# PINWIKI: 10 YEARS ON **Source:** Pinball News Website **Type:** article **Published:** 2021-04-30 **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** https://www.pinballnews.com/site/2021/04/30/pinwiki-10-years-on --- ## Analysis Pinball News retrospective on PinWiki's 10-year anniversary, founded in 2011 by Casey Gardner to fill the void left when PinRepair.com restricted access. The article profiles PinWiki's evolution from 37 articles to 484, its wiki-based model for collaborative repair documentation, key contributors, funding model (mostly self-funded by Gardner with donations), and future roadmap including video content and potential forum features. ### Key Claims - [HIGH] PinRepair.com removed large sections of repair guides from public access in April 2011, prompting PinWiki's creation — _Article opening establishes historical timeline_ - [HIGH] Casey Gardner launched PinWiki within 8 hours of the initial idea, responding to negativity in the online pinball community — _Direct quote from Casey Gardner_ - [HIGH] PinWiki has grown from placeholder pages to 484 articles covering repair, show schedules, machine fitting guides, and pinball history — _Multiple references to article counts and content scope_ - [HIGH] Casey Gardner personally covers majority of hosting, software, backend database, and security costs; accepts donations but maintains free access principle — _Direct quote from Casey Gardner on funding_ - [HIGH] WPC (Williams/Bally/Gottlieb) repair documentation is PinWiki's most popular page due to prevalence of those systems — _Casey Gardner statement about WPC popularity_ - [HIGH] Spooky Pinball has provided assistance with documentation; other manufacturers have helped sporadically — _Casey Gardner on manufacturer cooperation_ - [HIGH] More than 580 registered accounts created on PinWiki over 10 years — _Article states this as current fact_ - [HIGH] Chris Hibler, Jim Palson, and ForceFlow are the three major active contributors handling editorial review and content expansion — _Casey Gardner identifies core team members_ ### Notable Quotes > "There were a lot of mean things being said and disagreements between people in the community, which at the time was mainly on Rec.Games.Pinball. I wanted to refocus the energy of the community to a more positive one" > — **Casey Gardner** > _Reveals PinWiki's founding motivation as conflict resolution and community healing measure during hostile period_ > "Within 8 hours had the website active, and from there begun promoting it" > — **Casey Gardner** > _Demonstrates rapid execution and commitment when presented with community need_ > "No single person has all the repair knowledge to write it all themselves. The information on PinWiki was able to fill in quickly due to the support of many in the community contributing their specialties" > — **Casey Gardner** > _Core philosophy justifying wiki format over centralized authorship_ > "Pinball is not something of the past that is documented and completed. There is always new information that comes up and pinball continues to march on" > — **Casey Gardner** > _Explains why wiki model superior to static documentation for living, evolving hobby_ > "I have always deeply appreciated anyone who has taken time to contribute in any shape, way, or form to PinWiki" > — **Casey Gardner** > _Acknowledges contributor-driven model and community goodwill_ > "10 years ago we made a promise that there would never be any costs for the information, and we would not sell advertising space, and I hold that as a core value to PinWiki" > — **Casey Gardner** > _Establishes PinWiki's foundational non-commercial commitment and Gardner's personal financial sacrifice_ > "PinWiki's slogan is 'THE place for everything pinball', and while there is a lot of other information than just repair, there could be a lot more detail on the pages that exist" > — **Casey Gardner** > _Reveals ambitions beyond repair documentation and areas for community contribution_ > "We have an open offer to any manufacturer that if they would be willing to ship a game to us to strip down, document with detailed pictures of mechanisms, and ability to document deeper repair information, we will get it published" > — **Casey Gardner** > _Proactive strategy to close documentation gaps on newer manufacturer systems_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | PinWiki | product | Wiki-based collaborative platform for pinball repair information and related knowledge, founded 2011, now with 484 articles | | Casey Gardner | person | Founder and primary administrator of PinWiki; covers majority of operational and financial costs | | Chris Hibler | person | Core contributor to PinWiki since earliest days; major editor handling reviews and content management | | Jim Palson | person | Core contributor to PinWiki since earliest days; major editor handling documentation and licensing | | ForceFlow | person | Current major contributor to PinWiki; handles editorial review and content updates | | Chuck Hess | person | Early and ongoing PinWiki contributor | | Kerry Imming | person | Early and ongoing PinWiki contributor | | Lloyd Olson | person | Early and ongoing PinWiki contributor | | Richard Harvey | person | Early and ongoing PinWiki contributor; known as 'Firepower' in community | | PinRepair.com | product | Earlier pinball repair website (Clay's Guides/Marvin3M) that restricted public access to repair guides in April 2011, prompting PinWiki creation | | Rec.Games.Pinball | organization | Online discussion forum and early pinball community hub where negativity around repair websites prompted PinWiki idea | | Spooky Pinball | company | Modern pinball manufacturer that has provided documentation assistance to PinWiki | | Stern Pinball | company | Mass pinball manufacturer; sole manufacturer when PinWiki launched in 2011 | | Jersey Jack Pinball | company | Modern manufacturer emerged after PinWiki founding | | Dutch Pinball | company | Modern manufacturer emerged after PinWiki founding | | American Pinball | company | Modern manufacturer emerged after PinWiki founding | | Chicago Gaming | company | Modern manufacturer emerged after PinWiki founding | | Multimorphic | company | Modern manufacturer emerged after PinWiki founding | | Pinball News | organization | Independent pinball media outlet that carried original PinWiki coverage 10 years ago and conducted this retrospective interview | | Wikipedia | product | Referenced as successful example of wiki-based collaborative knowledge model | ### Topics - **Primary:** PinWiki history and milestones, Community-driven repair documentation, Wiki format advantages for collaborative knowledge, Modern pinball manufacturer proliferation and documentation challenges - **Secondary:** Sustainability and funding of free pinball resources, Future roadmap: video content, forums, interactive features, Manufacturer cooperation on documentation - **Mentioned:** Pinball community negativity and conflict resolution ### Sentiment **Positive** (0.85) — Article celebrates PinWiki's decade of service with appreciative tone toward Casey Gardner and contributors. Acknowledges challenges (manufacturer diversity, documentation gaps) but frames them as opportunities. No criticism or controversy present; entirely commemorative in nature. ### Signals - **[business_signal]** Proliferation of modern pinball manufacturers (12+ new makers since 2011) creating documentation burden and fragmentation; PinWiki struggling to keep pace with bespoke systems (confidence: high) — Article catalogs 11 new manufacturers since Stern monopoly in 2011; Casey notes newer systems less documented due to lower failure rates and limited hand-on access - **[community_signal]** PinWiki demonstrates sustained community commitment to knowledge preservation and accessibility; Casey Gardner's personal financial investment reflects passion-driven model for industry infrastructure (confidence: high) — Gardner covers majority of operational costs personally despite 10-year operation; maintains free access principle and refuses advertising - **[event_signal]** PinWiki 10-year milestone marks maturation of community-driven repair infrastructure from reactive response to systemic resource (confidence: high) — 484 articles, 580+ registered accounts, sustained contributor team over decade; establishment as 'THE place for everything pinball' - **[market_signal]** Shift from adversarial community dynamics (2011 Rec.Games.Pinball negativity) to collaborative knowledge-building; PinWiki positioned as healing response to conflict (confidence: high) — Casey Gardner quotes on motivation to 'refocus energy of the community to a more positive one' in face of 'mean things being said' - **[technology_signal]** Future content evolution toward multimedia: video documentation and interactive diagrams planned to supplement text-based repair guides (confidence: medium) — Casey Gardner mentions 'more interactive content such as video and better diagrams are in the works' for next decade --- ## Transcript Back in 2011, there was consternation amongst those who fix pinball machines at the loss of a valuable source of repair information. The [PinRepair.com](http://www.pinrepair.com/) website (a.k.a. Joshua Clay’s Guides or Marvin3M) was the go-to place for repair and restoration guides, but large sections of it covering the most popular systems were removed from public access in April of that year. Soon after, the [PinWiki website](https://www.pinwiki.com/wiki/) was launched not just to fill the void but also to provide detailed crowd-sourced, peer-reviewed information about how different manufacturers’ games operate and to offer repair tips gleaned by professionals and enthusiasts who regularly fix machines. PinWiki was the brainchild of Casey Gardner, and when the site launched Pinball News carried an [in-depth report](https://www.pinballnews.com/learn/pinwiki/index.html) on ethos behind it along with the aims and ambitions for growing both the level of detail and the scope of manufacturers’ systems covered. [![The Pinball News article from ten years ago](https://www.pinballnews.com/site/wp-content/uploads/learn/pinwiki-ten-years-on/04-pinwiki-ten-years-on-1024x576.jpg)](https://www.pinballnews.com/site/wp-content/uploads/learn/pinwiki-ten-years-on/04-pinwiki-ten-years-on.jpg) The Pinball News article from ten years ago As PinWiki completes its first decade, Pinball News looks at how the site has developed in the face of increased demand for repair help, the advances in technology and a seemingly never-ending growth in the number of pinball manufacturers, each with their own unique components and control systems. We asked Casey why he started PinWiki at a time when there was so much negativity and hostility towards repair websites in the online pinball community. [![Casey Gardner](https://www.pinballnews.com/site/wp-content/uploads/learn/pinwiki-ten-years-on/05-pinwiki-ten-years-on-768x1024.jpg)](https://www.pinballnews.com/site/wp-content/uploads/learn/pinwiki-ten-years-on/05-pinwiki-ten-years-on-scaled.jpg) Casey Gardner He told us, “*There were a lot of mean things being said and disagreements between people in the community, which at the time was mainly on [Rec.Games.Pinball](https://groups.google.com/g/rec.games.pinball). I wanted to refocus the energy of the community to a more positive one, towards an effort that addressed the complaints at the time. About 6-8 months prior to all of this I had already had the idea of wanting to launch a wiki format central website about pinball information, but it was more of a fantasy of mine at the time than a plan to do anything. When all of this went down I immediately stepped into action and within 8 hours had the website active, and from there begun promoting it.