Forum:Changes to the Create Wiki process

Hi everyone,

Today we are making a change to our wiki creation process and I want to take a moment to let you know what to expect.

Wikia has always been a place for people to document the topics which they are passionate about. Until now, the wiki request process has involved Wikia staff members evaluating each wiki request and accepting those which they believed would attract and sustain a healthy community. The new wiki creation system puts the power back in your hands and allows almost all requested wikis to be created.

Starting later today, all requested wikis will be automatically created and ready to edit within minutes. Users will be given a link to begin work on the new wiki before leaving the wiki request page. Wikis which might have been turned down in the past because they were of a personal nature, about a small group, or about a topic which we believed might not have enough of a broad appeal to warrant a full wiki, will now be given an opportunity to shine.

Does this mean that Wikia will allow more than one wiki for a given topic?

Yes, Wikia will no longer restrict wiki creation to one wiki per topic. While we strongly encourage everyone to improve existing wikis rather than creating new ones on the same topic, we will allow wikis on any topic (subject to our Terms of Use). If a user would prefer to document a topic differently than an existing wiki, then we encourage that approach. Each wiki will have an equal chance to create compelling content and succeed in its own way. Links between related wikis are encouraged so visitors can make their own choice about which communities to join.

What if someone copies content from my wiki to another wiki on the same topic?

Text added to Wikia is typically available under a free license which means anyone is welcome to reuse that content as long as they provide attribution back to the original creators and as long as both wikis use the same license. While it's fine to seed a new wiki with existing free content, Wikia does not encourage copying of large quantities of text or creating mirrors of existing Wikia sites.

What should I do if I see a wiki on a topic which violates Wikia's Terms of Use?

The first step is to talk to the wiki's admins about your concerns. It's likely they will change their behavior once they understand Wikia's guidelines. Serious violations should be reported to Wikia staff using Special:Contact.

