AARoads:The AARoads Wiki is not a mirror
 | This is an essay which contains the advice or opinions of one or more members of the AARoads Wiki. While it is not a part of the standards the project promotes, it provides some recommendations and ideas for members to consider. |
The AARoads Wiki is not a mirror of the English Wikipedia, or any other wiki, for that matter. This wiki's initial content was exported from the English Wikipedia, and remains under the same license. Some editors think that means that articles on the English Wikipedia need to be kept in sync with articles here.
Don't do that. That makes this wiki just a mirror of Wikipedia, rather than an independent wiki in its own right. There are a number of reasons why that's a bad idea:
- If search engines see this wiki as being a simple mirror or word-for-word duplicate of Wikipedia, they penalize it in search results. That means that those who need content we have that Wikipedia doesn't have won't be able to find it, because our wiki won't show up in search results.
- Wikipedia has a different purpose than this wiki. Wikipedia wants to be an encyclopedia. We want to be a gazetteer. That means our coverage will naturally have a different focus, so the two projects' content will in time grow in different directions, and that's okay.
- Wikipedia has different policies than us. This wiki was founded because its editors felt that Wikipedia policies did not serve us well in covering roads and highways. Keeping the two wikis in sync just means these same ill-suited policies will continue to shape the content here, which we don't want. (And since content written here isn't intended to comply with Wikipedia's policies, they probably don't really want our content backported to them, either.)
- The more time you spend keeping multiple wikis synced, the less time you have for more interesting things, like writing or expanding articles!
Of course, if you stumble upon a source of any kind that has information in the scope of this wiki which isn't covered here, we would love to have it. If that site happens to be Wikipedia, you do have the legal right to copy it over directly. But consider rewriting, paraphrasing, and/or expanding it when you add it here, like you would when importing information from any other source, especially if doing so would make it fit in better with the content we have here. It will help make our wiki a more unique resource, which helps our wiki grow into its own niche over time.