Hard Light Productions Forums
Community Projects => The FreeSpace Wiki Project => Topic started by: karajorma on January 07, 2006, 05:54:42 am
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Following the discussions that have been going on lately I thought that a poll would be a good idea to see where the community stands on the idea. The question is whether we should keep the wiki just as a reference for the canon information from the game or whether we should allow non-canon interpretations of the game to be placed in their own area of the wiki.
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I think it should be allowed in there, as long as it is clearly marked as such - like they do it at DITL.
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As I said in the other thread; No - not unless it has a complete criticism of any inaccuracy or problems relating to the known stuff of FS1/ST/FS2, and every equivalent theory in that area is given it's own entry to ensure fair coverage of the area of discussion. Also no because the wiki is intended as a reference source, not a place to store fictional stories; IMO this would be equivalent to inventing a 'universe' which is not used in any form except to be inserted into the 'full' (i.e. en.wikipedia.org) wikipedia.
Also, another 'no' reason is because this type of thing really is only of value in discussion (i.e. in the forums), and that precludes sensible inclusion in wikipedia (because discussion and change is to be avoided in a factual reference). Finally, adding non-canon means that anyone can add any old rubbish into the wiki, and justify it with a non-canon tag - regardless of whether it cites evidence that is actually similarly made up or incorrect.
EDIT; and also, it strikes me that any criticism added in to balance out these articles will be removed as 'unfair' or somesuch, especially if said article has massive holes and hence lots of criticism.
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Could we take a moment to define the word "material"?
My point being that if someone wants to document BlackWater Operations - good for them. It's a well known campaign and people may want to hear about it. If someone wants to write up The Babylon Project and a description of what you'll find within it then that's also FreeSpace related (as it runs on the same engine). It's additional information relating to the overall topic of FreeSpace. I support the addition of such content on the condition that it is appropriately marked as "Non-Canon" material.
However as aldo_14 says, I don't think the wiki should turn into a "story archive" where anyone who feels like a bit of a writing spree can type in some half-cocked unsolicited story and enter it into the archive. That sort of offshoot has no place. It's not a download, mod, campaign or total conversion.
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If the SM was to be added as the result of some campaigns output, I wouldn't object so much; albeit I wouldn't view it as the job of the wiki to document campaign storylines (that's surely what playing the campaign is for - not to mention the individual campaign websites). To me, the level of detail in Skippys' list is what is needed for campaigns, with perhaps just a tad more for the TCs like TBP (because they have a whole new universe that needs to be explianed, even if just by linking to B5, or WC, Star Wars, etc wikis).
My objection to the SM - in particular, but also in the general principle - is that it's already been cited as if canon (even though it says so in the theory; although IMO is puts itself as too conclusive in the key assumptions made), and that it's presences means it has precedent over non-featuring theories. Moreso, my worry is that people will simply adopt it as an easy, lazy background with considering the flaws within, and thus it'll act to stifle creativity.
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Personally, I can see it generating a lot of arguments and disagreements, since, if we can't argue over canon, we will argue of what is the most viable non-canon. The Shivan Manifesto is an excellent example, there are long-time members of this board who think it is very good, and others that think it is full of holes. It's probably better imho, to keep that kind of thing to the boards and stay away from conjecture, even if it's clearly marked as 'Non-canon' you can be pretty sure at some point or another people are going to say things like 'That campaign is wrong, because it says in the Wiki.....etc'. It's the same risk as suggesting that Inferno is the closest thing to FS3, it isn't, it's Inferno, a bloody good user made campaign, but nothing else.
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My two cents worth...
Fan made campaign backgrounds/stories/ships/whatever:
I'd prefer a 'User-made campaigns' section located below all the canon stuff where each campaign could then have it's own area, with any of the subcategories found in the canon sections as desired by the authors. So you could have, say, a 'User-made campaigns->Mindgames->Ships' category where the ships of that campaign can be found, and the same for background, weapons etc.
Since each campaign is under the user campaigns category, and the articles for each are seperated, it's clear to anyone using the wiki that it's non-canon, and also that what info is true for one campaign will likely not be true for others. I suppose you could say that these sections would be 'canon' within the context of their specific campaigns, but nowhere else. Call it campaignon if you like :p
Speculation based on canon, but not related to a campaign:
This has no place in the wiki in my opinion. This would include things like the shivan manifesto, as it is not tied to any campaign and is simply an attempt to make some sense out of the Shivans based on a mix of known facts and assumptions. But if for some reason it -has- to be there, I think it should be in a section appripriately titled 'random speculation', 'fan theories' or something similar. But I still don't think any of it belongs there. If it had to be anywhere, my preference would be a 'fan fiction' section off the main page, and not the wiki.
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I voted yes. It should be allowed when indicated.
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I think Shades approach might be a good one...
I would probably toss in all fan theories about Shivans into a single page - separate from the canon shivan page - every one with perhaps one or two lines of pros and cons (or short description) about the particular theory and then a link to some distant far off site. But so that even the Shivan Manifesto would be mentioned, clearly indicated as non-canon material, and most importantly commented in the fswiki.
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That is exactly how the current SM article (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Shivan_Manifesto) looks like. The text is not there, just a summary, criticism with a link to an article with a detailed list of flaws, and a link to some distant far off site with the text. And IMO that's a good way to include it, because it explains what the SM is, it does not use the SM to explain what the shivans are.
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Facts are for the Wiki, everything else should be on the forum.
By putting in fan created opinions, no matter how smart or stupid, we turn the wikipedia which should be used for facts into a scribbling board that everyone needs to leave their 2 cents on. And believe me, there will be stupid entries, one of them being the Shivan Manifesto (to name one). Even if we all don't agree that it's garbage, the mere fact that there is such a large gap in opinion regarding the inadequacies of ONE piece of writing, inputting many fringe ideas (because that's what they all are in the end) will just make the entire page look idiotic.
That's not the purpose of any "pedia" as far as I'm concerned, the purpose is general knowledge pertaining to facts.
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...FreeSpace does not have many facts, only what we can see in the game.
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Well the current Shivan Manifesto page is 3 to 4 times longer that what i would have made out of it... And it wouldn't be on a separate page but rather a single entry in a list of 'fan theories'. Main thing would be that it should be mentioned and critizised in fswiki. If it is not mentioned at all then its may even gain more 'canon' reputation than otherwise. And that would benefit no one.
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I'd say that not having data on BWO, or TBP, or whatever, would be a great disservice. I think that such non-canon information should be placed not among canon information, but in its own category, under user contributions or some such. In other areas, for example the theories on Capella, I can imagine a page like this:
Canon info
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Generally accepted assumptions
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Shivan BBQ Theory
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Sandwich's Theory
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etc...
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Facts are for the Wiki, everything else should be on the forum.
By putting in fan created opinions, no matter how smart or stupid, we turn the wikipedia which should be used for facts into a scribbling board that everyone needs to leave their 2 cents on. And believe me, there will be stupid entries, one of them being the Shivan Manifesto (to name one). Even if we all don't agree that it's garbage, the mere fact that there is such a large gap in opinion regarding the inadequacies of ONE piece of writing, inputting many fringe ideas (because that's what they all are in the end) will just make the entire page look idiotic.
That's not the purpose of any "pedia" as far as I'm concerned, the purpose is general knowledge pertaining to facts.
The nature of a wiki means that you can edit any articles that anyonme posts. You can delete them, if you see fit, though I personally would much rather that didn't happen unless it was obviously neccesary (an article about someones pet dog, for example). But what you can (and probably should) do, is edit the article to include criticisms of any wild theories that go into it. Or you could merge theories into one page, so anyone looking for one, particularly far out theory would also be exposed to summaries of a whole bunch of other, perhaps more likely theories.
So, the Shivan Manifesto. I don't know if it belongs. I don't think that the wiki is the best place to put the full text of the theory under the page title of "The Shivan Manifesto", as there's far too much potential for misunderstanding (as to the status of the document, and its level of acceptance/canoninity). But an article about the existence of a document by the name of "The Shivan Manifesto", an article which explains both the facts that support the theorys postulated by said document, and the criticisms of it, that has, I think, a fairly strong case to be in the wiki, if only because the document is seen pretty regularly on the forums in various discussions about the Shivans.
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I'm against putting in the full text of any theory in a wikipedia article, however a a link to the full text is a must. Also, a page with links to all the theories would be better than a page with all the theories together, because the latter would get quite messy after a while. Stg. more like the current list of campaigns would be fine. Then add a link to this page at the end of every theory, under See also
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The bigger question here is what exactly the wiki is for. If it's intended to be purely an FS universe reference, then the Manifesto has absolutely no place in there, even leaving aside the fact that it's riddled with contradictions despite being detailed and well written. However, if it's about the FS games, or more generally the FS community, then I think the current article on this topic is good (as it doesn't include the actual Manifesto but only links to it) if it's placed in a completely separate section from the other material. It's useful to have it in there not because it has any connection to the game or its universe, but because it's a topic that comes up repeatedly in FS-related community discussions here. It can be hard to find old things like this on the forum, even if the search was working correctly. The case could be made for having an entirely separate wiki for stuff like this, but making another section distinct from everything else would seem to have the same effect.
I'm leaning towards putting it in, but don't have any definite opinion on this issue as I can see advantages in both choices.
Here's an interesting question on this topic: should there be any articles at all on the headz box and the C monster? That's fully official material with a distinct Freespace flavor to it, even if it's not exactly related to the FS universe, but if you put that in, it makes sense to also have a short article on Tell a Story, which despite being unofficial, falls in the same category as that stuff and is something almost everyone in the community knows about.
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So, the Shivan Manifesto. I don't know if it belongs. I don't think that the wiki is the best place to put the full text of the theory under the page title of "The Shivan Manifesto", as there's far too much potential for misunderstanding (as to the status of the document, and its level of acceptance/canoninity). But an article about the existence of a document by the name of "The Shivan Manifesto", an article which explains both the facts that support the theorys postulated by said document, and the criticisms of it, that has, I think, a fairly strong case to be in the wiki, if only because the document is seen pretty regularly on the forums in various discussions about the Shivans.
Hmm... I can pretty much agree with that, I can't see any harm in a discussion about it, as long as its text isn't there (well, selected quotes would be ok). Actually, I think it pretty much comes down to a wiki being about facts: The shivan manifesto is speculation. But that it exists is a fact. As such, it's content can't be in the wiki, but it -can- be discussed there with evidence for and against and so on. That's pretty much the same reason I think user made campaigns do have a place there. It's simple... they exist, so they're a fact, as are the ships, weapons, stories they are based upon.
As long as all these things are all in clearly non-canon categories such as something like 'theories on the freespace universe' for the manifesto or ideas about how subspace works and stuff like that and a 'user-made campaigns' or something similar category for the campaigns, I'd love to see it all there.
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Well, I don't want to get into a debate here, too. :p But my general thinking is along the lines that the wiki is a community wiki...it is, after all, linked to from the forums and HLP page, both of which are sort of the hub of the community. Because of that, I think that things with (at least) relevance to the community and Freespace, or to canon Freespace (since that makes it automatically relevant for a Freespace community :p), should be in the wiki.
I don't think that miscellaneous things like the Shivan Manifesto can be excluded with that definition, because the only way to do that would be based on arbitrary judgements (ie the only fanon things that can be in the wiki are campaigns and mods, websites, "FS lingo", documentation of SCP features, guides on SCP, the "Introduction to FSSCP" article, etc etc). I've also gotten accustomed to looking in the wikipedia for things IRL that may be totally fictitious, and it's useful for them to be there because it gives context to when people talk about them. Even if it is something that I think is total crap. So I can see how having something that's factually inaccurate but still discussed in the community would be useful, as long as the article itself is factually accurate.
So, IMHO, the wiki should have non-canon information unless it is split up/made into a separate project, like the old FS encyclopedia project (FSURP, was it?).
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Before we even get in to this tangent, we're actually looking at 2 seperate questions. Technical things, such as SCP reference and Mod descriptions, are exactly what the Wiki is for. They are all backed up by content, whether that's in the form of code changes or mod data or campaign files or whatever. There is, I think, a clear-cut line between what is considered technical and what is considered fan fiction (none of this "fanon" nonsense as it provides too much legitimacy) and that should be the line for inclusion in the Wiki. The Shivan Manifesto is fairly clearly in the Fan Fiction category IMHO, and since that's what this debate really lies then that's actually the question. I'm going to vote for a "fan fiction" section with the majorly non-canon stuff, and let user-made campaigns backed by content fall where they may.
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I'd say that not having data on BWO, or TBP, or whatever, would be a great disservice. I think that such non-canon information should be placed not among canon information, but in its own category, under user contributions or some such.
If you really wnat that, it can be done as such, when the campaigns are finished and we can link to the download link for "user made campaigns".
Not opinions we choose to make our worlds in. Actual worlds built.
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I'd say that not having data on BWO, or TBP, or whatever, would be a great disservice. I think that such non-canon information should be placed not among canon information, but in its own category, under user contributions or some such. In other areas, for example the theories on Capella, I can imagine a page like this:
Canon info
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Generally accepted assumptions
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Shivan BBQ Theory
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Sandwich's Theory
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etc...
Absolutely not. Even those who have said they don't mind non-canon in the wiki tend to draw the line at it appearing on the same page as the canon explaination. That's exactly the sort of blurring of canon and non-canon that caused this debate in the first place.
Personally I'd rather see the Wiki as a collection of facts.
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No.
Because my theory of events differs from everyone else's, and contradicts others. We should allow users to speculate on their own. Or... we'll end up with things like the official wiki, wth "Inferno is generally accepted as the continuation fo the Freespace Series."
With no clear consensus rom the community, and going on only assumptions, it is hardly mention worthy.
So, again. No.
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Or... we'll end up with things like the official wiki, wth "Inferno is generally accepted as the continuation fo the Freespace Series."
In some ways, though, the fact that that was there, was found, then was eliminate demonstrates why the wiki system works. Someone add three pieces of good info and one bad, someone else comes along, gets rid of the bad, adds two of their own good bits, someone else comes along, maybe 2 bad, 1 good, again, the bad gets cleared - internal moderation. It more or less works.
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Personally I'd rather see the Wiki as a collection of facts.
Alright then - empty out the Wiki! Delete everything! :p ;)
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Personally I'd rather see the Wiki as a collection of facts.
Alright then - empty out the Wiki! Delete everything! :p ;)
No, we can keep this page (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/BitTorrent_problems)
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Well it looks like the poll is a tie right now.
With no clear agreement, I'd err on the side of caution and keep the Wiki 100% canon to avoid confusion. If you do that though - be sure to make a big song and dance that it is strictly canon so that people don't go wasting time typing up a piece of info on Inferno only to find it's not allowed in.
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What's the guarantee that:
1) If we decide NOT to accept non-canon info, people will consider it and not include fanon (fan canon) information?
1a) If they do write in non-canon stuff, we will notice and remove it
2) People who had beaten the campaign for a dozen times actually FIND something useful. I need to add that those who read the Wiki are such HLPers.
3) Because of the fact that I mentioned in the second sentence above, we cannot be sure that we have readers, not only editors. If we only expand the wiki without knowing that people find and read our articles, our efforts are pointless as long as we did not establish the wiki just to edit and write stuff in our passtime. The problem is that we have not noticed that we have a wiki hosted by the forum we all visit. Those who know about HLP are almost always veterans who had already completed the campaign at least once. How do you find HLP anyway? I found it by complete chance while I was browsing gamespy or fileplanet. I am sure that the link that led me here is now broken because we had already moved.
Further reasons for keeping non-canon articles:
- Writing about fan-made campaigns, their stories and their mods opens up more categories to browse and more articles to read
- People not wanting to suffer through the most-of-the-times badly balanced campaigns actually can read the stories of particular campaigns and get inspiration for their own campaigns
- Unlike in Star Wars, the FreeSpace universe is only restricted to games, two games. We deplete from canon info really fast. What do we add after that?
- The more articles we have the more complete the wiki looks like. We have more articles refering to each other, we can spend more time on the Wiki.
- More users would be able to contribute, supposing they know some fan-made campaigns better than the Main FS campaign.