Thanks! -- KyleH (talk) 15:51, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Discussion
Nooooo (with tears)! Wouldn't this make wikis more competitive than collaboritive? --Michaeldsuarez (Talk) (Deeds) 15:54, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Ugh. Allow me to express the grimace that's currently on my face as I read this. Yes, people should be allowed to make wikis on topics that they love and appreciate, populating the internet with content on the subject of their choice. However, that does not mean that Wikia needs dozens of duplicate wikis running around. I plainly don't understand the reasoning for this change&mdash;unless Wikia's staff is that overtaxed that they can't look at a wiki request and apply a common sense judgment to it, or they're trying to get (more) revenue by making (more) wikis that they can place (more) ads on. If this is a shameless ploy for more money, at least come out and state that's the reason. On Wookieepedia (one of Wikia's largest wikis, as staff is no doubt aware), we the administration have fended off hundreds of people who want to change our wiki away from the somewhat-encyclopediac standards we have set for it. Now, what Wikia is allowing people to do is take Wookieepedia's content and clusterscrew it to suit their own twisted aims. Because that's what already happened. There's a barely-existent inactive spinoff Star Wars wiki focusing on one subfaction from that universe and a majority of its paltry sum of content pages are direct ports from Wookieepedia. I went into Wikia's IRC channel to ask what can be done so Wookieepedia is at least credited for the work we put into that content, and they told me to fix it myself. Why is it the job of the original authors of content to stop other wikis from using content without crediting? I would think that's more of a Wikia issue, but I digress. The point is that this is the latest in another series of steps by Wikia to allow hundreds of crap wikis to populate their site. Now, they are taking away the common sense judgments that keep wikis organized coherently and cohesively by topic. Should I go to the Wookieepedia where I can conclusively say Palpatine was evil incarnate, or do I go to the Wookieepedia that lets me describe "Super Star Destroyers" as 8 km long, or do I go to Wookiepedia, where the inevitable mispelling is not only allowed but encouraged? This can and will be shameless exploited and will negatively impact the coherency of Wikia's wikis in general by giving incentives to users to create wikis that they like "in their own image." Yes, we know that our content is GFDL and can/is/will be used across the internet. But the idea of allowing other wikia wikis to be spun off just so they can jack and screw with our content is . . . both infuriating and mind-boggling at the same time. I cannot fully express my indignation with Wikia's decision, at least not without completely violating the WALLOFTEXT rule, but suffice to say, I'm quite displeased. Atarumaster88   ( Talk page ) 16:22, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with Ataru 100%.--Michaeldsuarez (Talk) (Deeds) 16:32, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Small wikis about a niche topic that few people are interested in a perfectly fine imho, but duplicate wikis are not. The only people - aside from the money people at Wikia - who gain from them are the creators, who are unable to work within the established rules at the original wiki or have been banned, etc., so decide to make their own wiki. I can only speak of the few spinoff Star Wars wikis that I've seen, but the majority of these duplicate wikis are utter tripe, misleading, or offer nothing that's not on the original wiki, only better. They don't make Wikia look particularly good. In the interest of the reader, I think that before duplicate wikis are created, the original wiki's admins should be consulted for their approval, though I don't expect that to happen. AdmirableAckbar 16:54, 25 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Desperation + No Money = Bad Ideas. And man, is it disturbingly transparent how desperate Wikia has become. I didn't think it possible you guys could come up with a better way of slapping in the face the wikis who actually keep you guys afloat following that ad nonsense, but you've taken the cake this time. This is unprofessional and embarrassing. I am embarrassed for you guys that you have no better ideas up your sleeve than this. You've opened the door for cheap imitators to steal the content that actually drives the individual wikis that keep Wikipedia in existence to begin with. What's the point of having three wikis all covering the same topic with identical content? Anyone can already steal content on any wiki, so why are you promoting it? You claim to foster a sense of collaboration but then you actively seek to splinter the biggest collaborative efforts that exist. At the very least you should be offering some kind of protection for your powerhouses: Wookieepedia, Memory Alpha. Maybe before you guys finally capsize you'll figure out Golden Rule of Business No. 1: There can't be two yous. Reward those who benefit you and make you what you are, don't punish them. Toprawa and Ralltiir 18:01, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I totally agree with the above comments. There's nothing wrong with small wikis as long as people are willing to work on them. But creating several wikis covering the same material is pointless. Rather than collaborate to make one wiki as good as it can be, the community gets divided and each wiki is inferior as a result. Another wiki on Star Wars, Star Trek, Halo, etc would only serve to clutter up Google searches, confuse potential contributors and frankly cheapen all the work that's gone in to the existing wikis over the years. Green Tentacle (Talk) 19:27, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * You realize the only logical response for those of us who are administrators or major contributors on your largest wikis is to think of every possible variation on our name and theme and grab it first, until this massively ill-advised little plan of yours is stopped by SOMEONE at Wikia who still has half a functioning brain cell. I assume you have at least one such person left, though he or she is clearly overwhelmed at the moment if mind-boggling stupidity like this is slipping through. -- Darth Culator  (Talk) 19:47, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Now wikia will be known as a wiki-spam site, where anybody could create a wiki of a non topic. Come on, make the Vandalize wiki &mdash; A wiki which anyone can vandalize!, or whatever crap you can imagine, apart from the duplicate contents that was mentioned above. This would significantly reduce the quality of the overall wikia in general, so the reputation of wikia itself and its hosted wikis would be decreased.
 * What should I do if I see a wiki on a topic which violates Wikia's Terms of Use? The first step is to talk to the wiki's admins about your concerns (...) Serious violations should be reported to Wikia staff using Special:Contact. And the admins of the other wikis would have to spend our precious time to check if duplicate wikis are created, to advise its creators? What is the sense of having Wikia Staff then? --Ciencia Al Poder (talk) -WikiDex 19:54, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with every other comment that's been left here. As Ataru said, I too believe this is just a ploy to generate more ad revenue, and I think I speak for virtually everyone when I say that the communities should be benefiting from changes, not the wallets at Wikia, Inc. This is simply going to lead down a bad road, per everyone else. - Brandon Rhea (talk) 20:32, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Also, did anyone stop to think that this is going to kill the wiki adoption process? Why bother trying to clean up or revive an inactive wiki if you can just create a new one out of thin air with no vetting process and then "borrow" any good content from the dead one? -- Darth Culator  (Talk) 20:34, 25 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Darth Culator, that's exactly what I was thinking! No point in adopting and trying to clean up an inactive wiki anymore - you can just make a new one! :D I don't mind you allowing wiki's on smaller topics, in fact I think it's a good idea, but duplicate wikis? No way! This has to be the worst idea Wikia has ever had.

Ciencia Al Poder said: "Now wikia will be known as a wiki-spam site, where anybody could create a wiki of a non topic. Come on, make the Vandalize wiki — A wiki which anyone can vandalize!"

And now you can, Ciencia Al Poder! Anything goes! Ya!....>;(

WHLfan (talk to me!) 21:09, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

This sounds like way things work in the free/open-source software world. One may "fork" a project at any time, take the code from the base project and go off in one's own direction. This may sound like a very bad thing, but as experience has shown pervasive forks rarely happen. Most are short lived and usually are intended as temporary branches of the main code to be merged back once whatever was being done is finished.

