Forking Policy

In most cases the content you add to a wiki is licensed under CC-BY-SA. That means that anyone can use the wiki's content, as long as they give attribution and agree that others can also use the content and any future variants of it.

One consequence of this is that wikis can fork. That means that someone can take a copy of the wiki, and host it off Fandom. We call it a fork, not a move, because the original copy stays in place, and the two sites go their separate ways - as if the split was a fork in a road.

Sometimes members of an existing community decide to fork a wiki. We are always very sad to see people move on in this way, but we accept it as part of the open source license we choose to use. Before that happens, we want to hear a community's concerns and see if we can help. We want you to be happy on Fandom, and will try to work with you to make that happen!

But ultimately, we respect your right to edit wherever you want and we understand that forks happen. We do not close wikis when a group decides to fork. The Fandom wiki will remain open for anyone who chooses to stay, and for any future contributors.

Wikis are not owned by any particular set of editors, but rather are a living project where people can come and go. So just as we respect your right to fork, we expect that those who fork respect the wiki they are leaving. That means allowing the wiki to have its own future without interference, so that remaining and future contributors have the best chance of future success.

To aid in this, we have a simple set of rules that we expect those forking to follow. The aim is to ensure everyone is aware of the limits and expectations.


 * 1) The wiki should be left intact and available for any future editors to use.
 * 2) *Do not damage the wiki you are leaving.
 * 3) **That includes deleting valid pages or images, adding false information, or otherwise damaging the content.
 * 4) *Do not change fundamental elements of the site.
 * 5) **This includes the name, theme and logo of the wiki, and any special features such as infobox styling and special CSS or JS.
 * 6) **The direction and topic of the wiki should also remain stable. It's not okay to try and change a canon wiki to a fanon one, for example.
 * 7) **All major changes to the Fandom wiki must be reviewed and approved by staff.
 * 8) The Fandom wiki must not be used to promote or advertise the new version.
 * 9) *A discussion of the fork, or an announcement, is permitted.
 * 10) **It's only fair to give you a space to talk to the community. This could be on a blog, on Discussions, or another public space.
 * 11) **A link to this discussion is permitted on the wiki's main page for up to two weeks. This notice should link to the announcement, not to the new wiki itself.
 * 12) **The new wiki's URL cannot be added to pages other than the discussion/announcement.
 * 13) **This includes not spamming message walls with notices directing people to the fork.
 * 14) Departing admins and other rights holders must make a clean break from the wiki.
 * 15) *Once a decision has been made to fork, it's not possible to want two different wikis to be the one, ultimate resource for your topic. So there is a serious conflict of interest in trying to admin what will become two competing communities.
 * 16) **Admins moving to a new fork, cannot also stay and try to influence the direction of the wiki they have left.
 * 17) **Staff will remove rights from departing admins, and allow new admins to be chosen once the fork is complete.

Forking is a drastic and often difficult move. We would, of course, like you to stay on Fandom! We have the advantage of a large and stable platform, with strong SEO and a large and dedicated staff team.

If you have any issues on Fandom, we are very keen to hear them and help resolve them.