User talk:Jackpot/Sandbox/Sections

Organizing principles

I've organized all the various series and such on these principles:

1) Real-world chronology. Within each section, all subsections are arranged in real-world chronological order, even if that doesn't follow the fiction. This helps achieve the best approximation of prominence, roughly following the creative flow that produced a series. A negative example is BW Megatron's article, which begins with an incredibly obscure tidbit from a Japanese toy catalog that was made well after the character's first series. This elevates that tidbit to an undue state of importance, as though it had any kind of influence over the series that are listed after it. Likewise "Dawn of Futures Past," "Theft of the Golden Disk," etc. Derivative works should, I think, come after the works that inspired them.

2) Subsections by continuity. As fractured as the TF multiverse is, we can still preserve some amount of continuity flow. For example, the "Beast cartoon continuity" section begins with the BW 'toon, which exists within the G1/Beast family but is independent of all specific G1 continuities that preceded it. BWII, BWNeo, BM, etc., all follow in chronological order within their continuity because they're directly connected to BW in their fictions, even if they aren't connected to each other. We work our way up to the present day (as IDW-BW is yet another direct continuation of BW), then we jump back out to IDW-G1, which came after BW but is not connected to it and is similarly independent of all G1 fiction that preceded it.

2) Section-titles as links. Not only is this just a self-evidently good practice to keep readers fully informed, but it also helps address an issue I've pondered: TF continuity is fairly nonlinear, and we can only do so much with our page format to show what really follows from what. The Classics comic is a perfect example, where every time it comes up, there's a continuity note about how it disregards G2 and UKG1. To be consistent, we'd have to have a LOT of notes about how BW follows from no single G1 continuity, BM has no particular connection to J-BW, 3H-BW and IDW-BW are mutually exclusive, etc., etc. But if all the section-titles are links, we can forget about trying to keep the readers super-informed, as they then have tools to easily do their own research.

3) "Publisher + continuity + media" over specific titles. When I'm uniformed about a topic, I find it more confusing to see a title like "Linkage" than "Micron Legend DVD pack-in comics." Despite the brevity and specificity of the former, it's acutally more obfuscating to a reader who isn't already in the know.

That's all I can think of. I'll add more if they occur to me. Discuss!

- Jackpot 00:55, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Japanese continuity

Small issue. Beast Wars II and Neo are definitely in continuity with the original cartoon. Also, links shouldn't be in section titles; storylinks should be used instead. —Interrobang 00:20, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for pointing out the BWII/Neo thing. I've made a change that will hopefully clarify how I see continuity-subdivision working. Also, see above for my thoughts on title-linking. - Jackpot 00:55, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Real-world chronology

Lordy, I know we've clashed over this before, but I am so against this. When I go to BW Megatron's page, I want to read his story, from start to finish, not give me the middle, then give me a little farther, and then jump back to the beginning, and then jump forward again. I shouldn't have to assemble the character history in pieces. You're right -- the Japanese catalog thing shouldn't go first. It should begin a separated Japanese continuity section, further down, since theirs is obviously not ours at this point.

I will fight you to the end on this, if necessary. The whole idea of a character article loses its potency to me without the narrative. --ItsWalky 01:05, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Walky. I mean, perhaps we can put some kind of date-note in there to note when something was a later prequel, but ehn. It's bad enough the fiction jumps around as much as it does. I'd rather read a single comprehensive flow of time when possible, and for a character overview, I'd think that's vital. --M Sipher 01:41, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Vital is right. --ItsWalky 01:47, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Hm. The date-note is an interesting compromise. Especially if we implement Derik's similar disambig idea too. It could become a recurring organizational theme on the Wiki. Mind you, I still think we should keep the subsections in real-world chronological order (as I explain below). But if, in the end, a compromise is called for... - Jackpot 03:46, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Something like ===Theft of the Golden Disc (2007)===, to pull a possibly inappropriate header out of my ass as an example? I dunno. --M Sipher 07:03, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Something like that. I could imagine some classier formatting, but I don't know how much markup we want to impose on people. Also, I know I'm not going to be the one to research what the origin dates are for every single series.

