Zhodani Special Naval Landing Force

[MongooseMatt]

Hey everyone,

Just a quickie, it was brought to our attention this weekend that the original source of the Zhodani Special Naval Landing Force in the Zhodani Ground Forces chapter of the Fifth Frontier War book was actually a fan-made contribution to the TravellerWiki. Deepest apologies for that, completely our bad - we have made arrangements with the author to purchase the rights to the ZSNLF in return for a donation to the Royal British Legion, and we are taking steps to ensure this cannot happen again.

This does raise some issues with the TravellerWiki, and we are currently talking to both Mr Miller and the Wiki masters to see if anything should be done in the future. Either way, we will lay out some ideas for comment from the Traveller community.

 

[agentwigggles]

Man, there was not a thing on there stating it was fan fiction on the main page. The discussion would have highlighted it more.

Matt Pat did a vidoe on this on one of his Theories channel. This happens more common then it should, as the goal, is that it shouldnt ever happen.

 

[Vormaerin]

A large quantity of the Travellerwiki is fan fiction. They do a very good job of listing their sources. But if you don't read the footnotes, you will get substantial amounts of fanon mixed with any actual information.

"Special Naval Landing Force" is a historical description of a military unit and no more "IP" than Marines, Commandos, or Dragoons. At least in the US. But, obviously, the customer service element is more important than that kind of quibble in most cases.

We certainly don't want Mongoose to decide to go the Games Workshop route of renaming everything to be sure it is their own copyright. There needs to be a flag on the wiki, both for Mongoose and for the many players who think the wiki is official or semi official. We have people citing the wiki in discussions all the time without apparently realizing how high the unofficial-ness level is.

 

[MasterGwydion]

A large quantity of the Travellerwiki is fan fiction. They do a very good job of listing their sources. But if you don't read the footnotes, you will get substantial amounts of fanon mixed with any actual information.

"Special Naval Landing Force" is a historical description of a military unit and no more "IP" than Marines, Commandos, or Dragoons. At least in the US. But, obviously, the customer service element is more important than that kind of quibble in most cases.

We certainly don't want Mongoose to decide to go the Games Workshop route of renaming everything to be sure it is their own copyright. There needs to be a flag on the wiki, both for Mongoose and for the many players who think the wiki is official or semi official. We have people citing the wiki in discussions all the time without apparently realizing how high the unofficial-ness level is.

There needs to be two wikis. One Canon or at least in published, official materials, and the other Fanon.

Think of the Star Trek wikis. Memory Alpha is Canon. Memory Beta is Fanon.

Or the Star Wars wikis. You have a Canon tab and a Legends tab.

 

[Condottiere]

Canon and Allegedly.

 

[WHULorigan]

There needs to be two wikis. One Canon or at least in published, official materials, and the other Fanon.

Think of the Star Trek wikis. Memory Alpha is Canon. Memory Beta is Fanon.

Or the Star Wars wikis. You have a Canon tab and a Legends tab.

There is already an in-line reference citation and footnote syntax. Contributors have to be aware of it and be expected to use it.

For those involved in editing the wiki - at the end of the line / sentence / paragraph in question, the syntax is:

<ref> Footnote </ref>​

This will place a superscript at the position of the "inline reference" and place a linked footnote at the bottom of the page with the text of the "Footnote". Use this for either general note commentary or for noting a Fan-user contribution by proper attribution of the contributor.

There is also an inline Page cite syntax for quoting published sources and footnoting that fills in the liked footnote with the proper bibliographic format.

 

[collins355]

Respect for owning up on this one Mongoose. To be honest I had dismissed the book after getting to that Zhodani SNLF stuff. I really wish your proofreaders and sense checkers had a better background in Traveller military canon because this type of stuff could have been spotted prior to publication.

 

[flyteach]

Here's a thought: Instead of taking things from the web and reprinting and recharging for it (regardless of whether it's canon or Fanon) how about just writing new original material and leaving what's already around alone.

 

[agentwigggles]

Yea. So lets remove the Pilot SKill, and Social Stat and the Beuwolf and Mora.

 

[ottarrus]

So, are you guys gonna ret-con the ZSNLF into the Guard Commandos now?
Given the rarity of teleporters, even in Zho society, one would think that any teleportation adept with a decent PSI score and better than average physical stats would get channeled into the Guards instead of a 'spacehands with a helmet and rifle' detachment like a Naval Landing Force.
[One presumes that the Zhos know very little about the French fusil-marins or the IJN Special Landing Forces, so those comparisons only go so far.]