Bhamwiki:Milestones

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BhamWiki was launched on March 15, 2006.

File:Bhamwiki stats 2008-12.png
BhamWiki's monthly site statistics provided by Dreamhost - through December 31, 2008

2006

On May 24, 2006 the logo was updated.
On June 12, 2006 the site was upgraded to MediaWiki 1.6.7
At 500 articles, BhamWiki is more comprehensive than several Wikipedias - specifically those serving the Cantonese, Maori, Moldovan, Amharic, and Mongolian language communities.
On July 28, notable Birmingham blogger Wade Kwon named BhamWiki one of "Birmingham's Hottest Sites". The article identified some of the MediaWiki tools as our strongest features and noted the need for "a roadmap on how to get started with the group." The other four sites honored were BarCamp Birmingham, Birmingham Buzz, Birmingham Rewound, and the Magic City Flickr Group.
On August 10, a "favicon.ico" file was added to the server to dress up your bookmarks.
The "Best of Birmingham" feature in the September 2006 issue of Birmingham Magazine noted BhamWiki's historical resources in the context of Birmingham history websites publicized on Wade on Birmingham.
Bhamwiki:Sustainability, the first "portal" (a subject-specific entry page) was created on October 11, 2006 by User:Dystopos. It was requested for use by the Urban Sustainability Task Force of Catalyst for Birmingham.
An article on BhamWiki was published in The Birmingham News on November 25, 2006, written by Erin Stock. Site traffic for November 25 was approximately 7 times our average load and we signed on 10 new editors over the weekend.

2007

An article on BhamWiki was published in Black & White on January 11, 2007, written by Paul Brantley.
Bhamwiki was mentioned in an article about political wikis on the Personal Democracy Forum dated January 22, 2007.
On February 11, 2007 the site was upgraded to MediaWiki 1.9.2 on PHP 5.1.2. The size of the database overstepped the memory limits for the web server when the PHP update scripts were run, meaning that for several hours edit attempts returned a database error.
  • The 2000th article was Docena, added by Dystopos on March 10, 2007.
On March 22, 2007 the Birmingham Weekly made us their weekly pick for Monday March 26, encouraging readers to consult BhamWiki to "learn a ton about our tortured, beloved, conflicted, potential-rich and angst-ridden Birmingham," and also to "double-check the facts you find."
On March 28, 2007 the site was upgraded to MediaWiki 1.9.3.
  • The 2100th article was Geneva Mercer, added by Dystopos on April 4, 2007.
On May 6, 2007 we registered our 100th user account.
On May 31, 2007 BhamWiki was profiled in an article on The Terminal.
  • The 2400th article was Jim Parkman, added by Dystopos on June 19, 2007.
On June 30, 2007 the site was upgraded to MediaWiki 1.10.0.
  • The 2600th article was Tara Gray, added by Dystopos on July 18, 2007.
On August 17, 2007 The Terminal began using BhamWiki's date articles as a source for its history column, "A Look Back."
On December 28, Doc's Political Parlor began using BhamWiki for its "Today in Alabama History" feature.

2008

  • The 3800th article was Dan Bynum, added by Dystopos on March 9, 2008.
February and March 2008 brought unprecedented growth in traffic to Bhamwiki. See Special:Popularpages for an idea of what people are looking for when they find us.
An article entitled "Virtual Networks: An Opportunity for Government" in the Spring 2008 issue of The Public Manager mentioned Bhamwiki as an example of a municipal wiki that improves "people's ability to understand and control their government through citizen engagement in the political process."
  • The 4200th article was Jim St. John, added by User:Dystopos on June 2, 2008.
In early June we began experimenting with "beautified" URLs on Bhamwiki. Testing and tweaking continue.
On June 13 a new Bhamwiki logo was created.
The August issue of Birmingham magazine included an article entitled "Birmingham on the Web", featuring Bhamwiki as "a resource for a quick overview on any number of Birmingham-related topics." Seventeen other valuable sites were listed, including our sister site, the Magic City Flickr Group.
On August 5 Bhamwiki began using Twitter.com to publicize new or interesting articles. (link)
  • The 4500th article was Will Ferniany, added by User:Dystopos on August 10, 2008.
The site suffered prolonged outages due to a bad firewall rule on its file server on August 26-27.
  • The 4600th article was Roberts Cemetery, added by User:Dystopos on August 27, 2008.
  • The 4700th article was John Longwell, added by User:Dystopos on September 23, 2008.
On September 29 a beta / mirror version of Bhamwiki, hosted by the Birmingham Public Library, went live at bhamwiki.org.
On October 17 the Birmingham News posted the results of its "Best of the Best" readers' poll. Bhamwiki.com finished fourth behind al.com, bhamterminal.com, and nbc13.com for "Best Local Web Site".
The Aztec, New Mexico Chamber of Commerce cited Bhamwiki as an example of a proven success in using the wiki concept "to help foster community and commerce." [1]
  • The 4900th article was Jim Reed, added by User:Wheresdib on December 22, 2008.

2009

The site celebrated its third anniversary at Silvertron Cafe on March 15.
A Facebook group for Bhamwiki editors, supporters and fans was launched on March 16.
Retrieved from "http://bhamwiki.com/w/index.php?title=Bhamwiki:Milestones&oldid=44253"