The infamous Wikia site
牛魔王
http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Transformers_Wiki_talk:Community_Portal/Leaving
Maybe Zobovor or somebody that has no reservations about removing the
alleged "funny" from the site can take over the Wikia one?
Chad Rushing
>
> Sounds like Walky and his merry men are abandoning Wikia:
>
> Maybe Zobovor or somebody that has no reservations about removing the
> alleged "funny" from the site can take over the Wikia one?
For some unknown reason, that web site would always crash Firefox when
I would go to it. Oh, well. There is always the Transformers
information on Wikipedia.
- Chad
牛魔王
> For some unknown reason, that web site would always crash Firefox when
> I would go to it. Oh, well. There is always the Transformers
> information on Wikipedia.
I believe that is one of the reasons Walky is fed up with them.
(Although I use Firefox and don't have that problem...)
Anyhow, this seems like an opportune time for advocates of a TF Wiki
"two state solution".
JimS
I never ever got the whole 'funny' thing on the TF wiki. I understand
the party line (it's a cartoon about robots, so you shouldn't take
them too seriously) but if that's really the case then why all the
hubub about a few ads? It seems to me that a bunch of people
attempting to be witty isn't (or shouldn't be) what an encyclopedia is
all about.
JimS
Suspsy
> I never ever got the whole 'funny' thing on the TF wiki. I understand
> the party line (it's a cartoon about robots, so you shouldn't take
> them too seriously) but if that's really the case then why all the
> hubub about a few ads?
I don't understand your reasoning here. What does being humourous have
to do with discontent over advertisements?
It seems to me that a bunch of people
> attempting to be witty isn't (or shouldn't be) what an encyclopedia is
> all about.
It seems to me that no one who has complained about the jokes on the
wiki has ever been able to show how they in any way detract from the
informative content. I can understand, though not agree with someone
who thinks that the references on Springer's page to The Honeymooners,
Star Wars, and A Christmas Carol aren't witty or amusing. I can
neither understand nor agree with anyone who claims that those same
references render the page useless for anyone wanting to learn about
Springer.
Suspsy
"Strength is more than physical." -Springer(G1)
Zobovor
> Maybe Zobovor or somebody that has no reservations about removing the
> alleged "funny" from the site can take over the Wikia one?
It looks as though the current editors are planning to erase the
existing site after they move their content to a new server that won't
be riddled with invasive ads. To create yet another Transformers wiki
in its place once they move out seems rather pointless to me,
honestly.
It's funny you should mention me as a candidate, though, because
there's actually been some brief discussion about me on the talk pages
regarding my participation in such a project. Specifically, they said
something about "an unfunny crew of autists and Zobovors--not that the
two are mutually exclusive--moving in here and turning it into a
fagstravaganza."
Their gracious invitation certainly is tempting, since there's nothing
I enjoy more than wasting time pouring hundreds of hours' worth of
work into a web site owned by someone who can modify its content and
layout at any time. For some reason, though, I prefer projects of my
own over which I possess full editorial control. I guess I'm just
funny that way. (Or unfunny, depending on who you talk to.)
Zob
Thylacine 2000
On Jul 23, 4:20 pm, 牛魔王 <Gyum...@aol.com> wrote:
> Sounds like Walky and his merry men are abandoning Wikia:http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Transformers_Wiki_talk:Community_P...
> Maybe Zobovor or somebody that has no reservations about removing the
> alleged "funny" from the site can take over the Wikia one?
I highly, *highly* doubt any fan serious enough to devote much time
and effort to a wiki project will want to put up with Wikia's
bullshit.
If anything, based on their complaints I expect the TF Wiki's critics
would be the MOST unwilling to deal with what Wikia has now turned
into. If funny captions piss them off that much, they won't endure
long when the hosting-company's staff goes on to break the page code,
change article layouts, fill articles with an ever-growing blizzard of
intrusive advertisements (some of which TALK), promise that each step
of this is "the last one" except for the one that comes next, and
promise that these changes can be reversed if you want to but then
break their word and say it's actually permanent after all.
necrotron
It seems to me that no one who has complained about the jokes on the
wiki has ever been able to show how they in any way detract from the
informative content. I can understand, though not agree with someone
who thinks that the references on Springer's page to The Honeymooners,
Star Wars, and A Christmas Carol aren't witty or amusing. I can
neither understand nor agree with anyone who claims that those same
references render the page useless for anyone wanting to learn about
Springer.
>
I think I can field this one. When you're dealing with information of a
factual nature, it helps to be clear and succinct. Consider your audience
[Poeople looking for information about Transformers] and dictate the content
accordingly. Since [people who find pop-culture references funny and/or
useful] is probably a small subset of [Poeople looking for information about
Transformers] considering the world-wide appeal of the Transformers Brand,
you can see how eliminating those references helps keep the information you
are presenting clear, consice, and clutter-free. Now, if this was a
fanwanky site that was trying for a certain tone... I have no problem with
attempts at comedy or "color". The dissemination of facts can be quite dry,
dull, and just plain boring. Be that as it may... I keep thinking that for
people with limited ability to parse the English language (Ie: most
Transfans,) I would err on the side of brevity and clarity. Keep the ha-ha
pop culture references and in-jokes on a discussion board or blog where your
audience is a closed set of like-minded individuals with a common
background.
Did that help?
Joe
Necrotron
Suspsy
> I think I can field this one. When you're dealing with information of a
> factual nature, it helps to be clear and succinct. Consider your audience
> [Poeople looking for information about Transformers] and dictate the content
> accordingly. Since [people who find pop-culture references funny and/or
> useful] is probably a small subset of [Poeople looking for information about
> Transformers] considering the world-wide appeal of the Transformers Brand,
> you can see how eliminating those references helps keep the information you
> are presenting clear, consice, and clutter-free.
See, if the references were occurring regularly and consistently
throughout the written content, I would concur with you. But as it
stands, they're mostly limited to image captions. Again, I can see how
some people don't find these captions funny, but that still doesn't
render the entry useless.
Now, if this was a
> fanwanky site that was trying for a certain tone... I have no problem with
> attempts at comedy or "color". The dissemination of facts can be quite dry,
> dull, and just plain boring. Be that as it may... I keep thinking that for
> people with limited ability to parse the English language (Ie: most
> Transfans,) I would err on the side of brevity and clarity. Keep the ha-ha
> pop culture references and in-jokes on a discussion board or blog where your
> audience is a closed set of like-minded individuals with a common
> background.
Seems to me a Transformers wiki *IS* a place for a set of like-minded
individuals with a common background. /:)
Suspsy
"Save your ammunition, Autobots! Superior forces are taking over!" -
Sky Lynx(G1)
JimS
Let's be clear, Suspsy, I'm not trying to denigrate the efforts of
anyone involved. I just don't see the appeal of the jokes. I don't
find most of them to be funny. Even when I do find them amusing, I
find them to clutter up the pages with information that is irrelevant
to the subject at hand. It makes the whole project feel less
professional and more like a small group of fans sitting around and
making a project just for them. In regards to your Springer example,
if the version full of humor takes, say, 6 minutes to peruse and
understand, and the one without humor takes 5 minutes, then in my view
the one without humor has a higher signal to noise ratio and is more
useful. Again, just my opinion, if you like the wiki full of jokes,
more power to you.
My reasoning, and apologies if this wasn't clear - if jokes are
acceptable because we shouldn't take ourselves or the subject matter
too seriously, then it seems odd to me how seriously the editors seem
to be taking themselves in re the advertisement situation. I've read
the thread and most of the people involved seem to take the whole
thing, and themselves, very seriously.
JimS
Chad Rushing
>
> Their gracious invitation certainly is tempting, since there's nothing
> I enjoy more than wasting time pouring hundreds of hours' worth of
> work into a web site owned by someone who can modify its content and
> layout at any time. For some reason, though, I prefer projects of my
> own over which I possess full editorial control. I guess I'm just
> funny that way. (Or unfunny, depending on who you talk to.)
I feel the same way. The archivist in me might find setting up an
online super-encyclopedia of Transformers information to be fun, but I
would not want others to have the option of coming behind me and
changing everything did. Also, I think I already invest too much time
and energy into my Transformers hobby as it is.
- Chad
Suspsy
> Let's be clear, Suspsy, I'm not trying to denigrate the efforts of
> anyone involved. I just don't see the appeal of the jokes. I don't
> find most of them to be funny. Even when I do find them amusing, I
> find them to clutter up the pages with information that is irrelevant
> to the subject at hand.
I'm afraid I don't see how image captions, no matter how numerous,
clutter up the pages to the point where it drags down the entire
article. Let's take G1 Prime's page, for example:
http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Optimus_Prime_%28G1%29
Plenty of tongue-in-cheek captions, yes, some of which I personally
don't find funny or all that creative. But once again, I fail to see
how they detract from the written content, the "meat" of the article
if you will.
It makes the whole project feel less
> professional and more like a small group of fans sitting around and
> making a project just for them.
One can just as easily make the argument that it's a small group of
fans making a project for a large group of people. And as Thy has
pointed out, if other fans are really that opposed to the wiki's
contents, then they ought to actively participate themselves.
In regards to your Springer example,
> if the version full of humor takes, say, 6 minutes to peruse and
> understand, and the one without humor takes 5 minutes, then in my view
> the one without humor has a higher signal to noise ratio and is more
> useful.
That's assuming one chooses to take the time to: 1) read all the
captions; 2) Interpret their meaning. It's perfectly possible not to.
> My reasoning, and apologies if this wasn't clear - if jokes are
> acceptable because we shouldn't take ourselves or the subject matter
> too seriously, then it seems odd to me how seriously the editors seem
> to be taking themselves in re the advertisement situation.
Because the two issues are mutually exclusive. Just because someone
indulges in humour, he's got no business being annoyed by flyers
piling up in his mailbox? Or people remodelling his mailbox, for that
matter?
That's really quite an unfair assumption on your part. Whether
intentional or not, you're suggesting that just because the wiki
contains jokes, the people who research and compile and write and
manage all that information don't take their task seriously.
Suspsy
"Complete data analysis is essential for the synthesis of successful
strategy." -Computron(G1)
JimS
> On Jul 23, 7:29 pm, JimS <jimsoren...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm afraid I don't see how image captions, no matter how numerous,
> clutter up the pages to the point where it drags down the entire
> article. Let's take G1 Prime's page, for example:
>
> http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Optimus_Prime_%28G1%29
>
> Plenty of tongue-in-cheek captions, yes, some of which I personally
> don't find funny or all that creative. But once again, I fail to see
> how they detract from the written content, the "meat" of the article
> if you will.
You mean, aside from the signal to noise ratio arguments that
Necrotron and I put forward? They're valid arguments - it takes
longer to parse through articles containing irrelevant information.
And it isn't just captions.
http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Sycophant_Starscream contains
numerous instances of flattery directed towards the reader and other
characters mentioned in the article. Other Starscream clone articles
contain similar references.
http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Wheelie is written in verse.
http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Auntie contains a joke in the
fourth sentence of the article.
The last line of this article is a joke: http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Glen_Hallit
Note that I just found these (except Wheelie, I remembered that one)
by hitting Random Page and doing a quick scan. I found about a third
of the non-stub articles to have things like this in the content. And
it does take time to parse this stuff out, including the captions.
> > It makes the whole project feel less
> > professional and more like a small group of fans sitting around and
> > making a project just for them.
>
> One can just as easily make the argument that it's a small group of
> fans making a project for a large group of people. And as Thy has
> pointed out, if other fans are really that opposed to the wiki's
> contents, then they ought to actively participate themselves.
You don't address the idea that the project feels (a subjective
measure, I realize) less professional. I think Necrotron's argument,
that the audience of people looking for pop-culture references is a
subset of people looking for Transformers information, is why it's
much harder to posit that it's a small group of people writing for a
larger audience. The larger audience is undeniably fact-seekers.
Oh, and I do participate. But the people 'in charge', the editors,
have mandated that humor is the policy of the wiki. It has
effectively become their project, and I'm not going to go in and argue
with people about what I think the wiki should be. I'm not going to
convince them, they're not going to convince me. For me to go in and
remove the captions I find dull or uninteresting or detracting seems
more like petty vandalism than contribution, so I don't.
> In regards to your Springer example,
>
> > if the version full of humor takes, say, 6 minutes to peruse and
> > understand, and the one without humor takes 5 minutes, then in my view
> > the one without humor has a higher signal to noise ratio and is more
> > useful.
>
> That's assuming one chooses to take the time to: 1) read all the
> captions; 2) Interpret their meaning. It's perfectly possible not to.
>
> > My reasoning, and apologies if this wasn't clear - if jokes are
> > acceptable because we shouldn't take ourselves or the subject matter
> > too seriously, then it seems odd to me how seriously the editors seem
> > to be taking themselves in re the advertisement situation.
>
> Because the two issues are mutually exclusive. Just because someone
> indulges in humour, he's got no business being annoyed by flyers
> piling up in his mailbox? Or people remodelling his mailbox, for that
> matter?
>
> That's really quite an unfair assumption on your part. Whether
> intentional or not, you're suggesting that just because the wiki
> contains jokes, the people who research and compile and write and
> manage all that information don't take their task seriously.
Not trying to cause offense. I thought that the official party line
regarding humor was that this is a non-serious subject and therefore
non-serious contributions were acceptable/desirable. I didn't think
that this was my assumption, I thought that was official TFwikia
policy.
JimS
Suspsy
> http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Sycophant_Starscreamcontains
> numerous instances of flattery directed towards the reader and other
> characters mentioned in the article. Other Starscream clone articles
> contain similar references.
Right, and they were all written that way to give readers a clear
understanding of what each character was all about.
> http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Wheelieis written in verse.
Same thing. Again, it may not be appealing to all readers, but it
doesn't negate the fact that the article gives a detailed history of
the character.
> http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Auntiecontains a joke in the
> fourth sentence of the article.
Which is hardly justification to write off the article entirely. Not
that it's much of an article to begin with.
> The last line of this article is a joke:http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Glen_Hallit
Again, I'm not seeing how this is a problem.
> Note that I just found these (except Wheelie, I remembered that one)
> by hitting Random Page and doing a quick scan. I found about a third
> of the non-stub articles to have things like this in the content. And
> it does take time to parse this stuff out, including the captions.
Yes, it takes additional seconds. Hardly a colossal loss of
irreplaceable life.
> You don't address the idea that the project feels (a subjective
> measure, I realize) less professional.
