The Future of FC/OC (Major Changes to Policy and Content Standards)

[Phoenks]

In the words of Colonel Krukov last year... "New year, new FC/OC". This time, I present to you a very serious change.

On FC/OC, we attempt to index characters of unofficial origin coming from fan work and original works. While we want to entertain the practice of users getting their start on these works here, we have to have limitations and regulations in place to prevent the wiki from devolving into a cesspit of content, and to allow us leeway in making case by case decisions. The goal at the end of the day is to put aspiring writers on the right path to learning about content creation, writing creative fiction as a hobby, and to help them learn the intricacies of mediawiki.

For a long time now, we have been far too lenient with the kind of content we allow on the wiki. Even to the point of going beyond the “Fan Character/Original Character” title we have, and indexing everything from VSBW-rejects to Youtube Poops on our site. We have determined this to be at great detriment to the overall quality and character of the site. Furthermore, it has come to the point that we are simply indexing far more than our small team can possibly moderate effectively. This requires a change.

So we come here to set the standard straight. Moving forward, our rules regarding the content we allow on this wiki will be a lot more strict and well-defined.

We have created a new Site Rules page in order to outline our guidelines and standards. I advise EVERYONE to read this page in its entirety. This will be the rule, and it will affect many of our users.

In summary...

• We will be more strict on what kinds of content we allow on the wiki.
• Original Content which is not created by FC/OC users is not allowed. (Note: Original Content. This only applies to originally created verses and characters. Not fan fiction or fan characters. Please read the Site Rules for more information on the definitions and distinctions between these words)
• Fan content is still allowed from any source, but it will be held to a much higher standard, and will be required to distinguish itself from the sources they are based on.
• Quality Standards in general have been raised to combat the ever-growing pile of low quality pages on this site.
• Characters pages must be made with the intent of elaborating on the character themselves.

These changes to our policies will apply to all pages on the site, both newly created and priorly existing ones. We ask that you do not make any pages that do not align with these guidelines and standards moving forward. If you do make them, bear in mind that they will be marked for deletion.

Starting now, we will also be going back and cleaning up the wiki of the large swarm of profiles currently on it that are no longer suitable for the site. If you know that your pages no longer fit the policy, then it would be best to try saving or moving your work as soon as possible. If you’re unsure if your stuff will be affected by this change, you are free to ask a staff member.

A SIGNIFICANT portion of the site is likely to be affected by these changes. Below is a review of some of the most popular examples:

• Skibidi Toilet: This has been a long time coming. Skibidi Toilet has become an official product, with a movie in production and collaborations with Fortnite. As such, it is no longer considered fan content in any capacity. Additionally, due to its wildly unserious and memetic nature, it is not suited for inclusion on this wiki in the first place.
• SMG4: SMG4 is far too unserious and heavily memetic in its origins to remain on this wiki.
• Most Minecraft Mods: Most Minecraft mods lack sufficient narrative context to be notable enough for inclusion. Minecraft is primarily a mechanics-driven game with little to no inherent lore or story, and most mods reflect this reality.
• Most Roblox Games: Roblox is a game engine that facilitates the creation of original content, much like Unreal Engine or Unity. Consequently, any original Roblox game not created by FC/OC users will no longer be allowed. Additionally, many Roblox games lack substantial storytelling or are excessively unserious and memetic in nature.
• DEATH BATTLE!: Due to the reliance on brief fight animations where the characters portrayed are nearly identical to their canon counterparts, DEATH BATTLE! will no longer meet our standards for fan content. As fan fiction, it represents much of what we aim to move away from—characters that are indistinguishable from their canonical versions, with only superficial changes such as being weaker or stronger than their original depictions.
• All YouTube-Based Original Content: As this content does not meet the requirement for original creations to be user-generated, all YouTube-based original profiles will be removed.
• Many Sonic Fan Characters (FCs): Most Sonic FCs are uncreative spinoffs that often fail to meet the originality and depth required by our policy standards. EXE characters, in particular, tend to appeal to a younger audience that does not critically engage with aspects like character personality, plot, or originality.

That is all I have to say for now. If you have any questions, comment down below.

