Wowpedia talk:Personal article policy

Alternative policy
I was the one that initially proposed this policy, and in the wording I was trying to highlight a particular philosophical distinction between personal articles (which fan fiction or other creative works inherently are) and standard wiki articles. Revisiting it now, though, I think I just made it needlessly confusing. What would people think, in principle, of the following? The effect is much the same, but I think it's a clearer approach.


 * Policy
 * Personal articles are welcome in WoWWiki, but must be located as subpages of the author's user page. Personal articles include:
 * creative works such as fan fiction, observations, and player character biographies,
 * player biographies, and
 * guides where the author wishes to receive credit for the work, such as Aletto's Guide To Azeroth.


 * Objective articles on notable subjects in the Warcraft community are excepted from points 1 and 2. For example, Sword of a Thousand Truths (South Park), Leeroy Jenkins (video), and Thottbot all properly belong in the main namespace.  Fame or infamy within a single realm or battlegroup does not qualify as notability.


 * Enforcement
 * Creative works in the main namespace will be moved to a subpage of the initial creator's user page. Guides credited to one author will have the credit removed; if the initial author wishes to maintain the guide as a personal article, he or she may move it out of the main namespace and restore the credit.


 * Reasoning
 * Q: Why can't my fan fiction or player character biography be located in the main namespace with the other articles?
 * A: WoWWiki is primarily an encyclopedia of information on Warcraft, and most visitors will be looking for information from official Blizzard sources. While fan works are welcomed here (unlike at many wikis), it is extremely important that we keep fan-created content separate from official content.


 * Q: What if I want others to edit my fan fiction?
 * A: You have control over your own subpages, but others can still edit them, and so you are free to invite collaboration or comment. While others are allowed to edit your work, they are doing so on the terms you have set, so you retain control over the article.


 * Q: Why can't I have control over a page in the main namespace?
 * A: In the main namespace, readers are invited to be bold in editing anything they see. If an article is not satisfactory to a reader, he or she is encouraged to completely rewrite the entire thing to make it better.  It is very important for the ongoing growth and improvement of WoWWiki to maintain this atmosphere.  Obviously it does not make much sense to have anyone who comes along replacing your player character's backstory with something completely new.


 * Q: Why can't I receive credit for the guide I worked so hard on?
 * A: You can, but such an article should be located as a subpage of your user page, to make it clear that you are the author and wish to receive acknowledgment for it. Giving credit to a specific individual within an article puts a proprietary stamp on it that discourages collaboration, and particularly discourages large-scale rewrites.  This is contrary to the spirit and strength of a wiki, in which everything is always changing and being improved upon by many different people.  It is the nature of collaboration that one's work, as good as it may be, is subject to change.

--Aeleas 23:53, 1 January 2007 (EST)

Player Characters
I think that player characters should be sub articles for the server they are related to. There are a ton of PC articles that are created by users who do not own them and then it causes problems when they reject having that PC article under their username. I propose that PC articles be separated from fan fiction designation, fan fiction will almost always have a WoWWiki user associated with them. -- 22:52, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Vote results moved to WW:PC