Gundam Wiki:Frequently Asked Questions

The Gundam Wiki FAQ is still in its initial stages. Help us out by adding your questions!

General Questions

What is Gundam Wiki?

Gundam Wiki is a free content, freely editable online resource center for anything Gundam-related. This includes the anime, manga, gunpla, games and fan sites.

Who owns Gundam Wiki?

Gundam Wiki is hosted by Wikia, a free wiki hosting service operated by Wikia, Inc., a for-profit organization founded by Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesley. However, the Gundam Wiki content, licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License, is not "owned" by anyone in the traditional sense. Anyone can reuse it elsewhere.

When and why was Gundam Wiki created?

Gundam Wiki was started on 09 January 2005 by User:SOCL and User:TomStar81 as a project that would provide a more complete coverage of Gundam than on Wikipedia. For example, almost every character on Gundam Wiki has a separate article, while on Wikipedia, minor characters are grouped into long "List of characters" articles. Trivial information regarding the Gundam metaseries were also frowned upon on Wikipedia.

When Wikipedia started to clean up its content, it is inevitable that fictional articles about the Gundam metaseries would end up being flagged as articles for deletion. This gave Gundam enthusiasts a greater purpose to save the valuable information from Wikipedia and place them here on Gundam Wiki.

Who is responsible for the Gundam Wiki content?

You are! In fact, you can edit this very FAQ! Since Gundam Wiki is an unofficial, community-driven project, edited by hundreds of people unfamiliar with each other, we cannot possibly guarantee (and explicitly disclaim) any degree of accuracy and validity, although we do strive for both accuracy and verifiability — this means that everyone should be able to verify the facts mentioned in every article.

You can view an article's edit history to find out who contributed it.

What keeps Gundam Wiki from being destroyed?

Every Gundam Wiki article contains an edit history (accessible from the "history" tab by default), which records all edits to the article since it was created. In case of a bad edit, anyone can revert the article to an earlier revision.

How can I contact the project?

The Community Portal talk page is the general place to ask questions about Gundam Wiki or give feedback, although if it by its very nature only concerns the administrators, use the administrator's talk page instead. A better discussion area will be available once the forum is set up. You can also try the Gundam IRC chat channel; for instructions on joining it, see Gundam Wiki:IRC.

Legal Questions

Is Gundam Wiki copyrighted?

Yes, all contributions are copyrighted by the authors. This means that if you edit an article, you hold copyright for the edits you made, but not for edits made by other people contributing to the same article.

The GNU Free Documentation License used on Gundam Wiki ensures that everyone will have the right to freely access, modify and redistribute licensed content, no matter what. Therefore, do not contribute if you do not want your edits to be in turn mercilessly edited by others.

Can I use Gundam Wiki content on my site/elsewhere?

Yes! However, this only applies to the text, which is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License, and a select few free images. Most of our images are copyrighted by Sunrise Inc. and Bandai, and are used under the fair use clause for identification purposes, and using them for other purposes or in countries where fair use conditions do not apply may be illegal.

If you use Gundam Wiki articles elsewhere, all you are legally required to do (by the license) is to add a copyright notice saying that the article is copyrighted and licensed under the GFDL, and a link to the original Gundam Wiki article. You can freely modify and redistribute the material, provided that you license your modifications under the GFDL as well. You cannot license it on other conditions or put it in the public domain, nor can you claim copyright for content you did not write yourself (everyone only holds copyright to the contributions they themselves made).

Can I use Gundam Wiki content on another wiki?

Yes, if the said wiki is itself licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. This includes all of Wikia (with the exception of Memory Alpha and Uncyclopedia, which are sister projects licensed under Creative Commons licenses) and most Wikimedia Foundation projects, including Wikipedia. In this case, the aforementioned copyright notice goes to the talk page of the said article; the restrictions still apply.

Can I use content from other sites on Gundam Wiki?

No. By default, every work is copyrighted and the author holds exclusive rights to it, unless they explicitly release all or some of them. You can insert [Gundam Wiki:Copyrights|GNU Free Documentation License]] or public domain text into articles verbatim, but not anything else.

Technical Questions

What wiki software does Gundam Wiki use?

Gundam Wiki (and the rest of Wikia) uses MediaWiki, the same software as Wikipedia and other Wikimedia Foundation projects. Wikia also uses some third-party extensions, which are available to all hosted wikis. The exact details can be found at Special:Version.

Where should I report technical issues?

If they are indeed technical (like the site being down, or weird error messages) and not something within the users control (like templates), you can report them to the Wikia support channel on IRC, #wikia.

Do I have to register?

While registration is optional, it is strongly recommended. You can view and edit pages as an anonymous user, but registration hides your IP address and gives you the ability to upload files, move (rename) pages, and edit so-called semi-protected pages (after a few days).

Most importantly, registration gives you an identity and makes you a full-fledged member of the Gundam Wiki community. After you register and make your first edit, another user will usually greet you on your talk page and give links to some useful information pages.

Editing Questions

See also Help:Editing

What is the difference between red, blue and light blue links?

Blue links point to existing pages (like Main Page), red links point to nonexistent pages (like MediaWiki:Nonexistent), and light blue links are either external or interwiki links: in short, links that are supposed to point outside Gundam Wiki.

Where can I discuss pages?

Each page has a built-in discussion (talk) page, which can be accessed via the "discussion" tab. While discussing articles, please limit your posts to the article content, not the article subject. For example, the Talk:Gundam page should not be used to discuss about how good the mobile weapon is, but rather discussions whether (and how) it should be expanded, whether a certain image should be replaced or a section reworded are perfectly acceptable.

Somebody reverted my edits, what should I do?

Generally, not revert to your version in turn. This can start a revert war (also known as edit war), which is seen as disruptive because it prevents other contributors from improving the same article. Instead, question yourself whether the revert was justified, look at the edit history for the reason given, and try to settle the case on the talk page.

What is a minor edit?

A minor edit is an edit that it is so non-noteworthy that users monitoring the article can usually skip it. Examples are spelling and grammar corrections, corrections of formatting and template usage. Addition and omission of content, as well as factual corrections, are not minor edits and should not be marked as such.

If you accidentally marked a non-minor edit as a minor one, make a dummy edit (an edit that affects the source wikitext but not the output, like changing one space to two or vice versa), mark it as non-minor, and explain the problem.

What is a semi-protected page?

Semi-protected pages are pages that can only be edited by registered users that have been registered for 4 days or longer. It is done to prevent pages from being vandalized by anonymous or very new users. Like full protection, it is only used in extreme cases. If full protection is a last resort measure, semi-protection can be thought of a "penultimate resort".

Community Questions

Can I become an administrator?

Administrators hold much power, but also have much responsibility. There are a number of prerequisites for becoming an administrator, and whether or not a nomination succeeds largely depends on what other users think of you.

Who defines the policies?

The policies are determined by consensus: proposed new policies and changes are not approved until a decision that suits everyone or almost everyone is found.

How can I contact an administrator?

Just as you would contact any other user: by leaving a message on their talk page. If you have no preference for a specific administrator. Alternatively, you can join Gundam Wiki:IRC. IRC is best used for reporting action that must be stopped immediately, such as mass blanking or mass move vandalism.