MediaWiki talk:Community Portal/Archive10

Question about mass-produced "fan" toys

Hi there, transfolkerinos.

Just a little thing that I though might prove vaguely controversial, so I thought I'd raise it here before unilaterally adding it and getting into a tiresome edit war with anyone.

Topic is: mass-produced non-Hasbro/Takara "Fan" toys, ala Unicron.Com's Golden Disc sets, Vector Sigma key (and other Beast Machines accessories) and ImpossibleToys' products such as the Diaclone-scale Sparkplug & Spike, Energon Cubes and the marvellous "Quint-01" Quintesson Judge Figure.

What I want to know is if I can add info on these products on the relevant pages, or if that's gonna disrupt some rule over official-ness. Before anyone gets too excited, I'll just say right off the bat that I'm proposing in each case to CLEARLY denote that they are non-official products, and they probably should even be listed separately in the "Triva" sections of each relevant page, to further distance them from listings of official products (although, in most cases, there aren't official versions. Which is kinda the point...).

The only argument against listing them that I can imagine is simply that, obviously, they're not official HasTak products and therefore, in a wacky kind of sense, "not canon". However, my argument for including them is threefold:

1] Unlike kitbashing or other customs, these items are mass-produced with high quality control, akin to an official product. (Yes, I know that unlicensed repros/knock-offs are mass-produced too, but the distinction here is that items like the Quintesson are original creations/moulds rather than substitutes for a previously-released product).

2] These products are all designed to represent accessories or characters from the fictions that had (hitherto) never been given official representations, thus filling a gap.

3] Perhaps most importantly, this stuff has been sold openly at BotCon in recent years, so even though the Collector's Club isn't personally hawking it, I don't think it would be much of a stretch to say that Hasbro is aware of this product and tacitly permits its sale and manufacture, when it could just as easily sue their asses for copyright infringement if they wanted to. The fact that they haven't and have actually let these companies sell their stuff at their official Con seems to me to be the rather meaningful turning of a rather large, not-so-blind eye. It also would rather seem to indicate that they have no immediate plans of their own to make official versions of this stuff (apart from Vector Sigma, years after Unicron.com did it), and are happy to let these well-set up little companies do their thing and keep the fans happy.

Anywayz, I just thought I'd float this here before adding to any of the pages myself. Let me know what y'all think.

Cheers, PacifistPrime. 25th October 2007.

No. No, no, and no. --M Sipher 03:38, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Um, okaaay. Care to elaborate? I reiterate my suggestion that these items be clearly marked as non-official, and that the descriptions be placed only in Trivia sections. May I ask what's the harm? PacifistPrime. 25th October 2007.

Part of the problem with including unofficial "bootleg" toys is that it opens the door for, well, all bootlegs. And that'd just be ridiculous. Ever been to a Big Lots? --ItsWalky 04:16, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

No, can't say I have. I take it that's some North American chain?

Anyway, I do take your point. It would be ridiculous to include bootleg toys, I agree. But the very fact that we already have an article on Knockoffs (not to mention all manner of "ridiculous" minutiae of fan-lifesyle. Seafood Louis anyone? Blastification? All very amusing, but hardly "official") suggests to me that we should be capable of some restrained mention of prominent fan-manufactured items.

And again, can't we draw some distinction between knock-offs of existing official products and completely original works based on major fiction-only characters & objects? I really don't see the harm in discreet mentions of clearly-acknowledged-as-unofficial products when they've been mass-marketed at Habsro's own offical Con. Surely you'd concede that there's a GULF of difference between that and this "Big Lots" place...?

PacifistPrime. 25th October 2007.

Yes, but those articles are confined to their respective pages. You were proposing listing unofficial merchandise on the relevant pages. (Under the Quintesson page, etc.)

We'd probably still resist adding an 'unofficial toys' page because it'd quickly degenerate into "what qualifies as...", but I bet you'd have more luck proposing that.

