MediaWiki talk:Community Portal/Archive28

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Incorporating contradictory portrayals into a single intro

I've never really been satisfied with how we do intros, and the chief problem I have (besides chronic lack of citation) is how we moosh information from disparate sources together. Bits and pieces from all manner of bios and storylines can be run together willy-nilly until we hit some sort of contradiction threshold where suddenly all that's allowed is a one-or-two-sentence declaration that varied portrayals exist. But working on the Omnibot pages, it's occurred to me that we have an entire in-fiction language to talk about variant incarnations. "Multiverse," "dimension," "reality," "universe"... these are all terms that keep the fourth wall intact while acknowledging that one character can get any number of contradictory depictions.So I've rewritten Camshaft's intro, previously a two-sentencer, into what I think is an ideal example. The language stays in-fiction, but I use phrases like "another reality" to link to specific continuity-pages. (If we wanted to, we could generate a "Universal stream" name for every continuity and use those, but I'm happy being lazy with vague phrasing.) All sources are cited, either via footnotes (for HTML-linked sources and sources with no specific link at all) or phrase-links to issues/episodes (since storylinks seem to be frowned upon outside of "Fiction" sections). It helps that Camshaft has already been identified as a dimension-hopper and an "evolving" character, facts that serve as nice bookends for the intro. But I think the principles can be applied to any character with varied portrayals.What do all y'alls think? I see this is a good technique for summarizing thorny characters like Fortress Maximus and Scorponok, and widespread use could produce a more gradual spectrum between the cram-it-all-together and don't-even-try intro styles.- Jackpot 18:40, 8 January 2009 (EST)

Well one thing I personally don't favor is how you have In "one reality" hypertexted so you have to hover over it to know what reality you are talking about. What about using storylinks? - Starfield 19:27, 8 January 2009 (EST)

Wow. I don't like that at all. The multitude of superscripts is very distracting to the eyes, making what should be a simple opening introduction to the character look like a graduate term paper. And the event-based detail it goes into summarizes too much of the Fiction sections below, making the intro practically redundant -- a "teaser" before you scroll down and read what it's actually referring to. I think it's far, far better to allow the Fiction sections to show how different certain portrayals are, than try to tell the difference in a few clipped sentences.

I'm sorry, but...two thumbs down. --Xaaron 00:18, 9 January 2009 (EST)

Some other people have brought up critiques I can understand, but I'm afraid I disagree with everything you said.

For instance, are you actually arguing against citations in the intro? Because either footnotes or storylinks are going to be intrusive, and I don't see any other option. One of my biggest problems with our intros is that I tend not to trust them. I don't know what's word-for-word accurate, what's an inappropriate merger of unrelated portrayals, and what's just plain wrong but nobody's caught it yet because there's no source to double-check. It seems like the least we could do to lend credibility is to point out where info came from so that other people can easily see for themselves. We've got that down pat pretty much everywhere else, but for some reason the intros tend to be free-for-alls, and I don't think that's right at all.

As for the "summarizing" critique, I think a good 85% of what I wrote is stated nowhere else in the article. Mainly because almost all of the info comes from bios, which don't have a good place to live in the usual sectioning schema. Below, Derik mentioned making an "Origin" section to cover the specifics, and maybe that's appropriate... but right now, just paring the intro down and doing nothing else would produce a loss in information, so it's hardly "redundant."

- Jackpot 21:54, 9 January 2009 (EST)

Specifically within the context of the Omnibots, I kind of like it, because there's an explicit REASON for them to be so weird. For Fort Max or Soundwave or whoever, maybe not so much - I think it could get overly complicated really fast. IMHO the opening paragraph should be the broadest of broad strokes. -hx 06:14, 9 January 2009 (EST)

I have to agree that this is an overly-complicated near-dissertation. That whole thing could very easily be trimmed to at least half its length and still hit the highlights... and there's no need to mention his Headmasters manga non-characterization in the opener at all. --M Sipher 15:33, 9 January 2009 (EST)

By specifying one reality at all, it presents one or more as pre-dominant. You don't think Bumblebee's coloring book personae is important or valid enough to affect his bio. The bios are supposed to be a gestalt overview unless the character is so contradictory that's totally impossible. Something you read to figure out what the guy is about without getting into the specifics of alternate realities and crap.

The top bios are sorta the 'mythological' archetype of this character, a broad portrait that is true for true for all/most stories they appear in. So you get bios like Springer (G1), which talks about his easygoing self-confidence in the cartoon - and his constant self-doubt in the UK comic... and makes them two aspects of the same character trait.

