Talk:Echoes and Fragments
Initial Discussion
If ever we were given cause to kill individual GoBots pages, this disgusting masturbatory horseshit is it. If ever there was doubt that these things were being done to end-run and abuse the wiki, it's dead. Jesus fucking Christ. --M Sipher (talk) 02:32, 1 March 2016 (EST)
- Finding it hard to argue with you. I mean.. geez. This is a lot of effort put into something for inconsequential stuff... Imagine if people put this much effort into... making a Go-Bots wiki. --Ascendron (talk) 02:46, 1 March 2016 (EST)
- Jesus. I mean, I was in favour of this story getting its own page, but this is just... not good. I might try clearing it up and cutting it down, significantly, because oh dear. --Riptide (talk) 03:04, 1 March 2016 (EST)
- I admit that if this page were to be deleted, I would probably not care. S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 03:06, 1 March 2016 (EST)
- I hate to bring emotions into my decision, and I might regret just posting this but, at this point, I want to suggest going one step further and just having the Gobots links just go to the appropriate pages on Wikipedia. If a Gobots wiki is ever made, we can change them then to go to that wiki. For goodness's sake, we're a Transformers wiki. That's what I WANT to do here. And it's starting to drain me being in the middle of this. --Ascendron (talk) 03:07, 1 March 2016 (EST)
- For what it's worth, Jim told me not to bother writing up this article because the wiki had instituted its no-GoBot rule. I told him he was wrong, that it was only Renegade Rhetoric that was considered out of scope, and even checked on community portal. He said the community had decided it didn't like GoBots and just respect their right to ignore the bits it doesn't like. Is that what's happening here? Is this the wiki of all the Transformers canon except the parts we don't like? Because if so there's some really creepy misogynistic bits I wouldn't mind removing/just linking to Wikipedia for. --Giggidy (talk) 03:30, 1 March 2016 (EST)
- The difference is, those warts in transformers fiction is still Tranformers fiction. This is like... really stretching the definition? There's a few other character's I've considered suggesting collapsing into a single list article. Kamen Riders being one of them. --Ascendron (talk) 03:44, 1 March 2016 (EST)
- (Yes, I edited a part of my previous post because it came off WAY more mean than I wanted it to). Really, alright, saying we should link them off might be going too far. In my ideal world, where everything would be perfect, the Gobots wiki would be a sister wiki of this one in every way. It would have the same layout, the same policies, and you could segway from one to the other easy as pie. But no matter how much people SAY they want to make a GoBots wiki, no one actually DOES. Surely you can understand how frustrating it is that people seem so intent to just force this wiki to bear the load of TWO franchises? --Ascendron (talk) 03:55, 1 March 2016 (EST)
- I don't think that's what's going on here. Jim seemed perfectly fine with this stuff not being on the wiki. I really think he just has fun writing GoBots stories and is happy that Hasbro lets him. I guess it's my own OCD that makes me want to write up the GoBots who meet Transformers here, just like we do with Marvel heroes and G.I. Joe characters.
