Xenosophont Moratorium - 2024

[Drashner1]

After due consideration, management has decided to place a moratorium on the addition of new xenosophont races to the setting for the duration of 2024.

This is due to a combination of upcoming editorial changes to how xenosophonts are presented in the EG and a general consensus among the staff that too much time and community energy are currently being spent on attempting to develop new xenosophonts for the setting (when that is really not what OA is primarily about).

Xenosophont races that are currently in development on the OA forums are grandfathered in and may continue to be developed until their article is added to the EG. Non-sophont alien ecosystems are still welcome, as are sophonts provolved by Terragens or other xenosophonts from non-Terragen life forms.

Updates and expansions of existing xenosophont races (including grandfathered races currently in development), whether in the form of expanded articles or new articles are exempt from the moratorium.

The staff will reconvene around the end of 2024 to re-consider the moratorium. Updates to project policy in this area will be communicated sometime thereafter.

If you have any questions or concerns about any of the above, please don't hesitate to ask.

Thanks!

[Sunconure11]

On the note of the Xenosophont Moratorium, I have a proposal regarding it, but it cannot be done until all of the existing worlds are cleaned up, since doing it now would probably fuck that up.

A vetting process for each and every new sophont, along with their various details. If it is generally agreed upon by a mass number to add a specific thing, it can be canonized. If it is generally agreed upon also by the masses not to add it, it will not be canonized. This would be done by both a polling system and a thread on the concept. This thread, with its poll, would be put on the forums. On top of this, all xenosophonts, and things relating to them, both extinct and modern, must take into account the new changes done to garden worlds. However, certain types of things can be closed off temporarily, if needed. If there is a mass influx of spacefaring sophonts for instance, such things should be put on ice until its either deemed okay to add more for whatever reason or if something comes up that allows a decision to stop them all together. There should be no bias here, every individual who has an account, regardless of contributions or not, should be able to weigh in on this.

However, put in some additional guidelines aside from the changes to garden planets/equivalent, such as actually bothering to flesh out your world, for instance. We have a lot of pages with not much info. IMO, many of the pages seriously need new content.

This could probably be extended to stuff that relates to existing lore, including stuff of Terragen origin.

Not everyone gets to be an astronaut, kids.

[Drashner1]

To reiterate and expand a bit on my response to this from the Discord:

Whether or not more xenosophonts or anything else are added to the EG/setting is entirely up to 'the Management'. We do not do voting or mass polling on that kind of thing nor are we going to start.

The Xenosophont Moratorium will be staying in place until further notice.

Todd