That's because I don't think it feels less professional in the
slightest.
I think Necrotron's argument,
> that the audience of people looking for pop-culture references is a
> subset of people looking for Transformers information, is why it's
> much harder to posit that it's a small group of people writing for a
> larger audience. The larger audience is undeniably fact-seekers.
And as I've stated before, the wiki provides facts in abundance.
> Oh, and I do participate. But the people 'in charge', the editors,
> have mandated that humor is the policy of the wiki. It has
> effectively become their project, and I'm not going to go in and argue
> with people about what I think the wiki should be. I'm not going to
> convince them, they're not going to convince me.
Then why are you even bothering to debate the issue here?
> Not trying to cause offense. I thought that the official party line
> regarding humor was that this is a non-serious subject and therefore
> non-serious contributions were acceptable/desirable.
That still doesn't explain your claim that the issue of humour and the
issue of advertising are somehow connected.
Suspsy
"Words can cut deeper than steel." -Freeway(G1)
Alden Bates
> It looks as though the current editors are planning to erase the
> existing site after they move their content to a new server that won't
> be riddled with invasive ads. To create yet another Transformers wiki
> in its place once they move out seems rather pointless to me,
> honestly.
That's not going to happen, mainly because it would take ages to go
through and erase every single article, and Wikia could restore the
whole thing from backup in a matter of minutes. The existing content
will likely still be there after the split.
Alden
JimS
> On Jul 23, 8:39 pm, JimS <jimsoren...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Sycophant_Starscreamcontains
> > numerous instances of flattery directed towards the reader and other
> > characters mentioned in the article. Other Starscream clone articles
> > contain similar references.
>
> Right, and they were all written that way to give readers a clear
> understanding of what each character was all about.
I don't think it does a good job of that. I think it just gets in the
way. I say that even though hese were some of the funnier things to
be found in the TF wiki (to my subjective tastes), but that's not what
*I* look for in a fact based article. I acknowledge that other people
apparently do and I don't fault them for that.
> >http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Wheelieiswritten in verse.
>
> Same thing. Again, it may not be appealing to all readers, but it
> doesn't negate the fact that the article gives a detailed history of
> the character.
I never said the articles were worthless, I just said there is
extraneous stuff that gets in the way. I'm giving some examples.
> >http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Auntiecontainsa joke in the
> > fourth sentence of the article.
>
> Which is hardly justification to write off the article entirely. Not
> that it's much of an article to begin with.
That's a false argument - I didn't say, and I've never said, that the
articles are worthless because they contain jokes. You can read
around the snark for useful information. It just takes longer.
> > The last line of this article is a joke:http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Glen_Hallit
>
> Again, I'm not seeing how this is a problem.
It all supports my argument - the tfwiki has a lower signal to noise
ratio than I'd like.
> > Note that I just found these (except Wheelie, I remembered that one)
> > by hitting Random Page and doing a quick scan. I found about a third
> > of the non-stub articles to have things like this in the content. And
> > it does take time to parse this stuff out, including the captions.
>
> Yes, it takes additional seconds.
<colbert>I accept your apology. </colbert>
> Hardly a colossal loss of irreplaceable life.
Wasting time isn't what I look for in an encyclopedia article. If
it's what you like, then groovy, we have different tastes.
> > You don't address the idea that the project feels (a subjective
> > measure, I realize) less professional.
>
> That's because I don't think it feels less professional in the
> slightest.
We'll need to agree to disagree on that point. I think irrelevant
information is unprofessional, you don't.
> I think Necrotron's argument,
>
> > that the audience of people looking for pop-culture references is a
> > subset of people looking for Transformers information, is why it's
> > much harder to posit that it's a small group of people writing for a
> > larger audience. The larger audience is undeniably fact-seekers.
>
> And as I've stated before, the wiki provides facts in abundance.
Strawman argument - I never said there were no facts.
> > Oh, and I do participate. But the people 'in charge', the editors,
> > have mandated that humor is the policy of the wiki. It has
> > effectively become their project, and I'm not going to go in and argue
> > with people about what I think the wiki should be. I'm not going to
> > convince them, they're not going to convince me.
>
> Then why are you even bothering to debate the issue here?
I'm not going to the wiki and arguing, I'm hanging out on ATT and
debating. I've been hanging out on ATT since 1994. Besides, there is
the potential for sea change. The 'funny' wiki is going elsewhere, so
there is the real possiblity that the official wiki will become
something more to my tastes. This makes me happy.
> > Not trying to cause offense. I thought that the official party line
> > regarding humor was that this is a non-serious subject and therefore
> > non-serious contributions were acceptable/desirable.
>
> That still doesn't explain your claim that the issue of humour and the
> issue of advertising are somehow connected.
If you think that reading around irrelevant captions is no problem,
and wasting a few seconds is no big deal, then why not the same for
irrelevant ads?
Cheers,
JimS
Gustavo Wombat
Am I the only one hoping that they hand admin rights over to Kittie
Rose when they leave? If they were to try for a scorched earth policy,
might that not be more effective than simply deleting the content?
Gustavo!
FortMax
> On Jul 23, 5:59 pm, Suspsy <susp...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> On Jul 23, 8:39 pm, JimS <jimsoren...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Oh, and I do participate. But the people 'in charge', the editors,
>>> have mandated that humor is the policy of the wiki. It has
>>> effectively become their project, and I'm not going to go in and argue
>>> with people about what I think the wiki should be. I'm not going to
>>> convince them, they're not going to convince me.
>> Then why are you even bothering to debate the issue here?
>
> I'm not going to the wiki and arguing, I'm hanging out on ATT and
> debating. I've been hanging out on ATT since 1994. Besides, there is
> the potential for sea change. The 'funny' wiki is going elsewhere, so
> there is the real possiblity that the official wiki will become
> something more to my tastes. This makes me happy.
Teletraan I has in no way ever been anything near official. I have no
idea where you got that impression.
>>> Not trying to cause offense. I thought that the official party line
>>> regarding humor was that this is a non-serious subject and therefore
>>> non-serious contributions were acceptable/desirable.
>> That still doesn't explain your claim that the issue of humour and the
>> issue of advertising are somehow connected.
>
> If you think that reading around irrelevant captions is no problem,
> and wasting a few seconds is no big deal, then why not the same for
> irrelevant ads?
>
> Cheers,
> JimS
When the ads have a habit of breaking the pages (not to mention that
Wikia has a habit of lying to us about them). The captions don't do that
--
FortMax's Transformers Instruction Archive
http://fortmax05.10gbfreehost.com/
FortMax
That, or give the keys to Hooper and Derik.
Gustavo Wombat
> On Jul 23, 7:29 pm, JimS <jimsoren...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > In regards to your Springer example,
> > if the version full of humor takes, say, 6 minutes to peruse and
> > understand, and the one without humor takes 5 minutes, then in my view
> > the one without humor has a higher signal to noise ratio and is more
> > useful.
>
> That's assuming one chooses to take the time to: 1) read all the
> captions; 2) Interpret their meaning. It's perfectly possible not to.
There's also a question of whether reading something informative but
slightly tongue in cheek for 6 minutes is a better use of time than
reading something dry for 5 minutes.
Keep in mind that people aren't doing serious scholarly research on
Transformers, and that they aren't basing life and death decisions on
Transformers (one would hope). The TF Wiki style would be a disaster
on a site like WebMD (imagine a picture of a rash, and a caption
"These unsightly spots can be removed with bleach!").
It's a matter of audience. When I'm looking up something on WebMD, I'm
trying to figure out whether the unsightly spots will lead to my
death. When I'm looking up something on the TF Wiki, it's because I'm
mildly amused to know background information on the role of "Holy
Frijoles!" in Armada, or what toys a certain character had, or what
the personality of some toy I found in a box in my closet is.
I'm not quite sure what else someone would use an encyclopedic
reference to the Transformers for, which might require a more serious
tone.
It's a public wiki, it's not like you should trust everything it says
anyway.
Gustavo!
"Oh, good lord, I've woken up covered in blood again!" -Spike Witwicky
(G1)
Chad Rushing
the-facts style is more conducive to communicating objective
information in any online encyclopedia.
More specifically, most people consider (supposedly) objective
materials such as encyclopedias or reference books to be formal
writing, and the use of subjective humor is strongly discouraged in
formal writing. For example, no jokes or puns are inserted in
official police reports, textbooks, atlases, dictionaries, or printed
encyclopedias. On the other hand, humor is more than welcome in
informal writing such as toy or episode reviews and personal anecdotes
on ATT.
To summarize, the use of casual, subjective humor in what was expected
by many (other than insiders) to be formal, objective materials about
the Transformers universe and its characters struck those readers as
being inappropriate for the chosen medium. Those readers publicly
stated as such, and the authors of those materials took exception to
those comments.
Does that pretty much cover it?
- Chad
JimS
> Teletraan I has in no way ever been anything near official. I have no
> idea where you got that impression.
I meant the Wikipedia hosted wiki, not to imply that it was endorsed
by Hasbro.
> > If you think that reading around irrelevant captions is no problem,
> > and wasting a few seconds is no big deal, then why not the same for
> > irrelevant ads?
>
> When the ads have a habit of breaking the pages (not to mention that
> Wikia has a habit of lying to us about them). The captions don't do that
I've always tuned out the ads, whereas the humor I find intrusive. To
each his own. Also, the ads serve a useful purpose - paying for the
bandwidth & the coding.
On Jul 23, 6:41 pm, Gustavo Wombat <GustavoWom...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> There's also a question of whether reading something informative but
> slightly tongue in cheek for 6 minutes is a better use of time than
> reading something dry for 5 minutes.
A fair point. I prefer the latter, but I acknowledge that some prefer
the former. It doesn't help that I have high standards for humor and
don't find most of the captions to be very funny, but that's a matter
of individual preference.
> Keep in mind that people aren't doing serious scholarly research on
> Transformers, and that they aren't basing life and death decisions on
> Transformers (one would hope). The TF Wiki style would be a disaster
> on a site like WebMD (imagine a picture of a rash, and a caption
> "These unsightly spots can be removed with bleach!").
LOL. Yes, agreed, that would be horrible.
> It's a matter of audience. When I'm looking up something on WebMD, I'm
> trying to figure out whether the unsightly spots will lead to my
> death. When I'm looking up something on the TF Wiki, it's because I'm
> mildly amused to know background information on the role of "Holy
> Frijoles!" in Armada, or what toys a certain character had, or what
> the personality of some toy I found in a box in my closet is.
>
> I'm not quite sure what else someone would use an encyclopedic
> reference to the Transformers for, which might require a more serious
> tone.
I don't know if it's a matter of need, just a matter of preference.
Usually if I'm going to the TF wiki, it's because I want information
about some aspect of the mythos, not to find some humor.
Here is an extreme example:
A) Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809–April 15, 1865), the sixteenth
President of the United States, successfully led his country through
its greatest internal crisis, the Civil War, only to be assassinated
less than a week after the war's end at a play. [Picture of Lincoln
with the caption '16th president of the United States']
B) Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809–April 15, 1865), once shot an
elephant in his pajamas. What the elephant was doing in Abraham
Lincoln's pajamas, I'll never know. He was the sixteenth President of
the United States. Yo momma so slow, she uses an egg calendar instead
of an egg timer. He successfully led his country through its greatest
internal crisis, the Civil War. How come you park on the driveway and
drive on a parkway? He was assassinated less than a week after the
war's end at a play[1]. [Picture of Lincoln with the caption 'would
look GREAT on a penny']
[1] Bet he missed THAT play.
Both A and B contain the exact same informational content. B just
takes longer to get through because of the jokes. I'm not saying the
wiki is that bad, I'm just illustrating my point about signal to
noise. Here it's 1:1.
JimS
JimS
I tip my hat to you, sir.
JimS
Travoltron
> If anything, based on their complaints I expect the TF Wiki's critics
> would be the MOST unwilling to deal with what Wikia has now turned
> into. If funny captions piss them off that much, they won't endure
> long when the hosting-company's staff goes on to break the page code,
> change article layouts, fill articles with an ever-growing blizzard of
> intrusive advertisements (some of which TALK), promise that each step
> of this is "the last one" except for the one that comes next, and
> promise that these changes can be reversed if you want to but then
> break their word and say it's actually permanent after all.
>
Weird, I never get any of that stuff when I go on there...
Chad Rushing
Thanks. I try my best to un-muddle these kinds of conflicts and
identify the -real- point of dispute so that constructive discussion
can proceed from there. :-)
- Chad
Gustavo Wombat
> I don't know if it's a matter of need, just a matter of preference.
> Usually if I'm going to the TF wiki, it's because I want information
> about some aspect of the mythos, not to find some humor.
>
> Here is an extreme example:
>
> A) Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809–April 15, 1865), the sixteenth
> President of the United States, successfully led his country through
> its greatest internal crisis, the Civil War, only to be assassinated
> less than a week after the war's end at a play. [Picture of Lincoln
> with the caption '16th president of the United States']
>
> B) Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809–April 15, 1865), once shot an
> elephant in his pajamas. What the elephant was doing in Abraham
> Lincoln's pajamas, I'll never know. He was the sixteenth President of
> the United States. Yo momma so slow, she uses an egg calendar instead
> of an egg timer. He successfully led his country through its greatest
> internal crisis, the Civil War. How come you park on the driveway and
> drive on a parkway? He was assassinated less than a week after the
> war's end at a play[1]. [Picture of Lincoln with the caption 'would
> look GREAT on a penny']
>
> [1] Bet he missed THAT play.
>
> Both A and B contain the exact same informational content. B just
> takes longer to get through because of the jokes. I'm not saying the
> wiki is that bad, I'm just illustrating my point about signal to
> noise. Here it's 1:1.
B contains a great deal of irrelevant humor. TF Wiki mostly contains
relevant humor and would be more like:
Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809–April 15, 1865), an avid theater
goer, was the 16th the sixteenth President of the United States,
successfully led his country through its greatest internal crisis, the
Civil War, only to be assassinated less than a week after the war's
end at a play.
His wife did not like the play.
[Picture of Lincoln with the caption 'Last words: I need to be dragged
to a play like I need a hole in my head']
Gustavo Wombat
I would say that the formal writing tone is a cue for the reader to
treat information as authoritative. For a publicly editable wiki,
which is likely to be subject to vandalism, mischief, editorial
incompetence, and the propagation of commonly held misinformation, the
formal tone is inappropriate.
