Category talk:Toy-only characters

How're we defining this category? 'characters with toys that have never put in a fictional appearance?' The name seems... weird.

There's somethign valid being expressed here, but it needs more crisp outlines, because right now it's coming off liek the suggested Cat 'Things that Do Exist' to compliment 'Things that don't exist.' -Derik 05:53, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Transformers is a property made up of toys, cartoons, comics, and to a lesser extent prose. We have Cartoon-only characters, Comics-only characters, and Prose-only characters. This would appear to be a natural addition. --Rotty 07:11, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

But the toyline forms the basis of all other fictions. It is dirt common for toy-only characters to appear in cartoons and comics and what-have-you.... in fact it's expected. It is, however, extremely rare for a character to move from cartoon-only to having a toy. (Arcee did it, 15 years after her introduction. Alspha Trion is finally doing it, 22 years in.)

and ultimately, I think non-toy is a misnomer for a category that should be 'characters with no fiction appearances,' and I'm still not sold on the relevance of such a category that, while it woudl touch on a bunch of action master partners and obscures- would also include Solarbot and virtually every obscure odd-and-end of TF-dom.

I guess... if they have a toy, it's almost assumed they exist in the fictional universes, even if we don't see them. We haven't seen, say Brainstorm yet in the IDW'verse, but I am 100% confident he exists in that universe. Cartoon-only or comic-only characters are frequently unique to their point-of-origin, but the toyline underlies... everything. -Derik 07:55, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Uh, that logic only works for IDW, and DW who have a hard one for including everything from G1, if one were to apply that logic to something like Beast Wars, or even Cybertron it would be false.

"But the toyline forms the basis of all other fictions. It is dirt common for toy-only characters to appear in cartoons and comics and what-have-you...." *facepalm* Once they've appeared in a story, their existence is no longer toy-only by definition. Geez Derik. --Rotty 07:58, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Then basically you're saying this category should be called 'no appearances,' not 'toy-only.' Like Spiketail which you flagged as 'toy only' when he doesn't have a toy. This is a bad name for this category.-Derik 08:02, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

While I have no issues with the category itself, I do agree with Derik that putting unreleased figures in the toy-only category is something of an oxymoron; even if they never appear in comic or cartoon form, they need to have a toy in the first place to be toy-only. - Dark T Zeratul 11:05, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

So what about characters who haven't been in any stories, per-se, but were in one of the guidebooks (MTMTE or TFU)? Does that count? If so, pretty much every USG1 character is covered. -hx 12:16, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I would say that everyone who got a profile in MTMTE does NOT fit in this category. That counts as a fiction appearance in my mind. --KilMichaelMcC 14:59, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

No, no, no. My whole intent in creating a category was to organize the Transformers characters who have never appeared in a story. If you take the tag off characters who have nothing but a MTMTE profile, then it becomes far less useful. Say some comics writer wants to give some face time to a character who's never had any before and is aware of the Teletraan-1 resource. Your idea would deprive many unused characters of such an opportunity. --Rotty 16:14, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, regardless of your intent, I disagree that this category (which I myself suggested on some talk page months ago, but didn't get any response) should include characters who have appeared in any fiction, and I think the MTMTE books count as fiction. --KilMichaelMcC 16:32, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

If a MTMTE bio is fiction, so too is a tech spec. --Rotty 17:05, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Tech specs are part and parcel of the toy release. I see them as very different from material published in a comic book series. My suggestion would have named this category "toyline-only characters" for further clarity in this regard. --KilMichaelMcC 17:15, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm against considering MTMTE bios as fiction. This category is worthless if a picture on a profile page keeps Action Master partners off it. --ItsWalky 17:59, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Yet sometimes they demonstrably are, Armada Scavenger's MtMtE bio has signifigant chunks of backstory and his relationship with Megatron that fleshes him out far better than his appearances in the Armada comic. I think this categroy should be called No Appearances, because we can define an 'appearance' narrower than we define 'fiction,' (since our definition of fiction is anything anywhere, ever.) a comic, episode, text story etc is an appearance. A bit of backstory in a bio? Not actually an appearance. -Derik 19:16, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Since I'm probably going to loose on this, I'll just suggest that if comic profile appearances aren't going to be counted, there should be text on the category page to indicate this. --KilMichaelMcC 18:26, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Added that. --Rotty 18:34, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I repeat my dislike for the naming of this category. -Derik 20:00, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Derik, please stop acting stupid. --Rotty 20:04, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I think that's uncalled for. As noted above, this really isn't toy-only characters. It's characters who have not appeared in a story. Those are not the same thing. I think that the symmetry of this name with comic-only, etc., probably outweighs the inaccuracy, but I am conflicted about it. --Steve-o 21:17, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Since toylines underlie all universes (I.E. we can assume Kick-Off exists even though he is not seen...) I think the symmetry is actually distorting things because it tacitly demotes the toyline to the same status as some Netherland-exclusive gumball comic.

