Worldbuilding Exchange

Original Works

I'm still holding off on making a final decision about this for another day or so, but it seems that most people are in favour of subdividing into different fandom tags that give more specificity about genre.

It was (very sensibly) suggested that it might help nominators to know what subdivisions there were. I am very much in favour of nominators choosing for themselves rather than me dictating anything, but it obviously doesn't make sense to have a situation where people have to use multiple fandom slots for the exact same ideas under marginally different names.

So far in the tag set I have seen the following used, as further clarification within the disambiguations in the main Original Works fandom and/or as separate fandoms:

(in alphabetical order)
Alpha/Beta/Omega
Fantasy
Fantasy/Sci-Fi
High Fantasy
Low Fantasy
Omegaverse
Post-Apocalyptic
Superheroes
Supernatural
Urban Fantasy

This is definitely not an exhaustive list, just what's currently been put forward by nominators, and if people do want to preserve fine distinctions then that's absolutely fine. The most obvious example of things that could come together are "Alpha/Beta/Omega" and "Omegaverse", unless I'm missing something?

Silmarillion

I have now approved this! Nominators, please take a look to make sure it's come through OK and I didn't mess anything up, whether calling a character by the wrong name or just misspelling Silmarillion in a disambiguation. (I took screen shots of everything before I hit submit, so I should be able to reconstruct anything that did go awry.)

There are two fandoms that I am deliberately holding off on for now because I would ideally like the nominators to be able to discuss amongst themselves and come to a consensus, or at the very least I'd like to hear some different viewpoints to check if I've missed something obvious that should sway a decision one way or the other.

Original Work

As per the previous post, I am considering going along with the idea that some nominators have already used of splitting OW into multiple different subfandoms. No one has yet objected to this, and to be honest I am increasingly attracted to it. If anyone would really dislike it if I asked for OW noms to be split up, please speak up in the next 48 hours or that is probably the direction I will go in.

The Silmarillion - J. R. R. Tolkien

I am approving Tolkien fandoms as and when I get the chance (although it has to be said that LotR with its 43 tags made AO3 throw an error, even though I deliberately avoided approving anything else at the same time ...).

However, the five (so far) Silmarillion nominators all seem to be doing things differently, and my knowledge of it is too patchy to be certain about how to handle things. In particular:

• Piped tags or not? Some of the nominations are AO3 canonicals, which are always piped; some nominations are piped non-canonical tags (eg with disambiguations); and others still are not piped at all. I'm aware there are strong feelings about this out there; is anyone particularly attached to using the piped names and would object if I simply stripped them back to the first one listed?
  
• Relationship noms - at least one nominator seems to be nominating relationships within the character slots (e.g. there are noms for "Elrond & Elros & Maedhros & Maglor" and "Fingon/Maedhros"); I'm afraid this is not, in general, allowed for worldbuildingex. While there are occasional noms in some fandoms for groups that are always considered together in the context of their source canon, these seem from what I can tell to be relationships between distinct characters. Please let me know if there are reasons to consider them as valid noms.

This isn't a full clarifications/queries post, but I've made a first pass through the tag set and approved close to 30 fandoms. There are rather more than that waiting to be approved, but almost all of them have nominations that ideally need some modification (certainly a sufficient number that they crowd out any remaining ones that are formatted properly; apologies if yours are in there waiting and none of the list below applies to them -- please also bear in mind that there may be other nominators for your fandom who have not followed the guidelines).

• Please make sure all tags are disambiguated with the name of the fandom or an abbreviation for it in parentheses afterwards. (Please ignore the instruction on the screen to choose a canonical if it exists; this is standard AO3 boilerplate that I cannot change or remove.)
  
• Please make sure all nomination slates include both of the two "default" tags within the "Character" fields: "Any or No Characters (Fandom)" and "Original Character(s) (Fandom)" -- for some fandoms currently awaiting approval, I'm afraid this will mean you have to choose one or more characters to lose (or find a helpful friend/sock who will add the required noms for you)
  
• Please nominate worldbuilding tags (prefixed by "WB: ") in the "Relationship" field, NOT actual relationships between two characters. There are five fandoms in the tag set (one nominator's entire slate?) in which there are no worldbuilding tags, but actual A/B type ships instead. Fandoms without any worldbuilding tags at the close of nominations will be rejected.
  

Thanks for your help; I'm conscious that some of these probably seem like very picky things to most people but manually adjusting the tag set is significantly more time consuming than simply approving correctly formatted noms.

The tag set is now closed for nominations. Just in case anyone was literally just about to submit and got caught out, I will grant a 15-minute amnesty - comment on this post before 2210 UTC with the tags that didn't make it and I will add them manually. ETA: amnesty window now closed.

