Business & Tech

George Mason Student Writing 'Fairfaxpedia'

The online encyclopedia would be a one-stop shop for information on Fairfax County.

An 18-year-old George Mason University student is working on an online encyclopedia of Fairfax County.

“The whole idea is to have everything about Fairfax County right there,” said Frank Muraca, who is originally from Charlottesville.

Muraca got the idea to start the Wikipedia-style 'Fairfaxpedia' site for Fairfax County while working as an intern over the summer in his hometown. The news organization where he was working, the Charlottesville Tomorrow for had a similar catologue, and Muraca wanted to provide the same resource for his college town.

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Getting Fairfaxpedia up and running wasn’t easy for Muraca. As an economics major, Muraca did not have any experience designing or building websites.

“It was challenging,” Muraca said. “A lot of trial and error.”

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Muraca started on the project in last September. He estimates he spent about 70 hours working on the base of the site. Wikipedia allows users to create a site in the same style as Wikipedia using “MediaWiki,” a free software open source package.

Muraca hopes to keep the site ad-free, though he did add that if it were to become successful he would consider taking donations to pay for site maintenance fees. He said that he does not have any interest in being involved in web production after he graduates, instead he would want to go to graduate school and study economics.

Now that the structure of the site is completed with 29 entries so far, Muraca is hoping to expand that information. Users can create an account and update articles on all Fairfax County topics. He is now reaching out to local elected officials, historians, and residents who just have an interest to update the site.

“Right now it’s just finding the right people,” Muraca said.

To find out how to participate, visit Fairfaxpedia.


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