Policy Talk:Fanon

Discussion

Sarna's BattleTechWiki (BTW) began in September 2006 with the mission to be about all things BattleTech, including articles on canon subjects, maps, links, real persion biographies and fan-created fiction. Over those five years, the community (currently made up of 1,128 registered users and numerous unregistered ones) has provided policies that brings a consistent level of expectations to each and every page created here. However, fan created fiction (or 'fanon') has not exploded in the same numbers as most every other area of interest; policies created to guide fanon posters are generally followed by the registered caretakers (admins, editors and writers), just so that the overall site itself does not sink into cluttered chaos. It is the impression of some users on BTW that the fanon, being rough, unpolished and not generally held up to any conventional standards of fiction, is only visited by the posters themselves and do not enjoy a reader-base. In other words, the various forms of non-canon fanon (stories, 'Mech TROs, unit and industry articles) are not seen or read by anyone other than the original poster.

With that impression in mind, a number of users have suggested that the fanon be split off of BattleTechWiki and moved to the BattleTech Fanon Wiki, a wikia established in September of 2008 by falconsclaw787. While the site has been inactive for a while, it is the impression that it was competition with BTW that created a lack of interest. BTW Admin Frabby has come up with a plan to transition all fanon over to that site over a period of several months. However, there has to be firm support of interested members (and unregistered posters) for such a move to occur.

BTW Founder Nic Jansma has given permission for a discussion to be held, in order to gauge opinions on this matter. In the end, the final decision will either be to support the transition of fanon material to the BattleTech Fanon Wiki, to not support the move or to delay a decision until a stronger consensus one way of the other.

While details as to how the move will be provided later (if the decision supports), a framework has been suggested by Frabby here.

Below this line, please indicate your opinion and any points you may feel are germaine in support of that opinion. Once discussion has ceased for five days, a judgment by the admins as to the prevailing opinions will be announced.

Question: Do you support or not support the movement of fan-produced fiction and non-canon articles to the BattleTech Fanon Wiki?

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• I support the move. The fanon material does require time of interested members of the community to bring the actual pages (tagging, categorization, etc) up to BTW standards, yet policy does not allow the actual fiction to meet the standard expecations of a written BT story. In other words, non-authors are expending their time to make submissions they have no hand in creating meet framework standards, yet the actual submissions themselves are not being appreciated by the readers of BTW (in my opinion). I'd prefer BTW remain a repository of canon material and allow interested fiction writers to build up a similar community to their standards on the fiction wikia. --Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 14:11, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
• Support. Wiki treatment of the official BT universe and fan fiction do not mesh well, at least not anymore. The infrastructure (a separate Fanon wiki) is already there, we just need to use it. Frabby 15:10, 27 April 2011 (UTC)