Forum:Migrating Userpage Fan Fiction

Intro
Recently Halopedia has seen an explosion of Fan Fiction. While restricted, for now, on User pages it has been slowly been creeping into the articles of Halopedia. New users coming to Halopedia and seeing all this Fan Fiction automatically assume that Halopedia is great place to write some fiction and start creating their own fiction articles like the recently erased, Red Death's Human Character.

Even when users are keeping their non canon creations on their pages they are disguising the location by using the template to make it appear like their User page fiction is a real Halopedia article further confusing users not familiar with Halopedia. A new user who was directed to such a disguised Userpage would assume that the fan fiction is canon fact because it’s on Halopedia, which damages our reputation as a source of facts about the Halo Universe. In addition to the risk of harming Halopedia’s reputation the editing of Fan Fiction has been clogging up the recent edits page making it harder to stop vandals and to stop new users adding fan fiction to articles which was a problem even before the recent Fan Fiction explosion.


 * I think we need to continue with a permanent migration notice. I've seen several new members join within the past week that have created fan fiction on their pages. We need to renew the migration notice and keep it on the Fan Fiction header permanently. Otherwise the new users won't know of the other Fanon site, and they'll just keep making Fanon here.
 * -- Donut THX 1138 [[Image:Capt Donut.PNG|32px]] [ Comm ] - [ CoH ] - [ 'Nodotee ] 15:58, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Course of Action
So while the User page fiction has been tolerated in the past due to the overwhelming increase of fiction articles and especially the hidden articles fan fiction is being moved to the Halo fanon site. While some people will be upset by the move we have to ask ourselves, what is Halopedia?

Is Halopedia a source of facts on Halo canon or is Halopedia a storage space for Fan Fiction?

End of the World?
Now some view this move as the end of the world but it's not really such a big deal. You’re not being asked to erase your Fan Fiction but to just move it to the Halo Fanon Wikia where you won't have any restrictions and go crazy with your creative juices. You can still link from there to Halopedia articles via the interwikia link tags:

So to link from Halopedia to the Halo Fanon Wikia all you have to do is enter the following interwiki link tag:

w:c:Halofanon:Main Page

and you of course format it like any wiki link by using the | so Halo Fanon Main Page will appear as Halo Fanon Main Page

On the Halo fanon site if you want to link back to Halopedia, for example to the Elite article, then you would Elite

Article Links
If you want you can use the following to make it easier to link to your Fanon article

RPGs
What about RPGs? Well they be able to stay? -- Like what EVER 00:20, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about my article. I got totally absent minded. I apologize to anyone who thought it was fact. Red  Death  00:39, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Headers
Technically, the main reasoning you gave behind banning fanfic was because it might confuse members, yet the only pages marked for migration are those that contain the this-is-fanfiction template at the top, so new users would have to be blind to miss the bright green this-isn't-canon-fool! header. Doesn't that, thus, render to migration pointless. I think, rather than migrate everything (sure, twould be cool...but it would also be a hassle for me to catalogue and double check canon-friendliness of this influx...hell, I can hardly keep up with the articles we're getting now...being the only person worried about editing and not about creating is annoying...) to the HaloFanon site, why not have a campaign to put the fanfic header up on all user namespace fanfiction?
 * --Master Gunnery Sergeant Hank J Wimbleton IV COM 23:57, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
 * The pages that are marked for migration are the ones with the header because those are the only ones we know about. There are probably a lot more out there, I just ran into a whole bunch of pages by Councilor Shch 'Nodotee (Fan Fiction Name) who not only hides that he is creating fan fiction by using the

