NOTICE:
This is a sandbox page.
It is not approved or active policy. It is a draft, and as such, may be incomplete.
Navigation
- Assorted 001 page changes
SCP-001's hub page:
1. I don't like the randomization layout. I suppose it makes sense from an in-universe perspective but it's just really annoying as someone used to it just listing them in order. I'd like to get rid of it.
Speaking of order:
2. I know it's old as shit but given it's still labelled a 001 proposal (and still is one), Eberstrom's really should be on the list, on the very top above Ball's. Doesn't feel right having it be left out.
3. Arbelict's Proposal should be placed after Noir Box and before Black Moon, to reflect it's date of publication on the original RU wiki instead of the date of publication of the translation on this site.
We chose a random order because most readers tend to read in order and we prefer if they don't just read the old stuff. We do have an option to sort by date posted and we are making that more prominent. (are making — if this is a small change can we do it now?)
-arcs are only on the site for preservation reasons, we are not interested in making them easy to find.
INT 001 proposals can go onto the 001 hub at the discretion of the translator. (Is this official policy? Did we formally decide this? Should we announce this/ask the ambassadors to clarify within -INT as part of a method to build bridges?)
So I have a pretty big issue with the Tales Hub page right now. Mainly with how it was changed from being alphabetically ordered to chronologically ordered by release.
This… is a horrendous change. Tales already have a really hard time being found compared to SCPs, and this certainly doesn't help any. It's also kinda redundant, since the "Newest Tales" section at the top of the page already existed (and the "New Pages" page included Tales). Honestly, I don't even know WHY the change was made in the first place, but there needs to be at the very least a WAY to sort Tales alphabetically again.
Also maybe a way to sort them by genre? That would be nice. How would that work, you ask? I mention it in my post about tags.
We don't see any reason to sort tales alphabetically when it comes to discovery. Furthermore, the previous alphabet sort was technically burdensome, and left out all tales after 2019. Genre hubs will be implemented when collections finishes tagging. (possible to give timeline, % of progress for collections, how a site member could get involved if they wanted to?)
- Tales by series on the sidebar
"Tales By Series" should be restored to the sidebar. Tales are the lifeblood of the site, and the removal of the best tool for navigating by tales by SCP has done serious damage to the cohesion and consistency of narratives on the site. This was one of the "reforms" [ex-staffer] forced through without consulting the overall membership of the site and it should be reverted as it unfairly punishes tale authors, who are already second-class citizens.
Changes to aid tale discovery have been made. We have added the Series Hub link to the sidebar and have streamlined the Tales By Series Pages. However, the exact forms of this response have not for the following reasons:
1) "Serious damage to cohesion" is hyperbole.
2) If there is such a thing as site cohesion, it has not meaningfully existed since series 2/3
3) Most of the active links will concentrate around the most famous scps, or dedicated tale series, so the tales by series disproportionately favor earlier series navigationally
Maybe make the format of the site a little less cluttered and all-over-the-place? Maybe make broader sections??? Usually this doesn’t bother me because I use the wiki often, but it’d be awesome to have things easier for the newbies.
There isn't really anything actionable here and the clutter functionality tradeoff is something we are always looking into.
Tagging
Tags—make sure people use it appropriately, because I’ve found random tales without the proper tagging, which makes things harder to find.
Response:
It can be difficult to identify tales with missed tags, because they often only get the "tale" tag. We'll make additional effort to be sure that we're checking whether or not recent tales were tagged by a member of the tagging team. We think that the additions of genre tags should reduce improper self tagging of tales by making it more noticeable to tagging when someone has done this.
Collections/Tech
- Create genre tags, MTF tags and other tags
I really think there should be more tag types that people can use for their stories. I'm sure this idea has been mentioned before, but I'd like to voice my support for it and maybe have it addressed.
There are three that I have in mind, with the first one being different genre tags.
SCP has grown a LOT since it's humble days as a creepy pasta submission site. And as such, there are a lot of different stories on the Wiki now. Sure, horror is always a popular one, but there's also humor, drama, action, informational, mystery, or hell, just slice of life stuff now.
