Fan History Wiki

The Fan History Wiki was a general fandom site was "dedicated to documenting the history of fandom."Main Page - Fan History Wiki It set out to be "the largest fandom directory on the Internet." The site was active from roughly 2006 to 2011 and went offline in 2013. 
The wiki was very much a "one-woman project." The wiki's founder, Laura Hale, was a controversial figure in fandom, and Fan History Wiki was similarly associated with a number of controversies, including inaccuracy of information, outing incidents, heavy-handed editing, data scraping, and attempts to run the wiki as a personal business which included seeking venture capital and offering paid articles. 
From Fan History Wiki: 
Two tag lines from 2007 were: "Fan History Wiki: A project to continue for many years" and "A Wiki that anyone can edit." Main Page, October 2, 2007
The site had a blog from March 2008 to March 2011; for more information, see Fan History Wiki Blog Posts by Laura Hale.
==Background==
Fan History Wiki was an outgrowth of Writers University and FanFiction.Net. "Because Fan History and its supporters have been busy documenting fandom history since 2000, when this history first began to be told on FanFiction.Net." - Fan History Wiki About Talk Page, post by Laura] "When Writers University left FanFiction.Net, it moved to a free server, and then to its own domain. The information was then put together on a wiki on schtuff, before moving to its current location, in its current format, in May 2006." -- User: Laura, accessed via Wayback
In January 2001, Laura Hale and Writers University left fanfiction.net on bad terms, with Hale posting a long farewell letter to various ff.net forums detailing her reasons for leaving, including repeated mentions of the fact that she felt she had been lied to and that some of the people she'd been involved with had proved untrustworthy., posted to Fanfiction.net Liberation Front. Accessed November 30, 2008.
She reopened Writers University at a new site where it resided until 2004.
In May 2005, Hale posted a timeline of fanfiction and wrote: "I'm currently working on putting together a history of fan fiction fanzine because I collect this information like mad."from , posted May 15, 2005, accessed September 10, 2013
Around the same time in 2005, Hale was apparently still looking for a venue for the information and statistics she'd collected; at that time, she contributed to "Academic Kids," a wiki for children under the age of 12. Some of her contributions included "Slash Fiction"Slash Fiction; reference link, written and posted by Hale on May 16, 2005, last edited June 17, 2005; and "Fan Fiction".
In May 2006, Fan History started with some basic history information that had originally been found on FanFiction.Net. Hale also copied from the discussions on the FCA-L mailing list via Writers University, as well as many of her own essays.Though, even as late as June 6, 2006, Hale was still writing of a print zine, as well as Live Journal as a depository of her knowledge: "I've mostly given up posting the comprehensive thing. I'm doing fandom community specific timelines and a year by year bit. I'm going to go with printing it as a fanzine for the whole thing mostly because I can't really find a web based format that works for me. Bits and pieces are getting posted to LiveJournal and a few other places in an effort to refine some bits of knowledge... update my timelines, add more pieces of information... They also discuss various aspects of fan fiction history." -- Various sundry of links I've posted to LJ on this topic, June 6, 2006
In 2008, Hale explained some of the wiki's history and origin in an interview she gave at Fanboy.com: 
Her assertion that the wiki had moved beyond being a "one person show" appears to be contradicted by her June 2008 attempt to get venture capital for the wiki; in her description of the wiki on at least one of those sites, she calls it a "solo venture".Startup Pitch on startupalpha.com, June 10, 2008. Accessed November 28, 2008
Hale described the wiki in 2008, and again in 2009, and touched on a number of subjects including its origins and its "ownership.": 
Hale made it clear that she believed both herself and the wiki to be widely, almost universally, known in fandom: 
In early 2008, Hale stated that she'd always had bigger plans for the site: "Fan History was intended to be more than just a wiki." "Now I'm freaking out as to what it could mean to those side projects we had planned because Fan History was intended to be more than just a wiki. It just isn't always as apparent on the wiki because attempts at doing the side projects was something discussed with other archives (Fan History was working on a plan to pipe Fan History's content into FanWorks.Org through XML in addition to the convention and literature thing.), working with other fandom history type stuff to expand our knowledge, etc. --Laura 18:50, 9 January 2008 (CST)" - , Fan History Wiki talk page, January 9, 2008
Fan History spent much of 2008 and 2009 on reinventing its public image, removing the founder as the dominant figure from Fan History although Laura was still the owner of the wiki. Fan History presented itself as a site that was no longer a site that was just associated with Laura Hale, but its own brand with social network handles on AboutUs, Twitter, Facebook, and many other places.Fan History Wiki Twitter handleFan History GroupFan History Wiki Facebook Fan Page "On June 25, Fan History created a Facebook fan page. It was subsequently mostly forgotten after that."-- Our history on Fan History in 2009, accessed January 25, 2017
In November 2009, Laura Hale approached the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit umbrella organization that includes Wikipedia and related sites in its projects, and tried unsuccessfully to have "Fan History Wiki" join them., copy of the proposal to Join WMF posted on the WMF mailing list November 18, 2009, accessed July 11, 2011
See the 2009 Failed Attempt to Become a Part of the Wikimedia Foundation.
== Timeline==
===00s===
====2006====
In April 2006, Hale referenced the wiki (which was at this point on a wiki site called "Schtuff", calling it "my personal fan fiction history wiki." , April 26, 2006 Another mention by Hale: "I have http://fanhistory.schtuff.com/?action=index as my well... it was billed as a wiki and works that way well enough for me. ;-)" Wiki and fandom, April 9, 2006 Schtuff: "schtupp/schtuff: (vulgar) to have sex with, screw (from Yiddish שטופּן shtupn 'push, poke'; similar to 'stuff'); to fill, as in to fill someone's pocket with money. ("Schtupp him $50.")" -- Yiddish words used in English, Wikipedia, accessed July 13, 2017
On April 27, 2006, Hale described the wiki (at this point on the site "Schtuff"): "The wiki (which I've never found a good format to organize this information in as the amount of information to incorporate and ideal way to sort it is challenging) is found here. It isn't always very... friendly in terms of grammar, layout, etc. I tend to use it as an information dumping ground for the information I have and as a place to stuff essays I write related to the topic." , April 26, 2006
"When Writers University left FanFiction.Net, it moved to a free server, and then to its own domain. The information was then put together on a wiki on schtuff, before moving to its current location, in its current format, in May 2006." User: Laura, accessed via Wayback"Laura's love for writing, research, and analytic thinking lead her to create Writers University in 2000 which changed name to Fan History Wiki and moved to MediaWiki software in 2006." -- WikiWomenCamp/FAQ/Biographies/Laura Hale Hale commented on completing the content move on May 17, 2006. "As and Bs have been carried over from http://fanhistory.schtuff.com/?action=index . Now, just the rest of the alphabet to go. :-D --Laura 08:18, 17 May 2006 (CDT)" -- User talk:Laura/Archive 1
The domain name for "Fan History Wiki" was registered by Nicole Pellegrini on May 19, 2006., accessed July 2016, archive link, accessed July 2017 "On May 19, 2006, I moved Fan History to its current domain." -- User:Laura/Timeline There was also cross-pollination with Fanworks Finder. "... a Whois search shows Fan History LLC as the registrant of FanworkersFinder.com." -- Kdcat 19:16, 30 October 2008 (UTC) -- "Yes, ScrewtheDaisies gave it to her a while back. When Laura acquired it I removed my stuff from it." Q 08:37, 30 March 2010 (UTC) -- from the Laura Hale (fan) Talk Page on Fanlore
On August 20, 2006, Laura Hale wrote that "The fan fiction history wiki. Originally, it was created after much deliberation, as a place to store information regarding the history of fan fiction that I had collected over the years." Hale also wrote that there were about 2,590 articles on the wiki. "The wiki currently has 2,590 articles are [sic] so." (August 20, 2006 (accessed September 11, 2013).
