Wiki Community/History - Rochester Wiki

The Rochester Wiki (RocWiki) was born out of the same meetings that began the process of forming Ant Hill Cooperative. TobinFricke, Ryan Dahl, and RobertPolyn saw need for a community edited information repository and stepped forward to fill the void. The site began in 2004 using MediaWiki software and hosted at its peak around 100 pages. As it was decided PHP is the devil, the site then switched to using Sycamore, the MoinMoin fork developed to run Davis Wiki. You can learn more about the development of the system Wiki Developers.

Historical Timeline

2016-10-25: RocWiki wins Best Local Website in the City Newspaper Best of Rochester 2016, in the category Local Color.
2015-10-28: RocWiki wins Best Local Website in the City Newspaper Best of Rochester 2015, in the category Local Color.
2014-10-29: RocWiki is the Best of Rochester 2014 runner-up.
2013-10-30: RocWiki is the Best of Rochester 2013 runner-up.
2012-09-06: Local Reporter Rachel Barnhart wrote about us on her blog-The Rochesterian!
2011-07-12: RocWiki T-shirt designs are put up for sale through Zazzle.
2011-03-16: City Newspaper mentions RocWiki.
2010-10-29: RocWiki is now available with HTTP Secure.
2010-05-18: PeteB became the first contributor to do 20000 edits. He also has 2247 Created pages.
2010-04-16: RocWiki surpassed 100,000 edits with revision 38 of Lori's Natural Foods; alas, the Wiki is still not perfect.
2010-03-08: FrankAshcraft created a new section under play. Music Events has a template within the code commented at the top. Help is needed to add live music events around Rochester.
2010-02-15: BradMandell became second contributor to create 1000 Pages. He previously exceeded 670 file uploads and 9000 edits.
2009-10-02: PeteB became the first contributor to do 16000 edits. He also has 1926 Created pages.
2009-04-05: BradMandell became second contributor to create 500 Pages. He previously exceeded 500 file uploads and 5000 edits.
2009-01-12: PeteB did an interview about Technology, Driving and the Disabled and was able to plug RocWiki! Thanks to Host Bob Smith of 1370 AM for mentioning his visiting of the site as well!.
2009-01-02: Bryan Pfaffenberger, Univ. of Virginia, brings Rochester's contributions to the voting machine to life, including a new biography of Rochester inventor Jacob H. Myers.
2008-05-11: Rey Tucker upgrades RocWiki, exposing awesome new powers!
2008-04-12: MikeOtto is our 3,000th Registered User!
2007-11-23: 5,000th New Page!
2007-11-14: Rocwiki was voted the best local website in City Newspaper's Best of 2007 awards!
2007-10-28: A general contributors meeting was held at Virtu.
2007-08-26: A general contributors meeting was held at the Old Toad.
2007-08-19: 2,000th Contributor registers, a day shy of 8 months after the 1000th contributor!
2007-07-29: We now have a group on Facebook.
2007-07-29: A general contributors meeting was held at Buffalo Wild Wings Grill & Bar
2007-07-12: 4,000th New Page! Rochester mentioned in Toronto's Annex Guardian as having the second largest city wiki.
2007-05-16: RocWiki is featured in the cover-story "A wiki to build a Village" in the May 16-22, 2007 edition of City Newspaper. Read the story Jon McKamey & Robert Polyn Photo on Flikr
2007-05-16: 3,500th page added
2007-04-04: RocWiki is running on a new server. Report any problems to the rocwiki list: rochesterwiki - at - googlegroups.com.
2007-03-02: 3000th New Page!
2007-01-20: 'Monthly Community Meeting' becomes a regular part of community website management.
2006-12-20: RocWiki has added its 1000th registered member, JackPorcello!!
2006-11-01: Opening the November-December issue in Rochester Almanac, Rochester Magazine profiles RocWiki and mentions its founders. “In 2004, University of Rochester grad student Tobin Fricke teamed with Robert Polyn and Ryan Dahl to create RocWiki. By August 2006, it has passed the 2600-page mark. It's so big now that it needs a watchdog, engineer Jon McKamey…”
2006-08-2?: RocWiki passes the 2,500 page mark!
2006-08-21: RocWiki adds built-in Google maps, thanks to Rottenchester
2006-03-26: RocWiki hit 2,000 Pages!! Page 2000 was Walter Palmer by JasonWilder
2006-01-10: Wiki is destroyed by FarMcKon. Wiki restored by RobertPolyn to Jan 8th backup.
2005-12-30: A Very Wiki Holiday Party at Spy Bar. Darts were played. Software was criticized. People hid from cameras. A good time was had by all.
2005-11-24: RocWiki passes 1,700 user created pages. That's 1,700 pages about Rochester, by the people living here. GoGo Gadget wiki!
2005-11-09: Picked for Critic's Choice for Virtual Rochester on the City Newspaper's Best of Rochester.
2005-07-28: RocWiki hits the 1,000th page mark with the creation of Chamber of Commerce Building by FarMcKon!
2005-06-17: Stickers are available! See the promotions page for more info.
2005-05-26: Our first mention in the news! Read City Newspaper's article: Forgive their trespasses.
2005-05-09: We've hit the 500 page mark with the creation of Bisque and Brush by Rob!
2005-04-25: We now have a Mailing List for wiki related discussion.
2005-04-11: Do you want to help design the look of this site? Do you have an idea for a logo? If so E-Mail Ry.
????-??-??: RocWiki.org goes live
2004-11-19: RocWiki.org URL registered
2004-Autumn: Meanwhile, local resident Robert Polyn had been in the process of independently pursuing a similar local wiki concept, influenced by his involvement in local area local communities and the lack of any comprehensive resource aggregating the wealth of information concerning the area. The three fortuitously meet via the Rochester livejournal community and quickly become cohorts. Scheming ensues. ROCwiki is born in Autumn 2004 when Rob registers the domain and sets up the initial software used.
2004-05: BerkeleyWiki gets started as an experimental "geowiki" (check out the front page). A month later Tobin Fricke moves to San Diego to work at Scripps Institute of Oceanography and the BerkeleyWiki, abandoned in its infancy, effectively dies. However, Philip Neustrom at UC Davis takes notice and begins crafting the Davis Wiki, which grows to be a huge success. On August 20, 2004 Tobin Fricke moves to Rochester to start grad school and lives with Ryan Dahl. Ryan notices Davis Wiki, thinks it's awesome.
See Wiki Community/History/Talk for references to Legacy pages.