Dr. Garcia appears in:
Observation Log 709
SCP-887 Log
SCP-978 Extended Test Logs
SCP-089
SCP-831
SCP-908
SCP-1746
SCP-1844
SCP-2236
Sic Transit Gloria Mundi
Transcript of telephone conversation, August 9, 1991

Dr. Patel appears in:
Sic Transit Gloria Mundi
SCP-809
SCP-2236
SCP-955
SCP-2336
SCP-089
SCP-978 Extended Test Logs

Sheldon Katz, Esq. appears in:
SCP-738
SCP-2553
SCP-920-EX
Senior Staff Shenanigans
Game Day, Phase 1: Secure

there's a hurricane rolling in town tomorrow

The gods don't want this, Roget. Guard yourself well.

(I also volunteer)

My reasoning is, we are going to be adding a lot of tags. There will be a lot of removal, correction and addition going on no matter what. We can either err on the side of restricting the tags and slowing down the process, or on the side of allowing some shitty tags to slip through for a bit. In the spirit of crosslinking, I'm preferring the latter.

Also, the author, being the authors, are probably the most qualified people to tag this stuff, as they know which characters appear where.

And to clarify, my intention is to allow authors to create character tags, and tag their own articles with them. I don't want any user to be able to tag any page they want as they want it.

I'm also thinking that all the same rules should apply to character tags, goi tags, and canon tags, as they all serve the same purpose.

Afterwards, staff can review the new tags at their leisure and add them to the tag guide if they meet all the requirements, or revert them if they don't.

edit: Also, once the initial mass-tagging is done and new tags will start to be added at a normal pace again, we can look at how it went, and if necessary go back to the old ways. But I do think that at least during the initial surge loosening the rules somewhat will help.

Also, as far as I know GoI tags are currently considered for implementations at 5 tales/SCPs/GoI-format articles by at least 3 different authors. You're thinking of author page requirements. Aside from that, you'll need to find a way to determine whether the Dr. Jones in tale 1 is the same as the Dr. Jones in tale 2. Tags are only useful when they actually guide you to works containing the same character, not just a character with the same name.

Jack Bright is the most referenced character on the site.

Suck it Clef!

Once an idea for crosslinks to link the group of articles together, the team will have the proposed links submitted to the comments page, for comment and discussion for 72 hours. Then, if the author does not veto the edits, or has given their approval for the article to be edited in advance, it can be added by the author or by the authorized staff member. If the rewrite team could provide a list of series 1 articles are assumed to have consent from the author, we would use those as well, and authors will be notified of any edits to their articles even if they are not currently active.

Groups of articles, once they have been interlinked, may then be further interlinked with each other on another level, trying to keep a flow of moving readers from Series I to III. We'll identify hub articles and try to add interesting links, and may shake up the order of popular test logs in order to provide a more even concentration of links between Series I, II and III from these high-traffic log pages.

On the technical side, character tags should be added. I'm thinking our standard should be the same as a GoI, which is (I believe) three articles from three different authors. I also think we should go through and link the first mention of GoI's to their GoI hub pages(and possibly other background pages) before we begin the mass crosslinking, and if we can mass tag, we should do that as well. It would be a good first step that we can accomplish right away before getting too involved with the individual crosslinking.

We should aim to finish before Series IV opens, and in the contest itself we should include some kind of crosslinking element, encouraging it if not requiring it.

• The article for SCP-X should be linked to tales that are about (or that heavily feature) SCP-X. Even if it's in a sidebar or the like, for the sake of immersion.
• A tale that is about, or that heavily features, SCP-X should include a link to the article for SCP-X. Exceptions might be appropriate in the rare occasion where part of the point of the tale is to disguise the relationship to SCP-X.
• All sorts of articles should have links to foreign-language-site translations of that article.

It's near-fucking-impossible to script the extraction of all named characters from a tale, since you have somehow determine whether or not something is a name, which - believe me - is trickier than it sounds. Instead, I've gone with the more obvious choice: finding titles like Mr./Dr./Director etc. to pinpoint the names. The pages below won't be complete (several pages marked as tale were omitted, like incident or experiment logs), or perhaps even completely accurate, but they're a potential starting point for character tags. Have fun.

1. Single-Appearance Characters

2. Multi-Appearance Characters

Edit: I know there's problems with the list, for some reason Mrs. and Ms. got lost in the process, even though they're in the grand list of possible titles. See it as a start.

Edit 2: Ran everything again after a bugfix, and didn't do as much cleanup as last time, to minimize accidental deletions etc.

Now that I think about it though, there are a couple GOI's (namely, MC&D and Wondertainment) that have around 50 SCP articles involving them (not to mention articles that name them, yet aren't tagged). Do we really need 50 articles all redirecting to the same page?

This might make people avoid the links, if they're repeatedly brought into the same hub and information pages.

Take this for example.

blah blah… Sarkic ideology… blah…

If we take the route of the wiki-walk, one would want to know more about Sarkic ideology. And the Sarkicism Hub is the best bet to that. Throwing in random Sarkic articles (with varying levels of involvement and interpretations) do not seem fully relevant.

