Encyclopedia SpongeBobia
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Encyclopedia SpongeBobia

Encyclopedia SpongeBobia (ESB for short; formerly named The SpongeBob SquarePants Wiki) is a SpongeBob SquarePants fan website on Fandom and a general knowledge base for SpongeBob SquarePants-related content along with its spin-off series that was founded by Haldir and launched on April 25, 2007 and adopted by AMK152 on the same year.

Structure[]

Encyclopedia SpongeBobia is a wiki on Fandom, which means anyone is allowed to edit the wiki. When the website was first established, anyone could edit whether they had an account or not. An IP block occurred for a short time, but it later ended in 2010. This was changed again when Fandom modified their policies to disallow anonymous editing on wikis with young audiences. The website allows anyone to edit if they create an account on Fandom.

The website contains a staff of administrators and bureaucrats who must go through an application process to be promoted to those roles. There have been 77 different administrators in the history of the wiki. As of 2023, the wiki currently has more than 15,000 pages and numerous of users.

History[]

Before establishment (2006-2007)[]

Encyclopedia SpongeBobia has its roots in the WikiProject SpongeBob SquarePants at Wikipedia, formed on June 6, 2006 by ForestH2 and developed by the former and AMK152. The WikiProject grew, and was able to keep track of and improve all SpongeBob-related articles on Wikipedia. The WikiProject grew to over 100 members within a year. The project focused on reverting vandalism, formatting, and expanding articles.

In 2006, there were two failed attempts at creating a separate SpongeBob SquarePants wiki. AMK152 had requested that a SpongeBob wiki be created on Fandom. However, his request was denied on August 26, 2006, because Fandom did not believe that a SpongeBob Wiki would be large enough. Instead, Fandom Staff pointed toward the official Nickelodeon Wiki for content related to Nickelodeon as a means of accomplishing the goals. AMK152 made another request in December 2006, but this request was denied on December 10, 2006. Without a separate SpongeBob SquarePants wiki, the focus remained on Wikipedia.

WikiProject SpongeBob SquarePants continued to grow. However, the project ran into several problems when users outside the scope of the SpongeBob-related articles did not consider some content to be relevant to Wikipedia. These guidelines would prove to hinder any progress to expand a SpongeBob SquarePants knowledge base.

Crisis on Wikipedia (2007)[]

In 2007, there were a series of events unfolding on Wikipedia that threatened many of the articles and content involved. The concern was over articles of works of fiction, and there were claims that individual episode articles were not relevant to Wikipedia, with the exception of certain series. On May 8, 2007, the issue was brought to the articles regarding SpongeBob SquarePants. A heated debate engulfed the WikiProject and several contributors of SpongeBob articles. The members of WikiProject SBSP fought to preserve those articles on Wikipedia.

Single episode articles do not need to exist for most series. Only certain shows of high regard (The Simpsons, Doctor Who), that can have actual information, need them. An episode needs to be capable of having more than just a plot summary; along with a nice, concise plot summary, they need to have at least well sourced development, and reception sections. Examples of this can be found here, here, and in any of the episode articles here. Obviously, they won't just pop up for every episode article, but it is easy to tell that this is very unlikely to happen for this series. I plan on doing this in five days if no concerns are brought up. If they are brought up, I will address them.



- The Proposer (May 8, 2007)

AMK152 and other Project members tried to counter the argument and negotiate with the proposer. AMK's opening arguments began like this:

SpongeBob is as high regard of a show as the Simpsons. It is a very notable and popular show, and many of the episodes are notable as well. What about all the work put into the episode articles, plot summaries [sic] and some production details? People have put in a lot of effort on trying to improve these articles. Yes, quotes belong on Wikiquote. Trivia is trying to downsize. Some trivia even includes production details. I have looked at some Simpson episode articles and saw that they look pretty much the same as SpongeBob, except the name of the show and that the Simpsons includes more production details. SpongeBob does have information on production details, and if you look at a few of the articles you'll see them.



- AMK152 (May 9, 2007)

AMK offered a compromise, by creating an article for each season. However, the proposer scrutinized what he called fan "cruft."

