Forum:RPG Pages Have Vanished

I was looking over my Wiki entry (because I'm vain like that) and I realized that my link to PF's RPG profile was red. So, I ran a search for the page to relink it, but could not find it. I tried Danikat's RPG character, too, with similar results.

In fact, I cannot find any RPG mentions on the wiki.

Was the entire category deleted? Was that done on purpose, and if so, why? - Officer 1BDI


 * I'm not quite sure, you may need to ask ElasticMuffin - Don 20:47, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I gather that as Blackstar now has its own wiki, ElasticMuffin decided to purge this wiki of RP stuff, which isn't quite right, I think, because RP existed in the CC way before Blackstar. We can always undelete the stuff.-Malkin 21:25, 3 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I guess this leads us to the question of what counts as Creatures-related stuff. Random RPG characters are generally not very notable to anyone besides the one that wrote the article and anyway tend to become outdated the next day at the latest as the person changes the character or its backstory or its powers or its...ad infinitum.  I think that this is not the place for this stuff, because if we started documenting everything people in the CC did, what would be the point of calling it a Creatures Wiki?  I think we should limit ourselves to stuff that actually has to do with Creatures, not random RPG things that have very little to do with it at all besides perhaps the characters being "norns", if that much.  However, I am not the only person with authority here and can easily be overruled.  I just would like a good reason for it to be restored besides "someone in the CC made it," because that could be applied to almost anything. ElasticMuffin 22:05, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
 * As an addendum, I suppose that I find it OK to keep RP-related stuff on the person's user page if absolutely necessary. But having separate articles for characters that for the most part are either forgotten the next day or become almost immediately out-of-date is just silly, and the stuff that we do have ought to be well-written and at least somewhat related to Creatures.  Most of the existing stuff (much of which has been transfered over to the Blackstar wiki already) did *not* fall into those categories. ElasticMuffin 22:10, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
 * One more addendum; I point out the unofficial proposed RP policy, in the discussion section of which MonaLS made what I think is a good point: RP articles are not really worth having as separate articles, and if they must, the characters should at least be notable enough that someone else besides the character's creator thinks it is worth having an article. I note that my decision to remove this stuff is not consistent with my comments there, but the larger percentage of the CC RP types having their own wiki now made it seem like a more reasonable course of action. ElasticMuffin 23:29, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

After being harangued elsewhere by some other people, I have restored everything. It is as though it never happened. It makes me sad that RP is apparently one of the only things the CC has left. It's up to you guys to deal with it now, though I suspect putting it back is pretty much what everyone but me wanted. Sorry for sounding whiny, but it's the truth. ElasticMuffin 15:59, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you for restoring the articles. I understand why you thought the RP section was no longer necessary, and in some respects, I agree with you, but I was concerned that these pages had been removed without warning (unless I missed the notice, which is entirely possible), which didn't give anyone the opportunity to back them up for use elsewhere.  To be honest, I was mainly interested in being able to copy PF's information, and I was having trouble figuring out how to access the deleted article so I could retrieve that info. :p


 * I don't know how many other people approached you about this, or what they told you, but if you still feel strongly about it, perhaps we should put this up to a vote to see how the CC feels about RP articles on the Wiki? Officer 1BDI 17:23, 4 May 2007 (UTC)


 * My personal view is that RP articles are fine as long as they're *part* of the community - last time I looked at Blackstar I couldn't even view the (empty-ish looking) Creatures RP forum(!), and *none* of the RP articles seem to link to examples of community RPing involving the characters in question, something which I think is pretty vital to justify the existance of articles on this wiki. But this boils down to needing to actually finish the RP policy, really, and then some kind of "warning: you need to provide some kind of source for this stuff" before zapping things.


 * Basically my view boils down to what Muffin said above: articles on the wiki must be Creatures-related stuff, in a more solid sense than "the character is claimed to be a norn, sort of". Obviously if you're writing Creatures fiction using the characters then it's going to be relevant - maybe not always relevant enough to deserve their own article, but I'm sure we can sort that out somehow - we have enough space, so we just need to be careful not to fill up with non-Creatures cruft (although I doubt there's much of a chance of it becoming a big problem given the low activity, so meh). Fuzzie 21:27, 4 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Actually, to be fair, the PF, Odin and Zan articles link to public forum threads involving them, which is at least something source-wise. Perhaps someone could try doing this for all of them? I'm unconvinced that characters used in single threads are a great idea for putting on the wiki as separate articles (as opposed to going on user pages, which is great), but I'm not really involved enough in the RP stuff to know how important a single thread is :) Fuzzie 21:32, 4 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I feel we should link to the Blackstar Dojo wiki when we can, as well. That won't neccessarily be all the time, some members of the CC don't belong to the Dojo.  To that mind, I've plunked a go at a stolen-from-Wikipedia template in the sandbox.  If anyone can fix it good, it might be helpful? -Malkin 22:38, 4 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I think the template could do with standing out a bit more: do the Blackstar people have a logo we could use, perhaps? Fuzzie 07:54, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Greetings... I should check the CC Wiki more often. o.o

Malkin drew my attention to this debate, so I'm here to add in my two cents. I doubt that Blackstar's Wiki would be at all adverse to hosting RP profiles, pages, etc, so long as they belong to people who have accounts at the Dojo - thus, rises the problem of what to do with RP characters and related items which are not part of our world. Contrary to popular belief, not every RP'er has moved from the CC to Blackstar.

