The rise, fall, and rise again of the WotLK Information Wiki

This past Monday, June 23, The WotLK Information Wiki relaunched on a new web host after having been pulled down by a Cease and Desist order from Blizzard. Darkside, one of the admins for the WotLK Information Wiki, gave an interview to Medros over at All Things Azeroth to explain what happened. The interview was conducted as part of Medros' podcast Episode 53. Some highlights from the interview include:

• Most of the information that the alpha wiki provides is a result of file and image extraction from Blizzard's publically-available alpha client.

• The alpha client files contain all the information on the spells, creatures and environments to be tested and new things are added or subtracted each time the alpha is patched.

• The alpha wiki folks set up a "sandbox" where they could fly through the new locations and spawn creatures for screenshots.

• A small portion of the WotLK info -- some screenshots, for example -- has come from Blizzard employees under non-disclosure agreements the identities of whom the alpha wiki admins protect.

• Blizzard, Vivendi, and Activision IP addresses had visited the wiki frequently since it began.
  

• The Cease and Desist order from Blizzard arrived last Friday, June 20. Over the weekend the WotLK wiki admins tried several ways to appease the lawyers and eventually settled on moving to a new web host.

• The wiki's readership is approximately 200,000 page views per day.

Go to All Things Azeroth to hear the rest of the interview. Make sure you listen to the first few minutes of the podcast to hear a very humorous and well-sung parody of Johnny Cash's Folsom Prison Blues called Pugging Kara Blues.

[Thanks, Matticus and uber.]