Rules of Thumb

This page is where I'm going to start collecting some of the little observations by staff and users on various aspects of the wiki. Feel free to add to it if you have good ones. Keep in mind that these are just rules of thumb, not site rules, and that breaking them won't get you punished, but will more likely than not get you mocked. ~yoric

---

• Gears' Razor: When in doubt, the scarier option is probably correct.

• Yoric's Relation: As the quality of a new submission decreases, the likelihood of a crosslink to Able, 682, or Telekill approaches one.

• Principle of Geometric Mediocrity: SCP articles wherein the SCP is something shaped like something tend to suck.

• Rule Number One: Mann has a better mustache than you. No, shut up, he does.

• Rule Number Two: Rule number one is always whatever you need it to be given the circumstances at hand. That said, Mann will always have the superior mustache.

• Rule Number One: Snorlison's was better.

• The Bright Principle: If you carefully choose your words for tact, it's possible whoever you're talking to will get the message. If you're as blunt as possible, it's certain.

• Rule of Emotional Torque: A good article forces an emotional reaction, be it fright, curiosity, longing, pity, or rage. Simply being dangerous or incomprehensible isn't enough; it has to make the reader react, as well.

• Alten's Observation: Just because it's threatening doesn't make it frightening. Danger alone will not carry an article.

• The Fundamental Base of the Unsaid: Redacting and Expunging are not used for fear. They're used to hide knowledge. The fear created is the possibility, implication, or terror of what might be there. Because essentially, the imagination of the person reading the article is the one filling in the gap, and they can always frighten themselves better than you can.

• Rule of Ridiculous Redactions: Redacting/expunging information in the containment procedures is silly. In universe, they tell you how to properly handle the SCP, and what to do if it escapes. Does it ever make sense to hide that information?

• The Quality Conundrum: If you spend long enough on the site, articles which you least expect to succeed will begin to be higher rated than what you consider your better work. This is because new users have no standards.

• King's Constant: Apple seeds.

• Troy's General Suggestion: There can be no happiest endings. There can be bad endings, good endings, even happy endings, but never a happiest ending. That's not a story; it's a fairy tale. Taint the good with a touch of suffering, and you'll get the effect you want.

• Sal's Advisory: If everyone in the chat tells you not to post something, you probably shouldn't post it.

• Sorts' Law: Memetic effect + Crazy to death = Failure.

• Corollary to Sorts' Law: If your SCP compels people to use it for no good reason, people will feel compelled to downvote. It reads like cheap, tacked-on danger.

• Rule Number One: If you pretend you've read the guide materials and haven't actually done so, we will be able to tell, and you will look stupid.

• Rule of Lists: If somebody tells you that your draft is bad, and they point you toward a list of rules instead of telling you exactly why it's bad, it's likely not all that bad.

• First Rule of Lists: If somebody tells you that your draft is bad, when they point you toward a list of rules and tell you exactly which points are causing it problems, it's not bad, it's likely far worse.

• Second Rule of Lists: That doesn't mean that people won't downvote it just for that reason.

• Quik's Advice: From the days when applicants to the wiki had to come get advice from a chat op…
  1. You cannot please everyone all the time.
  2. Keep a thick skin— people around here are brutally honest.
  3. When in doubt, lurk more.
  4. You cannot be certain what people will really like— or really hate.
  5. Don't pour your heart and soul into an SCP before it's posted— wait until you know it's going to stick.

• The First Rule About Foundation Tales: No one reads Foundation Tales. Well. Many users choose to read Foundation tales without ever voting on them, which is annoying. Expect a Tale's rise to popularity to come very… very… slowly…

• The Second Rule About Foundation Tales: A tale that is funny, or does something cool, is more likely to be upvoted than one that is creepy or in tone with the site. Which is one of the reasons we have Foundation tales.

• The Third Rule About Foundation Tales: Don't expect something to get changed over your tale. No one should be expected to update their author profile, article they wrote, or one of their tales for the sake of your story.

• Law of Authorial Insight: Redaction is not a substitute for coming up with something interesting. The author should always know what's been "removed" from the article.

• Gears' Axiom: If you look at your new SCP, and don't feel a little uneasy about your own mental state, or worry that others might think you're starting to get unhinged, it probably needs a bit more work.

• Excessive Danger Rule: Making something more dangerous does not necessarily make it creepier or more interesting. Neither does increasing its threat classification - Keter is not automatically better than Euclid or Safe. Thus, tacking on extra dangerousness (see Sorts' Law above for a couple of common examples) is a waste of time and will probably lower the quality of the article.

• The First Rule About Pictures: Your SCP will probably be better with a picture.

• The Second Rule About Pictures: The more text you need to describe what you're visualizing, the more your article needs a picture.

• The Third Rule About Pictures: No matter how "totally awesome" and "fucking badass" that drawing is, scrap it. The only artist's impression you're going to get is the bootprint on your article when people downvote it.

• Scantron's Rule of Thumb: Your article should be longer than your thumb.

