the biannual davidson tipwiki flood is the unofficial name for an event occurring biannually at the end of each term of davidson. it is unclear how long there have been tipwiki floods of this specific sort, but they are known to have occurred in 2018 and 2019, and the event is very easy to spot. its effect is not disastrous, but also not entirely beneficial. however, it exposes a very large number of young tipsters to the wiki for the first time, and, without the flood, davidson (and everywhere else!) would be far less documented here.

causes

the cause is simple. i know it myself because i created my first account in the flood.

the flood is caused by counselors informing students of the existence of the tipwiki. though not all rcs tell their rags about the wiki, it still spreads like wildfire across campus. this generally occurs in the early portions of the final week (as evidenced here).

the events and effects

the most noticeable effects are listed here. note that, because of the nature of the davidson tipwiki (most other campuses generally include a new page for every separate topic/event, while davidson generally puts all information into a small set of pages), few new pages are generally created during the flood.

• a wave of new accounts shows up.
• edits initially focus on the davidson page, but soon diverge to the relationtip page, individual class pages, the tipster index, etc.
  • formatting is often poorly-done, however, but this is only natural.
  • also, surprisingly, little-to-no vandalism of existing pages occurs in the flood.
• tipsters gradually obtain an understanding of tip tradition by browsing the site, but this obviously doesn't happen right away.
• edit wars over chronicling of intippropriate or unflattering information can happen, but they tend to be resolved without creating any beef.
  • while the term is still happening, this can cause "real-world" drama.
• the counselors watch from a distance, probably with a mix of nostalgia and amusement.
• edits eventually die down after the initial excitement, leaving a period afterwards where less edits are made, not only by davidson flood accounts, but also by most of the rest of the wiki. editing becomes more frequent all-around when summer studies begins again.
• since some first-years do not return to tip at all, some accounts are abandoned, but many are still maintained.
  • some, including myself, create new accounts later on, leading to account abandonment as well. (side note: don't use alternate accounts here. don't be that one guy/gal/person.)

anyways, those are the primary details.

and now, one last thing.

what people fail to realize about the counselors introducing them to tipwiki

it means that the counselors read tipwiki, which is true and often overlooked. if you want to work for tip, you're also gonna want to [remove some names from the wiki], because admin also knows.

conclusion

basically davidson kids learn how to edit tipwiki at the end of their terms. they don't really hurt anything, and it's honestly pretty good for the wiki.

)

-jane