Forking Policy

In most cases the content you add to a wiki is licensed under CC-BY-SA or (for historically Gamepedia wikis) CC-BY-NC-SA. That means that anyone can use the wiki's content, as long as they give attribution and agree that others can also use the content and any future variants of it.

One consequence of this is that wikis can fork. That means that someone can take a copy of the wiki, and host it off Fandom. We call it a fork, not a move, because the Fandom wiki remains active, and departing community members go their separate ways - as if the split was a fork in a road.

Sometimes groups of editors decide to set up a new forked wiki. We are always very sad to see people move on in this way, but we accept it as part of the open source license we choose to use. Before that happens, we want to hear a community's concerns and see if we can help. We want you to be happy on Fandom, and will try to work with you to make that happen!

But ultimately, we respect your right to edit wherever you want and we understand that forks happen. Editors and admins are custodians of community projects for their wiki’s subject for as long as they’re active on Fandom, and so we do not close wikis when a group decides to edit elsewhere. The Fandom wiki will remain open to provide a dedicated on-Fandom reference resource for the topic.

Wikis are therefore not owned by any particular set of editors, but rather are a living project where people can come and go. So just as we respect your right to fork, we expect that those who fork respect the wiki they are leaving. That means allowing the wiki to continue to thrive in the future without interference, so that remaining and future contributors can enjoy their continued success.

To aid in this, we have a simple set of rules that we expect those forking to follow. The aim is to ensure everyone is aware of the limits and expectations.

1. The wiki must be left intact and available for any future editors to use.
   • Do not damage the wiki you are leaving.
     • That includes deleting valid pages or images, adding false information, or otherwise damaging the content.
   • Do not change fundamental elements of the site.
     • This includes the name, theme and logo of the wiki, and any special features such as infobox styling and special CSS or JS.
     • The direction and topic of the wiki must also remain stable. It's not okay to try and change a canon wiki to a fanon one, for example.
     • All major changes to the Fandom wiki must be reviewed and approved by staff.
2. The Fandom wiki must not be used to promote or advertise the fork wiki.
   • A discussion of the fork, or an announcement post, is permitted.
   • Given that forking is a community decision, you’re permitted a space on the wiki to discuss that potential decision. This could be on a blog, on Discussions, or forum.
   • The new wiki's URL cannot be added to pages other than the discussion.
   • If the community has decided to discuss whether to fork, you may reference the discussion in a designated section on the wiki’s main page using a specified template.
     • If you would like to reference a fork discussion and need this template, contact our Support team.
     • Any forking discussion reference not using this template will be removed by staff as only the template is allowed. It should not be changed except for adding a link to the discussion.
   • The discussion link may stay on the main page for the duration of the active discussion, meaning from when the discussion (or voting) begins until the outcome is decided and any users leaving the community move.
   • This includes not posting on message walls with notices directing people to the fork.
   • Sitenotices and Anonnotices referencing the discussion, the fork, or the new URL are not permitted.
3. Departing admins and other rights holders must make a clean break from the wiki.
   • Once a decision has been made to fork, it's not possible to want two different wikis to be the one, ultimate resource for your topic. So there is a serious conflict of interest in trying to admin what will become two competing communities.
     • Admins moving to a new fork cannot also stay and try to influence the direction of the wiki they have left.
     • Staff will remove rights from departing admins and allow new admins to be chosen once the fork is complete.

Forking is a drastic and often difficult move. We would, of course, like you to stay on Fandom! We have the advantage of a large and stable platform, with strong SEO and a large and dedicated staff team.

If you have any issues on Fandom, we are very keen to hear them and help resolve them.