There really is no point for season pages. All of this can easily be stuck under the current episode list. You do not need to list cast for single episodes; it's pointless cruft. Each episode needs a three line plot summary at most. That and the basic information is all it needs. No images would be used either. Scene removals are trivia; they do not constitute the true information needed anyways. You need deep analysis of how the plot was devised, what went into it, and stuff like that.

The Proposer went on to say that only AMK and a few other users were concerned with the episode articles. The discussion continued into AMK's 16th birthday. AMK advocated for the need to preserve the information, while The Proposer scrutinized the mass amount of SpongeBob information as "pointless" and that "few people care."

On May 14, 2007, The Proposer redirected all SpongeBob episode articles to the main episode list. This, in turn, threatened all SpongeBob title cards and related images that became orphaned. Over the course of the following week, AMK152 managed to save all the orphaned images, mostly title cards, to his computer. Once the redirection occurred, other contributors of SpongeBob articles joined in on the discussion.

Among those who joined this discussion were SpongeSebastian, who made an incredibly great argument for the usefulness of the SpongeBob articles:

SpongeBob SquarePants is a very popular show, why it always comes in the top 15 Neilson ratings. Obviously, it deserves its own episode articles. People would want to find out more about SpongeBob episodes, so they'll turn to their favorite source of information: Wikipedia. However, they instead find themselves being redirected to an episode list. The episode list itself isn't helpful at all. It only provides the episode title, a brief summary, an airdate, and that's pretty much it. The examples of a proper Wikipedia episode article from House and The Simpsons are featured articles. What do you expect? It's not like the only goal of every Wikipedia article is to gain featured status. That's only for a few articles. All of the vandalism that goes on in the articles has nothing to do with anything and can be easily fixed. As for images, I am trying to encourage people to upload proper screenshots so that the articles look good, but I don't have a DVD-playing computer or a video capture card so I can't do that myself. Images just give a helpful illustration to support the article. Some people may say that you can easily go to TV.com and use their information, but believe me, most of the articles that Wikipedia had contained more information than what TV.com provided. TV.com is mostly helpful for reviews and such. Wikipedia articles are supposed to be helpful, not perfect. It's ridiculous to fight over whether something's perfect or not. I didn't see anything wrong with SpongeBob having episode articles and so didn't most of everyone else. This discussion not that shows of high regard should have articles. What makes you think SpongeBob isn't of high regard? Read what I said earlier please. Anyway, I said all I wanted to say. I'm just saying that SpongeBob episode list is pointless without episode articles.



- SpongeSebastian (May 18, 2007)

However, as time went on, hope for continuing to expand SpongeBob SquarePants-related articles on Wikipedia disappeared.

Origins at Wikia (2007)[]

While the Crisis was going on at Wikipedia, Dark Assassin, a user of Fandom, made a request for a SpongeBob Wiki at Fandom. However, there was another request (which was made by Haldir) that had been made, so Dantman denied Dark Assassin's request on April 11. In April 2007, Haldir's request for a SpongeBob Wiki was granted, and the SpongeBob SquarePants Wiki was born.

SB Wikia 2007

ESB (then known as the SpongeBob SquarePants Wikia) as seen on May 6, 2007

On May 29, 2007, AMK152 returned to Fandom to discover that a SpongeBob SquarePants Wiki had been created by Haldir. Haldir, however, was inactive. AMK152 made very few edits on the new wiki during the summer of 2007. After seeing that it was almost impossible to bring back the articles on Wikipedia, AMK152 proceeded to do a massive project involving the migration of all SpongeBob-related articles from Wikipedia to the new SpongeBob SquarePants Wiki. After the articles were successfully migrated over, their preservation was more likely to succeed. Although activity was slow at first, a few editors joined and soon there was a transition of the articles from a Wikipedia-looking article to our own SpongeBob version.

Without success on Wikipedia, AMK152 decided to embrace Fandom and the new SpongeBob SquarePants Wiki. He began to seriously migrate articles on the afternoon of August 27, 2007. The bulk of the migration took place in late August. He migrated several articles over the course from late August to early October 2007.

The Early Days (2007 — 2010)[]

ESBDec2007

Encyclopedia SpongeBobia's homepage during December 2007.

