Marvel & DC rules on minimum appearance count

[Tllmbrg]

If it makes you feel any better, I'll try to work on these pages myself if the CRT gets passed.

Another soul claimed by the verse

 

[Maverick_Zero_X]

Also btw, I would've actually preferred to make this a non-staff thread but I assumed that since it's such a big change, it'd get shifted to Staff Discussion automatically. If any staff could move this out of Staff Discussion (if that's possible) it'd be appreciated.

I’ll do so.

 

[CloverDragon03]

I'm far from the most knowledgeable guy on Marvel, so perhaps it wasn't in my place to comment, but I also don't believe the hostility on Impress's end is warranted. I know I'm not a Thread Mod and all but could I ask for things to be a bit more civil?

As for the arguments themselves, again, you're free to take what I say with the tiniest grain of salt possible - but I can definitely understand Impress's sentiment. However, I think it should be noted that the sentiment of "this will take too much work" has recently not held up very well as a point against major revisions like this. The example that pops up in my mind is, most recently, the Pokemon canon split (which funnily enough was also made by Ayewale).

 

[DaReaperMan]

So... here's my thing, yeah?

Minor characters can be a mixed bag, cause they can scale to realms nobody likes, and sometimes contradict shit

If some random one-issue Villain fights bloodlusted Spider-man equally, that shouldn't matter up and until there's a contradictory statement or something like that.

I agree that folks capable should be putting their time and energy into fixing up the profiles we already got, and if Thanos' profile is shit, then we shouldn't be making some random character who fought him...

But at the same time, after or during going through like 2000 issues for one character, I think people want to index the random funny character that actually has a feat or two within like 5 of those 2000 issues, it's a profile that lets you have fun and not be that bogged down, the MOST you should ask of that individual is that they wait until the scaling pieces are proper before releasing it!

 

[Suigetsuhyugs]

I'm kind of a new guy (mostly marvel) but i disagree with the thread, the current number of pages of Marvel and I assume DC is not that different is too big for the number of staff members active and some pages already get forgotten, I will even point out one example that i did commented on the other thread i made
Namor's speed is currently MHS+ scaling from Human Torch except human torch was downgraded to hypersonic but i suppose when the downgrade got accepted they forgot that Namor was also scaling to him. Those are 2 big characters imagine that it were 10 other one time villains that got back because some writter push him back again.
Pages for less liked characters often get forgotten, even if one person decides he's gonna care for a character's page how lon git will last until either he needs to stop keeping up?
Even if there is one person taking care of the page keep in mind that you still gonna need Staff members approval on CRT's which it was a problem that i got recently when i made a CRT about Kree no Staff member really is acknowledged on Kree so they kind of abstained from voting.
Not so long ago i saw that there was a thread about increasing the number of active CRT's for Marvel/DC because the 3 rule was too short, how are the staff gonna keep up with like 10 threads at the same time for a casual villain/hero that just shows up once in a while?
I dont necessarily think that those specific numbers for the limit are as good as they should be maybe lowering them a bit wont hurt but there should be a limit

 

[Antvasima]

I very strongly agree with Impress and Confluctor here.

Marvel Comics and DC Comics constantly change their verse mechanics and general portrayals of power levels over time, and are so insanely inconsistent in terms of powerscaling that we need a minimum number of character appearances to even have some measure of chance at finding a semi-consistent pattern for them; and in addition, as Impress said, we haven't managed to even handle properly scaling and maintaining our current pages for the more established and popular Marvel and DC Comics characters, so increasing their number five-fold is an extremely bad idea.

As such, I am afraid that I am using my veto against potentially dangerous wiki policy changes here.

Impress and Confluctor are also free to join me and Ultima in a private discussion to help provide information, guidance, and arguments regarding Ultima's upcoming revision for Marvel Comics characters considerably below the cosmic entity level.

 

[Deagonx]

We can re-include a general notability exception like in Impress' original version of the rule, so that way we can still include short-lived but highly notable characters like Mandrakk.

 

[Antvasima]

Yes, that may be an idea, but not for characters with almost no comic book appearances or notability, but that have simply happened to appear in an unrelated popular live-action movie continuity or similar.

