[META] Who's responsible for ...?

[robkelk]

Since it came up in the X-Wing thread...

There seems to be some discontent that some of the factions and places aren't detailed as much as people might want them to be. There are two reasons for this: first, to allow room for writers to expand the setting; and second, because nobody (including the people displaying discontent - and that includes me) have come up with anything.

Do we want particular people to be responsible for shared elements of the setting, coming up with suggestions for the entire Collective to discuss? In the case of the Senshi, that's worked reasonably well with Cobalt and myself at the helm. In the case of the Browncoats, it wasn't necessary - we (mostly Mal) just tossed things into the pot until we got to the current level of detail.

If we do want people to be responsible for detailing factions and places, how do we figure out who gets the jobs? And what happens when people drift away from Fenspace? And how much detail should we expect one person to come up with, especially for something that isn't that person's particular corner of Fenspace? And how long do we want to give people to do this work, remembering that this is supposed to be a hobby? (How long has that list of stub pages been on my talk page, again? How long has it been since the last chapter of LoGG?)

If people like this idea anyway, I can put together a chart and post it somewhere on the FenWiki, then let folks "sign up" for the sections they want to address... but I'm not going to waste the effort if nobody else thinks this is a good idea.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[HRogge]

Since it came up in the X-Wing thread...

There seems to be some discontent that some of the factions and places aren't detailed as much as people might want them to be. There are two reasons for this: first, to allow room for writers to expand the setting; and second, because nobody (including the people displaying discontent - and that includes me) have come up with anything.

It sometimes feels funny that we have nearly nothing about whats going on with the LARGE factions

Funny but easy to understand.

Do we want particular people to be responsible for shared elements of the setting, coming up with suggestions for the entire Collective to discuss? In the case of the Senshi, that's worked reasonably well with Cobalt and myself at the helm. In the case of the Browncoats, it wasn't necessary - we (mostly Mal) just tossed things into the pot until we got to the current level of detail.

If we do want people to be responsible for detailing factions and places, how do we figure out who gets the jobs? And what happens when people drift away from Fenspace? And how much detail should we expect one person to come up with, especially for something that isn't that person's particular corner of Fenspace? And how long do we want to give people to do this work, remembering that this is supposed to be a hobby? (How long has that list of stub pages been on my talk page, again? How long has it been since the last chapter of LoGG?)

Yes, thats difficult...

If people like this idea anyway, I can put together a chart and post it somewhere on the FenWiki, then let folks "sign up" for the sections they want to address... but I'm not going to waste the effort if nobody else thinks this is a good idea.

Maybe a "we are looking for input for this faction" category would be a start. To tell people "yes, here is lots of room for creativity, just ask in the forum".

[ECSNorway]

I've already sorta laid claim to the Macross'ians...
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[robkelk]

Here are the lists of factions and companies... I'm looking only at the relevant "top page," not at any subsidiary pages, and all ranks are In My Humble Opinion. (The rankings: "could stand a bit of polishing" is nearly complete and probably Good Enough for this exercise; "plenty of data" is more than "a good amount of data", which is more than "under-written", which is more than "stub-class page", which is more than "no "top page" at all".)

Factions

Government
Each of these pages has plenty of data.

Major Factions

• United Federation of Planets: under-written
  
• Galactic Republic: under-written
  
• The Wizarding World: under-written except for its government, needs a logo
  
• Interstellar Alliance: stub-class page, needs a logo
  
• Independent Faction: could stand a bit of polishing (This is probably the easiest one to bring up to a decent standard - all it needs are the sections on "Daily Life" and "Industry" fleshed out, and maybe a page for Blue Sun created. Any Firefly/Serenity Fen with some spare time hanging out here?)
  
