Sonic Retro - Sonic Retro (original) (raw)

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Sonic Retro
Current owner(s): Scarred Sun, all editors
URL: http://www.sonicretro.org
Type of site: General/Wiki
Created on: 2004-09-14
Current status: Online

Sonic Retro (formerly known as SSonicNET Database, Sonic the Hedgehog Information Treasury and the Sonic Retro Info Wiki) is a free content online encyclopedia written collaboratively by contributors from around the world. Its goal is to form a complete knowledge base for all things connected to the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. Utilizing the MediaWiki platform, the site is open for anyone to register an account, allowing users to participate in creating and editing articles, and uploading various files connected to the history of Sonic the Hedgehog. The site currently has 7,422 articles.

In addition to the wiki element of Sonic Retro, the website also features a blog with news articles and features written by site staff. There is also a robust community in the Sonic Retro forum, where users can discuss Sonic and more broader topics related to Sega and video gaming. It has two sister sites: Sega Retro, which aims to be a comprehensive resource for all topics related to Sega, and SEGAbits, which covers news on all aspects of the Sega brand.

Contents

History

A brief history of Sonic Retro in flowchart form.

In mid-2004, LocalH approached the staff of Sonic Classic and SSonicNET with an idea. Inspired by the Commodore 64 Scene Database, he pitched creating a similar database for the Sonic hacking and research scene. On September 14th, 2004, the SSonicNET Database was founded by Alexbt. Utilizing the MediaWiki platform, the site became a test for such a database. In short time, the project was renamed to the Sonic the Hedgehog Information Treasury.

By November 24th, 2004, the project already had 351 articles being worked on.[1] Though the initial focus was to chronicle the "Sonic scene" and Sonic ROM hacks, it quickly expanded to cover all aspects of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, with information about the games[2], characters[3], and developers.[4]

In March 2005, newly adminned staffer of the wiki and Sonic Classic, Scarred Sun, made an offer to Sonic McTails, then-head of SSonicNET, to purchase SSonicNET. The offer was spurred by a series of disagreements regarding the running of the Sonic the Hedgehog Information Treasury. Sonic McTails declined the offer. Instead, plans were made to move both the Information Treasury and the Sonic Classic forums elsewhere. On March 18th, 2005, both sites were moved to http://www.sclassic.net.[5]

In an effort to promote crosstraffic between the sites hosted on the "Sonic Classic Cooperative," the three main websites hosted there - Sonic the Hedgehog Information Treasury, Sonic Classic, and Sonic Hot Dimensions - were merged together under a new banner, Sonic Retro. The newly formed site went live on May 1st, 2005, and was relocated to the domain https://www.sonicretro.org. With freshly installed forum software, each site had their own dedicated section, while also promoting tight integration with the rebranded wiki.[6] Two months after the move, Sonic Hot Dimensions chose to step away from Sonic Retro.[7] In August of that year, the Sonic Classic name was briefly retired, the forums using only the Sonic Retro name.[8]

At the end of 2006, the forums were relocated to Pixel Tanker, reassuming the Sonic Classic moniker.[9] Scarred Sun stepped away as administrator for the forums, focusing instead on Sonic Retro. New forums, with no connection to Sonic Classic, were launched on July 26th, 2007.[10] These forums would soon be replaced by those located at The Sonic 2 Beta Page.

On August 4th, 2007, after an extended outage of the CulTNET hosting service, The Sonic 2 Beta Page would become hosted on the Sonic Retro server. After this move, Scarred Sun and Sonic 2 Beta admin Tweaker would come to the realization that both websites shared similar userbases. An announcement was made on September 27th, 2007, that the Sonic 2 Beta Page would end in its current form, becoming part of the Sonic Retro wiki. The forums, which had existed since 2004, would replace the forums that were currently in use at Retro.[11] The Sonic Classic community would later merge back with Sonic Retro on July 6th, 2008.[12]

Sonic Retro's first sister site, Sega Retro, was announced on April 1st, 2010. Framed as an April Fools Day joke, the new wiki's stated goal was to chronicle all aspects of Sega's history. A number of non-Sonic focused articles that had been written on Sonic Retro were moved over to this new wiki.[13] By this point, Sonic Retro was host to over 4000 articles.[14]

February of 2010 saw Sega Europe reach out to a number of Sonic fan communities, including Sonic Retro, and inviting them to report on one of Sega's newest promotions. To help promote the release of Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing, Sega teamed up with Alton Towers to rechristen one of their rollercoasters the Sonic Spinball.[15] Two exclusive front page posts were also provided by Sega's community team, in an effort to promote the forthcoming Sonic Colours.[16][17] Sega's community team also reached out to a handful of Sonic fan communities, including Sonic Retro, to help distribute tickets for 2011's Sonic Boom community event.

