Guide to writing wiki requests

Hello there! I bet you're excited to request a wiki on Miraheze. Before you do, however, it's important to know how to write a wiki request. In this guide, we'll review what should and shouldn't be in a wiki request and follow the process of writing a request.

Before you write a wiki request
Before you request your wiki, make sure there isn't already a wiki with a similar or identical purpose. If there is, contribute to that wiki instead. If the wiki is closed, you may request to reopen it.

Anatomy of a wiki request
You can request a wiki here. On that page, you'll see the following form:
 * Subdomain (subdomain.miraheze.org): A text box in which you put your wiki's subdomain.
 * Wiki name: A text box in which you name your wiki.
 * Language: A drop-down menu in which you select the language your wiki will be in.
 * Category: A drop-down menu in which you select the category of your wiki. Make sure you choose a category that best fits your wiki. You can choose from the following categories:


 * Private wiki (not readable by everyone; only readable by users given the member or sysop groups): Check this box to make your wiki accessible only by you and people you choose.
 * Will this wiki's main subject(s) be about living people? By checking this box, you acknowledge that people are the topic of your wiki.
 * The purpose of this wiki is... This is a drop-down menu in which you can select the purpose of your wiki to help it be found more easily in WikiDiscover search. You can choose the following purposes:

If your wiki doesn't fit well with any of these, select "None of the above". If you select this, a wiki creator may assign one closest to the scope you present, or you may have a harder time getting the request approved.
 * Reason: This is the most important input. In this one, you describe your wiki's purpose, topic, and scope. Make sure you put in sufficient detail, as described in "What a wiki request should contain" below. If wiki creators believe that your wiki may violate the Content Policy, they may decline the request even if you have described a sufficent purpose, topic, and scope.

Writing a wiki request
Now that you've reviewed what the request form looks like, you should know what goes in a wiki request.

What a wiki request should contain
These are what wiki requests should contain:
 * A clear statement of the wiki's purpose (ex. "This wiki will be about satirizing various mainstream subjects.")
 * What type of content the wiki will contain (ex. "It will contain a humorous description of each subject.")
 * Its scope (ex. "Anything that is not obscure will have a page on the wiki.")
 * A subdomain that is related to the wiki's purpose (remember to fill out the subdomain in the subdomain box!) (ex. "satire.miraheze.org") Note: The domain needs to be relevant to the topic, avoid being too short/generic, and should not overlap with an existing domain.

What wiki requests should not contain
Never put any of this in your wiki request:
 * Content unrelated to the wiki you are requesting, known as filler (ex. "Me and my friends played Minecraft.")
 * A generic subdomain (ex. "wiki7.miraheze.org")
 * Spam (or trolling) requests (ex. "uthfazrsfhfjfit7dt", "theudfhuehfuwefhirehgirhgjfolro")
 * Any content that violates the Content Policy (ex. "I would like a wiki to advertise my business.", "This wiki will be about racial stereotypes.")
 * Wikis that are setup solely for harassment (ex. "This wiki will expose horrible people and/or users.", "This wiki will slander many users, so we can gain clout off of it, hahaha!") will be declined immediately.

What to put in "reason"
The following are good and bad examples of what to put into the "reason" field in the wiki request form. Good examples are marked with green while bad examples are marked with red.

Good examples
This wiki will document about the online video sharing service YouTube. It will document its history, its content creators, its achievements, and the videos hosted on it. Most of its pages would be pages about popular youtubers, popular videos, and important events. This request has a clear purpose (documenting YouTube, its features, and the people who upload videos on it) and scope (only popular YouTubers and videos and important events)

This wiki will be all about wikis. It will document wikis with at least 50 pages as well as wiki farms and wiki engines, all from an encyclopedic point of view. This request may be short, but it does its job. In only 2 sentences, it described the wiki's purpose (documenting information about wikis), topic (wikis and wiki-related things), and scope (wikis with at least 50 pages).

This wiki will be about an imaginary world where the only living things on it were turtles. It would document about imaginary villages, cities, species, and other things in the imaginary world. The imaginary world would have high technology advancement. Another slightly short request, but again, it does its job. It described the wiki's purpose (This wiki will be about an imaginary world), topic (where the only living things on it were turtles), and scope (It would document about imaginary villages, cities, species, and other things in the imaginary world...).

