BrickWiki: Difference between revisions

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== History ==
== History ==
Venkatesh Srinivas, an electrical engineering student at [[Wikipedia:Johns Hopkins University|Johns Hopkins University]],<ref name="JHU Commencement"/> proposed the creation of a LEGO wiki in a LUGNET message on June 8, 2005. Srinivas described his plan as an "electronic warehouse" of LEGO knowledge, containing information about the LEGO company, products, and community.<ref name="lugnet.general 51020"/> The idea originally came from LUGNET user Jamie "Astronouth7303" Bliss.<ref name="BW history" group="B"/><ref name="BW bliss" group="B"/> Srinivas originally suggested naming the site "LegoWiki"; due to concerns about using the LEGO trademark, other names were discussed in the [[Wikipedia:Thread (online communication)|thread]], including "LUWiki" (LEGO User's Wiki),<ref name="lugnet.general 51040"/> "LWiki", and "BrickWiki".<ref name="lugnet.general 51031"/><ref name="lugnet.general 51046"/> Srinivas changed the site's name to BrickWiki, and the site was launched on June 25, 2005.<ref name="lugnet.general 51109"/>
Venkatesh Srinivas, an electrical engineering student at [[Wikipedia:Johns Hopkins University|Johns Hopkins University]],<ref name="JHU Commencement"/> proposed the creation of a LEGO wiki in a LUGNET message on June 8, 2005. Srinivas described his plan as an "electronic warehouse" of LEGO knowledge, containing information about the LEGO company, products, and community.<ref name="lugnet.general 51020"/> The idea originally came from LUGNET user Jamie "Astronouth7303" Bliss.<ref name="BW history" group="B"/><ref name="BW Astro" group="B"/> Srinivas originally suggested naming the site "LegoWiki"; due to concerns about using the LEGO trademark, other names were discussed in the [[Wikipedia:Thread (online communication)|thread]], including "LUWiki" (LEGO User's Wiki),<ref name="lugnet.general 51040"/> "LWiki", and "BrickWiki".<ref name="lugnet.general 51031"/><ref name="lugnet.general 51046"/> Srinivas changed the site's name to BrickWiki, and the site was launched on June 25, 2005.<ref name="lugnet.general 51109"/>
 
BrickWiki originally used a ''[[Wikipedia:No-IP|zapto.org]]'' URL before becoming available at ''brickwiki.org'' in October 2005.<ref name="lugnet.general 51194"/><ref name="lugnet.inst 711"/><ref name="lugnet.off-topic.clone-brands 2619"/>
BrickWiki originally used a ''[[Wikipedia:No-IP|zapto.org]]'' URL before becoming available at ''brickwiki.org'' in October 2005.<ref name="lugnet.general 51194"/><ref name="lugnet.inst 711"/><ref name="lugnet.off-topic.clone-brands 2619"/>
The site was originally hosted by the Johns Hopkins Association for Computing Machinery,<ref name="BW history " group="B"/> which Srinivas was a member of.<ref name="JHU ACM"/>  
 
The site was originally hosted by the Johns Hopkins Association for Computing Machinery,<ref name="BW history " group="B"/> which Srinivas was a member of.<ref name="JHU ACM"/>
 
Srinivas planned for BrickWiki to be a multilingual wiki once he found translators, though no other language versions of the wiki besides English were ever opened.<ref name="lugnet.general 51031"/>
Srinivas planned for BrickWiki to be a multilingual wiki once he found translators, though no other language versions of the wiki besides English were ever opened.<ref name="lugnet.general 51031"/>




