Bogleheads® Wiki 2012 annual report

"In a departure from the wiki's policy of neutrality, this content presents the personal viewpoint of Blbarnitz and LadyGeek."

May 13, 2012 marks the fourth anniversary of the launching of The Bogleheads® Wiki. The wiki was publicly announced on May 21, 2008. Over this four year span, the wiki has experienced slow, but steady expansion. Our Wiki statistics page provides us with the following numerical snapshot of our wiki project as of May 9, 2012. Historical statistics and a timeline of wiki initiatives can be found in the appendix to this report.

The Year in Review
A major overhaul of the wiki main page styling, designed to better integrate the page with the Bogleheads® Forum styling, took place during the February 6 - February 18, 2012 site upgrade. The upgrade also included incorporating a separate wiki section into the forum board index.

Wiki participants created 80 pages this year. Major accomplishments realized during the year include:
 * A new series, Retirement spending, beginning the long overdue process of fleshing out the wiki's coverage of retirement planning;
 * Completion of the Bogleheads® investment philosophy video project;
 * Reorganization of the Bogleheads® investment philosophy to integrate the videos and provide consistent investment principles;
 * Replacing the introductory Bogleheads Financial Start-Up Kit with the Getting started overview. It's the starting point for new investors, and is the landing page from the forum and wiki main page links;
 * A complete revision of the introductory risk page, Risk and return: an introduction;
 * Additional contributions to the wiki's collection of book reviews;
 * An expansion of pages centered on using Bogleheads® investment principals at various brokerage firms and mutual fund families.

The following table highlights the more frequently viewed pages which were added to the wiki over the recently concluded year. For a complete listing of new pages, refer to "New wiki pages 2011-2012" in the footer box below. New page creation is, of course, not the sole measure of wiki editing activity, since existing pages are always subject to updating and improvement.

Ongoing wiki projects
Currently a number of page topics are undergoing expansion and revision. These include:
 * A series of pages addressing investing risk;
 * Undertaking an update of the wiki's 529 plan pages. This includes the overview page, 529 plans indexed options, as well as the series of pages devoted to  individual state 529 savings plans.

Appendix
Welcome technical additions to the wiki were added over the course of the year. These include the creation of collapsible tables and the addition of a math extension that enables the rendering of mathematical formulas.

The table below provides a history of cumulative annual statistics for The Bogleheads&reg;  Wiki, derived during the annual May anniversary week of the wiki's founding. The spreadsheet component of the table also contains tabs showing the statistics for each year.

(view Google Spreadsheet in browser or download as xls, ods, or pdf)