As for an icon representing Blackstar, I can provide one if needed. My suggestion would be to move all RP articles to one of two locations - Blackstar and/or User pages, and put redirects in the current page locations. Thus, there would be no loss of information, and Wiki integrity would be maintained. That's my two cents, for what they're worth.

Embri 15:05, 6 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I never suggested that Blackstar hosted all existing CC RP activity. But a certain level of consistency must be maintained- if some RP stuff goes, stuff that falls under the same criteria must go as well.  Or vice versa.  ElasticMuffin 06:41, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Well considering both my wiki and my past time are both at the heart of this thing, I guess I should speak. First of all, the Creatures section is viewable, if you join the appropriate group. It's my little way of encouraging people to sign up for Blackstar...a tad underhanded, I'll admit, but true. Second, if anyone, and I mean ANYONE should have been given warning, it should have been me. I would have been more than happy to host all this "RP Cruft" as you so call it. You don't want it, fine. I can understand, but one person doesn't make a community.

Now, there are some instances where RP'ing probably should remain in this wiki. Danikat's character is an example. Both she and her character are holdouts from the days before Creature Labs went under. My character, however, is not, and so long as I had a chance to put it on Blackstar's Wiki, I have no problem with you deleting it.

Thanks for letting me have my rant, and I look forward to working with Malkin and Elastic Muffin in the future. -DP


 * Deleted content is not really gone forever. If you really needed some deleted stuff back all you have to do is ask an administrator and it can be retrieved.  Also, your suggestion that you're apparently using the illusion of some sort of CC RP'ing going on as a trap to lure people in makes me care even less about it, frankly.  I have no problem with people doing RP games, but when you get right down to it it has very little to do with the Creatures games and how they are played.  ElasticMuffin 06:41, 7 May 2007 (UTC)


 * You know, I'm trying to work with you here, and you are making it really really difficult. Role Playing is a part of the community.  You may not like it, but it has had as big an impact as anything k9norn did, or any other community event through the years.  Now I'm now not saying that it's a part of the games therefore has a place here.  That argument is just stupid.  I'm saying it's a part of the community, and while the majority of it has no place here, there are articles and stories that hold a historical signifigance for a major part of the community.  Just because one admin is searching for any excuse to dump the stuff, doesn't mean that it's not what the community wants. TheDarkPsycho 12:02, 7 May 2007 (UTC)


 * First of all, I don't believe 'working with' you was ever my goal here. Second, likening the importance of RP to k9norn is pretty ludicrous.  And are you seriously saying detailed documentation of RP characters counts as real "historical significance"?  As I said, I'm not the only one with power here and can easily be overruled.  I just have yet to see anyone, biased or unbiased, provide a decent argument why this stuff should be kept.  The fact that the CC'ers roleplay does have historical significance and ought to be mentioned somewhere (You'll also note that I did not remove this information from articles.  Nowhere did I completely remove references to roleplaying from people's articles- only silly long descriptions of characters).  However, that such-and-so's character can shoot fireballs and also read backwards (information that is pretty mutable given the freeform nature of forum RP) totally... doesn't.  So... why are we arguing again? ElasticMuffin 15:25, 7 May 2007 (UTC)


 * First off, read the unofficial proposed RP policy, where I've offered both mine and Embri's help. Second, you do seem to be partially alone.  Malkin reached out to us, and the RP sections are back.  Most of the admins here seem to be wanting to create a uniform policy before getting rid of what needs to be gotten rid of.


 * You however, saw that we put up a wiki, and before you even bothered to check if we had put anything from here onto that wiki, you started editing away. I'm willing to work with you, help you create a policy, and if neccesary, help you enforce it.  But not everything has to go.  The Wiki isn't just for the game, it's for the community too.  If that's not the case, get rid of the entire community section, because then the same logic applies. TheDarkPsycho 16:21, 7 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm going to refute you point by point. First: Did you read a single thing in my last post?  You still have failed to address my point that I did not launch some sort of holy war against RP things, I merely removed detailed character descriptions that have nothing to do with Creatures and have no place here.  Second:  Am I alone?  Maybe.  But if you'd bothered to read anything, you would know that I was the one that restored the information until I could get some coherent explanation for the outcry I have received.  Thirdly:  I was the one that created the policy system and encouraged bd_ to come up with that first draft.  If you actually went back and did some research you might have noticed that the information I removed was information that likely would have fallen afoul of that policy anyway.  I did not, I repeat, did *not* remove all references to RPing from the wiki.  Fourth: I did look at the Blackstar wiki, and as a matter of fact, I *did* see that much of the character-related content from here *had* been replicated to it.  Check your facts before you start making idiotic accusations.  I am not going to delete the entire community section, just as I did not remove all references to roleplaying.  Will you stop being so pompous and actually read for a moment?  ElasticMuffin 18:54, 7 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Further to this, I'd like to point out that the Blackstar article was not even touched as part of my edits. From this thread you would love your members to think that we are viciously trying to cut off Blackstar's ties to the CC when in fact no such thing has been even bandied about at all. ElasticMuffin 19:08, 7 May 2007 (UTC)


