Conworlds:Conworlds Quality Control

NOTICE: This page exists purely for archival, historical purposes. The Conworlds Quality Control is a defunct, historic form of wiki administration that operated on the Constructed Worlds Wiki from 2016 to 2019.

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This article/organization does not reflect the official policies of the wiki nor is it condoned or sanctioned by the entirety of the wiki administration.

☝ Ｃ Ｑ Ｃ ☝

ᴄᴏɴsᴛʀᴜᴄᴛᴇᴅ ᴡᴏʀʟᴅs ᴡɪᴋɪ
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ᴄᴏɴᴡᴏʀʟᴅs ǫᴜᴀʟɪᴛʏ ᴄᴏɴᴛʀᴏʟ

The Conworlds Quality Control is a metawiki organization founded officially on December 30, 2015 in response to the perceived lack of coherent, enforceable policy on the wiki and weak administration that has resulted in the accumulation of articles of low quality, blank articles, spam, dead/undeveloped projects, and more over the years since the wiki's founding. Disgruntled and dismayed by the overwhelming lack of quality and inaction to improve the wiki, the Conworld Quality Control was formed by four long-time and veteran wiki members: Bowwow828, Centrist16, Dog of War, and Fizzyflapjack to bring to light the state of the wiki and to enact change and reform.

State of the Wiki

The state of the wiki is not bright. Activity has slowly come to lull yet the quality of many articles and the wiki overall have grown progressively worse. Attracting new users who serve positive contributions to the wiki is an issue that this organization is not seeking to address. While it is related, the focus of this organization is on the inherent qualities of the articles themselves, and the organization by which the wiki operates.

What is the Constructed Worlds Wiki?

The Constructed Worlds Wiki was created for the express purpose to serve as an open environment where anyone could create their own imaginative worlds, countries, universes, etc. The wiki was meant to provide a site where individual, private projects could be expanded without hindrance, while simultaneously serving as a means for people to collaborate and combine their efforts in a group project.

Over the years, activity has fluctuated as projects have come and go, and as old members leave, the articles and projects they leave behind are left untouched for years, never to be looked upon for ages. The most distressing fact of the matter is however, is that the majority of these abandoned articles never achieved, or amounted to significant quality and/or length. Often times, articles as short as a sentence or filled with an incoherent babble of vaguely connected ideas were left behind. There are countless of articles created by anonymous users, who, at the time, believed that they would continue working on it, only to leave it within a day or two, never to return to it. And these articles have been allowed to remain.

This is not the only problem. Other articles may actually be quite "in-depth", or rather, having more information than a mere paragraph and several interlinked articles, but instead, they are riddled with egregious grammatical errors, glaring formatting issues, or worse, tired concepts recycled and mass-produced ideas under the pretense of "conworlding".

What is the purpose of the wiki? Other wikis, particularly the Constructed World Wiki's sister wikis such as the Alternative History Wiki and Future Wiki have standards, conventions, and policies on what articles are acceptable, and what are not. Articles that do not fall under the paradigms of the wiki are deleted with some redirected to other wikis. In the past, some of these rejected projects have been diverted to this very wiki. Yes, rejected projects from other wikis have been sent to the Constructed Worlds Wiki, seen as a generalist wiki where just about anything is fair game.

The purpose of this organization is not to determine what specifically may constitute as conworlding or worldbuilding–opinions and views on this are quite diverse and not the issue by which the CQC seeks to address, rather, the organization seeks to determine just what is appropriate and acceptable on the wiki and from there, formulate policies that center around these accepted criteria.

Articles and Quality

The wiki these days is nothing more than a respiratory or database by which nearly anything is allowed to exist. Most of the articles that do exist here happen to be of little value or quality. Now, just what determines an article of decent value is certainly a subjective, relative preference that differs from person-to-person. But when most of the wiki are essentially no longer than two paragraphs with simple text such as "X is a country from Y planet and there are Z people" or similar iterations, who exactly would spend their time on the wiki reading up on such insignificant works that do not amount to any impressionable effect? The purpose of these projects are meant to entertain, impress, and inspire readers.

They are a reflection of the writer(s)' work and dedication. Those who truly put effort and time into their work end up with well-written and rich projects that are worth the read of others. These articles actually take time to read, and if these articles are part of larger projects, get the reader engaged by exploring other articles within this constructed world. This is the purpose and intent of the Constructed Worlds. When articles of minimal, bare information are read that could have been easily reproduced by just about anyone and took as little as a minute to produce, this herein lies a grave problem that must be eradicated. Worlds are not being created. Spam is. Meaningless, undeveloped ideas are created. What could have grown into a thriving project filled with wonderful concepts is instead left over to die as it is either abandoned by the writer or coalesced into a string of other similar articles under the guise of an active project.

