How to Start a Wiki

Go to https://meta.miraheze.org/ in your own web browser. This is a service that allows you to create a custom wiki for free.

Click on Request a Wiki. This will allow you to request a wiki be created.

Review Miraheze's policies. The code of conduct, the wiki content policy, and the wiki dormancy policy indicates the reasons a request might be rejected, or why an existing wiki may be closed or deleted.

Enter the name of the wiki and the subdomain. These are important for SEO reasons. The wrong subdomain or wiki name will make your wiki rank lower in search results.

Enter the language of the wiki. This will tell search engines as well as the wiki software what language your wiki will be using for the project.

Choose whether to have the wiki private. A private wiki will be unviewable by anyone except a few people that you set as "member". You can select pages that you want later to be visible by everyone, such as the main page.

Categorize and give the reason you want the wiki created. For example, you may want to fork a project on Fandom or import your own wiki farm, or you may want to start a community from scratch.

Click on Submit. This will submit the wiki creation request, which may then be reviewed by volunteers. You will get a notice on your talk page telling you whether the request was accepted or rejected.

Configure the wiki's settings. Miraheze gives the ability to customize permissions, extensions, and namespaces. You can also enable and disable skins as well as change the favicon and logo.

Choose wiki software for site. Wiki sites require certain software to make them look and behave like the wiki sites you know and love. Once you've installed the software, you can start adding and editing articles. First, if you're already using a webhosting provider, ask them if they formally support any wiki software—if so, installing it should be pretty easy from your host's admin panel. If not, research some existing wiki software options and find a web host based that supports it. You can also install the most popular wiki software options manually if you have a dedicated web server or virtual private server. Some common wiki software options:

• MediaWiki is one of the most popular wiki platforms (used by Wikipedia and wikiHow) and is supported by popular webhosts like Dreamhost, HostGator, SiteGround, and dozens more.^[3] You can also easily install it on any dedicated or virtual private server—for the latest installation requirements, see https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Installation_guide.
• TikiWiki is another popular option supported by many popular webhosts out of the box, including Bluehost, Hostmonster, Inmotion, and Web Hosting UK. TikiWiki has strong plugin support, allowing you to add features such as forums, image galleries, calendars, and more. If you have your own server, you can install TikiWiki from https://info.tiki.org/Download.
• Some other popular options are DocuWiki, TiddlyWiki, Wiki.js, Miraheze, and XWiki.

Install the wiki software on your server. If you're using a web host that supports a tool like MediaWiki or TikiWiki, sign in to your administrative panel to find the tools for installing the software. If you're installing the software on your own, you can usually use FTP software like FileZilla to transfer the wiki software onto the server. The following steps are a basic guide to installing MediaWiki from .

• Follow this guide for detailed information on MediaWiki, or follow this guide for TikiWiki information.
• Wiki software you download will come in a compressed file. You can either extract this file on your computer, or extract it on the server.

Create a database. For example, MediaWiki supports MySQL and SQLite. Depending on your web host, the installer may create the database for you. If not, you'll have to create it yourself. If you are using SQLite, you only need to choose a name for the database and it will be installed automatically. If you are running MySQL, create a new database called "wikidb" and user "wikiuser" using the following commands:

CREATE DATABASE wikidb;

CREATE USER 'wikiuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON wikidb.* TO 'wikiuser'@'localhost' WITH GRANT OPTION;

• If the database and web server are on different servers, use the appropriate hostname in place of localhost (e.g., mediawiki.example.com).
• See this guide for more details on creating a MySQL database.

Run the installer script from your browser. Once you have the wiki software files uploaded and the database has been created, you can visit the index.php page on your server through your browser to run the automated install script. If you're installing MediaWiki, for example, you will be asked to fill out a form with your wiki information:^[4]

• Wiki name — This is the name for your wiki. It will show up in the metadata for your wiki, and will be integrated throughout the site.
• Contact e-mail — This is the main administrative email address. It will be displayed on all email notifications and on some of the error pages.
• Language — Use the drop-down menu to choose the language of the wiki interface.
• Copyright and Licenses — Choose your license information. GNU Free Documentation License is the license compatible with Wikipedia.
• Admin username and password — This will be the first admin account that can block users from editing and perform other administrative duties. You can create more later.
• Database host — This is where the database is located. If it is on the same server as your wiki software, set it to localhost.
• Database name — The name of your database.
• Database username/password — The username and password used to access the database.^[5]

Customize your wiki. Once you've got the base wiki up and running, you can change the visual appearance using user-made skins or by playing around with the CSS code.

• You should also change the logo on the wiki to match the function of the wiki.

