TF Views

What about if someone edited an article with something that wasn't so easily picked up on? It's not always so simple to spot inaccurate information as you make it out to be here.

That's the point of a user-edited encyclopedia--it's supposed to be user-enforced. If I see something that I know is wrong on the Wiki, I fix it. It doesn't take a lot of time out of my day--it takes maybe a few minutes.

JT wrote:Yes, let's keep arguing about Wikis even though clearly Sparky's mind isn't changing on this, and there's now news.

Have you been here?

So uh, it's a week to go, how do we vote on this?

...Do they want us to vote on the forums, or are we doing it on the website like always? You asking it that way sounds like you want us to vote here.

From that list, it's a toss up between Prowl and Magnus for me. I'll say Magnus right now because he's been in more series and permutations of the franchise. Interestingly, of that list, Arcee is the only one from the films.

Onslaught Six wrote:

JT wrote:Yes, let's keep arguing about Wikis even though clearly Sparky's mind isn't changing on this, and there's now news.

Have you been here?

Maybe it's time to change how we do things then, maybe circle mcjerking isn't the way to win arguments.

So uh, it's a week to go, how do we vote on this?

...Do they want us to vote on the forums, or are we doing it on the website like always? You asking it that way sounds like you want us to vote here.

No. Here's what their text in the email I got said:
"All polling result lists will be combined together (each outlet getting an equal voice) with the #1 character on each list worth 5 points, etc. The resultant point values will be used to generate the final ballot of five choices, which will be voted upon in early June on Transformers.com."

From that list, it's a toss up between Prowl and Magnus for me. I'll say Magnus right now because he's been in more series and permutations of the franchise. Interestingly, of that list, Arcee is the only one from the films.

I also don't know how they want to do the top 2, 2 votes each voter or just the first and second most popular?

My vote from that list is Magnus, I want it to be BW Megatron but it's been so long since he's been relevant.

Onslaught Six wrote:That's the point of a user-edited encyclopedia--it's supposed to be user-enforced. If I see something that I know is wrong on the Wiki, I fix it. It doesn't take a lot of time out of my day--it takes maybe a few minutes.

Being user enforced isn't going to mean that the information on the page is accurate or un-bias. Say someone else disagrees with your 'fix', and changes the article back to the way it was. It's not going to matter how long it took someone to edit it, that doesn't mean either of you necessarily have the correct information.

JT wrote:Yes, let's keep arguing about Wikis even though clearly Sparky's mind isn't changing on this, and there's now news.

Have you been here?

Yeah, seems that many of our topics gets onto to some tangent to some degree but usually it circles back around to the topic sooner or later. And it's not just my point of view on this. Having a background in education, naturally I am going to see it more from the academic side, where Wiki articles are not considered a credible source. And as I recall, one of the few times I've relaxed in that, I think it was both O6 and BWprowl (that was like a year or two ago so I might be mistaken about that. Edit, looked up the topic and it was actually Gomess and O6) that shot me down for citing what the Metroid Wiki said even though the information wasn't technically inaccurate. So if there is going to be a double standard, I'm just going to stick with the academic stance.

JediTricks wrote:

So uh, it's a week to go, how do we vote on this?

...Do they want us to vote on the forums, or are we doing it on the website like always? You asking it that way sounds like you want us to vote here.

No. Here's what their text in the email I got said:
"All polling result lists will be combined together (each outlet getting an equal voice) with the #1 character on each list worth 5 points, etc. The resultant point values will be used to generate the final ballot of five choices, which will be voted upon in early June on Transformers.com."

Um... Do they realize it's already mid-June? I don't see that they're going to have enough time for this if they want to reveal with winner by Botcon.

I don't see that they're going to have enough time for this if they want to reveal with winner by Botcon.

I assume the code for the voting is all set to go and would've been done weeks, if not months ago.

At this point, all they'd really need is the toys (which Hasbro has tons of) and some videos. Which...I mean, big deal. I'm no master of editing, but my music videos are primarily made of footage from other sources, and usually take about a weekend at most.

Being user enforced isn't going to mean that the information on the page is accurate or un-bias. Say someone else disagrees with your 'fix', and changes the article back to the way it was. It's not going to matter how long it took someone to edit it, that doesn't mean either of you necessarily have the correct information.

Then you get into an edit war, and then a moderator steps in.

Alternatively, if you're fixing something erroneous, you can provide an actual source, and then they pretty much can't fight you on it, unless they're going to argue the credibility of the sources. Which wikis have a whole system for that, so.

Onslaught Six wrote:I assume the code for the voting is all set to go and would've been done weeks, if not months ago.

