User blog:Jenburton/Scratchpad is going away - here's why

Scratchpad will be closed on Wednesday, April 4, 2012

When we launched Scratchpad back in 2004, Wikia was a much different place. Back then, all new wikis had to be approved by Wikia staff so we created Scratchpad as a proving ground. We asked people to kick their wikis off on Scratchpad and then we’d give them the greenlight to become full fledged wikis on their own.

Those days are long gone. Wikia’s been encouraging passionate individuals to create their very own wikis for a while now with no approval process so there’s no need to prove yourself on Scratchpad any longer. Anyone can create their own wiki in just a few steps - all you need is an account on Wikia and a passion for sharing your knowledge.

But, I use Scratchpad as a testing ground for page designs!

We love that you’re working on new designs and mastering wiki text - that’s awesome! But, now that creating your own wiki is so simple (and, as always, totally free) you can easily create a test wiki for all your hacking, testing and learning needs. What’s great about this is that unlike on Scratchpad, you can work on full site design, add Labs features and practice your budding wiki admin skills.

What about all those pages I created on Scratchpad?

Pages are easy to export from Scratchpad and import into a new wiki. If you to go your pages here on Scratchpad and give them a simple category name you can then go to Special:Export and follow the steps to export your pages.

Once you are ready to export, you will prompted to download an XML file. Save it to your computer. Once you have created your new wiki, you will be able to go to Special:Import, upload that XML file from your computer, and then start the import process. It’s quick, easy, and will take just a few minutes to get your wiki going!

How long do I have?

We’ll be turning off the lights on Scratchpad on Wednesday, April 4, 2012 so you have two weeks to migrate your content to your new wiki. If you have any questions, please contact us via Special:Contact and we’ll do our best to assist.

Thanks -

Jen