Near the end of July 2009, BrickWiki went offline for several weeks until August 20.<ref name="Euro topic 32243"/><ref name="Euro comment 564631"/> Ted "Tedward" Godwin, one of site's administrators, attempted to contact Srinivas about it, but received no reply.<ref name="Euro comment 559102"/> The site went down again in May 2010,<ref name="Euro comment 743922"/> this time remaining offline for nearly two years. Srinivas had been planning to move the site to a new server shortly before this;<ref name="Euro comment 752061"/> the start of the second outage coincided with his graduation from Johns Hopkins University.<ref name="JHU Commencement"/> In a September 2010 [[Eurobricks]] post, Godwin expressed frustration that BrickWiki had "died thanks to the neglect of one person."<ref name="Euro comment 806685"/>
Near the end of July 2009, BrickWiki went offline for several weeks until August 20.<ref name="Euro topic 32243"/><ref name="Euro comment 564631"/> Ted "Tedward" Godwin, one of site's administrators, attempted to contact Srinivas about it, but received no reply.<ref name="Euro comment 559102"/> The site went down again in May 2010,<ref name="Euro comment 743922"/> this time remaining offline for nearly two years. Srinivas had been planning to move the site to a new server shortly before this;<ref name="Euro comment 752061"/> the start of the second outage coincided with his graduation from Johns Hopkins University.<ref name="JHU Commencement"/> In a September 2010 [[Eurobricks]] post, Godwin expressed frustration that BrickWiki had "died thanks to the neglect of one person."<ref name="Euro comment 806685"/>
Srinivas found a backup of BrickWiki in early 2012 and restored the site with editing disabled.<ref name="BW history" group="B"/> Godwin and another [[Wikipedia:Wiki#Trust and security|administrator]], Larry "Lar" Pieniazek,<ref name="BW Lar" group="B"/> planned to move the site onto a new server with help from Brian "ALittleSlow" Alano and [[RAILBRICKS|Jeramy Spurgeon]] (who were both made administrators as well).<ref name="BW administrators" group="B"/> BrickWiki was made officially operational again on May 8, 2012,<ref name="BW news online" group="B"/> now hosted by Spurgeon's company Site Orchard.<ref name="BW history" group="B"/> In October 2012, the ''brickwiki.org'' domain name expired after Srinivas failed to renew it and users were unable to contact him about transferring it;<ref name="BW Lar domain reg" group="B"/> as a result, BrickWiki's URL was changed to ''brickwiki.info'' on November 20, 2012.<ref name="BW news URL" group="B"/><ref name="whois info 2023"/>


== Articles ==
== Articles ==
Ted Godward claimed in 2010 that [[Brickipedia]], in comparison to BrickWiki, lacked proper categorization and articles for many basic concepts, and that BrickWiki had better quality despite having fewer articles and a smaller community.<ref name="Euro comment 806685"/>


== References ==
== References ==
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<ref name="JHU Commencement">{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/commencement2010/page/92/mode/2up?view=theater |title=The Johns Hopkins University Commencement 2010 |date=May 27, 2010 |publisher=[[Wikipedia:Johns Hopkins University|Johns Hopkins University]] |location=[[Wikipedia:Baltimore|Baltimore]], [[Wikipedia:Maryland|Maryland]] |page=92}}</ref>
<ref name="JHU Commencement">{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/commencement2010/page/92/mode/2up?view=theater |title=The Johns Hopkins University Commencement 2010 |date=May 27, 2010 |publisher=[[Wikipedia:Johns Hopkins University|Johns Hopkins University]] |location=[[Wikipedia:Baltimore|Baltimore]], [[Wikipedia:Maryland|Maryland]] |page=92}}</ref>
<ref name="whois info 2023">{{cite web |url=https://www.whois.com/whois/brickwiki.info |title=brickwiki.info |website=Whois |date=October 25, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241104200710/https://www.whois.com/whois/brickwiki.info |archive-date=4 November 2024 |access-date=4 November 2024 |url-status=dead |quote=Registered On: 2012-11-20 – Expires On: 2024-11-20}}</ref>


<!-- Eurobricks -->
<!-- Eurobricks -->
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=== BrickWiki pages ===
=== BrickWiki pages ===
{{reflist|group=B|refs=
{{reflist|group=B|refs=
<ref name="BW bliss">{{cite web |url=http://www.brickwiki.org/wiki/User:Astronouth7303 |title=User:Astronouth7303 |first=Jamie |last=Bliss |website=BrickWiki |date=31 December 2005 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081208061203/http://www.brickwiki.org/wiki/User:Astronouth7303 |archive-date=8 December 2008 |quote=Oh, yeah. And I originally thought of it, but Venkatesh got to post it. And he owns the server. I'm not complaining. He gives me free hosting for my site.}}</ref>
<ref name="BW administrators">{{cite web |url=http://brickwiki.info/wiki/Brickwiki:Administrators |title=Brickwiki:Administrators |website=BrickWiki |type=Project page |first=Brian |last=Alano |date=13 February 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170107184021/http://brickwiki.info/wiki/Brickwiki:Administrators |archive-date=7 January 2017}}</ref>
 
