The Backrooms shouldn't be allowed. (STAFF ONLY)

[Antvasima]

Thank you for being reasonable.

Which staff members think what here so far?

 

[KatBoi69]

Thank you for being reasonable.

No worries. I've been on the internet long enough to not take a thread-locking personally. I just care that, eventually, vsbw has some clear guideline about when to index wiki-fiction.

 

[Antvasima]

Yes, that is a perfectly reasonable concern.

 

[Agnaa]

These are my best guesses at where people's opinions lie. Feel free to leave a post on my wall or a private message if you want me to change/add your opinion and don't want to have that clogging up the thread.

Backrooms should not be allowed: 2 [2 staff] (@Crabwhale, @DontTalkDT) {Warning: Crab agreed with OP, who later changed her stance to the next option}

Wikidot Backrooms should not be allowed, other coherent creations (i.e. Kane Pixels on YouTube) are fine: 8 [6 staff] (@Roachman40, @Moritzva, @Arceus0x, @Maverick_Zero_X, @Antvasima, @Mr._Bambu, @DarkDragonMedeus, @Ultima_Reality)

Wait until Wikidot Backrooms content is more cohesive to allow it, other coherent creations (i.e. Kane Pixels on YouTube) are fine: 4 [1 staff] (@Jibz, @Ayewale, @KatBoi69, @Nehz_XZX)

Wait until one source of Backrooms canon stands tall as the primary canon and only index that: 5 [2 staff] (@Agnaa, @Promestein, @Uninown, @LordGriffin1000, @GyroNutz)

Wikidot and Liminal Archives should be allowed since they have strict enough rules: 7 [5 staff] (@Ottavio_Merluzzo, @Greatsage13th, @Tllmbrg, @Zaratthustra, @Sir_Ovens, @The_Impress, @Confluctor)

Wikidot and Liminal Archives should be allowed if they stick to article canon: 2 [2 staff] (@Qawsedf234, @Starter_Pack)

 

[Tllmbrg]

I’m cool with the Backrooms being allowed

 

[Antvasima]

Thank you for helping out, Agnaa. Should I ask more staff members to comment here then?

 

[Agnaa]

At least ask the three I mentioned. If they move to being against it, there would be a solid consensus against it. If they're still for it, we'd probably need to bring more in.

 

[Antvasima]

Recently, I saw the following thread on The Backrooms.

I do not think The Backrooms have any place on the wiki. Here is why.

The Backrooms is a relatively disorganized, SCP-esque verse heavily reliant on community input and spread out across many mediums. Unlike SCP, there are many different avenues of creation, from Wikidot to Fandom and anywhere else. There exists no singular, concrete sense of canon, and only various different websites that put up their own vague rules.

The most common reason I see for it's approval is the presence of SCP. There are problems with this.

First off, SCP is already a highly contentious verse that finds itself in conflict quite often. I am not going to repeat the many, many arguments against it's presence, as they have been debated elsewhere. It only barely stays on because of it's high barrier of entry and high centralization.

So, why are we allowing the same thing, but with a lower barrier of entry and lower centralization?

The Backrooms are often said to be allowed with a split between Wikidot and Wikia. Aside from both being purely community splits, this doesn't properly define what is allowed on the wiki or not. What stops someone from making an interpretation from another community? Reddit? Some other website? It's not like these two are supported by the creator of The Backrooms. SCP has one website that is allowed, and it is the SCP wiki. Nothing else.

Not to mention, the barrier of entry is objectively lower on all counts. This isn't debatable, it just is. Standards exist, but it's nothing compared to the rigorous standards of SCP and their singular wiki. If a high barrier of entry is one of the most referred to arguments for SCP's continued existence, why are we lowering the bar so easily?

SCP is closer to an exception than the rule. It has always teetered on the edge of what is allowed, and The Backrooms are blatantly past said line. Allowing The Backrooms sets a precedent allowing wide-input community projects with worse content moderation onto the wiki, which I can't allow in any capacity. I want to stop this before the ball gets rolling any further.

These are my best guesses at where people's opinions lie. Feel free to leave a post on my wall or a private message if you want me to change/add your opinion and don't want to have that clogging up the thread.

