Template talk:Fan Works

Selective?

Aren't we being selective by promoting certain content such as Sangheili's War, Company 0051, and ODSteve? While I'm all out for promoting fan projects, the editor needs to remind themselves whether the content meets that acceptable threshold of notability? I would love to create an article on one of Leviathan's visual work of "Ghosts of Onyx" (collaborated with UNSC Trooper) but I won't. Another example of a good fan project was this popular RPG game in some website a while ago where you build your own SPARTAN and fight against other player's SPARTAN (can't remember the name though). Or how about that Pelican flash game hosted on HBO? All of these, as good as they may be, do not meet the notability threshold and I can say for sure these three content (Sangheili's War, Company 0051, and ODSteve) fall within this category unfortunately. Note: Preference must be secondary, Objective must be primary. — subtank 10:04, 16 March 2013 (EDT)

The requirements that I had was that it needed to have some kind of official recognition from either Bungie or 343, have a significantly large audience, and be a series, not a single one-shot. Sangheili's War was featured by Bungie, as the link on its page showed, and one can't visit LBO without noticing it too. Episodes of ODS Steve appear on Waypoint when they're published, and BS Angel herself used to be involved with the comic. 0051 is slightly more of a stretch, I admit, since while it definitely meets the audience requirement, it hasn't been directly featured on Waypoint. But I actually talked to BS Angel about this, and she said that she enjoys reading 0051 but hasn't featured it because it's too long for Weekly Webcomic. Instead, she's featured other artwork by Jameson, in hopes those who visit it will stumble upon 0051 and read it in their own time. If it failed to met the notability and recognition, like, say, Levi's Halo: Shield and Sword project or the Halo: Gifts of the Ancients fan film, then I left it off. Tuckerscreator^(stalk) 14:03, 16 March 2013 (EDT)

Yeah, Tucker, I don't think its in our best interest to include everything that 343i acknowledges; See this. Most older works are definitely deserving of articles as they defined the creative talent of the Halo fandom. Subtank bullseye'd what we need. Grizzlei ♥ ツ

That abomination doesn't seem to have picked up an audience, though. Like I said, acknowledgement isn't the only requirement, just an important one. And I agreed with you on them being older works. Excluding the fan films and FoA, I'm pretty sure everything else on the template is at least five years old. As Scott McCloud once said, every year in the real world is seven on the Internet. Tuckerscreator^(stalk) 17:56, 16 March 2013 (EDT)

^That first sentence: preference/being selective there. :P

Age is not a factor of notability. If age is a factor, we should bring back Gruntipedia as an article.

What we've concluded in 2011 for fan works was this: that it needs to be recognised by 343i and/or Bungie; and that it needs to be popular with the Halo community; and that there needs not be any form of external elements influencing that popularity (i.e. forced popularity). The issue in this current scenario would appear to be what constitutes as "popular with the Halo community" or "audience requirement" as Tucker puts it. It should be reminded that each content caters to a certain audience, leading to an issue where some amount may look insignificant when one compares it to another audience of other content. What is considered to be popular may not have the amount of audience as one would expect. Who knows, maybe APT 117 does have a sizeable audience? :P

"Looking at the Fan-made category, some of the mentioned seem less than notable, (but that might be a consequence of time or keeping up with the news) at least less notable than this fellow discussed here. Because it HAS been recognized by Bungie and 343. A LOT. Something like say, Company 0051? Still popular, but less noted by the developers, therefore it stays off." -- Your own words.

In so far, I can say that none of the three comics Tucker suggested meet the notability threshold. Simple recognition wouldn't do; it must be well-known, well-received and popular. The easiest way to test this is by putting the title of the content into Google and see how many legitimate sites has reported the content: this is also how Wikipedians would initially test notability prior to applying their notability guidelines. In so far, I can see that Sangheili's War has a number of hits, but that's due to edits made by Tucker on TvTropes (hi, nice to see you there too!). The other two fetched none in the Google Search.

