Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-44780379-20200102214638/@comment-9605025-20200103010536

I am not convinced it has been permanently deleted. It is true that the "not a valid wiki" page typically comes up only when a wiki has been closed for a while or because of ToU violations. However, in the case of ToU violations, the database dumps are typically deleted as well.

OPisSEETHING, the file is an compressed XML file. You first need to use a compression/decompression program to decompress the file. The ".7z" indicates that it was compressed using 7-Zip's algorithm. Once decompressed, you will have an XML file. This can be opened using a web browser or a specialized program. I am not sure about other OSs, but on Windows, there is no associated program from XML files. Therefore, you have to use the "Open with" option in the context menu (what you get when you right-click the file).

If you have to recreate the wiki, you should be able to import the entire XML using Special:Import on the new wiki. However, if staff are willing to restore the wiki, that would be easier.