Nintendo Independent Wiki Alliance

Revision as of 03:17, 6 December 2010 by Turtwig A (talk | contribs) (→‎History)

The Nintendo Independent Wiki Alliance, NIWA for short, is a network of wikis and their associated websites that aims to chronicle all things Nintendo, supporting wikis independent of large corporate wiki groups, most notably Wikia.

The logo of NIWA, featuring the hiragana にわ, meaning "garden"

History

NIWA began as an expansion of the concept of Encyclopædiæ 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 begun, and Super Mario Wiki was shortly asked to join as another founding member.

After a little under a month of planning, NIWA was launched on February 14, 2010, coincidentally the fifth anniversary of the public launch of Bulbapedia.

Within two months more, preparations were complete for the launch of Metroid Wiki and WiKirby, which had been spun off by users of the original trio of NIWA wikis, and they joined the group. Wars Wiki, a wiki based on the age-old Nintendo Wars franchise, became the first member recruited from outside the original trio. Throughout October and mid-November, NIWA experienced a boost of wikis every week on Friday, starting with Lylat Wiki (October 1), then Pikipedia and Pikmin Fanon (October 8), StrategyWiki (October 15), SmashWiki (October 29), WikiBound (November 5), Donkey Kong Wiki (November 12), and Animal Crossing Wiki (November 19). On November 30th, Golden Sun Universe joined, notably on a Tuesday rather than Friday. A new wiki will join on December 10.

Name

NIWA's name, an acronym of Nintendo Independent Wiki Alliance, is also romanized Japanese for "garden", symbolizing the natural growth of the community around the fandoms that make it up. This is fitting, given Nintendo's Japanese origins, with romanization of Japanese being an important aspect of all fifteen wikis that currently make up the network.

External link