Clean up

Once any last minute tags have been dealt with, I will move into tag set clean up mode.

Please check your own nominations (and, if you're feeling especially helpful, any other fandoms in the tag set you know) for issues such as misspellings, inconsistencies, etc. If you find any, please comment here to let me know. As in previous years, I intend to create a spreadsheet version of the tag set which might be a bit easier to navigate; in the process, I should be able to spot issues like: duplicated tags (either migrated between fandoms or lingering ones from the batch of tags that got doubled up between fandoms); fandoms with missing default character tags; fandoms with inconsistent/missing disambiguations; etc. However, feel free you're welcome to point those out as well so I can get ahead.

Assuming no unexpected hiccups in sorting out the tag set, sign ups should open on time at 2155 UTC on Friday 18th (and may possibly start a little earlier than that if the stars align).

ETA: You may spot a few tags with extra bits of disambiguation that might seem unnecessary - this is because the original versions of those tags were "wandering" (appearing in fandoms they shouldn't) and changing them to the new versions prevented this.

Rejections and Adjustments

For the record, the following were rejected since the last post:

• White Collar and X-Men - All Media Types and all character tags under them, because neither fandom had worldbuilding tags nominated
  
• The Reluctant Widow - Georgette Heyer and all character tags under it, because no evidence was submitted for the only worldbuilding tag after several requests (there were also no default character tags)
  
• Star Trek: The Next Generation (Movies) because the relevant tags were folded into the main TNG fandom, per discussion with the nominator
  
• Malcolm Reed under Star Trek: Discovery as I can't find any convincing evidence for assuming he would still be alive by the time of the Discovery series

and the following tags have been adjusted, either following earlier discussion or because they were nominated within the last 24 hours and I made a judgement call:

• In Chrono Trigger, WB: Janus' early life especially with his magic differing (Chrono Trigger) has been replaced with WB: Life in Zeal (Chrono Trigger) and WB: post-game quest to rescue Crono's mother and/or the cats (Chrono Trigger) has been replaced with WB: Ripple effects from the defeat of Lavos (Chrono Trigger) (per here)
  
• In The Last Witch Hunter (2015), I've turned WB: Magical levels (Last Witch Hunter) into a more general WB: Magic (Last Witch Hunter) tag as I can't find any evidence for a specific idea of "levels" in this canon's treatment of magic when searching online

There are almost exactly three days left from the time of this post until the close of nominations (countdown).

Fandoms with missing tags

To be approved, all fandoms need to have the "Any or No Characters" and "Original Character(s)" character tags nominated, and at least one worldbuilding tag.

At present, the following five fandoms are missing at least one of the two character tags: The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells, Dark is Rising Sequence - Susan Cooper, Fallout: New Vegas, Midsummer Night's Dream - William Shakespeare, White Collar

And two fandoms have no worldbuilding tags: White Collar, X-Men - All Media Types

Queries about new tags in already approved fandoms

• Chrono Trigger - WB: Janus' early life especially with his magic differing (Chrono Trigger), WB: post-game quest to rescue Crono's mother and/or the cats (Chrono Trigger) - I am willing to be convinced (particularly on the first of these two), but these seem more like character/plot prompts than specifically worldbuilding related.
  
• Kingsman (Movies) - WB: Kingsman spies but set in Victorian London - the backstory has the Kingsman organisation being founded post-WWI, so this seems like a prompt for a non-canon AU; this tag will be rejected after 48 hours unless a pretty spectacular counterargument appears

Not-yet-approved fandoms

• Jean Robertson Series - Janet Sandison - this seems to be a very-close-to-real-world canon (e.g. it's described as "semiautobiographical"), so I'm not sure that the worldbuilding tags nominated ("Country vs Town", "Honour vs Rules", "The Depression", "Women's Roles") constitute prompts for extrapolation of the fictional world, as opposed to historical research. I am not completely closed to being persuaded otherwise, but at present am leaning towards rejecting this fandom; I will do this after 48 hours.
  
• The Reluctant Widow - Georgette Heyer - the only nominated worldbuilding tag is "How Francis saves the day as hinted onscreen in the book but not shown" - this seems to me to be filling in gaps in canon but not necessarily in a "worldbuilding" way

Previous queries

• Supergirl (TV 2015) - WB: the Xenosexual Scene and Maggie's Bildungsroman - I have adjusted this tag to just "WB: the Xenosexual Scene" but am willing to change it back if a good argument is presented
  
• Original Work - WB: Hallmark Channel Small Town Gothic - I still feel as though this is a setting in which more specific worldbuilding tags could be nominated, rather than a worldbuilding tag in and of itself. At present, I am leaning towards rejecting this, but I have the feeling I may be misunderstanding the intent.
  