but is using his own Fan Fiction warning to get around the migration notice. With more and more people coming to Halopedia just to create FanFiction its going to be harder to keep track of people who like, Councilor Shch 'Nodotee, try and cover their tracks. We're getting to busy to constantly keep on the look out for fanfiction articles spilling over from Userpage fiction. We are not saying don't do FanFiction, just do it on the Fanon site. -- Esemono 03:49, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Something also at issue is the existence of fanfiction Redirects, Templates, and categories, all of which fall under the auspices of the Canon Policy. Without these, it will be effectively impossible to organize fanfiction. -ED 20:21, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Esomono, are you suggesting that the only reason Donut THX 1138 came to halopedia was to create fanfiction? I can see how the title template might be deceiving, but not if there is a giant warning-this-is-fanfiction header and under the name a redirect back to the user namespace, indicating that it is indeed on a user namespace and not an article on its own (and that's ignoring the fact that the title template's size and font are inherently different from the regular title font and size, and thus one should be able to tell the difference). ED, I can understand not wanting Fanfiction redirects and categories, and to a degree, templates, but I still do not think that fanfiction should be banned from user namespaces.
 * --Master Gunnery Sergeant Hank J Wimbleton IV COM 04:35, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
 * How exactly do you plan to organize your material without any categories, templates, or redirects? -ED 22:47, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Hold on. Let me get this straight, Esomono is saying I'm coming here to create Fan Fiction and I'm trying to cover my tracks so people will think it's true? The way you speak Esomono, i might as well be a vandal. Now, let's hear the other side, I'm leading the votes for both Halopedian of the Month, and for acceptance to the Fan Art Committee for all the hard work I've done here. Within the past two I've been a member here I've improved a countless number of articles and currently have over 2000 edits! I've created the CoH, created new templates/userboxes, and uploaded almost 100 new images! I think I've earned the right to have a few pages of Fan Fiction, the pages even have a custom made Warning on them. You'd have to be some kind of idiot to miss it! I rest my case.
 * --Councilor 'Nodotee [[Image:Donut 7.JPG|35px]] [ BattleNet ] - [ Covenant of Halopedia ] 17:01, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
 * No. He said some users are coming exclusively to create fanfiction. You are obviously not one of them. Also, the rules apply to everyone, with 2 edits or 20,000 edits. The Halo Fanon wiki was designed to have fanfiction, Haloepdia was not. -ED 22:47, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes Donut I just used you as an example of how using the template can make it confusing for users and how the admins didn't know your fan fiction existed because you used your own custom header.  Perhaps my wording was wrong but I did not mean to accuse you.   I meant was if you can make all that Fan Fiction with nobody noticing so can all these new users who are coming to Halopedia just to make fan fiction except unlike you they won't be so proactive and add headers. -- Esemono 01:01, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

This is an odd concept, moving all pages with fanfiction in them, would this include the Halo Wars project and RR's ghost? It's only fair. Moving the articles would cause a lot of headaches, as fan-art pictures will have to be re-accepted, and character templates will have to be re-made, and so on. Another thing, is this being done by us? Are we moving our own articles? Or is someone going to move them for us? I need all these questions answered, answer them on my talk-page.
 * --Kwarsh [[image:Gruntiness.jpeg|35px]][ Talk to me! ] - [ Stuff I've done! ] 20:19, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
 * For the good of everyone, I'll answer you here: There are two wikis for star wars AND star trek, one does canon, one does fanon. It's not a new or unusual concept. As for the role-plays, Dragonclaws has suggested they be moved to the forums, I would let him make that decision. Why would we have to re-accept fan art images if the fan art was leaving Halopedia? The Halo Fanon wiki has its own rules on those things. As for the templates and articles, the source code just has to be copied from this wiki to that one, which won't take much time at all, and almost no effort. As for the articles, we would prefer if you moved them yourselves as soon as possible. -ED 22:54, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes RR's Halo Wars project and his Ghost project will be moved to the Fanon site as shown by the migration template. ED summed it up nicely so I won't repeat what he said but this move is not the big deal everyone is making it out to be.  We are not saying don't create Fan fiction, we are saying do it on the Fanon site.   Halopedia IS NOT a place to store your fanfiction. -- Esemono 01:01, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

