Talk:Revanche/Policy:Essays
Non-Canon Submission Council
LRichardson, maybe you and I can craft some sort of submissions 'council' for essays, home rules (which could incorporate custom equipment), etc., where the submission had to meet a certain minimum standard of involvement (registration, maybe?), storage (on a user page, until approved) and formatting (by the poster). --Revanche (talk|contribs) 19:27, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
- So, if I am following you correctly, the idea behind a council is to have a sort of "moderated" area of the wiki for such things. In pondering things for a bit I sort of hashed out some talking points. The fundamental question such a council would be asking is "Should this item be included in an encyclopedic style reference about the canonical Battletech universe?" More to the point, is the material of the sort that the people who seek out Sarna.net as a reference are going to be interested in reading? If it is not in line with what people who come here are looking for then it probably ought to be moved or deleted.
- In trying to sort through what sort of rubric to apply to non canon pages a few attributes to examine come to mind:
- Nature - What basic kind of article is it? Essay? Opinion? Rule? Design? Reference? Of course this implies the question "Is this kind of article in keeping with Sarna's goals and character?
- Tone - Is the item written in a "scholarly" or at least encyclopedic manner or is it a narrative or anecdote?
- Voice - Similar to tone but has to do with how apparent the author is in the writing. Is it clear whether it is a single author or is it simply direct statements.
- Quality - Firstly, is it reasonably well written? Also, is the item something that a reader of Sarna is likely to consider using or adapting? Does it add to the readers understanding or appreciation of the games or the universe contained within it?
- Format - Is the article at least reasonably closely formatted to conform with the rest of the articles here or does it require significant editor attention before it would be a useful item?
- I have a lot more detailed notions of what each of these things mean and what desirable characteristics in each of these attributes might entail, but at the least I would say that a non canon article should have to meet a basic threshold of suitability in each of these areas to be considered for inclusion. Most of the observations someone might make when evaluating the suitability of an item here fall into one of those categories, so this would sort of be the top level of the rubric. Before I go too much further with this, I just want to ask if is this the sort of thing you were thinking of? -- LRichardson 00:27, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
- I think you not only followed me, but ramped it up a step.
- First off, before we get too far, I think it would be good to port Frabby's addition to the fanon discussion -the 'Definition of Fanon' section- to this discussion. Added here:
| “ | Because it is a recurring issue in the discussions, here's an attempt at explaining what we suggest be removed from BTW and what will not be affected:
We seek to migrate (only) original Fanon. "Fanon" is synonymous with "Fan Fiction" in this context.
|
” |
- Me again.
- Ok, in the first section ('Fanon'), I've struck out items I think are clear do not fit into our (your's & mine) idea of what is keep worthy, such as fiction. In the second section, all items starting with 'articles' and the download section are outside the purview of our 'submission council' project. That leaves two items:
- Custom rules, House rules, fan-made weapons
- Essays (grey area)
- So...you can see we have some work cut out for us. We have to argue that custom rules, etc. are valued additions and/or essays have their place here. I believe we can fold custom rules, etc, up into essays, as long as we can properly defend the intent to apply clear and appropriate requirements to submissions, as well as the process.
- The process discussion is not yet necessary. Your guidance, the "rubric of attributes", is the appropriate place to start.Keep in mind, a large majority of posters on wiki are not self-described writers and/or do not turn out completed products that meet our minimum standards here. For that reason, we'd need to expand upon your basic descriptions of those five attributes. Each of those attributes, when discussed in a policy, can be expanded upon and have examples provided (both sample examples and links to 'live' essays).
- LR, I think we can start working on a policy here, jointly. There already exists the BattleTechWiki:Policies, Essays, Procedures & Projects 'policy' page, but I think this project of our's deserves its own page (if accepted by the community). Do you mind starting the shell of the policy here. We can collaborate there and discuss on this talk page.--Revanche (talk|contribs) 21:25, 2 May 2011 (UTC)