- We could include downloads for our campaigns, mods, textures or for the SCP (which is completely non-canon). Note: We need to be able to upload files directly to the wiki if we don't want to keep all the files separated, opening up the possibility that after half a year, all the links in the wiki get obsolete because servers go down.
- There are non-canon articles already, separated with the non-canon template. I have not heard if these articles have caused any misunderstanding or confusion, just because of its nature of being non canon. Readers (if the wiki has any) are warned at the beginning of the article. Read at own risk. It's like indicated spoilers. If you are not mature enough and it causes confusion even though the article clearly states what you can find there is not canon, that is your problem.
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Well it looks like the poll is a tie right now.
With no clear agreement, I'd err on the side of caution and keep the Wiki 100% canon to avoid confusion. If you do that though - be sure to make a big song and dance that it is strictly canon so that people don't go wasting time typing up a piece of info on Inferno only to find it's not allowed in.
Actually, the current wiki policy is to include non-canon information. Assuming this poll closes with a 'No', we'll have to remove a fair amount of information. User campaigns/mods, missions, possibly the mission design pages since those are also based on opinion, the "Freespace Lingo" pages, the "Freespace Community" page, and the Bittorrent page (If Inferno isn't relative to Freespace, I don't see how Bittorrent can be). Also the "FSSCP Introduction", since that's just my opinion on things.
I dunno, I wish I could really convey how stupid I think this intolerance of other people's work is, especially since it seems at best based on the fear that *someone*, *somewhere*, might *somehow* miss the non-canon notice (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Shivan_Manifesto), and at worst based on people wanting to keep things out of the wiki because they simply don't agree with other people. I thought the wiki was about presenting the state of things in Freespace and the Community, but it looks like there's a lot of question about this.
No.
Because my theory of events differs from everyone else's, and contradicts others. We should allow users to speculate on their own. Or... we'll end up with things like the official wiki, wth "Inferno is generally accepted as the continuation fo the Freespace Series."
With no clear consensus rom the community, and going on only assumptions, it is hardly mention worthy.
So, again. No.
So what? Then someone will edit the article so that it's correct.
Good lord, if we'd had this kind of thinking when we started the SCP, we wouldn't have a SCP. We'd have sat around and just continually worried about what someone *might* do with CVS, ignoring the fact that you can always just revert the changes. :rolleyes:
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So, Coolmon. You'd remove all the SCP and user-made campaigns?
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No, of course not. :wtf: I don't see how that helps anybody, and I think it really ruins the point of a community wiki, which is why I'm ranting about it being stupid.
But if we're going to remove all non-canon stuff, that's got to go. The same reasons apply to those that apply to any other things. Hell, technically the entire SCP section has to go. I haven't heard anyone complain about it, and I think it's a really useful resource, and it's factually accurate, but it is non-canon. That's why I think this entire situation is so damn ludicrous.
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That's why we should have non-canon things in the Wiki. Just imagine how much data MUST remain unmentioned with this policy.
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Yep...
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Well, the poll is dead even right now...
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Dead? [Mace Windu voice]Not yet.[/Mace Windu voice]
What majority is needed to reach a final decision? Simple one, or 2/3 one?
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Simple one of course. We don't have an already set decision which we're trying to avert.
The mere fact that it's up there right now is because it was more or less of a test. If I wanted to test deleting it, it'd be very valid as well, just wouldn't have a set reason to do it.
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No, of course not. :wtf: I don't see how that helps anybody, and I think it really ruins the point of a community wiki, which is why I'm ranting about it being stupid.
But if we're going to remove all non-canon stuff, that's got to go. The same reasons apply to those that apply to any other things. Hell, technically the entire SCP section has to go. I haven't heard anyone complain about it, and I think it's a really useful resource, and it's factually accurate, but it is non-canon. That's why I think this entire situation is so damn ludicrous.
Oh, please - don't make such a ludicirous strawman. The SCP is a factual documentation of the SCP features; we're talking about canonical articles referring to the Freespace universe and setting, not technical or descriptive documents. Even in the issue of campaigns, the wiki pages just act as descriptors of the campaign setting and storyline, making it very clear (by context) that and storyline or evidenciary information is to be considered as within the campaign setting. Not that I've seen any of that in the (few) wiki entries there are.
I'm curious - what do you peeps regard the wiki for? I always regarded it as a source of reliable information of the story and setting, and for information upon the game as a piece of software - not as a place for posting speculative fiction. I thought the HLP forums were for the latter; and my fear is that by allowing the likes of the SM (which isn't AFAIK even connected to any campaign, it's just an abstract statement the same as eg. Singhs stories about Bosch), means we give carte blanche to post any old rubbish so long as it has a big old tag at the top.
@TopAce; dead even. He just means it was equal; the 'dead' part is to emphasise the closeness of that, I'm not sure of the exact etymology of the phrase, but it (dead even) just means they are exactly equal in every way.
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With no clear agreement, I'd err on the side of caution and keep the Wiki 100% canon to avoid confusion.
And I would say that we should err on the side of not excluding anything. It is a wiki, after all.
I mentioned this in the other thread, but you guys should really consider the node inconsistency pages as an example of why including non-canon information is helpful. Mad Bomber was able to put together a number of quite interesting technical documents related to his upcoming campaign partly because of the node inconsistency reference. If the reference wasn't there, he would have had to do his own research, and it's possible he might have missed a few nodes.
If someone wants to make a campaign or story based on a certain nonfiction paradigm, the reference should be there to ensure accuracy. Imagine if someone wanted to make an Inferno campaign or write a fanfic on the Shivan Manifesto. Without an easy reference point, it would be much harder to make it true to the source material.
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Yes, but considering that such atrocities should never take place, all the better for them not to be there.
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Oh, please - don't make such a ludicirous strawman. The SCP is a factual documentation of the SCP features; we're talking about canonical articles referring to the Freespace universe and setting, not technical or descriptive documents. Even in the issue of campaigns, the wiki pages just act as descriptors of the campaign setting and storyline, making it very clear (by context) that and storyline or evidenciary information is to be considered as within the campaign setting. Not that I've seen any of that in the (few) wiki entries there are.
I'm curious - what do you peeps regard the wiki for? I always regarded it as a source of reliable information of the story and setting, and for information upon the game as a piece of software - not as a place for posting speculative fiction. I thought the HLP forums were for the latter; and my fear is that by allowing the likes of the SM (which isn't AFAIK even connected to any campaign, it's just an abstract statement the same as eg. Singhs stories about Bosch), means we give carte blanche to post any old rubbish so long as it has a big old tag at the top.
Well, I asked if there were any inaccuracies in the page, and all I heard was BD repeatedly griping that we needed a notation that the SM is trash for it to be accurate (Which I've skimmed over as a blatantly subjective opinion), and someone mentioned that 'controversial' was too light a word.
And the reason the article is up right now is because it didn't seem like people were understanding what I was getting at, and was painting adding the Manifesto in the wiki as tantamount to telling everyone that it was canon. I figured that the easiest way to clear it up was to make what I thought the Manifesto article should be, and I did. I didn't do it to test anything - I was sick of arguing a point when it had become clear that the other side was misinterpreting what I was saying and making blatant assumptions about my opinions, whether intentionally or unintentionally.
I suppose when it comes down to it, I see the FS Wiki as a source for factual information on topics relevant to the Freespace community. Obviously we've never taken a vote besides this one - but it seems like that when the wiki was established, that was the general idea, as most of the talk was about the SCP. We've also got stuff like the FS lingo in there, which makes sense to me. Overall, I suppose I see the FS wiki much the same as I do the wikipedia - it's someplace to look something up if I don't understand what it means. Obviously it should be geared towards newbies, since most of the vets will know alot of the stuff already. Since both forum searches are down for an indefinite period of time, IMHO this is just more motivation to add topics to the wiki.
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I'm not sure why the node inconsistency page would be considered non-canon. Albeit it seems to be absent justnow, anyways.
EDIT; hell, I lost my reply to WCM... um, this is a bit truncated, then;
Oh, please - don't make such a ludicirous strawman. The SCP is a factual documentation of the SCP features; we're talking about canonical articles referring to the Freespace universe and setting, not technical or descriptive documents. Even in the issue of campaigns, the wiki pages just act as descriptors of the campaign setting and storyline, making it very clear (by context) that and storyline or evidenciary information is to be considered as within the campaign setting. Not that I've seen any of that in the (few) wiki entries there are.
I'm curious - what do you peeps regard the wiki for? I always regarded it as a source of reliable information of the story and setting, and for information upon the game as a piece of software - not as a place for posting speculative fiction. I thought the HLP forums were for the latter; and my fear is that by allowing the likes of the SM (which isn't AFAIK even connected to any campaign, it's just an abstract statement the same as eg. Singhs stories about Bosch), means we give carte blanche to post any old rubbish so long as it has a big old tag at the top.
Well, I asked if there were any inaccuracies in the page, and all I heard was BD repeatedly griping that we needed a notation that the SM is trash for it to be accurate (Which I've skimmed over as a blatantly subjective opinion), and someone mentioned that 'controversial' was too light a word.
And the reason the article is up right now is because it didn't seem like people were understanding what I was getting at, and was painting adding the Manifesto in the wiki as tantamount to telling everyone that it was canon. I figured that the easiest way to clear it up was to make what I thought the Manifesto article should be, and I did. I didn't do it to test anything - I was sick of arguing a point when it had become clear that the other side was misinterpreting what I was saying and making blatant assumptions about my opinions, whether intentionally or unintentionally.
I suppose when it comes down to it, I see the FS Wiki as a source for factual information on topics relevant to the Freespace community. Obviously we've never taken a vote besides this one - but it seems like that when the wiki was established, that was the general idea, as most of the talk was about the SCP. We've also got stuff like the FS lingo in there, which makes sense to me. Overall, I suppose I see the FS wiki much the same as I do the wikipedia - it's someplace to look something up if I don't understand what it means. Obviously it should be geared towards newbies, since most of the vets will know alot of the stuff already. Since both forum searches are down for an indefinite period of time, IMHO this is just more motivation to add topics to the wiki.
Well, I don't think the SM is factual or useful, that was my issue. Firstly that it mixes assumption & evidence in such a way that aforementioned new peeps could get mixed up which is which, or worse still draw the conclusion the SM is providing the most or only logical explanation (which it does say at several points, proposing the only 'likely' alternatives and selecting one of them); obviously the SM is bound to be self-supporting, but it means it's not a neutral discussion document in the sort of NPOV style I thought the wiki was suppossed to be presented in.
Secondly that it doesn't have a context of value because it's just idle speculation; it's not like the background to some campaign where it has a role in understanding that campaigns story, etc. Obviously this would be different if it was being used as the basis of a campaign (in which case I'd have no objections to it being mentioned on that campaigns page), but AFAIK it's not. That also IMO leads to a lack of sense as to what the contextual value of the SM is; regardless of length and coherence, it is ultimately speculation (as any isolated theory would be), and I don't think it has an overwhelming value in that sense to merit conclusion (nor would any other similar spec.fic). Again, I think this could affect peoples reading of it in a negative way.
Finally, I think it's unfair to show one but not all; it's making a judgement of which is the most relevant or 'valuable' for inclusion, and I'm not sure there's any way to have grounds for that.
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Ye gods. I leave the thread alone for a day and it's suddenly plagued by people constructing a giant strawman in order to win.
Of course the SCP stuff doesn't have to go. I can't believe anyone was foolish enough to believe that was the intention of any rational member of the community let alone someone who spends so much time working hard on educating people on how to use the SCP's new features. :rolleyes:
Aldo's got it right.
I'm not sure why the node inconsistency page would be considered non-canon. Albeit it seems to be absent justnow, anyways.
It wouldn't be. The inconsistancies page exist solely to document the difference between FS1 canon and FS2 canon. I don't know why it would be claimed to be non-canon either.
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Of course the SCP stuff doesn't have to go. I can't believe anyone was foolish enough to believe that was the intention of any rational member of the community let alone someone who spends so much time working hard on educating people on how to use the SCP's new features. :rolleyes:
Aldo's got it right.
Then what exactly is the poll on? "Non-canon material" (in the context of the FS universe) refers to anything that isn't part of the original games. The SCP does not fall under that category.
I think it's foolish to throw away so much of the potential and past work from the Wiki, or not include topics that are familiar to vertan forumgoers, but completely alien to newbies and thus more likely to be misinterpreted without some kind of good reference. (ie "The Shivan Manifesto is canon!" :rolleyes:) But, here we are discussing that possibility, because apparently we don't agree on what's foolish or not.
Edit: From what I've read, we've got people assuming that "Non-canon material" somehow doesn't include campaign descriptions, but does include "speculative fiction". Then we've got people thinking that "Non-canon material" includes campaign stuff and so-called "speculative fiction" (Or at least me, because if the poll were on the first I'd expect it to be on "Speculative fiction" (Whatever that means)).
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Of course the SCP stuff doesn't have to go. I can't believe anyone was foolish enough to believe that was the intention of any rational member of the community let alone someone who spends so much time working hard on educating people on how to use the SCP's new features. :rolleyes:
Aldo's got it right.
Then what exactly is the poll on? "Non-canon material" (in the context of the FS universe) refers to anything that isn't part of the original games. The SCP does not fall under that category.
I think it's foolish to throw away so much of the potential and past work from the Wiki, or not include topics that are familiar to vertan forumgoers, but completely alien to newbies and thus more likely to be misinterpreted without some kind of good reference. (ie "The Shivan Manifesto is canon!" :rolleyes:) But, here we are discussing that possibility, because apparently we don't agree on what's foolish or not.
I said before; canonical material refers to the known storyline of the Freespace games, and factual information upon the Freespace universe in general (i.e. as expressed in the games, the FS ref bible, and probably Volition employee comments). I have never, ever, heard canon be used to refer to the technical or material aspects of Freespace as a piece of software; it strikes me as a bit similar to, say, including the type of film used as part of the Babylon 5 canon.
To steal from wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_(fiction));
In the context of fiction, the canon of a fictional universe comprises those novels, stories, films, etc. that are considered to be genuine (or "official"), and those events, characters, settings, etc. that are considered to have inarguable existence within the fictional universe. Usually items that are considered canon come from the original source of the fictional universe while non-canon material comes from adaptations or unofficial items. Generally, Expanded Universes are not considered canon, though there are exceptions which are considered near-canon. By analogy with the idea of a canon of Scripture, things which are not canon are considered "apocryphal". See Biblical canon.
Fan-fiction is never considered canon. Sometimes, however, events or characterizations portrayed in fan-fiction can become so influential that they are respected in fiction written by many different authors, and may be mistaken for canonical facts by fans. This is referred to as "fanon". The use of fan-fiction to fill gaps or continuity errors in canon is derisively called "fanwanking," or "fanwank". (The terms fanon and fanwank can apply to officially licensed works as well.)
There is no unanimous opinion on whether having a definitive canon in a fictional setting is useful, desirable or even possible. Canonicity of fiction is a distinctly modern idea, since earlier ages, before the current ideas of intellectual property came about, did not distinguish between "official" and "unofficial" sources of stories.
A great deal of the interest and controversy over canonicity comes from the Star Wars franchise, because of the unique-for-its-time goal of derivative works such as Star Wars books to be completely in continuity with each other and with the Star Wars movies.
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User campaign descriptions can go with actual user campaign downloads, which will be the purpose of the user made campaign page.
Thoughts on the universe need to be kept off in any form though.
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Then pointing out the SCP stuff isn't canon isn't a big strawman.
Kara:
My point is - you can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't run a poll on whether canon stuff should be in the wiki, use it as reason to remove articles from the wiki, and then disregard those results and add in whatever the hell you want regardless of if it's canon. Well, you can, but it kind of makes the results of the poll worthless. If you wanted to solve the Manifesto debate, you should've started a poll on the Manifesto or defined the poll better.