• Tuomey's Relation: As the amount of articles a person has read approaches zero, the percentage chance they are doing it wrong approaches 100.

• Real Life Rule: If a real live thing is made into an SCP, the SCP article must be at least as interesting as that real live thing.

• SCPs in the Tall Grass Rule: All stories detailing how an SCP was discovered should follow the following criteria:
  • The story should add to the article. It is not necessary to show how every SCP was discovered. Sometimes, not including a discovery story adds to an article.
  • The story should be believable. The Foundation is a huge international super-governmental organization. SCPs should not be discovered when an agent finds them on the ground or they make a scene one time.
  • The Foundation is perfectly capable of being the first on the trail. MC&D, the CI, and the GOC don’t have to discover an SCP before the Foundation does.

• Rule of Criticism: Everyone has one vote, but some comments are worth more than others.

• Technical vs. Creative Rule: Bad writing can be fixed, but bad ideas are eternal.

• The First Rule of Detail Conservation: Detail is important, but too much detail can over-complicate an SCP. Think An X That Does Y as opposed to An X That Does Y Unless Z Happens In Which Case A Happens Also B Can Happen if Y and B Somehow Happen Together.

• The Second Rule of Detail Conservation: Does the supplementary article you're about to publish for your SCP really bring something important to the table?

• Bib's Rule of Higher Numbers: The more an article is liked/upvoted, the less weight a single criticism has. No article is universally liked; resist the urge to run off and make {#random_change} because of one person's comments, no matter who said it.

• Clef's Rule: If your SCP can be described as one of the following, it probably sucks.
  • "An X that does Y when Z."
  • "An X that does X really well."
  • "An X that kills you unless Y."
  • "An X that is literally Y from pop culture reference Z."

• The Vampire Diaries Insight: "There's no such thing as a bad idea. Only poorly executed awesome ones."
  • Clef's Addendum: "However, some ideas need to be executed perfectly to cross the line into awesome."

• Eisenberg's Uncertainty Principle: Uncertainty is a crucial ingredient in technobabble. Redacting sensitive new scientific knowledge, and admitting that a phenomenon is an unexplained anomaly evokes a document written by people on the cutting edge of science. False statements about known science, and non-sequiturs reeking of fundamental lack of understading evoke Deepak Chopra.
  • Spikebrennan's Spackle: Redaction can mask a small plot hole or gap in logic, but not a major one. Maintaining suspension of disbelief requires knowing the difference.

• Mind the Ceiling Rule: When designing containment cells, keep in mind that not all rooms are cubic.

• Desirable Item Rule: SCPs that you would want should also be SCPs that you are worried about someone else having.

• Outside View Rule: Before posting an article, read it as though you were reading someone else's work for the first time. If you wouldn't upvote it, then it's likely that neither would they.

• Chesterton's Observation: "It really is more natural to believe a preternatural story, that deals with things we don't understand, than a natural story that contradicts things we do understand. Tell me that the great Mr. Gladstone, in his last hours, was haunted by the ghost of Parnell, and I will be agnostic about it. But tell me that Mr. Gladstone, when first presented to Queen Victoria, wore his hat in her drawingroom and slapped her on the back and offered her a cigar, and I am not agnostic at all. That is not impossible, it's only incredible. But I'm much more certain it didn't happen than that Parnell's ghost didn't appear; because it violates the laws of the world I do understand."¹
  
  The lesson here is, fiction necessarily involves making up "facts". Some conceivable "facts" enrich the work, others will damage the reader's suspension of disbelief and therefore impair the quality of the work. To a significant extent, good writing consists of knowing the difference.

• Reject's Easter Special Rule: Easter eggs can be written into SCPs effectively. However, the point of Easter eggs is that you have to hunt for them. So if you choose to add one, don't make it really obvious, stupid, or random.
  • As an aside, there is a difference between an Easter egg, a hook, and a cross-reference. Don't mix them up, or your article will be downvoted.

• Separation Relation: As an SCP becomes more similar to an existing article, the likelihood of it receiving upvotes approaches zero.
  • Bib's Addendum: A single (or few) similarities between your SCP and another are not dealbreakers, provided the differences are substantial enough.

• Rule of Rule-Breaking: Articles can break any of these rules, as long as your audience collectively enjoys the end result.

• Yeats's Law of Criticism: The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.

• Rule 682: If it exists, there's 682 of it.

• Rule of Research: Know your shit. Technobabble/jargon is one thing, [REDACTED] is another, 'pineapple' is a third. If you try to make up facts and you're caught, you'll look like an idiot (or at the very least, wrong). Pineapples are not (generally) sapient, so make sure to use your terms correctly.

• Second Rule of Research: The point of an experiment is to find out things not currently known about the object being experimented upon. If the experiment log of an object (which should summarize key results) includes several tests with identical procedure , producing identical results, you are doing it wrong.

• E.'s Theory of Trolls: Never attribute to trolling what can be explained by incompetence.

Footnotes

1. G.K. Chesterton, "The Curse of the Golden Cross" (a detective story published in the 1930s or so)