Wookieepedia

Wookieepedia
URL	http://starwars.wikia.com
Slogan	The Star Wars Wiki
Type	Wiki
Language(s)	English (more)
Registration	Optional
Owner	Wikia, Inc.
Created by	Chad Barbry Steven Greenwood
Maintained by	Wookieepedians
Launched	March 4, 2005
Current status	Active
Article count	190,480

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"Wookieepedia is a lavish and stunning homage to the Star Wars pop cultural phenomenon. 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."

―Abel G. Peña

Wookieepedia, the Star Wars Wiki, is a wiki that was started on March 4, 2005, and strives to be the premier source of information on all aspects of the Star Wars universe. This includes information from the Star Wars films and Expanded Universe, as well as information of value to fans. The Star Wars wiki is inspired by Wikipedia, but can expand on Star Wars information in greater detail and with more freedom than Wikipedia. Wookieepedia was founded when Wikipedia users began to complain of the overabundance of minutiae related to Star Wars that began appearing on Wikipedia. Since then, it has expanded to become one of the largest wikis on the Internet.

As a fan-created encyclopedia, Wookieepedia is not intended to be a primary source, nor is it a replacement for the Databank, the Encyclopedia, or any other official source. Rather, it serves as a fan effort to summarize all aspects of the Star Wars universe in the best way possible, while pointing the reader to the respective official sources.

History

The founding of Wookieepedia

Evolution of a wiki

"So we'd call it Wookiepedia? [sic]"

―Chad Barbry, first suggesting the name of the Star Wars Wiki

Steven Greenwood at Celebration IV

Wikipedia is a collaboratively developed, free content encyclopedia. It is a general-knowledge encyclopedia, rather than being specific to one topic (as Wookieepedia is Star Wars–specific). Because of this, it is not always particularly friendly to in-depth knowledge specific to a given fictional universe. Founded in 2001, Wikipedia allows anyone to edit it. Due to the broad nature of its editors, the site covers a wide variety of topics, and has millions of articles.

Chad Barbry, under the screenname of "Cbarbry," was a regular contributor to Wikipedia, participating in a number of different subjects within the online encyclopedia, including Biblical history and technology since October 17, 2004. In January of 2005, Steven Greenwood joined Wikipedia under the screenname of "Riffsyphon1024," adding articles in the subject of geography and popular culture. Immediately after working on these articles of interest, he took the job of sorting the various Star Wars articles on the site. As Wikipedia was concerned, only notable items would have complete articles, with the rest of the minor subjects with descriptions on a giant list. Planets, characters, weapons, and vehicles were all done in this manner. Over a short period of time, Steven found that he disliked this format and sought another way to gather and place information on the saga and its Expanded Universe. On January 21, Steven posted on a section on a talk page regarding the creation of a new Star Wars Portal, but suggested that instead of a portal it should be a wiki.

Chad Barbry

Two days later, Chad entered the discussion and began working out ideas with Steven. Both agreed that this new project would run alongside Wikipedia as a separate, but equal entity—something more than simply a WikiProject. It was here in the discussion that Chad proposed the new nickname of "Wookieepedia," which caught on with Steven and others immediately, and the idea was trailblazed (Steven's request of "Wicketpedia" was an alternate name which did not work nearly as well). However, since Steven was not sure how a new wiki would be created, Chad contacted Angela of then Wikicities (now Wikia) and requested the creation of the new wiki.

Wiki creation

The very first Star Wars Wiki logo (5–22 March 2005)

The second Star Wars Wiki logo (22 March 2005 – 8 January 2006)

Other Wikipedia contributors seemed to be getting more hostile toward new Star Wars articles, so in February 2005, Chad decided to make a request of the Wikipedia Board of Trustees to make a "Star Wars Wiki." His intent was more than just another WikiProject, but an official sister project similar to Wikiquotes. He thought the best solution was a separate, but linked project—a project that was separate enough for the "anti-cruft" Wikipedians, but still one that was officially Wikipedia, so there would be no need for redundant articles between the projects.

In early March 2005, after meeting, the board came back with their answer. They did not want to move Wikipedia the direction proposed by Chad, but recommended creating a Star Wars Wikia. Angela of Wikia was on the Board of Trustees, and contacted Chad to let him know of the board's decision and to set up the new Star Wars Wiki. Part of the process that Angela set up was creating interwiki links so Wikipedia could link to Star Wars Wiki articles and vice versa.

The wiki came online on March 4, 2005, though it sat idle for a few days. Chad, now under the screen name of "WhiteBoy," was the first user to officially edit the new wiki on March 9, starting with the logo and the moving of articles from Wikipedia to Star Wars Wiki space. The next day, Steven joined the site, using his previous Wikipedia screenname. A third Wikipedian edited that day as well, and was able to add some key image templates to the wiki, before leaving the project altogether. By the first few months, numbers of editors from both Wikipedia and across the web would dramatically increase.

For a brief time, there was some confusion as to how to move articles over from Wikipedia. Chad devised a template for use on Wikipedia to place on talk pages of articles of interest, alerting users that the article would be redirected or moved entirely. The idea was to move as many existing articles from Wikipedia to the new wiki, under the GFDL, making sure to save those under threat of deletion first, and then "wookify" them to the new wiki's standards. The hope was that, though separate, Wikipedians would begin to put the more obscure articles (essentially anything but the most encyclopedic of articles) in the Star Wars Wiki. Main articles, such as Luke Skywalker, would remain at Wikipedia.