 

[MintyBoi1]

First question, who wanted this? Death Battle and other fan works are half the point of this wiki. Removing them is basically spitting on many people including myself who are interested in such works. They made not be directly made by users, but they matter to this wiki’s legacy. Without them, what will we even make matches with? Not every character creator here is very active or engaging in match creation.

 

[VeneficaAuthor]

So I actually have a bunch of my pages that ought to be deleted honestly. I’m doing a total revamp of my fcoc stuff to project my higher standards, and the vast majority of my pages either don’t meet those standards, are wildly outdated, or most likely both. I’m gonna go over them soonish (hopefully tonight) and then post here which ones I’d like to keep around, if that’s alright

 

[Volt12121]

Not gonna lie, this sounds stupid

 

[Phoenks]

First question, who wanted this? Death Battle and other fan works are half the point of this wiki. Removing them is basically spitting on many people including myself who are interested in such works. They made not be directly made by users, but they matter to this wiki’s legacy. Without them, what will we even make matches with? Not every character creator here is very active or engaging in match creation.

All active staff unanimously agreed on these changes and believed the wiki was ready for a significant shift in its operation. It is readily apparent that a significant portion of, if not just outright most pages on this wiki are very low quality. Hence why we needed new standards.

And it is not feasible to make real standards for Fan Fiction content while ignoring works like Death Battle, which are exactly the kinds of verses and profiles that the wiki has been trying not to include. Effectively the same characters, but weaker/stronger than the canon counterparts.

We will not be putting match-making above the actual quality of the site.

So I actually have a bunch of my pages that ought to be deleted honestly.

If you have pages you feel you want to be deleted right now, you're free to share them in the Discord channel. No problem.

 

[Rayfire]

I can understand getting rid of low-quality pages and skibidi toilet since that's getting it's own movie, but there's a good chunk of members here who have worked hard on making all of these DB profiles and they are commonly used for matchups and whatnot, this is just outright erasing hundreds, or possibly thousands of hours of work, and there's also gonna have to be a huge effort to remove any listed matchups too, this is also gonna make the vsbattles section of the forum half as active.

This isn't just death battle profiles either, i've put a ton of effort into this roblox profile for example, and while it doesn't have a story it's still high quality and detailed. All this does is get rid of tons of peoples work, including mine.

Characters don't even need much of a narrative to be great, either. Many vsbattles pages either lack a significant story of their own or are meant to be jokes, and vsbattles is way bigger than us and will hold itself to a much higher standard.

Only Original Content created or contributed to by FC/OC users is allowed.

I feel like this is just getting rid of the first half of the title "FC/OC", i haven't seen many users make fanfictions themselves besides spiniorr with the dragon ball rwby thing, none of the sonic.exe's were made by any user here either

In any case, i feel like we could be less strict on fan characters in particular, quality standards i understand, but getting rid of 4/5 of the wiki doesn't sound like a good move to me. We'll end up like joke battles

All staff unanimously agreed on these changes and believed the wiki was ready for a significant shift in its operation.

Have they put their official word here yet? I don't see that in the discord after a brief check

 

[MintyBoi1]

All staff unanimously agreed on these changes and believed the wiki was ready for a significant shift in its operation. It is readily apparent that a significant portion of, if not just outright most pages on this wiki are very low quality. Hence why we needed new standards.

And it is not feasible to make real standards for Fan Fiction content while ignoring works like Death Battle, which are exactly the kinds of verses and profiles that the wiki has been trying not to include. Effectively the same characters, but weaker/stronger than the canon counterparts.

We will not be putting match-making above the actual quality of the site.

Then can we at least see the names of all these mods? I find it hard to believe everyone was on board, unless this means none of them had pages like the ones being deleted, so basically they don’t have to worry like we do.

Calling the Death Battle characters the same is a bit shallow. They share some abilities but stuff like origin, strength levels like you mentioned, and personality can shift drastically from the canon counterparts. And of course it’s the biggest love letter to so many characters, some people wouldn’t even know about like Bucky O’Hare or Lucy. Plus Death Battle’s a huge show, likely a big reason for outsiders to even care about this wiki. What’s the point of a wiki nobody will be on?

