Forum:Sub-Answers wiki questions

Observation on answers.wikia.com shows that many new sub-answers wiki have been created. I went to check a category this morning and found it empty; I was attempting to redirect a question on Mother Teresa to a previous question, and I have answered quite a few questions about Mother Teresa. The category was empty; I could not redirect. So this leads to the following questions:


 * What is the criteria for setting up sub-answers wikis and how do we find out if they have been set up?


 * Are questions sent to these new sub-answer-wikis automatically?


 * Where do we edit or work on categories? On the main answers.wikia.com site or on the sub answers wiki?


 * What happens if the category is empty? If we add this empty category to the question, where will it appear?


 * How do sub-answers wikis work? Do questions get redirected there automatically if they contain certain keywords, or does someone go there and ask?


 * If a question is asked on a sub-answers wiki, does it also appear on the main answers wikia, and vice-versa?


 * Do our supervisor and/or sysop status carry across to these sub-answers wikia? (Many of these sub answers wikia seem to have no admins)?


 * What templates are shared between the main answers wiki and the sub answers wikis? - Whiteguru  (Talk)


 * Answers sites on any topic can be created freely by anyone now.
 * No, nothing is moved automatically. But staff can help using some tools or bot, maybe.
 * Sorry, i'm unsure of the meaning of this question.
 * I think categories are still functionning in the same manner on the original site. But, users could decide to move things to others sites, or anything, on a case by case basis.
 * Again, no, nothing is automatically. Staff need to link wikis to the target answer site in some manner for this to happen and somewhere they said that they wont do it unless the new answer site is already getting a lot of traffic.
 * No. But on the main page, they have a tab "other sites" that should list them but i'm unsure how it work.
 * No. They are new wiki. But if you create it using the create a wiki special page, you'll be the sysop/crat.
 * Template sharing function the same Wikia wide. That is, for a template to be shared, it must reside on the Central Wiki (this wiki).
 * I've answered this the best i could from the knowledge i have. — TulipVorlax 03:07, May 31, 2010 (UTC)


 * 3. You can't easily directly edit or work on categories (need to do ). Even if you do, it won't display what you added. From what I can tell categories are separate from main Answers. --  Fandyllic  (talk &middot; contr) 12:08 PM PST 31 May 2010

You seem to have misunderstood the main point. Answers have disappeared from the central answers wiki to a new wiki and the pre-existing categories on answers.wikia.com are now empty. What is it you don't understand about empty categories and all the answered/unanswered questions moved out? Bear with me as I repeat the example I gave above: I went to check a category this morning and found it empty; I was attempting to redirect a question on Mother Teresa to a previous question, and I have answered quite a few questions about Mother Teresa. The category was empty; I could not redirect.

While some of your answers help, the critical points are not answered. It seems almost a fallacy to take slabs of data from answers.wikia.com away from that site, plop the data into new wikis the editors do not know about, have no sysop/crat rights, and know even less. Where are we to edit? Editors cannot redirect to questions they know they have already answered, cannot do any sysop work over on the new answers.wikia created internally.


 * I made a list of problems I've run into on Sub Answers wikis at Forum:The more I use sub answers wikis, the less I like it in the main Answers site Watercooler forum. -- Fandyllic  (talk &middot; contr) 12:12 PM PST 31 May 2010

About new answer sites
Anyone can create a new answers site at Special:CreateAnswers in the same way anyone can make any wiki.

There's a list of some that have been made at Wikianswers:User:Angela/List.

Questions aren't automatically moved to the new sites, but I am moving a few categories where it looks like the category can do better on its own site.

If you add a category to a question on the Central Answers site, the question will still be on the Central Answers site.

If you visit wikianswers:category:Mother Teresa then it is empty because those questions were moved to Wikianswers Religion. I have been adding notes to some categories to tell people where the questions have moved to.

If you visit a specific question about Mother Teresa on the Central Answers site, you will be redirected to the same question on the new site. For exampple, wikianswers:Who was mother teresa will redirect you to Wikianswers Relgion. Again, this isn't automatic - it happens because a bot added a redirect.

Your edits still show up in your contributions list, both on the original wiki and on the wiki the questions were moved to so that you can find your past edits.

