Wowpedia talk:Fan fiction policy

= Original policy creation vote =
 * Proposal:
 * See original version of WoWWiki:Policy/Writing/FanFiction.

Yes:
,

''This policy ratification vote is now winning with a 5-0 vote. It will be ratified on June 22 if the situation does not change. --Mikk 16:41, 15 June 2006 (EDT)''

Comments

 * Only 5 guidelines? I would have expected much more. --Dracomage 11:26, 23 May 2006 (EDT)
 * This is a good starter policy for it, I can't think of anything else to add. We can always vote to add more later too.--Ralthor 16:06, 24 May 2006 (EDT)
 * These aren't guidelines. They're rules. They can be added to by later policy votes, but remember that we can also create actual Guidelines which aren't as strict and doesn't take as much voting work. They could definitely be pointed to from this page. --Mikk 06:48, 7 June 2006 (EDT)


 * Oh, ehm, we should state somewhere that this is about fan fiction published on WoWWiki, and that people are of course free to write whatever they damn well feel like somewhere else, but that this is what we want here. It's pretty obvious, but something in the tone of the article suggests that we're trying to lay down universal policy, which might rub some people the wrong way :-) --Mikk 06:48, 7 June 2006 (EDT)


 * Um, I noticed something about users being able to modify fanfiction that isn't consistant with lore. Well, i'm all for being consistant with lore, but allowing modification of a story based on what might be a misunderstanding would'nt be good. I think flat out removing the piece for being too inconsistant without an appropriate explination would be better than allowing a modification. Comming from a novice writer... I hate the thought of people tinkering with my characters like that :-p
 * Also, there's nothing about what kind of content your story can have? I just ask because someone will put up some graphic warlockish story at some point. -- ShideKnight 11:01, 15 June 2006 (PST)


 * Right. It's official. I don't see any implementation details that need solving, so this goes straight to Adopted. --Mikk 05:39, 23 June 2006 (EDT)

= New comments =

Thoughts on this policy
I can't say I'm a fan of this policy. On a basic level, regulating the creative works of others doesn't sound like a good idea to me. If we allow fanfic on the wiki, I think we open the door to whatever people want to create.

On a more specific level, I think it gives the axe to a lot of good fan fiction. Speculative "what if?" stories that go against the official state of things can be very interesting, as can older versions of fanfiction that have been retconned out of alignment with the current canon. What really matters is only that the story is well-written, and I don't think we can really have a policy to that effect.

One subgenre I personally greatly enjoy that isn't be allowed by this policy is the "alternative retcon," where a more plausible or interesting change to the lore is provided than the one Blizzard adopted. For example, I once made a War3 campaign called The Last Druid which explored the high elven druids mentioned in the War2 manual, attempting to integrate them into the lore instead of discarding them. I had begun to recreate as a short story for posting here, this policy would not allow it.--Aeleas 11:52, 3 September 2006 (EDT)


 * I don't know there was some refrences in More Magic & Mayhem sourcebook that connected druidism to "runic" magic. Which can partially explain a rare group of so called high-elven druids, and their caer darrow rune stones. It basically said its rare for races such as High Elves to take up rune/druid magics but they aren't completely non-existent. Its just more common for Dwarves to be rune masters. More is discussed here.-Baggins 12:01, 3 September 2006 (EDT)

The Burning Crusade page specifically says, "Elven magi crafted monolithic Runestones along the borders of Quel'Thalas," a minor point of lore, but one that would invalidate the premise of the work. There's a chilling effect created by a requirement of strict compliance, and particularly by the notion that anyone can go into a work and tinker with it to try and correct any percieved deviations from the accepted lore.--Aeleas 12:08, 3 September 2006 (EDT)


 * It doesn't entirely invalidate the work; Aditionally there is an arcanist path called "incribers" essentially magi that seek to channel the arcane energy inherent in the world through the more natural runic magic to attempt to avoid arcane corruption that way. Ultimately the rune magic has a connection to druid magic in distant past however. But other classes have learned how to utilize it, and could be mistaken for druids or rune masters by other people since they utilize similar magic.


 * As well as Ley Walkers, another magic path that often utilizes runes to access the powers of Ley Lines.


 * As I recall the whole rune magic/druid/Magi connection also gets brought up in Alliance Player's Guide as well. Its essentially that class boundaries aren't always black and white, and some characters actually try to blend magicks in order to find new ways of harnessing the powers.


