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[Louella Dougans]

As long as something is written down in the evewiki in a CCP official page (that can only be edited by CCP and official groups), it is part of the OOC Canon for me, or PF. Be it from an old fan made fiction or pure CCP material, I just can't put into question the validity of that, even if things like cloning are constantly drastically changing, which is annoying like hell.

If that is an IC material, that is another story. I am not sure what to think of it. All points and concerns raised sound valid to me.

It's canon now, sure.

But at the time of the argument, it was not. It was, as far as I could see, just a well written story on the eve fiction forum.

But someone did use the Lost Tribe of Mishi as an IC argument against things that I was saying. When I challenged them, I was told that I "clearly didn't read history books". And this argument was also in OOC. Same thing.

So what I did was, reduce that player and character to a non-entity. I am no longer interested in what they have to say about anything IC.

but of course, that makes me the bad guy. because I will not be godmoded by some other person who has issues.

[Nicoletta Mithra]

Gods and spirits. Now, if not the Chronicles, the News Articles, nor EVElopedia are sufficient to put forth the established facts of the Universe EVE online plays in, what does, then?

I mean, really...

I never said that EVElopedia articles can't be interpreted, nor said I such a thing about News Articles or some such, but if we want our characters to inhabit the same world, we need to keep to some established facts about this world and honestly, there is no way around sticking to PF for that. At least I'd invite everyone to present a viable alternative. (Established facts should always be open to discussion, btw. because humanity can always err. Yes, 'science' does that, too.)

If these facts aren't established by PF, then I don't see how one can ensure that there are Amarr, that there are Caldari and honestly, I'm not flying a spaceship, I'm riding my magic horsie over the magic plains of Quk'oloth, fighting the vile Orcs of Menthur.... And you can't prove to me that I don't because you're all hallucinating something about weird 'spaceships'.

Really, people, did we decide to play EVE online or 'subjectivist wonderland of solipsism'?


... So, Merdaneth, you can certrainly make your own webpage stating something that is in contradiction to PF. No, I wouldn't accept it as a reliable source. Neither IC nor OOC. The reliable sources are simply with CCP and if I as aplayer try to give one and I want it to be accepted as making sense, I better keep in harmony with PF. I mean, really, what good reason is there to accept a source as reliable that is in conflict with PF? That means, even if I think EVElopedia shouldn't be used explicitly in IC interactions, I'd have to assume that my char, if he looks for other serious sources, then he'd come up with something at least not entirely contradicting PF.

No I don't expect EVElopedia to be on the same (not really excitingly high) level as Wikipedia: It's a game tool. It's a question of degree of suspension of disbelief. If I play EVE, I agree to the PF being the established facts. If something conflicts with PF, suspension of disbelief doesn't hold anymore. And as I pointed out, PF leaves plenty of room for exciting debates.

P.S.: Did I say that everything in the EVELopedia is established fact? No: I pointed out the problem that there are things in the EVElopedia that are not. Are some things that are to be considered established facts by the PF only found in EVElopedia? I do think so.

[Nicoletta Mithra]

By the way, the Amarr didn't eradicate half the Ni-Kunni population - and quite honestly, I don't see why there would be a need to people claiming that: One can wonderfully debate on the benefits and downsides to the Ni-Kunni having been reclaimed along the lines of PF.

Article about Ni-Kunni:
http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Ni-Kunni

Direct quote from article:
http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Ni-Kunni#Arrival_of_the_Amarr

An early landing crew was massacred and sacrificed, leading the following ships to massacre the entire city-state and declare the entire ethnicity worthy of no more than destruction and eternal slavery, leading to the eventual destruction of their very identity

I cut away the references. Even if the PF may be based on them, all that EVElopedia says is that one city state was exterminated and that this specific ethnicy of Ni-Kunni was deemed "worthy of no more than destruction and eternal slavery". Not that one half of them was exterminated. Even so: So what? "It was for the best of the Ni-Kunni that those barbaric abnormalities were purged from the larger Ni-Kunni cultural reservoir", the Amarrian could always argue. "They were sacrificing humans, after all, should one have let them do that in the name of tolerance? No, certainly not. Human sacrifices are vile and evil or does the Gallente Federation disagree with that? Are the Matari of the Republic for human sacrifices? Anyone else? Oh, yes, the blooders... So, anyone civilized?"

Where is the problem with arguing along the PF rather than against it? I don't see that, honestly. Why would one need to be able to make up that everything was plushy with the Amarr and the Ni-Kunni?