====2007====
In June 2007, Hale began work as a consultant for for FanLib/Take180, specifically consulting on social network communities such as Twitter and Facebook."Performed reputation management related tasks. Research fan fiction, and fan communities and gave advice about how to effectively engage them." -- LinkedIn, accessed January 25, 2017 also at [https://web.archive.org/web/20111111074429/http://www.fanhistory.com/wiki/User:Laura/Resume resume posted to Fan History History 
On October 2, 2007, Hale was frustrated with one of the wiki's flagship pages, the "cluttered" slash page and personally feeling overwhelmed. "It kind of became a dumping ground for dates at one point... and then it stopped being that as the wiki got bigger and it was taking on a cluttered and less useful feel. I've been working on trying to improve other parts so just can't commit to spending the time to editing that part." -- 
On October 6, 2007, Hale was approached by a Wikia employee with an offer to absorb Fan History, as well as offering up some commiseration about "the oddness of the OTW wank." as enticement. "Hi there, I'm Catherine. I created the Duran Duran page here while I was still anonymous, and keep hoping to add more detail to it one of these days, although I'm not as heavily involved in the fandom as I used to be (my website is sadly out of date). You are doing a fantastic job here, which I'd like to support in the face of the oddness of the OTW wank. :) These days I also work for Wikia, a free wiki hosting service. We have hundreds of wikis for various media properties (TV, movies, anime, books, and so on) and some for fan fiction specifically (see Category:Fanon -- naming these things "Fanon" was a fad at Wikia for a while, but we're trying to gradually rename things to "fan fiction" as I didn't think the term was being used appropriately). Anyway, I thought I'd let you know, in case you'd like to incorporate the creation of these wikis into your history and/or talk to the wiki admins about their work. I'd also like to know if you'd object to us placing external links from your pages to our wikis -- i.e., a link to harrypotter.wikia.com or harrypotterfanon.wikia.com (or both) from your Harry Potter page. We definitely don't want to spam your wiki, but I would hope these might be useful to your readers as links to other ongoing fan activity. We'd be happy to encourage our users to return the favor on the appropriate pages in their wikis. It looks like you have things well in hand here, but please know that Wikia would be pleased to host the FanHistory wiki in the future, if you ever get tired of dealing with hosting and MediaWiki maintenance, extensions and upgrades. Best wishes to you! CatherineMunro" -- User talk:Laura/Archive 1: Hello! (October 6, 2006)
On December 18, 2007, the wiki had 7,100 pages. "Yeah! :) The 7,000 page benchmark made me really excited. I think by 10,000 pages, the wiki should reach a critical mass where there are enough regular contributors to help generate moment to encourage more edits. :) Any promotion of the wiki in other locations, on blogs, on sites like Technorati, Del.ico.us and Digg, on fansites would be very much appreciated. :)" - Fan History Wiki About Talk Page, post by Laura], December 18, 2007 
====2008====
During the years 2008-2010, Fan History practices provoked controversy over promotion and recruitment, data scraping, paid services, content accuracy, treatment of editors, deceptive practices, "outing" fan names, and treating the site as a startup business in search of venture capital (all topics covered in detail below).
On March 14, 2008, Hale wrote of her intensive promotional efforts. "Been really working on promoting Fan History recently at various places, e-mailing sites and blogs and asking them to link, posting links on orkut, fanpop, bebo, LiveJournal, stumbleupon, digg, etc. And some of those links and people finding the site through search engines have led to people posting links to the site on their own. It feels like Fan History is getting closer to self generating traffic. Almost or somewhat. *crosses fingers* But increased traffic feels like YAY!" -- User talk:Laura/Archive 1: Abbreviations (March 14, 2008)
Hale alluded to various conflicts the wiki was having in Documenting fandom history: Getting the bias out, on April 12, 2008. Shortly after, Laura created a tongue-in-cheek page for editors about dealing with stress. "Dealing with wikistress. There are a number of ways to deal with wikistress. Below is a list that everyone is encouraged to help contribute to." -- Fanhistory.com:Wikistress
On April 22, 2008 the number of total pages had jumped to 101,420 total pages; this leap was mainly due to bot scraping, a practice that had begun in March 2008. "In March 2008, FanFictionNetBot was run in order to help Fan History meet the goal of becoming a fandom directory." -- Fan History Wiki About Talk Page, post by Laura], December 18, 2007 "We've finished playing around with FanFictionNetBot. It stopped running with accounts that were created in May 2008. Thanks to Josh, the bot helped create over 460,000 articles." - Fan History update
In May 2008, Hale was at MediaWest*Con as a dealer with admittedly very little to do. "There's always MediaWest where I know I'll have plenty of hours of time to kill lounging about in the dealer's room to tackle annoying tasks like re-categorization ;)... Oh noes! Sudden realization that I'll have a lot of time lounging around MediaWest with very little at my table to distribute! Must make mental note that May is coming up and I need to find a printer and start making copies." User talk:Laura/Archive 2: Category question (April 2008) By at least one account, Hale's promotion at MediaWest*Con of her wiki at was not well-received. "I remember one year at MediaWest*Con, a young woman was really excited about the idea of a fandom wiki. (I suspect this is the project that became Fanlore.) She was surprised, because a lot of older fans were angry, not happy, at the prospect. They felt they were being “outed” without their permission. And the young woman was completely unable to understand why people might feel that way. My roommate at the con referred to the young woman as the “Wiki Witch” for the rest of the con. She was furious. Though she now uses Fanlore herself. But she still doesn’t want to be listed in it. -- theguardianoflasttuesday (October 5, 2019) This fan's statement is in error, citing Fanlore rather than Hale's wiki.
In July 2008, Fan History LLC (the company that operated Fan History Wiki and FanWorksFinder) was organized in the state of Illinois. "In November 2009, the site went back to being organized as a sole proprietorship." 
