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Talk:Wikia starter pages

Wikia - creating communities

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[edit] Community Project Proposal - Template Wikicity

(discussion moved from Proposed wikis))

When I started the protoscience wikicity I was surprised to find a large number of red links, particularly for "help" items. For example, upon trying to edit a page, there are red links for things like Project:Copyrights. If you click on "Help" in the navigation box, you get (There is currently no text in this page); not real helpful to someone starting a wikicity from scratch.

Proposal. Start a new wikicity called "Template" and then have a community effort to add pages that would:

  1. provide some content for all red links
  2. provide some useful pages that will help during the initial growth of a new wiki
  3. provide a few pages that every wikicity should have, such as a WikiNode page.

When people start a new wiki, maybe they could be given the option of starting with the Template wikicity. Alternatively, they could go to the Template wikicity and copy individual pages that they would like to use in their new wikicity. I think this would help save new wikicities from "recreating the wheel" to produce a bunch of pages that are just concerned with basic wikicity functions. JWSchmidt 16:41, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure that's helpful. Copying the template to every Wikicity just leads to 300 different versions of a page. Wouldn't it be better if those red links pointed to the existing help pages on the Central Wikicity rather than needing to be recreated every time? Angela (talk) 20:39, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
I agree with Angela, but I think it could be useful for wikis on other hosts, running MediaWiki. Install mediawiki, pop a database dump of this in, and semi-instant wiki :). But, it wouldn't be overly active after it's initial "completion", except when new major versions of MediaWiki come out. I remember when I first started the Radio control wiki, I thought it was pretty strange that there was absolutely nothing in there by default. --Phroziac (talk) 15:34, 20 Aug 2005 (UTC)
If this was made, it should really be part of mediawiki.org, not Wikia. Angela (talk) 07:54, 30 Aug 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

How about other language versions? — Danielwang 10:09, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Now it's all in place and locked, how do we improve it?

I've spent 20 minutes trying to find a starter wikia page that isn't locked. Even "talk" pages and others in the "Draft" category are locked. Surely all "talk" pages should be in the draft category (which means they disappear when applied to a new wiki) but unlocked so that people with ideas for improving a page can put the ideas in a relevant place? Robin Patterson 05:56, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

We've totally locked all pages on starter, notreal, and wikia-inc to staff and sysops only (and then we'd just sysop anyone on starter who asked to edit there). However, due to oversight on our part, sysops on starter apparently get created on all new wikia as well (we think). So to test this, I've sysoped you on starter (as you are a trusted central admin) and we'll see if it is a problem, and if so we can just fix it. --Splarka (talk) 09:13, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
Happy to be a guineapig! Now I'd better go and add some ideas on those Talk pages! Robin Patterson 08:48, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] For whom?

Can anyone edit here (assuming it gets unlocked, see above), or just like, should people just leave it to staff? I've got some useful (I think) templates/categories, especially concerning copyright, that might be of some use that I've cross-posted to a couple different wikis. Scottch 06:46, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

category:draft is no longer working correctly on the starter wiki, so discussion has been moved here.

[edit] General discussion

I think it would be a good idea here to give a choice for templates for different main page themes. Mindspillage

I like that idea. I wonder if different categories of wiki would tend to have different main pages. Like Main page/places and Main page/news (for current-events focused wikis). Main page/gaming maybe?. Angela (talk) 10:15, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
Doing RC-hopping... it looks like template ideas for what to put on the front page for different categories would be a help (places have local landmarks and current happenings, gaming wikis tend to feature info about releases and popular characters, band wikis give tour info and info about new releases, etc.). Also a choice of themes -- Wikipedia-like arrangment, monolithic pages, others... Mindspillage (spill yours?) 20:46, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
Some wikis with interesting styles:

Perhaps a Simplified Ruleset could be part of the starter package? Angela (talk) 07:36, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Example templates: [1].

Some thoughts:

  • we should use templates to hide some of the wikitext on the main page. It looks really complicated.
  • I think it might be better to link to Project:Text of the GNU Free Documentation License instead of copying it over since it shouldn't be edited
  • the Privacy policy links in the footer should be removed.
  • A lot of wikis have "wiki" in their title, so project:about (and others?) shouldn't say "This page is all about the Emil's Test Wiki wiki."
  • Help:Tutorial is a red link. Should this just link to Central?
  • MediaWiki:Licenses
  • Do you think we need a What is Wikia page detailing our mission etc, or at least link to that on central? (there's not yet a good page on this)

Angela (talk) 13:50, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

All done, except the last. That would be a good one to add though. -- @@@@

[edit] zh main page

Which title is better? Chinese Wikia Starter Pages or Wikia starter Pages/zh?--KJ_(talk) 18:21, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't it be at 首頁? Although, I wonder whether we need one of these starter wikis for each language, so that changes to the mediawiki messages and other common elements can be translated correctly too. So perhaps we should make zh.starter.wikia? -- sannse (talk) 21:14, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] other things for starter

  • Could we include links to the most popular templates for the home page and article pages?
  • tips for user pages
  • a guide to writing a manifesto
    • maybe "mission statement" would be a better term for this? Would it be useful for all wikia? -- sannse (talk)
  • Instructions for uploading a photo?

[edit] Help:Preferences

Terms that will need links to them: watchlist, minor edit, external editors, diff, stub Help pages needed: signature, external editors

[edit] French Starter

Launched late in 2008 by Marta (primarily a German-speaker) but soon got a native French speaker Ericaef as second sysop and more native French on the fringes. But, as Angela said in Nov 2008, it's not yet ready for service. Discussion is being centralised at present on the relevant talk page of the French Central Wikia: http://fr.wikia.com/wiki/Discuter:Starter, where the same people are active. Anyone whose Babel level is fr-2 or above would be most welcome to look in! If your level is fr-1 you are almost as welcome. French and English are used on talk pages. Marta's English is better than Marta's French. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 11:10, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Generic Starter Wikia

(copied from the talk page (here) of one of its editors)

Hi. What's the purpose and/or future of Generic? — Robin Patterson (Talk) 11:49, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Generic starter is planned to be used for new wikis in languages that don't have their own starter. It uses MediaWiki namespace messages which have already been translated so that it will appear in the user's own language (Welsh for example). Angela@Wikia (talk) 12:16, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Forum Project

Today, there are 2 forums : Help and watercooler. I propose to create a project forum wich should be used by users who wanted to contribute to the wiki project on each wiki. look an example on the french central forums

Cywil 01:09, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] sysop

can i be a sysop on the English Wikia starter pages wiki? --TSEPELCORY 20:27, November 4, 2009 (UTC)

Since these pages are applied to áll new Wiki's, Wikia Staff has made the Wiki only-edititable by Helpers, Staff & Sysops, and currently no sysops are needed. However, if you speak a certain language, you might be able to help on that language starter Wiki, or start it. Mark (Talk) • (Contribs) 16:35, November 5, 2009 (UTC)
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