At this point, all they'd really need is the toys (which Hasbro has tons of) and some videos. Which...I mean, big deal. I'm no master of editing, but my music videos are primarily made of footage from other sources, and usually take about a weekend at most.

They still need to get going with the actual voting. Botcon is only about 2 weeks away at this point and it seems they are a bit behind if they're saying the voting is supposed to start "early June".

Then you get into an edit war, and then a moderator steps in.

Exactly my point. In that type of situation, the users aren't part of the solution, they are part of the problem. You can't always rely on just anyone to be able to edit an article.

Alternatively, if you're fixing something erroneous, you can provide an actual source, and then they pretty much can't fight you on it, unless they're going to argue the credibility of the sources. Which wikis have a whole system for that, so.

And not everyone that edits an article follows that. Plus, not every Wiki is necessarily all that serious about how they interpret cited materials (again, like with Sideways on the TFwiki). Bottom line, allowing everyone to edit Wiki articles isn't a perfect system which makes it less than reliable to use as a credible source of information, albeit still a very useful tool for finding information.

They still need to get going with the actual voting. Botcon is only about 2 weeks away at this point and it seems they are a bit behind if they're saying the voting is supposed to start "early June".

All of the "finalists" would presumably get their own "victory" promo video made up. It's standard for this kind of thing. (For example, newspapers have articles ready to run depending on who will win the presidential election every four years. I think one paper even famously printed the wrong article.)

Onslaught Six wrote:All of the "finalists" would presumably get their own "victory" promo video made up. It's standard for this kind of thing. (For example, newspapers have articles ready to run depending on who will win the presidential election every four years. I think one paper even famously printed the wrong article.)

I don't doubt that would or could do that if it came down to it. My concern here is more about the amount of time they're giving the fandom to vote. Past years it seemed like they had much more advanced timing in order to have everything prepared for Botcon rather than by the time of Botcon.

Sparky Prime wrote:

JediTricks wrote:

So uh, it's a week to go, how do we vote on this?

...Do they want us to vote on the forums, or are we doing it on the website like always? You asking it that way sounds like you want us to vote here.

No. Here's what their text in the email I got said:
"All polling result lists will be combined together (each outlet getting an equal voice) with the #1 character on each list worth 5 points, etc. The resultant point values will be used to generate the final ballot of five choices, which will be voted upon in early June on Transformers.com."

Um... Do they realize it's already mid-June? I don't see that they're going to have enough time for this if they want to reveal with winner by Botcon.

I would assume that with Botcon 2 weeks away, they'll have a vote up on Monday that will last a week, and then the following week will announce the winners. The timing could be better, but it'll still work.

O6 wrote:Then you get into an edit war, and then a moderator steps in.

Alternatively, if you're fixing something erroneous, you can provide an actual source, and then they pretty much can't fight you on it, unless they're going to argue the credibility of the sources. Which wikis have a whole system for that, so.

Are you having fun? You're clearly not changing his mind, you can make all the arguments you want and he's going to stick to his guns, so why bother? And what do you get if you magically were to win this argument? Nothing. So what's the point of using your energies on this? Sometimes it's just better to walk away from the neverending battle. I mean, for goodness sake, he cited his "background in education" as if the rest of us were raised by wolves and have no understanding of the concept of the difference between credible information sources and information aggregators, how do you think you can convince someone with such a significant gulf between yours and his arguments?

I don't doubt that would or could do that if it came down to it. My concern here is more about the amount of time they're giving the fandom to vote. Past years it seemed like they had much more advanced timing in order to have everything prepared for Botcon rather than by the time of Botcon.

It was 12 days last year for voting on their site, and this year it'll probably be a week, but it could conceivably go longer. It really shouldn't take longer than 3 days to get all the fans to vote, if the word is properly spread.

Are you having fun? You're clearly not changing his mind, you can make all the arguments you want and he's going to stick to his guns, so why bother? And what do you get if you magically were to win this argument? Nothing. So what's the point of using your energies on this? Sometimes it's just better to walk away from the neverending battle. I mean, for goodness sake, he cited his "background in education" as if the rest of us were raised by wolves and have no understanding of the concept of the difference between credible information sources and information aggregators, how do you think you can convince someone with such a significant gulf between yours and his arguments?

My posts don't take up a lot of my time. I stop in once or twice a day. I spend maybe a half hour posting. I don't put too much thought into it.

Plus I don't think it's really about changing Sparky's opinion as much as it is informing him about how wikis actually work behind the scenes because he seems to genuinely not know. Heck there's a lot of that that I don't know either so for me, O6's posts are informational more than anything else.