I'd say this about the TF Wiki, Wikipedia, and Conservapedia. Even the
internal wiki of technical information at my office is wildly
inaccurate and is poorly served by a neutral faux authoritative tone.
When an article is next to a picture with a silly caption, the reader
is reminded that the contents of the article may or may not be
accurate.
Alternately, the Conservapedia method of sarcastically showing intense
bias in the opening of every article, works just as well. At least, I
think it's sarcastic... Here's the start of the article on Wikipedia:
"Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia founded by entrepreneur
and atheist Jimmy Wales and philosophy professor Larry Sanger
on January 15, 2001."
Anyway, the short version of my view is that for something that is
inherently unable to be either accurate or balanced, a tone of
neutrality is akin to lying.
And this is why I used to go through Wikipedia adding dogs named Gus
to the lives of the notable and noteworthy. Gus is a good dog name.
Gustavo!
JimS
> I would say that the formal writing tone is a cue for the reader to
> treat information as authoritative. For a publicly editable wiki,
> which is likely to be subject to vandalism, mischief, editorial
> incompetence, and the propagation of commonly held misinformation, the
> formal tone is inappropriate.
Or you could argue that the informal tone is an invitation for
vandalism and mischief, an excuse for editorial incompetence and a
reason not to vet commonly held but little scrutinized misinformation.
> I'd say this about the TF Wiki, Wikipedia, and Conservapedia. Even the
> internal wiki of technical information at my office is wildly
> inaccurate and is poorly served by a neutral faux authoritative tone.
There are definitely inaccuracies. I pulled a bunch of information
from the wiki for use in an early draft of The Ark II, but a whole lot
had to be chucked out once I ran it past actual Japanese experts. I
did go back and correct most of those mistakes, though.
> When an article is next to a picture with a silly caption, the reader
> is reminded that the contents of the article may or may not be
> accurate.
An interesting point. I hadn't considered this point of view.
> Anyway, the short version of my view is that for something that is
> inherently unable to be either accurate or balanced, a tone of
> neutrality is akin to lying.
Lying? Really? I do see where you're coming from, but I'd rather
aspire to greatness than settle for mediocrity. I want the TF Wiki to
be the best, most accurate, most authoritative, most comprehensive
damn wiki out there.
> And this is why I used to go through Wikipedia adding dogs named Gus
> to the lives of the notable and noteworthy. Gus is a good dog name.
You are awesome in a bottle, Gustavo.
JimS
LiamK
>
> I want the TF Wiki to
> be the best, most accurate, most authoritative, most comprehensive
> damn wiki out there.
I don't think that they have to be mutualy exclusive, but I can't see
a way to compromise between facts-with-a-bit-of-humour, and -just-the-
facts, besides finding the latter a bit dull. I know that the crux of
this comes from the wiki admins argument of "it's a wiki about
transforming robots from outer-space. We are not going to take this
completely seriously", but it's a valid argument. People look up
encyclopedias to learn the facts. People look at this wiki because
they want to remember the name of the small one who was a boat who
came with three other guys that they had when they were younger. You
say that the Sycophant Starscream article is written a bit silly, but
is anyone looking it up for use in a legal argument about cloning, or
because he was a funny character on a cartoon?
I think it also helps to keep things from getting too serious, as
otherwise we'd end up in a terrifying world where the Decepticon
articles keep getting re-written by someone who thinks that they are
the good guys and justified in what they do, then there are arguments
and flames and general death and stuff.
The only thing I would suggest is that the more popular articles stay
relatively serious, and that seems to be what they've done. G1 Optimus
Prime's article has less jokes than the article on Chins, for example.
And finally, is the problem some people have with the humour, or the
type of humour? Because there's nothing that shows a lack of a sense
of humour than someone saying "oh, I do have a sense of humour. It's
just more sophisticated than that". Monkeys are always funny.
-LiamK
Cappeca
> Sounds like Walky and his merry men are abandoning Wikia:http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Transformers_Wiki_talk:Community_P...
>
Good riddance.
Onslaught Six
> There are definitely inaccuracies. I pulled a bunch of information
> from the wiki for use in an early draft of The Ark II, but a whole lot
> had to be chucked out once I ran it past actual Japanese experts. I
> did go back and correct most of those mistakes, though.
Wait, what?
More info, please. I'm intrigued.
Onslaught Six
> It's funny you should mention me as a candidate, though, because
> there's actually been some brief discussion about me on the talk pages
> regarding my participation in such a project. Specifically, they said
> something about "an unfunny crew of autists and Zobovors--not that the
> two are mutually exclusive--moving in here and turning it into a
> fagstravaganza."
Damn, who said 'that?'
Is Autists a word? Firefox says it's not, but its spellcheck is kinda
crappy. (Ironically, "spellcheck" doesn't register as a word.)
Onslaught Six
> Good riddance.
I still dunno who you are, mysterious old poster who seems to have
nothing but utter hatred for the current state of things.
Gustavo Wombat
Pardon me, sir, but I couldn't help noticing that you're a useless
douchebag.
Gustavo!
牛魔王
want someone good to take over the site. Walky's minions have even
encouraged (dared?) others to make a second "unfunny" wiki and
predicted such a thing would "fail". So the opportunity is here, and
why not?
On Jul 23, 3:49 pm, Zobovor <zm...@aol.com> wrote:
> It's funny you should mention me as a candidate, though, because
> there's actually been some brief discussion about me on the talk pages
> regarding my participation in such a project. Specifically, they said
> something about "an unfunny crew of autists and Zobovors--not that the
> two are mutually exclusive--moving in here and turning it into a
> fagstravaganza."
I mentioned Zobovor because I seemed to recall Zobovor saying he was
offered to be made an admin at the Wikia when it was set up and that
he had regretted not taking it because of what Walky and the gang had
done to it. Maybe I was mis-remembering.
Jim also seems like he would be a good candidate for the job
considering those awesome Ark books he put together. Zob has his
detractors, but they really have no good reason to hate him and I
think they know that. "We hate Zob because he doesn't like the same
Transforming robots we like" while simultaneously saying "Transforming
robots aren't serious."
I'd ask to admin it myself, but I've probably pissed off too many in
the fandom due to the intense flamewars I actively participated in
during the '90s.
牛魔王
> Am I the only one hoping that they hand admin rights over to Kittie
> Rose when they leave? If they were to try for a scorched earth policy,
> might that not be more effective than simply deleting the content?
I think I've butted heads with whom I thought to be Kittie Rose on
Wikipedia before. There was this weird girl on there that would not
let anyone edit "her" articles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Angel_Emfrbl&oldid=131367498
Probably not her, but anyways, Kittie Rose would probably edit all the
articles the way she liked them and then lock them.
Rik Bakke
On Jul 23, 7:01 pm, "necrotron" <necrot...@biteme.spambot.com> wrote:
> > Since [people who find pop-culture references funny and/or useful]
> > is probably a small subset of [Poeople looking for information about
> > Transformers] considering the world-wide appeal of the Transformers
> > Brand, you can see how eliminating those references helps keep the
> > information you are presenting clear, consice, and clutter-free.
>
> See, if the references were occurring regularly and consistently throughout
> the written content, I would concur with you. But as it stands, they're mostly
> limited to image captions. Again, I can see how some people don't find these
> captions funny, but that still doesn't render the entry useless.
I don't see anyone contending that the entries are "useless," the complaint
appears to me to be more a matter of their not finding their form. I admit
I don't frequent the site often, but I have looked a few times and it occurs
to me that the snark, though not an issue with me (as I have the advantage
of knowing a fair bit about TRANSFORMERS in general), may not be as
obviously humourous to a person new to the franchise. A lot of it surely is,
but I think I, were I a novice, would be uncertain where the line between
fact and funny went, even if it's mainly (not exclusively) reserved for image
captions.
For whatever my opinion is worth, I don't see the need for it. For my taste,
it's too in-jocular and irrelevant (whether or not I think it amusing, which it
is off and on and only mildly when it's on). It feels a bit put-on, just for the
sake of it. Humour is fine if it serves to drive home factual points, but it will
ultimately be jarring for a lot of people wanting to know the facts (which, if
presented well, will not be boring, inasmuch as that is an argument for them
being "tempered" with ironic commentary to begin with).
Finally, let's be clear that the possession of a sense of humour is not the
issue, rather the time and the place for it. Again, it's not that the articles
become useless, just "additional seconds" less effective as "educational"
tools.
--
Rik Bakke
silverbolt at c2i dot net
THE CYBERTRON CHRONICLE
http://cybertronchronicle.com/
Trecathlus on deviantART
http://trecathlus.deviantart.com
SteveD
wrote:
Checking it...
The only ads I see on there are the 'Wikia Spotlight' ones, which seem to
link to other Wikis. I don't mind that so much. There is a pair of small
images on the front TF wiki page relating to promoting Firefox (with
Adblock, no less!), but that seems to be about it.
Trying a search - "Optimus Prime".
Same stuff - a couple of inter-wiki ads at the bottom of the page, one on
the sidebar. I could probably do without the 'Related Communities' frame
or the 'Hubs / Featured' text at the page bottom, but they're text and not
massively intrusive.
What other ads are people seeing?
-SteveD
FortMax
%95 percent of the wiki's hits). They don't show up at all for logged in
users (aka, the people who make 95% of the edits). This causes problems.
Also, Wikia is wanting to have all people who view the various wikis to
create accounts and stay logged in. They also are using the lack of ads
for logged in users as an incentive. They say they are going to keep it
that way. If you don't see a problem with that, you probably came up
with the plan in the first place.
SteveD
<fortress...@verizon.net> wrote:
>SteveD wrote:
>> The only ads I see on there are the 'Wikia Spotlight' ones, which seem to
>> link to other Wikis. I don't mind that so much. There is a pair of small
>> images on the front TF wiki page relating to promoting Firefox (with
>> Adblock, no less!), but that seems to be about it.
[...]
>> What other ads are people seeing?
>Currently, the ads only show up for people who are not logged in (aka,
>%95 percent of the wiki's hits). They don't show up at all for logged in
>users (aka, the people who make 95% of the edits).
The Spotlight ads? I'm not logged in - in fact, I've never had a wikia
account that I can recall.
I was mainly asking because I have a tweaked setup which tends to kill 99%
of all advertising on the Web before it hits my screen, so I was curious
as to what other people were experiencing.
-SteveD
griffin
news:1o9i84l9ovstajv6o...@4ax.com...
> The only ads I see on there are the 'Wikia Spotlight' ones, which seem to
> link to other Wikis. I don't mind that so much. There is a pair of small
> images on the front TF wiki page relating to promoting Firefox (with
> Adblock, no less!), but that seems to be about it.
>
> Trying a search - "Optimus Prime".
> Same stuff - a couple of inter-wiki ads at the bottom of the page, one on
> the sidebar. I could probably do without the 'Related Communities' frame
> or the 'Hubs / Featured' text at the page bottom, but they're text and not
> massively intrusive.
> What other ads are people seeing?
> -SteveD
Apparently the really intrusive adverts are only being seen by US viewers,
not people like us SteveD who are from another country. Floating adverts so
big that they even cover content and article links, indavertently preventing
users from being able to click on some in-article links.
-griffin.
---------------------------------------
Ozformers Administrator
http://www.otca.com.au/ - The Australian Transformers Fansite.
For news and interaction since 1996.
Fan forums - http://www.otca.com.au/boards/
My Transformers collection (2,279 figures & figurines)
http://www.otca.com.au/collection.html
Giant Burger Project - http://www.otca.com.au/burger.html
Travoltron
> Apparently the really intrusive adverts are only being seen by US viewers,
> not people like us SteveD who are from another country. Floating adverts so
> big that they even cover content and article links, inadvertently preventing
> users from being able to click on some in-article links.
Huh, that sounds like the crap that imdb.com tends to pull.
Ah, OK, when I use Internet Explorer I see:
"Transformers 2
See Transformers 2 Trailer & Pictures with Free Movie Toolbar
Movie.alottoolbars.com
Transformer Toys
Thousands of Different Hasbro & Takara Transformers Available
www.bigbadtoystore.com
Transformers 2
Looking for Transformers 2? Find exactly what you want today.
Yahoo.com
Ads by Google"
in the upper right. But nothing that pops-up or talks.
Travoltron
> ...the snark, though not an issue with me
> (as I have the advantage of knowing a fair bit about TRANSFORMERS in
> general), may not be as obviously humourous to a person new to the
> franchise.
I'm no novice, but even I don't get some it. Like:
http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Wally_Burr
What does the image and caption mean? Apparently it's some sort of
in-joke for people that attended that convention.
Thunder Magnificent!
> http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Wally_Burr
>
> What does the image and caption mean? Apparently it's some sort of
> in-joke for people that attended that convention.
I *was* there and it took me a moment to figure it out too. Basically,
Wally shed a tear or two when talking about his experience with Orson
Welles and what a class act he was when he worked with Orson...
t.k.
JimS
Not much more to say. I looked at things like name translations and
histories. Some of the Dinoforce and Trainbots, I remember, had name
translations that when I ran them past people like Fumihiko Akiyama
didn't pass muster. I fixed those. There were some other
inaccuracies, some I was comfortable enough to fix, some I don't feel
authoritative enough to fix.
On Jul 24, 1:09 pm, 牛魔王 <Gyum...@aol.com> wrote:
> Jim also seems like he would be a good candidate for the job
> considering those awesome Ark books he put together. Zob has his
> detractors, but they really have no good reason to hate him and I
> think they know that. "We hate Zob because he doesn't like the same
> Transforming robots we like" while simultaneously saying "Transforming
> robots aren't serious."
That's an idea.
JimS
Onslaught Six
> My post really wasn't meant to generate this old debate again. I just
> want someone good to take over the site. Walky's minions have even
> encouraged (dared?) others to make a second "unfunny" wiki and
> predicted such a thing would "fail". So the opportunity is here, and
> why not?
I read through the pages and spotted no such challenge.
> I'd ask to admin it myself, but I've probably pissed off too many in
> the fandom due to the intense flamewars I actively participated in
> during the '90s.
...Who are you? As far as I can tell, you're just Random Japanese
Characters Guy.
Onslaught Six
> Not much more to say. I looked at things like name translations and
> histories. Some of the Dinoforce and Trainbots, I remember, had name
> translations that when I ran them past people like Fumihiko Akiyama
> didn't pass muster. I fixed those. There were some other
> inaccuracies, some I was comfortable enough to fix, some I don't feel
> authoritative enough to fix.
