Help


 * See Frequently Asked Questions for how to leave Wikia.

Moving wikis, especially if you are not being hosted by ShoutWiki or Miraheze, can be difficult and a lot of work. The Anti-Wikia Alliance is here to help make that transition easier.

Instructions to leave Wikia for ShoutWiki
On ShoutWiki:


 * 1) Register a ShoutWiki account
 * Create a wiki.

On your e-mail:


 * 1) E-mail support@shoutwiki.com with:
 * 2) a link to your old Wikia you are leaving and
 * 3) a link to the newly created ShoutWiki wiki.
 * 4) The helpful ShoutWiki staff will do the rest.

Your wikia will be transferred to ShoutWiki in a couple of days.

Mentors
Volunteer to be a mentor to give technical advice or simply for moral support to editors trying to leave Wikia.
 * 1) I have experience moving several wikis to independent hosts. -Ciencia Al Poder (talk) 21:04, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
 * 2) Will give moral support and any technical advice I can. Anno1404 18:29, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
 * 3) Me too, as a staffer of the Club Penguin Wiki Network and the main guy moving Apple Wiki. Power to the People! 01:08, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
 * 4) I can meet in IRC or talk pages with people who need help with community stuff and general advice. http://www.shoutwiki.com/w/images/hub/3/36/P.png Jax  - Kenobi  http://www.shoutwiki.com/w/images/hub/3/36/P.png 15:00, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * 5) I have experience and I speak to staff regularly. If you need advice on moving to ShoutWiki, ask me. I can also help with small tasks if you are moving to another host/independence. ☆  The   Solar   Dragon  ☆ 12:56, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Share your story
 Share your story of what problems you had leaving Wikia, and what you would do different if you could do it again.

We want to hear your story and valuable advice! Please begin your story with: Please be specific as possible, if you feel comfortable about it, share prices and hosting names.
 * 1) the name of your new site, and
 * 2) a short one word summary.

Anno1404's experience
New site name:
 * deadrisingwiki.com (work in progress) url highjacked Deddan (talk) 03:59, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

My advice:


 * Unless you are extremely technical proficient, have a wiki farm host your wikia.

My story:
 * After 24 days of hell and literally days trying to get my MediaWiki wiki to get transferred I spent $200 just to set my wiki up. More details...

Power to the People!'s experience
New site name:
 * various (all the wikis on the Club Penguin Wiki Network)

My advice:
 * You need manpower to move, mainly for large wikis. That's what we did to move our wikis.

My story:
 * It was months. First, we had to get a good host (on Halloween eve we got a DreamHost account set up). Then we had to configure all the MediaWiki installs. Then we couldn't use the normal importDump.php method due to the dumps being large, and ended up using man-power. Next came images, which also will take a lot of time. We used upload from URL to help speed this up. The moving is still going on.


 * Just a note for anyone reading this, importDump.php is pretty bad but you don't have to use it to import your dump. You can use mwdumper on your (much more powerful) home computer to convert the dump into an equivalent batch of SQL commands and then run the commands against your database (MySQL has a shell and you can just "source" the file while in the shell). This is extremely fast. -- someone who did just that

Toonami1997's experience
New site name: http://sml.shoutwiki.com

My advice:
 *  I recommend either ShoutWiki or personal server host your wiki.

My story:
 * ''' Wikia banned me for telling an user to "jump off an cliff". I should have gotten an warning instead of an straight ban. Plus the look and feel on the Wikia skin is horrible and they always put annoying ads on the wiki wallpaper and people cant see them. Then I found out about ShoutWiki. Very convenient. We are still moving.

Darkanine's experience
New site name:
 * http://mlpwiki.net/

My advice:


 * Even though it may seem hopeless or even pointless at first, hard work and dedication will bring your new site to greater heights then ever on Wikia

My story:
 * I realized that if I continued using Wikia, my site would really be anything but a Wikia wiki. Ever since I went independent, I had a lot more freedom and I really feel like our site is starting to come into its own, a feeling I never got when we were bound by Wikia.

Tigali's experience
New site name:
 * https://wikidragonquest.fr/Wiki_Dragon_Quest

My advice: '''There are just so many ways to turn your "independant wiki" ideal into a reality... You can passionately tell many people about it, 'til you find that someone in the crowd who'll lift your idea up the ground !'''

My story:
 * Since my early days of editing, I grew to think that if I stayed, my wiki would never be a "real" one. Add a couple outbursts of anger against Wikia staff in differents occasions to that, and my path was firmly chosen right from the start. You are entitled to seek help around you, for true wikis are all about solidarity. If you aren't technically litterate, you may just find someone who is and is interested in the same thing. Well, the downside is that if you rely on a third-part, you'll probably never find enough words to express your gratitude... quite a burden! Jokes aside, you can start learning online some basic HTML, CSS, PHP and SQL (for instance) if you get a minute, to widen your horizon!


 * But remember this: you are not alone. AWA, NIWA, other people like me... If we all come together, take action, get motivated, get technically litterate, raise other's people awareness, look after each other in times of doubt... we can all create free spaces of factual information, and win this most important battle against advertising revenue's dictatorship, low quality content media, and each and every company seeing our individualities as mere products. We can make wikis a true society stake; we can make the Internet a somewhat better place. We're all in this together!