Help:Improving your community

1. Will my Wiki Work? 2. Attracting Contributors 3. Building a Community 4. Improving your Wiki

Once over the hurdles that have led you to having a home page, you may benefit from the collective wisdom and experience of other Wikians even if you know your subject inside out and can't wait to start writing. Tips here are for:
 * 1) saving time (in the short or long term)
 * 2) helping you see what should be done next
 * 3) attracting helpers

Join the mailing lists
All Wikia come with a free mailing list. You are encouraged to sign up to the mailing list for the wiki you requested (and to urge friends to), and also to the central Wikia mailing.

Modify and/or rename 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 move this page once the wiki is created.

It is useful to keep a redirect from Main Page to the new location.

For example, the home page of Wikianswers is at "Wikianswers", not at "Main Page".

You should also change MediaWiki:Mainpage on your wiki to point to the new title.

To get an instant main page template, just type on your wiki's home page and press "save page".

To go further and add a box-type design to your main page, see Help:Table. You may find it easiest to copy a design from another wiki rather than figuring out the correct syntax.

To add a Community portal, use.

Mission statement
On the "About" page of your new wiki, add a mission statement. (You should have an outline of one already, prepared when applying for the wikia.)

This is your vision of what the wiki will be, and should explain to people what they can expect to find on the wiki. You should list the aims and goals of the wiki on this page, and explain who your target audience is. Explain to people how they can become part of the wiki.

Creating content
You will need to start the content creation on your wiki by "seed posting". Be prepared to devote a lot of time to this in the early days before a community develops on your wiki.

MeatBallWiki says:
 * It takes time. In the first two weeks, friends will create their home-pages and leave a few kind words for you on the wiki. Be prepared to spend three, four or more months adding content all by yourself. You will be contributing at least 95% if not 98% of all content. That requires about 1-2 years of 1-2 hours of daily work.


 * Do not kid yourself. Only a dozen people will actively contribute to the wiki in the beginnings. They write the remaining 2-5% of the content. You might start to see a change after a year or two and 1000 or 2000 pages written.

Strive to stay on topic to your wiki rather than adding irrelevant content. Having a clear mission statement can help with this.

Change the logo

 * You can customize the logo on any Wikia.
 * See the logo collection for some examples.
 * Uploading your logo to Image:Wiki.png then clik shift+refresh{Firefox} ctrl+refresh{IE} on your Wikia should be enough to put it live.
 * The logo is protected so that only sysops can upload a new version. This is to prevent vandalism to it. The logo must have a width of 135 pixels and a height of 155 pixels.

Other interface changes

 * Change the favicon
 * A favicon or favorites icon, can be uploaded to Wikia to give a personalized icon associated with your Wikia. These will be shown in the browser's address bar, next to the site's name in lists of bookmarks, and, in tabbed browsers, next to the page's title. Just upload a .ico file to "Image:Favicon.ico" to add one to your Wikia. It is recommended that an admin protect the upload. See Creatures:Image:Favicon.ico for an example of a Wikia using a personalized favicon.


 * Change the search logo
 * The Google logo in the sidebar can be changed. There are two defaults available; one is suitable for dark backgrounds and one for light backgrounds. If you choose a dark background for your wiki, you can switch to the best Google logo by adding the word "dark" in MediaWiki:Skinshade. Alternatively, you can replace the Google logo by uploading a file called "Search_logo.png". By default, the Google search box displays radio buttons to search the web, Wikia, or an individual Wikia. To change this to search only Google, write the word basic at MediaWiki:Google-search. You can also choose to remove the searchbox altogether by adding a hyphen (-) at MediaWiki:Google-search. See also Help:Search.


 * Edit the interface
 * The interface can be edited using the MediaWiki namespace. See Help:navigation and the MediaWiki namespace help category for help with various MediaWiki namespace templates. It is recommended that you keep the default basic structure so users familiar with other MediaWiki sites can find their way around easily. You need admin level rights to edit the interface. For more information about configuring your wiki through the MediaWiki namespace, see wiki configuration.


 * Change the style sheet
 * The overall look of the site can be changed by editing the page at MediaWiki:Monobook.css for the wiki. Individual colour schemes and other changes can be made with this style sheet.  See Wikia custom skins for examples of Wikia that have made these changes.

Essential pages on your wiki
(See longer, but still incomplete, list at Starter Wikia Community Portal)
 * Main Page
 * Community portal
 * Contact us: Include links to the wiki's mailing list, and community pages.
 * Help: You can link to the Central Wikia help category and the tutorial.
 * Copyrights: Your copyrights page can just be a link to the one on the Central Wikia by adding "See Wikia copyrights.".
 * Disclaimers. See Help:Disclaimer.
 * About: There is a link to the "about" page at the end of every content page. This should include the mission statement of the wiki.

Promoting your wiki
If you want to develop a community, you will need to tell people about your wiki. Explain to people who may be interested in the topic area that the wiki is a common effort. Be welcoming to visitors and encourage them to become part of the wiki.

You may want to advertise for new users on relevant mailing lists, and through your own contacts. However, be careful that your messages do not come across as spam.

For wikis about local areas, you can make a press release, or send a notice about the wiki, to your local newspapers and residents groups.

To promote your wiki within Wikia, advertise it in the Wikia news box, and propose it for a Featured Wikia or Collaboration of the month.

There is more information on this topic at the promotion page.

Developing your community
One of the first steps in developing your community is to encourage new visitors to the wiki to get involved. The following suggestions may help:
 * Create a recent visitors page or guestbook so new people can participate even before they have content to add.
 * Encourage new users to add some content to their user page.
 * Give a personal greeting to newcomers. (templates are usefull, but a written one is better)
 * Add to the pages created by newcomers, either with content, links or category tags.
 * Create a page which explains how new users can contribute to the wiki.
 * Link to unfinished or requested pages from your wiki's home page so people can easily see what needs working on.
 * Point people to the IRC channel, mailing list or community page, such as your Community portal to help build a community. You can link to these in the MediaWiki:Sitenotice, as is done on Wikinews.
 * Organize and participate in events like a logo contest. You can also advertise these outside of the wiki to bring in new users.

See WikiCommunityBuilding and A Tale of Two Wikis for more ideas.

Setting boundaries
At some point, you will need rules for your wiki. Keep these simple at first, and expand as you need them. For example, there is little point trying to create rules against a certain number of reverts years before anyone gets in an edit war. The rules should grow with the wiki, and be developed by the community over time. Applying too many policies is a common mistake.

Your mission statement should make it clear what the limitations are.

Some boundaries are set by the central Wikia community, but others will be specific to individual Wikia. See Wikia policies for the global boundaries.

Administering your wiki
Every founder of a Wikia has administrator access on the wiki they founded. Other users may also be granted this access, by the founder, or by another bureaucrat. Please read the administrators' how-to guide before using your admin powers. For details on administering the mailing list, see Help:Mailing lists.

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