The problem with moving RPGs and that sort of thing is that you would have to move things like RR's Ghost, which has no place on the Halo Fanon website (not being based on Halo and all). And there is quite a bit of fanfiction that would be moved over that is not canon-friendly, which also does not have a place at Halo Fanon. Halo Fanon wasn't some sort of trash heap where Halopedia could just dump every last bit of disagreeable or nonHalo writing, but rather a place where people serious about fanfiction could put their information. And rules may be rules, but I thought that our user namespace's were for our uses. If I wanted to write about myself, some game concept I might have come up with, or a writing I had done based in the Halo universe, I was able to put it on my user namespace. There are some things that don't belong on user namespaces, but those are things that are offensive, and I surely hope that people don't find fanfiction offensive in any way. We can probably organize fan fiction without too many custom templates (all we really need is the warning fanfiction template, most other templates used can be done without (example: 'Nodotee has an index that lists his pages, but instead of that, he could put a ==See Also== at the bottom; sure its not as nice looking, but if the fanfic templates and such bother you, we can do without). Redirects are something that aren't necessary to organize Userpage Fanfiction. In fact, I can see it as being the most hurtful thing for the less informed, far more deceiving that titles might be. And categories aren't necessary either. Again, they are nice, but we don't need them. And what's this about getting rid of fan art? The purpose of the fan art committee is to find fan art that can be used in actual articles where actual pictures cannot be found. If fan fiction was moved to Halo Fanon, that would not nullify the need for the fan art committee in the least. The two are totally separate subjects.
 * --Master Gunnery Sergeant Hank J Wimbleton IV COM 01:10, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
 * The admins of the Halo Fanon site have already said that the RPGs can and should be moved to the Fanon site.
 * Nobody is saying to move the FanArt Committee, it will stay along with the FanArt Images. --
 * Nobody is saying that you can't write about yourself or some game concept that you have have come up with.
 * Halopedia IS NOT a place to store your fanfiction. -- Esemono 01:14, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

So I'm blind then, correct. I didn't see this: "Why would we have to re-accept fan art images if the fan art was leaving Halopedia?" in one of ED's posts. And what about things like Ghost and History of Lima Company, which aren't or aren't entirely set in the Halo Universe. And my point about the user namespaces isn't that you are disallowing us from doing those other things, but that you shouldn't be disallowing us from doing anything as long as it isn't offensive, such as vulgar language or other things that are normally disallowed entirely from sites. The idea is that we are free to express ourselves as we feel in our user namespaces.
 * --Master Gunnery Sergeant Hank J Wimbleton IV COM 01:23, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * You are free to express yourself. Originally Halopedia had no problem with fanfiction on just a user's page (Like what Donut has right now) but then it started branching out and users have huge networks and micro-wikis on their own namespaces with templates and categories and headers and so on, which not only clogged our recent changes page, but is essentially stealing the community from the Halo fanon wiki because people come here to make fanon instead of there. The only issue here is the Fanart, we (or at least, I) am not concerned about any other userpage content that isn't banned in the policy pages. -ED 01:30, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

RPGs
I'll concede the point of Halo fanon being moved, but what of RPGs?
 * --Master Gunnery Sergeant Hank J Wimbleton IV COM 22:55, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * As FanFiction the RPGs will be moved either to the GamerFocus forum or to the Halo Fanon site. The admins of the Halo Fanon site have already said that the RPGs can and should be moved to the Fanon site.  -- Esemono 00:20, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

What about First Encounter ? Will that be moved as well ?  The God Of War  (Speak with Me)   (My Work)   00:09, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Probably. Its up to RR to move them.
 * --Master Gunnery Sergeant Hank J Wimbleton IV COM 00:14, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Non Halo-Fanon
I'll concede the point of Halo fanon being moved, but what of non-Halo or partial-Halo fanon, such as Ghost and History of Lima Company?
 * --Master Gunnery Sergeant Hank J Wimbleton IV COM 22:55, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * The Fanon you mention will be moved from Halopedia. It's up to the great and helpful Halo Fanon admins how to sort it but I think there are some easy solutions such as:
 * 1) Leave it as is, it's a Fanon site everyone knows it's non-canon why does it matter if it's kind of in the Halo Universe or not?
 * 2) Have some kind of indicator of what "Universe" the Halo Fiction takes place in. Some kind of Image or banner could be used at the top of each page to indicate what Universe the fiction is in.  I.E.  The Lima symbol could be used on pages that take place in the Lima Universe or a large attractive banner proclaiming that the article takes place in Donut's Universe etc etc - Esemono 00:20, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Thing is, it is halofanon.wikia.net, not fanon.wikia.net. Like I said before, this isn't just some hole you can stuff all of the fanon on Halopedia, it is a functioning wiki site for Halo Fanon that does not directly contradict established Halo canon. Besides, since things such as History of Lima and Ghost aren't written in the Halo universe, this migration shouldn't apply to them.
 * --Master Gunnery Sergeant Hank J Wimbleton IV COM 04:09, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
 * So why is Halopedia the designated "Hole" to, "stuff all of the fanon" and this is all moot as History of Lima has already been migrated and Ghost is going too. -- Esemono 04:31, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Halopedia user namespaces are a place for expressing one's self. If thus far the only thing not allowed outside of the previously agreed terms is Halo fanon, then Ghost and History of Lima shouldn't be affected. I won't do anything about them being on user namespaces, but they aren't going to get their own articles. When I get back and do a full review of Halo Fanon, History of Lima will be moved to Ryanngreenday's user namespace, and if Ghosts is there by the time I get back, it too will be moved. I have conceded the point of moving Halo Fanon, as that is the purpose of the site, but non-Halo Fanon will not be accepted in the articles.
 * --Master Gunnery Sergeant Hank J Wimbleton IV COM 00:14, 15 March 2007 (UTC)


