Just a question on WMG

In WMG, people post crazy theories. Stupid theories. Insane theories. Which are great for getting inspiration for Fanfiction, and that's what WMG is FOR.

But I wanted to ask, before I do anything hasty, if a WMG is firmly and totally Jossed by the canon, is it okay to be removed to keep WMG a little neater?

Because hilarious as it may be, WMG gets pretty cluttered sometimes.

edited 23rd Jun '14 5:36:30 PM by Tightwire

Nah, being jossed is not a reason for removal.

I don't know how proper it is, but many of the Jossed items have a note about them being Jossed (or confirmed).

Just needed to know. Because yes, many jossed WMG do have that next to them... which just takes up more room and obscures the hilarity of people speculating that everybody is robots except for Eggman.

edited 24th Jun '14 7:07:58 AM by Tightwire

If I had my way, I would ditch any "Jossed" or "Confirmed" bullet points for being, esentially, natter.

I don't think that what I'd do to WMG if I had my way is printable, but Eddie has declared it to be a protected space for the "fun" stuff. I do think that there's a fundamental distinction between plausible WMGs, like speculation on the direction of a plot, and ridiculous WMGs, like the ever popular speculation about who's a Time Lord.

The former can, obviously, be confirmed or denied by things that happen in the work, and it would seem appropriate to indicate such in the entry — or remove it, of course. The latter are Just for Fun and need not concern themselves with mere reality.

I personally think that WMG should be converted to a threaded format like Discussions so that it's easier to organize the original idea and replies/comments to it. Headscratchers as well.

edited 24th Jun '14 7:56:57 AM by Fighteer

I think most of WMG is natter. On the rare occasion funny natter, but natter.

I personally think that WMG should be converted to a threaded format like Discussions so that it's easier to organize the original idea and replies/comments to it.

Structurally, a review is a closer analogue to WMG than discussion pages; it's one core concept (the guess) with (optional) commentary attached (like the review comments).

It works out to be roughly the same thing.

Haha, man I would get rid of WMG so fast if it were my decision to make...

On topic though: some WMG pages have "Jossed" and "Confirmed" folders to sort things out. That way you do not need the natter and you can hide all the jossed stuff from view if you want to.

Spoiler-wise, sorting them that way is a minefield, since then you know the moment you read anything at all whether it's true or not, rather than if just the comment about it being jossed or confirmed is spoilered.

Speaking personally I would just avoid the jossed and confirmed folder if I did not want to be spoilered.

But I have no dog in this race so do whatever you please.

Which is an all-or-nothing approach to spoilers. Either you avoid everything that's been confirmed or jossed, with no regard for when that happened, or you're spoiled by everything.

As opposed to reading all theories without being spoiled, and having the option of reading a spoilered line about whether it's true or not, which is rather easy to determine if you already know or not.

True, but once they've been Jossed or Confirmed, there really shouldn't be any further discussion of them, so all the back and-forth can be cut. I fully support separating them out into "Jossed" and "Comfirmed" folders. Folks who are interested in discussing open questions can do so without seeign the others, people who want to know can read those folders. There's no way to make everyone happy: some people don't like wading through three screens of back-and—forth discussion only to get to the last line and find out it's been utterly Jossed. Others don't like not being able to see everything all at once.

And people who don't want spoilers are basically screwed.

Why would you go to a series' WMG page if you don't want spoilers? That makes zero sense.

In WMG-land, anything can be a spoiler. It goes with the territory.

'd

edited 25th Jun '14 1:24:58 PM by Madrugada

What, you mean cross-franchise spoilers? Shoot me now.

The only place I care about spoilers is in main, any other page related to the work in question I assume will be spoiler-y by default, even the primary work page. Easy enough to just stay away from the work page until you are caught up if it matters that much to you.