Forum:The Future of our Wiki?

This is a discussion about our wiki and its overall evolution. There are two major issues I want to discuss - the science fiction element as well as writing. Your opinions are important. We need to hear what you all have to say. However, I want this solved no later than Saturday the 27th. The worst that could happen is that if this issue were to drag out.

Science fiction
What direction should our wiki go? Hard science fiction with limited intervention of the Titans Science fantasy with actively used Titan artifacts Either way

Our wiki has its roots with Spore. During that time, the hardness of technology did not really matter. We could get away with many things, but as we begun to add more back story to the wiki, it evolved. It is slowly moving away from the fantasy side and more towards the science side. Hence, we've become surprisingly scientifically accurate for a shared universe.

However, this has had a major effect on the types of writers we are attracting to this wiki. We are getting both writers interesting in hard sci-fi and fantasy. In response, we created our sister fantasy wiki to direct new audiences who might be more inclined to write in that style, but by doing so, we've made the science aspects of it more noticeable.

The Titans, in my opinion, have confused and been abused by new users way too much. God-like characters suggest that this is a fantasy environment, when their real purpose is to serve to explain some unusual phenomenon. In fact, I added the rule that they are not allowed to intervene with mortals to help prevent this, yet it was still not enough. We are seeing less of normal civilizations and instead more of Titan-influenced ones. In my honest opinion, I find the former more interesting as the latter is vulnerable to simple hand waves like "a Titan helped them do it".

Now, it's way too late to get rid of the Titans. They've been so deeply intertwined with our storylines, that we can't reverse them without having to redo almost the entirety of Dark Prophecy. However, what we can do is make their appearances very uncommon and focus primarily on mortal affairs. We should explore what great technological civilizations can do without help from god-like entities.

However, that's only my opinion. Some may disagree and actually like the science fantasy environment, as it is rather unique after all. Some might say that the Titans are just as interesting as mortals and should be looked into in just as great detail. But then again, we have the fantasy sister wiki for those who want to write fantasy. We need to clearly establish whether we are hard sci-fi or sci-fi fantasy.

Writing
How should we proceed with writing story arcs? Do not set in stone anything beyond the current story arc Set in stone future events then write about what leads up to them Either way

The second issue is how story arcs are written. There's been a consistent problem of us planning too far ahead. There's nothing wrong with that, but the issue is that much of these plans are supposedly set in stone already even though it will likely be another year before we reach that actual story. In my opinion, we should only plan far enough in a story arc to create a sensible story. Future story arcs should be more flexible because things change over time.

By change, some of you may know what the Dhragolon were like before we created this wiki. Comparing them to what they are now, the two versions hardly resemble one another. True, the Dhragolon have been around since late 2009, but even while Dark Prophecy was still being written, the Dhragolon and even other species have been revised and edited so much that we had to do a lot of retcons, the reason why it is still being worked on now. If we have something set in stone for something we won't be writing for another year, development and possibilities get limited for not only our own creations but for future users.

The pitch system has worked very well. It has culled out the users who are not interested, and it keeps the professional atmosphere our wiki is known to have. However, occasionally, we do get someone who is deeply interesting in writing for us. In fact, they might be just as experienced as a major author. Yes, we do have an established canon, but why place so many restrictions on what these other users can write about? Because of something we set in stone a year away? And because writing takes time, it slows the development of these users when we just say their creations will be involved in a later story. This results in good ideas coming from new users that never actually use them, because they leave before they can use them in a story.

What I'm saying is that we need solidify our own purpose. Is this wiki supposed to only be a small group of major authors who write everything, or is it a collaborative shared universe written by many users? I really don't mind either, but if we chose to be the former, why did we advertise this wiki on spotlight in the first place?

Should we choose the latter, we need to be a lot more open, especially for the talented users. If we allow new users to write for us, then we as admins cannot seclude ourselves anymore.