Dunepedia

Name: Dunepedia The Dune Encyclopedia

Created on: 29th of April 2007

Creator: Alex Stein (Edgelover)

Function: Database of Dune Knowledge

Domain Name: www.dunepedia.wikifoundry.com

Logo: The original Dunepedia Logo. Taken from Emeperor: Battle for Dune, it is the symbol of House Atreides. The second Dunepedia Logo version. This time featuring a piece of the Dune Encyclopedia Cover. The third version, with the same image as before, but with the title: Dunepedia The Dune Encyclopedia. The current logo for Dunepedia, featuring the same Fremen image, now cropped for a more stylish look.

Home Page Links: Featured Article, Featured Image, Featured Media, Featured Text, Recent Quote, Recent News, Did You Know?, Dunepedia Notice Board, Improvement Drive, Dunepedian of the Month, Friends of Dunepedia, Other Dune Sites, Other Recommended Spin-Off Encyclopedias, See Dune In.

"Dunepedia is a wiki whose main priority is the facilitation of Dune knowledge. We shall strive to make its so. Though it's primary function is one of the gathering of knowledge, it also serves to bring people together in the pursuit of this knowledge, and thereby create a community wherein common interests are held."
-Alex Stein

Description

An older screenshot of the site, taken on a regular sized (not widescreen) monitor.

Dunepedia, created on the 29th of April 2007, by Alex Stein, a boy living in the southern area of Britain, is an archive of Dune knowledge, presented in the style of a wiki. It was created tofacilitate the needs of fans that desperately require knowledge on Dune, whether it be for a huge project on the subject or a useful tidbit for a pub quiz, but cannot find any, and have even been let down by Wikipedia. The inspiration for the wiki came from a sudden glut of Dune information in the area of southern Britain, and the incessant reading of Dune books.

Help and Research

All are welcome to assist in its construction, provided that they obtain an account, and read and follow the Rules of Dunepedia atall times. Other than that, the place is for Duneknowledge, and can either be edited and helped, or simply used to learn more about the grand universe of Dune. But bear in mind, Dunepedia is not a playground, and certainly not a place of self expression. It is a knowledge bank, and should be treated as one. People are welcome to make comments as they will, but Dunepedia itself is intended to inform, not to push ideas or points of view.

Logo

The logo for Dunepedia is a Fremen on Arrakis, part of the cover of The Dune Encyclopedia. This image once had a backround, but now has been cropped, and made more modern and stylish. A version of the logo existed before this one; the eagle insignia of House Atreides, but it was far too one-sided, and was scraped early on in the wiki's development. A later version of the logo showed the same Fremen image as the current one, but the inscription read "Dunepedia the Dune Wiki" and this was uninformative.

Why Wetpaint?

A version of the main page with the EasyEdit button visible.

There has been some speculation as to why the Wetpaint server was chosen to house Dunepedia. To answer the question simply, it was the easiest option. Alex Stein wanted to create a wiki of the highest possible content quality, and so around a dozen different wiki servers were viewed, but most failed to qualify.
By the end of the reviewing process, only two wikis were considered appropriate. One was Wetpaint, a simple, easy to use server, but one that was part of a group of wikis, the other, Edit This.com, a wiki that had the Wikipedia look, but needed a lot of formatting, page creation, and URL purchasing before it could be created. Wetpaint was chosen above the rest, as it qualified as a superb wiki creator.
However, it did not have the Wikipedia look (featured articles, images in boxes, info boxes, categories, a separate comments page), and so it was altered slightly, with the use of the templates, and these things were created, making the wiki a competent and reliable source.

Development

In the future, the contributors of the site hope that Dunepedia will one day become a reliable source of knowledge for Dune fans and researchers. Currently, it is in need of work. Dunepedia appreciates any of this that can be offered. The contributors also intend to change the layout of pages, so that they are more wikipedia style. Here is an example of what these new pages will look like:

More pages