EvaWiki:About
In spite of what the namespace may lead you to believe, this About page is ... about the NGE Fan-Geeks Project website as a whole, not (what is currently referred to as) "EvaWiki" specifically. We are now Officially the NGE Fan-Geeks Project ObsessiveMathsFreak 19:57, 17 August 2007 (EDT)
Greetings, Lilim-scum! So, you've come here to find out what the hell this website is all about, eh? Well, even Reichu is not entirely sure, but we'll see what we can do...
The NGE Fan-Geeks Project will eventually be -- if all Goes According To Plan -- the new incarnation of that old, blue FGC site you should know all-too-well. We've switched over to MediaWiki in part so that other geeks (i.e., "not just mostly-Reichu") can easily work on the site and expand its scope to what was intended all along.
Now, it should be emphasized that the current rather 'bleh' default MediaWiki skin and the preponderance of Wikipedia-esque pages is NOT a sign that FGP is going to turn into some kind of Wikipedia-wannabe. (Please see the relevant section below.) By default, things are going to be as loose and geeky as they always were, as this very About page should convey -- but there are some exceptions to be noted.
Embryonic and messy as FGP currently is, here is a scheme for how the content should break down:
The Commentary
Referred to as "FGC" (Fan-Geeks Commentary) for short. This was the main attraction of the old site, and, with any luck, it will maintain said status after the switchover, despite competition with the other content. You are, hopefully, quite familiar with the commentary, considering all four episodes' (and OP, and ED) worth have been online for at least 100 years. FGC will probably look much the same when the conversion is finished (only significantly less blue). We still plan on utilizing the old "people post their comments in the designated thread, after which editors suffer" method, as opposed to the "post your comments directly into the Commentary Page" one that has been occasionally proposed. The former method means that creating the CPs is a lot more work -- but, to be perfectly honest, the heart and soul of FGC would be utterly lost by sacrificing the threads. In the humble opinion of many involved with the project, including its mommy.
Besides: This time around, we plan on having the work distributed among multiple poor gits, not just Reichu, so it shouldn't be quite as annoying. However, no one may yet apply for work being one of said poor gits, since porting over the preexisting CPs is still pending. But, oh, what fun that moment will be when it comes! </slight sarcasm>
BTW, here is a reminder that FGC should get a devoted About page sometime. It should get a page to reflect its long, sordid, mostly-uneventful history, while we're at it.
The Rest
"Everything aside from the Commentary." This will hopefully add up to "a helluva lotta stuff", but the differentiation is important nonetheless: FGC is a big feature that will probably be directly handled by a small cadre (even though lots of Lilim will contribute content "indirectly" by posting in the devoted subforum), whereas "the rest" will be handled more freely by a body of elected scribe-minions. (You might even be one of them, in which case you can consider yourself lucky for being chosen, and unlucky for now being expected to submit to your Mistress, unless you were into that sort of thing already.)
"EvaWiki"
As part of our ongoing mission to bring you the best in NGE geekery (or, at least, what our biased minds imagine such a thing to be), the site is being expanded to include what is essentially an extensive set of "encyclopedic" articles pertaining to the show, whether directly or indirectly, due to the fact that some people thought such an undertaking would be a Pretty Good Idea. Most of these are "in-universe" -- Spear of Longinus, JSSDF, Tokyo-3, Zeruel, etc. -- but anything extra-universe deemed of appropriate relevance would get its own page, as well: Gainax, Megumi Hayashibara, Space Runaway Ideon, Super Robot Wars, Anno's Sex Life, and so on.
Since these are supposed to be Fairly Basic info pages, we need to establish DOs and DON'Ts for them sometime, don't we? (The "style guide" page name is totally tentative. If you can think of something better, go for it.)
What's in a name?
In the end, this section should have a designation that craftily avoids using the rather cliched term "Wiki". (Something nice and witty. Or just plain geeky.) This is because, well, "Wiki" is terribly cliched, and it creates a needless semantic problem due to the fact that the entire site has become a "Wiki", in that it runs on MediaWiki software. This is where the words of Tyler Durden come in: "You are not the software you use. You are not your goddamn khakWHERE IS SARAH CONNOR." MediaWiki is just a tool, and it should not define any aspect of the project; the "encyclopedic portion" should be named with the mindset that we are still on the old, blue website.
