Suggestion Chaos Wiki - The Future of the Codex

[Jonyna Si]

I'm not on any other sites, so I can't speak for them, but in my two years experience here, it feels like this would be detrimental in keeping chaos as freeform as it is.

We got rid of recordkeeping like this ages ago because of that reason. Wanna be a jedi master? Earn it. Want a canon artifact? Get it. This was all done away with because it encouraged people to abuse the system. I don't see a wiki going any other way. People will horde planets, push their storylines as more important than others, and it'll only cause arguments.

In theory, wikis could be cool, but I've already seen plenty how the moment you start writing shit down, the more it gets abused. The factory deals with this plenty, and while it hasn't happened in a while, I've heard the horror stories of how the codex has been abused.

Let Chaos stay Freeform, and acknowledge that one day all of our characters and writing will be forgotten. I've had to grapple with that, and I've come to terms with that.

Chaos has been around for 13 years now, and there's plenty of lore subs that have been left to the dustbins. One day, yours will too.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

 

[Tefka]

A wiki has been proposed and even setup before by a bunch of enthusiastic volunteers who started with the best of intentions.

What happened?

Within a few months it was tumbleweeds. My (somewhat bitter) experience is that people are all enthusiastic and make promises about what they're going to do, and they might even mean it. However, come a few weeks or months down the line people drift away.

I am not seeing anything about a wiki which cannot be done with the current tools available. You can submit lore, backstory, anything you want through it.

Pretty much. The main problem here, as I see it, is the social contract that Staff won't be on the hook for moderation. It seems nice, on paper. "All we need for ya'll is to put it in place, Staff."

Most of the SWRP Staff Team is going to disagree with you on who will be on the hook, and I'm inclined to agree with the majority of them - content creation will of course be on the community, but the community will not self-moderate on this. Experience and wisdom give me this view. Sorry, but I can't just agree with it.

So we'll have to tackle the suggestion from that stance, to do otherwise will never be convincing.

 

[Darth Empyrean]

My only concern is that we're getting 'this is the same as what we have' but also 'this is going to be so much more work'. I feel like we're in this middle ground fallacy. Either our current reports over codex subs is so high that a wiki would only make it worse, or the wiki will inherently create that moderation problem despite it being what we already have in place. I'm not of the mind that the community will somehow all play nice and shake hands at the end of the day when it comes to their more-important-self-insert story, and how that plays into everyone elses idea of lore - but I just don't see lore discrepencies becoming a big issue based on Chaos's current culture.

An example would be that major factions currently control the narrative 90% of the time. I think that we already see that take place, and people allow that to be the norm. A codex or wiki doesn't change it, we'd still have that same culture. The only time I could see it become an issue is when we have people purposefully trying to grief someone elses work - but we already have that. Circa the actual subbed salt mines people tried to put on Panatha.

Point being, I just don't see the wiki creating the problems some people think it will. While the community won't self moderate, and RPJ's/Judges will still be needed to a point, I think if we imagined Codex as auto-approval as it stands we'd be in the exact same ooc boat we'd be in with a wiki. Fundamentally no change besides less work as I see it.

 

[Darth Empyrean]

Chaos has been around for 13 years now, and there's plenty of lore subs that have been left to the dustbins. One day, yours will too.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

I do not personally care if people forget Empyrean, someday I'll have too many responsibilities to be on Chaos. That doesn't change the fact that people who join the site now want easy ways to see the lore for planets or areas they want to RP in - and our Codex doesn't service new or older writers anymore than our search function allows. The wiki makes that much easier. Much better. Think of the children, Jonyna.

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

I think if we imagined Codex as auto-approval

No one sensible wants that. The reason why we have judges is because we can't just assume everyone is going to virtuously follow the rules and think of other people.

 

[Tefka]

My only concern is that we're getting 'this is the same as what we have' but also 'this is going to be so much more work'. I feel like we're in this middle ground fallacy.

I mean, there's no middle ground fallacy because there's no middle ground. There's "what Tef wants to do", "what staff wants to do", and "what the community wants to do", and "what makes sense."

These are the four pillars of how a new feature comes to Chaos.

