What If: Voting on which fan films are officially canon

[urbandefault]

Why don't you petition CBS to hear your idea? I'm sure they'll be open to it.

That mail-in focus group thingy about the guidelines sure did get their attention.

 

[USS Intrepid]

It's a careful, deliberate process intended to discourage people from submitting content unless they're truly serious about making it canon.

People don't create art to fit it into neat little boxes, which is what you seem to be proposing here.

You have three months to comment on how inclusion in canon will impact your novel. We can also give the panel the power to reject submissions that have a demonstrably negative impact on works in development and potential future works.

What you're suggesting here is absolutely art by committee. Personally, I find the idea of having a panel decide if a story is worthy or not to be completely counter-productive.

Frankly, I think you're putting far too much value in this nebulous concept of canon.

 

[urbandefault]

People don't create art to fit it into neat little boxes, which is what you seem to be proposing here.


What you're suggesting here is absolutely art by committee. Personally, I find the idea of having a panel decide if a story is worthy or not to be completely counter-productive.

Frankly, I think you're putting far too much value in this nebulous concept of canon.

A wise man once said, "A camel is a horse designed by committee." *

* That man's name was Tater Nuts.

 

[BillJ]

People don't create art to fit it into neat little boxes, which is what you seem to be proposing here.

What's being proposed here feels like it would homogenize fan films as everyone strives for the sacred canon mark (and the likely ability to monetize their work, somehow I feel like this is the endgame).

 

[urbandefault]

What's being proposed here feels like it would homogenize fan films as everyone strives for the sacred canon mark (and the likely ability to monetize their work, somehow I feel like this is the endgame).

Though the OP denies it, I think this is all about Axanar.

 

[Matthew Raymond]

People don't create art to fit it into neat little boxes, which is what you seem to be proposing here.

If you want to maintain continuity with a particular fictional universe, are you not subject to its canon anyways? Besides, in this hypothetical scenario, you're free to just release as a fan film, so if you don't care about canon, you can do anything you want and just say "a Star Trek fan production" in the title.

What you're suggesting here is absolutely art by committee.

Nonsense. If you're producing a fan film or fan novel now, and you want it to be consistent with canon, you have to follow canon. It's no less creatively restrictive. You could base part of your production on a Star Trek episode that's considered canon today and find out that CBS no longer considers it canon the next and you have to start over. Unless canon doesn't matter to you, in which case what are we arguing about?

Personally, I find the idea of having a panel decide if a story is worthy or not to be completely counter-productive.

The panel doesn't decide if it's "worthy". The panel decides if the submission meets pre-established guidelines for submission. That's all the power they have. And most of those guidelines are along the lines of "you should have a license to any copyrighted material in your submission" or "includes the names of all the cast and crew in the credits". The fans decide if the work is "worthy" by voting.

What's being proposed here feels like it would homogenize fan films as everyone strives for the sacred canon mark (and the likely ability to monetize their work, somehow I feel like this is the endgame).

For the sake of moving this conversation along, let's assume that current Star Trek copyrighted materials have been licensed under a non-commercial copyleft license and that anyone can produce a fan film so long as the production is non-profit, regardless of whether it's considered canon. The only difference would be that you can't call it "Star Trek: Such-and-such" if it's not canon. You'd have to call it "Such-and-such: a Star Trek fan production".

(Personally, I don't care if people create commercial fan films, so long as they have a proper license from the copyright holder and are made in full accordance with the law. Without a license, you're a beggar, and beggars can't be choosers.)

Though the OP denies it, I think this is all about Axanar.

YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO SPEAK ITS NAME!!! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!!

 

[urbandefault]

If you want to maintain continuity with a particular fictional universe, are you not subject to its canon anyways? Besides, in this hypothetical scenario, you're free to just release as a fan film, so if you don't care about canon, you can do anything you want and just say "a Star Trek fan production" in the title.


Nonsense. If you're producing a fan film or fan novel now, and you want it to be consistent with canon, you have to follow canon. It's no less creatively restrictive. You could base part of your production on a Star Trek episode that's considered canon today and find out that CBS no longer considers it canon the next and you have to start over. Unless canon doesn't matter to you, in which case what are we arguing about?


The panel doesn't decide if it's "worthy". The panel decides if the submission meets pre-established guidelines for submission. That's all the power they have. And most of those guidelines are along the lines of "you should have a license to any copyrighted material in your submission" or "includes the names of all the cast and crew in the credits". The fans decide if the work is "worthy" by voting.


