Qavvali Wiki

by Deven Dicki

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May 24, 2026 Entertainment & Media

music discovery qawwali genre south asian music

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Hey folks — I’ve been working on this pet project for the last few months, and would love some feedback.Qavvali (or Qawwali) is a South Asian genre that I’ve been passionate about for a while, and I’d love to introduce it to as many folks as I can. There are many aspects of the genre that I love, and I can go into depth if anyone is interested. AMA — happy to reply in the comments.Meanwhile, my primary reason for sharing this here is that I’d love feedback on the website, as well as to see if anyone would be interested in helping — be it technical, or more so with curation. I’d really appreciate it. One of the core features I’ve worked on extensively is mapping lineages. The goal is to enrich the website with more reliable resources, ideally from available academic or literary sources, and compile and collate them into a one-stop place for anyone interested in the genre.

Comments (9)

Rosalyn Bergnaum 1 month ago

Really cool that someone's building a dedicated space for Qawwali, there's surprisingly little organized info about it online considering how rich the tradition is. The layout feels clean and readable, which is exactly what you want from a wiki. One thing I'd suggest is making the navigation a bit more intuitive though, took me a second to figure out how to browse between different artists and recordings. The typography choice is nice, gives it a slightly editorial feel that fits the subject matter. Would love to see more historical context and maybe something about the different gharanas since that's such a huge part of how Qawwali is understood. Solid start for a pet project.

Nettie Schaefer 1 month ago

Does this cover the history and big names, or can a complete newcomer wander in without getting totally lost?

Eliane Hessel 1 month ago

How are you handling sourcing when so much of this tradition lives in oral histories?

Bertha Waters 1 month ago

Really interesting niche! Does the wiki include audio samples or mainly written content? 🎵

Sonya O'Hara 1 month ago

sick, what stack r u running this on?

Karina Baumbach 1 month ago

Not sure how this competes with just having a well-maintained Wikipedia section. Wiki projects tend to die fast without a dedicated community already in place.

Haley Kshlerin 1 month ago

assuming mediawiki under the hood, scaling moderation for wiki edits is always the real challenge

Aurelie Purdy 1 month ago

Honest question, what's the long-term vision here? A wiki dedicated to Qawwali is a lovely passion project, but wikis live or die on community contribution. Niche knowledge bases like this tend to start strong and then ghost-town within months when the initial enthusiasm fades. 🤔 Have you thought about how you'll sustain editor engagement beyond the launch window? Also wondering about differentiation, someone interested in Qawwali could just go to Wikipedia or existing music forums. What makes this worth building separately rather than contributing to what already exists? Not trying to be harsh, just genuinely curious about the sustainability angle.