Help:Start a new community

You can apply to start a new Wikia by filling out a request form. Please read this page before applying for a new wiki.

Please note that your proposal might be revised before your wiki is created.

Check whether your wiki fits the policy
A wiki must have a large potential audience and be likely to attract enough editors to maintain the wiki. Personal wikis and wikis for very small groups or individual schools are not generally permitted a separate wiki, but Scratchpad Wiki Labs welcomes all content. If your proposal is narrow in scope, you are advised to broaden it, add your idea as a sub-section of a larger Wikia, or to use Scratchpad instead.

Check that your idea is not already covered by an existing Wikia.

Check if your idea could not become part of an existing Wikimedia project.

See Wikia creation policy for further details.

Make sure you agree to abide by all Wikia policies before you start a wiki. For example, if you want a wiki where you can lock down editing only to administrators, Wikia is not the best place for your wiki. You will not be able to protect pages unless they are license texts or heavily vandalised.

Plan your project
Decide what the aims of your wiki will be. Draft a mission statement.

You will need to decide a title and name for the wiki. In your request form, you also need to give a description of the wiki, and you can choose to give additional information.

You should also find interested participants who will be able to help with the creation of content on the wiki.

As an optional step, you can have your plan evaluated by others. Discuss and refine the plan for your wiki on the proposed wikis forum or even create a few test pages on the scratchpad wiki at scratchpad.wikia.com.

Request creation of the wiki
You can create a "Mini-Wiki" instantly at the Scratchpad Wiki Lab. Later this can be transferred to a separate Wikia.

You can start a new Wikia by creating an account and filling out the wiki request Form. All fields on the request form must be filled in. Your application may be rejected if you do not give enough information about the proposed wiki. If you're not sure, you can discuss your proposal first at Proposed wikis.

A member of Wikia's Help:Community Team will review your request and add a note to the top explaining whether it was accepted or rejected. Alternatively, staff or users may ask you questions about your request before a decision is made.

Join the mailing lists
You are encouraged to sign up to the central Wikia mailing, which seldom has more than a few messages a day and may contain vital information such as planned downtime.

See also Help:Mailing lists.

Create your home page
The default location of your home page is at "Main Page", or a translation of this for wikis where the default language is not English. You can leave it like that: it will work. But at any time you may move (i.e. rename) it. When you have renamed your home page, you have to change MediaWiki:Mainpage. You can do this only when you have sysop rights at that wiki. This change is important to avoid redirects because that is the page where you come when you type "yourwikia.wikia.com" or when you click on your logo.

Improving your Wikia
Please see Help:Improving your Wikia for details beyond these first steps. Improving your Wikia includes changing your logo.

See also Help:Wiki tips and Help:Attracting contributors.