Lostpedia

About Lostpedia

Lostpedia is a wiki-powered online encyclopedia of information regarding the American television drama Lost. Launched on September 22, 2005 by Kevin Croy, the site uses MediaWiki software to maintain a user-created database of information. The site's content is under a Creative Commons license (by-nc-nd), which means that it is available free to the public, but cannot be used for commercial purposes and should not be modified by people who are not part of the community of the website. Lostpedia is supported by revenue from advertising; the site has not made information regarding financial details public. As of May 9, 2008, the site contained an estimated 4,003 articles created and edited by the 27,172 registered users, with over 148 million page views. On December 18, 2008 the site became a part of Wikia.

Lostpedia was created by Kevin Croy, a programmer consultant, when he found that there was no Lost wiki. Croy registered the domain within 20 minutes, and the website grew quickly. Lostpedia provides detailed episode synopses, character biographies, cultural references and themes, as well as a range of other articles. The site's main page features an international episode airing schedule, recent news related to Lost, as well as a featured article of the week. The site includes information on the tie-ins associated with Lost, including Lost novels, the Lost Experience and other web content. Lostpedia lists Lost related websites, which includes official websites affiliated with the show and its producers, websites used in the Lost Experience, fan sites and other notable unofficial sites. It also lists and discusses notable hoax websites which are often misconstrued by fans of the show as official. Lostpedia added a discussion forum in July 2006, and a IRC channel in September 2006. In June 2008, Lostpedia began holding interviews with members of the Lost cast and crew, including Michael Emerson, Jorge Garcia, Rebecca Mader, Francois Chau and David Fury.More recently Wikia is now the owner of the site.

The Lost series has a complex and cryptic storyline which spawns numerous unresolved questions. Encouraged by Lost's writers and stars, who often interact with fans online, viewers and TV critics alike have taken to rampant theorization in an attempt to unravel the mysteries. Spoilers and rumors about episodes that have not aired in North America were allowed for some time (with restrictions), until mid-2008 when all spoilers were banned from the wiki.[10] In order to remain a reputable source, Lostpedia follows a "theory policy",[11] which discriminates between canonical and non-canonical sources, and the various canonical sources are ranked to determine which supersedes which in the case of a contradiction. In each article, canonical facts are listed under a "Facts" heading, while speculation, provided it is logically consistent and not discredited or disproved, is listed under a "Theories" heading. Erroneous information is not permitted at all. From November 15, 2006 onwards, Lostpedia requires the theories to be on a separate sub-page.[10]