I think the category is a good idea- But I really, really loathe the name. It's being used like 'No appearances', but because it chooses to define things in terms of toys, it can't be applied to things like Screechwing. But Screechwing has no appearances! Screechwing should be in here, he/she/it is being excluded b'cause of the clumsy terminology being used. -Derik 02:15, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand why you're bringing up Screechwing, as that isn't just a character with no appearances, it's a character that doesn't exist anywhere, at all, even as a toy. Frankly, I don't think he should even be listed in the "Beast Machines characters" category, because he's kinda not one of those. --KilMichaelMcC 03:03, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Unreleased toy. The name (and thus character) were secured by Hasbro, so they 'exist' even though never released, unlike Nightracer or Albitron (the latter of whom simply 'does not exist.') -Derik 04:43, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Derik. The category is a useful resource, the characters whose only toys were never released are not included in it, it completes the existing set of categories that was previously Cartoon-only/Comic-only/Prose-only/Video game-only characters, and an admin has come out saying that the category would be worthless if it used your nitpicky definition of having no appearances in fiction. In response, you keep repeating the same argument over and over. Please drop it. --Rotty 04:49, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Rotty, amazingly I agree that this is a useful category. I agree it should exist. I wasn't demanding a nitpicky definition based on the way we define fiction that would render the cat useless- I was suggesting we divorce the 'cat from 'fiction' for specifically those reasons. That's the way you're using it already, but having an actual thought-out rationale for what does and doesn't belong there is a good way for deciding when things are unclear.

However, having worked out a rationale that fits the way you're using it, and agreeing that using a different basis for inclusion makes the category much less useful, it nonetheless follows that, based on the way we treat exists/don't exist on this wiki, Screechwing (among others, like Leatherhide) dows exist, and should be in this category. What's keeping them from being in this category? The category's name, which hinges on toys-- even though our actual rational basis for inclusion does not hinge on toys.

It's a good category! With a lousy name that doesn't immediately communicate what it's all about, and which is actually making the category less useful.

And you are taking it like a personal attack on yourself when I raise functional issues with your work. Rotty, I neither know nor particularly care who you are, but it sure as hell looks like your ego is causing you to handwave-away something that negatively impacts functionality lest it somehow be perceived as your 'failure.' Newsflash: People make changes to my additions all the time. Sometimes it's for clarity, sometimes it's to add something I forgot, often it's because I screwed something up, but most often of all, it because someone, seeing my edit thinks to themselves- "Gee, that makes me think of something that would make this even better!"

I am proposing a name change for this category to "No appearances" unless someone has a better idea. This is a good and useful category Rotty has created. It would be more useful if its name did not specifically exclude unreleased toys, even though it does disrupt the lovely naming pattern the wiki has going. -Derik 05:39, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's necessary to accuse me of letting ego get in the way of improvements being made (I'm not even an admin, just how much influence do you think my ego carries here?). I see two legitimate reasons not to implement your suggested name change:

No appearances is a vague, uninformative term. When someone reads the words "Comic-only characters", it very succinctly informs them that these are characters whose only existence is under the comic books part of the Transformers intellectual property "umbrella". "Toy-only characters" is similarly informative, with "toys" replacing "comic books". This is exactly why symmetry is inherently elegant and prefereble. No appearances would be quite unhelpful, as the words don't even inform the reader as to "No appearances in what?" It's also so vaguely-worded that we'd end up with not only there being an argument about whether or not Marvel TFU/Dreamwave MtMtE profiles count as an appearance, we'd end up with the argument "Hey, Gatoraider was drawn in Krok's hand in his profile, that's an appearance even if none of the biographical text pertains to him!" The proposed term seems custom-designed for nitpicking, including on the exact issue that Walky said would make the category useless.

There is a qualitative difference between a toy people have owned as children that has no associated fiction and an intended inclusion in the Transformers mythos that has "No appearances" because it was never released in any form. You can see the latter at Category:Unreleased toys, though admittedly the category as designed is full of characters who had one or more toys and happened to get an additional one cancelled along the way. I fail to see how it does anyone any good to clutter a category for toy-only characters with not only the likes of Screechwing but also every single unmade Transformer from Transformers: Generations Deluxe when someone feels like coming along and scanning them. --Rotty 08:32, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

(Un-indenting again) Derik: Would the simple addition of an "Unreleased characters" category take care of a large part of your objection? We do already have unreleased toys, of course, but that has a bunch of stuff in it including characters that *have* had toys, but simply had at least one unreleased toy. Unreleased characters, on the other hand, would be small and contain all the guys you are talking about here. Regarding this category's name, I agree with Rotty that "No appearances" is not clear enough. The most concise name I can think of that is also accurate would be something similar to "No-story characters", which is still somewhat clumsy. The addition of an unreleased char category, though, would re-focus this category so that the only weird thing about it is that a character actually can appear in forms other than its toy and yet still be listed as toy-only. I think that the text at the top of the category more or less takes care of that, though. --Steve-o 13:25, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Wow. I admit, patching one awkwardly-named category by creating another awkwardly-named category to be used for clarification certainly wasn't the solution I had envisioned... but hey, as long as this cumbersome solution is logically equivalent to the more elegant, insitinctive one, what difference does it make?

If even the ever-logical Steve-o is seduced by the obvious merits of such a band-aid solution-- what chance then do I have? -Derik 18:37, 15 May 2007 (UTC)