<ref name="BW Astro">{{cite web |url=http://www.brickwiki.org/wiki/User:Astronouth7303 |title=User:Astronouth7303 |first=Jamie |last=Bliss |website=BrickWiki |type=User page |date=31 December 2005 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081208061203/http://www.brickwiki.org/wiki/User:Astronouth7303 |archive-date=8 December 2008 |quote=Oh, yeah. And I originally thought of it, but Venkatesh got to post it. And he owns the server. I'm not complaining. He gives me free hosting for my site.}}</ref>
 
<ref name="BW history">{{cite web |url=http://brickwiki.info/wiki/Brickwiki:History_of_Brickwiki |title=Brickwiki:History of Brickwiki |website=BrickWiki |type=Project page |date=26 May 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170108001211/http://brickwiki.info/wiki/Brickwiki:History_of_Brickwiki |archive-date=8 January 2017}}</ref>
 
<ref name="BW Lar">{{cite web |url=http://www.brickwiki.org/wiki/User:Lar |title=User:Lar |first=Larry |last=Pieniazek |date=6 April 2008 |website=BrickWiki |type=User page |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081208033834/http://www.brickwiki.org/wiki/User:Lar |archive-date=8 December 2008}}</ref>
 
<ref name="BW Lar domain reg">{{cite web |url=http://www.brickwiki.info/wiki/User_talk:Lar#Domain_Name_Registration |title=User talk:Lar § Domain Name Registration |first1=Brian |last1=Alano |first2=Larry |last2=Pieniazek |first3=Ted |last3=Godwin |date=21 December 2012 |orig-date=20 September 2012 |website=BrickWiki |type=User talk page discussion |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141010045037/http://www.brickwiki.info/wiki/User_talk:Lar#Domain_Name_Registration |archive-date=10 October 2014}}</ref>
 
<ref name="BW news online">{{cite web |url=http://www.brickwiki.org/wiki/Main_Page |title=Main Page – News |date=May 8, 2012 |website=BrickWiki |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120617154257/http://www.brickwiki.org/wiki/Main_Page |archive-date=17 June 2012 |quote=BrickWiki is back online.}}</ref>


<ref name="BW history">{{cite web |url=http://brickwiki.info/wiki/Brickwiki:History_of_Brickwiki |title=Brickwiki:History of Brickwiki |website=BrickWiki |date=26 May 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170108001211/http://brickwiki.info/wiki/Brickwiki:History_of_Brickwiki |archive-date=8 January 2017}}</ref>
<ref name="BW news URL">{{cite web |url=http://brickwiki.info/wiki/Main_Page |title=Main Page – News |date=November 20, 2012 |website=BrickWiki |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160206041426/http://brickwiki.info/wiki/Main_Page |archive-date=6 February 2016 |quote=BrickWiki has a new URL: www.brickwiki.info.}}</ref>
}}
}}


Revision as of 01:50, 9 November 2025

BrickWiki
Six 1×2 LEGO plate bricks stacked to form the shape of a 2×2 brick. Each plate is a different color.
The logo of BrickWiki, designed by Jamie Bliss and Tim Gould
Screenshot
The Main Page of a MediaWiki website, featuring an index of major article categories.
BrickWiki Main Page on January 14, 2017
Type of site
Online encyclopedia
Available inEnglish
OwnerTed Godwin
Created by
  • Venkatesh Srinivas
  • Jamie Bliss
URL
CommercialNo
RegistrationOptional
Users1,094 registered users
LaunchedJune 25, 2005; 20 years ago (2005-06-25)
Current statusOffline (partial read-only archive from 2021–2024)
Content license
GNU FDL 1.2

BrickWiki was a wiki-based online encyclopedia for topics related to LEGO.


