Bogleheads® wiki history

The Bogleheads® Wiki traces its history to events taking place during the spring of 2008.

The PBwiki
Preceding the current edition was an experimental wiki, initiated on April 9, 2008 utilizing a free version of the commercial Peanut Butter Wiki platform. PBwiki was selected because it is gratis, doesn't require server access, and isn't filled with advertisements. No personal website is required at all, since PBwiki does the actual hosting.

The experimental wiki was mentioned quite casually in a Bogleheads Forum conversation, "Implicit guarantee" of MM funds and Vanguard. The post sparked interest as the topic, Wiki? attests.

A small group of forum members signed up to experiment with the wiki format. The team collaborated well and made considerable progress over a short time period. "The Bogleheads Wiki Forum" on tangler.com, a provider of no-cost discussion forums unaffiliated with PBwiki, was established to facilitate communication. For completeness of the historical record, the team also used a second "private" Tangler board, named "The Bogleheads Wiki Administration Forum."

The proposal
The wiki group decided that a wiki might be an appropriate site for bogleheads.org. They started writing a Proposal For The Creation of a Forum Wiki on April 24, 2008, and submitted a final version to forum administrators on May 2, 2008. In the proposal, the group argued the permanent wiki should employ freeware residing at the then diehards.org rather than PBwiki as follows:
 * The Bogleheads Wiki will likely outgrow the limitations imposed by the vendor's free software version.
 * The vendor can decide at any time to charge for the currently free product.
 * The vendor's website may disappear, e.g., if the company goes bankrupt.
 * The vendor might add advertising to hosted Wikis.

On May 6, 2008, Alex Frakt indicated his willingness to host the wiki at diehards.org (bogleheads.org). He and Larry Auton chose the widely used open source MediaWiki platform, and due to their hard work the new Bogleheads Wiki was up and running May 13, 2008.

Migration of content
The initial task the wiki team faced was migration of content from the experimental wiki. The transfer was completed on May 19, 2008.

Main page evolution
Since inception, the wiki main page has undergone a series of revisions and updates. The visual record of these iterations are included below.

The first main page:

The version prior to implementing a portal design:

The version prior to matching the forum's prosilver style:

The version matching the forum's prosilver style:

The version to accommodate mobile devices:

This version aligns with Wikipedia:Main Page alternative (outline links). The content displays a featured article (rotated daily) and historical events for the current week.

This version adds non-US investing.