I agree with jackpot that bios should be better footnoted (especially when they get into specifics, like weird abilities, proper names or events in a character's history...) but I strongly disagree with sticking realities int he bio. That's what the fiction section is for.

And Camshaft doesn't need a segmented bio-- he needs an "Origin" section just like Prowl II. His road-to-creation was less torturous, but the story of how he ended up with 4 (unpublished US, rarely-seen Japanese, Dreamwave and Universe) completely contradictory characterizations deserves it's own section that addresses this problem head on... not shoved into another section ill-suited to handling it, to the detriment of both. -Derik 15:57, 9 January 2009 (EST)

To Siph's point, I included the manga bit because it provided good contrast for how wildly different his portrayals are. However, I'll grant that (especially re-reading it a day later) the whole thing is a pretty heavy infodump for what ought to be something skimmable and welcoming. I'll see what I can do to lighten it up.

To Derik's first point, I have no problem with making specific continuities seem more predominant if they, well, ARE. For instance, if I were to rewrite Scorponok's intro with my method, I'd likely make reference to the American cartoon, Marvel comic, and Japanese cartoon, since those are all defining portrayals that carry a lot of weight in the fiction as a whole. I'd feel pretty okay leaving out the Blackthorne 3-D comics and Ladybird books and whatever, or maybe giving them a passing "and some other realities too" acknowledgement with no specific links, because really, they aren't that notable or influential. They get their due in the Fiction section, and that's enough.

To Derik's second point, well, I guess I just disagree. I think the "archetypal" approach can veer too close to "making stuff up that isn't there," and it contributes to the general distrust I feel towards our intros in general.

And on the third point, I actually do think an "Origin" section is a decent idea. I'll see what I can do with that.

For the record, I'd also like to point out Overdrive as a more... tame application of the same ideas. He's easier because he actually DOES have a consistent personality, and he's the most overtly-declared dimension-hopper of the bunch, so the topic of variant realities is eminently appropriate. But still, the principles I'm talking about are in use, and I think pretty well.

- Jackpot 21:54, 9 January 2009 (EST)

I have nothing to add except I think it will be less complicated and will be less work for us to do if we just leave things the way they are. There is other work to be done. --FFN 00:25, 10 January 2009 (EST)

There'll always be other work to be done. That doesn't mean we should never try to improve what's already here. And I'm not suggesting that we need to go on an immediate campaign to change every intro across the board. I'm just throwing this out there as a possibility to consider as we do our usual stream of revisions and creations. - Jackpot 01:07, 10 January 2009 (EST)

I agree that citations are needed- (I hate when they're not there-- and frankly I go to other TV show wikis and I CANNOT BELIEVE they lack storylinks-- how am I supposed to get more info or clarification on something?) but really only when the bio's say something that is reality specific. If a guy's only significant characterization is the Panni comic... and he's appeared as a cipher elsewhere, I feel comfortable presenting his Panni comic characterization as "his characterization" without any special caveats.

If we really wanted to be that hidebound by what's "real" in these bios, we'd just present the tech-specs verbatim-- no matter how inaccurate they are to the character. ("Cries and screams are...") I've always been of the opinion that our bio's are basically 'meta.' Useful and illuminating quick capsules of a character that tell you what someone is about. They are not and should not be a recitation of dry fact. We went like 16 rounds with a user over the Mr. Stanton article-- he thought it was complete when ti said "He was Bud's teacher and Coby borrowed his tools." This is a guy who had several fairly in-depth conversations with Bud-- and though those conversations weren't full of helpful biographical information to fill out a bio (w"hy, when my wife Doris and I and our three children moved to Scranton...") you can still discern something about their relationshipn from them, how he views Bud, what his values are as a person that he tries to impart on the kid, how serious he takes him despite his age, etc. That's an act of interpretation, and as with any sort of judgment call, you run the risk of being wrong' when you do that-- but the choice is fundamentally between a list of verifiable facts that don't actually give you a sense of who the guy WAS-- and a 'squishier' profile that does-- that's actually of some use.

I wrote the bio for Sting ages ago. He's a text-only hi-then-bye character who appeared in 3 paragraphs of one story. I did my best, given the limited view we were presented with, to construct a proper bio of him. He's got personality, abilities and weaknesses-- all arrives at via the description of a gladiatorial fight he was in. "Okay, given his abbilities and the types of moves he makes... it seems like his fighting style seems ot be... and that's actually consistent witht he limited knowledge of the emotional range of this character..."

