Happy 4-year Anniversary, Custom Hero Factory Wiki!!!
At long last, today (or tomorrow, depending on when I'm typing this) is the Custom Hero Factory Wiki's 4-year Anniversary! As a matter of fact, it's February 24. I noticed that many people thought it was the 23rd. That is a mistake, and for all to know, it was founded on February 24, 2010. So I'm posting this a little early.
2013 was a very, very interesting year. We experienced a large amount of expansion, and we gained many new users. As always, the ideal of having eager editors joining and editing on the wiki and expanding once unknown regions of the Hero Factory Universe is a truly fantastic thing. Now, four years on, we can look back at our successes, and look forward to our future.
But before heading into that future, as I did last year, I would like to look back at the past and reflect on it. As some of you may or may not know, the Wiki was not always as healthy and active as it is today. More recently, we've been losing several of the wiki's most ancient users. But as one of the ancient users and the wiki's oldest user, I would like to give a four year summary of our past. Ultimately, this summary is similar to the one I gave last year, but it is a very interesting history that I encourage everyone to read and reflect on. This history shows the hard times that the wiki has endured, and how it has strived to achieve success.
NOTE: This summary is factual and is not crowded with opinions. The facts are put to the best of my knowledge.
2010 - The Beginning[]
The Custom Hero Factory Wiki was created on February 24th, 2010, by a user named Toa Spyck. Spyck was eager to make the Wiki ahead of anyone else, all for the sake of being looked up to as its founder. Spyck began organizing the wiki in the days after it was created, yet in early-March, he went inactive.
Fortunately, Spyck returned in July, editing throughout that month and into August. In August, Spyck continued constructing the Wiki alongside Toa Zion, a new user who did various things, including develop the wiki's original favicon and logo. Actually, Spyck promoted Zion within four days of him joining the wiki. Notably, another user named Vagra Nui Tales joined the Wiki about a week after Zion's promotion. The community began to expand, and the wiki had gained around 40 articles by early-September.
On September 11th, 2010, I joined the Wiki, and on September 19th, 2010, Clone Trooper 1000 joined. At that point, Toa Spyck was going inactive, as was Toa Zion. Upon joining, there was only about 45 articles on the Wiki. I decided that it was time for Clone Trooper and I to take action and adopt the Wiki. We began frequently editing on the wiki for the next month, creating new articles and strenghtening the wiki in whatever way we could. Several days before the request could be confirmed, Toa Spyck returned to the Wiki after a two-month hiatus and promoted the two of us. Interestingly enough, Toa Spyck returned on the exact same day that Toa Zion did. Notably, on October 17th, 2010, King Joe joined the Wiki. On October 29th, Vagra Nui Tales was promoted to an administrator. Two months later, on November 24th, 2010, Wikishmid joined the Wiki. Clone Trooper also promoted Jareroden97 to a rollback. Toa Zion was also demoted from his position as an administrator, and he stated that "he couldn't care less" about the Wiki. Spyck would go inactive from the Wiki again on December 30th, 2010, and did not show any signs of returning.
Early 2011 - The Dark Age[]
As 2011 emerged, Clone Trooper and I realized the Wiki was quickly losing popularity. Notably, on February 2nd, 2011, BobTheDoctor27 joined the Wiki. Conflicts from other Wikis threatened my availability on here, and Jareroden97 was nominated to become an administrator/bureaucrat by Clone Trooper. And a "dark age" on the Wiki began when I was blocked and demoted from it due to off-Wiki complications that affected me on all Wiki Metru sites. Because of this, my perspective is a bit more vague. Comments that Clone Trooper made divided our friendships.
During this dark age, Clone Trooper assumed power of the Wiki, promoting Monasti to administrator in attempts to bring the Wiki back to full-activity. Unfortunately, his leadership wound up being ineffective for the wiki, as Clone Trooper went inactive for two months until returning in March 2011, only to go inactive yet again several days later. He has not returned since. Yet within the following months, the Wiki's activity would go down to such an extent that nobody had edited for days. This was the time that the wiki was closest to death. The Recent Activity would be barren for days, and there were a few occassions where vandals would come and vandalize articles, with nobody there to revert the edits and to block them. There was nothing that could be done.
Mid-Late 2011 - The Reconstruction[]
In early-April, Monasti began a plan to bring the Wiki back to good-status and decided to unblock me several days early. Ultimately, there rose a beacon of hope for the Wiki. In May, a Mascot Contest for the Wiki was held. BobTheDoctor27 entered Jenny Sharp, I entered Scott Maximus, Wikishmid entered Frank Wolker, Makuta Tarkairadan entered Jack Twoface, and Hero45 entered Michael Ice Viper. Jenny Sharp won the contest and became the official mascot.