Along with genre, I feel like more SCP specific tags would do wonders to help people find what they're looking for. For example, maybe have it so each SCP has their own tag. I know 001 proposals have one, and the XKs for contests. Unless there's a limit to how many tags can exist on the site, I don't see the issue with #scp-[number] being a thing. It would also help articles that aren't on SCP Tale pages get more attention.
This last one is a bit of a stretch since it would require close moderation, but maybe specific MTF tags? Like #alpha1 and stuff like that? Obviously it would only be for MTFs that are widely recognized and are on the MTF dossier. I'm aware that this one would be the messiest, but I wanted to toss it out there. Gonna start proposing some to the tag team
These three are just a few ideas I come up with, but regardless I do think there should be more tags on the site. It would just make things easier to find, especially a genre specific tag.
MTF tags are allowed and can be applied for under the groups criteria under standard protocol
Genre tags is an ongoing process by collections
Guide Updating
I think we should update the Writing Guide. We need to make it clear that we write stories in the Sci-fi- Document format, not just Sci-fi Documents without strokes. Many new people (including me)don't get it at first that it's not just an interesting/scary monster we want, but an actual story that make sus feel stuff. Just wanted to say that. Also sorry if there's any Spellings miatakes, my new autocorrect is horribel (Not that My grannar is bad, it just changes FUCKING every Word).
How to write an SCP needs to be rewritten. I'm sure you all are aware of this, and I know at least some of you are, but I feel like it needs to be said - How to Write an SCP does not accurately reflect the standards of the site today and is outdated. Recently I encountered someone who had read it and was confused by a statement that they could bypass the greenlighting system via the Discord server. I think it's become a problem when people have begun to get confused by the guide, rather then helped by it. I understand such a thing is not easy to rewrite, but I hope it can be done sometime in the future. Thanks.
Response:
We recently rewrote the "how to write an SCP" guide, go check it out.
You guys really need to update the majority if not some of the guides. But I highly doubt this will ever be done. I know it's a major effort to do. But man…
An article written in 2012 vs an article written in 2023 is literally not even on the same planet. But yet mods think that newer writers will be able to take away enough useful information to actually make a good article.
I already know what mods are going to say, "Well, no1 wants to rewrite them".
Then find people who do. Form a rewriting squad and gather a small group of members and start doing it bit by bit.
Five or six people who are competent and have enough knowledge will easily be able to at least make a visible difference. But for some reason, this won't happen. And ppl will continue to complain the guides are outdated and never get fixed.
Response:
Unfortunately, yes, we do have a shortage of people who wish to rewrite guides. It's an ongoing problem. Assembling a team to start tackling them is difficult, because there simply isn't sustained interest in doing it.
It is important to note though that anyone can rewrite a guide - assuming it's a high-quality rewrite. If you or someone else sees a guide that is in need of updating definitely tell us, but don't hesitate to take a crack at it yourself. (framing: should we put this as "if you come to us with something better, we will implement it", or do we want to leave it as is?)
- Request on a how to finish writing an SCP guide
a guide for how to finish your WIPs please! I feel like that's the actual hardest part of writing not just for the site, but in general.
Response:
We don't know that this is the kind of guide that staff can create and have it be helpful. Struggling to finish a work can come from a myriad of different places. WHile there are no strong intentions by staff to make such an article we would endorse an essay by any of our users on this. (as a personal note, I dislike this sort of vague promises because it's pushing the issue down the line. I think it would be kinder and clearer to say that this would be more the realm of an essay and that staff likely cannot formally make a guide on this.)
Tech/Wikijump
Sometimes the upvote or downvote doesn’t register, and when you then click it multiple times to make it work, it inevitably does work, but then spams the whole “You are trying to rerate it” pop up. I don’t know if this is a technical error or it is due to bad wifi on my part, but I am putting it here just to be safe.
Also, sandbox does sometimes have glitches and errors, though I assume those are due to Wikidot and not the site itself.
When a Wikidot page is open for a while, it will eventually be unable to perform some actions that require talking to Wikidot's servers (editing, viewing page history, etc.). The only remedy is to reload the page. This is a Wikidot restriction we cannot work around. (Should we put a formal explanation of how to get around the infinite saving glitch anywhere? At this point we might need to lmao.)
