User:FrozenPlum/UTA

Welcome to Miraheze, we're glad you're here! This page is an introductory guide to setting up a wiki at Miraheze. This page provides links to many additional resources and policies, such as the Dormancy Policy. Please read linked pages and documents for specifics. If, after reading, you have further questions, please ask them on the Community noticeboard.

Wiki Types
Miraheze hosts all types of wikis, from tight-knit small communities to big fan-bases and collaborative projects, anything that meets our Content Policy.

There are currently hosted on Miraheze. A list of some wikis appears in the Gazetteer of wikis with author-created thumbnail descriptions. Many of these wikis welcome reading or contributions. For a list of all wikis hosted on Miraheze, see Special:WikiDiscover.

Wiki Software
Miraheze uses MediaWiki, the open-source software that powers Wikipedia, which lets several people edit the same page, supports highlighting, illustrations, special effects, and retains a copy of every page at every point in the past, which can be copied from or can replace the current copy.

Organization
Miraheze is a non-profit wiki farm that runs servers and software to host wikis of all topics, though we don't officially operate those wikis. For questions regarding a specific wiki, see that wiki's local policies, and please reach out to the wiki's local administrator.

We have had the same commitment to our users for over 7 years, see our main page for more information.

Volunteers
Unlike many companies and projects, Miraheze doesn't have official "staff" who run the service. Instead, Miraheze is run by groups of volunteers that manage the farm's day-to-day operations. Below are a few important ones:


 * Stewards – The highest-ranking users in a community role, responsible for global community matters and global wiki actions. For instance, disruptive behavior on a wiki that cannot be resolved sufficiently by local administrative action can be referred to Stewards. Contact Stewards on the Stewards' noticeboard.


 * System administrators – Responsible for the technical functioning of Miraheze servers, software and technology, making sure everything works as intended.


 * Board of Directors – The governing body of Miraheze Limited that maintains full financial, decision, and goal making authority for the company. There are currently 3 directors.


 * Meta Administrators – Responsible for matters involving this wiki-only, Miraheze Meta.

Servers & Location
Since January 2022, we have our own physical hardware where we host most of our servers. Our data centre, which we call SCSVG, is located in Stevenage, United Kingdom. Other than our hardware, we also host cache proxy servers with OVH and ns1 (nameservers) with RamNode.

You can see more information and documentation about each of them on our list of servers and on their specific pages.

Miraheze Name
When one Miraheze's co-founders worked for the Wikimedia Foundation, some of their servers were named after stars. Two such servers specifically were named  and , so mashing these names together resulted in our name, Miraheze!

As for official pronunciation, there isn't one. Many people pronounce Miraheze differently, though consensus as of 2022 seems to be "meer-ah-heez".

Financing
As a non-profit, Miraheze entirely depends on donations from people like you! We don't display ads nor are we financed by a company or a government, so we depend entirely on our generous donors. Please see Donate and Finance for more information.

Being Ad-free
Miraheze doesn't display ads because people dislike ads, they won't gain us more money than donations (and could induce people to stop donating). Ads are also a privacy leak, and raise the risk of pressure from advertising companies for us to adjust the content on wikis. We defend our editorial independence, and that of authors working on individual wikis.

Donating to Miraheze
Miraheze accepts all payment methods accepted by PayPal. You may click here, send a donation directly to , contact Owen, or use another method listed on our Donate page.

Contributing
Miraheze always needs more volunteers, if you're interested in volunteering, please have a look at our Contributing page, or ask further questions on the Community noticeboard.

Eligibility
Determine your eligibility for a Miraheze-hosted wiki by reading the Content Policy, Global Conduct Policy, and any other Global policies relevant to your wiki request.

Requesting a wiki
First, create an account, then go to Special:RequestWiki while logged in, and fill in the form. Please include plenty of details about your wiki, so we can approve it. Wiki requests that lack description detail may be declined.

