What are the differences between the Tolkien wiki sites?

Question

There are (at least) three Wiki website dedicated to Tolkien's works:

• Tolkien Gateway, The J.R.R.T. Encyclopedia.
• The One Wiki to Rule Them All (fandom.org), The LotR Wiki
• The Tolkien Wiki Community

and there's also

• The Encyclopedia of Arda, which isn't quite a wiki, but is somewhat wiki-like.

I notice that the third site seems much smaller, older, and looks like it hasn't been updated for a while (perhaps since as far back as 2003). But why are there three in the first place, and what is the rationale/focus of at least the first relative to the second?

Answer 1

Based on pages on the wikis' own descriptions of themselves and each other, and especially this self-history, I notice that the first one (the Gateway) is the larger in terms of content (over 11,500 vs ~6,500 entries) and community. In fact, the people surrounding both wikis had decided to merge about a decade ago, but Wikia (the company hosting the second wiki) apparently thwarted this. Some people from the One Wiki to Rule Them All migrated to the Tolkien Gateway and that's how things seem to stand today.