(We should have a page where we can stick the Action Master Breakdown, WST Dinobots and the Star Saber Minicon recolors... we've just kida avoided it because it seems like a collosal headache waiting to happen.) Reemember- if you start such a page pick a clear standard about what's mass-produced 'enough' to qualify. -Derik 07:39, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, that's a compromise position I was going to fall back on, yes.

Would it really be such a crapfest, though? I dunno, maybe I'm a little more ignorant of this topic than I thought, but what sort of "ridiculous" stuff do you think people are going to want to include? In terms of mass-produced, wholly original fan-made products (as opposed to knockoffs of existing HasTak prods), is there really all that much out there other than Unicron.com, ImpossibleToys and JustIToys? For all I know, there is. Please, in all seriousness; fill me in.

I think if we could agree on an adequately-defined page name & definition, we should be okay. How about something like: "Fan-manufactured toys" with a clear intro stating something along the lines of:

"As distinct from Knockoffs of existing products or one-off/made-to-order kitbashes, Fan-manufactured toys are mass-produced, high quality toys which feature completely original tooling/sculpts, intended to fill gaps in the official Hasbro/Takara product line, such as major characters like Spike Witwicky and the Quintessons, as well as significant accessores, such as The Key to Vector Sigma, hitherto appearing only in fiction. Although explicitly unofficial and in some cases sold under copyright-skirting product names, these toys are carried by major online distributors of Transformers product like BigBadToystore.com and are prominently sold at BotCon, Hasbro's official Transformers convention, seemingly indicating a degree of tacit approval."

I agree there would be bit of definitional wrangling over something like WST Dinobots... yeah. But, again, is there really all that much out there, and is there really that much of a grey area between blatant knockoffs and these lovingly-designed, original creations for the fan-market? Surely work of this nature deserves a place on a wiki that has so many articles about its own fandom...?

I'd be keen to hear a few more opinions. I don't want to sound snarky, but it seems that whenever I raise things around here I'm always talking to the same 4 or 5 chaps. Not that I wish to malign their opinions in any way, I'd just really appreciate hearing from the wider editorial community. Cheers, PacifistPrime. 25th October 2007.

Sorry, I'm a pattern-finder so I tend to track policy issues and form interpretations of the principles, ideals, morals, conflicts and opinions that underly a wide variety unrelated decisions, and then freely project where new issues fall within that gestalt. (The head of the theology department was heartbroken I didn't want to make it my major.)

I just don't think we have a lot of users interested/comfortable discussing abstract or hypothetical metapolicy. We tend to 'discover' our policies via precedent (people not liking something when it's done) not the Socratic method, which is wasteful-- but very American. -Derik 10:16, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough! :-)

So, in other words, are you saying that there's in fact very little point in me "doing the right thing" by raising this topic for discussion here, and that'd I'd do better to simply blunder ahead unilaterally, create the page and potentially invite a catfight, since that's the only way to get most users' attention?

Also; what's your opinion of the proposed article title and definition/lead-off from my last post, though?

PacifistPrime. 25th October 2007.

No. Some of these things are nice, but unless they're stamped by Hasbro or Takara, I say no go. It's not a big jump from the Golden Disks to the WST Dinobots (which, as I understand it, Aaron Archer has been trying to get shut down) to the Jizaitoys Cyclonus and Wheelie to fucking Zobovor's repaints of RID toys into G1 dudes for his friend's basement-con. -hx 11:41, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Okay. So, you reckon even an isolated page is not kosher? I'm sorry, but I just don't see the harm. I mean, if we were all formality nazis like at Wookieepeia I could understand, but when we have articles on Seafood Louis...! I just don't get it. Why is this such a no-go? PacifistPrime. 25th October 2007.

