Help talk:Start a new Wikia
Wikia - creating communities
[edit] Time Until Approval 2
I sent out an application a few days ago and was wondering how long it should take before you read it and reply. If you don't reply within a few weeks should I assume it got lost or the email address was wrong etc. and send it again? -- 24 24th September 2005
- Please read Angela's response below. Responses usually happen rather quickly, but if you don't give a working e-mail address in your request, or if you don't answer questions about the request, there will be a delay. You may want to re-read the directions to make sure you did your part correctly.
- There's a lot to learn about using and administering wikis. I know I'm still learning, and the folks here are great about helping. If you haven't heard after a few weeks, you're probably right that there was a problem somewhere. Good luck! --CocoaZen 22:11, 24 Sep 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Time for Approval
How long does approval take, and who decides? -Maurrreen63.19.134.19 09:07, 10 Mar 2005 (GMT)
- Currently, I'm deciding all of them, though I sometimes seek a second opinion from Terry or Jimmy. The time taken varies between 6 minutes to a few days. For the majority of requests, I email the user for further details before deciding, so the approval time depends on when they reply to me. A lot never reply, so wikis go unapproved just because my proposal to alter the title or scope of the wiki is ignored by the requester. Angela 12:26, 10 Mar 2005 (GMT)
[edit] Already Covered?
It seems to me that "Check your idea is not already covered by an existing Wikicity" is too particular: Shouldn't we say, "Check your idea is not already covered by an existing wiki"..?
Consider:
- The Final Fantasy Wiki -- been around for a while, it's very good
- The Final Fantasy Wiki -- made a couple days ago, just barely starting
There are many good reasons to make a wiki if one already exists. But, we don't want to make a duplicate wiki, just because we didn't do any research.
(Case in point: If you google for "Final Fantasy Wiki," the first hit back is Blue Shinra, the first Final Fantasy wiki listed above. The same for "Futures wiki.")
- To expand on your point that there are reasons to make a wiki if one already exists, here are a few possible justifications to do so:
- 1) Is the existing wiki free content, that is, explictly licensed as such? If the only wikis that exist are proprietary content, a free new Wikicity is desirable (all Wikicities are GNU FDL, though I do note that the copyright assignment is broken on most wikis since Project:Copyright is a red link). The FF-Wiki has no copyright assignment on the edit screen and no copyright notice in the footer. The Intro claims that "all original content on this site is copyright-free", but that claim is of dubious validity if contributors have not explicitly assigned their contributions to the PD.
- 2) Does the existing wiki use CamelCase? CamelCase makes pages difficult to read, difficult to find through search engines, and is irreversible without manual user intervention (a program cannot know whether the real title of "MicroSoft" is meant to be CamelCase or not unless it uses a dictionary, a dictionary is likely to be insufficient for anything but the most basic wikis). To me, it is very much desirable to replace an existing CamelCase-wiki with a non-CamelCase-one.
- 3) What wiki engine does the existing wiki use? There are countless wikis which will forever languish in mediocrity because of a wiki engine with inferior usability, inferior functionality, or inferior scalability.
- 4) Is the existing wiki community open to new languages, and does the wiki engine they use support them? Most wikis are strictly monolingual. Wikicities will create wikis in new languages if there is a user interest to do so, and MediaWiki has excellent support for even very small languages due to its use on Wikipedia, which is available in over 100 languages.
- 5) Which policies does the existing wiki follow? Is it possible for regular users to influence the policies of the wiki, or do they just have to follow whatever rules the "GodKing" makes? A truly free wiki should also be free in terms of user participation.
- Just because there is already a wiki on a certain subject doesn't mean that Wikicities-based hosting wouldn't provide significant advantages.--Eloquence 19:19, 16 Mar 2005 (EST)
[edit] Favicons
Any suggestions on a utility that will make 16x16 icons? Mine apparently only does 32x32. --WestonWyse 09:35, 19 Mar 2005 (EST)
- [1] – Jello2 10:49, 19 Mar 2005 (EST)
- Well, that was easy! Thank you very much. --WestonWyse 18:27, 19 Mar 2005 (EST)
[edit] Essential Pages
I think terms of use and editing help should probably be added to the list of essential pages. They are both links in the default wikicity set-up. I think terms of use appears at the bottom of all pages (?) and editing help appears on each edit page. Editing help could be a redirect to more general help. Perhaps it would be useful to have a "vanilla" version of each or to link to good examples as some of the other essential pages do. --CocoaZen 23:31, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
- I wish cross-wiki transclusion would work. These should really both just take the content from here rather than needing to be duplicated on every wiki. I'll see if there's a way to make terms of use link here instead of to a local page. Angela (talk) 17:55, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
- Do cross-wiki redirects work? I agree that transclusion would be nice but perhaps that could be a work-around? -- PhilipR 12:55, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
[edit] update
New Wikia now come with some of these pages populated. And there is the Starter Wikia that has pages and templates that you can copy and tailor. --CocoaZen 17:40, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Quicky Wiki?
