User:Toughpigs/Hubs FAQ

Hubs are special pages that list Wikia's active English-language wikis, sorted into categories.

The hubs have two purposes. First, we want to help new Wikia users to find content that interests them. We also want to encourage currently active users to check out some other wikis that may be similar to the ones that they usually work on. Looking at other wikis can give you a lot of ideas about how to improve your own... and you may find people there that you'd like to work with.

Types of hubs
There are three types of hubs -- major hubs, minor hubs and the special hubs. Every wiki is listed on a major hub, and may also be listed on a minor hub.

Major hubs
The major hubs are the big topics. On the new Quartz skin, every wiki has a link to its major hub at the top right, under the search box.

Minor hubs
The minor hubs are for special areas of interest, sometimes crossing over between major hubs.

Special hubs
The special hubs show off the newest and most active wikis on Wikia.

How wikis are listed
Every active English-language wiki on Wikia is listed on a major hub. If it's appropriate, a wiki may also be listed on a minor hub and/or a special hub. A wiki should not be listed on more than one major hub.

Wikis are sometimes listed under the topic rather than the actual name of the wiki -- for example, "Scroogepedia" might be listed as "Charles Dickens Wiki". A new reader who's browsing through the hub listing might not recognize the clever name, so we try to make it easy for them to find what they're looking for.

Only English-language wikis should be listed on the hubs. For wikis in other languages, see Wikia languages.

Community participation
The hubs are good old-fashioned hand-crafted wiki pages, and aren't automated -- so it's great when users can help to update the hubs.

If you notice that an active wiki is missing from the hub listing, feel free to add it! This is especially true for wikis that have been created recently.

On most of the hubs, a wiki gets a "star" when it reaches 500+ pages. (For the Big wikis hub, the star is for 5000+ pages.) If you see that a wiki has reached that threshold, feel free to add the star.

Spotlights
Each hub page has a "spotlights" section at the top, drawing attention to some of the most active or most interesting wikis.

If there's a wiki that you think should be highlighted on the hub, post a message on the hub's talk page, and explain why you'd like to see that wiki in the spotlight.

Brand-new wikis probably won't get spotlighted right away. It's tempting to want to add your new wiki as a spotlight, but there are so many new wikis that it would overwhelm the hubs.

For tips on how to attract contributors to your new wiki, check out 10 steps to raise your wiki's Google ranking.

Questions?
If you have questions about how the hubs work, leave a message for Danny (User:Toughpigs), who's happy to help.