 

[Armorchompy]

As such, I am afraid that I am using my veto against potentially dangerous wiki policy changes here.

This is not a wiki policy change, Ant, it's verse-specific ruling. That can't apply here.

 

[Antvasima]

No, it is a change to an important policy/rule page. The veto applies.

 

[Armorchompy]

Being a rule page doesn't mean it's wiki-wide, given that it's specifically about two verses in particular.

This seems like a pretty questionable use of the veto when quite frankly you can probably just get this rejected in a fairer basis, given that most of the verses' actual supporters seem to disagree.

 

[Antvasima]

This change would completely mess up two of our most important verses, so I am afraid that I am using my veto, and yes it applies to our official rule pages, not just ones that affect all verses. My apologies.

 

[Armorchompy]

and yes it applies to our official rule pages, not just ones that affect all verses. My apologies.

"For changes that have a significant impact on the entire wiki, additional safeguards are in place. Only the most trusted and experienced staff members will evaluate the proposed courses of action. Please note that this version incorporates a universal veto, which allows any single staff member (bureaucrat) with veto power to block a proposed decision, even if it has the support of the majority."

The wording explicitly states that it needs to affect the entirety of the wiki.

 

[Damage3245]

Hold up; my understanding from the OP is that removing the rules would just allow the addition of characters to the wiki who have had less than a certain number of appearances in issues of comics.

While I understand that it can be difficult to find evidence for and argue for the consistency of ratings of a character with limited screentime... How is any different from making a profile for a manga character who has only appeared for a single volume of a manga? Or a character from a live-action film who has 5 minutes of screentime total?

We don't have any rules against either of those examples as far as I'm aware.

I have a hard time seeing how this will lead to the destabilization of the wiki.

 

[Antvasima]

"For changes that have a significant impact on the entire wiki, additional safeguards are in place. Only the most trusted and experienced staff members will evaluate the proposed courses of action. Please note that this version incorporates a universal veto, which allows any single staff member (bureaucrat) with veto power to block a proposed decision, even if it has the support of the majority."

The wording explicitly states that it needs to affect the entirety of the wiki.

Hmm. The rule should have mentioned any official policy changes, as we have consistently used this practice over the years, and were just going to put it down in writing, so the wording was inaccurate and needs to be corrected, but even so, this would be very significantly change to our wiki.

 

[Setsuna_tenma]

Hold up; my understanding from the OP is that removing the rules would just allow the addition of characters to the wiki who have had less than a certain number of appearances in issues of comics.

While I understand that it can be difficult to find evidence for and argue for the consistency of ratings of a character with limited screentime... How is any different from making a profile for a manga character who has only appeared for a single volume of a manga? Or a character from a live-action film who has 5 minutes of screentime total?

We don't have any rules against either of those examples as far as I'm aware.

I have a hard time seeing how this will lead to the destabilization of the wiki.

Manga and live movie characters are easy to scale to others. Comics is way different with different continuity and writers.

 

[Damage3245]

@Antvasima; while I respect you're just looking out for the wiki, please do not be so quick to pull out the Veto card. The thread has only been open for a couple days, the large majority of responding staff appear to be favorable for the OP, and there are still many members of staff who have not given input to this yet.

So there is no call to shut it down quite so soon.

Manga and live movie characters are easy to scale to others. Comics is way different with different continuity and writers.

Then why can't we just figure out rules for scaling certain characters only within certain continuities?

 

[Antvasima]

Hold up; my understanding from the OP is that removing the rules would just allow the addition of characters to the wiki who have had less than a certain number of appearances in issues of comics.

While I understand that it can be difficult to find evidence for and argue for the consistency of ratings of a character with limited screentime... How is any different from making a profile for a manga character who has only appeared for a single volume of a manga? Or a character from a live-action film who has 5 minutes of screentime total?

We don't have any rules against either of those examples as far as I'm aware.

I have a hard time seeing how this will lead to the destabilization of the wiki.

It often requires reading decades worth of DC Comics and Marvel Comics to notice how insanely inconsistent they are in terms of powerscaling. They do not contain single ongoing storylines like manga do, but have rather been written by many hundreds of authors that constantly contradict each other and have very different character preference biases over the span of over 80 years.

