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Closed Changing how changes to existing canon concepts and faction tenants are made.

These suggestions have been dropped by the suggestor or rejected by staff.
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Andrew

SARPiverse Culture Dreamer
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FM of Tsenlan
🌸 FM of Yamatai
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I've noticed, the Perceived Issues, Historical Precedent and the Way Forward thread has stirred up a lot of conversation and emotions, even mine. What I am suggesting here is a change to the way we handle suggested changes that are established in canon like these.

I think that these suggestions should be made in a format that shows the suggesting party understands the type of change they want to make. They should have to make an actual proposal, which then can be debated, and discussed and FMs make final decisions.

The Form​


This is just a suggested form -The presenter should have this filled out before it goes to discussion.

The Change
What is the change being proposed?
What established canon concept or issue is it changing?

Research
Where in the Wiki or RP is this currently established concept? (This prevents people from using "friend knowledge" over actual "established canon")
What in-universe parties are affected by this change? (Those who benefit and those who don't)
What is the recourse of these parties if the change is made?
What compromises am I will offer if the change is not accepted?
What triggered me to want this change? Is it an IC thing or an OOC thing for me?

Planning
How would this change be rolled out if it is accepted? What IC event would trigger its roll-out, or it something that would just change?


I find that one of the major reasons I get aggravated by people presenting changes, especially in Yamatai is due to A) How it is being presented B) The knowledge or lack thereof behind what they want to change.

The Process​


I think that this type of proposal, followed by discussion and debate on each individual topic would provide a more constructive environment for changes to actually get made. The process for change would look something like this:

A) The Proposal
B) The Community Discussion
C) The FM Decision
D) Roll out In-Universe.
 
This suggestion has been closed. Votes are no longer accepted.
This is certainly the sort of thing that needs to be explored. I remember RPing some events that were interpreted in a distorted way. That distortion was accepted by newer generations of players through osmosis and accepted as true by too many people. Having an explicit process to turn to in such cases would be helpful.
 
"B) The knowledge or lack thereof behind what they want to change."

I don't know if we should be enforcing this for things that Wes has already expressed a desire to see or otherwise approved beforehand. It kind of seems redundant if I have already talked an addition through with the SM and they're aware of the effects. Especially if Wes actually confirms that such a thing was always possible and actually implied in setting. Wes is the one who has the most knowledge on this kind of thing and saying that the things he might like to see needs to go through this process seems odd.
 
No, making sure you know enough about it makes sure your submission is as good as possible, there's absolutely nothing odd about that, no matter who asks for it. Researching that stuff is just part of the ask.
 
A lot of the problem is we have vast swaths of history that are not very well wikified and there is something of an archive panic when it comes to reading random threads. There are also lots of things that have 'early installment weirdness'. (Ex. Nagashun). If the information isn't on the Wiki, it's very hard to find. And if it is on the wiki, it can be incomplete. That's not even starting to mention knock on effects where you might not see how something effects something else. So a lot of history is kind of oral, just like real history.
 
In a situation like that, if that's all there is to find, it's all there is to find, but at least it was found.
 
A lot of the problem is we have vast swaths of history that are not very well wikified and there is something of an archive panic when it comes to reading random threads. There are also lots of things that have 'early installment weirdness'. (Ex. Nagashun). If the information isn't on the Wiki, it's very hard to find. And if it is on the wiki, it can be incomplete. That's not even starting to mention knock on effects where you might not see how something effects something else. So a lot of history is kind of oral, just like real history.
You can quote things from RP too. That section is mainly to make sure that people understand the connections of the changes they want to make.
 
Isn't that why we have submissions forums? So us veterans who've been here for years can bring up issues with an article?

We're supposed to be making SARP more accessible. This suggestion means that every new player is supposed to have an encyclopaedia understanding of the lore.

We can't be expecting people to know how their one article affects every other article on the wiki. Especially when you're explicitly banning them from even asking their friends.

Additionally, you're moving the burden of objecting during the NTSE stage by an affected party into a burden on the submitting party to preemptively handle objections and offer compromises before they've even been raised? I don't know how you can expect this to be possible for new players.

Plus, given we have an RP-first submissions model now, are you hoping to reverse that?
 