The browser back button doesn't work properly; sometimes it takes 3-5 presses, sometimes it takes you two pages back, etc. I think it has something to do with redirection? Not sure
> None of these problems cannot be solved on staffs end and require intervention on behalf of wikidot. When Wikijump happens bugfixes will be under staff control.
Is there any possible way to add a neutral vote to the voting? I'm not asking for the whole five star thing that gets kicked around, but more of a "yep, I read this, and I don't think it should be deleted, but I don't want to actively recommend it to others either." Right now, the "no-vote" is a nothingburger, and I feel like only having the options of "get rid of this shit!" and "yo everyone check this out!" is what's contributing to our recent spike in the You Tried Brigade just throwing upvotes at anything that has letters on the page.
The voting system on Wikidot is very simplistic, and the lack of neutral votes is one way in which they do not properly meet our needs. The addition of neutral votes is one change we would like to make when on an independent platform, and software support for it already exists within Wikijump. (A personal note: a piece that I find would deserve a novote is often one I feel inclined to comment on for similar reasons. Should we encourage such commentary as part of our official response, with the obvious caveat that such comments must follow site rules?)
I'm sure someone has thought of this before but the lack of a unified theme hub is crazy. Themes are a massive part of the way articles are presented and it would be very helpful to have a theme hub.
The hub pages sigma-9-themes and black-highlighter-themes already exist, however they are not unified or officially staff-run. this is a change that would only take labor as opposed to intense ideation. does anyone have interest in doing so
- End-user customizable CSS
If possible I think a lot of people would appreciate the ability the change the CSS theme of the site; I personally find it hard to read the rather small and thin Black Text on White plus it can be annoying to look at, especially at night. There are some Chrome extensions that already do this, although pretty badly, so it would be nice for it to be a main feature of the wiki
This is not a feature we can given Wikidot restrictions. When on a new platform, there are several quality-of-life improvements and user customization changes that we would like to make regarding CSS. In the mean time, this can be controlled per-user to a degree by use of the S-CSS-P browser extension.
- Easier way to find unused SCP numbers
Possibly add a easier way to find available scp numbers
The best way to do this currently is to open a Series Page and use your browser search function to look for [ACCESS DENIED].
Wikidot is just pretty bad. I know it's already being worked on and that it will take a while, but wikijump cannot come soon enough.
We are working on it! Software development is complicated, though due to some staff changes we are making much better progress. Follow the blog for updates: https://wikijump.org/ ##red|the blog hasn't been updated in 3 months. In contrast, the github and JIRA are active hotbeds of development. Can we direct users to this instead?
I would would like to have a navigation module for series, I wasn’t the big fan of the VKTM section of OG43 not having that and it was a pain in a ass.
This is user purview.
The new site code/css/the update that just happened doesnt show up properly on chromebooks
This issue has been resolved thanks to the new CDN.
It should be required that any theme approved by the tech team must be on at least two articles article within a month of that theme being posted. Otherwise, it's a waste of server space.
This was previously a requirement for all themes on the site, but resulted in some unusual situations where quality themes were put in a scramble to find some arbitrary article to attach them to to avoid deletion. The current approach recognizes that (given it fulfills the requirements in the CSS Policy) themes can be works of art in their own right, which can even inspire authors who want to write an article which fits a previously-unused theme.
Additionally, Wikidot does not charge per page, only for file usage. Deleting theme pages does not save the site any money, and when on an independent platform, the cost of one page is minuscule and should not be a limiting factor to creativity.
- Mark user as abusive wikijump request
Wikidot has a 'mark this user as abusive' function when you click on their profile. While this obviously does nothing given Wikidot's current state, I would like to see a functional version of this in Project Foundation/Wikijump, as a way of anonymous reporting.
Wikidot has a feature to "mark a user as abusive", but how it functions is complicated and non-obvious, and the reports it gives are anonymous, which make the feature unhelpful. If you know of a user who is acting abusively, the fastest response you can get is if you message a staff member. (Do we want to explain how this is used on the staff end, because we're able to make some use of it?)
On an independent platform, having a robust user safety system is a priority, and being able to report users is a component of that.
- Add a way to block users in wikijump
Add a way to block users in Wikijump, including articles and forum posts. I don't want to have to put up with seeing the forum posts of abusive users acting abusive.