What quality? We’re talking about removing tens to possibly hundreds of pages made with passion and attention to detail because of the standards of some faceless mods. What about the users who care about these characters and want to share them and debate with them? Why aren’t we prioritizing the people actually using the website? Making new standards makes sense. Removing a bunch of pages because they don’t align with standards just made on a whim without any discussion users like us can see doesn’t.

 

[Rayfire]

This seems very controversial already

Even if this isn't going to be changed, could us users at least have a grace period to archive our stuff? Deleting thousands of hours of work is wild

 

[Another_Council]

Then can we at least see the names of all these mods? I find it hard to believe everyone was on board, unless this means none of them had pages like the ones being deleted, so basically they don’t have to worry like we do.

I am one of the mods who agreed with the change and I can confidently say myself that I do have plenty of pages that currently do not meet up with the standard. I'll say this much, I was a bit hesitant because this would also erase a good chunk of the pages that I already have on the site. Still, I agreed with these changes because I am getting tired of putting up with the profiles on the wiki that are clearly low-effort, though I don't mean the DB pages in particular.

 

[Another_Council]

This seems very controversial already

Even if this isn't going to be changed, could us users at least have a grace period to archive our stuff? Deleting thousands of hours of work is wild

Of course, even on the Site Rules page itself, it explicitly states that you will be given a grace period of five days to archive what has been marked with the template.

 

[Phoenks]

I can understand getting rid of low-quality pages and skibidi toilet since that's getting it's own movie, but there's a good chunk of members here who have worked hard on making all of these DB profiles and they are commonly used for matchups and whatnot, this is just outright erasing hundreds, or possibly thousands of hours of work, and there's also gonna have to be a huge effort to remove any listed matchups too, this is also gonna make the vsbattles section of the forum half as active.

I recommend creating your own wikis to index those pages if you guys wish. You can also keep them in sandboxes.

Ultimately, our biggest mistake was allowing the wiki to go this far without there being any restrictions or clarifications. For that, I apologize on behalf of staff.

I would have much preferred we'd released these standards years into the past, before so many people had dedicated that much effort to all of this stuff we are now saying isn't allowed.

But, it had to come at some point. Putting it off forever wouldn't do us any good.

This isn't just death battle profiles either, i've put a ton of effort into this roblox profile for example, and while it doesn't have a story it's still high quality and detailed. All this does is get rid of tons of peoples work, including mine.

I'm unfamiliar with the game in question, but if this is notable enough, it would be suitable for Vs Battles Wiki instead.

Either that, or Alt Battles wiki.

Characters don't even need much of a narrative to be great, either. Many vsbattles pages either lack a significant story of their own or are meant to be jokes, and vsbattles is way bigger than us and will hold itself to a much higher standard.

FC/OC will be holding itself to a higher standard than VSBW, now.

The point of VSBW is to index anything for the purposes of powerscaling so long as it has high notability. This is fundamentally different from the purpose of FC/OC, which is to index and build interesting characters with some powerscaling built into the mix.

Also, as said in our Site Rules, all pages will be reviewed on case-by-case basis.

Even if this isn't going to be changed, could us users at least have a grace period to archive our stuff? Deleting thousands of hours of work is wild

Of course.

Nothing will start happening until "marked for deletion" templates are applied.

As said in the Site Rules, once a page is marked with those, you'll have a 5 day grace period to copy or move it elsewhere.

If you think that's too short, we can discuss extending it.

 

[JohnConquest1]

I agreed.
I have more to say and will do so later when I am more available.

 

[MintyBoi1]

I am one of the mods who agreed with the change and I can confidently say myself that I do have plenty of pages that currently do not meet up with the standard. I'll say this much, I was a bit hesitant because this would also erase a good chunk of the pages that I already have on the site. Still, I agreed with these changes because I am getting tired of putting up with the profiles on the wiki that are clearly low-effort, though I don't mean the DB pages in particular.

But the Death Battle pages are almost never low effort. I’ve spent hours editing ones I haven’t even made to add abilities, resistances, good grammar, everything so that they can be their best. Low effort can’t be the big problem when DB and some Roblox/Sonic pages have a lot in them.