On July 28, 2008, Hale made a post addressing many fan complaints about privacy, outing, profit and more. See A Statement from Fan History (2008). The site had been "locked down" three days earlier by Hale due to "repeated vandalism and ongoing privacy revisions." "Fan History is temporarily locked down due to repeated vandalism. Deletion requests submitted via e-mail to User:Laura are still being done as requested. Deletion requests sent via any method besides e-mail to User:Laura, direct message on Twitter or linkedin are not being read as User:Laura is only checking those sources at the moment." -- Main Page, July 25, 2008 The message on the main page four days later: "To find out more about us read our about page, our philosophy and our rules. Fan History is temporarily locked down due to repeated vandalism and ongoing policy revisions. The site intends to re-open on or around August 14. During this lockdown, deletion requests are also on hold until the revised deletion protocol has been finalized. We appreciate your patience in these matters. We would encourage all visitors to please read the statement on the Fan History Blog regarding current matters." -- Main Page, July 29, 2008 This was due to intense public discussions regarding Hale's behaviors and practices regarding outing, profit, wank, and more. See A Statement from Fan History (2008). While the original plan was to unlock the site "on or about August 14," the talk pages were made active on August 1, and the rest of the site "in the next seven days." "We've updated some of our wiki policies. Details are available on our blog. We hope to have talk pages unlocked today and the rest of the wiki opened in the next seven days. Thank you for your patience!" -- Main Page, August 5, 2008
On August 2, 2008, the site issued some policy updates in response to fan complaints: Fan History policy updates.
On September 7, 2008, Hale discussed fan history and whether the wiki was the best place to document it. See Fan History Wiki: Content generation and finding the right format.
====2009====
Early 2009 (or late 2008), Hale began advertising for four interns: Social Media Internship, Python Programming Internship, Search Engine Optimization Internship, and Community Outreach Internship.
Mid-June 2009: "During mid-June, Fan History’s founder ran for LiveJournal’s User Advisory Board. She cited her experience with Fan History as a good reason to support her nomination. She didn’t get the 100 votes to make the ballot." Our history on Fan History in 2009 (December 28, 2009)
June 25, 2009: "On June 25, Fan History created a Facebook fan page. It was subsequently mostly forgotten after that." Our history on Fan History in 2009 (December 28, 2009)
The end of June 2007, Hale lost her job as a consultant for for FanLib/Take180, specifically consulting on social network communities such as Twitter and Facebook."Performed reputation management related tasks. Research fan fiction, and fan communities and gave advice about how to effectively engage them." -- LinkedIn, accessed January 25, 2017 also at [https://web.archive.org/web/20111111074429/http://www.fanhistory.com/wiki/User:Laura/Resume resume posted to Fan History History This put put a crimp on Fan History Wiki's finances: "At the end of June, Fan History’s founder lost her job. This was stressful as this employment helped cover Fan History’s cost out of pocket." http://blog.fanhistory.com/?p=1133, accessed January 25, 2017
On November 13, 2009, there were 12 administrators listed at Fan History, all volunteers. Fan History also had became one of the largest non-Wikipedia, non-modified MediaWiki install wikis on the internet., 29 May 2009. (Accessed 14 November 2009)
On December 12, 2009, the site officially changed over their copyright to CC-BY-SA 3.0.
===10s===
====2010====
It was closed to open public editing November 23, 2010. "Why limit who can contribute? On November 23, 2010, Fan History was locked so that only approved editors could contribute. This was done because we did not have the administrative staff to patrol recent changes and enforce the rules. Life has changed a lot for the admin staff since the wiki was first created and, as much as they wanted to keep up with Fan History, it just was not possible. A stable host was found to insure that the wiki could continue on, even if not actively administered and updated. This was always important as the staff began to realize their interests were changing and that they had less and less time to spend on the wiki. While being largely locked to new contributors, the information will still be available. Given all that, the admins still wanted to make it possible for people to contribute if they want to. This was done by creating a class of contributors called Writers. Writers cannot delete pages or do other administrative tasks but they can edit articles. If some one should find Fan History Wiki and think it has worth to continue working on, the administrators wanted to give them that opportunity." -- "Contributing At that time, the front page quoted these stats: "Fan History Wiki is run by 18 admins. This community withstands of 2715 users who have uploaded a total of 5294 files, made 1,706,174 edits, have created 905,978 good articles and created 1,001,182 total pages." Note that the vast, vast majority of edits and articles were stubs created by bots. - Main Page
====2011====
Hale considers February 2011 to be the end of Fan History. "Founder. Fan History LLC. May 2006 – February 2011 (4 years 10 months)": Hale's Linked in page lists Fan History's dates of existence as being May 2006 to February 2011.
The site was up, then down, July 10 and 11, 2011. "Saturday, July 10th, 2010, 8:31 am, [purplepopple]. Fan History is down! Yeah, we're down. Our server ran out of space and we're busy poking our tech guy to see if we can't get a response from him to fix this problem. I haven't heard back yet and we're dealing with three different time zones: Eastern Australia, Denmark, Mountain USA. Ouch and embarrassed. :(" and "Sunday, July 11th, 2010, 6:44 am, [purplepopple], We should be back! I was told by our tech team that they deleted 11 gig of logs and we're back in business! Yay! -- , accessed January 25, 2017
After flooding the site with stubs about the sport "netball," the last new page was created by Laura Hale August 2, 2011 for the Netball in Tonga page.Special:NewPages on Fan History Wiki. (Accessed 22 April 2012)
====2013====
Despite Laura Hale's plans to have the wiki remain online as a static record of some fan history, Fan History Wiki went completely offline sometime in early 2013, possibly January. While some pages were available on the Wayback Machine, most were blocked by robots. "On November 23, 2010, Fan History was locked so that only approved editors could contribute. This was done because we did not have the administrative staff to patrol recent changes and enforce the rules. Life has changed a lot for the admin staff since the wiki was first created and, as much as they wanted to keep up with Fan History, it just was not possible.
A stable host was found to insure that the wiki could continue on, even if not actively administered and updated. This was always important as the staff began to realize their interests were changing and that they had less and less time to spend on the wiki. While being largely locked to new contributors, the information will still be available.
Given all that, the admins still wanted to make it possible for people to contribute if they want to. This was done by creating a class of contributors called Writers. Writers cannot delete pages or do other administrative tasks but they can edit articles. If some one should find Fan History Wiki and think it has worth to continue working on, the administrators wanted to give them that opportunity." from Help: Contributing
====2014====
The URL fanhistory.org used to redirect to the Fan History Wiki main page.See the Wayback Machine, 15 April 2008, for a history of the http://fanhistory.org URL (Accessed 14 October 2015). In 2014, a fan unaffiliated with Fanlore bought the fanhistory.org URL and redirected it to Fanlore. However, the two wikis have never been affiliated; for more, see Fan History Wiki - Conflict With Fanlore.