Take Leubantia for example. Upon first glance, it appears to be of somewhat satisfactory length but it appears that it could be further developed upon. However, for those who know the nature of the project, they know that this project has been left untouched by its author for years now, and that this country's affiliated/related pages were always of short quality, as small as a mere sentence.

Abandoned projects are not inherently nor necessarily a bad thing. Dead projects are inevitable as authors leave due to real life commitments and loss of interest. The Grand Yarphese Republic and Ivalice are good examples of dead projects that are of merited quality. Although it would be great for them to be expanded once more, they were left of satisfactory quality and depth, worthy of reread and are kept for archival purposes. The wiki should indeed be a library where old works are touched upon by readers old and new. But what is a deep, fundamental problem of this wiki is keeping articles and content absolutely unworthy of archiving, where the content offers little redeeming quality.

Contributors and Quality

There should be no excuses to allow the wiki to continue accumulating useless articles. Just because the wiki has had a history of inaction or the fact that it has a small editor base is no excuse for the embarrassing decay the wiki has. Some detractors who balked at the idea of organizations and housekeeping policies contend that setting up a bureaucracy would not speak well to the "attractiveness of the wiki". What attractiveness of the wiki? How a wiki where nearly half (if not more) of all its articles are of mediocre quality at best which are left to collect dust and nothing more (no views) is attractive is beyond the comprehension of us. If this wiki has always had a small base, it shall always have a small base. There will be no surge in new contributors, nor will there be a shortage of them (at least in the foreseeable future), not anymore than the amount we do see come on a normal basis. The truth is, those who wish to contribute, will contribute. Those who do not, wouldn't need a "bureaucracy" to dissuade them. If anything, the lack of organization and the articles allowed to fester up due to the lack of said organization is what dissuades them.

That is what is unattractive and yet, that should not be the aim of the wiki. The aim of the wiki should be quality, not quantity. Just like articles, the same bodes true for editors. We do not need to have any more contributors if any of these newcomers bring nothing more than a cycle of waste and poorly-written projects as the anons of old have done. Contributors who do nothing more than develop articles that fit the criterion of poor quality should not be ostracized, but neither should their continued rate of contribution be encouraged. They should be reared towards better quality projects and writing, which is best facilitated under precedent and guidelines, coupled with a proactive community that revolve around these principles. Without demonstration, contributors such as these, no matter their intentions, will only further compound the problem this wiki has. In the most extreme of cases, these contributors need to be directed to another wiki where it is suitable or even blocked. We cannot continue encouraging articles that are crap if anything to be produced, especially if there are users on this wiki who actively pursue it, contrary to what the wiki desperately needs for–actual, quality content.

There is no one against the inclusiveness of the wiki. The wiki should be open and a collaborative forefront for creativity and innovation, but these are not excuses for tolerating contributors and editors by which some would deem to be shitposters in other communities to continue editing the wiki. The wiki should not be an open sandbox merely created for people to do whatever they want. There are plenty of other wikis which may fit that category but for what reason is it that makes the Constructed Worlds Wiki chained down to the idea that timelines, tables, map games, or flag databases are to constitute the bulk of contemporary Conworlds? Do not confuse genuine, creative worldbuilding with superficial text sparred with images cheaply stolen from other websites better suited on a blog. Do not be deceived.

Action

Forum Announcements

• Historic Call to Action (Early 2015)
• Declaration of Existence (December 30, 2015)
• Response to Administrative Silence (January 2, 2016)

Administrative decisions

• Centrist16 promoted to Bureaucrat (August 2016)
• Administrator status granted to Fizzyflapjack (October 2016)

Membership

Officials

• Bowwow828 (Chat mod)
• Centrist16 (Bureaucrat)
• Dog of War (Chat mod)
• Fizzyflapjack (Admin)

Partisans

• AlbertWeskerpwnsChrisRedfield
• AnnaOurLittleAlice
• Candiesrgood
• Horton11
• Pelicary
• Vivaporius (Admin)
• CnocBride

Join the CQC

The Conworlds Quality Control is an open, inclusive organization. We accept all members of the wiki, be they old faces or new contributors; administrators or regular editors; active or inactive. We seek to organize into one group with one common interest: restoring and preserving quality on this fine wiki. It doesn't matter if you have never contributed to this wiki once in your life or created thousands of articles (maybe even the ones that we speak against). If you have woken up to see the dismal state of the wiki and want something done about it, then publicly declare that you too are a member of the CQC.

As a member of the CQC, you are officially declaring to the rest of the wiki that you are tired of allowing articles of poor quality ruining the image and legacy of the wiki. You are tired of seeing new pages that are of irredeemable quality and wish to see more interesting articles/projects that are truly written from the heart of their authors. Most importantly, you are showing that you deeply care about the wiki, and hope to see it grow and finally become a wiki worth being called a wiki.

Join the fight! Restore quality to Constructed Worlds! Make your voice heard and tell the wiki you opt in here today.