- And as to this "stretching the definition" of a story... does it? Did you read it? I laughed out loud at several parts and found the juxtaposition of GoBots elements with the overly familiar Transformers The Movie story rather clever. Blaster getting swapped for Blaster, Leader-1's corny response to "why throw away your life so recklessly", Fracture and Deadlift as Unicron upgrades for Crasher and Deadlift. It's a good read, and virtually every scene has a traditional Transformer in it. So, to call it not a Transformers story seems unfair. --Giggidy (talk) 04:13, 1 March 2016 (EST)
- (Yes, I edited a part of my previous post because it came off WAY more mean than I wanted it to). Really, alright, saying we should link them off might be going too far. In my ideal world, where everything would be perfect, the Gobots wiki would be a sister wiki of this one in every way. It would have the same layout, the same policies, and you could segway from one to the other easy as pie. But no matter how much people SAY they want to make a GoBots wiki, no one actually DOES. Surely you can understand how frustrating it is that people seem so intent to just force this wiki to bear the load of TWO franchises? --Ascendron (talk) 03:55, 1 March 2016 (EST)
- The difference is, those warts in transformers fiction is still Tranformers fiction. This is like... really stretching the definition? There's a few other character's I've considered suggesting collapsing into a single list article. Kamen Riders being one of them. --Ascendron (talk) 03:44, 1 March 2016 (EST)
- For what it's worth, Jim told me not to bother writing up this article because the wiki had instituted its no-GoBot rule. I told him he was wrong, that it was only Renegade Rhetoric that was considered out of scope, and even checked on community portal. He said the community had decided it didn't like GoBots and just respect their right to ignore the bits it doesn't like. Is that what's happening here? Is this the wiki of all the Transformers canon except the parts we don't like? Because if so there's some really creepy misogynistic bits I wouldn't mind removing/just linking to Wikipedia for. --Giggidy (talk) 03:30, 1 March 2016 (EST)
- I hate to bring emotions into my decision, and I might regret just posting this but, at this point, I want to suggest going one step further and just having the Gobots links just go to the appropriate pages on Wikipedia. If a Gobots wiki is ever made, we can change them then to go to that wiki. For goodness's sake, we're a Transformers wiki. That's what I WANT to do here. And it's starting to drain me being in the middle of this. --Ascendron (talk) 03:07, 1 March 2016 (EST)
- I admit that if this page were to be deleted, I would probably not care. S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 03:06, 1 March 2016 (EST)
- Jesus. I mean, I was in favour of this story getting its own page, but this is just... not good. I might try clearing it up and cutting it down, significantly, because oh dear. --Riptide (talk) 03:04, 1 March 2016 (EST)
I was just waiting for this story to shit everything up. - Chris McFeely (talk) 04:58, 1 March 2016 (EST)
Okay, so... as an extended story, I think this warrants its own page, yes. (As Jim pointed out, the original is only slightly shorter than the upcoming Beast Wars: Uprising story.) And it is heavily Transformers-based, as opposed to being more-or-less pure GoBots fiction like Renegade Rhetoric is. But I think that, really, 70-80% of this article could be replaced with "events followed as in Transformers: The Movie, except with these GoBots replacing these Transformers", because... that's what it is. We don't need full descriptions of anything except the Sideways/Vector/Gong parts. (Also, the sooner we condense the GoBot character pages, the better. All those red links are making me nervous that someone's going to start adding them.) --Riptide (talk) 05:32, 1 March 2016 (EST)
- And that's exactly what I'm advocating. The page SHOULD exist. But really. REALLY. --M Sipher (talk) 05:55, 1 March 2016 (EST)
- I would also like to add that I don't consider this justification to give the GoBots who appear in it individual articles, but I don't know if anyone was claiming it was. Just felt important to say. - Chris McFeely (talk) 05:58, 1 March 2016 (EST)
- No? None of them? I mean, some get a ton of fiction here. Is there any intellectual foundation for this position, or is it basically just "we don't like it." I see plenty of room to condense characters, but certainly this should expand the scope of who gets featured. --Giggidy (talk) 08:09, 1 March 2016 (EST)
- I would also like to add that I don't consider this justification to give the GoBots who appear in it individual articles, but I don't know if anyone was claiming it was. Just felt important to say. - Chris McFeely (talk) 05:58, 1 March 2016 (EST)
Sigh.
Giggidy, I like you, I truly do. I appreciate your enthusiasm for AVP and co. But there's a point where you have to step back on some things, and wonder if you're going too far.
Now, as for the article itself, I feel that there's bits that are acceptable and bits that aren't. The notes section is fine, who's replaced with who makes sense. But the summary really needs paring down. Escargon (talk) 06:47, 1 March 2016 (EST)
It seems a bit narcissistic to insist that Jim shouldn't write what he wants to write because of the wiki or that it's the purpose of his work. Nobody's obligated to respect our idiosyncrasies when it comes to particular topics. Saix (talk) 09:32, 1 March 2016 (EST)
"Echos" or "Echoes"?
