World Anvil News: July 2023

It’s Summer Camp month (also known as July) and we’re super hyped for it! June was dedicated to preparing for Summer Camp, and now that everything’s ready, it’s time to go all in with worldbuilding. Before that, though, let’s look at what’s new and upcoming on World Anvil!

⚙️ New and upgraded features

Here’s what’s new this month in the dev space!

🕰️ Slowdowns are fixed! Some of you reported slow loading times. Well, good news, the devs found the main issue behind this and fixed it!
🚩 Report button. You can now report content that breaches the Etiquette policy with the new flag button you’ll find at the bottom of every article. Note that all reports are reviewed manually and no automated actions are taken.
🐟 ToDo List update. We asked you, and you decided! The To-Do list will no longer be automatically populated with a new item every time you create a placeholder article link.
🖊️ Mark BBCode. The new BBCode tag [mark][/mark] will let you highlight text as if you had marked it with a highlighter! Available to Grandmasters and above tiers.
🎨 Minor interface changes. You’ll notice slight changes in the interface, which also help to reduce loading times. These include:
- Removed the “Continue working…” link from the sidebar. It’s still available from the World Dashboard!
- When opening the Images section of your world, fewer images will load by default. You can still click on “Unsorted files” to see all of them! (pro-tip: use galleries to organize them).
📝 Wordcount tweaks. Author notes, article excerpts, and tags are now excluded from the article’s total word count.
🍨 Summer Camp Tracking Sheet. Wanna keep track of your Summer Camp progress? Graylion, from the community, made a statblock-style tracking sheet for Summer Camp! Check out an example with last year’s Summer Camp and instructions to set it up!

🗓️ Upcoming and ongoing events

Stand by for our July events!

🍨 Summer Camp: this month’s challenge is one of the biggest of the year—we challenge you to answer 32 worldbuilding prompts. There are tiered badges for 8, 16, 24, and 32 prompts, and goodies to be won, including worldbuilding aids and even cash prizes! You have until August 1st to take part. Check out the Summer Camp challenge page to learn more!
🎓 Sage Seminar: Important date change for all of our Sages and Inner Sanctum! This month’s Sage Seminar and Inner Sanctum meetings will take place on Saturday, July 22nd at the usual time.

Here’s the event schedule for the next three months:

🌟 Community highlight

Shattered, by Catoblepon, is the winner of the Most Ground–breaking World Premise for the Worldbuilding Awards 2022—a very apt award, given the name of the world! In this world, islands float in space around a star (which isn’t quite a star) and giant animals like space turtles and sea slugs float around them. Check out Shattered!