[Nicoletta Mithra]

I think it's more an opportunity to discuss constructive alternatives to linking articles directly from evelopedia in-character. I'm assigning value to the idea of citing sources using evelopedia links directly, in addition to using immersive methods to relay the same information in-character. I place greater value on the latter technique higher than the former, but I haven't told anyone what they do is 'wrong'. 

I am trying to convince people that my perspective has some merit. Whether you agree or not is entirely your opinion!

I think that your perspective has merit.  I don't like how you describe the use of EVElopedia as IC source, though. It's from the start implicating that it is somehow less worth than the alternatives.

If your character is at the point where they need to prove the Amarr Empire exists, there probably wasn't much of a debate to get back on track. It would be a bit like having a chat with someone who didn't believe the Holocaust (Godwin?) happened, the earth is flat, or that we never really traveled to the moon (it was just an elaborate studio!). It's hard to have a conversation with crazy people.

If you don't think that there are sources like the EVElopedia which should inform what our characters do, then I don't see how you could go about someone who does the IC equivalent of ignoring the Holocaust. It would be perfectly fine to do something like that ICly, as, sure you should stick to the PF, but don't feel pressured into it!
If people should stick to PF anyway, then there is no harm in quoting PF ICly, no? And maybe I'm not even doing it for the one doing the ignoring, but those reading over it in IGS (I think I said I do the quoting thing only in the IGS, no?) who would've to spend hours digging through the PF to find the part that's pointing this special fact out? As I said, I like people providing links on the IGS on such things for the convenience of easily being able to look it up as well alone.

[Louella Dougans]

While it would be reasonable for an Amarr character to hold those opinions, people have shown themselves to not accept this. Instead they scream and shout about how Amarr history books are obviously biased, about how Amarr people are uneducated, that what really happened was (evelopedia link), which "clearly shows" something.

And if you say "I question the accuracy of that", then people continue screaming about "it's the truth!", and link evelopedia again and again and again.

Never "a gallente historian has an alternate view", or anything like that, it's always "THIS is the truth", and telling people both IC and OOC to "you're wrong, shut up".

Obviously, peoples experiences of having the evelopedia used in RP vary.

[Nicoletta Mithra]

But again, the EVElopedia article clearly states that those Ni-Kunni massacred and sacrificed the Amarrian landing crew. I don't need to question the accuracy of the EVElopedia article, I merely need to point out that a ethnical identity was destroyed that held human sacrifice to be not only acceptable, but also practiced it.

Why would you want to question the EVElopedia article to begin with in this case, really?

[Lyn Farel]

As long as something is written down in the evewiki in a CCP official page (that can only be edited by CCP and official groups), it is part of the OOC Canon for me, or PF. Be it from an old fan made fiction or pure CCP material, I just can't put into question the validity of that, even if things like cloning are constantly drastically changing, which is annoying like hell.

If that is an IC material, that is another story. I am not sure what to think of it. All points and concerns raised sound valid to me.

It's canon now, sure.

But at the time of the argument, it was not. It was, as far as I could see, just a well written story on the eve fiction forum.

But someone did use the Lost Tribe of Mishi as an IC argument against things that I was saying. When I challenged them, I was told that I "clearly didn't read history books". And this argument was also in OOC. Same thing.

So what I did was, reduce that player and character to a non-entity. I am no longer interested in what they have to say about anything IC.

but of course, that makes me the bad guy. because I will not be godmoded by some other person who has issues.

Well I understand but that's pretty much what happens everytime something important radically changes or is retconed in the Canon, no ? I mean, like people saying something specific about cloning that becomes contradictory to the new Canon a few months after...

If someone wants to be a jerk about it and to take advantage out of it while perfectly ignoring the OOC reasons behind... :/

While it would be reasonable for an Amarr character to hold those opinions, people have shown themselves to not accept this. Instead they scream and shout about how Amarr history books are obviously biased, about how Amarr people are uneducated, that what really happened was (evelopedia link), which "clearly shows" something.

And if you say "I question the accuracy of that", then people continue screaming about "it's the truth!", and link evelopedia again and again and again.

Never "a gallente historian has an alternate view", or anything like that, it's always "THIS is the truth", and telling people both IC and OOC to "you're wrong, shut up".

Obviously, peoples experiences of having the evelopedia used in RP vary.

Is evelopedia the real issue then ? Or more the players in question ? Not that I want to be the misanthrope but well...

