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Polski Mapping Wiki (en. Polish Mapping Wiki) is a free Polish Mapping encyclopedia previously hosted on Fandom, dedicated to the documentation of the mapping community in 
Poland. Created in 2017 by Mleczny Sernik[1], it became the largest mapping wiki in Poland, with over 500 articles chronicling the most prominent mappers and their creations. The wiki also served as a historical record of the mapping community's activities for seven years, gaining numerous contributions and edits. Despite challenges from toxic members and many dramas, PMW remained unmatched in its success. Currently, it's governed by 
Bergahorning and 
DualPlay.
On August 12th, 2021, 
Fandom closed the Polski Mapping Wiki, along with other Polandball-related wikis[2], citing racist and stereotypical content related to countryballs. While the wiki was later reopened after removing countryball elements from its logo and sections, and new members of the community were contributing to it, the place remained largely inactive for nearly three years. Efforts to revitalize it during the August Revolution in 2024 were cut short when Fandom shut the wiki down again on September 3rd, 2024, this time citing the reintroduction of countryball content and the documentation of non-famous individuals—a reason that felt inconsistent, as other Fandom wikis regularly feature similar content without facing closure[3].
The decision raised frustrations within the entire Polish mapping community, who viewed Fandom's approach as overly rigid and inconsistent, especially given that the wiki included a clear disclaimer stating that mapping series are fictional and meant solely for entertainment, not for promoting any political or ideological agendas. This had only pushed the decision to migrate from Fandom and to move the wiki to a Polandball wiki farm called Encyclopedia Polandballae (Polandball Wiki). Now, the new site is currently under maintenance and will be published soon.
History
Early Ages (2017-2021)
Note: Someone else needs to expand it, someone who actually knows about the history of the wiki ~ Veli
The Polski Mapping Wiki was founded in 2017 by Mleczny Sernik, a new figure in the Polish mapping community. Initially intended as a resource for documenting mappers and their series, the wiki quickly gained traction, attracting contributions from across the mapping community.
Between 2018 and 2021, PMW experienced a period of peak activity, with hundreds of articles and contributions being made by both veteran and new mappers. This period is known as the Golden Age of PMW, during which the community was growing. Major mapping series and popular mappers were extensively documented, contributing to PMW's prominence.
In 2020, Mleczny Sernik transferred ownership of the wiki to Bergahorning, signaling the start of a new era. However, this period was not without conflicts. Various internal disputes arose, along with the appearance of troll pages and disruptions in the community, though these conflicts were quickly resolved.
Abandonment (2021–2024)
In September 2021, Fandom temporarily closed PMW accusing it of hosting racist and stereotypical content involving countryballs[2]. PMW reopened after removing countryball-related elements from flashiest places, but the wiki struggled to regain its previous activity. Over the next three years, the community faced increasing difficulty in maintaining the site and organizing a migration to hosting platforms, such as Miraheze, or a a private server hosted by 
Veli. These plans never actually happened.
Since November 11th, 2021, Polski Mapping Wiki was a member of 
Ballmedia, thanks to DualPlay.
To Be Expanded
August Revolution (2024)
The August Uprising (August)
On 28 August 2024, Veli returned to wiki's community and initiated the August Revolution (Rewolucja Sierpniowa), a project aimed at remastering and restructuring the wiki with the administration ( DualPlay, Bergahorning). The effort involved updating outdated articles, especially those documenting significant mappers like DroneQi, Vision, and Illyra. New sections, such as Lista Zapomnianych Mapperów, were introduced to document lesser-known mappers. Many troll sites hidden from the user-side of PMW were deleted. A new logo also was introduced - it included a small polish countryball logo in the place of O in Polski. The theme of the website was remade in a form of a modern one, with the 2022 Chinese's Europe Map - the most popular map template - in the background.
The September Deluge (September)
On September 3rd, 2024, Veli had gotten an administrator rank and purged over half of the Discord server, most notably unactive members and ones not related to mapping. On the same day, the wiki was closed again on Fandom. At first, the reasons were known - it was most likely because of containing a countryball in the logo - but it turned out that the wiki got banned for not only containing countryball content, but documenting non-famous living people as well.
Although the accusation was right, not only it came without any warning, but also was out of place as most of the articles were created by mappers themselves and with their own consent with no full name nor a real-life picture, and wiki would delete any personal article on the request of a creator - not to mention that most of the wikis had this kind of information and were still hosted on the platform nevertheless.
The PMW tried to resonate, with żarski and Berg trying their best to reclaim their wiki, Kimbertron refused to allow the racist site to exist on their wiki farm. She cited another argument - not allowing Discord wikis, which was out of touch, as mapping exists not as a Discord server, but as a medium. These actions caused a wave of hate towards Fandom in the polish mapping community, with many mappers being confused and enraged over the irrationality of the arguments. The ban also forced PMW to move to Global Countryball Organization, although most of the members of the community, including Żarski, TaSzaKo and Asjewon disliked the change.
On September 6, 2024, the GCO wiki was under a blackout. 
Veli, thinking that the wiki was deleted, decided to host it by himself independently The task became too hard for him as he had many other projects and plans, so he gave up for a while. Thus, the wiki will open on Encyclopedia Polandballae, but it's eventually going to move to Veli's hosting after he has more time to set up the wiki.
Polski Mapping Wiki Civil War (2024–)
To Be Expanded
Separatism
On September 13, 2024, after the Bergahorning and Veli quarrels, Veli decided to host themself and got officially approved by 
Global Countryballs Organization. Meanwhile Żarski became an co-owner of original Polski Mapping Wiki after he hosted an wiki on 
Miraheze.