 

[Another_Council]

But the Death Battle pages are almost never low effort. I’ve spent hours editing ones I haven’t even made to add abilities, resistances, good grammar, everything so that they can be their best. Low effort can’t be the big problem when DB and some Roblox/Sonic pages have a lot in them.

While I would disagree on that front regarding low effort being a rather big problem...considering the amount of pages that clearly do have very little being put into them...Phoenks addressed this in his reply to Rayfire but the FC/OC site itself has a fundamental difference in the fact that this isn't meant to be an indexing site first and foremost. It's supposed to be a site for writing characters and stories with indexing being something more on the side. On that end, I'm sorry but DB isn't able to hold up on that standard, nor do the Roblox or Sonic pages from my awareness. Though the characters in DB are portrayed expertly, something that I won't deny, they are still very much the same character from the given franchise. In the end, that isn't a Fan Character or Original Character, something which the wiki itself is titled.

 

[Volt12121]

I agreed.
I have more to say and will do so later when I am more available.

I better see those fallout equestria profiles deleted then. Know for a fact you didn't make em and thus they don't comply to those standards. Ya know, gotta be fair for everyone : P

 

[MintyBoi1]

We’re basically shooting everyone in the foot here.

 

[Phoenks]

But the Death Battle pages are almost never low effort. I’ve spent hours editing ones I haven’t even made to add abilities, resistances, good grammar, everything so that they can be their best. Low effort can’t be the big problem when DB and some Roblox/Sonic pages have a lot in them.

We acknowledge that users have put time into creating them and making calculations.

It is not the pages, but rather the verse itself that doesn't fit the guidelines. Allowing Death Battle means allowing all fan characters that are practically identical to their canon (aside from certain stats and abilities)

They simply do not differ enough, nor are they given the time to differ enough, for us to accept it as being notable enough for our Fan Content standards.

We do not want to create a double standard or bias by banning those kinds of verses from being here while simultaneously allowing Death Battle. So, this standard will be enforced equally.

At this point, I'll just ask that you guys start to find an alternative. You could potentially create your own wikis and online discussions for those forms of content, if you'd like.

 

[Phoenks]

I better see those fallout equestria profiles deleted then. Know for a fact you didn't make em and thus they don't comply to those standards. Ya know, gotta be fair for everyone : P

Hey, please read through everything before making mean-spirited comments, especially.

I specifically said that the "user-made" standard only applies to original content. Has nothing to do with fan content. I shall clarify it even further, I suppose.

 

[DMUA]

We have created a new Site Rules page in order to outline our guidelines and standards.

Most of this I'm not prone to caring about, but I'd like there to be an exception added to this particular rule:

• Don't use photographs of real people, particularly children, on your pages.

Mainly because this sort of treads onto a lot of the images used for Wokistan's Weaverdice Game, but it's also not deliberately doxxing people like what this rule is (presumably) intended to prevent. I think public figures like famous actors, especially in specific roles, should be fine since that's just someone you can know by looking them up on the internet in the first place (and Weaverdice does have the bonus of often editing character images to better suit them)

In terms of adhering to what's there, Reginald Ragin' Reggie Dempsey, Old Man Henderson and similar TTRPG characters should both be considered fanworks, at least for the purposes of standards against official content. While they are in systems made for anyone to make their stories, it is within specific established settings.

I feel "All character pages must be developed with the character in mind.", even with the following elaboration, is still a bit nebulous. Are personality sections now mandatory, or is a summary covering what they do and why sufficient? To what extent does that go to, because "detailed" and especially "elegant" are pretty subjective. What details are needed, what even is elegance in this context?

At this point, I'll just ask that you guys start to find an alternative. You could potentially create your own wikis and online discussions for those forms of content, if you'd like.

I just asked Ovens about it's prospects on Alt Battles, so there's a solid avenue.

 

[Rayfire]

I was a bit hesitant because this would also erase a good chunk of the pages that I already have on the site.

