User blog:ChromastoneandTabby/Year of Unity Final Update/2017 Announcement!

Well, everybody, 2016 is just about over. While we all breath a (possibly premature) sigh of relief, let's take a moment to look back at what we accomplished over the rather unfittingly-dubbed Year of Unity.



Changes to the Wiki

 * 1) Ahmad stepped down as his post from admin, with Mig being promoted in his place.
 * 2) Chatmods were phased out, as they no longer really did anything.
 * 3) Sci stepped down as crat, leaving the wiki without a crat for a while. Eventually, the admin team decided there was no reason to only have one crat, and everyone on the team was promoted to crat.
 * 4) Toon was demoted from his admin position, with CaT being promoted in his place.
 * 5) The admin team cracked down on the rules, revising the wiki's policies and putting more of a focus on enforcing them.
 * 6) A couple restrictive policies were changed to allow more creative freedom.
 * 7) *Profanity in general is now allowed with the use of the "Profanity" template, and the words "ass" and "shit" are now allowed for general use both on the wiki and in chat.
 * 8) *TV-MA content is now allowed on the wiki if properly marked, giving creators almost complete freedom with the content of their shows.
 * 9) The Main Page and several community pages were redone or updated to more modern standards.
 * 10) The wiki was deemed appropriate for Wikia to spotlight in March.
 * 11) The wiki underwent massive cleanup, with new methods and regulations being introduced to facilitate this.
 * 12) Two bots (BotBot Bot and UltiBot) were created to help with the aforementioned cleanup.
 * 13) A new spinoff wiki, BTFF EX, was created as an official platform for the BTFF community to write about things other than Ben 10.
 * 14) Support Group resumed a regular schedule on BTFF EX.
 * 15) Multiple technical changes were introduced to make the wiki more advanced and fun to use.
 * 16) *Admin names and comments were given custom formatting to differentiate them from regular users.
 * 17) *Timers were added to give people with stub articles time to expand them before they get deleted.
 * 18) *A custom module was added to the siderail, giving us a space for special announcements and reminders.
 * 19) *Tooltips and Advanced Tooltips were added to the wiki, making it easier than ever to display custom information while hovering over text.
 * 20) Badges began to be renovated to better fit the wiki.
 * 21) Featured Alien and Character of the Year were added to the final voting alongside Featured Series of the Year.

Wiki Events

 * 1) ChamAlien Fest occurred.
 * 2) Spring Fanon Con occurred.
 * 3) Summer Fanon Con occurred.
 * 4) The Omniverse Awards occurred.
 * 5) Fall Fanon Con occurred.
 * 6) The Spooktober Horror Contest occurred.
 * 7) Fasttrack Fest occurred.
 * 8) Winter Fanon Con occurred, albeit rather bumpily.
 * 9) Off-site communities on Deviantart, Discord, Dubtrack, and Steam were created for the wiki.

Notable User Content
Things that weren't part of any officially-endorsed wiki projects but still left a large impact on the community.
 * The BTFF RPG was released in February, setting a milestone as the wiki's first full-length playable video game.
 * After many delays and controversies, Ben 10 Fan Fiction: Age of Division was released to...well, even more controversy, but it's the thought that counts.
 * Aaronbill3's Alien Arsenal! became the wiki's most popular source for free-usage aliens in a relatively short period of time.

Closing Statement
2016's been a long year with a ton of drama. Lots of things have happened, and we've both gained and lost some friends along the way. We've grown as a community, but it's sometimes been a real struggle keeping everything together. People like to blame the idea of 2016 itself for this stuff, but the truth is, 2016 was just the year everything just so happened to break the camel's back.

We can't just expect 2017 to come and magically make everything better. We need to work towards our goals and reach out to grab the future with our own hands. Nobody's going to just up and hand us a better life; we need to make one for ourselves. For that reason, among a few others, the admin team has decided that 2017 will be declared the



Now, you might be asking exactly how the hell the "Year of Ambition" is any less vague than something like the "Year of Unity".



The "Year of" events have always been super vague and acting as if they ever presented a clear goal is kidding yourself. The whole point of the "Year of" thing is to provide a theme for the community to work with, whether it be through special events or projects or whatever.

Now, you might be saying right about now "The BTFF community is lazy! You can't realistically expect us to come up with stuff on our own!"

Well, congratulations! You figured out the point of the Year of Ambition! Take time this year to get off your butts and do those things you always wanted! Write a series! Learn to draw! Put away that noose and start a forum game or something! This year is all about inspiring ambition in a userbase that so sorely lacks it and putting it to good use. Take the ambition to improve your relationships and yourself, and maybe we'll be able to avoid a lot of the personal drama that plagued 2016.

Year of Unity's problem is that it was too vague to work with. Year of Ambition turns that weakness into a strength by giving us freedom to work on whatever we need to while following an overall theme (said theme being working on whatever we need to). Seize the day and improve your life, because the world's not going to improve it for you.

Thank you all for sticking with us throughout 2016, and we hope to have you back throughout 2017! Happy New Years, everyone, and good luck!