Battlestar Wiki:Fanwanking: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 13:52, 12 October 2006

This is a proposed policy for Battlestar Wiki.
This non-policy is considered by the community and its leadership is to be considered for the status quo of Battlestar Wiki, though changes to it can be discussed on the appropriate talk page.

Fanwanking (or fanwankery) is an attempt by the fans of a show to explain plot holes or errors in a fictional universe like Battlestar Galactica. It makes used of contrived and convoluted ideas often using numerous references from the history of the fictional universe itself. Often, fanwanking is the result of confronting critics of work of fiction by “explaining” problems. By fanwanking, a contributor is essentially creating content for the show, rather than letting the show's inconsistencies or errors stand on their own until an official source handles the error (or not).

Battlestar Wiki and fanwanking

For an encyclopedic project, fanwanking is an insidious form of fan fiction. Fanwanked contributions are often obscured with facts, and has the appearance of the "truth," especially to the casual fan. Since Battlestar Wiki strives to a factual repository for Battlestar Galactica, fanwanking is frowned upon and generally considered to be contrary to our Citation Jihad.

More responsible fans realize that errors do occur and should be accepted as such. Plot holes are often the result of the limited scope of a television show, such as Battlestar Galactica and should be expected.

What is not fanwanking

Retroactive continuity

Retroactive continuity (retcons) is a decision by the "official" authors, producers, or owners of a serial work of fiction to make changes to the "history" of the work or established facts. The main difference between retcons and fanwankery is that the source of the change is the creators of the work, not the fans or audience of a work.

Derived Content

In the Citation Jihad project, there is a extensive information on derived content. Because any work of fiction cannot fully explain the ins and outs of every character, event, or object, contributions to Battlestar Wiki can be made based on plausible speculation and logical deduction. These tools should not be used to "fill in the gaps" where content is missing, but to simply assemble the known parts from what the creators of the show have given with as little "glue" (speculation) as possible.

Examples of fanwanking

In the Miniseries, the number of ships is given as 41, but in "33" the number is enlarged to 63 with no aired reason. Instead of assuming this was a simple retcon, a "fanwank" would state inproperly that other ships apparently joined the Fleet after the jump from Ragnar Anchorage.
In the Miniseries and in a season 1 episode, viewers see the spines of Cylon agents glow red during sexual intercourse. Contributors impatient for the explanation of why this occurred may contributor specific scientific reasons to an article, but should have waited for the official source's explanation: The effect was initially a nice idea that wasn't followed through in later episodes.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-'''Fanwanking''' (or fanwankery) is an attempt to explain plot holes or errors in a fictional universe like Battlestar Galactica. It makes used of contrived and convoluted ideas often using numerous references from the history of the fictional universe itself. Often, fanwanking is the result of confronting critics of work of fiction by “explaining” problems.
+{{Proposed Policy}}
+'''Fanwanking''' (or fanwankery) is an attempt by the ''fans of a show'' to explain plot holes or errors in a fictional universe like ''Battlestar Galactica''. It makes used of contrived and convoluted ideas often using numerous references from the history of the fictional universe itself. Often, fanwanking is the result of confronting critics of work of fiction by “explaining” problems. By fanwanking, a contributor is essentially ''creating'' content for the show, rather than letting the show's inconsistencies or errors stand on their own until an official source handles the error (or not).
 == Battlestar Wiki and fanwanking ==
-For an encyclopedic project, fanwanking is an insidious form of [[Fan fiction |fan fiction]]. It is often obscured with facts, and has the appearance of the "truth," especially to the casual fan.  Since Battlestar Wiki strives to a factual repository for Battlstar Galactica, fanwanking is frowned upon and generally considered to be contrary to our [[Battlestar Wiki:Citation Jihad |Citation Jihad]].
+For an encyclopedic project, fanwanking is an insidious form of [[Fan fiction |fan fiction]]. Fanwanked contributions are often obscured with facts, and has the appearance of the "truth," especially to the casual fan.  Since Battlestar Wiki strives to a factual repository for ''Battlestar Galactica'', fanwanking is frowned upon and generally considered to be contrary to our [[Battlestar Wiki:Citation Jihad|Citation Jihad]].
-More responsible fans realize that errors do occur and should be accepted as such. Plot holes are often the result of the limited scope of a television show, such as Battlestar Galactica and should be expected.
+More responsible fans realize that errors do occur and should be accepted as such. Plot holes are often the result of the limited scope of a television show, such as ''Battlestar Galactica'' and should be expected.
 == What is not fanwanking ==
@@ Line 10: / Line 11: @@
 === Retroactive continuity ===
-'''[[Wikipedia:Retcon | Retroactive continuity]]''' (retcons) is a decision by the "official" authors, producers, or owners of a serial work of fiction to make changes to the "history" of the work or established facts. The main difference between retcons and fanwankery is the the source is the creators of the work, not the fans or audience of a work.
+'''[[Wikipedia:Retcon | Retroactive continuity]]''' (retcons) is a decision by the "official" authors, producers, or owners of a serial work of fiction to make changes to the "history" of the work or established facts. The main difference between retcons and fanwankery is that the source of the change is the creators of the work, '''not''' the fans or audience of a work.
 === Derived Content ===
-In the Citation Jihad project, there is a extensive information on ''[[Battlestar_Wiki:Citation_Jihad#Derived_Content | derived content]]''. Because any work of fiction cannot fully explained everything within its own universe, contributions to Battlestar Wiki can be made based on ''plausible speculation'' and ''logical deduction''.
+In the Citation Jihad project, there is a extensive information on ''[[Battlestar_Wiki:Citation_Jihad#Derived_Content | derived content]]''. Because any work of fiction cannot fully explain the ins and outs of every character, event, or object, contributions to Battlestar Wiki can be made based on ''plausible speculation'' and ''logical deduction''. These tools should not be used to "fill in the gaps" where content is missing, but to simply assemble the known parts from what the creators of the show have given with as little "glue" (speculation) as possible.
 == Examples of fanwanking ==
-*In the [[Miniseries]], the number of ships is given as 41, but in ''[[33]]'' the number is enlarged to 63 with no aired reason. Instead of assuming this was a simple retcon, a ''fanwank'' would be stating that apparently other ships joined the fleet after the jump from [[Ragnar Anchorage]].
+*In the [[Miniseries]], the number of ships is given as 41, but in "[[33]]" the number is enlarged to 63 with no aired reason. Instead of assuming this was a simple retcon, a "fanwank" would state inproperly that other ships apparently joined the Fleet after the jump from [[Ragnar Anchorage]].
+*In the Miniseries and in a season 1 episode, viewers see the spines of [[Cylon agent]]s glow red during sexual intercourse. Contributors impatient for the explanation of why this occurred may contributor specific scientific reasons to an article, but should have waited for the official source's explanation: The effect was initially a nice idea that wasn't followed through in later episodes.