====2015====
While FanHistory.com reappeared with the same URL, seemingly intact, some time before September 6, 2015.The Wayback Machine has a copy of the front page on September 6, 2015. with limited searching and capacity , Twitter (last tweet: September 2, 2012) the wiki appeared to be floundering, with the main page gibberish., accessed July 2017
====2018====
As of early 2018 (and likely long before) the site is completely inaccessible; the main page now goes to a page with the phrase: "Welcome to Saxony Not at all like Prussia!" It is unknown if the site was hacked by a third-person or if Hale made this statement herself.
==Descriptions==
According to Fan History Wiki's entry on itself:
Also see What is a wiki? and Fan History is not Wikipedia.
Laura Hale made many targeted posts to fan groups which introduced and requested help for the Wiki. According to an August 2006 post on the Star Wars group rec.arts.sf.starwars.misc:
From the wiki's main page in 2007:
===Philosophy===
What Are Fan History's Goals: Fanhistory.com:Philosophy:
==Practices==
===Promotion and Recruitment===
On December 29, 2007, Hale wrote about the "randomness" of the wiki and suggested some tasks for fans: 
On August 5, 2008, Hale mentioned that she had permission to use a bot to created a directory of MediaMiner.Org users.IdeaBlog.com, Wayback Link
Hale and other wiki admins also actively promoted the wiki in various fannish spaces, and actively recruited for it as well. An early example of Hale's recruitment is this letter sent to various archive maintainers. Dated December, 2007, it encouraged not only activity for the wiki, but also for some related projects. From the introduction: 
Many of Hale's requests for help usually followed the same general format, such as this May 2008 post to a Breakfast Club community on LJ: 
Laura commented on her recruitment work in this March 2008 comment: 
Some other March 2008 comments by Hale: 
Fan contribution to Fan History Wiki was not vigorous despite these efforts.
From a 2009 press release written and submitted by Hale: "Since May 2006, the project has been working on documenting the history of fan communities.... At every step, the fandom community responded, helped improve many of our stubs and added new content." 
This statement contradicts a volunteer's 2007 statement that fan contributions were sparse: "I've watched partly_bouncy begging and scrounging for people with knowledge to contribute..." comments at An Introduction to the Organization for Transformative Works (post)
File:fhwankicon.png|an icon created by Hale in August 2008
 Image:fanhistorywank.png| icon from Fan History site encouraging fannish participation: "Please help promote Fan History. Get more people involved in sharing and documenting the history of fandom. Plug the article about yourself, your community, your stories, your fanzines or your fandom based business. Please feel free to link to the following images in on profile pages and elsewhere." Fanhistory.com:Promote - Fan History Wiki 
File:fhwakicon.jpg|an icon created by Hale, March 2008 -- "Haven't I wanked you before...? My name is...: Find out my history of involvement in fandom at http://www.fanhistory.com?index.php?____"
====Flyers====
Flyers created for the purpose of sending traffic to Fan History Wiki. These flyers were distributed at MediaWest*Con and perhaps other places.
File:fhflyer2.jpg|2008
File:fhflyer3.jpg|2008
File:Fhflyersmw-1.jpg|2009, print zines
File:Fhflyersmw-2.jpg|2009, fan history
File:Fhflyersmw-3.jpg|2009, Twilight stats
File:Fhflyersmw-4.jpg|2009, metafandom stats
File:Fhflyersmw-5.jpg|2009, pro bandfic bibliography
File:Fhflyersmw-6.jpg|2009, pro bandfic bibliography
File:Fhflyersmw-7.jpg|2009, Rat Patrol fandom
File:Fhflyersmw-8.jpg|2009, convention dealers and business
File:Fhflyersmw-9.jpg|2009, subject race and fandom, RaceFail
File:Fhflyersmw-10.jpg|2009, subject race and fandom, RaceFail
File:Fhflyersmw-11.jpg|2009, subject race and fandom, RaceFail
File:Fhflyersmw-12.jpg|2009, subject race and fandom, RaceFail
===Notability===
One of the wiki's features and selling points was that, unlike Wikipedia, there was no "notability requirement" to fulfill in order to be included.
Some statements regarding notability and what that entailed in a practical use sometime contradicted themselves. An example regarding several fans' blanking of pages and RaceFail: "I believe we allow people to argue that they aren't notable and if that is the case, the onus can then be on them to minimize their involvement in fandom and we can then reconsider." , November 30, 2009
Hale had specific ideas on how to become "notable" in fandom, which she explained in the Fanboy.com interview: 
Hale was consistent in these beliefs. A month earlier, she had posted to the Fan History blog along similar lines: 
On July 18, 2008, Hale posted to her Twitter offering to send cookies to anyone who would generate unique hits on her wiki:
* "I will mail anyone who can generate 500 unique visits for http://www.fanhistory.com/ half a dozen home made chocolate chip cookies. :)" 2:54 PM Jul 18th from web | Laura Hale on Twitter: "I will mail anyone who can generate 500 unique visits for www.fanhistory.com half a dozen home made chocolate chip cookies. :)" - now offline 
* "Clarification: Half a dozen cookies for each 500 unique visitors you get up to two dozen cookies. I loves cookies. :) And traffic." 2:56 PM Jul 18th from web | Laura Hale on Twitter: "Clarification: Half a dozen cookies for each 500 unique visitors you get up to two dozen cookies. I loves cookies. :) And traffic." - now offline
Hale later claimed that the offer of cookies was made in jest.
She posted the same offer to her Livejournal in an expanded version; at the bottom of the post she added ideas on how to generate hits for Fan History. These included a variety of places to post information and links, including the instruction to "generate wank" (screencap) -- a notion very much in keeping with her stated assumption that being "controversial" is a key way to gain recognition in fandom.
Many fans took these repeated assertions to mean that controversy (or wank) is a tool that she actively uses and encourages. Others felt that the quotes were taken out of context. Hale publicly denied this interpretation in July 2008: 
In October 2008, however, she posted another affirmation:
===Data scraping===
Bots were on the table as of 2007. Hale wrote: 
====Fanfiction.net & Livejournal Bots====
In 2008, Hale wrote: "Fan History loves original research and data dumping." Fan History is not Wikipedia.
To generate pages, in March 2008, Hale implemented a bot that scraped fanfiction.net profiles for basic (often badly outdated, incomplete, or incorrect) information, creating a new page for each profile. "In March 2008, FanFictionNetBot was run in order to help Fan History meet the goal of becoming a fandom directory." -- Fan History Wiki About Talk Page, post by Laura, December 18, 2007 
By April 23, 2008 the bot had boosted the wiki's page count from roughly 6,500 pages to 93,808.Wiki Index writeup on Fan History, dated April 23, 2007, taken from the History section of the page. Accessed November 25, 2008. By late October 2008, the bot had boosted the page count to 484,784—or more than 475,000 scraped articles.Wiki Index writeup on Fan History, dated October 23, 2007, taken from the History section of the page. Accessed November 25, 2008.
