Similar sites to OWOT: Difference between revisions

[[File:Textwall ywot clones.jpg|thumb|A list of YWOT clones listed on the now defunct [[TextWall|Textwall]]]]

Sites similar to OWOT, namely in being infinite canvases editable by anyone.

[[File:JRT three sites.png|left|thumb|382x382px|[[Symbols for Legacy Computing|SLC]] graphic of The Three Sites by [[JRT]]]]

Coined by [[Lemuria]] in [[Our World of News|''Our World of News'']], "''The Three Sites''" refer to a triad of infinite canvases that are labeled as sister websites of one another.

These consist of [[Your World of Text]] and all other websites created by [[Andrew Badr]], or run by prominent users of YWOT.

Most of the following sites were advertised at one time on the Center Console of YWOT.

'''''<small>*See also: [[Your World of Text]].</small>'''''

Possibly the first infinite canvas on the internet.

YWOT was created in 2009.

'''''<small>*See also: [[Our World of Pixels|Our World of Pixel]].</small>'''''

YWOT but with pixels.

Largely identical to YWOT, except there was no rate limits.

Like YWOT and OWOT, Jotleaf was also an infinite canvas where users can write text. In addition to this, they could also add images, embed video/sound files and customize the background.<ref>https://www.facebook.com/jotleaf/posts/pfbid0PSeeFBcZoK6MdKgimip8H5ZQTEkF3u3odefprUDbKhEVj8Gwqhre4mxBtZjnwDZBl</ref>

Jotleaf was also more focused on individual userpages, which users were encouraged to share like more conventional social media blogs.

== OWOT Clones/Instances ==

OWOT is open source, meaning that many people have created their own instances of the site, some with significant modification.

=== Fern's Instance ===

[[Fernsy|Fern]], a moderator of the [[OWOT Discord]], briefly ran her own instance of OWOT.

=== Catha'vi's Instance ===

[[File:Cathavi owot.png|thumb|379x379px|Concept art]]<blockquote>''"Idea: a site like owot where everyone can make words but:''

''each character supports graphics as well as characters so images can be pasted at a higher resolution''

''there are "world portals" (areas that sync from a target world to other worlds) the homepage is mainly made up of these world portals, with users who are registered for longer getting larger portals''  

''the portals are arranged semantically (can be achieved using embeddings and t-sne reduction) meaning similar worlds will be close together''  

''the general vibe of worlds will be less editable, with them acting more like myspace sites/tumblr blogs''

'''- [[MothCultLeader|Catha'vi]] on OWOT Discord'''</blockquote>Currently nonexistent, though Catha'vi has created a thread in the [[OWOT Discord|Discord]] for users to suggest features for the hypothetical ''World of Text'' site.

'''''<small>*See also [[Jan soweli Asike#Custom OWOT client]].</small>'''''

{{main|OWOT Betas}}

Following the closure of the original OWOT in 2015, there were numerous attempts at reviving the canvas before the current site was born.<gallery heights="140" widths="250">

File:Beta-frontpage.png|[[JerryStarField]]'s beta(''September 2015 - Late 2016'')

File:Beta2-1.png|[[Poopman]]'s beta(''Late 2015 or Early 2016'')

File:Beta3-2.png|[[Sammich]]'s beta(''Late 2016 - December 2016'')

== Other Canvas Sites Related to OWOT ==

Sites that are not considered sister websites of OWOT, but whose userbases have interacted with OWOT in the past.

An infinite pixel canvas similar to [[Our World of Pixels|OWOP]].

Tixtels was created around 2018 by an OWOT user named SuperOP535.

The site was located at [https://tixtels.glitch.me/ tixtels.glitch.me/] before closing down some time after May of 2024.

Goatway, the [[OWOT Discord|Discord]] channel(''later a separate server'') which catalogues messages from OWOT's [[chat]], was named after a feature from Tixtels.

'''''<small>*See also: [[TextWall|Textwall]].</small>'''''

Textwall was a 2020 OWOT clone where rather than having distinct URLs, [[worlds]] were located at specific coordinates on the Mainpage. The canvas also technically wasn't infinite, and was limited to 100,000 coordinates on all sides.  