As it is, assuming it comes out to a "Yes", I'm not sure if the poll will change anything. Maybe the Manifesto page will stay in the wiki as-is without further complaint, and the rest of the stuff will remain in. But if we get a "No" then the results of the poll are virtually meaningless. As aldo just pointed out, "canon" doesn't actually include the technical aspects of something. To abide by the results of the poll, we'd have to wipe out every modding guide, everything on the SCP, everything on user campaigns, etc etc ad nauseum. I don't think anybody is willing to do that. I'm certainly not going to. On the plus side, we would know that the Manifesto won't be included. :lol:
If you think this is foolish, so be it. For a decision this major I plan on holding people to their vote, and I don't think that's unreasonable. If they break their word and allow non-canon material in the wiki, thus disregarding the poll, I will feel free to do the same. :nod:
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Then what exactly is the poll on? "Non-canon material" (in the context of the FS universe) refers to anything that isn't part of the original games. The SCP does not fall under that category.
I didn't bother defining it because we'd just had a 4 page discussion on the matter and I thought it would be fairly obvious what was the topic of the poll.
Basically we're asking whether this (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Category:Non-canon) page should go. We can decide how to handle the user-made campaigns in a bit. I doubt anyone has any problem with the page.
I think it's foolish to throw away so much of the potential and past work from the Wiki, or not include topics that are familiar to vertan forumgoers, but completely alien to newbies and thus more likely to be misinterpreted without some kind of good reference. (ie "The Shivan Manifesto is canon!" :rolleyes:) But, here we are discussing that possibility, because apparently we don't agree on what's foolish or not.
What I refered to as foolish is if anyone on this thread really thought I was suggesting throwing out the SCP pages. Come on WMC did you really think that was what I was suggesting? After writing the FAQ and answering thousands of questions on the forums do you honestly think that sounds like something I'd suggest?
WMC's last post
Planning to burn a policeman in that strawman you're building? :rolleyes:
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Then pointing out the SCP stuff isn't canon isn't a big strawman.
Kara:
My point is - you can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't run a poll on whether canon stuff should be in the wiki, use it as reason to remove articles from the wiki, and then disregard those results and add in whatever the hell you want regardless of if it's canon. Well, you can, but it kind of makes the results of the poll worthless. If you wanted to solve the Manifesto debate, you should've started a poll on the Manifesto or defined the poll better.
As it is, assuming it comes out to a "Yes", I'm not sure if the poll will change anything. Maybe the Manifesto page will stay in the wiki as-is without further complaint, and the rest of the stuff will remain in. But if we get a "No" then the results of the poll are virtually meaningless. As aldo just pointed out, "canon" doesn't actually include the technical aspects of something. To abide by the results of the poll, we'd have to wipe out every modding guide, everything on the SCP, everything on user campaigns, etc etc ad nauseum. I don't think anybody is willing to do that. I'm certainly not going to. On the plus side, we would know that the Manifesto won't be included. :lol:
If you think this is foolish, so be it. For a decision this major I plan on holding people to their vote, and I don't think that's unreasonable. If they break their word and allow non-canon material in the wiki, thus disregarding the poll, I will feel free to do the same. :nod:
So you'd cut off your nose to spite your face? Take a petty deletion fit which any normal minded individual would know to be deliberately excessive and intended to provoke? For ****s sake WMC, I thought you were one of the most mature and reasoned people here, and now you come up with this stuff?
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Well, maybe yes, but only if is clearly marked as non-canon.
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WMC you knew damn well what was under debate in this poll. You're the person who agreed that I should post a poll asking whether the Shivan Manifesto should be in the wiki. Simply because I decided to not pick on the SM itself and simply say "non-canon interpretations of the game" you've used that to pervert my intentions into a ridiculous strawman which you knew damn well was not what this thread was about.
To be frank I'm hugely disappointed. Especially by that last post.
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Bottom line is that anything can go in the Wiki, as long as it's clearly defined as canon/non-canon or what-have-you. *abuses admin powers and lockes thread after having the last word*
Nahh, just kidding. But I do think that non-canon is ok, as long as it's made clear where it's ok to have it, and how it should be displayed.
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That doesn't prevent retardation from spreading across the pages though, which is what the downside is here as far as I'm concerned.
It has no place there, marked or unmarked, even if it's the most brilliant piece of fiction ever written.
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I don't see why everybody's painting WMC's argument as a strawman. I honestly don't think it is. If you exclude non-canon information from the Wiki then you're excluding stuff like the SCP too; if you make an exception just for the SCP then you're not being consistent.
The wiki's current unwritten policy appears to be including all factually-based reference material in the wiki, whether it's canon or not. I'm in favor of keeping that as it is. If canon and non-canon are clearly distinguished, then I see no problem with them coexisting.
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WMC you knew damn well what was under debate in this poll. You're the person who agreed that I should post a poll asking whether the Shivan Manifesto should be in the wiki. Simply because I decided to not pick on the SM itself and simply say "non-canon interpretations of the game" you've used that to pervert my intentions into a ridiculous strawman which you knew damn well was not what this thread was about.
To be frank I'm hugely disappointed. Especially by that last post.
The poll asks the question - "Should non-canon material be allowed in the wiki?" I don't care what you meant to ask, I care what you actually asked because that's what most people here responded to. Kalfireth actually asked for clarification on what you meant by "material" and you didn't bother to clarify. Sandwich and StratComm seemed to assume that user-made campaigns were under consideration and you didn't bother to correct them, either. Whatever you meant to ask, it was obviously lost on people because you didn't make it clear in the poll. That is why I'm inclined to disregard the poll.
Edit: I'm going to respond to aldo, as well.
I vote "Yes" in the poll, so long as there's clear delineation between canon and non-canon. I'm even willing to put up with criticism as long as it's factual, relevant, and puts the article in context rather than just seems to be there to tear it down. If we are putting campaigns and such into the wiki solely to destroy or discredit them, then we have lost sight of the point of a wiki.
So, no, I don't think that pointing out that what the poll is asking is really the fate of most of the articles in the wiki, including many of the ones that are referenced frequently, is cutting off my nose to spite my face since it's pretty obvious I'm on the complete other side of it. I've already pointed out that I think that the choice of poll question was unclear and poor, so I don't feel like I'm building up a strawman or being inconsistent.
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Of course you're building a strawman. You knew damn well what was under discussion. If there is confusion its because you deliberately caused it by claimng that I was pushing for something you knew damn well wasn't what I was on about instead of arguing the matter at hand.
As I said before I made the mistake of assuming that people would simply understand the question was a mere extention of the earlier "Should the Shivan Manifesto be removed?" rather than deliberately twisting what I meant. I really did expect better.
Oh and while I'm at it. I didn't ignore Kalfireth's post. He pretty much defined "material".
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That is why I'm inclined to disregard the poll.
...and a very conclusive poll it is, too! ;)
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Let's have a concrete example that isn't the Shivan Manifesto.
Consider this article (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Aesir) on the Aesir. You can check the history - it's been there for some time (well before this argument started), and nobody has had a problem with it. It conforms to the canon policy on the main page (which has been there with no arguments for a very long time). Should it be deleted if this poll comes down with a no vote?
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Let's have a concrete example that isn't the Shivan Manifesto.
Consider this article (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Aesir) on the Aesir. You can check the history - it's been there for some time (well before this argument started), and nobody has had a problem with it. It conforms to the canon policy on the main page (which has been there with no arguments for a very long time). Should it be deleted if this poll comes down with a no vote?
No IMO, because it has contextual value for the Twisted Infinities campaign. I think it's fair to include material that is canonical for a campaign or mod, but not for the actual FS1/FS2 universe. I did say earlier I didn't object to the reference of the SM if it was being used as the basis for a campaign/mod (again, correct me if I'm wrong as AFAIK it isn't being used as such), just it's inclusion within its current spec.fic state.
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Let's have a concrete example that isn't the Shivan Manifesto.
Consider this article (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Aesir) on the Aesir. You can check the history - it's been there for some time (well before this argument started), and nobody has had a problem with it. It conforms to the canon policy on the main page (which has been there with no arguments for a very long time). Should it be deleted if this poll comes down with a no vote?
A good example. The Aesir page itself is fine. What needs sorting is the way it's linked to. This (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Species) page clearly shows that the Aesir are non-canon but doesn't show that they are completely an invention of the TI team. The same goes for the Nightmares and Starborn.
Things like this should go into the wiki as sub-categories of their own respective campaigns rather than us having to spam every single page with "THIS IS NON-CANON" to seperate the canon from the non-canon. The user campaigns themselves should have a warning as should any sub-pages but what should be avoided is having to have that sort of thing on every single page in the wiki.
What those of us who voted no object to is this (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Category:Non-canon). Because by having a big list of non-canon links it looks like we're trying to set up an expanded universe. That page simply shouldn't be there. Someone who believes that the Lupus Nebula (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Lupus_Nebula) is the one in FS2 can take it on as sub-category of their campaign's page and everyone else who believes it is can link to it. What I don't want to see is a big extension to the FS canon with comments like
Barring the discovery of a better candidate, this is the best choice for the FS2 nebula.
That sort of thing definately makes the page look like an attempt to set up exactly the kind of extended universe that the people who voted no object to.
For those who still can't see the difference between the Aesir article (once the linking is changed) and the Shivan Manifesto I'll explain. The Aesir article as a sub-category doesn't need to have an alternate point of view. There's no need to say "yes, but..." The TI team have decided that is the way the Aesir are in their universe. Nothing more needs to be said.
The Shivan Manifesto on the other hand has no universe to attach it to. It's an attempt to explain the Shivans in every universe including :v:'s own. As such it does need to have its flaws pointed out. And this is something that should be done on the forums not on the wiki. As you can see from the furious discussion here if it simply went onto the wiki with no discussion it would result in an edit war.
Anyway for the those remaining who still haven't understood what is meant by non-canon in the context of this discussion it basically means any attempt to set up a non-canon extention to :v:'s universe without
a) Making it canon to one or more campaigns
b) Keeping it confined to sub-categories of that campaign or campaigns.
I was under the impression that no one who was following the discussion on the other thread would have misunderstood what was under discussion.
The poll asks the question - "Should non-canon material be allowed in the wiki?" I don't care what you meant to ask, I care what you actually asked because that's what most people here responded to.
If you really think that half of the people on this thread think that all the SCP information should be removed from the wiki and responded to that then I'm going to have to drastically revise my opinion of you. The fact is that pretty much everyone who voted no understood exactly what was being discussed. Hell even if they didn't they've voted for something far stricter than what was proposed so only the yes votes are at issue.
My problem with your response is that I posted an informal poll to get sampling the opinion on the matter. The entire point of this thread was to discuss and solve the problem of how to treat non-canon material like the Shivan Manifesto. Instead of responding to the thread in that way you've come out with this ridiculous argument that removing the non-canon page from the wiki somehow means that the SCP has to go. Instead of trying to talk through a problem like I would have expected from a senior member of the community you've acted like a lawyer trying to dismiss the entire case on a technicality (Which you continued to do even after I posted a link to the page that is a best example of the problem at hand and clarified that no one had suggested removing the SCP).
Instead of then discussing the matter at hand you've continued to attack the fact that I used the wrong word in the poll. I'm disgusted and disappointed with your entire attitude on this thread. I had expected it to be treated as an attempt to solve a problem which affects the wiki not as a ridiculous attempt to score points off of me.
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The Aesir article needs a back link to the non-canon species section, I think.
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What's the difference in Expanded Universe and Non-canon in the case of FreeSpace? Nothing.
The non-canon category is short so far. As soon as there are more articles, we can start dividing into subcategories. As soon as there are more campaign-related articles, we can further divide the non-canon category. I think something like this should do:
Non-canon (category)--> MindGames (category)--> Starborn (article)
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What's the difference in Expanded Universe and Non-canon in the case of FreeSpace? Nothing.
The non-canon category is short so far. As soon as there are more articles, we can start dividing into subcategories. As soon as there are more campaign-related articles, we can further divide the non-canon category. I think something like this should do:
Non-canon (category)--> MindGames (category)--> Starborn (article)
Kara just explained exactly that; 'expanded universe' has a context and purpose within its use in campaigns and mods, i.e. it is canonical in relation to that creations 'universe'.
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What's the difference in Expanded Universe and Non-canon in the case of FreeSpace? Nothing.
There is a difference. If I put an article about the starborn in the MindGames (category)--> Starborn (article) section then I'm saying something about MG. If however I put the article in Non-Canon then I'm trying to say that the article is relates to other campaigns even though it quite clearly doesn't.
As I just explained that's the problem with the non-canon section the way it is now. The articles in there aren't one person saying this is how the Shivans work in my mod. It the same guy saying this is how the Shivans should work. There is a huge difference between those two statements and to my mind the second one has no place whatsoever in the wiki. We get newbies coming along every month and saying "I think the Shivans did this...." Should that all go in the wiki?
Don't talk to me about length. Cause some of the non-canon stuff in there is short and almost complete conjecture. For instance the article on Talania.
The non-canon category is short so far. As soon as there are more articles, we can start dividing into subcategories. As soon as there are more campaign-related articles, we can further divide the non-canon category. I think something like this should do:
Non-canon (category)--> MindGames (category)--> Starborn (article)
The non-canon section should be completely removed and simply replaced with a user campaigns section. If any of the non-canon articles currently present can't find a single campaign that supports their idea then the question that has to be asked is why are they in the wiki in the first place?
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(If you are looking for on-topic discussion then skip the first block)
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I had expected it to be treated as an attempt to solve a problem which affects the wiki not as a ridiculous attempt to score points off of me.
:sigh:
You know what, Kara? You're right. You are apparently going to have to revise your opinion of me, because I am not a pushover who lets people claim popular mandate with a vote that is unclear. In fact, I'm pretty stubborn. :D
You use phrases like "The fact is...". That doesn't make whatever you say after that a fact. I've pointed out that I misunderstood the question because the definition of non-canon (in this case) is "Anything outside the Freespace universe". I'm not sure whether I made this clear or not, so here it is:
Because we had discussed the possibility of removing user campaigns beause they, too, are non-canon I figured that was under discussion here. Essentially, any articles on the wiki discussing something of a fictional nature outside of the Freespace universe. Because we had not discussed articles such as the SCP, I skipped over it when thinking about "non-canon".
Then you made a post saying that assumption is wrong. You essentially said, 'No, I didn't actually mean what I asked...' and at that point I lost my regard for the poll because you didn't mean what you said, you didn't mean what I thought, and you didn't make that clear. Read Kal's post on the second page of the thread. According to you, regardless of the results of the poll, the Inferno article should be allowed in so why would he even mention it otherwise?
I should probably point out that I realize that even though I agreed with you that a poll on the Manifesto would be useful, I don't think that just because I agree with someone about something being useful, that it means that they're going to go right out and do it. It could be someone else, or they could do something else. This seems pretty obvious to me...I know of no religion or government law where this isn't the case :wtf:
I do have to take something of a lawyer-like position here - I believe that having the Shivan Manifesto and other similar articles in the wiki is useful and outweighs the potential risks expressed by others. I don't believe that theories like the "Badger Manifesto", "Shivan BBQ", or "Spacecrack theory" sound like they belong in the wiki, but if they meet the same criteria as the Manifesto then I don't see why they shouldn't be put in the wiki. Since there are others that do not agree with this, I have to argue my case. If I've had a strategy in this, it's been to take the reasons that the other side uses as criteria for determining what goes in the wiki and point out how they apply to the Manifesto as well. Although that's rather un-lawyerlike.
I'm going to try to ignore any more personal attacks from now on.
What's the difference in Expanded Universe and Non-canon in the case of FreeSpace? Nothing.
The non-canon category is short so far. As soon as there are more articles, we can start dividing into subcategories. As soon as there are more campaign-related articles, we can further divide the non-canon category. I think something like this should do:
Non-canon (category)--> MindGames (category)--> Starborn (article)
Kara just explained exactly that; 'expanded universe' has a context and purpose within its use in campaigns and mods, i.e. it is canonical in relation to that creations 'universe'.
