Gunsopedia:About

We even have a logo and everything... :P

	This page contains information that is severely out of date and should be updated. See this page's discussion page for more information.

Gunsopedia, originally started off as something called the "GOROLE" (variously pronounced "GO'-role," "GOR'-ull," "guh-ROLE'," or even, sometimes, like something vaguely obscene in some jurisdictions) which was the acronym for the Gun Owners' Resource OnLine Encyclopedia. It was a good idea, but a damn clunky name.

GP's powered by Wikimedia software (the same stuff that runs the famous Wikipedia website) and as such, is something that anyone can contribute to. You will find very few locked pages in any of the articles in this collection of information.

A little history

The GOROLE's parent website, GunOwnersResource.com, was started in late June of 2007 by a guy from London, Ontario, Canada who had a lifelong fondness for guns and the shooting sports and — according to far too many sources — entirely too much time on his hands.

The beginning

While gunownersresource.com was originally intended as an online resource to be run under a Joomla CMS platform, it quickly became apparent that something more dynamic and user-driven was going to be needed if such a mountain of knowledge was ever to be scaled with any hope of success. To that end, the Wikimedia software was installed in late August 2007 and our first article ever (the Remington 870, I think it was, but can't honestly remember now) was available online on the 21st of the month. Months later, the database had swelled to more than 1200 pages, with nearly 500 media files.

The crash

Then, on the 11th of May, 2008, disaster struck.

A routine update of the software that powers the site went awry, causing corruption in the database. Initially, this was only a minor annoyance. Database backups were performed regularly using automated scripts kept in secure areas of the server and the entire file structure was backed up weekly. Even if we had to exercise the "nuclear option," all that would be lost would be a few kilobytes of information which could be easily replaced.

Or so we thought.

A syntax error in the backup scripts had resulted in backups of the database structure and tables being performed every 72 hours, just like planned, but backups of the database contents being performed not at all!! This revelation was quickly followed by the predictable sequence of events...

• Denial that something so utterly simple as a syntax error could have resulted in us being in such a vulnerable position.
• Anger at anything that moved and had the gall to ask "well, why didn't you just ______?" (This stage also eventually led to the eating through of nearly 5,000 rounds of ammunition at two of our favourite ranges as we tried to vent our frustrations.)
• Bargaining with God, Vishnu, Zeus, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Bill Gates and anyone or anything else that might get us out of the mess we were in. Nobody ever got back to us.
• Depression as we cracked a few beers and broke out the 151 rum and kicked ourselves in the backsides over how we ever managed to get into such a gawdawful situation in the first place.
• Acceptance as we finally got it through our heads that what was gone wasn't coming back unless we put it back ourselves. The hard way. One article at a time.

And so it went until now. As these words are being entered online (March 17, 2013), we're in the middle of setting ourselves up on a new server under the gunsopedia.com domain name and importing over 7,000 pages and 2,000 files from the old server. Feel free to take a look at the Main Page to see what we've accomplished since.

Free service

Gunsopedia is now, and will always remain, a an absolutely free service for anyone who wishes to access it. No user fees, no subscriptions, nothing. We also DO NOT solicit donations of support through spam emails or other mass contact methods. So, if you get an email or something like that claiming to be from us, IGNORE IT. We don't do that kind of stuff. Ever.

While we may, at some point in the future, start taking donations to help cover the costs of maintaining this domain, we just plain haven't gotten around to that yet. We've been too busy trying to stuff this site full of goodies that people can actually use.

Who comes here?

We're glad you asked. According to Google Analytics, about half of our visitors are from the USA, a quarter are from Canada and the rest are from... well, just about everywhere.