Wikipedians in general ultimately saw the Star Wars Wiki as an external site, one not affiliated with Wikipedia enough to actually "transwiki" articles over, like one would with Wikibooks or Wikirecipe. Creating redirects to the Star Wars Wiki was not what the Wikipedians had in mind, and they requested that Chad and Steve immediately cease what they believed was legal transwikification; however, articles could still be copied and pasted under the GFDL copyleft license and then "wookified" to fit the scheme of the Star Wars–themed wiki, making sure to place an in-universe article in past tense, or remove redundant sentences. In this aspect, it was decided to have all articles, not just those that were more trivial, lesser known, or more detailed, at the wiki.

Later articles were copied in this fashion and the originals were left alone on Wikipedia for its users to edit under its rules. Eventually Wookieepedia would develop so many articles that Wikipedia would no longer have any to copy. It should also be noted that Wookieepedia was created independently of the Wikimedia Foundation and of any events occurring on Wikipedia.

Great LucasCruft Purge

In March of 2005, perhaps unaware of the formation of the new wiki, a Wikipedian (considered by some a deletionist who wished to prove a point) began to place several Star Wars articles in the Votes for Deletion system (now Articles for Deletion) in an attempt to get these articles deleted from Wikipedia. The purge was later dubbed the "Great LucasCruft Purge" by Steven himself. It was Steven's goal to save as many articles from this individual before the damage was made permanent, and would then impede Star Wars Wiki's ability to grow as it did within the first month. One such article that became a focus of this battle was Order D6-66, which became one of the first stub articles added to the new wiki via the "transwiki" process. The purge garnered the Star Wars Wiki a great deal of public attention, which gave some the erroneous impression that Wookieepedia was created because of the purge.

By year

2005

Just days after the official founding, administrative powers were given to Steven (Riffsyphon1024) by Chad (WhiteBoy). This set up the dual administrator system until the adminships of the users QuentinGeorge, Aidje, and SparqMan later in the year. The wiki, now going under the moniker of "Wookieepedia," developed a steady rate of contributions by new members from all over, and over time lost its reliance on Wikipedia. Eventually Wookieepedia became the primary name for the wiki and an official renaming took place with the creation of a new logo by Tracy Duncan.

Wookieepedian of the Month (WOTM) was first started in June 2005, with Imperialles as the first user to be recognized by the community for his contributions. As of April 2014, 106 different users have been recognized as WOTM. In April 2014 the user Cavalier One was the first to be voted WOTM for a second time.

July brought the first Quotes of the Day on Wookieepedia. Though now considered minuscule in comparison to the current number of quotes now passed through four subcategories, it was a sufficient means to create a new feature on the wiki. Today, QotD/In-Universe is the most edited page of Wookieepedia. Pages such as these show the significant growth of each area over the course of only a few years. In the same month, Wookieepedia's largest ever boost came when an explosion of editors hit the site, sending the wiki's article count over 10,000. Factors to this expansion could be attributed to advertising and the release of Revenge of the Sith. (See wiki growth table below.)

In September 2005, Did You Know? was experimentally created and added to the Main Page, where it has remained as an active feature since.

Consensus Track, a voting and discussion system designed to improve site-wide policies and practices, was formed onto a single page in October 2005. In the same month, Eric Przybylski of Nav-Computer.com allowed Wookieepedia to use his fan-made sector maps on certain articles. His maps have since been replaced with versions directly from canon sources.

2006

The first bot, known here as a "droid," was released onto Wookieepedia on February 8. R2-D2 was designed to clean up instances of repeating words, categories, as well as clean the sandbox page. Since then, another bot named Whistler has made over 150,000 total edits on Wookieepedia.

A new Forum area dubbed the Senate Hall was constructed in March 2006 as part of Wikia's MediaWiki updates, and as a result, the Community Portal talk page no longer was the primary form of wikiwide discussion. Senate Hall was chosen as a name that would not be considered too cliché or overly used for a Star Wars name. Consensus Track was subsequently moved into the forums, and becoming its own section, used specifically for policy creation and alteration on the wiki.

2007

On February 20, 2007, the first Wookiee-Cast was posted. The podcast was parody and commentary by Thefourdotelipsis on subjects relating to Wookieepedia and Star Wars in general. It did not, however, represent the official views of the wiki. The Wookiee-Cast podcasts were released throughout 2007, but have since been on hiatus.

Also in February, the Inquisitorius was formed to handle the structure of the featured article system. See this essay on a history of the Featured Article movement from 2007 onward.

Wookieepedia's Reference desk became the new Knowledge Bank within the forums, where general questions on Star Wars not relating specifically to articles or Wookieepedia could be asked.

Over the course of the spring leading up the 30th anniversary of Star Wars, Wookieepedia held votes for the Coolest thing ever! and Lamest thing ever! with Darth Vader and SuperShadow winning respectively.

A group of Wookieepedians after the Stump the Wookiee contest at Celebration IV

In May, at least ten Wookieepedians from across the globe attended Celebration IV to help monitor Wookieepedia's table alongside The Completely Unofficial Star Wars Encyclopedia founder Bob Vitas, advertise the wiki, and host a trivia contest named "Stump the Wookiee." In the months before the convention, admins and users came across a notice by Mary Franklin that a group could obtain a table at CIV for free. Immediately the wiki reacted and set up a page for those interested as well as other details of the event. By February, it was known that Wookieepedia won the table and final preparations were made. Some users and administrators that attended and helped man the table alongside Vitas included Riffsyphon1024, Xwing328, jSarek, LtNOWIS, Ozzel, Graestan, Taybo20, Azizlight, Adamwankenobi and Lord Hydronium. As a result of Wookieepedia's appearance and contest at Celebration IV, it was mentioned by the official site for the first time, marking another level of awareness in the Star Wars community. In addition, the event allowed the wiki to express itself to the fans directly.

