Robowiki:About

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RoboWiki: What it isn't

Try anything and we will see if the wiki is that. =)

Nostalgia

This is how it all started:

To: Robocode <Robocode@yahoogroups.com>
From: Peter Str=?ISO-8859-1?B?9g==?=mberg <pez@pezius.com>
Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 17:42:55 +0100
Subject: [Robocode] A Robocode Wiki

Me and a friend have created a Robocode Wiki at:

http://robowiki.dyndns.org/

It's for sharing information about Robocode stuff and for easy hosting of
home pages of those robots we create. So if you have a robot and no page for
it yet, please create a page for it on this wiki. Create the page even if
you have a page for it elsewhere. =)

For you who don't know what a wiki is: It's a collaborative site where
anyone can create and edit content, new pages and everything. Read more
about it on:

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiWiki

Regards,
/PEZ

As you can see this was sent to the Robocode mailing list in January 20 this year (2003). The "friend" referred to here is Crippa. The wiki was for a few weeks only for Crippa and me, but we soon realized we should invite the full community. It was an immediate success. Mostly thanks to Albert and David Alves who started to share their expert knowledge in an incredibly generous way that quickly set the standard and has since been followed by the rest of us.

The lesson I think we can learn from the success of the RoboWiki is that you can come a very long way with simplicity and trust. The wiki is super-simple and the immediate reaction from many people to the wiki technology is that it's too "raw" and featureless. (I think Albert referred to the wiki as wierd, but cool in the beginning). Trust is about trusting that people will behave when given the freedom and power to alter everything on the site. Because they do. Not once in the wiki's compact history has anyone violated the only rule that the wiki states (edit: no longer true, see next section). Read about that rule on the ReadMe page. -- PEZ

Notes about vandalism and wiki-spam

Well, that's not true anymore. The wiki has lately been visited by a moron who vandals the wiki with obsceneties. And wiki-spam is a growing problem on many wikis these days. However, the problem is manageble at current. Help keep the wiki clean by removing any spam or obsceneties you find. -- PEZ

In May 2006 the spam problem has grown considerably. Hopefully it can be countered without affecting the accessability of the wiki. -- GrubbmGait

After some major SPAM attacks at the old wiki, we implemented a simple "Consciousness Check" CAPTCHA system that nearly eliminated all wiki-SPAM at the RoboWiki. With the move to MediaWiki, we are using reCAPTCHA to try and combat SPAM problems from the get go. -- Voidious

Who runs the RoboWiki?

Most importantly, an entire community of people run the RoboWiki, contributing content for the site, robots for the competitions, and technology (like RoboResearch and the Bot Repository) to make Robocoding more enjoyable for all of us. Lots and lots of kind people have created the vast amounts of content that comprise the RoboWiki. The site itself was founded by PEZ, who was also in charge of hosting and the technical side of things until late 2007. Currently, the site is under the direction of Voidious, Fnl, and David Alves, whom PEZ has entrusted with taking care of the wiki moving into the future.

See Also

• The ReadMe page has some basic info about using the site.