*“ Although the wiki format was well-known as a means of collating collaborative contributions thanks to sites such as Wikipedia, it was still a new concept for pinball resources. Online discussion forums such as Rec.Games.Pinball and, more recently, [Pinside](https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/list) have promoted a more personal and direct question-and-answer solution to pinball repair problems. Is a wiki format, which relies on contributors writing articles and users proactively searching them to find the relevant information, the best way to access repair information? Casey thinks using a Wiki format has a number of advantages. He said, “*The world has seen that wiki can be a proven method to gather a mass of information in one place when implemented correctly. No single person has all the repair knowledge to write it all themselves. Some of our contributors focus on clean up or formatting details, or finding holes of information to fill. The information on PinWiki was able to fill in quickly due to the support of many in the community contributing their specialties. I was also already familiar with MediaWiki and assisting in running and maintaining active wiki format communities from prior projects. It was a natural fit for me to get going and feel most comfortable keeping active and supporting the community with. Pinball is not something of the past that is documented and completed. There is always new information that comes up and pinball continues to march on. Static pages, or a ‘book of pinball’, will only be able to capture a moment in time.*“ [![The early days of PinWiki](https://www.pinballnews.com/site/wp-content/uploads/learn/pinwiki-ten-years-on/02-pinwiki-ten-years-on-734x1024.jpg)](https://www.pinballnews.com/site/wp-content/uploads/learn/pinwiki-ten-years-on/02-pinwiki-ten-years-on.jpg) The early days of PinWiki with 37 articles Once the idea had been turned into a wiki website, what happened then? How do you start creating content? Case told us the starting point was to define how the content would be arranged. And what was the first article to be added? He replied, “*Technically the home page, but there is no true way to define the answer to that question. Before I went live with PinWiki, I created a lot of placeholder pages just to help structure the formatting and location for the information to go. While PinWiki is most active on repair information, we do maintain other information, such as an active pinball show schedule page, “Will This Machine Fit In My Car” info, a history of pinball page, and more.*“ As Casey said earlier, nobody has all the repair knowledge. So, in order to start collating that knowledge through the wiki, a good number of knowledgeable repairers with a breadth of experience was needed to contribute tips, sections or entire articles. We asked him who were the early contributors who helped establish PinWiki as a valued resource. He said, “*I’m too afraid to miss someone’s name trying to recount a timeline of who stepped up and contributed early on. I have always deeply appreciated anyone who has taken time to contribute in any shape, way, or form to PinWiki. There are a few people that really stand out off the top of my head that really were/are core supporters. Chris Hibler and Jim Palson belong at the top of any shout out list. Both jumped on board with PinWiki from the earliest days and are still active to this day. I simply can’t say enough praise about them. They have been on the forefront of documentation, helping address any issues, and even getting permission to source certain information. We would not be where we are today without both of them, and 10 years of support has not gone unnoticed. Other people that really have contributed over the years in no particular order (still sure I’m forgetting names and if I do, I’m really, really sorry!) Chuck Hess, Kerry Imming, Lloyd Olson, Richard “Firepower” Harvey, Steve Kulpa, Ken Layton, Inkochnito and ForceFlow to name a few. If you’ve used PinWiki to look up information on ANY page, one or more of those people have helped shape that page.*“ [![](https://www.pinballnews.com/site/wp-content/uploads/learn/pinwiki-ten-years-on/03-pinwiki-ten-years-on-1024x480.jpg)](https://www.pinballnews.com/site/wp-content/uploads/learn/pinwiki-ten-years-on/03-pinwiki-ten-years-on.jpg) A sample of the repair information on PinWiki After being established for ten years, Casey is still the one managing the hosting, the software, the backend database and the site’s security and resilience. As far as content goes, many of those early contributors are still helping manage, update and expand the information available. Casey explained, “*From the front end, Chris Hibler, Jim Palson, and ForceFlow are the 3 major contributors on a frequent basis, whether it is reviewing edits that have been made, keeping show information up to date, or writing new documentation from their finds while doing repair work. I do contribute to information as time permits, but my focus is typically on ‘bigger picture’ items. Currently, we are reviewing some of our formatting processes and how we may want to evolve them going forward, as well as some other layout items to help make information easier to find.