Wikitubia

Wikitubia (also referred to as The YouTube Wiki) is an unofficial English encyclopedia hosted by Fandom, centered around the video sharing website YouTube, and created on February 25, 2007, by TownCrier. Since its creation, the wiki has had over 1 million edits, as well as over 25,000 pages created overall; with most of them covering YouTubers, and a small percentage of them covering YouTube's features, historical events on the platform, and other YouTube-related content. It also has over 128,000 files uploaded and over 1,000 active users.

Wikitubia

Founded	February 25, 2007
Founder(s)	TownCrier
URL	youtube.fandom.com
Current status	Active

Description

Wikitubia is a wiki centered around YouTube-related content and topics. When the website was first established in February of 2007, anyone could edit it whether they had an account or not. An IP block had occurred for a short time, but later ended in 2010. Currently, the wiki allows anyone to edit as long as they have an account on Fandom.

The website contains a staff of administrators and bureaucrats. Alongside the administrators and bureaucrats are the content moderators, discussion moderators, and the rollbackers, who all perform their own tasks in helping manage the wiki. In the entirety of Wikitubia's history, Wikitubia has had approximately 100 staff members, with 46 of them being administrators. A full list of all active Wikitubia staff members is available on the Wikitubia staff page. A list of all former Wikitubia staff members is available on the Wikitubia former staff page.

The website hosts a voting contest called the Hall of Fame, which is a selection of YouTube channels that are voted by users on who is the best YouTuber. It originally began in June 21, 2008, under Featured Videos where Evolution of Dance won. In 2013, Featured Channels was created where the first channel to be nominated was Smosh.

The Hall of Fame was created in 2015, in which channels with over one million subscribers can be qualified that are not a corporation or a kids channel, to be in. The first channel to be featured in the Hall of Fame ended up being Vsauce. Featured Videos were removed during 2017, and Featured channels were removed briefly on October 3, 2021, but they were then brought back due to popular demand.

Since 2014, Wikitubia has also been hosting an annual year-end showcase called the Wikitubia Awards, in which users vote the best YouTuber for each genre they are categorized in. These categories currently include gaming, tech, vlogging, animations, shorts, music, cooking, makeup, educational, comedy, and best overall. Aside from the best YouTubers of each category, Wikitubia also selects the best Wikitubia user who has helped contribute the most to the website during the year.

Wikitubia, like most other Fandom wikis, has a Discussions feature where users can post YouTube, YouTuber-related, or Wikitubia-related content using posts, polls, or quizzes. The Discussions are controlled by administrators and Discussion Moderators to keep the Discussions from being spammed and vandalized by other users. Wikitubia currently has 5 active Discussion Moderators, and the Discussions board sometimes also serves as a News and Announcements board.

History

Creation and early development

Wiki founder TownCrier requested to officially create the wiki on February 24, 2007, and the next day, on February 25, his request was accepted and he received bureaucrat rights. There has been some debate about the date of creation however, as there are automatic creation edits dating back to September of 2006, with the oldest one dating back to March 16, 2006, but these are now generally perceived to be a glitch.

Regardless, February 25, 2007 is the most consistent and provable one to consider the founding date of Wikitubia. Wikitubia's Wiki Representative at the time, Spongebob456, identified TownCrier as the wiki's founder on March 16, 2021. On December 3, 2022, the administration of Wikitubia at the time officially recognized the 2007 date instead of September 25, 2006 to be the founding date of the wiki. Despite being the founder of Wikitubia, TownCrier has never edited or posted on the wiki. Due to this, TownCrier was not registered as an official user of the wiki, largely contributing as to why they went unidentified for nearly 15 years. However, according to former staff member KeeBlokk, TownCrier might be a Wikipedia user under the name of FrummerThanThou.

The wiki's first page, Galipokaandhejhogfan, was created on March 10, 2007 by user Machchunk2, and remains viewable. Around this time, Wikitubia gained little to no traffic and was mostly inactive.

Wikitubia would receive its first mention by a YouTuber known as MATTHEWGU4 on December 3, 2007; however, the video has since been removed.

Around mid-2008, Wikitubia started gaining more traffic. More editors and viewers arrived, which resulted in the user Yowuza adopting Wikitubia. In 2009, Wikitubia reached over 1,000 pages. A few users would also become admins at that time such as The thing, Flaminglawyer, and Jonpro. Jonpro had made a bot under the name Jonprobot as a result of Jonpro's new role.

Also in this time, on November 10, 2009, came Wikitubia's second mention by a YouTuber, Cimozzen.

Resurrection and advancements

In July 2011, the YouTube Poop Wiki was in the process of being merged with Wikitubia. However, later in the year in October, it was decided that it would not be moved to Wikitubia and the merging ended up being cancelled.

