I think at this point in time the wiki could really benefit from a banner that says something like 'The following contains information from sources of dubious authenticity.'
I say this not just because of the Epilogues, though that's where the phrase comes from, but also because a lot of stuff that has come out recently sort of fits this bill.
One of these things is obviously the Skaianet Systems historical documents. And I know what a lot of kneejerk reactions to that are/will be: it's not canon, so it doesn't belong on here. But Homestuck's canon is absolutely no stranger to tidbits from sources of dubious canonicity, and many of these have been documented on the MSPA Wiki itself; to take one example, Andrew's Formspring discussions about Biblical allusions in the Ancestor stories.
Another, perhaps more pressing reason for at least some Skaianet Systems information to be documented on here, is the case of Barack Obama. There is no denying that he is now a character with a speaking role and who has directly influenced the story; but more importantly to this topic, we now know that at least some of the stuff from those documents is still considered half-canon, because the fact that Obama is related to Grandpa Jake was first revealed through that documentation.
I know that, as the comic's main source of information for fans, we should really strive for making sure our sources are of the utmost authenticity; but I also think because of the Wiki's important role, it's kind of important that we at least mention something that contained so much information directly from the comic's author. A banner that makes it absolutely clear that some information isn't really canon would be a good compromise, I think, that allows noncanon information that still has historical importance to the franchise to be documented. After all, it has been said that the MSPA Wiki is more of an 'Andrew Hussie Wiki' now that projects like Hiveswap are coming out, and there is no doubt that both the Skaianet Systems histories and the Epilogues are the works of Andrew Hussie (at least in part in the latter's case).
One final argument to really nail the point home: the Hiveswap Friendsims. The Friendsims' Steam page describes them as 'loosely-canonical' and there is every chance that some of what happens in the Friendsims will be rendered noncanon by future episodes of Hiveswap proper. Not to mention the fact that every Friendsim episode has multiple routes, which mean that only some of every chapter can be considered canon anyway.
JakeMorph (talk) 00:21, April 24, 2019 (UTC)
I second this, though something similar would have to be applied to individual sections of pages as opposed to entire pages, such as when part of a wiki page is dubiously canon while the rest is definitively canon. I've already seen firsthand arguments over whether all of Roxy Lalonde's pronouns on this wikia should be changed to he/him because they changed their gender in the Meat path, or if all her pronouns should be they/them since they were a boy in the Meat path's end and a girl in the Candy path's end, or if all her pronouns shouldn't change since the canonicity of the Epilogues is semi-Dubious, as you've stated.
Personally I think none of the Epilogues are remotely not-canon and all Hussie has really done is purposefully confuse you all with a series of meta arguments, as opposed to simply focusing on the overall cohesiveness of the story when you put these various works together, but since not everyone is going to hold this opinion given that it requires a great deal of existential thought, we should as you've said use something like a Banner on pages, or a Warning around certain sections. For instance, (Warning: Dubious Canonicity). However, we'd have to make sure to police this so that there is a fine line kept between Dubious Canonicity, and complete bullshit someone made up or got from entirely fan-made content.
We should also consider a page entirely devoted to documenting the nature of "Canon" that seems to permeate Homestuck and related works. This wouldn't be for discussion, but rather documenting various instances where it's brought up in a meta sense, so we as a community can better understand how Hussie and his fellow creators view "Canonicity".
Epyc Wynn (talk) 00:43, April 24, 2019 (UTC)Epyc Wynn
I definitely agree, and I think one of the advantages of a banner (as opposed to say, a tag, or something in the title) is that you can either place it at the very top of an article or just at the top of a section (possibly with an accompanying "dubiously canon information ends here" banner at the end of relevant sections).
A page dedicated to the concept of canon definitely seems like it's in order, especially since the wiki already has pages for stuff like 'Fandom'. In fact I think this could help with establishing something similar to 'tiers of canon' with regards to Homestuck, its spinoffs, and Word of God statements on twitter and the like.
JakeMorph (talk) 04:09, April 24, 2019 (UTC)
A "loose canon" banner has existed for the Friendsim content for a while already;
EB: i don't know, maybe!
This page is partially reliant on information from Hiveswap Friendsim, and as such its canonicity is "loose". This means that while the information should broadly be considered canon with respect to the rest of Homestuck and Hiveswap, it should be kept in mind that some specific details may later be called into question!