Admin status is a per-wiki thing, so you don't have adminship on other Answers sites. This is important because different sites may develop different policies, especially over what ought to be deleted. Questions relevant on the Central Answers site might be deleted on Star Trek Answers because they aren't relevant enough to Star Trek, whereas there might be questions there that the Star Trek community is happy with even though they made no sense to the admins on the Central Answers. As an example, Why did Jason die? is impossible to answer without more context - who is Jason? But that question was moved to the Heavy Rain Answers site, where suddenly it's a perfectly ok question that can be answered within the context of that game. Unfortunately people on the Central Answers sites are regularly deleting or redirecting content that could be answered. Hopefully by moving some topics to their own sites, these questions will have a chance to be answered.

Questions asked on the new sites don't automatically appear on the Central Answers site.

Another advantage of moving questions is that a specific community can develop around a topic where the questions need the additional context of a particular game, TV show, etc. It also removes questions from the Central Answers site that can't be answered by a general audience. For example, the Wikianswers widget was turned off on WoWWiki.com for many months because Wikianswers was flooded with World of Warcraft questions that could only be answered by WoW players. Now they have their own answers site, the widget was re-enabled and those questions don't affect the Central site. It also means the admins on the Central Answers don't need to be bothered by the fact there are thousands of different ways of asking for Justin Bieber's phone number! Instead of trying to delete all of those from Wikianswers, they can simply be redirected to the Justin Bieber Answers site where fans won't be so worried about the flood of such questions.

Angela (Help Forum, Blog) 23:10, May 31, 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for helping answering this.
 * I was feeling that my answer wasn't very helpfull after Guru reply. — TulipVorlax 11:43, June 1, 2010 (UTC)

A headache
I consider it a headache to keep checking every question that comes into Wikianswers and whether it belongs to a certain answers site. This is a subject I DIDN'T want to bring up because how upset I am with it. However Guru always seems to give me that extra little push I need to speak up (BTW thanks Guru). It's one of the reasons why I've been avoiding the main Wikianswers site for a few days now. When (of course) it becomes a chore, rather than a contribution, to know where to re-direct each question. It's overwhelming to go to the list of hundreds of existing answers wikis and check where each question should go, it is bad enough to re-direct to a couple let alone hundreds!

I believe it's the DUTY of each answers-wikis admins to come to wikianswers and re-direct the questions in a category. It should also be optional.

Since all the Mother Theresa questions have been re-directed (for example), how come they don't show up in the category, is it that they got deleted? I still don't understand how you would access those questions in Wikianswers then? Of course people will be re-directed there if they happen to type the right question, but if they don't; then what happens to the next question when we place it in the category? So far every time I redirected a question it seems to disappear from the wiki (confusing)!

Dealing with this is becoming a job for rocket scientists (really), this is not simple at all. It may take me a while to understand how all of it works. Sorry for the sudden surprise but the month of May is a very BUSY one for me each year (family wise), so now I can take care of those little details I needed help with. Sorry I can't be of ANY help! --Liliana (my talk). 02:59, June 1, 2010 (UTC)


 * The redirects are mostly done by a bot, so humans don't need to worry about this at all. You don't need to redirect any questions - it's fine to keep the question on the central answers site. If someone wants a question on their new site, they can redirect it (or contact me about mass moving of a category), but there's no reason for admins or users on the central site to feel they have to redirect questions.


 * The reason the questions no longer appear in wikianswers:Category:Mother Teresa is because adding a redirect strips all categories from a question. They still show up in the search results. Most people come to Wikianswers by searching in Google. The redirect ensures they will end up on the most relevant site, whether Google sends them to the Central Answers or to one of the new sites. Angela (talk | help forum) 03:54, June 1, 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you so much Angela, it helps to know we are not required to do that. I was aware that the  template removed categories from re-directed questions; but it's nice to know that once we re-direct a question, categories are removed automatically.  What a relief!


 * I guess this message doesn't apply anymore right?:


 * "note: you need to manually remove any categories when using this template"


 * I was looking at it the other day and thought that was already being taken care of by the system so we need not worry. And thank you SO much, it helps to hear that we are not required to do re-directs. --Liliana (my talk). 04:10, June 1, 2010 (UTC)


 * There's still a problem with that template. If you type in #redirect whatever, the categories are stripped, but if you type, the wiki doesn't realise until too late that the page was made into a redirect, so it doesn't strip them. There used to be a bot that could fix that up afterwards so people don't need to manually remove them. I'll check if that's still running or can be restarted. Angela (talk | help forum) 04:37, June 1, 2010 (UTC)