Forum:Clarifying fanon ownership

A month ago, there was an administrative discussion about the deletion of fanon written by a user whose account has since been globally disabled. There was no consensus on the matter of whether or not to delete the content, but I believe a more important issue was revealed during the discussion that warrants its own discussion.

There is currently a disconnect between how The Sims Wiki treats content added to the fanon namespace, versus how the wiki's content license treats such content. For those who are unfamiliar, The Sims Wiki operates using the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC-BY-SA) license. All users who add or upload content to The Sims Wiki are assumed to accept the terms of the license and to add their content in accordance with the licensing requirements, which states that other users are allowed to use and edit their material as long as attribution to the original author is maintained.

Content licenses are of paramount importance to the ongoing survival of The Sims Wiki and other online wikis because of the concept of copyright and "ownership" of content. Most creative works that a person can create are automatically covered by copyright, giving the author some exclusive rights to use and reproduce the work (subject to fair use limitations). The problem is that copyright rights can preclude other users from using or modifying another user's content because the original author still has a legal right to exclusively use said content. Additionally, a copyright holder would have a legal right to remove their content at their discretion, or else force the wiki to remove it for them. The use of a content license like CC-BY-SA allows a wiki to keep a user's contributions and to edit those contributions because the user agreed (by clicking the 'publish' button) to upload their content under the terms of the license, which allows other users to modify and share the content with relatively little restriction. Simply put, without this license, the wiki would not be able to function. As it stands, CC-BY-SA works very well for general wiki content, where it is assumed that several authors will be combining their efforts to create a page.

Fanon content is more complicated. Currently, the way that we treat fanon differs from how our license treats it. To be clear, all content added to the wiki, even fanon, is licensed under CC-BY-SA. However, we treat fanon as if it is a user's "property," and this treatment implies that the author maintains certain rights to their "property." This issue came to a head in the aforementioned discussion, with one side generally arguing that we should treat the user's fanon contributions as property (and in a sense ignoring the CC-BY-SA license) and the other side arguing that the wiki stands to benefit by keeping the content. Technically, because of the license, the wiki is under no obligation to remove the content, even upon request (though ). But, the way that the wiki has generally (though not always) handled fanon runs contrary to the license.

Fanon is generally referred to as the author's property, and we give certain privileges to the author(s) that other users do not have. Except for minor corrections, other users are not allowed to edit the author's works. We do not restrict or govern how an author chooses to display their content (as long as it is allowed under policy and is technically possible on the wiki platform), unlike the mainspace which is more regulated. We almost always honor a user's request to delete a user's works of fanon without discussion or community consensus, even if the work is well-read or popular. Fanon works are required to display the Property template, which states that the page is owned by the author. All of these privileges would suggest to the average user that they have property rights over their fanon works. However, fanon authors actually do not have exclusive property rights, since they agreed to add the content by CC-BY-SA.

I am starting this thread as the beginning of a discussion, with the goal being to amend wiki policy in one form or another. The way we choose to proceed is open to discussion, but generally we should either move towards formally establishing that users have certain defined rights over their works, or we should move towards clarifying the relationship between fanon works, copyright and license, so that users do not assume exclusive rights of property over their works. Right now, I feel that we are being somewhat duplicitous by insinuating that fanon is property while at the same time arguing (especially in the linked-to admin discussion) that fanon is wiki content and subject to the whims of the wiki. In my eyes, we can't fairly have it both ways.

How should we proceed? --  LiR talk • blog  •  contribs 17:53, February 25, 2016 (UTC)

Discussion
Bump hoping to give this thread some attention. — k6ka  🍁 ( Talk ·  Contributions ) 13:24, July 14, 2016 (UTC)


 * If the fanons are featured, have received several comments with positive feedback, or been featured in past editions of the Sim's Pen, then I remain hesitant to support them for deletion.


 * But for those that clearly don't fulfill the requirements that I've mentioned, I give the idea of deleting the fanons of users whose accounts were globally disabled, weak support leaning towards neutral. ―  C.Syde  ( talk &#124;  contribs ) 10:48, July 15, 2016 (UTC)


 * I do agree that this is a sort of conundrum. I personally don't feel that fanons should be "free and open for anyone to edit", but I also can see this issue could be seen as being in conflict with the license of the wiki platform. However the way I see it, the fanon namespace is truly free and open but also has a community understanding that editing another fanon should be avoided when possible. The caveat is what constitutes a situation that isn't possible to be avoided. One that was mentioned already is when there are minor errors, which are usually template usage.


