Forum:A proposal to use real-world terminology

= First post =

Introduction
Hi everyone,

As a non-member of the Halo Fanon community, I would like to present to you an outsider view's perspective, and offer an outsider's suggestion. Ultimately, you the community as a whole would be making the decision, including whether to utterly ignore what I write below. I can only hope that my rational behind the suggestions will be reasonable enough to have you agree with me.

The proposal
Fanon. In the outside world (outside of selected Wikia communities), in the fan fiction / fandom communities at large, that term means something very different from how it is used on this wiki. In summary, the real meaning of fanon is "something not in the canon but is widely accepted by fans." For more elaborated discussion of the meaning and references, see appendix.

I do not wish to change your policies. In fact, I believe the policies of this wiki should be independent of what fanon actually means. However, I do wish to advocate for a transition towards the correct usage of the term "fanon". In this case, it pretty much means avoiding using that term at all except for the Sitename and project namespace.

The general usage of the term "fanon" would be changed to "fan fiction", while still maintaining the current policy that fanfic articles contradicting the canon should be tagged (and moved out of main article namespace if not changed). And if/when the community feels comfortable enough, the entire wiki can be renamed to Halo Fan Fiction Wiki. Again, current policies would not be affected, unless the community itself so desires.

If in the future the "fanon contradiction rule" ever gets reinstated, it would be phrased as the "HF Official Continuity Contradiction rule". Ie, this site can choose maintain its own officially endorsed fan fiction continuity, that disallows contradictions to it (in the main article space).

The rational
Why? Because I believe it is in our (Wikia users) best interest to help Wikia make more money to better pay for servers, bandwidth, and tech/community support. To do that, we want more visitors from outside of Wikia come and check out the wikis, help them find what they are looking for, and have them stick around. And in order to do that, we want to be using terminology that is consistent with how the outside world uses it. And that means do not use the term "fanon" for things that, in the outside world, would not be considered as fanons.

A wiki for "real" fanon would not have user's random creative writing on it. Instead, it would be a documentation of facts, events, and other things that are accepted by most fans (with maybe lots of headed disagreements over what "most" mean). It would consist of things most people in the fandom community would know about, even if they have never been to this wiki, or know of its existence. If people (outside Wikia) are looking for a site that allows hosting of creative stuff written/madeup by users, and they see a site named "Halo Fanon", or see Google summary mentioning "fanon articles", they will think "nah, that's not what I am looking for."

Help your wiki-hosting service prosper. Move away from the improper usage (from an outside perspective) of the term "fanon".

Again, the decision is for the community to make. I can only offer my thoughts on the matter and hope they are able to persuade you via reason.

Appendix - References regarding real world definiton of "fanon"
"'Sometimes... events or characterizations portrayed in fan fiction can become so influential that they are respected in fiction written by many different authors, and may be mistaken for canonical facts by fans. This is referred to as 'fanon'.'"

"'Fanon, a portmanteau of fan and canon, is a fact or ongoing situation related to a work of fiction that has been used so much by fan writers or among the fandom that it has been established as having happened in the fictional world, but which does not appear in any official work from the original authors, scriptwriters or producers.'"

"'a term used in fanfiction to describe commonly accepted ideas among authors even if they are not actually expressed in the canon work.'"

"'Those conventions and extrapolations from canon which become so popular and widespread in a fannish community, that they turn up in much fan fiction, and often people cannot remember where the idea originally came from."

"'Information or characterization that has never been confirmed in canon but is accepted as such by fans'"

Implications:
 * Fanon may or may not contradict or be consistent with canon.
 * Fanons are common knowledge among hardcore fans, sometimes even being confused by the less initiated as being canon.
 * A particular idea/thing that is part of the fanon may or may not have originated from fan fiction at all.

To say "come to our wiki where you can write your own fanon", is kind of like saying "sign a contract with our publishing company where you can write your own best-selling novel".

-PanSola 06:38, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

= Discuss =