Also in May, the Votes for Deletion page was renamed to the more in-universe-sounding Trash compactor. In 2007, the wiki's Main Page underwent a major change, which allowed for exploration of the Star Wars universe within films, Expanded Universe, and in-universe categories to be hidden on a subpage with the use of Javascript. In addition, the single search icon in Wookieepedia's sidebar was upgraded in April to include rotating search icons.

2008

In late February 2008, a Facebook fan page for Wookieepedia was started by Riffsyphon1024. As of April 2014, it has over 67,000 fans. Wookieepedia began its fourth year on March 4, 2008. A new project of Wookieepedia was the interview process with established authors, artists, actors, and anyone else related to the creation of the Star Wars universe in order to gain more insight for its articles. Some of Wookieepedia's first interviews were given to authors Kevin J. Anderson and Tom Veitch and artist Christian Gossett. This project, however, was short-lived in gaining access to interviewees.

By August of 2008, the wiki had reached 60,000 articles.

2009

As with many wikis over time, certain features render other ones redundant or useless. Such was the case during what was described by some Wookieepedians as the "Great List Purge" that occurred in late December 2008 and early January 2009, where many old lists created years before were simply out of date as categories had accumulated a far greater number of articles on each topic.

The start of 2009 also saw the addition of an official blog to Wookieepedia, named the Wookieepedia Newsnet. The blog began regular entries in January, with regular features summarizing monthly Featured Article output, Consensus Track results, Wookieepedian of the Month interviews, and Canon Updates. An RSS feed for the blog was added to the Main Page on April 1st, 2009, with the blog receiving an impressive 1,072 hits on that day.

2010

Wookieepedia's Main Page in the Wikia skin.

July 2010 brought forth a new classification of article, partly inspired by Wikipedia practices. Improvement of minor articles and stubs would lead to the creation of comprehensive articles, those which were complete topics, but too small to be either Good Articles or Featured Articles.

In October 2010, Wookieepedia underwent another skin change by Wikia (see right).

2011

In September 2011, an overhaul at StarWars.com resulted in a new Encyclopedia with every entry linking to a Wookieepedia article.

By November, the Senate Hall was altered to include listings for sticky threads, which would stick to the top of a separate list.

2012

Wookieepedia attended a table at Celebration VI in Orlando, Florida and was interviewed by The Dork Night Podcast.

In February, the wiki surpassed 90,000 articles.

2013

On January 10, Wookieepedia surpassed 100,000 articles, with the creation of the article Jela Reneke.

2014

With Lucasfilm Ltd.'s announcement on April 25, 2014 to replace the Expanded Universe with the "Legends" brand, members of Wookieepedia subsequently discussed and voted to retain all information within Star Wars media, but split applicable articles into their respective canonical parts—Canon and Legends—with the use of tabs. Editors on the site began creating new articles reflecting information only relevant to the new system of canon and by October 21 had created over 1000 in-universe canon articles.

2015

"Congratulations to Wookieepedia contributors and readers alike
You've made my work so much easier and so much harder."

―Leland Chee, on Wookieepedia's 10th year in existence

On March 4, 2015, Wookieepedia celebrated the start of its 10th year. Several individuals with ties to Star Wars media, including Leland Chee and Jason Fry, congratulated the site on its birthday.

Wookieepedia was present at Celebration Anaheim (April 16-April 19) where the wiki shared table space with Wikia and hosted a birthday party with a Wookieepedia cake. Afterward, Wikia hosted the Qwizards panel which allowed fans to compete against long-time Wookieepedians jSarek, Cavalier One, and Jorrel Fraajic.

On the heels of the 2014 decision to institute a tabbed system for canon and Legends content, Wookieepedia editors decided in December 2015 to begin presenting canon content on primary pages, such that visitors arriving at pages such as "Luke Skywalker" would find content relevant to the new canon continuity rather than Legends material. The new system was instituted shortly before the premiere of the new film Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens, assuring that those arriving in search of details of classic elements appearing in the new films would easily find the relevant information.

Multi-year phenomena

Over the course of the wiki's history, several attempts were made to curb fanon on user pages or delete it altogether. Most votes resulted in no consensus and the issue was pushed back until a few months later when it became known again. A major influence became the creation of the Star Wars Fanon Wiki, which was accepting of all forms of fanon written by its users. Most users to that wiki happened to be Wookieepedians as well, however not in the form of long-staying administrators, but rather those who had been told not to add fanon to Wookieepedia. This shift of population was seen as general amounts of fanon reduced, but there were still users that went ahead with filling in their user pages and then not editing any or even a few articles. This however did not limit the number of true contributors to Wookieepedia.

Each year since 2005, a contest for Miss Star Wars and Mister Star Wars has been held in December, with voting up to the new year. The winners, either male or female characters in the galaxy, retain their crowns until the next vote and can continue to win as long as they receive enough support.

From 2005 to 2008, several Wookieepedians contributed to Star Wars canon via the What's The Story? feature of StarWars.com, including John Hazlett, Tim Veekhoven, Aidan Hennessy, Nathan O'Keefe, Gregory Walker, Kyle Jewhurst, Timothy S. Maddocks and Arthur Papadam.

April Fools jokes

File:Wookiee-Aurebesh-MainPage.png

Wookieepedia's users went all out to produce a completely Aurebesh Main Page for April 1, 2008.

Each year since 2006, Wookieepedia would partake in April 1st pranks across the wiki.

April Fools' Day 2006 brought the creation of a new Featured Article titled Earth.

For 2007, Wookieepedia temporarily became "Katarnipedia," with articles moved to alternate titles and fake spoilers posted. Kyle Katarn also inhabited the search bar for the day.

2008 brought the creation of a special Main Page in Aurebesh.

In 2009, the wiki temporarily became "film purist," with the Main Page only linking to canon presented in the six films and nothing from the Expanded Universe.