I don't see why the Manifesto has to be part of some 'expanded universe' to be added to the Wiki. It comes up fairly often in the community which IMHO is why it should be in there. In that way, it's more like the Freespace Lingo or Freespace Community pages, although I don't think it really belongs in either since it's more on the subject of Freespace. If you treat it as 'expanded universe' then you'd have to add half the posts in General Freespace to the wiki, if not more, since they would be just as valid as the Manifesto. And we've got stuff that isn't canon to Freespace or a specific Campaign in there that people have found useful. (See: SCP)
But maybe dealing with it as a Freespace theory is a bad way to do it. Possibly we could put the FS Lingo section into the FS Community section, and add a category in there for 'Community topics'. This page could have links to the Manifesto, Freespace 3, the whole incident with Derek Smart, etc etc.
There is a difference. If I put an article about the starborn in the MindGames (category)--> Starborn (article) section then I'm saying something about MG. If however I put the article in Non-Canon then I'm trying to say that the article is relates to other campaigns even though it quite clearly doesn't.
By putting it in the non-canon section, all you're saying is that it's non-canon. You're not making any kind of relation to other campaigns, unless you say that you are in the article text.
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I don't see why the Manifesto has to be part of some 'expanded universe' to be added to the Wiki. It comes up fairly often in the community which IMHO is why it should be in there. In that way, it's more like the Freespace Lingo or Freespace Community pages, although I don't think it really belongs in either since it's more on the subject of Freespace. If you treat it as 'expanded universe' then you'd have to add half the posts in General Freespace to the wiki, if not more, since they would be just as valid as the Manifesto. And we've got stuff that isn't canon to Freespace or a specific Campaign in there that people have found useful. (See: SCP)
Again, the SCP is not related to the storyline or setting of the game universe; it sits in the same realm of canonical arguement as the installation instructions in the box - i.e. completely outside it. I think this has been stated clearly about 3 or 4 times now?
I'd also add that one of the key arguments against the SM is that it has the same 'value' as about half of Gen.FS, it just happens to be a 29 page long document rather than a discussion (which arguably makes it less informative). As it stands, IMO the description you're applying to non-canon is exactly the same as you could apply to speculative fiction. In which case, should we have that in the wiki? I don't think so myself, because I think that's moving away from referential value.
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Again, the SCP is not related to the storyline or setting of the game universe; it sits in the same realm of canonical arguement as the installation instructions in the box - i.e. completely outside it. I think this has been stated clearly about 3 or 4 times now?
Exactly. Yet it's in the wiki (I assume) because it's useful because people can looking things up from it or be directed there by other people to learn about a topic relevant to the community.
I'd also add that one of the key arguments against the SM is that it has the same 'value' as about half of Gen.FS, it just happens to be a 29 page long document rather than a discussion (which arguably makes it less informative). As it stands, IMO the description you're applying to non-canon is exactly the same as you could apply to speculative fiction. In which case, should we have that in the wiki? I don't think so myself, because I think that's moving away from referential value.
But it's distinguished from the rest of the stuff in General Freespace in that if I say the words "Shivan Manifesto", most of the veterans will recognize what I mean and will have an idea of what I'm talking about. Other people won't, or will misunderstand what it is (See the entry in the wikipedia about the Manifesto being canon).
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Can't we just have a fan fiction section rather than this ambiguous "non canon" thing? And I don't see why custom campaigns are any more a valid form of non-canon material than fan fiction is.
I'm not sure why the current Manifesto article is really "non canon" in the first place, as it doesn't include the actual Manifesto at all but only talks about it. The Manifesto's content may be garbage but its existence and the arguments it has caused are a reality. This is quite different from, for example, having a non canon disclaimer at the end of the Lucifer article and then saying that "a second one was discovered in the Derelict campaign," which is what I interpreted the poll to be about. So as I said before it's really a matter of whether the wiki is about the FS universe only or the FS community.
(If you are looking for on-topic discussion then skip the first block)
fl4m3w4r!!1
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My take on the fan fiction vs fan campaign debate is that the difference is simply that you can't see fan fiction in the game. You can't play it. You can with a campaign, and as such, though non-canon, campaigns are a fact of the game and should have a place in the wiki (though a seperate place well away from canon stuff)... whereas the fan fiction isn't, and shouldn't. Well, until someone makes a campaign out of it anyway, in which case it just moves to the campaign category and can be put in there as a campaign background if the authors want to.
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I've pointed out that I misunderstood the question because the definition of non-canon (in this case) is "Anything outside the Freespace universe".
Yet when I clarified you continued to use your misunderstood definition. The "I misunderstood" argument can only carry you upto the point where the situation was explained to you in more detail. You continued to talk about how non-canon meant the SCP after both Aldo and myself had explained what that meant. In fact you've done it yet again while I was typing this! :rolleyes:
Using the words non-canon may have been a mistake but what is the title of this (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Category:Non-canon) category? Is all the SCP info in that category? No. Should be pretty easy to see why I used the term then shouldn't it?
The matter has been clarified. If you still don't understand then ask for more clarification but let me make this clear. Removal of the SCP information is not under discussion.
and at that point I lost my regard for the poll because you didn't mean what you said, you didn't mean what I thought, and you didn't make that clear.
If you really want to be lawyerish about this I'll be happy to start another poll but considering that I doubt anyone who voted no is going to vote yes for a milder interpretation of the matter I had hoped you'd see that it was pretty much a moot point. If as you claim many people thought that removal of non-canon meant removing the SCP, Freespace Lingo, user campaigns and despite that the matter was still deadlocked with 10 votes each and has now in fact swung in favour of the no argument can you not see that a vote for a more lenient version of the question is obviously going to go against the non-canon section of the wiki?
The reason why I didn't simply close the poll and make a new one is that it has already served it's purpose. Do you honestly think that any poll on clarified version I've posted since I came back to the thread on Sunday is going to swing in favour of the SM and the non-canon category?
I do have to take something of a lawyer-like position here - I believe that having the Shivan Manifesto and other similar articles in the wiki is useful and outweighs the potential risks expressed by others.
Maybe you do but if I believe your argument at least 50% of those who had voted considered the risks so bad that they were willing to cut out the SCP and the user campaigns in order to get rid of it. :p Unless of course those who voted no did understand what was under discussion and hadn't misunderstood what was going on.
You use phrases like "The fact is...". That doesn't make whatever you say after that a fact.
I used the phrase once. To say that everyone who voted no either understood the discussion or was actually voting for a stricter interpretation. Given what I've said in the previous two paragraphs do you really want to question that? Cause I'm game if you are.
I'm going to try to ignore any more personal attacks from now on.
I'm not attacking you. I'm asking you to remember that this is a friendly discussion of how a section of the wiki should be administered. It's not a points scoring exercise. I've already made my position clear numerous times yet you continue to resort to the argument about why the SCP is non-canon even past the point where it has been explained to you. I'll take any further attempts to make that argument as trolling since by now you should hopefully understand that it wasn't ever on the table.
I don't see why the Manifesto has to be part of some 'expanded universe' to be added to the Wiki.
It's in a big section labelled non-canon which contains explainations of various thing like the Lupus Nebula, Talania and the SM. Are you seriously telling me you think that someone new to the wiki isn't going to think that it's a concerted effort by the community to extend canon?
If it's in a sub category of a user-made campaign it is much more obvious what the SM is.
If you treat it as 'expanded universe' then you'd have to add half the posts in General Freespace to the wiki, if not more, since they would be just as valid as the Manifesto.
And that is the objection to having the SM there. People will treat it as an extended universe and the only way to balance that out would be to include a heap of stuff that shouldn't be on the wiki. I made this point several days ago. The SM belongs on the forums not the wiki. It certainly doesn't belong on what could easily be construed as an extended universe page.
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Then how about the option that has been suggested in this thread, creating a new category 'Fan fiction' and tossing all the non-canon non-campaign related stuff in there and all non-canon but campaign related stuff into their respectice campaign groups. As IMHO fan fiction =/= extented universe while non-canon ~ extented universe.
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Problem with that is that several other people seem to be against a fan fiction section on the wiki.
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If that refers to my first post, then when I wrote "If it had to be anywhere, my preference would be a 'fan fiction' section off the main page" I actually meant off the main HLP page along side the galleries, glossary, articles etc. areas, and not off the wiki start page.
Hell, I remember long ago reading what amounted to an entire novel based in the freespace universe once, revolving around some humans getting captured by shivans and how they managed to save humanity... not a bad story as I recall, even though I disagreed with the writing style. Can't remember what it was called though, or where I saw it. But anyway, that's more of the sort of thing that could fit into a fan fiction area. It all should share the trait that it's not in game, simply a story or theory that's there for the reader's pleasure.
If such a fan fiction ara got filled up with stuff like that, I think it'd be a great read.
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Don't agree with a lot of what you said, but I'm ignoring it.
I don't see why the Manifesto has to be part of some 'expanded universe' to be added to the Wiki.
It's in a big section labelled non-canon which contains explainations of various thing like the Lupus Nebula, Talania and the SM. Are you seriously telling me you think that someone new to the wiki isn't going to think that it's a concerted effort by the community to extend canon?
If it's in a sub category of a user-made campaign it is much more obvious what the SM is.
Yes, that is exactly what I'm trying to tell you. If it was an effort by the community to extend canon then it would not be in a section titled "non-canon". If you or anybody else chooses to read any more into that, then the fault for whatever faulty conclusions drawn from it lie with that party.
I do not know what the significance of Talania is or why it is in the wiki, since noone has bothered to write anything up on it. As for the Lupus Nebula article, I don't think it's been handled properly. Not only does it lack the non-canon notice, but "It is clearly the best" is too subjective for my tastes. For all we know Volition could've been referring to a presumeably-undiscovered nebula that would've been visible in the period.
Also, I noticed that the "Stellar information" on systems is non-canon...it should be noted as such. While Capella IRL is apparently a quatenary star system, in the game it seems to have only one sun. IIRC there was also an issue with the planets as well, the last time that was brought up. As far as Freespace goes, having factually incorrect but canonically accurate is probably more important.
If you treat it as 'expanded universe' then you'd have to add half the posts in General Freespace to the wiki, if not more, since they would be just as valid as the Manifesto.
And that is the objection to having the SM there. People will treat it as an extended universe and the only way to balance that out would be to include a heap of stuff that shouldn't be on the wiki. I made this point several days ago. The SM belongs on the forums not the wiki. It certainly doesn't belong on what could easily be construed as an extended universe page.
It shouldn't need to be balanced out with a heap of stuff (I assume you mean aldo's criticisms, rather than other topics) so long as the article makes it clear that it is non-canon. Again, if someone chooses to read more into the article's inclusio, they are really only doing themselves a disservice, and the wiki cannot (and should not really try) to anticipate what subtle meanings someone might read into something. For all I care, someone can take the indication that the wiki exists as a sign that HLP is made up of pathetic losers who haven't had enough money to buy any new games since 1998. It's no more factual than assuming there's some overt movement to expand canon; but neither do I feel that we need to take action to prevent it.
Edit: Oh, and to clarify - I do think the Lupus Nebula page should be in the wiki, just in a slightly more accurate form.
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FYI, I'm sooo not following any of this, so if there's anything crucial I should see, point it out to me, m'kay? Don't take that as disregard for the importance of the issue, but I just haven't had time lately. Rorry.
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I'm in favor of closing the poll and the thread and let everything continue happening, on its own, just like before. :p Those who want the Wiki improved will improve it, and those who are content to play armchair quarterback can take what they get.
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If we do that then you'll probably get an edit war cause the first thing I'm doing is taking down the non-canon page and organising things how the majority wanted it.
As I said before if someone really wants the SM stick it in as a sub-category of their campaign. It will still turn up if someone does a search on the wiki but it won't be part of the extended canon that I keep saying that I want to avoid. If no one wants it then it should be allowed to gather dust like every other topic on the forum that has served its purpose.
Don't agree with a lot of what you said, but I'm ignoring it.
Feel free. I'm happy to let everyone else draw their own conclusions based on that.
Yes, that is exactly what I'm trying to tell you. If it was an effort by the community to extend canon then it would not be in a section titled "non-canon". If you or anybody else chooses to read any more into that, then the fault for whatever faulty conclusions drawn from it lie with that party.
Let me get this straight. We're making this great resource for newbies to understand the community better. Then we put in information that is very likely to be misconstrued by a fairly large percentage of them and that is somehow going to be their fault? :wtf:
The solution if to try to avod that happening in the first place. If you're perfectly willing to let new people come in and get completely the wrong idea about the SM why bother with an entry at all. Far better to have them simply ask on the forum and get a sensible answer than allow them to go onto the wiki and get the wrong idea.
It shouldn't need to be balanced out with a heap of stuff (I assume you mean aldo's criticisms, rather than other topics) so long as the article makes it clear that it is non-canon. Again, if someone chooses to read more into the article's inclusio, they are really only doing themselves a disservice, and the wiki cannot (and should not really try) to anticipate what subtle meanings someone might read into something.
It's not subtle. Quote a few people can see full well that newbies are going to get it wrong. You're acting like only one or two people will ever get it wrong and their opinions shouldn't count anyway. I don't see how I can possible accept that conclusion if I can see such an easy way to avoid it.
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Exactly. Yet it's in the wiki (I assume) because it's useful because people can looking things up from it or be directed there by other people to learn about a topic relevant to the community.
Did you actually understand what I said? It's of technical value, it has nothing to do with the issues of storyline, universe or - in essence - the literary creation of FS. There are 2 seperate issues; the debate of canon is about what should be included as reference - useful reference - for the Freespace storyline and setting.
But it's distinguished from the rest of the stuff in General Freespace in that if I say the words "Shivan Manifesto", most of the veterans will recognize what I mean and will have an idea of what I'm talking about. Other people won't, or will misunderstand what it is (See the entry in the wikipedia about the Manifesto being canon).
The same could be said of the HLP Movie or the Capella BBQ Theory. In any case, this is only IMO a reasoning for at most a brief 1 line definition and perhaps an external link to the original SM thread, not in-wiki reference. Also, if we place the scope for justification for non-canon as being merely age or usage, it would act to exclude new theories; whilst I'm fine with that in the sense of opposing this type of entry, it would be pretty unfair to any new theory.
NB: as far as fan-fiction goes - you don't see it in the regular wikipedia, do you?
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Umm. Right. This has gotten quite ugly.
I change my vote. Non-canon should be allowed in the wiki... on it's own page. or with a brief reference, if it pertains, in the canon to a link to the new page. And le it be clearly known that it's someone ele's speculation. We don't need people mixing the events of say, the great war part II, with BWO to undertand Bosch...
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This is LONG overdue. The non-canon in this poll should be changed to "Fan Fiction", the Shivan Manifesto link posted in there with an explanation as to it's importance, and this whole damned debate closed. WMC, I really hate to see someone with your integrity intentionally skewing this debate, as you know as well as anyone else that there's a line here that should be debated and yet is not because everyone has been totally occupied with counterarguing your point. That said, I'm equally dissapointed with a few others for fanning the flames, so to speak. If I "misunderstood" this poll to be about user-made campaigns (since the only post I made prior to this one was an attempt to clarify the issues at hand) then this whole damned thread has been over an inconsistancy in terminology, and to be honest I'm not sure that there's much of a debate at all. The thread should have been about the SM in the first place, because it really is a unique example that falls in the cracks of this argument.
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I think the "non canon" thing is fine as far as the poll goes. I mean, if articles about fan fiction pieces (that are in there only because they are well known, not because they make sense) aren't allowed, then there is no real reason to have articles about fan fiction on which user made campaigns are based either. I'm sure there are campaigns out there with inconsistencies and contradictions as bad as the SM.
You know, who wrote the Shivan Manifesto anyway? Is he still even around? It would be interesting to hear his thoughts on this whole issue.
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There are several reasons why I didn't change the name of the poll.
1) The section of the wiki under debate is actually called the non-canon category, not the fan fiction category.
2) The SM isn't actually unique. The Lupus Nebula post is just a shorter version of the same thing. There are lots of vetrans who would recognise the name in the same way that they'd recognise the SM by name.
3) I didn't want to pick on the SM as that would appear to be an attempt to get it banned just because of my own personal feeling about the theory.
