WoWWiki is a wiki dedicated to cataloging Blizzard Entertainment's Warcraft universe (with a focus, though not priority, on World of Warcraft); covering the entire Warcraft series of games, RPG reference books, strategy guides, novels, comics (manga and otherwise), and other sources.
About WoWWiki
The wiki is a flexible, user-editable web-based database of information made up entirely of user contributions, and uses MediaWiki software. All the text in the wiki is released under the Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license and to be able to edit the articles, visitors must register with the website.
So why a Warcraft wiki? As you are going through looking for information, if you see something that is incorrect, you can correct it. If you see any information that is missing, you can add it. This way, the information here should be as up to date as possible, instead of having to wait for a small group of people to update the information as the world changes. The more people that use WoWWiki, the more up-to-date the information will be!
- WoWWiki is not a copy of Wikipedia — we do many things differently.
- The WoW community often uses slang terms, which is in part reflected here. In addition, you may occasionally find information here on some articles that is decidedly not NPOV.
- Wiki is not a religion here, it is a way of editing.
- We strive to be as "lore-neutral" as possible. We do not decide what is "official" and what is not — that is Blizzard's job. We record the known information and try to present all sides of any valid controversy. Check our lore policy for further details.
- We do not always flag spoilers — if new information has come out it will be added to the wiki.
- We aim to produce easily navigated, high quality articles.
History and background
WoWWiki.com was launched on November 24th 2004 by Rustak, in conjunction with AlexanderYoshi, as a source of information pertaining to World of Warcraft and the interface modification suite Cosmos.[1] The WoWWiki name actually pre-dates Wikia which didn't get its name until 2006.[2] WoWWiki actually also slightly pre-dates the famous Star Wars wiki (Wookieepedia) by a few months,[3] although Wookieepedia was involved with Wikia much earlier and was considered by some to be a spinout of Wikipedia.
Since the launch, the wiki has expanded massively to cover the entirety of the Warcraft universe, including the RTS games, novels, graphic novels (manga/manhwa), the RPG reference books, the TCG, the and other written sources, along with the WoW expansion packs, World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria, and World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor. WoWWiki also includes information about upcoming expansions, such as World of Warcraft: Legion.
It is also a primary and popular source for World of Warcraft interface customization and AddOn information (such as Cosmos) as Blizzard Entertainment themselves do not release documentation on the programming interface,[4] They do however release documentation on the programming interface to access some data from their websites.[5]
On May 2nd 2007, it was announced that WoWWiki would be moving to Wikia, joining major wikis such as Memory Alpha, Wookieepedia and Uncyclopedia. This move occurred two weeks later.
Wowpedia was forked off of WoWWiki on October 20th 2010, after the majority of the administrators and many of the members in the community chose to leave Wikia. Wikia decided to leave WoWWiki open despite the losses, although it had a very low rate of activity for a period of months after the split.
WoWWiki currently runs on MediaWiki 1.39.7.
See Special:Version for further details and a list of our installed extensions.
Mobile community app
WoWWiki communities
You can find a WoWWiki friends group on Facebook.
You can also 'like' WoWWiki at it's page on Facebook at WoWWiki.
You can follow WoWWiki on Twitter!
You can also see the last 25 tweets here: WoWWiki:Twitter feed.
Trivia
- The name is a portmanteau of the acronym WoW (for World of Warcraft) and wiki.
- Highly rated on StumbleUpon.[6]
- Noted source for tips and tricks.[7]
WoWWiki in the media
- WoWWiki is frequently cited as a source on the popular WoW blog, WoW Insider.[8]
- We have been cited by Jimmy Wales as an example of a successful wiki.[9]
- We were noted in a Kotaku Gaming.Wikia article on 28th June 2007.[10]
- We have been mentioned in several gaming publications, including PC Gamer UK.
- WoWWiki's Kirkburn was able to speak at SXSW on the topic of wikis as well as WoWWiki.[11]
- Gaming web journalists look to the website for collected community feedback, info and rumors:
Statistics
- WoWWiki has:
- 106,204 content pages.
- 75,207 images.
You can check out the latest statistics here on WoWWiki and (approximate) popularity statistics on Alexa here.
Ownership and administration
WoWWiki is run by Fandom.
For issues directly related to wiki content, contact one of the administrators:
Active
- Fandyllic (talk) – One of the founding admins. A bureaucrat.
- Celess22 (talk) – WoW API/development expert and lately, fixer of old javascript, portals, and templates.
- Sitb (talk) – Assigned to WoWWiki as Wiki Manager. Acts as a liaison between users and full-time Fandom staff. Previously an admin on the wiki, before becoming staff.
Semi-active
- ...
Former
- Lil' Miss Rarity (talk; previously known as Icecreamcaekbot) – Javascript fixer. Was a temporary admin for Javascript issues.
Inactive
- Bubsy87 (talk) – Caffeine Junkie!
- Last edited July 2011.
- Kirkburn – Wikia staff. One of the founding admins.
- Inactive.
- Macrophager (talk) – Canadian WoW Mount expert.
- Last edited November 2014.
- Servian (talk) – Wannabe Fixer of Worlds.
- Last edited December 2014.
- Tankingmage (talk) – Local Aussie and lore expert.
- Last edited October 2014.
- Raylan13 (talk) – Was assigned to WoWWiki primarily for updates and as a liaison to WoWWiki from Wikia.
- Frejya – Raylan13's personal account from before becoming Wikia staff.
- Last edited January 2019.
See also
- Community portal
- WoWWiki FAQ
- Category:WoWWiki
- The policies and guidelines
- Wikis for forks and other language versions of WoWWiki
References
- ^ First edit of the Main Page. Retrieved on 2007-07-25.
- ^ History section of the Wikia article
- ^ Started in March 2005 according to Wookieepedia at the Star Wars wiki
- ^ Bad/old link Blizzard's programming interface policy. Retrieved on 2007-07-25.
- ^ Battle.net API
- ^ WoWWiki on StumbleUpon. Retrieved on 2014-02-06.
- ^ World of Warcraft - FAQ/guide. Retrieved on 2014-02-06.
- ^ "WoWWiki" search on WoW Insider. Retrieved on 2011-06-16.
- ^ CIO.com interview with Jimmy Wales - "Five Things Wikipedia's Founder Has Learned About Online Collaboration". Retrieved on 2007-07-25.
- ^ Kotaku - "Games Get Wikia With It". Retrieved on 2007-07-25.
- ^ SXSW 08 - How gamers are adopting the wiki way
- ^ a b As of 3-Nov-2016. WoWWiki cannot be distinguished from Wikia anymore.