Also I don't know what you mean about a major faction controlling the narrative, if that were true the Mandalorians wouldn't be consistently down bad for the past like 8 years lmao. I think I understand the vibe but I also think you're overestimating the power a Major Faction has "on the narrative". Even as I type, I don't think I fully understand what you mean by "the narrative" in the context of a wiki. Faction propaganda on Chaos has like, fake power. It disappears literally in hours, maybe sometimes days, but it's only afforded authority by people who contest it.

The majority of writers either don't notice a faction's propaganda, or don't care.

 

[Tefka]

Also you're very unlikely to win Staff's hearts, its a struggle for even me, so if you want new features your best bet is (since community approval is almost always a yes) grabbing me and #4. what makes sense. Usually me and #4 go hand in hand, and if the feature is cool enough, I'll skip Staff's approval and just yeet it in while drawing their aggro.

But I'll just let you know right now, even if we discard all the other good and bad points of implementing a site wiki, it still reeks of "feature bloat" to me.

Edit: Which currently isn't enough to warrant me drawing Staff's ire.

 

[Darth Empyrean]

No one sensible wants that. The reason why we have judges is because we can't just assume everyone is going to virtuously follow the rules and think of other people.

Maybe I'm just not up to speed. What is getting denied in codex? I only ever see auto approvals as is.

I mean, there's no middle ground fallacy because there's no middle ground. There's "what Tef wants to do", "what staff wants to do", and "what the community wants to do", and "what makes sense."

These are the four pillars of how a new feature comes to Chaos.

Also I don't know what you mean about a major faction controlling the narrative, if that were true the Mandalorians wouldn't be consistently down bad for the past like 8 years lmao. I think I understand the vibe but I also think you're overestimating the power a Major Faction has "on the narrative". Even as I type, I don't think I fully understand what you mean by "the narrative" in the context of a wiki. Faction propaganda on Chaos has like, fake power. It disappears literally in hours, maybe sometimes days, but it's only afforded authority by people who contest it.

The majority of writers either don't notice a faction's propaganda, or don't care.

I'm making an assumption that 'the narrative' is whatever is apparently going to cause the moderation issues people have. Tbh, I don't really track on what narrative coherency issues Chaos has outside of object permanence making everyone forget what happened last year in rp, which is what I'd hope this would fix. As far as major factions 'controlling' said narrative, I mean mostly worlds. Nobody is going around saying that Jutrand is what they say it is, it defaults to what the SO says it is - same as any factions cloud, essentially. Not sure how that translates to wiki, i'll be honest with it, just my own considerations on it.

As far as feature bloat, I'd propose this would be the alternative to codex. We'd just get rid of codex as it exists, archive the whole thing and make this the new codex. I know Valiens says we have alot of issues with approvals and such, but I gotta admit i'm ignorant on that front - I never thought of Codex as a battleground like Factory is.

 

[Vazela]

I am for a Wiki.

I understand why Codex/Factory/RPJs/Admins do not want the extra workload.

So make it wild west.

If people are caught making things up, in order to benefit their character or faction, then ban them. If people make inaccuracies or mistakes to articles then politely tell them you cannot add articles for X amount of time.

 

[Jonyna Si]

I do not personally care if people forget Empyrean, someday I'll have too many responsibilities to be on Chaos. That doesn't change the fact that people who join the site now want easy ways to see the lore for planets or areas they want to RP in - and our Codex doesn't service new or older writers anymore than our search function allows. The wiki makes that much easier. Much better. Think of the children, Jonyna.

I'm one of those children, and I'll be honest, I already don't look at codex half the time.

When I wrote in the Coruscant invasion, I wasn't aware that having a star destroyer pop out of the senate building was already an overdone story. I wasn't aware of who the former owners of the planet was. And I didn't care.

What I did care about was that the planet my character had called home for the last year and a half was under attack.

One day, the GA will disappear, and that story will be forgotten, and some new faction will be in a similar situation, and a new writer will want to protect Coruscant for the same reason. That doesn't mean they have any less reason to repeat the same story beats, or that their version will be any worse.

I am thinking about the new writers, because relative to people like you, I still am one. And my thought is, trying to archive every little thing is just gonna lead to old heads continuing to push storylines from years ago, and belittling and badgering new writers wanting to do their own thing. I've had plenty of experience with that myself, and I'm not a fan of it.

