I’m happy to announce that on September 1st, 2024, after extra hours working at night and on weekends, the first version of CapoeiraWiki was launched.
What is CapoeiraWiki?
CapoeiraWiki is a free online encyclopedia dedicated to the Afro-Brazilian martial art of Capoeira. The main goal is to build a global community of capoeiristas and enthusiasts who can learn from each other and help preserve the art of capoeira for future generations.
The concept of a wiki is central to this project: a collaborative environment where anyone can contribute, edit, and refine information. As CapoeiraWiki grows, contributions of expertise and insights are encouraged to help create the most comprehensive capoeira resource available online.
Why CapoeiraWiki?
When I started capoeira in 2008, I read every piece of information I could find online in English or Russian. Of course, Wikipedia was the first stop, but back then, there weren’t many capoeira-related articles. Most information was spread across forums, blogs, obscure webpages, and mailing lists, and by now, most of those resources are no longer available, even through internet archives.
The oral tradition of capoeira, where all knowledge is passed from teacher to student, along with some disputes between groups and mestres, also didn’t help with the widespread circulation of information.
Nowadays, we have new resources on capoeira: amazing new blogs and websites, YouTube channels, podcasts, and many old masters and their “right hands” are now using social networks to share their knowledge. But still, the information is scattered across the web in various languages, and social networks and search engines don’t make it easy to find that information.
So, I’ve been dreaming of a one-stop capoeira encyclopedia for a decade. A place where people can share information about history, culture, music, movements, mestres, lineages, traditions, events, and more. I thought the wiki format would be the most suitable for the capoeira community since collaboration is the spirit of capoeira. We gather in a circle to play instruments, sing, and create something together. Collaboration through self-expression. Isn’t it a perfect match for CapoeiraWiki?
CapoeiraWiki is not the first attempt to create a capoeira encyclopedia. Some collectives and individual capoeiristas have tried it before. Some did it as part of their capoeira school website or blog. There is also a wiki on “Capoeira Reddit.” Good examples of these resources are:
- Dende Arts Blog
- Capoeira Movement Library by Minhoquinho
- A French Capoeira Wiki hosted on fandom.com
- La Laue encyclopedia (“commercial social enterprise”)
These are all great knowledge bases but are maintained by individual authors, making it difficult for others to contribute. There’s nothing wrong with that—it’s just another format. Not to mention, organizations such as groups and schools usually write articles from their perspective or for their goals, which can raise questions about the objectivity and neutrality of the information.
Wikipedia itself and its capoeira section have also improved a lot since the 2000s, but even now, capoeira is too niche for the average reader, and some subtopics are not being covered by Wikipedians, partly because of strict content rules.
How CapoeiraWiki?
Taking all the points above into consideration, I decided to create an independent open wiki project so that everybody can collaborate. But it’s not an easy task.
- To have collaborators, we must have a steady stream of readers. Usually, only 1% of users will contribute.
- To have traffic, we need a lot of good content.
- To have high-quality content, first, we need a large quantity of content.
Inspired by Cunningham’s Law 1, which states, “The best way to get the right answer on the Internet is not to ask a question; it’s to post the wrong answer,” I decided to start step by step.
- First phase: A limited number of trusted authors will begin uploading and organizing the initial content, setting the stage for the community to build upon.
- Second phase – Invite-only access: To ensure quality and avoid spam or bot interference, user registration and editing will be by invitation only. This phase will help us establish a strong foundation of reliable content.
- Third phase – Open stage: CapoeiraWiki will transition to an open platform, where anyone can edit or add pages without an invite. Our goal is to foster a vibrant, collaborative community of capoeiristas and enthusiasts around the world.
As of its launch, CapoeiraWiki is available only in English. However, we are planning to expand the platform to include Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, and other languages.
I hope the first stage won’t take too long, and soon we can send out invitations to all capoeiristas to participate in CapoeiraWiki. Meanwhile, send your thoughts and suggestions to [email protected].
Axé!
Footnotes
1. Ward Cunningham – American computer programmer who developed the first wiki and was a co-author of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development.