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[SeanR]

I just had a harebrained thought that might be fun. Lampshade the canon shift.
It might be fun to chalk up the current reimaginings and canon changes to a concerted effort to recover from memetic warfare and deletionist attacks. Both are already part of the canon.

[SeanR]

Dear Encyclopedia Galactica users and editors.
On Brahae 10, last year, we suffered a severe databreach to one of the databases on one of our satellite campuses. During this breach, a large number of articles were erased or modified to a point where their contents did not align with reality. We do not know the motives, if any, or the identity, of the perpetrator or perpetrators. Nor do we know eir toposophic level.


Unfortunately, this breach went undetected for over one calendar year, and in the interim, the "corrections" were propagated throughout our system, overwriting presumably accurate backups of the data with bad. Additional, detected, attacks on many of the other campus database stores, caused us to reduce our trust on those copies, which then led them to being overwritten by the, then presumed, "good" backups. In hindsight, it is now obvious that the additional attacks were intended to cause us to do just that.

We have taken further steps to prevent this type of event in the future. Please bear with us as we comb through our personal files for the lost and altered data, and in some cases, as we recreate original research to rebuild the older articles from scratch.

Thank you for your consideration and patronage.

The Editors
Encyclopedia Galactica Institute
Ken Ferjik, Negentropy Alliance

P.S. If you have copies of our data, please do not contact us to offer them. At this point, we have to assume that any such copies, which have left our control, are similarly corrupted.

[Rynn]

Not a bad idea I think we can go further though, an attack on the institute itself seems like it would be more of an issue (we'd have to either state the institute isn't Keter protected or imply it's under attack from a high archai backed effort) so instead a disclaimer that not all data can be verified as not being subject to memetic attack/data corruption would be good. Afterall sillybyes of data is constantly streaming in from all over the terragen sphere. A lot of it would be deliberately manipulated or accidentally corrupted.

Where are you suggesting we put a disclaimer like this?

[SeanR]

Not a bad idea I think we can go further though, an attack on the institute itself seems like it would be more of an issue (we'd have to either state the institute isn't Keter protected or imply it's under attack from a high archai backed effort) so instead a disclaimer that not all data can be verified as not being subject to memetic attack/data corruption would be good. Afterall sillybyes of data is constantly streaming in from all over the terragen sphere. A lot of it would be deliberately manipulated or accidentally corrupted.

Where are you suggesting we put a disclaimer like this?

Best would be an IC/OOC message where it can be read by people visiting the site. So some variation of the above,  followed by an Out of Character mention that the website is undergoing revisions, both to the canon and to the underlying CSS, and that not all of the articles are up to date with the current canon, with one or the other message placed in a box to separate it from the rest of the page. Since the articles themselves are written IC, I'd suggest the OOC message be so indicated.

It would be easy to replace the "Nor do we know eir toposophic level." with "All we can be certain of at present is ey eiither were, or had the backing of, a being of Toposophic level S6."
Besides, I already realized that the first line should be changed. "Dear Encyclopedia Galactica users and contributors."

[SeanR]

Further points.
The OOC message should come from the pen of a senior member, preferably a senior editor. I, for instance, would be very uncomfortable with using the plural form "we", in mentioning the decision to shift the narrative, as I wasn't a participant at the time that decision was made.
It should mention the details in the message above; namely that a good bit of the canon is being altered, and with it much of the tone of the subjects covered, and that a full refresh of the website is being worked on, but that since this is an all-volunteer effort, any changes may come later, rather than sooner. A link to the new and updated articles page might be appropriate here.
In contrast to the IC message, it should probably also include a brief invitation to join the message boards and contribute their own voices and talents.

[Drashner1]

Fun I'd be fine with this if we can finalize the wording and fit it into the site with reasonable ease.

Todd

[stevebowers]

In truth, we are constantly revising the OA scenario, and we have been for eighteen years; it does, however, remain broadly the same. This announcement could have been made at any time during that period. It would make a good addition to the Ghost Net, which is probably OA's closest approach to metafiction.

[ProxCenBound]

Concur with putting it in Ghost Net. The EG is ever evolving and we will probably always be revising something or other.

[SeanR]

Concur with putting it in Ghost Net. The EG is ever evolving and we will probably always be revising something or other.

I had forgotten that those articles existed. I had seen, once, the summary article and the letter to the discoverer, but hadn't realized it represented a separate category of fiction.
You can put it where you like.