If people are dead-set on maintaining in-fiction chronology, then here's what I propose: The master list stays real-world chronological, since that's the only universal, out-of-context standard. (For instance, Dawn of Future's Past is pre-BW-'toon for everybody... except the G1 Preds, for whom it's after.) But in the instructions for using the guide, we say: "Real-world chronology shall be maintained at the franchise and primary continuity levels. However, some editors elect to rearrange series within a continuity to suit the in-fiction timeline of the subject. Use your best judgement."

(Not that I think that's RIGHT.... but I also think we need an out if no one ends up changing anyone else's mind.)

- Jackpot 19:29, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I assume you're talking about the Unicron debate. I see this as a different matter, since the Unicron subject has the added weight of the explicitly-multiversal Cybertron comic behind it. If we're talking about someone like Megatron, there IS no one "his story" unless you assume that the latest fiction automatically supersedes all that came before. You say the J-catalog bit "should begin a separated Japanese continuity section, further down, since theirs is obviously not ours at this point." Well, what counts as "ours"? IDW-BW? In that case, shouldn't we excise all UKG1 and G2 content from G1 articles and shunt them into their own sections because the Classics comics disregard them?

As long as we present all fiction, past and present, on this Wiki, I think we should be more systematic about how we display it, rather than shuffling whole series around to make the storylines seem more chronological. To my mind, that's only acceptable within the actual write-ups (where, for instance, we can talk about the Constructicons building Crystal City first, since we don't have subsections for seasons).

One more point: We're sticklers about making sure that continuities are arranged in real-world chronological order. Turning around and breaking that rule at the sub-continuity level is just plain confusing and misleading to anyone not in the know.

- Jackpot 01:39, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Ordering events by timeline and then ordering those timelines by real-world chronology does not seem misleading to me. According to that logic, we can't even order the events that occur within a single media according to in-universe time. Optimus Prime's article can't start out with him being Orion Pax, because that would apparently conflict with the real-world chronology of the rest of the page. Unless Animated Ratchet's writeup switches back and forth between flashback and current day, that is "misleading" since the rest of his page is not ordered that way. In-universe is out the window. These would changes are antithetical to pretty much everything on the wiki. Any problems can be easily fixed by well-placed notes. --ItsWalky 01:45, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Like I said above, inter-series organization and write-up structure are two different things to me. Once you're actually writing paragraphs, go nuts, whatever flow of words best tells the story. But if that temporal play could apply across series, then I don't think we'd need subsections at all. To me, the whole point of separating series is to admit that this is, in fact, a fractured multiverse full of split ends. Playing the shuffling game at that level opens too subjective a can of worms for my taste. Like the BWII catalog bit - who says it no longer applies to "our" continuity? What's the standard? You didn't answer that question - is it IDW-BW? What about the implications of that re: Classics? Should we be constantly reordering sections on all articles as this or that old series becomes more or less relevant to the newest addition? And how do we maintain a rule that everyone can follow?

Maybe it all comes down to this: I would agree about the "vitality" of cross-series chronology if I believed there was such a thing. Here's the example I see in my head: If whoever has the comic license at the moment decides to do a BW Dinobot story, what are the chances they're going to use as a backstory "Dawn of Future's Past" or "Theft of the Golden Disk" or the DW MTMTE bookend-story or anything besides the BW 'toon? Most likely, they're going to steamroll right over all the peripheral bits, and someday that's going to get steamrolled too. So rather than try to constantly keep up, I say we present each series in the order in which it came, since that's a clear standard which approximates the importance of the information as the multiverse feeds on itself.