I presume it is because when we come to things like Transformers products and fiction, we deal strictly with official stuff. --FFN 14:28, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Agree. Only deal with the official licensed products or we will get too many unrelated things. TX55 15:02, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Once again, Seafood Louis is an isolated, self-contained JOKE page. This wiki has comedy in it. That is one of the comedy bits.

Even then, Seafood Louis was served at an official convention, so it's STILL more "real transformers" than the WST Dinorobots. -hx 17:52, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

The harm is in opening the door for every fan-repaint and fan-character ever to be plastered across the wiki and mistaken for official. There's a TF fanon wiki for that crap to go into. I've raised the same objections to including unofficial conventions and publications, even when I really really liked some of them, such as the Cybertronian Guides and Iacon One. If an unoffical con gets a special exclusive third-party licensee item like a special comic cover or bust redeco, then yes, we should note that on the relevant comic/character page and name the convention, but that doesn't mean the convention deserves a page... unless we're going to start making pages for every store that's ever carried official TF product. TF material is already labrynthian and confusing enough without muddying the waters by dumping in the metric fuckton of unofficial products. The clearest and simplest way to determine "what comes in" as far as characters and products go is the official stamp. Anything else is a slippery slope.

But there are a lot of things concerning official TFdom that no official stamp can ever be applied to... like redecoes, retools, animation errors, gang-molding, safety reasons, etc etc etc. They're aspects of the fandom/franchise that are important and should be addressed, and aspects like knock-offs, fanon, personal canon, etc, should be addressed as well, but since they lean heavily into "made up stuff not approved by the franchise owners", we shouldn't go into extensive lists or anything.

And at the very, very least, there's still way too much official stuff yet undocumented here to spend on unofficial stuff... but even after we've got all that in (hah, right), I still say no-go to unofficial product. (About the only exception I would say is that AM Breakdown SHOULD be mentioned on the character's page, in Trivia, saying THIS IS NOT OFFICIAL and that's about it, simply because there is a VERY high chance of that being mistaken for official, what with the "BotCon exclusive", even though it was an unofficial convention.) --M Sipher 16:14, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, I hear y'all's reasoning, and I'll concede it has a certain logic to it, but I still find it wholly unconvincing, and quite irreconcilable with the spirit of the all the many "fandom"-category pages. With all due respect to -hx, the idea that a joke page (and yes, I know it's a joke page! I'm not thick) about a menu item served at a Con can nevertheless be considered "more official" than a fan-manufactured product that was sold at the same official Cons is spurious reasoning at best. But it's certainly looking like we're going to have to agree to disagree on that one.

Okay, down to brass tacks: the "consensus" is clearly against my position, but as usual it's the same usual small handful of editors. I'm not saying anything bad about you guys, I promise. But following Derik's reasoning that the majority of editors (the "real" consensus, if you will) aren't going to make their feelings known on this matter unless it's already been "done" instead of just discussed, I hereby propose creating the "Fan-manufactured toys" page as floated a few posts back and see what the reaction is. However, I don't want to do this and start being accused of "violating a consensus" and getting banned and all that malarky. I think my record of contributions shows that I'm a genuine participant in trying to improve this wiki and not a troublemaker, so I really don't want to incite any bad feeling here.

So, if I do this is everyone going to freak out, or shall we wait and see what the reaction is in the wider community?

All the best, PacifistPrime. 26th October 2007.

Even if the page were created, most editors would not bother to comment on it because most editors don't have strong opinions about that sort of thing. The idea of a dedicated page for this concept seems bad to me, but personally I would be willing to humor you if you want to give it a try. You are totally welcome to create test pages that are contained under your userpage: User:PacifistPrime/Fan-produced toys, for example. Write as much as you want, and when you think it's ready, ask for opinions. Other people who like the idea might even help you build it there. But even if you make it, we still might say, "Sorry, we don't want that in the main wiki." And for what it's worth, I dislike the idea for similar reasons as the other guys. I am wary about deciding what "counts" as a fan-produced toy (the lovely "CybCon" exclusives that Hooper_X referred to derisively are an example) instead of just a set of kitbashes. To me, covering fan-made toys has more in common with covering fanfic (as in talking about specific fanfics, not the concept in general) than it does with covering guidebooks or conventions, and I don't like that. --Steve-o 23:05, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Does the image server have the hiccups again or is it just me?