This seems to be one of the biggest issues most users (Including myself) have. I feel like some quality upgrades would do, not erasing most of the wiki and killing it in the process

I am getting tired of putting up with the profiles on the wiki that are clearly low-effort

A lot of the pages being specified in phoenks' message are detailed though, the SMG4 one's are memetic but they are clearly high quality.

FC/OC will be holding itself to a higher standard than VSBW, now.

The point of VSBW is to index anything for the purposes of powerscaling so long as it has high notability. This is fundamentally different from the purpose of FC/OC, which is to index and build interesting characters with some powerscaling built into the mix.

Also, as said in our Site Rules, all pages will be reviewed on case-by-case basis.

FC/OC caters to amateur writers specifically

As a community of amateur writers, we recognize the diverse skill levels and writing styles present on this platform.

I do agree with the fact that quality should be taken more seriously, but when the wiki has tons of minors in it, like a lot of the people i know best here in fact, standards that are too high for them to keep up with is just gonna kill the wiki like i mentioned earlier, especially when it is acknowledged in official sources like the tier 1/0 rules that their writing is unlikely to be high quality itself. I highly doubt a 13 year old is gonna be able to make an FC on their own that fits the standards if all these sonic oc's and fc's can't do that already.

In fact, the entire reason a lot of fc/oc profiles are low quality, like specified in the OP, is because they are made by minors or people who have low experience with fandom in general. This seems to be a big audience for the site especially if it's becoming this big of a problem like council says. I stand by my opinion that this is gonna kill the site or at best make it far less active than it already is, and a lot of people seem to agree with me on this

I can't a load a screenshot, but this doesn't seem to be very well received by the users here nor on the reactions of the announcement post in the discord lol, I see a ton of

 

[Volt12121]

Hey, please read through everything before making mean-spirited comments, especially.

I specifically said that the "user-made" standard only applies to original content. Has nothing to do with fan content. I shall clarify it even further, I suppose.

Mean-spirited? I'm just making sure everything gets deleted equally, quite sorry if you saw this as me being mean. After all, i wouldn't wanna come across in such a way

 

[Phoenks]

I feel "All character pages must be developed with the character in mind.", even with the following elaboration, is still a bit nebulous. Are personality sections now mandatory, or is a summary covering what they do and why sufficient? To what extent does that go to, because "detailed" and especially "elegant" are pretty subjective. What details are needed, what even is elegance in this context?

Making standards that explicit and specific would be difficult and unnecessary imo. We don't want people to treat writing these pages like writing an essay where the teacher says "minimum three pages/700 words" or anything.

It's just that there needs to be enough content on the page for a reader to actually get the basic premise and attributes of a character. It can be achieved through a number of ways.

What qualifies will be judged on a case by case basis.

Though, for now, we will only really be targeting really blatant and egregious examples when it comes to our quality standards.

Valhalla pages are fine for now. And anything on a similar level to that. For example.

 

[DMUA]

Valhalla pages are fine for now. And anything on a similar level to that. For example.

I guess that's as good an answer as any

Mainly I was worried in cases of like, Lindsey Graham or what King Gizzard was for awhile, where their entire deal is that due to how they were fought or their abilities, nobody really knew who they actually were, and Lindsey is still mostly an unknown because he operated entirely by proxy and then had his head explode from backlash to said proxy getting destroyed

 

[Rayfire]

FC/OC will be holding itself to a higher standard than VSBW, now.

The point of VSBW is to index anything for the purposes of powerscaling so long as it has high notability. This is fundamentally different from the purpose of FC/OC, which is to index and build interesting characters with some powerscaling built into the mix.

Also, as said in our Site Rules, all pages will be reviewed on case-by-case basis.

A higher standard than what we're literally a much smaller, subset version of?

SMG4: SMG4 is far too unserious and heavily memetic in its origins to remain on this wiki.

So is annoying orange, which is literally based on him being a moron 99% of the time. There are many "unserious" verses on vsbw that aren't indexed on joke battles just because they aren't a serious verse. SMG4 has memes in it yes, but it also has definitive arcs and a story as far as i can remember, and it gets deep to the point where characters die. Are we just... Not allowed to be funny?