[Merdaneth]

Gods and spirits. Now, if not the Chronicles, the News Articles, nor EVElopedia are sufficient to put forth the established facts of the Universe EVE online plays in, what does, then?

I mean, really...

I know. I know this is hard for some people. Some people need to have 'solid facts' or 'truths' as a starting point of their RP (and often their own lives). Even though these 'facts' and 'truths' are nothing more than their interpretation of certain source materials. They put faith in these selected and interpreted facts and truths as if it was a true religion. If it is written in the EVElopedia that the sun revolves around the earth, would you claim it does?

I wouldn't consider anything that is written on news sites and the wikipedia anymore facts and truth what is written on the EVElopedia. All information is to be judged by its content. If it doesn't make sense, is improbable, or describes politically sensitive subjects, I'll take it with caution.

But the crux of the question is not in how far people see EVELopedia articles etc. as absolute and immutable truths, it is in how they use it IC. If you link an EVElopedia article, news item or chronicle, does your character believe he/she has just linked to a unquestionable source of truth and fact? 

If your character sees a link to a similar article, does he/she automatically assume the source is unquestionable truth and fact?

It is my belief that many of our own conceptions of what is fact and truth cloud what we have our characters think. And that if you, as a player, think the EVElopedia represents an immutable truth, then you shouldn't use it IC. If you think it is just a source like any other IC source, then I think you should use it.

I see no IC reason why a article about some nullsec conflict one evenews24.com should be given less credibility per se than an article on a CCP site.

A nice recent incident to consider was that PIE was said to have disrupted the live Minmatar event in Pator in the news message, which wasn't the case.

[Merdaneth]

... So, Merdaneth, you can certrainly make your own webpage stating something that is in contradiction to PF. No, I wouldn't accept it as a reliable source. Neither IC nor OOC. The reliable sources are simply with CCP and if I as aplayer try to give one and I want it to be accepted as making sense, I better keep in harmony with PF. I mean, really, what good reason is there to accept a source as reliable that is in conflict with PF? That means, even if I think EVElopedia shouldn't be used explicitly in IC interactions, I'd have to assume that my char, if he looks for other serious sources, then he'd come up with something at least not entirely contradicting PF.

Well, some people IRL also take certain books and sources at their truth and reject most things that are in contradiction with it, even if presented with overwhelming evidence or many sources. While that is a perfectly fine way to approach things, it can make for some conflict with people who take an alternative approach.

The issue is usually that while I don't get upset if you discard my alternative contradictory source, the reverse is usually not true. I find that those people do get upset when  I reject their primary source. Of course, when those sources are retconned or expanded upon for whatever reason by the 'official people' to be in line with my earlier views, those players often quickly adopt the new views even though they opposed the same views when issued by me vehemently before.

I sometimes find that frustrating.

[Katrina Oniseki]

If your character sees a link to a similar article, does he/she automatically assume the source is unquestionable truth and fact?

This. Consider that EVE characters may see EVElopedia articles as the equivilant of the real world's Wikipedia. Take everything you read with a grain of salt, check for sources, check the sources... and even then make sure you understand that it could still be wrong.

Doesn't change the fact that PF is PF and that's just how it rolls. Your character doesn't have to know that though.

[Aelisha Montenagre]

To my mind this is a binary issue; that of knowns presented as fact and that of unknowns presented as fact. 

There are no explicit tags in the evelopedia that express the level to which baseliners/capsuleers/governments know the facts presented, though in many cases (such as historic articles that clearly incorporate some measure of bias or 'he said she said') the level to which one would know, or be able to find out at short notice, can be implied.  For example, the aforementioned 'Ni-Kunni human sacrifice' scenario is likely of note - possibly falsified or exaggerated, but it exists and is 'canon knowledge' in it's domain.  It can still be debated but it is as worthwhile as dragging Dawkins down to your local Alpha course for a word with the group leader - no one wants to be there except for the two people who will never back down.  This doesn't prevent good rp spinning off of 'historic lies/validity' but it does mean that evelopedia articles with implied public domain relevance are a strong hand for the argument they support. 

