Similar sites to OWOT
Sites similar to OWOT, namely in being infinite canvases editable by anyone.
"The Three Sites"
Coined by Lemuria in 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.
Your World of Text
Possibly the first infinite canvas on the internet.
YWOT was created in 2009.
Our World of Pixels
Launched by Eldit in 2016, hosted by InfraRaven.
Our World of Text
You are here.
The newer version of OWOT was launched by FP in 2017. It adds a variety of features to the base YWOT code, such as colors, a chatbox and teleportation.
Like OWOP, the new OWOT is also hosted by InfraRaven.
*Old OWOT
Created by Andrew Badr in 2010.
Largely identical to YWOT, except there was no rate limits.
Shut down in 2015 due to funding issues.
*Jotleaf
Created by Andrew Badr in 2012.
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.
Jotleaf was also more focused on individual userpages, which users were encouraged to share like more conventional social media blogs.
The site was shut down in 2015 due to funding issues, but an example of a Jotleaf page can still be found at fornowband.org/.
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.
Textwall.cc
*See also: Textwall.
TextBoard.fr
*See also: Aywen Migration.
Spooks.me
Spooks is an open world pixel game that is currently maintained by 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.
The development of Spooks is heavily intertwined with both the OWOT and OWOP communities, and the site itself shares the same Uvias login system as the two aforementioned canvases. However it is not an infinite canvas, and as such will not be placed among "The Three Sites" despite being a sister website of OWOT.
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Spooks mainpage in 2023 -
Spooks avatars by InfraRaven
Other Canvas Sites
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.
Written World's main gimmick was that it took place on a real world street map generated using 250+ GBs of data from 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 "create a bridge between the physical and virtual," and to see what people would do when put on a map, in their actual locations, with no further context.
The site was created by Zack Shwartz as his Interactive Telecommunications Program thesis. Its central idea was previously conceived during a group project for 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.[1]
Walloftext.co
A site where users type in draggable textboxes instead of on the canvas itself.
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 set about trying to do this but it clearly didn't work.
Walloftext is one of the most obscure canvases featured here, most worlds(including /main) are rather empty.
*See also /the-making-of-wall-of-text-d95f63dada2d.
Ascii Collab
A more lo-fi, art-centric text canvas.
There is an option that lets you highlight edits made by each user in separate colors, and if you click on a patch of text in this mode then all edits from that user is reverted on your end.
Typetobuild.com(3D YWOT)
Typetobuild.com, also known as Anchored, was a 3D text canvas by 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. 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 here.
The developer discusses the inspiration behind typetobuild 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.
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SuperQGS on rendering the "/" character to better facilitate 3D ASCII art -
SuperQGS on the planned survival mode -
SuperQGS concerning the end of typetobuild.com -
A user rotating the 3D canvas(Note: A script was used to increase the rendering distance)
OWOT Clones/Instances
*See also: Running from source.
OWOT is open source, meaning that many people have created their own instances of the site, some with significant modification.
Fern's Instance
Fern, a moderator of the OWOT Discord, briefly ran her own instance of OWOT.
Catha'vi/MothCultLeader's Instance
"Currently a hypothetical concept.
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
(wip)"
- Catha'vi on OWOT Discord
Jan soweli Asike's Instance
*See also Jan soweli Asike#Custom OWOT client.