So....how do Wiki know about materials needed for Gifts?

[Ultramex.1506]

Just curious, many gifts tooltip let us know what are required to make them but some don't, take Gen 1's Gift, they require 1 sigil but how to find out? Bolt/Meteorlogicus require Sigil of Air make sense but how would you know that? Does someone have loads of sigils in their inventory just keep clicking until the correct one?
So is Gift of the Mists! Its tooltip let you know but you need to have it in the first place! Kinda a catch 22 huh?

Random subject I'd like to know.

[Danikat.8537]

Lots of players experimenting and sharing results. In the early years of the game, especially the first few months there were topics on the forum, on reddit and on the Wiki with players experimenting with crafting recipies and putting different combinations of things in the Mystic Forge and sharing their results so others could build on it.

You can see some of it on the archived Wiki talk pages: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Talk:Mystic_Forge/Archive_2

Edited November 21, 2021 by Danikat.8537

[ChronoPinoyX.7923]

It's a literal amalgamation of different people's contribution throughout the years, and when there's a common denominator amongst the grand majority of the experimenting, then it becomes one of the more definitive info. 

[Fueki.4753]

Datamining might also have been part of how people discovered certain recipes.

Edited November 22, 2021 by Fueki.4753