However, this leads to the crux of the issue, 'implied domain relevance'.  We're roleplayers, of varying specialist skills (IC and OOC), but likely an above average command of prose in English and our native tongues besides.  Manipulation of facts occurs regardless of intent not to do so, perception of facts can be misconstrued or merely a compounding factor on the former and additionally (and last of all in my mind as a 'likely' scenario) is editorial/narrative malice on the part of the individual citing a questionable article.  By questionable I mean 'those articles that are not easily identified as public/private-but-known domain knowledge'.  Special knowledge, possessed by few, lingers in the realm of consensual roleplay to my mind, but this is a relic of my pen and paper days.  In eve, confrontation uses every weapon, from word to pen to orbital bombardment.  Adversarial and abrasive roleplay is par for the course, but if it is truly adversarial, then there is usually something at stake, such as reputation or a key PF point you want maintained or pushed into the public domain.  Here is where 'special knowledge' and other forms of 'even if few others know, I (or my sub-culture) know' can be used as a blunt tool, simply blind quoting vaguely relevant articles to beat down an opposing argument that lacks such support-in-text.  The difficulty with this is tripartite; it is a valid means of winning real debates, it is questionable if a source skirting the edge of the public domain is or is not known to the parties involved, and even if it is unlikely either party would have knowledge, how do you prove it? 

It is unreasonable to ask that CCP caters to this structural weakness, a weakness that applies to all forms and templates of roleplay outside of the most heavily codified and centralised versions.  The maintenance of categorising knowledge and then extending that to special knowledge cases would be intense to say the least, before we consider the transitory nature of a great many instances of such being required.  Thus far it seems no one has asked for such a thing, so this point was made only to assert that I believe it to be the case. 

However, we as a community can attempt to establish a basic accord of what falls between public, private and special knowledge.  I am not so bold or rash as to present to you a template for such, but I do believe that by identifying a loose, non-binding description of the various core articles, we can set kid-gloves rules.  Of course when those gloves come off for the equally IC and meta 'victory is all that matters' cases that any conflict can escalate to, such would cease to apply, but it is my belief that the problem is not the cases in extremis, but the common everyday casual use of debatable domain knowledge that could lead to a much more corrosive environment for general discussion. 

To close, I postulate that it is better to know you're in a real conflict of words without rules governing how the punches are pulled, than to codify and constraint the theatrical and/or real expression of frustration and anger of such situations.  But it is infuriating to participate in casual conversation or discussion of 'day-to-day' realities, to have it nuked by responses on the same tier as aforementioned agenda driven, direct confrontational quotation or argument.  The onus is on us as players to humour these situations, or walk away - and thus any guideline for the categorisation of knowledge should be seen not as a control mechanism, but as a litmus test for individuals who wish to see if they are in error in casual conversation on a given topic, or if they should hold up there hands and cry 'We Out' before things get toxic. 

Tl;Dr - See text above.

[Lyn Farel]

Gods and spirits. Now, if not the Chronicles, the News Articles, nor EVElopedia are sufficient to put forth the established facts of the Universe EVE online plays in, what does, then?

I mean, really...

I know. I know this is hard for some people. Some people need to have 'solid facts' or 'truths' as a starting point of their RP (and often their own lives). Even though these 'facts' and 'truths' are nothing more than their interpretation of certain source materials. They put faith in these selected and interpreted facts and truths as if it was a true religion. If it is written in the EVElopedia that the sun revolves around the earth, would you claim it does?

I wouldn't consider anything that is written on news sites and the wikipedia anymore facts and truth what is written on the EVElopedia. All information is to be judged by its content. If it doesn't make sense, is improbable, or describes politically sensitive subjects, I'll take it with caution.

But the crux of the question is not in how far people see EVELopedia articles etc. as absolute and immutable truths, it is in how they use it IC. If you link an EVElopedia article, news item or chronicle, does your character believe he/she has just linked to a unquestionable source of truth and fact? 

If your character sees a link to a similar article, does he/she automatically assume the source is unquestionable truth and fact?

It is my belief that many of our own conceptions of what is fact and truth cloud what we have our characters think. And that if you, as a player, think the EVElopedia represents an immutable truth, then you shouldn't use it IC. If you think it is just a source like any other IC source, then I think you should use it.

I see no IC reason why a article about some nullsec conflict one evenews24.com should be given less credibility per se than an article on a CCP site.

A nice recent incident to consider was that PIE was said to have disrupted the live Minmatar event in Pator in the news message, which wasn't the case.

I agree with your concerns about the IC side of things, but OOCly, if people do not share a common basis, I do not even see how they can still play together. That's like all speaking in a different language or sharing different math and physics and yet trying to communicate and worse, understand each other.

And even with that, people will have different interpretations of things, so I don't even want to imagine what it would be without PF.

