Information Please Re Patterns

I read a few years ago that this wiki was started as a repository of programming patterns.

I always wondered what these are and I'd like to know more.

Can anyone explain to me two things:

a)What are programming patterns?

They are idiomatic and useful arrangements of program components or software architecture that appear again and again and again. See DesignPatterns and PatternIndex.

b)Why is it that the original patterns idea never took off?

Actually, it did.