In April 2013, Sonic Retro and SEGAbits became sister sites, the latter being hosted on the Retro servers.[19] The sites would appear together at TooManyGames 2014 and 2015, at SEGAbits-led panels.[20][21]. 2015 also saw the start of NEC Retro and the Retro CDN, expanding the Retro family of sites.

From 2016 to 2020, Sonic Retro worked with Sonic Fan Games HQ to help run and advertise their annual Sonic Amateur Games Expo online showcase.[22][23][24][25][26]

Projects

The core goal of Sonic Retro is to cover everything involving the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. The games, characters, locations, lore, auxiliary media, and the development of all therein. The scope of the wiki also includes various fan games and ROM modifications, both historically important to the Sonic scene and technically impressive. The desire to make the most complete wiki led to the creation of Sega Retro and the Retro CDN. Working in tandem, the Retro family of sites also strives to be the largest collection of both high-quality box art scans and official artwork for Sonic and the many other Sega properties that exist.

Current projects include:

Past projects include:

Awards and accolades

The "Most Evolved Site" award

In 2005, Sonic Retro was nominated for several Sonic Stadium Sonic Site Awards, winning the "Most Evolved Site" award.[27] By the time of the awards, Sonic Retro had progressed from non-existence to having over 1000 articles.

Sonic Retro has been cited as a source in the following publications:

Current staff

Webmaster

Administrators

Moderators

Wiki Sysops

Site Staff

References

  1. ↑ http://database.ssonicnet.com/index.php/Main_Page (Wayback Machine: 2004-11-24 04:06)
  2. ↑ http://database.ssonicnet.com/index.php/Category:Games (Wayback Machine: 2004-11-24 13:08)
  3. ↑ http://database.ssonicnet.com/index.php/Category:Characters (Wayback Machine: 2004-11-24 13:06)
  4. ↑ http://database.ssonicnet.com:80/index.php/Main_Page (Wayback Machine: 2005-03-06 16:04)
  5. ↑ http://sclassic.net/ (Wayback Machine: 2005-03-27 13:42)
  6. ↑ http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php (Wayback Machine: 2006-07-02 22:36)
  7. ↑ http://forums.sonicretro.org:80/index.php (Wayback Machine: 2006-07-18 15:09)
  8. ↑ http://forums.sonicretro.org/ (Wayback Machine: 2006-08-21 04:51)
  9. ↑ http://www.pixeltanker.com/sretro (Wayback Machine: 2007-02-03 22:45)
  10. ↑ http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?showtopic=2 (Wayback Machine: 2007-08-25 20:29)
  11. ↑ http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?showtopic=9517 (Wayback Machine: 2008-01-20 16:35)
  12. ↑ http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?showtopic=11218 (Wayback Machine: 2010-04-08 08:32)
  13. ↑ https://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?threads/ok-heres-whats-up-homies.20293/ (Wayback Machine: 2023-09-26 04:40)
  14. ↑ http://info.sonicretro.org/ (Wayback Machine: 2011-04-10 05:17)
  15. ↑ https://sonicretro.org/2010/02/14/the-sonic-spinball-sonic-room-asr-sega-trip-2010/ (Wayback Machine: 2020-07-20 15:29)
  16. ↑ https://sonicretro.org/2010/10/06/exclusive-new-sonic-colours-wallpaper/ (Wayback Machine: 2020-06-18 22:45)
  17. ↑ https://sonicretro.org/2010/10/29/joint-exclusive-new-sonic-and-tails-speak/ (Wayback Machine: 2019-10-15 11:38)
  18. ↑ https://segabits.com/blog/2013/03/31/segabits-sonic-sega-retro/ (Wayback Machine: 2013-06-05 23:27)
  19. ↑ https://sonicretro.org/2014/06/23/shameless-promotion-sonic-retro-toomanygames/ (Wayback Machine: 2021-06-16 17:12)
  20. ↑ https://sonicretro.org/2015/06/08/segabits-sonic-retro-to-host-too-many-games-2015-the-sonic-x-treme-files-panel-on-saturday-june-27th-in-oaks-pa/ (Wayback Machine: 2020-08-07 20:27)
  21. ↑ http://www.sonicretro.org/2016/09/sage-2016-announced-dates-information/ (Wayback Machine: 2016-09-08 04:13)
  22. ↑ http://www.sonicretro.org:80/2017/06/sonic-amateur-games-expo-returns-2017/ (Wayback Machine: 2017-07-11 22:20)
  23. ↑ http://sonicretro.org/2018/02/sonic-amateur-games-expo-2018-dates-announced/ (Wayback Machine: 2018-08-31 23:16)
  24. ↑ https://sonicretro.org/2019/08/21/sage-2019-dates-guidelines-logos-and-more/ (Wayback Machine: 2019-11-10 18:30)
  25. ↑ https://sonicretro.org/2020/06/08/the-sonic-amateur-games-expo-2020-guidelines-and-deadlines-are-now-live/
  26. ↑ http://ssa.sonicstadium.org/ (Wayback Machine: 2006-02-28 19:19)
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