 

[Another_Council]

I do agree with the fact that quality should be taken more seriously, but when the wiki has tons of minors in it, like a lot of the people i know best here in fact, standards that are too high for them to keep up with is just gonna kill the wiki like i mentioned earlier, especially when it is acknowledged in official sources like the tier 1/0 rules that their writing is unlikely to be high quality itself. I highly doubt a 13 year old is gonna be able to make an FC on their own that fits the standards if all these sonic oc's and fc's can't do that already.

In fact, the entire reason a lot of fc/oc profiles are low quality, like specified in the OP, is because they are made by minors or people who have low experience with fandom in general. This seems to be a big audience for the site especially if it's becoming this big of a problem like council says. I stand by my opinion that this is gonna kill the site or at best make it far less active than it already is, and a lot of people seem to agree with me on this

I can't a load a screenshot, but this doesn't seem to be very well received by the users here nor on the reactions of the announcement post in the discord lol, I see a ton of

In regards to this type of question and reasoning, yes, there is a very real possibility that it will make the site less active as a whole. But would you rather it continue to live on by having it continuously churn out the next .EXE FC or Skibidi Toilet profile? In my opinion, I would much rather have it be less active than that.

 

[Phoenks]

I mean, ideally you could get some of them to the level of warrane. (I think his page is a great example of what we'd want more pages to look like, relatively)

Specifically for the mains and important characters.

For side stuff we're going to be more lenient. I understand if there's like mysterious beings or even just monsters that aren't that elaborated on.

 

[Agnaa]

RIP Twlight Sparkle.

 

[VeneficaAuthor]

I would hope that large backstory or personality sections aren’t a 100% requirement now. Some characters may not have enough screen time to make those truly meaningful plus it’s also just a ton of work for everybody. Although including those are part of my standards for a lot of the characters i want in the wiki, i feel that not everyone will be able to manage such a thing, especially in our community of novice writers (who are seeking to improve themselves by coming here especially), so I think a good deal of leeway should be allowed if this is the case

 

[Rayfire]

In regards to this type of question and reasoning, yes, there is a very real possibility that it will make the site less active as a whole. But would you rather it continue to live on by having it continuously churn out the next .EXE FC or Skibidi Toilet profile? In my opinion, I would much rather have it be less active than that.

I don't think it's going to live on at all consider this is pretty much 4/5 of the wiki. Some of those profiles aren't even inherently bad, they just don't fit these really strict standards for a community made up of amatuer writers and minors.

 

[Agnaa]

At this point, I'll just ask that you guys start to find an alternative. You could potentially create your own wikis and online discussions for those forms of content, if you'd like.

I just asked Ovens about it's prospects on Alt Battles, so there's a solid avenue.

Ovens has just said on Discord:

Well
The ethos behind Alt Battles is just licenced content that VSBW doesn't want because Ant is a ninny
Idk if we could take DB cause it's not an official standalone product

 

[Javenplayz253]

Ah yes. OC VS Battles Wiki can't wait to debate here! (1 year anniversary being here is going so good rn thanks ).

 

[Phoenks]

Ovens has just said on Discord:

Well, in that case, they'll have to create a new wiki, I suppose. I figured as much.

Thanks for reaching out.

 

[Another_Council]

I don't think it's going to live on at all consider this is pretty much 4/5 of the wiki. Some of those profiles aren't even inherently bad, they just don't fit these really strict standards for a community made up of amatuer writers and minors.

I would consider the premise + execution of said character profile itself to be bad, seeing as how most .EXE profiles we have on the wiki right now are essentially the same thing, except one minor tweak that doesn't add much to said character in the first place.

 

[Rayfire]

Ah yes. OC VS Battles Wiki can't wait to debate here! (1 year anniversary being here is going so good rn thanks ).

^ This is why this is so poorly received by most people other than staff it seems, i don't even believe this is real rn

 

[MintyBoi1]

In regards to this type of question and reasoning, yes, there is a very real possibility that it will make the site less active as a whole. But would you rather it continue to live on by having it continuously churn out the next .EXE FC or Skibidi Toilet profile? In my opinion, I would much rather have it be less active than that.