Is anyone else unable to get any images to load? The main Wikia page seems to be down as well. --FortMax 17:38, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikia, unlike Wikipedia, is not redundant, so it does hickup regularly. (It also only has one redundant backup-- which is not offsite. This is why some of our users dl backups on occasion.) -Derik 22:57, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Process for additional admins

Do we have some sort of process for adding additional admins? I'm not trying to become one myself (already one at Wookieepedia and the Stargate wiki) but I have noticed that this community could potentially grow, and that there could come the presence of certain...individuals who may need to be delt with. The backlog of things needing to be deleted is evidence of this. We only have two admins so far, and there could be room for additions. -- SFH 20:27, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I for one would find this wiki more entertaining by a factor of ten if Derik were an admin.--Rosicrucian 20:48, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

That would be pretty hilarious, but even Derik might say it's a bad idea to make Derik an admin; he's previously admitted that sometimes he does stuff that he knows he shouldn't.  :) Anyway, I guess I'd be open to becoming an admin. In some ways it would be convenient since I live with User:ItsWalky, but it would also make sense to pick somebody in a different time zone or something so we're more likely to get blocks in on troublemakers before they do too much damage. --Steve-o 23:09, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Derik would most definately say it's a bad idea to make him an admin. He'd have to be all responsible 'an shit. Besides- you don't get proper arguments out of people if they're cowed by disagreeing with an admin, and I believe in the combative process of decision-making; it's what American law and jurisprudence is based on after all. -Derik 16:03, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Then for a more serious nomination Chris McFeely seems to be a logical choice for a European admin.--Rosicrucian 23:16, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I think that's reasonable. I mean, he's not clearly evil.--Zodberg 23:26, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I've adminnededed Chris and Steve. --ItsWalky 01:41, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Dude. I'm so going to make it my business to screw with stuff. :D - Chris McFeely 15:17, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd back both choices. Steve-o's been acting as an impartial arbiter for months, and McFeely is knowledgeable, levelheaded-- and several timezones removed from everyone else (hopefully narrowing the '6-8 hour window where trolls can run amok without being blocked' we currently have when our admins are sleeping.) -Derik 16:03, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations guys! :D Yeah, trolls generally seem to pop up when most of the North American members aren't online. --FFN 16:54, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I believe both they will be good adimins. ;D --TX55 02:19, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

May death come quickly to their enemies--Zodberg 02:46, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Continuity error?

I've noticed a few errors in episode summaries that are listed as continuity errors, but really aren't. An example from from Divide and Conquer:

Optimus Prime somehow deflects a heat-seeking missile by hitting its warhead with his arm.

I think this would be better described as a technical error. It is an example of a technical fact being misrepresented, not an internal continuity discrepancy. However, the sections titled "Technical and/or animation glitches" seem to only contain technical glitches specifically related to cartoon production. Is this how it should be, or am I just looking at the wrong stories to judge by?

If the latter, great, I'll just move the note. If the former... well, I think that's incorrect, but of course I'll go with it if that's consensus.

