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Full Version: Wiki-ing (c/p from General DW Chatter)
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As some of you may know, Wikia has a wiki for fan fiction. A wiki that
frankly, could stand a lot of improvement. I wrote first drafts for Twisted
Path and (of course) Drunkard's Walk, but both could use a
lot of improvement. And I wouldn't even know WHERE to start on a page for Undocumented Features, Legion's Quest, or lots of other stuff. So I'd
like to rally the efforts of these forums to basically blitz the wiki and get some decent content written up. Would anybody be interested in joining the
effort?

(My initial request was posted in late June. Since then I've added an article for Team 8 and repeated the request on that fic's author's forums.)

Pronounced "shy guy."
I can see that this is an excellent idea, and I can see that I might even be able to contribute to it.

But it's a big project, and, well, given the choice between writing about fanfiction and writing fanfiction, I'd have to go with the latter...

Good luck with this!
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
Before you attack the daunting task of Undocumented Features, I would suggest you ask Gryphon. I seem to remember a thread about this sort of thing way back
on one of my rare trawls through Eyrie's forums, and he seemed rather against the idea...

-WFalling out of aeroplanes and hiding out in holes

Waiting for the sunset to come, people going home

Jump out from behind them and shoot them in the head

Now everybody dancing the dance of the dead
Quote: Wolff wrote:

Before you attack the daunting task of Undocumented Features, I would suggest you ask Gryphon. I seem to remember a thread about this sort of thing way back
on one of my rare trawls through Eyrie's forums, and he seemed rather against the idea...




-W

...what?

Wait, wait. What?

What idea? Writing an article about UF? He doesn't have that right, any more than J.K. Rowling has the right to pull Wikipedia's articles on the
Harry Potter books. Does he have a problem with UF being the first example in TV Tropes' mega-crossover article? Or was he just talking about a wiki dedicated to UF? Because either something's not adding up here or I'm critically misunderstanding something.

(Note: I've already written a stub on the SDF-17 Wayward Son, but having not even completed the Core, I don't think I'm even remotely
qualified to write the main article. Even just a start.)

Pronounced "shy guy."
I hope he's not, becuase I've posted a very short article on NXE already.
D for Drakensis

You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.
Come to think of it, UF should probably get its own page on TVTropes. If "Sailor Nothing" has one, UF certainly deserves one.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
Well, I've added a short and vague article on Undocumented Features.

As far as I can recall from when we ran the Undocumented Features rpg, Gryphon's only request was not to bring it to his attention, so offhand it seems
moderately unlikely he'll be too upset about it being mentioned on a wiki.
D for Drakensis

You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.
Quote:As far as I can recall from when we ran the Undocumented Features rpg, Gryphon's only request was not to bring it to his attention, so offhand it seems moderately unlikely he'll be too upset about it being mentioned on a wiki.
I suspect that's for the same reason Terry Pratchett doesn't take part in Discworld fan discussions - so that he can't be accused of stealing any of the ideas that come up and using them in future stories.

Discussion about already-written stories is a completely different kettle of fish...
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
I asked Gryph about running a UF MUSH once, his only objection was that he wanted to be sure that characters based on real people be reserved for play by the
real people in question.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.
We seem to have two articles on NXE. Yours has the typo in the title, but is more comprehensive than mine. This'll take some fiddling...

In Undocumented Features?, aside from the main article, we've got SDF-17 Wayward Son? and Timeline of Undocumented Features?.

And the rest of the pages we've started: Fuku fic?, Sailor Senshi, Crystal Tokyo?, Original character?, Mary Sue?, Dead fic?, Peggy Sue, The Bet, Twisted Path?, Drunkard's Walk?, Lakitu's Defection?, Team 8?, Just Won't Die?, Revenge Wars?, Skysaber?, Girl Days?, Reload?, Bubblegum Zone?, Bubblegum Avatar?, and Three Knights.

The majority of these articles are stubs.

So, then, what should be the next priority? Or should we focus on improving the articles already there?

(As a side note, I've been getting the sense that pre-FF.Net fanfic was in some ways another beast entirely. Has that site changed the game? For the better? I find it interesting that despite Ranma being by far the biggest chunk of the data in the RAAC archives, it's only the 41st largest category on FF.Net by my four-month-old count. And BGC is down at 542. Sailor Moon is still strong, though, up at 11, plus its own crossover category, plus sections exclusively for crossing it with Gundam Wing and Dragon Ball Z. Maybe there's an "Eternal September"-style effect here? Why Sailor Moon and not Ranma?)

Pronounced "shy guy."
I've editted your article to include the information from mine. I'm not sure how to delete mine, but I've deleted the information in it.

I've also added a short Eyrie Productions Unlimited articles, someone could try writing articles for the EPU fics not currently featured.

For myself, I'll probably concentrate on adding more articles but there'd be nothing wrong with expanding the ones that are there.