On October 6, 2007, AMK152 was migrating more articles to the wiki. A day later, a user named Fad began to vandalize and upload inappropriate images on the wiki. With Haldir (the only administrator of the wiki at the time) inactive, AMK152 had little control over the vandal. With the help of a member of Fandom's staff, AMK152 was granted sysop powers the same day.[1] He continued to migrate articles off of Wikipedia and contributors at the wiki soon began to assist with the articles.

On January 19, 2008, Andrewrox of SpongePedia sent a message to AMK152, requesting help at SpongePedia. The conversation further turned into a request that the SpongeBob SquarePants Wiki merge with SpongePedia, but AMK152 declined the offer.

AMK152 became a bureaucrat on February 4, 2008. Later that year, the wiki adopted the Monobook skin, as activity increased.

ESB2009

Encyclopedia SpongeBobia's homepage during 2009.

In February 2009, Rgoodermote joined the wiki with several ideas on how to improve the articles, and a few days later, joined the staff as a second active administrator. Rgoodermote brought several ideas to the wiki, which helped to bring more discussion within the community. Since there were multiple administrators, AMK152 and Rgoodermote were able to work together to bring the wiki forward. In March 2009, Greennave and Mallinois joined the administration.

That same month, an incident arose with allegations that some users were taking title cards from SpongePedia. Rgoodermote investigated the situation, which was soon resolved.

Following five unsuccessful administration requests, Rgoodermote closed requests on March 22, 2009, being satisfied with the number of administrators. On May 18, 2009, administration requests were opened again, this time with a 1,000-edit requirement, so as to only discuss experienced users' requests. Greennave resigned from the administration on July 11, 2009. Because of the lack of administrators, Rgoodermote promoted TheEd on August 10, 2009, bringing the administration back up to four members.

Growth (2010 — 2012)[]

2010 marked a larger increase in the wiki's growth. In mid-March 2010, the wiki's size had grown to a point where AMK152 decided it was time to have a bot. From March 22 to 24, a discussion occurred, and then a proposal occurred and after which, AMK152Bot became the first bot for the wiki.

In April 2010, the ban on all IP editing was lifted, and this brought a sharp increase in editing activity, which in turn, brought a need for more administrators. Dave Lopo was given a temporary appointment. Rgoodermote left the wiki on April 10, 2010, leaving AMK152 the only active administrator.

From April to September 2010, there were a total of 45 administrator requests, of which only four were successful: Shroomish7 (June 9, 2010), IKnowAll (July 7, 2010), GojiBob (July 9, 2010), and General5 7 (July 31, 2010).

On May 6, 2010, after AMK152 made the request, Uberfuzzy, redirected inactive SpongeBob wikis on Fandom to this one, which became the wiki's first acquisitions:

On October 28, 2010, longtime contributor Airhogs777 became an administrator, bringing the administration to six members.

That same month, AW10 joined the wiki, quickly becoming an administrator in December. He brought several significant design changes to the wiki, from the skin, to templates, and functionality.

2011 and 2012 saw continued growth of the wiki's size, contributors, and administration.

Collaboration with SBC (2012)[]

In late June 2012, Tvguy347 posted at the forum of the SpongeBob SquarePants Wiki about a collaboration with SpongeBob Community Forums (SBC). He contacted AMK152, and they began corresponding over the summer and fall of 2012. Very early on in the discussions, on June 25, 2012, AMK152 gave the suggestion of "SpongeBob Universe" to be used as the name of the collaborative project.

On June 27, 2012, the wiki adopted the "tabs" system created by AW10. This helped navigation throughout the wiki, especially on episode articles.

Ultimately, the concept of SpongeBob Universe helped to boost community involvement.

SpongeBob Universe (November 2012 — August 2013)[]

This is the page about the SpongeBob Universe section of Encyclopedia SpongeBobia. For other uses, see SpongeBob Universe (disambiguation).

SpongeBob Universe became official on November 1, 2012, when the founding document was accepted. The same day, a discussion into renaming the wiki for SpongeBob Universe was initiated.

In anticipation of SpongeBob Universe, on November 12, 2012, Project Cleanup was formed to address formatting and design changes to the wiki's article content.

Discussions and preparations were made for a January 1, 2013 launch of SpongeBob Universe, which was not ready by the time New Year's Day arrived.