Others die because the new features in the fork are simply copied back to an existing project, making the fork irrelevant. As such, developers and users have little incentive to migrate to the new project, which requires them to build an community and required infrastructure from scratch.

On the other hand, strong forks are an indicator that something needs to be improved in an existing project. At worse, forks are warning flags, causes for reflection on "what do they have that people want that we aren't giving them."

Speaking in a personal capacity, and not as a StarCraft Wiki admin, I do not believe the new Wikia policy is, on the whole, detrimental given the FOSS experience. However, in the interest in heading off truly superfluous forking, I'd suggest that new wiki proposers first be encouraged to integrate into an existing wiki or adopt a languishing wiki. "Forks" should also be required to show what makes them "unique" above and beyond an existing project, otherwise there will be unconstructive duplication. Given that most forks will languish, every attempt must be made to minimize the number of forks that occur. I leave it to Wikia to deal with the resulting clutter.

Thank you for your time and consideration. - Meco (talk) 21:30, 25 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree with Darth Culator.&mdash;Darthtyler (Talk) 22:30, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Same here. Like he said: why bother adopt the wiki when you can just create a new one? GB 22:40, 25 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Just voicing my displeasure along with the others. -- LordTBT Talk! 22:56, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Great improvements, finally a bit more freedom on Wikia. Also, the former heavy wiki creation process is one of the reasons why I chose to host a wiki I co-created on my own server rather than on Wikia, so I believe this new automated wiki creation process will draw more people to Wikia. I remain on my own server, though ;) (I use some extensions that aren't on Wikia) PatheticCockroach 07:34, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, it would attract more people, but it won't bring people together. Why would they want to join communities when they could create a wiki for themselves and behave like kings? --Michaeldsuarez (Talk) (Deeds) 01:30, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikis are about communities, not topics
Well, this may dilute the wikia brand, but that's Wikia's problem. Basically, if you are a Wiki here, you have an open content license that allows anyone to go to another wiki farm and create that copy there. So if Wikia doesn't want to drive users to do just that, they needed to relax the restrictions that used to be in place.

The problem that Wikia and other wiki farms face is that of keeping to license terms. Any wikia user thinks that it's Wikia who is publishing the violating content and thus feels safe from the effects of a lawsuit or similar. And as far as content creators are concerned, they haven't often not been in the position to enter into a lawsuit. An enterprising lawyer who would be willing to work on a contingency basis could probably make several livings off all the copyright violations on wikia alone. Independent wikis don't face this issue as much because the people who run the servers know they'd be the ones battling the lawsuit, so that feeling of safety is just not there.

The main point is, though, that wikis are about communities. If a wiki has a strong, open community, then any copycat attempts are going to be doomed to failure (well, maybe if advertising money came into play ...). If a wiki has a community that is not so open, it allows other communities to fork off the content, setting up a "rebel" wiki with a stronger community. In my opinion, that is a good thing.

Being able to set this up on Wikia makes this easier, because I then don't have to export and import full histories: it should be enough to link my imported edit back to the originating wiki, since both are on Wikia, as long as my wiki is up, theirs is as well, and thus attribution requirements are satisfied.

If you are afraid of this change, you should think about how you present yourself to potential new users:
 * Can you be found? Is your entry on up to date? Do you have a wikinode?
 * Do you give positive feedback to new users trying to enter your community?
 * Are you doing enough to keep experienced editors?
 * Have you submitted your site to the wikia spotlight system?

Actually, that last one might be a point to ponder: Wikia spotlights are now granted on the strength of a wiki's content, and Wikia should make sure they don't spotlight wikis with mostly copied content and no active community.

Having a community split is always ugly. If you need more input on this, ask around on GuildWiki, we've had two of those throughout our history. I think one of them was, by and large, beneficial, because the split gave both wikis different, large non-overlapping purposes. The second split created a wiki with a similar purpose, but on a different server, and that's what harmed the community most; but there would have been no point to setting that up on wikia, so the threat of it was never there.

Actually, there is an attempt at a copy of a foreign-language wiki sitting on Wikia dead, because the original community is strong so that starting a community from scratch ceases to be attractive, except for the most disgruntled, and anger's not a good basis for running a wiki over an extended period of time. ;)

Ask around on wikia wikis that have been merged as a result of a wiki acquisition how well that went: is forcing communties to come together under a single roof better than letting each community have their own wiki (with the ability to copy/share their content with each other)? My prediction is that if the acquired wikis hand't been forced to share, the more rational editors would soon have seen the folly of duplicated effort and worked something out to merge the communities: on their own terms, and away from the pressures and changeover stress caused by the wikia move.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this policy change was instituted to allow wikia to better acquire (buy) independent wikis and add them to their portfolio.

