382
edits
Changes
expand
WikiAlpha was online for a total of 15 years, with a slow, unremarkable first decade followed by its tumultuous final 5 years.
WikiAlpha was online for a total of 15 years, with a slow, unremarkable first decade followed by its tumultuous final 5 years.
From 2020 to 2024, WikiAlpha was one of the most popular alternatives to Wikipedia. During that time, it often ranked surprisingly high on search engine results and had an international user base mainly from South Asia (especially Bangladesh), Southeast Asia (particularly Vietnam), Africa (often Nigeria), and North America.
==Overview==
==Overview==
===Why WikiAlpha went offline===
===Why WikiAlpha went offline===
In 2024, Vietnamese and Polish gambling spammers started spamming the website on a massive scale. Hundreds of new pages about gambling websites (usually mirrored domains) and blog-type essays about gambling started to flood WikiAlpha. xXBlackburnXx, a Wikimedia steward who was constantly battling these gambling spammers on Wikimedia wiki sites, came to WikiAlpha to track down the gambling spammers and report them to Geo Swan. The gambling spammers were livid with rage and threatened all of the active administrators and moderators. Incoherent, angry threats, often in all caps, were posted on their talk pages and sent to their e-mails. In June, the spammers falsely reported WikiAlpha to be a phishing site, performed DDoS attacks on WikiAlpha, and finally succeeded in permanently taking WikiAlpha down as revenge. Adding fire to the fuel was the fact that WikiAlpha's owner, Richard, was almost always absent (AWOL), and never responded to talk page messages and e-mails asking for his help in combatting the spammers.
In 2024, Polish gambling spammers started spamming the website on a massive scale. Hundreds of new pages about gambling websites (usually mirrored domains) and blog-type essays about gambling started to flood WikiAlpha. xXBlackburnXx, a Wikimedia steward who was constantly battling these gambling spammers on Wikimedia wiki sites, came to WikiAlpha to track down the gambling spammers and report them to Geo Swan. The gambling spammers were livid with rage and threatened all of the active administrators and moderators. Incoherent, angry threats, often in all caps, were posted on their talk pages and sent to their e-mails. In June, the spammers falsely reported WikiAlpha to be a phishing site, performed DDoS attacks on WikiAlpha, and finally succeeded in permanently taking WikiAlpha down as revenge. Adding fire to the fuel was the fact that WikiAlpha's owner, Richard, was almost always absent (AWOL), and never responded to talk page messages and e-mails asking for his help in combatting the spammers.
In December 2024, a Simple English Wikipedia article about WikiAlpha was briefly published, although it was promptly deleted as non-notable.<ref>https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_deletion/Requests/2024/WikiAlpha</ref> A version of this deleted article is archived on [[EverybodyWiki]].<ref>https://en.everybodywiki.com/WikiAlpha</ref>
In December 2024, a Simple English Wikipedia article about WikiAlpha was briefly published, although it was promptly deleted as non-notable.<ref>https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_deletion/Requests/2024/WikiAlpha</ref> A version of this deleted article is archived on [[EverybodyWiki]].<ref>https://en.everybodywiki.com/WikiAlpha</ref>