Member-Only YWOT

Member-Only YWOT(also known as Make It Member or MIM) was an 2013 movement to change YWOT so that only registered users(members) can have full access of the Mainpage. This would mitigate the damage done by spam scripts, which were running rampant in that period.^[1]

The most notable proponent of Member-Only YWOT was the A New Beginning faction run by JA, a prominent user at the time. Their worlds, which included /MAKEITMEMBER and /a_new_beginning, were repeatedly advertised at Spam Central.

Ultimately, no change came as a result of the Member-Only movement.

The Plan[edit | edit source]

Users involved in MIM were constantly discussing/receiving feedback on how a Member-Only YWOT would work. /mimdesign and /mimdesigndiscussion seemed to host these discussions though neither world is accessible anymore.

According to /Protect_YWOT, which was stated to be independent from JA's A New Beginning, a registered user would become a 'member' 24 hours after claiming a world. They would then be able to create member-only areas on the Mainpage and access other user page utilities, such as changing their text color(like in Our World of Text).

The main goal was to give members the ability to protect art, messages and anything else they may come across.

The only caveat was that members could not spam or grief text, with there presumably being some kind of moderation in place to punish misbehaving members.

Non-members, on the other hand, could still do whatever they want. However their actions would no longer affect the member-only sections of the Mainpage(Ex. most major landmarks and art pieces).

Controversy[edit | edit source]

Advertisements for /MAKEITMEMBER and /Protect_YWOT at Spawn

Such a sweeping reform naturally garnered a good deal of controversy, with some claiming that it gave members an unfair advantage over non-members.

The ability to make indestructible text would also drastically alter the nature of YWOT, and the campaign as a whole promised to add stricter rules to a website known for complete freedom.

Furthermore, the 2013 mainpage suffered from heavy spam that would drown out any normal messages. So ironically MIM users had to resort to spam in order to advertise their cause. According to the YWOT History GitHub, many in the community argued that the Member-Only campaign only added on to YWOT's spam problem.

(*JA did state in /MAKEITMEMBER that any advertisement of the world through mass spamming was an attempt to slander A New Beginning.)

Aftermath[edit | edit source]

It is unknown whether Andrew Badr ever paid attention to the calls for a Member-Only YWOT. Regardless, no such changes came to pass.

JA, an important leader in the campaign, would leave YWOT in April of that year. Many other users did the same, ushering in what the YWOT History Github describes as a Dark Age of YWOT.

In absence of any meaningful change, YWOT continued to suffer from mass spam. The issue of disruptive scripting would not resolve itself until 2021; in the intervening years Andrew Badr would implement numerous changes to block out spammers, including a reset of the Mainpage followed by a lockdown five years later. The biggest factor, however, to modern YWOT's low levels of spam would be the declining population of users who visit the site.

(*JA returned to YWOT at one point. Today he can be found lurking wokecat.com, a chatroom populated by YWOT users.)

JA Manifesto[edit | edit source]

   I understand your point of view, and may I say it was beautifully put. Props to you. 

   But I see YWOT in a different way, you see when I first came on YWOT the very first thing I did was travel out east, let me say it was a wonderful experience. But you know what I noticed, a while back much of the text was deleted, but me not being much into YWOT left it the way it was.

   I fell in love with YWOT, it was great back before you had met me and JS YWOT was grand, but around December to January it all changed. Andrew started making blogs on Reddit and such. Then 9gag came in with Reddit, spammers leaked many scripts, it was chaos, later it settled down but has recently gotten worse, not better, more and more scripters are coming on and not for good but for bad, on top of that more childish idiots are coming on and spamming for no reason like /armyofz.

   You see I don't want to do this so that I can be that famous dude that changed YWOT or to give members favoritism over Non-Members I simply want to help all the other users have a better experience on YWOT plain and simple. If there is a feature that you do not like, tell me I will change it.

   You see there are so many post out there, and recently trolls have gotten closer and closer to all those post and recently a "troll" spammed and nuked 900 1000 and 2000, it's sad really, and I want to protect those monuments for all future pioneers that dare take that memorable journey.

   The world may be anarchy, but YWOT doesn't [have to be], if you have the power or the chance to change something for the better you are not only able to change it, You are obliged to do so, we cannot let YWOT die.

   Andrew doesn't give two shits about YWOT (excuse my language) all he cares about is his precious Jotleaf^[2], well I say No, I will change YWOT even if I have to do it alone, support is nice, but if Andrew doesn't change this then I will. YWOT doesn't have to go down this road, it just doesn't, if we can we must change it, we can't let it get so bad that one day you will come on and see this message: "YWOT has been shut down, please go to the new Jotleaf.com"


We mustn't let that happen.


As a friend of mine once said,


This is Progress


This is Change


THIS. IS. YWOT.


Signed,

JA, Founder of A New Beginning

Gallery[edit | edit source]

JA explaining the rationale behind Member-Only YWOT, along with their opinion that Andrew Badr had abandoned YWOT to the spammers.
Response from InfraRaven and Rcatface.
A call to support MIM.
A list of usernames from /A_New_Beginning, most likely votes from the Wall of Opinions(April 7th, 2013)
Wall of Opinions from /A_New_Beginning