In 2010, Wookieepedia claimed to have stumbled across a lost pilot for a television series named "Jabba!" and created articles on supposed characters in the series.

April Fools' Day 2011 resulted in the entire wiki converting to "3-D" to celebrate the upcoming films in 3-D, a Cease and Desist Notice placed on the Main Page, and various manipulations to the Mofference page the day before the actual meeting.

For 2012, Wookieepedia and the Star Wars Fanon Wiki announced that they would merge. Furthermore, "Dave Filoni" announced that canon and fanon were now the same thing with "Leland Chee" later explaining that Wookieepedia would replace the Holocron continuity database as the official canon source for Lucasfilm licensees. To further the joke, many users of the Wook created their own fanon articles, edited existing articles to add fanon, and imported articles from Darthipedia and the fanon wiki.

In 2013, Wookieepedia announced that it had access to new materials from Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens that would incorporate canon from J.J. Abrams' Star Trek universe into the upcoming film, and subsequently changed its name to Memory Aurek, a spin on Star Trek's Memory Alpha. The new film was retitled Star Wars Episode VII: Star Trek and linked from the Wookieepedia Facebook page, where the post received close to 100,000 views in a day. Additional articles like Jedi mind meld and Spock were added to flesh out the background for the "new" film. An announcement for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed III was made. Other mashups and crossovers were also created and linked to in WookieeNews.

In 2014, Wookieepedia announced that it would be moving to a paid viewing system, "Wookieepedia Pro," in which users would be allowed to view only 10 articles on the site per month, unless they either paid $4.99 monthly for a regular subscription that allowed unlimited article viewing, or $9.99 for a premium subscription that also eliminated advertisements. In an attempt to lend credibility to the farce, administrators and users maintained somewhat before the actual start of April Fool's Day and even after the end of it that the announced new model was not a joke. Despite this, at least one user pointed out that Wikia's stated policies specifically forbid any attempt to impose a fee in order to view content and also that there was no technical mechanism available that would allow for such a system to be implemented.

Another gag involved the featuring of a heavily edited excerpt of the article about breasts on Wookieepedia's main page. This created controversy on a number of Star Wars fansites outside of Wookieepedia, as well as an attempt to delete the Breast article, which was closed heavily in favor of keeping.

Other gags included a 404 error page featuring Dave Filoni and "WP:VG-Pro," in which only those signed up for the premium model would be allowed to be part of the wiki's video game project.

For the first time in nearly a decade, 2015 did not entail a April Fools' Day prank.

In 2016, for the second year in a row, Wookieepedia refrained from engaging in any April Foolishness.

Statistics

Wookieepedia's growth from March 2005 to September 2010.

There are 190,480 articles on Wookieepedia, and of these, −3 are considered featured articles (-0.002% of the total), −3 good articles (-0.002%) and −4 comprehensive articles (-0.002%).

According to Alexa Internet, Wikia's three-month global Alexa traffic rank is 141. As of April 2014, 1.84% of all Wikia visitors access the Wookieepedia subdomain. It is the sixth largest Wikia-hosted wiki in terms of article count.

Wookieepedia growth graph

Growth

Wookieepedia has grown quickly from its start in March 2005 to present to reach 190,480 articles. One relatively large spike in contributions occurred in August 2005, after the release of Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith. Wookieepedia crossed the 50,000 article threshold on June 26, 2007, the 75,000 article threshold on April 1, 2010 and the 100,000 article threshold on January 10, 2013.

Article milestones

• First article: Brianna, March 9, 2005
• Longest article: Anakin Skywalker
• Most edited article: Anakin Skywalker
• 50,000th article: Solitaire
• 100,000th article: Jela Reneke

WookieeProjects

Since 2006, Wookieepedia has been host to many projects which have improved related groups of articles, either by subject or by source, to Featured Article, Good Article, and Comprehensive Article status. Barn Burners, wiki-wide variations of these projects, were started in 2011 in the Senate Hall to flash improve topics.

• WookieeProject Aliens - June 6, 2006
• WookieeProject Images - October 4, 2006
• WookieeProject New Sith Wars - October 28, 2006
• WookieeProject The New Essential Guide to Characters - November 1, 2006
• WookieeProject Knights of the Old Republic - April 13, 2007
• WookieeProject Tales of the Jedi - August 27, 2007
• WookieeProject Images/ICP - the largest project undertaken by the community, created October 21, 2007
• WookieeProject Ewoks - May 26, 2008
• WookieeProject Legacy Era‎ - June 8, 2008
• WookieeProject The Force Unleashed - September 30, 2008
• WookieeProject Ambition - November 21, 2008
• WookieeProject Real World Music - April 13, 2009
• WookieeProject The Clone Wars - April 14, 2009
• WookieeProject Galaxies - June 13, 2009
• WookieeProject Atlas - September 2, 2009
• WookieeProject Star Wars Encyclopedia - March 2010
• WookieeProject The Old Republic - April 22, 2010
• WookieeProject Astrography - May 16, 2010
• WookieeProject The New Jedi Order - April 14, 2011
• Wookieepedia's First Barn Burner: Wookiees - May 2011
• WookieeProject Newsnet - June 2011
• WookieeProject Video Games - July 2011
• Wookieepedia's Second Barn Burner: Weapons - August 2011
• Wookieepedia's First Shed Scorcher: Dilonexa - October 22, 2011
• Wookieepedia's Third Barn Burner: The Phantom Menace - December 2011
• WookieeProject Warfare - April 6, 2012
• Wookieepedia's Fourth Barn Burner: Droids - May 2012
• WookieeProject Novels - August 22, 2012
• Wookieepedia's Fifth Barn Burner: Politics - November 2012
• Wookieepedia's Sixth Barn Burner: Hutts - May 2013
• Wookieepedia's Seventh Barn Burner: Creatures - January 2014

Popular acclaim

"Wookieepedia is a fabulous resource. Love it and use it a lot. But it's always a starting pt for further verification, not an endpoint."

