User blog:Lumineee/Real life Weapon Trivia

Real Life Weapon Trivia is a growing problem on this wiki, and as such some measures are going to be put in place to reduce edit wars, and unimportant and uninteresting information being added.

The Issue at Hand
Many of the weapons added to Fortnite: Battle Royale are based upon real life counterparts, and many are fictional with vague resemblances to firearms from the real world. As such, it can be difficult for users to determine what weapons are clear inspiriations from the real world, and which are entirely or mostly fictional.

This becomes an issue for the wiki, as many users who may know a thing or two about real world weaponry begin to create edit wars based purely upon this specific element of trivia. Not only this, but the edits included are often far too niche for most users to gain any value from, and as such become uninteresting trivia in themselves. As such, some measures and rules are going to be put into place to prevent these issues, and punish those who refuse to obey the rules set forth.

Clear Cut Trivia
Some weapons in Fortnite: Battle Royale are very clearly inspired from Real World weaponry, and these weapons have even colloquially become known in the community by the weapon's real world name, rather than how it appears in game. Here are a few examples. The above weapons are good examples of how an in-game weapon is a clearcut inspiration or mockup or a real world firearm. All the weapons above have distinct silhouettes, color pallettes and other details that make them obvious inspirations. These are weapons where the weapon trivia is clean, and is not being argued, as they are obvious to what they are trying to represent.

Arguing
However, many weapons have been argued over extensively, mainly due to their ambiguity as to what the weapon is representing, or bickering between people who have deeper or lesser knowledge on firearms: Many more pages have had restrictions placed on them, and as new weapons are added, it appears the weapon inspiration is becoming deliberately more and more vague on behalf of the dev team.

New Guidelines
Due to these issues, some new guidelines will be implemented to make sure these issues do not happen again:

Guidelines to be followed in future.

 * When a weapon is introduced, if the trivia includes anything similar to 'Appears to be based on', remove the trivia, or do not add it in the first place. Any uncertaintity is a surefire way to cause arguments.
 * If an admin or moderator reverts or removes any real world weapon trivia, do not add it back or undo their edit. Admins are here to enforce the rules put in place, and you will just have your edit revoked. If you have a genuine concern please message a member of staff about the concern.
 * Do not add trivia beyond the most basic version of the weapon. So not variations of weapons, specific attachments etc. Adding 'a modified...' before is fine. Furthemore, do not use specific versions of weapons. If a weapon is based on an M16, don't say which version of the M16, just leave it as M16.

Failure to follow these guidelines will result in:


 * The page being locked for a period of time, continuing edits will result in permanent locking, allowing only staff to edit.
 * Users will be warned for not following guidelines, and ignoring warnings may result in further punishment (Temporary, or eventually permanent bans).

Conclusion
Weapon Trivia is personally my favourite part of a page to edit, as niches about the weapons visuals and functions are always fun, but since these issues of edit wars and bickering around how a weapon have transpired, it is no longer becoming something I look forward to seeing edited. So in future:


 * If you are unsure about what a weapon is based on, do not add anything.
 * Do not undo staff edits removing trivia.
 * Do not use jargon related to weapons, if you need to add a weapon basis, keep it simple.
 * Follow these rules and the pages will look cleaner, and less arguing will occur.