'Lo, ev'ryone! 🙋🏾‍♂️ This is my first Chronicler community post, and boy, am I glad to be here! 😃 I've been a worldbuilder for over twenty years, and I've tried nearly every worldbuilding and worldbuilding-adjacent software and application there is—from Kanka to Fortelling, Campfire to Metos, Inkseer, LegendKeeper, and beyond—and while every program is good for different people, I've been around the block for a long time and have yet to find something that scratches the itch the way Chronicler does. 🙏🏾

How it started

I'll never forget when I finished my first novel, Inhuman. For as long as I've been a writer (which is longer than I've been a worldbuilder), I'd never quite been able to ever do this until November 2017—56k words in two weeks! Maybe I'll get into that fiasco some other time, but after that, I had a surge of energy and the realization that I never quite took the opportunity as a member of the online world to join the internet worldbuilding community.

So, I decided to give it a go, first by joining as many online writing and worldbuilding communities as possible, especially after creating Paneidoverse as it is today in 2018.

From day one, I knew I wanted to have a wiki-styled database, something that would remind people and be styled similarly to Wikipedia. 💭 I was also a longtime Wikipedia user (at the time, it was nine years) and there is honestly little that can compare to MediaWiki tech and the way they organize databases. But I had tried to not only use Wikipedia itself as an...initial "attempt" at creating an online encyclopedia and database for my lifelong project, Candelabræm, but also tried to actually create my own wiki through Fandom, Wikispaces, and even Classic Google Sites. 😕

...We don't talk about Fandom... 😒

None of them worked for various reasons, from licensing to, you know, shutting down (I'm mainly looking at you, Classic Google Sites).

So, where was I to go? 🤔

World Anvil

At the time, WA was brand-spanking new, fresh from the...forge. 🤦🏾‍♂️ But honestly, I didn't give it much of a look until May 7, 2019, two years after it was created and all the hype was at its peak. They had recently launched their Sage tier, and I must have spent about twenty minutes browsing the site and looking at popular worlds before getting myself a Grandmaster tier, the second tier before Sage and honestly the only reason WA is worth using...

...but I'm getting ahead of myself. 😒

I joined their Discord server, was an active member, partook in site events, watched them on YouTube and Twitch, and sang praises about the overall endeavor to every wandering storyteller and worldbuilder I could. I poured every iota of my mind's power into CSS for my WA world, and honestly enjoyed most of every minute of it. 😅 Coding, I mean; if you know, you know.

2020 was probably the peak year for me in regards to it. I even made a whole Summer Camp event streamer package just for it that year that was received very well by the entire community.

Unfortunately, 2020 was also a major year for me in regards to my rapidly declining mental health. COVID had hit, and I had gained a lot and I mean a lot of weight. I ate takeout all the time, and I hate cooking—passionately. COVID itself didn't bother me, as I'm a true and through introvert. I was discovering myself, coming out online as a trans man, and was coming to terms with the sort of things I write and enjoy: Dead dove.

Please don't eat. 😔

It was a tumultuous time for me. I looked forward to hopping online and joining the World Anvil server every day. It meant a lot to me, more than even I understood at the time. It was a community, a place I felt welcomed and even appreciated. Things weren't perfect all the time, of course. I clashed a few times with the moderators on the server due to misunderstandings, miscommunication, and bad moderation on their part. I didn't think anything of it, and I couldn't even tell you what for anymore. It was never significant to me. I just...enjoyed myself, every moment, every minute, all while expanding Paneidoverse.

2020

One day, I wake up and turn Discord on, only to find that the server was no longer in my server list. Confused, I contacted a mod I had conversed with before...

It was through the mod that I get the Official™ ban notice, as apparently a bot that was supposed to send ban messages conveniently, and I quote, "left me in the lurch".

The message said:

NOTICE: Due to the Dissemination of unwanted objectionable content, not suitable to a PG-13 server to fellow server members.

You are hereby banned from the World Anvil Discord server. World Anvil Discord has a zero tolerance policy for this type of inappropriate conduct. A ban from the World Anvil Discord does not result in a ban from the World Anvil site.

