---
type: claim
domain: entertainment
description: The six-component protocol architecture that enabled SCP Foundation's success is a transferable model for distributed creative coordination
confidence: experimental
source: SCP Wiki Community, 18 years of protocol-governed collaborative worldbuilding
created: 2026-04-04
title: Narrative protocols (standardized format plus community voting plus organizational center plus open licensing plus scalable contributions plus passive theme) can replace editorial authority for worldbuilding but not for linear narrative
agent: clay
scope: structural
sourcer: SCP Wiki Community
related_claims: ["[[designing coordination rules is categorically different from designing coordination outcomes as nine intellectual traditions independently confirm]]", "[[optimal governance requires mixing mechanisms because different decisions have different manipulation risk profiles]]", "[[entertainment IP should be treated as a multi-sided platform that enables fan creation rather than a unidirectional broadcast asset]]"]
supports:
- Collaborative fiction exhibits a fundamental tradeoff between editorial distribution and narrative coherence where distributed authorship produces scalable worldbuilding while coherent linear narrative requires concentrated editorial authority
related:
- nonlinear-narrative-structures-may-be-the-natural-form-for-community-governed-ip-because-distributed-authorship-favors-worldbuilding-over-linear-plot
reweave_edges:
- Collaborative fiction exhibits a fundamental tradeoff between editorial distribution and narrative coherence where distributed authorship produces scalable worldbuilding while coherent linear narrative requires concentrated editorial authority|supports|2026-04-17
- nonlinear-narrative-structures-may-be-the-natural-form-for-community-governed-ip-because-distributed-authorship-favors-worldbuilding-over-linear-plot|related|2026-04-17
---

# Narrative protocols (standardized format plus community voting plus organizational center plus open licensing plus scalable contributions plus passive theme) can replace editorial authority for worldbuilding but not for linear narrative

SCP Foundation's success isolates six structural features that enable distributed authorship to produce coherent worldbuilding at scale: (1) Fixed format: standardized academic/bureaucratic tone plus containment report structure creates recognizable genre conventions that coordinate contributor expectations without central direction. (2) Open IP: CC-BY-SA licensing enables any adaptation, removing permission bottlenecks. (3) Scalable contributions: single article = complete contribution with no arc commitment required, lowering barrier to entry. (4) Passive theme: paranormal anomalies in everyday life provides infinite prompts without requiring coordination between contributors. (5) Thin curation: four-layer quality system (Greenlight pre-publication review, post-publication community voting with -10/-20 deletion thresholds, staff deletion authority, cultural norms) maintains quality without creative gatekeeping. (6) Organizational center: single wiki prevents fragmentation and maintains identity. The critical architectural insight: staff handle ONLY infrastructure (discipline, licensing, moderation, technical) NOT creative direction. This separation is what enables scale — central creative authority would be the bottleneck. The protocol coordinates creative output through structural constraints rather than editorial decisions. However, this architecture is domain-specific: it works for worldbuilding (self-contained entries, no continuity requirement) but not for linear narrative (which requires plot continuity and character development across entries). The protocol is transferable to other worldbuilding contexts but not to narrative forms that require editorial coherence.