Have you ever wanted to start a new Wikidot.com site and found that the name you wanted was unavailable, and the owner had done nothing with the site. There are plenty of great site names, like wiki.wikidot.com that people have registered and then done nothing with. Well, today we fix that.
If there's a site you want to start, and the name is being used by a defunct site (a site with no interesting content that has been left unedited for more than 6-12 months), go to http://site-name.wikidot.com and make a request. We'll review it, and if it makes sense, rename the old site, leaving the name free for you to register.
Excellent decision… I think this info should be somewhere very visible in the main page or maybe, if it is possible, to appear when someone tries to make a site and gets the message that the name he wanted has already been used… Maybe he should get a message something like: Check the site that already has the name you want. If it is abandoned, then go to …. and request for name usurpation (heheh, this is wikipedia term, maybe it should be said in a different way)…
If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegan. - Paul McCartney
I would just like to thank you guys for offering this service. Thank you.
BTW, if someone spends the time reporting the url for review and then someone else takes it, is he just out of luck?
I am one of those people who didn't get the wiki link I wanted but I think its a really bad idea for me to defunct someone else's wiki link just because of inactivity. I know I would hate it if I were to go on vacation or if I left my wiki to others to manage and come back and can no longer access the wiki I designed. Maybe I'm wrong and overrating but there has to be another way.
How long are your vacations? If I leave a wiki unattended for 6-12 months and it has no activity I would have no grounds for complaint if I ever returned. Plus, the site isn't really shut down or deleted, it's just renamed. It is still accessible and I'd have to come up with an alternate name.
-Ed
Community Admin
It only applies to wikis that have been registered and then left abandoned with no investment, for a year or more (six months is the period defined in the terms of service).
This is aimed at people who've taken valuable names and not used them, it's not aimed at people who leave their wiki unattended. I can imagine some scenarios in which we recycle a wiki that's got some content, but it'd have to be really abandoned (filled with spam, no response from the admins, etc.)
Portfolio
I think it's a genius idea/service to users so long as, as you seemed to indicate there would be, there is at least some attempt to contact admins of sites that do have content and some traffic.
I understood this as it applies on wikis with little or no contents… I come, open a site, make a couple of tests and go, never come back, but the name is still occupied… Besides, I think that in cases of wikis with more contents that are inactive for a long period of time, an administrator will be contacted etc… It is not just "push the button and delete", there will be a process of lets say "investigation" on how really unused and abandoned the site is. And besides, even if administrator comes back one day his work is not lost, just renamed.
If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegan. - Paul McCartney
Waahoo!! this is awesome! i know exactly how it feels. i once wanted to make a site on a site that hasent been edited for over 900days and there was nothing i could about it till now!!!
There hasn’t been any sites reviewed to be release since 2016. I think the site site-name.wikidot.com has been abandoned and would like to petition for that name.