And the sad fact is that after 4 pages we're absolutely no closer to reaching a consensus on what to do :rolleyes:
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I think the "non canon" thing is fine as far as the poll goes. I mean, if articles about fan fiction pieces (that are in there only because they are well known, not because they make sense) aren't allowed, then there is no real reason to have articles about fan fiction on which user made campaigns are based either. I'm sure there are campaigns out there with inconsistencies and contradictions as bad as the SM.
You know, who wrote the Shivan Manifesto anyway? Is he still even around? It would be interesting to hear his thoughts on this whole issue.
Um, Antares (?) I think. Begin with an 'A', anyways.
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Sounds about right to me.
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Thing is, non-canon stuff for campaigns can go on that particular campaigns' page, where does non-canon stuff without a 'reason' go? Personally I can see it turning into one page of non-canon literature, with about 3 pages of arguments for and against between each paragraph.
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Wow, what a thread. I haven't read it all, so my apologies if I go back over familiar ground.
I think we should have non-canon information in the wiki, as long as it is clearly marked as such.
Let's face a couple of facts with Freespace in general: There isn't a lot of canon information, and there is unlikely to be any more in the forseeable future. We are on our own, for the most part. Sure, we have stuff to work with, the games, the bible, a few errant comments, but that's really it. No more insights into Shivan behavior, no more missions, no more secrets. What we have is all we'll get and that's it.
So people have some ideas of what is supposed to be going on. That's good, it keeps us going, keeps us creating. We can't, nor should we ever, ignore it. It's part of the FS community, even if it isn't part of FS directly. To exclude it is folly.
Again, it needs to be seperate. I don't want to see the Shivan Manifesto next to the species description, but I want to be able to read the Manifesto and be able to compare it in a meaningful way to what little canon we have. It's still part of Freespace, in a round about way. It's NOT canon, but it is still interesting.
That said, there should be a special section for non-canon theories and such, a place for these things to be posted and examined. It's part of our community knowledge, and it should have a home next to the rest of it.
Done, you can go back to arguing now.
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I think what I was proposing was to change the non-canon category to fan-fiction, add a user campaigns category or link to the current page from the front (or both), and reassign the few random things in "non-canon" to one or the other. The whole problem of this thread has been that "non-canon" really is too broad to rule yay or ney on so we need to break it up. And in general, it should be broken up.
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If we do that then you'll probably get an edit war cause the first thing I'm doing is taking down the non-canon page and organising things how the majority wanted it.
What majority, though? As near as I can tell, the poll is a toss-up and we have maybe six people posting frequently in the thread who could even approve the idea.
That being said, I think the idea about arranging non-canon stuff so that its source is clear makes alot of sense (See that errant non-canon planet entry). Assuming that's what you're talking about, I agree with it.
Let me get this straight. We're making this great resource for newbies to understand the community better. Then we put in information that is very likely to be misconstrued by a fairly large percentage of them and that is somehow going to be their fault? :wtf:
The solution if to try to avod that happening in the first place. If you're perfectly willing to let new people come in and get completely the wrong idea about the SM why bother with an entry at all. Far better to have them simply ask on the forum and get a sensible answer than allow them to go onto the wiki and get the wrong idea.
(Quote)
It's not subtle. Quote a few people can see full well that newbies are going to get it wrong. You're acting like only one or two people will ever get it wrong and their opinions shouldn't count anyway. I don't see how I can possible accept that conclusion if I can see such an easy way to avoid it.
It's not "very likely". All you've been offer for evidence for that is by claiming that people will misread the large warning that states 'This article is not canon' as saying that the article is canon. :wtf: Even if someone doesn't speak English natively, the prefix "non-" is common enough that they'll probably know it.
However, if there is some wording that clarifies that it is indeed non-canon, and not part of some covert movement to try and subvert non-canon writings into canon, why not use it into the wiki for the non-canon notice?
I don't think that just because someone might misunderstand an article we should leave it out of the wiki. To me, that's really a non-factor...if there's a better, clearer, or more concise way to say something then that should go in...but we can't cover every zany idea that someone might get from reading an article. 'If you build something that is foolproof, somebody will just build a better fool'
More stuff, in reply to other posts:
Leaving new theories out of the wiki is fair because it will apply to all theories. Basically, I'd say that if someone bothers to add a theory to the wiki, it probably deserves to be in. Cue "Capella BBQ". It's a joke theory - it's not even to a non-canon point because the author didn't intend it as a serious theory. If we're adding community in-jokes and such, that's fine, but I'm not sure we want to lump that in with the discussion here.
We should change the "Non-canon" category to something else, IMHO, if we are not going to include campaign articles. If there is going to be some problem with people assuming that something is fan-canon, excluding things from the non-canon page that are non-canon are going to cause it. I can easily see somebody checking the 'non-canon' page, finding that Inferno wasn't on it, and proceding ahead with the assumption that Inferno is actually accepted as canon because it isn't listed under even a sub-section of "Non-canon". Although as of now it looks like user made campaigns are in that category, but are not under debate.
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Would it help if I reset the poll and renamed the options to something different? I've seen some opinions change as I've skimmed over the page...
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That's the crux of the issue really - non-canon needs to be broken up. So, what do we have?
The Shivan Manifesto isn't really fan fiction, as I understand the term. It's fan speculation. Wiki pages can be placed into more than one categorym so perhaps we should do away with the non-canon and replace it with more specific categories, general fan speculation, campaign speculatio (CAMPAIGN NAME) etc.
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Feel free Sandwich.
It's not "very likely". All you've been offer for evidence for that is by claiming that people will misread the large warning that states 'This article is not canon' as saying that the article is canon. :wtf: Even if someone doesn't speak English natively, the prefix "non-" is common enough that they'll probably know it.
Putting non-canon on the top of the page won't stop someone from assuming that something is part of an extended canon. We've already seen that with people assuming that the SM or Inferno is canon. I doubt any of them thought that :v: wrote it but they assumed that there was large acceptance for them and therefore they are part of an extended canon. This non-canon page suffers from exactly that problem, especially when there are no other theories to put against it.
Besides I've already suggested including it in a user campaigns sub category and not one single person has suggested that they'd be willing to put it under their campaign. What does that say about the theory? Says to me that it deserves an entry in the freespace lingo section and little more.
However, if there is some wording that clarifies that it is indeed non-canon, and not part of some covert movement to try and subvert non-canon writings into canon, why not use it into the wiki for the non-canon notice?
It's not the wording. Its the idea of a big non-canon section in the first place. None of those ideas contain critisism so they all look like sensible ideas. Even if you don't get people thinking that they are part of an extended canon (and I really think you will) you'll get people going to the wiki and grabbing every single idea because they assume that they are all well thought out and contain no errors.
Wikipedia goes to great (some might say stupid) lengths to appear unbiased in its articles but the non-canon section you're envisioning would contain article after article which had nothing but the reasons why the theory is good. You agreed with me that the comment in the Lupus Nebula entry that it was the best theory so far was something that shouldn't be there but without a competing theory present or critisism of the current entry it's already implied. Someone new to the wiki will go there, see the Lupus Nebula entry and assume its the best theory simply due to the fact that no one says that there is any other theory.
Once you have everyone coming to the wiki, seeing one theory and assuming that it must be the best one the entire community can come up with it's not a huge step from "Best the community has come up with" to "One with community backing"
You can stamp non-canon over the top all you like but it won't help one iota with the above problem. Putting a giant disclaimer at the top of the article saying that the article in no way is an endorsement of that theory might help but it looks ugly and wastes a lot of space.
Sticking everything under user-made campaigns sidesteps the problem. Anything found underneath MindGames is obviously endorsed by MindGames but it isn't clearly endorsed by anyone else so it's much harder to make the assumption that this is the best theory the community has to offer.
I don't think that just because someone might misunderstand an article we should leave it out of the wiki. To me, that's really a non-factor...if there's a better, clearer, or more concise way to say something then that should go in...but we can't cover every zany idea that someone might get from reading an article. 'If you build something that is foolproof, somebody will just build a better fool'
Of course people will still make stupid assumptions about what's in the wiki. But I'm proposing a simple way to avoid a lot of that. As I say if no campaign wants to take on a theory then why the **** is it in the wiki in the first place if no one thinks it's worth anything?
I can easily see somebody checking the 'non-canon' page, finding that Inferno wasn't on it, and proceding ahead with the assumption that Inferno is actually accepted as canon because it isn't listed under even a sub-section of "Non-canon". Although as of now it looks like user made campaigns are in that category, but are not under debate.
User-made campaigns deserve their own category. You can stick a warning at the top of the page if you wish. I don't think sticking them under non-canon is going to prevent what you describe in the slightest. Anyone dumb enough to assume Inferno is canon despite the fact that anywhere he looked there were other user-campaigns too did so on the grounds that they thought Inferno was more complete, bigger or simply better than all the others and therefore should be canon, not due to the fact that they didn't know any others existed.
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I think that having a 'Campaigns' non-canon subsection (or just plain section) makes sense, with anything else being moved to a 'Miscellania' non-canon section for now. Due to the relative paucity of any widely-known Freespace fan-fiction I don't think that this section will need much reorganization for awhile (or whatever you want to call it- 'non-canon information based on or in the FS universe that isn't tied to a specific campaign or is tied to the retail campaigns'). Let project leaders have end-decision over what goes in their campaign section (as long as it's factual, and not "MY CAMPAIGN IS THE BESTEST CAMPAIGN EVAH!!111!1" :p). For the rest of the stuff, control would rest with Concerned Forumers Like You.
Breaking stuff up into "Campaign Speculation" or "Campaign Characters" or "Campaign Ships" would just get needlessly annoying...we can always standardize the names for similar topics ("Inferno Shivan Origins" "Derelict Shivan Origins")
I'd actually like to see some fan stories and stuff in there as well. I don't know if it should be in there - but seeing as how there's no real central repository for that sort of thing, it might incite people to write more Freespace stories, since it'd be more likely that their work would get read.
Putting non-canon on the top of the page won't stop someone from assuming that something is part of an extended canon. We've already seen that with people assuming that the SM or Inferno is canon. I doubt any of them thought that wrote it but they assumed that there was large acceptance for them and therefore they are part of an extended canon. This non-canon page suffers from exactly that problem, especially when there are no other theories to put against it.
Besides I've already suggested including it in a user campaigns sub category and not one single person has suggested that they'd be willing to put it under their campaign. What does that say about the theory? Says to me that it deserves an entry in the freespace lingo section and little more.
We haven't seen it before, because Inferno and the Shivan Manifesto haven't been in the wiki. Like you said, those people probably saw the wide acceptance for Inferno or the Manifesto on te forums, and didn't see anyone pointing out that they were non-canon, because it's just an unspoken agreement that :V: stuff is canon. I doubt they would've actually seen the wiki pages unless someone directed to them (and written them up), but if they had, I think the "THIS IS NON-CANON" notice would've made them wary of going and posting "THIS IS CANON".
I think what it says is that people honestly didn't use the Manifesto to write their campaign backstory. When you're doing creative stuff, you try and come up with creative ideas; basing Shivans action-for-action on the Manifesto would make things boring once people figured it out. For all we know, Inferno could be based on the Manifesto. :D
It's not the wording. Its the idea of a big non-canon section in the first place. None of those ideas contain critisism so they all look like sensible ideas. Even if you don't get people thinking that they are part of an extended canon (and I really think you will) you'll get people going to the wiki and grabbing every single idea because they assume that they are all well thought out and contain no errors.
That's perfectly alright, as long as those people don't have misconceptions as to whether or not the theories are right or not. If someone writes a story or makes a campaign on the Manifesto just because it sounds cool, I don't see why we should put up a page full of criticism to discourage them. Besides, once they notice that the theories contradict each other, they'll have to do critical thinking.
Wikipedia goes to great (some might say stupid) lengths to appear unbiased in its articles but the non-canon section you're envisioning would contain article after article which had nothing but the reasons why the theory is good. You agreed with me that the comment in the Lupus Nebula entry that it was the best theory so far was something that shouldn't be there but without a competing theory present or critisism of the current entry it's already implied. Someone new to the wiki will go there, see the Lupus Nebula entry and assume its the best theory simply due to the fact that no one says that there is any other theory.
I can see that being a very nifty bit of information for someone writing a fanfic, that they would otherwise never find because it's buried in the forums. Since it's non-canon, it's up to them to decide whether or not to use it.
Once you have everyone coming to the wiki, seeing one theory and assuming that it must be the best one the entire community can come up with it's not a huge step from "Best the community has come up with" to "One with community backing"
You can stamp non-canon over the top all you like but it won't help one iota with the above problem. Putting a giant disclaimer at the top of the article saying that the article in no way is an endorsement of that theory might help but it looks ugly and wastes a lot of space.
So what? It can look ugly and waste a lot of space. This is the first I've heard that articles had to meet some standard of beauty in order to be accepted into the wiki. Besides, if it blended seamlessly into the rest of the page it wouldn't be very good at getting people's attention.
If it's not going to help, I don't think it'll hurt. Why would we stamp a non-canon warning on a page, if we thought that it was somehow above ordinary non-canon?
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That's the crux of the issue really - non-canon needs to be broken up. So, what do we have?
The Shivan Manifesto isn't really fan fiction, as I understand the term. It's fan speculation. Wiki pages can be placed into more than one categorym so perhaps we should do away with the non-canon and replace it with more specific categories, general fan speculation, campaign speculatio (CAMPAIGN NAME) etc.
Don't we have Gen.FS. forums for that? I mean, the wiki is supposed to be for reference, isn't it? And isn't speculation just (effectively) a discussion topic?
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In this, specific case, however, the article is about an established document that discusses fan speculation. It slips right between the cracks of a wiki article and a forum post.
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In this, specific case, however, the article is about an established document that discusses fan speculation. It slips right between the cracks of a wiki article and a forum post.
All discussion begins with some form of proposal, either a question or an answer to one; all the SM does is make a larger-than-usual version of the latter. I mean, if you look at the 'do Shivans eat' thread on Gen.FS., it's not all that different from the SM in terms of its content.
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IMHO the idea of leaving the stuff to Gen.FS. is not feasible at the moment as search is borked unless some one creates a sticky filled with fan theory links. I mean if the idea is not to hide the fan theories out of sight under tons of more recent posts.
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Ok, what should I reset the poll to? What options, I mean? As I understand things, something like "Canon", "...plus User-made Campaign/MOD info", "...plus Theories" or something?
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Resetting the poll in the middle of a thread isn't a good idea IMHO. I recommend closing this thread and starting a new one, with the terms under consideration properly defined.
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*TopAce supports this idea*
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In this, specific case, however, the article is about an established document that discusses fan speculation. It slips right between the cracks of a wiki article and a forum post.
All discussion begins with some form of proposal, either a question or an answer to one; all the SM does is make a larger-than-usual version of the latter. I mean, if you look at the 'do Shivans eat' thread on Gen.FS., it's not all that different from the SM in terms of its content.
Well, it's not an attempt to create some kind of single entity that holds together; it's meant to be a discussion thread. Maybe if people are still referencing it in a month or two; the SM was brought up two years post facto and was also requested to be included in the wiki. It's also been mentioned in various threads since. When something hangs around in the popular consciousness for that long, it does seem like it should be documented in some form.
Interesting note - the version I was able to find in the Wikipedia is a version that was revised based on forum posts, so it's actually gone through a phase of criticism and revisement. I haven't been able to find the original for comparison w/o search, Antares (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?action=profile;u=1461) might have it on file but he seems to have been away since Dec. 16th.
Goob + Sandy: I think the topic under consideration is:
"non-canon information/speculation based on or in the FS universe that isn't tied to a specific campaign or is tied to the retail campaigns". I don't know if that includes fanfics or articles on things like Freespace 3/Freespace 3 and Derek Smart.
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Okay so can I delete all the pages I find unacceptable then?
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I don't know if that includes fanfics or articles on things like Freespace 3/Freespace 3 and Derek Smart.
It doesn't. We can deal with fan fics later. As for the other two, no one is ever going to think Derek Smart is an alien entity who showed up in the game and started wiping out Shivans and Terrans alike with his alpha male field. We don't run the risk of anyone thinking that it's canon to the FS universe.
As for FS3 the same sort of thing applies as long as some damn fool doesn't come along and start adding what would have happened in FS3 (Well apart from the comments by :v: as those are canon to FS3).
