Difference between revisions of "Kerbal Space Program Wiki:Discussions/Fiction"

Revision as of 15:16, 3 February 2014

This is going to be a poll. If you want to discuss the content of this poll use the Kerbal Space Program Wiki talk:Discussions/Fiction.

This poll is about if adding fictive material should be allowed to what extend.

Currently there is no consensus about this topic and multiple pages containing fictive material exist. Non-fiction is anything which is provided by the game, real-world physics or can be assumed like mentioning of IKEA in Category:RKEA Inc. or MPEG in Category:Moving Parts Experts Group. Also names of craft may be mentioned in pages to describe screenshots and also wouldn't count as fiction.

This poll is not about fiction in userspace (any page beginning with User:… or User talk:…), tutorials and campaigns.

Arguments

Pro fiction

1. Fiction could be helpful for new players to decide a mission, like sending Bill Kerman to the Insular Airfield.
2. People often like to see people's ideas, and add to that universe, producing a conglomeration of ideas that could provide a amazing fan universe that could otherwise not of been created had fiction been forbidden
3. By allowing fiction, people can get everything KSP from one KSP website (KSP wiki)

Contra fiction

1. It can be hard for readers to distinguish between non-fiction and fiction
2. Who decides what to write?
3. There are other places for kerbal fan fiction (ex: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/forums/40-KSP-Fan-Works)

Contra-arguments

Contra Pro Fiction

1. People should imagine things (e.g. missions) for themselves
2. Not everyone likes to see other peoples ideas, and just want to know the facts
3. If they really want to see fiction, they should have to go to somewhere else, one that's not a wiki!

Contra Contra fiction

1. Most people start at the top of the page, so most would see the 'fiction' warning & therefore know it's fiction
2. Whilst this can be a tricky one, if more than one person imagined different things about the same subject, then the subject page could just contain links to the different people's imaginings, or have a 'like' system for (registered?) users, with the most liked one appearing on the page & the others with their links at the bottom of the page.
3. Whilst there are other places that fan fic exists, not many new, or even some veteraned, KSP players know about them, as everyone likes to just get everything KSP from one website, i.e. KSP wiki

Distinguishability

For an inexperienced reader it can be difficult to distinguish between non-fiction and fiction. This is a problem because this wiki explains how KSP works so readers usually come here to get an explanation for various effects.

It is possible to use templates like {{Fiction}} to mark articles or sections about fiction but this can be applied every time. For example when within a section only a part of it is fiction. For example:

Another problem is when linking to a section of a fictive article. For example previous revisions of Crew had sections about all three default kerbals. When now someone wanted to link to Bob Kerman the author would use Crew#Bob Kerman to link to Bob. The problem here is, that this will jump over the fictive warning. A reader might not notice that and think the information there are real.

Authorship

One different problem with fiction is that this is wiki. Obviously there is no author and other might and will edit pages. The question here is then, who decides what should be left in the article. This could lead to an edit war but different to non-fictional articles it might not be possible to determine which version should be used if it is about the artistic content.

Votes

This poll hasn't started yet so votes previous to the start might get ignored.

Eligibility

To avoid using sock puppets only users with an account created prior to the 16th January 2014 00:00 UTC are eligible. Account created since are eligible if they made at least non-fictional edits in two different articles.

Pro fiction

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Contra fiction

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Don't accepting this poll

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