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)
Zelda Universe	April 23, 2005 – 2013	Jess Rappaport
HTLOZ	September 26, 2006 – January 18, 2009	Fury Three, Tempest, and Captain Cornflake
Hylian Help Desk	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
Zelda Central	September 26, 2006 – January 15, 2008	Victor Williams
Zelda Dungeon	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
Zelda World	September 26, 2006 – January 10, 2007	Skermefaten and AppHunter
Zelda Cavern	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
Absolute Zelda	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
ZeldaInformer	July 28, 2007 – August 24, 2011	Dennis Wyman, Ilmari Arnkil, and Phil Stetson
Zelda Legends	September 20, 2008 – July 2, 2010	davogones, Khuffie, and lord-of-shadow
Hyrule.net	December 27, 2008 – 2013	Dustin and Tappy
Zelda Temple	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
The Sacred Realm	May 4, 2009 – August 7, 2011	Lysia
Portal to Hyrule	June 8, 2009 – 2013	DekuLink
Ordon Village	June 23, 2009 – July 3, 2009	Vincent
LegendZelda.net	March 10, 2010 – 2013	Noah Glaser
Link's Hideaway	September 6, 2010 – 2013	Autydi
Zelda Eternity	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

This section does not meet Zelda Wiki's quality standards.

Please improve it as you see fit. Editing help is available.

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

— Official Nintendo Magazine UK (page 099)

Pages 098 and 099 of ONM UK
Close up of the referral in ONM UK
Page 51 of ONM AUS&NZ

Partnerships

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. Zelda Universe staff members are largely responsible for the current design of the wiki's Main Page.

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: