User blog:DancePowderer/Two and a Half Timeskips: A Wikia Celebration!

HAPPY QUINQUENNIAL ANNIVERSARY! It was five years ago today that the One Piece wikia was first started. It was five years ago that Kazuya2070 laid the groundwork for what the site is today. And we mustn’t forget the other “Ancient Ones”: STAREYe and Coopaii, the latter of which created the site’s very first and oldest article: the Straw Hat Pirates. In April, Coopaii also started work on the main page and some templates, as well as create the second oldest article on the wikia: Luffy D. Monkey. I didn’t mix anything up, that’s the name that Luffy’s article first went by. After that they seemed to be around less often than leap year. There was a lot of dead time where nothing got done. Nothing significant happened until August 6 of that year, when Aquarius505 made 23 edits, which included the One Piece and One Piece Anime pages. He disappeared that same day. The time between February and August was considered the bad times, since 4kids came out with their dub of One Piece and the whole franchise took an emotional (and probably financial) hit. Even today, there are users who will trash 4kids faster than you can say Gomu Gomu. There was a two month period from late August to early October where nothing happened at all, except for probably some vandalism. It wasn’t until a fateful day in October, the 8th to be exact, that the site began to blossom into what we have today. That was when our very own Mugiwara Franky and another guy named Justyn came over, annoyed to hell by Wikipedia. Within the two weeks following MF’s arrival, many other users arrived, some of whom are still seen today: SigmasonicX, Murasaki, Angel Emfrbl, Joekido, and Cody2526, all of whom helped further develop the wikia, making great strides in content and layout. About a month after MF arrived, on November 5, BattleFranky202 came on board. Unfortunately, the site fell into anarchy so to speak, as back then, there were no rules or guidelines to follow, and there were edit wars and several people left. Things picked up slightly when they decided to reject the 4Kids dub and stick to the original Japanese. I’m sure people were chanting “Zoro not Zolo! Zoro not Zolo!” Also in October, the site took a hit from which it came back stronger than ever. One user, whose name I won’t say because I feel it might compromise his integrity, tried to make the site into an Arlong Park Forums clone. This caused the editors to realize that they had to distinguish the site from other forum sites, starting by using all original content, and none taken directly from forums. After that, the site got some more articles created. An edit war or two caused the staff editor Sparka to be brought in. Soon after, Mugiwara Franky and Justyn became admin and bureaucrat, respectively, rules were made, and so were more templates. Around November, things had more or less calmed down. Kazuya2070 came back in December for a banning spree, but after a staff editor told him off, things returned to normal. The One Piece Wikia declared independence from Wikipedia on New Year’s Day 2007, some stuff was overhauled, but other than that work continued as normal. Stuff exploded in 2009 when a current events and announcement template was added, a hacking fiasco caused Funimation to tank their dub, and the site reached its 3000 article milestone. Everything was more or less streamlined by then. And that’s the history in a nutshell, so on to the fun stuff.

To me, the first three years on this wiki was like the Gulf War. I wasn’t around for it, but I learned what happened by reading about it. This site has advanced so far in its five year existence. It went from being frequented on a monthly basis by a select few people to becoming one of the most visited of all the anime wikia sites. When it first started, it took several months to get just one article going. Also, the site back then was much like Marineford from chapter 552-580, a war zone. Now, the site runs smoother than varnished mahogany. I would like to thank Mugiwara Frank, Angel Emfrbl, Joekido, and all of the other editors who raised the wikia while it was still in its baby phase. I would also like to thank YazzyDream for organizing this whole event. There was something else I wanted to add…what was it… what am I forgetting…? OH YEAH! Thank you to all of YOU who have contributed your time and effort to this wikia whenever you can and in whatever way you can! I hope you will continue to do so in the future, especially with how intense the current arc is getting. The Straw Hats are accidental criminals of Fishman Island, Luffy’s going to go see Jinbe after two whole years, and a megalomaniac and a hopeless romantic have teamed up to destroy the Ryugu Kingdom! With the way the story is going, I hope everyone stays on, because we’re going to need all the help we can get. So, without further ado, LET THE CELEBRATION BEGIN! IT’S PARTY TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!