While some fans thought this bot was a good—or at least neutral—idea, others disagreed, believing that it would result in information overload that would make the wiki largely useless to anyone actually trying to use it to learn about fandom. In April 2008, a fan wrote: 
In May 2008, the bot was creating problems for at least two editors. One said: 
Another May 2008 conversation: 
Another fan had this comment in July 2008: 
On April 7, 2009, Hale announced: 
Read more about the FanFictionNetBot and the discussion page at "Fan History Wiki."
In October 2008, without taking any time to allow the wiki editors to sort and clarify the massive inflow of unverified raw information from fanfiction.net, Hale moved on to create a second scraper bot, this time to capture data from individual fans' Livejournal profiles.Fan History bot creation announcement: LiveJournal bot (October 29, 2008)Nikki. Some Information About Fandom History's New Tool; archive link with comments expanded. 27 October 2008 (accessed 28 October 2008). Hale used several large communities as her starting point; the only way for members of those communities to avoid being scraped was to set their journals to be left out of search-engine indexes.
====Other Bots====
The wiki had not abandonned bots as a means of information gathering after scraping Fanfiction.net and Livejournal
Fan History Wiki also employed other bots to add stubs. From a May 18, 2009 post to its blog: 
On September 9, 2008, Hale posted of her excitement regarding a "fan fiction stat bot": 
=====Fan Reaction Regarding the Bots=====
===Paid Services===
In January 2009, Hale instituted a new practice/service on the wiki: paid articles. This appeared to be part of Hale's business plan. According to the blog post announcing it: 
According to the site's FAQ, individuals could pay to have an article written about themselves or someone else; many people can band together to pay for a fandom article. All paid-for articles will be open to future editing by wiki users. The FAQ goes on to give more background and detail: 
 
To pay for an article, fans had to complete the following steps:
===Linking Policy===
In September 2009, Hale outlined the wiki's official policy regarding its linking to posts and journals during controversial discussions in a blog post titled: "Fan History, kerfluffle documenting, linking and informing": 
==Fan History Wiki as a Business==
===Communication with Users: Do I Need to Discuss Policy Decisions?===
===Communication with Users: Do I Need to Share Financial Information?===
===Communication with Users: Do I Need to Talk to Participants?===
===Profit===
As fans uncovered more information about Hale and the wiki, it became clear that the wiki was not a fannish project, but a for-profit venture intended to market fannish information to businesses.Lucy. For linking purposes. Last updated 28 July 2008 (accessed 28 October 2008).
From the wiki (date unknown) on a page titled "Fanhistory.com:Replies to common objections": 
In early January 2008, Hale explained the wiki's money plan to fans: 
As early as May 2008, a statement appeared on a Fan History Wiki page created to provide information on expenses and for advertisers: 
In July 2008, in the midst of a controversy over an outing on the wiki, fans discovered that the wiki was absolutely not a fannish project, but a business venture,"I gave you business advice and reached out to a prospective buyer for your Fan History wiki..." -- Pete Forsyth at RecentChangesCamp Planning › Re: RCC around the world: NA format change impacts everyone, January 30, 2012Lucy at For linking purposes. Last updated 28 July 2008 (accessed 28 October 2008)."Fan History collaborative fandom project. It is at its heart a wiki that allows fangirls and fanboys to actively participate by providing them a tool to document the history of various fandoms, create a directory of members of fandom and an indice of fan communities. It gives members of fandom a chance to share current fandom news that may impact people’s experiences in fandom. The information that Fan History and its users have gathered allows the site to serve as a consulting service and knowledge database for entertainment professionals and to academics, providing context to various fannish events, explaining what datasets mean and what all the information on Fan History means to fandom and to a company’s goals as they pertain to fandom." -- for which Hale was seeking venture capital.
Hale addressed the issue of profit and the wiki in July 2008, as well as her previous statements about financial transparency: 
In July 2008, the planned asking price of Fan History Wiki was apparently between $200,000-500,000.; Wayback (unknown date) (July 29, 2008)
It was also at this time, Hale claimed the site's monthly revenue was $1000.; Wayback
In January 2010, however, Hale's description of the wiki's financial health was different: Three days later, Hale thanked two fans: 
File:Fhadplanner.png|Hale's Google Ad planner, 2009
 Image:fanhistoryvalue.jpg| Laura Hale ran some numbers, and determined that "predicted valuation" of Fan History Wiki in May 2010 was $9,170,000.
Hale appears to have wanted to be open about her intention to sell the wiki, mainly by mentioning it on her wiki, particularly on the About page. When she tried to drum up interest in helping on the wiki, though, Hale stressed only the wiki's value to fandom, rather than its monetary potential or its value to outside businesses, and did not draw attention to the fact that the wiki was meant to be a business rather than a fannish labor of love.
But such mentions were easy to miss unless they were deliberately sought out, and the fact that Hale thought of the wiki not primarily as a fannish resource but as a "pretty comprehensive marketing tool" including contact lists that she could sell off had escaped many people. What some fans understood instead was that she was looking for ways to raise money to operate the site—for instance, to cover bandwidth and hosting fees—so that it could continue to be a fannish resource.
Some fans were fine with Hale's raising money for expenses, but drew the line at actually profiting once they discovered the truth:
A fan wrote on July 24, 2008: 
While Hale was relatively open about wanting to sell the wiki and/or its information, she also made it clear that she believed in using deceptive practices to build up her "business". In Hale's own words in November 2008: 
In December 2008, Hale wrote : 
Other fans had no problem with Hale intending to profit off the wiki, selling it for as much as she could (or, more recently, asking for hundreds of thousands of dollars in outside investment). A fan posted on July 23, 2008: 
Another fan wrote on July 22, 2008: 
In July 28, 2008, Hale posted to explain why she felt she needed so much money: 
Some fans took issue with the idea of having to hire that much paid staff to run a fandom project, particularly a wiki, since wikis are generally mainly volunteer efforts. One fan wrote: 
In mid-to late 2008 or early 2009, Hale advertised for four interns Internship opportunities at Fan History LLC In each of the ads, the wiki was referred to as "a company," "a startup," "an entrepreneurial work environment," and in the "what's in it for you" section, applicants were told:
Hale was also a "consultant" for FanLib/Take180 between June 2007 and June 2009. "Performed reputation management related tasks. Research fan fiction, and fan communities and gave advice about how to effectively engage them." -- LinkedIn, accessed January 25, 2017 This appears to have been a paid position; Hale mentioned losing this job at the end of June 2009, something that put a crimp on Fan History Wiki's finances: "At the end of June, Fan History’s founder lost her job. This was stressful as this employment helped cover Fan History’s cost out of pocket." http://blog.fanhistory.com/?p=1133, accessed January 25, 2017
In 2012, a fan mentioned Hale's intentions to sell Fan History Wiki and some assistance he provided in this venture.Re: RCC around the world: NA format change impacts everyone, archive link, Usenet post by Peter Kaminski
Overall, the knowledge that the wiki was a business venture put the outing into an even uglier light for many people, who believed it had been done deliberately to generate controversy/wank, and thus page hits, to make the wiki more attractive to potential investors.