 * DP, I cannot believe you thought it was a good idea to bring up the k9norn matter. I'm very surprised and disappointed in you.-Malkin 22:39, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Not exactly my two cents but just something I feel needs to be added: As Embri pointed out contrary to popular belief not all RP activities have moved to Blackstar. The RP section on A2K remains one of the most active sections of the forum. A lot of that stuff would have no place on Blackstar's Wiki because it has absolutely nothing to do with Blackstar. Yes there is some cross-over, some people who RP on Blackstar and on CC sites and some of the same characters get used on both but theres also a lot of stuff that is unique to CC sites. I agree that character profiles could be added to the users page, but removing everything RP related from this Wiki is going too far. Danikat 19:14, 6 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Regardless of whether the RPing is being done on Blackstar or not, it is still almost completely unrelated to Creatures. Just because the RPing takes place on a forum that also happens to have a section for real creatures stuff does not mean that the RPing is creatures stuff.  Fine, if you want to talk a little about your RPing activities on the article about you, then fine, but long separate articles containing descriptions of characters that have nothing remotely to do with Creatures on a Creatures wiki is just absurd. ElasticMuffin 06:41, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Although your intention to help keep this wiki on-task is admirable, I think you might want to consider that maybe this wiki might not actualy be an Encyclopedia focusing on Creatures at all, and that regardless of whether or not it is, the roleplaying material does not hurt the wiki as a whole. The Creatures Wiki:About section states that the Creatures wiki is "a cooperative attempt to record information of use to the Creatures Community". This seems to imply that anything the Creatures Community cares about that would be best off in wiki format belongs here. That might have been written in error, however, that is not supported by the fact that roleplaying related content has been in the Creatures Wiki since it's creation, and I don't think there has been any massive romovals of it or complaints against it until now. Neither has informality in tone been much of a problem, unless I am mistaken. In fact, the Creatures wiki even became |Wikia's first featured wiki, and it is still a featured article now. Although this evidence dosn't rule out the possibility of removing roleplaying related articles, I think it's a major enough change to warrant a disscusion and/or poll before setting up policys left and right. --MDude1350 01:09, 8 May 2007 (UTC)


 * The RP Policy has been there to discuss for ages. Nearly a year, in fact.  I left it around longer than I meant to, actually, and since nothing has really changed with most of the RP content, it seemed like a good time to settle some things and make up some ground rules.  As for your comment that this wiki might not be "an encyclopedia focusing on Creatures at all" I suggest you back up and get some perspective.  What is our address, again?  creatures.wikia.com?  Thought so.  The "Creatures Community" is, well... about Creatures.  If the people in the CC were into Legos, it would be a Lego Community, not a Creatures Community, you dig?  Mentioning that some RPing goes on among its members makes sense, but suggesting that RPing content is just as important as the Creatures content (which is what I infer from your comments) is pretty out there.  Also, good articles that follow formal writing style is part of the reason we were the first featured Wiki.  All articles are expected to follow the same standards; it's nothing new.  It's just that articles about characters have proven to be of a much more rambling and incoherent nature than your average article. ElasticMuffin 02:50, 8 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Wow. And to think I spent half a year and 8000 edits under the misapprehension that this was meant to be an encyclopedia about Creatures. :-)
 * Just because you happen to be interested in roleplaying does not make it a suitable topic for this wiki. This site describes the Creatures series, and documents the creations and activities of the Creatures Community as they relate to the games. It is not the place for extended descriptions of general-purpose roleplaying characters and situations created by people who happen to be members of the Creatures Community. Please take such things elsewhere. In my view, the only roleplaying that has any place being mentioned here is that focussed around the world of Albia, the Shee Ark and the Capillata, most likely containing creatures from said world. --GreenReaper(talk) 03:16, 8 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Fair enough. It's just that since so much RP information was left up for so long, it seemed kind of sudden just to add a new policy forbidding it. I didn't know there was a guidline page to begin with (I thought all the guidlines were in Creatures_Wiki:About.), so this seemed kind of sudden. In any case, I think I'll start truncating any RP information that seems too detailed, and moving any relevent information over to the Blackstar wiki. Thanks for informing me. --MDude1350 16:11, 24 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Did you actually read the policy? It doesn't forbid all RP content.  It just requires it be well-written, sourced properly, and at least moderately related to creatures.  ElasticMuffin 12:30, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Translated: RP content is allowed, as long as it is loosly related to creatures it seems. Sounds fair. -Drlupinmario