Following on from my summary, I think that the oft-repeated mantra of "There is no canon" is incorrect. There certainly is an SCP Foundation canon: articles and characters and organizations that have become entrenched enough in the universe that they are recurring elements in many different stories. A better statement, I think, should be "There is no continuity." Namely, that we're not interested in nitpicking what events occur when and how one thing relates to another across the entire wiki: each article should stand more or less alone, without requiring deep knowledge of every other article on the site.
In addition, something else that has changed in recent years is the rise of side projects. Things like Containment Breach, or 087-B, or the many SCP Foundation fanworks (including fanfiction, films, and audio dramas) that use the wiki as its source material. In the past, we were able to cavalierly delete articles that we felt were below standards, due to the fact that the wiki was largely self-contained. However, with the rise of side projects, changing the wiki won't just change our own internal canon: it could also have far-reaching effects on other projects carried out by other groups. For instance, consider what might happen if, due to a quirk of the readership, the opinion on SCP-087 falls down to the point where our own rules require deletion or archival: it could have far-reaching effects on many other side projects.
So, with that having been said, I'd like to propose that we establish an SCP Foundation Hall of Fame: these are articles that have stood the test of time and deserve to be locked into what there is of the SCP Foundation Canon.
Here are my proposals for addition to the Hall of Fame.
1. Longevity: the article must have been on the site for at least a certain number of years. Longevity will be decided by the page's history, and taking a look at when the article was first written. Since our current rewrite policies mean that the article must maintain an essential core throughout its entire history on the site, this means that the article's core concept has lasted long enough to be accepted by the site's readerbase. Since the first article was written about five years ago (SCP-173 went up on July 25, 2008), I would propose that only articles that are at least four years old (before December 31, 2009) be nominated for inclusion this year.
2. Quality: the article must be highly rated. What the threshold is will be up for debate: I would say that rather than a set number, which could change drastically as time goes on, we will instead take a look at how the article is rated relative to other articles on the site. This may require some number crunching, which may require some outside help.
3. Popularity: namely, looking at how popular the article is in side works. Whether the article has been used as the basis of Foundation Tales, outside fanart, or outside fan projects. This will help us to establish what elements of the wiki are popular outside our insular community, and inspire creativity among the greater population.
Once an article is added to the Hall of Fame, the following things happen.
1. The page is considered locked and cannot be edited except by mod or admin approval. If a major rewrite is necessary (aside from small issues), an admin (not just a mod) must oversee the rewrite, whether they do it themselves or hand it over to someone else to take care of it for them.
2. The SCP number is considered "retired" and cannot be used for any other article. Should the article's quality fall to the point where it would normally require archival, the slot will not be freed up: instead, the article will be retired as "SCP-XXX-ARC," and a note will be made on the main page listing that the page number is archived. This is to avoid confusion among the readership, and as an act of courtesy to the creators of fan projects: even if the SCP that they have based their project on falls from the page listing, there will not be a new article under that number to confuse the issue among wiki readers moving to that side project and vice versa.
3. The article will have a small badge or icon added next to it on the main page listing, and a similar badge or icon placed next to the article's rating module.
My goals for proposing the SCP Foundation Hall of Fame are as follows.
1. Preserve older articles that formed the core of the SCP Foundation's past canon to help maintain a more solid timeline from the site's beginnings to the current day.
2. Establish a "canon" of articles that will be relatively safe from deletion or archival, in order to provide a solid core of concepts for side project authors to refer back to if they want to make sure their project won't be invalidated by an article deletion or archival.
3. Create a "core reading list" of articles for new members to begin with: a shorter list of articles that are both highly rated and have stood the test of time. This will give new readers an easier jumping-off point from which to begin enjoying the SCP Foundation, and will help ease the new readership into the canon.
Now, for the inaugural class of the SCP Foundation Hall of Fame, here are my proposals:
First of all, SCP-173 will automatically be incorporated into the Hall of Fame. As the first article, and the one that is responsible for creating the entire site, it deserves to be canonized.
It was brought to my attention that the userbase and senior staff should be included in this process, and I agree. I am considering how to handle this using an alternate method.
In order to nominate an article to be added to the hall of fame, the person doing the nomination must provide arguments that the article meets our three criteria: that it has stood the test of time, is highly rated, and inspires other works of art. They might also add other reasons why they feel the article deserves to be preserved.
As an example, a nomination for SCP-173 might go like this:
I nominate SCP-173 for inclusion into the 2013 Hall of Fame. The article was written in 2008 and has been highly rated since then, and is now the highest rated article on the site at +792. In addition, it has inspired several works of art, including multiple Foundation Tales, and at least one off-site project called "SCP Containment Breach." In addition, SCP-173 is one of our most recognizable SCP articles, and is, in fact, considered the SCP Foundation "mascot." For this reason, I believe that SCP-173 deserves to be included in the Hall of Fame.
Now. Here is a very important part.
DO NOT NOMINATE ARTICLES FOR THE SCP FOUNDATION HALL OF FAME AT THIS TIME
I say it again.
DO NOT NOMINATE ARTICLES FOR THE SCP FOUNDATION HALL OF FAME AT THIS TIME.
Instead, I would like to use this thread to discuss the idea of an SCP Foundation Hall of Fame, whether my proposed procedure and criteria are appropriate, and how we'll go about implementing it and announcing it to our readerbase. Before we start doing this, let's first talk about whether we should do this.
- Clef