With SBU on hiatus, the wiki began to focus on Project Cleanup at the wiki, in order to improve the articles and design. AMK152 and AW10 came up with several proposals and AW10 with several designs, which continued rapidly throughout the spring and summer of 2013. Notable proposals include AW10's proposal to integrate episode galleries, which was successfully implemented on June 5, 2013.

SpongeBob Universe was going to have another attempt at launching in July 2013. A new wiki was created by MDPP, and AMK152 migrated several articles to the new wiki. However, as July and August went on, there was no progress in SpongeBob Universe. Another relaunch attempted was scheduled for September 2013, but, ultimately, the feelings in the wiki were not very well with SBU.

On August 20, 2013, it was proposed that the wiki abandon its part in SpongeBob Universe. The proposal was supported, ending the following day.

Post-SpongeBob Universe (August 2013 — April 2014)[]

This is the page about the Post-SpongeBob Universe section of Encyclopedia SpongeBobia. For other uses, see SpongeBob Universe (disambiguation).
ESB2013

Encyclopedia SpongeBobia's homepage during 2013.

After SpongeBob Universe was dissolved, the wiki turned its focus toward Project Cleanup.

In late 2013, community involvement in discussions began to increase, creating more input and more ideas for the future of the wiki.

In January 2014, ESB's first major crisis began with controversy from SpongeBuddy Mania complaining about copied transcripts. Policies were established to prevent copying, but misunderstandings and arguments led to the demotion of Seacactus and temporary suspension of 120d. By late January, the dust had settled, but intense discussions become more frequent with regards to the way 120d carried out his administrative duties.

In March and April 2014, the wiki underwent the final stages of a renaming process. Additionally, the administrator Spongebob456 proposed the idea to have a Twitter account for the wiki. This was accepted, and 456 was named account manager in April.

Brotherly times (April 2014 — August 2014)[]

The last collaboration attempt started when AMK152 reached out to the SpongeBob Fanon Wiki. ESB users set up an "embassy" through AMK152's SBFW talk page. However, the users saw SBFW to be quite displeasing with the wiki unknowingly hosting trolls such as SuperFanon'D! Within two weeks, collaboration with SBFW ended peacefully.

On April 29, 2014, AMK152 made an adoption request for spongebobfanon.wikia.com Wiki at the same time OnioNS did. AMK's request was successful, and AW10 came up with the name "Fanonia SpongeBobia." However, ESB learnt SBFW and adopted the URL spongebobfanon.wikia.com. The purpose of the wiki came as a branch of SpongeBobia in which users can post their SpongeBob SquarePants fanfiction. AW10 worked on developing a set of templates and layouts throughout. When SBFW learned of this, some users targeted and harassed users who had made more edits at ESB. Although the majority of admins on both wikis tried to stop the crisis, there was no use. A treaty meditated by the VSTF was signed by SBFW in four months.

Formation of Encyclopedia SpongeBobia (April 2014 — December 2016)[]

On April 5, 2014, after 16 months of discussion, Encyclopedia SpongeBobia became the wiki's new name. The name officially took effect on the wiki's 7th anniversary, April 25, 2014. That weekend, there was a celebration, which mostly occurred on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. The chatroom was full, and three rounds of trivia were played.

After months of intensive conversations, debates, and arguments, administrator 120d was suspended, and after a week, was officially removed from the administration team. The crisis remained tense in the days that followed, but the community began to move on, especially with overwhelming support for a new administrator, JosephHawk.

Throughout the spring of 2014, the SpongeBobia community continued to grow, as the chatroom became more active. The wiki proceeds to grow and improve to the present. The administration is constantly discussing new ideas for the wiki's future.

In June 2014, the User of the Month process was implemented and AMK152, the wiki's adopter, won for July 2014 and thus became the first user to receive the award while JosephHawk won for August 2014.

On July 30, 2014, after many years of loyal service and contributions, 120d retired from ESB and was blocked by request. Additionally, several administrators lost their administrative status in August 2014 due to inactivity and/or retirement: SpongeyTube, GojiBob, Puppets, and SpongeBob EditPants. In its aftermath, the entire administration was reduced by 33%. Additionally, the crisis in the chatroom was averted with the demotion of three chat moderators.