Backrooms should not be allowed: 1 [1 staff] (@Crabwhale) {Warning: Crab agreed with OP, who later changed her stance to the next option}

Wikidot Backrooms should not be allowed, other coherent creations (i.e. Kane Pixels on YouTube) are fine: 6 [4 staff] (@Roachman40, @Moritzva, @Arceus0x, @Maverick_Zero_X, @Antvasima, @Mr._Bambu)

Wait until Wikidot Backrooms content is more cohesive to allow it, other coherent creations (i.e. Kane Pixels on YouTube) are fine: 3 [0 staff] (@Jibz, @Ayewale, @KatBoi69)

Wait until one source of Backrooms canon stands tall as the primary canon and only index that: 3 [0 staff] (@Agnaa, @Promestein, @Uninown)

Wikidot and Liminal Archives should be allowed since they have strict enough rules: 3 [1 staff] (@Ottavio_Merluzzo, @Greatsage13th, @Tllmbrg)

I will note that from the last thread, some staff members haven't commented. Those would be @Zaratthustra, @Sir_Ovens, and @Qawsedf234. All of whom were explicitly okay with Backrooms being allowed.

@AKM sama @DontTalkDT @DarkDragonMedeus @SomebodyData @Celestial_Pegasus @Wokistan @Andytrenom @Mr._Bambu @Elizhaa @Qawsedf234 @ByAsura @Sir_Ovens @Starter_Pack @Abstractions @LordGriffin1000 @Colonel_Krukov @SamanPatou @GyroNutz @Damage3245

Would you be willing to help out here please?

 

[Agnaa]

idk if quoted mentions count. If they don't, then I think you forgot to mention Zaratthustra.

 

[Antvasima]

@Moritzva @Crabwhale @Maverick_Zero_X @Promestein @Zaratthustra

Your further input would also be appreciated here.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

I suppose I agree more with Moritzva.

 

[Antvasima]

Thank you for the evaluation.

 

[Zaratthustra]

Like I said in the previous thread I'm not knowledgeable on how backroom (scp and the like works) beyond a few basic things. As long as each page its self contained without adjacent material can work, I think as you won't have multiple canons or things that could change massively ... I guess it could be allowed if they are coherent pages.

 

[DontTalkDT]

Personally, I would like to see even SCP deleted (or at least restrict it to 1st and 2nd series article canon), so I'm obviously more in favour of not featuring this verse.

 

[Antvasima]

Personally, I would like to see even SCP deleted (or at least restrict it to 1st and 2nd series article canon), so I'm obviously more in favour of not featuring this verse.

Thank you for the evaluation.

I and Bambu very much agree with this sentiment. Likely other staff members as well.

 

[Nehz_XZX]

I actually like the SCP profiles and think that it would be a pity to not feature something that could technically be indexed though I understand not allowing or removing them if they turn out to be too much trouble. Disorganization, a lack of a concrete canon and vague rules are certainly good reasons to not allow The Backrooms as far as I'm concerned and I also understand why the SCP Extended Canon keys, which I find interesting to peruse, could be problematic since they are technically composites of multiple versions featured in different tales by different authors that aren't necessarily directly connected.

 

[Moritzva]

While it is interesting to see so many people opposed to SCP, that's not quite the purpose of this thread!

That being said, there is a question as to what our end goals truly are. I would personally support a full ban on wiki/community fiction for the time being, citing SCP as "the exception, not the rule", but given SCP does exist, making a notion stating why it exists and how harsh the standards are for any sort of community fiction on an actual page is the least we can do. Then, we remove all community fiction Backrooms works, and go from there.

That being said, we would probably need a separate thread to discuss the specifics of such. Until then, any Wikidot/community fictions Backrooms should be banned, and anything like Kanes should(?) be allowed as long as they fit our other rules, which they probably do.

 

[Sir_Ovens]

I think my stance on the matter should be known by now. I see no issue with community fiction projects as long as they're given sufficient moderation and quality control. What we deem "of quality" should be further discussed, but outright annexation of any and all community based fiction is a gross overcorrection of what is otherwise a relatively harmless issue.

SCP is not the topic of the thread, so I will refrain from commenting on that.

Creators making their works high tier is also another issue we should discuss on another thread because I think people make too big a deal about it.

 

[Moritzva]

Creators making their works high tier is also another issue we should discuss on another thread because I think people make too big a deal about it.

As someone who moderates FCOC, trust me when I say creators making their works high tier is a very big issue.

 

[Sir_Ovens]

As someone who moderates FCOC, trust me when I say creators making their works high tier is a very big issue.

