Talk:You are the Absurd Hero (short story)

Rename

On Obverse's website for the anthology the story's title is written as the page is currently. Are there any other sources that suggest the the should be lower case? --Tangerineduel / talk 14:36, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Just got my copy. "Are" and "the" are lowercase. Najawin ☎ 08:25, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

Validity

So we all agree that according to the current wiki rules this should be invalid, right? You're a character in the narrative and it's a branching path story. At the very least invalid until forums come back and we discuss it there, yes? (Also, dammit, it's similar enough in execution to a story I thought about writing that I'm not sure if I want to do that now. Ugh.) Najawin ☎ 08:19, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

Not necessarily so; there is the Flip-Flop precedent to consider. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 05:48, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Which doesn't include you as a character. (Speaking of which, that's another thread we should have, discussing where the line between Flip Flop and branching path stories is. I agree with the change you made to T:VALID, I think the branching path decision was stupid in the first place, but it was never fully examined.) Again, fully willing to have a larger discussion when the forums are back. But prima facie it seems invalid. Najawin ☎ 05:54, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

I've just a thought I'd like to highlight. While branching narratives are defacto invalid (barring Flip-Flop as this was an exception, and I don't agree with branching narratives being flat out invalid), I do not believe the "reader" is literally in this story. This sort of mindset of "here's a blank slate character for you to project yourself into" equalling "this is literally the DWU equivalent of every single person who has ever read this story simulataneously" is absurd. While us as readers can "insert" ourselves, no information about us is actually present within the narrative; T:NO RW even goes as far as to say...

"And don't go further than what the DWU source actually tells you."T:NO RW

...so while this source may be invalid due to the branching narrative, the idea that "you" are the character thus making the story unreliable makes no sense in policy. And while in this instance, we may not have a source like Companions and Allies to give us some juicy Wikifiable information, I would like to guide everyone here to look at Human (Attack of the Graske) for how an avatar-style character in a branching narrative can be handled on the Wiki.

Epsilon📯 📂

08:33, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

You mean the invalid story? I'm not trying to defend the wiki policy here, heaven forbid. Again, part of the reason I'd be so open to having an inclusion debate when the boards are up is to change it. But when it comes to "interactive stories" T:VALID explicitly calls out

Additionally, some of them will cast "you", the player, as a character, instead of having you play as an actual DWU characters.

It seems to me that the only thing this story has going for it is the fact that Flip-Flop is valid and Scrooge edited T:VALID to specifically include it when you were thinking about making a thread arguing that because of its validity we were being too quick to dismiss nonlinear stories generally. Hell, it doesn't even have a bionicle reference and that's just cardinal. (I mean, arguably it also has that it clearly doesn't violate rule 4 which the table says these stories do, but honestly I don't know why that was put into the table, it's far from clear that past interactive stories violate rule 4.)

IMO this is a story that should be invalid until proven otherwise and the forum to do that in doesn't currently exist. I just want to make sure we all agree to that before I put the invalid tag on it. Similar to Doctor Who Comes to MINECRAFT! (webcast). Najawin ☎ 17:53, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

I'm still not sold, though I'd bow to a consensus against me. It just seems to me that "CYOA game" are a genre, and we have decided to exclude that genre, while still allowing in things from valid genres (e.g. short stories or Big Finish audio plays) that pastiche the style as a gimmick. Obverse didn't publish this as a CYOA game; they published it as a short story, in a short story collection. I think it would be unnecessarily pedantic of us to exclude it. (Compare Book of the War pastiching a reference book, or even a RPG sourcebook, but actually being in-universe and being marketed by Mad Norwegian as a novel!) Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 18:10, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

From my perspective I don't think my ask would prompt as much discussion if the forums were with us and the actual inclusion debate could happen. idk, both this and the Minecraft thing seem like obvious cases of prima facie invalidity, we stick an invalid tag on them, then discuss them in the forums. It's just that because forums ded, we can't do that last part, so nobody wants to rule something as invalid for an arbitrarily long period of time and these cursory discussions turn into pseudo inclusion debates. Which I get. But it's frustrating, since I want to do coverage of this anthology and leaving this story unresolved is going to eat at me. And, fair warning, I'm absolutely not going to give a full summary for it. Najawin ☎ 18:57, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

I actually did rule the Minecraft thing invalid — and I don't really think it's fair to compare something like that to a story in an an otherwise-kosher Obverse anthology! Very different burdens of proof, IMO.

