Fictopedia - The Fictional Encyclopedia

June 15, 2010 7:52 AM

Fictopedia - The Fictional Encyclopedia
Fictopedia is an online encyclopedia (in wiki form) of user-generated fictional information. Users are free to add or edit any information they wish on any subject with only two limitations. First, the information must be fictional (we already have Wikipedia for the "real' world) and second, the information must be about original, and not existing fictions (so nothing copyrighted/in someone else's book/movie/show already). Fictopedia is about creating new fictions by letting users add, edit and cross-link each others' ideas. There is no limit on genre (sci fi, alt-history, present day fiction, fantasy, whatever!) and articles can range from serious to silly. The goal is to see what emerges. Think of it as a fan wiki for all the fictional universes that don't exist yet. I've been working on this with several friends for a while, but I want to throw it open to as many people as possible now. Come create an account and contribute - see where others take your ideas!

In case you are wondering, I am publishing it under a creative commons commercial use/attribution license. The idea is that everything that goes in can be taken out and used by anyone, even for a commercial purpose (like say, a book). The only requirement is that there is attribution to the site (which in turn has a log of all users that have contributed to a given article).

posted by syntaxbad (13 comments total)

This project was posted to MetaFilter by The Winsome Parker Lewis on June 16, 2010: It's on the internet so it must be true!

Syntaxbad is a good friend of mine, and I actually wrote some of the material early on, but this has grown quite a bit since then. I've always loved the idea behind this.
posted by Navelgazer at 8:02 AM on June 15, 2010

Cool! I'm highly tempted to start filling it with all the nonsense bouncing around in my head. Is there any requirement for internal consistency, or am I free to contradict existing articles? Also, would it be considered not-kosher to edit existing fictions with my own fictional amendments, or would I be stepping on someone else's implied authorship of those figments?
posted by The Winsome Parker Lewis at 10:53 AM on June 15, 2010

Continuity is overrated :) But to answer your question directly, there is no requirement for any sort of overall internal consistency. I like to think of it as fragments of information from an infinite number of possible fictional universes. That's not to say it can't be fun to link up two disparate articles in some creative way so that they are consistent, but you don't have to. I'd be delighted to see any and all of the things bouncing around in your head on the site.

As for editing other people's articles, that's perfectly fine. The rule I'm going with for now is a sort of common sense rule of respect. If you think of some cool addition to an article, add it in. If you want to expand one of the red links, awesome! But, for instance, don't delete 2/3rds of the article to replace it with something else. Its a sort of "yes, and..." rule.

So basically, go nuts!
posted by syntaxbad at 11:27 AM on June 15, 2010

Ah, the "yes, and..." rule. Wiki editing as improv! I like it!
posted by The Winsome Parker Lewis at 12:22 PM on June 15, 2010

This is possibly the most awesome thing ever. Or not, but its pretty damn awesome.
posted by charred husk at 1:55 PM on June 15, 2010

Thanks Husk! I'm glad you like the project and I hope you'll make an account and start contributing. I think that the more users we have creating and expanding articles, the more exciting the project will get, so tell anyone you like :)
posted by syntaxbad at 4:40 PM on June 15, 2010

Yay! I've been adding stuff.
posted by Salvor Hardin at 7:33 PM on June 15, 2010

PS: I give it 1 year before spinoff novels start appearing.
posted by Salvor Hardin at 7:34 PM on June 15, 2010

Yay! This is fun. Here's my favorite jump-off point for my own contributions. I do hope that someone posts this to the blue (which I can't and won't do, for obvious reasons.)
posted by Navelgazer at 8:41 PM on June 15, 2010

This is so awesome.

Meet the Oakland Mystical Nexus. I, for one, am a strong supporter of the cannon.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 8:44 PM on June 16, 2010

Have there been any edit wars yet over subjects under dispute?
posted by Anything at 1:51 AM on June 17, 2010

There was a minor edit war over the Cabal as to how much information to provide about its nonexistence.
posted by The Winsome Parker Lewis at 7:36 AM on June 17, 2010

Have there been any edit wars yet over subjects under dispute?

Oh, yes.

This is so great. I'm going to have to block the site on my work computer or I won't get anything done all week, I can tell.
posted by Lexica at 9:55 PM on June 20, 2010