On Wikidot, you can block users from sending you DMs, though it is cumbersome to do: https://scp-sandbox-3.wikidot.com/blocking-on-wikidot. There is no way to block other items (e.g. forum posts) from users. This is a user safety concern which should be addressed with platform independence.
* Wikidot already has a block feature: see here, https://scp-sandbox-3.wikidot.com/blocking-on-wikidot
- Request for wikidot css primer
Is there a primer on Wikidot-specific CSS targets in the wiki? Currently there is the Mozilla resource that most people who talk about CSS link, but I wonder if there is a more detailed one more focused on the wiki.
The short answer is maybe. We have the Wiki Syntax and SCP Style Log linked on the Guides Hub. The long answer depends on if anyone currently has the intent to do something formal, but if the people who are really good at themes view them as works of art, then a more in depth guide would depend on if those people feel they're up to teaching such things. Leaving this question open.
* PENDING
Contests
As a rule, contest-runners tend to be tight-lipped about the exact execution and plans for further contests. I would not be opposed to putting some of these contest-related discussions under a blanket "We will take this under advisement" and providing no concrete promises for follow-up.
There has been a consistent theme over the last few years of contests that happen within the first three months of the year that are speed-writing centered. (Jam Cons, and the recent Coldpost Con)
The amount of these we’ve had has led to oversaturation of this type of contest, so a suggestion I have is alternating between a speedwriting style contest, like an Jamcon, and a longer-ish collab/duo con each year if this first-quarter style of contest keeps going.
Side note: Please don’t do a Cupid contest again.
K-cons are far too long. A month long writing period into a month long voting period is ridiculous.
This length leads to around 3 months of voting and a content droughts. On top of that, it’s tiring from an audience and writing standpoint to be stressing out for two months. Add any extensions here and it only prolongs the issue.
I recommend the writing period staying at a month whereas the voting period is shortened to two weeks. Also merge the posting period into the voting period. (If you post on the last day after a month of writing that’s your fault.) If I’m being frank, the winner of the con is almost always obvious a few days from when it was posted; See 4000, 5000, 6000 (arguably), and 7000.
Personally disagree with shortening the reading period if kcons in any way. It was already very hard to read all contest entries, but it becomes more or less impossible to do that if the voting/posting period is two weeks long.
If anything, the voting period should be longer to account for how many entries these things are getting now.
I would also support a shorter posting period (with an equally longer writing period) to hopefully narrow the time and rating gap between the first and last posted articles, though Plague is kinda right about some of that being on the author.
A shorter posting period, considering there were 114 articles that were posted (not counting those deleted) would probably crash Wikidot if it was any shorter. One could make a reasonable argument that the writing period can be shortened to two weeks and the voting period is kept the same, and I think that could be more viable potentially.
If the XK voting does get shortened, then I would like to propose a word limit to XK entries as well. I'm sure this will go over prefectly well with the greater community,1 and I'm sure it's an issue that's been brought up before. But the fact of the matter is XK entries have gotten REALLY long for SCP articles, and they ain't getting any shorter.
Part of the reason why the voting period is so long is because of how long the entries have gotten (and because of how many entries there are but the only real solution to that is having a limited number of submission slots). I know this is a different discussion entirely, but a shortened voting period would need to come with a word limit… in my opinion.
This needs a response.
This is personal and I’m probably in the minority, but I’d love more solo/duo contests as opposed to team contests.
- Ban previous winners from Kcons
Previous winners of x000 contests should not be allowed to win future contests. Participating is fine, with the understanding that they are not allowed to claim the top prize.
No. This is worrying about a scenario that has not happened before, as no singular kcon winner has ever won more than once. This is penalizing people for writing good, which is not something that we wish to promote.
Last year, a similar suggestion was made to ban all previous winners from x000 contests. The reasons for not implementing this suggestion, as provided below, still apply to barring previous winners from actually winning.
As stated last year:
while this suggestion does have some obvious benefits while only affecting a minor part of the userbase, it will likely have a lot more side-effects than anticipated: Penalizing success like this could lead to people trying to write articles that are good but don't win in order to avoid the penalty. Removing some of the site's most prolific authors from what is the most well-known contest might make casual readers start to tune out. In reality this will only affect a small handful of authors, only changing who is taking the spotlight rather than truly killing the issue at the core.