―Jason Fry

A comparison chart of Wikia projects (Wookieepedia in red)

2005–2008

• Wookieepedia was mentioned in Time magazine on May 29, 2005 as one of Wikia's largest wikis; only Star Trek's Memory Alpha was larger, though as of November 12, 2005, Wookieepedia has exceeded Memory Alpha in legitimate number of articles. However shortly thereafter, Wookieepedia was overtaken by World of Warcraft's WoWwiki.
• On September 26, 2005, Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, mentioned Wookieepedia in an interview on C-SPAN.
• Abel G. Peña mentioned Wookieepedia in his October 11, 2005 blog, calling it a "staggering enterprise."
• Nathan Butler mentioned and gave his support to the wiki in an episode of his ChronoRadio internet radio show.
• SciFi.com selected Wookieepedia as its Sci Fi Site of the Week on November 28, 2005.
• TheForce.net acknowledged Wookieepedia for the first time on December 2, 2005, comparing it with The Completely Unofficial Star Wars Encyclopedia.
• On March 27, 2006, Wookieepedia was mentioned in the official Wikia press release covering the relaunch of Wikicities under the new name Wikia.
• Daniel Wallace puts Wookieepedia links in his blog. He also admitted being a "giant fan of Wookieepedia."
• John Jackson Miller mentioned Wookieepedia in behind-the-scenes comments for Knights of the Old Republic 6: Commencement, Part 6 as the source of the conjectural name "Padawan Massacre of Taris," which was later canonized in issue 11 of that same series. Also, he dedicated a blog post called "On Wikis and Wookiees" to it.
• On September 4, 2006, Wookieepedia was mentioned in the New York Times.
• In Matt and Ben Loewen's audio commentary for Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope, done as an episode of their fan audio show Star Wars FM, they cite Wookieepedia as where they looked for information on the retconned appearance of the 501st in the film. In reference to the site's name, Matt quips, "I love that name!"
• Pablo Hidalgo mentioned Wookieepedia in one of his blog entries. He stated "…there's a variety of reasons I can't go into that playground as someone on the official side of things. I try to avoid it, though from what I've seen it's pretty darn impressive."
• In an interview with comedian C.C. Banana regarding the 30th anniversary of Star Wars, Peter Mayhew was asked if he contributed to the site, and replied that while he hadn't, "I do click onto it every now and again."
• In an NBC blog, Aaron Bleyaert wrote about Wookieepedia's quick response to changing Motti's name to the disputed but canon name Conan Antonio Motti. In the blog, released a day after George Lucas's statement, he praised Wookieepedia for their quickness in incorporating it into the Star Wars mythology.
• On May 4, 2007, Variety.com wrote an article on Wookieepedia. The article was later included on Hyperspace and the starwars.com Homing Beacon #187—making this the first time the official site has recognized the existence of Wookieepedia.

Wookieepedia and CUSWE's banner at Celebration IV

• On May 8, 2007, JoBlo.com posted a small article on Wookieepedia. As of its posting, the wiki had 47,916 articles.
• On May 18, 2007, StarWars.com again mentioned Wookieepedia in the Behind-the-Scenes Stage Programming" section of its article "Insider's Guide to Celebration IV: Part III." Wookieepedia was later mentioned in the printed form of the guide available at the event.
• Wookieepedia was allotted time on the "Behind the Scenes" stage during Celebration IV for a trivia game set up by members of the Wookieepedia community.
• In the June 2007 issue of Reason magazine, an article about Jimmy Wales discussed the Star Wars wikia community as one of the largest wikis.
• On the June 19, 2007 episode of his radio show, Howard Stern—an influential radio shock jock—mentioned Wookieepedia, and proceeded to read from the Wookieepedia entry on Darth Nihilus.
• In Issue #121 of ToyFare magazine, the "Twisted Toyfare Theater" section is devoted exclusively to The Star Wars Holiday Special, with Lumpy questioning Chewbacca about Life Day, and Chewbacca responding that he should look it up on Wookieepedia.
• TimesOnline mentioned Wookieepedia as being one of the best Wikipedia spinoffs and referred to its "regularly amusing Quotes of the Day."
• RiffTrax's Kevin Murphy worked a Wookieepedia reference into their commentary for The Star Wars Holiday Special.
• Wookieepedia was mentioned in StarWars.com's February 12, 2008 Photo Caption.
• After the third anniversary of Wookieepedia, on March 5, 2008, Galactic Watercooler blogged about the site, claiming it possessed the "best wiki name ever."
• The Official Star Wars Blog mentioned Wookieepedia's April 1, 2008 joke.
• Wookieepedia was mentioned in Daniel Wallace's article "The Essential Expanded Universe" in Star Wars Insider 101.
• Dave Filoni mentioned on the Official Star Wars Blog, among other topics, that George Lucas was shown printed Wookieepedia articles when discussing material he was unaware of.
• On October 3, 2008, Associated Content.com posted an article on Wookieepedia, stating that it contained "so much minutiae that if Wookieepedia were an actual Star Wars convention the geek quotient would suffocate the average person."
• Pablo Hidalgo mentioned Wookieepedia in the article about Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duels game published on StarWars.com. When mentioning "speculative" matches from the game that may or may not fit into continuity, he gave an example of Obi-Wan Kenobi dueling Dooku while Anakin was attacking the Malevolence and commented, "Good luck working that one out, Wookieepedians."
• A number of images (from various media) on Wookieepedia were included in The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia. Some entries on subjects that received passing mentions in their original source were copied almost directly from Wookieepedia's articles on the subject. Samples include Jumerian and Kallil-virus. Assumptions that existed in these articles, present because they were created as early as 2006, thus became canonical.

