Community:Zelda Wiki
Zelda Wiki is an independent English-language wiki dedicated to The Legend of Zelda series. The site is a founding member of the Nintendo Independent Wiki Alliance (NIWA) and the oldest active wiki for the Zelda franchise.
The wiki was founded by members of Zelda Universe. In 2017, Linkorporated (Zelda Universe's company) sold Zelda Wiki to Curse, whose media assets were in turn acquired by Fandom the following year. On October 19, 2022, Zelda Wiki forked away from Fandom to reclaim independence.[2] The site's current domain is owned by members of the Zelda Wiki staff. The wiki's servers are operated by the owner of StrategyWiki, a longtime affiliate and fellow NIWA member.
History
2005–2006: Foundation
The original Zelda Universe Wiki (ZUW) was created as an "act of boredom" in April 2005. Yami and Jess suggested the idea in the ZU chat room, where it was created and assembled. The ZUW was quickly filled with information, not only about The Legend of Zelda series, but also about Zelda Universe and its community. It was also to be used to host Zelda Universe's Zelda Encyclopedia. On an older version of ZU, the encyclopedia existed as a list of words from The Legend of Zelda series with short definitions; with the help of the ZUW, the Zelda Encyclopedia expanded and became much more detailed as well. The Zelda Universe Wiki served Zelda Universe for over a year, before it crashed during a server move.
In September 2006 the Wiki was moved to another new server, with a new philosophy and under a new name. The name initially chosen was The Zelda Effect (TZE),[3] however this was quickly changed to Zelda Wiki.org (ZW.org).[4] The site was run at the time by the wiki's admin team, as well as the masterminds, a group of webmasters from each accepted fansite.
2006–2013: Masterminds
From 2006 to 2013, Zelda Wiki was collectively governed by a federation of The Legend of Zelda fansites named Masterminds. Key staff members of Mastermind sites were granted bureaucrat privileges on the wiki.
Mastermind | Dates | Webmaster(s) |
---|---|---|
April 23, 2005 – 2013 | Jess Rappaport | |
September 26, 2006 – January 18, 2009 | Fury Three, Tempest, and Captain Cornflake | |
September 26, 2006 – January 15, 2008 | Dave | |
Just Zelda | September 26, 2006 – April 9, 2008 | |
The Forbidden One | September 26, 2006 – March 24, 2007 | |
The Temple Ruins | September 26, 2006 – January 18, 2009 | |
The Zelda Chronicles | September 26, 2006 – March 24, 2007 | |
September 26, 2006 – January 15, 2008 | Victor Williams | |
September 26, 2006 – December 14, 2007 April 20, 2008 – March 30, 2009 April 1, 2009 – October 31, 2011 | Mases Hagopian | |
Zelda Insider | September 26, 2006 – January 15, 2008 | |
Zelda Oracles | September 26, 2006 – January 15, 2008 January 18, 2008 – January 21, 2009 | Henhouse and The Burning Link |
September 26, 2006 – January 10, 2007 | Skermefaten and AppHunter | |
September 28, 2006 – January 18, 2008 April 27, 2008 – July 9, 2008 | Link and Kaynil | |
5 Rupees | January 10, 2007 – March 23, 2007 | |
Twilight Plains | January 15, 2007 – January 15, 2008 | |
February 13, 2007 – January 18, 2009 | Nathanial Rumphol-Janc and EA | |
Forsaken Legend | February 15, 2007 – January 18, 2008 July 9, 2008 – January 18, 2009 | Sam Brereton |
July 28, 2007 – August 24, 2011 | Dennis Wyman, Ilmari Arnkil, and Phil Stetson | |
September 20, 2008 – July 2, 2010 | davogones, Khuffie, and lord-of-shadow | |
December 27, 2008 – 2013 | Dustin and Tappy | |
April 15, 2009 – August 11, 2009 September 5, 2010 – October 31, 2011 | Amy Bolduc, Jake Johnson, and Tin_Man | |
Xero Gaming (formerly Legend of Zelda.com) | April 29, 2009 – March 4, 2012 | Link of Hyrule, Last Chance, and Xizor |
May 4, 2009 – August 7, 2011 | Lysia | |
June 8, 2009 – 2013 | DekuLink | |
June 23, 2009 – July 3, 2009 | Vincent | |
March 10, 2010 – 2013 | Noah Glaser | |
September 6, 2010 – 2013 | Autydi | |
January 16, 2011 – 2013 | Mike and Skermefaten |
On July 8, 2007, Zelda Wiki staff began patrolling edits to maintain its quality standards.[5]
In November 2008, Open Court Publishing Company published The Legend of Zelda and Philosophy: I Link Therefore I Am. In its front matter, the book referred readers to Zelda Wiki.[6]
On August 14 2009, Zelda Wiki received LegendOfZelda.com's Pinnacle award, given to the overall best site for the last year.[7] LegendOfZelda.com had become one of Zelda Wiki's Masterminds earlier that year.