===If It Had 10,000 Dollars===
On August 5, 2008, Hale encouraged fans to vote for "Fan History Wiki" in a contest. "Vote for Fan History on ideablob and help us grow." -- Main Page, August 8, 2008
The prize was $10,000. On the application form, Hale answered the question of "What will you do if you win $10,000 for this idea?" and said: 
===Fan History Wiki and Wikia===
One of the first people to make a post on Hale's Fan History talk page was an employee from Wikia.Hello! (Catherine Munro) (October 6, 2007) Wikia was also one of Fan History Wiki's earliest "partners." From a early post on privacy: "Fan History Wiki uses Google Adsense to place ads on pages, and tracks users using Google Analytics, Quantcast, and statcounter.com. Cookies are used as part of the mediawiki script in order to allow users to remain logged in. At this time, Google Analytic data is occasionally shared with outside parties whom Fan History is considering partnering with. To date, this information has only been partially shared with Wikia and that happened only once." Fan History Wiki Privacy Policy (unclear when this was posted, but it was last updated March 29, 2009)
Hale was deep in the decision to join Wikia in late 2007, early 2008 when she posted the pros and cons to joining that corporation, and her eventual decision: 
Hale reiterated Fan History Wiki's business status on September 20, 2009 when she posted about her decision to not become part of Wikia: 
For much more discussion, see , Fan History Wiki talk page, January 2008
==Controversy==
Until mid-2008, controversy/wank around the Fan History wiki tended to be about the inaccuracies or strict editor controls; several issues were controversial enough to make Fandom Wank.Fanhistory's entry on the Fandom wank wiki (Accessed 30 October 2008)
By July 2008, things had reached an intensity which made Hale temporarily shut the wiki down and to offer an explanation. See A Statement from Fan History (2008).
===Content Inaccuracy===
====Pre-Fan History Wiki====
The inaccuracy of Hale's research had been questioned at least two year's before "Fan History Wiki's" founding. One example: in March 2006, Hale defended a lengthy post she put on FCA-L:
From the beginning, the wiki contained so much inaccurate information that at least one person eventually commented:
While this level of widespread inaccuracy frustrated many fans into staying away from the wiki, others believed that enough participation could solve the problem, and were instead frustrated by the people who refused to help:
Hale herself commented on the stubbiness of the wiki and the almost insurmountable task of the project:
From the wiki (date unknown) on a page titled "Fanhistory.com:Replies to common objections": 
===Self-Promotion===
Hale used other sites to promote herself, the websites she was involved in, and later "Fan History Wiki." One example is from 2005: 
===Personal Bias, Alternative Viewpoints, Micromanaging===
On January 8, 2008, Hale commented: 
One of the wiki's administrators responded that same day: 
Hale's response: 
On January 9, 2008, Hale again acknowledged that Fan History Wiki was really the project of one person, and how this was seen as a fault: 
On April 24, 2008, Hale acknowledged that the wiki's organization was confusing for many people: 
===Hale's Treatment of Editors===
In addition to the inaccuracies, Hale acquired a reputation for not allowing edits she didn't like, and for banning people who tried to change things on the wiki. In a conversation about this, Spirit Dog explained her experience to Hector Rashbaum:Spirit Dog and Hector Rashbaum discuss LH's controlling of edits on FHW, posted July 27, 2008. Accessed November 26, 2008.
frito_kal, in X-Men fandom, also recounted being (temporarily) banned for making edits meant to clarify a page:
Other wiki admins tried to work with users despite Hale's banhammer tactics:
But some fans were also having problems with Hale's unwillingness to listen to other people's suggestions or advice, making the wiki unappealing to new editors:
An exchange between Laura and an editor on Laura's talk page:
This editor left the wiki herself after running afoul of Hale's banhammer policies by trying to defend a new editor: 
In one retaliation on June 25, 2008, the wiki got pwned by a former editor: 
===Outing===
The Fan History wiki policy was that they occasionally connected someone's real and fannish name, if they felt that the link was obvious enough already, and in July 2008 Hale admitted doing this., by cetera, Posted July 22. 2008, accessed October 4, 2009]Calling out Michaela Ecks/Laura Hale/Purplepopple/Partly Bouncy Many fans feel that this is outing, akin to deliberately disclosing someone's sexual identity. This resulted in a much wider controversy, with many fans incensed at such behavior while others supported Hale and the wiki, on the basis that no one could expect true privacy on the internet. "Beware! The Fanhistory Wiki will take your real name and tell it to the world/your mom/your boss/ruthless telemarketers (whichever scares you the most.) Abandon all hope, ye who enter its web of deceit! ...They say at midnight, the ghosts of Msscribe and her sockpuppets float across its homepage and wail unceasingly until someone clicks a Google ad. Seriously though, they've outed fans' real names for the sake of ad revenue. So if that's not okay with you, you might want to stay away." -- Writing My Wiki, Taking Names: Yours, August 2008Myths about Fan History's deletion policies (December 2008) When people tried to remove the personal information from the Fan History wiki, Hale overruled them and returned it.Sometimes a brain can come in quite handy by Dejana, posted July 21, 2008. Accessed October 4, 2009. post by amireal, For the record, because apparently it hasn't been said ENOUGH.; archive link (2008-07-26) Hale herself discussed the inclusion and deletion of real names on the wiki in March 2009. Ironically, Hale included a link to her last name in a comment about how hard it was to eradicate her real name on "Fan History Wiki": "I think it should be up to the person to inform us so we can remove. This can be a bit challenging though. I've learned the hard way in trying to get my last name off the wiki. :/ Last name here would not pull up all the time when i was searching for it." --Help talk:Real name deletion The Laura Hale page has more complete details.
=== Outing for Profit===
The timing of the fanthropology post (an essay called "How to maintain fandom privacy" to the Fanthropology LJ; it has since been deleted) [https://web.archive.org/web/20151102031213/http://fanthropology.livejournal.com/2008/07/ archive for Fanthropology July 2008 A post on the FanHistory blog by Laura in April may contain the same or similar text as the deleted fanthropology post. See Laura Hale (fan)/"How not to appear on Fan History". and the very public outing of a fan began to be questioned—why the need to generate so much wank and so many hits, right at that point?