I think it's a matter of content and context. We don't just go banning LNs for having ungodly high tiers despite the quality of the material being close to toilet paper. Intent is something that is rarely brought up in any of these discussions and I know why. It's almost absolutely impossible to tell if a high tier was given in good faith or for arbitrary VS debating reasons. And I tell you solemnly, we will never get it 100% right. Getting rid of community made fiction won't solve your issue. The solution to your problem is scorched earth and I don't think anyone wants to see that happen.

 

[Tllmbrg]

High tier stuff being an issue with the Backrooms is not likely imo
Most people care about the levels/locations anyways so the people indexing that are probably not even going to make any out there pages

Plus from I understand multiple entities are getting a rework due to them being low quality writing wise so there’s a level of control (Seriously just slapping some tier 1 or 0 entity seems rather hard in the context of the Backrooms)

 

[LordGriffin1000]

@AKM sama @DontTalkDT @DarkDragonMedeus @SomebodyData @Celestial_Pegasus @Wokistan @Andytrenom @Mr._Bambu @Elizhaa @Qawsedf234 @ByAsura @Sir_Ovens @Starter_Pack @Abstractions @LordGriffin1000 @Colonel_Krukov @SamanPatou @GyroNutz @Damage3245

Would you be willing to help out here please?

I really don't have much to say regarding this but you can lump me in with this one below...

Wait until one source of Backrooms canon stands tall as the primary canon and only index that: 3 [0 staff] (Agnaa, Promestein, Uninown)

 

[Qawsedf234]

In my view it's more about specifics rather than just community work.

I don't think using adjacent material or extended canon should be allowed, but a profile only going off a singular article is just working off a single source. Which I don't see anything wrong with.

If were using some community novel or secondary source as justification, then I agree that it should be removed.

Or to write an example: If some profile is talking about Entity 887 and the profile only uses the page for Entity 887 I think it's fine. If we're using the short story "The truth about Entity 887" for some justification however, I believe that just non-useable material.

 

[Starter_Pack]

Honestly? I can't agree more with Qawsedf's proposal.

I feel like the biggest problem most people have is the seemingly low bar of entry for the Backrooms in comparison to SCP and the mixed interpretations of what is or isn't the primary canon, be it Wikidot or FANDOM.

My solution to this issue? Just heccin' pick one, and stick with it until further notice, preferably the Wikidot version if I had to choose. Add a note at the top of the Backrooms verse page and say, "This verse page uses the Wikidot version of The Backrooms, which can be found here." That will solve the question of which canon to use until further notice.

As for Bobsican making threats of adding a "Tier 0 penguin" as TheGreatSage stated, I cannot stress enough how utterly ridiculous of a threat this is, and as was said there, that would be difficult to implement into the community as, while they are not as organized as SCP, still recognize whether something is quality content or not and would likely reject this attempt on the spot. However, if something like this does come to pass, the best solution would likely be for the staff to dole out a punishment to the offending user and ban said Entity from having a profile for the reasons above.

Forgive me if my arguments make me seem naive, but I tend to be more accepting of our different profiles than most people seemingly are, and as Ovens said, this just seems like a gross overcorrection of this apparent issue, which I believe can be solved by implementing the above options.

 

[DontTalkDT]

IMO If you can realistically just add an OC to a verse at all then IMO it should be featured on the FC/OC wiki instead, as it evidently features FC/OC content. My rule of thumb for something being "notable" for our page was always that you couldn't create it just for the purpose of having your personal character in vs-debates.

And, seriously, these verses content is inevitably reactionary to what people do with them. If lots of people get invested in vs-debate interesting characters, authors will start writing stuff that audience is interested in.
Or, to be specific, it's the standard web 2.0 pattern: You publish something including topic A and just so happen to attract a lot of people interested in topic A. Some percentage of those people will then publish more on topic A, which attracts yet more people interested in it and so on. A self-amplifying loop.
Basically, if the vs-community becomes seriously and widely interested in this stuff it inevitably becomes corrupted, sooner or later. And by "natural" means at that.

 

[Tllmbrg]

Cool, why is that a problem?
Are we just not allowed to be interested in web stuff because it "taints" it?

 

[DontTalkDT]

Cool, why is that a problem?
Are we just not allowed to be interested in web stuff because it "taints" it?

You're allowed to be interested in anything you want. In fact, if you want to debate FC/OC stuff vs debates I have good news: There is a wiki for that.
Web stuff that isn't users adding their OCs is a completely different story as well. We feature web novels and stuff. Never had a problem with those if they are somewhat notable.

 

[Tllmbrg]

You're allowed to be interested in anything you want. In fact, if you want to debate FC/OC stuff vs debates I have good news: There is a wiki for that.

