User blog:RRabbit42/Embrace, don't chase: Things that damage your fan fiction

In the blog about getting your fan fiction accepted, I talked about how fan fiction can become spam. To prevent that, you don't go from wiki to wiki, plastering your fan fiction everywhere. It needs to be kept separate from the official information and you need to make sure that where you do put it is appropriate. If you spam your fan fiction, it can damage your reputation and then people won't want to read it because you're being a nuisance.

There are other things that can damage your reputation to the point people might not want you around any more: abusing multiple accounts and inventing information.

Multiple accounts
Having more than one account is allowed but may not be a good idea. It is also possible to create new accounts even if you get blocked on a specific wiki. Creating a new account to get around being blocked is definitely not a good idea. So when is having two or more accounts a good idea?

If you have more than one account, each one needs to have a specific purpose. For example, I have the following:
 * My main account, RRabbit42, where I do the majority of my editing.
 * An account I use just for maintenance on wikis and is registered as a bot on some of them.
 * An account that was used for publishing newsletters.
 * An account that's used just to have placeholders in documentation, policies and help pages.

Other people might have one account for their personal interests and a separate account for any edits they make relating to their job or academic interests. They keep them separate so it's clear when they are representing the place they work at and when they're not. Kind of like when you see the notice that says, "Views expressed on this program/commentary are those of the individual and may not represent the views of the company/station/network."

On each of these, the user profile page needs to identify that they are owned by the same person and what they are for. It's being honest and not trying to hide what you're doing.

Abusing multiple accounts
Sometimes blocks are set because of a misunderstanding, so you need to talk it over with the person who blocked you to see if you can work it out. Go to Community Central and leave a message for the admin that set the block. Be polite and ask what you should have done differently. They may be consider removing or reducing the block if they see you're willing to change and abide by the rules.

Whether you think it was because of a misunderstanding or because they had to get you to stop causing problems, you may be tempted to take the easy way and create a new account. Don't. A lot of times that can backfire. That's what vandals do when they're attacking a wiki, so if you create a new account and try get back in right away, it can look like the fan fiction you've been adding was done to hurt the wiki.

Likewise, don't create new accounts just because you feel like it. First off, you'll miss any messages that are left for you because they will be for an account you probably aren't using any more. Second, when admins see that different accounts are making the same kinds of edits, it can look like you're trying to hide what you're doing. That's also what vandals do. They create "sockpuppet" accounts to hide their intentions.

If you want people to be interested in your fan fiction, you need to be honest with your edits. Use only one account, and if you happen to get blocked on a wiki, try to resolve matters peacefully.

Inventing information can earn you a bad reputation
There is a type of fan fiction that many people don't realize is fan fiction: inventing information. This often happens with movies or TV episodes that have been officially announced, but a lot of the details aren't known yet.

So fans start filling in the details. They'll put in actors, songs for the movies/TV show, plot details, trivia, et cetera. Instead of waiting for more announcements, they say, "I'll help out by putting in what I think will happen." They don't mean any harm by it.

This doesn't help like you think it will. Because it's being added to officially-released information, usually without any kind of reason given in the Edit Summary box, it becomes false information. False information is another way of saying that a person is lying. When you do it often enough, it may be considered vandalism.

But even if it doesn't become vandalism, it can damage your reputation. If people see you adding false information over and over again, then how can they trust that other things you add are true?

Let's say you kept adding actors to an upcoming movie, it kept getting removed because it was unsourced (no proof or references given) and you kept putting it back in. If you then added a statistic about a baseball player on a completely different wiki, could people trust what you say about that player because of what you kept putting in about the movie? If someone lies in one place, can they be trusted to tell the truth in another?

Most of us know this as "The Boy Who Cried Wolf". A shepherd boy keeps tricking people into thinking wolves are attacking his flock. When a wolf finally shows up, no one believes him and the sheep are eaten. Later versions also include the boy getting eaten.

The bad reputation from inventing information would be like the shepherd boy (in the versions where he's still alive) not being believed when he talks about other things. "You lied about the wolf. You could be lying about seeing a rabbit near the chicken coop." Completely different subject, but the lies about the wolf drown out the possibility that a rabbit being near the chickens could be true.

People that have earned a bad reputation by repeatedly adding fan fiction where they shouldn't or putting in false information can have their good edits removed simply because they are the one that made them. They show up and nobody wants to hear what they have to say, and any of their fan fiction characters and stories are deleted because of their behavior.

Conclusion
Your behavior will play a big part in whether your fan fiction is accepted. You can damage that if you create new accounts and invent information that is being added to official information.

One of the ways you can show you're being honest about your edits is to always provide reasons in the Edit Summary box and add references so other people can see why you did something. Without that, it's harder to tell if the fan fiction you're trying to add is done to share what you made versus being added to hurt a wiki.