FalloutWiki:2023 Annual Review

Welcome to the Independent Fallout Wiki Annual Review for 2023!

Introduction
The following is an overview of wiki milestones, statistics, and initiatives in our inaugural year. Throughout 2023, the site and community have grown exponentially thanks to our dedicated contributors, community members, and enthusiasts. We extend our gratitude to the diverse Fallout community that makes all of this possible.

Whether you're a seasoned editor, a curious reader, or a first-time visitor, your presence and contributions have played an integral role in shaping the body of knowledge and success of our site and the growth of our community. Join us as we celebrate the milestones, and accomplishments, as well as recognize the tireless efforts of those who have contributed to the Fallout Wiki over the last year.



Highlights
The wiki's greatest strength has always been its editors, from regular contributors to occasional users. Whether it's adding an image, covering a new update, or helping write a guide, we owe our success to every player and editor who reads and edits the site. An overview of our milestones can be seen below.

Affiliates
The Affiliates of the Independent Fallout Wiki are listed below. Our community is expansive and diverse, encompassing a wide variety of different spaces, including those focused on the Fallout series, independent wikis, datamining tools, and like-minded partnered groups. Our affiliates consist of great websites, communities, and organizations that share our goals and collaborative spirit, and typically cover video games or other media. Those that we have joined forces in 2023 are found below.

Founder's Day
A group of Fallout fans from several corners of the community founded the Independent Fallout Wiki and Schmault-Tec, the official Discord server, on April 7 - 8, 2022. Each year we celebrate Founder's Day to celebrate our hard work, independence, and success. This year's inaugural Founder's Day was celebrated with streams, high-fives, and an elevated amount of cheeky shenanigans.

Bingo Bango Bongo
Bingo Bango Bongo is a community event that takes place across the wiki. A Fallout Bingo card contains 24 icons that are found throughout the site on random articles. The middle icon of Vault Boy is a free space that counts for everyone. Icons are found at the top of pages, along with a "Bingo Bango Bongo" banner. When users find five in a row in any direction, that's Bingo Bango Bongo! From March 7 to Parul 7, 2023, bingo was held on the wiki to celebrate the one year anniversary of the Independent Fallout Wiki's founding. The winners are listed below:



Cross-Wiki Week
Cross Wiki Week is an annual event hosted by the Nintendo Independent Wiki Alliance celebrating Nintendo's birthday from September 23 - October 1, 2023. As an affiliate of NIWA, we were excited to join in the fun, constructively editing NIWA and other affiliate wikis.

Fallout: New Vegas Day
Fallout: New Vegas Day took place on the weekend of November 11–12, 2023. The trivia event was hosted by the Independent Fallout Wiki, with staff members Kate Aces, Rubbinmahbelly, and MeatServo running the event alongside PedernalesFalls from Fallout For Hope.

Pride Month
Pride Month was an event that was celebrated by the Independent Fallout Wiki and included features throughout the entire month of June. On May 31, 2023, the Independent Fallout Wiki posted a Pride Month graphic on their Twitter and Tumblr. A sitewide banner was put in place which redirected to the LGBTQ Representation in Fallout page when clicked or tapped. The site background was changed to a screenshot from Elianora's Craftable Pride Trans LGBTQIA Flags mod for Fallout 4. In addition, seven pride-themed images were chosen to rotate on the main page throughout the month as part of Pickman's Gallery.

Creepy Pasta Contest
The Fallout Creepypasta Contest was an event to celebrate Halloween and all things spooky, hyper-realistic, cursed, and unhinged.

Family Photo
Members of all our communities joined together and submitted their in-game characters as part of our first Fallout Wiki Family Photo!

Trivia
Fallout Trivia is a community event hosted on the Independent Fallout Wiki Official Discord server. Everyone chooses their faction of choice before the questions begin, based on the theme of the round. The team with the most points at the end of the questions is the winner! The next topic varies from round to round and is decided via poll at the end of each session. This year, one of our trivia events was a cross-server event with our friends at The Legion!

Pickman's Gallery
At the Independent Fallout Wiki, we value collaborating with the community and are excited to show off the creativity of Fallout fans in Pickman's Gallery! Every month, a piece of Fallout art is featured on our home page. The artwork featured in 2023 can be seen below.

Galaxy News Network
Galaxy News Network is a Fallout & Starfield Community News server inspired by the news network from the game and a server called "West Virginia Public Radio." The mission of GNN is to create a vibrant and inclusive community for Fallout & Starfield fans through a dedicated server that serves as a central hub for news and interaction. GNN is the news branch of the Independent Fallout Wiki and posts timely news and community updates wiki side.

Schmault-Tec University

 * Programs, graduates

Projects

 * Started, completed

Monthly Polls

 * Results

Policy Reviews
Two policy reviews were completed in 2023, one for Wiki Policies and one for Community Policies. Committees comprised of staff and community members were built for each. The wiki review committee of 9 members and the community review committee consisted of 7 members. The changes and suggestions for the wiki policies are found here and the community changes can be found here.

Technical Updates
In response to our growing resource needs and image replacement project, we moved our image hosting to Digital Oceans. This gave us increased reliability, greater flexibility, and faster load times for page views that hit the wiki servers. As part of our infrastructure upgrade, we also upgraded our version of MediaWiki, which is the main software used to operate the wikis. Moving to MediaWiki X aimed to make the wiki faster, more secure, and use fewer resources, not to mention open more opportunities for new extensions.

Statistics
The Independent Fallout Wiki had over X page views in 2023. About X of our views came from the United States, with the wiki being visited by X different countries and territories in total. This year included new additions to Fallout: The Roleplaying Game as well as Fallout 25th Anniversary and Fallout 76 5th Anniversary celebrations that caused increases in page views. The following is a more detailed wiki breakdown of page views, visitors, and other statistics.

Traffic Statistics

 * X: Total page views
 * X: Total visitors
 * X: Top countries of origin
 * X: Most-used web browsers

Wiki Statistics

 * X: Pages created
 * X: Images uploaded
 * X: Edits made
 * X: New accounts

Community Statistics

 * X: Discord members
 * X: Discord messages sent
 * X: Twitter followers
 * X: Staff members

Social Media

 * Twitter followers graph
 * Discord members graph