Conworlds:About
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 | This is a general introduction for visitors to the Constructed Worlds Wiki. The project also has a beginner's guide, and an editing tutorial for aspiring contributors. |
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The Constructed Worlds Wiki (also known as Constructed Worlds, Conworlds Wiki, or simply Conworlds) is an online free content wiki-based community that hosts constructed worlds and alternate history projects. Anyone can participate and create content. Writers can create their own independent, closed projects or join in collaborative projects with other writers. Articles are primarily written in an encyclopedic format, emulating the style and content of Wikipedia, the most well-known online encyclopedia. In addition to encyclopedic entries, writers may also write content in other forms of writing, including story-based narratives or essays in designated namespaces. The Constructed Worlds Wiki openly encourages creativity and invites everyone to share their own worlds.
The original Constructed Worlds Wiki was founded in 2006 by Yanus on Wikia (now known as Fandom). It became the premier worldbuilding community based on a wiki platform and featured over 13,000 pages. In 2017, the Constructed Worlds Wiki created a wiki on Miraheze due to disagreements with certain changes implemented by Fandom. The Constructed Worlds Wiki officially migrated to Miraheze on May 22, 2018 after Fandom announced its decision to discontinue use of Monobook, a skin that made the appearance of the wiki look similar to Wikipedia. Select projects and articles were ported over to the Constructed Worlds Wiki on Miraheze, including the flagship projects, Altverse I and Project Genesis. Since then, the wiki has developed its own, exclusive content, such as Altverse II, Vandverse, Origo Mundi, and the Peoples of Urulia. In early August 2021, over three years after the move, many of the largest projects on Fandom which were not originally ported were brought to Miraheze, including The Nearly Real World and Future World. As of April 2024, it has 14,610 content pages. Although the Constructed Worlds Wiki on Miraheze is independent and separate from the Constructed Worlds Wiki on Fandom (both maintaining their own administration and policies), under the principles of the "One community, two systems" (OCTS), both versions of the wiki are part of one unified community with shared userbases and administrators, together with the Constructed Worlds Wiki's official Discord server.
The wiki operates under a system of principles, policies, and guidelines to ensure quality, consistency, orderliness, and professionalism throughout the wiki. Its administration runs with a mostly hands-off approach, allowing users to create content freely without fear of censorship, edit warring, or deletion except where the content violates global Miraheze policies or the wiki's own policies. The administration also enforces disciplinary measures against disruptive behavior and edits done in bad faith such as vandalism or plagiarism. In addition, administration helps arbitrate disputes between editors, both on the wiki and the wiki's official Discord server. The wiki is based on consensus-building and collaboration, meaning editors are welcome to engage in civil discussion related to the wiki's state of affairs, policies, and administration.
As mentioned earlier, the wiki hosts collaborative projects. Collaborative projects generally have their own internal rules and guidelines, as well as administration or moderation team. Each collaborative project may set their own requirements and standards. Editors who wish to participate in such projects are encouraged to reach out to the project leadership for advice and counsel. Unauthorized editing are subject to reversion or deletion, and repeated editing without permission may result in warnings or blocking. In addition, every editor has the right to create and maintain their own individual projects. Although the wiki is free source under the Creative Commons license, this wiki does not allow plagiarism of any works within this wiki or outside the wiki to be hosted. It also does not allow users to make unsolicited editing on closed-off projects without the permission of the original authors or contributors (minor edits such as grammatical fixes or formatting fixes do not count).
History
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2006 — – 2008 — – 2010 — – 2012 — – 2014 — – 2016 — – 2018 — – 2020 — – 2022 — – 2024 — | Yanus Age Cprhodesact Age Early Old Guard Age Old Guard Golden Age Age of Stagnation Renaissance Age Pre-Migration Age Post-Migration Age Dark Age New Renaissance Age Peaceful Age |
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The Constructed Worlds Wiki was originally founded on March 22, 2005 by the user Yanus on Fandom, then known as Wikia. Their first edit, and therefore, the oldest edit in the wiki's history was the main page, which described the wiki as a "Conworld Wikicity" and introduced the project Might and Power. Yanus's activity was minimal and within days of the wiki's founding, they went inactive. They returned briefly again for the final time in September 2006 and notably promoted the user Cprhodesact, the creator of Georgeland and The Nearly Real World project, as an administrator.
The wiki continued to grow in projects and users during Cprhodesact's de facto status as the wiki's sole administration. The Nearly Real World was the flagship project on the wiki, which was a constructed world based on Earth that featured fictitious landmasses in addition to the real world's continents. The project was one of the earliest and largest collaborative projects, which became a source of inspiration for other future projects.