I don't like it, I'd rather SCP be on the wiki I actually use

Web stuff that isn't users adding their OCs is a completely different story as well. We feature web novels and stuff. Never had a problem with those if they are somewhat notable.

Web novels can easily be influnced by vs debaters too though

 

[Antvasima]

While it is interesting to see so many people opposed to SCP, that's not quite the purpose of this thread!

That being said, there is a question as to what our end goals truly are. I would personally support a full ban on wiki/community fiction for the time being, citing SCP as "the exception, not the rule", but given SCP does exist, making a notion stating why it exists and how harsh the standards are for any sort of community fiction on an actual page is the least we can do. Then, we remove all community fiction Backrooms works, and go from there.

That being said, we would probably need a separate thread to discuss the specifics of such. Until then, any Wikidot/community fictions Backrooms should be banned, and anything like Kanes should(?) be allowed as long as they fit our other rules, which they probably do.

As someone who moderates FCOC, trust me when I say creators making their works high tier is a very big issue.

I agree with this. Allowing fan-created verses with incoherent patchwork continuities without true storytelling, that have likely directly been customised to get as high tiers as possible by people who are members both in our wiki and the origin sites themselves, given the constant gradual increase in the SCP tiers over the years, seems very unwise to say the least.

We are currently spammed with tier 0 and High 1-A SCP pages for example.

 

[Tllmbrg]

We are currently spammed with tier 0 and High 1-A SCP pages for example.

Place (The guy who is basically why this has happened) has no relation to vs debaters, in fact there's some stuff floating that he actively dislikes us so like

 

[DontTalkDT]

Web novels can easily be influnced by vs debaters too though

Not really. Or, at least in a much much lesser extent. Sure, you could chat up an author and give him some suggestions, but the author of a popular webnovel is unlikely to change his ideas for the story due to just that. It's waaaaay different from just being able to sit down and add in some aspect you came up with yourself.

Place (The guy who is basically why this has happened) has no relation to vs debaters, in fact there's some stuff floating that he actively dislikes us so like

Yeah, but probably interested in many of the vs-debate topics of higher dimensional space, alephs, hierarchies of existence etc. I.e. community interested in that attracts authors that publish things like that. Especially if whether your content can stay is decided by a voting system...

 

[Antvasima]

Not really. Or, at least in a much much lesser extent. Sure, you could chat up an author and give him some suggestions, but the author of a popular webnovel is unlikely to change his ideas for the story due to just that. It's waaaaay different from just being able to sit down and add in some aspect you came up with yourself.

Yes, strongly agreed, and as I mentioned above, these seem to be characters without any true storytelling from incoherent patchwork settings. We seem to essentially be creating pages based on somebody's unofficial D&D campaign, but even worse, since a campaign is at least a form of story participation, not just us writing fact sheets based on other fact sheets.

 

[Saikou_The_Lewd_King]

I don't get why people are throwing a fit or why this devolved into "wah Wiki-based fiction bad".

If a collaborative fiction website has a concrete definition of what is or isn't part of itself and if it has good enough standards as to what gets included in it, then it should be allowed. Stuff like, you know, SCP (or RPC, since iirc it works the same way) works by that logic.

But if a collaborative fiction is just some kind of big scaling orgy that takes stuff from unrelated YouTube videos or other websites due to being based on the same original theme, then it's probably too loose to make proper profiles around it.


That's all there should be to it. I don't know how the Backrooms media work, but if the Wikis are just very loose in their canons and take on other stuff outside of their websites in their canons, then they shouldn't be in. But if they had a collaborative website with strict rules regarding canon and copyright and shit, it should be allowed. Each Backrooms media being based on the same original idea doesn't make them illegal inherently.

 

[Rabbit2002]

Not really. Or, at least in a much much lesser extent. Sure, you could chat up an author and give him some suggestions, but the author of a popular webnovel is unlikely to change his ideas for the story due to just that. It's waaaaay different from just being able to sit down and add in some aspect you came up with yourself.


Yeah, but probably interested in many of the vs-debate topics of higher dimensional space, alephs, hierarchies of existence etc. I.e. community interested in that attracts authors that publish things like that. Especially if whether your content can stay is decided by a voting system...