For the sake of moving this conversation along, let's assume that current Star Trek copyrighted materials have been licensed under a non-commercial copyleft license and that anyone can produce a fan film so long as the production is non-profit, regardless of whether it's considered canon. The only difference would be that you can't call it "Star Trek: Such-and-such" if it's not canon. You'd have to call it "Such-and-such: a Star Trek fan production".

(Personally, I don't care if people create commercial fan films, so long as they have a proper license from the copyright holder and are made in full accordance with the law. Without a license, you're a beggar, and beggars can't be choosers.)


YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO SPEAK ITS NAME!!! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!!

You can call this thing whatever you want, but in reality it's an exercise in futility. The owners of the IP determine what is in the "canon" (which in itself, is the body of work produced by the IP owners).

A fan-appointed committee, or panel of judges, or whatever you want to call them, is just a group of people with nothing better to do, stroking each others' egos.

 

[Steve Roby]

Imagine a world where copyright law is made of apples, and green is the king of all platitudes. Atlantis writhes under serious gravy and clocks are for torture. A sense of fortitude where dubious actually means when, and elevators eat weather.

It's a hypothetical. We must discuss this seriously.

 

[USS Intrepid]

Nonsense. If you're producing a fan film or fan novel now, and you want it to be consistent with canon, you have to follow canon. It's no less creatively restrictive. You could base part of your production on a Star Trek episode that's considered canon today and find out that CBS no longer considers it canon the next and you have to start over. Unless canon doesn't matter to you, in which case what are we arguing about?

So let me get this straight, you believe a panel of people dictating what stories are "good enough" is no more creatively constricting than what we have right now? Sorry, but *that's* nonsense.

The panel doesn't decide if it's "worthy". The panel decides if the submission meets pre-established guidelines for submission. That's all the power they have. And most of those guidelines are along the lines of "you should have a license to any copyrighted material in your submission" or "includes the names of all the cast and crew in the credits". The fans decide if the work is "worthy" by voting.

Look I get It, you think canon is important. That's fine, you're entitled to that opinion. On th other hand, while I think canon has it's place, it's not the be all and end all. Continuity in storytelling is a good thing. Giving more weight to minutiae such as the combination of Kirk's safe than the content of the story isn't.

Ultimately canon is a tool, and that tool has it's uses. But is it something we should be so worried about we need panels of people to vote on it's application? Sorry, but I say no.

You can call this thing whatever you want, but in reality it's an exercise in futility. The owners of the IP determine what is in the "canon" (which in itself, is the body of work produced by the IP owners).

A fan-appointed committee, or panel of judges, or whatever you want to call them, is just a group of people with nothing better to do, stroking each others' egos.

I agree.

 

[BillJ]

The owners of the IP determine what is in the "canon" (which in itself, is the body of work produced by the IP owners).

A perfectly workable solution, that has been working all along.

 

[Professor Zoom]

Continuity over a long period of time is overrated.

In the end, continuity will be and should be ignored if there's a great story to tell.

 

[BillJ]

In the end, continuity will be and should be ignored if there's a great story to tell.

This is how I feel. One of the things that keep me coming back to TOS is the loose continuity between episodes. It allows for a lot of imagination.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Though the OP denies it, I think this is all about Axanar.

Well seeing as there was no Four Years War with the Klingons in canon, and that the D7 battlecruiser was around as early as the first season of Enterprise, making Axanar canon would require kicking out a bunch of established Trek lore.

 

[Professor Zoom]

If canon was decided by "value," that might mean removing Spock's Brain from canon.

Hell, no. It is genius.

 

[BillJ]

If canon was decided by "value," that might mean removing Spock's Brain from canon.

Thing is, you could make a case for removing most everything from Trek if canon was decided by "value".

 

[Matthew Raymond]

You can call this thing whatever you want, but in reality it's an exercise in futility. The owners of the IP determine what is in the "canon" (which in itself, is the body of work produced by the IP owners).

So, if the IP goes into public domain (or some legal equivalent), does canon cease to exist, or is it determined by the public?

A fan-appointed committee, or panel of judges, or whatever you want to call them, is just a group of people with nothing better to do, stroking each others' egos.

I never said it had to be a fan-appointed panel. I had suggested, in fact, that the initial panel members be determined by the original franchise owner, and that further panel members would be elected by submitters, not fans. As for your cynicism about the motives of hypothetical panel members, can you give an example of how their supposed egomania would corrupt the system, given that they have to judge on specific criteria rather than squishy notions of "quality"?

So let me get this straight, you believe a panel of people dictating what stories are "good enough" is no more creatively constricting than what we have right now? Sorry, but *that's* nonsense.

