Wikifiction (In-universe encyclopedia)

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This is a proposal for a new Wikimedia sister project.

Wikifiction (or WikiFiction)
Open book with a dragon on the pages and the 'Wikifiction' on the top in Wikimedia colors
Status of the proposal
Status	rejected
Reason	no support. Pecopteris (talk) 14:48, 19 August 2023 (UTC) [reply ]
Details of the proposal
Project description	This would essentially be a detailed in-universe encyclopedia of fictional works, characters, places, and objects. Many people are probably interested in detailed information on fictional universes, and it would be good if Wikimedia could aid people by hosting such information.
Is it a multilingual wiki?	Many language version
Potential number of languages	Yes, there would be one language for each wiki.
Proposed URL	www.wikifiction.org
Technical requirements
New features to require	This would probably not require any features that Wikipedia, for instance, does not have, unless characters, places, objects, works, etc. are placed in different namespaces.
Interested participants
User:King jakob c 2 User:Julian Amoedo
v t e

WikiFiction is a proposed wiki for amassing content on fictional works. It would also amass information on characters, places, and objects in those fictional works. Wikipedia already has limited information on such topics, but it is restricted by w:WP:INUNIVERSE and w:WP:PLOT. Wikipedia focuses on the real-world detail of fictional works while Wikia also has such information, but it is spread out over thousands of wikis. Wikia wikis are also rarely governed by policies and guidelines, and vandalism there runs rampant on some wikis.

WikiFiction articles would be subject more to verifiability than notability, although there could be some notability guidelines. Information would still require some kind of sources, either from the fiction itself or from sources that discuss them. WikiFiction is not a wiki for creating fanfiction or any other kind of original fiction (this runs contrary to Wikimedia's norms of no original, non-educational content). An editnotice on all pages in the main namespace could inform potential fiction writers of this.

• --Jakob (Scream about the things I've broken) 13:10, 31 August 2013 (UTC) [reply ]

• WikiInUniverse (clunky)
• Wikinarrative (a more international name) (Mikelo Gulhi)
• Wikivirtual

• OCLC's Kindred Works

Have you checked out OCLC's Kindred Works: http://experimental.worldcat.org/kindredworks/ ? Their experimental project is not limited to fiction though. OCLC has a Wikipeidan in Residence, see: http://www.oclc.org/research/news/2012/05-22.html TeriEmbrey (talk) 21:07, 2 October 2013 (UTC) [reply ]

Randomly clicked into Animal Farm and found out only have 1 line of general non-in-universe description about it...C933103 (talk) 19:21, 16 January 2014 (UTC) [reply ]

• This very idea was considered in 2005 at w:Wikipedia:Deletion_reform/Brainstorming:

This sounds like and excellent idea. A Wikifiction, for example, would remove a lot of AfDs for fictional characters and other fictional information. Questions is, though, what the boundaries would and should be. While there are relatively clear boundaries in some cases (e.g., fiction vs. reality), other categories might be much more difficult to determine. The list of wikis mentioned above is a good example. From my perspective, wikies should be mutually exclusive; to take my example, fictional characters would never find their way into Wikipedia, but be all listed in Wikifiction. Groeck 19:36, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

• en.wikifiction.org
• de.wikifiction.org
• fr.wikifiction.org
• es.wikifiction.org
• az.wikifiction.org

...etc

• I image the interwiki prefix would be something like f:

• None

• Wikia has some wikis like this, but for only one work or series.

1. Mikelo Gulhi (talk) I think it is a good idea, but there are some points that do not convince me: (See the discussion)
2. I would like to know the opinion of the people working on fiction-related portals/articles on Wikipedia projects. --Dereckson (talk) 01:33, 26 September 2013 (UTC)'[reply ]
3. This may sound a bit silly but this sounds like a project for wikibooks. You can write all kind of fan guides, including character discriptions there. --Natuur12 (talk) 18:20, 27 September 2013 (UTC) [reply ]

1. If this proposal fails, I'll work on it there. --Jakob (Scream about the things I've broken) 01:44, 28 September 2013 (UTC) [reply ]

