Your World of Text: Difference between revisions

| screenshot = Ywot_2023.jpg

| caption = YWOT in 2023

| creator = [[Andrew Badr]]

| url = https://yourworldoftext.com

'''Your World of Text''' ('''YWOT''') is an [[Similar Sites to OWOT|infinite text canvas]] created by [[Andrew Badr]]. It is the predecessor to [[OWOT|Our World of Text]], and also the site where most users discovered OWOT.  

''It feels soulless.''"</blockquote>Due to YWOT's lack of features, many OWOT users see it as a more handicapped site.  

There is also the fact that YWOT simply isn't very well optimized in the current day, and would lag unbearably whenever too many users are online. Indeed, Andrew Badr has largely abandoned his site in the current day, whereas [[Fp|FP]] still maintains OWOT on a regular basis.  

''And that horrendous chat box..."''</blockquote>Our World of Text is seen by much of the Your World of Text community as a more toxic version of YWOT where spamming is more prevalent. The script-centric nature of OWOT also lends it a bad name, since most YWOT users associate scripting exclusively with spam.

That being said, most YWOTers have not been on OWOT long enough to learn of its more [[Art|artistic]] qualities; or that scripts can be used for the site's benefit rather than just for spam. Though it should be noted that in many areas, OWOT ''does'' in fact attract a more reprehensible userbase than its predecessor, with the global chat in particular being a cesspool of toxicity. A lot of this may have to do with the fact that OWOT users are generally younger than their YWOT counterparts.

=== Mr.Guy ===

[[File:Mrguy bitcoin.jpg|thumb|"''Then I did a couple jobs for Andrew Badr. He paid me in Bitcoin, the sum of which now has me tossing and turning at night.''"]]

On the YWOT canvas, Mr.Guy started off as a spammer but eventually turned his focus towards more helpful endeavors like road maintenance. He was most famous for building the North Road ladder, one of the first major Northern trails from after the [https://yourworldoftext.wiki/Summer_of_2015# 2015 Wipe].  

'''''<u><small>*See the YWOT Wiki's page for the MHZ [https://yourworldoftext.wiki/Man_Hating_Zone here].</small></u>'''''

[https://ourworldoftext.com/OWOTD/iceberg /OWOTD/iceberg] mentions that the MHZ have feuded with the [https://www.yourworldoftext.com/~michaelhawke/globalfaith Mormons] of old YWOT and witnessed the [https://github.com/ywothistory/ywothistory.github.io/blob/master/_posts/2012-12-30-modernages.markdown spammer vs eraser wars] of 2013. Their world, /manhatingzone, was supposedly the most active world in YWOT before it was privated.

File:Ywot-black-spam.gif|The [https://yourworldoftext.wiki/The_Void Void Incursion] that covered Spawn for all of May 2022

File:Ywot farm.jpg|The [https://yourworldoftext.wiki/YWOT_Farm YWOT Farm], a collaborative art project at spawn

File:Dense.jpg|A dense cluster of [https://yourworldoftext.wiki/Miscellaneous_Text handmade messages], no spam in sight

File:Ywot iceberg.jpg|An outdated [https://yourworldoftext.wiki/YWOT_Iceberg YWOT iceberg] by [[Rscr]]

</gallery><gallery mode="packed" heights="300">

File:Ywot paradise.png|The City of Paradise from the [https://yourworldoftext.wiki/North_Road_(2010_Archive) 2010 Archive], it exists at the same spot as the current day [https://yourworldoftext.wiki/Sky_City Sky City]  

== Trivia ==

* As stated in an interview with Andrew Badr, YWOT is believed to be the oldest infinite canvas on the internet.<ref>https://cultorjustweird.libsyn.com/s2e7-the-line</ref>

* Instead of a chat, YWOT used to have an active IRC featuring all the most active members of its community. Today, [[Sammich|Sammich's]] Wokecat is believed to be the successor of the IRC, and is still frequented by many of YWOT's old guards.  

* YWOT was featured in [https://elmcip.net/creative-work/your-world-text a digital poetry class from 2010] along with [https://stars.library.ucf.edu/elo2020/live/events/11/ an online social experiment from 2020], and was even used as someone's [https://www.yourworldoftext.com/~maritas college thesis] in 2024(''though it didn't seem to get anywhere''). It was also mentioned in a number of academic papers<ref>https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=yourworldoftext&oq=yourwor</ref><ref>https://www.sens-public.org/articles/1699/</ref>; the 2013 paper titled "''Quotationalism in Digital Literature''" had the following to say about the infinite text canvas:  

<blockquote>"''The idea of ​​the embodiment and realization of the open, interactive and fleeting text played a major role (especially for authors) in digital literature in the late 1990s and early 2000s. While some claimed the impossibility of open text, others (most) turned to implementing this idea, without any irony. One of the works that tries to implement open text is the website yourworldoftext, which designs a blank sheet that can be written on in all directions:'' 'Your World of Text is an infinite grid of text editable by any visitor. The changes made by other people appear on your screen as they happen.' T''he freedom that the endless page promises is clouded by the fact that the flow of writing still runs from left to right and therefore linearly. Furthermore, the fact that every visitor can write something on the page creates pubescent textual struggles and removes this text, at least temporarily, from the field of literature. Some note-taking projects attempt to create an ever-growing, rhizomatic web of text. This is what an entry on the association blaster platform, which has been growing since 1999 and is probably the most popular, says:'' 'This network is, proceeds as and builds a rhizome!' ''The authors Alvar Freude and Dragan Espenschied announced their work in 1999 as'' 'a new way of organizing information.' 'an encapsulated prototype of how the web could work: from the bottom up' ''and'' 'a connection between all kinds of views, languages, cultures and people that creates the ultimate, post-modern ambivalence - or a kind of in-between fact- Knowledge.' [...]"

'''- Barbara Marković, ''Quotationalism in Digital Literature'''''</blockquote>

== References ==

[[Category:Your World of Text]]

[[Category:History]]