Bogleheads® Wiki 2019 annual report

"In a departure from the wiki's policy of neutrality, this content presents the personal viewpoint of several editors."

May 13, 2019 marks the eleventh anniversary of the launching of The Bogleheads® Wiki. The wiki was publicly announced on May 21, 2008. Our Wiki statistics page provides us with the following numerical snapshot of our wiki project as of May 6, 2019.

Historical statistics and a timeline of wiki initiatives can be found in the appendix to this report.

The year in review
"This section presents the personal viewpoint of TedSwippet." The wiki grew by the addition of 16 new pages during the fiscal year. Of these, more than one third were specific to investors living in countries other than the US.

For a complete list of new pages, refer to the 2018 - 2019 new pages box provided below.

This year saw increased interest in Bogleheads® investing from investors outside the US. In response, the site owners created an entire new forum for Non-US Investing, and also updated the main forum index page to emphasise the Non-US domiciles section of the wiki.

This change of site focus, from almost entirely US-centric to one that is more international, prompted a review and reorganisation of many wiki pages, a process that is still ongoing. One of the main reasons for this is US tax law, which operates completely differently for US persons and for US nonresident aliens.

Many of the funds and ETFs used regularly by US based investors can be US tax traps for investors outside the US — to the extent that they are available to these investors at all, that is. However, up to now the wiki has grown 'organically' so that many of its pages are either specific to US investors only, or contain a mix of general information, some of which is universally useful but some of which is highly US specific. In the worst cases, a wiki page might recommend a particular fund or ETF which would be ideal for a US investor, but highly damaging under US tax law if held by a US nonresident alien.

The wiki is therefore slowly being internationalised. Warning banners placed at the top of pages can indicate if a page is usable by all investors globally, if it is relevant only to US investors, or if it is relevant only to non-US investors (because US tax laws also contain traps for any US taxpayers who use non-US domiciled funds or ETFs). It is also being slowly localised, so that investors in specific countries can begin to find information that is not just general to non-US investors, but rather is targeted directly at investors living in these countries.

All of this will take time. Up to now the wiki has not only evolved within a purely US context, but it is also highly interconnected, making separating some of the strands a challenge. However, with patience, globalising it is a tractable problem. It is also a highly satisfying effort.

John Bogle
"This section presents the personal viewpoints of Barry Barnitz and LadyGeek." It is with great sadness that we must note the passing of John Bogle on January 16, 2019. John Bogle's imposing legacy includes his family, the company he founded, the books he wrote, and the lives he touched.

All of John Bogle's posts are listed in John Bogle forum post index. This article also lists forum discussion threads related to his passing. A link to this article was placed on both the wiki and Bogleheads.org home pages.

The Bogleheads forum was in a state of mourning over a two week period.

Appendix
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 annual statistics for each year.