*“ As anyone who has run a website with a significant number of users, multiple image-rich pages and high data bandwidth knows, there are not insignificant financial costs associated with making all this information available to the public. With free access being one of the founding principles, who pays to keep the site up and running? Casey told us, “P*inWiki does accept donations to help cover some of the costs involved in keeping PinWiki running, however the majority of costs are covered by myself. 10 years ago we made a promise that there would never be any costs for the information, and we would not sell advertising space on the information hosted in the wiki, and I hold that as a core value to PinWiki. A lot of time has been spent streamlining backend services to keep the wiki running smoothly, stable, and still maintaining backups, but there is only so much that is possible. With our next server upgrade costs to maintain the website are going to increase some, but I do this for the passion of pinball, and PinWiki is here to stay.*“ [![The current front page with 484 articles](https://www.pinballnews.com/site/wp-content/uploads/learn/pinwiki-ten-years-on/01-pinwiki-ten-years-on-1024x783.jpg)](https://www.pinballnews.com/site/wp-content/uploads/learn/pinwiki-ten-years-on/01-pinwiki-ten-years-on.jpg) The current front page with 484 articles When PinWiki began, Stern Pinball were the only mass manufacturer of pinballs. Since then Jersey Jack Pinball, Spooky Pinball, Dutch Pinball, American Pinball, Chicago Gaming, Heighway Pinball, Suncoast Pinball, Multimorphic, Quetzal Pinball, Homepin, Team Pinball and Pinball Brothers have all manufactured games, all with bespoke parts and their own unique issues. How does a site like PinWiki keep across all these in addition to building the knowledge base on earlier manufacturers, while at the same time pushing ahead with the other ambitions for the site? Where is the most help from contributors currently needed? Casey explained how the team hope to get more hand-on experience with some of these newer systems so they can produce more definitive repair guides. He said, “*PinWiki’s slogan is ‘THE place for everything pinball’, and while there is a lot of other information than just repair, there could be a lot more detail on the pages that exist, and more topics covered. I personally would like to see the History section filled out. Currently as it sits it’s more a stub than a fully documented page. For the pinball repair section, more modern pinball machines have less documentation simply because its newer, has broken less, and therefore isn’t as well known yet. We have an open offer to any manufacturer that if they would be willing to ship a game to us to strip down, document with detailed pictures of mechanisms, and ability to document deeper repair information, we will get it published. We see this as a way to document these newer games now to help support them for years to come. Some other holes come from some of the more rare games. Atari and Capcom repair guide do have good information on them for example, but they do not have the complete polish that, say, our Williams WPC documentation has.*“ We asked if any of the manufacturers have provided help to document their system and learned that Spooky Pinball have been assistance to include details of their games. Casey explained, “*Spooky Pinball has helped us in the past, and we are going to be reaching out again soon to get more information. Charlie was an open book for questions and information and we greatly appreciate it, and everything they do. We are going to be reaching out again soon to get more information. Other manufacturers that we have reached out to have helped here and there, but not in a significant way. The company who owns the rights to the Gottlieb documentation gracefully made an agreement with us so that we can host additional information that otherwise would not have been legally able to be hosted.*“ The WPC repair page to which Casey referred above is also the most popular page on PinWiki. He told us so many games used the WPC system and many of them continue to be very popular. As a result, he said, there is a wealth of knowledge about that particular system out there. But to help bring the information about other manufacturers’ systems up to a similar level of depth, more contributions and assistance will be needed. There have been more than 580 registered accounts created in the past decade, with many offering help of various kinds. Casey told us how to get started. “*Anyone can sign up and create an account and begin contributing. There are several members along with myself that monitor edits and will make changes as needed, or give feedback to new members. Contributions can be documentation or simply helping clean up, keep up-to-date, or format pages.*“ Looking ahead to the next ten years, we asked if there are plans for any new features on the site or improvements to existing ones? Casey revealed, “*There are several avenues that I have interest in visiting. More interactive content such as video and better diagrams are in the works. Continuing to grow the ‘other’ content beyond repair would be phenomenal. In the early days we had experimented with hosting a forum but shut it down to focus on the growth of the wiki, which took a lot of time. The idea of relaunching a forum to host a heavily moderated repair focused discussion forum is being considered if the demand is there.*“ _(Acquisition: raw_text, Enrichment: v1)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 99175ba9-30df-48f2-b8ef-009783aaf098*