This is unrelated to whatever argument just occurred, but we need to figure out if it's "Echos and Fragments" or "Echoes and Fragments". The page itself goes with "Echos", while the file description for File: Echoes and Fragments cover.jpg uses "Echoes". -Foffy the Sheep (talk) 07:14, 1 March 2016 (EST)
- It was Echos, but it's since been edited to be Echoes. --Riptide (talk) 07:15, 1 March 2016 (EST)
- Ah, okay then. Like you said when you moved the page, it might be worth leaving a redirect for. Perhaps a note should be put in the Notes section as well? -Foffy the Sheep (talk) 07:29, 1 March 2016 (EST)
Delete
Why is this even an issue? I thought this was all settled two months ago. If the wiki doesn't want to cover GoBots (or any other piece of my writing, or anyone elses' for that matter) the wiki doesn't have to. I'm a big believer in engaging with the bits of the franchise you like, and ignoring the bits you don't. Giggidy, the reason I asked you not to write up this article was because it's evident which way the majority of this particular community leans. Just respect that. I'll write whatever I want, the wiki can cover whatever it wants, and other readers can read or not read whatever they want. It's not rocket science here. --Jimsorenson (talk) 11:11, 1 March 2016 (EST)
- The issue is that this isn't unambiguously GoBots fiction like the majority of us consider Renegade Rhetoric to be; it's combination GoBots and Transformers fiction, a la Withered Hope. I don't think anyone actually thinks this shouldn't be covered. --Riptide (talk) 13:43, 1 March 2016 (EST)
- Yeah, I definitely think this should be covered. The issue of how to handle the Go-Bots elements is something we'll have to deal with somehow. (I think we said they would all go in a list article or something? Am I understanding that correctly?) If there was a Go-Bots wiki, I'd say we should link to that, but... -Foffy the Sheep (talk) 13:53, 1 March 2016 (EST)
A different proposal
Since this story was presented by Vector Prime in universe as a document written by his student, Blueshift, what if we were to likewise treat this story as such? Instead of this article covering the events of a fictional story written by a real world author (Jim Sorenson), it would cover the contents of a fictional document written by a fictional author (Blueshift), thereby treating the actual story within the document as a meta-fictional story-within-a-story that we needn't cover in the same manner as real-world fiction, but still having it covered on here in some fashion. --Sabrblade (talk) 18:18, 1 March 2016 (EST)
- I'm against it. There's no point being cheeky about it and trying to find loopholes so we can get to say "it doesn't count." The Go-Bots can still get one list-page. There's no reason list-pages can't be just as informative, interesting, and in-depth as anything else. And there's no reason why the existence of this specific fiction should change our approach to the Go-Bots being documented. It's not about whether the story is good or bad. I enjoy Sorenson's writing frequently. It's about the fact that we approach different franchises outside of TF on a pretty case-by-case basis, and I think the (mostly) list article is the fairest approach for Go-Bots. G.I. Joe has special "rules" that let us include a little bit more than we would for say, Star Wars. I know my reaction was based on the presumption of what it meant about other Go-Bots articles. I'm sure that's the case for other people. Everything should be documented in full, as it should be, but you shouldn't wind up on a Go-Bots page every third click of the "Random Page" button with the current proposal. Article stands. List of Go-Bot stands. That's what I think. --Ascendron (talk) 02:38, 2 March 2016 (EST)
- Oy. Yes. What Ascendron said. TF fiction is confusing enough as it is. Proposals like that only complicate it more. --M Sipher (talk) 03:25, 2 March 2016 (EST)
- Yeah, I don't think anyone was actually saying this should be covered in any way other than normal. It just need to not be used as an excuse to go back on our previous GoBots ruling. - Chris McFeely (talk) 05:59, 2 March 2016 (EST)
- But our previous GoBots ruling specifically does not cover situations like this. I can see the case for using a list on the guys that get a one-off mention, which is most of them. But for big players like Major Mo or Zero, I don't see how it can be used with any degree of coherency. --Giggidy (talk) 07:38, 2 March 2016 (EST)
- Fine. New proposal: extend the previous GoBots ruling to cover the GoBots characters in Echoes and Fragments. All in favour? --Riptide (talk) 08:02, 2 March 2016 (EST)
- Old proposal was on the somewhat dubious grounds that "Renegade Rhetoric is not Transformers fiction." Is there any kind of intellectual foundation for this new proposal beyond "we don't like GoBots" that I'm not seeing here? And shouldn't a proposal like this be debated on Community Portal? --Giggidy (talk) 08:13, 2 March 2016 (EST)
- Giggidy, please, let it go. "We don't like GoBots" is a PERFECTLY VALID and legitimate reason not to want to write about it. They don't NEED a better reason, so stop asking for one.