Creation status
If an email is attached to your account, you should receive an email informing you when your wiki has been created. If you don't have an email attached to your account, you should add one because if you lose your password, you'll be permanently locked out. You'll also receive an on-wiki notification when your wiki is created.

Other ways to track your request:
 * Via the request wiki queue,
 * The Farmer log also displays a log of all wiki approvals and rejections.

There are some cases where a wiki can't be created, such as when a wiki with the same name already exists, when you didn't provide enough information in your request, or when creating it is against either the Content Policy or any other Miraheze policies. In those cases, a wiki creator will inform you of that via the wiki request.

Initial wiki state
Once created, you'll see we add a Main Page to your wiki, with wording (in your chosen language) that is as inviting as possible, given that no wiki member has written anything real yet. We encourage you to edit this with whatever material you want visitors to see.

All new wikis feature an ordinary MediaWiki installation, which may lack features you're looking for. People have written skins to alter wiki appearance, and extensions that extend MediaWiki's abilities. Extensions generally add new features, but most extensions aren't enabled by default.

Creation Errors
Although very rare, this can sometimes happen. Stay calm! Check your request in the Farmer log to be sure the request got into the log and was serviced. The quickest (and recommended) ways to report an issue are Phabricator, IRC, Discord, but you can also leave a message on the Community noticeboard, or contact a system administrator. If you were shown an error message when you tried to view your wiki, or tried to take an action that should have been allowed, copy this information and include it in your report.

Moving a wiki to Miraheze
If you want to move an existing wiki to Miraheze, the topics above still apply, you'll still need to request a wiki. Generally, you will need to send an XML dump to us, and an image dump if you also want to import images. Please refer to We have an entire page for details.

ManageWiki
ManageWiki is an extension that allows wiki bureaucrats to edit their wiki's local configuration without needing a system administrator to do it for them. It is divided into 5 sections:


 * ManageWiki is a powerful tool, so please be careful to whom you grant the bureacrat right.
 * Settings change may take a few minutes to take effect.
 * See the ManageWiki page for full details.

Default features
The Extensions page describes pre-enabled extensions on your wiki, extensions you can enable yourself via ManageWiki, and extensions we won't add for privacy, security, and other reasons. The page also outlines how to request extensions not in ManageWiki.

Using a custom domain name
If you don't want your wiki to use a subdomain (yourwiki.miraheze.org), you can request we change the domain name to any domain you own and point to us. Please see Custom domains for more information.

Backing up your wiki
If you are a local administrator, you can go to Special:DataDump on your wiki and request a backup.

For more details, please see Backups.

Phabricator (technical issues)
Phabricator is a system by which wiki bureaucrats can report technical issues to system administrators or request configuration changes for configuration variables that are not in ManageWiki. Phabricator is not meant for general support requests like help with CSS, only for technical difficulties. For general support, have a look at the Help center

Phabricator is separate from MediaWiki, which is the software powering your wiki, but it is still under the control of Miraheze.

Please refer to the Phabricator page for a guide on how to sign in to Phabricator. Generally, it's pretty straightforward. On the sign-in page, click the MediaWiki logo to be signed in to Miraheze.

Changing the logo or favicon

 * Please refer to the ManageWiki help page for how to change your logo or favicon.

Wiki ownership
Since the early beginnings of wiki communities, wikis have generally operated on community consensus. This was the case with WikiWikiWeb, the very first wiki and is also the case with all Wikimedia projects, including Wikipedia. As such, Miraheze takes the stance that wikis are owned by their community and operate based on community consensus. No single person owns a wiki and can act as an autocratic dictator.

