User:Erik/sandbox2

Theories, anecdotes and more

Stages of authorship

Stage	Usual duration	Hallmarks	Examples
Beginner	1-2 years	Utopian or dystopian worlds/nations, with little nuance. Maximalist approaches are common, which are often interesting to the beginner, but rapidly become dull due to their overwhelming scale and perceived infallibility. Due to the complexity of the Wikimedia software, these projects often lack intricate elements and may be written in a non-encyclopedic style.	Worlds with clear "good" versus "evil".
Intermediary	2-3 years	More nuanced projects, often centering on clear assumptions and internal rules. Authors may join or create their own collaborative projects and usually adapt to the encyclopedic style of writing. They may feature more coherent visual expressions in the form of thumbnails, flags, seals, and maps. Infoboxes are common.
Advanced	3+ years	Highly nuanced or bespoke projects, with complexities and thorough world-building. Authors may participate in collaborative projects, or maintain separate, solo-projects. These often feature and expand upon problems and inequalities in the world they have created, as most find problems add to realism and are interesting to create. They often feature coherent visual expressions through carefully selected or created content such as thumbnails, flags, seals, maps, logos, and sound files. The projects are often categorized or use appropriate summary templates, such as sidebars.

Great Master theory

In essence, that a conworld is constructed in a manner which makes it obvious or clear to the reader that the author has a vision which guides its characters to with little to no discretion. This is considered to be a crude method of fictionalization, as it lacks realism or established consistency, thereby making characters or events appear as they are for convenience rather than plausibility.