Half-Life Wiki is a comprehensive wiki encyclopedia focusing on the Half-Life and Portal universe created by Valve Corporation.

Its main purpose is to collect all the available information related to the franchise in an intelligent and analytical way, with emphasis on behind-the-scenes material as well as video game as an art form.

Half-Life Wiki is hosted by Wikia, a free web hosting service for wikis, using a custom version of the wiki software MediaWiki.

MilestonesEdit

2006Edit

The wiki was started as "Half-Life Wiki" on February 12, 2006, by Chuck182, on Wikicities. However, after little time, it fell dormant. In March, Wikicities was renamed "Wikia".

2007Edit

During spring 2007, Donut THX 1138 brought significant work to the wiki, then requested adoption to better revive the wiki.

Wikia Staff member CatherineMunro granted Donut the adoption and instated him bureaucrat on April 11. The same day, Donut appointed sysop RelentlessRecusant.

On May 25, the name "Half-Life Wiki" was officially changed to "Combine OverWiki". Donut THX 1138 thought the name "Half-Life Wiki" was too mundane and started a forum post about possible wiki names. However, after almost a month and no responses, he decided to act on his own since no one seemed to be concerned by the matter. He knew most gamers knew the Combine was a powerful Half-Life enemy faction, so he started playing with words trying to get "Combine" into the name (so gamers would know it is a Half-Life based wiki). Then came the idea of "Combine Overwatch", the name of the Earth-based Combine forces. After several more minutes in deep pondering, Donut was beaten in the face with brilliance: "Combine OverWiki" was finally coined.

2008Edit

2008 saw significant growth and contributor turnover, and it was in this time Donut THX 1138 and RelentlessRecusant, the only two staff members, became inactive. This led to the wiki being adopted once again, this time by EVula, whose leadership gave the improvement drive a boost. He was appointed bureaucrat by Wikia Staff member Angela on February 15.

The following months saw the appointment of two new sysops, MattyDienhoff (on February 21), and Coming Second (on April 11).

EVula eventually ended up inactive like his predecessors, and Klow, appointed sysop by EVula on December 14, started taking up the reins. He established new policies, such as an improved Manual of Style, an improved image management, and came up with a new design for the wiki in December, by using Half-Life 2 texture files and improving the main logo.

2009Edit

That year saw a great increase of original and qualitative content, and the appearance of many of the wiki's original images on gaming forums or YouTube.

On February 28, Klow and MattyDienhoff were promoted bureaucrats by Wikia Staff member Uberfuzzy.

A new sysop, YabbaMyIcing, was appointed by Klow on March 18. The latter then created a much needed layout guide.

Even more changes were undertaken in 2009, and more concrete projects came to life. The first true project was that of general, and badly needed, wiki cleanup. Articles and images were flagged for moving to a higher standard, and fanon and speculation finally started to be spotted and removed. Many new articles also came into existence, such as many behind-the-scenes articles, while the whole walkthrough section was removed, due to requiring a too high amount of fixing and completing for something already existing across the Internet in better written forms.

The official Steam group was also created on April 30, to help promote the wiki and gather more users.

On May 18, it was time to resurrect the featured articles feature, opened by none other than our beloved Free Man. The wiki then started to build its certified safe, good and featured article lists, the featured articles being displayed weekly on the Main Page.

In June, the first official community project, spearheaded by YabbaMyIcing, was started. The goal of it was to take all of the many unused files on the wiki and put them into articles and galleries, or delete them.

On July 6, the official projects page was created. It was designed to directly inform the community of any and all wiki wide projects that anybody could help out on. In July as well, the wiki got a Wikia Spotlight, which brought new contributors from the other video game wikis.

On September 22, the official Facebook page was created, with an aim similar to that of the Steam group, with emphasis on putting a quote from the Half-Life universe from time to time, mostly for fun only. On September 27, Darkman 4 got at last his sysops status, while he had been deserving it for a long time.

