Bulbapedia

Bulbapedia
"the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia"
Bulbapedia's logo, the bulb of a Bulbasaur with a Poké Ball superimposed on it
Language	English
Status	Active
Run	2005–present
Date opened	February 14, 2005
Creator	Archaic and Zhen Lin
Current owner	{{{owner}}}
Number of Articles	54,772
Forum	BMGf
Mascot	Bulbasaur
Website	Main Page

Bulbapedia is an English-language community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia. It attempts to document the Pokémon franchise as a whole, in a system that anyone can read and edit.

Its name is a portmanteau of Bulbagarden, the Pokémon website which runs Bulbapedia, and encyclopedia. It is affectionately known as the 'pedia, Bulbawiki, or simply Bulba among its contributors. Both Bulbapedia and Bulbagarden get their names from Bulbasaur, notable as the first Pokémon in the National Pokédex order.

Images for the website are stored at the Bulbagarden Archives, which also supplies artwork, photographs, and screenshots for Bulbanews, an affiliate news site also run by Bulbagarden.

The wiki is constantly evolving with thousands of articles and hundreds of new users joining weekly. Despite its extensive content, it remains incomplete due to the frequent release of new Pokémon media and the growing fandom. Contributions from anyone are welcomed as Bulbapedia strives to maintain its status as the leading Pokémon wiki globally.

History

Bulbapedia was set up by Zhen Lin on December 21, 2004. The original period of development sought members of the Bulbagarden community to write for "a collaborative and open work environment which makes interacting with other staff and looking up information very simple."^[1] This proved unsuccessful, but Bulbapedia proceeded with a dozen or so contributors, and reached 100 articles within three weeks. It eventually opened to the public on February 14, 2005, marketed as "Bulbagarden's Valentine's Gift to the Fandom".^[2] At least 21 new articles were created within the first 24 hours of operations, and within three months 1,000 articles had been written. The 10,000th article was created 3 years later, on June 29, 2008.^[3] Currently, it is the largest English-language Pokémon wiki.

As a wiki, Bulbapedia's development is dependent on the community, and in the years that passed since its opening, many thousands of users have contributed to its success. In the summer of 2007, when the subject of publishing advertisements on the website to maintain its costs came up, the entire community was given the right to vote on the matter, eventually deciding to agree to the advertising.

Staff

evkl was the first Editor-in-Chief of Bulbapedia and remains the Deputy Head of Bulbagarden. During his time as Editor-in-Chief, evkl's primary goal was to build the foundations of Bulbapedia. Although no longer regularly active, evkl still maintains contact to assist the staff when needed. evkl remained the Editor-in-Chief until early 2006, when he made way for Bulbapedia founder Zhen Lin to take the helm.

Zhen Lin, who has a background in coding, ensured the site's consistent performance as it grew. He established much of the technical operations of the wiki that remain to this day. Zhen served as Editor-in-Chief until 2008, when TTEchidna assumed the role.

From the early days, Bulbapedia has been overseen by an editorial board that collaborates on all executive decisions, including the making of Bulbapedia policy. There are also many administrators and other staff who oversee the day-to-day running of the site. On April 22, 2010, the addition of a "Junior Administrator" position was announced to give accepted users a chance to learn the tasks of a staff member and possibly be accepted onto the staff.

TTEchidna's tenure continued to grow and develop Bulbapedia. He was largely responsible for the bold colored, round-bordered templates that are now associated with Bulbapedia. His influence helped Bulbapedia become one of the most distinctive and recognizable wikis, often praised for its appearance. On December 1, 2010, TTEchidna resigned and passed the torch to MAGNEDETH.

While in position, MAGNEDETH put a main focus on the user experience, stating "We are here for the fans, so the site should cater to them." There was also a focus on staff organization to make it easier for users to identify moderators that would be best able to answer their questions. On December 9, 2012, MAGNEDETH stepped down and handed the site to Werdnae, appointing him the fifth Editor-in-Chief.

On February 17, 2014, Werdnae stepped down and chose Kogoro as his successor.

On March 3, 2021, Kogoro was succeeded by Pokemaster97 as Editor-in-Chief.