2009–2013

• The 106th issue of Star Wars Insider, published in January 2009, included an article about the development of The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia in its Blaster department. It acknowledged that such an encyclopedia was forced to compete with Wookieepedia, just as general encyclopedias must compete with Wikipedia. A sidebar in the same article, entitled "Sizing Up Star Wars," featured Steve Sansweet stating, "From what I've seen, Wookieepedia is a superbly-run resource and the community does a wonderful job of policing and self-editing. And that's partly because of the kind of people that make up Star Wars fandom."
• In a JournalGazette Times-Courier interview with Craig Titley, the script writer for the Clone Wars episode Blue Shadow Virus, Wookieepedia was mentioned as one of the sites Titley was thrilled to see his name on in connection with Star Wars (the other being the Official Site).
• On March 3, 2009, Wookieepedia was acknowledged in a developer diary on the official Star Wars: The Old Republic website.
• On March 6, 2009, senior environment artist Alex Thomas mentioned in the BioWare Blog post on the Star Wars: The Old Republic website that Wookieepedia used an early screenshot for Nal Hutta in the game as the article's only depiction of the planet surface so far, given its previously unexplored status.
• On April 2, 2009, The A.V. Club's Scott Tobias used the Wookieepedia for research on tauntauns in an article about a ThinkGeek April Fool's joke.
• Author Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff described Wookieepedia as a great place to begin researching things while writing her novel Shadow Games, before redirecting her research to a proper guide or expert. She has additionally mentioned Wookieepedia in several blog entries.
• The acknowledgments of The Essential Atlas included several names of Wookieepedians that helped out the authors.
• On October 8, 2009, Game Informer published an interview with the keeper of Lucasfilm's Holocron continuity database, Leland Chee, in which Chee mentioned Wookieepedia as a resource occasionally used by game developers.
• On January 2010, Southeastern Louisiana University physicist Rhett Allain used information from Wookieepedia (R2-D2's height) to argue that R2 would weigh less than styrofoam in reality (100 grams). The article's numbers are now outdated with the release of Star Wars: Head-to-Head Tag Teams, which states R2's mass to be 32 kilograms.
• Author Paul S. Kemp has admitted to reading Wookieepedia, albeit with some caution, while writing his 2010 novel Crosscurrent.

File:SithDred-Wookieepedia.png

The lower columns display text taken directly from the Sith Dreadnaught cruiser Wookieepedia article.

• The Clone Wars second season episode Cat and Mouse, which broadcasted on March 26, 2010, had parts of a Wookieepedia article translated into Aurebesh and used as computer text.
• In an article published on May 22, 2010, writer Robert Chestney cited Wookieepedia as one of the resources he used to research his comic series, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Threat of Peace.
• In October 2010, author Sean Williams stated in an interview conducted by Star Wars Action News that he uses Wookieepedia as a resource for finding obscure alien species with which to populate his Star Wars stories.
• On an episode of the Australian game show Good News Week, aired April 11, 2011, English comedian Simon Pegg correctly answered "Wookieepedia" when asked "What is the name of the comprehensive Star Wars database that can be edited by members of the public?"
• On June 6, 2011, Wookieepedia was mentioned in an article entitled "The weirdest stories from the Star Wars Expanded Universe," on Gawker Media's io9.
• In an interview published in Star Wars Insider 127, Timothy Zahn acknowledged Wookieepedia as one of the resources he uses to keep up with the Expanded Universe.
• On September 13, 2011, StarWars.com revamped their website, and created a new "Encyclopedia" to replace the Databank. The new entries linked to Wookieepedia.
• In an interview with Easy Crafts Wiki in September 2011, Bonnie Burton noted that she loves Wookieepedia "for all the weird facts and extensive files on every single Star Wars thing you can imagine."
• Author James Luceno cited Wookieepedia as a resource he used while researching the prehistory of Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace for his novel Darth Plagueis.
• On March 2, 2012, Wookieepedia was cited in a Cracked article on common misconceptions and misquotations in pop culture history.
• Wookieepedia was mentioned in the acknowledgements of Jason Fry's The Essential Guide to Warfare. In a later interview in April 2012, Jason Fry noted the wiki as being a "fabulous resource" but "not an endpoint."
• On April 25, 2012, io9's article "10 Alien Species from Star Wars Who Became Jedi Knights" used Wookieepedia as a source.
• Wookieepedia was interviewed at Celebration VI by The Dork Night Podcast.
• Pablo Hidalgo thanks the many Wookieepedians in the Acknowledgments section of The Essential Reader's Companion for "undertaking their own research of this universe."
• On October 25, 2012, Australian comedy TV show The Unbelievable Truth, in a section based around the lightsaber, had Wookieepedia as one of the "truths," and claimed that it had over 90,000 pages.
• On December 19, 2012, Gizmodo's article "Are These the First Leaked Star Wars Episode VII Plot Details?" references Wookieepedia's Yavin 4 article in discussing possible plot points for the sequel trilogy.
• On January 10, 2013, Leland Chee, maintainer of the Holocron continuity database, congratulated Wookieepedia on its 100,000th article milestone.
• On March 3, 2013, Wookieepedia's article on "Force meld" was referred to by Lucasfilm's Director of Communications Lynne Hale in response to confusion over the apparent misuse of the term "Jedi Mind Meld" by United States President Barack Obama during a news conference.

Wookieepedia is mentioned as a source on Mythbusters' Star Wars special.