Similar suggestions in future years will not be entertained and will be met with a repeat of this.
Data Analytics
Agreed, that is why we ran a town hall, we will be more clear about calling it a town hall in the future
- Request for verbatim posting of complaints
Staff misrepresents these complaints by not posting them verbatim.
- Remove anonymous posting for town halls
I don't think anonymous submissions should be used for Town Hall formats like this, especially not if they are published publically. They are a dangerous vector that allow individuals to launder their bad reputations, which many times have been rightfully earned. I grow worried that this is not just individuals who have been banned, but also certain cry-wolf types on the wiki. I think they should be limited in scope to AHT Team usage. To really emphasize my point, I'm choosing to launder my own identity in this manner — who am I?
We are debating this, however we do see the value of anonymous submissions being greater than the likelihood of malicious complaints (see the discord section).
Next year, I (LORD) am thinking of including an optional "how may we follow up with you" field and the disclaimer that "if you do not include contact info, we reserve the right to ignore your anonymous complaint. I would like staff consensus on this plan before committing to it in writing.
Adult Content Curation
- Remove all erotica from the wiki
Given what staff knows about the demographics of the readerbase being largely underage from google analytics (you're not sly, we see you sharing it every other month or so in SCPD or the official server) it's outright negligent to keep hosting NSFW material and erotica. There's a difference between sex elements used for horror and sex elements being used for a pervert's jerk off fantasy. One you can justify keeping given the demographics. The other you categorically cannot. Anyone who argues for keeping erotic NSFW on the site is basically advancing a pedophilic agenda and should be regarded with extreme suspicion given past events.
Response:
MAST's Adult Content Curation team has reviewed this, and we're firmly opposed to this request. This is for a few reasons:
- NSFW and erotic material are perfectly valid material to post on a site with 18+ membership. The fact that underage users may be accessing this material is unfortunate, but that's not a strong enough reason to police the community's works in such a way.
- The ACC team will splash any material that rises to the level of being adult.
- This move would eliminate a vast number of previous works. This isn't a reason that can stand alone, but it should be taken into account with the others.
- NSFW is an unenforceably broad category.
- Extend ACCs jurisdiction to requiring usage of the image blur component on images
The options made available to the Adult Content Curation subteam of MAST should be expanded beyond just the adult splash - at the very least to include the existing image blur components.
Response:
MAST's Adult Content Curation team has reviewed this, and we do plan to incorporate some policy involving the blurring of images. This is currently being workshopped, and we will open it to discussion when we have a firm plan.
Crit
- Concerns over the quality of IRC crit
The IRC crit process and #thecritters is almost wholly ineffective in producing good articles and helping writers grow. For the good of the site and its future, I sincerely urge crit staff to look into ending #thecritters as an official supported space, removing all mention of it from the site, and migrating all crit processes to the forums or discord.
We're interested in improving the quality of IRC crit, not shutting it down. We'll be pursuing a two-pronged approach, both technical and interpersonal. From a technical end, we're in the process of soft-launching a new and improved version of The Lounge which aims to dramatically lower the barrier to entry for IRC. On the interpersonal end, our current captain of IRC crit has had limited availability due to other commitments and will be appointing a new interim captain by the end of the month. We can always use more critters in #thecritters, and we'll be actively recruiting for IRC crit in the near future. (This response is out of date. We have a new IRC crit captain with plans to improve IRC crit. IRC crit as a brainstorming channel has also been floated iirc. Waiting on an update.)
Front page features
- Complaints about front page self promo
The frequency with which front page articles are written by the people choosing them has led me to write off the validity of front page article quality in its entirety. When I first joined the site in 2020, I noticed this phenomenon but opted to discard the complaint, because it surely can’t be happening that often and how would you even control that anyway? “If I were in that position, I’d probably put up my own article at least once,” I figured. However, I’ve been here for three years now. It is frequent and consistent.
If this were just happening to the Reviewer’s Spotlight section, I wouldn’t complain, because that section is put aside to celebrate those specific staff members anyway. However, it’s beginning to feel more and more like the “Featured” sections exist only to celebrate staff. It’s tiring to see “Author: Billybob69, selected by: Billybob69 and anonstaff“ every single month, sometimes on two or even all of the featured works.