I'll note that we've approved a lot of stuff that might not fit perfectly with the lore or the setting as it exists. There is a recent example with psionics that I was fairly against that was approved. So my feeling is that we should be more open to broad strokes.

If we want to raise our player's understanding of the setting, we should make the old lore more accessible. There are two ways we can do this, first by wikifying it better, second by perhaps occasionally bringing up the old pieces of lore in places where newer players are perhaps likely to run into it. I know I don't read everything that gets posted now, much less what happened five years before I arrived. I think a monthly RP newsletter might be interesting, where some poor masochist goes over all of the active threads in the past month and writes a summary of each in a single accessible post would be interesting.
 
We can't be expecting people to know how their one article affects every other article on the wiki.
This is the whole point of creating a system in place to make sure one person who doesn't know how their one article affects others isn't given too much power to destroy the beauty and wonder they themselves cannot see.
 
I'm afraid that at the moment I can't really judge this suggestion objectively, and I think that frankly it ought to be left sitting for now. This thread is already filling up posts that, from my perspective, are borderline inflammatory and based on grudges and are being made along clique lines, and I think all that's going on here is the reignition of the flames of two or three different conflicts that only just got put out. Leave it for now, and maybe when people are calmer we can come back to this.
 
Isn't that why we have submissions forums? So us veterans who've been here for years can bring up issues with an article?
Doesn't mean it isn't worth trying so that when you get it submitted there's less of that, and it helps you grow as a sarper

We're supposed to be making SARP more accessible. This suggestion means that every new player is supposed to have an encyclopaedia understanding of the lore.
If reading setting information and prior history and RP is a burden, then text RP isn't really for the person. And no, it doesn't mean that. That is reducto ad absurdium, not an accurate characterization


We can't be expecting people to know how their one article affects every other article on the wiki. Especially when you're explicitly banning them from even asking their friends.
no one said either of those things.

Additionally, you're moving the burden of objecting during the NTSE stage by an affected party into a burden on the submitting party to preemptively handle objections and offer compromises before they've even been raised? I don't know how you can expect this to be possible for new players.
Expecting someone to do some research before submitting is hardly doing that. New players need to be reading more than anyone else. Being able to accessibly jump in right away doesn't free anyone from the expectation of learning.
 
If reading setting information and prior history and RP is a burden, then text RP isn't really for the person. And no, it doesn't mean that. That is reducto ad absurdium, not an accurate characterization.
In my opinion, reading setting information and prior history and RP often is a burden - even for someone who considers themselves to be an avid reader, if you’ll pardon me for blowing my own horn - simply because there’s so much of it hidden away beneath decades of forum posts or hard-to-find wiki pages. I’m sure I’m not alone when I say that I quite literally learn something new about Star Army just about every day.
 
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Same, I've been here for five years, and enjoy reading wikis for fun (I default to a random page on the wiki and typically read it before I go and do whatever) and I'm always coming across new stuff.
 
This proposed system is not for the NTSE. Its a way of proposing ideas to the community about changing canonized things such as ways of life and cultural systems as is suggested in the other thread I referenced. This has nothing to do with the NTSE at all.

It has to do with people presenting things they want to be changed, like in that thread...In a way that shows they've done their research, shows they're aware of who and what they are going to affect. It was my attempt to solve the problem at hand. This isn't about lines in a clique. Its trying to find a way for people to present things in a non-demanding and informed way.
 
Also what Drew said. The submissions process was a red herring tangent.
 
I think calling it a "red herring" implies intentionality, I was having trouble telling whether this was a suggestion for a process to enable retcons if they were supported or for adding an extra layer onto the NTSE. I didn't even consider that this was a thing for "laws" or "cultural systems" because like... Laws get made in Senate RP, and I don't think anyone's ever brought up changing "cultural systems" or "ways of life" on the forum or the discord. This has left me kind of confused, and I'll once again urge people to just leave this thread for now because tensions are high from what I see.
 
It is funny, things are being suggested as changes in that other thread without regard for who they affect. This is my attempt to suggest a more amicable way of presenting things. Anyway, thank you for taking the time to look at my suggestion. I have other things to do.
 
SASO changing SAINT would have been a lot more lore-accurate with checks and balances in place, not one person without a plan throwing out years of hard work, RP, and fun.
 
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