BrickWiki

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BrickWiki
Six 1×2 LEGO plate bricks stacked to form the shape of a 2×2 brick. Each plate is a different color.
Screenshot
The Main Page of a MediaWiki website, featuring an index of major article categories.
Main Page on January 14, 2017
Type of site
Encyclopedia, wiki
Available inEnglish
Created by
  • Venkatesh Srinivas
  • Jamie Bliss
URL
CommercialNo
RegistrationOptional (disabled)
Users1,094 registered users
LaunchedJune 25, 2005; 19 years ago (2005-06-25)
Current statusPartial read-only archive
Content license
GNU FDL 1.2

BrickWiki is a defunct wiki-based online encyclopedia for topics related to LEGO. Created by Venkatesh Srinivas and Jamie Bliss, it was launched in June 2005 and ran on MediaWiki software. In mid-2009 the wiki started going through frequent downtime until it was moved to a new server in May 2012. BrickWiki's closure was announced in February 2017, though it remained active through 2019. The website is still online, but contains only archived copies of a limited number of articles due to data loss.

BrickWiki was the first wiki dedicated to LEGO; however, the site never gained the same popularity as Brickipedia, a competing LEGO wiki launched a year later. In comparison to Brickipedia, BrickWiki focused less on individual LEGO products and more on the culture surrounding LEGO and various building elements and techniques. It was initially used primarily by members of LUGNET. During its final years, interest in it had dropped significantly and very few editors remained active. By the time it closed, BrickWiki had 1,386 articles created.[1]

History

BrickWiki was created by Venkatesh Srinivas, an electrical engineering student at Johns Hopkins University.[2] The idea originally came from LUGNET user Jamie "Astronouth7303" Bliss.[3][4] Srinivas detailed his plan for starting "LegoWiki" in a LUGNET message on June 8, 2005.[5] Following further discussion on what to name the website,[6] Srinivas decided on "BrickWiki" and launched the wiki on June 25, 2005.[7] The site was originally hosted by the Johns Hopkins Association for Computing Machinery, which Srinivas was a member of.[3][8] Srinivas planned for BrickWiki to be a multilingual wiki once he found translators, though no other language versions of the wiki ever opened.[9]

Near the end of July 2009, BrickWiki went offline for several weeks.[10] Ted "Tedward" Godwin, one of site's administrators, attempted to contact Srinivas about it, but received no reply.[11] BrickWiki returned online on August 20.[12] The site went down again in May 2010,[13] this time remaining offline for nearly two years. In a September 2010 Eurobricks post, Godwin expressed frustration that the site had "died thanks to the neglect of one person."[14] Srinivas found a backup of BrickWiki in early 2012 and restored the site in read-only mode.[3] Godwin and another administrator, Larry "Lar" Pieniazek[15] made a plan to move the site onto a new server with help from Brian Alano and Jeramy Spurgeon. BrickWiki was made operational again on May 8, 2012,[16] now hosted by Spurgeon's company Site Orchard.[3] On November 20, 2012, BrickWiki's URL was changed from BrickWiki.org to BrickWiki.info.[17]

On February 7, 2017, Godwin announced that BrickWiki would shut down on March 25.[18] He cited the lack of progress made in the previous two years as part of the reason, stating that that "clearly facts and history are not what the people want".[19] Despite this, BrickWiki remained online until late 2019 before finally going offline due to server issues.[20] The site returned online in 2021, but in read-only mode and with many pages missing.

Articles

Screenshot of BrickWiki's article for Michigan LEGO Users Group, one of many LUG articles

BrickWiki contained articles covering a wide variety of LEGO subjects, both official and unofficial. The wiki had a heavy focus on LEGO fandom and culture, featuring dozens of articles about LEGO fan communities (including websites, "Users Groups", and "Train Clubs"),[21] events,[22] and unofficial terms and acronyms.[23] It also contained information on LEGO building techniques[24] and on buying and selling LEGO products.[25] Articles for LEGO themes were usually limited to a single page for each theme, though some media received separate articles.[26] A number of fan-created "themes" from LUGNET also had separate articles listed alongside the actual themes.[27] Ted Godward stated in 2010 that Brickipedia, in comparison to BrickWiki, lacked proper categorization and articles for many basic concepts, and claimed that BrickWiki had better quality despite having less articles and a smaller community.[14]