Edit: to clarify, I don’t think staff should never get featured. I just think there needs to be some kind of system to balance this out to ensure some sort of fairness, because I don’t feel like there’s anything in place, or if there is, it’s not working.
I will say I do believe it is in poor taste for staff to feature their own works. I personally haven't noticed this happening, but I do think it's in poor taste to use your position to boost your own articles.
Prohibit self-promotion on Front Page Features and Reviewer's Spotlight. I'm more likely to read it if I find it organically than if the author is taking up a spot to show it to me.
I stopped relying on the front page for recommendations. I would appreciate if this feature was usable.
I'm just going to echo what other people are saying and say: stop letting staff use the featured box for self-promotion. This especially goes for [crit staffer].
Requesting permission to port over all discussions of this from staffchat on how front page promos are chosen. Last year, we (being the CO team at the time) made promises regarding this that we had no power to enforce or promise.
Rewrite
- Delete the non rewritten Harmony articles
It's been two years and more than half of Harmony's articles haven't been rewritten. I think this means people clearly aren't interested in them. We should vote on deleting anything that hasn't been rewritten yet again either because they are not good enough to be worth rewriting or out of respect for the author deletion request.
Discord Team
- Usernames are redacted for privacy
The Discord team is currently investigating reform to help address these sorts of concerns. See http://05command.wikidot.com/forum/t-16224463/discussion-discord-staff-team-needs-restructure
- Complaints of (non discord) staff line toeing on the discord
Crack down on staff members toeing the line. Staff seem quick to discpline users outside of staff (e.g. [user], [user], [former high-ranking staff member]) when they repeatedly misbehave, but I believe the same does not go for staff members. [Current staff member] and [current staff member] bring nothing useful to 19cord, and have extensive warn logs, but they continue to ironypost and mislead users because they know all they'll receive are warning logs. Users should be disciplined equally.
We are working on this, though do note that one of the users that was banned here was a former high ranking staff member who was banned for their conduct.
- Issues with discord moderators
Official Server moderators are tyrants who abuse the tiny scraps of power they've been given
Members of the 19cord moderation team have displayed an apallingly punitive approach to disciplinary action, focused on what they themselves decide is a "negative value user". Goven that this is the same issue that the official IRC suffered from for years, leading to its deprecation, it is imperative that the situation be controlled.
Given their staggering incompetence, [moderator] and [moderator] should not be moderators in the Official SCP Discord Server. I do not trust them to make decisions regarding the wellbeing of people in the server.
We do need some examples of poor moderator behavior in order to make this actionable
If you see a moderator acting poorly please report this to a server admin
- 19cord VonC mechanism request
19cord needs a process for the users to remove mods that no longer understand the atmosphere of the server. Right now the userbase has no way to handle difference in moderator culture vs user culture, which is apparent whenever certain moderators show up in general chats and tell people off for doing things that they've been doing for up to weeks without anyone complaining. There needs to be more accountability for the moderators, otherwise the userbase will feel alienated.
We are looking into a mechanism for this (If we aren't then it's more honest to say that no changes will be made.)
- Trans topics being disproportionately shut down
Why are trans topics disproportionately shut down by the SCP Discord Team? As a trans woman, it makes me uncomfortable when people post sexualizing messages in the server, yet when I see legitimate trans experiences being shared, it tends to be shut down.
We are unaware of trans topics being disproportionately shut down and are kinda confused about this. 19cord does dedicate itself to being a trans friendly space so please speak out about this.
Recap
Bring back town halls and recaps. The latter cautiously or in a format perhaps because we don't need to have more staff burnout.
RECAP FEEDBACK
Internet outreach
- Better outreach to offsite communities
I also generally think there should be some better community outreach between the wiki and the external fandom since the two are very disconnected. I know the outreach teams exist, but they generally focus more on the popular series 1 articles and appeal to the broader audience who already know about one of them.