On April 19, 2023, Pokemaster97 was succeeded by Maverick Nate. As Editor-in-Chief, Maverick Nate simplified the staff structure and reworked the editorial board into the Leadership Board, a committee responsible for guiding the site's progress, upholding Bulbagarden's values, and representing Bulbapedia within the broader Pokémon community.

Content

Bulbapedia's Main Page, in its standard coloration (as of 2011)

Articles

Bulbapedia offers information on every aspect of the Pokémon franchise. Projects exist for many areas, where editors can work together to grow Bulbapedia. The anime, Trading Card Game, games, and manga each have their own Project. Additionally, Project Globe aims to increase Bulbapedia's international content, an area that was previously scarce. These Projects were originally run by Project Leaders, whose jobs were to manage and oversee the development and growth of their Projects.

Featured articles are articles that were at one point recognized for their high quality and completeness. They could be voted on and nominated by every member of the community. New nominations have not been considered since 2010, though other practices have been adopted to acknowledge quality work and contributions from the community, such as featuring content updates in the What's Growing On? newsletter.

Until 2012, several articles were featured on the Main Page of the wiki on a one-day rotation.

Images

In the initial stages of Bulbapedia, images were hosted on the same site. Nowadays, they are kept on the Bulbagarden Archives, which allows interaction with Bulbanews as well. From early 2009, the Bulbagarden Archives has been running off a separate server from Bulbapedia, reducing stress on the site.

The majority of images on Bulbapedia are recognized as "fair use".

Vandalism

Due to the interactive and collaborative nature of the site, Bulbapedia is prone to vandalism. This is often quickly seen and reverted by good-faith contributors, but two incidents have stood out in the site's history. The Great Bulbapedia Turkey Shoot is the first, and was for a long period of time documented for its historicity. The second, more recent spate is unnamed, although it was once jokingly referred to as The Great Bulbapedia Turkey Shoot II: Back for Dessert.^[4] The Turkey Shoot had its own article on the site for a fairly long period of time, but many people, both general users and staff alike, found the article to be of questionable notability. The staff of Bulbapedia held a vote in late March of 2012 and decided the article was no longer worth keeping.

"Things like [that page] give us the small-town feel, but we've almost certainly outgrown it. I'm fine with it being taken down." — evkl

"It has been decided that although [the] page details a major point in Bulbapedia's history, it glorifies vandalism, which sends the wrong message. We do not tolerate vandalism, nor shall we ever again dedicate a page to showcasing such heinous acts on our site." — MAGNEDETH

Vandalism is not tolerated on Bulbapedia and accounts performing such actions are blocked from editing by staff.

Server issues

Bulbapedia has encountered numerous server issues over the years. Notably in early 2008, server issues caused multiple downtimes every week. The servers were upgraded later in the year to handle more, but to combat future issues, the userspace policy was instituted to encourage less editing of the userspace (userspace edits being considered less constructive while still putting daily stress on the servers). Although unpopular at the time, it had a noticeable effect on the site, bringing more mainspace contributions.

Significant server problems recurred in mid-2010, though servers were quickly upgraded. However, new issues cropped up resulting in "session data loss" errors and involuntary log-outs, and it was later discovered that the server load balancer had malfunctioned.

Bulbapedia still experiences occasional server issues, notably more than other sites. These issues have been identified as unfortunate side-effects of its rapid growth and popularity, often finding itself run by servers that can't handle the capacity of people using the site. In recent years, server maintenance is done more frequently as the site grows in popularity, but major game releases have resulted in momentary server outages or slowdown.

To combat these issues, the servers used to be locked during major news events or big game releases by the staff to ease server stress. In recent years, this practice has been avoided without significant problems, and has been successful at allowing regular users to contribute and add new information without significant downtime.

Relations with other sites

Bulbapedia is a founding member of the Encyclopædiæ Pokémonis, a multi-lingual group of wikis documenting all aspects of Pokémon. Bulbapedia also co-founded the Nintendo Independent Wiki Alliance with Zelda Wiki and Super Mario Wiki, a network that comprises fan-run wikis from several Nintendo franchises. As a part of Bulbagarden, it is also considered an affiliate site with all Bulbagarden affiliates.

Many attempts were made by Fandom early in the site's history to acquire the wiki as part of the Fandom enterprise, though all of them were rejected. Their last known offer was made in April 2010.