What is a test wiki?

This article was written in response to critics that accuse C.Syde's Wiki of being a test wiki. True, it was originally a test wiki when it was first created. However it soon evolved into what I call an 'all-subject' wiki. This article was written because I was unable to find any pages on the Internet that explained what a test wiki was. And I thought that the Internet could really benefit from a page explaining the definition of a test wiki.

What is a test wiki?
A test wiki — or sandbox wiki — is a wiki that is created primarily or solely for testing purposes. It is usually created for testing purposes and to practise editing. Test wikis are often used to create test articles, so that the users that created them may someday publish higher quality versions of those articles on standard wikis.

Test wikis may also be created by users that are testing wiki creations. Not all test wikis are necessarily created so that they can be used by user that founded them.

What is a personal wiki?
A personal wiki is a wiki that is solely or predominantly managed by the user that founded it. Because a lot of test wikis are also personal wikis, a lot of people are quick to assume that a personal wiki is a test wiki, but that isn't always the case.

What is an all-subject wiki?
An all-subject wiki is a wiki that permits the creation of article pages, regardless of what they are about. As long as the pages do not violate the local and global policies, users can pretty much create pages about any subject they want. It should be noted that an all-subject wiki differs from a test wiki, because an all-subject wiki takes a more formal approach to the way the content is handled.

All-subject wikis, unlike test wikis, do not permit the creation of test pages, or test edits in large part. They often limit the areas where test edits may be performed. Because test wikis and all-subject wikis both have a major trait in common — allowing the creation of pages that don't focus on a particular subject, all-subject wikis are often confused with test wikis.

One of the biggest differences between test wikis, and all-subject wikis, is that all-subject wikis typically aren't accustomed to having test edits performed anywhere outside sandbox pages. And even then, the namespaces allowing sandboxes are very limited. Usually in 'Project:Sandbox' or 'Special:MyPage/Sandbox'. Unfortunately all-subject wikis don't have a viral term that defines them. The term 'all-subject wiki' is just a term that I use to distinguish them from test wikis.

Once you get past the similarities between test wikis and all-subject wikis, you'll find that all-subject wikis aren't that different from wikis that focus on a particular subject. The major difference is that wikis that focus on a particular subject don't allow the creation of pages that are not related to that particular subject. All-subject wikis don't focus on a particular subject, allowing the creation of pages, regardless of what subject they cover, as long as the subject doesn't violate the local and global policies.

In some ways, I would actually compare an all-subject wiki to, because neither of them focus on a particular subject. They are broken up into many subjects. However, Wikipedia is much larger than all-subject wikis on Fandom, so naturally the policies are stricter and more formal than on all-subject Fandom wikis.

What is C.Syde's Wiki?
If anyone said that C.Syde's Wiki was a test wiki prior to the 18th May 2015, they would have been correct. However C.Syde's Wiki has not been a test wiki for years. For one thing, most of the edits that are done on this wiki are not test edits, but serious edits. For another thing, if users were to do test edits on non-test pages, they would have their edits reverted and they would receive warnings and eventually blocks.

On the 17th May 2019, a was passed that prohibited the creation of test pages on the wiki. All existing test pages that were clearly intended for testing purposes were moved to the userspaces of their creators. Pages that were currently categorised as test pages that were too short to meet the standards of article pages, but weren't obvious test pages, were marked as stubs and were deleted after being stubs for too long.

C.Syde's Wiki had already moved away from being a wiki purely for testing purposes long before the 18th May 2015. However it wasn't until the wiki began to be denied certain benefits that I realised the cons of test wikis. I then realised that I didn't want the wiki to be considered a test wiki anymore, and the only way to do that would be to rename the wiki to something that did not have the word 'test' in it.

I knew it wouldn't be enough for the wiki to not have the word 'test' in it for it to not be a test wiki. So I made several additional changes to the wiki, such as improving the quality of many of the pages on the wiki, and moving them from the 'Test Pages' category to the newly created 'Pages' category.

Since the wiki's creation, it would undergo several changes. From being a wiki that was purely for testing purposes in September 2014, to a wiki that was partially for testing purposes and partially for serious content by February 2015, to a wiki that was primarily for serious content that still permitted the creation of content for testing purposes in May 2015, to a wiki that did not permit test edits outside the sandbox or the user's own userspace in May 2019.

Soon after the wiki was created, C.Syde's Wiki quickly transformed from a test wiki into an all-subject wiki. But unfortunately several users do still jump to erroneous conclusions about the wiki still being a wiki for testing purposes, which may be partially due to the fact that the database name still contains the wiki's original name.

I did request to have the wiki's database name updated to match the wiki's current name in April 2019, but I was told that that currently wasn't possible. Fortunately with most users, it's just a matter of me correcting them when they mistake the wiki for being a test wiki, instead of an all-subject wiki.

Since I am the one by far that knows the wiki's history the best, having been an active member of the wiki since its creation in September 2014, I am easily the most qualified to determine what the wiki is. And knowing that the wiki doesn't permit test edits outside the sandbox or one's own userspace, and knowing that there are many pages on the wiki that are on the same level as those on standard wikis that only focus on a particular subject, then an all-subject wiki is really the only way to describe a wiki like this one.