RationalWiki:History
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We upgraded our mashed potatoes in the afternoon of April 24, 2009 (EST) to the (then) latest version of [http://www.MediaWiki.org MediaWiki]. Thanks to [[User:Nx|Nx's]] prepreparationism, our "special" extensions survived - and improved. ''Viva la evolution''! | We upgraded our mashed potatoes in the afternoon of April 24, 2009 (EST) to the (then) latest version of [http://www.MediaWiki.org MediaWiki]. Thanks to [[User:Nx|Nx's]] prepreparationism, our "special" extensions survived - and improved. ''Viva la evolution''! | ||
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Revision as of 09:37, 21 May 2009
Contents |
1.0
RationalWiki 1.0, or RW 1.0, was founded by ColinR in February 2007, as a reaction of disgust to the foolishness evidenced at Conservapedia (CP). Over the next couple of months, editors at CP who were suspected of "sanity" were carefully invited via email to come join the site.
It was a combination of people writing articles on topics they were frustrated by CP over, and a lot of random letting off of steam over the stupidity we were encountering over there. Articles and talk pages intermingled, and there were no rules.
Many users used it as a forum to discuss ways of improving the scientific content at Conservapedia.
The last 48 hours or so of RW 1.0 were a vandalism festival, with people randomly wrecking articles, user pages, and, especially, the main page, prior to the Big Wipe.
2.0
On May 16 and 17, 2008, now known as the Night of the Blunt Knives, every CP editor who was identifiable as a contributor to RationalWiki was perma-banned. Colin and Trent decided to wipe the wiki, mess that it was, and on May 22 started "RationalWiki 2.0", which you see before you now.
Most of us saved off-site copies of our user pages, and our pet articles.
RW 2.0 got up and running quite rapidly, although for a few days most of what we created were userboxes. A glamorous and sophisticated main page was built, and "community standards" were worked out by the mob. Shortly thereafter we wrote our mission statement, which now graces the aforementioned glamorous main page.
2.1
Technically it became RationalWiki 2.1 on Sep. 10 2007, our "host", Siteground, blocked our access claiming we were using "too much shared server time". Apparently their business model is to attack any successful sites they host and blackmail them for $90/month (fifteen times the prepaid rate) for so-called "Virtual Private Server" service. We aren't that dumb, so within 24 hours Trent had moved the site to a new host.
RationalWiki 2.1 saw the introduction of many innovative extensions:
- Up/down voting, which can be used at will anywhere
- Slider bar voting, likewise, can be used anywhere
- The complete set of WIGO pages that anyone could want
- The barely alive "Article of the Weak" feature, with lots of interactive features
- "Capturebot", used on the "WIGO CP" page to grab screenshots of links before they are memory-holed
Things also devolved in the egalitarian management of user rights even further:
- The tendency to make a sysop of any user deemed "mostly harmless" over 36 hours (or less) of editing
2.2
On January 6-7 2009, roughly from 6 PM to about 1 AM (EST), Conservapedia lost their spellchecker while RationalWiki was moved to a shiny, happy new server, next to Trent's pot plant.
2.2.1
We upgraded our mashed potatoes in the afternoon of April 24, 2009 (EST) to the (then) latest version of MediaWiki. Thanks to Nx's prepreparationism, our "special" extensions survived - and improved. Viva la evolution!