A pet project of mine is to promote the wiki via word of mouth. A beautiful way to do that is to add links to the Internet Movie Database.

I’ve started doing this with the character pages… yes, IMDb now has pages on characters. For instance, this is the page for D’anna Biers. As you can see in the biography section, I’ve added a link leading back to Battlestar Wiki.

In addition, IMDb supports external links to websites. A beautiful way to do this is to find each individual IMDb page for each Battlestar episode (regardless of series) and submit an update with a link leading back to Battlestar Wiki.

For instance, an external link to Occupation would be filed under “miscellaneous links”, with the link to that page on the wiki (http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/Occupation), and a description like “Battlestar Wiki - Occupation”.

Of course, it isn’t all selfish. In fact, in my Battlestar Wiki “pimping” drive, I’ve gone through and submitted various corrections as well in terms of adding actors, correcting character names (Sarah Parker to Sarah Porter for instance), and other good stuff. Which is good, because IMDb (for better or for worse) is used by a lot of people, and everyone ultimately benefits from polishing up IMDb.

Although, I do have to point out that IMDb and Battlestar Wiki don’t have the same licensing scheme, so a simple copy and paste job should never be done at all!

So instead of me (or just one or three people) doing these updates, feel free to join in!

From all of us who run the Battlestar Wiki (Myself, Joe, Spenc, Steel, Merc, Peter, and Frank) and the system administrators that we have entrusted to hold the title, we wish you a Happy Thanksgiving!

We are pleased to announce that FanLib is sponsoring the Battlestar Wiki. For those of you unfamiliar with this new service, here’s a brief overview of what they’re about:

FanLib, Inc. delivers People Powered Entertainment™ in the form of online storytelling and fun, online events for entertainment fans. At FanLib.com, we provide a free service for people who want to showcase their stories, discover great writers, and share their passions with other fans. We also partner with media companies, publishers, and sponsors to create special events where fans can interact with the talent behind some of their favorite books, TV shows, and movies.

We are pleased to help promote them in return for their willingness to help us cover our monthly server costs! Do check them out, read stories about Battlestar Galactica and other fine television shows written by the fans, for the fans!

If you wish to promote your website or service on Battlestar Wiki and help us financially in the process, please contact me and we can work something out!

So say we all!

If you use the default skin, you may have noticed some images up at the top. We’d love to have some feedback, both on the current images, as well as suggestions for other images you’d like to see in the rotation.

Update by Joe: We’ve added several new images, including Pegasus, Gaius Baltar, Number Eight, Viper Mark II, Laura Roslin and Lee Adama. We’ll be adding more in a few days! Keep an eye out and have a Happy Thanksgiving!

To follow up on my previous blog post, I found out that we were also featured amongst the top 10 Battlestar Galactica fansites on the internet according to Zack Barangan of AOL.

We rank in at number 8 and here’s what was written about us:

Most Comprehensive: This Wiki has the answers to all of your ‘Battlestar’ questions. Compiled through tireless research and dedication to the series, this ‘BSG’ encyclopedia boasts an A-Z listing for terms from both the original series and the reimagined one. From Adama to Zephyr, if it happend in the ‘Galactica’ universe, you’ll find reference to it here.

Read all about it and see what other websites made the cut!

Using the Google Alerts feature, I’m able to get Google to produce vanity searches for me, without really lifting a finger. One of those searches is for Battlestar Wiki, because I’d like to know what people are saying, regardless of whether it’s good, bad, and indifferent.

So this morning, I got an e-mail from Google Alerts leading me to two blogs and a website.

What’s awesome is that we’re a featured site on IllusionTV.com, in which some glowing comments are given about the Wiki: http://www.illusiontv.com/features/battlestar-wiki/

Additionally, we were briefly mentioned in the “Cyn City” blog here. Pretty cool too.

To even it all out, a Wordpress.com blog called “fandumb” (a pun on the word “fandom”) mentioned us in a negative, maybe even farcical light here.

I’d thought I’d take the opportunity to present something that’s been discussed amongst the chiefs of Battlestar Wiki.

As you may know, we began putting up advertisements on the site to offset hosting and technical costs more than a year ago. In addition to commissions from sales done through our portal at Amazon.com and other fine retailers, we’ve recouped about half our hosting costs per month. And that’s if we’re lucky.