• Crystal Millennium: plenty of data
  

Minor Factions - who don't need as much as the Major Factions, but still deserve more than just a couple of sentences

• Belters: stub-class page, needs a logo
  
• Kingdom of the Abh: no "top page" at all! Also, needs a logo
  
• Kingdom of Jurai: stub-class page, needs a logo
  
• Justice League Interplanetary: plenty of data, but needs a logo
  
• Koopa Kingdom: Writer's Preserve (unless KaiserDrgn has dropped out of the Fenspace Collective)
  
• Morians: plenty of data, but needs a logo
  
• SOS-dan: plenty of data
  
• Soviet Air Force: plenty of data
  
• Spacefleet: plenty of data
  
• Space Pirates: stub-class page, needs a logo
  
• The Twelve Colonies of Kobol: stub-class page, needs a logo
  
• United Stars Organization: stub-class page, needs a logo
  
• Village Hidden in Asteroids: under-written, needs a logo
  

Cultures and Subcultures - I'm inclined to let these folks have shorter writeups than the folks above

• Furries: a good amount of data, but needs a logo
  
• Heinlein Society: a good amount of data, but needs a logo
  
• Military fen: a good amount of data
  
• Minimalist Spacers: plenty of data, but needs a logo
  
• Panzer Kunst Gruppe: plenty of data, but needs a logo
  
• Pellucidarans: a good amount of data
  
• Pulpers: a good amount of data, but needs a logo (or a group of logos)
  
• Submariners: a good amount of data
  
• Timelords: a good amount of data
  
• Turnerites: a good amount of data, but needs a logo (preferably not one that screams "we're racist sexist pigs;" even if that's what they are, they don't see themselves as villains)
  

NGOs

• Artemis Foundation: a good amount of data
  
• Banzai Institute for Biomedical Research and Strategic Information: plenty of data
  
• The Cyber Confederation: a good amount of data, but needs a logo
  
• The Hacker Underspace: a good amount of data, but needs a logo
  
• The Knight Foundation: stub-class page
  
• The Mars Terraforming Project: stub-class page
  
• The Mob: a good amount of data, but needs a logo
  
• Musician's Aid Society: could stand a bit of polishing
  
• Nikaido Foundation: a good amount of data, but needs a logo
  
• Paratheo-Anametamystikhood Of Eris Esoteric: Fnord
  
• The Venus Terraforming Project: stub-class page
  

Other Groups

• Antis: enough data for what really isn't a group at all. Could use a logo, but what would it be?
  
• Boskonians: a good amount of data, but needs a logo
  
• Gearheads: a good amount of data
  
• Herbertites: stub-class page, needs a logo
  
• Humourists: a good amount of data
  
• The Watch: a good amount of data, but needs a logo
  

Fen Companies

Most of these are Writers' Preserves. The ones that aren't, in the order they appear on the page:

• Hermes Universal Deliveries: plenty of data, but needs a logo
  
• Orbital Air: a good amount of data, but needs a logo
  
• Candy Apple Red's: a good amount of data, but needs a logo
  
• Cavalier Concerts: a good amount of data, but needs a logo
  
• Renfaire: no "top page" at all! Also, needs a logo
  
• Bailey Security Service: a good amount of data, but needs a logo
  
• Bounty Hunters: complete, except for a logo
  
• Dorsai: stub-class page, needs a logo (mind the trademarks!)
  
• Hogwarts' Press: stub-class page, needs a logo
  
• ISN: no "top page" at all! Also, needs a logo
  
• Ninjaburger: could stand a bit of polishing, needs a logo (mind the trademarks!)
  
• Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems: no "top page" at all! Also, needs a logo
  

I might doodle some of these logos myself, if nobody gets to them first.

If anybody wants to tackle the various Places in Fenspace, be my guest...
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Rakhasa]

I have plans -final release date unknown, unfortunately- to expand a couple Crystal Cities (Venice and Moscow), the Cloud Cities in Jupiter and the Wizards thenselves.

For the wizards, I planned to tackle 2020 Hosmeade and expand the area into a full cluster of asterid habitats (magical villages and Towers) -trhough I onle planned to actually detail a couple or three of then.