• Wookieepedia was mentioned in an io9 article on April 4 in regards to Disney's shutdown of LucasArts and the possible "destruction" of the Expanded Universe.
• Also on April 4, Wookieepedia's category on females was cited in a Star Wars Blog by 501st Legion founder Albin Johnson.
• On his blog, the comic artist Zack Giallongo admitted using Wookieepedia while researching the various Ewok characters' appearance in all the movies, books, toys, and comics. Giallongo was later hired by Dark Horse Comics to produce the upcoming series Star Wars: Ewoks—Shadows of Endor.
• In the "Bantha Tracks" department of Star Wars Insider 146, editor Mary Franklin directed readers to Wookieepedia's article on Willrow Hood in response to Star Wars fans' "Running of the Hoods" event at Celebration Europe II in summer 2013.
• In the November 2013 issue of United Airlines' Hemispheres, Wookieepedia is mentioned in an article about the Death Star Owner's Technical Manual.

2014–Present

• On Mythbusters' Star Wars special "Revenge of the Myth," which aired January 4, 2014, Wookieepedia is mentioned by Adam Savage as a source for the temperature on Hoth in determining the survivability inside a tauntaun.
• During a period of concern about canon following the announcement of a "Story Group," io9 posted an article on the situation, with a header image of Wookieepedia and The Completely Unofficial Star Wars Encyclopedia's logos from a banner used at Celebration IV.
• On February 28, 2014, Dorkly released a comic featuring the eight types of Star Wars fans; one of the eight types was "Wookieepedia Editors," a subset of "Extended Canon-ites." Wookieepedia editors were represented by an Emperor Palpatine figure advertising Yuuzhan Vong trivia at his bar that no one would attend and a fan debating with himself on which member of the Figrin D'an and the Modal Nodes was his favorite.
• On August 7, 2014, io9 mentioned "Wookiepedia" in regards to a "crisis" involving the various calendars of Star Wars after the creation of Legends materials and Leland Chee's involvement in clarifying these now defunct calendars on Twitter.

Chris Hardwick and his "hype nerd" recite from Wookieepedia.

• On October 1, 2014, @midnight, hosted by Chris Hardwick and with guests Thomas Lennon, Cameron Esposito, and Daniel Sloss, used Wookieepedia in a game titled "NPR Anchor or Minor Star Wars Character." When referring to "the online Star Wars encyclopedia known as Wookieepedia," Hardwick states to the crowd "that's 100% true." In the game, Hardwick asks his contestants whether the names Jad Abumrad, Mas Amedda, and Jian Ghomeshi are NPR anchors or minor Star Wars characters, with Mas Amedda being the only character. Upon reveal, Hardwick displays an image of Amedda from his Wookieepedia article with the Wikia skin present. Hardwick follows this by then viewing Amedda as an NPR anchor wearing an "I love Shelter Cats" sweater. Hardwick also proceeds to view the NPR anchors as Star Wars characters, with Abumrad as C-3PO and Ghomeshi as Emperor Palpatine respectively.
• On December 1, 2014, after the release of the first teaser trailer for Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens, @midnight once again featured Wookieepedia to explain to fanboys upset with John Boyega apparently as a black stormtrooper that stormtroopers were no longer clones by the time of the new film. This episode with Tom Papa, Dave Hill, and Morgan Murphy involved displaying a version of Wookieepedia's stormtrooper article, with Chris Hardwick and his "hype nerd" reading various lines from the article. Emphasis was given to certain clips of information, particularly in how Jango Fett's clones were marginalized. It should be noted that the article in question was the Legends stormtrooper article.
• On December 29, 2014, journalist Steve Haruch linked to several Wookieepedia articles for an NPR article on the actor who played Telsij and other Asian characters in the Star Wars universe, namely Ardon Crell, Rayc Ryjerd, Corman Jeihn, Bana Breemu, and Bultar Swan, as well as the Holocron continuity database managed by Leland Chee. Jan Solbidder and Selig Kenjenn were other names mentioned but were not linked.
• On April 14, 2015, YouTube personalities Rhett and Link posted a video on their Good Mythical More channel that discussed "what if" scenarios. At one point, the topic turns to Star Wars science, and Link states "where there's whole Star Wars Wikipedias.. Wiki... whatever, the Wookieepedia, where like people have talked about the gravitational pull on every planet, and all this data exists, and I think that's awesome."
• On April 16, 2015, on the first day of Celebration Anaheim, StarWars.com has an interview with Leland Chee and Pablo Hidalgo about the Star Wars universe, and Wookieepedia is mentioned twice by the interviewer.
• On April 17, 2015, during Celebration Anaheim, Wookieepedia was the focus of an Forbes article by Zack O'Malley Greenburg about Star Wars fandom and the wiki.
• On April 20, 2015, Wookieepedia was further mentioned by Greenburg in a summary of Celebration Anaheim.
• On April 22, 2015, after the release of the second teaser trailer, Wookieepedia was mentioned in an article by the London Evening Standard discussing the anticipation of Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens. Author William Moore recommended readers "brush up" on Wookieepedia, and did indicate that "yes, it's a real website."
• On April 23, 2015, an article by Entertainment Weekly's Anthony Breznican linked to Wookieepedia's article on Anakin Skywalker's second lightsaber as it may have made an appearance in Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens.
• On May 4, 2015, Wookieepedia and the new Star Wars canon were the focus of a Tech Times article by Steven Schneider.
• On May 17, 2015, Wookieepedia was mentioned in an article by Alaska Dispatch News' Alex DeMarban about Alaskan native Mary Franklin.
• The November 14, 2015 podcast of The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe mentioned Wookieepedia in its opening minute in regards to preparing for the release of The Force Awakens.
• On November 17, 2015, Wookieepedia was visually referenced in Screen Junkies' Honest Trailer for Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope, though "Wikipedia" may have been audibly cited.
• As part of AV Club's Star Wars Week in November 2015, Wookieepedia is linked to in discussion of Mara Jade Skywalker in an article on excisions from Star Wars canon.