• End of Eternity | Resonance of Fate - WB: Massacre Cult details - I still can't find any evidence for the existence of this (e.g. searching for the word "cult" on the fandom's wiki gets no returns), so am leaning towards rejection. This is currently the only worldbuilding tag nominated for this fandom; I will not reject the whole fandom at this stage, but it will not be approved without worldbuilding tags

(I have decided to give it a bit longer before rejecting the last two tags mentioned above, either to allow the nominator to explain or use the slot for something else.)

Quite a lot in this post, I'm afraid (the flip side of the fact that the approved tag set has just doubled in size).

Fandoms in need of double checking

The performance of the AO3 tag set interface has been much better so far this year (touch wood), but I did hit a minor issue earlier on today due to a momentary loss of Internet connection, which caused some tags to appear twice, or even three times, in the tag set under the same fandom. I believe that I have now fixed it on the back end, but if you had nominations in any of the following fandoms please check that they made it through intact: Giant Robo, Harry Potter (Books 1-7), Harry Potter - Wizarding World (No Pottermore), Killjoys (TV), Psychic Force, Quantum Leap, Sunshine (2007)

ETA: I missed at least one that should have been on that list: SCP Foundation - this is now fixed, but if anyone spots any other fandoms with repeated tags, please let me know.

Complex fandoms (with significant overlap, broad scope, etc.)

I have now approved the following, after discussion on previous posts (or a lack of discussion that led me to conclude that no one had any objections to what had been nominated): Doctor Who (2005), Dragon Age - AMT, Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: The Last Court, Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Next Generation

There are some fandoms that have been recently nominated that I would similarly like to give people a chance to discuss if desired. However, if there are no objections within 48 hours or so, I will approve these as they currently are: Deus Ex (Video Games), Hunger Games - AMT, Percy Jackson & Related Fandoms - AMT, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, Power Rangers (I would be curious to find out from the LotR nominator in particular whether this is deliberately intended to exclude The Hobbit as well as other Middle-Earth material such as the Silmarillon)

There is also a nomination for A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms - the book series and Game of Thrones (TV) are both already in the tag set. Is there a specific desire for the "& Related Fandoms" for this particular nomination? (The only worldbuilding tag is "WB: Events of the Book as Educational Curriculum in the Future")

There are also a number of new Black Mirror nominations; these appear to all be for the USS Callister episode, which is already in the tag set (in the "Uncategorized Fandoms" section). Since Black Mirror is an anthology show with no worldbuilding elements in common from one episode to the next, I would prefer separate nominations for each episode. Unless I hear convincing arguments to the contrary in the next 24 hours, I will fold the nominations currently under "Black Mirror" into the USS Callister part of the tag set.

"Creator - Works" nominations

In addition to the TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms nomination mentioned previously (which also has the issue of no worldbuilding tags being nominated), there are now AUSTEN Jane - Works and CLAMP - Works nominations. On reflection, and rather reluctantly (the idea of an Austen Literary Universe is very appealing), I have come to the conclusion that these are too broad for worldbuildingex purposes, and would constitute crossovers that didn't happen in canon. (The semi-exception here is CLAMP, where I rather suspect most or even all of the same tags could be nominated under slightly more specific crossover fandom tags.)

Fandoms with relationships nominated instead of worldbuilding tags

Thanks to the nominators who have been helping out by adding the default character tags for some fandoms that didn't previously have them. However, three of those fandoms still cannot be approved as they have no worldbuilding tags nominated; instead, the original nominator has used canonical AO3 relationship tags in the "Relationship" fields. (Worldbuilingex uses the "Relationship" tags effectively as freeforms tied to a specific fandom, which AO3 does not support directly.) These fandoms are: Final Fantasy XV, Naruto and X-Men - All Media Types

There are also two fandoms with a similar situation but worldbuilding tags have been nominated by other nominators: Boku no Hero Academia and Stardew Valley - I would prefer not to reject the relationship tags to give the original nominator the chance to use those slots for worldbuilding tags, but I do reserve the right to reject if their continued presence makes navigating the approval interface difficult.

Specific queries

• Original Work - WB: Hallmark Channel Small Town Gothic feels more like a specific OW setting than a worldbuilding tag in and of itself to me, but I am open to persuasion
  
• Star Trek: The Next Generation (Movies) - WB: Data adjusts to his emotion chip, the only currently nominated worldbuilding tag, feels more like a character prompt. I have accepted a number of other tags elsewhere that are along this border (including Data-related ones in TNG), but feel that this particular one is too far on the other side. My current inclination is to reject this particular tag but add a more general "WB: emotion chip" tag in the main ST: TNG section (which I would interpret as including the movies), but I will wait before enacting this to hear any counterarguments.

