Legend of Zelda CrestAll week we have been talking about Lozzie this and Lozzie that, and it all culminates with grand prize: The best site of the past year. As the title says, ZeldaWiki.org – our wiki, your wiki, everyone’s wiki – walked away with The Pinnacle. Words can’t really describe how amazing Zelda Wiki really is, but that doesn’t stop us from trying.

Zelda Wiki is the place to go for all your content needs, at least, for all your user created content needs. It has 2800+ articles, and while they don’t tell you how to do things within the game they do provide a lot of useful information about things in the world of Zelda. With game history, item listings, definitions, and loads and loads of amazing images, Zelda Wiki truly is a site to behold. I know personally, I am using “our” wiki as a reference for some of the content I create for ZI. I could go on and on here, but our friends who awarded ZW, Legend of Zelda.com, had plenty to say in our stead. Hit the jump to see what they had to say, and to see the list of all the winners this past week.

LoZ.com, on awarding Zelda Wiki The Pinnacle:

In the last year, many sites have set themselves apart: Zelda Dungeon has been rapidly expanding on previous guide work; Zelda Universe has started dabbling in just about everything; ZeldaInformer has maintained impressive article output; Portal to Hyrule has continued to push the limits of their growth; Zelda Capital has maintained excellent media stocks; Hyrule.net continues to create the most user-friendly site; Exploding Deku Nut has kept tradition alive, despite troubled times; Zelda Reorchestrated works closely with WZMR to provide top-notch Zelda radio; Ganon’s Tower brought back their front page; the Desert Colossus has improved their layout and expanded content; the Hylia has maintained excellent news coverage; the Sacred Realm’s coverage of the Hero of Time fan movie has not dipped at all; I could simply go on, and on, and on.

In the end, what I’m saying is this: every Zelda site is good at something, and I’m sorry to admit that we can’t recognize them all with an award; I can’t even recognize them all within this single post. I mean, I could, but how impractical? So, we decided that the best way to reward everybody was to reward the site that represents everybody: Zelda Wiki.org.

This is not, to say, that Zelda Wiki is not an exemplary website in its own right. Its closest competition, Zeldapedia, is in some people’s opinions better designed, but it is impossible to deny the quality of writing and maintenance that Zelda Wiki maintains. Daily, users just like you reading this post read articles for fun, and make sure that all the articles contained on Zelda Wiki are top-notch, informative, and relevant. Not all articles are perfect, but that is the nature of all wikis – the imperfect is perfected, the scrawny are bolstered, and the quest is never ending. The dedication of the users of the Zelda Wiki is demonstrated by its over 2,800 articles on all things Zelda-related, and the number grows constantly.

I am a member of only two website staff teams in the Zelda community: the one here at LoZ, and the one at Zelda Wiki. I could write for hours about how wonderful the staff here is, but another time – for now, I could not possibly talk about why this site is the best site of the year without talking about its staff.

The staff of Zelda Wiki is comprised of three levels: Patrols (like moderators), Administrators, and Bureaucrats. Admins and Bureaucrats have almost all the same powers, except Bureaucrats are webmasters of each Zelda site that is a “mastermind” of the Zelda Wiki, and Administrators are those users who displayed such dedication, they rose to the ranks of management. The Quality Standards of the Zelda Wiki were created and are maintained by that staff. The dedication to quality, user friendliness, and fairness is staggering. The amount of care and dedication that the staff shows for the Zelda Wiki is unparalleled, because they work every day for hours to make sure that every edit is real, every edit is safe, and every edit is relevant. They look through tens of articles in a day, making sure their quality is of a level worthy of the Zelda Wiki. When quality is low, the article is fixed or marked with a tag to notify regular users of the wiki that work on that page is needed, and the true purposes of a wiki are performed: everybody is important in creating the best possible articles for everybody.

It is a testament to the robustness of this community, this Zelda Online Community, that a project like the Zelda Wiki, which started as Zelda Universe’s own wiki, has evolved into a website that is truly worthy of this award. Congratulations to everybody who has ever worked on Zelda Wiki; congratulations to everybody who currently works on it, day after day; and congratulations to the staff of Zelda Wiki, who I know all share my feeling of truly being a part of something larger than oneself or one’s site. This award, my friends, goes to the community.

The results of the Lozzies:

Zelda Reorchestrated: The DaVinci: Site with the most innovative initiative.

Zelda Capital: The Rembrant: Most visually appealing site.

Portal to Hyrule: The Rising Star: New site with the most potential.

Hyrule.net: The Socialite: Site with the most appealing forum community.

ZeldaInformer: The Pulitzer: Site with the best news coverage.

Zelda Dungeon: The Strategy Geek: Site with the best Game Strategy Content.

Exploding Deku Nut: The Colbert: Site with the best editorial/satire content.

Zelda Universe: The Virtuoso: Site with the most accessible media source.

ZeldaWiki,org: The Pinnacle: Overall Best Site for the Year.

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