- Jackpot 02:59, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

J-G1 continuity

Regarding the cartoon continuity section and the Japanese stuff, I think it's a good idea at this point to have separate sections for "American animated continuity" and "Japanese animated continuity," since they have become such separate things at this point. And Kiss Players and 15 Go! Go! shouldn't be separate from that. I've done this with Optimus Prime (probably the best example, as it's easily the one that's going to have the most separate headers), and Megatron, and I think the effect is good. That'd look something like this:

1. American animated continuity

1.1. Sunbow cartoon

2. Japanese animated continuity

2.1. Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers manga

2.2. Scramble City OVA

2.3. Binaltech

2.4. Robot Masters

2.5. Kiss Players

2.6. 15 Go! Go! manga

2.7. Transformers 2010 manga

2.6. Transformers Big War manga

2.7. The Headmasters anime

2.8. The Headmasters manga

2.9. Super-God Masterforce anime

2.10. Super-God Masterforce manga

2.11. Victory anime

2.12. Victory manga

2.13. Zone OVA & manga

2.14. Battlestars manga & story pages

2.15. Operation Combination story pages

2.16. Generation 2 mini-comics

Whoof. - Chris McFeely 22:19, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Iiiiii thought the Headmasters-through-Zone mangas were incompatible with the cartoon timeline. Like, the HM manga splits off from the 2010 cartoon and then they maintain their own timeline. --M Sipher 23:01, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, yeah. But it's just like how the Clasics splits off from the Marvel comics and has its own timeline that's not compatible with the G2 stuff. And we still list those under the Marvel Comics, because they have their roots there, just as the mangas have their roots in the animated continuity. Eh, maybe we'd list the animes first, then the mangas, just to keep the narrative flow. - Chris McFeely

Yeah, I'd probably go that route. I mean, I don't think that the FP Classics fiction is quite so analogous there, assuming I didn't just totally misuse the word. I might, it's been one of those days. What I mean is, I don't think FP will be in any position to "mainline branch" the way Japanese G1 or, well, the UT did between cartoon and comic. I doubt they'll get to play heavily in the "main lines" anytime soon; right now, I legitimately don't know what -if anything- they can do with Animated, and as far as I know, right now they don't either. And if they are given permission to do something, I can't see them doing anything more than inserting one-shots into the main cartoon narrative. --M Sipher

Well, it might not be precisely the same in terms of subject matter handled, but the basic notion is the same - it's a "splinter universe" that branches out of a pre-existing one. But what's really helpful in this matter is that so very few characters are actually affected by it in any great way. Nearly everyone who appears in the manga solely appears in that franchise, so they can have "anime continuity" and "manga continuity" headers and that's genuinely all the fiction that'll be on their page, which enables the information to be presented clearly without having to worry about fitting it into some giant list of sub-sections of one continuity, since they weren't in any others. There are a *few* who are in other bits a piece (Ginrai in Victory, the Rescue Team and Victory Saber in Zone, the Godmasters popping up in cameos in Zone), but even then there'll only be like two headers underneath each TOPS. Even thinking about characters from G1 that reappear in the manga - the members of Scramble 7, say - that can still fall under the "Japanese animated continuity" header, since it is a furtheration of their appearance in the original cartoon, just not taking into account the events of the anime - in the same way as the appearances of characters in Classics is a furtheration of their appearance in the G1 comics, just not talking into account the events of UK or G2.

...Y'know, that was a heck of a lot more rambly than it needed to be. - McFeely, at work.

About the order, I think maybe we could have some exceptions. For example, the order of Star Saber/Victory Saber/Victory Leo's page could be like:

1.1 Victory anime

1.2 Victory manga

1.3 Zone OVA & manga

1.4 Robot Masters.

(Though RM storyline set in 2004)

Well, just an opinion. :) --TX55 13:31, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Mmnn, yes, y'know, you're right there... it's a bit fiddly, since both the Victory anime AND manga both lead into Zone, which is the same across both media. So it can't really go "Anime Continuity: Victory, Zone," then have "manga continuity" separately, otherwise we'd just repeat the "Zone" content. Ugh. - McFeely, at work

Thanks for the J-G1 clarifications, Chris! That's awesome, though I think we should avoid saying "animated continuity" unless we're talking about Animated. "Cartoon continuity" and "Anime continuity" work just fine.