TL;DR, this can work, but relevance is important to make the crosslinks matter in the greater scheme of things.

In fact, I specifically request crosslinks to 630-J. I had always intended for people to make & add their own songs, but nothing ever came of it.

That said, I'm not sure I'm a fan of this idea. It smells gimmicky to me. Perhaps this is something that should be left for individual authors to add to their articles if you wish, not crammed massively into every single one of them.

Although I think it's a great idea to (mostly) finish the Grand Crosslinking before the opening of Series IV, I think that the opening of Series IV must not be delayed on account of crosslinks. What this means is that we need to get started NOW. I think we've said our piece, we've reached consensus on the most controversial issues (authors retain control, etc.), and we really need to just get started. Building links with popular collaboration logs is a quick win. Updated GOI pages are good. Making sure the collaboration tag is being properly used is important. These are things we can get started on now.

I think one of the most important things is that we don't open up Series IV until this project is completed. It might take awhile, there will certainly be delays and bumps on the road, but as I said in my op it would be irresponsible for us to open up a new series while the old ones are still sequestered from the others. When we do open it, aside from the horror theme I've heard as the most popular theme, we should also have some kind of rules relating to crosslinks, whether that's integrating them into the contest or just encouraging authors to do so in order to prevent Series IV from falling into the same trap its brethren have fallen into.

No one has commented on this part so far, which I find slightly alarming.

I think this is a terrible, terrible idea. Stopping people from creating new skips for an undetermined length of time will lead to stagnation, loss of interest, and loss of userbase. The damage would be much worse than the one made by absence of wikiwalk. Also it reminds me eerily of Mass Edit. Article creation was locked back then too, wasn't it?

I'd really really like to hear more people stating their opinion on this.

We could also look into automating some of the more mundane edits, like making the first mention of a GoI in any given article link to the hub page for that GoI or the GoI hub.

Yeah sure, I can have jarvis do this, no problem. The details will have to be discussed thoroughly beforehand, but technically there's nothing difficult in this.

[the rest of it]

Yeah, sounds good.

Things like adding links to GoIs on their first mention in an article could be done by the mass-editing bot, and possibly adding links to the bottom of pages.

I have a pretty crazy idea on how to insert crosslinks in this vein (direct links, sans textual edits). I'm not sure if it even remotely possible, or if it is, it may be a pain to code/implement: Could we try inserting a 'random SCP' link within an article that targets only SCPs that share a specific tag (eg: Class of 76/Factory)? So if multiple people are reading SCP-445 one user can click 'Dr Wondertainment's' and be redirected to SCP-2855 while another will discover SCP-2356. This may also help to ensure no one article is favored or over-plugged.

Am I a madman, or does this seem like a legitimate avenue to explore?

I don't think rounding up the manpower necessary for either the main project or for upkeep, though.

I think you a few words.

I agree, 100%, though. There is no possible way we could round up the people necessary for either the initial phases or upkeep of a project such as this. Pretty sure that's what you meant to say.

More seriously, I don't think we'll need upkeep for this. Let the links fuck up. What do the Surgeon Crabs have to do with Armageddon? The truth is out there.¹

After a lot of thought, I'm against a blanket ban on adding crosslinks to apparently abandoned articles for which the author has not expressed an opinion (read: authors long gone). I do believe that we have the right to make changes to articles For The Greater Good Of The Wiki, except where the author has specifically said Nope. (The Will of the Author is still sacrosanct.) That said, it is not a right that should be exercised lightly or flippantly. No changes to these articles should be made without a strong consensus. And anyway, as was pointed out earlier, there should be plenty of articles available from volunteers.

Also, I believe this will take more just a temporary team/committee— long term, it's going to take at least a little bit of upkeep, such as changing/removing links to articles that are deleted or replaced. (I have no idea how often that's gonna happen, just that it will.) I don't think rounding up the manpower necessary for either the main project or for upkeep, though.

[Edit: Dammit, and I was doing great till the end there. Anyway, what I meant to say was that manpower shouldn't be an issue.]

also which SCP are you referencing, is it the one titled with Dots and written with pictures?

Yup. That be the one.

Either way, I'm glad to see this point is generating a discussion. Even if we all agree that the project is generally a good idea, that doesn't mean we shouldn't examine or consider how it might affect site culture¹. This is will be a major projeict, after all.

TL:DR; Is increasing visibility of post-Series I SCPs worth the risk of demolishing the site's longtime "No Canon" official motto?

Yes. But I would be astonished if that actually happened.

A bit of history: the phrase "there is no canon" literally came into existence because of crosslinks, which inevitably ended up being mutually contradictory. "There is no canon" was held to be the only way that people would continue to welcome crosslinks and other connections between SCPs, because otherwise people would limit their creativity by going through contortions to make everything consistent and avoid the massive contradictions.

Personally, I'm going to be editing my SCPs' crosslinks with an eye to maintaining multi-canon and multiple interpretations of an SCP. Have had some ideas for this kicking around for months at this point (including framing devices and deliberately writing up mutually contradictory options).

But yeah, we do have a "canon", just no hard and fast continuity. That's what we mean by 'headcanons', anyone can invent and disregard story elements on the SCP Wiki to fit their preference.

