User blog:Jasca Ducato/Policies, Manual of Styles, rules and regulations

Before you all read this, take note that it is written in the only way I know how to, plain and simple. I won't mention any names, and I hope people realise that no offence is intended by what is written; that said, let me begin.

Starting on a slight side-note: When I first saw that Wikia had incorporated a blog feature, my initial reaction was one of "WTF!? Never gonna use that", and to be perfectly honest, I still despise the feature; that said, I do recognise the benefits the feature offers, namely, providing access to new game developments and such. Now, for all intent and purposes, this will probably be the only blog I ever, ever post, but whilst I'm doing it, I might as well make the most of it.

Now, it's no secret that I have, on more than one occasion, made edits or changes that some on this wiki do not agree with, and to be perfectly honest, I could care less if people agree with my changes or not, I'm doing them to improve the wiki; even if it means removing information or enacting changes without asking others. Sometimes this has led to arguments, other times it has, fortunately, lead to consensus; however, it has made me realise that this wiki is in need of set standards and policies, rather than an unwritten book. So what I'm going to do is write down a non-exhaustive, randomly ordered, list of what I consider to be the most important features that we, as a wiki, need to incorporate:

Tense
Now, this has been a stickler for me since I first came to this wiki, and I am stubborn about this particular detail and it's not going to change, either. Namely, what tense are articles to be written in; past tense, or present tense. Of course, for real-world, or out-of-universe (OOU), articles such as Assassin's Creed or Assassin's Creed: The Fall, or even Patrice Désilets or Roger Craig Smith, it is only common sense that we use the term "is", as it is currently happening in the real world. Assassin's Creed is a game in the series, Roger Craig Smith is a voice actor for the game. My issue comes when people starting using the term on what I call "in-universe" (IU) articles, such as Ezio Auditore da Firenze, Lucy Stillman, Venice, Florence etc.

Now, the way I see it is that, by putting the term "is" (and by extension terms such as "uses" instead of "used", or "attacks" instead of "attacked") we are actually saying to the reader we on this wiki consider this particular moment being discussed to be the present. Now, this present a number of issues. On an article encompassing an entire lifetime, such as Ezio Auditore da Firenze, at which point do we consider to be the present? When he's just killed the Pazzi; because we're then gonna have to say "Ezio will travel to Venice…" or "Ezio will kill Marco Barbarigo by shooting him in time with fireworks which haven't been fired yet". Of course, this is an exaggeration of the problem this wiki faces, but it is still representative of the issue we face. Let me bring in a more realistic, and current, example.

The article on Lucy Stillman begins with the line "Lucy Stillman is a member of the Assassin's Order"; now, that single line tells the reader straight away that we here consider the year 2012 to be the current date (when in actuality it's in the future, but let’s not dwell on that). I have no problem with that, and if it is agreed and filled in policy or MoS, I'd stick by that, but when I see people put something like "Masyaf is a city…" When the hell did we decide Masyaf was still about in the games story? It might've been destroyed by then, might've changed its name, might've done anything. We can't just assume it's still about, plus there is the fact that, by the time of ACII we know it has been abandoned, so it isn't still headquarters to the Assassin's Order, not that that is the impression the article gives.

Basically, pretty soon I'll be putting forward a motion that all in-universe articles be written in the past tense. That way we have a set standard across all articles, and prevents silly little edit wars from breaking out over a single word.

In-universe and out-of-universe
I briefly mentioned above the distinction between in-universe and out-of-universe articles above, but I'll reiterate here, and in more detail.

This wiki includes information not only about the games, but also the comics, the game developers, and game mechanics like synchronisation, customisation and whatnot. As such, I think we need to make a distinction between the two. I, personally, hate it when I see an IU article littered with the words "…in Assassin's Creed II…", that is what the sourcing policy is for. Besides, people know, for example, that Rodrigo Borgia is the main-antagonist for Assassin's Creed II, without having it plastered in the middle of the introduction and ruining the flow of the text. Rather simply, I am proposing the following:

In-universe articles are written entirely from an in-universe prospective, with the exception of the BtS and Trivia sections; out-of-universe articles are written from an out-of-universe perspective. Take the article on "Piece of Eden", have written it entirely from an IU prospective, with the exception of the Trivia section, which adequately covers any information that might be interesting to the reader. That is the sort of standard I want to set across the board.

Real-world information
Closely related to the IU/OOU point I've just made, I hate it when people stick real world information into our articles. For example, a while back someone added to the "Venice" article "It was also often referred to as; The Floating City, in reference to the many different Rivers running through it." Now, it may well be called that in real life, but there is absolutely sod all mention of it being called that in the AC series, and as such it has no place on this wiki. Whenever I see something like that added, I simply revert it, and for the most part so do the rest of the core-editors on this wiki; this is more of a reminder than an attempt to get a set standard.

No bloody original research!

Achievements, and exploiting them
My final, and probably shortest note. I was against the achievements from the very start purely because I could see them being exploited, and as such ruining the wiki. This was proven pretty quickly a certain user made close to ninety edits on a single article, in the space of half an hour, when the "preview" button just stood there being greatly unloved. This not only fucked up the history of that article, but makes catching possible vandalism most difficult. We need an official set of rules and regulations, and punishments to counter this, though I believe the admins are best suited to decide these.

Closing notes
Once again, I've not mentioned any names on this blog, and I am currently not putting anything forward for consideration, just my opinion and professional view. I don't want anybody to take offence at what has been written here, but if you do, you're welcome to have a hissy-fit in your bedroom before typing a, likely, very child'ish response which will simply be ignored, meaning you will lose those precious seconds of your life, never to be regained.

For those who wish to post constructive views, please do so, and I will happily respond in kind; now to receive my inevitable wiki achievement for posting my first ever blog&hellip;