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)

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 :ltiverse 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)

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

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