UserWiki:Inumo

Hi! I'm one of the Historians for the Jazz Hands, which is to say that I do a lot of the lore management & records upkeep for our team. I'm also a content moderator for the wiki at large. As you may have seen from the Jazz Hands' contribution guidelines, we generally try to propose ideas in the team Discord channel before adding them to the main body of wiki pages. If you have a lore idea but don't use Discord, you can put it on the Talk page connected to the page you want to edit, under the Lore Submissions section. You can also contact me on Twitter (@Inumo) or on Mastodon ([email protected]), and I can pass it on for discussion. If this sounds intimidating to you, not to worry! The Interdimensional Rumor Mill sections are there for your use; if there end up being multiple lore entries, I'll turn it into an official IRM, but you're free to add what you'd like even if the IRM isn't fully present.

Developing the Contribution Guidelines

Below is a narrative description of the process I followed to develop the contribution guidelines for the Jazz Hands.

First Poll

On Aug 31, 2020, I presented the following survey to the #jazzhands channel on Discord:

Hey folks, a lore discussion for you. If you've been watching #fan-lore, you've likely heard of the Interdimensional Rumor Mill. For those unfamiliar, the idea is wiki pages for players that use the IRM have a list of community lore entries for that character, and display a random entry each time the page loads. See Valentine Games' page, for example. The intent behind the IRM is to prevent a tyranny of the majority when it comes to interpretations of players; some of the other teams have had instances where fans came to the team with a lot of investment into a particular interpretation of a player, only to feel shut down when the broader team community had an already-established and mutually exclusive interpretation. The IRM tries to skirt this issue by giving equal weight to every interpretation entered into its list.

I, personally, do not like the IRM. For one thing, I feel it does not promote the collaborative lore-building I've enjoyed with you all. Instead, IMO it encourages a diaspora of interpretations, with no community interaction. I worry that a well-meaning but privileged interpretation is given equal weight to our current more diverse interpretations. For another, I don't think the IRM actually supports minority voices, because the majority can simply submit multiple good-faith unified interpretations into the IRM, and thereby mitigate the visibility of any minority interpretation. I don't have a better solution, though.

The wiki team has no plans to make the IRM mandatory, but we should consider how we want to interact with it. If you believe we should make use of the IRM, react to this message with <emoji A>. If you believe we should NOT make use of the IRM, react to this message with <emoji B>. If you want a hybrid solution (some unified community lore & some IRM lore), react with <emoji C>. If you don't care one way or the other, react to this message with <emoji D>. Thanks for your attention.

Poll results: 4 in favor of using the IRM, 24 in favor of not using the IRM, 13 in favor of a hybrid decision, 6 ambivalent results. The plan was to collect feedback for a future discussion by talking to members of each voting population in turn, starting with the pro-IRMers.

Pro-IRM Survey

I pinged the 4 pro-IRM voters in #jazzhands and posed them the following questions:

• What does widespread use of the IRM look like, to you?
• What does the IRM do that neither the hybrid nor non-IRM approach can't?
• If we were to go with a hybrid non-IRM/IRM solution, what would you need to see happen to be comfortable with it? "I can't be comfortable with it" is an acceptable answer if that's your truth.
• If we were to go with a non-IRM-only solution, what would you need to see happen to be comfortable with it? "I can't be comfortable with it" is an acceptable answer if that's your truth.

The people who responded didn't answer these questions directly, but did convey the following reasons for choosing to be pro-IRM:

• Argument A: Single interpretations makes it hard for people to feel like they have license to add on.
• Argument B: The IRM is novel, and therefore appealing
• Argument C: With the IRM, lore can be generated both through community sources and through solo effort.

That said, all pro-IRM users were also OK with using a non-IRM or hybrid solution, without any particular concerns. This was where this first attempt died off, as IRL work and other aspects of the game suddenly required much more attention from me.

Second Poll

On Sept 17, 2020, I was incidentally reminded that I never actually got around to resolving this matter. Since it had been over two weeks, and the community had definitely shifted in that time, I began a new survey, this time focused more on "is the current solution we've been using OK:"

So, for those unaware, the Interdimensional Rumor Mill (IRM) is a tool the wiki team developed to permit multiple interpretations of a character to be surfaced at random on the wiki, thereby facilitating the "there is no one true canon" mandate set down by The Game Band. You can see a version of it active on Stephens Lightner's wiki page, though it was intended to be an entire Community Lore section instead of this half-and-half solution we came up with. When last I checked, some folks here liked the IRM because it helps facilitate new people adding lore, is an exciting new tool, and permits solo lore generation. That last point is personally the primary reason why I -don't- like the IRM, but I respect that not everyone feels comfortable working in such a fast-paced collaborative environment. Our current lore solution has been to primarily stick to single community interpretations, building off past teams' work, with no IRM use except when an already-IRM'd player is added to the team and in select circumstances (like Stephens Lightner's Notable Stephens). I would like a consensus vote agreeing on this policy before I consider it concrete, though. If you would like to continue this mostly no-IRM solution, react with <thumbs up>. If you would like to have a different solution, react with <thumbs down>. If you don't care that much, react with <splayed hand>.

Poll results: 25 in favor of keeping things as they are, 3 against (plus one non-voting dissenter), 23 abstaining. Next step, talking to dissenters to figure out how to compromise.

• Non-voting dissenter: the "no true canon" mandate shouldn't be circumvented entirely; add an "alternative interpretations" section, and explicitly invite people to use the IRM in that space (recognizing that it should only be used w/ 2+ entries), while directing people to the Talk page to contribute to the primary interpretation section.
• Voting dissenter A: the wiki is a lot to swallow at once, especially for newbies & RPers who feel obliged to follow "canon;" try to use the above "alternative interpretations" section also as a signal for less canon-centric RPers to write & document their own versions of a character.
• Voting dissenter B: singular lore might make people feel like their perspectives don't count, so they don't share; alternative interpretations space should be an OK compromise.
• Voting dissenter C: new fans should be able to contribute even if they're not around for working on a new player; directions for contributions to main lore and a section available for IRM'ing is useful to let new fans get involved.

So, TL;DR I added a section for alternative interpretations to our current player pages, along with directions for how to contribute lore: Talk pages for the community interpretation, and the IRM for solo/secondary interpretations.