Forum:In Regard to Crossover Fanfiction

All right, so this is going to be a little lengthy, as it's meant to address a major community issue and suggest a possible solution to it. It mainly deals with problems of user retention and address | this inactive hulk.

So, I'll just come right out and say it, this is about lifting the wiki's strict ban on crossover fanfiction, along with crossovers to the "real world."

Allow me to explain. Crossover fanfiction is fairly popular among fans of any medium. I myself have written crossovers of other franchises before. Plus, it allows people to mix two things they love. Crossovers with the real world (and, to a lesser extend, self-inserts) give people the ability to enter writing in other mediums while still sticking to things they find familiar by blending the fantastic and the mundane. And let's face it, Bionicle loves interdimensional shenanigans. Crossovers are practically inevitable.

Also, the ban on having human characters is kind of ridiculous. Many fantasy settings have humans, and strictly banning them seems a little harsh in terms of dealing with certain groups of fans.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that not all crossover fanfiction is good, and self-inserts are notorious for being awful, but, as with any medium, Sturgeon's Law applies, and by trying to prevent the bad that crossover fiction brings, we're keeping a lot of good stuff from making its way to the sight as well. Brutaka's Game is an excellent example of real world crossover and possibly a bit of self-insert executed fairly well.

So, in order to garner more users and allow a wider variety of fiction to be published on the site, I propose lifting the ban on crossover fanfiction on the wiki, along with a set of qualifiers. Consider it a "bill of rights" to ensure quality:


 * 1) All crossover fanfictions must make sense. No nonsensical crossovers where characters are illogically thrown into other situations. This should also be used for the presence of humans in a story. Having humans in the story without a logical reason for them to be there should not be tolerated.
 * 2) Ban on High School AU's. We don't need that.
 * 3) Strict judgement on self-inserts, possibly including a Mary Sue/Marty Stu test to prevent them from getting too out of hand.
 * 4) A voting forum would be established for the community to check crossover fanfics. This would allow us to keep watch on stories and vote out poor ones or make authors improve. This forum would decide all decisions ranging from sensability to levels of "Sue/Stu-ness".
 * 5) A specific set of crossover templates (page infobox and crossover banner), along with possibly a crossover namespace, titling articles "Crossover/StoryTitleHere" rather than just "Story Title Here" in order to further separate them from usual stories.
 * 6) A "Featured Crossover" spotlight on the main page, to promote and help foster creativity and quality among crossovers.
 * 7) To be allowed on this wiki, crossovers should feature at least a 1:1 ratio of Bionicle to other franchise content. Bionicle should be the majority source of content. A story where the Toa Mata meet the Avengers would be acceptable. A story where the Avengers have Tahu as a member is not.

Basically, while they'd be heavily regulated, we should finally lift the ban in order to increase user contributions and allow for more creativity on the site.

-- Echo 1:  High Resolution,   Poor Quality  07:35, February 11, 2016 (UTC)

ADDENDUM: BC and I have already brainstormed up an idea for a template. A normal page banner with this image and this text: "The following is a crossover featuring characters and places from another media. For more information on the non-BIONICLE subjects featured, go here (link to wikia on whatever is in the story)."