BrickWiki surpassed one thousand articles during July 2012.[28] By the time of its planned closure in March 2017, BrickWiki had 1,386 articles, 417 uploaded files, and 1,094 registered users. 22,693 edits were made during its lifetime. The two most popular articles were "Trains glossary" and "Adult Fan Of LEGO", which each had over 35,000 views.[1] The current version of the website has only 242 articles available; all other links redirect to the Main Page.[29] An alternate version of BrickWiki is still available at its former URL, BrickWiki.org, appearing as it did at some point before its 2017 shutdown announcement. This version, however, is also missing most of its articles.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Statistics". BrickWiki. Archived from the original on 2019-10-27.
  2. ↑ The Johns Hopkins University Commencement 2010. p. 92.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 "Brickwiki:History of Brickwiki". BrickWiki. 26 May 2012. Archived from the original on 2017-01-08.
  4. ↑ Bliss, Jamie (31 December 2005). "User:Astronouth7303". BrickWiki. Archived from the original on 2008-12-08. 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.
  5. ↑ Srinivas, Venkatesh (8 June 2005). "Legowiki". LUGNET. Newsgroup: lugnet.general. Archived from the original on 16 July 2024.
  6. ↑ Srinivas, Venkatesh (13 June 2005). "Re: Legowiki". LUGNET. Newsgroup: lugnet.general. Archived from the original on 16 July 2024.
  7. ↑ Srinivas, Venkatesh (8 June 2005). "Brickwiki". LUGNET. Newsgroup: lugnet.general. Archived from the original on 16 July 2024.
  8. ↑ "Members". JHU ACM. Archived from the original on 2005-11-08.
  9. ↑ Srinivas, Venkatesh (11 June 2005). "Brickwiki". LUGNET. Newsgroup: lugnet.general. Archived from the original on 18 July 2024.
  10. ↑ desultor (August 11, 2009). "What's with Brickwiki?". Eurobricks. Archived from the original on 2024-07-17. Retrieved 2024-07-17.
  11. ↑ 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 2024-07-17. Retrieved 2024-07-17.
  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 2024-07-17. Retrieved 2024-07-17.
  13. ↑ 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 2024-07-17. Retrieved 2024-07-17.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 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 2024-07-17. Retrieved 2024-07-17.
  15. ↑ "User:Lar". BrickWiki. 6 April 2008. Archived from the original on 2008-12-08.
  16. ↑ "Main Page – News". BrickWiki. May 8, 2012. Archived from the original on 2012-06-17. BrickWiki is back online.
  17. ↑ "Main Page – News". BrickWiki. November 20, 2012. Archived from the original on 2016-02-06. BrickWiki has a new URL: www.brickwiki.info.
  18. ↑ "Main Page – News". BrickWiki. November 20, 2012. Archived from the original on 2017-03-21. BW is shutting down. If you have material you wish to save please do so before March 25th. On that date www.brickwiki.info will be shut down.
  19. ↑ "Shutting down, March 24, 2017". BrickWiki. Archived from the original on 2017-05-12.
  20. ↑ "Wayback Machine crawls for brickwiki.info". Internet Archive. Retrieved 17 July 2024.
  21. ↑ "Category:Fan groups". BrickWiki. Archived from the original on 2017-04-16.
  22. ↑ "Category:Events". BrickWiki. Archived from the original on 2016-10-20.
  23. ↑ "Category:Terms". BrickWiki. Archived from the original on 2016-11-14.
  24. ↑ "Category:Techniques". BrickWiki. Archived from the original on 2017-04-01.
  25. ↑ "Category:Buying & Selling". BrickWiki. Archived from the original on 2017-01-22.
  26. ↑ "Category:Themes". BrickWiki. Archived from the original on 2016-10-20.
  27. ↑ "Category:Fan created themes". BrickWiki. Archived from the original on 2016-09-18.
  28. ↑ "Main Page – How many?". BrickWiki. Archived from the original on 2012-07-18. There are currently 1,048 articles on BW
  29. ↑ "Site Map". BrickWiki. Archived from the original on 2024-07-18.
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