SpongeBob Galaxy, another SpongeBob SquarePants wiki on Fandom, was started. Not understanding the reasons for its existence, administrators at ESB suggested that SBG merge with ESB. Through misinterpretations, both communities were plunged into a massive argument that came to a boiling point in mid-August and led to a failed peace treaty on the evening of August 19, 2014.

In the aftermath of the failed peace treaty, it was decided to ignore the drama and let each community move on. This worked, and the drama subsided. A forum post called for the end of the drama. During this time, administrator JosephHawk resigned, as did bureaucrat CalzoneManiac.

In the aftermath of the drama, ESB entered a rather quiet period, in which the wiki continued peacefully, with little discussion, and a canceled meeting. The period in late August marked the first time since early January 2014, in which little to no drama existed.

In the aftermath of the drama, the introduction of tasks greatly changed the tone of the wiki, turning its focus back to content-building.

During this time, JosephHawk returned to ESB, and his adminship was reinstated.

On October 3, 2014, 120d posted a thread on his message wall stating that he missed editing the wiki and would like to return. AW10 granted his request, and he was unblocked. This was AW10's last activity before his retirement and removal of his rights.

A few days later, longtime administrator and bureaucrat AW10 retired from the Wiki due to getting overwhelmed by non-wiki activities in his life, pushing wiki activities aside. Soon after that, at the beginning of November 2014, JosephHawk went on a hiatus from Fandom and thus stopped being an administrator.

Requirements for admin rights were removed, resulting in a lot of users becoming an admin in a period that occurred after that. This brought a lot of light to the wiki.

ESB2015

Encyclopedia SpongeBobia's homepage during 2015.

Two previous administrators who had previously resigned (120d on October 3, 2014 and AW10 on March 1, 2015) rejoined the wiki full-time, and both became administrators again (120d on April 5, 2015 and AW10 on April 8, 2015). 120d later got removed (due to various reasons) in 2016, and AW10 resigned in 2017.

Sherm Cohen, a SpongeBob SquarePants storyboard supervisor, also created an account and joined the wiki on July 14, 2015.[2]

ESB2016

Encyclopedia SpongeBobia's homepage during 2016.

On April 25, 2016, the wiki celebrated its 9th birthday, followed by its 10th birthday on April 25, 2017. Wiki Adopter AMK152 wrote a thread to commemorate that day.

Celebrate10annivesarywiki

Encyclopedia SpongeBobia's homepage during its 10th anniversary

The Great Policies Boom (January 2017 — ~June 2018)[]

Throughout the years of 2017 to mid-2018, there had been a significant awareness of policies and roles in the wiki, leading to drastic changes to the entire Encyclopedia SpongeBobia policies and their administration team. As a result, the community efforts on improving the wiki's articles and own community had become unpredictable but simultaneously progressed more overall compared to the past years.

Administration Reviews had been established by Nicko756 on January 29, 2017, in efforts to reduce the numbers of non-working members of the administration team by letting the Encyclopedia SpongeBobia community majority decide on whether certain members of the team are rendered redundant or not. Several changes subsequently were made to shorten the original 6-month review range, but eventually Administration Reviews became abolished due to number of complaints by former administration team veterans.

Starting from the first half of 2017, several users of Encyclopedia SpongeBobia have doubted the rules surrounding the once-integrated "discussion moderator" right in the ESB. At the time, a user must be a chat moderator for 1 month in order to become promoted to discussion moderator, but the problem arose when some users were only interested in the social non-chat aspects of the wiki. One active user on the wiki named Qwertyxp2000 the second formed significant interest in moderating page comments and forum pages but he had shown little interest in moderating chat. On August 17, 2017, former bureaucrat MightyMorphinJon's proposal to split discussion moderator rights as its own unique right has been passed. Users that had the discussion moderator right before then subsequently gained both discussion moderator rights and chat moderator rights.

On October 2017, a proposal to add Conventions proposed by AMK152 has passed, thereby requiring all future policy changes to be discussed under Conventions, rather than simply through ESB:Proposals.

