Talk:Fiction writing/The Common Plastic Fish (Plasticus capensis)

This article is my "test case"

This charming satire was put up for deletion because it was in mainspace (not under the Science Fiction Challenge as it is now.) Mainspace is reserved for resources focused on teaching skills, ideas and facts. Here is one person's opinion on whether it should be deleted. In the context of legal questions, a test case is a legal action whose purpose is to set a precedent.

Why we need a test case

Wikiversity needs to remove pages that most or all readers should never see. The large quantity of such pages will overwhelm those who are "cleaning house", unless we can learn to quickly make decisions. Quick decision-making requires simple rules that are satisfactory to all parties concerned. Rules, like laws in the legal system, cannot be fully grasped without the contemplation of a few select cases that serve as precedents which allow us to interpret the rules. Two important rules are simple to state:

Resources on Wikiversity must have educational value.

Resources on Wikiversity must not be disruptive.

An obvious example of disruptive content is that which violates copyright laws. There are probably dozens of other forms of disruption, but I argue that one single form of disruption needs our immediate attention:

Low quality efforts by students must never be presented as if they are high quality teaching materials.

I, Guy Vandegrift (Guy) will now use these three (unwritten) rules to argue for the defendant in the following case:

Wikiversity versus Plasticus capensis

Plasticus capensis is most likely satirical fiction, written by User:MichaelisScientists in a single day in 2016. It was the only day that the author contributed to Wikiversity. On that same day, Wikiversity inserted a note warning potential readers that this work is to be taken as a work of fiction. Seven years later, the work was proposed for speedy deletion on the grounds that it was a hoax.

Before stating what I think we should do with Plasticus capensis, let me ask the reader to accept a few stipulations:

1. It is not unreasonable to postulate that probability of user:MichaelisScientists ever wanting to re-read or edit Plasticus capensis is roughly 1%. But if you believe that Wikiversity needs more people like MichaelisScientists, we can and should find a non-disruptive way to keep him/her engaged by allowing their page to remain somewhere on Wikiversity. There are at least 300 one-time student contributors to Wikiversity, and I for one would be delighted to get three of them to become regular editors.
2. Wikiversty lacks the time and expertise to judge the quality of this satire. With so many pages to process, we need a policy that includes the possibility that this work has literary merit, perhaps after a major rewrite by one or more authors (that same policy needs to prevent a large number of failed efforts from disrupting Wikiversity's educational mission.)

Conclusion

1. There is nothing disruptive about The Common Plastic Fish (Plasticus capensis)

a) it was not plagiarized.

b) it is not offensive in a way that might harm innocent people.

c) it is not fringe pseudoscience.

d) it will not be given such visibility that it damages Wikiversity's reputation (for example, we don't want Google to reach it using search words "endangered fish species".)

2. The worst-case scenario is that we move the work of fiction to the author's user-space

We can do this since there is only one author. I have a template for explaining this move to the author, but it needs to be made more friendly to the person moving the page.

3. A better solution would be to create a page in mainspace that invites fictional works.

Then we make this a subpage. I will look for a suitable page, or perhaps even create such a page myself.

Last edited by Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 07:01, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

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