Your World of Text
 | |
 YWOT in 2023 | |
| Created by | Andrew Badr |
|---|---|
| URL | https://yourworldoftext.com |
| Launched | August 5, 2009 |
*Check out the YWOT Wiki!
Your World of Text (YWOT) is a website created by Andrew Badr, and is the predecessor to OWOT.
Most OWOT users find out about OWOT through YWOT.
YWOT does not support colored text, teleportation, and does not have a chat.
YWOT nowadays barely functions, likely the project coming to its end after nearly 15 years.
Features
*See also /Mainpage
Though it lacks in many of OWOT's features, YWOT makes up for it by being a massive open world filled with 10+ years of contentas of 2025.
Users are encouraged to scroll in any cardinal direction, where they can follow one of the site's many roads/lines to a variety of distant landmarks. They may also choose to explore randomly; either way they'll find no shortage of messages and (mostly) hand-made creations.
The YWOT Mainpage has been wiped multiple times throughout its history, with the last reset happening in July 2015 in response to a massive wave of spam.
The website itself, meanwhile, has been around for 16+ years. A great host of content from before the 2015 Wipe can still be found in the site's numerous subworlds, or within one of the many Mainpage archives created by Andrew Badr(the two archives linked here are all covered by spam within a radius around Spawn, but give way to hand-made content as you scroll out).
Interaction With OWOT
Warpserver
/warpserver was a chat command that allowed users to access other websites from the OWOT client. FP created it for users to connect to their custom instances of OWOT, but instead It was used to copy/paste, teleport and run OWOT scripts on YWOT(though colored text was not supported).
The /warpserver command was removed by FP for being problematic in multiple ways. Not only was it used to spam YWOT, but Warpserver also posed a security risk, with the possibility of it teleporting users to IP grabbers and other harmful sites.
Most users on YWOT seemed to have been unaware of the Warpserver command even as it was used to spam their website.
Fastclient
A website, formerly hosted at 2s4.me/public/ywot/fastclient_v1_jul_25_2021.html, that presumably functioned in a similar way to the Warpserver. It allowed users to access multiple OWOT features on YWOT—such as copying/pasting, faster scrolling, and wider zoom—but teleportation was not supported.
The Fastclient was discreetly disseminated within the YWOT community throughout 2021 and 2022. Notably, it gave users the ability to back up their art and take larger screenshots. And while teleporting wasn't enabled, scrolling speed at max zoom was fast enough that you could reach 10,000 coordinates in under a minute, with many using it as a way to fast travel to distant art projects.
But critically the Fastclient was also used to spam, and it was for this reason that FP eventually took down the website. AndreiXYZ stated on the Discord that the Fastclient was never supposed to be found by the public, though for unknown reasons it ended up being listed on DuckDuckGo.
OWOT-YWOT Bridge
In August of 2024, Catha'vi(then Moth Cult Leader) launched a script that synced edits between the two sites within a small portal. They later created another bridge that allowed YWOT users to interact with OWOT's Global Chat.
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The first bridge(sped up 20x) -
The second bridge(real time)
Cross-Site Racism
OWOTers on YWOT
Due to YWOT's lack of features, many OWOT users see it as a more handicapped site.
The lack of colored text and SLC(among many other things) greatly decrease the scope of art that can be created. Stricter rate-limits also serves to restrict scripting, which is considered to be a major source of creativity in OWOT.
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 and left it to rot, whereas FP still maintains OWOT on a regular basis.
OWOT users have noticed, in addition, that scrolling is much slower on YWOT, making for a jankier experience. Many have also reported that they simply missed the presence of colors, and felt that the experience wasn't the same in black and white.
YWOTers on OWOT
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 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 feared as 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.
This is not to say that YWOT is without toxicity, however, though most of it does seem to have subsided in the current day. Any crimes committed by past users have similarly been lost to time, whereas OWOT keeps a better record of its misbehaving members.
Another source of animosity comes from the fact that much of YWOT's appeal comes from exploration, where generations of users follow each other on lengthy pilgrimages, reacting to older text all while leaving messages of their own in order to encourage future travelers. The lack of teleportation also means that the vast majority of spam/toxicity is confined to Spawn, an area that can easily be left behind to explore a more pleasant environment.
Easy access to teleportation removes any incentive for manual exploration in OWOT, meaning that there really isn't much to find after you scroll past the chaos of Spam Central. It is for this reason that many YWOT users see their sister website as a more hollow experience.
The Takeaway
The general consensus among those who have spent time in both websites is that YWOT and OWOT simply fulfill different niches. YWOT is considered to be an open world text processor while OWOT is regarded by most of its userbase as a sandbox centered around scripting. FP has also noted that whereas YWOT users explore their site manually, users in OWOT explore by teleporting to distant coordinates or by visiting other worlds, many of which are unique experiences in of themselves.