Heroes Wiki
Encyclopedia
Heroes Wiki is a wiki
-powered reference site for NBC
's science fiction
drama
Heroes
. Launched on October 10, 2006, the site uses MediaWiki
software to maintain a user-created database of information. Heroes Wiki is supported by revenue from advertising, part of which is donated to various charities. As of June 28, 2010, the site contained over 5,500 articles created and edited by approximately 9,400 registered users, with over 157 million page views.
On October 18, 2008, Heroes Wiki announced that it had officially partnered with NBC. NBC now directs those interested in a wiki on Heroes to Heroes Wiki, and directly funds the site in exchange for on-site advertisements.
-enabled for cell phones and other mobile devices.
The site has also established nine projects containing translations of the main English language version of the wiki: Dutch
, French
, German
, Hebrew
, Italian
, Portuguese
, Spanish
, Swedish
, and Turkish
.
When Heroes Wiki began its partnership with NBC in October 2008, links were added pointing to Heroes Wiki on NBC's Heroes and Heroes Evolutions sites. NBC also discontinued promoting its own wiki for Heroes, instead redirecting readers to Heroes Wiki through links at the top of related pages. In December 2008, the wiki was also referenced in several segments of NBC's Heroes Insider Interactive SMS, which uses text messaging to send facts, pose trivia questions, and conduct polling during the airing of episodes of the show.
in Heroes Evolutions
, a mysterious Heroes character known only as Evs Dropper answered a number of fan-submitted questions posed by e-mail by Heroes Wiki administrator Ryan Gibson Stewart. The interview was posted at Heroes Wiki on July 24, 2008.
, the New York Times
, and E! Online. Washington Times writer Joseph Szadkowski notes that the site is "obviously created by some very hard-core fans." He describes Heroes Wiki as a "dense online encyclopedia [that] offers more than 1,600 entries on the show's mythology."
Content about Heroes cast and crew members has also been referenced elsewhere, including interviews with actor James Kyson Lee (Comic Book Resources
), senior producer Joe Tolerico (BuddyTV
), and the creative team behind the "Root and Branch" graphic novels (Comic Book Resources).
Wiki
A wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...
-powered reference site for NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
's science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
Heroes
Heroes (TV series)
Heroes is an American science fiction television drama series created by Tim Kring that appeared on NBC for four seasons from September 25, 2006 through February 8, 2010. The series tells the stories of ordinary people who discover superhuman abilities, and how these abilities take effect in the...
. Launched on October 10, 2006, the site uses MediaWiki
MediaWiki
MediaWiki is a popular free web-based wiki software application. Developed by the Wikimedia Foundation, it is used to run all of its projects, including Wikipedia, Wiktionary and Wikinews. Numerous other wikis around the world also use it to power their websites...
software to maintain a user-created database of information. Heroes Wiki is supported by revenue from advertising, part of which is donated to various charities. As of June 28, 2010, the site contained over 5,500 articles created and edited by approximately 9,400 registered users, with over 157 million page views.
On October 18, 2008, Heroes Wiki announced that it had officially partnered with NBC. NBC now directs those interested in a wiki on Heroes to Heroes Wiki, and directly funds the site in exchange for on-site advertisements.
Overview
Heroes Wiki was launched on October 10, 2006, several weeks after Heroes premiered in North America. Content includes articles on episodes, characters, cast and crew, cultural references, along with interviews with members of the Heroes cast and crew. Episode spoilers and user-contributed theories are permitted on certain areas within the wiki. The site's main page features upcoming Heroes events and news, and links to articles summarizing the latest Heroes episode and online content. There are also links to Heroes-related websites, including official websites affiliated with the show and its producers, websites used in Heroes Evolutions, and unofficial fan sites. On September 18, 2008, the site became WAPWireless Application Protocol
Wireless Application Protocol is a technical standard for accessing information over a mobile wireless network.A WAP browser is a web browser for mobile devices such as mobile phones that uses the protocol.Before the introduction of WAP, mobile service providers had limited opportunities to offer...
-enabled for cell phones and other mobile devices.
The site has also established nine projects containing translations of the main English language version of the wiki: Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
, Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, Swedish
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
, and Turkish
Turkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
.
When Heroes Wiki began its partnership with NBC in October 2008, links were added pointing to Heroes Wiki on NBC's Heroes and Heroes Evolutions sites. NBC also discontinued promoting its own wiki for Heroes, instead redirecting readers to Heroes Wiki through links at the top of related pages. In December 2008, the wiki was also referenced in several segments of NBC's Heroes Insider Interactive SMS, which uses text messaging to send facts, pose trivia questions, and conduct polling during the airing of episodes of the show.
Role in Heroes Evolutions
As part of the alternate reality gameAlternate reality game
An alternate reality game is an interactive narrative that uses the real world as a platform, often involving multiple media and game elements, to tell a story that may be affected by participants' ideas or actions....
in Heroes Evolutions
Heroes Evolutions
Heroes Evolutions is a digital extension of the NBC series Heroes that explores the Heroes universe. It was originally entitled Heroes 360 Experience but the name was changed for Season 2....
, a mysterious Heroes character known only as Evs Dropper answered a number of fan-submitted questions posed by e-mail by Heroes Wiki administrator Ryan Gibson Stewart. The interview was posted at Heroes Wiki on July 24, 2008.
Reaction
Beyond its partnership with NBC, Heroes Wiki has been recognized by other media outlets, including New York MagazineNew York (magazine)
New York is a weekly magazine principally concerned with the life, culture, politics, and style of New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to The New Yorker, it was brasher and less polite than that magazine, and established itself as a cradle of New...
, the New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, and E! Online. Washington Times writer Joseph Szadkowski notes that the site is "obviously created by some very hard-core fans." He describes Heroes Wiki as a "dense online encyclopedia [that] offers more than 1,600 entries on the show's mythology."
Content about Heroes cast and crew members has also been referenced elsewhere, including interviews with actor James Kyson Lee (Comic Book Resources
Comic Book Resources
Comic Book Resources, also known as CBR is a website dedicated to the coverage of comic book-related news and discussion.-History:Comic Book Resources was founded by Jonah Weiland in 1996 as a development of the Kingdom Come Message Board, a message forum that Weiland had created to discuss DC...
), senior producer Joe Tolerico (BuddyTV
BuddyTV
BuddyTV is an entertainment-based website based in Seattle, Washington, which generates content about television programs and sporting events. The website publishes information about celebrity and related entertainment news through a series of articles, entertainment profiles, actor biographies and...
), and the creative team behind the "Root and Branch" graphic novels (Comic Book Resources).
See also
- Heroes (TV series)Heroes (TV series)Heroes is an American science fiction television drama series created by Tim Kring that appeared on NBC for four seasons from September 25, 2006 through February 8, 2010. The series tells the stories of ordinary people who discover superhuman abilities, and how these abilities take effect in the...
- List of multilingual MediaWiki sites
- List of online encyclopedias
- List of wikis