Oh. I was expecting something more...exciting, I guess, or something.
"Hey! Turns out Ginrai really is Convoy." Or something.
Zobovor
> ...Who are you? As far as I can tell, you're just Random Japanese
> Characters Guy.
That's Gyumaoh, and he's been posting to ATT for a long time. (For
what it's worth, though, I don't have any recollection of him being a
particularly hostile flame war combatant, so whatever it is that he
said can't have been THAT bad.)
Zob
Gustavo Wombat
And the 90's were so 10 years ago, so I doubt anyone would care.
Really, who of us is the same person we were back then?
Gustavo!
Chad Rushing
>
> And the 90's were so 10 years ago, so I doubt anyone would care.
> Really, who of us is the same person we were back then?
Agreed. A person can change a lot in ten years.
- Chad
JimS
Just look at Megatron. 10 years ago he was a dragon voiced by David
Kaye. Now he's a helicopter voiced by Corey Burton who fights David
Kaye.
JimS
牛魔王
> On Jul 24, 4:09 pm, 牛魔王 <Gyum...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> > My post really wasn't meant to generate this old debate again. I just
> > want someone good to take over the site. Walky's minions have even
> > encouraged (dared?) others to make a second "unfunny" wiki and
> > predicted such a thing would "fail". So the opportunity is here, and
> > why not?
>
> I read through the pages and spotted no such challenge.
Not on the Wiki, it was right here on a.t.t. during Kittie Rose's
flamewar with some of the Wiki's defenders.
牛魔王
I think I said some pretty mean things to people in the heat of the
moment. I regret some of it, but to be honest, a lot of it I _don't_
regret. People back then were often very mean and condescending on
here.
牛魔王
It isn't going away, just moving elsewhere.
SteveD
More info at
<http://www.electric-escape.net/tf/conventions/BotCon-2005/Brian-Kilby?PHPSESSID=13d2bfac423fcd75d1bc002cb02fd71c>
The relevant bits:
"Later on we came back and found that the voice actor's panel was going
on. Not much happened except for, you know, Hooper_X made Wally Burr cry.
Those of you who do not know Hooper_X, I'll sum him up for you -- and I'll
even forgo the usual Hooper_X talking points. Hoop is loud and obnoxious,
in the best possible way. He gets his kicks via self-promotion and
faggery. I really love the guy. He's one of the reasons I wanted to go to
Botcon.
Hoop's question was innocent enough. He wanted Wally to talk about Orson
Welles, whom Wally directed during Transformers The Movie. Wally regaled
us with a touching story of Orson's session in the booth. Orson started
off as hard ass, as hard as a 400 pound man got anyway. Then he died.
Wally cried. Hoop earned even more cred. He unintentionally trolled Wally
Burr. Awesome."
-SteveD
牛魔王
Here's one of the threads where I believe it was said:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.toys.transformers/browse_thread/thread/9f57cea5d08f3985/
I don't want to read through it because it Kittie Rose threads give me
a headache.
Derik 'Inessi' Smith
> On Jul 23, 7:20 pm, JimS <jimsoren...@gmail.com> wrote:
><snip>
> B contains a great deal of irrelevant humor. TF Wiki mostly contains
> relevant humor and would be more like:
...3 references to a hypothetical TT1 article on Abraham Lincoln, and
not a single link to the actual article.
http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Abraham_lincoln
And we try not to throw in random "Yo moma" jokes that don't track
with the rest of the article text Jim. Your example is such a
strawman that I'm tempted to lacquer it and burn Nicolas Cage alive
inside.
-~~~~ (Derik)
Derik 'Inessi' Smith
> On Jul 23, 4:50 pm, Suspsy <susp...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> When I'm looking up something on the TF Wiki, it's because I'm
> mildly amused to know background information on the role of "Holy
> Frijoles!" in Armada, or what toys a certain character had, or what
> the personality of some toy I found in a box in my closet is.
Spreadying Misinformation! Carlos invokes the Frijoles for aid in
Energon, not Armada! Nyaaah!
Of course, that article did credit the wrong episode for the longest
time (finally fixed,) so one could argue it was preading
misinformation too.
The different of two editing philosophies here is that TT1's current
clutch of editors stop the article from spreading misinformation by
checking it, correcting it and citing it so that others can easily
cross-check our work. The opposing camp would stop this article from
spreading misinformation by deleting it.
-Derik
JimS
You either missed my point completely, don't know what a straw man
argument is, or both.
A straw man argument is a specific debating technique wherein one
misrepresents one's opponents position to make it appear weaker than
it actually is, and then refutes the weaker argument. I never said
the wiki was this bad. Actually, my exact words were "I'm not saying
the wiki is that bad, I'm just illustrating my point about signal to
noise." I also called the example 'extreme.' Since I went out of my
way to point out that this was NOT what the wiki was doing, it's not a
straw man. Hell, I wasn't even arguing against Suspy or Gustavo. I
was illustrating my own state of mind.
My technique was actually much closer to a Jesuit technique, sometimes
called 'argument by inches,' which is to start with a numeric point
and then slowly move the numbers. Perhaps the most famous example of
this technique was employed by Lot when arguing with God (yes, THAT
God) to spare the people of Sodom. Note that I did not exactly use
this technique because I did not move the line. (We can all agree
that a joke to content ratio of 1 to 1 is bad. Would not .95 to 1
also be bad? How about .9 to 1? Etc.)
My point was that, to me, humor is noise in this context. It takes
extra time to read. In most cases the jokes aren't even funny. My
fundamental premise is that I come to encyclopedias primarily for
facts, and humor gets in the way of those facts simply by taking up
space on the page. I illustrated that with an extreme example.
I honestly don't even get why you'd want to argue with me on this
point. I've accepted that some people like their facts mixed with
humor, graciously and consistently. Why is it so difficult for others
to concede that some people don't like their facts mixed with humor?
JimS
JimS
> You either missed my point completely, don't know what a straw man
> argument is, or both.
Woah - on rereading that, that sounds a lot harsher than I intended.
No offense intended there.
JimS
Gustavo Wombat
>
> > On Jul 23, 7:20 pm, JimS <jimsoren...@gmail.com> wrote:
> ><snip>
> > B contains a great deal of irrelevant humor. TF Wiki mostly contains
> > relevant humor and would be more like:
>
> ...3 references to a hypothetical TT1 article on Abraham Lincoln, and
> not a single link to the actual article.
>
> http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Abraham_lincoln
Is it ever mentioned that he was the 16th President of the United
States within Transformers fictions?
Gustavo!
JimS
> On Aug 2, 10:56 pm, "Derik 'Inessi' Smith" <ReGenes...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> > On Jul 24, 1:07 am, Gustavo Wombat <GustavoWom...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > > On Jul 23, 7:20 pm, JimS <jimsoren...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > ><snip>
> > > B contains a great deal of irrelevant humor. TF Wiki mostly contains
> > > relevant humor and would be more like:
>
> > ...3 references to a hypothetical TT1 article on Abraham Lincoln, and
> > not a single link to the actual article.
>
> >http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Abraham_lincoln
Oddly enough I have the TF animation model for the Lincoln Memorial
(along with the White House, Capitol Building and the Washington
Monument.
JimS
Zobovor
> Oddly enough I have the TF animation model for the Lincoln Memorial
> (along with the White House, Capitol Building and the Washington
> Monument.
I sure hope you'll be stuffing them into The Ark: Volume 3, then. (I
just bought Volume 2, incidentally. Very nice. I'm so glad to see
you took my suggestion to add some text blurbs about the Japanese
characters. Made the book much more information and interesting to
me.)
Zob
JimS
I'm glad you found II informative and interesting, Zob.
To get enough material to do an Ark III I'd need to get the models
from 1989 and 1990, and so far I haven't had much luck with that. I
have a plethora of strange models from the cartoon but I'm not quite
sure that they need to be out in book form. The model for the Lincoln
Memorial is ultimately just a Floro Dery drawing of the Lincoln
Memorial and not really an integral part of the mythos.
I tried to pitch the idea of doing a page of models in each issue of
the fan club magazine but that didn't seem to go anywhere. I'm
keeping my eyes open for the right venue for this sort of material
though. Any ideas?
JimS
Derik 'Inessi' Smith
> On Aug 2, 10:56 pm, "Derik 'Inessi' Smith" <ReGenes...@aol.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > And we try not to throw in random "Yo moma" jokes that don't track
> > with the rest of the article text Jim. Your example is such a
> > strawman that I'm tempted to lacquer it and burn Nicolas Cage alive
> > inside.
>
> argument is, or both.
*re-reads the posts in question*
It's the former I'm afraid-- I misread your opening and thought you
were presenting your preferred format (dryly factual, in line with
your desire to minimize seek time while searching for information,) in
contract with the format we used (gibbering monkey-touch-penis humor
spooged across the article to the point that it annihilates the
information being delivered.) You were instead presenting a much more
extreme case to try to establish an outer boundary- "At some point
humor interferes unacceptably," from which to work inward and have a
discussion about where, exactly, that point lies. (And whether the
Wiki is on the right side of it.)
Totally my fault. I read the entire thread and then went back to
reply to the most memorable part of it without re-reading. :(
On Aug 3, 3:42 am, JimS <jimsoren...@gmail.com> added as an
afterthought:
> Woah - on rereading that, that sounds a lot harsher than I intended.
> No offense intended there.
Nor I really. Operating from my understanding your argument /would/
have been a bafflingly blatant strawman- which is why I focused in on
it- it was by far the weakest argument you made in this thread.
Except- 'doh... I goofed and it wasn't.
*sigh*
They can't all be perfect error-free days. (Perhaps I should click
'edit' and remove my mistaken assertion? Please update your memories
to mirror these changes.)
Cherrypicking one of the best springboard to respond to
On Jul 24, 1:33 am, Gustavo Wombat <GustavoWom...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I would say that the formal writing tone is a cue for the reader to
> treat information as authoritative. For a publicly editable wiki,
> which is likely to be subject to vandalism, mischief, editorial
> incompetence, and the propagation of commonly held misinformation, the
> formal tone is inappropriate.
The paraphrase Joe Rovang (a great guy who for years maintained
website tracking in minute detail of over 350 episodes of Power
Rangers,) "That's it. I'm deleting my guide and just uploading videos
of all the episodes in its place. You want info? It's all in there
somewhere."
We compare ourselves to Wikipedia a lot. I love Wikipedia, I respect
Wikipedia-- I've /contributed/ to Wikipedia (and it's WEIRD the level
of respect reporters give you when you contact them asking for
clarifications and sources on an article you wrote because- "I'm
tracking the subject for Wikipedia." Apparently no one but
Wikipedians ever contact them to *discuss* the factual discovery
process of their articles. Well, cranks do, but they don't
count.) ...but I don't /like/ how they handle Transformers.
A lot of Wikipedia's TF articles are tech-specs that have been pasted
in plus a picture. Maybe a note about stories they've appeared in.
This happens for 2 reasons;
1) Expediency! There's a couple thousand character to cover, and this
at least ensures they get some minimal treatment. (Nothing wrong with
that philosophy!)
2) Re-presenting existing official content is ALWAYS "correct." If
two people get into an argument over G1 Soundwave's article-- one
pouring slavish detail into the many little ways in which the cartoon
painted him as Megatron's loyal retainer- and another saying,
essentially- "You're making stuff up. Soundwave was no more specially
loyal than Thrust!" the simplest way to resolve the conflict is to
strip the article down to "NOTHING you can't say objectively." And so
the tech-spec is presented as the authoritative biography of
Soundwave. He is a despised telepath who blackmails everyone around
him and plots to replace Megatron-- a character bio practically
SIDEWAYS of the actual character in every fictional appearance he's
ever made except for a single 5 page black-and-white comic strip
published in the UK in 1990.
Or, you get the Soundwave article as it exists now. (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundwave_(Transformers) )
The opening bio, the "capsule" view of Soundwave says THESE are the
most important thing about the character;
1) He's that guy you remember with the awesome voice who turns into a
cassette recorder.
2) Here's a list of all those awesome tech-spec abilities he never
uses in fiction, ever. That's super-duper important!
3) Like-- I /know/ that the cartoon never really showed it-- but he
and his cassettes were TOTALLY a family, and he gave Ravage cuddles
just like I give my cat! Oh, and those times he WASN'T the loving
father I never had-- it's because Ratbat wasn't a cassette yet- or
because he was serving him loyally JUST LIKE HE WAS MEGATRONS LOYAL
RETAINER!
4) (Moving over to the info box,) "Cries and screams are music to my
ears." A quote that is SO representative of his character. (Didn't
it once win a Trannie for worst quote or something?)
Soo... basically the above is the "Abilities," section of a bio entry
(easy to objectively agree upon!) Including the superpowers he never
used are more important than talking about his personality. But we DO
get a nice mini-essay that's entirely about his cassettes and not
Soundwave- and the worst quote ever.
Oh, I forgot, the girl whose daddy raped her DID manage to sneak in an
actual PERSONALITY ATTRIBUTE- Soundwave was loyal to Megatron!
(Clever, she HID it by making it a modifying clause to a grudging
admonition that Ratbat doesn't always fit her worldview.) Now- *I*
think that Soundwave's loyalty to Megatron-- despite a frustrating
lack of concrete exemplars in the cartoon-- is a valid and CORRECT
read of their relationship that SHOULD be highlighted, so I'm counting
that as a plus!
Awesome! Wikipedia's main bio of Soundwave managed to say ONE
substantive and representative thing about the character! Sure, it's
a half-sentence modifying clause that doesn't apply to all
continuities-- that was only added due to the persistence of Cat-rape
girl... but they managed to get SOMETHING in there!
(Assuming you find that read on the character valid. Otherwise it's a
complete wash.)
Seriously? You can SEE the edits- and the screaming contests- that
went into the 3rd paragraph. It is palpably obvious that it came down
what Jim calls 'an argument by inches,' with one party demanding that
they establish 'the line,' the part of her viewpoint that opposing
editors would grant had objective validity. (Namely: "Soundwave
scratched Ravage's ears once, in one episode.") She then used this as
the cornerstone to build a cantilever OVER the agreed-upon line and
reassert her entire argument. "I haven't crossed the line, I
haven't! I'm just swinging my arms out OVER the other side of the
line, haven't touched the ground! Can't stop me!"
And this is the BEST PART of the main bio in terms of signal-to-noise.
