By Mallory Politz | From Summer 2007
Last October, WikiPhilly.com, the brainchild of Bill Piel and Steve Brandsdorfer (seen below), went live for the enjoyment, participation, and scrutiny of the Philadelphia public. At first, participation was limited to Piel, Brandsdorfer and a handful of their friends excitedly plugging away at the site. After six months, though, the site boasts more than 60 users who have compiled over 1600 articles.
Together, Piel and Brandsdorfer comprise Pepper Lillie, a web design company that the two cousins founded in 2004. Although they are rapidly building a very diverse professional portfolio, WikiPhilly is the first site they’ve done together “for the hell of it.” The idea for WikiPhilly came to Piel in late 2005 during what became his most enlightening toilet reading experience. After coming across an article about the popularity of Wikis at the time, Piel wondered if there were Wiki sites dedicated to cities. He and Brandsdorfer had been keeping in mind that they wanted to create something that would “focus on Philadelphia and get the public’s attention.” Piel did his research and found out about civic Wikis, but he found nothing based on Philadelphia. They bought the WikiPhilly.com domain and started building the site right away. Their goal was to create a Wiki site specific to Philadelphia that would provide useful information to Philadelphia residents as well as anyone interested in the city.
Wiki sites let users control the content of the articles, making no article permanent. WikiPhilly, like Wikipedia, aims to provide pertinent information about a variety of topics. These sites cover topics that both would and would not be found in an ordinary encyclopedia. What WikiPhilly strives to provide, though, is information about things that would not be found on Wikipedia, such as West Philly punk houses, Philadelphia based porn sites, and that woman on Sansom Street who always writes things. The site also hosts hundreds of articles reviewing local restaurants and businesses.
WikiPhilly’s slogan is “The Philadelphia Encyclopedia For the People, By the People,” so unlike tourist guides, the site is primarily useful for people who are already familiar with the city. Categories like “Dance Clubs” and “Smoking Bars” allow users to tap into WikiPhilly as a social resource.
The site is easy to navigate, but it also gives users the ability to share all kinds of information. Users can easily include an image, a map, a table of contents, and a clean looking appearance to each article. Ways to organize content on the site are numerous. One user created a category that shows when and where Quizzo takes place. Another category includes a list of Philadelphia blogs. There’s also a feature that allows users to find articles labeled in a particular region by typing in a zip code or neighborhood. WikiPhilly currently has 168 categories, some as broad as “Center City” or “Galleries”, others as specific as “Stephen Starr Restaurants” or “Laws.”
Wikster Kelly Kozma admits, “My friend and I had had an idea for a guide for Philly residents… something that would provide more information than a tourist guide. Things like where to get beer after midnight, and what shops offer a student discount. To print something like that would be expensive, and it would become outdated too frequently. So when we heard about WikiPhilly, we thought that would be the perfect venue for the kind of information we were looking to share.”
Another thing that makes WikiPhilly unique and useful is it’s not-so-factual content. Although each article contains as much factual information as necessary, WikiPhilly does have its guide-like benefits. Restaurants and businesses are bashed just as often as they are praised. It’s up to the user to determine the tone of the article. If users have awful experiences at a restaurant, they are more than welcome to say so in the article. However, every article is up for grabs, so users can alter or even flat out delete what other users have written. In the same respect, restaurant and business owners can log in and write wonderful things about their establishment. One restaurant owner even edited the article on Old City to advertise his own restaurant.