Also, I'm still inclined to keep the Sunbow cartoon in the same continuity as the J-G1 stuff. It seems silly to me to have it be its own continuity-of-one, especially since the J-continuity contains it in whole. For the list as it currently stands, I've defined a "continuity" as all the branches from a single source, whether or not they stay true to each other. Thus, the Sunbow 'toon and BW 'toon are the anchors for their own multi-armed continuity beasts.

Here's how I'd lay it out, based on what's been discussed:

1. G1 cartoon continuity
 1.1. Sunbow cartoon
 1.2. Anime continuity
  1.2.1. Scramble City OVA
  1.2.2. The Headmasters anime
  1.2.3. Super-God Masterforce anime
  1.2.4. Victory anime
 1.3. Manga continuity
  1.3.1. Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers manga
  1.3.2. Transformers 2010 manga
  1.3.3. Transformers Big War manga
  1.3.4. The Headmasters manga
  1.3.5. Super-God Masterforce manga
  1.3.6. Victory manga
 1.4. Zone continuity
  1.4.1. Zone OVA
  1.4.2. Zone manga
  1.4.3. Battlestars manga & story pages
  1.4.4. Operation Combination story pages
 1.5. Generation 2 manga
 1.6. Binaltech toy bios
 1.7. Robot Masters
 1.8. Kiss Players
 1.9. 15 Go! Go! manga

The nomenclature could probably use some work, since we're starting to talk about continuity-threads that haven't been, to the best of my knowledge, called out before. How do you say "Anime-not-including-Zone"? I'm taking the approach here that Zone is to previous anime/manga as BW is to the G1 'toon and comics. That's what I gathered from the discussion above; correct me if I'm wrong.

Also, I don't know where the thematic break after Zone proper should be. Based on my limited knowledge, it seemed like Battlestars and Operation Combination contained enough direct links to be considered part of the Zone milieu, while G2 and beyond were more their own things. Probably a judgement call?

Edit: Oh, and I put Kiss Players and 15 Go! Go! in the list too (rearranged to real-world order), but there's a reason why I'd had them outside the G1-'toon continuity: Both Robot Masters and 15 Go! Go! contain BW elements, so I thought they belonged after the Beast Era in terms of continuity-heredity. KP would go with them, I think. (And this is even putting aside the massive shoehorn-retcon that Takara did recently that could elevate their latest series above EVERY TF continuity ever.)

- Jackpot 19:14, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I can definitely see why there's a sensible argument for keeping the G1 cartoon within the J-G1 continuity - it's just so bloody fiddly to do so. I think I sort of involuntarily spearheaded the knocking of it on the head, though, because of the abominable mess that it was making of Optimus Prime's page, which had the cartoon split up into seasons and all the Japanese stuff weaved in amongst it. Additionaly, I fucking abhor all that "(US-only)" and "(Japan-only)" stuff being put into section headers, so breaking them out into over-arcing Japanese and US headers worked well. I like what you've done here, definitely, with the idea of the Sunbow show being one header under "Animated continuity" and "anime continuity" being another (I'd probably called it "Japanese continuity"). I'd still put BT, RM and KP in chronological story order, but that's sheer personal preference - like Walky and Siph say, I'm more inclined to have a chronologically-ordered-in-universe telling of the character's story, rather than bounce around up and down their timeline.

Regarding Zone, though, you do have it a bit wrong. The F!SRLF, 2010 and Big War mangas are all part of the animated continuity, weaving in and around the events of the cartoon. The HM, MF and V mangas, however, are not in continuity with their respective animes, featuring an alternate telling of events to the animes. The Zone manga follows on from these mangas. And the Zone anime follows on from the HM-MF-V manimes. The thing is - the Zone anime and the Zone manga are exactly the same. It's not like BW where it's story is beholden to things that happened in both the manga or anime - it's just simply that this one, single, same story occurred in runs of both printed media and animation. Rather than try and explain this in words, I've decided to pull a Derik and make a picture:

