Admin Forum:Someone one my wiki uses horrible grammar, and I want them to stop without banning them.

On my wiki, someone is making fanfictions with horrible grammar and spelling. It gets really hard to skim through their work and fix it. I want my wiki to have good content, but I don't want to ban this guy for just bad grammar. I left him a message, but he didn't respond. What do I do? MissingNo. here! Talk with me! 03:26, March 25, 2012 (UTC)
 * Bump. MissingNo. here! Talk with me! 16:42, March 26, 2012 (UTC)
 * I would advise talking to him in a more stricter tone, warning him that he must improve his grammar or he will get a block. That should work. If he doesn't follow that, then I know you'll be against this, but I would then start off by giving him a block of maybe 1-3 days, and if he still continues, maybe a block of 2 weeks, and slowly work your way up from there. EpicWikipedian 17:01, March 26, 2012 (UTC)


 * What is the main reason that you think you need to fix grammar in someone else's fan fiction? What I would do is make a template with a notice saying something like: "The grammar and spelling in this article is not reflective of the standards of this wiki." You could also set up a policy to move poor quality fan fiction to a user sub-page.
 * From my experience, writers with bad grammar will only rarely improve because it isn't their priority. If it was, they wouldn't be so bad in the first place. Sometimes it's better just to move junk to user sub-pages and forget about it. Fixing bad grammar and spelling can easily become a thankless full-time job. -- Fandyllic (talk &middot; contr) 27 Mar 2012 12:48 PM Pacific


 * If you're wiki is not a fanon, or fanfic wiki, then he has to move it to his own userpage, or make a account on fanfiction and make it there, and send a link on his userpage. If it is NOT fanfiction, tell him to do that, or he will get a block, work with a 1 day block, then 3 days, 2 weeks, and work your way up to a perm block, like Epic Wikipedian said. Zimfan:D 21:43, March 27, 2012 (UTC)

Hey all. Since I’m also an administrator on Star Wars Fanon, I wanted to bring in a different perspective to this thread. Too often, fanon/fan fic wiki admins can fall into the trap of treating their wiki the same as one that is geared towards encyclopedic content. The first thing you want to remember is that your wiki isn’t an encyclopedia of information, it’s a repository of creation. Knowing that, you need to devise a better approach than the typical warn and block system; Star Wars Fanon isn’t going to treat policies the same as Wookieepedia, for example.

Something really important you want to avoid, and Fandyllic I don’t want to seem like I’m being too critical here since I’m just using your comment as an example, is thinking that poor writing is junk. It’s not junk, it’s a first step. Writing has a learning curve; not everyone is going to be at the same level at the same time, and they’re not going to get better at the same rate or in the same way. “Follow this policy to the letter the next time you make an edit” isn’t going to work when people are engaged in creative writing. You shouldn’t try to enforce standardized quality control.

Writers who aren’t as good as others yet can’t be expected to improve with warnings and blocks. Moving things to user subpages isn’t going get anyone to improve, it's just going to move their content to a different namespace. Creativity and quality creative writing has to be nurtured through both positive reinforcement and critical feedback, not hit with a banhammer.

If you see someone with bad spelling and grammar, help them. You don’t have to fix it, but you can give advice. You can suggest a spell checker, you can suggest proofreading, you can suggest tips and tricks for better writing, etc. Help them, don’t ban them. Good writing takes time to improve, and if you embrace the fan fiction concept and avoid the encyclopedic concept then you don’t need to worry about quality controls and site-wide standards. People will improve at their own pace, and you’ll get better writers out of it. Adding things like "Keep it up!" or "Great effort so far!" can go a long way too.

One thing I’ve always liked to point out is how I started off in writing. The first time I ever started creative writing was on a Star Wars role-playing website. This is my first written RP post ever:


 * Jedi Padawan Ussej Bac has seen the struggle on the rooftops. Gathering his courage, he grips his lightsaber from his belt, a vein bulging from his hands.


 * "Sith..."


 * He runs to the elevator and rides the seemengly endless ride to the top of the building. He runs over to the seemingly helpless and beautiful young girl who is on the other side of the roof. In the distance, the rumbling of thunder can be heard.


 * Another Jedi is jumping infront of a bullet. Bac extends a hand to the beautiful young woman


 * "Are you alright, ma'am?"

I have a hard time looking at that without cringing. Compared to my level of writing now, that post is personally appalling to me&mdash;but that's only because I'm very self-critical when it comes to my writing, a trait that I developed over time. The thing I remember is that without that post, I would never be writing at the level I’m at now. If someone had deleted it, banned me, warned me, cast it aside as “junk,” etc., I wouldn’t be at the level of writing I’m at now. Thankfully I was in a creative and collaborative environment where all levels of quality were embraced and nurtured. Without that post and without that environment letting me get better, I wouldn’t have become a Star Wars Fanon administrator, and I would not be working for Wikia right now.

Not everyone is going to become a wiki admin or Wikia employee, and I'm not saying all of this to toot my own horn. I'm just giving you an example of my advice where it's worked in practice, and that example happens to be me.

Embrace all levels of quality, even if you think it’s terrible, and you’ll have a much more collaborative wiki that will, in the longterm, generate much better content. Don’t avoid that for the short-term feeling of standardized quality.

If you have any other questions about fanon/fan fic wikis, feel free to let me know. I’d be happy to answer them. - Brandon Rhea (talk)  21:56, March 27, 2012 (UTC)