OOCly, in my book, PF > all, ingame included with its gameplay constraints.

[Nicoletta Mithra]

I agree with your concerns about the IC side of things, but OOCly, if people do not share a common basis, I do not even see how they can still play together. That's like all speaking in a different language or sharing different math and physics and yet trying to communicate and worse, understand each other.

And even with that, people will have different interpretations of things, so I don't even want to imagine what it would be without PF.

OOCly, in my book, PF > all, ingame included with its gameplay constraints.

+10

[Nicoletta Mithra]

I know. I know this is hard for some people. Some people need to have 'solid facts' or 'truths' as a starting point of their RP (and often their own lives). Even though these 'facts' and 'truths' are nothing more than their interpretation of certain source materials. They put faith in these selected and interpreted facts and truths as if it was a true religion. If it is written in the EVElopedia that the sun revolves around the earth, would you claim it does?

De facto, Merdaneth, we need some common ground to orient ourselves in life.

If you start doubting that it's a bad idea to set your home on fire if you're freezing, then, by all means, feel free to set it ablaze while you're in. Fact-skepticism is a nice thing, but there's a point where it's just too academic. But, really, if you think that it's not true that you will burn as well while sitting in your house that's aflame or simply think that it's 'merely one possible interpretation' that you will die in the fires, you can also pour gasoline over yourself and set yourself ablaze. After all, the 'truth' that you will die or at least be severely burned is 'nothing more than an interpretation of some chemistry books and maybe other sources'. (But I know, it's hard for some people to accept that you can't set yourself seriously ablaze and survive that and that there's a real world out there and that it's comforting for those people that one can doubt all that from ones position in the comfy armchair.)

But honestly, I don't think you really doubt the fact that pouring gasoline over yourself and setting it ablaze is a bad idea, unless you want to die. Similarly, I also don't think that you seriously doubt that there is a President of the United States of America and that he doesn't have the powers that are invested exclusively into the Supreme Court. Yes, you might do so as an academic exercise, but in your day to day life you do probably accept it tacitly. Just as you don't set yourself ablaze to check your knowledge about the complete oxidation of the human body.

That has nothing to do with 'one true religion-ism'. It's just simple pragmatism.

In EVE these kind of facts are established by PF. Yes, that means written text. While in the real world you can check (at least some) things that are written or you get from other sources by 'looking at the real world', e.g. by enflaming yourself (For, of course, you never know for certain if you aren't the one exception to natural laws as we know them until now until you tried.), reading the constitution of the United States and doing empirical research on the de facto role of the President and the Supreme Court, you can't do that in EVE. Because it's a made up universe. It's made up by the PF. Therefore the PF is the standard by which to measure, else what Lyn said happens.

P.S.:

A nice recent incident to consider was that PIE was said to have disrupted the live Minmatar event in Pator in the news message, which wasn't the case.

I don't think that whether PIE was involved there or not qualifies as PF. Other than that, I think I already addressed that point, just in regard to EVElopedia:

Did I say that everything in the [EVE News] is established fact? No. [...] Are some things that are to be considered established facts by the PF only found in [EVE News]? I do think so.

Or to put it otherwise:
Would you doubt that there was a Minmatar event in Pator? If something like it is announced in the News, do you go "Oh, that's the News, they might say there will be an event, but that tells us nothing."? Or do you doubt whether Jamyl Sarum is the de facto Empress of the Amarr Empire, because, for all we know, the News could've lied about that all the time to us? Is Merdaneth running around and telling everyone that Jamyl is a lie (and the cake, too)?

If your character sees a link to a similar article, does he/she automatically assume the source is unquestionable truth and fact?

Established facts should always be open to discussion, btw. because humanity can always err. Yes, 'science' does that, too.

Can you answer that question for yourself, now? I am really puzzled how you jump from 'established facts', especially given the context I already provided, to 'unquestionable truth'.

[Louella Dougans]

The problem, is when the Evelopedia says something like "The Caldari acted first", instead of something like "After provocations by both the Gallente and Caldari".

When "The Caldari Shot First", then every Caldari character that expresses the opinion that the Gallente started it, is told IC and OOC that they're ignorant, and should "read the history books". This is despite there being very valid reasons for any Caldari character, born and raised in the State, to believe that the Gallente started it.
Any Gallente character that proposes any kind of peace settlement, is also told IC and OOC how "wrong" they are.

There's a small portion of the playerbase that behaves like this, but they're quite vocal about it.