 

[Armorchompy]

Hmm. The rule should have mentioned any official policy changes, as we have consistently used this practice over the years, and were just going to put it down in writing, so the wording was inaccurate and needs to be corrected, but even so, this would be very significantly change to our wiki.

That's a pretty questionable slippery slope to go down. I can't stop you given that you could quite literally just veto anything I do, I don't recommend it, I've seen people speak about the veto rule off-site and I know that it's extremely uncomfortable for users of the website to know that a Bureau could immediately put a halt to any thread without any chance for anyone to do anything about it.

 

[Antvasima]

@Antvasima; while I respect you're just looking out for the wiki, please do not be so quick to pull out the Veto card. The thread has only been open for a couple days, the large majority of responding staff appear to be favorable for the OP, and there are still many members of staff who have not given input to this yet.

So there is no call to shut it down quite so soon.

As Impress has stated, this would completely destroy all remaining tiny bit of reliability for Marvel and DC Comics by turning the verses completely unmanageable. They contain many thousands of minor characters that almost nobody would be familiar with, and can have fought other characters once when those characters had completely random power levels nowhere near their listed peaks.

 

[Antvasima]

That's a pretty questionable slippery slope to go down. I can't stop you given that you could quite literally just veto anything I do, I don't recommend it, I've seen people speak about the veto rule off-site and I know that it's extremely uncomfortable for users of the website to know that a Bureau could immediately put a halt to any thread without any chance for anyone to do anything about it.

Not remotely any thread, no. Regular content revision threads are safe, but we need to act as safeguards against destructive wiki policy revisions.

 

[Armorchompy]

As Impress has stated, this would completely destroy all remaining tiny bit of reliability for Marvel and DC Comics by turning the verses completely unmanageable. They contain many thousands of minor characters that almost nobody would be familiar with, and can have fought other characters once when those characters had completely random power levels nowhere near their listed peaks.

She has also stated that she is fine if the supporters genuinely believe they can shoulder that burden. I don't think that many people will be rushing to make profiles for 2-issue randoms, given that the requirements for certain DC eras are still very easy to get past, and those don't get profiles on the daily..

 

[Antvasima]

Hmm. Here is the full rule text segment, for better clarity:

"In wiki policy revision threads, bureaucrats have both voting and veto rights. Administrators also have voting rights, and all staff members are welcome to comment in these threads, regardless of whether they have evaluation rights or not.

For changes that have a significant impact on the entire wiki, additional safeguards are in place. Only the most trusted and experienced staff members will evaluate the proposed courses of action. Please note that this version incorporates a universal veto, which allows any single staff member (bureaucrat) with veto power to block a proposed decision, even if it has the support of the majority."

As such, what I explained above already applies.

 

[Damage3245]

As Impress has stated, this would completely destroy all remaining tiny bit of reliability for Marvel and DC Comics by turning the verses completely unmanageable. They contain many thousands of minor characters that almost nobody would be familiar with, and can have fought other characters once when those characters had completely random power levels nowhere near their listed peaks.

That kind of issue doesn't exist for characters who have their own feats that they can be scaled from instead of relying exclusively on powerscaling for them. Plus we have "Likely" ratings for characters who don't have rock solid evidence of their scaling.

So why don't we just introduce guidelines to be more careful with how comics characters are rated without restricting them based on number of appearances?

 

[Deagonx]

People largely casted their votes before Impress and Confluctor gave their explanations for why the rule is necessary for the health of the verses. I also gave my agree as the rule largely seemed arbitrary until that explanation was given. However, I am leaning more against it now and would prefer to just re-include a notability exception and get more input from the mods who are primarily involved with that verse like Emirp. Tracer is also fairly active in DC but abstained from voting.

 

[Antvasima]

She has also stated that she is fine if the supporters genuinely believe they can shoulder that burden. I don't think that many people will be rushing to make profiles for 2-issue randoms, given that the requirements for certain DC eras are still very easy to get past, and those don't get profiles on the daily..

They will definitely do so over time by my experience, and their statistics will be completely unreliable.

