BoyWiki
BoyWiki is a free, open content Free Spirits resource for boylovers and others who are interested in the collective knowledge and culture that has formed over the years. It is a place where boylovers can work together to record and preserve our online and offline history and culture, share knowledge and information, and effectively donate this knowledge to the boylove community as well as the entire world.
BoyWiki is overseen by the Keeper of the Wiki and an administrative team of Curators, together referred to as the BoyWiki Council. This team sets administrative policy and performs other essential duties to keep BoyWiki operating smoothly.
What makes BoyWiki unique from other Free Spirits resources (as well as most other online boylove resources) is that all original content on BoyWiki is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License, which gives permission for all readers to copy, reproduce, and add on to articles with the sole provision that they pass the same permission along to others.
BoyWiki is also interested in the preservation of historical documents and sites that hold or have held great significance or value to the boylove community. BoyWiki actively encourages the submission via email of old documents and sites which are no longer updated and are in danger of going offline. At its own discretion, BoyWiki will preserve such information with the permission of the original copyright holder, outside of the GNU Free Documentation License.
History
The first stirrings of BoyWiki began in December 2004, when TPKA Hínandil thought there should be an online resource that retold some of the history of great events in the online boylove community in the same spirit as A History of Boychat[1] written by Alexis. He put these ideas to rest over the holidays, but at the beginning of January 2005, a friend urged him to volunteer to help Free Spirits. He mentioned the idea of a wiki, which had been mulled over by others on Freedom Board the year before. Finally, early on 30 January 2005, he submitted his proposal to the Free Spirits Committee. After reviewing the proposal, it was accepted and Hínandil was appointed Free Spirits WikiMaster by the FSC.
After expanding policy from the outlines in the proposal and a ratification vote among the admin team, content and categories were created, and slowly the site grew closer to completion. As it began to look like the 2005 Free Spirits fundraiser would be held earlier than usual because of increasing server problems, it was decided to launch BoyWiki to coincide with the event to help boost excitement for both the resource and the fundraiser. Efforts were redoubled to meet this new deadline. A fundraising plan was created and a target goal set, with Go/NoGo decision scheduled for 9 August 2005. When this date passed, all active Curators unanimously voted Go for resource launch with the fundraiser. A banner was added to BoyLinks and a teaser site[2] was created.
By the beginning of September, MediaWiki 1.5rc4 was running with modifications on boywiki.org. On the weekend before the fundraiser, the last remaining resources were moved to the final domain and boywiki.ivan.net was disabled for good on 5 September 2005. Two days later, BoyWiki opened to new user registration, offering an advance preview of the starting content on the resource to help generate excitement and offer ideas of what was possible. On 9 September 2005, BoyWiki opened completely, offering all articles freely without registration, and giving users with accounts the ability to create new content at will.
Closure, absence reopening
In September 2006 when Epifora's contract with MCI-Worldcom was canceled, BoyWiki survived several moves and short outages and by February 2007 had settled into a period of inactivity likely caused by the moves. About May of 2007 an upgrade to the MediaWiki software was implemented but poor technical skills resulted in the BoyWiki database being permanently damaged beyond repair and editing was disabled. A mistaken line of communication resulted in BoyWiki being opened again to editing however, that person had been unaware of the database damage. Editing resumed again but vandals began to edit at will taking advantage of the sudden disappearance of the BoyWiki curator team along with the Keeper of the Wiki. Editing was disabled by Free Spirits in order for the site to comply with their rules of hosting however, the damage had multiplied.
BoyWiki remained online in read only mode for several months until September of 2007 when it had to move again due to the decision of Free Spirits to cancel their hosting contract with Epifora. Due to the availability of servers and the requirements to make the transition, BoyWiki was taken offline with the idea that it would be restored in the near future but a lack of technical help and interest in doing so kept it offline throughout 2008. In September, restoration began with a fresh database but restoration required that all of the articles be restored by hand entering them as new articles again. BoyWiki remained offline but under construction until May of 2009 when it returned to the present public but closed to editing status.
The reopening of BoyWiki saw the introduction of some new addresses and features. The original boywiki.org is now en.boywiki.org and resources in French [3] and German[4] have been added. Articles are still being restored on a daily basis but a team of curators and a Keeper are still needed. Bigham is temporarily acting as Keeper and restoring articles.
How to become an editor
Editing privileges can be requested by mailing info@boywiki.org