Puzzle Pirates was my Wikicity. It's only about a week old and out of control already.
Quite funny actually. I applied for a wiki then made a simple Main Page. I posted it on the Puzzle Pirates forums and BOOM. I created a couple of stubs as well as half the first section of the Main Page... tada! --Ihope 15:01, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
- I'm envious! ;-) I've promoted our wiki many times on http://www.twoplustwo.com , the premier poker discussion site IMO, and gotten some response but nothing like what you're describing! It'll come in time though - I can tell from the hit counts that people are reading. -- PhilipR 12:54, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Directing people who want a personal wiki
"Personal wikis and wikis for small groups, or individual schools are not generally permitted."
So, would it not be a good idea to tell them where they should go if they want one, and don't want to be part of a larger community? This was asked by dweekly, who runs the PeanutButterWiki - obviously there is some self-interest here, but I get his point. I think it would be good if there were more alternatives than just that one.
Does anyone have suggestions, or is there an existing list that we could direct people to? --GreenReaper(talk) 18:29, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)
- I usually point people to Wikibooks:Wiki Science:How to start a Wiki#.22Hosted wiki.22 and Wiki hosts which has a list of alternative hosts. I'd rather the list stay there rather than be duplicated here. Angela (talk) 19:13, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)
- I knew there'd be a list somewhere. Thanks! --GreenReaper(talk) 19:18, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Logo?
Having a bit of trouble with the Logo for my Wiki...I've uploaded it to "Image:Wiki.PNG," it's 135x155, but it still displays the default Wikicities logo. If anyone can help, I'd appriciate it.--Bottles98 13:44, 22 Aug 2005 (UTC)
- it should be Wiki.png, not Wiki.PNG --DCLXVI 13:49, 22 Aug 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Splitting "Start_a_new_Wikicity" for a new "Improve your Wikicity" page?
The bottom 60% of the page is mostly about how to promote and grow once you have started. It contains some jolly good material, which I have only just seen because I have never before been researching exactly what happens to start a wikicity. Those hidden gems should be separate and therefore obviously useful for people wanting to improve their site, not to start one.
We could probably do it by copying chunks to a new page called something like Help:Improving your wikicity. But is there already a page like that?
Robin Patterson 11:02, 19 Dec 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Plan your project
I'd like to suggest an expansion of this section, but I want to balance that with (1) readability and (2) a desire not to scare off potential founders. It could be sub-sections or a separate page? Some of the things I suggest adding are
- information about mentoring
- the suggestion that if they have not already contributed in a Wikia, that they do that for a short time.
- Some people think that because they've already contributed to other wiki that they know all they need. While that experience is certainly useful, founding a wiki and starting with a content-empty space, is very different than working on the Wikipedia (for example) which is much larger and more active.
- information about what kinds of things to expect when they first start (links to content in Central already, e.g., seeding articles, getting contributers.)
- other resources they can draw on as they found a Wikia -- in addition to mentoring, Central's forums, IRC, the starter Wikia, other Wikia, etc.
--CocoaZen 17:40, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Hey!
Why is it that every time I suggest a Wiki, it DISAPPEARS!?!?!? Smuggler Freak 22:40, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Add new request method
With the creation of Request Wiki, the process outlined on this page is outdated. I would prefer an admin to update the page, but I will go ahead if it hasn't been done in a day or so. --Imaginationac (Talk | Edits | Email) 01:48, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Mailing lists
Under the head "Join the mailing lists" two links are given: http://www.wikia.com/mailman/listinfo/ and http://www.wikia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikia-l but they both give a error 404:page not found. I don't know where the mailinglist can be found, but maybe someone knows? Greetings, Haje 13:46, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
- Found the right url's and fixed them; however, there may be more elsewhere, the wrong url's are probably outdated. Haje 14:56, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