As one of many main reasons Why SCP can be Tier 0 like this, I would say

Spoiler

Read SCP-6747 from Place and Tell me how does it give anything above High-1B ? High-1A and 0 come from dozens of other things, Place is just a connection to it
I as a person literally exist in four discord servers, each with a Placeholder and one of them is where he and literally dozens of his friends write about their Megacanon, can confirm Place has nothing to do with Vsdebaters lol!
He even hates answering questions to the point of directly banning one or two people so, even if those questions may or may not be Vsdebaters related, simply because "Go with your headcanon, writing is difficult".
Tell me, how can an author be interested in Vsdebaters, Aleph but literally write nothing about Aleph, claiming multiple times SCP Omniverse and Infosphere (both of which are given Tier 0 by us), the former cannot infinite universes or infinite-dimensional, the latter being Finite? And Place never even wrote about anything related to Aleph, on the contrary he and many others mocked us and things from Vsdebaters to the extent of "Inaccessible cardinal = this character can beat goku/This"

 

[Rabbit2002]

If You have problems with Tier 0 SCP
Blame us (SCP Revision Team)
Not Blame The Verse and/or Blame Place Himself
That's all things I want to say
Sorry for derailed

 

[KatBoi69]

If You have problems with Tier 0 SCP
Blame us (SCP Revision Team)
Not Blame The Verse and/or Blame Place Himself
That's all things I want to say
Sorry for derailed

Ok, along this same line of reasoning, I think it's fair to acknowledge that a verse which deals with inherently esoteric concepts and has containment as parts of its main plot conceit, will tend to produce uncontainable entities for the sake of drama and increasing stakes.

What's more uncontainable than a cosmic entity outside the bounds of explanation?

I think it's very important that anyone arguing "corruption by vsbw users/general power scalers" have specific evidence to demonstrate that sort of corruption has occurred, because this verse inherently lends itself to the generation of high tier entities, meaning the presence of multiple high tiers could just be coincidence.

 

[Saikou_The_Lewd_King]

Also yeah no offense but "wah SCP is high tier because of Vs Debaters" is an utterly terrible argument with no actual proof behind it. SCP is not only a gigantic verse but it's also a big nerd verse that focuses on weird esoteric concepts a lot, especially lately. I'd say it getting big tier shit eventually was inevitable, regardless of whatever Vs Debater conspiracy you guys believe in.

 

[Moritzva]

I don't get why people are throwing a fit or why this devolved into "wah Wiki-based fiction bad".

If a collaborative fiction website has a concrete definition of what is or isn't part of itself and if it has good enough standards as to what gets included in it, then it should be allowed. Stuff like, you know, SCP (or RPC, since iirc it works the same way) works by that logic.

But if a collaborative fiction is just some kind of big scaling orgy that takes stuff from unrelated YouTube videos or other websites due to being based on the same original theme, then it's probably too loose to make proper profiles around it.


That's all there should be to it. I don't know how the Backrooms media work, but if the Wikis are just very loose in their canons and take on other stuff outside of their websites in their canons, then they shouldn't be in. But if they had a collaborative website with strict rules regarding canon and copyright and shit, it should be allowed. Each Backrooms media being based on the same original idea doesn't make them illegal inherently.

This is what we have discussed in this thread, yes.

Strawmanning anti-wikifiction arguments won't get us anywhere, either. There are a lot of worries about the slippery slope of blurring the fine line between VSBW and FCOC content, and a lot of these recent proposals are exactly what this mindset is worried about.

However. That's not the point of this thread.

We are getting rid of The Backrooms wikifiction, nothing more. I don't like wikifiction in-general, but I'm focused on The Backrooms taking things too far, nothing more.

Additionally, chill out with the strawman and try to not passive-aggressively mock people with actual nuances to their arguments, Saikou. I shouldn't have to tell a former staff member this.

 

[Greatsage13th]

Strawman?

 

[Hl3_or_bust]

I am aware that this is a staff only thread and I'm commenting on something that is off-topic, but of course nobody else doing that is in trouble so **** it.

I see the wording "if anyone can realistically add a character to a verse..." come up a good bit here.

This completely takes SCP off the hook basically. Anyone who has actually interacted with the site, myself included, will tell you that the standards are not only very high, but often contradictory in a manner that works against a prospective author, and even the official channels meant to be used to have your drafts evaluated tend to cause people to fall off the face of the earth.

All in all, it is not even slightly realistic for some random fucko on this thread to go and make a profile of any kind. And of course, there's also the fact that a verse having a lot of high tier pages doesn't mean a ******* thing. I'm sure it feels suspicious, which you're perfectly fine to think, but the moment you try to delete the verse based on that you've essentially just said "this verse should be deleted because I don't like it", which is the slipperiest of slippery slopes.