 * If Halopedia user namespaces are a place for expressing one's self, then why aren't Halo-fanon user namespaces a place for expressing one's self, too? Just put it there, at the top say in some humongous font that it IS fanon but is NOT Halo-fanon, and link to it from here, just like you would if it was here. If you want be express yourself here but not at Halo-fanon, you are doing Halopedia a sumpreme injustice. As long as you still have a place for it and can still link to it. who gives a smeg? Just move it over to your user namespace on the Halo-fanon wiki by March 20, and give it a rest. g u e s t y -p e r s o n y -t h i <font color="#00ff00">n <font color="#44ff44">g <font color="#99ff99">y  17:18, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

I have already stated that they can put them in their Halo Fanon user namespaces, but I still think that they shouldn't be forced to move to Halo Fanon. They can come, but why should they be forced?
 * --Master Gunnery Sergeant Hank J Wimbleton IV COM 07:39, 17 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Non-Halo fanon isn't being forced to move TO Halofanon, just AWAY from Halopedia. Halofanon's just a suggested place. <font color="#000000">g <font color="#770000">u <font color="#cc0000">e <font color="#ff0000">s <font color="#ff3333">t <font color="#ff6666">y -<font color="#9999ff">p <font color="#6666ff">e <font color="#3333ff">r <font color="#0000ff">s <font color="#0000cc">o <font color="#000066">n <font color="#000000">y -<font color="#000000">t <font color="#007700">h <font color="#00cc00">i <font color="#00ff00">n <font color="#44ff44">g <font color="#99ff99">y  07:43, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
 * They may not be forced to move it to halo fanon, but it would be the best idea. Not only is it the subgroup of Halopedia, but it is also right next to each other, since instead of typing halo.wikia.com you type halofanon.wikia.com. Also I have the link and other links to stuff on my monobook.js, which Halopedia could use to connect both of our wikis together, instead of just the main page link.--H*bad 15:28, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

"Yes RR's Halo Wars project and his Ghost project will be moved to the Fanon site as shown by the migration template." Note that he says "will be moved". He doesn't say "should be moved", "could be moved", or "might be moved", he says "will be moved" as in Ghost, which has nothing to do with Halo, and cannot confuse any new users about Halo canon because it isn't Halo fanon, will be moved from Halopedia to Halo Fanon. He doesn't note that it doesn't belong in its own article, but rather groups it with Halo Wars, which is Halo canon-friendly fanon.
 * --Master Gunnery Sergeant Hank J Wimbleton IV COM 18:35, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Main Issues
The main issues are:

The admins had to ask ourselves, What is Halopedia? Is Halopedia a source for Canon information about the Halo Universe or is Halopedia a place to store your fanfiction? As ED said this isn't a new idea, Wookiepedia, Star Trek all have Fanon Wikia sites we're not saying do not create Fan Fiction just do it on the Fanon site. To move your article is not a big deal just cut and paste and you're done. The Admins of the Fanon site are helpful and attentive and can place your article in the right place. We ask that you move your article but Halopedia will do it for you if you wait to long. -- Esemono 01:13, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
 * New users are coming to Halopedia for the sole reason to create FanFiction as they see all this new fan fiction that is being created by recent users. There is a point where we will not be able to keep track of all the fan fiction and some is going to slip into our canon articles, this was a problem even before the all this new fan fiction.
 * The RPGs and other fan fiction works are clogging the recent edits page as users refuse to use the show preview button so that they can inflate their edit count. All these userpage edits make it hard for Halopedians to A)Keep track of this influx of fan fiction and B) stop vandal attacks
 * Users are using templates and categories for their Fanfiction which due to coding restrictions can not have the "Userpage" prefix thus further confusing the issue to new users.