It was established in June 2005 by LUGNET users Venkatesh Srinivas and Jamie Bliss

Created by Venkatesh Srinivas and Jamie Bliss, it was launched in June 2005 and ran on MediaWiki software. It was initially used primarily by members of the website LUGNET.


History

Venkatesh Srinivas, an electrical engineering student at Johns Hopkins University,[1] proposed the creation of a LEGO wiki in a LUGNET message on June 8, 2005. Srinivas described his plan as an "electronic warehouse" of LEGO knowledge, containing information about the LEGO company, products, and community.[2] The idea originally came from LUGNET user Jamie "Astronouth7303" Bliss.[B 1][B 2] Srinivas originally suggested naming the site "LegoWiki"; due to concerns about using the LEGO trademark, other names were discussed in the thread, including "LUWiki" (LEGO User's Wiki),[3] "LWiki", and "BrickWiki".[4][5] Srinivas changed the site's name to BrickWiki, and the site was launched on June 25, 2005.[6]

BrickWiki originally used a zapto.org URL before becoming available at brickwiki.org in October 2005.[7][8][9]

The site was originally hosted by the Johns Hopkins Association for Computing Machinery,[B 1] which Srinivas was a member of.[10]

Srinivas planned for BrickWiki to be a multilingual wiki once he found translators, though no other language versions of the wiki besides English were ever opened.[4]


Near the end of July 2009, BrickWiki went offline for several weeks until August 20.[11][12] Ted "Tedward" Godwin, one of site's administrators, attempted to contact Srinivas about it, but received no reply.[13] The site went down again in May 2010,[14] this time remaining offline for nearly two years. Srinivas had been planning to move the site to a new server shortly before this;[15] the start of the second outage coincided with his graduation from Johns Hopkins University.[1] In a September 2010 Eurobricks post, Godwin expressed frustration that BrickWiki had "died thanks to the neglect of one person."[16]

Srinivas found a backup of BrickWiki in early 2012 and restored the site with editing disabled.[B 1] Godwin and another administrator, Larry "Lar" Pieniazek,[B 3] planned to move the site onto a new server with help from Brian "ALittleSlow" Alano and Jeramy Spurgeon (who were both made administrators as well).[B 4] BrickWiki was made officially operational again on May 8, 2012,[B 5] now hosted by Spurgeon's company Site Orchard.[B 1] In October 2012, the brickwiki.org domain name expired after Srinivas failed to renew it and users were unable to contact him about transferring it;[B 6] as a result, BrickWiki's URL was changed to brickwiki.info on November 20, 2012.[B 7][17]

Articles

Ted Godward claimed in 2010 that Brickipedia, in comparison to BrickWiki, lacked proper categorization and articles for many basic concepts, and that BrickWiki had better quality despite having fewer articles and a smaller community.[16]