Cprhodesact was later promoted to bureaucrat in 2008 by the Wikia staff, with staff member CatherineMunro stating his promotion was due to Cprhodesact being "the only active admin at Conworld". During Cprhodesact's sole adminship, the wiki experienced issues ranging from forum accessibility to a backlog of pages marked for deletion. The user Tel Loiryn, creator of Lorica, Warpcraft, and Faith, lobbied for a more proactive wiki administration. She gained a group of like-minded followers and won two requests for adminship elections by late 2008. Tel Loiryn was subsequently promoted in October 2008, ending Cprhodesact's status as the wiki's only active administrator.
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In 2009, the wiki reached its 4,000th article milestone, although the significant majority of pages were stubs. Nonetheless, users including United Planets, Super Warmonkey, Time Master, and Woogers emerged with their own projects, including Future World, a future history project that became the wiki's newest flagship project. The aforementioned users were among the wiki's most prolific editors at the time and they would each ultimately attain sysop rights. Their ascension to administration and dominance during the wiki's early years has led to the application of the historiographical term of "Old Guard". Some of the earliest best works on the wiki included Ivalice and the Allied States of America.
Other noteworthy contributors who debuted or were active during this era included Cunha/ACunha (creator of the Southern Cross Republic), Tharnton345 (creator of Leubantia), Sir Spart Sparklbox (creator of Heigard), Detectivekenny (creator of Pangam-Pangat and the Grand Yarphese Republic), and Horton11 (creator of Mariana).
During the Old Guard Golden Age, the Constructed Worlds Wiki experienced a flourishing community of writers and major collaborative projects. It is distinctive for the levels of activity that the wiki experienced at the time and the amount of new users that joined the wiki who were interested in worldbuilding. The flagship projects of The Nearly Real World and Future World were at their peak levels of activity, and prominent users including Fizzyflapjack (then known as Minecraftian), Mythopoeia (then known as -Sunkist-), Falloutfan08, and Vivaporius emerged as newcomers.
The Age of Stagnation was a period of significant decline and inactive administration. Personal drama and intra-project infighting led to disruption on the wiki's content creation by its most active users. The wiki's flagship projects of The Nearly Real World and Future World (as well as the latter's rebooted version, Future World Next-Gen) suffered extensively from user disputes. Future World experienced an internal conflict between realism and futurism, which resulted in the project's disruption. Super Warmonkey pulled the Allied States of America subproject from Future World and forked it over to a separate wiki, and created an on-wiki fork of Future World known as New Era, and another prominent user, BIPU, also exited the project. The Republic of Atlion, another collaborative project, also failed to last due to drama.
On June 1, 2013, there were calls to elect two new administrators to replace the inactive administration. During the June 2013 adminship elections, Vivaporius and Super Warmonkey were confirmed as new administrators, while no other administrator faced demotion due to limited support.
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The Renaissance was a period that coincided with a wave of new users from community-adjacent wikis including the Cyber Nations Wiki Centrist16 (then known as JustinVuong) and Emelxa (then known as Bowwow828) and the Alternate History Wiki (Candiesrgood and United Republic). The wiki witnessed an increased level of engagement with the Alternate History Wiki as well as rekindled interest in a collaborative project.
On August 2, 2014, the user Centrist16, who had joined the wiki in 2011 but went inactive afterwards, created the Kingdom of Sierra, which initially existed as a standalone project. Its depth and comprehensiveness spurned interest among the remnant Old Guard users and new users. On October 5, 2014, Altverse was created, establishing a new collaborative project.
By 2015, Altverse amassed a sizable community of newcomers as well as Old Guard era members, including ACunha, AnnaOurLittleAlice, Happy65, DatMaster001 (then known as TheMaster001), Fizzyflapjack, Zabuza825, and AWpCR (then known as AlbertWeskerpwnsChrisRedfield). Aside from Altverse, other projects emerged during this period, including The Multiversal Chronicles (then known as The Next Renaissance). There were also efforts to revive The Nearly Real World, as exemplified through the integration of the Seafaring Confederation into the project.
Members of Altverse began pushing renewed efforts to housekeep the wiki and introduce stricter quality control within the community. A proposal by Fizzyflapjack in April 2015 faced resistance from the Old Guard however, foreshadowing a conflict between the newer generation of users and their sympathizers and the older generation of users. The Conworlds Quality Control, better known as the CQC, was formed based on the newer generation's grievances.
The CQC was the wiki's first so-called "party" and consisted of four members: Centrist16, Emelxa, Dog of War, and Fizzyflapjack. It was also backed by Mythopoeia, AnnaOurLittleAlice, CnocBride, and other members of Altverse. During the month of January 2016, the CQC aggressively pushed for wiki reform regarding quality control, which faced continued opposition by the Old Guard. After TimeMaster deleted Emelxa's original declaration, the CQC released another declaration stating "WE WILL NOT STAY SILENT", garnering attention from Vivaporius, who promised to allow the CQC to air their grievances. Following the incident, TimeMaster expressed common ground with some of the CQC's aims and goals on quality control.
