Talk:Blaseball, The Internet Blaseball League Wiki/Archive

How to differentiate Fanon and Canon

THE FACTS: A discussion has arisen in the #lore channel about how to differentiate Fanon and Canon on the wiki— I believe this is the best place to propose and discuss solutions in an organized fashion!

MY TAKE: Coming from a perspective of someone who likes lore and has spent a lot of time reading the SCP wiki, I personally think that immersion is important and would reckon that the majority of Blaseball fans get into the game because they enjoy the immersive aspects of pretending that the barebones baseball simulator is not so barebones after all.

I also believe that Wiki editors can respectfully work together to achieve a collaborative shared canon (basically, the direction the wiki is going in right now) and that if someone is attached to their own fanon ideas or alternate universe, they're welcome to create an offshoot wiki to host these ideas. Alternatively, we could also have a system like SCP's Tales, which allow for contradicting fanons and ideas while the main SCP articles (in our case, "Core" articles like players, teams, and seasons) maintain one collaboratively agreed-upon canon, with "true canon" information taken directly from official Blaseball sources taking precedence.

A proposed solution for those who are more interested in canon stats than player-generated canon, we can include a "First Time Here?" link on the homepage that explains, out of character, the purpose of the wiki and includes direction to the Society for Internet Blaseball Research (SIBR) homepage/wiki for purely canon statistics and information. Let me know what you think, and remember that we all enjoy Blaseball in our own way and the goal is to work together to find a compromise that allows everyone to enjoy it! Crunklio (talk) 15:53, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

I've added a disclaimer to the main page but I do agree a "first time here" page would be a very good solution SonarTaxlaw (talk) 16:02, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

+ − my opinion is we should have no differentiation between "canon" and "fanon" because there is no real difference between the two, especially in Blaseball. All the pronouns on the wiki are as canon as the site is and its almost always good to correct people on them if it makes Blaseball more explicitly queer and diverse. That's my stance, I guess. User:YerPalDK (usertalk:YerPalDK) 12:01 4 August 2020 (EDT)

I think that beyond just clarifying what comes from the site and what's original content, we also need to have a deeper discussion about the purpose of this wiki and what type of content we want to include. (Ideally for the distinction I'd like to stick with links to SIBRmetrics once that site's ready so as not to undermine the in-universeness of the wiki.)

Regardless of your opinions on words such as "canon" and "fanon", the lore on this wiki has been broadly accepted as part of Blaseball culture. In addition to that, the existence of this wiki heavily affects how new players perceive the game. Right now, there's a sort of unwritten agreement between the fans and the devs in terms of what we have authority over and what they're free to overwrite. I think it's important we consider what content the wiki includes carefully both to prevent conflicts down the line and to maintain the kind of relationship with canon that lets things like the Dial Tone be added to the game.

Some rough rules: 1. Obviously no internet league fan teams or fan players. (Let people use the minor leages for that) 2. Fans of a team have authority over information regarding their team, home city, and players, but they should respect stat changes, transfers, and incinerations in the game. Don't get too attached to any specific player. If there is consensus among a team's fans that old lore should be overwritten or removed, they should be allowed to do so. (Important question that will inevitably come up: if someone gets transferred to a new team, and the writers from the new and old teams have a disagreement over how to handle the player, what do we do?) 3. The events and lore surrounding the game of Blaseball itself and the internet league should be kept strictly accurate to the game. There's clearly a lot the devs have planned which we don't know and I don't want a scenario where our interpretation of something becomes widespread and then gets contradicted by the devs. Worldbuilding around the sport should be kept to things like the Blaseball-Glolf Conflict that have no bearing on current events. Ian Gitax (talk) 18:06, 4 August 2020 (UTC)