I'd like to create this wiki to save notes for my class. The notes will be general notes such as interesting things and things I want to study about later. It would have lots of notes and some other stuff, such as some interesting or hard questions. (Visiblity: Private) This request is slightly unclear, but acceptable for a private wiki.

Bad examples
This wiki will be about wikis considered bad by the general community. It will outline the reasons why it's considered bad and the redeeming qualities, if any, it has. Pages about users will not be allowed on this wiki. Although this request has a sufficent purpose and topic, it is likely to cause drama and hate.

This wiki will document about YouTube and its creators. This request is not very clear. Will the wiki be about all YouTube creators or just popular ones? Will it document about hated YouTubers or not? If yes, will it violate the Content Policy or it will establish rules to delete everything policy-violating?

Recently, Fandom has been closing innocent wikis for no reason, so we'd like to host our wiki on Miraheze to be able to customize skins. We'd like this wiki to document an MMO game. This request uses the Fandom part as filler. The actual content is "We'd like this wiki to document an MMO game", the MMO game being unspecified.

A wiki for my imaginary world. Though imaginary world wikis generally have a short description, this request is completely unclear.

This wiki will be made to slander a bunch of users and people because we hate them, and we want them to have a bad reputation! This request is an example of what not to do when writing wiki request descriptions and will certainly be declined.

Example request
Now that we've reviewed the basics of wiki requests, let's follow the wiki requesting process of a user who, one day, decided to request a wiki. Here is that user's first wiki request: When the user submitted it, however, the request was declined. What was wrong with the wiki request? There were several things: The user didn't give up on the wiki, however! The user thought about how the wiki request could be improved and made changes. Here is the user's second request: This request was approved! It had several major changes:
 * Subdomain (subdomain.miraheze.org): fandomarchives
 * Wiki name: Archives
 * Language: en - English
 * Category: History
 * Private wiki (not readable by everyone; only readable by users given the member or sysop groups): No
 * Will this wiki's main subject(s) be about living people? No
 * The purpose of this wiki is... Documentation (software) wiki
 * Reason: I want to archive fandom events
 * 1) The user did not type out the subdomain correctly. Remember, your subdomain should be in the form subdomain.miraheze.org.
 * 2) The wiki's name didn't fit well with the wiki. A name such as "Fandom Archives" would be better.
 * 3) The user chose a category that didn't fit well with the wiki's purpose. Granted, no category fits well with the wiki's purpose, so the user would've been better off selecting "Uncategorized".
 * 4) The purpose of the wiki the user chose didn't fit well with the wiki's actual purpose. The closest purpose would be "Encyclopedia (specialized) wiki", since it documents events that happened in Fandom. The user could've also chosen "None of the above".
 * 5) The user didn't give enough details about the wiki. "I want to archive fandom events" says nothing about the wiki's topic and scope. A better reason would be the following: "My wiki will be about documenting events that happened on Fandom for easy access in the future. The events documented on this wiki will be important, such as a massive vandalism wave on a popular wiki. It will contain primary sources for accuracy, such as transcripts of conversations that users involved in the events had. It will also have chronologies of series of events."
 * Subdomain (subdomain.miraheze.org): fandomarchives.miraheze.org
 * Wiki name: Fandom Archives
 * Language: en - English
 * Category: Uncategorized
 * Private wiki (not readable by everyone; only readable by users given the member or sysop groups): No
 * Will this wiki's main subject(s) be about living people? No
 * The purpose of this wiki is... Encyclopedia (specialized) wiki
 * Reason: My wiki will be about documenting events that happened on Fandom for easy access in the future. The events documented on this wiki will be important, such as a massive vandalism wave on a popular wiki. It will contain primary sources for accuracy, such as transcripts of conversations that users involved in the events had. It will also have chronologies of series of events.
 * 1) The subdomain was changed to an appropriate one.
 * 2) The user changed the category and purpose to fit better with the wiki.
 * 3) The user expanded on the reason, adding what type of content the wiki will have and its purpose.

My wiki request was declined! What should I do?
Don't panic! Think about why your request was declined (for example, your subdomain was invalid or your request was unclear) and edit the wiki request to improve it. When you fix the request, you can easily be approved for a wiki.

Examples of good wiki requests
These are some examples of good wiki requests. You can use them as an example or template to your wiki request.
 * EASWiki
 * Hormononomicon
 * Massachusetts Candidate Database
 * OddCom Project
 * Well-read