User blog:The Anonymous User/An Anonymous Chronicle: 2000 Edits

Introduction
So, after nearly two long years on the Wiki, I finally have reached my 2000th edit! This, coupled with my penchant for chronicling milestones in my life and love of grandiose blog posts, has given me the opportunity and the interest in making this post for your reading pleasure.

IP Days: Theme Songs and Sebastian's Origins
I had planned on making a blog like this since TDIwriter made his two-year wikiversary blog, chronicling his time on the wiki and how he and this place have evolved over the past two years, and here is my chance to do so.

So...I found the wiki in a similar way as TDIwriter did, but instead of using Wikipedia to find it, I knew about Wikia to begin with, and use it frequently for other purposes. I went from the Total Drama Wiki to this one over two years ago, and began flipping through stories and character pages using the "Random Page" button until I found stories I enjoyed. The ones I ended up reading in full at first were Total Drama Paradise, Summer, Total Drama Mania, Return to Total Drama Island, and Total Drama: Boney Island. I enjoyed each for different reasons, but it was the characters that these authors created that really did me in, especially in the latter two.

It was the summer of 2009 when I began to comment anonymously as an IP frequently, and also when I first made conversation with Sprinklemist, whom I learned was male fairly quickly, and TDIwriter, whom I learned was a fellow mid-teenager quickly as well. On top of that, I managed to turn my then girlfriend onto this site, Boney Island specifically, and she enjoyed it, albeit not as much as I, and wrote up my first character theme song list as well.

Once my theme song list was finally completed, I presented it to Sprink, and out of sheer gratitude for my efforts, he offered me the chance to create a character for the story he was currently planning for, Total Drama Tropics. I jumped at the opportunity to create a character of my own for someone else's story, because I knew I would be unable to write anything of my own due to time constraints/lack of plot ideas, so this was my best shot at being represented in a story. Anyway, the character that resulted from this exchange is none other than Sebastian, whom I created based on a side of my personality, linked with several of the other characters on the wiki, and the canon Total Drama series.

After Sebastian's "birth" as a character, things became fairly stagnant, though I did meet more users whom I would eventually befriend, namely DJ Spenstar, and Sunshine, both of whom have appeared to quit the wiki in recent months, sadly. Of course, it was encouragement from Spenstar that led to the next step of my wiki growth.

Account Creation: The Golden Age and a Nonwriter's Trials
On September 7, 2009, I chose to forgo commenting as an IP address and created an account, becoming a full-fledged Wikian, albeit still a non-writer. I chose to go by "The Anonymous User" or "TAU" for short, mainly because I was referred to by those names, or one of several variations thereof, depending on the situation and the user referring to me. This way, I made myself permanent on the wiki, while still retaining my characteristic anonymity.

Time seemed to go rather slowly at this point in my life, both on and off of the wiki, as I was beginning my junior year of high school, and aside from following a few new stories, namely Total Drama Reality, Total Drama Amazon, and Total Drama Infinity, not much was going on on the wiki. I did make sure to keep my commenting regular, though, as I wanted to leave my mark as a user, and that was difficult at the time for a non-writer (this was before blogging was popular). I also wrote a sequel list to my Boney Island theme songs, this time for the cast of Total Drama Reality, without the help of my ex-girlfriend. This meant that I drew a lot more from music that I was familiar with, making the selections much more difficult, and often less accurate due to the lack of variety in the songs.

This time in the wiki's history has been referred to as a "Golden Age" of sorts (thanks, TDIwriter) due to the rise in average story quality from the popular users (around this time, I began to follow Total Drama: Los Angeles, a huge step up from Anonymos' previous works]]), the veteran users' ever-increasing prominence, and a surge of new users with a wealth of potential. This new generation was certainly a mixed bag, including Goldenshane, Bocaj, and Jason. Suffice it to say, plenty of new and exciting things were about to get underway on the wiki.

Towards the end of the Golden Age, two major changes occurred to affect my position as a Wikian, and force me out from under the proverbial radar. Firstly: Total Drama Tropics premiered in late winter of 2010, which meant the arrival of Sebastian onto the wiki scene, for better and worse, as I soon found out how bipolar his reception was as an anti-hero character. More importantly for the wiki as a whole, Total Drama Tropics was the first story that I created a character rankings blog for, in lieu of a theme song list, as it was just too difficult to come up with themes for many of the characters this time around. Little did I know at the time how popular rankings blogs would eventually become on the wiki, so naturally I felt I'd finally found my place as a Wikian.

This newfound confidence, along with some friendly encouragement from Spenstar, caused me to put myself up for Featured User (called Featured Author at the time), making myself the first non-writer to do so. I knew I had little chance of winning, due to my status as a non-writer, but I did not know exactly how negatively I was received as a Wikian for not writing, and for my supposedly limited reading/commenting list. I racked up unprecedented amounts of Oppose votes in the FA elections for months on end, culminating in a blog post by Jason which was filled with hate on me for my non-writing, my slightly tactless nature, and my devotion to Sprink's works, and supposedly nobody else's, generating similar hate comments from Shane and Cokeman.

I did manage to stand up for myself, and essentially bite the bullet for the non-writing community (Lalainee joined the wiki around this time, and thus didn't have to deal with the issue in the same way). It was then that the title of Featured Author was changed to Featured User, mutual apologies help start a soon to be strong friendship between me and Shane, and I began to rise out of being a C-list Wikian. It was truly a great way to wrap up the Golden Age.

Out of Obscurity, Into Experimenting and Experience
Time passed as usual for another month or so (though I would be remiss to say that this was around the time that QOS sockpuppets began running rampant), until I realized that I wasn't getting as much publicity as I once had been, now that Tropics was nearing its end and Sebastian had been eliminated. I thus decided to create my character library, to put my characters to good use by other users in their works. While it took a while to set in, a few of my characters have been used in stories, which is enough for me.

It was also around this time that megablogs truly became popular courtesy of Sprink, Sunshine, Wiki Elder Gideoncrawle, and fellow ex-IP Crystal. Naturally, I wanted in on these megablogs, so my 1,234th edit was devoted to one, but it wasn't received very well at the time. I did use it as a stepping stone to my eventual Featured User win, after many long months of being on the ballot (including the previous month which was almost a tie). I accepted the award in October 2010, a month after I turned 18, and my first wikiversary, so I treated the award as a symbol for my rise to a true veteran user.

During this time, several conflicts between users got blown out of proportion, and several of the admins had already made themselves scarce, so I did my best to moderate, and the tensions loosened, essentially serving as a "warmup" for whatever administrative action needed to be taken. Initially, I was slightly wary of taking action like I did, for fear that I would regain my reputation for being condescending, but that fortunately was not the case, and the admins were grateful (not to speak on your behalf, admins).

Thanks and the Here and Now
Well, another summer is soon coming to a close, and with it, the current wiki status quo is undergoing a metamorphosis. New admins may soon arise to replace the long since disappeared veterans, and formerly new users like Lindsay, and JKL have settled in as experienced Wikians. Who knows what sort of changes will be made in this next year? Hopefully, it will take fewer than 2000 more edits from yours truly before another update.

In the meantime, thank you one and all who have seen/helped me move through these last 2000 edits, which do not come easily to a non-writer, mind you. I would take the time to thank you each individually, but this blog is long enough as it is!

As always, comments are accepted and appreciated!

-TAU