Wikis should generally strive to take local users into consideration. Where possible, administrators, and bureaucrats should be elected by the local community, and local communities should pass policies based on community vote and consensus. Local administrators are sometimes afforded extra leverage when it comes to wiki governance. Some wikis pass policies and rules without consulting the community. While not the best, as long as the policy is not seriously challenged, it may stand. If the policy is challenged, though, bureaucrats should not aim to suppress the users in question, but instead, the policy in question should go before a community vote. Bureaucrats do have discretion to ignore the challenge if they feel the contesting was done in bad-faith, or by a user trying to circumvent long-standing rules for their benefit. If a matter is not resolved adequately, Stewards may intervene if requested by local users or administrators. Stewards will first analyse the wiki, it's approved scope, and policies and will decide from there whether intervention is needed.

Wiki Concensus
Consensus is defined by Wiktionary as "General agreement among the members of a given group or community, each of which exercises some discretion in decision-making and follow-up action."

Consensus is just that, when users come to agreement on how a community should run. Consensus isn't just counting votes though, it's about seeing who makes the best, most thoughtful argument. For example, imagine User A is nominated for adminiship. User B, C, and D vote in favour but give no reason why, or just say "I like them". User E votes against and cites proof that User A has been rude to other users, that they have little experience, and that they are not very active. In weighing votes, User E's vote weighs much heavier than User B, C, and D's because they gave solid reason to back their opinion, while User B, C, and D did not.

Bureaucrats are generally charged with determining local consensus unless they are inactive, in which case a Steward may do that in their stead if requested. Bureaucrats should never try to override community consensus or suppress community will because of personal opinions. There are very limited times when community consensus can be ignored, such as in extreme cases where consensus would lead to a danger or instability in the community, or where there are concerns with the voting process such as sockpuppetry, etc. In those cases, a Steward should be contacted to help. If the community is dissatisfied with the outcome of a decision, they may challenge it. If the community feels that consensus on any challenge was interpreted wrong, they may contact Stewards who will attempt to mediate.

Autonomy
Much like Wikimedia, Miraheze allows for local self-rule and autonomy. All wikis are granted autonomy to act as their local community wishes, so long as they obey all global policies. Wikis are free to elect their own leaders, establish their own policies, and more. Stewards and other global officials very rarely meddle with local affairs unless requested to or a violation of our global policies occurs. Unlike other wiki farms which may forcefully take actions that go against the will of the local community, Stewards will not do that unless there is a violation of global policies.

Do note though that while communities are autonomous, they are not entirely independent and free from regulations related to safety, security, civility, and legality. All wikis are subject to our global policies and are subject to British law. Some wikis erroneously get the idea that they are not subject to our Privacy Policy, Terms of Use or anything else. That is not the case. Miraheze has policies that were elected by users and legal obligations, so while wikis are free to do as they wish for the most part, they must follow our global policies.

Disputes
If you've had issues with users or wikis, there are steps you can take to settle the dispute. Please try to remain civil and calm at all times. All users are bound to the Code of Conduct. No one is above it, including wiki administrators and Miraheze's own volunteers. Incivility will not be tolerated at all.

User disputes

 * 1) Talk to them
 * 2) Raise the issue to a local wiki administrator. On this wiki (Miraheze Meta) only, you can use Administrators' noticeboard.
 * 3) If there is no resolution and the problem you're facing involves violations of the Code of Conduct, please email stewards@undefinedmiraheze.org . Stewards will investigate the matter and bring a satisfactory resolution.

Wiki disputes

 * 1) Please raise all local issues with local wiki administrators first.
 * 2) If there are still issues or if the issue involves a severe violation of our global policies, and you do not feel comfortable contacting the wiki's administrators, you may contact a Steward for help either on the Stewards' noticeboard or via email to stewards@undefinedmiraheze.org . If you are reporting violations of the Content Policy or other global policies, please make sure to include plenty of evidence.

Editorial disputes usually are not resolved by Stewards. Stewards will always defer editorial disputes to local administrators. Coming to Stewards attempting to get them to overturn a local decision will not work.