Cracked's Daniel O' Brian highlights the Legends version of the Ewok article.

• In the AV Club article "If you could change one thing about Star Wars, what would it be?," contributing author and Editor-in-Chief John Teti refers directly to Wookieepedia when looking for specific information on how holochess differed from dejarik, noting "Wookieepedia insists that holochess 'differed on crucial points from dejarik' without feeling the need to mention what any of those crucial points might be." The information was cited directly from The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia's entry on holochess and as of the article's publication has not been expanded upon.
• On December 1, 2015, Zachary Feinstein of Washington University published an essay on the cost of destroying the Death Stars and the financial fallout and cited Wookieepedia on three occasions. This essay was picked up by several news vendors including Popular Science, where contributor Kelsey D. Atherton mentioned "Wookiepedia" as a source.
• Also on December 1, Buzzfeed's Joseph Bernstein and Charlie Warzel referred to "Wookiepedia" when defining the term "jizz" in their article.
• In early December 2015, About.com's Star Wars Expert, Robin Parrish, wrote about "How Wookieepedia Conquered Star Wars Fandom."
• On December 23, 2015, Katherine Cusumano wrote for Forbes about how Wookieepedia has seen a massive increase in traffic from the release of The Force Awakens.
• Also on December 23, 2015, Nelson Granados referenced Wookieepedia's traffic increase in another Forbes article about how The Force Awakens was driving traffic across the web.
• On December 31, 2015, Collider.com's Dave Trumbore pointed to Wookieepedia as a source of background character information regarding cameos in The Force Awakens.
• On January 18, 2016, Cracked.com's Obsessive Pop Culture Disorder, hosted by Daniel O'Brian, covered Ewoks and the dark secret behind them as vicious man-eating monsters. When citing their usage of poison-tipped arrows, the video directly cites Wookieepedia as a "thoroughly researched database" and references the Legends tab of the Ewok article. The video highlights text within the Weapons and Equipment section, attributed to Jason Fry's The Essential Guide to Warfare. The screen grab was made when Wookieepedia's article count registered 124,788.
• Star Wars: The Force Awakens costume designer Michael Kaplan namedropped Wookieepedia in an interview with Clothes On Film just before Christmas 2015: "The fact that I didn’t have total recall of the [original] films... isn’t that what Wookiepedia [sic] is for?"
• In Switzerland, a research team from École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne used Wookieepedia as their primary source to conduct a study on the size and scope of the Legends continuity.

Criticism

Like all wikis, Wookieepedia has been criticized for common wiki flaws such as pushing a certain point of view and for its easily editable nature, leading to frequent vandalism. A question on the TFN Boards in 2008 asked whether the wiki continued to be reliable, to which jSarek replied, "To a degree. We generally keep the nonsense out, but we're not perfect, and sometimes something slips through." Vandalism can easily distort canonical information if not checked; however, with Wookieepedia being one of the most active wikis, vandalism going unnoticed is rare.

Influences on canon

• Jedi Exile - "Jedi Exile" began as a fanon nickname for this nameless character (called just "exile" in the game dialogue), but was adopted in The New Essential Guide to Droids.
• Padawan Massacre - The event was first called "Padawan Massacre of Taris" on Wookieepedia for lack of an official term. Later this term was adopted into canon sources, before being finalized by John Jackson Miller as "Padawan Massacre."
• Sian Jeisel - On Wookieepedia, the image for this character cosplayed at Celebration III by Jan Duursema's daughter Sian was given as "Sian Duursema as Sian Jeisel." It is unclear whether this actually led to the canonization of the full name as such.
• Mygeetan - before being given the name "Lurmen," "Mygeetan" began as a fanon nickname on Wookieepedia for the nameless natives of Mygeeto. Later this term was adopted in The Essential Atlas.
• Broon Ters was originally a player-chosen name in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords used for the Jedi Exile, which was uploaded in a screenshot on the Wookieepedia. This screenshot was later printed in The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia, making the name canon for several years. But in November 2011, the publication of The Old Republic: Revan clarified that the Exile's name is actually Meetra Surik.

In other languages

In addition to Wookieepedia, several other Star Wars wikis exist in multiple languages. Though these different language encyclopedias were started by, and are currently run by different people, many are located at the wikia.com subdomain, meaning that membership at any one version is extended to the others as well.

• Star Wars Wiki en Español (Spanish)
• Star Wars Wiki fr (French)
• Star Wars Wiki em Português (Portuguese)
• Вукипедия (Russian; Star Wars Wiki Ru)
• Biblioteka Ossus (Polish)
• Kaminopedia (Hungarian; Star Wars Wiki Hu)
• Yodapedia (Dutch; Star Wars Wiki Dutch)
• Holopedia (Bulgarian; Star Wars Wiki Bulgarian)
• Jedipedia (German; Das Star Wars Wiki)
• Star Wars Wiki Da (Danish)
• SWikoopedia (Slovenian)
• Jedipedia (Finnish)
• Star Wars Wiki sv (Swedish)
• Jawapedia (Italian)
• Wiki ng Star Wars (Tagalog)

Spin-offs

Several wikis have been spawned from Wookieepedia. These include the Star Wars Fanon Wiki, the Star Wars Games Wiki, the LEGO Star Wars Wiki, the Star Wars Fanpedia, the Star Wars Galaxies Wiki, the Clone Wars Wiki, the Clone Wars Adventures Wiki, the Star Wars: The Old Republic Wiki, and the Star Wars Rebels Wiki.

In addition, the site wookieepedia.org appears to be written entirely in Shyriiwook.

External links

• Wookieepedia on Wikipedia

In other languages

• dansk
• Deutsch
• español
• polski
• português