birding.wiki
| The birding.wiki homepage. This wiki uses the open source BookStack App platform. |
Description
birding.wiki is a self-hosted birdwatching wiki launched in 2022. It's a place to document my birding observations, media, projects, and equipment setups. This wiki is run using a self-hosted instance of BookStack App.
History
In 2022, I toyed with the idea of creating a wiki-like experience to organize and document anything related to birds and my hobby of birdwatching.
Initial concept
The first concept of birding.wiki was launched on Because Birds as the BirdDex. This was a fun project where I learned and leveraged WordPress' custom post types to create and add "Bird" entries into the CMS. It gave me space to design a basic experience and begin to solidify what type of information I would include in these entries. Think of it as a bird Pokédex. I literally researched how to create Pokédex on WordPress to serve as a starting point in the project.
On these pages I included observation statistics, photographs, audio recordings, and personal anecdotes. But as with most of my projects, I yearned for more: more ease of use, more flexibility, more space. So, I began setting my sights on a dedicated platform for this information.
In Late 2022, I bought the domain birding.wiki and began researching self-hosted wiki software solutions. I came across many options and decided to take the plunge and set one up: Wiki.js
Wiki.js
For the first few months of the birding.wiki project, I learned and began building out content in the platform. This exercise in organization and content management showed me ways in which I could display different types of content and helped me clarify what I wanted out of a wiki software.
Wiki.js is a one-man show as far as development is concerned. While the software was visually appealing, it was slow and cumbersome to use and half of the features in the platform were 'coming soon.' Development on the product felt slow, with releases of new versions coming out sporadically.
Next...BookStack App
In Early 2023, as my frustration with Wiki.js grew, I began to revisit a few of the wiki platforms from my previous research. BookStack App app intrigued me the most due to its passionate user base and high praises on Reddit.
BookStack's organization follows the idea of physical books: shelves, books, chapters, and pages. I wondered to myself if this type of structure would work for my use case so I decided to spin up an instance and try it out for myself.
I began by recreating all my existing Wiki.js content into a few "Books" on my new BookStack server. The ease of use and speed of the platform became apparent as soon as I started. The content organization approach started simple and I reworked it as more content was added.
Focus
Technical details
Because Birds was originally launched on shared hosting via BlueHost but as my knowledge and experience grew, I transitioned to a faster virtual private server (VPS) on Digital Ocean.
To make managing multiple WordPress websites easier, I use the SpinupWP platform.
| Content management system |
WordPress.org |
| Domain registrar | Porkbun |
| Server type | Virtual Private Server (VPS) |
| Server host | Digital Ocean droplet |
| Server details | 2GB memory / 50GB disk |
| Server management | SpinupWP |
| Theme foundation | GeneratePress |
| Analytics | Plausible Analytics (view live dashboard) |
Design
Current design
Homepage
Because Birds currently leverages a Full Site Editing (FSE), open source, block-based theme from GeneratePress. This lightweight theme allows for a focus on the content with extremely-high PageSpeed scores across mobile and desktop.
Single post
The GeneratePress theme shines on single posts with a bold hero title section.
Logo
The Hooded Merganser pixel art logo was designed by the talented pixel artist alurasheans.