In my opinion, it should focus more on the current climate of the wiki where instead of marketing the SCP foundation as some shady government organization, it's more of a collection of thousands of stories made by hundreds of authors, because I see a lot of people who read the series 1 articles, and when they go to read other articles or try writing their own expecting that same style/tone, get discouraged and end up disliking the newer ones because they were either the wrong demographic, or were given false expectations. Or the opposite, where I meet people who would genuinely enjoy modern SCPs and recommend it, they start with series 1 which is generally the most popular and is the first thing that shows up, and when they don't like reading the murder monster/magic item with no story, they lose interest.
I know it's a very deeply ingrained reputation, but a lot of the issues with new users' expectations are based on reading some popular series 1 articles and having a lot of misconceptions about current writing standards. And the outreach team is doing very little to amend this.
As I said, my suggestion is to ""market"" the SCP wiki as a collection of short stories taking place in a shared setting made by hundreds (thousands?) of different authors. Where the first things shown in spaces outside the wiki to newcomers, are the top rated in the last 30 days page, and the canon hub, since imo those two set a good basic expectation from the wiki. That being the (good) recent articles, and the variety of different styles, themes, and writing styles there are.
##red|Personally I'm not familiar with external communities enough to know if this is viable or how much appeal there really is. From brief discussions I believe the IO team views its role as to help the external community on their own terms instead of trying to force them into what the onsite community wants from its fanbase — given that, not sure how viable this plan is. Need input.
Ambassadors
- Harassment in -INT spaces
what are yall gonna do about the harrassment in -int spaces currently as a trans person i dont feel safe around certain -int members supported by -int people since of their pattern of behavior when it comes to other people
We can't say that much specifically without knowing further details, other than that each branch has its own AHT procedures or local equivalent to report harassment to. Speaking specifically of the SCP-INT discord, any harassment should be repeated to chat admins, because harassment and other hateful behaviour is grounds for a ban from the discord server. (Response should be explicit that evidence of bigotry is required.)
General Wiki Staff
- Creation of an article review Squad
Also I feel like there should be a "report this article for being shit but somehow it's hovering at +15" button that will alert the Bomb Squad (or whatever) who can come read it and say "yep, this literally doesn't make sense / the English in this article sounds like it came out of a drunken Google translate" and deal with it appropriately.
Staff of the SCP Wiki cannot endorse downvote brigades. If you do not believe that an SCP is deserving of its score the best vector to change that is to downvote and leave a comment explaining why in such a way that observers will agree.
- Concern over staff overreach WRT Bright/shaw
I'm concerned that the push to replace the character of Bright in articles could be legitimized by bad-faith actors on staff. Please do not conduct a mass edit to just Ctrl+F Ctrl+H instances of Bright on the site and replace him with Elias Shaw.
The Shaw thing was entirely unrelated to staff. DJkaktus (who is not staff) decided on this by himself and several authors followed him. Staff have no plans to conduct a mass edit of Bright.
- I actually want to take this space to thank all the staff for the amazing work you do with the wiki. It's not easy to maintain such a big website, thank you for giving us a great experience and allowing us to live in the SCP Universe in a great way. Thanks again, you people are great.
Thank you for your kindness!
- Expropriation of old unused GoI hubs
I feel that old hubs which are not specific to a given series of articles with a unified storyline/unified storylines (i.e. the Chaos Insurgency and Serpent's Hand hubs) should be opened for community contribution towards modernization if their original authors have not maintained them in several years.
- Dealing with underaged users in offsite locations
What plans are there in place to help ensure that new community members will be able to get onboarded into the community with the age floor hitting (as of the time of writing) 18 years - and are there any plans in place to reduce the potential harm caused by people attempting to take advantage of those who wait to join the wiki for an extra two years?
We do not have any intention to do this. (Need to give a reason why — we aren't babysitters? We cannot take the responsibility of internet safety onto ourselves? 'Onboarding' is a term for corporations, not for hobbyists communities?)
- Total ban on age lowering discussion
Any member of staff who, now or in the future, advocates for lowering the minimum age to join the site should be censured at best, removed from staff at worst.
Banning staff from discussing things in totality is non-productive. Especially given that new information can very much change staffs policy here.
In any case there is no appetite for relitigating this given how unproductive this discussion was last time and how it ultimately had little impact on the final vote.