Unless someone can produce a better test of notability for fan works, I think we should exercise a very strict practice for known-but-not-popular fan work as to not to open the floodgates. I guess an exception can be made for fan works if the content is exceptional/unique but this exception must be strictly regulated by the highest standard.— subtank 03:50, 17 March 2013 (EDT)

Google is not a single measure of popularity, site traffic is a stronger proof. Looking at Sangheili's War traffic on DeviantArt, each page has been viewed roughly four thousand times and downloaded roughly one thousand times. Company 0051 has a similar range, early pages having been viewed over nine thousand times and late pages at least two thousand. Those numbers are comparable to the amounts received by "Daily Deviations" featured directly by the site. ODS Steve is harder to measure, though I've heard it referred at times as "one of the more popular comics" in interviews. Will have to find some numbers. And hey, I changed my mind about 0051 after examining the evidence. Changing minds occurs. Tuckerscreator^(stalk) 04:06, 17 March 2013 (EDT)

Site traffic is not an indicator of popularity or recognition: possible derail but related (in a way). This is ever moreso for content uploaded by the author on a site that actively promotes the author's credentials, which is what DeviantArt is for. Also, each visit/download can be accidental, coincidental or the exact content the visitor was looking for (as per link). This is why the best way to assess popularity and/or recognition is Google and check all legitimate sites that cover the content.— subtank 21:54, 17 March 2013 (EDT)

Not really sure what what you mean by the YouTube link. I still wouldn't just throw out site traffic like that, but anyway, assessing popularity on Google. When searching "Halo A Fistful of Arrows", I find interviews of Levi, but most of the search results are the comic itself, because its pages are so numerous. Searching for "company 0051 halo", instead, brings up results of the comics pages but many of the fan made comics made for 0051's contests. That clearly suggests to me that the comic has a wide audience, and its views are not made up solely of people stumbling upon it. Otherwise, the high views of the official pages would outweigh the amount of fan pages. For "Levi Sangheili's War", I find a couple of foreign translations, among other reprintings. Again, bigger audience than just DeviantArt. "ODS Steve", most of the results are the comic's pages, but they're printed across many sites like Waypoint, HBO, Hawty, Spirits of Fire, Bungie.net, YouTube, and Rooster Teeth. Only the Spirits of Fire one is done by the author, the rest are by the comic's fans, including Bungie, 343, and their own fans they show them to. Tuckerscreator^(stalk) 23:33, 17 March 2013 (EDT)

The Youtube link is meant to demonstrate that site traffic is not a strong proof of popularity. The first I could get off the top of my head. Seems like we have different focus when it comes to assessing through Google. Do mind that I do this with utmost scrutiny. What I focused on is looking through legitimate sites such as press sites, avoid hits that refers back to the content or hits made by fans of that content (usually through fan-sites, -blogs, -forums). For example, fanworks such as Halo 2600 and Halo: Out With a Whimper attracted legitimate sites that covered their development/release. The following is how I perform my search:

• Both Company 0051 and ODS Steve" have small amount of hits. By eliminating the source of the content, I then proceed to removing deviantart, halowaypoint, bungie.net, bungie.org, rvb's forum and tvtropes from the search and ended up with no legitimate website covering the content.
• Sangheili's War has similar treatment. I began removing halowaypoint, bungie.net, bungie.org, deviantart, and halofanon (my tribute poem came up on the search? :O). As you said, there are translations, but these are not "legitimate sites covering the content".

The basis for this strict approach originated from the attempts made to get Halopedia on Wikipedia (see David Fuchs' comment). Regardless, there must be sources that reported the content (where the content is the sole subject of an article). As I said repeatedly, this is to ensure the floodgates to remain tightly closed. — subtank 00:33, 18 March 2013 (EDT)

Honestly, the "floodgates" that has been used here occasionally reminds me bit of the slippery slope fallacy; ever since FoA raised the question about flood of fanon forcing themselves on the site, there have only been two additions: Halo: Faith and Halo: Helljumper, not counting the three in question here.

Then if you're going to go by the "solely non-content approach", how would you assess the press of Fistful of Arrows and One One Se7en? What shows then that they deserve their spots? Much of their Google results resembles those of the above comics, and they too rely on distribution from HBO, Bungie.net, DeviantArt, etc. Again, it seems like cutting out the proof by not including the amount of views they get on their host websites, nor their popularity among said sites' users. Tuckerscreator^(stalk) 03:18, 18 March 2013 (EDT)