Contribution & Review Policy

Influence requires the possibility of influence. MIM automatically compares publication or release dates when a new influence is submitted. If the proposed inspiration was published after the work it allegedly influenced, the contribution will be rejected. When possible, the system will suggest reversing the relationship.

Chronological validation is a mandatory rule and applies to all contributions.

Each influence relationship exists only once within the graph. If an influence has already been submitted and approved, additional submissions do not create duplicate relationships. Instead, they are recorded as supporting votes for the existing influence. This allows community consensus to strengthen existing relationships while keeping the graph clean and readable.

When an influence does not already exist in the graph, it is added to the Influence Review Log as a pending contribution. Pending influences remain separate from approved influences until they have been evaluated. Review decisions may consider chronological validity, community support, genre and media relationships, voting patterns, existing graph structure, and manual review when necessary.

The explanation is the contribution. A connection without one is a line somebody drew; a connection with a good one is a claim anybody can check, which is the whole difference between this map and a list of opinions. Open with the thing that settles it: who said it, where, and when. Then give the detail that could not be a coincidence, concretely enough that a reader can go and look for themselves. If several things carried across, list them, because a list can be checked one item at a time while a paragraph has to be taken or left whole. Name what you are unsure of in the same breath rather than leaving it out, since a claim that states its own limit is easier to trust than one that sounds certain about everything. And if the real source is a work this map does not hold, say so in the explanation instead of quietly pointing the connection at something weaker.

Length is not the point. One sourced sentence and one concrete detail beats three paragraphs of resemblance.

Votes help establish confidence in influence relationships. To preserve the integrity of the graph, voting activity may be reviewed when unusual patterns are detected, such as large numbers of votes cast within a short period, coordinated voting campaigns, automated or bot-like behavior, or multiple accounts attempting to influence outcomes. Votes flagged for moderation review may be temporarily excluded while they are investigated. The goal is not to punish participation but to protect the accuracy of the dataset.

Creating an account is required to submit influences, vote on influences, and report suspicious contributions. Each account may cast a single vote on a given influence relationship. Multiple accounts created to manipulate the graph are prohibited. Accounts that repeatedly violate the rules may be suspended or permanently banned.

Transparency is a core principle of MIM. The Influence Review Log is publicly visible: anyone can view pending contributions, track the status of their submissions, evaluate verification decisions, and report suspicious contributions. However, public visibility does not mean public approval. Final layout decisions are determined through system rules, confidence signals, and review processes rather than popularity alone.

Adaptations and remakes are different from influences. When one work directly retells another, the relationship is recorded as an adaptation when it crosses media (a novel made into a film, a book into a television series) or as a remake when it stays in the same medium (a film redone as a film). Both are maintained in a separate relationship system, and because each already implies a direct link between the works, neither accumulates influence votes: a moderator confirms them instead. Each carries a fidelity rating, because a loose reimagining and a faithful retelling do not pass their source along in the same way.

Works created by the same author, creator, or studio may influence one another, and such relationships are permitted within MIM. However, shared authorship alone does not automatically establish influence. Similarly, shared keywords, subjects, and themes may contribute to confidence assessment, but thematic similarity alone does not guarantee approval, as many works may share common subjects because they were influenced by the same predecessors or developed similar ideas independently.

Influence is not always easy to prove. For this reason, our review process considers multiple signals rather than relying on a single rule. Factors that increase confidence include chronological consistency, multiple independent supporting votes, same-author relationships, genre similarity, and supporting evidence. Factors that may reduce confidence include very small gaps between release dates, simultaneous publication, suspicious voting activity, and lack of supporting evidence. Works released in the same year may require additional review before approval.

Anyone with an account can add a work that is missing from the map, whether it is a book, film, series, game, or another form of media. A good submission gives the original title, the creator or creators, the year, and at least one reference link so a moderator can verify it. Submissions enter the review queue and appear on the map as pending until they are approved. Accurate, well sourced submissions are approved faster.

A work is credited to the person whose name people use when they talk about it, and to no one else. For a film that is the director. For a series it is the creator or showrunner, for a book the author, for a game its designer, for an album the artist. Composers, screenwriters, producers, illustrators and cinematographers are creators in their own right, and they are deliberately left off: an influence connects one work to another, so the moment a film carries six names the question of who was influenced splits into six questions nobody can research or answer. Where a work genuinely has two or three people in that one role, such as co-directors, all of them are credited. Comics are the deliberate exception, because there the role is genuinely two roles. A comic is made by a writer and an artist whose contributions are not ranked against each other, and treating the writer as the author the way a novel does would quietly discard half of what a reader is actually looking at. So both are credited, each is marked as the writer or the artist, and an influence can be attributed to the writing or to the art rather than to the book as a whole. That matters because the two often come from different places: a series can take its plotting from crime fiction and its panel layout from a completely unrelated tradition, and recording that as one blurred connection would lose the only interesting part of it.

If an influence is really about the drawing, say so on the connection. A debt to an artist is not a debt to a writer.

Before a work is added, the system checks whether it already exists, including under a different title, translation, or edition. When a match is found your submission is linked to the existing work instead of creating a duplicate. Editions and translations of the same work are grouped under one canonical entry, and books that belong to a series are grouped under that series. This keeps the map clean and makes influence connections easier to read.

When a connection is really about one book, film or episode inside a series, keep the connection on the series and name the specific part in the explanation. Do not split that entry out into its own node so it can carry the line. Doing so looks more precise and is not: it scatters a series across the map, it leaves the new node stripped of the context that made the claim readable in the first place, and it forces anyone looking for the series to find several nodes where there should be one. The map is built at the level people actually talk about works, and for a series that level is the series. So connect The Lord of the Rings and write that you mean The Two Towers, or connect a television series and write that you mean the third episode of the first season. This is the same approach real-world influences take, where you connect to a category and name the particular war, myth or discovery on the connection itself.

An explanation that names the exact book, film or episode is worth more than a node that only looks exact.

Not every influence comes from another work. History, mythology, science, politics, and culture all shape creative works, so the map represents them as a small set of real-world categories. When a work draws on a real event, myth, or idea, you connect it to the relevant category and name the specific influence on the connection itself, for example a particular war, deity, or discovery. A single connection can name several specific influences at once.

Titles, authors, descriptions, and keywords should describe the work plainly and avoid copied marketing text. Free-text fields have length limits so the dataset stays consistent and fast, so keep entries concise. Moderators may edit metadata for accuracy, and once a work has been curated by hand it is protected from automatic overwrites.

Evidence, explanations and public notes are easier to check when they are in one language, and English is the one most contributors here can read. It is not a rule about the WORKS: a French novel, a Japanese film and a Russian play all belong on the map under their own titles, with the English title beside them where one exists. It is about the text you write ABOUT them. If English is difficult for you, write in the language you are comfortable in rather than not contributing at all: a moderator would far rather translate a good source than lose it.

MIM is a collaborative project. Every approved work and relationship contributes to a larger picture of how ideas evolve, spread, and inspire new creations across generations. By participating, contributors help create a public record of creative influence that is transparent, evidence-driven, and open to exploration by everyone.