Forum:Avatar and Avatar Fanon: Merge?

Forums: Improvements and Issues → Avatar and Avatar Fanon: Merge?

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In our few months of momentous change, nothing can quite equal the scale of the proposal that me and Joey are putting forward on this forum, on this very day. As you can guess from the title of this forum, me and Joey are proposing a grand merger between Avatar Wiki and the Avatar Fanon Wiki.

We're not doing this because we're bored. The foremost reason for this proposal is in the interests of greater traffic and exposure for the content of both wikis. We believe that allowing fanon on Avatar Wiki will deliver an increase in traffic when the films arrive next year, and even possibly in the short term. We also believe that fanon stories will get much better coverage on Avatar Wiki than on Avatar Fanon Wiki. This, in the short and long term, can only bring benefit for a larger, merged editing community by opening up many more options.

We both are well aware of the objections this may cause from both communities, but I believe that we have come up with large compromises that will be acceptable to everyone. I have listed them.

• A new custom namespace, "Fanon:" will be created. All fanon articles will be listed under that namespace. This will keep fanon and the mainspace separate so that it can be told which is which at a glance. "Fanon:" will form part of the article count, however. Mainspace articles that have fanon written on the subject will advertise those fanon stories. Every single fanon article on the fanon wiki will be imported here.

• A new custom group with specific user rights similar to admins will be created. It will be called "fanonadmin". This group will be inserted between admin and rollback. Promotion to this group is only available after attainment of rollback, and after having written at least ten articles in the fanon namespace. As you will notice, the most widely used admin tools are already here. The group will have these user rights:
  • Change protection levels and edit protected pages (protect)
  • Delete pages (delete)
  • Edit semi-protected pages (autoconfirmed)
  • Have one's own edits automatically marked as patrolled (autopatrol)
  • Mark others' edits as patrolled (patrol)
  • Move files (movefile)
  • Move pages (move)
  • Move pages with their subpages (move-subpages)
  • Move root user pages (move-rootuserpages)
  • Not be affected by rate limits (noratelimit)
  • Not create a redirect from the old name when moving a page (suppressredirect)
  • Override files on the shared media repository locally (reupload-shared)
  • Overwrite an existing file (reupload)
  • Perform captcha triggering actions without having to go through the captcha (skipcaptcha)
  • Quickly rollback the edits of the last user who edited a particular page (rollback)
  • Submit a trackback (trackback)
  • Upload a file from a URL address (upload_by_url)
  • Upload files (upload)
  • Use higher limits in API queries (apihighlimits)
• Fanonadmins and heavily involved Fanon users are free to create their own policies. Users who do not write fanon will not be permitted to interfere in the policy and governance of the fanon part of the wiki, including admins. In summary, fanonadmins will administer the fanon part of the wiki without interference from the main wiki.
• A new custom skin specifically displayed when the page is part of the "Fanon:" namespace. While this will be uneditable by the fanonadmins, the Avatar Wiki administration will agree to only change it according to the direction of the fanonadmins. This will mean that the current Avatar Fanon skin can be kept.

We believe that this provides the greatest balance and will keep the users of both wiki satisfied. We eagerly await community response from both wikis. Wjxhuang, the 888th Avatar ^{Talk} 05:12, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

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Support — -- My views are outlined here. Joey ^aa 05:22, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Support — As long as every policy for fanon is kept, I'm good. As for custom skin, anything is good, though I might suggest a spirit theme as that is what we have so far. The Flash ^{talk} 05:24, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Don't worry - you guys will keep every policy for the fanon namespace. As for the skin, we will just copy the current Avatar Fanon skin with a few tweaks, but possibly with a banner to make the look more consistent. (Thailog?) Wjxhuang, the 888th Avatar ^{Talk} 05:48, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Oppose — I must say, I don't like this idea one bit. I see lot's of downsides to it, with traffic being the only advantage, which is not good enough in my opinion. However, I'll accept what the majority decides and do what will be requested of me (banner, etc). ― Thailog 09:01, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