On December 2, as a holiday treat, to part from the old era of the wiki and to better use the space allowed to the logo, a new logo was created and some layout images were replaced by Klow. On December 23, three new rollbacks were appointed, while the two old ones were removed, as they hadn't logged in since 2007. The new rollbacks were Big McLargeHuge, Erickos and JgcxCub.

2010Edit

On February 2, it was learned in comments by Marc Laidlaw on his personal blog that he is aware of the existence of Combine OverWiki and visits it periodically. Although this information was already known, it was not formally confirmed yet. There Laidlaw qualifies the wiki as "clearly creative", and says he admires the energy brought to the creative efforts of the Half-Life community, also citing Concerned and Garry's Mod. He also adds (about himself) that it is "great to be even peripherally a part of so much energy".^[1] On February 9, a fourth rollback, Bramblepath, was appointed. On February 22, a bot, DØG, was created to perform repetitive and menial edits in large quantities so as to reduce the workload for both users and administrators.

On March 28, a fifth rollback, Halo-343, was appointed. March also saw the Portal 2 announcement within the ARG promoting it, and new canon fodder started to make its way into the wiki.

On April 1, Klow and Darkman 4 quickly decided set up an April Fools' Day hoax at the last moment, which led to a new messy main page, a new low-res logo, and other nonsensical articles created by other users. On April 16, Halo-343 was given sysop rights, after his outstanding help.

On May 18, the official IRC channel was launched by Forerunner. On July 19, a fourth extension to the wiki was launched, as an official YouTube channel, its aim being to gather as many official Half-Life / Portal universe videos as possible, and in the best quality when available.

On October 24, Bramblepath was given sysop rights, to help maintain the wiki afloat during Klow's mild absence.

2011Edit

On February 28, SiPlus was given sysop rights. Late March, Klow's absence came to an end.

On April 1, Master Chief was put as a background image for all articles, making articles unreadable just to annoy readers for that special day (obviously not as good as the previous year). Moreover a link to a YouTube video presumably titled "GameSpot Exclusive: Valve's Gabe Newell talks about the awaited Half-Life 2: Episode Three" was shared on the Facebook group and the Aperture Science group, with the description "Gabe gives small bits of info about Episode Three, its close relation to Portal 2, and hints at a release date. He also talks about the upcoming cartoon series featuring Portal 2's Atlas and P-body, and explains the reasons of Kelly Bailey's departure from Valve." Many readers obviously fell for it, but as great as it was, it was alas an hoax, since the video was actually and simply "Trololo", or the "Russian Rickroll". Fijure was also given rollback rights after things went back to normal, the only serious thing to happen that day.

On April 5, Wikia Staff member Tae suggested that Combine OverWiki would partner with Wikia to offer a cake to Valve to be eaten on the day of Portal 2’s release, as a nod from the community and to remind them that we exist and love their work. After we greenlit the project, Wikia Staff member Kacieh set up the whole thing. On April 19, Portal 2 was released, and Valve was kind enough to eat our 20'' (c. 50 cm) cake during the launch party with some sparkling wine, as reported by GamePro, and glimpsed on the official Facebook page for Portal. On April 14, Wikia also launched a Portal 2-related contest consisting of winning a copy of the game and a plush Weighted Companion Cube, which ended April 28, the winners being announced the next day.

Cake galleryEdit

The cake at the bakery.

The cake at Valve.

Ditto.

Ditto, detail of the note reading "Congrats on the successful launch of Portal 2. Sincerly, the Combine OverWiki and Wikia staff."

The cake half eaten.

The cake the morning after.

2012Edit

In January 2012 the wiki forked. The new wiki, on independent hosting, retained the name "Combine Overwiki" with the Wikia version reverting to the name "Half-Life Wiki".

