Create A Wiki
Create a wiki:
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You must be logged in to create a wiki! To create an account, go here.
Wiki Spot is a non-profit, public-benefit organization and we require that your wiki meet our Community Guidelines.
Wiki Spot will send an e-mail to the account that you are logged on with. That email will have a simple link in it that will let you create a wiki. You'll find lots of further instructions and links to help pages on your new wiki's front page.
What is a wiki?
A "wiki" is an interlinked set of Web pages written by the people who use it: the beauty of a wiki is that anyone can edit and contribute. Wiki Spot is a nonprofit, member-supported effort dedicated to helping communities use wikis.
The most famous example of a wiki is [WWW]wikipedia, an encyclopedia written entirely by its users. Of course, creating another encyclopedia of everything would be counterproductive; however there are plenty of other applications for wikis! Think of the wiki as a versatile medium than can be used for many applications.
Rather than creating a wiki for the sake of wikis, you should be creating a wiki to fulfill a need that you already have. The best potential wikis are those that have a community of people who would contribute.
Good ideas for a wiki
The most famous example of a wiki is [WWW]wikipedia, an encyclopedia written entirely by its users. Of course, creating another encyclopedia of everything would be counterproductive; however, there are plenty of other applications for wikis! Think of the wiki as a versatile medium than can be used for many applications.
Rather than creating a wiki for the sake of wikis, you should be creating a wiki to fulfill a need that you already have. The best potential wikis are those that have a community of people who would contribute. City Wiki
How about a wiki about your town — wouldn't it be great to have a comprehensive guide to everything to do and see in your town? A wiki can be more accurate and up-to-date than other resources because anyone at any time can improve it. City wikis can be a great resource for the people in the city where you live. A shining example of this is the davisDavis Wiki, a wiki made by the residents of Davis, California about their town. Whereas a Wikipedia page about [wikipedia]dogs would have information about the diet, health, reproduction and history of man's best friend, the davisDavis Wiki page on dogs has valuable information about owning a dog in Davis such as where the dog parks are, a list of groomers, veterinarians and other service providers in the area, as well as a list of apartment complexes that allow dogs. Common-interest wiki
A wiki can bring together any community, even one where community members don't live in the same geographic area. Suppose you play the ukulele. While wikipedia has a [wikipedia]generic page on ukuleles, mostly about the history of the ukulele. An ukulele wiki could put ukulele players from across the world in contact with each other, allowing them to share advice, upload audio samples, show photos of instruments, discuss current trends in ukuleleing, share their favorite artists, and meet up with other ukulele enthusiasts in the area. Perhaps you can think of a person/place/thing/event a group of people can contribute their knowdege about. Together, everyone's knowledge becomes more than the sum of its parts.
Bad ideas for a wiki
The goal of a wiki is to create a collaborative resource for a community, therefore a wiki that has too narrow of a focus is a bad idea. While wikispot is free of charge, creating a wiki uses CPU and hard drive space, which do cost money. Creating useless wikis taxes useful ones. Here are some topics that do not fit the criteria:
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Yourself — unless you're Paris Hilton, no one will visit or edit this wiki. If you are Paris Hilton, perhaps you might want to consider donating. *
Some dude you knew in college - what was his name, anyway? *
My dog — awww he's sooo cute! Maybe it would be better to create a wiki for a group of dogs!
Wiki Spot is a non-profit, public-benefit organization, and we require that your wiki meet our Community Guidelines.
Next steps
Start creating pages! Have Fun! To create a new page, simply search for the name of the page you wish to create and then click the "Create a new page with this title" link. Another way to create a new page is by making a link to the page you wish to create from a page that already exists, following the link, and clicking "Create this page."
As you develop your site further, look at some of our other help pages:
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Wiki Creator Guide — some basics to read over after you've first created a wiki *
Customizing wikis — make your community feel at home *
Help for Wiki Administrators — how to's for being an admin on a wiki *
Help with Editing — general editing help *
Building Community — building a successful wiki takes time and effort. Building community will likely be your most important challenge after building up a certain amount of seed content.
If you like what we do around here, consider donating to help keep Wiki Spot running and awesome!