1. This is redundant to Wikia, in my opinion. Considering what I've seen of coverage of fiction in Wikipedia and in Wikia, I think that there would be a truly massive quality issue. South Park is covered at a high level of quality. So is The Simpsons. It drops quickly from there. Dungeons and Dragons has massive issues. Many popular anime and manga have serious issues. The less popular fiction series (like Ultraman) are of such low quality that they are essentially unusable. Leave covering fiction in-universe to Wikia. Sven Manguard (talk) 18:33, 14 October 2013 (UTC) [reply ]
2. I'd have to agree that this doesn't need a Wikimedia wiki to itself. As has been said, it could be done on Wikibooks. Also, the proposed title would be frequently misunderstood and people would post their own original fiction on the wiki. Simon Peter Hughes (talk) 15:54, 18 October 2013 (UTC) [reply ]

   Title-aside, isn't wikibook used for storing books instead of information about books?C933103 (talk) 19:04, 16 January 2014 (UTC) [reply ]

3. Honestly, I see this as redundant-in-function to Wikibooks. Not redundant in precise form, because Wikibooks will not take specialized encyclopedias per se, but Wikibooks will gladly take a coherently organized book containing such information about a given fictional universe. We have Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter as a great example (it's a featured book!). The overall structure provided by a book seems likely to mitigate the possible tendency toward low quality of individual entries that a pseudo-encyclopedia might suffer. --Pi zero (talk) 16:59, 7 November 2013 (UTC) [reply ]

   Wikibooks is a library to works.....C933103 (talk) 19:04, 16 January 2014 (UTC) [reply ]

4. As a strong inclutionist, I see no need to split up Wikipedia. Better keep everything here, "under the same roof". J 1982 (talk) 12:06, 8 November 2013 (UTC) [reply ]
   • It's fair to note that large quantities of Wikifiction-style content are against Wikipedia policies. --Jakob (Scream about the things I've broken) 12:29, 8 November 2013 (UTC) [reply ]

   Indeed. Some things aren't allowed on Wikipedia. Although there is a form of radical inclusionism that says anything at all should be allowed in Wikipedia, this doesn't really work because various forms of content require specialized infrastructure that is not compatible with Wikipedia's infrastructure. To put it another way, those who want to move sister projects into Wikipedia generally don't realize that those sister projects. to perform their function effectively, have to do things differently from Wikipedia.

   I do note that one of the flaws of Wikipedia is its lack of common purpose; non-Wikpedian sisters are often far, far more harmonious and efficient because everyone shares a common vision of what the project's mission is. The lack of focus of Wikipedia creates squabbling and contributors working at cross-purposes; this tends to degrade the collegiality of the atomosphere of Wikipedia, creates a sense of frustration by contributors driven by ideals that get undermined by others pursuing incompatible ideals, and interferes with the quality of the output (quality of output being another important recruitment inducement). It seems likely to me that in the long term, if wikimedia is to have a future in the long term, the non-Wikipedian sisters will have to take on a more and more important role.

   Keeping in mind, my position (above) is that this is something that can and should be accomodated on Wikibooks; I don't think this material is a good fit for Wikipedia, and I think the Wikibooks model is capable of creating in this case a more useful product. --Pi zero (talk) 16:22, 8 November 2013 (UTC) [reply ]

5. Redundant to what Wikia does, without any justification other than providing free hosting for fan groups. Any content amply sourced could be in the Wikipedia articles, anything else is a frittering-away of WMF resources paid for to achieve more important goals. Orange Mike (talk)

   You probably forget that English is not the only language in the Wikimedia world and that many other Wikipedias with way harder inclusion policies than the English language Wikipedia exist (as the English language Wikipedia is rather an extreme example for a Wikipedia edition where almost every kind of garbage is kept unless it's unsourced). Vogone talk 09:15, 5 January 2014 (UTC) [reply ]

   Content not supported by published media, non-independently verifiable, or not-well-known enough are going to be deleted from wikipedia even if they have quite a good source.C933103 (talk) 19:04, 16 January 2014 (UTC) [reply ]

6. Oppose Strong oppose per Sven Manguard. --Ricordi samoa 15:16, 7 February 2014 (UTC) [reply ]
7. Several good reasons above; I would also fear that by not framing content in an education manner as we do with wikipedia, such content for contemporary works could start running into fair use issues ala the Harry Potter case. WMF does a good job ensuring that all project content is generally free, but the content of this one by its nature would not be and would be very problematic. --Masem (talk) 14:19, 9 June 2017 (UTC) [reply ]
8. Oppose Strong oppose per Sven Manguard. Redundant to Wikia. Zhangj1079 (Saluton!) _{Editing on mobile account.} 14:33, 6 November 2017 (UTC) [reply ]

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• Rejected new project proposals