Plus "Wiki" makes people think of Wikipedia, and nobody wants that.
Theories & Analysis
Theories (whether speculation in general or "theories" proper), analysis, and all-out fanwankathons don't quite belong in pages on "basic info", considering (A) the not-so-straightforward and oftentimes contentious nature of such material, and (B) how unbelievably Wild 'n' Crazy things can get. Unless it is totally impractical, they should isolated out into pages devoted to such antics.
Examples of "T&A" (lol) pages (the subject material, anyway, not necessarily the titles) would be: EoE vs. EoTV, Shinji & Asuka's Relationship, Whose soul is in EVA-00?, The Relationship Between Rei and Quantum Physics, Rei's/Kaworu's Origins & Nature, Sex/Gender of Non-Lilim Humans, Was Anno just making it all up as he went along?, and over nine thousand others.
The exact handling of such pages has yet to be resolved. This might be a good idea.
Geeky Guides
Examples of subject matter: references NGE makes to other things (and vice versa), the differences between various versions of NGE, recyclage in NGE, and bloopers. The content would probably be far too detailed, pedantic, and/or nerdy to count as strictly "encyclopedic", which is probably a good thing: Being non-encyclopedic means that the tone can be loosened, and pages about references/homages/"rip-offs" and bloopers that didn't include smart-ass comments would be awfully boring. However, exceptions should be considered: E.g., the "NGE Revision History" pages, while somewhat (to very) pedantic, lend themselves heavily to being very dry and straightforward. (Example.)
Essays & Dialogues
(Above label = very subject to change.)
This category is intended to encompass, mostly or entirely, adaptations of forum material (more or less), the sort of stuff distinguished by doing something for the first time, or really well, or whatever. The intention: to provide "classic material" in a format wherein people don't have to wade through all of the noise commonly associated with forum threads. (And closely related material by the same author is sometimes distributed over multiple threads, as well.)
"Essays" -- or perhaps "monologues" is better -- would only be comprised of a single person's writing. (Presumably. You never know.) Material on MDWigs' ad-infested site exemplifies what we'd be aiming for.
However, given the highly interactive nature of the forum environment, it's more likely that forum extracts will end up as "dialogues", with various people contributing to (what would be edited into) a unified piece. (Mostly.) The exact format is as yet unknown; "Elevators and Eva Lifts" and "LAEM: The Worst Case Scenario" from the Old Site provide possible sources of inspiration.
Translations
It is suspiciously hard to find translated NGE materials -- done professionally or otherwise. Therefore, in the interests of NGE geekery, we shall attempt to archive various translations on this site, provided they aren't easily available somewhere else, and provided they don't TOTALLY suck. (But even slightly "challenged" fan-translations tend to beat the utter garbage Babelfish and Google's robo-translator churn out.)
We hope to procure (a) source(s) of newly-generated translations, too, but that's another story...
Randomosity
Put another way, "Assorted Humor and Curiosities, or, Whatever the hell doesn't fit anywhere else". Best defined by examples: The archive of captioned and doctored images; varied instances of "forum assholery" that deserve to be showcased on the site one way or another; the ramblings of Fuzzy Chickens and Zuggy (along with Zuggy's awesome satires); "Christmas Hentai Evangelion" (a hidden page on the old site as is); and LuigiHann's "Evangelion Clue".
Umbrellas
The non-FGC content essentially falls under three "umbrellas".
- "Straight" content. This would include both the standard 'cyclo ("Wiki") articles, first-tier theory/analysis pages (making a differentiation may stop being necessary once we get into the groove of things), translations and any similar 'official resource' pages we might end up with, "NGE Revision History" pages, etc.
- Inherently informative content presented in an informal, overtly geeky, and/or personalized way: in-depth pages, references, bloopers, gratuitous recyclage, assorted 'essays'/dialogues, and so on.
- The Random Shit.
It is important that these three types be instantly distinguishable from one another — something that would be easiest to achieve visually. Could this be done with templates? Reichu knows nothing about such things, so someone more knowledgeable will get to solve this problem. (OR ELSE.)
"And that's all I have to say... about that."