One fan posted: 
In July 2008, in the midst of the wankstorm, Hale incorporated the wiki as a limited liability corporation (LLC).Fan History article on the Wiki Index; link goes to the history page to show that Hale added this information on September 4, 2008. Accessed November 25, 2008.It is also noted at Her Twitter posts during July provide a timeline, starting with the day after she outed the fan in the fanthropology post:
* "Anyone good with PR who might be able to help me with an ongoing situation? If so, would love to get in touch ASAP. 12:22 PM Jul 23rd" Twitter 
* "Ordered 'Art of the Start' and it has arrived! Talked to @Jenbachand on the phone for an hour. It was a good convo. 10:23 AM Jul 25th" Twitter 
* "I think I should have a registered agent which means I can push through LLC incorporation documents. Score! 1:54 PM Jul 25th" Twitter 
* "fuck fuck fuck. :( things went from bad to worse, 3:21 PM Jul 25th" Twitter 
* "This morning started out bad. I can't see it getting much better. 7:25 AM Jul 26th" Twitter 
* "Advice for dealing with clusterfucks in PR when dealing with a startup? 7:26 AM Jul 26th" Twitter 
* "Spent an hour discussing how to handle PR situation, policy changes, etc. Has been productive. Should help contain situation. Maybe. 6:22 AM Jul 27th" Twitter 
* "LLC forms completed and payment submitted. That is another one of those great big massive steps. 9:29 AM Jul 27th" Twitter 
* "Fan History and my apology regarding recent actions 4:40 AM Jul 28th" Twitter, see A Statement from Fan History (2008) 
At roughly the same time, she began listing her wiki on start-up sites, asking for venture capital -- $200,000 to $500,000.Fan History - TechCrunch Elevator Pitches, posted July 14, 2008. Accessed November 25, 2008. Fan history on fundfindr Accessed November 25, 2008; Fan History is growing!, accessed May 11, 2014 See Fan History Elevator Pitch.
The possible connection between Hale's choice to out a fan and her desire to make her wiki look attractive to potential investors drew more ire from some fans: 
Another fan posted: 
In short, fannish privacy being a powerful cultural factor, Hale quickly became the subject of public anger, outrage, and scorn as her entrepreneurial intentions became clear.
A fan posted: 
===Driving Traffic to the Wiki: Illegal Clickbait===
On July 16, 2008, without permission, Hale posted a very recent article to the wiki as a lure for more traffic. She then advertised it on Fanthropology, with a link to Francesca Coppa.
===Deliberate Wank===
On April 20, 2008, Hale blogged about deliberate wank as a way to sell her product: 
From July 20, 2008, Hale's comments: 
On December 22, 2008, Hale explained how wank didn't generate the attention she necessarily wanted: 
 Image:fhstats1.jpg| collected by Hale -- "Traffic for Fan History according to StatCounter for period between December 22 and December 28, 2008."
File:fhwankrussett.png|May 11, 2009 – June 22, 2009, Hale was paying attention, and labeled this search and graphic: "Fandom wank effect on traffic russet noon"—See Russet Noon
File:Clairewankfanhistorywiki.gif |"Chart showing how many visits from search engines Fan History received in the period between June 2007 and April 2008. Category:Cassandra Claire"—Laura's label on her graph
Some fan comments:
===Management Style===
One of the criticisms of the wiki was Hale's over-involvement and tight control of of even the most trivial issues and edits. In January, Hale asked a fellow editor and admin member if she should take a different tactic: 
The fan she addressed answered: 
===Deceptive Practices: Editing Wiki Talk Pages===
== Conflict With the OTW ==
=== Conflict With Fanlore===
In 2007, when the OTW announced the intention of establishing Fanlore as a place for collecting fannish lore and history, Laura Hale was openly critical, something that was likely due to her unhappiness at the "competition" for energies, hearts, and minds of fans and fan history, displeasure regarding diminished personal stature, and Fanlore perhaps impeding Hale's plans to financially profit from her own wiki. From a mid-2008 statement by Hale, one in which she speculated her wiki was worth between $$200k - $500k: 
==== 2007 Comments from An Introduction to the Organization for Transformative Works (post)====
From the comments to the September 2007 announcement by the OTW, titled An Introduction to the Organization for Transformative Works (post). 
Hale (partly bouncy) has since deleted all of hers. They are archived below.
 
"I've done more out reach with the wiki than OTW has done with their project. I've been committed to maintaining the wiki and helping the community since day one. I can't say the same for OTW."
Are we really going to get into a pissing contest about who has given more or whose dad is bigger than whose? The page count is completely not the point. }}
 
====2008 Comments at Fan History Wiki====
In 2008, Laura wrote on an administrator's talk page: 
A fan replied: 
==Positive Attention==
Fan History wiki saw positive attention too. In 2009 this included links in other online publications, fueled in part by its Geocities preservation initiative,An interview with Fan History, Dandizette.net (Accessed 28 September 2009) and Laura's white paper on the use of fan fiction as a possible indicator of Nielsen ratings.YPulse Essentials: Toys in Hollywoodland, Banned Book week, Urbanworld launches hip-hop app (Accessed 28 September 2009) Mentions were also made about Fan History wiki's success in attracting traffic by getting mentioned on Fandom Wank and taking advantage of hot news topics such as Michael Jackson's death.Trending Topics: 5 Ways Companies Used News Trends for Business Success (Accessed 28 September 2009)
In addition, Fan History wiki was occasionally linked to as a reference site. This includes links from blogs to the wiki's various terminology pagesFor example someone linking to an explantion of hurt/comfort in an entry on the st_xi_kink community here. (Accessed on 28 September 2009) and even references in more mainstream publications such as Wired Magazine, Y!Pulse and Mashable.Wired: Scott Brown on Sherlock Holmes (Accessed 28 September 2009) In November, 2009, Blogcritics book reviewer, Jennifer Williams, linked to Fan History wiki's Russet Noon article as reference in her review of The National Lampoon's Twilight parody, titled Nightlight: A Parody. Book Review: Nightlight: A Parody by The Harvard Lampoon (Accessed 18 November 2009)
In July 2009, Fan History was featured in a Spotlight article on AboutUs AboutUs Spotlight Articles where Laura Hale is a Volunteer Sysop. "On July 7, Fan History was the feature site of the day on AboutUs.Org. AboutUs is one of the biggest and most influential wiki sites on the Internet. Advice from their founder and employees have been influential in helping Fan History formulate its own policies. This recognition from them was awesome." -- Our history on Fan History in 2009, accessed January 25, 2017
==Some Stats: Collected by Hale==
Hale was an avid watcher, collector, and documenter of stats and web traffic."W00t! Rank on Quantcast went from 114,964 yesterday to 113,924 today. [1] Been following as we've been trying to improve the traffic and content for the project this month. Some of this has been going on behind the scenes. Lot of it is just plugging and plugging away. We're waiting until the article count exceeds 10,000 before contemplating the idea of spending money to do a press release and go after that more aggressively. We're also waiting to see how things go post MediaWest. Hopefully that should give Fan History a bump in interest." and "I've got to stop watching the ranking data. According to Quantcast, Fan History's rank is rank 111,509 today. Increased rank and increased traffic are really important. More traffic means more people who might be interested in helping improve Fan History. That's the goal of plugging Fan History all over the place: To get more people involved, even if it is on a drop in basis for a few edits here and there, in order to share the history of fandom." - Fan History Wiki About Talk Page, post by Laura], March 14th and March 18, 2008
She often compared the wiki site to other fan sites, over long periods of time, over short periods of time to track the effects of wank and traffic to Fan History Wiki and other venues.