 * Plus the whole idea of rune magic was also utilized by Night Elves and you can find their runes all over Kalimdar. I doubt the High Elves would have simply forgotten that type of magic.

But as to your comments about the policy change;
 * The biggest problem I see with this policy change, is one person's may have a strict interpretation of the work and not see that there are different ways to view things. They may for example consider one of the "alternate flavor lore" ideas to be more valid than other legends given in lore. For example one person might think Night Elves are trolls despite there being alternate legends for how Night Elves arose. But as it is neither legend is straight out true. I think its rather Big Brother to try to force people to comply with a strict set of rules, and master interpretation where things are unclear...


 * I don't know am I being clear enough? I think its enough just to mark a fanfiction with the fanfiction heading and leave it at that... I see no reason to force people to alter their stories...

-Baggins 12:01, 3 September 2006 (EDT)

= Recall vote (Fan fiction reconcilibility with official lore section)=


 * All of the "Fan fiction reconcilibility with official lore" section, except for the "Must be in the WoW universe" point is recalled as of Sept 25 2006. The recalled portions have been moved to WoWWiki:Fan fiction guidelines and clearly marked as optional.

I think its rather Big Brother, almost dictatorship, to force people to write their stories so that they have to comply with a strict guidelines. It limits their creativity... I believe marking fan fiction with fanfiction heading should be all that there needs to point out something as being fanfic. I note that this is coming from someone that avoids fanfic personally... I only read official sources... Considering most fanfic that is added to this wiki is generally in the WOW player or guild category... I see no reason to mess with their character or guild backstories, and let people tell the stories they want to tell. Just as long as their articles don't slip into articles discussing canon lore.-- Baggins 12:30, 3 September 2006 (EDT)

Policy recall vote

 * Keep :


 * Recall :


 * Partial Recall (keep point 3 - must be about WoW):

Comments

 * I agree with Baggins that we shouldn't really be monitoring the content of creative works if we choose to allow them here. "What if?" stories or alternative lore can be some of the most interesting fanfic out there.  I would vote to retain the third point of this policy, though.  This is a Warcraft wiki, after all, so I don't think fanfic involving other fantasy worlds would fall under our mandate.--Aeleas 23:54, 4 September 2006 (EDT)


 * Content unrelated to WoW is not allowed according to the DNP policy; strictly speaking, the fanfic policy does not need to regulate it.  --Mikk (T) 09:20, 5 September 2006 (EDT)


 * Having this separate policy is a useful tool for reducing potential hostility when requesting deletion of non-WoW-related fanfic. Otherwise, the argument will likely be used that the non-WoW material in the fanfic is inherently WoW-related by being included in a WoW fanfic.  Retracted, see Comments below for additional suggestion, and point-by-point views on the old policy. --Malakim 15:29, 16 September 2006 (EDT)


 * As I stated above, I also agree with point (3) which deals with non-WoW-related content. The rest of the policy, however, goes far beyond that, setting out arbitrary guidelines as to what sort of fanfic is deemed acceptable.  For me, relevant and well-written would be the only important criteria, and only the first one is enforceable.--Aeleas 17:25, 16 September 2006 (EDT)


 * I split this vote into 3 distinct options with the new one being "partial recall - keep point 3".  -- Mikk  (T) 01:43, 18 September 2006 (EDT)


 * This is a good move, Mikk, but I have an idea that might generate consensus. What about splitting the Fanfic policy into two parts?  The Fanfic Policy itself could retain solely point 3 from the original Fanfic Policy, while we move points 1 and 2 to a sub-Policy titled "Fanfic Guidelines", with the request that authors mark Fanfic that violates the Fanfic Guidelines as "Non-canon".  Finally, points 4 and 5 are distasteful, particularly in a authorial sense, and should become moot anyway, if Fanfic pages are moved to be user sub-pages. --Malakim 18:28, 18 September 2006 (EDT)


 * Hrms... I don't see the need to different "fanfic" vs "non-canon fanfic". It's all non-canon insofar that it's not part of official lore. All I want to see personally is fanfic being tagged as fanfic. (Hrm.. that point isn't in there. That's going in by admin decree.)  -- Mikk  (T) 09:03, 19 September 2006 (EDT)


 * Okay, I voted for both Recall and Partial Recall, because I would be fine if either one wins. I think restricting fan fiction to be in-line with existing lore is sort of oxymoronish, since the nature of fan fiction is that it may not be in-line with or might actually conflict with lore. Lots of good fan fiction is the "what if" scenario which would be barred by this over-reaching policy. --Fandyllic 4:43 PM PDT 18 Sep 2006