GCO Membership
After the long negotations between Veli and DualPlay they reached an agreement. The wiki would be hosted indepedently and mirror (in case the main one goes down) in Encyclopedia Polandballae. Veli signed the Manifesto on September 12, 2024.
Community and Governance
Key Members
Owners
Bergahorning is the owner of the Polski Mapping Wiki since 2020 and owner of the Discord server related to it. His previous account on Discord had been deleted and Discord still didn't hand over PMW's Discord ownership to him for some reason.
DualPlay is the co-owner of PMW. His account was deleted for being related to countryballs, hence he couldn't operate on the wiki while it was on Fandom. He's the one that joined the Global Countryball Organization Alliance first, and suggested to move there even before the wiki had been shut down on Fandom forever.
- Żarski is the owner of Chlebsony Żarsona server, which has around 4000 people, but only 100 have access to writing on it and the rest joined because of the Matura (the high school ending exams) leaks. He rules the rebellious Polski Mapping Wiki which it was created because of the lack of existence of the Polish Mapping Wiki for a long time.
Administrators
- TaSzaKo is one of the most active and contributing members of the wiki, taking part in many initiatives such as creating Genealogical Tree Of Polish Mappers. He is not keen of moving the wiki here, and tries to talk out things peacefully with Fandom but seeing as PMW doesn't really have any other options (Miraheze doesn't accept new polandball wikis, and maintaining the site would cost a lot)...
Veli (AlterVeli) is the one that suggested to move the wiki to his hosting, but eventually abandoned the plans because of the lack of help with setting up the wiki. He also suggested and was an important member in August Revolution, hoping to reshape the wiki in a better way - sadly, Fandom thought different. At first, he was not a fan of moving the server to a random wikifarm (although he still wanted to move the wiki somewhere else), but after a ban from Fandom he changed his mind seeing there aren't many other options (although he still wants the wiki to be moved and hosted independently in the future). Veli is also known for taking part and creating many initiatives, such as Elitarny Mapper, PSM, MPL, polskimapping.pl, interactive mapping series and more.
- Asjewon is one of the admins on PMW's Discord server. Although he was not really active for a very long time, he came back while the August Revolution took place and decided to help in it.
Moderators
- Mleczny Sernik is the previous owner of the wiki, but is unactive both on Discord and on Fandom. He sometimes randomly goes online and than dissapears like nothing happened, though for his previous contribiutions he still has a place in the moderation team.
Editors
- KritixeQ is the newest active member of the PMW, that very often edits articles and corrects them. While PMW was hosted on Fandom, in around half a year he got to the top of the leaderboard of the most active contributors.
- Oddeski is another person worth mentioning as he decided to revamp old articles such as Alternatywna Przyszłość Europy 1933 by DroneQi, adding information about each character and event.
Governance and Decision-Making
Notable Articles and Projects
Articles
- Lista Największych Serwerów Mapperskich (List of the top mapping servers) - as the name suggests, the list contains all of the important mapping servers that are worth visiting, having around 50 related servers on the list.
- Lista Największych Mapperów (List of the Top Mappers) - that list contained most popular mappers in Poland, but due to many dramas about who should be considered as a mapper it had eventually been abandoned, although it might come back on GCO.
- DroneQi, Vision, Illyra, Grevislan Team... etc. - these were the articles about biggest mappers and mapping teams in Poland. They hadn't been that updated over the years, but they are still important to the whole community because of the impact of these teams and mappers.
- New-era Mappers - these articles had been created by mappers that joined the community since 2022/23.
- Old-era Mappers - these articles are very important, as they preserve the old history of the community since 2016 all the way to 2022/23.
- Elitarny Mapper - these articles represent the currently biggest mapping contest in Poland.
- Unknown Mappers, teams and series - these are the non-developed articles on the wiki.
Projects
- Mapping Genealogical Tree
To Be Expanded
Controversies and Challenges
Fandom’s Censorship Policies
The relationship between PMW and Fandom was often strained, with multiple closures due to Fandom's censorship policies. This was primarily due to the use of countryball imagery and documentation of individuals deemed "non-famous."
To Be Expanded
Internal Conflicts
Throughout its history, PMW experienced several internal conflicts, including disputes over ownership, governance, and the documentation of controversial figures or series.
To Be Expanded
Migration and Future of PMW
Migration to Encyclopedia Polandballae
Following PMW’s final closure on Fandom in September 2024, the community began migrating to Encyclopedia Polandballae (in PMW community is called GCO+), an independent platform that offered greater freedom for content creation and governance.
To Be Expanded
Independent Hosting Initiatives
Efforts were made during PMW’s Congee Period and August Revolution to move the wiki to an independent server. While these efforts initially failed, there remains a desire within the community to eventually establish an independently hosted version of the wiki.
On September 9th, 2024, Veli resigned to make an separate wiki, because of the lack of motivation. But after Żarski had created an rebellion and mapping wiki ban in 0 on September 11, 2024, he came back with that idea.
To Be Expanded
Notes
- Most of the page had been developed by Veli, although DualPlay also made important contributions.
References
- ↑ Fandom.com (3 May 2023). "Polski Mapping Wiki: Strona Główna" (in Polish). Archived from the original on 3 May 2023. Retrieved 5 September 2024.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Change.org (10 August 2023). "Sign the petition and save Polandball and Polcompball wiki on Fandom". Retrieved 5 September 2023.
- ↑ Alterski, Veli (4 September 2024). "3 września 2024 r., Polski Mapping Wiki została zamknięta [...]" (in Polish). YouTube. Retrieved 5 September 2024.