(I feel bad kinda bad pointing out that the editor in question is a
girl who was raped... but it's totally true, even it it isn't.)
Soo (deep breath,) coming back around in a WIDE CIRCLE to the two
REASONS many Wikipedia TF articles either re-present or heavily fall
back on tech-specs... (Expediency and objective reality,) I have two
problems with those two reasons!
1) Expediency! If the full content of an article is a tech-spec whose
text is copyright of Hasbro, and an image of the character ALSO owned
by Hasbro... you haven't written an article. That is not writing.
Either due to laziness or acrimony, this article has been reduced to
'Content 100% generated by Hasbro.' Encyclopedia article should be
exemplars of- as Necrotron pointed out- "brevity and clarity."
Instead of the 6000+ pages that can be written on quantum physics,
Britanica gives us a 4 page overview! Tech-spec + picture is not an
overview-- it's an excerpt- with no guarantee at all that it's a
REPRESENTATIVE overview. Oh, and also- (and this is what bugs me,)
it's incredibly illegal. Even the most aggressive application of Fair
Use covers a ratio of no more than 30/70 derived-to-new content -- and
that's reserved for stuff like "literary criticism of comic books that
requiring sequences of multiple pages to illustrate the story under
discussion." (Neither Wikia nor TT1 fall under that by the way, we
have to be MORE than 70% non-Hasbro content to stay legal.)
But hey- no one actually cares about legality, right? Copyright it
hard and confusing, it should not exist and GET OUT OF MY FACE MAN!
(I'm just saying- it's a legitimate concern. Aside from our own
ability to get sued... Abusing fair use actually does harm to Hasbro's
ability to claim copyright on their characters.)
2) Objective Reality! Text short enough to quoted verbatim is hard
and concrete and undeniably correct! ...except when it's wildly
inaccurate to any media portrayal. But even THEN it's held up as
correct because it's *something* all parties can agree isn't
"incorrect," I mean- it CAN'T be incorrect, it's official! And the
tech-specs are the primal well of character from which all else
flows! When people bicker about interpretation- you can always fall
back on THIS and say- "Alright, THIS is truth!"
It's the lowest common denominator.
Wikis are supposed to operate on CONSENSUS. Like a logical proof (not
one of Descarte's, he was a tool,) building up a house-- a picture of
reality with a strong foundation, straight walls of supporting
circumstance, joists where things seem to come together and make
SENSE- all rising to a POINT. Oh! And windows that illuminate the
interior you have built, allowing others to peer inside- discovering
ever-greater detail that is not just an accumulation of piled fact...
but which is placed and presented WITHIN the structure so that it
makes sense and reveals a larger, more complete picture the deeper you
delve.
(At least, that's the ideal.)
But this tech-spec bullshit? *waves hand* That's the OPPOSITE of
consensus. That's razing the entire house to the foundations because
no one can agree what kind of house to build. "Fine! They can look
at the bare foundation! It may not be anything we agree is CORRECT,
but at least it's not actually INCORRECT, or if it is no one can blame
us for it."
Actually... I /can/ blame them. I want a higher fucking common
denominator than. "Cries and screams are music to my ears." That
bullshit--? It's a product of people being too emotionally immature
to agree that the sky is blue, grass is green, and that differing
viewpoints on the same character might be simultaneously valid. "No!
If I can't have it my way, than no house shall be built here AT ALL!"
And they all chain themselves to the foundation to prevent any
consensus-- no matter how humble-- from being built there.
Teletraan 1 has a pretty basic policy. In fact- it's the same policy
that those reporters I talked to did. (See, it's all coming round in
a circle!) That policy is, "The opinion of cranks don't count."
Cranks don't want to explore or build- they want to tear down.
Cranks e-mail reporters NOT interested in who they talked to and where
this or that happend-- but to tell them they're WRONG because they
know better than *anyone.*
Cranks throw screaming fits until the people who disagree with them
either give way because it's easier than arguing with a broken record-
or they give up trying to build consensus at all- ratify the lowest
common denominator (illuminating nothing) and declare it "done."
Because THEY'RE done with it- they have no intention of interacting
with that person again, even if it means ceding this article to
mediocrity.
(And this is the cruel part, not what came before. Brace yourselves.)
If you are incapable of functioning within the group, you are a crank
That means if someone to Teletraan 1 telling people how things are
going to be (or more charitably "really ought to be") from now on--
and when they're told "No," repeats or rephrases their previous
statement again and again in increasing volume, they are a *crank.*
It sucks to be told no, especially if you think you're right. Here's
the real kicker-- you can have A VALID VIEWPOINT WORTHY OF
CONSIDERATION... and still be a crank! Whut?
See- a normal person, when told "No, we already had this discussion
before you got here," doesn't demand that the matter be re-opened for
debate just because he or she is here now. They sulk, and maybe
they're petulant, but when one of the people they're arguing with
kindly suggests (well, or they receive an impersonal form-letter
suggesting it-- those were MY idea!) that they should try
*contributing* for awhile and then re-broach the subject after having
demonstrated their ability and interest in working /with/ the
community instead of dictating /to/ it... the normal person either
DOES that, or decides this isn't worth their time and goes away.
The crank will either ignore the suggestion and repeat their original
argument- or go somewhere else on the site and pick a DIFFERENT
fight. Cuz', see each NEW argument is like a fresh start! Sooner or
later they MUST win one, right? And if they make it about HIM/HER--
why that just proves that they're an elitist cabal who's only paying
attention to the person making the argument and refusing to debate on
the argument itself! "Ah ha, I was right! I think I shall call them
out on this!"
Again, and again, and again- until banned. And then often- after
banned! (Now with demands that the admin who banned them be banned,
or vandalizing pages to 'make a point.')
If you got banned, you are a crank. Not probably-- are. A.R.E. No
ambiguity allowed.
The process could not be more simple. Here, I made a flowchart!
http://emopanda.com/tmp/tt1_cranks.pdf
ANYONE that tell you they were banned for Teletraan 1, or excluded, or
not allowed to contribute... falls on that chart. "They wouldn't let
me make edits! They kept putting them back!"
Really? Did you ask why? Or did you just re-make them more
emphatically? Did you try to learn the community standards that would
make your edits more acceptable? Did you discuss policy, or dictate
terms?
On the ENTIRE wiki, you couldn't find a SINGLE edit that anyone would
LET you do? 'Cuz I I've got a few hundred episode and comic pages I
could point you at! See that "featured characters" box? Go watch the
episode on YouTube and make a list of all the characters and the order
in which they appear. It's boring- soul-crushing work that needs to
be done-- and no one wants to do it. I GUARANTEE that edit will be
accepted!
Wait- you don't want to do that? Oh, so what you're really saying
isn't that no one will *let* you participate- it's that no one will
let you participate *the way you want to.* Which- if your edits are
constantly reverted either means they're factually incorrect,
incoherent, absolutely trivial ("Tracks has been shown to have FM
radio,") or (and more likely,) all the edits you want to make are
pushing an agenda or point of view no one else thinks is valid- or are
in violation of a site policy you think is stupid because the
consensus on it was achieved before you arrived. (i.e. "No info from
stolen toys.")
(Yeah, I know, my rhetorical speeches to rhetorically fictional
persons representing a point of view that makes me right are
tiresome. But this is a *real* thing. I see this exact chain on
circumstances play out at least once a week.)
When someone says "We are unwilling," they really mean that THEY
THEMSELVES are unwilling (or possibly unable.) Our first response is
ALWAYS "you should try making less ambitious edits to get the feel for
it, and to allow other users to see you as a productive partner." If
someone is unwilling to do THAT... and instead demands they be treated
as a full and productive community member DESPITE their demonstrated
unwillingness to "produce" in order to achieve that status.. I mean--
AARUGH! God-DAMNIT! Fuck them!
It is SO EASY! "Look, stop being a pain in the ass for a bit. Go do
some maintenance, write a summary. Contribute, just a little!" And
the person ALWAYS goes over and picks a fight with the popcorn seller,
or refuses to budge until we agree that the opinions of one person who
has made no contributions outweigh the opinions of many who written
over 6000 articles. And then they get pissed when we call security
and have them escorted out of the building. (I don't know when this
metaphor became a movie theater, it just did.) And next thing- they
hop on the internet in the nearest public forum and shriek-
"Faccists! Cliques! Power-mad assholes who have wronged me in the
many ways I will now list and YOU SHOULD AGREE WITH ME SO THAT I MAY
BE VALIDATED." (Followed, presumably, by us admitting we were wrong
to not treat a person who becomes hysterical and calls for blood in
response to a ONE WEEK ban like the precious JesusBaby-Snowflake that
they are- and then making them an admin by way of apology.)
Here's the recap, in case the 3 circles of this post were too wide to
get a sense of the overall structure.
1) In the end, the only authoritative information is the show, comics,
books etc... themselves. So why are we even bothering to write them
up at all?
2) Together, we can form a gestalt understanding of the material that
is *greater* than any one source or sources viewed as disconnected
islands. But for such a greater understanding to be /valid/ it must
be achieved through discussion and consensus... because without others
to check our logic against, we're just lone nuts espousing their
elaborate theories about how the Dreamwave G1 comics were set in the
same continuity as a 1990 Nicolas Cage film.
3) Wikipedia allows emotionally damaged autists (thanks Hoop!) to
throw fits that prevent ANYONE from forming a consensus presentation
of fact they disagree with- and is willign to settle for the lowest
common denominator instead- a structureless presentation of unranked
facts. That is not a "consensus," OR a lack of consensus- that it one
or two people deciding that the group is not allowed to *have* a
consensus they don't share (and being unwilling to budge on their
views, so there!) The result is often ANTI-INFORMATIVE. "Cries and
screams are music to my ears." We are told this is somehow LAUDABLE,
because the article has been reduced to pure fact-- and isn't that the
goal?
May I reiterate: "Cries and screams are music to my ears."
Congratulations-- you now know LESS about Soundwave than before you
began reading this article.
Finally (putting a bow on it) I explained why I pretty much don't buy
ANYONE'S high-pitched screeds about how they were unfairly forced out
of participating in Teletraan 1, because they all boil down to #3- "I
had never contributed before, but when I told them to do it *my* way
or I'd stand in the lobby and cause a scene-- they BANNED me from the
premises! Those bastards!"
Guess what? I got banned for a week. You know what I did? I WAITED
A WEEK.
* I've never been to #wiggi.
* I've never met Hoop.
* I've never been in a threesome with Walky.
* I'm the 10th most productive editor on Teletraan 1.
I reject all arguments of cliques, elitism, exclusion, cabals or vast
right-wing conspiracies because y'know what? Walky thinks I'm a
douchebag!
But I still get to play.
-Derik
DISCLAIMER: The above views are held by Derik Smith and do not
necessarily represent those held by "Teletraan 1: The Transformers
Wiki", it's not like he writes their policies. Wait, okay, actually
he HAS written most of their policy pages.... but those are subject to
consensus review, and this post has not been, so best to assume it
doesn't represent Teletraan 1's general opinion.
Of course the /REASON. Derik wrote all those policy pages is that he's
quite good at squeezing down large, amorphous bodies of thought into
clear, linear expressions of the reasoning behind them... so really,
if ANYONE would know...
Derik 'Inessi' Smith
No, but I believe that having ample evidence that POTUS is an
inherited position in other fictions we simply decided not to be
obtuse about his place in the order..
Actually, it might be worth pegging numbers to the other, unnamed
presidents. It'd sure make it easier to refer to them! Well- except
for Dreamwave's and Cybertron's.
-Derik
Not_Available321
> I reject all arguments of cliques, elitism, exclusion, cabals or vast
> right-wing conspiracies because y'know what? Walky thinks I'm a
> douchebag!
> But I still get to play.
So TFWiki is admittedly run by "douchebags" then? Cool.
Trolly McBeam
Derik 'Inessi' Smith
wrote:
Any suggestion I be made one of the new admins was roundly shouted
down. :~(
-Derik
Not_Available321
> Any suggestion I be made one of the new admins was roundly shouted
> down. :~(
Why?
Trolly McBeam
Derik 'Inessi' Smith
> extra time to read. In most cases the jokes aren't even funny. My
> fundamental premise is that I come to encyclopedias primarily for
> facts, and humor gets in the way of those facts simply by taking up
> space on the page. I illustrated that with an extreme example.
Ah, now see- that relates to a philosophical question about the nature
or purpose of such an archive. You want it to serve as a quickly-
scanable objective reference source.
I really don't think that's what TT1 is supposed to-- or want to-- be.
That said- as far as "humor is noise," let's compare TT1's main
Soundwave bio to the dryly factual Wikipedia one from last time. (You
know, the one that left you LESS well-informed about the character
after reading it than you were before?)
http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Soundwave_(G1)
1) Whut? We open with him being loyal to Megatron! Then- OMGWTF--
it's like a snapback turnaround into his other personality-- but like
somehow NOT inconsistent with his cartoon portrayal, almost like
someone spent considerable time marrying and RESOLVING the two into a
complimentary whole! Rank, seniority! Peers! Ambition- blackmail--
and back again to how tight he is with with Megatron!
2) His tapes- linked to a separate article instead of taking over his
bio! An accurate picture of his relationship with them- but one that
strangely doesn't DENY there's a social aspect!
3) Personality, speech pattern. Wry but accurate assessment!
4) (representative quote.) Omg, it's NOT HIS TECH-SPEC QUOTE! It's
something that he actually says a lot, and a callback to the bio's
earlier comments about his relationship with Megatron- and his stilted
speech pattern! (Bonus picture caption.) Another quote! This one's
not real- but da~yum, somehow it illustrates his stilted speech
pattern EVEN BETTER! And look, the picture ties to the text- it shows
him in a REAL social situation with his cassettes- Something that
actually HAPPENED in an episode and lasted more than 1 second!
GOOOOOAAAALLLL!
I mean yeah- there's snark- here- but FOR PURPOSE! Where Wikipedia
goes all gausy-filtered about how Soundwave is a loving daddy, this
blows all the fairy dust fight off that scenario and presents it as it
really /is/. "Soundwave seems to have 'em all in his chest unless
they're actually WORKING or on a mission- and it's a pretty rare
occasion when he lets them out to have fun." Which is... true. You
don't SEE the cassettes just wandering around headquarters like the
other Season 1 'cons.
My god- it's like- like- emotional texture that actually /adds/
context as you read, presenting a fuller, deeper picture! When you're
done reading it you don't just know the things the text is telling you
as individual facts, you have an idea of how they are weighted!