First of all, your "quote" appears to be a "straw man". The panel only decides if the submissions fail to meet submission guidelines. It's to prevent the system being inundated with troll submissions and make sure

Look I get It, you think canon is important. That's fine, you're entitled to that opinion. On [the] other hand, while I think canon has it's place, it's not the be all and end all. Continuity in storytelling is a good thing. Giving more weight to minutiae such as the combination of Kirk's safe than the content of the story isn't.

I wasn't originally thinking of this in terms of fine detail. It was more along the lines of the idea that the entire submission is canon in the general sense. So the idea would be that if a submitted fan film features the destruction of a known starship and its crew, that would be canon, but if a plaque in the background has "I.P. Freely" barely legible, you're not required to assume that Lt. I.P. Freely is wandering the halls of the ship.

That brings up a good question, though: How do you resolve canon conflicts between stories?

Perhaps part of the problem here is that the panel decides if the submission is compatible with existing canon. Why vote on how canon is resolved instead. You could have two comment periods, the first to request comments on conflicts with existing canon, and the second for possible solutions. Then, instead of the panel deciding if something fits with canon, you just have a multi-question ballet with two questions. The first is a yes/no question on inclusion of the submission, and the second is a list of options to resolve conflicts with canon where the voters use the Alternate Vote to select the best option.

The panel would still exist, but to eliminate obvious trolling rather than making any canon-related decisions. They can, however, make public recommendations before the vote.

Ultimately canon is a tool, and that tool has it's uses. But is it something we should be so worried about we need panels of people to vote on it's application?

The panel doesn't vote. (Well, technically, they don't vote as panel members. I don't see why they couldn't participate in the general vote, although I suppose we could prohibit that if there's a real concern.)

 

[urbandefault]

So, if the IP goes into public domain (or some legal equivalent), does canon cease to exist, or is it determined by the public?


I never said it had to be a fan-appointed panel. I had suggested, in fact, that the initial panel members be determined by the original franchise owner, and that further panel members would be elected by submitters, not fans. As for your cynicism about the motives of hypothetical panel members, can you give an example of how their supposed egomania would corrupt the system, given that they have to judge on specific criteria rather than squishy notions of "quality"?


First of all, your "quote" appears to be a "straw man". The panel only decides if the submissions fail to meet submission guidelines. It's to prevent the system being inundated with troll submissions and make sure


I wasn't originally thinking of this in terms of fine detail. It was more along the lines of the idea that the entire submission is canon in the general sense. So the idea would be that if a submitted fan film features the destruction of a known starship and its crew, that would be canon, but if a plaque in the background has "I.P. Freely" barely legible, you're not required to assume that Lt. I.P. Freely is wandering the halls of the ship.

That brings up a good question, though: How do you resolve canon conflicts between stories?

Perhaps part of the problem here is that the panel decides if the submission is compatible with existing canon. Why vote on how canon is resolved instead. You could have two comment periods, the first to request comments on conflicts with existing canon, and the second for possible solutions. Then, instead of the panel deciding if something fits with canon, you just have a multi-question ballet with two questions. The first is a yes/no question on inclusion of the submission, and the second is a list of options to resolve conflicts with canon where the voters use the Alternate Vote to select the best option.

The panel would still exist, but to eliminate obvious trolling rather than making any canon-related decisions. They can, however, make public recommendations before the vote.


The panel doesn't vote. (Well, technically, they don't vote as panel members. I don't see why they couldn't participate in the general vote, although I suppose we could prohibit that if there's a real concern.)

It seems that you want to "socialize" Star Trek, or at least discuss the possibility.

Here's my take: There's no possibility that CBS, the primary owner of the IP, will ever appoint a panel or committee outside itself to determine what is considered part of the continuity.

Ownership of an IP, whether by an individual or by a corporation, is not a democracy, or a socialist paradise, or whatever it is that you're trying to promote here. If Star Trek ever becomes public domain, then it's in the public. There wouldn't be any way to dictate a committee or panel or whatever body you'd like to take control to oversee what is in the continuity.

Unless, that is, you intend to promote a coup. A hostile takeover, so to speak.

 

[USS Intrepid]

First of all, your "quote" appears to be a "straw man". The panel only decides if the submissions fail to meet submission guidelines. It's to prevent the system being inundated with troll submissions and make sure

No actually, it isn't. I'll be blunt, I think what you're proposing is a horrible idea, but there's little point arguing in circles about it, so I'm simply going to bow out and agree to disagree.

 

[Professor Zoom]

Yes, if the IP fell into the public domain, canon might become meaningless.

Or not. Look at Sherlock Holmes. The original stories are canon. The rest? Your choice.

But the idea of a panel determining legitimacy is snobbery.

 

[BillJ]

...canon might become meaningless.