[Dartz]

The Panzer Kunst Gruppe logo will be a variation of the Cyber Confederation logo because the Gruppe is a part of the Confederation, probably with the addition of a pair of blades or similar distinctive features. It's not really something anyone in the Gruppe gave much thought to... while unit markings are similar to Mel's unit patch, replacing the shuttle with another emblem.

Turnerite Logo... a Cross silhouetted by the red sun. (Since these're white-supremacist Christians.) Or just call a shovel a shovel and go with a swastika at the centre of a solar system. RL White Supremacist groups tend not to be shy about using a variation of Nazi iconography... they don't see a problem with it... or lookalikes in countries where the swastika is banned.

Belters. Snake on a rock. "Don't Tread(Land) on me" ?

Anti-danes: Zeon/ZAFT Logo, or variation.

I'm no graphic artist... Mel's patch began as a scanned pencil drawing that had to be completely redone. That said, plenty of these factions are diverse enough that they could probably be left without a logo, or a logo would be excessive. Bounty Hunters probably don't need one, for one thing.

I might take a stab at fleshing out the Galactic Republic when I get home from work.....
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[robkelk]

Turnerite Logo... a Cross silhouetted by the red sun. (Since these're white-supremacist Christians.) Or just call a shovel a shovel and go with a swastika at the centre of a solar system. RL White Supremacist groups tend not to be shy about using a variation of Nazi iconography... they don't see a problem with it... or lookalikes in countries where the swastika is banned.

Since there's at least one German national in the Fenspace Collective, I think we should go with "lookalike" if we go this route.

Belters. Snake on a rock. "Don't Tread(Land) on me" ?

Why am I thinking Samuel L. Jackson here?
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Dakota]

Belters: Pickaxe with one point buried in a asteroid?
Furries: Paw print, or paw prints. I think I have a paw print image somewhere I made for something of mine.
Space Pirates: Off center black(or red) bandana with skull and crossbones over a stylized image of the sun?
Minimalist Spacers: Simplized real world rocket and/or space capsule?
The Hacker Underspace: A hatchet cutting a old style computer code in half? A nod to where the term hacker came from before it got twisted into it's current usage by the media.
_______________________________________________________________
Characters
Sabre Fang
Dakota

[robkelk]

Furries: Paw print, or paw prints. I think I have a paw print image somewhere I made for something of mine.

I found a few paw prints at http://www.cartoonclipartworld.com/pawprints/index.html that are good enough for a concept image. (Five minutes in GIMP - somebody with more time can no doubt do a better job.) The most common animal-people in fiction nowadays appear to be cat-people, and the most common source of catgirls in fiction nowadays is anime, so something with a Japanese vibe seemed appropriate to me... or maybe I'm just inspired by Usagi Yojimbo.


--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[robkelk]

I've taken that page structure Mal is currently using for the UFP re-write, made it generic, and posted it to the Talk pages of the Major Faction pages - excepting the Crystal Millennium page, where I actually applied the structure to the existing page.

I don't expect any one person to complete an entire page on his (or her) own. Fill in what you can, and when there's enough to make a decent article, I'll move the structure over to the main page.

And "Crystal Millennium" needs some work again - I'll take a swing at that if nobody (looks at Cobalt Greywalker and Ross van Loan) beats me to it.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[M Fnord]

I've taken that page structure Mal is currently using for the UFP re-write, made it generic, and posted it to the Talk pages of the Major Faction pages - excepting the Crystal Millennium page, where I actually applied the structure to the existing page.

"Crystal Millennium" needs some work again - I'll take a swing at that if nobody (looks at Cobalt Greywalker and Ross van Loan) beats me to it.

I, um, maybe you'd want to wait to see what my final layout looks like before you start spamming it on all the pages? 'Cos what I'm building is close to that, but not quite that.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[robkelk]

That's okay, I made some changes as well. (Your basic structure was pretty good; I didn't have to do much to bring it up to "professional" level.) Talk pages are relatively easy to update, too.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012