There's embedded hierarchy of information that paints him first in
broad strokes then heads back for ever finer passes. We START on his
loyal service to Megatron (his only real distinguishing personality
characteristic,) instead of sneaking it in at the end! That mind-
reading thing he never does is quietly minimized- but at the same time
acknowledged!
*mwah!* Bravo! Magnifico! Superlatively awesome! I mean just--
WOW!
I mean... I guess *I* think so. Maybe you PREFER the Wikipedia one.
I- I guess that a giant paragraph describing the super-telepathy that
he never uses and what kind of gun he wields /is/ inherently more
FACTUAL. I mean- ANYTHING you say about personality or character is
INHERENTLY subjective.
Tell you what, do you think we should edit our Optimus Prime article
to be more like Wikipedia's Soundwave one?
"Optimus Prime is the most famous Autobot leader.
"He canvseperate into three components. A humanoid 'Prime' robot, a
combat deck and a remote-control reconnaissance drone. He wields a
laser rifle and sometimes borrows Sideswipe's jet pack. His combat
deck can maintain communications over 800 miles- further if he can
bounce a signal off a satelite! Optimus Prime is equipped with
advanced sensors. Also, he has an energon axe in his arm that he
totally uses all the time in a manner that is in no way inflated by
our awesome memories of it. He has a radio communicator in his chin,
and an awesome pop-up video one in his wrist! Also, you can store his
fists in his chest! Sometimes he uyses a different "disguise" trailer
which he uses to haul Pepsi around, or a giant iPod! His normal
trailer contains a repair system, which can also launch cars like
Sunstreaker very fast!
"Optimus Prime shows great concern for his little Roller, even while
he sends him into tight, dangerous places-- almost like a British
chimney sweep sending his six year old son up the narrowest of
passages! Yes, Optimus Prime's love for his cockney son Roller is
evident all over the cartoon, and while more muted in the comics, this
is because Roller is clearly ADOPTED in the comics. Sometimes, when
Roller is not around, he is also like a father to Spike and Bumblebee
"Freedom is the right of all Sentient Beings!"
How you feeling about that? Informed and enlightened? Maybe a bit...
amused?
On Jul 23, 6:01 pm, "necrotron" <necrot...@biteme.spambot.com> wrote:
>On Jul 23, 5:01 pm, Suspsy <susp...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I can understand, though not agree with someone who thinks that the
> references on Springer's page to The Honeymooners, Star Wars, and
> A Christmas Carol aren't witty or amusing. I can neither understand
> nor agree with anyone who claims that those same references render
> the page useless for anyone wanting to learn about Springer.
>
> I think I can field this one. When you're dealing with information of a
> factual nature, it helps to be clear and succinct. Consider your audience
> [People looking for information about Transformers] and dictate the content
> accordingly.
> <snip>
>I keep thinking that for
> people with limited ability to parse the English language (Ie: most
> Transfans,) I would err on the side of brevity and clarity.
Wikipedia's Transformers project applies that very standard.
Particularly the brevity one- they delete content deemed 'too obscure
to be important.' After all- concentrating on such obscure details
prevents you from getting to the heart of the matter in a brief and
clear manner.
Someone (possibly McFeely, but I'm thinking Zobovor,) once bitched
about contributing to Wikipedia- they wrote a long and completely
comprehensive article on every appearance by a character in the
cartoon-- and had it completely or mostly deleted as "unnecessary
level of detail."
TT1, on the other hand, exists to wallow in the obscure, the strange
nooks and crannies of continuity. We devote considerable space to the
appearing-in-1-story G1 universe where Hot Rod is SECRETLY Rodimus
Prime, sneaking off to change "By the Power of the Matrix!" whenever
there's trouble. This isn't central to Rodimus's character- the space
devoted to this story /far/ exceeds its actual prominence in
Transformers- but it is INCREDIBLY AWESOME, and one of the most
delight-filled hand-clappingly squee-dorable bits of obscuria in
Transformers lore.
This is what I propose is the central misunderstanding at hand here- I
don't think Teletraan 1 is- or WANTS TO BE- encyclopedic.
Encyclopedias tell you all about quantum theory in 4 pages-- a subject
that can fill multi-volume books. Fundamentally- Encyclopedias are
supposed to be ''starting points'' for a search for information- (and
maybe the end point for 80% of searches, if the question was simple.)
Wikipedia is a starting point (and a reasonably good one) for learning
about Transformers.
Teletraan 1 is an ENDING POINT for a search for information. We ARE
the 6000+ page multi-volume tome on quantum theory- only ONE
generation removed from reading and viewing all the source material
itself. BETTER- we try to cross-connect things that aren't in the
source material, documenting (and where possible citing and nailing
down,) things that didn't make it into episodes, oddities and
implications not apparent, or just stuff that's COOL.
You don't quickly scan a 6000 page tome- not even a single section of
a single chapter. You sit down and read it. Formatting that volume
and depth of information to be 'quickly scanable,' would essentially
DEMAND that a lot of it be DELETED. "Including this depth of
information gets in the way of readers finding information they are
more likely to be looking for."
It's not just a destination in its won right for the reader- it's a
destination for ourselves as editors. BEFORE I started contributing
on the Wiki, I had read or seen piece of every English-language
Transformers material- (episodes, comics, pack-ins, multipath
adventures, UK-only hardcovers, coloring books,) at least three times-
and had seen every episode of JTF (including the untranslated ones) at
least twice, as well as poured over the Manga compilations (despite my
inability to read Japanese.)
I still learn new and DELIGHTFUL things about Transformers every
single damn day on that site. Either because the other editors are
just as deep as I am in other fields- or just because having multiple
perspectives with that complete a frame of reference fosters a
parallax discovery that's STILL kicking up new stuff about Generation
1 episodes!
I mean- that's fucking awesome.
I sat down to re-write Shattered Glass Ruckus's profile yesterday. It
took two hours. HE'S IN 3 PANNELS. But to do it I have to
comparatively parse the comic, triangulate where he stood in relation
to the timeline-- then compare his personality and status-quo to
several other Transformers to see if there was enough to make a
meaningful statement about what he was supposed to be like in this
timeline- then compare that sketch to several other G1 TF's (Is
Bizarro-Ruckus acting like any of these possible counterparts?) before
being able to conclusively say that not only is he a logical inversion
of himself- he's a logical inversion of his Marvel profile in
specific, not his DW one or tech-spec. THEN I got to go back and
start comparing cardart, character models and toys because Don
redesigned Ruckus's shoulder canons and I thought there was a REASON
to it-- but I needed to confirm he wasn't swapping them for someone
else's cannons-- or even a specific interpretation of someone
else's...
(Oh, huh, I actually forgot to add that bit to the article. Must do.)
The end result of that is several hundred words that sketch out an
actual character /supported/ by the canon complete with a history and
a bit of PERSONALITY that I can securely say are NOT made up instead
of the previous 3-sentence article- "Ruckus is a heroic Decepticon.
We don't know much about him but he's probably nice. Rodimus killed
him."
The whole "Humor bad, tree pretty" argument is USUALLY cited hand-in-
hand with an implied lack of rigor, using the humor as proof that the
people involved don't take things seriously because they're making
fart jokes. (I made one of those yesterday too! I disambig'd
Windbreaker and Tutor-bot.)
In June, three of us UTTERLY INDEPENDENTLY OF ONE ANOTHER started
watching the Energon Cartoon (which is the worst TF series ever, by
far, just brain-meltingly unwatchable.) And all 3 of us found it so
unclear that we had to start TAKING NOTES as we did so to try to
figure out the plot. We discovered this only when we started working
on a couple articles more-or-less at the same time and one of us said-
"I'll have to check my notes when I get home," and we realized we were
all doing it. I HAVE 221 PAGES OF RAW, DENSE UNSPELLCHECKED NOTES ON
THE ENERGON CARTOON, AND I CAN SAY WITH *AUTHORITY,* IT IS THE WORST
THING EVER PRODUCED.
"Lack of rigor" is finding a 1-sentence description of an obscure
character sufficient, and not bothering to actually read the story and
try to figure out if there's anything /to/ him. "Hell. He was in 3
panels an' then died. It's good enough. Can't we just put up a tech-
spec or something?"
People bitch and bitch and bitch about the cabal who thinks they get
to set the tone because of boo-hoo... you know what? WE EARN THAT
RIGHT. And there's a reason TT1 wins the Botcon trivia contest hands
down.
> I honestly don't even get why you'd want to argue with me on this
> point. I've accepted that some people like their facts mixed with
> humor, graciously and consistently. Why is it so difficult for others
> to concede that some people don't like their facts mixed with humor?
*221 PAGES OF RAW NOTES* *1.5 GIGABYTES OF SCREEN CAPTURES*
Let me make it clearer- your choice is not between that level of rigor
with or without humor-- your choice is that level of rigor with humor-
or "He was probably nice and Rodimus killed him."
Because Energon is BRAIN-MELTINGLY BAD, and if I couldn't harangue it
for that shockingly- monumentally- surprising and STAGGERINGLY
SPENDTHRIFT incompetence (seriously, it is the the single worst
cartoon I've ever seen. Not worst Transformers-- worst cartoon. I
cannot believe it SAW AIR.) ... if I couldn't do that... then I
wouldn't be doing THIS.
So I'll see your "Why is it so difficult for others to concede that
some people don't like their facts mixed with humor?", and I raise you
"Why is it so difficult for some people to concede that others
undertaking a thankless, joyless task should not be additionally
burdened with the requirement that their OUTPUT be dryly factual-
removing the LAST DREGS OF JOY AND SUNSHINE from what had previously
been a masochistic pleasure... and simply rendering it masochistic?"
So what do you really want? A dryly factual wiki with far less
information because the ones who do the work can't summon the
enthusiasm to do it? Or a rich deep and varied source of information
where you have to take a bit of extra time to parse out the silly
captions?
(Well, I suppose there's choice 3- doing it yourself.)
Choose wisely! (Remember, the Gods punish us by granting that which
we most desire!)
-Derik
I think this is 2 of 3. 3 will probably be less churlish- but then, 2
was supposed to be as well.
Gustavo Wombat
> Because Energon is BRAIN-MELTINGLY BAD, and if I couldn't harangue it
> for that shockingly- monumentally- surprising and STAGGERINGLY
> SPENDTHRIFT incompetence (seriously, it is the the single worst
> cartoon I've ever seen. Not worst Transformers-- worst cartoon. I
> cannot believe it SAW AIR.) ... if I couldn't do that... then I
> wouldn't be doing THIS.
Complete aside, but I really wish they would put this terrible series
out on DVD. Not because I really want to watch it again, but because
it would fill that unsightly gap between Armada and Cybertron with
unsightly content.
I'd rather get RID, but I know there are issues with ownership of
dubbing or some such. There's no excuse for not putting out Energon
though, except for the terrible quality of the show.
Also, the Boba Fett introduction cartoon from the Star Wars Holiday
Special was more awful per minute than Energon. Energon only wins in
total awfulness because of it's length. (Actually, I liked the
beginning of Energon, but it just got so very, very bad)
Gustavo!
Travoltron
> Actually, it might be worth pegging numbers to the other, unnamed
> presidents. It'd sure make it easier to refer to them! Well- except
> for Dreamwave's and Cybertron's.
I think Reagan needs his own entry. Not only did he appear in the UK
comic, but his deregulation allowed toy-based cartoons like Transformers
to exist.
Thylacine 2000
> I don't /like/ how [Wikipedia handles] Transformers.
> A lot of Wikipedia's TF articles are tech-specs that have been pasted
> in plus a picture. Maybe a note about stories they've appeared in.
> This happens for 2 reasons;
> 1) Expediency! There's a couple thousand character to cover, and this
> at least ensures they get some minimal treatment. (Nothing wrong with
> that philosophy!)
> 2) Re-presenting existing official content is ALWAYS "correct." If
> two people get into an argument over G1 Soundwave's article-- one
> pouring slavish detail into the many little ways in which the cartoon
> painted him as Megatron's loyal retainer- and another saying,
> essentially- "You're making stuff up. Soundwave was no more specially
> loyal than Thrust!" the simplest way to resolve the conflict is to
> strip the article down to "NOTHING you can't say objectively." And so
> the tech-spec is presented as the authoritative biography of
> Soundwave.
I really dislike how Wikipedia handles Transformers, and due to
Wikipedia's inherent biases I don't think it's worth the effort of
trying to fix it.
All characters who share names will share pages: there is one page
for all the Scourge-s ever. As a rule, there tend to be almost no
images, and those present are typically the box art. The writing
style sorely lacks citations and there is pretty much NO consideration
given to story material--and without links to relevant story material,
the pages are typically walls of text that assert "first THIS
happened, then THAT happened, and THAT happened, and THIS happened,"
etc. etc. I just can't focus on that for long, and even if I could,
lacking the chance to cross-reference it with the actual story events
would mean I couldn't trust any of it.
In the past I've been tempted to sign up and try to make some of them
cleaner and clearer, but once I heard about Wikipedia's arbitrary
crusade against web-comics, with various admins openly bending the
rules to enable purging as many as possible, I figured that sooner or
later the same hammer could fall on Transformers, so I don't bother.
There probably aren't 20 TF characters who could survive being
challenged as "Not Significant," if and when such a movement were to
begin there.
Thylacine 2000
> once I heard about Wikipedia's arbitrary
> crusade against web-comics, with various admins openly bending the
> rules to enable purging as many as possible, I figured that sooner or
> later the same hammer could fall on Transformers, so I don't bother.
> There probably aren't 20 TF characters who could survive being
> challenged as "Not Significant," if and when such a movement were to
> begin there.
Ah, speak of the devil:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:List_of_The_Transformers_episodes
All 98 G1 episodes were purged from Wikipedia on the grounds of Non-
Significance, and apparently are forbidden to return until they get
sufficiently written-up in print journals, which quite plainly will
never happen.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is what I call "a joke that isn't funny."
Zobovor
> Someone (possibly McFeely, but I'm thinking Zobovor,) once bitched
> about contributing to Wikipedia- they wrote a long and completely
> comprehensive article on every appearance by a character in the
> cartoon-- and had it completely or mostly deleted as "unnecessary
> level of detail."