In 2010,[when?] co-founded the Nintendo Independent Wiki Alliance along with Bulbapedia and Super Mario Wiki.
On January 17, 2011, members of the wiki voted on a name change where it was decided that Zelda Wiki.org (ZW.org) would simply become Zelda Wiki (ZW).
2017–2022: Gamepedia and Fandom Ownership
On March 8, 2017, Zelda Wiki was migrated to the Gamepedia wiki farm as a result of Curse's purchase of the site from Linkorporated.[8]
On December 12, 2018, Gamepedia was acquired by Fandom and went under common ownership with Zeldapedia. The latter merged with Zelda Wiki on June 15, 2019; two years later the wiki migrated its domain once again to zelda.fandom.com; that same year also saw the wiki switch to FandomDesktop as a skin.[9][10][11]
2022–Present: Independence
On October 19, 2022, Zelda Wiki officially announced its departure from Fandom.[2] Its staff created a fork to be hosted by the owner of StrategyWiki. The move was covered by several gaming news sites including Kotaku and GamesRadar+.[12][13]
The fork was briefly named Zeldapedia until January 17, 2023, when the site went back to using the name Zelda Wiki.
Achievements
- In issue 53 of the Official Nintendo Magazine UK and issue 16 of the Official Nintendo Magazine Australia and New Zealand, Zelda Wiki and two of its mastermind sites—Zelda Universe and ZeldaInformer—were referred to readers.
If we've piqued your interest in further Zelda timeline discussion, there are loads of fansites out there expanding on some of the theories we've discussed here. Here are a few good starting points:
www.zeldauniverse.net, www.zeldawiki.org, www.zeldainformer.com
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Pages 098 and 099 of ONM UK
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Close up of the referral in ONM UK
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Page 51 of ONM AUS&NZ
Partnerships
Partner Fansites
Zelda Wiki retains a partnership with its founder Zelda Universe. Zelda Wiki's game articles refer readers to Zelda Universe guides. A link to Zelda Wiki is featured prominently in Zelda Universe's global site navigation.
Partner Wikis
Zelda Wiki is a member of the Nintendo Independent Wiki Alliance (NIWA), a network which it co-founded with Bulbapedia and Super Mario Wiki. As such, Zelda Wiki has a interwiki link affiliation with all NIWA member wikis.
Zelda Wiki has a special affiliation with fellow NIWA member StrategyWiki. The two wikis link to each other in their articles pertaining to The Legend of Zelda games, bosses, and dungeons. Since October 22, Zelda Wiki is hosted on ABXY, StrategyWiki's own hosting platform.
Zelda Wiki has interlanguage link agreements with the following wikis:
Site | Language |
---|---|
Zeldapendium | German |
Statistics
Zelda Wiki has:
- 15,664 articles
- 51,681 media files
- 28,474 registered users
Gallery
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Zelda Wiki's main page in 2008
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Zelda Wiki's main page in 2016
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Zelda Wiki's main page in 2021
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Groose Wiki, as seen on April 1st, 2012
Holiday Logos
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Easter
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Halloween
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Christmas and New Year
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Groose Wiki
See Also
References
- ↑ Zelda Wiki's inaugural edit , .
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Our time has come to reclaim independence. , Twitter.
- ↑ Revision 17296 of Zelda Wiki:About
- ↑ Revision 17468 of Zelda Wiki:About
- ↑ https://zeldawiki.wiki/wiki/Special:Log?type=patrol&user=&page=Building+Your+Timeline&wpdate=2007-07-09
- ↑ "Want to know anything about the Zelda franchise, anything at all? Just look it up on zeldawiki.org - an online Zelda encyclopedia." (The Legend of Zelda and Philosophy: I Link Therefore I Am, Open Court Publishing Company, pg. xiii)
- ↑ The Pinnacle , LegendOfZelda.com.
- ↑ Zelda Wiki is joining Gamepedia , Gamepedia Help Wiki.
- ↑ Announcement to all Editors , Zeldapedia.
- ↑ Official Crossover Voting Thread , Zeldapedia.
- ↑ The Future of Gamepedia , Community Central.
- ↑ Massive Zelda Wiki Reclaims Independence Six Months Before Tears of the Kingdom , Kotaku, published October 21, 2022, retrieved January 18, 2023.
- ↑ The biggest Zelda wiki goes independent to fight "corporate consolidation," urging others to follow suit , , published October 21, 2022, retrieved January 18, 2023.