A page for Canon also exists. BlackholeWI (talk) 07:41, April 24, 2019 (UTC)
Then I suppose my only suggestion is to perhaps have a version of that banner that's a little smaller? While it would look fine at the top of a page, now that we have characters who appear in both canonical (Homestuck) and dubiously canonical (Epilogues) sources, it would be nice to have something that can neatly fit between paragraphs without dwarfing the surrounding text.
The description in the banner itself could probably be shrunk down to 'The following contains information from loosely-canonical sources / sources of dubious authenticity .' The black and white Sburb house from the Epilogues would probably be my ideal image for it, too.
EDIT: A quick mockup of the kind of thing I think would be both clear and convenient:
|
| The following contains information from sources of dubious authenticity. |
JakeMorph (talk) 07:53, April 24, 2019 (UTC)
In regards to the Skaianet History stuff, I feel it should be mentioned that it was a draft of a story within Homestuck (i.e. The Condesce's story on Earth). A draft is more pre-canon than anything since the whole idea of a draft is that it is refined into a proper work and changes may occur during that refining. So the collection of ideas in a draft (compared to finished work) can be considered: Canon, non-canon, or semi-canon. (To go on a tangent here, by canon I mean "proper canon", not the weird meta-physical way it gets described in Homestuck or the Epilogues.) Since it exists as a draft that was never refined / finished we simply have no way to categorising any of the content from the Skaianet stuff, except if it is confirmed or contradicted by canon (again, see my previous statement to how I am using canon). So the appearance of the Obama stuff in the Epilogues only confirms two things: 1) Despite the backlash against the Skaianet History stuff and it being officially withdrawn, not every aspect of it has been abandoned and may still be used in canon. 2) Only the Obama stuff is canon, this does not speak to the canonicity of anything else in the Skaianet History stuff.
Now that being said, I oppose the use of Dubious Canonicity on content relating to the Epilogues. The description of the Epilogues as being of "dubious authenticity" appears to be a meta-joke based on the interplay of "proper canon", canon as defined by the narrative of Homestuck as a meta-textual work, the Epilogues as being narrative creations of the characters instead of the proper author (i.e. Homestuck shows Hussie as being the author, but the Epilogues are internally shown as being Dirk and Alternate Calliope instead of Hussie (the character not the real person) thus making them in some sense fan fiction (in the same way that Hussie described Doc Scratch's story about the ancestors as being fan fiction
)), the way half the story is defined as non-canon by the way canon is defied by the narrative and even of the being a continuation of Homestuck's ending.
I feel that last point needs some explanation; the Epilogues explanation of canon says that Earth C exists "outside canon" and the characters left canon when they went there. By that logic the Epilogues cannot exist since showing us the Epilogue expands canon and puts the characters back into it thus violating the idea that they left it at all. So it provides a choice: Ignore the Epilogues and presume Homestuck's loose ends get resolved offscreen however you want or accept the Epilogues the fact the characters are 'back in-canon' and all the consequences being back in-canon means, and getting a little more interpretive, you could argue Dirk and Alternate Calliope narrating the story explains how canon recaptured the characters. Having read one of the author's (cephiedvariable) AMA on twitter I feel their statement about you get to choose whether you want to reconcile the Epilogues with Homestuck or not is really reflective of that.
Ultimately while any individual can choose to ignore the Epilogues if they want, the wiki from the position of documenting the work as a whole has to chose to accept it. And that is why I oppose the use of a Dubious Canonicity tag. - The Light6 (talk) 12:59, April 25, 2019 (UTC)
Does that mean you are correct and Andrew Hussie is wrong? Because in order for you to be correct, Andrew Hussie has to be logically incorrect in his assertions (directly and indirectly) that the Epilogues are semi-canon, the Meat path is more canon than the Candy path, and that fan works are canonly part of the Homestuck universe.
How we choose to rule on this will set a precedent. We obviously cannot document every single fanon work, as that would be bullshit nobody came here to read, but by that logic does that mean we shouldn't be documenting the Homestuck Epilogues? Should we be documenting them JUST because Hussie chose to upload what potentially is JUST a fanon work, because it was uploaded on the Homestuck website? Is the Homestuck website itself the very boundaries of Homestuck's canon? Is what Hussie gives his blessing AS canon, considered part of the canon? Is what Hussie creates in relation to the Homestuck universe considered part of canon automatically? Is cohesiveness relative to the story, a deciding factor in any way on what is canon?
