Bhamwiki:Milestones

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Bhamwiki was launched on March 15, 2006.


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 26, a Birmingham News article by Lisa Osburn depicted Bhamwiki as a straightforward "recitation of facts authored by the masses."
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] . Their wording may have been taken from the FAQ for the WikiCity website project. [2]
  • 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.
Sometime in July 2009 we passed the 4 million page views milestone, as recorded at Special:Statistics.
On July 15 an article by Kevin Makice in Wired.com's "GeekDad" blog referenced Bhamwiki among the local wiki's that are larger than Bloomingpedia.
A November 10 article about Carole Smitherman on CBS42.com was lifted entirely from Bhamwiki (with attribution, but without respecting our CC license)
The Jeffco Can website puts Bhamwiki atop their links section (jeffcocan.com/links).

2010

On August 23, I quietly changed all mentions of "BhamWiki" to "Bhamwiki" in the main page.
Sometime in August 2010 we passed the 8 million page views milestone, as recorded at Special:Statistics.
  • The 7,300th article was Hayes K-8 School, added by User:Dystopos on September 14.
  • The 7,400th article was Kendal Brown, added by User:Dystopos on October 26.
A mysterious error involving server-side output compression causes the site to become inaccessible on October 28. A good samaritan stepped in early October 30 and commented out the offending line in the site's php.ini file. I'm still trying to determine what triggered the problem.
  • The 7,500th article was Bulwagi, added by User:Dystopos on December 8.

2011

Bhamwiki's cumulative usage statistics, according to Dreamhost, from 2006–2011
Bhamwiki was recommended as a "resource without peer" in the "blogs" section of Todd Keith's Insiders' Guide to Birmingham, published on July 19, 2011.
  • The 8,300th article was Ira De Ment, added by User:Dystopos on July 19.
In September, Bhamwiki began contributing a weekly 10-question "City Quiz" to Weld for Birmingham.

2012

On November 15, 2012, The Bhamwiki-insprired "MartinsvilleWiki" in Martinsville, Virginia went on-line.
Bhamwiki was cited as a source in Charles Buchanan's "Fading Ads of Birmingham".

2013

  • Genius Matthew Sheets rescued Bhamwiki again from the shady pharmaceuticals business, established a more robust backup-mirror, and promised to be on-hand for upgrades and customization in the future.
  • on June 11, Madison Underwood gave us another shout-out on al.com; this time suggesting people help support the site. If we get any donations, I'll let you know and we'll divvy the loot.
  • on December 27, Bhamwiki.com was recognized as a runner-up to AL.com in AL.com's "Birmingham's Best 2013" reader's poll for "Best Local Website".

2014

On January 26, Alabama Media Group reporter Jeremy Gray began compiling a "The week in Birmingham history" feature using Bhamwiki as a source.
On October 7, Bhamwiki was upgraded to MediaWiki version 1.22.6 running on PHP 5.4.11

2015

  • September 1: Chattanooga-based fantasy author Cherie Priest linked to Bhamwiki's Axe syndicate article to explain the real-life inspiration for her novel, Chapelwood: The Borden Dispatches (link).
  • September 8: Al.com reporter Kelly Kazek quoted Bhamwiki at length in her article on "Alabama's most famous madams and brothels" (link).
  • The 11,300th article was O. D. Henderson, added by User:Dystopos on October 12.
  • October 23: The first paragraph of Bhamwiki's article on Nina Miglionico was quoted (without attribution) in a story in the "Alabama Messenger". (link)
  • October 29: Bhamwiki's article on the 1921 National Balloon Race was quoted (without attribution) in a story on "Alabama Pioneers". (link)
  • The 11,400th article was Vance McBride, added by User:Dystopos on December 1.

2016

  • The 11,500th article was M-Tre‎, added by User:Dystopos on February 5.
  • On April 18 the Alabama Historical Association honored Bhamwiki with their inaugural "Digital History Award, Small Projects Category". The committee's criteria included "projects that made obvious contributions to promulgating Alabama history or a component thereof, that were historically accurate, that exhibited superior design and navigation practices, that incorporated innovation and multiple media, that continued to be maintained at a high level, and that engaged the broader community through social media about the projects.". The Encyclopedia of Alabama won the award in the large projects category.
  • On August 13-14 I added "CloudFlare CDN, DNS & DDoS protection to Bhamwiki and ran some long-overdue maintenance scripts on the database. Note: The CloudFlare service has interrupted my ability to review server statistics. Planning to implement Google Analytics in the future.
  • The 12,000th article was 23rd Street North, created by User:Dystopos on August 28.
  • The 12,100th article was Jack B. Smith, created by User:Dystopos on October 13.

2017

  • The site's 11th anniversary was celebrated on Wednesday, March 15 at Cantina.
  • In a June 15 editorial about William Bell's upcoming re-election challenge, Weld publisher Mark Kelly referred to Bhamwiki as a "local treasure".
  • The 12,600th article was Hosea Lewis, added by User:Dystopos on July 20.
  • The 12,700th article was SouthBridge, added by User:Dystopos on October 2.
  • The 12,800th article was George Denny, added by User:Dystopos on November 23.

2018

  • Bhamwiki was featured in an article on Bham Now on the occasion of its 12th anniversary.

2019

2020

2021

2022

2023

  • On October 12, Bhamwiki changed hosts, from Dreamhost to Knownhost, and was upgraded to Mediawiki version 1.39.5.

2024

In January 2024 Bham Now began using Bhamwiki's date articles as a source for their history column, "This week in Birmingham history."
Bhamwiki celebrated its 18th anniversary with a party at Rojo on March 17.
On August 20 & 21, Knownhost blocked several web-crawler bots that were slowing the site down. One of the busiest was OpenAI's ChatGPT Bot.