ukcider wiki expands to 500 pubs

On 17/12/05, one of the ukcider mailing list members who has got caught up in the quest to find real cider pubs up and down the country wrote in:

> We now have 501 entries in the wiki. The 500th was the Hop Leaf in
> Reading.

I decided this was an occasion to mark, and perhaps slightly prematurely
for the date, have a look back at the progress made and future direction.

“To get to where we are now in just 10.5 months (yes really) is an
impressive achievement by any expectations. The 500 milestone is
significant because it brings the online guide up to a quantity of
information which is comparable with a printed version already. And we
know the potential is there to go way beyond, just with all of those
undiscovered pubs in Devon, Dorset and Somerset.

The next period might look at quality as a milestone somehow.

The existance of this friendly group is the thing which has driven the
cider wiki forward and will no doubt continue to review the pub guide
and make corrections and additions as the situation changes up and
down the country. It’s important to keep that up, but I particularly
like the entries where you can tell that somebody has actually spent
some time inside a pub and mentioned little quirky details. There
aren’t so many of them and I wonder if there’s doubt in some
contributors minds as to what kind of writing is valued? The easiest
thing is always to follow on in the same style as what’s already
there, and perhaps that can lead to a kind of minimalist streamlining
which isn’t strictly necessary.

So I’d like to try and encourage more of the descriptive style
entries, while not at all discouraging the listing of bare facts which
are still much, much better than not getting around to it.

Then there’s the rest of the wiki – it’s not just a pub guide, by any means.
Rich descriptive pages have been added during the year about
importing a Czech fruit mill, Asturian campsites with cider, recipes
and a discussion of the pub sticker idea.

The forthcoming festivals and events page seemed to work quite well,
so 2005 has been hived off and 2006 is starting to fill up already.

Then there are several other pages which are essentially lists, some
of which are valuable resources in the same way as the pub guide, and
others have just begun and then not developed much.

So all in all it’s been a great year for ukcider, with membership of
the mailing list creeping upwards together with the amount of
conversation, lots of good advice and appreciation. I don’t know
what’s in store for us next year, but with any luck it will be more of
the same.

Best wishes to all,
–
Andy Roberts

http://www.ukcider.co.uk

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