Etherpad is the name of an online collaborative text editor that the Athalia Academy roleplay and its spinoffs are frequently hosted on. Specifically, it refers to Etherpad Lite, which is a certain type of pad unrelated to TitanPad and any of the other "-pad" options available.
Throughout the usage of Etherpads, there have been three different hosts used:
- notes.typo3.org
- etherpad.wikimedia.org
- etherpad.openstack.org
Each has its advantages and disadvantages. Typo3 was the first host that was used, and although consistently stable, it had a lag problem, especially when the pads had over 1000 lines of material, but even when they were empty. This became more of an issue when the software was updated to automatically replace URLs of pictures with the actual picture in the pad. Because of these lag issues, and the fact that most of the pad network was well over usable capacity (meaning that there was so much content that the pad was essentially unusable because of how slow the framerate was), Typo3 was replaced by Wikimedia.
Wikimedia then became the standard for a long time, because it was fast (much faster than Typo3) and never lagged, even when filled past 2000 lines. However, it was eventually and suddenly discovered that the Wikimedia pads could crash unlike Typo3, rendering none of the text in the pad accessible. The search began for a reliable replacement after lots of data was lost. Many were tried until OpenStack was discovered. On the face of it, it was a really nice host because it had a lot of formatting features that Wikimedia did not, and so it became the new standard. Eventually (in 2016) it was discovered that OpenStack, too, could crash, and after it became normal to save pads to a Word document periodically and then retrieve the information to create a new pad when the existing pad inevitably crashed, the Athalians eventually grew tired of this and began a search once more for a stable pad. When nothing was found, they moved to Discord, a chat-only separate application, using OpenStack pads only for supplemental materials.
List of Etherpads Created and Used[]
Athalia Pads
- Athalia Academy Active Posting Pad (Typo3) (later the "Athalia Academy Hangout Pad")
- Athalia Academy Archive Pad (Typo3)
- Athalia Extras Archive Pad (Typo3)
- https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/Athalia - this pad was the first pad to leave the Typo3 pad architecture, and was used through Season Three until the Legends of Lavanya reboot.
- https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/Legends_of_Lavanya - the first pad for the Legends of Lavanya reboot. This was the first pad that crashed, prompting the creation of a new pad.
- https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/Lavanya - the new pad created after the above pad died.
- https://etherpad.openstack.org/p/Athalia_IV - the new main paid created for the Season Four re-reboot (hence the "IV").
- https://etherpad.openstack.org/p/Athalia_V - this pad begun the sequence of main pads crashing and being replaced with an archived version as a new pad.
- https://etherpad.openstack.org/p/Athalia_VI
- https://etherpad.openstack.org/p/Athalia_VII
- https://etherpad.openstack.org/p/Athalia_VIII - the last in the sequence before the switch to Discord was made, this one didn't even get used once, hence its emptiness.
Fanfiction/Spinoff Roleplay Pads
- https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/Link_2_da_Passed - Dystopian Future/Flipped Morality Fanfic
- https://etherpad.openstack.org/p/Andromeda_Strain - reboot of the above dystopian fic
- https://etherpad.openstack.org/p/Take_3 - re-reboot of the above dystopian fic with just 3 players (Animelover_princess, Nevix, and Driving Park)
- https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/[Insert_Creative_Title] - fanfic set millions of years in the future when only Lily and Data are left, focusing on the return of Carmen
- https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/Carlily - the longest-running spinoff pad, where much of the Carlily fanfic was written before it became canon
- https://etherpad.openstack.org/p/OUAlegria - NarayanK's alternate universe fanfic called Once Upon Alegria, where everyone in Athalia is normal (no supernatural abilities)
- https://etherpad.openstack.org/p/OUAlegria2 - the replacement of the above pad after it crashed
Pads for Other Roleplays Created by Athalians
- https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/RWBY - The Archon Resonance, a RWBY-inspired roleplay
- https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/KiSA - Knight in Shining Armor
- https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/The_Eternity_War - an Athalia-exclusive roleplay that never got off the ground
- https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/Freedom_of_Choice - an Athalia-exclusive chill/hangout tavern roleplay that never got off the ground
- https://etherpad.openstack.org/p/Reader - an Athalia-exclusive fantasy/D&D-inspired roleplay that never got off the ground
Miscellaneous Work Pads
- https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/Image_Dump - a pad for posting images, for characters etc.
- https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/CHARACTER_BANANAS! - character creation pad between chukklehed and Driving Park
- https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/Work_Pad - a general work pad by HylianRose
- https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/Work_Pad_2.0 - a second general work pad by HylianRose
- https://etherpad.openstack.org/p/NK_Workshop - a general work pad by NarayanK
- https://etherpad.openstack.org/p/NK_Workshop2 - a second general work pad by NarayanK
- https://etherpad.openstack.org/p/NK_Workshop_MLG_Edition - the current NK workshop pad
- https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/DP - a general work pad by Driving Park
- https://etherpad.openstack.org/p/DP - an OpenStack version of the above
- https://etherpad.openstack.org/p/DPs+X-Treme+Workshop+420 - the current DP workshop pad
- https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/Timesink - pad for conceptualizing the Athalia Extended Universe
- https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/Efini - a further extension of the above pad