Forum:Changes to the Create Wiki process

Hi everyone,

Today we are making a change to our wiki creation process and I want to take a moment to let you know what to expect.

Wikia has always been a place for people to document the topics which they are passionate about. Until now, the wiki request process has involved Wikia staff members evaluating each wiki request and accepting those which they believed would attract and sustain a healthy community. The new wiki creation system puts the power back in your hands and allows almost all requested wikis to be created.

Starting later today, all requested wikis will be automatically created and ready to edit within minutes. Users will be given a link to begin work on the new wiki before leaving the wiki request page. Wikis which might have been turned down in the past because they were of a personal nature, about a small group, or about a topic which we believed might not have enough of a broad appeal to warrant a full wiki, will now be given an opportunity to shine.

Does this mean that Wikia will allow more than one wiki for a given topic?

Yes, Wikia will no longer restrict wiki creation to one wiki per topic. While we strongly encourage everyone to improve existing wikis rather than creating new ones on the same topic, we will allow wikis on any topic (subject to our Terms of Use). If a user would prefer to document a topic differently than an existing wiki, then we encourage that approach. Each wiki will have an equal chance to create compelling content and succeed in its own way. Links between related wikis are encouraged so visitors can make their own choice about which communities to join.

What if someone copies content from my wiki to another wiki on the same topic?

Text added to Wikia is typically available under a free license which means anyone is welcome to reuse that content as long as they provide attribution back to the original creators and as long as both wikis use the same license. While it's fine to seed a new wiki with existing free content, Wikia does not encourage copying of large quantities of text or creating mirrors of existing Wikia sites.

What should I do if I see a wiki on a topic which violates Wikia's Terms of Use?

The first step is to talk to the wiki's admins about your concerns. It's likely they will change their behavior once they understand Wikia's guidelines. Serious violations should be reported to Wikia staff using Special:Contact.