A news team for Encyclopedia SpongeBobia was formed and established in December 2017, after a failed attempt at one in November of that year. It was later abolished in December 2018 (through a proposal) due to a lack of order.

On March 11, 2018, Encyclopedia SpongeBobia updated its logo to resemble the 2008-present logo of SpongeBob SquarePants. From April 2014 up until then, the wiki's logo resembled the show's 1999-2008 logo, only with the wiki's name in place of the show's name. A proposal for this change was created by Bluebunny507 on February 23 of that year and the new logo was created by Squiddleward.

Chat Issues (October 2017 — August 2020)[]

As time went on, some users started questioning the necessity of the ESB Chat. Gradually since October, 2017, the chat had been declining in activity and on December 20, 2017, VSTF member and chat bot operator Kerri Amber was globally blocked and later disabled for confidential reasons and the chat bot lost connection and went out. The chat had little activity for the next several months, with only an occasional outburst. Many users weren't concerned as the season of summer started approaching.

Bluebunny507 attempted to contact KockaAdmiralac on potentially running a new chatbot for ESB and it was discussed with the ESB administrators. With an exchanging of e-mails between AMK152 and KockaAdmiralac, the new chat bot was proposed and passed with overwhelming support and soon after was back in operation.

With little difference to the chat in June 2017, administrator Alex.sapre addressed the activity issues in a blog post which was later highlighted. He addressed some factors in why the chat had been slow, even as the summer months approach.

After several attempts to attract users to the chat, assistant Golfpecks256 discussed the possibility of a "chat revival" event to chat moderator TheKorraFanatic and former chat moderator Madiyunu on July 10, 2018. The event would be called a "chat revival" which was later renamed to "chat meetup." A blog post was made the next day to notify everyone on the wiki. Invites were also sent out to individual users who were once active in the chatroom as well. The chat meetup began on July 12, 2018 with the chat nearing 40 users at its peak. A conclusion blog was made soon after as the chat meetup finished.

Despite the efforts, chat still declined as weeks went by. So another chat revival emerged and was done on August 16, 2018. After the event, the chat kept a steady activity pace and increased at various points. The event was very successful that it was repeated every month of 2018 soon after.

After the anniversary, despite the growing Discord server, many new ESB users started showing an increased interest in the ESB chat once again similar to previous years. However, on August 5, 2020, Fandom Support announced the retirement of the Special:Chat feature, citing low usage figures across Fandom in comparison to Discord, and due to migrations to the Unified Community Platform (UCP).

Deaths and tributes (October 2018 — March 2020)[]

On the evening of October 15, 2018, former discussion moderator CheeseRoxTheWorld passed away in a drowning accident,[3] marking this instance as the first known death of an ESB user. Her user rights were therefore revoked, and the community subsequently mourned her loss the following day in a thread created by administrator Golfpecks256 in collaboration with ESB adopter AMK152 and fellow bureaucrat Spongebob456.

Following the death of Stephen Hillenburg on November 26, 2018, Encyclopedia SpongeBobia has added a special page to dedicate memories towards Hillenburg.

On February 13, 2020, another user's death was reported: Nicholas Blaschke, although his death was not made public on this wiki until 8 days later on February 21 when a user made a blog announcing the tragedy. ESB users have since mourned his loss on the said blog, including Fandom staff. Nicholas passed away in a house fire due to a malfunctioning toaster that lead to this unfortunate event.[4] Although indefinitely blocked prior, Kandy Katie removed the block following the announcement.

20th Anniversary (January 2019 — July 2019)[]

In 2019, Encyclopedia SpongeBobia started to celebrate the series' 20th anniversary. The wiki hit 20,000 pages in mid-February, but most ESB users at the time applied greater focus towards preparing for two special anniversaries, the other anniversary being the 12th anniversary of ESB.

ESB20

Encyclopedia SpongeBobia's homepage during SpongeBob's 20th Anniversary.

Current bureaucrat Spongebob456 created a thread on May 1, 2019 to celebrate this notable achievement in SpongeBob SquarePants history. Additionally, Encyclopedia SpongeBobia was celebrating their own 12th anniversary prior to the 20th anniversary of SpongeBob SquarePants on this thread by the same current bureaucrat.