Steward intervention
Stewards are users elected by the global community at large to assist wikis with any issues that face them along with doing advanced tasks (such as deleting big pages, CheckUser, Oversight, assigning rights on wikis without bureaucrats, etc.) and acting as administrators/bureaucrats on wikis without active administrators/bureaucrats. Stewards try not to intervene locally where possible. If an issue can be resolved locally, Stewards try not to act and try to leave it to local administrators. Very rarely (if ever) do Stewards get involved in mediating editorial conflicts unless the issue has escalated to a point where global policies like the Code of Conduct are being broken, or where the issue has escalated to threats.

Stewards should not be the first people contacted when you have an issue on a wiki unless the issue is severe, and it breaks our global policies or where you feel you are uncomfortable raising an issue with local administrators because of fear of reprisal. If local administrators do not resolve an issue such as a conduct issue within a reasonable number of times, Stewards may be called in at the request of users.

Stewards are always expected to act in the community's best interests, after researching what the community is and how it works. They are not sole arbiters or dictators, either. If there is an issue with how a Steward has assessed or interpreted an issue, please bring it to public attention on the Stewards' noticeboard. Individual Steward actions are superseded by a consensus of Stewards, and even the consensus of Stewards must be informed by the will of the global Miraheze community and the policies that users have elected.

As mentioned above, Stewards act as bureaucrats on wikis without local bureaucrats. This means that they can promote or demote administrators and bureaucrats on wikis without local bureaucrats, and can do other administrative tasks. Global Sysops help Stewards do some administrative tasks related to counter-vandalism on all wikis.

Removing a bureaucrat
Bureaucrats are the highest-ranking officials of a wiki. If you wish to remove a bureaucrat, please request that on the Stewards' noticeboard. You must have a valid reason, such as abuse, resignation, or there must be consensus in the wiki to do so. The Steward will want evidence (such as specific edits) that shows you are not just asking them to take one side in a clash of personalities.

Bureaucrats can also change ManageWiki permissions to empower them to remove other bureaucrats, including you. Note that this change should not be done without community consensus. If Stewards feel a bureaucrat demotion was unjustified, they reserve the right to revert the demotion and may take local action to resolve any issues.

Privacy level
A private wiki can only be viewed and edited by its members. To allow someone to view and edit your wiki, please go to Special:UserRights on your wiki (not this wiki, Miraheze Meta, whose rights are only editable by local administration) and enter the name of any registered Miraheze user to put that user in the  group on your wiki.

If you don't see the username of the person who you want to add to your wiki, that means their account doesn't exist locally. Please ask them to visit the wiki so that our login system can create a local account for them.

Under very rare circumstances, Stewards, System administrators and Trust and Safety can check private wikis. This is almost always to ensure compliance with all global policies, legal requirements, or to troubleshoot a problem on a wiki.

Public main page
The main page is always public, by rule. You can get around this rule by putting your main content on some other page (say, "Home"), then editing your main page to redirect it there:
 * 1) REDIRECT Home

Closing a wiki
A wiki closes (becomes inactive) when you go to and tick the Closed button. It is reopened when you return to and uncheck this button.

A wiki is also automatically after a period of inactivity, as specified by the Dormancy Policy. Read the actual policy document rather than relying on this summary. The Dormancy Policy went into effect on 5 January 2016 and applies to all wikis.

If you have perused a closed wiki and believe you could take it further, please go to Requests for reopening wikis.

Moving a wiki
Exporting pages from a wiki, such as to a mirror site or to a host apart from Miraheze, is the reverse of importing pages from another wiki onto your Miraheze wiki.

If your wiki consists of a small number of pages,  list them. You can copy this list and paste it into the  page to produce a content dump in XML format.

If your wiki is larger, Miraheze can provide assistance. You should request this assistance by opening a ticket on Phabricator. If the target host does not use the MediaWiki software, the pages may require conversion into the format that the target host uses. Miraheze cannot help you with that.

Miraheze configuration
We have a GitHub organisation where we store our Puppet configuration, extensions, MediaWiki install and other code. The config for wikis can be found in the mw-config repository.