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Wiki Best Practices from Wikia Content Team

I found this great set of best practices for wikis on the Wikia site. They host 275,000 wiki sites on all sorts of topics, and truly want to help people reach the most potential with their wiki by offering guidance. One of the pages lets admins of a Wikia wiki ask the Content Team for specific help. Here’s a direct quote from that page:

We’d love to help attract new contributors to your wiki. If you’re interested in working with us on optimizing your wiki, we’d like to be sure you’re following a set of best practices.

  • The requester should be either the admin, or link to a discussion with the admin of the wiki and agreeing to skin design and homepage help
  • The wiki should have at least one active admin, meaning he or she has made at least one edit in the last 7 days
  • The wiki should have at least 50 content pages, not counting stubs. Stub articles should make up no more than 1/5th (20%) of all pages on the wiki
  • The wiki should have a clear category structure to help readers navigate around the site. Every content page should be in a category
  • The wiki should not be in the middle of choosing new admins, or any other upheavals. It should be a stable, friendly place
  • The wiki should be using the Wikia welcome tool, signed by admins — (MediaWiki:Welcome-user should say @latest, @sysop or the name of an admin)
  • The wiki should not use offensive language or include inappropriate images.

The Content Team will make all final decisions and design work will be at their discretion. If your wiki meets these criteria, leave a message on the talk page of this article.

The Content Team appears to call this criteria the bare minimum for calling your wiki a wiki, based on activity (must be updated at least weekly) and have at least 50 pages containing real content, not just part of an outline.

What’s interesting to me is that this team realizes that the people are as important as the content. Without consistent people and a proven way to welcome more people, the best practices aren’t met.

Lots of people ask for wiki best practices – these are a broad set for multi-purpose wikis on topics from video games and TV shows to food and fashion. It does offer a bar to reach for any wiki.