I sympathise w/regards to Wikifying the whole collection, but then, would it really be so different even if You Are… were invalid? Invalid pages still are supposed to get full coverage! That being said, I'll be happy to Wikify it myself (valid or otherwise, depending on how this discussion goes). Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 19:06, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

That wasn't clear on the talk page Scrooge. You said you leaned invalid and then said "Still, as I said, this is all fairly academic since I agree Doctor Who Comes to MINECRAFT! should be invalid."

It's still marked valid.

More a mindset issue for me. Instead of covering each branching decision tree I'd feel comfortable giving a more high level overview if it's invalid. But that's just me! Other editors can do what they want and that's just my personal comfort and it shouldn't dictate invalid/valid. Just a bit of why I'm frustrated. Also that these discussions feel like they're far more tedious than they should be because, well, forums ded. Najawin ☎ 19:15, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Since this has attracted some twitter attention, let me just note that I think our validity rules concerning nonlinear stories are stupid as hell. I would love for this story to be valid - I just don't think according to our rules it is. My proposal is to note that it's probably currently invalid and then, whenever the forums are back, try to change the rules to make it valid based on Flip Flop, this, the idea that there's no real clear demarcation, and the specific note I left at Warring States in preparation for something like this. I think there's a good case to be made, especially if we also try to hitch together an argument that in-universe dictionaries and the like should be valid. But we can't do that just now. Which is a shame. Najawin ☎ 21:24, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Just to be clear, I don't care at all about whether this is valid or not. I just want to know why people keep citing Twitter in their complaints about our policies??? Who on Twitter is actually helping to edit this site that we should care about their opinions? It's been pretty well-established in other non-DWU situations that many Twitter users attack whatever they don't like and don't seem to have any brains or thought processes. So please please please please stop citing Twitter as a reason for doing or not doing anything on this wiki. Shambala108 ☎ 22:58, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Uhm, I'm not? Just, like, I'd prefer to avoid a Talk:Tenth Doctor (Journey's End) scenario. So I'm explaining my view a bit better. My view is not impacted by what people on twitter thing, I independently think our validity rules concerning nonlinear stories are stupid and have said this multiple times in the past. Najawin ☎ 23:05, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Well, as someone who has in the past been a big part of our making and upholding our validity rules I take offense at the word "stupid" and consider it a personal attack. Shambala108 ☎ 23:12, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

It really pisses me off that non-linear stories are flat out invalid all because two-three Admins decided, over a decade ago, that non-linear stories were probably too hard to Wikify — not that anyone even attempted to Wikify such a story — and that "nobody edited them anyway"; the lack of editing on a story should not mean something is invalid, that's not how it works, as that isn't part of Tardis:Valid sources!

May I propose, given that the Forums have been dead for over two years without any glimmer of return — @CzechOut's broken promises do not count — that we use this time to re-evaluate the stance on non-linear stories given that their invalidity is not remotely supported by policies. This won't be a major change in policy, so, given the extenuating circumstances, so it should be acceptable to be changed on a talk page.

Also, @Shambala108, @Najawin was not calling you stupid, but calling a poorly thought out policy stupid: the policy does not reflect community consensus and is harming coverage of material on the Wiki. I applaud you for consistently upholding policy, but there comes a time when surely you can see the status quo is doing more harm than good.

Epsilon📯 📂

23:22, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

You weren't involved in the discussion in question (Or the one that prompted it). Indeed, very few people were. The only people that discussed the specific issue of nonlinear prose were Czech, Tangerine, and OS25 - and OS25 supported some level of inclusion! Hence why it's left such a bad taste in many people's mouth. As for upholding them, well, given that I'm arguing that this is invalid under those rules that I disagree with, I don't think that I could be attacking you personally on that front, since I'm doing the exact same thing. But if you prefer the phrase "fundamentally flawed and decided in error", that's fair enough and I apologize. Najawin ☎ 23:30, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Personally I care about Twitter because, for better or worse, the users there are part of the not we this wiki's entire purpose is to serve! I agree with Najawin that we should cover nonlinear stories as valid using our well-precedented "other account" language, for the sake of the readers if nothing else – after all, DWU output since the original discussion has just delivered more and more references to these kinds of stories, and we can't cover in full under the current rules. Unfortunately this isn't the place for that kind of discussion; in fact, unless our admins step up and take the steps needed to restore our forums, we might never get the chance. Najawin, if you hadn't started this discussion, maybe this story would have escaped notice and snuck in as valid. But with things how they are, I don't see any other options. – n8 (☎) 01:03, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

I mean, the only admin to comment has expressed his support for validity. And technically this isn't an (dis)inclusion debate, since those can only happen in the forums. Najawin ☎ 01:08, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Great point. We have that going for us at least. – n8 (☎) 01:12, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Also gonna point out, if I remember correctly, that PROSE: Mix Her Own Adventure is another "choose your own adventure" short story published by Obverse Books. If this trend of keeping "choose your own adventure" stories flat-out invalid, apart from three entire book ranges, we will also have two short stories from prominent anthologies invalid for no policy-backed reason.

