Help:Making a successful community

Welcome to a quick guide to making a successful wiki.

The First Four Steps to a Great Wiki
These first four steps are a great starting point which make your wiki look friendly and ready for visitors.

Create a user page
Creating a user page is a great way to introduce yourself to the community while practicing editing the wiki. Note: Since what you add to the wiki can always be accessed through the history page, please consider the long-term implications for the information you are giving.

You don't have to give all your personal information, but you do want to give people a sense of who you are. Here are some suggestions for what to include:


 * a description of your role on the wiki/the edits you have made
 * a collection of useful links to other pages on the wiki
 * why you are interested in the topic for the wiki


 * More information on creating a User Page

Create a logo
Creating your logo gives your wiki a brand. If you don't make your own logo, your wiki will end up using the default Wikia logo.

The maximum height and width for Wikia logos is 155 pixels. Your logo must be saved as .png format.

To add your logo to the wiki, upload it to the wiki (via Special: Upload) as wiki.png.

For help making logos, visit the |Request Logos Forum on Logo Creation Wikia.


 * More Information on Adding a Logo

Create your first 10 pages
Create ten pages. You don't need to have a complete article right away, just start with a few sentences. It helps to start with pages about the most important aspects of your topic. For example, if you are doing a wiki about a TV show, articles for each of the main characters and episodes would be a great place to start.

Link to your new pages from the main page
Add links to your newly created pages on the main page. You may want to make other main page changes.

General main page guidelines
The Main Page should:


 * Be well organized so people can easily find information.
 * Include videos and pictures where appropriate.

What to put on the main page
Each new Wikia wiki comes with a default main page which looks pretty generic. This is why you need to change the main page to give the wiki its own identity. You may want to look at other Wikia wikis (particularly the spotlighted wikis) for inspiration.

Description of the wiki
The first thing you should add to the main page is a description of the wiki. The default description is "A wiki about ___ that anyone can edit". You may want to add the mission of the wiki, a brief description of how people can help, or more specifics on the type of wiki (for example, is it meant to be an encyclopedia? a fan site? etc.).

Featured articles
Each new wiki comes with a default featured article section on the front page. Featured articles are articles that the community wants to see featured. They should be high-quality articles that will be of interest to most readers.

Your featured article section should include an image related to the topic of the featured article.

You may have to choose some featured articles on your own while you wait for your wiki community to form.


 * ''More Information on Wikia's Featured Article System

Featured media
A wiki that is just text can get boring after a while. That's why it's good to include other types of media, including images, movies and sound files. Featured media allows you to highlight a particular video clip, image or song. For example, if you are doing a wiki about a television show, you might want to feature a famous clip.


 * More Information on Adding Videos

News
Adding recent news about your topic to the front page is a great way to keep your wiki fresh and relevant. If you can't think of any news for your topic off the top of your head, you can do a search on |Google News. Then you can add to the front page as part of a bulleted list under the news heading. For example, if you are doing a television wiki, you can add information about new episodes, plot twists, cast/crew birthdays, new DVD/product releases, awards, and casting.

To bring more attention to the news section and make your wiki more visually pleasing, it is a good idea to add small images relating to each news item.

New pages
This section is just like how it sounds -- a list of pages that have just been added to your wiki.

Did you know?
Borrowing from Wikipedia, the Did You Know? section is used to state little-known facts that are of interest to your readers and links to other articles on the wiki.

Calendar of upcoming events
This is a particularly good option for TV and sports wikis. Using a wiki table, you can create a calendar of upcoming TV episodes, sporting events etc.

Categories
It is important to categorize pages to make them easier for people to find. Adding the wikis main categories to the front page makes it even easier for your readers to find the information they need.

A list of things for people to do
How will people know how they can help if you don't tell them?


 * More information on main pages

Deciding which information to add
The information you add depends on your topic and intended audience, however, there are ways to go about making this decision which can be applied to any wiki.

It might be easiest to start with the things that are essential to your topic, what automatically comes to mind when people think about your topic. For example, a TV show wiki would be incomplete if it didn't have information about the main characters or main settings.

Often, it is best to start with the most popular topics related to the subject of your wiki. For example, if you are doing a wiki about a sport, articles about the most popular athletes in that sport would be an ideal starting point.

Using Google AdWords will give you an idea of the kinds of things people search for related to your topic.

Publicizing your wiki
Your wiki will improve more quickly if you can get more people to edit it. That's why publicity is important. Here are ways to publicize your wiki:


 * Google
 * Wiki Index
 * Reach out to groups interested in your topic (but learn the community guidelines before you post so you don't end up spamming)
 * Apply for a spotlight to get promoted on Wikia

Making it easy for people to contribute

 * Create a list of ways to help and put it on the main page
 * Create a list of wanted pages and link to it from the main page
 * Categorize extremely short articles as stubs
 * Welcome new users. Just leave on their talkpage.
 * Make sure people get the help they need.