Forum:Relaxing our fan works policy (within reason): Difference between revisions

Forum:Relaxing our fan works policy (within reason) (edit)

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NateBumber

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 ::::And yes, WIKIFY OWN does leave some of y'all in a weird position, as does NO SELF REF and our very vague conflict of interest rules. We should probably figure out how to handle this sooner rather than later. [[User:Najawin|Najawin]] [[User talk:Najawin|<span title="Talk to me">☎</span>]] 20:45, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
+This thread addresses two questions: (1) what fan works should we cover? and (2) how should we cover them? Setting aside (1) for now, regarding (2), there's no need to reinvent the wheel: we can and should cover them in the same way that we already cover other real-world content with ''Doctor Who'' connections! I've thought about this a lot, and I believe this path provides the clearest design for coverage while allowing for the clearest enforcement of whatever answer we determine for (1), whatever that may be.
+For instance, ''[[The Brenda and Effie Mysteries (series)|The Brenda and Effie Mysteries]]'' is a series of novels, audios, and an anthology, none of which we currently cover. Rather than creating individual pages for the individual releases in that series, or even just one for the audios and one for the novels, we instead just lump all of the releases onto a single series page so that we can cover all of ''The Brenda and Effie Mysteries''{{'}} many connections to ''Doctor Who'' in a single place. The same is practiced on ''[[Blake's 7 (series)|Blake's 7]]'', ''[[Star Trek (franchise)|Star Trek]]'', etc. We only create pages for series with concrete links to ''Doctor Who''; an episode of ''Phineas and Ferb'' may have referenced ''Who'', but we do not have [[Phineas and Ferb (series)]].
+This precedent extends to fan works in a very straightforward way: '''Create pages for series, not stories.''' If any individual fanwork meets our criteria for real-world coverage, we cover it not on its own page but on a page for the series it belongs to. If it is not part of a series, it can be covered on a series-like overview page like [[Charity publication]]. Only create series pages for fan works which are notable enough for the wiki to cover under (1); if a fan work does not meet this criteria, we do not create pages for it or its series, just as we do not have [[Phineas and Ferb (series)]].
+I'm not merely speculating when I say this precedent would work for fan works; I ''know'' it does, because I've recently created a number of pages for fanzines and charity anthologies for compatibility with {{tlx|NCmaterial}}, and the above precedent is how I've been doing it!
+* Rather than making a page for the short story ''Iris Explains'', I made [[Iris Explains (short story)]] a redirect to the series that story was published in, ''[[Missing Pieces]]'' (in keeping with our treatment of valid anthologies as series of short stories).
+* Rather than making separate pages for the releases ''Perfect Timing'' and ''Perfect Timing 2'', I covered both anthologies on [[Perfect Timing|a single series page]], just as we would cover multiple ''Brenda and Effie'' anthologies on a single page.
+* In a case like the story ''Blink of an Eye'', which was published on fanfiction.net separate from any series, I redirected [[Blink of an Eye (novel)]] to [[Fanfiction.net]], a new series-like overview page of noteworthy stories published on Fanfiction.net.
+* I've only created series pages and redirects in cases which meet our current notability requirements: for instance, with the scope of {{tlx|NCmaterial}}, to my knowledge no story in the charity anthology ''The Twelve Doctors of Christmas'' meets our requirements, so there is no series page for that anthology.
+All of these examples concern fan fiction, but the same precedent would easily extend to fan films and other forms of fan work via overview pages like [[Fan films]], [[Cruise fan films]], etc. Whatever fan works this thread chooses to cover, I have a stong conviction that the existing precedent I've described here is the way to do it. – [[User:NateBumber|n8]] ([[User talk:NateBumber|☎]]) 22:17, 28 May 2023 (UTC)