WELCOME TO

An information and debate wiki!
Owner: [Sideways]
Decider:YOU!!!

This is a wiki under construction that will eventually become a massive directory of the opinions of Elftowners.

ATTENTION: this wiki is revolutionary in concept, not nature! I don't want to hear one more unfounded message or comment about this being an anti-establishment or anti Elftown wiki. It is the opposite!!! It is here for you to talk about yourself, the music you like, the faith you have, movies you hate, politics and politicians, special interests like economics, conservation, green energy, whatever you want!!! This can be a place to bitch, but people should be excited, not afraid! Here we can learn what makes each other tick and argue away from the rest of ET, so this place can make ET better, not worse!

Here I want to create a place to post your ideas on everything: Elftown issues, Elftown art and competitions, as well as everything you think about real life. Think of this place like a stone age YouTube. You can say just about anything that isn't defamation of character or plagiarism. I want to know the real ideas of ET members, and if you want to be heard as much as I do, we're gonna have a lot of fun! Also, people will see and comment on your opinions!

I know something like this will take a lot of work, and I'll need a lot of help. But think of what
ideas we can shove down each other’s throats and maybe learn something in the process! :D

This is a wiki based on free speech and expression. We have strict rules, but they are all concerning artistic integrity and plagiarism, subject categorization, and the Directory format.
I want everything else to be about YOU!!! Once we're up and running I will have designed some interesting questions for you to answer, topics for you to comment on, and my admins
and my own opinion essays. Still, this is about you declaring your ideals about art, culture, law, and religion! I want to hear about you! Because...

I, my fellow citizens of Elftown, may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

---

The Current EOD staff:

Owner and Benevolent Dictator: [Sideways]

Current Formatting Consultant and Probable Future Administrator: [Alexi Ice]

Useless Troll: [Mortified Penguin]

Dude who Should be an Administrator because He Is Very Opinionated: [Lord Josmar]

Girl Who Will Be Reading Posts For Possible Personal Insults: [Flisky]

The Guy Who Plays With Graphics: [Mystin]

---

Wiki's that support or have supported EOD:
The Slave Trade Join! Do stuff, whips and chains, harass people because you bought their consenting souls with magical points! Good clean fun!

Bob's Diner A champion of free speech! Like EOD it's slightly conditional though. Here we're anti-plagiarism, and Bob's Diner is anti-sanity! So here you gotta have respect for opinion, there you have to be apeshit crazy! Good, disgusting fun!

C.U.R.E. The place to go for roleplay news, GM knowledge, and super awesome featured RPG's! Now with 70% less tyrannical douchebaggery!

---

--I have ALL the say as owner at the moment, but I will soon devise a democratic process where things can be changed without my consent if majority rule decided. This is dangerous, because I can have this wiki get removed from my ownership, permanently warped, or destroyed against my will, even though I own this wiki. But the Owner position comes with unfair influence over my wiki members. I do not want all power here. I just want my vision to stay the way I dreampt it. Some things WILL change here, they always do. I won't fight change for the better---

Please comment or message me if you are interested in joining the development process!!! I need banner makers and other sorts of artists. I also need help promoting EOD, as well as people who are raring and ready to start writing opinion essays/rants/reviews once EOD is in working order!

Continue to the other pages;
The ET Opinion Directory - Rules

---

IMPORTANT! How to speak EODese:
I should make a footnote here about some lingo I use on this site that I suggest familiarizing yourself with so we all know what I am talking about:

"EOD" is my current accepted abbreviation for The Elftown Opinion Directory.

A "Opinion Essay" or "Essay" is the actual submitted wiki page you post on EOD hopefully in a concise, well written idea resembling an ESSAY! *See the rules page. The format you MUST meet for posted essay's is unfortunately pretty strict. You can say whatever you want. The way you say it must meet EOD's expectations, as defined by EOD's tenets.*

A "tenet" is a non negotiable RULE that must be followed on EOD. These are almost all format rules. They can be protested, and perhaps repealed if enough members disagree with it. Right now I'm contemplating making a way for the administrators and acting members of EOD can get tenet's changed through protest, and even if I want the rule to stay it will disappear because of majority rule. However I, [Sideways], Owner of EOD will not suspend the tenets of EOD for an individual situation OR an individual member. In this way the tenets are EOD's LAW.







This wiki will categorize all works of opinion under the following categorization (currently in the development phase but I'll list my ideas for catagorization here):

(example:

RELIGION (this would be the link to the religion based links. A EOD member will post links to their essay/rant/discussion wiki under a link for the appropriate Religion subject wiki. So on the wiki "RELIGION" there would be these links (the bold would be the link, the italicized text the link description) and probably a little disclaimer that religion is extra sensitive so try to be nice.

FAITH "The place to post your essays on the tenets and principles of your faith. Here you can quote scripture, present basic points and ideals, and why you believe them"

(this would likely be an informative presentation wiki, as I want to keep subjects as precise as possible. Ideas a person would have themselves that deviate from core principle of faith might go under:

PERSONAL EXISTENTIAL IDEALS "The wiki to post essays and discussions on your personal relationship with your higher power. Also for explaining anything you might believe outside of your religion's core concepts and scripture. It is reccomended that scripture and textual reference and quotation be avoided here. This is where to focus on your personal understanding of your faith."

(those might be the only catagories for RELIGION. The Elftown Opinion Directory avoids allowing the compartmentalization of topics at all costs. This wiki encourages debate, and would frown upon links that encourage like minded people staying isolated, just busily agreeing with each other. It would therefore be against the EOD's mission to have links like:

CHRISTIANITY
or even worse:
PROTESTANT SOUTHERN BAPTIST.

So yes, I might have atheism and Islam and Budhism and so forth posting in the same section on purpose.
Such may cause controversy, but the goal of this wiki is to present, discuss and debate even such divisive things)

(My current idea is to use strategic topics to keep the amount of links from becoming a painfully large. Let me take a super broad topic and show how it can be discussed in relatively few topic links. How about MUSIC? Music is an enormous subject.
I was thinking manners of discussion is the best way to use narrow but still encompassing manners of discussion. I was thinking LYRICAL INTERPRETATION AND MESSAGE, and PERSONAL REVIEW. Holy cow that's still two topics! But what else can you say about music except for what it means to you, and what it means to art. There's nothing else. Again, using artists, bands, genres and location do nothing but get a bunch of people who either mostly or completely agree yammering like a bunch of boring clowns about the same thing.


Music is a great subject to use for the format example for posting your actual opinion essay.

In the link LYRICAL INTERPRETATION AND MESSAGE, would be the the wiki where you post the links to your actual opinion essays. These would have as clear of titles as possible, and a very short description/advertisement underneath it.

So in LYRICAL INTERPRETATION AND MESSAGE, I post:
An examination of "Closer" by Nine Inch Nails. A lyrical review by [Sideways]
"I present the lyrics of this hyper-sexual song, and what they say about the clear connection between self-worth, personal identity, and sex."

And in the wiki I write exactly what my description says I will.

Of course, it is important to know how hugely important to CITE THE REFERENCED MATERIAL HERE. I would have to show with absolute clarity which words in my wiki were the lyrics of "Closer," and the absolute property of Trent Reznor and NOT myself. If you wanna do any wiki mentioning lyrics you MUST do your homework. I'm very sorry folks, saying what band performed the song is not sufficient citation. nine times out of ten the actual "band" did not write the song. It was written by someone else: a different band, or expressly the lead singer of the band and not the rest of the band, or two members of the band and not the rest of the band, a song writer...et cetera. This is the price to pay for spouting your mouth about other people's art, folks ;D))

---