Textwall was permanently shut down sometime in 2024, though the source code was public and FP was able to revive the site at 2s4.me. However it must be noted that this is an entirely new canvas without any content from the original Textwall.

==== Duckgroup.xyz ====

Supposedly an offshoot of textwall.cc, though information on it is sparse and it seemed to have been shut down long before the death of Textwall.

=== TextBoard.fr ===

'''''<small>*See also: [[Aywen|Aywen Migration]].</small>'''''

TextBoard.fr was a recreation of Your World of Text that was launched by French Youtuber [https://www.youtube.com/@AywenVideos Aywen] as a social experiment. He made several [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izfTmV-ufl0 videos] about the site in December of 2024, prompting a massive incursion of French users primarily into YWOT, though some activity had also spilled into OWOT. The effect of this was that YWOT's spawn temporarily became a bilingual environment, and there was an increase in scripting in both WOT sites as Aywen's tech-inclined audience began to experiment with the text canvases. [[Fp|FP]] in particular was amazed at just how fast their scripts progressed.

TextBoard.fr is currently shut down, though Aywen has said that it may be brought back every year as a seasonal event.

Inftext was shut down due to the death of its founder in October of 2023. The source code can still be found [https://github.com/Caltrop256/InfText here].

=== Our World of Vectors ===

'''- fox'''

'''March 15th, 2025'''</blockquote>A WIP sandbox by [[fox]] where users place lines(vectors) on an infinite canvas.  <gallery heights="140" widths="250">

File:Owov sketch.jpg

== Other Canvas Sites ==

[https://yourworldoftext.wiki/Written_World Written World] was a 2011 YWOT clone whose canvas used a real world street map for its background. In addition to basic YWOT features, users were able to change their text colors and the direction they typed in(''i.e. you could set it so that you typed downwards or backwards by default''). The creator also assigned animations to actions like typing and deleting, intending to encourage "constructive participation" by making edits feel more engaging. Other utilities included an "echoing" feature that was "analogous to upvoting" and allowed users to "add permanence" to content they thought was good.

The site's main gimmick was that it took place on a real world street map generated using 250+ GBs of data from [https://planet.openstreetmap.org Planet OSM]. Each user spawned in at their IRL locations and could use the UI to see other players in their proximity. The purpose of the experiment was to "combine online chat with the pre-existing relationships that are inherent to real-world places," as seen in instances where players used text to mark up IRL locations and curved their messages around the contours of streets and geography. The whole canvas gave off a personal feeling as users explored, commented and drew on what is essentially a digital version of the city they lived in, all while interacting with others who inhabited the same area.

Written World's geopositioning feature was initially restricted to New York, but the developer had planned to expand it to a greater area.<ref>https://www.killscreen.com/leave-a-story-in-the-mysterious-ascii-world-of-new-york/</ref>

The site was created by Zack Shwartz as his [https://itp.nyu.edu/itp/ Interactive Telecommunications Program] thesis. Its central idea was previously conceived during a group project for [[wikipedia:Clay_Shirky|Clay Shirky's]] Designing Conversational Spaces class.

Written World was shut down roughly one year after its launch, owing mostly to cost issues and the author's inexperience with programming.<ref>https://zachschwartz.com/work/writtenworld/</ref><gallery mode="packed" heights="200">

File:Writtenworld.jpg

File:Writtenworld2.jpg

File:Writtenworld3.jpg

=== Walloftext.co ===

Walloftext.co was created by Louis Stowasser in 2014. It is a site where users type in draggable textboxes instead of on the canvas itself.

[https://walloftext.co Walloftext.co] presented itself as a site for note-taking and brainstorming, intending to forgo YWOT and OWOT's constant drama; I don't know how the developer went about trying to do this but it clearly didn't work.

Walloftext is arguably the most well known site in this category, though most of its worlds(including /main) are still rather empty.

