Hello Wikia community! I am Marc-Philipp (also known as MtaÄ). I have been editing on Wikia since 2008 and a member of the International Volunteer Team (IVT) since 2009. Today, I wanted to give you a little more insight into what "working on International Wikia" means and introduce the international team.

Wikia is around the world and has a vibrant international community of readers and editors. The IVT is a team of helpers on Wikia that work on international communities, with a special emphasis on the German, Spanish, Italian, French, Polish and Russian communities.

Supporting our international communities means that we are supporting local communities by answering questions in our local community forums, writing help pages and translating …

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Hi All, I am Sean McGilvray the newest member of Wikia's Community Support Team. I was most recently a member of the legal department for the video game publisher NAMCO, where I spent a great deal of time handling intellectual property infringements. I have a legal background, and am excited to learn more about Wikia's CC-BY-SA license and how communities here work together to create open and free content.

I am also a huge gamer and am already a fan of the gaming room at Wikia's HQ. You may find me hanging out on role playing game wikis like Skyrim, Fallout, and Mass Effect or exploring the far reaches of space in EVE Online. I also play shooters like Halo and CoD, despite the fact I'm terrible at them. :)

When not at the controller, I spend…

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Everyday we have new users joining Wikia who are excited to share their knowledge and get involved in the many communities we have here — which is awesome! But let's face it, if you aren't already familiar with wiki editing — building a wiki can be a little daunting for your everyday newbie. We'd like to make building and creating wikis less difficult for new users.

As the Community Manager of Founder Experience, I spend a lot of time thinking about how we can help newbie founders and make their lives easier here at Wikia. Everyday, I talk to our users about how we can make this happen and see what they think. Back in October I had a conversation with Cook Me Plox from the RuneScape wiki about this very issue: helping newbies. He mentioned …

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I'm sure all of you have been reading about SOPA and PIPA in the news. While SOPA -- the bill in the US House of Representatives -- has gotten most of the attention, it's sister legislation, PIPA -- the bill in the US Senate -- represents a similar approach. These bills are driven by the content industry and are aimed at combating online piracy, protecting intellectual property rights of copyright holders and protecting jobs that are claimed to be affected. The content industry's key objective with this proposed legislation is to stop foreign companies who make millions of dollars on the backs of unlicensed content or counterfeit goods. While we absolutely support the idea of reducing intellectual property theft, SOPA and PIPA in their cur…

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Welcome to the next installment of our Featured Wikian blog series. Recently, we chatted with Station7, a Dutch user who spends a lot of time editing a lot of wikis!

Wikia: Tell us a little bit about yourself
Station7: My name is Robert and I have Autism. I have an internship this year, so I'll be in school 2 days a week and my internship 3 days. I'm 18 years old, and I have a sister. I especially love; Lost, 24, Prison Break, and now Breakout Kings. I also collect books and comics from the Dutch "de Rode Ridder" and I'm collecting the books which appear in Lost.

Wikia: How did you first discover Wikia?
Station7: All the credit goes to my sister for finding Wikia. She typed in Lost, and found the name "Lostpedia". This is how I discovered Wikia.

Wi…

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I have some great news for you: Today we’ve removed the fixed light or dark theme on both the Admin Dashboard and the Editor.

It's important and necessary for you as communities to have your own look and feel. You have all worked really hard to define and make your wikis unique. And one good way to do this is through your own local color theming. So as of this morning, you'll see your Admin Dashboard and Editor pull in your wiki's customized colors.

For those of you who are new on the scene, here's some background: earlier this year we rolled out the Wikia Editor and the Admin Dashboard. Both of these features had a universal color theme (Admin Dashboard having both light and dark theming depending on the color of your wiki) which separated …

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If you play the game and tweet about it, you can also enter to win a $250 Fandango gift card. The contest runs until December 11, and you can find all the juicy details here.

Stay tuned for the next mobile team update. If all goes well, you'll be receiving a big Wikia Mobile holiday present.

About a month ago, the Wikia Community Support team asked for your feedback on our product release process; the response rate was huge, with just under 4,000 users taking the survey! Below are some of our findings as well as some recommendations based on this information.

• Who took the survey?
  • 59% of respondents are between the ages of 13-18
  • The age of account (length of time the respondents have been members of Wikia) is pretty even, though the folks who’ve been here between 1-3 years (27%) nudges the noobs out by one percent (26%)
  • 62% of respondents have never given feedback on one of the Wikia staff blog posts before
• What did we learn?
  • Just over a third of the people who responded want to learn about new features via a sitewide message (36%)
  • 39…

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Did you know that the Content Team at Wikia has been keeping track of wikis mentioned in local, national, and international news outlets and blogs?

If your wiki has ever been mentioned in a blog post or news article outside the Wikia community, you know that it can be a gratifying validation for all your late nights (or early mornings!) spent editing, formatting, coding, skinning, photoshopping, categorizing, fact checking, etc.

Today, I’d like to highlight four wikis that have recently received some love from the press. Keep in mind that we’re really excited about any wiki that gets mentioned — these are just a few examples:

• Harry Potter Wiki - Check out the Entertainment Weekly blog post about the Harry Potter Wiki’s “Potter in a Tweet” contes…

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Today, we're excited to announce a new community support initiative that Wikia will be offering all of our users: webinars!

Beginning October 4, we'll be hosting a monthly webinar series on the first Tuesday of each month. In these hour-long sessions, we will introduce new tools, offer tips on editing, and discuss best practices. The Community Support team, as well as guest presenters from the Product, Engineering, and Content Marketing teams, will be your webinar hosts.

Here are the dates and topics for our upcoming webinars:

• October 4 - Admin Tools & Tips
• November 1 - New Product Updates & Best Practices
• December 6 - Tips for Designing & Promoting Your Wiki

You can also find the full schedule, including presenter names and registration informatio…

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