This page is for nominating timelines to our Featured Articles List. These alternate histories are meant to be the best work that we have here at the Alternate History Wiki and must meet the following criteria:
- Well written: the prose of the alternate history is engaging, even brilliant, and of a professional standard.
- Comprehensive: the alternate history neglects no major facts or details and places the subject in context; more than one article is used to convey the alternate history.
- Plausible: the POD and the altered events following the POD are logically what would happen if history was changed.
- Neutral: the alternate history gives an objective view of the altered history without being overly influenced by politics, religion, nationalism, etc.; it is not a "wank" of any one country or faction.
- Well researched: From the text and the discussion, it is evident that the writers have used OTL sources to inform the timeline. A "works cited" section on the portal or a separate page is optional.
- Peaceful collaboration: the alternate history is not subject to ongoing edit wars.
- Portal Page: the alternate history has a portal page that summarizes the work and prepares the reader for the detail in the connected articles.
- Appropriate structure: the majority of articles in the alternate history have a system of hierarchical section headings, a substantial but not overwhelming table of contents, and a lead section to describe the article.
- Visuals: the alternate history makes use of pictures, flags, maps, tables, videos, etc.
Any registered user with 100 or more edits can nominate a timeline (except its creator/caretaker). You may nominate an article by yourself, or with other users. You will need to sign the nomination, so a confirmation can be completed. Voting for or against nominations also requires a minimum of 100 edits.
If an alternate history receives a nomination, the {{featured candidate}} template will be placed on the portal page until a decision is reached.
If an alternate history becomes a featured timeline, the {{featured}} template will be placed on the portal page and the alternate history added to the Featured list. The nomination and discussion will be moved to the archive.
Nomination Process
- Link to the portal page of the candidate timeline, and explain why it should be featured. You can also explain what needs to be improved on the article, if there are minor changes needed.
- You cannot nominate your own timelines.
- Incorrectly formatted nominations will be removed.
- Add the {{featured candidate}} template to the article.
- The alternate history can be adjusted to respond to objections.
- Objectors must explain why they are objecting.
- The alternate history will be added to the Featured list if 2/3 of the votes are cast in support after two weeks since it was nominated.
Sample Nomination
Please copy and paste this format for your own nomination.
===[[Title of candidate]]===
Enter your reason. ~~~~
*'''Supporters'''
**~~~~
*'''Objectors'''
*'''Discussion'''
This is what it should look like:
Title of candidate
I like this, because it is good. User (talk) 13:00, Smarch 13, 20X6 (UTC)
- Supporters
- User (talk) 13:00, Smarch 13, 20X6 (UTC)
- Objectors
- Discussion
Please put new nominations at the bottom of the Nominations section.
Nominations
Differently
In recent year Differently has grown at great speed with writers and viewers alike coming to the discord server. Differently hosts a wide variety of fun pages written by some of the most capable writers on the forum. This even lead to Differently getting a Stirling award in 2021. The timeline has a page for every nation and most leaders as well as miscellaneous items which are never tiring to reread. icelandicwriter 17:41, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
- Supporters
- FirstStooge (talk) 04:30, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
- False Dmitri (talk) 17:06, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
- CheesyDolphins (talk) 20:33, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
- Flabby Cheeks for Life (talk) 06:43, April 30 2021
- Fredrick II, Holy Roman Emperor (talk) 14:15, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
- Kelothan (talk) 23:52, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
- Lnobse (talk) 18:59, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
- VitLou
- Nickthenick2
- Objectors
- Although I appreciate the effort that has gone into the project, I would like to see a coherent timeline page and further break down of the world's overall history. At the moment this project is effectively more of a Conworld than an althistory timeline. Vandenhoek (talk) 21:13, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
- For the standards of featured timelines, it doesn't seem to follow its points of divergence as consistently as it could. For example, these PODs in the Roman Empire and rise of Islam would radically change the history of America's colonization and independence Oh, I didn't mean to push that button! † Oh, well leave a message I guess 00:13, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
- I do not believe it rises to the level of featured timeline for reasons already stated. Although there has been a lot of hard work put in to it, that alone does not make it featured worthy. Scrawland Scribblescratch 00:40, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
- Kuupik (talk) The lack of timeline in this potential featured timeline makes this not appropriately structured or comprehensive. There's too many PODs, which comes across as ASB and implausible when taken together. Has a lot of pages, but little to no high quality/lengthy pages. Just because it is very active (at the moment) doesn't mean it should be featured. Popular does not equal Featured Timeline-worthy.
- I like the effort, and I don't think the lack of a "unified POD" is necessarily a problem, but I feel that the PODs should be delved into more. – † ⌒⌒⌒＼(;ᄋ;＼)三(ﾉ>ᄉ<)ﾉ ~ ("니가먼저키스해!")
