[BlackDove]

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.

[karajorma]

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.

[WeatherOp]

My vote, is as I said above, no. None-canon info does not belong among True FS info.

[WMCoolmon]

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?

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'.

[karajorma]

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 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.

[Goober5000]

So do what Wikipedia does on its lists pages... add a disclaimer about how the list is not exhaustive.

[WMCoolmon]

 

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.

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.

...

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?

[karajorma]

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?

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.

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?

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 made clear in the game but since there is nothing to contradict it in the wiki then it's probably what were thinking.

[WMCoolmon]

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?

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.

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?

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 made clear in the game but since there is nothing to contradict it in the wiki then it's probably what 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.

[karajorma]

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. 

[Sandwich]

Is this thread getting anywhere?

[karajorma]

Slowly.

[Spicious]

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.

[karajorma]

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.

[WMCoolmon]

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.

[karajorma]

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.

[Goober5000]

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.

[WMCoolmon]

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.

[karajorma]

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.

[WMCoolmon]

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. 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.