Some samples of these efforts are below.
File:FhstatsFeb-Mar2009.jpg|Feb-Mar 2009 stats collected by Hale regarding Fan History Wiki, FanLib, Fanlore, and the OTW
File:Fhstats2.jpg|"Statistics regarding Fan History for October 2008. Includes top page that isn't main page or search per day, top keyword that led to Fan History per day, top internal keyword search per day, top non-search referrer per day. Also includes summary."
File:fhstats9.jpg|collected by Hale who called this one "Fan History traffic August 4 to August 10, 2008 Statcounter"
File:fhcassandra.jpg|Hale created a graphic to show searches at Fan History Wiki for terms related to Cassandra Claire and MsScribe between February 23, 2009 and March 25, 2009
File:fhhistorysearch.jpg| Hale called this search: "Fan History search traffic growth from August 2007 to February 2009"
File:fhstatsracefail.jpg|2009 keyword search stats for RaceFail, collected by Hale
File:fhstats.png|some April 2009 stats, a snapshot
File:fhstats3.jpg|"Are users on Fan History quickly adopting Google's Chrome browser? It doesn't look like it. Traffic information from Google Analytics for September 2 to September 3, 2008 for Fan History."
File:fhstats4.png| "Fan History Traffic - January 2009 to October 2009"
File:fhstats5.jpg| Referrers averaged by day for December 2008, Fan History Wiki
File:Fhtopcontent.png|Feb-May 2009 stats
File:fhtwitter.jpg|November 2008-April 2008 Twitter stats for Fan History Wiki
File:fhtwitter1.jpg|August 2008-January 2009 Twitter stats for Fan History Wiki
File:fhrefer2009.jpg|Hale labeled this graph: "Fan history referrers for May 2009"
File:Fhstatsfanloreotw.png|"Fan History traffic August 2008 to August 2009"—regarding Fan History Wiki, Fanlore and OTW
File:fhmpreg.jpg|keyword searches at Fan History Wiki for mpreg, August 2007-June 2009
File:fhsocialnet.jpg|August 2008 stats regarding social networking traffic to Fan History Wiki
 Image:fhfanlibstats.jpg| February 23-March 23, 2009 stats regarding searches for "FanLib" at Fan History Wiki
==2010: Fan History Wiki Discontinued Open Public Edits==
Posted by Laura Hale to the wiki's main page in November 2010: 
Laura expanded on this post on the wiki's blog on November 23, 2010: 
The Help:Contributing page on Fan History Wiki explained further: 
Laura Hale's Twitters on November 23, 2010:
* "As soon as we can raise Jon or svip, we're going to do a lock down on all editing to Fan History. It's been an awesome ride." [missing the direct cite with this first one, though it was sent directly before the one below]
* "As Fan History editing is turned off, I feel like I should change my e-mail address. :/" 1:11 AM Nov 23rd, 2010 via TweetDeck
* "No admin interest. We're not deleting, just locking from editing." 1:17 AM Nov 23rd, 2010 via TweetDeck in reply to lewiscollard
* "We've created a writer class. If you still want to contribute, e-mail @purplepopple and she can set you up." 1:32 AM Nov 23rd, 2010 via TweetDeck; purplepopple on Twitter, accessed 1.4.2011 and 7.5.2011, and referenced here
=== 2011: The Last Edits===
In 2011, all the wiki's new edits were by Laura Hale either in request to remove something from the wiki or additions of information about sports, specifically Netball.
While Hale considered herself active in the wiki only until February 2011,"mayo de 2006 – febrero de 2011 (4 años 10 meses)" -- LinkedIn, accessed January 25, 2017 (now offline) her last edit was made on 2 August 2011 for the Netball in Tonga page.Special:Contributions/LauraH (now offline)
== Fan History Wiki and Wikimedia ==
===2009===
In November 2009, Laura Hale approached the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit umbrella organization that includes Wikipedia and related sites in its projects, and tried unsuccessfully to have "Fan History Wiki" join them.
In early December 2009, Hale prepared a document about this failed proposal. In it, she explained the background and history of the wiki, and then explained how she found "Wikimedia Foundation's" process and mission lacking.
See Case Study: Fan History’s Proposal For Being Acquired by the Wikimedia Foundation.
== Closure & Reappearances==
Despite an earlier statement that "the wiki will continue to exists for historical reasons", sometime in early 2013 the Fan History Wiki went completely offline.The site was not accessible March 10, 2013; how long it has been gone is unclear. Screencaps on Archive.is show a typical Fanhistory page dated January 3, 2013, and a blank page on January 10, 2013. Its content appears to be only sparsely archived by the Wayback Machine. Archive.is has a few page screencaps here.
With no fanfare, FanHistory.com reappeared at the same URL, seemingly intact, some time before September 6, 2015.The Wayback Machine has a copy of the front page on September 6, 2015. Last edit, however, remains the ones made on 2 August 2011, by Laura, for the Netball in Tonga page.
In early 2018, the site was almost completely inaccessible (some of the pages can be found in various archives such as the Wayback Machine), and the main page now goes to a page with the phrase: "Welcome to Saxony Not at all like Prussia!"
==Front Page Screenshot Gallery==
Click to enlarge and read.
File:fhoct112007.jpg|October 11, 2007
File:fhfeb192008.jpg|February 19, 2008
File:fhapril12008.jpg|April 1, 2008
File:fhmay252008.jpg|May 25, 2008
File:fhjuly132008.jpg|July 13, 2008
File:fhsep52008.jpg|September 5, 2008
File:fhoct182008.jpg|October 18, 2008
File:fhfeb112009.jpg|February 11, 2009
File:fhjuly42010.jpg|July 4, 2010
File:fhnov232011.jpg|November 23, 2011
File:fhaug292012.jpg|August 29, 2012
 
==External links==
* Fan History's Blog (some archived posts); Fan History's Blog (other archive posts)
* Fan History wiki updates on InsaneJournal
* Fan History Wiki on Twitter - automatically tweeted recent changes on the wiki (deleted and purged)
* Fandom news on LiveJournal
* Fanhistory Wiki entry on the Fandom Wank wiki
* 
* 
* 
* Fan History Talk Pages: Laura Hale: ; , , 
* Active Talk Pages
==Further reading==
* fandomnews was a multifandom link roundup community crossposted on several journaling sites that is a project of the wiki. It was moderated by Fan History editors.
* Fanboy Interview with Laura Hale (2008)
* Case Study: Fan History’s Proposal For Being Acquired by the Wikimedia Foundation (2009)
* Conserving fandom: An Interview with Fan History (Laura Hale) (2009)
* An Interview with Fan History (Laura Hale) (2010)
* Hale's description of the wiki on her online resume (alternative link) around 2014
==Notes==
==References==
Category:2006 Wikis
Category:2000s Wikis
Category:2010s Wikis
Category:Multifandom Wikis
Category:2020 Featured Articles