If I were to restart this thread I'd ask this question.
Should we allow fan speculation on the FS universe in the wiki which isn't tied to a specific campaign or campaigns?
1) Yes but only on a fan speculation page
2) Yes but only with adequate criticism of any flaws in the speculation.
3) No - Fan speculation should be listed under a campaign which supports it.
I'd then clarify a few things right at the start by pointing out the possible drawbacks I can see with any of those methods.
1) Easy to end up with the appearance that the fan speculation page is an attempt to set up an extended canon
2) Potential of ending up with an edit war.
3) I'll let WMC figure out what the drawback to this one is.
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Derek Smart showing up and mentioning he would make FreeSpace 3 is a real event, it did happen. It is not wrong to mention it, as long as everything about this subject is covered to prevent new members from opening undesired threads.
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Maybe one way to get out of this mire of confusion and reciprocal misunderstandings we all seem to be stuck in, would be for those who want to set their opinion straight and beyond any risk of confusion to simply go to the wiki and make a test page (one that isn't linked to from anywhere, of course, and is inaccessible to anyone who doesn't know the title) showcasing how they would prefer the categories and articles to be organized, and then post the page title here so others can offer their opinions. Then perhaps in the end, something will be worked out that everyone can live with. Or at least clarify people's positions on the matter.
In fact, I might just go and do that for my own ideas if noone objects to this use of the wiki within the next 24 hours or so. For anyone who doesn't know, to create a new unlinked page in mediawiki, that is, without using an empty link from another page, simply type the title you want into the address bar after http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/ and then click edit on the empty page it takes you to. If nothing else, such an excercise might at least give people something real to argue other than the boring semantics that the last 3 pages have been all about.
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http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Shivan_Manifesto , removing the big criticisms from the wiki and revising the ones on the page.
3) I'll let WMC figure out what the drawback to this one is.
I already have, I direct you to my previous posts. :nod:
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Of course it isn't wrong to mention it. I don't know why anyone even brought it up.
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Of course it isn't wrong to mention it. I don't know why anyone even brought it up.
Well, you don't seem to have any trouble disputing factual articles about fan speculation on Freespace 3. That entire incident lies in that category. :nod:
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The whole Derek Smart thing belongs in the Freespace 3 entry. It's nothing to do with fan speculation.
Had Derek Smart posted his plotline for FS3 I'd be as opposed to it going in as anyone elses fan speculation.
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Let's just poll on the Manifesto. It's the only article that's actually in the wiki that people have been calling for the removal of. As it is, it seems like whatever the poll is, we're simply going to have people claiming that an article is part of the poll if they want it out, or an article isn't part of the poll if they want it in.
Edit: But - why is it valid to be in the wiki, by your definition, then? It's not part of a specific campaign. It's not technical documentation. It's not canon.
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Here's another fun something: http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,35521.0.html
Very clearly lies under the category of "Fan speculation". This sort of thing is something I can see adding to the wiki, for reference value. However, we have no way of knowing whether or not :V: may have intended any sort of symbolism or just picked things based on "This is cool". It's also on the forums; I don't think it's actually been referenced very much, although it is stickied.
Taht kind of research also seems useful to me if you're writing a story, campaign, or just browsing. It could reveal certain connections between characters, names, and events. I wouldn't have any problem with it being added (even though it's non-canon). Do you disagree with this kind of 'fan speculation' as well?
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Let's just poll on the Manifesto. It's the only article that's actually in the wiki that people have been calling for the removal of. As it is, it seems like whatever the poll is, we're simply going to have people claiming that an article is part of the poll if they want it out, or an article isn't part of the poll if they want it in.
Lets not. My issue is not with the SM. My issue is with the SM looking like it's a generic theory the community accept. As I've said countless times if a campaign wants to adopt the SM then that's their business.
Edit: But - why is it valid to be in the wiki, by your definition, then? It's not part of a specific campaign. It's not technical documentation. It's not canon.
Are we back to this AGAIN! :rolleyes:
What mistake can you possibly see a newbie making from Derek Smart being mentioned in the Freespace 3 article? Derek Smart trying to make FS3 is a fact. It's the history of the game along with poor sales of FS2 and the while Interplay/THQ thing with Volition. OF course that stuff should be in the wiki. Hell before the move from GameSpy I ****ing well put it in the wiki.
What confusion do you think a newbie is going to make about the Freespace universe from having Derek Smart mentioned. Are they going to assume Derek Smart is the captain of the Colossus? Are they going to mistakenly assume that he's Bosch's younger brother?
According to your ridiculous interpretation of what I've said we should rip out the Freespace 1 and 2 entires too. :rolleyes: We're right back to you making strawmen again aren't we. Only instead of the SCP one you've come up with another deliberate misinterpretation.
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Why not ask :v: and stop this useless debate? (or at least useless for me)
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Cause they won't tell us and just smile knowingly (and annoyingly) when asked. :)
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No, I'm not.
The problem I see is that every time you come up with a definition, something else fits that definition that you think should be in. I've been pretty passive and let you define what's under question here; but you've failed to come up with a definition for what the Shivan Manifesto is that doesn't include another article that you think should stay in. Without that, we're just throwing out the Manifesto because you and aldo and BD don't want it in. To me, it's unacceptable that any three forum members should have total veto power over articles in the wiki, barring some kind of endorsement from Mr.Fury since he's paying for the wiki and so can do pretty much whatever the hell he likes with it. :p
What I have so far: Non-canon speculation about the FS Universe, that is not tied to a specific campaign, and involves purely fictitious events written by a community member (ie so that symbolism from mythology can be included, although you haven't replied to that). The definition just seems to keep getting narrower and narrower.
If you just want the Manifesto out, just say it, don't come up with all sorts of double-standards to cloud things up. :rolleyes:
Edit: Oops, forgot BD.
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If I go on the SM page, there's a big "The following information has not been confirmed by Volition and is therefore not canon for the Freespace universe."
So what's the problem with that page? :confused:
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It displays information that threatness the minds of the children.
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What I'm against is the presentation of non-canon material on the wiki so that it appears as if it's extended canon. I've been repeating that it's what I'm against right from the very start. I've repeated time and time again that I have no particular beef with the SM. I even said it in the post you've replied to. Did you not even read it before replying? I said it another time earlier today too.
I've explained time and time again that it's not the SM that is my problem but the way it is presented on the wiki as a fait acompli with no flaws and no criticism allowed. That's also my beef with the articles on Talania, Lupus Nebula and all the other stuff in the non-canon category of the wiki (apart from the user campaigns. They have the right to decide what is canon within their own little sub-universes).
The only person still arguing against me and Aldo is you. So lets not get high and mighty about the number of people trying to decide the fate of the wiki. Furthermore the SM article is only in because you preempted this entire discussion and added it in. So lets not act like it's been there since time began and now two people want to change it. You've been just as guilty of acting like you should have total power over the wiki regardless of the views of the community as you claim we have. I'll remind you that the poll is deadlocked at the moment.
If I go on the SM page, there's a big "The following information has not been confirmed by Volition and is therefore not canon for the Freespace universe."
So what's the problem with that page? :confused:
This is the sort of thing I mean about the wiki needing more clarity. Skippy isn't exactly a newbie here yet due to the fact that he's presumably not been following this discussion he's not certain of what the non-canon warning means. I'm arguing that we try to make the wiki as clear as possible. If you put these non-canon entries under the campaigns then the non-canon warning could be changed to "This article is canon only the the MindGames campaign and should not be taken as an explaination for anything in any other campaign unless explicitly stated." (or something similar but better written.) :)
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What are we going to do is the voting closes at 50/50?
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Why not just make two wiki's if possible, the FS Wiki for Canon stuff and the HLP FS Wiki or FSC Wiki for stuff that isn't. The HLP Wiki could be used to log stuff about the FS Community, campaigns, and fanfics, while keeping it seperate of the Canon stuff.
It could also catain a big message saying not canon at the top of the main page.
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FYI, karajorma, I'm entirely on WMC's side here, and I sympathize with his arguments. The boundary of what belongs and what doesn't belong seems to keep getting moved. I'd be arguing as strenuously as WMC here if I wasn't so busy IRL. :)
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Boundries aren't being moved. As I said before what this has always been about is making sure that non-canon information on the wiki isn't confused for extended canon info. I've suggested different ways of achieving that but the end goal has always been the same.
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FYI Goober, I'm on Kara and aldo's side here and sympathise with their arguments.
You don't see me arguing because I made all my arguments in the other thread and reiteration gets old.
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And so on and so on until all 28 people who bothered to vote have fessed up.
I pointed out that WMC was the only person arguing not because the fact that he's the only one arguing makes him wrong but because of the fact that it's pointless to try to claim that only Aldo and I are trying to ride roughshod over everyone else when the vote is a tie.
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My vote, is as I said above, no. None-canon info does not belong among True FS info.
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What I'm against is the presentation of non-canon material on the wiki so that it appears as if it's extended canon.
The following information has not been confirmed by Volition and is therefore not canon for the Freespace universe.
And this says it is canon at all...how? :wtf:
Furthermore the SM article is only in because you preempted this entire discussion and added it in. So lets not act like it's been there since time began and now two people want to change it.
If I had pre-empted this entire discussion we wouldn't be having it. Or at least, I wouldn't be participating or have agreed with the idea of a poll. I wanted an example for my arguments - so I added one. I tried to answer the complaints that you and aldo had, about it being possibly mistaken for non-canon and that it was not accepted by the community. I did try to keep the focus of the article on the contents of the Manifesto rather than the opinions surrounding it; that just makes sense to me for a reference document.
You've been just as guilty of acting like you should have total power over the wiki regardless of the views of the community as you claim we have. I'll remind you that the poll is deadlocked at the moment.
Time and time again I've pointed out that there is nothing in the non-canon warning that says anything about the article being canon. I don't think it could be any clearer. Yet you've argued that somehow, people are still going to interpret it as saying that it's not canon. Also, every time I come up with an article like the Manifesto, you argue that it should go in because it's different and the Manifesto page looks like it might be canon. However you have not offered any wording or way that the article could be revised to clarify that it is, in fact, non-canon. Besides adding criticism, which you seem to feel is unacceptable for the Manifesto article because it would cause an edit war, but acceptable for the articles that you want in (And you fail to provide a reason for this discrepancy).
Actually, I guess the problem is that there's not really any subjects brought up so far (that I can think of) that I would object having in the wiki, unless they were mislisted. Even if somebody wanted to throw in "The Second Great War Part 2", I would have no problem with it as long as they didn't start saying it was canon or the best campaign ever. I don't like massive amounts of criticism - it just opens the way to bias and IMHO the wiki is not the place for such negativity. If it's somehow relevant to the article - a significant discussion on the Manifesto, for example - then it could be linked in. If you want to talk subtle messages - what are people going to think when articles on the wiki about fan contributions have massive amounts of vitriolic criticism on them? I sure as hell wouldn't want to join a community that cuts down its own members like that.
By contrast you have never really disputed my arguments that A) the Wiki is a community wiki, B) as such the deciding factor for articles is generally their importance to the community, and C) the Manifesto is one of the most well-known theories in the community. You've simply gone on insisting that people are going to misunderstand the Manifesto and virtually nothing else. And for whatever reason, you believe that this rates kicking it out of the wiki so that the people who read the non-canon notice will also be disadvantaged...even though whether or not people will even misunderstand it in the first place is pure speculation, and the number of people is even more speculative.
This is the sort of thing I mean about the wiki needing more clarity. Skippy isn't exactly a newbie here yet due to the fact that he's presumably not been following this discussion he's not certain of what the non-canon warning means.
He asked what the problem with the page was, not what the warning meant.
Boundries aren't being moved. As I said before what this has always been about is making sure that non-canon information on the wiki isn't confused for extended canon info. I've suggested different ways of achieving that but the end goal has always been the same.
What ways, besides removing the pages that are non-canon and you don't like? I specifically asked how you would suggest revising the Manifesto non-canon notice to make it clearer to people who would be inclined to ignore it and take the words "non-canon" to mean some kind of 'extended canon'.
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Time and time again I've pointed out that there is nothing in the non-canon warning that says anything about the article being canon. I don't think it could be any clearer. Yet you've argued that somehow, people are still going to interpret it as saying that it's not canon.
I presume that not was a typo or otherwise :wtf: What I have said time and time again is that if you put up a big page of theories on the wiki people are going to come along and think "Ah. These are the best theories the community has come up with. That's why they put them in the wiki". The Shivan Manifesto is not one of the best theories. It's merely one of the longest. You could find ten or twenty different theories on the discussion forums that are as internally consistant as the SM.
The rest of the entries in the non-canon category fare even worse as some of them have even bigger flaws or don't even give enough data to have anything to find flaws in.
Also, every time I come up with an article like the Manifesto, you argue that it should go in because it's different and the Manifesto page looks like it might be canon. However you have not offered any wording or way that the article could be revised to clarify that it is, in fact, non-canon.
Wrong yet again. You've arrived at this conclusion because you've never been able to grasp what I'm arguing against. It's not the SM that's the problem. Its the big list of non-canon theories that is the problem. Let me give you an example. Suppose I was to make a book called "All the worlds religions" and on page one there was an entry for Buddhism and then no other entries. What conclusions would people reading the book reach?
Some people might read the book and decide that there was only one religion. Others would reach the conclusion that the book was made in an attempt to make Buddhism the worlds only religion (or at least by people who thought it was).
Now try to think of a short warning you can place at the top of the entry for Buddhism that cancels that effect out?
Now suppose someone is determined to have that title for the book. What could you do if you're only allowed to edit the entry for Buddhism. Well you could compare it to the other religions. That would allow people to at least realise that there are alternatives but that's a sub-optimal solution. Trying to add all that info is going to mess up the entry and may to lead to problems from people who think there is no need to compare another religion with their own.
Having a big page called non-canon is the same as the All the worlds religions book. The problem isn't the entries in the book. It's the stupid title of the book. It leads to conclusions which aren't true. And that's the problem with the non-canon category. No matter what you do to it short of adding every single theory it's always going to look like a collection of the best theories. And if it does that with only a few present then it will look like those theories are the only ones people should use making campaigns. And then you have the extended canon I keep talking about because everyone is making the same set of assumptions.
Even if somebody wanted to throw in "The Second Great War Part 2", I would have no problem with it as long as they didn't start saying it was canon or the best campaign ever.
Ummm. User-made campaign. Goes in the user-made campaigns section. I've never stated that I have a problem with someone entering it either.
I don't like massive amounts of criticism
I'm no fan of it either but if you insist on having the non-canon section then it has to go in. That's why I suggested the compromise of sticking it under one of the campaigns. Hell, unless I'm mistaken Antares wrote the damn thing as part of his campaigns speculation. Take the name, make it an entry on the wiki and stick the SM as an entry under that.
Doing so immediately removes all the complaints I had about it appearing to be the best theory.
I specifically asked how you would suggest revising the Manifesto non-canon notice to make it clearer to people who would be inclined to ignore it and take the words "non-canon" to mean some kind of 'extended canon'.
Read the above. Hopefully it makes it clear why editing the non-canon notice is simply rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic. The message that needs to be sent is that the SM is one idea amongst many. Even if you actually write that on the SM entry it won't mean anything if that is the only entry they can find in the wiki.
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So do what Wikipedia does on its lists pages... add a disclaimer about how the list is not exhaustive.
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:nod:
Even though Wikipedia has a number of the more popular religions, I've never assumed that just because it has Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam that it has all of the religions. In fact, once you move out of the big ones it's actually pretty lacking.
If you're saying that it's somehow acceptable to include or exclude theories based on quality, then why is it fine to not do the same for other material?
After all - if you put up a big page of campaigns, people may come along and think "Ah. These are the best campaigns that the community has come up with. That's why they put them in the wiki." The Second Great War Part 2 is not one of the best campaigns. It is merely the one with the most Colossuses and Sathanases. You could find ten or twenty campaigns on Skippy's list and the VW archives and the forums that are as internally consistent as the Second Great War Part 2. :D
So see, just because someone chooses to read something into the wiki that isn't there, that doesn't make it a candidate for deletion. It's not the "All the Freespace theories" section, it's the "Freespace Wiki" and the "Non-canon" section.