Is that consensus? --Sntint 16:25, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I noticed a couple of things like this on the "Transport to Oblivion" article, and moved them from the "Continuity errors" section to the "Miscellaneous trivia" section, which seemed more appropriate. "Technical and/or animation glitches" should be reserved for actual production errors, and not used for things that are "errors" in the way of not actually making real-world sense. --KilMichaelMcC 16:49, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

It'd be far more fun if we had a snarkily-titled section specifically for such things. ie How Can That Be? or WTF? Or at least Improbable Events. -- Repowers 02:41, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, what are the categories of "error"? A) Animation/Production Error: That's clearly huffer, but he's pink. / Starscream is talking in Arcee's voice. / Swoop's arm is seventeen feet away from Swoop's shoulder. B) Continuity Error: Airraid is present in this shot, but he's supposed to be on Earth. And dead. / Soundwave was present at this battle, though Megatron told him to stay behind and guard his Butterfingers. / Five Faces of Darkness: Passim. C) Plot Errors: Evil plans that make no sense. / Retreating for no reason. D) Science Errors: Deflecting missiles by hitting them on the warhead. / Yeah, the Transformers have never heard of water, right. / Neutron bombs are actually ill-suited for use against robots. JW 03:01, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I can totally get behind an ERRORS. OF. SCIENCE! subsection. -- Repowers 03:10, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Comic Issues Naming Convention

Okay, so MistaTee and I have gone back and forth on this, so I'm putting it out in the open. He's lobbying for the format to be "Comic Name (issue number)" with the issue number only being there if it's a multi-part story. Personally, I don't care what the spotted heck we use as long as we use the same format for all the comic issues. Thus to get this noticed and foster discussion, here it is. Ideally once we decide something, it'd be great if we could get Walky or Suki to bot-edit everything so we're over and done with that.--Rosicrucian 00:45, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

My reasoning is this: The title of the issue is not "Escalation, part 1", it's merely the first part of the title "Escalation". Also I don't care is we use "Escalation (part 1)", "Escalation (issue 1)" or "Escalation (#1)" as long as we're consistent. Please see my talk page for the conversation with Rosicrucian. --MistaTee 00:56, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm a little reluctant to make a universal rule on this sort of thing. Contrary to MistaTee's statement, sometimes the title of a story really is "Blah blah, Part 1". However, in cases where there is no known title (like most of the IDW issues), I think "Series Name issue #" would be best, much like what we already have for the Dreamwave Armada series (except that, of course, normally the publisher's name wouldn't be in the title, it's only there for Armada to differentiate from the Panini series). It doesn't feel right to me to have a comma or a set of parentheses. That's the model I would prefer for the IDW minis. In cases of a multi-part story which has a known title and takes place in a series of a different title, but the individual parts do not have titles, we can't use the word "issue". So... then I guess either "Story Name, part #" or "Story Name (part #)" is cool with me. I guess I have a slight preference for the comma approach, since it mirrors the way multi-part stories are titled when they are actually given titles. I agree with MistaTee that decapitalizing "part" in those cases is more correct, although it's not an issue that engenders any passion within me. --Steve-o 18:25, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

That actually makes a fair amount of sense to me. If we consider that we're treating these as multi-part stories similar to the way they are in the animated series episode summaries, it does follow that it would be "Infiltration, part 1" and so forth in absence of specific issue titles. It works for the miniseries issues, at the least.--Rosicrucian 15:58, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I've sorta grown a fondness toward "issue", since each individual comic IS an issue of a larger title or miniseries. I also favor the parentheses since the word "issue" is not part of the title. When the TPB is released for Escalation, for example, it is not separated by "issue" or "part", etc, it's a free flowing story. Therefore it's simply "Escalation (issue 1)". Now if the issue itself actually uses the word "part" or whatever (as in the UK strips for example) then I have no problem using it. --MistaTee 16:31, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't think a an article title like "Escalation issue 3" causes any confusion -- the word issue and numeral 3 are clearly not part of the comic's title. It's just saying that the article is about the third issue of Escalation: "{Name of a comic series} issue {issue number}". Parentheticals in article titles, to me, are meant to differentiate between multiple entities that have the same name. The various issues of Escalation do not have the same name -- they have no names at all. "Escalation issue 3" then is a purely descriptive article title which doesn't imply anything about the title of that issue. "Escalation, part 3" avoids my parentheses concern and would be acceptable to me (it is of the form "{Name of a multipart story}, part {part number}"), but I'd rather we explicitly refer to issues as issues when possible. In self-analysis I can't think of a reason for that preference, so it may be arbitrary. --Steve-o 21:50, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I greatly prefer "Comic name, issue #". Or "Comic name, part #". I really don't like the parentheses - we generally have used them solely for disambiguation, and I think we should maintain that. - RolonBolon 05:46, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