It has always been my personal goal to get the Wiki to a point of self-sufficiency, whereby it doesn’t have to depend on me or anyone else for funding.

I believe that paid memberships are the way to do that.

Basically, it goes like this:

A person pays $10 dollars via Paypal or Amazon’s Honor system. That person sends along their username on the Wiki.

Once payment has been confirmed, the user gets moved to the “paying member”/VIP user level, which allows the Wiki Software to automatically remove the ads before they are even shown. (This only works when the member is logged in, obviously.) This also works for a year, so once the year is up, the VIP access is taken away unless they pay up again an additional $10.

The outline of everything is here.

Do note that none of this is active yet, but if you want to donate anyway, simply click on the Amazon donation link on the left sidebar. It’s not hard to miss.

Obviously, feedback is welcome. You can leave feedback at our Battlestar Forum, the wiki, or as a response to this blog.

It’s been decided unanimously that Battlestar Wiki, as an entity, should remain neutral with regard to the WGA Strike. As such, we will not be adding banners to the website in support of or against the strike.

While a majority of the folks who contribute (including myself) fully support the writers, we’ve felt it best that the site itself should remain neutral through these proceedings. I wish I could say that I am fond of this decision, but I’m really not. Realistically, however, it’s necessary to maintain our neutrality, since we do exist due to the benevolence of NBC-Universal.

It is times like this that I wish we were a smaller site, but we’re not. We’re successful. Short of the SCIFI.com channel Battlestar website, we are the largest Battlestar-specific website on the internet, as proven by third party reporting services such as Alexa and Quantcast. We’re the top 38,000 according to Quantcast and top 95,000 according to Alexa. We get over 100,000 visitors a month and we rival such long-established sites as battlestargalactica.com and GateWorld.net.

As such, we have to be extremely careful as to what we do as an entity. Believe me when I say that while we don’t like that fact, we have to act responsibly, since we don’t want to throw away the hard work people have done to create one of the best websites on the internet.

So having said that, while the site itself may be neutral, we recognize that the users aren’t. Since the site is neutral, you can voice your support for or against the strike on your own user pages.

For those of us that support the strike and want to show it via the Wiki, please note that User:Catrope has created a pro-strike template and modified the user page infobox so that you can voice your support for the strike on your user pages.

For those of you that (for whatever reason) don’t support the strike, those templates aren’t available, but can be made on request since there isn’t a demand for them yet. And if you want to support the strike, you are welcome to check out Fans4Writers.com.

Please feel free to discuss this here on the blog or via the talk page regarding our stance regarding the strike.

After today, “Razor” will have been screened at select theaters nation-wide. Those eager to talk about it in an intelligent, friendly environment are welcome to do so at our growing Battlestar Forum.

In addition, you may read a review of “Razor” on Associated Content by clicking here.

Also, despite the screening tonight, please note that all “Razor” specific material is considered to be a spoiler until its airing on November 24th per the temporary policy!

So say we all!

I have put forth a proposal that allows contributors and visitors to vote on whether or not Battlestar Wiki should officially support the Hollywood writers’ strike.

Normally, we don’t make it a point to support minor and ineffectual fan campaigns and the like, but, well, this is something that is important and the strike is justified.

So for what exactly Battlestar Wiki will do in support of the Writers Guild of America strike, click here. To vote on or offer commentary about this proposal, click here.

Yeah, so I’ll be AWOL for a while… Reason being is that my internet access is down, as well as the local landline. AT&T says that everything should be back up by Saturday morning. (I’ll believe it when it happens.)

If anyone has any problems, you can contact Shane or some of the other mods on the board. As for the wiki, that’s pretty much self-sufficient, so I don’t think my absence will have any impact, and I’ve laid down all the “Razor” policy stuff, so I don’t think people will suddenly frak with anything there.
If it’s something that REALLY, REALLY, REALLY needs my attention, then Shane has my cell phone number and can get in touch with me that way.

Other than that, I’ll try to get on at least once a day via my local library to check up on things.

So say we all!

Update (Thursday, November 8): Well, I found out that my internet access is back up, far earlier than what AT&T had claimed. Which is nice. So I’ll be around again, unless my service goes down again.

I’ve written up a policy/help guide on how to incorporate “Razor” material into the Wiki without spoiling those who haven’t seen the movie yet.

That policy is here. Please feel free to direct any questions, comments or concerns either on this blog or on the talk page.