Once they're in the Wikia user database, they're your potential editors! :) -- ◄mendel► 22:51, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Replies
— TulipVorlax 01:38, 26 March 2009 (UTC)


 * As seen here, I involved with WikiIndex. Tesfanon has a WikiNode (project described there). I agree with TulipVorlax's second point. Most of the time, I'm forced to criticize newcomers. Tesfanon also had a Spotlight as well. --Michaeldsuarez (Talk) (Deeds) 01:52, 26 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I dont know if i registered there... I think not, i had others concerns (and maybe i though that been in Google was already good enough). — TulipVorlax 02:12, 26 March 2009 (UTC)


 * My two wikia now have their page on WikiIndex.
 * And know what is a WikiNode now. — TulipVorlax 01:36, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Small problem
fuck.wikia.com

I can has it. -- Manticore   (talk)  23:49, 25 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Are you saying you just made a request for this and it was accepted ?
 * Otherwise i'm pretty sure wikia can block offensing words in URL...
 * (Yes, i know it might also just be a comment to show your discontentment.) — TulipVorlax 23:59, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, now you've gone and done it. I take back everything bad I've said about this new policy. This is going to be fun. -- Darth Culator  (Talk) 00:17, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I think it was a comment of discontentment. I agree with all the others. This is a bad idea. &mdash; [[Image:BalisticSig.png]] 00:35, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I think he was referring to this deleted wiki request. --Michaeldsuarez (Talk) (Deeds) 00:41, 26 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Ok, nice find. ;-) — TulipVorlax 00:44, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

No, I can create fuck.wikia.com (external link blocked). The auto-create tool is live and missing crucial features like a blacklist. -- Manticore   (talk)  00:51, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * They made a easy-to-use special page for creating wikis? It's worse than I originally thought. --Michaeldsuarez (Talk) (Deeds) 00:55, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * We have a blacklist available, we just haven't populated it yet ... we're assuming good faith rather than creating unnecessary restrictions ahead of time. Even so, we have the same tools for dealing with bad-faith contributions on this wiki as we do on any other wiki.  And yes, the page is easy-to-use because we want people to be able to easily create wikis. :) --KyleH (talk) 00:59, 26 March 2009 (UTC)


 * LOL. Even the logo of fuck.wikia has been autocreated. And it's not bad. — TulipVorlax 01:14, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh no, my bad; the logo has been done by the local sysop... — TulipVorlax 01:17, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Hmm. So, as usual, you're not actually listening to anyone outside the Wikia Inc. echo chamber. Fantastic. -- Darth Culator  (Talk) 01:21, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * No guys, he has the site, and he redirected it to Uncyc. However, the real statement here is that you can come up with any vulgar/adult Wikia that you want. -- LordTBT Talk! 01:19, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

News flash: shit.wikia.com from the people who brought you Darthipedia. --Michaeldsuarez (Talk) (Deeds) 01:37, 26 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Putting a redirect makup in the main page doesn't keep people from creating all page they could want on thoses wikis.. — TulipVorlax 01:53, 26 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Let's fun then. w:c:sysoptest --Ciencia Al Poder (talk) -WikiDex 20:43, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Its purpose and methods are the way as Admin Tools. As we predicted, this policy reversal is dividing the wiki community into many splinter groups. --Michaeldsuarez (Talk) (Deeds) 01:23, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

CAPTCHA
Kyle, I dislike the easy-to-use facet of Special:AutoCreateWiki. A vandal (or vandal-bot) could now create thousands of useless wikis in 10 minutes. You have to add CAPTCHA or something similar to it. --Michaeldsuarez (Talk) (Deeds) 01:24, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Reputation
The problem with the plan to allow anyone to create any wiki in 10 seconds, is that within a year wikia.com will be known as the place where any weirdo can post unchallenged nonsense. Why should I work on one of the big wikis which help the Wikia name, when I can fork it and be the bureaucrat? Sure, the losers will make bad wikis which become inactive. Meanwhile, Google searches will be split (because the losers will copy content), readers will be frustrated by typo-squatters, and the reputation of the big wikis will decline because people will learn that going to wikia.com is a waste of time.