"Issue" has the great advantage of being totally unambiguous. Everyone knows exactly what an "issue" is, as opposed to a "part", a "book", or whatever else. -- Repowers 05:51, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

As some food for thought, I took a look at the inside covers to see how IDW actually parses things.

• Infiltration uses "The Transformers # _", with "Infiltration" printed a line beneath it.

• Stormbringer uses "The Transformers: Stormbringer # _".

• Escalation uses the "The Transformers" logo with "Escalation" underneath basically as an extension of the logo. Further down on the page is printed "Issue Number ___", with the number actually written out.

• Like Stormbringer, Devastation uses "The Transformers: Devastation # _".

Stormbringer and Devastation have an obvious solution here. Simply drop the "The Transformers:" and just use the "Series Title # _" format. No commas, parentheticals, or extra words needed. It might be simpler to just apply this format to Infiltration and Escalation as well.

However, if we'd rather stick closer to the titles printed in the actual comics, Escalation should probably be "Escalation, Issue Number One" and so forth. I'm not quite sure on Infiltration though, as the way it's formatted in those books doesn't allow for a simple discard of the "The Transformers" part. Keeping that in could mean either "The Transformers # _, Infiltration" or maybe "The Transformers # _ (Infiltration)" --KilMichaelMcC 06:56, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

More food for thought... I also just checked at the inside covers and discovered a rather consistent pattern. If you look at the small writing at the bottom, all the IDW "-ation" series seem to have it formatted "The Transformers: Infiltration #1", "The Transformers: Escalation #1", "The Transformers: Devastation #1", "The Transformers: Megatron Origin #1", etc. --MistaTee 08:53, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I'll like to point out that the "#" can't be used in article titles. (Since it's used in links to point to sections.) Interrobang 09:16, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Dammit, back to square 1, lol. Well on the front cover they all seem to use "issue #X" right under the IDW logo. Without the # symbol, that would be "issue X". If we can decide on the word "issue" at least, we can debate whether to format it as "issue X", "Issue X", "(issue X)" or "(Issue X)" --MistaTee 14:04, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Echoing the "dammit." Personally, I really dislike the current use of (issue X), with its uncapitalized word inside parenthesis. It just looks... wrong... to me. I think "Title, issue X" would be much better, but that's just me. --KilMichaelMcC 19:56, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Something worth noting: if we use parentheses, we can use pipe magic on the title in question.--Rosicrucian 20:00, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Example? --MistaTee 20:45, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

If you link to an article with a parenthetical reference in its title, you can use an empty pipe to auto-fill the link. For example Revelation gets parsed as Revelation.--Rosicrucian 20:51, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Ah, that is a nice feature. --MistaTee 20:56, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't think pipe magic will be helpful when linking to individual issues, though. If I were going to link to Infiltration #4 I would probably want the link to state which issue it went to instead of making it look like it goes to the series' "hub" page. --Steve-o 22:37, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Glancing over the more recent posts -- and thanks for chiming in, folks -- it appears that a non-parentheses style is more popular. Further, the IDW books themselves seem to vary the way they write out their titles in minor ways, although the indicia consistently use "{Series Name} #{Issue Number}". This makes me think that my previous suggestion to follow the style "Infiltration issue 4" or "Infiltration, issue 4" is going to be best. I prefer the style without a comma, but it's not a big deal to me either way. Opinions on that? --Steve-o 22:37, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

If the parentheses are definitely out, I suppose the non-comma version --MistaTee 03:05, 5 November 2007 (UTC)