- And, wiki folks, not for nothin', but I strongly recommend just adopting the stance that all GoBots are verboten and not try to contort yourself through intellectual hoops to justify their exclusion. I've had GoBots in my work since 2010 (though you can be forgiven for not realizing that Zero (Animated) and Zero (GoBots) aren't the same dude, since I hadn't introduce the concept of the diaspora yet) and I'm not likely to stop any time in the near future. I'll be happier if every time you see a Monster GoBot in Uprising or there's some new GoBot face in Axiom Nexus it doesn't kick off a big argument, and in the long run you'll be happier too. --Jimsorenson (talk) 09:27, 2 March 2016 (EST)
- I don't think we want that, though. The solution of "all GoBots compacted onto a few pages for GoBots fiction from the Facebook pages" is a reasonably elegant one, I think, that lets us remain a comprehensive source of Transformers information without being flooded with individual GoBot stubs (due to the fact that a good deal of the Facebook content is as much GoBots as it is Transformers, and the wiki does not consider the former to be a subset of the latter). Scrubbing all GoBots content off entirely would be a bad idea; we shouldn't not cover the likes of Zero, Vamp and Creepy just because they originated in GoBots. --Riptide (talk) 11:28, 2 March 2016 (EST) (And I never want to say anything with that density of the word "GoBots in again".)
- If we were a Beatles compendium, we couldn't get away with "Let's not include Yoko Ono at all because we don't like her involvement in the band." (and no, I'm not comparing anyone to Yoko Ono.) For better or worse, Go-Bots is part of Transformers fiction now, and simply turning a blind eye to it does little more than leave gaping holes in the website. --Ascendron (talk) 11:40, 2 March 2016 (EST)
- I don't think we want that, though. The solution of "all GoBots compacted onto a few pages for GoBots fiction from the Facebook pages" is a reasonably elegant one, I think, that lets us remain a comprehensive source of Transformers information without being flooded with individual GoBot stubs (due to the fact that a good deal of the Facebook content is as much GoBots as it is Transformers, and the wiki does not consider the former to be a subset of the latter). Scrubbing all GoBots content off entirely would be a bad idea; we shouldn't not cover the likes of Zero, Vamp and Creepy just because they originated in GoBots. --Riptide (talk) 11:28, 2 March 2016 (EST) (And I never want to say anything with that density of the word "GoBots in again".)