The "auto creation" process should be halted until there is a plausible plan for a corresponding "auto deletion" process. The admins of the big wikis can't run around cleaning up Wikia (particularly because they will be accused of conflict-of-interest). At the very least, an easy audit process needs to be implemented so pointless wikis are deleted after a two-month trial (in particular, significant unattributed content means automatic deletion of wiki). JohnBeckett 03:23, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Quit trying to talk sense into them. You can't reason with Wikia. -- Darth Culator  (Talk) 03:46, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Moan... This is so stupid...  Mecenarylord Enter if you dare 10:04, 26 March 2009 (UTC)


 * people will learn that going to wikia.com is a waste of time
 * I think many people already think like that. Why go to fr.guildwars.wikia when you can go to www.gwiki.fr that is most of the time free of ads (plus been able to translate GuildWiki who share that wiki licence) ?
 * so pointless wikis are deleted after a two-month trial
 * I though i read somewhere that this would be against the GFDL but confirmation is needed. — TulipVorlax 10:45, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Recent Changes
Everyone, may I please direct everyone's attension to Recent Changes (with edits by bots only). --Michaeldsuarez (Talk) (Deeds) 13:13, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * If you're last to the party, you may want to check the Deletion log. --Michaeldsuarez (Talk) (Deeds) 13:20, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Getting help...
I think it'll be much more difficult for wikia to support a flood of new wikis.

Getting help often means establishing a relationship with a wikia helper, and often the help is site wide (eg teaching how to make a certain kind of template, getting a new skin, etc) and with a host of new (duplicate) wikis, there'll be a lot of duplication of effort. PSH aka Kimera 757 (talk) 22:16, 27 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Maybe Wikia need to make sure people know about the Help wiki and the Templates wiki.
 * And there might be some more usefull wikis like that. — TulipVorlax 00:27, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Ugghhh... this is a dumb idea. This is coming from one who didn't care when wikia introduced its new style. I mean, before, wikia was different from a lot of wikifarms. It didn't accept any old request, it took care to see if the user knew what he was doing and if he was blocked anywhere, and if the topic was way too small. I felt proud knowing all three of my requests were accepted. Now anybody can make a request about anything. The MarioGalaxy2433g5  { talk /contribs/Logs} 20:54, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Some quick thoughts
I'd like to address some of the concerns raise about duplicate wikis here by acknowledging that we realize this is likely to happen, but that we still believe this is the right thing to do. If you have 5-10 domains you want to grab now and have re-directed to your wiki, let me know and we will help. You should also know the automated wiki creation project includes a tool to suggest to people that they join the existing wiki.

Why are we doing this? Let me start with a few things we're learned in the last two years


 * People are basically good. The majority of the requests we get are high quality and our current process created a series of barriers and delays for folks who wanted to start a wiki.  Some of them would get frustrated and leave, which is not ideal
 * We artificially limited what we would allow. Early on, we would not have allowed a starwarslego wiki - now we do and it's a good thing.  We used to not allow parodies or fan fiction.  Those communities turned out to be productive valuable projects.
 * Until today, we didn't allow you to take a wiki and organize what a group needs to bring for a camping trip - or a family wiki documenting your family tree... and I'm not sure why those are "bad"
 * We have lots of dead wikis, but we would see people request a new one rather than adopt an old one
 * We've seen forks occur (lost.wikia.com vs lostpedia or our battlestar galactica wiki vs another one) and both have thrived. Obviously we as a community all prefer if everyone works in one place as it makes for the best content.  But it became clear that if you really want to open a wiki, Wikia's process won't stop you.  You can just download mediawiki and get going.  At the end of the day, forks happen because people are angry or disagree with the original project and our process is not going to prevent forks.

Will this bring us more revenue? Our goal is to make Wikia a profitable and long-lasting company. Many happy and successful communities will help towards this, so of course that's something we are trying to promote. We don't believe that junk wikis will help, that's not the goal here. But by allowing more leaway in what is created, and by trusting that good content will be added, we believe Wikia will grow and become sucessful. That's good for all of us, including all the communities we host.

We are also aware of the disadvantages:


 * Family wikis or project oriented wikis will be small and not generate a lot of ad revenues
 * There will probably be some porn or spam wikis created and we will need to create a process to flag and delete them
 * Net - this will be neutral, to modestly positive on our revenues in a year when revenue is honestly important

Then why do it?


 * I think the positives outweigh the negatives
 * I believe that assuming good faith is an important part of the wiki way - and our current process of questioning the request by definition is not an assumption of good faith
 * I am convinced that in the long term, this will result in more new content on wikia, more projects that readers will benefit from and more contributors

No one likes change, I get that... and this is a year when there is likely to be more change than less. All I can ask you to do is understand that we are focused on what's best for the community as a whole. Revenue is much more important this year than last, and we will continue to be clear and forthright in saying when we need to do something to increase revenues directly. This is a year where getting to breakeven is important... so rest assured that if the project is important to our 2009 revenues - you'll hear it loud and clear from me directly.

Thanks,

Gil