Wrong yet again
(...)
I would say that the person should've changed the title on the book to "Buddhism". Are you proposing adding a section titled "All the Freespace theories" and moving the Manifesto and such to it? If not then I don't see how this is relevant.
Wrong yet again.
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I would say that the person should've changed the title on the book to "Buddhism". Are you proposing adding a section titled "All the Freespace theories"? If not then I don't see how this is relevant.
I'm no fan of it either but if you insist on having the non-canon section then it has to go in. That's why I suggested the compromise of sticking it under one of the campaigns. Hell, unless I'm mistaken Antares wrote the damn thing as part of his campaigns speculation. Take the name, make it an entry on the wiki and stick the SM as an entry under that.
Doing so immediately removes all the complaints I had about it appearing to be the best theory.
To my knowledege that would make the entry inaccurate. I don't remember seeing anything in the forums about the theory being for Antares' campaign; all the outside non-canon information that was referenced was from comments on the :V: mailing list or by :V: employees.
Even if a campaign is based on the Manifesto, that doesn't necessarily mean that the Manifesto is canon within that campaign. If it is that's great; but the Manifesto still exists outside the canon of that campaign as a separate entity. Just because a campaign decides to make something canon within its storyline, doesn't necessarily make that something a subset of that campaign's universe in the Wiki.
Read the above. Hopefully it makes it clear why editing the non-canon notice is simply rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic. The message that needs to be sent is that the SM is one idea amongst many. Even if you actually write that on the SM entry it won't mean anything if that is the only entry they can find in the wiki.
If someone is going to disregard what's explicitly written in the wiki, how can we blame the wiki for any kind of misunderstanding?
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So do what Wikipedia does on its lists pages... add a disclaimer about how the list is not exhaustive.
That would help some if you could word it correctly. The way you've got it there still sounds like "They're other theories but they aren't considered as important as these ones.
If you're saying that it's somehow acceptable to include or exclude theories based on quality, then why is it fine to not do the same for other material?
When did I say that? When have I ever said that quality was the defining factor here? Do you have any way to argue that doesn't involve constantly making **** up and putting words in my mouth? :rolleyes:
After all - if you put up a big page of campaigns, people may come along and think "Ah. These are the best campaigns that the community has come up with. That's why they put them in the wiki." The Second Great War Part 2 is not one of the best campaigns. It is merely the one with the most Colossuses and Sathanases. You could find ten or twenty campaigns on Skippy's list and the VW archives and the forums that are as internally consistent as the Second Great War Part 2. :D
Yet another strawman. Second Great War Part 2 should definately be in the wiki regardless of its percieved quality. If it's been missed out it should be added immediately. I've never said anything different. In fact I just said it should be in there in my last post. Are you even reading my posts now? :rolleyes:
So see, just because someone chooses to read something into the wiki that isn't there, that doesn't make it a candidate for deletion. It's not the "All the Freespace theories" section, it's the "Freespace Wiki" and the "Non-canon" section.
It does make it a candidate for avoiding people constantly reading that into it though. When something is badly written you should rewrite it. If something is unclear it should be explained better. If you don't explain that it's not all the Freespace theories it's going to look a lot like it when people go there.
I would say that the person should've changed the title on the book to "Buddhism". Are you proposing adding a section titled "All the Freespace theories" and moving the Manifesto and such to it? If not then I don't see how this is relevant.
I'm saying that non-canon is already going to be assumed to be "All the Freespace theories". Doesn't matter about the title. You go to the wiki looking for theories and only come across one page with one theory it's pretty much going to be taken that this one is so good that no one has written anything to oppose it.
To my knowledege that would make the entry inaccurate. I don't remember seeing anything in the forums about the theory being for Antares' campaign; all the outside non-canon information that was referenced was from comments on the :V: mailing list or by :V: employees.
So not only are you not reading my comments but you've not even read the document your championing?
From the last page of the SM
g. When is Armageddon?
It's coming...
The Great War ends: Christmas 2004
Even if a campaign is based on the Manifesto, that doesn't necessarily mean that the Manifesto is canon within that campaign. If it is that's great; but the Manifesto still exists outside the canon of that campaign as a separate entity. Just because a campaign decides to make something canon within its storyline, doesn't necessarily make that something a subset of that campaign's universe in the Wiki.
I'd say it does. I think it's a fair point to stick something like that under Antares campaign. I'd certainly prefer to see the Starborn as a subset of the MindGames entry rather that wondering around the rest of the wiki. If you want add a link in the Freespace Lingo section and you're done.
If someone is going to disregard what's explicitly written in the wiki, how can we blame the wiki for any kind of misunderstanding?
Cause if it was forseeable that what was written would be misunderstood or disregarded then it should have been prevented. Saying that the entry is non-canon won't mean what you think it means to everyone. For many it will mean that this entry isn't something :v: made clear in the game but since there is nothing to contradict it in the wiki then it's probably what :v: were thinking.
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So do what Wikipedia does on its lists pages... add a disclaimer about how the list is not exhaustive.
That would help some if you could word it correctly. The way you've got it there still sounds like "They're other theories but they aren't considered as important as these ones.
Well, it's true. Some theories are totally forgotten, others are referenced months after the fact. The Manifesto obviously lies in the latter category.
If you're saying that it's somehow acceptable to include or exclude theories based on quality, then why is it fine to not do the same for other material?
When did I say that? When have I ever said that quality was the defining factor here? Do you have any way to argue that doesn't involve constantly making **** up and putting words in my mouth? :rolleyes:
What I have said time and time again is that if you put up a big page of theories on the wiki people are going to come along and think "Ah. These are the best theories the community has come up with. That's why they put them in the wiki". The Shivan Manifesto is not one of the best theories.
^^^^^Since you don't seem willing to provide a way that the article could be revised, I've made it clear that I disagree with taking all the theories out...that leaves just including the best theories. I disagree with that, because there's no way to go about judging it objectively.
After all - if you put up a big page of campaigns, people may come along and think "Ah. These are the best campaigns that the community has come up with. That's why they put them in the wiki." The Second Great War Part 2 is not one of the best campaigns. It is merely the one with the most Colossuses and Sathanases. You could find ten or twenty campaigns on Skippy's list and the VW archives and the forums that are as internally consistent as the Second Great War Part 2. :D
Yet another strawman. Second Great War Part 2 should definately be in the wiki regardless of its percieved quality. If it's been missed out it should be added immediately. I've never said anything different. In fact I just said it should be in there in my last post. Are you even reading my posts now? :rolleyes:
Actually, I just wrote your argument using the Manifesto instead of the SGWP2. So if there's any problem with the logic involved that makes it a strawman argument - it's not my fault. You made the argument.
Although that does kind of prove the point I was trying to make - that when something besides the Manifesto is involved, you suddenly change your reasons for including or excluding the subject.
So see, just because someone chooses to read something into the wiki that isn't there, that doesn't make it a candidate for deletion. It's not the "All the Freespace theories" section, it's the "Freespace Wiki" and the "Non-canon" section.
It does make it a candidate for avoiding people constantly reading that into it though. When something is badly written you should rewrite it. If something is unclear it should be explained better. If you don't explain that it's not all the Freespace theories it's going to look a lot like it when people go there.
Again, how? As the party suggesting a rewrite, the burden of how to go about doing that rewrite rests with you. All I can come up with is revising the warning to say something like "This article is not canon, and :V: wasn't necessarily thinking about doing this for Freespace 3".
I would say that the person should've changed the title on the book to "Buddhism". Are you proposing adding a section titled "All the Freespace theories" and moving the Manifesto and such to it? If not then I don't see how this is relevant.
I'm saying that non-canon is already going to be assumed to be "All the Freespace theories". Doesn't matter about the title. You go to the wiki looking for theories and only come across one page with one theory it's pretty much going to be taken that this one is so good that no one has written anything to oppose it.
Only if there are unequal amounts of criticism between articles. Limiting the criticism to a reasonable amount, like I've been suggesting, would help prevent such arbitrary judgement of the worth of articles. You'd have to actually consider the arguments.
To my knowledege that would make the entry inaccurate. I don't remember seeing anything in the forums about the theory being for Antares' campaign; all the outside non-canon information that was referenced was from comments on the :V: mailing list or by :V: employees.
So not only are you not reading my comments but you've not even read the document your championing?
From the last page of the SM
g. When is Armageddon?
It's coming...
The Great War ends: Christmas 2004
Sorry, I didn't remember that, because it didn't really have anything to do with the rest of the theory and didn't have anything to do with my opinion of it.
I guess the Antares wanted to advertise his campaign. That's no indication that the campaign will necessarily use the Manifesto. I don't even see it on Skippy's campaign list...is it still in progress?
Until we have some kind of proof that the Manifesto was written to be part of that campaign, I'm against including it under the User Campaigns section as its status in that regard is pure speculation.
Even if a campaign is based on the Manifesto, that doesn't necessarily mean that the Manifesto is canon within that campaign. If it is that's great; but the Manifesto still exists outside the canon of that campaign as a separate entity. Just because a campaign decides to make something canon within its storyline, doesn't necessarily make that something a subset of that campaign's universe in the Wiki.
I'd say it does. I think it's a fair point to stick something like that under Antares campaign. I'd certainly prefer to see the Starborn as a subset of the MindGames entry rather that wondering around the rest of the wiki. If you want add a link in the Freespace Lingo section and you're done.
And Derelict or Inferno as a subset of any campaign that referenced it?
If someone is going to disregard what's explicitly written in the wiki, how can we blame the wiki for any kind of misunderstanding?
Cause if it was forseeable that what was written would be misunderstood or disregarded then it should have been prevented. Saying that the entry is non-canon won't mean what you think it means to everyone. For many it will mean that this entry isn't something :v: made clear in the game but since there is nothing to contradict it in the wiki then it's probably what :v: were thinking.
We cannot cover every single forseeable misinterpretation of an article. Hell, with the combined imagination of everybody contributing to the wiki, we could probably forsee enough misinterpretations to have half of every article be dedicated to nothing more than trying to cover all the bases. You have to draw the line somewhere, and the line of "anything forseeable" is utterly impractical.
IMO the line should be drawn at the point where someone thinks of something as fact when it's not in the wiki at all, or there is actually text in the wiki that contradicts it.
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What I have said time and time again is that if you put up a big page of theories on the wiki people are going to come along and think "Ah. These are the best theories the community has come up with. That's why they put them in the wiki". The Shivan Manifesto is not one of the best theories.
^^^^^Since you don't seem willing to provide a way that the article could be revised, I've made it clear that I disagree with taking all the theories out...that leaves just including the best theories. I disagree with that, because there's no way to go about judging it objectively.
You'll notice that I didn't say that the SM should be removed because of it's quality. The SM is not one of the best theories. As I stated you can find lots of theories that are as good as it. What I'm saying is that to balance the Shivan Manifesto you have to enter all the other theories which are just as good. You're the one inventing the claim that because the SM isn't good it should be thrown out.
Your argument is flawed. I suggested kicking the SM article out of the non-canon category for reasons that are nothing to do with the quality of the article itself. You've said that since you refuse to do that then I must be judging on quality. You can't insinuate bits of your argument into mine and then claim that I've reached a conclusion because of that.
Actually, I just wrote your argument using the Manifesto instead of the SGWP2. So if there's any problem with the logic involved that makes it a strawman argument - it's not my fault. You made the argument.
The obvious difference here is that the user-made campaigns list should be authoratative. It should contain every campaign. I was unaware that campaigns have been missed out. I'll add them all as soon as I can. That's feasible. We both agree that putting every theory into the wiki is unfeasible. You want to try doing the same thing with the non-canon section feel free.
Although that does kind of prove the point I was trying to make - that when something besides the Manifesto is involved, you suddenly change your reasons for including or excluding the subject.
I haven't changed my reasoning at all. Hopefully you now see the difference between the campaigns list and the non-canon category. I've already said that I wouldn't object to the category if it contained every theory about freespace. If the user-campaigns list has the same flaw that I'm seeing in the non-canon category then it too needs fixing.
Again, how? As the party suggesting a rewrite, the burden of how to go about doing that rewrite rests with you. All I can come up with is revising the warning to say something like "This article is not canon, and :V: wasn't necessarily thinking about doing this for Freespace 3".
I've already told you how I'd do it. Make a campaign entry and stick it as a subsection of that. You're the one insisting that the article itself requires rewriting. I've already said several times that it only needs to be moved
Only if there are unequal amounts of criticism between articles. Limiting the criticism to a reasonable amount, like I've been suggesting, would help prevent such arbitrary judgement of the worth of articles. You'd have to actually consider the arguments.
The Shivan Manifesto is a very long document. What do you consider a reasonable level of criticism for it? What about for shorter articles like the Talania or Lupus Nebula ones?
Sorry, I didn't remember that, because it didn't really have anything to do with the rest of the theory and didn't have anything to do with my opinion of it.
I guess the Antares wanted to advertise his campaign. That's no indication that the campaign will necessarily use the Manifesto. I don't even see it on Skippy's campaign list...is it still in progress?
Until we have some kind of proof that the Manifesto was written to be part of that campaign, I'm against including it under the User Campaigns section as its status in that regard is pure speculation.
I find it very hard to believe that someone would write such a long document and then not use it. None the less why not simply stick it under the campaign heading until Antares shows up to correct it?
And Derelict or Inferno as a subset of any campaign that referenced it?
Or maybe just a hyperlink to the Derelict or Inferno entries?
We cannot cover every single forseeable misinterpretation of an article. Hell, with the combined imagination of everybody contributing to the wiki, we could probably forsee enough misinterpretations to have half of every article be dedicated to nothing more than trying to cover all the bases. You have to draw the line somewhere, and the line of "anything forseeable" is utterly impractical.
But this isn't "anything foreseeable" this is a very obviously foreseeable. You still want to leave a giant pitfall in the wiki and blame the user when they fall into it because you posted signs at the bottom of it.
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Is this thread getting anywhere?
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Slowly.
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This probably won't get anywhere while people ignore each other's arguements. However, a way to organise the wiki that I think could work would be to split it up into Freespace canon, technical information and user campaigns/mods/speculation. The Shivan Manifesto could be listed among the other user campaigns and speculation. Most of the articles in the non-canon section could be categorized as parts of various user campaigns.
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Sounds good to me. I've got no objection to the SM simply being another heading amongst the user-made campaigns. Listing it that way would prevent the problem I'm talking about as all the other user campaigns are obviously alternative theories.
Put an SM entry in the campaign list and say that the manifesto was presumably part of Antares Armageddon campaign.
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Spicious comment gives me an idea...
We have three principle non-canon categories: Campaign, non-Universe TC (to be re-worded), and Fan speculation.
Campaign is for any and all campaigns that are set in the Freespace Universe (Only, no multiverse stuff).
Non-Universe TC is for any campaigns that are not part of the FS Universe, but still use the engine.
Fan speculation is for basically everything else that is important enough to rate a mention in the wiki related to the FS Universe, ie theories. It's basically the place to point newbies when they start asking about Capella. We can even have an even bigger warning in the front page of the section that none of it is considered canon in any way, and the section is there to merely serve as a repository for notable ideas and theories that've been discussed on the forums. I'd say that in-wiki criticism or support should be limited to two paragraphs (each) to prevent it from looking like the subject is being bashed or gushed, but links should be left open (ie aldo's criticism is fine with me, as long as it's not part of the wiki itself.)
Re: Last Karajorma post
Kara, unless you can provide me with some substantial proof that people are going to misunderstand the article to be some kind of canon, even though there is a big non-canon notice at the top of the page, I consider that argument invalid. As the one making that argument, the burden of proof is on you, and I don't remember you providing anything besides speculation.