- Old proposal was on the somewhat dubious grounds that "Renegade Rhetoric is not Transformers fiction." Is there any kind of intellectual foundation for this new proposal beyond "we don't like GoBots" that I'm not seeing here? And shouldn't a proposal like this be debated on Community Portal? --Giggidy (talk) 08:13, 2 March 2016 (EST)
- Fine. New proposal: extend the previous GoBots ruling to cover the GoBots characters in Echoes and Fragments. All in favour? --Riptide (talk) 08:02, 2 March 2016 (EST)
- But our previous GoBots ruling specifically does not cover situations like this. I can see the case for using a list on the guys that get a one-off mention, which is most of them. But for big players like Major Mo or Zero, I don't see how it can be used with any degree of coherency. --Giggidy (talk) 07:38, 2 March 2016 (EST)
- Yeah, I don't think anyone was actually saying this should be covered in any way other than normal. It just need to not be used as an excuse to go back on our previous GoBots ruling. - Chris McFeely (talk) 05:59, 2 March 2016 (EST)
- Oy. Yes. What Ascendron said. TF fiction is confusing enough as it is. Proposals like that only complicate it more. --M Sipher (talk) 03:25, 2 March 2016 (EST)
- Ascendron's right. While filling the site with GoBots stubs is undesirable, to ignore them entirely would be to ignore a fairly large chunk of recent Transformers fiction. I think the list article is probably the best solution, and it's one we had already agreed upon, if I remember correctly. -Foffy the Sheep (talk) 11:58, 2 March 2016 (EST)
Can't we just get past this bullshit already? Some people on the wiki don't like covering GoBots, but nobody is obligated to respect the supposed "consensus" of some website and we will just have to deal. Saix (talk) 09:01, 2 March 2016 (EST)
Individual Write-Ups
OK, we're definitely not deleting, which I agree with. But that brings us to this:
- "simply turning a blind eye to it does little more than leave gaping holes in the website."
How is that not what we're doing by not writing up the characters who appear prominently in this story? Keeping in mind that the previous proposal specifically does not cover this story or anything like it. The intellectual foundation for excluding Renegade Rhetoric is that "it's not Transformers fiction." Leaving aside the sheer absurdity of declaring that licensed fiction about transforming robots published under this logo with these title cards is somehow "not Transformers fiction", we all, even M Sipher and Walky, agree that Echoes and Fragments is Transformers fiction. So none of the logic or reasoning for keeping them to one big list applies. The only person who seems to be advocating for "if you don't like it don't cover it" is Jim Sorenson himself, so I again ask, is there any intellectual foundation or argument to not cover characters appearing in this story other than "we don't like them"?
Ascendron, statements like this "Odds are, there will be a day when the list article will be abandoned, as every Go-Bots character will have enough meat to their appearances to warrant its own page." make me think that you're making some kind of notability argument. I went ahead and added Echoes fiction to the existing Major Mo page, as well as condensing the existing RR fiction and adding the very brief high-level summary of the RR fiction that hadn't yet been documented. I kept the Echoes to an extremely high level, like we're to do with RR fiction. Even with all of his appearances limited to just the bullet points, it's a real and substantial article. It would be much longer if we actually documented his appearances the way we do everything else. Is his article really less substantial than the likes of Harcourt or Marty Cooper or Roxy Sparkles or Brawley (ROTF) or Deep Earth Scout?
I get that some people don't like GoBots. I get that people are sick of arguing about it. But at some point, isn't it easier and simpler to just stop putting our fingers in our ears and shouting at the top of our lungs "LALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU NO GOBOTS HERE" and just treat them exactly like we'd treat any other piece of licensed fiction, and stop making special rules and exclusions for them? --Giggidy (talk) 07:57, 3 March 2016 (EST)
- Because GoBots is a special case, and one of the biggest cases of bad-faith manipulation of the Timelines Facebook pages, and it feels wrong to give characters full pages because they didn't show up in this given that we're not doing so for Renegade Rhetoric characters. It may not be entirely consistent, but it's also what the opinion of pretty much everyone except you, Giggidy, seems to be. So, if you can convince people to support you, great, but until you can show evidence of consensus we are likely to stick with counting the GoBots characters from this story as a Renegade Rhetoric appearance. --Riptide (talk) 08:31, 3 March 2016 (EST)