Determine what your wiki is for before creating it. Knowing the purpose of your wiki will help decide the software and hosting options to choose from. Wikis can be personal pages, sprawling communities, or anything in between. You can use a wiki to track your life goals, create a product manual for your business, collaborate with coworkers on a project, create a neighborhood newsletter, create a discussion place for a hobby, and much more.

• Wikis work best when they have a broad focus that allows as many knowledgeable writers and editors to contribute as possible. If you are trying to build a popular wiki with lots of community involvement, then the focus should be open-ended enough to allow for lots of expanding.
• For example, it would be better to start a wiki about a game company and all their games than just one of their games.

Check for duplicate wikis. It would be useless to create a wiki which is a double of another one. The target of a wiki is to write together, not isolate each other.

• Be sure to check wiki services other than the one you've chosen. For example, if you're creating a Wikia wiki, check both Wikia and Wikidot for duplicates.

Make a team before creating your wiki. Your wiki will need advice and motivation, so talk about your project and make other people follow you. They are more likely to contribute to the project if they are called before the creation of the wiki as they will feel like co-creators.

Adjust your permissions. Your wiki will come installed with a set of default permissions that may work for your needs, but many people will want to change who can access and edit what. This is especially important in business settings where you want multiple collaborators to work on a product page, but don't want it vandalized by anonymous users.

• You can generally use your wiki's settings page to determine who can post or edit, both on a wiki-wide scale and on a per-post scale.

Start creating content. As soon as your wiki is up and running, it's time to get to work writing articles! When your wiki is born, it will have no pages and no other contributors. To change this, you'll need to start adding some content. Good content will drive other people to your wiki. As more people come, other visitors will begin contributing their own articles and edits to your wiki. It will take some time, but you'll have a community before you know it!

• Remember, when you're starting out, it's up to YOU to create the content that will bring people to your wiki. Be sure that you are well-versed in the topic you are covering so that you can have comprehensive articles available from day one.

Create the categories. Category pages contain lists of related pages. In addition to categories containing the main content, you may want to create a category page called "Organization" for pages of your site like the front page, and maybe create a category page called "Help" for the help articles of the site. Remember that categories themselves can have sub-categories by categorizing a category page.

Create a policy guide for your wiki. A policy guide is the general rules for the writing on your wiki. This policy guide will allow other contributors to see how the information on your wiki should be represented to the readers. You don't have to be rigid while creating the policies; try to make them flexible, as people won't be able to easily work or contribute well to a wiki with overly strict rules.

• You may want to write standards on how weaving the web of links should be done, and on article noteworthiness standards.
• Not all of your contributors will follow the style guide you create, but it will aid in patrolling and editing articles.
• A guide is more friendly than verbally reprimanding. It's more social to be corrected by a text than by a person.

Brush up on some wiki syntax. You will find creating articles much more efficient if you learn some basic wiki syntax. This will let you edit pages directly without having to use any guided editors, which can let you adjust the layout and style to your liking.

Copy from the other wikis. Although copying content from other wikis is plagiarism, reusing the styles and the templates of other wikis is encouraged. Templates are pages that can easily be appended to other pages. Some uses for templates include nominating articles for deletion, marking an article as a stub, or making simple notes.

Patrol your site. The main draw of a wiki is that anyone can edit it, but this is also its biggest challenge. The more people that come to your wiki, the higher your chances of being vandalized. Luckily, almost all wiki software allows for quick rollbacks of articles to their previous versions.

• Be as much tolerant as possible. If your version and the new version are both correct, keep the contributor version. It will enlarge the wiki point of view and welcome the contributors.

Promote active community members. If your wiki is interesting, you will find that certain people come back often to create and curate content. If you find that people are enthusiastic about your wiki, then give the dedicated ones more control over the site. Be supportive and nice to your editors. It is important that they have a helping hand to guide them and to motivate them to work on the wiki.

• By creating admins from your community, you relieve a lot of the pressure that you face when it comes to patrolling and maintaining your content.
• Set up forums and talk pages to allow your community members to discuss the wiki's rules and style.
• Allow your admins to vote on policy and style changes.
• Run community events such as editing competitions to get all your loyal editors excited.

Get the word out. Do everything you can to spread word about the existence of your wiki:

• Describe your wiki on WikiIndex (wikiindex.org).
• Search smaller wikis and suggest collaboration.
• Do not hesitate to ask questions on the other wikis.
• Advertise your wiki through social media.

Expand as you grow. As your wiki becomes more and more popular, continue adding features that benefit your site. Things such as forums, chat rooms, polls, calendars, and more can all add good functionality to your wiki. Be creative with your content!

• You should also ensure that you are updating to the newest version of your wiki software package whenever possible to get the latest features and security fixes.