All right, I got it now. I'll be adding my Kwarsh article to the Halo fanon wiki soon. :--Kwarsh [ Talk to me! ] - [ Stuff I've done! ] 18:21, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok. I've finished cleaning my userpage of everything that's going to be moved. I transferred everything but some stuff on my main page. If anyone wants any help moving fan fiction please contact me, i'd be glad to help.
 * --Councilor 'Nodotee [[Image:Donut 7.JPG|35px]] [ BattleNet ] - [ Covenant of Halopedia ] 21:17, 12 March 2007 (UTC)


 * And you think that by moving fan fiction to another site that people won't come here anyway?
 * People do that with articles too. Should we start cutting out stub articles too since they don't add much to Halopedia?
 * And as I said, we can do without categories and templates. Most of the fan fiction can be written with existing templates, such as character info boxes and battle info boxes.
 * --Master Gunnery Sergeant Hank J Wimbleton IV COM 01:28, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, and as a free offer, we will standardize any fanon that needs standardizing for you. In case anyone was ever interested.--H*bad 04:00, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, sounds like my job just got harder. lol
 * --Master Gunnery Sergeant Hank J Wimbleton IV COM 22:56, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Naw, you don't have to do anything you don't want to, but remember I can downgrade your easily... just joking. But seriously, if you don't feel like added the interwiki links, we will do that for you... and yeah.--H*bad 20:04, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I planned on adding the interwiki links to all articles (while searching for blanks) when I got back on Saturday or Sunday anyway.
 * --Master Gunnery Sergeant Hank J Wimbleton IV COM 00:09, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

I must tell you guys that we don't want halo fanon that doesn't happen in the halo universe. Move that stuff to the fanon.wikia.com. Thanks, --H*bad 21:20, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Halo Fanon move
I fully agree with the idea of moving it, not just because of the fact that I am the co-founder of the Halo Fanon Wiki, but because of the fact that somethings go a little bit far. Like for example, making sequels to the RPGs, wouldn't that be taking it a little to far. Now I am also partly for keeping them here, if their is a lot of trouble with moving them. But I am against RPGs having more than one of them. If they wish to have sequels why not have the sequels at the Halo Fanon Wiki. Secondly, perhaps users should not be allowed to have more than RPG on their userspace. For in the future, people might change this from working hard on articles, to working hard on RPGs. I used to be on a wiki who decided to do away with Fanon and moved it to another wiki. That wiki is doing very well, after they fixed their problem of people making a lot of fanon. Thanks, --H*bad 06:13, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

How do you make a move?

Th~| No  bi  na  to  r^  _|> <font color="#CC55YY">Noone to Talk to<font color="FF22CC">| <font color="FF99FF">Nothing to do


 * You copy the RPG over to the Halo Fanon. To do this, you must go to your RPG/Fanon and copy and cut it. Then you go to the Halo Fanon and make a page for your RPG.--H*bad 20:03, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm done.
All right, I moved my fanfiction over to the Halo Fanon wiki. --Kwarsh [ Talk to me! ] - [ Stuff I've done! ] 19:38, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you. -ED 20:13, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
 * No problem, ED. --Kwarsh [[image:Gruntiness.jpeg|35px]][ Talk to me! ] - [ Stuff I've done! ] 20:53, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Same here I 'purged' my fanon on my userpage per your request  The God Of War  (Speak with Me)   (My Work)   20:15, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks to you, too then. -ED 20:17, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

You can delete User:Rotaretilbo/Hank, I've had most of that ported over for some time, and I've corrected my sig to link with Halo Fanon.
 * --Master Gunnery Sergeant Hank J Wimbleton IV COM 00:07, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I'll take care of that. -ED 01:36, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

You can delete Grel Dar 'Wandoree as well his page because I moved his info/bio to Halo fanon.  The God Of War  (Speak with Me)   (My Work)   01:40, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

March 20
March 20th is the deadline to move your Fan Fiction to the Halo Fanon site. If you do not move your Fanon it will be removed. If you have any questions about where to place your work you can ask the Halo Fanon admins, H*bad, RR², or Rot.

Just a note: If the fan fiction isn't Halo, put it in your user namespace rather than an article at Halo Fanon.
 * --Master Gunnery Sergeant Hank J Wimbleton IV COM 14:52, 15 March 2007 (UTC)