Through the next couple of months, the Wiki was slowly recovering, and in June-July, a vote for a fresh staff of the Wiki was held. Wikishmid was promoted to administrator, while King Joe and Vagra Nui Tales were promoted to bureaucrats. Clone Trooper 1000 was also demoted from his bureaucrat position, and Toa Spyck was confirmed to have "retired" from his position despite still being a bureaucrat. Although the promotion was taken rather uneasily, the staff stabilized until Vagra Nui Tales went inactive two weeks after his promotion. He has not returned since. This lead to King Joe leading the Wiki. On October 23rd, 2011, BobTheDoctor27 was promoted to administrator. On November 16, ChineseLegolas joined the wiki, and Ottax14 joined on December 19.
For the rest of the year, the Wiki was left to slowly recover, although it was making good progress in doing so.
2012 - Wiki Stabilization[]
With the Wiki emerging from its dark age, many new users came to join. OonieCacola joined on January 15 and Drayko joined on February 2, Many of these users are still here to this day and may be reading this. Yet the year opened with the unexpected, as King Joe announced that he was leaving the Wiki (sometime in February, although this is unconfirmed, as the blog he created is missing). He left no reasons, and promoted no one to bureaucrat, leaving the wiki without an active bureaucrat. This led to a vote for adminship being held, and upon seeing my participation in the Wiki, I was nominated for administrator/bureaucrat. The reaction to this was mostly positive, and I was promoted. Coinciding with the promotion, Toa Spyck made a second major return to the Wiki on March 10, although it would be short-lived. He promised to create a new "program" on the Wiki that would benefit to its activity and its users, although the program never truly came to be. Whether he will return again remains a possibility, yet currently seems unlikely.
Throughout the rest of the year, things began to strengthen on the Wiki. That summer, ChineseLegolas was promoted to administrator. DeltaStriker joined the wiki on May 3, and was later promoted to a rollback alongside OonieandCacola. Bioniclezilla76 joined the wiki on July 17 (in his original account). ChineseLegolas would later give the Wiki various new logo treatments, as well as an entirely-new design. And because of many users teaming up on the Wiki to reconstruct it, the Wiki came out of the darkness and began a new age of success.
2013 - Advancements and Acceleration[]
The new year opened in a different fashion then the previous ones, with the wiki continuing to thrive, although there were little major events. BobTheDoctor27 was repromoted as an administrator after his previous demotion last November. The wiki continued to gain new editors and articles in the upcoming months. In August, ChineseLegolas was promoted to a bureaucrat, as I was looking for there to be a new bureaucrat on the wiki. On August 13, Drayko, the creator of the Hero Factory Universe storyline, which helped to bring many MoCs and users together, made his last edit on the wiki. He has not returned since, and it is unknown if he will ever return. In October, the wiki was slammed with a colossal wave of changes that heavily impacted the community.
The first major event was the resignation and departure of longtime editor and administrator Wikishmid on October 4, leaving me as the last active person to have joined in 2010. DeltaStriker and OonieCacola became administrators, while BobTheDoctoe27 was demoted down to rollback and Bioniclezilla76 was promoted to rollback. Due to Wikishmid's departure, DeltaStiker became the wiki's Site Representative on Wiki Metru. ChineseLegolas also gave the wiki various major background upgrades.
Afterwards, things began to quiet down, although the activity was still keeping steady. The tradition of the Halloween and Christmas Contests were continued. DeltaStriker and ChineseLegolas began to create a set of advancements for the wiki for 2014. A YouTube channel for the site was set up, as well as the Wiki Breakout project, which is now nearing completion for the wiki's fourth anniversary. And with that, day by day, we build our future.
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And that is the history of the Wiki, told through the best of my abilities. It has been four (technically, three and a half for me) very interesting years on here, as this history shows. Last year, I had said that the oldest users on here were me, Wikishmid and BobTheDoctor27. Unfortunately, Wikishmid is no longer with us on the Wiki. And from what I've heard, BobTheDoctor27 made a confirmation a week ago that he will be leaving the wiki. However, this is awaiting full-confirmation, but if it is true, it will probably be mentioned in the fifth anniversary (he's not leaving Wikia, he may be leaving this Wiki). Hopefully, we will choose to stay.
Even though I am the oldest user and the last active person from 2010, I was not able to see the Wiki from its very beginning, as I arrived on the Wiki a half a year after its creation. I saw enough to show that this Wiki has endured enough to show that it has the strength, the determination, the users, and the will to prevail over all the obstacles that it comes across. I want to thank our contributors for their work on here. In all honesty, every article on here counts, and in the past few days we lost nearly 200 articles, as they were stubs that were unable to be expanded further. But the way to bring us back up to that 1000-article mark is to keep moving forward. You all expand the Hero Factory universe into the unknown. Now, we are moving into our fourth year of Hero Factory, and we have a lot to expect ...
If you have any questions on the history, feel free to comment below. Otherwise ... feel free to comment.
Days of Future Past 02:48, February 23, 2014 (UTC)