By 2012, all of the bureaucrats and admins became inactive and the wiki was essentially staff-less for the most of that year. Sometime in November 2012, Wikitubia was adopted for a second time by the user Applegirl. Wikitubia had anywhere from 1,000–3,000 pages at this time, though that is uncertain, as many pages were deleted for unknown reasons around this time. In 2013, Wikitubia stopped allowing pages to be about videos and instead solely focused its content on channels and YouTube's history. On July 20, 2013, Wikitubia's official Twitter account was created by Purzyckij, And in 2014, Purzyckij became an administrator. To this day, he is the longest serving staff member on Wikitubia.

In 2014, the subscriber rule was raised from 100 to 500 due to YouTube's new rules of having a custom URL.

On March 10, 2015, Wikitubia began its monthly poll contest called the Hall of Fame, a poll that has multiple YouTubers on it and whichever one gets the most votes becomes a Hall of Fame member. The first Hall of Fame member was Vsauce.

In late 2015, an administrator by the name of DarkUnknownWarrior was blocked and his rights were revoked by administrator Monochromatic Bunny and bureaucrat Purzyckij, for abusing his rights.

Expanding relevancy

On December 12, 2017, Wikitubia's Discord server was created by administrator HanselElGato with the first non-staff member to join being BoaDaSnakeMan. The current owner of the Discord server is bureaucrat Enayy. On July 17, 2023, Cluckster, who was the owner of the server at the time, was suspended by Discord allegedly for being underaged. His account was reinstated on July 25.

In 2018, Purzyckij was the only active bureaucrat on Wikitubia, and it had been so for over a year. On December 1, 2018, Purzyckij promoted admins EpicNinjaDude37 and Zianka to bureaucrats.

On November 5, 2019, YouTuber JackSucksAtLife uploaded a video about Wikipedia and Wikitubia titled "I edited my own Wikipedia to say whatever I want". In it, he tried to create his page on Wikipedia and then he visited Wikitubia's page about him and read through it, as well as editing it. The Wikipedia page has since been deleted. The video led to many of his fans visiting Wikitubia, and some vandalizing the pages. Jack has made multiple videos featuring Wikitubia since, along with some other YouTubers.

On December 10, 2019, Wikitubia's Twitter tweeted that if they could get 3,000 followers on Twitter by the end of the year, Purzyckij would purchase a Hall of Fame Plaque for Jack and send it to him. The challenge was completed and in February of 2020 Jack received the plaque.

Between 2017 and 2019, Wikitubia had around 3,800 to 5,000 pages in total.

Rise in popularity

On January 10, 2020 ITurkishmapping began to edit again after an absence in doing so.

Throughout 2020, Wikitubia's page count went from around 5,000 pages to over 9,850 pages, a large page increase which also came with a much higher page view count and edits, mainly thanks to changes in leadership and the rise of users such as ITurkishmapping, ThisIsACreeper0101 (now Saurmandal), and Lavgup. 2020 also showed an increase in the amount of new pages being created, with the wiki sometimes peaking at 100-125 new pages per week in 2020, and 275 new pages per week in 2021.

Wikitubia had a fast and rapid growth rate around mid-2020, peaking at around a thousand edits and 125 pages a week in October of 2020. due to the rapid growth in popularity of the site resulting in many users vandalizing pages which caused minor damages to some of the pages on the site which made some of the pages, protected or semi-protected to prevent further vandalism.

From January–February 2020, aforementioned user ITurkishmapping started editing at a very rapid pace, with over 1,000 to 5,200 edits every week. He has amassed over 75,000 edits in total and is the current user with the most edits on Wikitubia. Eventually, Wikitubia surpassed 1 million edits on November 18, 2020.

On November 29, 2020, Purzyckij held up a poll for whether Wikitubia should raise the subscriber limit from 500 to 1,000. It got a total of over 500 votes (the majority voting it should). On December 17, the poll closed and the subscriber limit was raised from 500 to 1,000 subscribers on January 1, 2021.

On April 20, 2021, Wikitubia surpassed 10,000 pages.

On May 26, 2021, a well-known event in the Wikitubia Discord server community nicknamed "Blitzgate" occurred, where administrator BadBlitz808 leaked Discussions moderator Aparrently's Fandom password on the server. This situation can be read about further on the Blitzgate page.

In October of 2021, current bureaucrat Cluckster announced that the website used for the Hall of Fame polls, StrawPoll.me, was not functioning, and would not be repaired until 2022. Due to this, The Hall of Fame was on a hiatus for three months until February of 2022. Towards January, Cluckster said that StrawPoll.me was still not functioning, and that he was considering using another website instead. The poll returned in February of 2022 and switched to using Google Forms.

Featured channels were briefly removed on October 3, 2021, and returned the following day on October 4, 2021, due to many users wanting it to return.

On November 13, 2021, it was announced that all channels with less than 1,000 subscribers would be removed and transferred to Minitubia on January 1, 2022.

On December 3, 2021, it was announced that Wikitubia would be holding its first Wikitubia Awards since 2014, in which users nominate YouTubers for the best categories as well as the best YouTuber of the year, and would later vote for the best of the nominated YouTubers in each category. That same day, it was also announced that Wikitubia would be holding the User of the Year Awards, in which users would also nominate other users who had contributed the most on the site throughout the year.

