Hey, all. I wanted to quickly update you on progress on the Red Skull Republic page renovations that I have been working on. As always, I encourage anyone who would like to contribute to edit pages on the wiki, including the RSR page. Don't worry about it being neat and tidy, we can always edit changes up later to make them a better fit with other articles on the site.
Current State of the Red Skull Republic Article[]
As many of you have probably noticed, the Red Skull Republic article is in pretty bad shape. A lot of earlier parts of the text are actually derived from a much earlier article created by Godman2k7 shortly following the RSR/Union War. You can find this article on the old wiki which Godman2k7 no longer has access to.
In addition to this, my own personal bias shows up a lot here as well. Whether it's 'union stronk' or 'RSR individualism bad', it ultimately takes away from the point of the article. Not only that, but the article has lots of missing information or only gives one perspective on an issue.
New Resources[]
HomocidalChicken has provided me with some additional resources that will aid me in putting together some other resources I have at my disposal to update the article. These are a collection of articles that were originally intended for a separate LBP clan wiki which is now defunct. Although the articles themselves that HC has provided have their own biases, they give valuable insights into the RSR's perspective on their history. This also offers a counterpoint to cross reference with Polarlab's resources which dominate many articles on this site.
Much to my excitement, there are also some contradictions with earlier information. Here's an example so you can see what I mean:
The original RSR article on the old LBP Union wiki states, "The Red Skull Republic is a large clan that was created with the intent to destroy the clan Skullforce, but after helping Skullforce defeat several enemies, instead became close allies, and later after Skullforce disbanded, received many members from SF." If you look at the edit history, this was clarified by HomocidalChicken in December of 2010. However, if we take a look at the new resources that HC has provided, we'll see that "The defined initiative was to topple the current top clan, known as Skullforce, and to take their place."
So, how can this contradiction be explained? HC later writes in the new article resource, "After its victory over Skullforce, RSR skyrocketed to the top of the clanning community. Its campaign was not publicised[sic], but following its proximity to Skullforce, many others considered RSR a spiritual successor to the throne." In 2010, RSR didn't want anyone to know that they were responsible for the fall of Skullforce. It makes sense that HC would have given this information to Godman2k7 and then clarified it later through the edit on the old wiki article.
There are likely many of these misconceptions due to the misinformation that RSR has utilized over the years, as well as misunderstandings from other groups and people like myself.
Misinformation and the Truth[]
So how can we know the truth? It's entirely possible that HomocidalChicken backtracked and created this new resource to claim that they had defeated Skullforce in a glorious victory to be remembered. Although it may be possible, I again am faced with the problem of proving anything that happened in this ridiculous community. For all you know I could have just made up the Union and all the agents and actors involved. Certainly, there are ways to support my claims through evidence, but a lot of that evidence can be fabricated with a careful enough eye.
So, is the solution to plaster the words 'supposedly' and 'allegedly' all over every article? That sounds painful. It's a bit of a philosophical issue that we may just have to accept. The only thing we can do is cross reference with other resources and see where the contradictions are, point them out, talk about them, and move on.
Does this make anything on this wiki less true? Does it make it more fake? Not necessarily. If you were part of anything that happened with LittleBigPlanet clans, you know what happened. You experienced it. Perhaps, like me, you have difficulty remembering certain events. In that case, what has happened may be lost forever. I hope that by providing as much as possible here that we won't lose any of that, even if it is difficult to prove.
Do I personally believe that the new resources are factual? Well, I can certainly say that they are more accurate than what we had before. However, without any other evidence to go on, I have no choice but to treat what I have in front of me as the most up to date version of the story. Red Skull Republic, even during their alliance with Skullforce, set out to destroy Skullforce until Skullforce collapsed.
You should be asking the same questions about any resource I put forward for the wiki. Is it true? What could be done to challenge it? Are there are resources out there that might shed more light on the situation? And, in counterpoint, what's to say that your new resource meant to challenge existing evidence isn't fake?
Timeline for RSR Updates[]
So, how long is it going to take me to update the RSR article? Well, I can't quite say. There is a lot of history to cover, and a lot of resources to synergize. However, I can say that I'm making some great progress through what I've referred to as the Kardian Era here on the wiki. This covers RSR generations 1-2 and I think gen 3, but I will have to double check. This covers the origins of RSR, its shifting policies from conquest to pacifism and then its relations with the developing LBP clan community from 2009-2011.
I'm trying to decide if I want to publish version of the articles separately or to just do the whole thing once its finished. I think I will do it in parts so you can see my progress and to actively get the article more up to date. In that case, you can expect an update in the next week or two.