Wikis World

Wikis World is a server instance on the social media platform Mastodon, created for wiki enthusiasts. Mastodon is free software and uses open standards, part of the Fediverse, a social media ecosystem that supports users rather than exploiting them as a product. Discover it at wikis.world.

Signing up

We are still getting settled so you'll need to contact one of the moderators (see moderator list below) for an invitation.

We hope to eventually have open registration. Project and organization accounts are welcome as well.

Below are some of the most frequently asked questions.

FAQ

What are the benefits to signing up on Wikis World versus a different server?
- You can easily view and interact with all public posts from other users on Wikis World (the "local timeline")
- In your posts, you can use a bunch of wiki-themed emoji like barnstars and various project logos (these will be visible also to people reading your posts in other servers)
- The moderation team consists of people who are relatively well-known in the wiki world, and believe in the same principles of free culture, free software, etc.
- Your handle will show to others that you're interested and active in wikis
Do I need to sign up for Wikis World to participate?
- No, there are plenty of wiki editors who are on different instances. Because all servers are federated, you can comment on and interact with others' posts regardless of what server they are on. (Just as you can email any email address, they don't have to use the same email provider as you.)
Do I need a separate personal and work account? Or a separate personal account and a wiki account?
- No, you do not need to segment your life, come as you are. That said, if you want separate accounts, that's fine too.
Can my organization or project have an account?
- Yes, we are happy to give invites for organizational or project accounts. There are currently no special rules in place for organizational accounts.
I signed up on a different server, can I move to Wikis World?
- Yes! There is a guide available to migrate your account, but note that it's not possible to import old posts yet.
Once I've set up my account, how will people find me?
- It is common to post a short introduction about yourself and use the hashtag #introduction. Other people will boost introductions to help others find and follow you.
- If you are coming from Twitter, there are tools such as "movetodon" to discover people you followed over there.

Content

While users are expected to be involved in wikis in some way, feel free to post about anything in any language. All content posted on Wikis World is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by default (content posted before July 1, 2023 is licensed CC BY-SA 3.0 by default). Anyone can view all public posts from users on our instance (the "local timeline").

Here are some tips about posting:

Mastodon is not Twitter despite superficial resemblances. Culture, norms and technology are quite different. When in doubt, please ask - we want to help.
Hashtags are quite important on Mastodon, because full-text search is intentionally extremely limited (to avoid its use for targeted harassment). The best way to discover stuff is via hashtags, which can also be followed. So, hashtags should be used more liberally than on Twitter. Write hashtags in CamelCase (#WikisWorld instead of #wikisworld) for accessibility.
Mastodon supports content warnings (the "CW" button in the web UI). It's generally a good idea to use CWs for anything that is sensitive, such as detailed descriptions or images of violence. This collapses the post by default and lets readers expand it as they see fit. The feature is also often used for content that does not require a genuine warning; you can think it like the subject line of an email.
- Some common CWs include "uspol" and other variants (U.S. politics), "shitpost", "food", and "meta".
Accessibility is valued highly, which goes especially for images. When attaching an image, always add a caption, also known as ALT text (for users with screen readers or other assistive devices). Sooner or later, people will rightly call out images posted without ALT text.
- Media without a ALT text will receive a yellow border in the Wikis World web interface to remind you to add it.
- If you forgot the ALT text in a post, you can edit the post and the image inside it to add ALT text.
Mirroring posts automatically from Twitter is frowned upon, especially for retweets, quote-tweets, or tweets that contain mentions -- because it de-contextualizes content from another website and results in lots of external links to twitter.com.
Mastodon has made an intentional design choice to avoid a quote-tweet feature. This may be revisited in future, but at this point, the culture of Mastodon is one of "boost or reply" -- either promote someone else's post by boosting it (the equivalent of retweets) or engage with the author directly.
- As a consequence, boosting each other's posts liberally is common.
The fediverse has a more conversational, less performative culture than Twitter. It is possible that you will more frequently see questions or comments that you may want to engage with, even at a lower follower account.
Because there is no algorithmic timeline, many posts in rapid succession can be a bit grating. When doing threads, you can set replies to "unlisted". (still keeps it fully visible by everyone, just keeps it out of feeds)

Finances and legal

Wikis World is fiscally hosted by the Open Collective Europe Foundation, a Belgian non-profit (with US 501(c)(3) equivalency). If you would like to and are able to do so, you can donate on our Open Collective page (it's tax deductible in the U.S. and for some countries in the EU). Wikis World is a volunteer-run project, the funding is used for technical needs like paying our hosting provider and domain registration and eventually legal responsibilities like insurance and DMCA registration.

Administration

See our rules and privacy policy. Moderation responsibilities and tasks are documented at /Moderation. Some of our future plans/hopes are at /Plan. You should follow @announcements to get important updates about the instance.

Our moderators are:

Legoktm (administrator)
Taavi (administrator)
Lucas Werkmeister
AntiCompositeNumber

We also have some reports:

Wikis World is hosted by Masto.host; if the site is down, you can check their status page or Mastodon profile for known issues.

Emoji

The server has several wiki-themed emoji and some third-party emoji sets that you can use in posts (see full listing), including the following:

The blobhaj emoji set by Heatherhorns is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
The blobfox emoji set by Volpeon is licensed under Apache 2.0 license.
The Blobbee only emoji set by User:Olivvybee is licensed under Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
The pride flags from Treehouse Emoji are licensed under Creative Commons Zero 1.0 Public Domain Dedication.
:wikilove: is derived from File:Wikiheart.svg