On December 31, 2021, it was announced that MrBeast won the Best YouTuber of 2021 vote, and administrator JustLeafy was also awarded as the best user of 2021.

After many users in the Discussions complained they were being unfairly blocked by administrators, Cluckster announced on January 28, 2022, that Wikitubia would implement a ban appeal system, where blocked or banned users could fill out a Google Form if they thought they should be unbanned, and it would go through review. The next day, on January 29, Wikitubia had surpassed 15,000 pages. On February 3, 2022, quizzes were also added on the Discussions board of Wikitubia.

On August 22, 2022, Wikitubia received a major redesign to its dark and light modes in order to match YouTube's dark and light themes. The following week, on September 1, Lady Lostris, currently Fandom Staff and previously a SOAP member, announced that she would take over Spongebob456's role as the Wiki Representative for Wikitubia. On October 6, 2022, Cluckster announced that Wikitubia had started a punishment request system, in which users could request staff give a message wall warning or a temporary account block to users who violated the wiki rules.

On November 14, 2022, discussions administrator BlindCartographer revamped and overhauled the Discussions in a series of announcements, with the rules becoming stricter, two new Discussions categories (Games and Animation), and a Discussions AbuseFilter.

On November 18, 2022, then-bureaucrat NameOfUser57 resigned, sparking the first use of the bureaucrat vacancy process on Wikitubia, which you can read about here on the December 2022 Bureaucrat vote page. JustLeafy won the vote in the first week of December 2022, and was promoted to bureaucrat on December 8.

Also on December 8, 2022, Cluckster announced the new rollbacker application form in the Discussions. These forms are for users who think they are qualified for rollbacker rights submit a request for promotion. However, the forms last for 2-3 days, and only occur whenever there is a shortage in rollbackers or Discussions moderators, in which a quantity of less than 6 rollbackers is considered a "shortage". Wikitubia reached 20,000 pages on January 21, 2023.

On March 17, 2023, Cluckster announced an overhaul and recreation of the site's rules called the "RRR Rules", which was implemented three days later, on March 20. On March 18, Cluckster created a thread where announcing each time a new rule or a new revision of an already-existing rule is approved.

On May 31, 2023, Cluckster would start the Wikitubia monthly report which recaps on all the Wikitubia events such as changes in staff teams as well as changes to the rules and other notable events.

On June 11, 2023, then-bureaucrat Purzyckij announced that he would be resigning as a bureaucrat on July 31, 2023, leaving after 8 years of having the position, but would still remain as an administrator. With this, it sparked another bureaucratic election, which you can read more on at July 2023 Bureaucrat vote. BlindCartographer would win the vote and would be promoted to Head of Discussions and bureaucrat on July 31. Later on however, from December 1 to 6, 2023, a confidence vote would be held to determine if BlindCartographer should remain as Head of Discussions. The community voted in favor of BlindCartographer.

On July 13, 2023, former bureaucrat, ITurkishmapping would create an alternate account to upload NSFW imagery to Wikitubia and additionally its Discord server. A month later, ITurkishmapping went on to create many accounts in an attempt to manipulate the outcome of a confidence vote for bureaucrat, Cluckster. This can be read about further on the ITurkishmapping page.

On August 23, 2023, then-bureaucrat Cluckster announced that he will be retiring from his staff position on January 1, 2024. From October 1 to 6, another bureaucrat election took place, information on it can be found here at October 2023 Bureaucrat vote. Enayy would win this vote and be promoted to Head of Moderation and bureaucrat on January 1, 2024.

On December 31, 2023, then-bureaucrat JustLeafy announced that he would be stepping down from bureaucrat on January 1, 2024, but that he would still remain as an administrator. Due to this, the process for another bureaucratic vote began to take place, which can be read about here, February 2024 Bureaucrat vote. Tabbloide would go on to win the vote and be promoted to Head of Content and bureaucrat on February 6, 2024.

On February 2, 2024, after 10 years and 1 month of being an administrator, Purzyckij retired, stating he would return later. He is currently the longest-served staff member on Wikitubia.

On August 31, 2024, 5090061uusd became the first user in Wikitubia history to hit 10,000 posts, after surpassing BlindCartographer in having the most discussions posts in the site in January 17, 2024.

On September 19, 2024, after a long stretch of inactivity, then-bureaucrat Tabbloide resigned unexpectedly, expressing a desire to leave the internet. This ignited the upcoming November 2024 bureaucrat vote, marking the first bureaucrat vote since the February 2024 bureaucrat vote. On October 22, 2024, administrator Axayla dropped out of the vote, leaving Blitzerous in favor for the Head of Content position.

On October 25, 2024, former Head of Discussions CheesePlatter retired, leading to Hellohowareyouthisisanalt's promotion to bureaucrat shortly after. One day later, Blitzerous was promoted to Head of Content.