2021

It took me over a year to come to grips with what the message said. Perhaps you don't understand—I...literally woke up every morning just because I was a part of that community. I'm depressed. I'm suicidal. I had nothing to look forward to but that server.

For over a year, I wracked my brain over and over and over and over, trying to recall what, exactly, I said or did to "disseminate unwanted objectionable content". The last thing I did remember was speaking to someone about one of my blogs. I didn't link it. I didn't even talk about what the blog is about. After a while, I came to the conclusion that my clashes with the mods in the past made them...simply not like me.

And yeah. I spoke to other WA server members in private about the whole situation, and...they straight up told me more than once that they believed the mods simply "didn't like me" based on my past interactions with them and came up with an excuse to ban me.

2022 - 2024

I sent a message to the mod, who I will call Adem, as to why I was banned. I plain and well called it a devastating and slanderous accusation in that message, and what would you know...Adem didn't respond to me.

For two fucking years.

I straight up told them that they may as well tell me since I was planning on rejoining the server under a different account. I didn't want to accidentally ban myself a second time, after all.

Nope. No response.

For two long, depressing years.

Back to the main topic

After this, I did stay a member of WA's site, on and off, for several years after the event. It had devastated me, more than I think you understand. But after this, I started to notice a few things about good old World Anvil...

Their tiers

World Anvil's tiers are...problematic. They removed their Journeyman tier, which was the first tier after Freeman, and removed several features Freeman used to have that actually made the site still useable to a degree if one didn't want to pay. I'd get into it all, but I feel as though I'm going on and on, so I invite you to look at their Freeman tier yourself.

Five draft articles? Forty-two total articles per world? No privacy? No customization whatsoever?

That's not a free account. That's a trial before what may as well be mandatory purchase of a paid tier, because there's nothing else worth using the free tier for. Please, check out the tiers before you consider making a free account. Look at what they say on the front page that you can "make a free account" for—but, no, actually, you can't do any of that.

The community

The site's community is not the community you think it is. Perhaps the server is alright, though I've seen the activity dwindle significantly. They only advertise their most popular worlds, five of which are the same five worlds they've been advertising for, I kid you not, at least five years. No rotation. No chance for other worlds to be given a spotlight save for their occasional yearly events. The sixth world, of course, is chock-full of blindingly marvelous CSS; another paid account.

The attention

Or lack thereof, because WA does not allow for any world that isn't one of their major or paid worlds to be given a chance to shine. As you must pay for both privacy and customization, this means if your brand new world is found by someone, they won't see anything; no theme for your world, no original content. Furthermore, I've found that only worlds with more advanced CSS get the most attention—such as the six worlds they advertise.

What I'm saying is based on personal experience, observation, and fact. World Anvil is simply not worth it unless you pay money, which is almost mandatory despite all they say about what's "free".

Yeah, making an account is free. Very little else, and that is fact.

Conclusion

I can admit I owe WA for helping me get as far as I have in my worldbuilding, and without it, I honestly don't think I ever would have made many first articles for my setting Reon and my worlds Drégoi and Rejiseā without it.

Chronicler is superior in every way. For one, privacy is guaranteed. The community is fun, silly, and helpful. The community comes first, not money. Not attention on The Product™ and making a name online. Because Michael knows that comes in time with dedication to the community. Everything else comes naturally, eventually. And it's worth it.

So. Long-winded as this has been...that's why I love Chronicler and use it over World Anvil—amazing as WA can be if you pay for it. Not just because Chronicler's features are incredible, Wikipedia-like, and offline, but because I also support the vision.

This post has mainly been reminiscing about a really bad event that happened to me that still affects me today. Writing this has made me emotional and relive memories that are...very unpleasant. I don't want to say I dislike World Anvil just because of that event, but because of the things I noticed about World Anvil that made me recall said event. So, I thought I'd talk about it.

I hope that Chronicler continues to be an endeavor I wholeheartedly support.