Nintendo Independent Wiki Alliance

The Nintendo Independent Wiki Alliance, or NIWA for short, and also known as the NIWA Network, is a of wiki sites and their associated websites written in, that aims to chronicle all things , supporting wikis independent of large corporate wiki groups or organisations such as Wikia.

All NIWA Network wiki sites are ly owned and operated, and separately hosted. Individually, they maintain their own unique identity and design, core values, and established traditions.

Founding
NIWA began as an expansion of the concept of Encyclopaediae Pokémonis, shortly after the administration of Zelda Wiki contacted Archaic, Bulbagarden's head, about a possible affiliation. It was jointly decided, shortly thereafter, that rather than a simple affiliation, an entire network of -based wiki sites could be created, and Super Mario Wiki was shortly asked to join as a founding member.

After a little under a month of planning, NIWA was launched on 14 February, coincidentally the fifth anniversary of the public launch of Bulbapedia. NIWA now boasts having its own forums, hub-site page, Facebook fan page, and a Twitter account.

Inductees
Some of the smaller Nintendo themed wiki sites, such as WiKirby aimed to join NIWA. After much staff discussion, it was decided that wiki sites needed to first create their 200th article on their own, to prove their willingness to work. NIWA publicity would bring many viewers, and possibly new editors, once inducting and fully a fellow Nintendo wiki site.

WiKirby, the Kirby-themed wiki became the first wiki site inducted into NIWA on 21 May 2010. Metroid Wiki was later inducted, and was followed by Wars Wiki. On 1 October 2010, Lylat Wiki was inducted, with Pikipedia and Pikmin Fanon joining a week later. StrategyWiki followed on 15 October 2010. Next was SmashWiki, on 29 October 2010, followed by WikiBound on 4 November 2010. Donkey Kong Wiki joined on 12 November 2010. Golden Sun Universe joined on 30 November 2010. The NintendoWiki joined on 10 December 2010. Fire Emblem Wiki joined on 20 April 2011, followed by Starfy Wiki on 28 April 2011. F-Zero Wiki joined on 16 March 2012. Icaruspedia joined on 23 March 2012, Dragon Quest Wiki joined on 30 March 2012. 2013 was a quiet year for NIWA inductees. Hard Drop Tetris Wiki joined on 17 January 2014, and Inkipedia, on 4 July 2015. The ARMS Institute joined on 22 June 2017. The most recent wikis to join are Xeno Series Wiki, Dragalia Lost Wiki, and Ukikipedia.

Name
The NIWA acronym is derived from the Nintendo Independent Wiki Alliance. The word 'niwa' is also romanised Japanese for 'garden', and symbolises the natural growth of the community around the that make up NIWA. This is fitting, given Nintendo's Japanese origins, with romanisation of Japanese being an important aspect of all wikis making up the network.

Legal
The content contained on the Nintendo Independent Wiki Alliance (NIWA) website is . It goes on to state: NIWA is in no way associated with . In places where copyrighted Nintendo content is presented we do so with fair terms of use, whereby it is not used commercially for gain and where it does not impede Nintendo's right to sell the depicted material.

Furthermore the member wikis of NIWA are not bound by a single license. Therefore please refer to the individual wikis for their licensing and content duplication policies.

NIWA owned

 * Nintendo Independent Wiki Alliance (German) — a subsequent German-language sub-division
 * Network italiano wiki indipendenti Nintendo (NiwiN) — a subsequent Italian-language sub-division

Other alliances

 * Gaming Wiki Network (GWN)
 * Square Enix Independent Wiki Alliance (SEIWA)
 * Sci-fi Independent Wiki Alliance
 * Sony Computer Independent Wiki Alliance (SCIWA)
 * Valve Wiki Network (VWN)