History of The Codex of Ultima Wisdom
The Codex of Ultima Wisdom’s history goes back to the The Codex of Editable Wisdom – the fan wiki started in 2006, off of which this one was forked in 2010.
Note: This is a draft and made from memory. Other members should add from their memory as well.
Before the Codex[edit]
Originally the Codex had been a wiki for the Ultima V remake Lazarus, founded early in 2006 at the fan wiki site Fandom (called Wikicities at the time). It was informally called the Ultima V: Lazarus Wikicity.[1] One of the founding members was Asfaloth.
However, editing soon tapered off and the wiki stagnated. It sported less than 30 articles after half a year and otherwise was pretty much deserted by that time. It would have been forgotten, if not for a coincidence in fate that led to its re-animation.
The Beginning[edit]
In December 2006, the user Wwwwolf proposed the creation of a more general Ultima wiki. Fandom suggested to change the focus of the Lazarus wiki instead, so Wwwwolf was made the admin of the site and started to work towards that purpose.[2] The wiki was renamed "The Codex of Editable Wisdom", or "The Editable Codex" for short (in reference to the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom).
In December 31 2006, the user Tribun discovered this wiki, which was still mainly about Lazarus. Since he had lots of time on his hands, he decided to contribute and fill it with life as there was no other wiki about the main Ultima games online. The basic structure the Codex (which it still has now) was developed in roughly a month. However, for the first two years, the Codex was mostly a one-man effort, and lack of experience with coding and wiki-standards made it difficult to improve the wiki and to make it grow even more.
The fact that there were very few contributors to the wiki led to a slump in submissions after the first year, which lasted for 2008 and half of 2009. During that time the wiki didn't change much.
Time of Change[edit]
The situation changed significantly in later 2009 and early 2010. This time saw many new users like Dungy, Terilem, Sega381 and Polygoncount arrive, who would bring fresh wind into the project. Also, Fenyx4 became much more active during that time, getting administrator privileges in early 2010, and Tribun rediscovered work on the wiki. This time saw a flood of new articles and many improvements in navigation and quality of the articles.
In early October 2010, Blu3vib3 joined. Her constant work for major improvement of article content and covering of the more obscure topics enriched the Codex a lot. During that time, the Codex began to cover Ultima Online as well and also started to add lore quotes to all articles for further information.
Moving to Aiera[edit]
Later October 2010 brought great change. Fandom made big changes on their hosting policies, including a forced new skin that broke many articles and made reading awkward. The choice was made to leave Fandom behind and move the wiki to Ultima Aiera instead, with WTF Dragon providing hosting. The new version of the wiki was renamed "The Codex of Ultima Wisdom", or "The Ultima Codex" for short. A copy of the wiki was left at Fandom, though no one was left to maintain it. That now-outdated copy was renamed to simply be "The Ultima Wiki".
Once the move was complete, the Codex began to vastly increase its content. During that time, besides content expansion, quality and navigation were improved, while most illustrations from the manuals and cluebooks were replaced with high-quality scans.
Aiera itself turned into a bigger Ultima site in April 2012, changing its name to become, confusingly enough, The Ultima Codex. The Codex of Ultima Wisdom remains as a section of the new Ultima Codex website.
As of now this is still the status quo, although by now, most content has been added.