User blog:Brandon Rhea/What is fanon?

What is fanon?
Fanon is something that a number of fans of countless franchises can delight in. It’s essentially a way for a non-professional author, basically just a fan like you, to immerse their ideas into an already established fictional universe, albeit in a way that’s non-canonical. It allows fans to let their imaginations run wild and to see how a story would turn out if they were in charge of creating it. Sometimes the fanon is good, and often times it’s not so good. No matter what, though, it’s fun.

What is exactly is fanon, though? Well there are two different definitions. The first and, truthfully, correct definition is something that is generally accepted amongst a fan base as being true but has not yet been established as official canon. Adding onto that definition, it can also be a fan-made element adopted by a canon work. For example, from the  fan films was made canon by author.

On the other hand, we have the second definition of fanon. It involves fanon created by individuals, and it’s an abbreviated form of “fan canon” or “fan fiction.” This is what we use here on this wiki and other fanon wikis, where most users have their own individual storylines. These storylines contradict one another, as they are not meant to acknowledge other fan’s works unless multiple fans are working together, and sometimes they contradict canon because that is what the author chose to do. This is why so many fans enjoy fanon, because it allows them to use their creativity and imagination in coming up with their own stories set in that galaxy far, far away.

Now let me tell you what fanon doesn’t mean. Fanon doesn’t mean “do whatever you want.” It doesn’t mean “there are no rules,” or “I get to format my articles however I damn well choose.” There are so many users who come to this wiki and just don’t even think that there will be article policies that they will need to follow. They think that they can just throw a bunch of unformatted, unencyclopedic nonsense onto a page and everything will be just peachy. This not the case. There has to be article standards or else this wiki would be even more of a mess than it already is.

The biggest downfall to this wiki is the fact that so many people think that. What’s even worse are the people who stubbornly refuse to accept the fact that there are rules once they’re told about them, instead going off onto rants about how the administrators are tyrannical dictators flaunting their power because they think it makes them “cool” and “powerful” over the poor, poor members who are being victimized by the cruel and unjust Nazis that “rule” this site. Our policies aren’t kicking you in the chest after you’ve been trampled by a horse. They’re not trying to keep you down. In fact, they’re not a big deal at all. The only time they’re a big deal is when people make them out to be that way because they’re just shocked that this wiki isn’t a free for all like they expected it to be.

Here is what we need to do. What I’m about to say is vague, but we can work on it. We need to find a way to be community oriented like we’re working to be now while also maintaining encyclopedic standards. We’re trying to do that now, but the problem I just mentioned still persists. We can never build a community unless people start to get a very different understanding of what fanon means, because policies will continue to drive away the hordes of people who think fanon is a passcard to do whatever they want. Yes, you can do whatever you want (within reason) in-universe, but out-of-universe there are still rules. Without them, SWF would look like this again.

The only other option is to throw the policies out the window and literally let everyone do whatever they want, perhaps only really enforcing any sort of standard in good and featured articles.

The choice is yours, community.

- Brandon Rhea  (talk)