I hope that makes sense. It's not so much a fork in the timeline as it is a... roundabout (do... do Americans have roundabouts?). So, using your "G1 cartoon" master head with American and Japanese sub-headers, I think this works better:

1. G1 cartoon continuity

1.1. American cartoon

1.2. Japanese cartoon continuity

1.2.1. Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers manga

1.2.2. Scramble City OVA

1.2.3. Binaltech toy bios

1.2.4. Kiss Players

1.2.5. 15 Go! Go! manga

1.2.6. Transformers 2010 manga

1.2.7. Transformers Big War manga

1.2.8. The Headmasters anime

1.2.8.1 The Headmasters manga

1.2.9. Super-God Masterforce anime

1.2.9.1 Super-God Masterforce manga

1.2.10. Victory anime

1.2.10.1 Victory manga

1.2.11. Zone OVA/manga

1.2.12. Battlestars manga & story pages

1.2.13. Operation Combination story pages

1.2.14. Generation 2 story pages

I'm not wholly sold on the way I've set up HM-MF-V mangas, there, though. But what is very helpful is the fact that are virtually no instances where it will actually be necessary to do this, given the small casts of the manga and the lack of overlap. - Chris McFeely 21:07, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, Shuta and Cab show up for no reason in the Victory manga... (I'm also pretty sure that the chart I did up for the Club, which is also on the continuity article, lays out the anime/manga split.) It's very much a "you take the high road, I'll take the low road" deal. --M Sipher 21:22, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm applying for a trademark for "Continuity Roundabout." But, anyhoo, in the case of Shuta and Cab, the thing with this is, since that's all the fiction they appear in, we can do this:

Anime continuity

Super-God Masterforce

Manga continuity

Super-God Masterforce

Victory

It works here because they dont appear anywhere else, so we don't have to try and work it into the timeline ahead of something that's already happened, or to try and figure out how to loop it back around to Zone-and-beyond. It's eaiser to relate the information than this complicated discussion is making it sound, but ultimately, we might have to use a case-by-case method to just figure out how to do it in the easiest way. Take what I did with Rodimus Prime a while back - I just made one section "Headmasters anime and manga," because his appearance in the manga follows on directly from what he does in the anime (we haven't really talked about it here, for everyone's benefit, but HM is a strange animal, in that it IS concurrent with its anime, using it as its basis, rather than being an "alternate" to it, but at the same time, some things happen in it the manga can't possibly occur within the cartoon). Case-by-case. Someone give me an example till I test out how easy it is to make it work... - Chris McFeely 21:32, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I totally get your "continuity roundabout" drawing (and, yeah, we Americans have them - just not many). I don't understand how you redid the list, though. The revision I suggested is the linear depiction of your roundabout. Look at the master list, and see how there's Marvel G1 first, going all the way up to the present with Classics. Then the G1 cartoon, with all of its spawn. Then BW, which stems from both. Likewise, I suggested we run the pre-Zone anime together in its subsection, as it's one cohesive unit, then the pre-Zone manga in another cohesive unit, then Zone and beyond which stems from both. I could see maybe splitting "Zone anime" and "Zone manga" apart and putting them at the ends of their respective sections, based the point you made about them not drawing from, but rather belonging to both worlds. But making the mangas subsections of their animes doesn't make sense to me, since you said the mangas are NOT in continuity with their animes. The exception, apparently, is the HM manga? But if even THAT still can't fully mesh with the anime, then I say for the purposes of the master we just treat it like it's another "alternate" and let all the mangas live together separately. But equally. - Jackpot 18:04, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, y'know, looking back on that after a day, I honestly don't know what I was talkin' about. I'm looking at your list now, and I'm thinking, "That makes more sense." I think it was the use of the term "Zone continuity" that sort of threw me, and it being it's own separate header, when it's all part of the same line. All of the fault of these bloody mangas, honestly, it is. The silly thing is, I don't think this will ever really be an issue in the actual creation of an article... it's just awkward to try and fit into a cover-everything explanation. - Chris McFeely 00:28, 2 February 2008 (UTC) 00:12, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I've updated the master to reflect this discussion. I decided to separate the two Zones, since context will always decide one over the other in an article anyway. I also lumped Battlestars and Operation Combination into the manga continuity, since I don't know any better. If they don't belong there, let me know.