THAT BEING SAID I don't think There Is No Canon[Continuity] will ever vanish entirely. This project is PROBABLY not gonna do any real damage to that, though it may mildly challenge it in the long term i don't think there will be any real and lasting 'damage'. It hasn't yet, and it won't in the future barring a complete and total, apocalyptic site wide Problem. Widespread Crosslinking and a more connected fiction is not that Problem.

also which SCP are you referencing, is it the one titled with Dots and written with pictures?

• Currently, I am soliciting the top 25~ authors on the site in order for a plurality of them to agree for their works to be used as part of this project. Once that is done, forum posts will be made to inform people, allow them to volunteer, who which articles are going to be added, and provide a space for questions and concerns to be addressed.
• When we have volunteers, we'll take all the authors who have volunteered their work and compile them in a big sandbox, with each author's specific terms. We should probably draw up a standardized list covering most of whatever the main concerns turn out to be, and then add on any specific other points the authors have in mind. Once that's done, teams will go through the articles, and any suggested edits and links will be provided in the discussion page of the article for comments and suggestions. Then the author can put whichever version they prefer into place. Authors could also opt to allow staff members to go in and do the edits themselves or what-have-you.
• We should also look into how much of this can be automated. Things like adding links to GoIs on their first mention in an article could be done by the mass-editing bot, and possibly adding links to the bottom of pages. Technical team members, would this be feasible?
• There are many types of links we could do, such as linking to lore pages when specific facilities, task forces and characters are mentioned, as well as adding crosstests, appending notes at the bottom of the page denoting specific articles, Using SCPs as part of an articles containment procedures. We're aiming for each one to be at least interesting and attempt to build the world or at the very least not diminish the quality of the article it's being added to.
• Character tags seem like a popular idea, the metric should be something similar to what we already use for denoting GoIs, being used by multiple authors in pieces that aren't clinging to life. Old character links like professor a-w should be grandfathered in.
• Articles that are similar in theme, like horror(spooky schools, ghosts, etc.) or similar structure(experiment log, collaborative, small safe inanimate object) should be noted so that crosslinkers have an idea of what's similar and what might be useful, especially if they're not as well-read on our enormous content backlog.
• I'm not sure what measurable metrics we'd use to determine when the project is finished, other than measuring how many new crosslinks we've created. I'd like to hear some suggestions on that front.

If both of you were able to see proposed crosslinks before they were added, could you see yourselves approving ones done well?

Definitely. Opening a channel of communication would also make for opportunities for further collaboration and generally ensuring that the work referenced is being correctly portrayed as well (no poison mushroom 348 soup, please).

TL:DR; Is increasing visibility of post-Series I SCPs worth the risk of demolishing the site's longtime "No Canon" official motto?

This really falls down to the amount of articles that will be crosslinked and the kinds of crosslinks made.

Personally, I doubt the "no canon" notion will be demolished. It is a long-held mantra of the community, after all. If we may recall the resistance that the Resurrection canon (which was another attempt to bring back early site elements) faced in its wake, I don't think the userbase will blindly follow the staff's new trajectory. There will be support, concerns and backlash.

Ultimately, the crosslinks would need to be held at a certain standard so that users can find confidence in them.

Also, I volunteer as tribute my skips and tales.

One of the mottos for the Site is that "There's no Canon". It's a good motto, and easily allows new SCPs to withstand descrepencies beyond basic expectations for Format, Tone, and the Foundation's organizational heierarchy. However, depending on how well this works out, that motto is gonna get all shot to hell.

It won't happen overnight, but as other SCPs gain more connections to one another (and possibly tales), the readership is going to slowly move expectations towards a "harder" canon than the "soft" one we have right now. Interpretations of SCPs will be based more on how other SCPs have handled similar subjects, rather than just artistic merit, and will place restrictions on new SCPs that are non-existant now. Not only will people downvote based on failure to follow format, but because the mechanics of a SCP do not follow what other similar SCPs did.

That said, this is not necessarily a bad thing, mind you. Creativity can easily flourish when placed with restrictions (as the contests tend to showcase). Hell, the winner of the Short Works Contest gave us an absolutely memorable SCP by using an approved technicality within the contest's rules. The point I'm making is that this project has the potential to fundimentally alter perceptions of the userbase towards SCPs and the Foundationverse, in exchange for higher visibility of all post-Series I SCPs. Is this something we want to encorage or are willing to risk?

TL:DR; Is increasing visibility of post-Series I SCPs worth the risk of demolishing the site's longtime "No Canon" official motto?

Also, I would like to offer my works (current and future) into this project.

We should probably also seek out volunteers from among users, as well as from staff.

Certainly. While this is a staff project, it involves the community's entire body of work.

Would the forum be a suitable means to deliver this to the community at large? To inform them of this project, and to ask them for their articles to be volunteered. Also, we can also see if there is greater support from the users or if there is backlash towards the whole ordeal (and maybe try to assuage those concerns).

Also, are we going to have some sort of team or group of users helping out with the crosslinking? LadyKatie from Forum Crit JS has expressed interest in helping out.