For any tags that were nominated before about 2100 UTC today, are not mentioned above, but have not yet been approved, I am waiting for responses or further discussion on one of the two previous clarification posts.

It's great to see so many people enthusiastically nominating so early. As of about 1420 UTC I have approved all tags I feel completely confident about; below are the issues that have meant I have not approved others.

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ETA 2230 UTC: there are now several more fandoms awaiting approval with the same issues as those outlined in the first section below; please check that you have followed the nominations guidelines - all tags (for both characters and worldbuilding) need to be disambiguated, and all fandoms need to have as a minimum the following: "Any or No Characters", "Original Character(s)", and at least one worldbuilding tag.

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Disambiguation, missing default character tags, lack of worldbuilding tags

A fairly large number of fandoms remaining have one, two, or all three of the following issues:

• None or almost none of the tags have been disambiguated; I am willing to add these in while approving where only a few have been missed, but this is too time consuming for entire fandom slates that are missing their disambiguations (please disregard the instructions on the nominations submission page to choose AO3 canonicals - this is not ideal for this exchange for quite a number of reasons; unfortunately, I cannot override this text)
  
• The "default" character tags "Original Character(s) (Name of Fandom)" and "Any or No Characters (Name of Fandom)" have not been submitted (if you have already used more than five character slots for characters in the fandom, you will need to choose some to change, sorry)
  
• No worldbuilding tags have been included in the Relationship fields (a few of these fandoms have actual relationships nominated; these will definitely not be approved)

The fandoms in question are: Boku No Hero Academia, Dragon Age - All Media Types, Final Fantasy XV, Killjoys (TV), Maria-sama ga Miteru, Naruto, Pandemic Legacy, Star Wars - New EU, Stardew Valley, Witches of East End (TV), X-Men - All Media Types (please also see the following section for Dragon Age and X-Men)

For further clarification, please refer to the detailed nominations information in the rules post; if you still have queries, please get in touch either in the comments of this post or via email to worldbuildingmod@gmx.com

Queries about intended scope

I am happy to approve all of the following in principle (though some have other issues as noted above), but want to be sure that everyone is on the same page about the intended scope of the canon that could be drawn upon.

• Doctor Who (2005) - I would interpret this to be only the TV episodes from Rose onwards (i.e. currently to Resolution) but none of the various spin-off novels, comics, etc.
  
• Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: The Last Court - I don't know much about the details of this fandom, but if fans want to discuss the overlaps between these please do so
  
• Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch - I would interpret the general fandom tag to include the comics. If the nomination is intended to be for books only, please change the fandom name to clarify ETA: the original nominator has clarified this as being the scope they intended; if other nominators were looking for something more restricted, please let me know
  
• X-Men - All Media Types - this is very broad; while I think it could be done (for example, within the framework of Marvel's parallel universes) I am not sure that this is the nominator's intention. Please note that this fandom also has no default character tags or worldbuilding tags (see above)

Apart from the fandoms with other issues, if I hear nothing I will start approving these within 48 hours assuming that the nominators are happy with them as is.

Specific queries

These fandoms have been approved but I'm holding back on some specific tags within them.

• K: Christmas 1944 - Adolph K. Weismann (character) - the online sources I can find use "Adolf"; does this matter?
  
• Supergirl (TV 2015) - WB: the Xenosexual Scene and Maggie's Bildungsroman - I'm unclear what's intended by "Maggie's Bildungsroman", and whether or not it qualifies as worldbuilding rather than characterisation

One hour left until the tag set closes. Get your last minute nominations in now!

EDIT: The tag set is now closed for nominations.

There will now be a fifteen minute amnesty in case anyone just missed out on submitting their noms at the last moment. Comment on this post within that timeframe and I will add your tags manually.

EDIT2: ... And time's up.

Please make sure that both character and worldbuilding nominations for Original Work are disambiguated with some suggestion of genre, however broad or narrow you like. I would prefer this as it avoids the risk of a mismatch of expectations between requests and offers (for example, "WB: Shields" would be interpreted very different in a high fantasy setting compared to a pulp SF one).

In the already approved tags, we have:

• Original Work - Fantasy
  
• Original Work - High Fantasy
  
• Original Work - Urban Fantasy
  
• Original Work - Science Fiction
  
• Original Work - Pulp SF
  
• Original Work - Omegaverse
  

But of course many more could be added.

If there are any Original Work nominations remaining at the close of nominations that lack such clarification, I will assign them to whichever of the already existing ones seems the best fit, but I won't create brand new categories.