The Sims Wiki:History

Summary
The Sims Wiki was founded circa late 2004, about five years after the release of The Sims and a month before the release of The Sims 2: University. The wiki grew over time, gathering information about the games that had been released up to that point. Growth increased after the release of The Sims 3 in 2009, and with the debut of the Game Guide (formerly Tutorial) namespace in 2011. Despite having thousands of articles about the games and everything in them, the work of expanding and improving the wiki is never over.

2004

 * According to some sources, The Sims Wiki was founded on the 11th of November, roughly two months after the release of The Sims 2. The founder is unknown.

2005

 * On the 6th of February, The Sims Wiki was founded by an unknown user. Wikia pinpoints to Jamie as having been the founder of the wiki. Despite this, Jamie has contested that he did not create the wiki. As of now, no one knows who actually founded the wiki.
 * Jamie creates the first article on February 11th, 2005: that article being the main page.

2006

 * 2006 is a year of slow yet steady growth. The number of articles on the wiki jump from 5 to 73 by the end of the year. Much of this growth is thanks to a wikipedian by the name of Chrisyudbs. The earliest articles created this year include The Sims 2: Open for Business, The Sims 2, The Sims, and Mortimer Goth.

2007

 * 2007 is a year of surprisingly rapid growth. With the help of Mhavril39, Amthysteyes2, and several other editors, the number of articles on the wiki jump from 73 to 391.

2008

 * This year brought much change and a new traffic of users. After going four years without an administrator, Makiah adopted the wiki circa February 2008. An influx of new users (including A morris, Dharden, RandomRanaun, Sprite7868, etc...) added to the usercount of the wiki.
 * On May 14, 2008, Makiah promoted A morris to an administrator. Makiah became inactive later in the year.

2009

 * 2009 became a hot year for the wiki as users anticipated for the release of The Sims 3. More growth occured in this year than the previous years combined. June 2009 was the greatest month in Sims Wiki history, at least in terms of activity. Perhaps not coincidentally, The Sims 3 was released that same month.
 * Growing concerned with the amount of traffic and user activity, A morris decided it was time to promote a few users. The Request for adminship page was created on April 10th, 2009. Very quickly, a heap of users requested rights.
 * Bayoubash, RandomRanaun, Matta Jr., KazeNoYouko, JEA13, Bob Newbie is kl, JAL, Bella Goth, and TheDataMonster were all given administrator rights within a short period.
 * The Sims Wiki held its first and only logo contest. Trull designed the winning logo while Matta jr received second place.
 * JEA13 created the wiki's IRC channel.

2010

 * By the time of 2010, the wiki had a permanently settled community. Many users left the wiki but passed the torch on to new users. This year (like the last) was a time of growth and a steadily growing user base.
 * New expansion packs for The Sims 3 were released:
 * Bleeh, Frostwalker, Dharden, Monster2821, LiR, and Duskey were granted administrator rights this year.

2011

 * This year was a relatively important as a landmark decision was made; after large amounts of discussion, heated debate, and general ranting, the canon wiki and the fanon wiki were merged. The fanon namespace was created to separately house fanon content. LiR made it official on January 21, 2011.
 * BobNewbie, LostLabyrinth, DarthCookie, Auror, Thelamppost, Woganhemlock, and XoTulleMorXo, Guilherme Guerreiro, Wir.wiryawan, Andronikos Leventis, and Nikel23 were all promoted to administrators.
 * The Inactive Admin Policy and the Administrative Projects were established this year.

2012

 * Another year means new users, new articles, and newly released games to cover. The fanon administrators and the canon administrators were merged into one being.
 * DanPin, Starmoonie, Bakerychaz, AsherÉire, TheSims23, Freedom50000, and Mathetesalexandrou were all made administrators.

2013

 * 2013 was the year of resignations. A large number of administrators resigned this year.
 * User activity had highs and lows but it eventually dropped to a record low: 192 active registered users (levels not seen since late 2009).
 * Waikikamukow, Beds, Pidgeoraptor7, JasonThePlum, and Frostwalker (2nd time) were all made administrators.
 * Tensions between users seemed to flare this year; one user described it as being the veterans versus the new contributors.
 * As a result of one nomination in particular, the entire nomination process was revamped.

2014

 * The Sims 4 was announced and released this year, leading to bustling new traffic of new users.
 * K6ka, Icemandeaf, and Joseph were made administrators this year.
 * Bureaucrat LiR created the idea of a monthly question, meant to replace the short polls that appeared on the main page.

2015

 * WikiBuilder1147 and C.Syde65 were promoted to administrators this year. As of now, this is the last year in which users were promoted to administrators.
 * Due to inactivity, the fanon battles were closed per forum decision.

2016

 * The ChatLounge IRC relay (headed by MrBenC) was established in April of this year.

2017

 * The Sims Wiki admins created a Discord server.
 * Due to inactivity, the main battles were closed per forum decision.

2018

 * LiR suggested and eventually spearheaded the creation of the content moderator role. KailynnKat and SimDestroyer become the first two users to be granted moderator rights.