 * I think the other could be when related to users who no longer have access to their accounts to edit their own fanons. One situation that I can think of is a user who forgot their password and had to create a new account. My guess is this would be a matter of proving the two accounts are truly the same user. Another situation could be when the user has been blocked. I personally don't really see any reason their fanon would need to be deleted unless there were some gross violations involve. However, if there were to be someone who was blocked that was saying they wanted their fanon deleted, that would be another matter because their request wouldn't technically be fulfilled by virtue of being blocked because they don't have access to their account. Technically it is possible to delete it (or any fanon page), but with the community understanding of how the namespace works it wouldn't be done. Is that really something that should be changed? I don't really think so. I don't even think that is against the license either.


 * I guess I am just not sure what is exactly being addressed here. While I do agree that the license of the wiki is free and open, to me the fanon namespace is "allowed" to be owned property to a user as long as there is no rules being broken. For example, anonymous fanons are deleted after some time has passed because of the rule that only registered users may have a fanon page. I guess what I am saying is that I don't necessarily see that the license is being broken when the community allows for "ownership" as long as they meet certain guidelines. Let me know if I am making an error in judgement here. — Icemandeaf (talk) 21:54, July 15, 2016 (UTC)


 * The issue that I am mainly concerned with is the disconnect between the author's "right to property" versus the community's right to maintain content under the license. This definitely isn't a matter that comes up often, but it has come up enough in the past to make it a matter of discussion.


 * I tend to fall more on the side that says that fanon is the property of its author. From that perspective, it seems that we ought to protect the author's right to control their works by deleting works written by authors that are no longer able to access their accounts, regardless of the quality, critical acclaim, popularity, or status of the works in question. In essence, I am saying that the rights of the author in this case should override the wiki community's right to hold that content hostage under protection from the license. While the wiki would be technically correct to do so, I don't feel it would be a good precedent to set.


 * Let's say hypothetically that "Adam" writes a very brilliant work of fanon that earns wide acclaim, is featured, etc etc. Let's say that later on he decides to rewrite a section of that fanon? Would such an action be against the rules? No, of course not. Adam has the right to control his works, including by making revisions. Would he be allowed, then, to completely re-write the entire article from the ground up? And would he be allowed to decide that he'd no longer like his work posted here, and request deletion? I think if we want to make the rule that Adam's fanon is his subject to restrictions, we're totally okay in making that rule (so long as he is made aware of what the rule is). When I add content to the wiki, I do so with the understanding that the content (more or less) ceases to belong to me. But if I had been told upon joining the wiki that my contributions belonged to me and I could modify them or delete them at will&mdash;in other words, if I had been told that my contributions were my property&mdash;and then later found out that this was not actually the case, I would be upset. This is the big problem with the current state of affairs. And in cases where it's not possible for the original author to lay claim to their works, such as when the author's account is disabled or they're indefinitely blocked from editing, then we should respect their right to control their property, and delete it from the wiki to ensure that if they aren't able to control it, no one else can either. If we aren't willing to do this, then I feel the only reasonable course is to make it clear to all users when they create fanon what rights they do and do not have in regards to modifying or deleting fanon. --  LiR talk •  blog  •  contribs 02:53, July 16, 2016 (UTC)


 * So you're saying that should a user lose access to their account that their fanon work should be deleted because if they can't edit their own work it shouldn't be available for the community to edit? That's an interesting notion. *thinking it over* — Icemandeaf (talk) 03:30, July 16, 2016 (UTC)
 * That's part of it, but there's more to it than that. If the author decides, after losing access to their works, that they are no longer satisfied with the work they created, there is no recourse available for them to change or delete it. If an active user requests their fanon be deleted, we grant the request without a second thought because it is the user's right to control their property. Once a user loses access to their property, deleting it is the only way to ensure that only the author retains control.  LiR talk • blog  •  contribs 11:07, July 16, 2016 (UTC)
 * I certainly think that if a fanon author requests the deletion of their fanon, then their fanons should be deleted, regardless if they are featured or not. I've been thinking it through, and I've decided that to ensure the fanon author remains in control of their property, then I think their fanons should be deleted. However I do think we need a way to make it clear that - if this proposal passes - this is what will happen to the fanons of any future users wishing to disable their accounts, should they decide to disable them. ―  C.Syde  ( talk &#124;  contribs ) 08:10, July 28, 2016 (UTC)