Thanks! -- KyleH (talk) 15:51, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Discussion
Nooooo (with tears)! Wouldn't this make wikis more competitive than collaboritive? --Michaeldsuarez (Talk) (Deeds) 15:54, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Ugh. Allow me to express the grimace that's currently on my face as I read this. Yes, people should be allowed to make wikis on topics that they love and appreciate, populating the internet with content on the subject of their choice. However, that does not mean that Wikia needs dozens of duplicate wikis running around. I plainly don't understand the reasoning for this change&mdash;unless Wikia's staff is that overtaxed that they can't look at a wiki request and apply a common sense judgment to it, or they're trying to get (more) revenue by making (more) wikis that they can place (more) ads on. If this is a shameless ploy for more money, at least come out and state that's the reason. On Wookieepedia (one of Wikia's largest wikis, as staff is no doubt aware), we the administration have fended off hundreds of people who want to change our wiki away from the somewhat-encyclopediac standards we have set for it. Now, what Wikia is allowing people to do is take Wookieepedia's content and clusterscrew it to suit their own twisted aims. Because that's what already happened. There's a barely-existent inactive spinoff Star Wars wiki focusing on one subfaction from that universe and a majority of its paltry sum of content pages are direct ports from Wookieepedia. I went into Wikia's IRC channel to ask what can be done so Wookieepedia is at least credited for the work we put into that content, and they told me to fix it myself. Why is it the job of the original authors of content to stop other wikis from using content without crediting? I would think that's more of a Wikia issue, but I digress. The point is that this is the latest in another series of steps by Wikia to allow hundreds of crap wikis to populate their site. Now, they are taking away the common sense judgments that keep wikis organized coherently and cohesively by topic. Should I go to the Wookieepedia where I can conclusively say Palpatine was evil incarnate, or do I go to the Wookieepedia that lets me describe "Super Star Destroyers" as 8 km long, or do I go to Wookiepedia, where the inevitable mispelling is not only allowed but encouraged? This can and will be shameless exploited and will negatively impact the coherency of Wikia's wikis in general by giving incentives to users to create wikis that they like "in their own image." Yes, we know that our content is GFDL and can/is/will be used across the internet. But the idea of allowing other wikia wikis to be spun off just so they can jack and screw with our content is . . . both infuriating and mind-boggling at the same time. I cannot fully express my indignation with Wikia's decision, at least not without completely violating the WALLOFTEXT rule, but suffice to say, I'm quite displeased. Atarumaster88   ( Talk page ) 16:22, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with Ataru 100%.--Michaeldsuarez (Talk) (Deeds) 16:32, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Small wikis about a niche topic that few people are interested in a perfectly fine imho, but duplicate wikis are not. The only people - aside from the money people at Wikia - who gain from them are the creators, who are unable to work within the established rules at the original wiki or have been banned, etc., so decide to make their own wiki. I can only speak of the few spinoff Star Wars wikis that I've seen, but the majority of these duplicate wikis are utter tripe, misleading, or offer nothing that's not on the original wiki, only better. They don't make Wikia look particularly good. In the interest of the reader, I think that before duplicate wikis are created, the original wiki's admins should be consulted for their approval, though I don't expect that to happen. AdmirableAckbar 16:54, 25 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Desperation + No Money = Bad Ideas. And man, is it disturbingly transparent how desperate Wikia has become. I didn't think it possible you guys could come up with a better way of slapping in the face the wikis who actually keep you guys afloat following that ad nonsense, but you've taken the cake this time. This is unprofessional and embarrassing. I am embarrassed for you guys that you have no better ideas up your sleeve than this. You've opened the door for cheap imitators to steal the content that actually drives the individual wikis that keep Wikipedia in existence to begin with. What's the point of having three wikis all covering the same topic with identical content? Anyone can already steal content on any wiki, so why are you promoting it? You claim to foster a sense of collaboration but then you actively seek to splinter the biggest collaborative efforts that exist. At the very least you should be offering some kind of protection for your powerhouses: Wookieepedia, Memory Alpha. Maybe before you guys finally capsize you'll figure out Golden Rule of Business No. 1: There can't be two yous. Reward those who benefit you and make you what you are, don't punish them. Toprawa and Ralltiir 18:01, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I totally agree with the above comments. There's nothing wrong with small wikis as long as people are willing to work on them. But creating several wikis covering the same material is pointless. Rather than collaborate to make one wiki as good as it can be, the community gets divided and each wiki is inferior as a result. Another wiki on Star Wars, Star Trek, Halo, etc would only serve to clutter up Google searches, confuse potential contributors and frankly cheapen all the work that's gone in to the existing wikis over the years. Green Tentacle (Talk) 19:27, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * You realize the only logical response for those of us who are administrators or major contributors on your largest wikis is to think of every possible variation on our name and theme and grab it first, until this massively ill-advised little plan of yours is stopped by SOMEONE at Wikia who still has half a functioning brain cell. I assume you have at least one such person left, though he or she is clearly overwhelmed at the moment if mind-boggling stupidity like this is slipping through. -- Darth Culator  (Talk) 19:47, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Now wikia will be known as a wiki-spam site, where anybody could create a wiki of a non topic. Come on, make the Vandalize wiki &mdash; A wiki which anyone can vandalize!, or whatever crap you can imagine, apart from the duplicate contents that was mentioned above. This would significantly reduce the quality of the overall wikia in general, so the reputation of wikia itself and its hosted wikis would be decreased.
 * What should I do if I see a wiki on a topic which violates Wikia's Terms of Use? The first step is to talk to the wiki's admins about your concerns (...) Serious violations should be reported to Wikia staff using Special:Contact. And the admins of the other wikis would have to spend our precious time to check if duplicate wikis are created, to advise its creators? What is the sense of having Wikia Staff then? --Ciencia Al Poder (talk) -WikiDex 19:54, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with every other comment that's been left here. As Ataru said, I too believe this is just a ploy to generate more ad revenue, and I think I speak for virtually everyone when I say that the communities should be benefiting from changes, not the wallets at Wikia, Inc. This is simply going to lead down a bad road, per everyone else. - Brandon Rhea (talk) 20:32, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Also, did anyone stop to think that this is going to kill the wiki adoption process? Why bother trying to clean up or revive an inactive wiki if you can just create a new one out of thin air with no vetting process and then "borrow" any good content from the dead one? -- Darth Culator  (Talk) 20:34, 25 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Darth Culator, that's exactly what I was thinking! No point in adopting and trying to clean up an inactive wiki anymore - you can just make a new one! :D I don't mind you allowing wiki's on smaller topics, in fact I think it's a good idea, but duplicate wikis? No way! This has to be the worst idea Wikia has ever had.

Ciencia Al Poder said: "Now wikia will be known as a wiki-spam site, where anybody could create a wiki of a non topic. Come on, make the Vandalize wiki — A wiki which anyone can vandalize!"

And now you can, Ciencia Al Poder! Anything goes! Ya!....>;(

WHLfan (talk to me!) 21:09, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

This sounds like way things work in the free/open-source software world. One may "fork" a project at any time, take the code from the base project and go off in one's own direction. This may sound like a very bad thing, but as experience has shown pervasive forks rarely happen. Most are short lived and usually are intended as temporary branches of the main code to be merged back once whatever was being done is finished.

Others die because the new features in the fork are simply copied back to an existing project, making the fork irrelevant. As such, developers and users have little incentive to migrate to the new project, which requires them to build an community and required infrastructure from scratch.

On the other hand, strong forks are an indicator that something needs to be improved in an existing project. At worse, forks are warning flags, causes for reflection on "what do they have that people want that we aren't giving them."

Speaking in a personal capacity, and not as a StarCraft Wiki admin, I do not believe the new Wikia policy is, on the whole, detrimental given the FOSS experience. However, in the interest in heading off truly superfluous forking, I'd suggest that new wiki proposers first be encouraged to integrate into an existing wiki or adopt a languishing wiki. "Forks" should also be required to show what makes them "unique" above and beyond an existing project, otherwise there will be unconstructive duplication. Given that most forks will languish, every attempt must be made to minimize the number of forks that occur. I leave it to Wikia to deal with the resulting clutter.

Thank you for your time and consideration. - Meco (talk) 21:30, 25 March 2009 (UTC)