A while back, we spotlighted the staggering enterprise known as the Wookieepedia, a collaborative Star Wars database that anyone can edit. Yesterday, the site celebrated its one-year anniversary, and they're just dying to tell you about it:
On March 4, 2006, Wookieepedia ? a wiki-based Star Wars encyclopedia ? celebrates its one-year anniversary.
The huge encyclopedia draws information from all aspects of Star Wars, such as the films, books, comics, magazines, television and games. Thanks to the quality work of its many contributors, Wookieepedia has grown exponentially in the year since its establishment by Chad Barbry and Steven Greenwood, and now boasts over 25,000 articles. This makes it the largest encyclopedia hosted by Wikicities, surpassing its elder Star Trek counterpart, Memory Alpha, by over 8,000 articles.
Even official Star Wars authors and artists have been known to use the site, including fan favorite Abel G. Pe?a. Pe?a himself has been known to praise the site on a number of occasions.
"Wookieepedia is a lavish and stunning homage to the Star Wars pop cultural phenomenon," says Pe?a. "Thanks to its professional appearance, the scope of its content, the quality of its writers and diligence of its administrators, Wookieepedia has become a valuable resource to fans both casual and obsessive, as well as to Star Wars authors. It's becoming the new nexus for everyone who wants to know as much as Yoda about that galaxy far, far away," concludes Pe?a.
Wookieepedia is constantly on the lookout for additions to its roster of hundreds of enthusiastic users from all corners of the world. If you've got the drive and the knowledge to help put together what will soon become the largest collection of Star Wars information on the web, head over and sign up now!
Interested parties are encouraged to go contribute, but since you're (apparently) TFN readers, special mention should be made of one of the biggest problems the wiki has been facing: users who copy articles word-for-word from TFN's own Completely Unofficial Star Wars Encyclopedia. The CUSWE is certainly invaluable as a reference tool, but the Woookieepedia is aiming to provide original content, and Bob Vitas, the CUSWE's webmaster, is certainly not interested in others taking credit for his 53,000 articles worth of hard work (the next version is due out in a month, by the way!).
Also, in conjunction with the anniversary, I'm happy to say that a new EU Roundtable has been completed, featuring some of the folks behind the inception and continuing success of the 'pedia. For the whole story behind this great site, head on over and take a look.