The WoWWiki or World of Warcraft Wiki was a
wiki
A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pu ...
about the ''
Warcraft
''Warcraft'' is a franchise of video games, novels, and other media created by Blizzard Entertainment. The series is made up of five core games: '' Warcraft: Orcs & Humans'', '' Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness'', '' Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos ...
''
fictional universe
A fictional universe, or fictional world, is a self-consistent setting with events, and often other elements, that differ from the real world. It may also be called an imagined, constructed, or fictional realm (or world). Fictional universes may ...
, and one of the largest wikis about a specific subject. It began as an independent project in November 2004, and in 2007 joined
Wikia
Fandom (formerly known as Wikicities before 2007 and later Wikia before 2019) is a wiki hosting service that hosts wikis mainly on entertainment topics (i.e. video games, TV series, movies, entertainers, etc.). Its domain is operated by Fandom, ...
. In late 2010, most of the administrators that were unhappy with Wikia-mandated changes started an independent
fork
In cutlery or kitchenware, a fork (from la, furca 'pitchfork') is a utensil, now usually made of metal, whose long handle terminates in a head that branches into several narrow and often slightly curved tines with which one can spear foods ei ...
known as
Wowpedia
Wowpedia is a wiki about the ''Warcraft'' fictional universe. It covers all of the ''Warcraft'' games, including the MMORPG ''World of Warcraft''. It is both a specialized wiki built around the ''Warcraft'' universe and a collaborative space f ...
. In May 2020, WoWWiki was archived and the wiki's userbase was merged into the much more active Wowpedia, somewhat reuniting the two communities once again.
History
WoWWiki.com was launched on November 24, 2004, the day after the release of ''
World of Warcraft
''World of Warcraft'' (''WoW'') is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) released in 2004 by Blizzard Entertainment. Set in the ''Warcraft'' fantasy universe, ''World of Warcraft'' takes place within the world of Azeroth ...
'' (WoW), as a source of information pertaining to ''WoW'' and the
interface modification suite Cosmos. The wiki later expanded to cover the entirety of the
Warcraft universe
''Warcraft'' is a franchise of video games, novels, and other media created by Blizzard Entertainment. The series is made up of five core games: '' Warcraft: Orcs & Humans'', '' Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness'', '' Warcraft III: Reign of Chao ...
, including
RTS
RTS may refer to:
Medicine
* Rape trauma syndrome, the psychological trauma experienced by a rape victim
* Revised Trauma Score, a system to evaluate injuries secondary to violent trauma
* Rubinstein–Taybi syndrome, a condition characterized by ...
games, novels, RPG reference books, manga,
and other written sources, along with the ''WoW'' expansion packs. At various points in its development history, it was described as the "best known
MMO wiki",
"the second largest English-language wiki in the world behind Wikipedia",
and the "mother of all WoW informational sources."
On May 2, 2007, it was announced that WoWWiki would be moving to
Wikia
Fandom (formerly known as Wikicities before 2007 and later Wikia before 2019) is a wiki hosting service that hosts wikis mainly on entertainment topics (i.e. video games, TV series, movies, entertainers, etc.). Its domain is operated by Fandom, ...
, a for-profit
wiki-hosting company.
In September 2009, WoWWiki was noted as Wikia's largest wiki at that time.
On November 1, 2010, in an interview with the ''
Toronto Star
The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. The newspaper is the country's largest daily newspaper by circulation. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and part ...
'',
Jimmy Wales
Jimmy Donal Wales (born August 7, 1966), also known on Wikipedia by the pseudonym Jimbo, is an American-British Internet entrepreneur, webmaster, and former financial trader. He is a co-founder of the online non-profit encyclopedia Wikipedi ...
described sites in entertainment and gaming as the most popular part of Wikia, stating that "in gaming, every major video game has a huge wiki about it. World of Warcraft is probably the biggest. ... Just for that particular wiki alone, I think we see 4 to 5 million people a month."
Research
In March 2008,
SXSW
South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Te ...
held a panel on "How Gamers are Adopting the Wiki Way", which heavily featured WoWWiki and focused on the wiki as a collaborative strategy space for players.
In a 2009 article, Lee Sherlock argued that WoWWiki constituted a collaborative writing genre, distinct from forums and walkthroughs (e.g.
GameFAQs
GameFAQs is a website that hosts FAQs and walkthroughs for video games. It was created in November 1995 by Jeff Veasey and was bought by CNET Networks in May 2003. It is currently owned by Fandom, Inc. since October 2022. The site has a databa ...
).
Rik Hunter treated WoWWiki as a fan "
affinity space
An affinity space is a place where learning happens. According to James Paul Gee, affinity spaces are locations where groups of people are drawn together because of a shared, strong interest or engagement in a common activity. Often but not alway ...
". Both Sherlock and Hunter argued that WoWWiki was a primary example of a broader trend in digital media where consumers and users became producers of information.
More recently, Hunter has analyzed talk pages for patterns of collaboration and suggests that "Successful collaborative writing on WoWWiki is a result of writers sharing common 'habits of mind,' and collaboration can be disrupted by those who hold more author-centric perspectives of textual ownership."
In a follow up article, Hunter further analyzed talk pages to "describe a model of writing that accounts for ''readers-as-writers''."
Faltin Karlsen saw WoWWiki's size and complexity as evidence for the scale of emergent complexity in massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) like ''World of Warcraft''.
Wowpedia
In late 2010, Wikia introduced a new fixed-width skin, which caused layout issues with many articles and broke JavaScript-based features such as tooltips as well as generating reports of eye strain and headaches. The dispute with Wikia led some of the WoWWiki community to seek a different host. As a result, the content and article edit history was
forked by duplicating the WoWWiki database on 20 October 2010. Most of the administrators of WoWWiki, as well as the other active contributors, moved to a new site called Wowpedia, which was announced shortly thereafter.
Ex-WoWWiki Admins Join Curse to Create Wowpedia - Curse
/ref>
See also
* List of online encyclopedias
This is a list of well-known online encyclopedias—i.e., encyclopedias accessible or formerly accessible on the Internet.
The largest online encyclopedias are general reference works, though there are also many specialized ones. Some online ency ...
* List of wikis
This article contains a list of notable wikis, which are websites that use wiki software, allowing users to collaboratively edit content and view old versions of the content. These websites use several different wiki software packages.
Table
...
References
External links
* WoWWiki
The WoWWiki or World of Warcraft Wiki was a wiki about the ''Warcraft'' fictional universe, and one of the largest wikis about a specific subject. It began as an independent project in November 2004, and in 2007 joined Wikia. In late 2010, most o ...
on WoWWiki, a ''Warcraft'' wiki
{{Wikia topics
Internet properties established in 2004
Fandom (website) wikis
Warcraft
Video game fansites