- Is it? You and Chris have chimed in, and that's it. If two people on a random talk page is enough to not cover characters fully, why don't I go over to Kiss Players and start a talk page there and see if I can get two or three people to agree to de-wiki all that stuff?--Giggidy (talk) 08:51, 3 March 2016 (EST)
- And Sipher, and Ascendron has indicated that he'd rather have all GoBots links have to go to Wikipedia than to let this "mess up" the wiki. And, you know, it doesn't even matter until the list pages are live, so I'm not going to say any more on this subject until it becomes actual furniture-shuffling, as opposed to just hypothetical. --Riptide (talk) 09:02, 3 March 2016 (EST)
- Rather telling that so many folks vote for a "solution" and then make zero effort to implement it. Meanwhile I'd be done updating it by now if people weren't so busy advocating for special exceptions be made and extended rather than just treating this fiction the same way we do everything else, including the German bits that make no sense and the Japanenergy tentacle porn.--Giggidy (talk) 09:19, 3 March 2016 (EST)
- I get that the consensus is that GoBots fiction from before Hasbro bought Tonka is considered out of bounds here (I don't AGREE with it, but I see no point in continuing that fight). What I DON'T understand is how, given that we've been told that GoBots are their universe's equivalents of Transformers, there is any justification for leaving out any new GB fiction. GBs are TFs now, so new GB fiction IS new TF fiction. --Khajidha (talk) 10:51, 3 March 2016 (EST)
- I agree, but there's nothing we can do about it at this point. There's a reason the dissenters have stopped replying; they've won, and they know arguing about it futhermore is pointless. Saix (talk) 11:20, 3 March 2016 (EST)
- Well, not really. If it's a vote about handling Echoes characters, there is at least as much support for treating them the way we normally do is making a special exception, so it's probably safe to go ahead and do so. On the otber hand, if you're talking about revisiting the Renegade Rhetoric decision, I agree with you that that would be a pointless discussion. --Giggidy (talk) 11:47, 3 March 2016 (EST)
- I agree, but there's nothing we can do about it at this point. There's a reason the dissenters have stopped replying; they've won, and they know arguing about it futhermore is pointless. Saix (talk) 11:20, 3 March 2016 (EST)
- I get that the consensus is that GoBots fiction from before Hasbro bought Tonka is considered out of bounds here (I don't AGREE with it, but I see no point in continuing that fight). What I DON'T understand is how, given that we've been told that GoBots are their universe's equivalents of Transformers, there is any justification for leaving out any new GB fiction. GBs are TFs now, so new GB fiction IS new TF fiction. --Khajidha (talk) 10:51, 3 March 2016 (EST)
- Rather telling that so many folks vote for a "solution" and then make zero effort to implement it. Meanwhile I'd be done updating it by now if people weren't so busy advocating for special exceptions be made and extended rather than just treating this fiction the same way we do everything else, including the German bits that make no sense and the Japanenergy tentacle porn.--Giggidy (talk) 09:19, 3 March 2016 (EST)
- And Sipher, and Ascendron has indicated that he'd rather have all GoBots links have to go to Wikipedia than to let this "mess up" the wiki. And, you know, it doesn't even matter until the list pages are live, so I'm not going to say any more on this subject until it becomes actual furniture-shuffling, as opposed to just hypothetical. --Riptide (talk) 09:02, 3 March 2016 (EST)
- Is it? You and Chris have chimed in, and that's it. If two people on a random talk page is enough to not cover characters fully, why don't I go over to Kiss Players and start a talk page there and see if I can get two or three people to agree to de-wiki all that stuff?--Giggidy (talk) 08:51, 3 March 2016 (EST)
I just wish someone beyond the people who wanted to keep it and those who only wanted it separated because of all the arguing would do something with this list idea, cause I sure as hell don't see anyone arguing against their inclusion since the beginning helping with that. Escargon (talk) 15:50, 3 March 2016 (EST)
So, at least 4 of us in favor of treating this like any other piece of TF fiction and not saying that it's not Transformers fiction as Renegade Rhetoric is. (Me, Saix, Khajidha, Ascendron per his talk page.) We know Chris disagrees, and Riptide because it feels wrong. Anyone else want to chime in? And is "feels wrong" a precedent we want to set as a reason to exclude content? --Giggidy (talk) 00:15, 4 March 2016 (EST)