- Site bans for offsite harassment
Users who act poorly in off-site spaces (i.e. harassing tweets, YouTube videos attacking other users, morons on Discord) should be given disciplinary treatment as if they were posting on the site.
Please report any offsite harassment to the anti-harassment team
- Request for an investigation of ambassador behavior over ES-incident
The Ambassador team should be investigated in order to ascertain whether or not the team acted appropriately during meetings with representatives of SCP-ES, given that 2 of the 4 ambassadors left the team shortly after, with one of them explicitly citing inappropriate behavior from the team's captain.
To avoid a repeat of the 2-year review following the November 2020 incident, I would request that our response includes 1) the scope of the investigation 2) the people who are the primary investigators 3) an idealized timeline for the investigation 4) the point at which the investigation should be finished, and who to complain to if it is not.
As a note, we have little ability to request the 2 retired ambassadors to remain silent, and we have some evidence that they have already shared records of their claimed cited misconduct to interested parties e.g. via Twitter.
Either that, or we state that the behavior was found to be appropriate and/or no further action will be taken and/or no further investigation is needed. I can't comment on which course of action accurately reflects reality.
- Issues with certain staff members
Following the unvaulting of archived admin business channels, it is increasingly clear that several members of staff administration have behaved wildly inappropriately throughout the years, threatening action against users for speaking out against them, as well as covering up a baffling number of disciplinary and harrassment cases. The staffers in question, namely [admin], [admin], [former admin], [former captain], should be reviewed appropriately, since even though the time has passed, these messages show gross misuse of the privileges enjoyed by administrators of the site.
No intention to act upon this.
- Issues with staff being to lenient on some users
"Staff resistance to when *certain* notable authors break rules with impunity. They get away with their behavior just because they're popular and narcissistic enough to rile up their lowest-common-denominator audience whenever staff pushes back on their bs.
Staff exist for a reason, if you don't apply the rules to everyone evenly then the rules don't matter. If, for example, this person (or persons) complain or threatens to leave for being treated like any other author would be, maybe that's for the best, hm? Apply your rules consistently, no matter notoriety. It reflects extremely, extremely poorly on the entirety of the SCP Wiki and, frankly, without any rude intentions on my end, makes the administration look incompetent and spineless. My complaint is roughly worded because it is genuinely frustrating; but my frustration is not aimed at you, staff, more-so the people you sometimes refuse to persecute with equality.
CO note, the user did not specify which authors
This is too vague to act upon. (Are we willing to sign off on leaving it at that? Should we specify why the rules appear to be applied unevenly? Should we highlight who people should report to (Disc) and that the rules have to be actual rulebreaks?)
Don't allow abstention on staff promotion votes. If a staff member abstains from voting for a promotion, it should be counted as a "no".
This was the prior system, and it was changed after a 21-comment discussion, no dissent on the mainsite mirror, and 20 yes votes and 0 no votes when voted on. If you would like to formally re-open this discussion taking into account this info, please do so in the policy discussion forum.
Other
- Delete 2212 for being unfinished
SCP-2212 has been unfinished and broken for the better part of a decade. No offense to [author], but the wiki is explicitly for completed works, and having a non-functional, incomplete and abandoned article reflects poorly on the site as a whole. It should be taken down.
"unfinished" is usually given as it not having a conprocs and description. you can vote down 2212. (Maybe it's worth clarifying this rule — "unfinished" is entirely arbitrary. Maybe the spirit of the rule is that "the userbase will not tolerate unfinished work, and if it does, the work by definition is 'finished' enough to stay up"? Clarify that "nobody will be investigated for downvote brigading/malicious downvoting for downvoting work that appears unfinished (account for human disagreement)? There is enough wiggle room in that rule for this complaint to arise year-over-year. I would prefer to shut it down with some level of finality.)
Likely out of our hands
perhaps we should slow down on main-list posting. it's getting kinda overwhelming, especially since we had two KContests in the space of like, a year. i don't wanna put a full stop on it, but like, goddamn guys, maybe slow down?
We on staff don't really have any way to change this, though Kcons has fairly consistently been a year and a half apart from each other.
I wish there was more quality control on the wiki as currently there are a lot of works that hang around the 10-20 votes recently.
Nobody is obligated to explain their downvote. Please vote according to your opinions of a piece.
