Recently CapoeiraWiki (https://capoeirawiki.org) launched, and I discovered it when I spotted the release announcement on Reddit. It’s is a wiki like there are many others, but focused enterily on capoeira (obviously). As far as I know, this is the first wiki created specifically for capoeira!
This project is the newest release in a series of efforts from the worldwide capoeira community to make capoeira more accessible to everyone interested. In recent years, we’ve seen a rise in mobile apps, blogs, vlogs, online communities, platforms, even 3D simulators, and more. It is very exciting to see that more and more people engage themselves for the broader capoeira community and apply their professional skills to help make capoeira more accessible.
The only big concern I have is that every new project requires effort to maintain it: you have to keep adding and updating content, there’s a server to maintain, your application itself will need to be improved and supported for bug reports, … This all takes time and effort. In the early days of a new project it’s all good fun, but over the years it becomes a burden. As a result, a lot of projects kind of bleed to death after a while because the creator lost interest. Being a developer myself, I’ve published my fair share of capoeira focused applications, ranging from song lyric communities and pop-up shops to a global event calendar. Except for this blog, none of them survived.
So I hope with all my heart that all these amazing initiatives will keep on living and growing. But that can only happen with support from the community. If you have the right skills (developing, designing, copy writing, marketing, …) and you want to help out, reach out to these creators and lend a hand maintaining these projects.
Now, what’s different with CapoeiraWiki (as the creator mentions on Reddit), is that CapoeiraWiki is built to be community driven. So even when the author decides to abandon the project, the wiki can live on! I’ll quote his strategy here:
CapoeiraWiki is hosted on Miraheze, one of the longest-running and most reliable non-profit wiki farms (10+ years). They operate as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt public charity and currently host over 10,000 wikis. This choice was intentional. First, most of the technical maintenance is handled by Miraheze, ensuring stability and security. Second, their values, approach, and volunteer-driven community align well with the open and collaborative nature of the project. This means that even if I (hypothetically) step away at some point, the project can continue with community support. Finally, everything is built on MediaWiki software, with all code and content licensed under open-source and copyleft licenses. This allows for easy backups and forks, ensuring that the wiki can always be moved or replicated elsewhere if needed. So, in short, CapoeiraWiki is designed to be community-driven, independent, and resilient—avoiding the pitfalls that caused valuable capoeira resources to disappear in the past.
Magazeta on https://www.reddit.com/r/capoeira/comments/1it7h7o/capoeirawiki_is_live_finally_stepping_out_of_the/
So, that sounds promising! The wiki is still in its early stages, so I can only encourage everyone with a bit of capoeira knowledge to help out and make the wiki grow.
Oh yeah, The Open Capoeira Blog has it’s own page over there. Go check it out! Thank you Mayuxi for the reference!
— Vinho
Vinho, thank you so much for the article about our humble project! You’ve pointed out everything so accurately—the risks of a project fading away when the creator’s motivation runs out, the technical challenges, and more. I’ve also been involved in or created several online projects that didn’t survive to this day.
With that in mind, and knowing myself (motivation cannot last forever), I tried to make CapoeiraWiki as independent from me as possible, at least in the long run. Of course, in the early stages, it needs someone to push things forward and gain momentum. That is why I am actively encouraging other capoeira writers and digital community builders to work together—and to support their projects indirectly by documenting them on CapoeiraWiki and sharing them on social media and Reddit.
There are tens of thousands of active wikis about TV series, video games, or literary universes (Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, etc.). But I believe the real history of capoeira is just as fascinating, if not more. There’s an endless pool of traditions, movements, and mestre biographies to document. And beyond that, we also have modern authors, researchers, musicians, artists, and creators working with capoeira, and they deserve to be highlighted too.
Interestingly, after launching CapoeiraWiki, I discovered that it is not the first attempt. In the late 2000s, there were several initiatives: a French Capoeira Wiki (still online but inactive, with about 150 unique articles), an English Capoeirista Wiki hosted on Fandom by some folks from ASCAB, and a German capoeira wiki, now only accessible via the Wayback Machine.
Also, Professor Tartaruga (ewokizinho) worked on a Spanish capoeira wiki, but the site is currently down (though backups exist). We are now talking with the creators of the French, Spanish, and English capoeira wikis about possible cooperation and even merging. Plus, having spent 25 years living in China, I hope that one day we can bring capoeira wiki content to even more languages. But ultimately, this all depends on the community.
Thank you again for featuring us!