The only time I complained about Wikipedia was when I wrote up an
article on Fortress Maximus that documented, among other things, the
multiple functions and gimmicks of the Hasbro toy and somebody up and
axed pretty much all of it. I mean, Fortress Maximus is a really neat
toy, a two-foot tall robot that turns into a playset with working
elevators and launching ramps and hidden guns and stuff, with mini-
vehicles specifically designed to accomodate Nebulon Headmaster
figures (try seating Spike on top of Gasket or Grommet some time), but
I guess some people want to downplay the fact that he's a children's
toy.
Because focusing instead on the fact that he's a character in a
children's *cartoon* makes you seem so much more mature and
sophisticated, apparently.
> So what do you really want? A dryly factual wiki with far less
> information because the ones who do the work can't summon the
> enthusiasm to do it? Or a rich deep and varied source of information
> where you have to take a bit of extra time to parse out the silly
> captions?
That's a damn good counter-argument, and a far better defense of the
Transformers wiki than I've ever read up to this point. It's so
refreshing to hear someone just come out and say "I added jokes
because it makes the project more fun for me" instead of turning
things around on the reader and making accusations like "well, you
just take Transformers too seriously" or "you have no sense of humor."
Zob
Derik 'Inessi' Smith
An out-of-continuity story though. I mean- we stretch our own rules
to note Regan's camero in Inhumanoids- one of our few "Yeah... Sunbow
is kinda a universe, and maybe this applies."
Ultimately the article exists in its current form because of ALL of
those POTUS's... none has EVER been named in the fiction. A weird
quirk we thought was worth retaining.
-Derik
Derik 'Inessi' Smith
Oh, I have a belabored argument why humor itself is inherently good
and humorlessness is inherently bad too-- that's 3 of 3.
Unfortunately Sipher just grabbed my attention with something I should
probably see to FIRST, so that might wait for a bit.
-Derik
JimS
>
> Ah, now see- that relates to a philosophical question about the nature
> or purpose of such an archive. You want it to serve as a quickly-
> scanable objective reference source.
>
> I really don't think that's what TT1 is supposed to-- or want to-- be.
Well, quickly scanable maybe not, depending on the level of depth
being discussed. Objective, yes, though you make some good arguments
in your earlier post about how difficult it is to establish
'objectivity' except by concensus.
> TT1, on the other hand, exists to wallow in the obscure, the strange
> nooks and crannies of continuity. We devote considerable space to the
> appearing-in-1-story G1 universe where Hot Rod is SECRETLY Rodimus
> Prime, sneaking off to change "By the Power of the Matrix!" whenever
> there's trouble. This isn't central to Rodimus's character- the space
> devoted to this story /far/ exceeds its actual prominence in
> Transformers- but it is INCREDIBLY AWESOME, and one of the most
> delight-filled hand-clappingly squee-dorable bits of obscuria in
> Transformers lore.
As well it should. Most of my edits have been about minutia and
trivia.
> This is what I propose is the central misunderstanding at hand here- I
> don't think Teletraan 1 is- or WANTS TO BE- encyclopedic.
> Encyclopedias tell you all about quantum theory in 4 pages-- a subject
> that can fill multi-volume books. Fundamentally- Encyclopedias are
> supposed to be ''starting points'' for a search for information- (and
> maybe the end point for 80% of searches, if the question was simple.)
> Wikipedia is a starting point (and a reasonably good one) for learning
> about Transformers.
This is an excellent point.
> Teletraan 1 is an ENDING POINT for a search for information. We ARE
> the 6000+ page multi-volume tome on quantum theory- only ONE
> generation removed from reading and viewing all the source material
> itself. BETTER- we try to cross-connect things that aren't in the
> source material, documenting (and where possible citing and nailing
> down,) things that didn't make it into episodes, oddities and
> implications not apparent, or just stuff that's COOL.
And that's the real value of the wiki.
> It's not just a destination in its won right for the reader- it's a
> destination for ourselves as editors. BEFORE I started contributing
> on the Wiki, I had read or seen piece of every English-language
> Transformers material- (episodes, comics, pack-ins, multipath
> adventures, UK-only hardcovers, coloring books,) at least three times-
> and had seen every episode of JTF (including the untranslated ones) at
> least twice, as well as poured over the Manga compilations (despite my
> inability to read Japanese.)
> I still learn new and DELIGHTFUL things about Transformers every
> single damn day on that site. Either because the other editors are
> just as deep as I am in other fields- or just because having multiple
> perspectives with that complete a frame of reference fosters a
> parallax discovery that's STILL kicking up new stuff about Generation
> 1 episodes!
> I mean- that's fucking awesome.
It sure is. But the 'destination for our editors' bit is where you
start to lose me a bit. You're saying that 'we work hard, we should
be rewarded' and the reward is the humor. I note that the wiki has a
policy that bad jokes don't get swapped out for funnier jokes for just
that reason. It seems to me that the ego is getting in the way of
producing a superior product. The article may change, but your jokes
will stay. In any event, I find it hard to belive that people like
us, who spend so much time obsessing over this multiverse, would
uniformly and collectively stop creating content if they were not
'rewarded' in this fashion.
> The whole "Humor bad, tree pretty" argument is USUALLY cited hand-in-
> hand with an implied lack of rigor, using the humor as proof that the
> people involved don't take things seriously because they're making
> fart jokes.
Perhaps. I've never made those assertations.
> > I honestly don't even get why you'd want to argue with me on this
> > point. I've accepted that some people like their facts mixed with
> > humor, graciously and consistently. Why is it so difficult for others
> > to concede that some people don't like their facts mixed with humor?
>
> Let me make it clearer- your choice is not between that level of rigor
> with or without humor-- your choice is that level of rigor with humor-
> or "He was probably nice and Rodimus killed him."
> Because Energon is BRAIN-MELTINGLY BAD, and if I couldn't harangue it
> for that shockingly- monumentally- surprising and STAGGERINGLY
> SPENDTHRIFT incompetence (seriously, it is the the single worst
> cartoon I've ever seen. Not worst Transformers-- worst cartoon. I
> cannot believe it SAW AIR.) ... if I couldn't do that... then I
> wouldn't be doing THIS.
I say that's a false choice. Maybe you wouldn't be doing it. I
cannot believe that none of the Transfans would though. Hell, I'm not
even sure that you'd stop if the only game in town was a cabal of
editors who decided that humor was not cool.
> So I'll see your "Why is it so difficult for others to concede that
> some people don't like their facts mixed with humor?", and I raise you
> "Why is it so difficult for some people to concede that others
> undertaking a thankless, joyless task should not be additionally
> burdened with the requirement that their OUTPUT be dryly factual-
> removing the LAST DREGS OF JOY AND SUNSHINE from what had previously
> been a masochistic pleasure... and simply rendering it masochistic?"
I'm not requiring that your output be dry . . . but that's a tone that
I'd find more comfortable in a reference manual. I'd enjoy the wiki
more, as a reader, if there were less to no snark. It's not that I
can't see the appeal of snark . . . I can. I was tempted, oh my was I
tempted, to throw in some snark about the Headmasters using exercise
machines to work out their Transtectors. (Think about it . . . it's
not just robots using treadmills and lifting weights . . . it's robots
piloting mechs and having those mechs use treadmills and lifting
weights) Ultimately I opted for a neutral tone, because that's what I
would like to see as a reader of a book about animation models. Don't
think it's not tedious, scanning hundreds of documents, looking for a
version of Gilmer's model where the side isn't cut off, trying to
combine the same model from different sources because the arm is
clearer on one and the torso on another. You've really gotta love the
source material, and even then there are days when you just can't look
at another grainy 9th generation fax of Nightstick.
> So what do you really want? A dryly factual wiki with far less
> information because the ones who do the work can't summon the
> enthusiasm to do it? Or a rich deep and varied source of information
> where you have to take a bit of extra time to parse out the silly
> captions?
I'd chose the rich, deep and varied source of information. And you
know I would. But that doesn't mean I wouldn't prefer it with less
silliness.
> (Well, I suppose there's choice 3- doing it yourself.)
Yes, the idea's been brough up before. Daunting though.
> Choose wisely! (Remember, the Gods punish us by granting that which
> we most desire!)
Character models from 1989?
JimS
JimS
Derik 'Inessi' Smith wrote:
> If you got banned, you are a crank. Not probably-- are. A.R.E. No
> ambiguity allowed.
> The process could not be more simple. Here, I made a flowchart!
> http://emopanda.com/tmp/tt1_cranks.pdf
I love this chart.
> Guess what? I got banned for a week. You know what I did? I WAITED
> A WEEK.
Crank.
JimS
LiamK
be honest. Not because I wanted to plaster the place with my own SUPER
AWESOME JOKES about how MEGATRON'S TRIGGER IS LIKE A PENIS!!!! but
because it seemed to make it look like a fun place to work. So I add
factual information when I can, make the occasional joke, and enjoy
reading what everyone else is writing. I made a new caption joke, it
got revented, so I left it alone.
I've had never had an inclination to do anything on Wikipedia, but I'm
not sure if it's because of the more "serious" nature of it or because
there are editors who hate lots of things for no reason other than the
hate in their hate-filled hearts.
-Liam Kavanagh
LiamK
牛魔王
> Ah, speak of the devil:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:List_of_The_Transformers_episodes
>
> All 98 G1 episodes were purged from Wikipedia on the grounds of Non-
> Significance, and apparently are forbidden to return until they get
> sufficiently written-up in print journals, which quite plainly will
> never happen.
Blockbuster video lists every episode if you do the "advanced search"
option:
http://www.blockbuster.com/search/movie/advancedSearch
Yes, I thoroughly agree Wikipedia sucks and has been ruined by
deletionists.
JimS
I can agree with this . . . I may not think that Teletraan One is
perfect, but it's a lot better than almost any other wiki I have ever
read or participated in. (The Doctor Who wiki deleted a whole article
I wrote on the Dalek markings that was very carefully though out for
no apparent reason that I could see . . . grrr)
JimS
SteveD
<ReGen...@aol.com> wrote:
>The process could not be more simple. Here, I made a flowchart!
>http://emopanda.com/tmp/tt1_cranks.pdf
Should the "Valuable Community Member" box be brought above the "Try
something else for now -> I made an edit!" line, perhaps with a further
line from it to the upper-left "I made an edit!" box?
(I'm also trying to find a way to integrate the two "I made an edit!"
boxes, the two "Was it accepted?" decisions, and the two "Challenge it!"
boxes.)
Hmm...
1. I made an edit!, GOTO 2
2. Was it accepted?
- YES, GOTO 3
- NO, GOTO 4
3. Valuable Community Member, GOTO 1
4. I should:
- Optionally check the relevant policies and history and redo this edit,
GOTO 1
- Try editing a different article, GOTO 1
- Challenge the policy/ies relating to the non-acceptance, GOTO 2
Crankosity can then be calculated either as the ratio of the number of
times box 4 is reached compared to the number of times box 3 is reached,
or by dividing #4 by the sum of #3 and #4 for a fractional result.
Current crankosity levels could be calculated by only running the numbers
on the last 20 or so edits.
This does lend itself to all kinds of interesting possibilities.
(For those who think I've just taken a joke and beaten it into the ground
and then jumped up and down on it for good measure, I claim 4am-ishness
and do apologise.)
-SteveD
Onslaught Six
> I really don't think that's what TT1 is supposed to-- or want to-- be.
<snip>
This is the best post I've ever seen about the Wiki. The comparison to
the 6000 page tome is gold.
Onslaught Six
> You've really gotta love the
> source material, and even then there are days when you just can't look
> at another grainy 9th generation fax of Nightstick.
'Which' Nightstick?
Ha haaaa! Targetmaster humour.
Onslaught Six
> (I feel bad kinda bad pointing out that the editor in question is a
> girl who was raped... but it's totally true, even it it isn't.)
[citation needed]? I'm just curious. I think. Maybe I'm really not and
it would horribly scar me, or something.
> If you got banned, you are a crank. Not probably-- are. A.R.E. No
> ambiguity allowed.
> The process could not be more simple. Here, I made a flowchart!http://emopanda.com/tmp/tt1_cranks.pdf
Well...ideally. On the TF Wiki, maybe. I was an admin somewhere else
and ended up banning a couple guys simply because they were being
slightly disruptive and I was a bit of a dick in 2005.
> It is SO EASY! "Look, stop being a pain in the ass for a bit. Go do
> some maintenance, write a summary. Contribute, just a little!"
One big thing I've found is that there's not a lot of that summary
stuff left to 'do.' The few times I've found a summary that needs to
be written, it's like for some obscure episode of Masterforce that
eight people have seen raw. Yes, that's hyberbole, but it's not *too*
far from the truth.
So mostly I just contribute some funny and the occasional trivia note
or corrections. "Hey, that's misspelled." "Nuh-uh, that guy was
coloured *green* there."
> * I've never been in a threesome with Walky.
I have! (In my dreams. Ahaha. Wow, this makes me look gay. I should
probably delete the whole thing. Or something.)
> * I'm the 10th most productive editor on Teletraan 1.
Also you really need to parse what you post on the talk pages. I've
been meaning to bring it up for a while now, actually, but yeah, dude,
totally edit what you say. Sometimes it runs together oddly and makes
it hard to see what you're saying. Mmhm.
> Of course the /REASON. Derik wrote all those policy pages is that he's
> quite good at squeezing down large, amorphous bodies of thought into
> clear, linear expressions of the reasoning behind them... so really,
> if ANYONE would know...
Then what's the deal with the huuuuuge posts?
Onslaught Six
> An out-of-continuity story though. I mean- we stretch our own rules
> to note Regan's camero in Inhumanoids- one of our few "Yeah... Sunbow
> is kinda a universe, and maybe this applies."
On another note, your lack of editing foresight occasionally leads to
gems like this.
Regan's Camaro! Now I'm picturing Regan driving around in MooBee.
Walky must draw this.
Derik Smith
> On Sun, 3 Aug 2008 13:53:04 -0700 (PDT), "Derik 'Inessi' Smith"
>
> >The process could not be more simple. Here, I made a flowchart!
> >http://emopanda.com/tmp/tt1_cranks.pdf
>
> boxes, the two "Was it accepted?" decisions, and the two "Challenge it!"
> boxes.)
>
I'm well aware i used inconsistent markup when making this chart. The
best way to integrate it would be to re-make it-- preferably in a
piece of software NOT written by Microsoft. (Visio, you make me want
to buy a mac just for Graffle.)
-Derik
Derik Smith
Talk pages are raw. I don't have to spend 1-5 hours editing,re-
reading, linking and citing them for clarity. If you're involved in
the conversation- presumably you can follow my ramble.
