Wikipedia:Alternative outlets

This is an essay, a page containing the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. Essays may represent widespread norms or minority viewpoints, and they may be heeded or not based upon your judgement and discretion.

Shortcuts: WP:ALTOUT WP:OUTLET

There are alternative outlets for potentially useful/valuable content which is not appropriate for Wikipedia.

Background

When content (text, pages, images, etc.) is deleted, "Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not" is commonly cited as explanation, and rightly so. Unfortunately, this is not particularly helpful or calming to the person(s) who put in time and effort to write the material. They often see it as their hard work being casually tossed away. The phrase "try another wiki" is also sometimes used, for similar intent.

In an effort to foster a spirit of WikiLove, this page provides some referrals to alternative outlets which do allow content that Wikipedia does not. Sometimes material is submitted that is perfectly factual and verifiable, but simply outside of the scope of Wikipedia. Just because the content does not belong here does not mean it does not have value, and it is worth preserving valuable free content if we can.

Please consider directing people to these sites (or this page), rather than simply telling them that their contributions are WP:NOT wanted.

For example, Wikipedia contains a significant amount of information about the "Star Wars" media franchise, but for an even more detailed treatment, try Wookieepedia — a wiki dedicated to the "Star Wars universe". Jurispedia focuses on legal topics, and WikiWikiWeb is the oldest wiki. There also are wikis devoted to specific languages or localities that may be more appropriate for a given topic.

There may be legal or ethical restrictions on the copying of content from Wikipedia to other sites. It is up to individual contributors to familiarize themselves with the procedures and policies of other outlets and to examine their licensing arrangements, which may differ from Wikipedia in significant ways.

Sister projects

Wikipedia is hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization that also hosts a range of other projects:

	Commons Free media repository		Wikinews Free-content news		Wiktionary Dictionary and thesaurus
	Wikiquote Collection of quotations		Wikibooks Free textbooks and manuals		Wikisource Free-content library
	Wikispecies Directory of species		Wikiversity Free learning materials and activities		Meta-Wiki Wikimedia project coordination

Other sites

There are Wikipedia articles, lists, and categories which provide information on other wikis. There are also links to external sites which provide similar.

• Comparison of wiki farms
• List of wikis
• Category:Wikis
• Category:Wiki communities

Directory of alternatives

NOTICE: The presence of a third-party site does not constitute an endorsement by the Wikimedia Foundation or the Wikipedia community. General disclaimer.

Inclusion criteria

The above is more than an arbitrary list of sites. Sister projects in the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) are preferred. Failing that, sites should meet some combination of the following criteria to be listed:

• Policies consistent with the spirit of WMF goals
• Allow content to be moved over verbatim (e.g., GFDL-compatible)
• A wiki, or like a wiki
• Notable in some way (preferably as a link to an existing Wikipedia article)

License restrictions

Content (text, images, etc.) submitted to Wikipedia is required to be licensed under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL). Other sites (especially non-WMF sites) may require a different license. Do not copy GFDL content from Wikipedia to other sites unless you are sure the licenses are compatible. If they are not, try contacting the copyright holder of the content to obtain permission to re-license the content. Typically the user who submitted the content to Wikipedia in the first place is the copyright holder. Check the page's edit history to help identify the user.

For GFDL content being deleted from Wikipedia, the edit history should also be copied or preserved in some way. For example, if the target site uses talk pages in the style of Wikipedia, copy the edit history there.

For more information, see: Reusing Wikipedia content.

See also

• Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not/Outtakes (humor)

Moving content

• Guide for Everything2 noders — Moving content from Wikipedia to E2
• Transwiki guide at Meta

Deletion

• Introduction to deletion process
• Guide to deletion
• Deletion policy
• Deletion debates
• Deletion process
• Deletion review
• Undeletion policy
• Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions
• Common deletion outcomes
• Deletion guidelines for administrators
• Deletion review guide
• Why was my page deleted?
• Editor's index entries about deletion

External links

• WikiIndex.org - a wiki of wikis
• Wikindex.com - tracking statistics of MediaWiki sites
• Wikia.com – List of wikis
• editthis.info – List of wikis
• Wiki-site.com – List of wikis in many languages