Ten years ago today, I launched a site, pretty much on a lark, which took the text of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, and turned it into a Wiki that allows people to add notes, discussions and interpretations. The site became somewhat popular worldwide, and is still in heavy use today.

I would never call myself a scholar of the Wake, or of Joyce in general. I never studied in school. I just came upon it naturally and was fascinated. To be honest, I launched the site because I felt it would be an easier way to study the work myself. I never anticipated it would be as much of a draw as it became. I just felt it would be an approachable way to correlate the work with the many interpretations that have been birthed over the decades.

I’m proud of the site, and I’m proud of the fact that I was able to keep it free all these years. Most of all, I’m proud of all the hard work that went into it.  Users have contributed countless hours and thousands of edits, endured and cleaned up after automated vandalism, and suffered several long outages.

This pint’s for you, fellow Wake fans.  To another ten years!

http://www.finnegansweb.com
http://www.finneganswiki.com