Anti-Wikia Alliance

From the group that combats the Wikia skin, the Anti-Wikia alliance.
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AWA.svg
A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business
—Henry Ford, Founder of Ford Motor Co.
Co-founders: Airhogs777
Smiley12 (previously blocked by Wikia Staff for his AWA work!)
Motto: Give me choice or give me death!
Created: September 29, 2010


A skin changes the look and feel of a site without changing its core features.

Monaco and Monobook were the skins before Wikia. "Wikia" (nicknamed Oasis) is a new mandatory skin on Wikia/FANDOM which was instituted sitewide on November 3, 2010 and May 25, 2018, despite massive objections.[1] Another new skin, FandomDesktop, was launched on June 2, 2021. As of June 13, 2021, it is currently opt-in, but it will become mandatory later on.

After the Wikia Staff failed to compromise, the purpose of the Anti-Wikia Alliance changed - primarily to help editors transfer their site from Wikia, and secondly to create a forum where Wikia editors to discuss how the skin changes affect them. Comments are welcome.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where do I go if I leave Wikia?

There are plenty of wiki farms out there, as well as independent wikis that welcome new users.

Host your wiki independently

Hosting a wiki on your own is a huge responsibility. It also costs money, and you need some knowledge to run a web server. However, it gives the most freedom.

MediaWiki is free and open source, and you can set it up on a server. See MediaWiki.org's main page for more information.

You'll need to export all the contents from Fandom and import it on the new wiki. There's a suite of scripts called Grabbers that will help you with that.

But please, don't be alone and ask for advice and support to any independent wiki. There are a lot of nice persons running independent wikis out there that may provide you with advice and help setting up your wiki, or even host the wiki for you if you don't have the technical skills to host it on your own.

See also:

Public wiki farms

You can also host your wiki on a different wiki farm. This will free you and your community from the burden of maintaining the software and servers. However, a wiki farm may have the slight chance of being acquired by Fandom, causing your wiki to return to Fandom again. This has happened before, with the acquisition of Gamepedia. Also, some farms may give you more or less control about deleting the wiki if your community decides later to be hosted on a different host.

Note that transferring the contents from Fandom to another wiki farm may be challenging. Ask for support to the staff of the wiki farm.

This system was devised by members of the AWA community and constitute the opinion of AWA users. Subjective ratings content in this graph are not necessarily the opinions of ShoutWiki or its affiliates.
Alternatives to Wikia
Site Description Rating
Comparison of wiki hosting services on Wikipedia List of wiki farms like Wikia. Here is an older version with many more companies listed. Click the "Base wiki engine" in the table to see all MediaWiki hosted sites
MyWikis Premium wiki hosting for YOU! (Ad-free, limited wikis. Cost money to host, but relatively cheap) * * * * .
ShoutWiki ShoutWiki is in existence since April 2009. It is free, has the Monaco skin, and currently hosts the Anti-Wikia Alliance. See also: Wikia v ShoutWiki. Can't create new wikis
Miraheze A non-profit wiki farm that is run entirely on donations (ad-free). In June 2023 there was a crisis but recovered and upgraded. * * * * *
Wiki.gg Wiki farm for gaming wikis * * * * *
Telepedia Wiki farm for entertainment wikis * * * * *

For skins offered, and details on how to move to these farms, see wikifarm.

How do I host my wiki on another site other than ShoutWiki?

  1. Every wiki is different so contact the wiki staff first.
  2. Download a database dump from Special:Statistics on your wikia (towards the bottom).
    1. Alternatively, for advanced users who know how to use scripts, if you're moving to your own server, you may use the now-obsolete MediaWikiDumper — a tool in Perl that makes much better dumps than Special:Statistics (preserves all diff links, logs, images, deleted edits, etc.), or MediaWiki Grabbers, the "very same tool but in PHP and is much easier to use".
  3. Contact the new host and they will explain how they want you to upload the database dump (Special:Import can be used for about 100 pages at a time).

Signatures

See List of signatures.

Notes

Community discussions:
  1. http://community.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Sannse/Sneak_Peek_at_the_New_Look_-_Themes
  2. http://community.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Susan_Taylor/Experience_the_new_Wikia
  3. http://community.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Sannse/Important_Updates_on_Wikia’s_New_Look
  4. http://community.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Susan_Taylor/Fixed_Width,_Sidebar,_and_the_Removal_of_Monaco
  5. http://community.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Susan_Taylor/Beta_Wrap-up
  6. http://community.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Sannse/Try_out_the_new_look
  7. http://community.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Sannse/New_look_roll-out_--_phase_II 19 October 2010
  8. http://community.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Sannse/Site_speed_essentials 28 October 2010
  9. http://community.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Sannse/New_look_roll_out_--_meeting_place 3 November 2010
  10. https://community.wikia.com/index.php?diff=592246 (At this point staff member Sannse began deleting all comments about the new skin on her blogs, and asked editors to post on her talk page instead)

See also

  • Monaco skin - what the skin is and about the difficulty in installing it.
  • Wikia v ShoutWiki - comparison of the two companies
  • Buy outs - Wikia regularly buys out wikias. Your large wikia may not want to leave Wikia because of being under a paid contract.
  • Closed wikis - these are list of wikias that has been deleted by staff without admin consent.

External Links

Fanart

See Fanart.