Now it's entirely possible that he was a Woody-Allen type out of the ring. (In practice, this is fiction not real life, and it's usually safe to assume that the picture we have of a person is a representative one, but lets ignore that.) But the alternative to applying a bit of personal interpretation to a character... is that his entire bio would be "Pit-fighter. Small body. Died." At that point... you might as well not have an article. HE could just appear on a list. And that's not getting into characters who are HARD to explain, or contradictory, where our capsule sumamry is all that stands between the reader and the madness of tryignt o parse a dozen diffeent appearances. "Look, this guy never had a bio, but he's also got SIX appearances as a spear-carrier, and 3 spoken lines-- two of which are slightly sarcastic observations. If you combine THAT with his stated function of 'bodyguard', he goes from being a boring non-person to a mildly amusing "dryly observant retainer" bit-player who is still a character." No single continuity can give you that-- and trying to explain it in terms of single continuities would be... bad and stupid and totally defeat the point.

And,,, and I'm yammering. Whatever. *gestures up* My point is in there somewhere. Sure, you could read through all my noisy contradictory arguments to try and figure out what my point was for yourself... but wouldn't it be nicer if I'd just boiled down a gestalt overview and put it at the beginning? -Derik 03:18, 10 January 2009 (EST)

I can understand where you're coming from, especially with subjects whose characterization is so thin and scattered. I think the examples you cited are on an end of the spectrum where applying my notions really would get in the way. I apologize if I sounded like I wanted to make EVERY intro conform to this particular technique. It really only benefits subjects with a certain kind of meat to them, and I'm just hoping to encourage an additional way of thinking where appropriate. I've reworded the Camshaft intro in a fashion that still embodies what I'm talking about but makes for a breezier read. - Jackpot 15:54, 10 January 2009 (EST)

And... dammit, now I'm doing EXACTLY what you're talking about. Over on Downshift, I incorporated the Takara bio and realized that it meshed with the DW bio too damn well not to interlock. According to the mail-order flyers, Downshift is a Security Agent, and DW agrees, adding the idea that he's so intent on stopping interlopers that he'll seek them out, sometimes leaving whatever he's supposed to be guarding untended. Meanwhile, Takara's bio calls him a Scout and says that he's on the forefront of espionage but is sometimes too overeager to be effective. And I'll be buggered if that doesn't paint a full picture: He goes outside the bounds of his role as a Security Agent because he's ALSO a Scout, and his eagerness to be both makes him lose sight of his duty. To my credit, I still gave the proper cites and links so people can check the sources for themselves... but I kind of feel dirty inside. Is this what it's like to be you? - Jackpot 18:27, 12 January 2009 (EST)

No need for a Scout on post-Shockwave Cybertron. His function in the DW profile probably reflects his duties in peacetime. -Derik 21:04, 12 January 2009 (EST)

As for how it feels to be me... the broad extent of the Transfomrmers Multiverse includes G.I.Joe and all its children, Jem, Inhumanoids, Micronauts, M.A.S.K., A.T.O.M. and probably several other toylines I'm forgetting off the top of my head. After Marvel, DC, Star Trek and Star Wars... I think Transformers might actually be the 5th largest shared fictional universe on the planet Earth.

Grant Morrison has a 'thing' where he talks about how any sufficiently complicated fictional structure is alive. (He means it in an ontological sense, but you might as well call it a memetic lifeform being 'processed' by the brains of the people thinking about it.) He waxes poetic about his plan to shock the inert DCU into life (and then have sex with it,) but he never mentions Marvel-- and I think that's because he thinks the Marvel Universe is already alive, in whatever sense such constructs can be. I've certainly seen many examples of the Marvel Universe seeming to spontaneously reject editor-imposed changes to continuity, or seem to heal over damage-- generally when a half-dozen writers spontaneously writing, hinting at or alluding to the same version of events-- without any central plan to do so.

When Furman wrote a story about Unicron's dark essence, shorn of his consciousness, fleeing through time to the planet Earth, completely unaware that this was the plot of BWII as well? I got suspicious. Since then I've come to take it for granted- seemingly unrelated bodies of fiction written by different people will tend to compliment one another. Call it a living universe, synchronicity, or just the people who live-and-breathe TF for a living being unconsciously on the same page... but it doesn't surprise me anymore. -Derik 21:41, 12 January 2009 (EST)

Downshift is also a Security Agent in the S.T.A.R.S. flyers, which are definitely not a peacetime storyline.

As for the "living fiction" point of view.... that's seriously kind of creepy and makes me look askance at the parasite living in my brain. But it does certainly help me understand your tendency to seek out thematic parallels regardless of (some would say to the detriment of) continuity-integrity. It's a very writerly approach, which of course doesn't always suit a reference source, hence my resistance to such notions in the intros. But I'll admit they can be damn tasty notions.

- Jackpot 15:19, 16 January 2009 (EST)