 

[Tefka]

As far as feature bloat, I'd propose this would be the alternative to codex. We'd just get rid of codex as it exists, archive the whole thing and make this the new codex.

see this is more the ballsy type of suggestion that gets me on your side but I'm still waffling

Vazela we're currently establishing your opinion doesn't matter, community members are always going to say yes to new features, its like having the 3000+ different types of mobile phones today's world offers and being like "okay should we design a new one?" and expecting anyone to say no. Like, we already have 3k different types of phones, why add a new one. But you'd never say no, because what if its way cooler than all the old phones.

And yes this was an excuse to tell Vazela their opinion doesn't matter and the game is rigged.

 

[Jonyna Si]

I never thought of Codex as a battleground like Factory is.

Tbh, I see more codex denials than I do factory these days.

 

[Tefka]

But the reason you wouldn't want to lead with "lets archive the codex and move completely to a wiki" is bc people love the Codex. It's like a staple of our culture.

It works, its proven, its a wonderful simple thing. Plus, people can use their divs.

People can't use divs in a wiki.

Divs would not be available in the wiki. Only templates I allow you to use, to maintain readability.

 

[Tefka]

I'd personally be more interested in the upgrades the Factory got going to the Codex as well, which was always the plan but fell off (because of how much work the Factory took to get it there):

To me, this fits Chaos way better than a complete overhaul like a wiki would bring. These upgrades utilize the format we're already used to while allowing the freeform design writers implement today, like divs, with the improvements of enhanced searchability, categorization, etc.

 

[Darth Empyrean]

I'm in the minority, but I'd give up divs for wiki. Tbh, I'd give up factory for wiki. My end goal is for both factory and codex to gone in favor of the wiki - but I thought saying all of that front and center would only cause some knee jerk reactions.

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

Maybe I'm just not up to speed. What is getting denied in codex? I only ever see auto approvals as is.

It takes a good deal to get your sub denied by Codex. Usually the 'denied' subs are ones where the writer vanishes and they get archived, or they contact us and say they've changed their mind. Usually it's plagiarism which gets you, or a horribly mistaken idea which will not work.

But auto approvals? Nope, you're dead wrong there. A lot of subs get approved immediately because they are well written, but a lot of them have to have minor (or major) corrections to fix up.

What you're fundamentally missing about the codex and factory is that the judging ensures quality because people KNOW their sub will be read and judged.
Without that simple step, people would post whatever they want and rely on the fact that there's so much stuff going up that they won't be noticed or caught. You talk about wiki moderation and crowd-sourcing, but those are inefficient, after the fact tools which are not an effective means of co-ordinating a united style.

 

[Tefka]

I'm in the minority, but I'd give up divs for wiki. Tbh, I'd give up factory for wiki. My end goal is for both factory and codex to gone in favor of the wiki - but I thought saying all of that front and center would only cause some knee jerk reactions.

well, community input and approval is desired and taken into account, but the only knees jerking you gotta worry about is me, Valiens, the Admins, the Staff Team, and me.

If you water down your suggestion for updoots, you lose points from everyone except the people who aren't implementing the feature.

 

[Srina Talon]

I appreciate the returning initiative but I agree with the rest of Staff minus any "snark" in regards to this suggestion. An SWRP Wiki sounds cool but...Feature bloat. Maintenance. A few "trusted" community members could likely start it up but keeping it going while keeping the peace is another story entirely.

Eventually, I suspect the burden would fall back on Staff and in light of just... Life...It would fall to the wayside.

I will freely admit that I am biased. I like the Codex, go figure, but I am also open to suggestions and happy to think on something that might benefit the community.

However:

Factory and Codex are just ways for judges to feel important, but they don't mean anything or add anything more than a wiki does - they just take more effort.

Please make your suggestion without weird passive aggressive swipes. What you perceive as auto-approvals are simply submissions that have nothing wrong with them. Or - It's something so minor it's not worth causing a delay. Sweating the small stuff in Codex is literally anti-rp and I'm not down with that.

The "pro" and "con" for making a Wiki should not be based on how many denials the Codex does or doesn't have. We want people to have their subs, their cool locations, planets, and what not. Denials imo should be rare.

Thats a good thing.

 

[Judah Lesan]

2. Let's attack the problem, not the people. I've had it up to here with snarkers, that goes for you too, Staff.

Not attacking… just wasn’t sure if the remembered suggesting it. Totally not intending for it to come off that way.

 

[Vazela]

And yes this was an excuse to tell Vazela their opinion doesn't matter and the game is rigged.

Elite hater.