This would be better as a guideline
I'm too lazy to start a vote, but this stuff sounds like perfect stuff for a guideline, but I don't agree with it as policy. --Fandyllic 4:46 PM PDT 18 Sep 2006


 * I agree. Most can be reformulated as "Please avoid" rather than "No fan fiction can..." and made a guideline for how to write fanfiction that doesn't collide with lore. Having said that, people are free to write other kinds of fanfic, ... i.e. fanfic that collides with lore :-)  -- Mikk  (T) 09:09, 19 September 2006 (EDT)

I moved the contested points to WoWWiki:Fan fiction guidelines and rephrased them in the form of a "if you want to ....., then do this:" kind of guideline. I think it works, but feel free to tweak :-) (Hrm, do I even need to say that? This is a wiki fgs :-))  -- Mikk  (T) 14:16, 24 September 2006 (EDT)

= "Clearly marking fan fiction" in by decree =

I have added a section requiring that fan fiction be clearly marked as such by decree. This is not negotiable. The how of it is, but the fact that it has to be is not - confusing readers into believing that fanfic is canon lore is not an option. -- Mikk (T) 04:46, 23 September 2006 (EDT)


 * I was surprised to realize that this wasn't already included as a policy; it seems to have been very well enforced so far despite not being official, in terms of the fanfic template. There is also an ongoing vote for a proposal to further distinguish fanfic by moving it out of the main namespace altogether.--Aeleas 11:57, 23 September 2006 (EDT)

=New comments=

Fanfic Content
There is absolutely no mention of whether or not fanfic is restricted in terms of offensive content. IE, do fanfics have to be PG-13? G? Can they be MA, or X? People will write all types of content, and it won't always be child-friendly or safe for work. If MA or X content is allowed, then there should be some kind of disclaimer presented so that children don't accidentally wander in and read something they shouldn't be seeing. It's not safe to assume that everyone is writing G rated fiction.


 * Assume same age rating as WoW perhaps?  -- Mikk  (T) 22:14, 15 October 2006 (EDT)

Fanfiction Namespace Rule Page Proposal
A fan fiction namepace will be added to distinguish factual articles from fictional ones. This is for pages with multiple authors, User and Server pages with one owner that allow other Users to add to them are different. The namespace should only be used when surrendering control of the fan fiction to the overall wiki community.

When editing, do not completely rewrite it to dominate the work with your ideas and plots, and please follow the fanfic Guidelines. Also, do not cause edit wars, opinions differ, and no one is right or wrong (at least if using the Guidelines).

There are two main types of fan fiction: Stories and Ideas.

Ideas are what hopeful users feel should be added to WoW if they were writing the game. When editing ideas, do not say other people are wrong, list your ideas along with others. Idea pages should only have general names like 'Somerace Ideas' if they are the ideas of multiple users on one page. Do not make it look like your ideas are the only ideas on that topic, if they are, this space is not for them.

Stories are PC biographies, adventures, speculative histories, and the like. They have a linear plot. Story sharing is often used to connect the stories of multiple users (i.e. Player1 adds a line saying he is player2's second cousin), but this space is on a larger scale (People do A written by User1, then B written by User2).

Content will be filtered for quality (Very low-quality stories and irrelevent ideas will be removed) and content.

This is my rough draft. How is it? -- 00:19, 30 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Well besides being a giant blob of text, not bad. I would remove the compromise or be banned part. Also, stuff does not have to be deleted, just marked for deletion with a request for someone to claim it under their user space, before it gets deleted. Also, "No 'adult content one the wiki loophole' here" doesn't make any sense to me. --[[File:gengar orange 22x22.png]] Fandyllic  (talk &middot; contr) 6 PM PST 30 Nov 2007


 * I don't see anything wrong with having "adult content" on here anyway, so long as it's not too extreme. Flagging it would probably be enough. 02:07, 1 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Such was mentioned... I wrote it quickly!-- 02:10, 1 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Better, though I would mention quality is in the eye of the beholder, so perhaps "very low quality" would be better to get the idea across. And erotic writing is fine in my eyes, only the extreme end of it would be a problem. 02:58, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Fiction Hub
Would it be enough to state on your User page that all pages emanating from there are Fan Fiction, therefore exterminating the need to put a Fan Fiction tag on all those pages, since most user-created pages are Fan Fic anyway? Side note: since when are there three elemental planes in Warcraft? Xavius, the Satyr Lord 11:44, 10 March 2008 (UTC)