That's okay, but could you clarify what downsides you believe there will be? Thanks. Wjxhuang, the 888th Avatar ^{Talk} 09:17, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

For one, I think it's not a good idea to merge canon with fanon. Even with a namespace, it will be confusing, sloppy, and it may drive away users who dislike fanon (like myself). That's the whole point of creating Fanon-Wikis: to keep two very different genres separate. There's also the problem of copyright. Fanon lies is a very gray area of copyright laws and most authors disapprove of fan fiction and usually try to avoid it, lest they are accused of stealing or being influenced by fan's works. So, I'm not sure that the Avatar Wiki would benefit from the show's creators deeming this site unsuitable for those reasons. We are devoted to canon information and while we do not have permission to write about the show, we do it under the fair use laws for educational purposes. However, fan fiction qualifies as derived works, and by definition it strays from the original work, to which the fair use defense is flimsy. More so, fan fiction goes as far as using characters from other shows unrelated to Avatar. This can create a great deal of confusion and arise a whole set of issues. It think it's best to keep canon and fanon separate. ― Thailog 09:41, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

You've raised a valid point, which prompted some research on my behalf. I can safely say that I've done some research into the matter regarding the creator's attitudes to fan fiction. Evidenced by the fact that nearly all Avatar fan fiction stories that I've been linked to by various fan fiction writers are still online, and the fact that sites such as FanFiction.Net still have abundant numbers of fan fiction on Avatar, it is quite safe to say that the creators do not object to sites containing Avatar fanon. Also, from the various news sources I've seen and read, they have never objected to fans creating fanon, or stated that they fear being influenced. Judging from that, the existence of fanon on this site due to possible community approval will not be challenged by allegations of copyright infringement.

As an answer to your first point - I don't believe that such things will be sloppy if we make policy clear on the differences between the fanon and canon parts of the sites. I don't believe the problem would be in the concept; I believe any potential problems would arise on how we implement such a change. With categorisation, two separate skins, specific templates designating fanon, and clear-cut policies to divide the two, I believe that it is possible to make the merging a neat one. The entire concept me and Joey have put forward is to have both sets of content on the same wiki, but keep them separate enough for the reader to immediately be able to recognise the differences between the main site and the fanon section of the site. Wjxhuang, the 888th Avatar ^{Talk} 10:11, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

About the skin: have you tested that theory? Can skin change depending on the namespace? Won't that create cache and loading problems? ― Thailog 10:19, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

[14:50]	<Joeyaa>	body.ns-$ #p-logo a { background-image: url(URL) !important; }
[14:50]	<Joeyaa>	Replace that $ with the namespace number and URL with the image URL
[14:50]	<Joeyaa>	And the others are similar

That is what I was told by Joey (can't exactly claim to be the css master myself). The above code would replace the logo where Wiki.png is supposed to go. Basically, the intention is use a modified version of the current Avatar Fanon skin. Wjxhuang, the 888th Avatar ^{Talk} 10:23, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I forgot to note - incidentally, I know Uncyclopedia does change their logo for specific pages, so the coding is certainly possible. If page loads prove to be a problem, it is always possible to use the original Avatar Wiki skin with a separate banner for Avatar Fanon. Wjxhuang, the 888th Avatar ^{Talk} 10:26, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

And images? How will we separate them? Will Avatar images used on canon articles be simultaneously used on fanon pages? Let's imagine, this image being used on a fanon article to depict, let's say, Aang's "grandson," can't be used under the same rationale as it is on Aang. ― Thailog 10:31, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Such usage will be treated similar to the use of copyrighted material for user pages - you may use it only if there is already another picture being used in a mainspace article on Avatar Wiki. Any other images that I know exist on the fanon wiki and are not related to Avatar will be the discretion of the fanonadmins. After all, the creators, Nick and Paramount cannot claim that we are making a profit from all this. Wjxhuang, the 888th Avatar ^{Talk} 10:38, 10 June 2009 (UTC)