Zwikipedia is Clint Zehner's personal encyclopedia, long-form portfolio, and home for writing about subjects that interest him. It brings together the projects he makes, fictional worlds related to those projects, and other ideas worth exploring. An article can take the space its subject needs, whether that means explaining a piece of software, documenting an imaginary band, or following the thought that led to either of them.1
The site is designed as an alternate-universe version of an encyclopedia. Its subjects include Arcana University, Sisters Erie, and the world of Crossroads, alongside real projects such as Atypical Alchemist, Carbs of the Huge Manatee, and the Zwolf Personal Intranet. The connections are part of the point.1 2
Days since the last new project
Clint's interests range across science, artificial intelligence, design, music, magic systems, history, humor, and whatever else catches his attention. He tends to find connections among those subjects—and sometimes creates a connection because he wants to see where it goes.6
He has a running joke with Apollo, his name for ChatGPT, that he needs a website counter labeled “Days Since Clint Came Up With a New Project.” Eventually he realized the old <blink> tag could do the job: just make it flash 0.6
Zwikipedia gives those ideas somewhere to develop without each one requiring another domain purchase. A passing thought can become an article, acquire related material, and grow as far as its subject needs within the same site.6
More room than a portfolio caption
A portfolio image can show that something was made. The story of making it may need pages of its own.
Carbs of the Huge Manatee includes physical card expansions, selling online, a cease-and-desist notice, abandoned attempts to build an online game, and a later return when AI tools could carry more of the work. Atypical Alchemist involves a collection, custom-built shelves, historical objects, kitchen experiments, and a website. Reducing either to a thumbnail and a short description would leave much of the interesting work outside the frame.1 3
Zwikipedia gives those projects room to have histories. The technology can be explained alongside the design decisions, mistakes, frustrations, and unexpected turns that made a project take its particular form.1
An encyclopedia from another universe
Some of Clint's projects benefit from writing as though their subjects already exist. A university needs an academic identity, a town needs a history, and a band needs more than a logo before its website feels like a record of people doing something.1 4
The fictional articles provide that reference layer. Silver Hollow has an industrial past, an arts community, and a university whose arrival changes the local economy. Sisters Erie have family relationships, tours, songs, and releases. The entries allow those details to be explored in the voice of an encyclopedia from their world.2
Crossroads supplies a setting for the broader “what if?” questions: worlds meeting, different kinds of magic working, and Clint developing his own takes on material that inspired him. The encyclopedia gives those ideas somewhere to become connected accounts rather than isolated notes.1
The band and the person making the band
The reference view is only one way into a subject. Running Underhill can be read as a Sisters Erie song, through the tale its lyrics tell, or through Clint's account of making it.
Those routes answer different questions. The song article describes its place in the band's world. The story follows Maeve and Cian. The making-of article explains the original Kate Bush idea, the development of a new tale, frustrating cover attempts, the pivot to an original composition, and the choice between generated versions.4
An album may consequently have a fictional release year and a separate, much later real-world production history. A creative decision can belong to Clint's expanded continuity while the originating author's work retains its own history. Making the distinction clear allows the articles to link to one another without blurring their subjects.4 5
A collection with room to wander
The site also has room for something that does not belong to an existing portfolio category. Clint's stated scope includes anything he wants to write about that sounds interesting. An unusual object, a design problem, a piece of music, or a question raised by another project can be a sufficient starting point.1
That makes browsing part of the experience. A reader might arrive through a fictional university and continue into its home town, or through a personal software tool and discover the development method that grew alongside it. Someone interested in the finished work can stay with it; someone interested in how it happened can follow the creation account.
Building the collection
Zwikipedia's articles develop through drafting, Clint's context and corrections, rewriting, and further editing. His response to the early project articles established a useful standard: they should be interesting and fun, demonstrate the actual skill and technology involved, and avoid overstating what he has done.1
The site itself is another of those projects. Building Zwikipedia follows the work of making an encyclopedia that can hold long portfolio stories, fictional reference material, and the connections between them.