- Renereve (talk)
- Theres so many things I want to say about this timeline. It is biased in favor of nations with such a degree of ASB you'd think they were taken from a PM map game series offshoot, and it proposes some very cliche and abused-to-this-point concepts without adding anything relatively new or exciting. It seems almost like a mash-up of 100 different timelines into one, with each wanking religions (see Egyptian polytheism), empires (see the absolute cop-out taken with the rise of Islam and its inability to get out of the Middle East), and without seemingly stitching them together into a coherent structure (the timeline page itself), it doesn't seem to me to be the best option to be featured as it lacks overall consistency in the work produced. I'm not trying to be intentionally rude, but to me this doesn't seem like the best option. I will state that I do not like being this harsh on a group of users who puts this much work into their timeline, for one may argue they have been more active than I or anybody else, but I think they can do better, and I believe that this timeline may one day become featured... its just not today. SolaceEaSw (talk) 01:05, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
- Discussion
- Stooge fixed it for you. You copied it fine, but forgot to remove the "nowiki" tags. As for the proposed addition... kind of torn. It's well done, true, but the number of "PoDs" is just staggering. Lordganon (talk) 14:20, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
- At a certain point, I am agree with LG that the number of PODs in this timeline are too much, to the point they are negating each other in existence in theory, but still appearing one after another in it. However, if we rate this timeline not as a hard alternate history, but rather a soft one based on the sliding scale of plausibility, then we can ignore that technicality. As a hard althistory, Differently is implausible to the point of ridiculousness, but as a soft one, it is a good one due to the ability to combine several PODs into a large constructed universe through a sheer cooperation of many enthusiastic collaborators. I think it is another good example of collaborative timeline on this wiki to which we should look upon this merit instead. FirstStooge (talk) 04:30, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
- Which PODs conflict with each other? Consistency has been one of our golden rules from the beginning, but of course, this being a quite dynamic timeline with new PODs added periodically does not make this task easy. Sometimes we have to "mend" things to make a new POD fit, but everything needs to be well discussed before approval. - Lnobse (talk) 05:07, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
- Let discuss it on the timeline's talk page, but not here. We are here to discuss whether it fits to be nominated as a representative work of our wiki, to which I agree it is indeed representing our collaborative timelines, and not about technicality and theoretical plausibility. FirstStooge (talk) 05:12, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
- Alright then. Please fell free to comment on our talk pages. Any criticism is appreciated and important to us. - Lnobse (talk) 04:48, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
- Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. FirstStooge (talk) 07:00, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
- Alright then. Please fell free to comment on our talk pages. Any criticism is appreciated and important to us. - Lnobse (talk) 04:48, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
- Let discuss it on the timeline's talk page, but not here. We are here to discuss whether it fits to be nominated as a representative work of our wiki, to which I agree it is indeed representing our collaborative timelines, and not about technicality and theoretical plausibility. FirstStooge (talk) 05:12, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
- The timeline isn't perfect, but then nothing ever is. It's a mosaic of different AH settings, all interacting, and some of the settings are of course better than others, depending on the writer and the amount of time put into it. On balance, I believe it's worth featuring - brilliant gems like List of Egyptian monarchs (Differently) and Johannia (Differently) and even a well-developed conlang outweigh some of the more clichéed elements. It could maybe do with some kind of ASB tag, since it's more of a project in AH-like worldbuilding than a true "what-if" alternate history. Maybe "ASB - Miscellaneous". False Dmitri (talk) 17:06, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
- Nathan's point is actually quite true, that one POD negates another (which also my point), but such technical matters can be worked on even after the timeline gains the featured status. Similar with Ben, I believe Differently's unique and detailed articles outweigh most of its implausible narrative which is fixable rather than already fixed as canonical. It will be an ongoing process which should not hampering the worthiness of this timeline as a representative of this community works. FirstStooge (talk) 07:22, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
- Among the Featured Timelines, the closest equivalent would be Vegetarian World, which is another worldbuilding project that uses the elements of Alternate History to craft a setting, rather than a chronicle of events from a Point of Divergence. My off-site project, the ASB, is a somewhat less ambitious example of the same sort of thing. False Dmitri (talk) 14:01, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
- This timeline is one of the more worked on timeline's i've seen on the wiki. However, there are too much POD's that make the story a bit confusing for me. As well as some that contradict each other. But overall i would still classify it as worthy of being featured.
Fredrick II, Holy Roman Emperor (talk) 14:15, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
Featured Review Process
Sometimes timelines are elevated to featured status when they should not be. Other times a good timeline is featured, but later changes make it unworthy of being a featured timeline. If you think this has happened, you can put the timeline under review by following these steps:
- Use the nomination template above and explain why the timeline should no longer be featured.
- Add the {{featured review}} template to the article.
- If 3 editors above the number of those who object, following a two week period, support removing its featured status, it will no longer be considered a featured TL.
Voting as a "supporter" means that you are supporting the nomination to remove the timeline's featured status.