doesn't that essentially validate fanfic?

The problem I see is that a lot of people will think differently. We all have our own ideas of what we want to accept as a "valid source" for our personal interpretations. Which is why I think the perfect solution would be a wiki that separates its contents into segregates sections (together with a note on where it's from) rather than mixing it all up in a single article. Interestingly, some Lexicanum articles do have "canon conflict" sections, but they should be much more numerous.

Tadashi wrote:As for contradictions, what are you talking about? This is GW were talking about - even the Codexes contradict each other.

I'd say GW is relatively consistent, though yes, even the studio changes its opinion from time to time (see Newcrons or GK Sorcery).
However, wouldn't it be beneficial to limit these contradictions somehow? The fact is that the more sources you add, the greater is the volume of conflicting information.
It is also my personal observation that some "outsourced" publications deviate far greater from GW's vision of the setting than their own codices in-between editions (excepting 1E, though even from the Rogue Trader era a lot of stuff has survived until today). Naturally, you will at times also have a novel that fits in nicely, but from what I have seen, a lot of authors just like adding stuff from their own imagination. And more often than not, this is the kind of fluff that contradicts with either GW's material or some other licensed product.

The old saying "too many cooks spoil the broth" holds true. The only solution is to "deal with it" and pick what you like, really, just like GW does it when they occasionally add some author's idea to their books but ignore others.

Harriticus wrote:Fluff inconsistencies are dealt commonly with a "canon conflict" section that gives both accounts.

That I noticed (actually mentioned it in this post before seeing your reply, hence the edit), but if you want to be consistent there, about every second article would have such a section. Perhaps it is that many editors aren't aware of the differences, or is it because some of them accept that various sources are capable of "overriding" another? How do you handle such conflicts, exactly? Are there different "weights" you people attribute to various sources? Say, Goto's "multilaser marines", for example. Or Mitchell's interpretation for the Schola Progenium. Dark Heresy's power gap between Astartes and "civilian" bolters.
Speaking of which, I've just replied in the Deathwatch thread, and now take a look at the Deathwatch article on Lexicanum. It lists FFG in the list of sources, yet the organisation is still as per the original GW vision. So clearly somebody must have cherrypicked, as there's no conflict section there.

Generally speaking, direct GW publication > Black Library > FFG. This is not an official policy though.

I don't handle the Deathwatch stuff on Lexicanum, there's a regular contributor who does that. I'll bring it up.

't was just the first example that came to my mind, really. If I had more time, I might be inclined to volunteer to pointing out more articles, but perhaps it helps if you just bring it up as a general topic ... like, a heads-up that editors should be more wary about this sort of stuff, and more "trigger-happy" when it comes to creating conflict sections?

Better prepare for more conflicts in the near future, anyways. "Only War" is due to release, and it will have stuff like female Vostroyans or medics with the Astartes Apothecary badge. Oh, and due to popular demand (lots of players campaigning on FFG's forum) they've now given all lasguns and las pistols variable charge settings whereas before it was just for the Triplex-pattern - which was actually perfectly in line with how GW did it as well. Yet, apparently more gamers have read the Black Library Uplifting Primer than GW's Inquisitor RPG (or even the 5E Guard Codex, though I admit this was a littlebit hidden there), and so everybody was convinced that power settings are standard. Eventually, the FFG writers caved in.

 MandalorynOranj wrote:

 Coolyo294 wrote:
Not reliable at all. Lexicanum is a much better alternative.

+1 to this, I've never really found any errors on Lexicanum. Some pages aren't quite as complete as I'd like them to be, but I'd take a lack of info over incorrect info any day.

There's out and out FAN fiction on Wikia........

@Lynata - my interpretation of canon would have the codexes first, then the RPG games, and then Black Library. And perhaps I was unclear regarding 'personal interpretation' - there I was referring to the so-called homebrew armies.

Fanfic is not canon at all.

Tadashi wrote:@Lynata - my interpretation of canon would have the codexes first, then the RPG games, and then Black Library. And perhaps I was unclear regarding 'personal interpretation' - there I was referring to the so-called homebrew armies.
Fanfic is not canon at all.

What is the difference between a homebrew army and fanfic, though? Both add something to the setting.

When it comes down to it, the concept of canon exists solely in the heads of the fans, some of whom, at some point in time many years ago, made it up by applying other franchises' policies to 40k, desperately clinging to the idea of an overarching consistency, a "unifying force" that would have any and all official sources expand the background side by side. Yet in truth, canon in 40k is an urban myth that gets propagated relentlessly in the community, and I've been fed the same hearsay and believed in it for years (actually using the very same "tiering" as yours) - until I became sceptical and started to hunt down comments from the people who actually work on this stuff.

I suppose "canon" is just an individual thing for each of us fans. Which is why many of us get into heated arguments about differing perceptions because dakkanaut A is going by the stuff he read in book B, whereas dakkanaut C is going by what he read in book D.
Basically: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=headcanon

Put like that, I have to agree.

I've spotted more than a few inaccuracies on the wikia site, so wouldn't view it as accurate.

Lexicanum is probably better, but check the citations, sometimes they don't say what Lexicanum says they say.

Wow, didn't expect that there was such a debate between these sites....

In light of what I've read I think i'm going to switch to Lexicanum, purely because I don't like the sound of the Wikia being solely based upon what you call 'Fanfiction'. Someone mentioned that Wikia uses, Fan-art, I presume this means pictures designed by fans? (if not please tell me what it is) Is this so bad because as long as references are not made to the picture and taken as canon (eg. 'Tu'shan carries a red stormbolter, as shown in said fanart'), then the pictures can just be taken as a representation of a character.

To be honest, I did used to read a lot through Lexicanum, my only problem was the lack of pictures to demonstrate what the text was talking about, and how the page's colours were slightly oppressive for reading it in length. Other than that (call me a sucker for pretty pictures ), Lexicanum was fine. The reason I used Wikia was simply because of the pictures and aesthetics.

To be honest, the only things I can really believe are canon now are GW, Black Library books and now - Lexicanum. I don't trust the games such as Space Marine and DoW simply because there's either a lack of info (though DoW seems to be given license to invent canon for the Blood Ravens), or there's contradictions (such as Space Marines Captain Titus leading the Ultramarines 2nd Company when I was aware it is in fact Cato Sicarius)

Anyway, thanks for clearing the issue up for me - i'll be a stauch convert to Lexicanum now if the general consensus is that it's the better, more reliable site. Thanks all.

 Warpig1815 wrote:
Wow, didn't expect that there was such a debate between these sites....

Welcome to dakka. Debates are our specialty. It's for this reason that I'd suggest talking about fannon here instead of taking it from the wikia as here people will do whatever they can to disprove it, thus showing whether it holds any truth or not. On the wikia, that doesn't happen. But yeah, lexicanum should hold all you need in terms of cannon.

p_gray99 wrote:

Warpig1815 wrote:

Wow, didn't expect that there was such a debate between these sites....

Welcome to dakka. Debates are our specialty. It's for this reason that I'd suggest talking about fannon here instead of taking it from the wikia as here people will do whatever they can to disprove it, thus showing whether it holds any truth or not. On the wikia, that doesn't happen. But yeah, lexicanum should hold all you need in terms of cannon.

Err, thanks - thats got to be the most official reply I've had yet. Oh and btw - loving the signature

I try my best

If I'm told, people post their own fannon on 40k wikia. So I wouldn't really rely on it if I were you.