NotesEdit

About our use of the leaked Half-Life 2 materialEdit

As many Half-Life 2 fans know, a lot of material from the so-called "Half-Life 2 Beta" or "Half-Life 2 leak" was stolen from Valve in 2003. Therefore, possessing these files is somehow illegal, although no clear statement by Valve has ever been made. While Half-Life Wiki does not encourage piracy and does not provide any direct link to these files, the existence of this material simply cannot be ignored, as it constitutes a vital source for behind-the-scenes information about Half-Life 2.

Factual errors and speculation on the wikiEdit

As a wiki, Half-Life Wiki has a permanent work-in-progress nature and is constantly edited by multiple users, making it difficult to have it 100% accurate, inclusive and consistent all the time. As a result, you can come across completely wrong facts as well as mild to blatant speculation. Given the lack of official information on many subjects, we have to treat what we have as best as we can, and sometimes it ends up upside down.

We are constantly working on it (for instance through our Cleanup Project), and in case you spot nonsense, please don't just bash us and use your knowledge to fix the issue instead. If you are the only one to know if a fact is wrong or not, your contribution is valuable, and by improving the wiki you'll help maintain the community in the truth.

Ads on the wikiEdit

Wikia hosts us, among many other wikis, for free. To grant that freedom, it heavily relies on advertising. Therefore, Wikia's wikis are filled with ads, which may heavily spoil your (and our) editing and reading. We have no power over how they are displayed within the wiki's design, how they could annoy you (and us), or how clicking some of them might hurt your computer. We apologize for it, there's just nothing we can do. One workaround would be to create an account for those who haven't got one yet, which will limit the ads to the main page only. Installing this infamous ad blocker for Firefox could also be of great help.

AcknowledgmentsEdit

First off, a big warm thanks goes to Valve for what they have been making since 1998. They are the reason why we are here. But seriously, where is Episode Three?...

Furthermore, several members of the Half-Life and Portal community, aside from the wiki's contributors (we're not going to thank ourselves!), have greatly contributed in expanding and improving the wiki. Here are some of them, and the reason why they made a difference.

• The guys from the website Beta Project (notably ШЛЫК and H.Grunt), for their deep knowledge of the Half-Life 2 Beta/leak (including fixed maps, screenshots, and miscellaneous facts), their hi-res scans of the Half-Life 2 section of Raising the Bar, and their Russia-related knowledge.

• Mλlkin for his hi-res scans of the Half-Life section of Raising the Bar.

• BetaMaster for the HQ Missing Information logo, which was used as the basis of our City 17 logo and its variants.

• Flat Zeus for his fixed brushes, maps and other nice gifts.

• Barnz from the Half-Life: Decay mod team, for his deep knowledge about the Half-Life story arc and its development, and allowing many people who had missed it to discover Decay.

• The haters and those who simply don't believe in us, since they just make us wanting to do bigger and better.

Logo galleryEdit

Earliest known logo, dated April 2007, using a Combine propaganda poster.

The May 2007 logo, using a different font, the new name of the wiki and the "clean" version of the Combine poster.

Logo variant, dated October 2007, using the original Half-Life cover, for Quartz (Wikia's default skin before Monaco).

The December 2008 logo, using another font and an improved background image.

Version used for the Steam group and the Facebook page.

The December 2009 logo, with the same font as the previous logo and using a picture of Gordon Freeman from Raising the Bar.

The same logo as the previous one updated in March 2010 with the Aperture Science logo when Portal 2 was announced.

Second version used for the Steam group and the Facebook page.

Wikia Spotlight logo used in July 2009.

Unofficial Half-Life and Portal universe logo, created for the wiki, and also used as the avatar of the YouTube channel.

Wiki logo based on the previous one made for the 2010 skin, uploaded in October of the same year. It still uses the font introduced in 2008.

Wiki logo also based on the Half-Life and Portal universe logo, used as the third incarnation of the Steam group and the Facebook page logos.

The same logo used in the Monobook skin.

Logo hacked by Wheatley for Portal 2’s release, briefly used from late May 2011 to June 19, 2011.

ReferencesEdit