Bulbapedia is a community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia that is based on the Wiki concept, meaning it may be read and edited by anyone. It is similar in spirit to Wikipedia, but is focused solely on documenting the Pokémon canon and the fandom surrounding it.

Its name is a portmanteau of Bulbagarden, a Pokémon website which runs Bulbapedia, and encyclopedia. It is affectionately known as 'pedia among its contributors.

History

Bulbapedia is by no means the first Pokémon Wiki; indeed, there are several that predate Bulbapedia.

Bulbapedia was originally set up by Zhen Lin on December 21, 2004. evkl took the job of Editor-in-Chief several days later, and has held the title ever since. There was a two-month period of secret development by select contributors. Although it was originally intended as a stage for content development for the Bulbagarden website, it soon became clear that it could eliminate the need for a traditional website in most areas.

An attempt to recruit early contributors was launched on December 25, under the pretext of Bulbagarden looking for writers for "a collaborative and open work environment which makes interacting with other staff and looking up information very simple."^[1] It was not very successful, so Bulbapedia proceeded with only a dozen or so contributors, and reached 100 articles within 3 weeks.

It was eventually opened to the public on February 14, 2005, branded as "Bulbagarden's Valentine's Gift to the Fandom"^[2]. Productivity grew tenfold as at least 21 articles were created in the 24 hours following, and the article count reached 1,000 in the 3rd month since opening^*.

In April of 2005, Bulbapedia suffered its first major attack in the form of the so-called Great Bulbapedia Turkey Shoot, followed by another handful of vandalism incidences in late May of 2005.