All the J-fiction from Binaltech onwards, I kept outside of the G1 'toon-verse proper because of the Beast elements in them. (Ravage, at the very least.) And it's my limited understanding that Binaltech's temporal wackiness ends up taking it outside the 'toon-verse proper anyway. But if anyone can give a more informed analysis, I'd love to hear it.

- Jackpot 04:51, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

See, I just plain don't agree with the keeping of Binaltech, KP, RM and all that other stuff out of there. I know why you're doing it, but it's purely my personal preference not to. Like Siph and Walky are saying, I want to write a character's fictional history in chronological story order, not the way the fiction came out. I also realized what part of the problem I had with the list was - it was putting the SRLF, 2010 and Big War mangs in the "manga continuity," when they're very definitely part of the anime continuity. Regarding Binaltech - essentially, yeah, but again, it's no different from how Classics branches out from the Marvel continuity. Takes the cartoon as its starting point, and then branches off and tells a new story that's not in-line with the other existing fiction (it just so happens that in the case of Binaltech, the divergence is a story point). - Chris McFeely 11:29, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I've moved the first set of mangas into the "Anime continuity" section. Also, I'd been thinking about Binaltech et al., and I realized that if a series is set in a pre-existing continuity, it should go there... and if it uses time/dimension travel to draw from multiple continuities, well, it should go into all of them then. So, for instance, I put three Robot Masters headers into the Anime, Beast, and UT continuities. The placement used in an actual article will depend on the subject.

As for the chronological order, see my discussion with Siph above. I'm still putting series in real-world order for sake of having an absolute reference with no subject, but I'm fine saying that anyone using the master can feel free to rearrange sub-continuity headers as suits the fiction-chronology of a particular topic.

- Jackpot 20:31, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Header-size issues

Humm. I'll tell you what's just occurred to me. Creating a master "G1 cartoon continuity" heading, then sub-headings for the US and Japanese continuities, with more sub-headings below the latter for the individual aspects... would work if it was on it's own, but it is in turn all under a larger "fiction" heading, which will result in nasty, ugly little sub-headers that will be pretty much useless, on account of being ordnary sized bold text that will

Look (Fiction)

Like (G1 cartoon continuity)

This (Japanese continuity)

Here (The Headmasters anime)

I feel it should be make clear that I fucking hate these tiny little useless bastards and will murder anyone who tries to put them in an article. - Chris McFeely 22:20, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Hell, just look at the end of the master list. The new-movie franchise gets stupid crazy with the video-game subsections. My hope there is that in any article where, say, the Activision games come up, the parent sections can be omitted. But in the worst-case scenario (Optimus Prime seems like a good universal litmus test), I wonder if we have enough formatting control over this Wiki to make it stop shrinking the header-text after a certain point. Or introduce a different leveling scheme, like indentation.

Also, I wonder how often we really need subsections at all. For instance, we don't make a new section every time IDW starts a new "-ation" title. For the J-G1 stuff, can we combine the Headmasters-through-Zone anime into one bottom-level "Anime continuity" section (and likewise with the manga)? The reader would then have to click on storylinks to find out which series is being referenced, but is that a big deal?

- Jackpot 18:16, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

You know, I have occasionally mulled over why we have things like

===Cartoon continuity===

====Armada====

...for characters who only ever appeared in the Armada cartoon. The "Armada" seems unneccessary. Why not only use "===Armada cartoon continuity===", instead of adding a pointless sub-divide? --M Sipher 18:38, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Updates

So, I stumbled upon this article... any chance we could see it updated with some of the new stuff? I'd really love to see something successfully keep track of all the various continuities we have. --LOMI (talk) 16:41, 11 November 2014 (EST)