To be frank I think Hussie has been kind of an idiot, partially on purpose, because I don't really think he actually understands canonicity and his confusion has led in part to our own confusion, which I think on some level he wanted to happen.
This wiki is in charge of documenting things as accurately as possible -so the question is simply, is it more accurate or less accurate to label an entry "Dubiously Canon"? Surely it is at least worthy of note whether certain bits of information are from Homestuck, or from the Homestuck Epilogues, at least in the eyes of our readers. It might undermine this wikia's perceived credibility (however malleable that perception is) to not clearly state when something is from the Epilogues since that in itself affects the perceived value of the information in the eyes of readers.
Additionally, I would note it is likely Hussie knew these sort of arguments would be triggered and may very well be reading conversations such as this one -he may even be one of us in secret. I would not be surprised if he uses these very conversations to figure out how to perceive the nature of canonicity, and if it has actual value in the first place.
We could instead of using a Dubious Canonicity banner, just put a "This is from the Homestuck Epilogues" text-warning/banner above sections and subsections of articles where necessary. Epyc Wynn (talk) 13:30, April 25, 2019 (UTC)Epyc Wynn
I think by making the argument about canonicity, the point is kind of being missed; as has been mentioned before, this isn't just a wiki for "canon Homestuck content," it's a wiki for "stuff Andrew Hussie made." Problem Sleuth obviously is not canon to Homestuck in the conventional sense, but it is extensively documented here, because it was uploaded to MSPA and created by Hussie. The Epilogues fit all those criteria: Hussie made them, they are on the site that used to be MSPA. As I mentioned in the Epilogues forum thread, the same case applies to Spades Slick: he appears in two different adventures with a different canon, but is contained to a single page.
If it will make things easier and more agreeable, I would be happy for a 'this content is from the Epilogues' banner to be used instead of a 'dubious canonicity' banner. However if that were to be the case, I think use of a Friendsim 'loosely-canon' banner should also be enforced. JakeMorph (talk) 00:37, April 26, 2019 (UTC)
JakeMorph, I would say your observation and solution makes sense to an extent. Though, part of the issue is we have chosen to document the Homestuck Epilogues in a manner where they are considered part of Homestuck, as opposed to creating a separate category for them featured on the main page equally compared to Friendsim. And, I think the reason we have not automatically done that is because we collectively on some level feel the Homestuck Epilogues are not truly separate from Homestuck even if logically we may semi-think otherwise. The Homestuck Epilogues to me are just, part of Homestuck since they're on the same site and are named "Epilogues" as opposed to something like "Sequel," but due to Hussie's meta bullshit, are treated separate by him when they don't really seem separate at all. I'm beginning to think maybe we should just ignore all of these issues regarding canon since they're mainly ones Hussie invented, we should as you agreed use a "This information is from the Homestuck Epilogues" banner/italicized text warning in sections/sub-sections where sensible, and leave arguments on the nature of what's canon to our other discussion threads. Epyc Wynn (talk) 02:46, April 26, 2019 (UTC)Epyc Wynn
I agree entirely. My only further comment is that I worry the choice to categorise the Friendsims as distinct from Hiveswap will cause the exact same discussions (with regards to the Epilogues) to rise up once/if another Hiveswap episode comes out. JakeMorph (talk) 05:33, April 26, 2019 (UTC)
I've always enjoyed that this wiki expanded it's horizon to cover all of Hussie's past & future creations, as other have mentioned is the case. I personally just find it somewhat redundant, seeing as the Epilogues are self-titled with this tag themselves. I also have the viewpoint that the canonicity it refers to may be the "metatextual" canon concept of Homestuck & not the "outside of Hussie's vision" canon that we deal with on Wikis like this, because it's fairly undeniably part of Hussie's vision. So I'd like to just oppose the tag. (Whether I have any authority to oppose anything is beyond me, take this as a symbolic rendering of my opposition) Rabbeseking (talk) 18:38, April 28, 2019 (UTC)