Prior to the series 20th anniversary celebration, an episode-ranking tournament named SpongeCupEpisodePants had been founded on January 21, 2019. The tournament followed a similar process to the FIFA World Cup, except instead of scoring goals by shooting a soccer ball towards the opposite team's goal, "goals" on each contestant episode were pushed towards "oppose" or "support" depending on the voting strength of each registered user. Each registered user was able to support or oppose any available contestant episode between score 1-10 (or neutral vote with score of 0). The top positive-scoring episodes of each round had progressed to the next round, up to the finals where the final two competed for the champion position. The first tournament started on April 17, 2019, and ended July 17, 2019. The winning episode was "Band Geeks." This game was inspired by Lumoshi, while the development was led by AW10 and Golfpecks256.

While most of the second quarter had been rather peaceful, an unfortunate brain condition caused Tim Conway to pass away on May 14, 2019. Similar to Stephen Hillenburg in the past year, ESB added a memorial dedicated to the memories of Tim Conway.

On June 30, 2019, Encyclopedia SpongeBobia has updated their main page layout once again.

A New Decade (August 2019 — present)[]

In November 2019, after several long months of inactivity, the User and Article of the Month prizes were abolished via a proposal. Prior to being abolished, two nominations (which were both several months old) had been abandoned with no consensus and very few votes. The award had a process where anybody could nominate any user for UOTM (except themselves) and the user with the most votes at the end of the month would be that User of the Month. The same process was done with Article of the Month. This program lasted almost five years (and almost 60 total proposals) before its abandonment and ultimate abolishment. Both prizes were later brought back via proposals in September and October 2020 respectively.

Figmeister became a bureaucrat on the wiki in November 2019, the first new bureaucrat since Squiddleward became almost two years earlier.

On September 5, 2020, a user who claimed to be the comic book artist, cartoonist, musician, and animator Corey Barba joined the wiki,[5] attempting to edit the article about him.[6]

Unified Community Platform Update (September 2020 — present)[]

On September 18, 2020, the start of the new Unified Community Platform update occurred with Discussions separated into multiple categories, just like the forum did. On October 1, Special:Forum and all of its posts were migrated to Discussions as part of the UCP. On October 27, the in-built chat function is permanently closed, and a number of functional changes have been implemented, most notably updating the source editor and removing Special:WikiActivity to replace with the existing updated Special:RecentChanges.

On August 5, 2021, the wiki adopted a new logo after a proposal made by the bureaucrat Spongebob456. The new logo, made by the rollback TheJasbre202, was made to represent the spinoffs the SpongeBob franchise has received in recent years. However, the logo did change to two Christmas-themed ones during Christmas seasons since 2021. The 2021 Christmas logo was used for December 2021 after a proposal made by the discussion moderator and rollback LarryBoy fan. The 2021 Christmas logo was made by the administrator Kandy Katie. The proposal also had the Christmas-themed top backgrounds proposed as Option B passed for the logo. Another brand new Christmas logo was used in December 2022 after a proposal created by SquidTron C. The first option passed and was used as the Christmas logo, which was made by the same user. Then Eliternal proposed yet again in 2023, but with the website banner and the background header background. The wiki's logo have both another themed-versions, including Pride Month and Halloween. Spongebob456 was the designer for the Pride Month-themed logo, in order to celebrate Pride Month 2023, as well as Halloween-themed logo during Halloween 2023 which was proposed by Eliternal.

On January 8, 2023, the wiki adopted a new banner for its Discord server after another proposal made by SquidTron C. The first option passed and was used for its Discord server. Unfortunately, there aren't enough Server Boosts to get the server into Level 2, so therefore, the banner has been removed.

On November 1, 2023, Eliternal proposed a custom community banner, and 9 days later, it became successful and the admin adopted it.

Wiki Growth (January 2022 — present)[]

ESBHomepage2023

Encyclopedia SpongeBobia's homepage during 2023.