I’d rather have a wiki to actually talk about fun and cool fan/original characters even on even with the garbage than no wiki at all. It’s like we’re taking a saw to cut our own legs off because other things like fish don’t need them to function. Leaving ourselves to bleed out for our pride.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

A disappointing change.

 

[Rayfire]

I would consider the premise + execution of said character profile itself to be bad, seeing as how most .EXE profiles we have on the wiki right now are essentially the same thing, except one minor tweak that doesn't add much to said character in the first place.

I get what you mean but this is a very minor part of the wiki, not even 1% considering there are 5,000+ profiles here.

Beyond that a lot of characters are unique in their own way. By that logic only the exe and dragon ball rwby profiles should go if it's based on uniqueness. (Which is again not a great look on this wiki at all, spiniorr seems to have put a lot of effort into all those profiles, even if the premise is basic, Absolutely nobody wants their work to be erased by suddenly upping the standards for a community that was never meant to be full of pro writers.)

As a community of amateur writers, we recognize the diverse skill levels and writing styles present on this platform.

 

[Rayfire]

A disappointing change.

A lot of us second this.

 

[Agnaa]

Commenting as an amateur writer

While I would disagree on that front regarding low effort being a rather big problem...considering the amount of pages that clearly do have very little being put into them...Phoenks addressed this in his reply to Rayfire but the FC/OC site itself has a fundamental difference in the fact that this isn't meant to be an indexing site first and foremost. It's supposed to be a site for writing characters and stories with indexing being something more on the side. On that end, I'm sorry but DB isn't able to hold up on that standard, nor do the Roblox or Sonic pages from my awareness. Though the characters in DB are portrayed expertly, something that I won't deny, they are still very much the same character from the given franchise. In the end, that isn't a Fan Character or Original Character, something which the wiki itself is titled.

FC/OC caters to amateur writers specifically

• As a community of amateur writers, we recognize the diverse skill levels and writing styles present on this platform.

I do agree with the fact that quality should be taken more seriously, but when the wiki has tons of minors in it, like a lot of the people i know best here in fact, standards that are too high for them to keep up with is just gonna kill the wiki like i mentioned earlier, especially when it is acknowledged in official sources like the tier 1/0 rules that their writing is unlikely to be high quality itself. I highly doubt a 13 year old is gonna be able to make an FC on their own that fits the standards if all these sonic oc's and fc's can't do that already.

I don't think it's going to live on at all consider this is pretty much 4/5 of the wiki. Some of those profiles aren't even inherently bad, they just don't fit these really strict standards for a community made up of amatuer writers and minors.

I think trying to center things more on amateur writers is a weird choice. This wiki will never be something that appeals to a wide swath of amateur writers, since by its nature of involving indexing, it can only include amateur writers that also want to battleboard their own works.

Even among battleboarders this isn't a very large contingent; I know of many users (including myself) that have actually written stuff and have never had an interest in chucking it on FC/OC, which won't be changed by deleting a bunch of profiles & tightening up standards.

I have some suggestions that I think would do a lot more to help it be a site for writing characters and stories, if y'all're interested. I think this current approach will just shrink the userbase, leading to less quality, leading to a bit of a death spiral over the next few years unless something comes to change it. But if you decide to go for it anyway, then I just hope I'm wrong.

 

[Phoenks]

Commenting as an amateur writer



I think trying to center things more on amateur writers is a weird choice. This wiki will never be something that appeals to a wide swath of amateur writers, since by its nature of involving indexing, it can only include amateur writers that also want to battleboard their own works.

Even among battleboarders this isn't a very large contingent; I know of many users (including myself) that have actually written stuff and have never had an interest in chucking it on FC/OC, which won't be changed by deleting a bunch of profiles & tightening up standards.

I have some suggestions that I think would do a lot more to help it be a site for writing characters and stories, if y'all're interested. I think this current approach will just shrink the userbase, leading to less quality, leading to a bit of a death spiral over the next few years unless something comes to change it. But if you decide to go for it anyway, then I just hope I'm wrong.

Sure. I'd love to hear your ideas, Agnaa. Feel free to comment here or on the server.