I'm aware that my talk page stuff is badly edited- but it's a question
of priorities. I could check-and-recheck that stuff... or I could be
actually contributing elsewhere. As long as my spelling, grammar, etc
errors remain mostly cosmetic... I'm willing to let it go. (You will
see a few minor edits after msot of my big talk page posts though--
fixing pronouns, sentence structure or spelling errors that I feel
render what I just wrote unacceptably confusing.)
Actual articles I edit more thoroughly, since experience indicates
they'll be read 100+ times more often.
as for huge posts- they get huge when I don't bother to condense them
down, or when I think that the examples being given are fundamentally
important to the argument being made.
-Derik
Derik Smith
> It sure is. But the 'destination for our editors' bit is where you
> start to lose me a bit. You're saying that 'we work hard, we should
> be rewarded' and the reward is the humor. I note that the wiki has a
> policy that bad jokes don't get swapped out for funnier jokes for just
> that reason.
No, that is incorrect. We have a policy that captions not be swapped
out for jokes of comparable or even marginally greater funny. To
replace an existing caption, what replaces it must be SIGNIFICANTLY
SUPERIOR (in terms of funniness or informativeness) to the existing
content.
It's like this (and I think I'm paraphrasing the policy page- that or
one of the many, many times we've had to discuss this the newbies...)
changign an existing caption carries an INHERENT penalty of bad
karma. So whatever replaces it has to be SO GOOD that THE DEGREE to
which it is better than the original contents can offset that karmic
dept-- otherwise it should not be changed.
It's the only way we can the newbs and idiots from just rearrange the
deck chairs all day long. (Because they would if we let them.) You
don't just get to replace funny with funny-- if your edit has no merit
to it but "ZOMG, I MADE FUNNY!"... you gotta bring your A-game, or we
don't want it.
The Starscream Clone pages are absolutely HAMMERED by anonymous and
first-time editors gleefully going- "OMG, FUNNY, FUNNY! I CAN BE
FUNNY TOO!" We revert like 85% of those edits- because the INEVITABLY
spiral into Dogpile Edits ( http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Transformers_Wiki:Policies#Dogpile
) that eventually make the article completely unreadable. When every
single sentence is a tangled mash of clauses, innuendo, clever
qualifiers and reversals beating the same joke into the ground-- it's
UNREADABLE.
There's been discussion of restricting the Starscrem Clone articles so
they're not editable to anonymous or new users... but we pretty much
decided to let them serve as a Sacrificial Anode for the entire wiki,
attr4actign the bad humor edits that would otherwise spill over into
more important articles. (And lets face it, these characters are all
pretty 1 note- it's hard to ruin their articles.)
We actually DO have a policy about image captions! (
http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Transformers_Wiki:Caption )
Basically, if a caption doesn't provide essential content or
compliment the article text... why shouldn't it be a joke?
http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Abraham_lincoln
I mean- seriously-- look at that. What could you possibly make that
image caption be that was dryly faction that WASN'T stating the
obvious or restating what was in the article text right next to it?
Can you think of ANYTHING that provides essential information or
compliments the existing article text in a non-redundant manner?
We try not to tell new users who hate funny captions this (because
they take it as a challenge and we have to ban them,) but basically it
boils down to this. If you REALLY hate a funny caption and you want
to replace it with something that will stick? Create a caption that
actually PROVIDES ESSENTIAL INFORMATION-- because removing THAT would
actually render the article harder to understand- which is why our
policy page stresses THOSE kinds of captions have to stay.
...
Okay, not THAT policy page, but one of 'em says it. (Our help and
Policy shit is kinda a mess. Supposedly it's gonna get cleaned up
after the move.)
The real problem is- no matter how you cut it- 85% of images DON'T
require any form of 'essential explanation.' It's a fucking picture
of Megatron-- how much 'splaining does it really need? (Our classic
example.)
Again- we do employ a basic rigor- provide essential information when
needed, take care that the phrasing isn't likely to mislead anyone
with two brain cells to rub together... boy beyond that... have fun!
> > Choose wisely! (Remember, the Gods punish us by granting that which
> > we most desire!)
>
> Character models from 1989?
What, US ones? (counts on his fingers.) That's... Victory era? So
like- Action Masters, Double Targetmasters, that sort of thing?
(I just picked up the Ark today- my order came in. It's fricking
BEAUTIFUL-- but I'll probably make my gushing- and questions- a
separate post.)
-Derik
JimS
<a bunch of well thought out arguments snipped>
I have to say that I'm impressed with the level of intelligence and
civility in this thread. It's so easy for two sides that disagree,
especially on the internet, to turn into a name-calling slugfest. I
feel like, after reading this thread, that I'm actually closer to
understanding the viewpoints of the other side.
Also, I've been contributing to the wiki more, and logging in when I
do it, and I haven't found any problems with it having an 'in crowd'
or any such nonsense. About 98% of my edits have stuck, and when I
started throwing out arguments for why a page shouldn't be deleted
even though several editors had agreed that it should . . . the
community agreed to reconsider.
Color me impressed.
JimS
JimS
> BEAUTIFUL-- but I'll probably make my gushing- and questions- a
> separate post.)
>
> -Derik
I welcome any and all questions, criticisms, suggestions or comments.
JimS
Zobovor
> I welcome any and all questions, criticisms, suggestions or comments.
The *only* criticism I have regarding the Ark II was the incorrect
identification of one of the images. There's a picture of a guy in a
space suit that's identified as a possible alternate model for Spike
Witwicky from the movie, but in fact it's Gregory Morgan, one of the
scientists from "The Return of Optimus Prime" parts 1 and 2. He's
even got the distinctive scar on his face. Not a tragedy, obviously,
but just something I noticed.
Zob
Kil - Michael McCarthy
> The *only* criticism I have regarding the Ark II was the incorrect
> identification of one of the images. There's a picture of a guy in a
> space suit that's identified as a possible alternate model for Spike
> Witwicky from the movie, but in fact it's Gregory Morgan, one of the
> scientists from "The Return of Optimus Prime" parts 1 and 2. He's
> even got the distinctive scar on his face. Not a tragedy, obviously,
> but just something I noticed.
You mean Gregory Swofford. Morgan was Jessica and her dad's last name.
-Kil
JimS
Huh. Rewatching TRoOP, yeah, that'd definitely Gregory and his space
suit. I'll have to double check, but I'm about 90% sure that the
model I was working from was labeled 'spike's space suit.' I guess
that's accurate, they did use that suit model in Headmasters, just
with Spike & Daniel inside it. If we do a 2nd printing I'll be sure
to revise the text. Now I'm wondering if this space suit was created
for TRoOP or was created earlier and then recycled.
JimS
Derik Smith
>Currently, the ads only show up for people who are not logged in (aka,
>%95 percent of the wiki's hits). They don't show up at all for logged in
>users (aka, the people who make 95% of the edits). This causes problems.
Weirdly (and proudly, I think) takign AWAY the ads for the logged-in
users was the breaking poitn for TT1.
Over the last few years, the TT1 editors have expended consider blood,
sweat and windage /discussing/ shit. Stuff like layouts, and
computability. We don't (for example) use "highlight for spoilers"
because it doesn't work in some browsers. We don't use "Click to show
spoilers with Javascript" because about 1% of users surft with
javascript turned off for whatever reason. We went out of our way to
consider the user experience.
When Wikia rolled out Monaco, its /search/ feature didn't work if you
have Javascript turned off. It's not that it COULDN'T-- they re-coded
it so that it did when we complained. (Well, actually , they pointed
out that only 1% of users would be affected, then we complained
louder, THEN they re-coded it.)
For two years we applied a level of rigor and disciple putting the
user experience first... and then Wikia comes in and redesigns the
entire site WITHOUT that level of consideration.
They re-coded our front page without asking us-- and without checking
it in Firefox or Safari- where it was *broken.* The tech responsible
then proceeded to repeatedly claim it was a caching issue on our end
(even while surreptitiously adjusting his broken code) and kept
posting screenshots showing how it displayed perfectly fine in
Firefox-- because he had Firefox 3 and didn't think it was important
to check it in the much-more-common Firefox 2. (Ignoring all the
screenshots we posted showing it was broke-ass.)
Just- it's really, REALLY typical. That kind of mentality has
underlain pretty much every interaction TT1 had with Wikia. And I
think it's TO OUR CREDIT that it was when they said- "Okay, logged in
users won't have to see ads, so it doesn't affect you right?" that
TT1's userbase put their foot down and said- "No, not alright! 95% of
our readers have to put up with this shit, and we're not supposed to
care just because we're not currently among then?"
They thought it was wrong because of how it would negatively impact
the ANONYMOUS not-logged-in readers. (Read: The people who WEREN'T
them.)
It kinda sticks in my craw to see the TT1 move (Which, incidentally?
Happening in the next few weeks.) ...characterized as "Walky and co.
take their ball and go home because they don't get their way," or as
Wikia keeps painting it; "people who can't accept that ads have to be
there."
I feel really comfortable with our reasons for leaving; we consider
the experience of non-editing readers a high priority.
(And also, Wikia pretty much lies to our faces- badly- every time we
interact with them. We're pretty tired of that shit.)
-Derik
Derik Smith
>
> > (I feel bad kinda bad pointing out that the editor in question is a
> > girl who was raped... but it's totally true, even it it isn't.)
>
> [citation needed]? I'm just curious. I think. Maybe I'm really not and
> it would horribly scar me, or something.
I got the story of the screaming meltdown in the halls of the Botcon
1999 hotel secondhand. Surely there's someone here who witnessed it
firsthand that could tell it better.
(I rather doubt the editor in question is the same person-- I'm just
saying... she's the same person, even if she's not.)
-Derik
Derik Smith
> I have to say that I'm impressed with the level of intelligence and
> civility in this thread. It's so easy for two sides that disagree,
> especially on the internet, to turn into a name-calling slugfest. I
> feel like, after reading this thread, that I'm actually closer to
> understanding the viewpoints of the other side.
Yeah, well, you had to listen to me go through two rounds of knocking
down strawmen who made me right before I got tot he heart of the
matter. (Probably doubly frustrating because you knwo the strawmen
examples I'm knocking down are very, very real.) You showed great
patience and civility in waiting for me to get around to the level
that YOUR disagreement with TT1 policies took place on-- and then
basically just laying out- "This is why we operate the way we do. We
know it's imperfect but here are a couple reasons why we think it's
more workable than the alternative, and a few examples of why it's
maybe even preferable."
I don't content any of that shit is RIGHT- it's just the /reason/ to
our rhyming in the Wid Boy's article.
I wonder if we'd have fewer trolls if we had a policy document
outlining it like this? But that sort of... rant... it really hard to
abstract and... let's be honest. We'd have trolls anyway. Usually
the type who when told "You should read this," would answer "that's
too long."
On Aug 4, 1:52 am, JimS <jimsoren...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Derik 'Inessi' Smith wrote:
> > If you got banned, you are a crank. Not probably-- are. A.R.E. No
> > ambiguity allowed.
> > The process could not be more simple. Here, I made a flowchart!
> >http://emopanda.com/tmp/tt1_cranks.pdf
>
> I love this chart.
>
> > Guess what? I got banned for a week. You know what I did? I WAITED
> > A WEEK.
>
> Crank.
By definition!
But jeeze! You post one or two cocks on the wiki and suddenly- "Woo,
that's Derik's 'thing'!"
I am not so one-dimensional an editor!
I mean, sometimes you get articles like THIS out of me:
http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Bob&oldid=224660
(I quite like the resulting talk page, http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Talk:Bob
)
But other times you end up with shit like this;
http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Talk:Super_Energon_Temple
...wherein, while trying to figure out the proper context in which to
place a rather confusing bit of not-very-explained-backstory, both
McFeely and myself end up SIMULTANEOUSLY comparing several episodes of
Energon-- and then going back to to compare their equivalent Superlink
episodes (something you have to do to make sense of a distressing
ammount of the Energon cartoon,) and the result is a major change to
the Unicron Trilogy cartoon timeline that actually MAKES MORE SENSE
and makes the entire universe come together as a more coherent whole.
And it's not because we're making up explanations- we both reached the
same conclusion INDEPENDENTLY about something that was barely present
in the US dub- and only alluded to obliquely in the Japanese version
and not (AFAIK) really dealt with by supplementary material... but we
gathered enough evidence that we could BOTH confidently say that this
was correct.
That kind of collaboration is... awesome. Independent verification of
your thought-process! Uncovering a sense of underlying order that's
NOT a theory or a fanfic you're making up-- but is actually THERE in
the source material, badly obscured? And suddenly- "Woah, the Unicron
Trilogy Timeline... actually /fits/ across incarnation!" Which means
that it's robust enough to actually support discussion of other things
*based* on their placement in the timeline. (If an internal timeline
is riddles with contradictions because no incarnation cared what the
other had done... you can't do that, can't use it to shed light on
OTHER things. So uncovering a rigid, consistent backbone there-- it's
important. It lets you make sense of so much OTHER stuff Japan didn't
think was important enough to warrant explanation.)
So yeah- they put up with the occasional "Bob's your Uncle" from me
because "Frijole" comes from the same place.;
http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Frijole
...and because occasionally I actually turn out elaborately fact-
checked and cited articles
http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Don_Murphy
...in addition to normal Wikia stuff like watching episodes and
updating character pages.
I'm the most-banned active user! But, um... in a jovial sort of way.
(mostly.)
-Derik
Derik Smith
> On Aug 3, 9:21 pm, Thylacine 2000 <thytwot...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > once I heard about Wikipedia's arbitrary
> > crusade against web-comics, with various admins openly bending the
> > rules to enable purging as many as possible, I figured that sooner or
> > later the same hammer could fall on Transformers, so I don't bother.
> > There probably aren't 20 TF characters who could survive being
> > challenged as "Not Significant," if and when such a movement were to
> > begin there.
>
> Ah, speak of the devil:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:List_of_The_Transformers_episodes
>
> All 98 G1 episodes were purged from Wikipedia on the grounds of Non-
> Significance, and apparently are forbidden to return until they get
> sufficiently written-up in print journals, which quite plainly will
> never happen.
>
Clearly there is only one thing to be done.
Get writing! We've gotta get some literary recognition of
Transformers episodes in print!
(Trust me, it will be easier to do this with an endaround than to
argue with Wikipedia pedants.)
-Derik