References

  1. ↑ a b The Johns Hopkins University Commencement 2010. Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University. May 27, 2010. p. 92.
  2. ↑ Srinivas, Venkatesh (8 June 2005). "Legowiki". LUGNET. Newsgroup: lugnet.general. Archived from the original on 16 July 2024. Retrieved 1 November 2025.
  3. ↑ Jamie, Bliss (11 June 2005). "Re: Legowiki". LUGNET. Newsgroup: lugnet.general. Archived from the original on 16 July 2024. Retrieved 6 November 2025.
  4. ↑ a b Srinivas, Venkatesh (11 June 2005). "Re: Legowiki". LUGNET. Newsgroup: lugnet.general. Archived from the original on 18 July 2024. Retrieved 1 November 2025.
  5. ↑ Srinivas, Venkatesh (13 June 2005). "Re: Legowiki". LUGNET. Newsgroup: lugnet.general. Archived from the original on 16 July 2024. Retrieved 1 November 2025.
  6. ↑ Srinivas, Venkatesh (25 June 2005). "Brickwiki". LUGNET. Newsgroup: lugnet.general. Archived from the original on 16 July 2024. Retrieved 1 November 2025.
  7. ↑ Bliss, Jamie (8 July 2005). "BrickWiki (formerly LegoWiki) has moved". LUGNET. Newsgroup: lugnet.general. Archived from the original on 16 July 2024. Retrieved 7 November 2025.
  8. ↑ Pieniazek, Larry (13 October 2005). "Re: Scanning HOWTO". LUGNET. Newsgroup: lugnet.inst. Archived from the original on 7 November 2025. Retrieved 7 November 2025. Perhaps a link in the as yet unwritten "scanning instructions" article on Brickwiki (now at a spiffy new URL: www.brickwiki.org) ??
  9. ↑ Gould, Tim (16 October 2005). "Re: 'Virtual' Preservation Project for CKS". LUGNET. Newsgroup: lugnet.inst. Archived from the original on 3 October 2024. Retrieved 7 November 2025.
  10. ↑ "Members". JHU ACM. Archived from the original on 2005-11-08.
  11. ↑ desultor (August 11, 2009). "What's with Brickwiki?". Eurobricks. Archived from the original on July 17, 2024. Retrieved July 17, 2024.
  12. ↑ Godwin, Ted (August 20, 2009). "Looks like we are back online". Eurobricks (comment on topic "What's with Brickwiki?"). Archived from the original on July 17, 2024. Retrieved July 17, 2024.
  13. ↑ Godwin, Ted (August 12, 2009). "Holy mother of... somebody actually read the blog?!?! I guess I better start posting again". Eurobricks (comment on topic "What's with Brickwiki?"). Archived from the original on July 17, 2024. Retrieved July 17, 2024.
  14. ↑ MetroiD (May 26, 2010). "Please excuse me for reviving such an old thread, but Brickwiki hasn't been operational for the last week or so". Eurobricks (comment on topic "What's with Brickwiki?"). Archived from the original on July 17, 2024. Retrieved July 17, 2024.
  15. ↑ Godwin, Ted (September 8, 2010). "No idea". Eurobricks (comment on topic "What's with Brickwiki?"). Archived from the original on July 17, 2024. Retrieved November 8, 2025. Once again the 'owner' has gone silent. This time just as we were preparing to move the site to a new server to avoid such outages in the future.
  16. ↑ a b Godwin, Ted (September 8, 2010). "And yet it still has no categorization and lacks articles on the most basic concepts". Eurobricks (comment on topic "What's with Brickwiki?"). Archived from the original on July 17, 2024. Retrieved July 17, 2024.
  17. ↑ "brickwiki.info". Whois. October 25, 2023. Archived from the original on 4 November 2024. Retrieved 4 November 2024. Registered On: 2012-11-20 – Expires On: 2024-11-20

BrickWiki pages

  1. ↑ a b c d "Brickwiki:History of Brickwiki". BrickWiki (Project page). 26 May 2012. Archived from the original on 8 January 2017.
  2. ↑ Bliss, Jamie (31 December 2005). "User:Astronouth7303". BrickWiki (User page). Archived from the original on 8 December 2008. Oh, yeah. And I originally thought of it, but Venkatesh got to post it. And he owns the server. I'm not complaining. He gives me free hosting for my site.
  3. ↑ Pieniazek, Larry (6 April 2008). "User:Lar". BrickWiki (User page). Archived from the original on 8 December 2008.
  4. ↑ Alano, Brian (13 February 2013). "Brickwiki:Administrators". BrickWiki (Project page). Archived from the original on 7 January 2017.
  5. ↑ "Main Page – News". BrickWiki. May 8, 2012. Archived from the original on 17 June 2012. BrickWiki is back online.
  6. ↑ Alano, Brian; Pieniazek, Larry; Godwin, Ted (21 December 2012) [20 September 2012]. "User talk:Lar § Domain Name Registration". BrickWiki (User talk page discussion). Archived from the original on 10 October 2014.
  7. ↑ "Main Page – News". BrickWiki. November 20, 2012. Archived from the original on 6 February 2016. BrickWiki has a new URL: www.brickwiki.info.
Do you BrickWiki?
Do you BrickWiki?
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