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Wikia information ↑
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Monitoring | Target audience | Account set-up | Official status | Brief history
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| Website maintenance and monitoring
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WoWWiki is an encyclopedic database — dedicated to documenting all information about the Warcraft franchise (with a primary focus on World of Warcraft) — which is edited and maintained by the general public, either anonymously or through an account. The information on WoWWiki and its social features are monitored through post-moderation mainly by uncompensated volunteers from the community who are selected on trustworthiness and experience; meaning that, although action is always taken against any inappropriate material, such action may be delayed.
WoWWiki is hosted by Wikia, a San Francisco-based wiki platform hosting and development company, and is thus monitored closely by Wikia staff and representatives. Both WoWWiki and Wikia adhere to U.S. federal and applicable state laws to ensure the best security and experience for WoWWiki's users.
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| Target audience ⇑
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As a Wikia hosted wiki, WoWWiki adheres to federal law and is therefore only available for use by users above the age of 13 years old, in accordance with the U.S. Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). In general, all content should be suitable for all users 13 years old and above, but as with any user editable web site that allows discussion about its content, some comments, mature discussion, or vandalism may appear. Administrators and moderators attempt timely removal of problematic content, but a largely volunteer effort, there may be some delay. Also, due the nature of how a wiki archives change information, offensive content may still be accessible to the sophisticated user.
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| Account set-up and cost ⇑
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A registered account is not needed to read any Wikia sites, including WoWWiki, but account creation enriches the experience through extra features such as social modules and reduced website advertisements. WoWWiki allows users without an account to edit its content, but displays that user's IP address publicly as a measure of recognizing who edited what and when. Accounts can be made for anyone above the age of 13 years old, but WoWWiki requires the user's date of birth and email address for confirmation. WoWWiki is free of charge to all users, with or without an account.
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| Non-official status ⇑
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| WoWWiki is not affiliated with or endorsed by Blizzard Entertainment ("Blizzard"), Activision-Blizzard Inc. ("Activision", the parent company of Blizzard), and is therefore not an officially sanctioned World of Warcraft reference website. WoWWiki gathers and publishes all World of Warcraft related information through the fair use doctrine under US federal copyright laws. However, Blizzard does grant rights to use its contentUSEU under broad, but limited circumstances.
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| Brief history ⇑
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| WoWWiki has been around for 10 years as of 2015 and was one of the largest English-language wikis in the world after only a few years of existence. It began as a small wiki run by only a couple of users and hosted privately. However, after the first year of 2005, it was clear that WoWWiki was growing too fast to be maintained without professional infrastructure and maintenance. In the spring of 2007, WoWWiki was moved to Wikia as its host.[1] By 2009, WoWWiki was Wikia's largest wiki.[2]
According to Wikipedia, at various points in its development history, it was described as the "best known MMO wiki",[3] "the second largest English-language wiki in the world behind Wikipedia",[4] and the "mother of all WoW informational sources."[5]
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| References ⇑
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