If someone has a problem understanding the Manifesto article, we can learn from that experience and revise the section of the article that was misleading. That way, we also know how to revise articles in the future so that they are also less likely to be misunderstood. :nod:
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Fan speculation is for basically everything else that is important enough to rate a mention in the wiki related to the FS Universe, ie theories. It's basically the place to point newbies when they start asking about Capella. We can even have an even bigger warning in the front page of the section that none of it is considered canon in any way, and the section is there to merely serve as a repository for notable ideas and theories that've been discussed on the forums. I'd say that in-wiki criticism or support should be limited to two paragraphs (each) to prevent it from looking like the subject is being bashed or gushed, but links should be left open (ie aldo's criticism is fine with me, as long as it's not part of the wiki itself.)
I've highlighted the part that is the problem. Notable ideas can easily be taken as the best ideas. That's pretty much the same issue I've been banging on about since this started. All you've done is renamed the non-canon page and removed the user-campaigns section from it. It does nothing to remove the underlying issue which I keep going on about.
Allowing criticism is a good step if we can prevent it becoming an edit war. Limiting the amount of criticism in the article may work It's possible to point out a whole load of flaws in two paragraphs.
Kara, unless you can provide me with some substantial proof that people are going to misunderstand the article to be some kind of canon, even though there is a big non-canon notice at the top of the page, I consider that argument invalid. As the one making that argument, the burden of proof is on you, and I don't remember you providing anything besides speculation.
You don't seem to be grasping the chain of logic here so let me explain it more simply.
Limited numbers of entries means that the Shivan Manifesto is seen as the best the community can do.
Every newbie reads the Shivan Manifesto and bases their campaigns on it.
The effect gets worse as more new campaigns are based on the SM.
Once you've got enough people doing that how is it any different from the extended canon I keep going on about? It's nothing to do with the article itself (as I keep saying) as it's to do with the fact that the wiki is funnelling every single person who comes to the wiki towards it.
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You don't seem to be grasping the chain of logic here so let me explain it more simply.
1) Limited numbers of entries means that the Shivan Manifesto is seen as the best the community can do.
2) Every newbie reads the Shivan Manifesto and bases their campaigns on it.
3) The effect gets worse as more new campaigns are based on the SM.
Except 1) is not necessarily true. If we prevent that implication (via some sort of disclaimer) the rest of the chain can be averted.
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Karajorma: That's not proof - that's speculation. You're basically saying "This might happen - so let's sit on our hands and do nothing, so that nobody can blame us if something goes wrong." I would argue that it's more likely that some newbie is going to read through the forums, find the Manifesto, find a bunch of replies praising the manifesto, and the same thing will happen anyways or possibly even because there was no non-canon notice to put everything in context.
That's not just conjecture - It's already happened (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Descent:_Freespace&diff=28875123&oldid=28710697).
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So surely it's worth making sure that it doesn't happen again. And I'm not saying lets do nothing. I've made several suggestions of ways to stop the problem. You're the one who kept saying that the current warning was enough and that we shouldn't do more.
Except 1) is not necessarily true. If we prevent that implication (via some sort of disclaimer) the rest of the chain can be averted.
And that's basically what I've been on about since this whole thing started. The current disclaimer isn't strong enough but I can't think of anything that is strong enough that wouldn't result in spending a fair bit of the page in the disclaimer. If you can feel free to post it.
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So surely it's worth making sure that it doesn't happen again. And I'm not saying lets do nothing. I've made several suggestions of ways to stop the problem. You're the one who kept saying that the current warning was enough and that we shouldn't do more.
I've heard:
- Leave the article out (Changes nothing)
- Put it under FS Lingo (Doesn't really fit any of the sections there now, doesn't help with people seeing it as canon)
- Put the article under Armageddon (Pure speculation at this point)
I said that I thought the current warning was enough, but I've also mentioned that I'm interested in hearing ideas on how to revise the current warning to make it clearer.
Except 1) is not necessarily true. If we prevent that implication (via some sort of disclaimer) the rest of the chain can be averted.
And that's basically what I've been on about since this whole thing started. The current disclaimer isn't strong enough but I can't think of anything that is strong enough that wouldn't result in spending a fair bit of the page in the disclaimer. If you can feel free to post it.
No, if you feel free, you can post it - it's your argument. Like I said, I don't see anything wrong with the current warning, so it's kind of hard for me to come up with anything anyway. :p It seems to me that making it much longer would make people just skim over it.
If it truly does need to be massive, that's what the non-canon page is for - so if people are confused at all about the warning, they can get a more detailed explanation by clicking the link.
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Actually it's just as much your argument as mine. You're the one insisting that the disclaimer needs to be changed if there is a problem. I keep saying that the problem is not at the level of the disclaimer.
Basically you're asking me to hack in a solution to the problem at one level rather than going to the source of the problem and fixing it there.
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I'd note the non-canon disclaimer is pretty useless for any campaign related wiki entries; you essentially have to add a further line (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Nightmares) to explain what the entry is & put it into meaningful context, otherwise it looks like a guess at the FS storyline rather than an independent story.
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Actually it's just as much your argument as mine. You're the one insisting that the disclaimer needs to be changed if there is a problem. I keep saying that the problem is not at the level of the disclaimer.
Basically you're asking me to hack in a solution to the problem at one level rather than going to the source of the problem and fixing it there.
No, I'm saying that if you have a problem with the way the disclaimer, you should be the one to suggest improvements to it. I don't even see a problem with it. It says it's non-canon; the article is definitely non-canon; the problem you're arguing will exist lies in some hypothetical person misunderstanding that the notice actually means that the article is accepted as canon.
In the interests of compromise, if I try to write the notice to try and answer your argument, all I come up with is:
"The following information has not been confirmed by Volition and is therefore not canon for the Freespace universe, nor is accepted as canon by the Freespace community."
Which just sounds redundant to me.
@aldo: Yeah, campaigns should have a different non-canon notice for their articles.
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I've stated about a hundred times that the problem is not with the disclaimer on the article. You insist that if there is a problem that is where it must be fixed and so we end up going around in circles.
The problem is not the canonicity of the article but the fact that it will look like the best attempt by the community to explain the subject at hand. Saying that the article is non-canon does nothing to change that. While we have a limited number of theories in the wiki the problem will still be there. The only way to write a disclaimer that works is to have something like.
"This article describes one attempt at explaining the Shivans motives. It is one theory amongst many and you could probably come up with one just as good if you sat down and thought about it"
Problem with the above is that while it solves the problem I'm describing it looks like a criticism of the article itself.
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The following information is based on fan conjecture, and is not a part of the Freespace Universe
?
We could also stick a small blurb in there about it being created by Antares, ie "The Shivan Manifesto is a theory written by Antares..."
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Knowing who wrote it doesn't make it look any less like this is the one the community think is the best.
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Right, but it brings it down to the reader's level, making it appear less imposing and more accessible because it isn't just this monolithic theory by the community, it's just written by one guy.
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The following information is based on fan conjecture, and is not a part of the Freespace Universe
?
We could also stick a small blurb in there about it being created by Antares, ie "The Shivan Manifesto is a theory written by Antares..."
...written by a community member. Not everyone knows who is Antares.
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Voting closed, I win.
Delete that piece of **** from anything related to a FreeSpace Wiki please :)
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Voting closed, I win.
Delete that piece of **** from anything related to a FreeSpace Wiki please :)
...I change my vote. Non-canon should be allowed in the wiki...
TopAce: GP. :nod:
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Right, but it brings it down to the reader's level, making it appear less imposing and more accessible because it isn't just this monolithic theory by the community, it's just written by one guy.
That still does nothing to prevent the problem I'm on about. The issue that worries me is that newbies are going to look through the wiki find only the SM and base their campaigns on it alone because they're unaware that there is anything else out there. I'd hate to stiffle creativity like that and explaining that just one guy wrote the theory isn't going to help with that.
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Just slap non-canon material under a different section.
"Community Fiction" or something.
What's the harm? o.O
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You guys still arguing about this? :p I can't see why it's such a big deal either way. The wiki is mainly going to be used by the forum regulars anyway.
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Right, but it brings it down to the reader's level, making it appear less imposing and more accessible because it isn't just this monolithic theory by the community, it's just written by one guy.
Except surely then you have the issue of 'who is Antares and why should we trust him'. And we'd then have moved to the stage of not only placing partially subscribed fanfic in the wiki, but actually needing to quantify the level of that subscription.
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You guys still arguing about this? :p I can't see why it's such a big deal either way.
Mainly cause I'm one of the main people who then ends up having to post to correct bad information. :p
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Why not something like "Accuracy level" with 0 to 5 value, 5 being for "full canon", and 0 for "pure speculation" ?
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Who's to determine the accuracy of any theory?
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Who's to determine the accuracy of any theory?
Well, dunno, but at least anything different than 5 can't be considered as canon.
The accuracy can be discussed, or polled :)
Meh, I was just trying to find ideas to try to conclude that :sigh:
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Do I need to lay the smack down here?
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Still seeing slow progress as far as I can see.
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Voting closed, I win.
Delete that piece of **** from anything related to a FreeSpace Wiki please :)
...I change my vote. Non-canon should be allowed in the wiki...
TopAce: GP. :nod:
I rescind my vote completely. >..>
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DELETE :)
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Ok, why not just water mark it then. Canon stuff will have CANON all up and down the page behind the information, and NOT CANON the same way.
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Cause the issue is not a matter of whether the information in the wiki is canon or not. Canon info is canon and therefore irrelevant to this discussion. Everything else to do with the universe needs to be presented as simply being one of of a very large number of possible views on the matter.
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Already done. We've got a non-canon warning on the page. :nod: The entire point of canon is that it is the one "correct" interpretation of the storyline. All other interpretations are therefore non-canon and their accuracy is completely up in the air, unless they are granted canon status by a canon document.
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Remember this phrase in the Lupus Nebula entry
Barring the discovery of a better candidate, this is the best choice for the FS2 nebula.
There's a big non-canon warning on top of the page. Think we should still leave it in?
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I recently added that non-canon tag as i considered it to be atleast partially non-canon. So blame/thank me for that.. i believe Shivan Nebula (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Shivan_Nebula) page is better page from canon point of view than the Lupus Nebula
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Remember this phrase in the Lupus Nebula entry
Barring the discovery of a better candidate, this is the best choice for the FS2 nebula.
There's a big non-canon warning on top of the page. Think we should still leave it in?
Fixed. That line was stupid anyway.
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Kinda torpedos my argument :p but my point was that the line I quoted explicitly states exactly what having a non-canon theories page with only one or two theories on it implies. That this particular theory is the best candidate the community has come up with.
I recently added that non-canon tag as i considered it to be atleast partially non-canon. So blame/thank me for that.. i believe Shivan Nebula (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Shivan_Nebula) page is better page from canon point of view than the Lupus Nebula
Actually it's just as bad. It points to the Lupus Nebula article but fails to present any opposing point of view. It might as well have said the same thing.
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So is the manifesto deleted yet?
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No, and since the result is 15-15, it shouldn't be. As long as there is no direct link to it, it can stay, until a final solution is found.
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2 cents.
Okay, $2.78.
It's dissapointing to see how hot people got about this. Fact, schmact. Remember, the source code was handed over to us freely. We can make this universe whatever we want it to be.
Voilition is never going to tell us what happened at Capella, where blah-blah nebula is, whether or not Mr. Bosch isn't some Shivan commander's ***** now, or what this whole deal is about. It's up to the rest of us to make educated projections to fill in the blanks and continue the story. The non-canon stuff has totally dwarfed the canon stuff. What CAN be done is the 'if enough people agree' thing can be used to incorporate some small non-canon material, plus inject some of the goodies proposed in the more elaborate of the user-made campaigns.
I think there's absolutely nothing wrong with bringing these theories and ideas in, so long as they can be referenced as "non-canon". I can't see how anyone could whine about that, considering we're dealing with a game going on over six years old. Look at how much has been accomplished by fans alone!
We already know that any theories about the 'firecracker' issues (Bosh, Capella, Shivans) are going to be summarily dismisssed by the community. We simply weren't given enough information to 'know'. But that still leaves a lot of room for other things (why Ross 128 got hit first, where the 'Homesick' survivors are, the whole of the Terran-Vasudan War, the dawn of space travel, etc).
I'm suggesting that the non-canon stuff included be based on existing and future user-made campaigns. I think it would encourage our mission developers to be cohesive in their development (i.e., not making campaign arcs that are blatantly contradictory of one another). It would give a road map showing where the 'blanks' are in the FS universe.
I respect both sides of the issue on this. I can't help but get excited by the concept of a gaming universe with no limits, written by the people who play it.
Derelict, Fall of Episoln Pegausi, Inferno, Homesick, Sol: A History, Blackwater Operations (once it comes out), and I'm sure the Terran-Vasudan War Project are or will be easily as good as the retail campaigns and really enrich the story.
carry on....
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But unless it's made by :v:, nothing will ever be accepted by the entire community. We just can't say that this is why the Shivans blew up Capella period. Some people will think it is plausible, and may make a fun campaign, maybe some people who don't believe the theory will play it if it's good, but not everyone will except it.
This is why FS3 made by the community is impossible, although some people would like that to happen. Call it n00bishness, but I would. And if I ever make that campaign I would like to, it's going to end the story my way. The closest we get to that are campaigns such as Inferno, BWO etc. (There has been a debate about this when the source code was released, but that was before I came here)
Also, the source code <> the universe. We were not given the right to decide what will happen after Capella, nor the right to say what the Shivans are or why they do what they do. :v: probably knows that already, but they're not telling. I think there still is a small hope for FS3, if space sims get popular again, THQ might want to have one, and in that case, they'll have an option to continue a reasonably well-known series with a mostly completed story.
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Hmm, maybe I missed something in my last post.
Let's take Derelict, for example. Derelict, while taking place after the events in FS2-Retail, does not try to explain what happened at Capella. Rather, it deals with what WOULD be known. A whole lot of people needing a new place to live.
The big campaign developers out there have done a terrific job of leaving the Great Mysteries of the FS universe (Shivan origins and motives, Bosch, Capella, etc) as what they are: Mysteries. But there are so many other places where there's more than enough room to fill in the storyline. Particularly in Sol: A History. A great theory on what happened back in Sol during the space between FS1 and FS2. Brilliant. Lots of side-stories that can be filled in, or actually presented (the attack at Ross128, etc). I guess I'd like to see these campaigns get recognized in a timeline or reference. Sort of a way of saying to players who are feeling pretty spiffy about beating FS2-Retail "By the way, that's not all."
I've never heard anyone say "Man, I just played Homesick. Blaise Russell is off his rocker, there's no WAY that could happen."
I think that including THAT kind of non-canon stuff is a good idea. Do you see what I mean?
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I see and agree with you, but I was responding to the first part of your post
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Yeah, the Volition thing. You're right on that.
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I think that including THAT kind of non-canon stuff is a good idea. Do you see what I mean?
No one ever said that it wasn't. The debate was over non-canon that existed with no links to anything else.
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Hmm, maybe I missed something in my last post.
Let's take Derelict, for example. Derelict, while taking place after the events in FS2-Retail, does not try to explain what happened at Capella. Rather, it deals with what WOULD be known. A whole lot of people needing a new place to live.
The big campaign developers out there have done a terrific job of leaving the Great Mysteries of the FS universe (Shivan origins and motives, Bosch, Capella, etc) as what they are: Mysteries. But there are so many other places where there's more than enough room to fill in the storyline. Particularly in Sol: A History. A great theory on what happened back in Sol during the space between FS1 and FS2. Brilliant. Lots of side-stories that can be filled in, or actually presented (the attack at Ross128, etc). I guess I'd like to see these campaigns get recognized in a timeline or reference. Sort of a way of saying to players who are feeling pretty spiffy about beating FS2-Retail "By the way, that's not all."
I've never heard anyone say "Man, I just played Homesick. Blaise Russell is off his rocker, there's no WAY that could happen."
I think that including THAT kind of non-canon stuff is a good idea. Do you see what I mean?
We do and will; it's called the 'campaigns' section. This was discussed a few pages back; gist is, the context of campaigns as seperate, diverging universes with their own canonical realm means it's justifiable to include them. The issue was the likes of the SM - being the best example - because (IMO) they're essentially fanfic. Check back into the depths of the thread.
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Wouldn't it figure that I would miss that, dammitall. My apologies, and thank you for the correction.