The Marilyn Manson Wiki:About

Several different designs for MansonWiki's Main Page. Top row: March 2007 and July 2007. Bottom row: January 2008 and Valentine's Day 2008; until May 13, 2010, the main page remained generally unchanged since this holiday rendition.

MansonWiki is an English encyclopedia project which aims to cover all things related to the rock band Marilyn Manson. The name MansonWiki is a portmanteau of the words "Manson" (the content to which the site valors) and "wiki" (a type of collaborative website). Since its creation on March 4, 2007, MansonWiki has grown steadily. There are currently 4,291 users registered with MansonWiki, and as of today, there are 4,157 featured articles in the encyclopedia.

History

"I once had this idea for a complete Manson website with articles, images, forums, quizzes, and everything else you can think of. The more I thought about it, the more ideas I got and the bigger it became in my head. It would be the ultimate Manson website.

Nothing happened.

Then someone on the phant suggested to start a MansonWiki, because the NinWiki was so popular. I did that, so yes, I guess I started all this. But then hardly anybody ever added information to it until Vixen came along, who if you ask me is responsible for 75% of the content on the wiki. Without him the wiki would be as useless as an empty beer bottle. You see what it is, you know what it's supposed to do, but there's just nothing in it.

After the wiki started growing and MansonUSA was down for the nth time I decided to add the forums, which have spawned a very small but interesting community mainly existing of me, vixen, cult killer, J.A., delandos, frau dietrich and blackeden (and sAINT, who's not around so much anymore).

Then I realised with a wiki and a forums we have the basis for that fantastic website I daydreamed of years ago. So now "Jones" [...] and I have started taking that idea to the next level"

— Stephan "Litso" Muller, MansonWiki Forums

MansonWiki was an idea which founder Stephan "Litso" Muller formed in early 2006. His original idea was to create a website from scratch, which would include a self-made content management system, including a wiki-based encyclopedia for Marilyn Manson, a tag-based and user-submitted image gallery, forums and an online radio station dedicated to the band's music. However, this idea eventually dissipated until when, in March 2007, Litso took notice to a thread on The Heirophant Council which requested a wiki for Marilyn Manson content. Litso's response to the thread was the creation of MansonWiki, which began based on his home server, before being relocated to his own domain, www.litso.com.

Shortly after MansonWiki went online, it was frequented by Alden "Vixen Windstorm" Weston (known at the time by the username Rtiztik). Upon his return to the website in May that year, Litso discovered Windstorm's contributions and became inspired to continue actively building MansonWiki. It was also at this time that Windstorm was appointed the second administrator for the website. Shortly after this, the website was moved from litso.com/mansonwiki to its current domain name. In November, a third administrator, JarvisGanon was appointed. On May 4, 2008, MansonWiki expanded its audience with the introduction of MansonWiki Forums,.

Litso, Jones and Vixen Windstorm went on to prepare a graphic overhaul for MansonWiki, which also included plans to merge MansonWiki and MansonWiki Forums into "one entity, so that the website can be looked at as more of a Marilyn Manson fan community anyone can edit and update, rather than a Marilyn Manson wiki with a forum that gets more action than the wiki itself. Imagine an editable Heirophant." This overhaul was later delayed indefinitely, due to Jones' disassociation with the project, as well as various distractions surfacing in both Litso's and Windstorm's personal lives preventing them from concentrating on the endeavour.

In December 2009, Litso announced that he no longer had the time or energy to put into the site, as he once had. At this point, Litso was contacted by several people who were interested in taking over the responsibilities of the site. Shortly after speaking with two users who, in addition to being long time members of the Manson online community, appointed two new administrators [god]speed and ‡-me-‡ to manage, promote, also mentioned that they were a couple and that they "would love to have the opportunity to share the site as a team and ensure it's future with a stable foundation. It was shortly thereafter which Litso handed over the reigns of the site to the two. Initially, Litso and Windstorm at this point announced their departure from the website's staff, until Aaron & Jen convinced Litso to stay on board, as they felt that it was important for the site to maintain it's original founder, while they breathed a new life into Manson Wiki. During this time period, Windstorm announced that he was planning to go onto a hiatus for an undetermined period of time. The newly appointed administrators ‡-me-‡ and [god]speed began to diligently promote the site. As they began to lay the framework for what would become the current design of the site as it stands today. Their vision was to create an entirely new infrastructure for Manson Wiki, fusing together the elements of a visually appealing website with the one fundamental difference... The ability for anyone to edit and update the site as the information comes to hand. This allows our site to stand out amongst the crowd, as it relies on the input of fans to create and maintain the content; as opposed to traditional fan sites that must rely upon a select few individuals, who are assigned the "right" to update the news and website with what they determine as being "fit".

This concept resonated well amongst Litso and Windstorm, as they had dreamed of a similar vision when the site was first conceived, However, They did not have the artistic abilities when it came to putting their ideas into form, which they found as [User:‡-me-‡|‡-me-‡]] and [god]speed began sharing their first drafts of what would later become the site as it stands today.

In February 2010, members Yawaraey, I4ig0, M1shael and Lagozzino were appointed as senior editors, in acknowledgement for their contributions to the website. Many other improvements were made to the site, including for the first time: a section dedicated to lyrics, an interview archive, tablature, and a massive photo gallery. By the middle of February, the new design for the site was completed and awaited to be coded and uploaded to the server.

After two months, Manson Wiki contacted Antickon, a well-known HTML programmer whose most notable contributions to the Manson Community includes a completely customized and hand coded forum, known to the fans as BABALON the official Marilyn Manson message forum. By the end of the month, Manson Wiki began testing and planning for the relaunch of the new design.

On May 13th, 2010 Manson Wiki went live after a successful viral campaign which consisted of mysterious codes and number sequences, partially inspired by the infamous "Celebritarian codes" and the use of teaser trailers, the site was released to the fans, many of whom received personal invitations via e-mail or social networking sites. The site launched featuring Manson Wiki's first exclusive interview with Anthony Silva, a professional photographer and friend of Manson whose notable contributions are featured in the Eat Me, Drink Me album booklet as well as his work in Phantasmagoria: The Visions of Lewis Carroll.

As of August, 2010 all of the current administrators have returned to the site and on August 14th, 2010 Manson Wiki released it's second exclusive interview with Manson's father, Hugh Warner.

MansonWiki has been known to hold contests rewarding members of the community for either building it or using it as a research tool. The website's earliest contest occurred in December 2008 and called for editors to write an informative article about Isani Griffith, while a more recent contest taking place during June 2010 asked members 15 questions which they would more than likely need to browse MansonWiki articles to solve. The following month in August 2010, 15 more questions were made available, with the winner of this quiz being awarded another vinyl release.

External links

• MansonWiki Forums
• Official MySpace profile
• Official YouTube channel