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Combine OverWiki Goes Independent, Leaves Wikia… Forever

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On the 12th of February, 2006, the Combine OverWiki (then known simply as the “Half-Life Wiki”), was born. At first, it may have seemed like just another one of the many Half-Life wikis. But slowly, it began to grow, and by 2009, it had become the Internet’s foremost Half-Life wiki. And in 2012, it finally left Wikia. Rejoice!

Combine OverWiki Goes Independent, Leaves Wikia… Forever

While the move was initially scheduled for summer 2011, it’s easier said than done to move an entire wiki to a privately-hosted system. Especially when it’s this popular. But on the 1st of January, 2012, the OverWiki finally relocated… and was immediately brought to its knees by the sheer volume of traffic. But here we are, on the 2nd, and after a spot of tinkering and repairing, the newly independent OverWiki is now, in the words of Isaac Kleiner, “ready, willing, and fully enabled”. The URL is “combineoverwiki.net“. It’s still going a bit slow and some images might not show, but cut these folks a bit of slack – they’re doing their best, and operating a wiki on a private system is NEVER an easy job.

The reasons for the move? Well, Wikia is a business. They’re not interested in the spread of free, public, open-source information, they’re interested in profit. Intrusive advertising, forced skin changes, complete control over user-made content, control over the various wikis’ policies, and all that good stuff (including some very strange tactics that we actually will be writing about) – that’s what Wikia does. Most of the OverWiki’s administrators and editors will be leaving from Wikia as well. But keep in mind that the Wikia version of the OverWiki will remain intact, as a differently named wiki.

Of course, all of the OverWiki’s content has been brought with the move. And you can even redeem your old Wikia account, if you want: more instructions on that can be found here. The new OverWiki will be run by the same editors and content creators – and not by the shady advertisers and the executives who want to make a quick buck off of other people’s hard work. It’s going to be the same as last time, but even better.

So, good work and good luck to the dedicated editors, admins and content creators of the Combine OverWiki. Hey, you might even spot me editing every once in a while – I’m not packing all this Half-Life knowledge for nothing. Here’s to another 5 years with the OverWiki!

http://www.combineoverwiki.net

6 Comments

  1. The site still doesn’t load for me 🙁

  2. Fantastic news!
    I loved the part you quoted Isaac Kleiner, haha.

  3. This is great!

    I’m going to donate when I get the chance.

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