WhoInspired:About WhoInspired

Who Inspired is a totally user-editable wiki about the inspirations behind things. Have you ever wondered what inspired the Lord of the Rings? How about Star Wars? How about James Bond? That's what this wiki answers.

Anyone can edit the site* and contributions are recognized immediately. Site information comes from articles and interviews and is fully searchable. Please note that the Who Inspired Wiki is currently locked to new users. If you are interested in adding an article, please email us at info (at) whoinspired (dot) com.

Who Inspired's mission is to get enough data to show deep relationships about what motivates people and inspires great things. For example, with enough entries, readers can search for movies inspired by Star Wars - or find the videogame most mentioned as an influence on games made in the '80s. Tons 'o fun lies up ahead.

Organization? Who Inspired doesn't really have one at this point. The site's brand new so it's a little early for that question. The site was created by its founders, Matt (aka ChiElement) and Will (aka Will - tell him to get a better name). Who Inspired is for people who get really excited when they think that one day they can interact with visual maps of people's inspirations - from Beethoven to the invention of the Internet. Who knows what strangeness will emerge from those weird depths?

Who Inspired is built using Mediawiki, the same software that runs Wikipedia. Most notably, the site uses the Semantic Mediawiki extension, which is overall awesome and allows for semantic searching. The initial build was done by Jeroen de Dauw and the wizards at WikiWorks. The design is by Paul.

Can't wait to get started? Awesome. You'll want to start at the Community Portal. You can contact me at any time. Twitter is a good way to stay up to date. And if you want to know what inspired Matt and Will, check this out, or read this blog post which gets maybe a little too embarassingly in-depth about Led Zeppelin and Indiana.

Right now we happen to be geeking on these articles. Their inspirations are fascinating, frequently weird and often unexpected.
 * Mortal Kombat
 * Dungeons & Dragons
 * Chinatown
 * King Kong
 * Metroid

There are lots of ways you can help out on Who Inspired. The site always needs people who are interested in research, writing, editing and - if you're programming inclined, helping to solve some coding issues. The best place is to start at the Community Portal.

Thanks for stopping by. Who Inspired is a fun site that can't exist without your support.