The Lost Art of Wiki

Day 2,057, 21:25 • Published in Ireland Ireland • by Arjay Phoenician III

You’re counted as a reader, you might as well vote!



At the School of Individualist Studies at eIrish University, there is an exercise on the board. It’s not homework per se, it’s not an assignment to be graded or anything like that, but it’s an idea for cultivating your individuality, for building your persona. I’ve put one on the board since I started the school, I’ll put more up in time.

The first and currently only exercise has to do with creating a Wiki page. It’s a personal observation, but this seems to be a lost art.



In my grandfather’s time, a Wiki page was sort of a rite of passage. Anyone who thought he was a somebody in this world not only had one, but was creative with it. It wasn’t just a place to list accomplishments. It was intended to be a game encyclopedia, and people took a degree of pride in updating it from time to time. National histories were kept there; you didn’t just find lists of regions and presidents on such a page, but true stories of a country and its people. Concepts not readily accessible in the main game, like religion and philosophy, could be found on Wiki. Not only could you find information about the one true god, Dio Brando, but you could also learn about the demoninations of Dioism, the people and groups that proselytized in His holy name, and perhaps the most famous of all in-game writings, The Book of Dio.

Like so many other elements within the eRepublik cosmos, Wiki has broken down. This, however, can’t be blamed on the admins. National pages are grossly out of date, with their histories not updated for years and are therefore obsolete. Fewer players make use of it for their own personal sagas, and those that do tend to just list their medals and basic political achievements. Because of this, much of eRepublik’s past might be gone forever.



This is something individualists can do to make this world a little better. Those with a penchant for writing have a golden opportunity to revive Wiki. There are directions on how to set up a Wiki account and start your personal page on the original school assignment thread, but once you have an idea of how the editing process works, you are free to update any page you see. You can start your own pages for your political parties and military units if they don’t yet have them.

Personally, my favorite Wiki page has always been the biography of American icon Emerick. Of course, when you open the page, the various videos posted there go off like booby-traps, and you quickly have a mindless cacophony if you don’t pause them all, but that’s because a lot has been put here. Once you get past the imagery and music, the prose is very much worth the read; poignant stories about early game life are mixed with personal mythology that makes him larger than life. He is a man who has been worshipped as a semi-god, reviled as a bastard, and in this writer’s estimation, should be considered the greatest player in the history of the game; only Dio himself stands taller.



My grandfather’s page reads like a classical biography, it is very detailed, with lots of personal information woven in with real game events, giving the reader a sense of what it was like being in the original communities of Bolivia and New Zealand, chasing PTO groups in South America, playing troll games with the Japanese, being a peace-time president in South Korea, and above all, recording his exploits and speaking his mind in his newspaper, come what may.

By all means, explore Wiki for yourself. Just click that little black book in the middle of your profile to get started. Click it on anyone’s game profile to be sent directly to his bio. If you haven’t started a page for yourself, register for usage, and start it. If it’s been a while since you updated your bio, this is a friendly reminder to do so.

And just so you know, the exercise is for me as well. There is a page for Arjay Phoenician III, and I am putting an outline together for a page on the philosophy of individualism.



This is a part of the game where you can throw caution to the wind. By all means, respect Wiki’s code of conduct, but beyond that, have fun with this. Write about where you come from, not just that you were born in a given time and place, but give it some mystery, some myth. Write about the little things that happened in your life that mattered to you. Consider other people when you write your bio, how do you want them to see you after they read this and then approach you in the game? Don’t just list your achievements, you can do that on your profile; you have all the webspace you need, let people know what those achievements mean to you. Tell about the friends and enemies you’ve made, about the pride you have in your unit and party and country, about the things that motivated you. You can take this in any direction.

It’s okay to have an ego. You give so much to everyone else in this game. Why not use Wiki for your own selfish use? Why can’t you use it to indulge yourself? Why not consider this a place where your memory will live after you’ve left the game, a place where your awards, your passions, your thoughts can endure?

There’s little chance for artistry in a world where game mechanics become monotonous. Wiki is a place where you still can create, simply for the sake of creation. It’s a lost art, but thankfully, it is not a dead art.


Belfast Lough Times: Issue #32