Tensions between TimeMaster and the CQC grew over the course of the year of 2016. The CQC had begun to organize its activities off-site on Skype as a clique, and operating as the primary coordinators of Altverse. Growing dissatisfaction with TimeMaster's actions and attitude towards change resulted in talks to promote Centrist16 as a bureaucrat, in order to safeguard and achieve the CQC's interests. The wiki at-large remained ambivalent towards the situation, and content continued to flourish in the backdrop of behind-the-scenes drama.
On August 26, 2016, Centrist16 formally petitioned to TimeMaster, requesting bureaucratship. A community consensus discussion was opened the following day. The consensus ended with 7–1, with all ayes from the CQC, and the sole nay from TimeMaster himself. After two months of inaction, TimeMaster finally conceded and promoted Centrist16 as bureaucrat on October 13, 2016.
With Centrist16 now as bureaucrat, he promoted Fizzyflapjack as an administrator on October 13, 2016, and later Emelxa, incorporating the CQC into the new wiki administration. Dog of War was also briefly administrator but he requested removal of such rights. The CQC began to mass delete articles below a certain threshold of quality and content size. Within months of the CQC's ascension into power, thousands of low-quality pages were deleted.
The CQC also switched its primary mode of communication over Discord, which soon became a server open to the general public for members from the Constructed Worlds Wiki. The level of interaction between the Constructed Worlds Wiki and the Alternate History Wiki also accelerated. The Alternate History Wiki's mass migration onto the Constructed Worlds Wiki Discord server made it easier for users from both communities to interact. Later, the Alternate History Wiki created its own Discord server, inspired in part to the TSPTF's experiences on the Constructed Worlds Wiki Discord.
By late 2017, the Constructed Worlds Wiki Discord became an integrated part of the wiki and became affectionately known as "Conworlds Fam". Its Discord widget was featured prominently on the wiki's sidebar on the default Oasis skin and its links were shared zealously by members of the CQC. Within the Discord server itself, the channels were divided into various topics, including general interest, projects, politics, and shitposting, as well as secret CQC channels.
By the spring of 2018, the CQC moved forward with the overseeing of the wiki's migration to Miraheze. The early migration experienced issues with Miraheze's inconsistent and erratic server issues, causing numerous 503 backend errors. Another significant issue that affected the new wiki on Miraheze was a bug which caused .svg files to not load properly on wiki thumbnails.
The Dark Age was a period of general decline on both the Constructed Worlds Wiki and its Discord server. Wiki activity diminished, including on work related to Altverse, and discussions on the server became dominated by non-wiki-related discussion. Following several changes in leadership, the server came under the ownership of Emelxa. Ongoing project disputes related to Altverse eventually led to the project's dissolution in early 2020, followed by a revival of the project as Altverse II. During this time, the wiki launched its official Minecraft server, Ocean City. After Emelxa left the community on June 2020, Vivaporius became the server owner, while Centrist16 remained the bureaucrat on the Constructed Worlds Wiki, cementing the present-day "One community, two systems" model.
Since then, the Constructed Worlds Wiki has undergone a revival in activity and interest. New users such as S.mustafaamir, Worldmaker18, and Andy Irons joined the wiki, contributing to Altverse II and other projects such as Origo Mundi and Vandverse. Users such as Emalia and T0oxi22 joined the community, and the Merveilles des Morte project was imported onto the wiki after it was temporarily banned on the Alternate History Wiki. Quality-of-life edits were made for the wiki, including an extensive categorization overhaul by Centrist16, and the creation of administration-related articles in effort to increase search engine optimization (SEO) for the wiki.
In 2022, several new projects were introduced, including a revival of Project Genesis and the Aidus-Anunia worlds (consolidated later as Sanctuary Stars. In May 2022, the Constructed Worlds Wiki switched to a new official Discord server and Vivaporius was stripped of all administrative roles due to a number of longstanding controversies thereby ending the previous policy of One Community Two Systems. In October 2022, Mythopoeia launched a new low fantasy collaborative project called the Peoples of Urulia.
Worldbuilding and alternate history
Contributors
Copyrights
Principles, policies, and guidelines
Contributing
FAQ
See also
- Conworlds:Administration
- Conworlds:Beginner's guide
- Conworlds:Comparison of Miraheze and Fandom
- Conworlds:Editing
- Conworlds:Manual of Style
- Conworlds:QSS and QAA
| About Constructed Worlds | | ||||||
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| Administrators |
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