I think the major difference between RAAC is that there were considerable fewer series to work with back in the day, and it was of course focused only on the
anime. Newer writers are more likely to focus on the newer series that they are more familiar with, which is probably good since it means that there is more
fresh ground.
D for Drakensis

You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.
Quote:Why Sailor Moon and not Ranma?)
That's a very good question, especially given that Ranma 1/2 is still licensed in North America, and Toei has apparently pulled all worldwide licenses for Sailor Moon and is not issuing any more...
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
On the issue of RAAC vs FFNet, I think, the website seems to offer a much lower barrier to entry for beginning writers. It's more anonymous, more permanent, and tends to attract a less critical culture of readers.

Anime fanfic on Usenet got its start way back on rec.arts.anime, before the split, with stories like 'The Ballad of Lord Robin' and not too long thereafter 'Undocumented Features'. The initial quality was high, postings were far from permanent, and the audience was raucous and vocal in their criticism of things they didn't like. (As if that's changed much...)

And, well, Ranma was pretty damn popular back then. A lot of the story themes that seem to be played-out cliches, now, were new and interesting. 'Shipping' arguments were a new thing, too, and escalated ridiculously out of control. Not a lot of people are writing Ranma fics these days, and the fandom itself has mostly fallen behind as people pick up new series and write stories for them.

Wow. It's been a /long/ time since then. I just realized that there may well be people on this forum who weren't born when the first Undocumented Features story was published...
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.
Not me. I'm an 1980 baby - not as old as Gryph, but old enough to have perhaps associated with him had the fates pushed us together.
Quote: Bob Schroeck wrote:


Quote: Why Sailor Moon and not Ranma?)
That's a very good question, especially given that Ranma 1/2 is still licensed in North America, and Toei has apparently pulled all
worldwide licenses for Sailor Moon and is not issuing any more...

Sailor Moon was aired on TV in North America.

Ranma 1/2 was not.

--------------------

Epsilon
True.

The category of "Stuff what's been run on Cartoon Network" is going to have a much larger audience than "Stuff what's not". Larger
audience, more writers. It's that simple.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.
Sailor Moon was also broadcast before Cartoon Network existed(Or at least before it was carried by my local cable company), on USA if I remember right. Only
ran 'till mid season 2 I believe. That's why when Cartoon Network first got it they made such a big deal about the 'Lost Episodes'.
I was three years old. Probably old enough to know what "dirty" meant, maybe not "pair." And by the way, because the Google Groups search has serious problems, I dug through the late 1991 section of the rec.arts.anime archives page by page, until I finally came to this page.

November 14, 1991. So that's the day UF made its Internet debut. Introductory post by Gryphon, under the name "Creator of Alternate Universes" (???), chapters posted one by one in their own "threads" (or what you'd call threads if Usenet were a message board) by MegaZone, until...well, there's a gap in Google's archives between November 22 and December 10. Dunno what happened there.

It's such a strange feeling, digging through the past like this, reading posts like this. I mean, Cowboy Bebop has come and gone and we're still having these same arguments. Weird.

Pronounced "shy guy."
You're making me feel old, Shay.
D for Drakensis

You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.
OLD??? You want OLD???

I saw Kimba the White Lion and Speed Racer... Anime that made the jump before Star Blazers blazed the way to the masses! come to think of it, I recall watching
Star Blazers, and Robotech, Battle of the Planets... all the old hackjobs before the Anime audience of america matured enough to realize just how badly the
companies importing the stuff were cutting the drug!
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-

NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children
That was more or less my point. I'm in about the same boat. Now granted, it's the boat where all the interesting people are...
D for Drakensis

You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.
Then I'm somewhere between you guys and the rest of the crowd... Close enough to the older bunch to know, understand, and even comprehend the history,
close enough to the new guys to smack some sense into them. [Image: wink.gif]
Quote: drakensis wrote:


That was more or less my point. I'm in about the same boat. Now granted, it's the boat where all the interesting people are...
/me sulks

[Image: mad.gif] [Image: frown.gif] ... [Image: tongue.gif]

Seriously, though, I am at least somewhat familiar with the older stuff. In the past year or so, I've seen Gunbuster and the first two Tenchi Muyo OVAs,
and I'm planning on watching BGC. Granted, none of them were fourthhand VHS tapes, but still. And when I was younger, before I was REALLY into anime,
I'd seen the first part of Robotech via VHS rentals. (Haven't seen the unedited Macross, it's on my list.)

Incidentally, my local library has Battle of the Planets DVDs. Don't ask me why.

Pronounced "shy guy."
Back on the original topic, there are now short articles for Academy Blues and Endless Waltz, as well as Camwyn's Evidence .

And has anyone read Clovis Of Rebellion, because if the write up does it justice... don't.
D for Drakensis

You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.