Taking a look at Tardis:Valid sources#Four little rules, "choose your own adventure" stories are stories by definition, so they pass rule one, they're all as licensed as other related works, so they pass rule two, they're clearly officially released, so they pass rule three, and they are obviously meant to be set in the DWU, so they pass rule four. The only reason they're invalid is because a. the branching narrative is hard to document — but not impossible, just nobody has tried, and b. nobody edits the pages. See why these stories being invalid makes no sense? Perhaps we should take a look at other Wikis to see how they cover "choose your own adventure" stories.

I know you all might say that a talk page isn't the correct place for this discussion, but as we haven't had worming Forums for two years, it really is at this point. I'm sick of just adding more and more discussions to The List; it's fucking ridiculous. It's a subject of online mockery at this point. We are falling well behind with keeping this Wiki up-to-date, we can't do anything meanwhile Wikis for other franchises are evolving constantly.

Epsilon📯 📂

01:55, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Okay, looking at how we could feasibly cover "choose your own adventure" novels on this Wiki: I think it's pretty simple. Looking at Wookiepedia with Choose Your Own Star Wars Adventure: A New Hope and Choose Your Own Star Wars Adventure: The Empire Strikes Back, the pages have a brief, very broad plot summary, and have a section detailing the possible endings, and the latter also covers other notable "paths": this is something we can easily do, and given our proliferation of "according to one account" terminology, we can implement the information from these sources into the Wiki without issue. I see no reason, apart from wanting to discuss this in the Non-Existent Forums, that these sources should remain invalid. But if this matter can be resolved with ease here... why not, hear me out, resolve it here and now instead of waiting indefinitely for a Forum system that is clearly not going to return?

Epsilon📯 📂

02:12, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Epsilon, those are considered non-canon, that's just how the page formats the discussion of the plot. We'd have to say on in-universe pages that things that happened in different branches of the same story are equally real. Which isn't an impossible thing to do, as you mention. But it's not really relevant to how Wookiepedia covers the issue - they still consider them non-canon, so bringing that up just confuses the issue. Najawin ☎ 02:22, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

No, no, they're not non-canon because they're "choose your own adventure" stories; there are many canon (albeit Legends now) "choose your own adventure" stories, like Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Decide Your Destiny. They're non-canon, AFAIK, because they were marketed as being alternate, non-canonical versions of the original trilogy of Star Wars films where the protagonists could die and the Empire could win. But the canonicity of Star Wars stories is entirely besides the point. For an example of how we could cover information from "choose your own adventure" novels...

According to one account, the Eleventh Doctor aided the Macra, but according to another, he destroyed them as he had no other choice. (PROSE: Claws of the Macra)

See? We use "according to one account", but cite it all to the same story. Or, we could do a modified citation such as Claws of the Macra - ending 1.

Epsilon📯 📂

02:35, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Sure, or we could even try subpages, per User:NateBumber/Sandbox/1. I'm not disagreeing with you here, just, I don't think Wookiepedia is a great guide to the issues we care about. Najawin ☎ 02:39, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Broadly I agree but I can't see much issue with having a general plot summary with a subsection for different endings/paths. Seems pretty easy to implement if you ask me.

Epsilon📯 📂

Actually, I like the idea of using a User:Bongolium500/Family tree test style chart in the plot summary to link between sub pages. But that's just me. Najawin ☎ 03:44, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Summary

Okay, I've written up a summary. Finally^TM. I've placed it on the page but haven't actually made it visible yet because I need some help from people. Firstly, this is probably the most experimental plot summary I've done since my original Warring States summary (which absolutely does not work on the new wiki, but still works on the old FP wiki) + the most I've flavored some subtle things. So I'm not sure if that's something we want to keep. The reason I did that is because I'm very concerned that so much of this would be just straight up copying things from the short story otherwise. A lot of the creative expression in this is in the branching paths structure, which we sorta have to copy, and often the ways in which it tells you to go on to a specific section have creative expression that also set up that next section, which is a mess to avoid copying directly. Delicate balance. I can see people thinking I went overboard with stuff like the capitalism stuff (nb, I don't even think that, I just know Burnard does.) or the heist movie comments. So I'd like some feedback on that before shipping it.

Secondly, I do not have a physical copy of this book. I have an ebook. And on the ebook there are two sections pointed to that don't have anything written for them. I need help from someone with a physical copy of this book for sorting out this mess before we ship this. Najawin ☎ 21:22, 16 June 2024 (UTC)