The wiki continued to grow into the 2020s as more users joined, more staff members were promoted, more pages were created, and more edits were made, making 2022 and 2023 rather significant years of growth for the wiki. In January 2022, Thelxinoe was promoted to the administrator role which increased the amount of administrators to 9. However, two administrators resigned shortly afterwards decreasing the total to 7. In April and May of 2022, BSpongeSM02 and Anthony2306 were promoted to bureaucrats via successful requests, making them the first new bureaucrats since Figmeister in November 2019. SpongyFanatic2021 was promoted to an assistant which increased the number of assistants to 3 but he later resigned. In September 2022, FireMatch was promoted to the administrator role after her request was successful, increasing the number of administrators to 8. However, the wiki only had two discussion moderators due to the recent resignations of Idroppedmypen and SpongeTron D. In October and November of 2022, SquidTron C and PinkPugPrincess were promoted to the discussion moderator role after successful requests, increasing the total to four. However, that number decreased to three after the former announced his resignation in late November 2022. The only assistant at that time was The Smarter, Wiser King Dedede due to the resignation of recent assistants, before PinkPugPrincess got promoted in November 2023 following a successful request, bringing the amount back to two. In late 2023, the number of pages on the wiki surpassed 15,000 once again due to numerous users joining, editing articles, and creating pages related to recent episodes of the franchise. In January 2024, The Aura Warrior of Something from Whatever was promoted to the assistant role following a successful request, increasing the total to three.

Notability[]

Encyclopedia SpongeBobia is a very notable SpongeBob SquarePants wiki on Fandom as it has a very high Google rank for Google searches related to SpongeBob SquarePants content and its spin-offs. Encyclopedia SpongeBobia is also considered a "big wiki" by Fandom themselves.

Trivia[]

General[]

  • Fad was the first non-anonymous user to be blocked on this wiki. However, it should be noted that anonymous users are no longer capable of editing the wiki. Fad was later unblocked by AMK152 in November 2014.
    • If this does not include any unblocked users, Mangebob is squidard was the first non-anonymous user to be blocked from the wiki without needing to being unblocked by an administrator.
    • Action3 was the first user to be blocked the Abuse filter. [7]
  • Between April 2007 and February 2018, it took Encyclopedia SpongeBobia ten years and ten months to have a female bureaucrat on the wiki.
  • Jensonk currently has the highest leaderboard position then any regular user on the wiki.
  • Anthony2306 currently has the highest edit count of any regular user on the wiki.
  • SpongeTron D currently has the highest amount of posts on this wiki.
  • Cans48 made the one millionth edit on this wiki.
  • This wiki has launched in between the premiere of the season 5 episodes "Friend or Foe" and "Spy Buddies."
  • AMK152 is the longest running administrator on this wiki, with having stayed in that position since October 6, 2007 (16 years).
    • The second being Spongebob456 who has been an administrator for ten years and also a Wiki Representative on this wiki.[8]
  • Haldir's userpage was the first page to be deleted from the wiki.[9]
    • Excluding userpages, the first page to be deleted was called "New Page" as it was a duplicate of the "SpongeBob SquarePants (character)" page.
    • The first file to be deleted from the wiki was an image titled "122.jpg" which was not related to SpongeBob SquarePants or its spinoffs.[9]
    • A template named "Wpbio" was the first template to be deleted from this wiki but it was later restored.[10]
      • Not counted restored templates, the first template to be deleted was "EpisodeList."[11]
    • A category named "SpongeBob SquarePants crew" was the first category to be deleted from this wiki.[12]
  • A file called "Wiki.png.jpg" was the first file to be uploaded on this wiki however it was deleted for being unused.[13]
    • The oldest file that remained on the wiki is a file called "Wiki.png" which is the wiki's logo. [14]

Cultural references[]

Gallery[]

Logos[]

The history for wiki logos can be seen here:[15] More logos can also be seen on the Logopedia article.

Other languages[]

海綿寶寶百科全書[]

海綿寶寶百科全書 or 海绵宝宝百科全书 (海綿寶典 or 海绵宝典 for short), formerly known as 海綿寶寶 維基, formerly was a Taiwanese Traditional Chinese SpongeBob SquarePants wiki that was founded by msnhinet8 on September 16, 2012. It is currently a variable Chinese Wiki for China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia, and Singapore.

See also[]

External links[]

References[]

Wikipedia logo This page uses content from Wikipedia (originalauthors). Both Encyclopedia SpongeBobia and Wikipedia are licensed under the CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported license.


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