Wiki-Whatsits?

When people talk about Camerapedia and Camera-wiki.org, there are several similar-sounding names which might be confused. Just for everyone’s handy reference, here is a quick refresher:

wiki = a technology for collaborative authoring through a web-browser interface. Used by many websites, projects, and companies for all types of content. (There is more background, plus an explanation of the funny name, in this article.)

Wikipedia = the largest and most visible user of wiki technology is the free encyclopedia Wikipedia.

Wikia = the name of a private, for-profit company which hosts user-created wikis; it derives its income from advertising placed alongside this content. There are other similar “Wiki farm” companies in existence.

Camerapedia = An online encyclopedia of cameras and photography begun in 2004, originally hosted at the domain camerapedia.org. Initially, this project was non-commercial, with its contributors believing in good faith that it would remain that way.

In January 2011 this domain was sold to Wikia, and no longer exists as such. A website with the name “Camerapedia” is now hosted through Wikia.com. Since the takeover, hundreds of photos have been removed from Camerapedia by their owners. Meanwhile, there have only been a few genuine contributors (adding about 85 articles as of this writing); other additions have been questionable—or pure spam.

Camera-wiki.org = the non-commercial sucessor to Camerapedia. In January 2011, many of the contributors to Camerapedia rebelled at its commercial hijacking by Wikia. A splinter group duplicated Camerapedia as it then existed, and “forked” off a new project, pledging it would remain non-commercial. On February 7, 2011 this went public as camera-wiki.org.

Since this split, we have added over ONE THOUSAND new article pages. With your help, camera-wiki.org will just keep growing and getting better!

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