On the term ‘sci-fi’:
> Sci-fi was used in a derogatory manner by people in the publishing industry, and then it was adopted by the people it was used against as a term for schlocky crap, like stories that are really formula westerns (or suspense stories, or military sagas) with spaceships and aliens thrown in. 99% of non-printed ‘science fiction’ would classify as ‘sci-fi’, even some of the better stuff - basically if you could replace the science-fiction elements with something else and still have the exact same story, it’s sci-fi. Alien was a good movie, but you could replace the Nostromo with a sea ship and the alien with some demon and not have to make major changes to the plot. Blade Runner, however, deals with artificial man-made ‘life’ and is true science fiction.
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> SF is preferred because it can stand for ‘speculative fiction’, which can include stories that don’t really have anything to do with science but should be in the same genre. Alternate histories are SF, but often aren’t science fiction. Stories like ‘The Handmaids Tale’ which are set in the near future after major social changes which had nothing to do with scientific advances are also speculative fiction. A story about what would really happen if God made his presence known again would be a good example of SF.
- from a forum argument about the word ‘sci-fi’
‘sci-fi’ became something of a derogatory term, so it may be worth your time to read up on the arguments on that thread. Also see the ‘Sci-fi ghetto’ article on TV Tropes https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ScifiGhetto
" The Sci-Fi Ghetto reflects a long-lasting stigma which has been applied towards the science fiction genre, which frequently leads creators and marketers to shun “Sci-Fi”, “Science Fiction” or “Fantasy” labels as much as possible, even on shows that have clear science fiction or fantastical elements. It also reflects the tendency for critics, academics and other creators to near-automatically dismiss or disdain works which cannot escape this label being applied, regardless of relative quality or merit. Conversely, if these critics, creators and academics do feel that the work possesses merit by their standards, expect them to strenuously insist that the work is not science fiction or fantasy (How could it be? It’s good - No True Scotsman fallacy in play) , regardless of how many torturous hoops they might have to jump through in order to do so."
And then reading up on the Margaret Atwood-Ursula Le Guin debate (Margaret Atwood and Ursula K. Le Guin debate science fiction vs. "realism") after Atwood said “Science fiction is rockets, chemicals and talking squids in outer space” (The Guardian, 28 January 2009) and demanded that her work be considered speculative fiction. The latter term originates from the New Wave movement of the 70’s - we’re talking Delany, Ellison, Le Guin, Moorcock et al - a particularly bitter period of tit-for-tat in SF history, and one that let to today’s genre splits between the ‘hard science fiction’ and the ‘speculative fiction’ crowds. May I add that there are also ethnic splits encoded in these communities.
TL;DR: this might be me being pedantic, but you should know that the word ‘sci-fi’ has a history of being used as a derogatory term.
Me, I want to be free to write anything I damn well please, so in my career I’ve seen fit to brand myself as an SFF or speculative fiction writer.
Anyway, pedantry around ‘sci-fi’ aside - ‘Project Witness’ is a damn cool name. witness.domain.net makes perfect sense, because I am -1 to making the name too complex to type in - the easier it is to remember, the better. I feel it can be called ‘Project Witness’ with that domain nomenclature.