Template:TOCright The Nintendo Independent Wiki Alliance, or NIWA for short, is a network of wikis and their associated websites written in English, that aims to chronicle all things Nintendo, supporting wikis independent of large corporate wiki groups and organisations such as Wikia.
History
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 Nintendo-based wikis 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 2010, coincidentally the fifth anniversary of the public launch of Bulbapedia. NIWA now boasts having its own forums, hub-site page, and Facebook fan page and a Twitter account.
Inductees
Some of the smaller Nintendo themed wikis, such as WiKirby aimed to join NIWA. After much staff discussion, it was decided that wikis 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 supporting a fellow Nintendo wiki.
WiKirby, the Kirby-themed wiki became the first wiki inducted into NIWA on 21 May 2010. Metroid Wiki was later inducted, and was followed by Wars Wiki. Lylat Wiki was inducted on 1 October 2010, and Pikipedia and Pikmin Fanon joined 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 Nintendo Wiki 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 most recent wiki to join was ARMS Institute on 22 June 2017.
Name
The NIWA acronym is derived from the Nintendo Independent Wiki Alliance. NIWA is also romanised Japanese for 'garden', and symbolises the natural growth of the community around the fandoms 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 copyright. It goes on to state:[1]
| NIWA is in no way associated with Nintendo. 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. |
See also
References
External links
- NIWAnetwork.org — NIWA's hub-site