'''''<small>*See also [https://medium.com/@louisstow/the-making-of-wall-of-text-d95f63dada2d /the-making-of-wall-of-text-d95f63dada2d].</small>'''''<gallery mode="packed" heights="200">

File:Walloftext.co.webp

File:Walloftext owot.jpg

=== Ascii Collab ===

Ascii collab is a lo-fi, art-centric text canvas founded by Martin Stewart in 2020.<ref>https://discourse.elm-lang.org/t/ascii-collab-draw-ascii-art-together-on-an-infinite-canvas/6273</ref> The site's purpose, as its name suggests, is for users to collaborate on making original ASCII art; copy-pasted content is strongly disincentivized.

The site has a very ingenious way of preventing spam. Users can click on a button to highlight each user's edits in different colors, and if they click on a patch of text in this mode then all edits by that user is instantly hidden, but only on their end. Similarly, the site owner can use this feature to revert text for everybody.

Though Ascii Collab is mostly obscure, Martin Stewart has implemented various measures to encourage collaboration among its meager userbase. First off, users can choose to have the site notify them on email whenever a new edit is made. A [https://meetdown.app/group/10560/Ascii-Art-Appreciation-Association meet up service] was also created to facilitate ASCII art sessions, and several events were held throughout 2021.

The area around the center of Ascii Collab is surrounded by a large rectangular border. On February 2nd, 2021, all art within this region was stitched into a massive poster, which can be seen below. <gallery mode="packed" heights="180">

</gallery>[[File:Typetobuild cursor.gif|thumb|162x162px|3D cursor in typetobuild]]

=== Typetobuild.com(''3D YWOT'') ===

Typetobuild.com, also known as ''Anchored'', was a 3D text canvas by [https://github.com/SuperQGS/superqgs.github.io SuperQGS] where users could toggle their cursors to move horizontally or vertically. A later update made editing more intuitive by highlighting the layer of text you're on.  

The canvas was infinite just like in YWOT and OWOT but had a vertical height limit. It was very sparse in content thanks to limited advertisement, but one YWOT user did make a road all the way to Y:1000. There was also a number of simple three dimensional ASCII drawings, which SuperQGS had stated to be an entirely new art form<ref>SuperQGS once considered reaching out to [[Meimei]] on her [https://www.deviantart.com/kiki-ascii Deviant Art page] in order to commission her to make 3D ASCII art in ''Anchored''.</ref>. ''Anchored'' was mostly identical to YWOT with the exception of the 3D aspect; it did not have teleportation or color, nor did it enable pasting to any capacity.  

The beta for ''Anchored'' was released in April 2023 and taken offline later that same year, but the creator plans to revive it at some point in the future. In the meantime, you can find the source code [https://discord.com/channels/366609898164715520/814269977393233937/1296260084371951647 here].

The developer discusses the inspiration behind typetobuild [https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=4266&v=egDADIYE5r0&feature=youtu.be here]. He had previously created an ASCII survival game named ''The After'' with YWOT/OWOT style base building, and intended to make a similar game set in typetobuild's 3D canvas.<gallery mode="packed">

File:Type to build slashes.jpg|SuperQGS on rendering the "/" character to better facilitate 3D ASCII art

File:Typetobuild survival.jpg|SuperQGS on the planned survival mode

File:Typetobuild end.jpg|SuperQGS concerning the end of typetobuild.com

== Non-infinite sandboxes that are still compared to OWOT for various reasons ==

ETT was taken down in 2018<ref>https://ett.fandom.com/wiki/Edit_the_Text</ref> because the creators didn't want people to use it as a platform for storing their data.<ref>https://tikolu.net/edit/.info</ref>

=== Mudgolt ===

== Bonus: Spooks.me ==

[[Spooks]] is an open world pixel game that is currently maintained by [[Fp|FP]] and [[InfraRaven]], where users can customize their avatars and interact with other players.

It was initially created by a YWOT user named [[Kevin]], though he abandoned the project in 2022.

Despite not being an infinite canvas, the development of Spooks is heavily intertwined with both the OWOT and OWOP communities. Furthermore, the site itself shares the same [[Uvias]] login system as the two aforementioned canvases.<gallery mode="packed" heights="200">

File:Spooksite.jpg|Spooks mainpage in 2023

File:Spooks avatars.png|Spooks avatars by [[InfraRaven]]