 

[Antvasima]

That kind of issue doesn't exist for characters who have their own feats that they can be scaled from instead of relying exclusively on powerscaling for them. Plus we have "Likely" ratings for characters who don't have rock solid evidence of their scaling.

Our members currently rely almost entirely on powerscaling for Marvel and DC Comics characters, despite that the verses in question run on the "everybody can fight everyqbody" principle.

In an ideal world we would mostly gauge them by the scale of their own feats though.

 

[M3X_2.0]

I think we can settle this issue without using the veto card here. I think we should get rid of the arbitrary numbers for each verse and era and try to find something more consistent, such as if the character has some importance for the sotry in question, if they are the main villain of a run, or simply their number of appearences by run or volume.

We should definitely be more flexible towards this matter. For example, I wanted to make a profile for Ikari, as he was the main villain of Mark Waid's Daredevil run beforee he revealed Kingpin was behind everything.

 

[Damage3245]

Our members currently rely almost entirely on powerscaling for Marvel and DC Comics characters, despite that the verses in question run on the "everybody can fight everyqbody" principle.

In an ideal world we would mostly gauge them by the scale of their own feats though.

Yeah, regrettably that is not an issue limited to Marvel and DC.

 

[Antvasima]

People largely casted their votes before Impress and Confluctor gave their explanations for why the rule is necessary for the health of the verses. I also gave my agree as the rule largely seemed arbitrary until that explanation was given. However, I am leaning more against it now and would prefer to just re-include a notability exception and get more input from the mods who are primarily involved with that verse like Emirp. Tracer is also fairly active in DC but abstained from voting.

@Elizio33 @Emirp sumitpo @Qawsedf234 @Firestorm808 @Eficiente @ByAsura

What do you think about this? I personally consider this potential change very dangerous.

 

[Armorchompy]

I think we can settle this issue without using the veto card here. I think we should get rid of the arbitrary numbers for each verse and era and try to find something more consistent, such as if the character has some importance for the sotry in question, if they are the main villain of a run, or simply their number of appearences by run or volume.

We should definitely be more flexible towards this matter. For example, I wanted to make a profile for Ikari, as he was the main villain of Mark Waid's Daredevil run beforee he revealed Kingpin was behind everything.

I think being a big villain of a run should qualify you as being "relevant" enough to get a profile provided there's reliable scaling

 

[Antvasima]

I think we can settle this issue without using the veto card here. I think we should get rid of the arbitrary numbers for each verse and era and try to find something more consistent, such as if the character has some importance for the sotry in question, if they are the main villain of a run, or simply their number of appearences by run or volume.

We should definitely be more flexible towards this matter. For example, I wanted to make a profile for Ikari, as he was the main villain of Mark Waid's Daredevil run beforee he revealed Kingpin was behind everything.

We can probably add some lessened appearance number restriction for extremely significant characters that have consistent reliable portrayals, yes.

 

[Armorchompy]

We can probably add some lessened appearance number restriction for extremely significant characters that have consistent reliable portrayals, yes.

I think "a character under 20 issues needs to have consistent scaling and a certain level of notability" works.

 

[M3X_2.0]

But why 20 issues though?

 

[Deagonx]

It's not an exact science, so it's not as though any number picked is going to be backed by an equation, it's just a general assessment of when a character has appeared enough times.

 

[Damage3245]

We can probably add some lessened appearance number restriction for extremely significant characters that have consistent reliable portrayals, yes.

How about for all future Marvel & DC Comics characters profiles, we do a case-by-case approach where the profile is posted in a thread for evaluation first via a sandbox and it can be judged whether the character in question has solid-enough scaling to be granted a profile.

 

[M3X_2.0]

It's not an exact science, so it's not as though any number picked is going to be backed by an equation, it's just a general assessment of when a character has appeared enough times.

Well, if so, I think going by number of appearences on a run & the relevance the character had would be better than arbitrary numbers to be honest.

 

[Antvasima]

I think being a big villain of a run should qualify you as being "relevant" enough to get a profile provided there's reliable scaling

Probably, yes, but they still cannot just appear in one or two issues at the end. We can lessen our requirements, but not entirely get rid of them.

 

[Antvasima]

How about for all future Marvel & DC Comics characters profiles, we do a case-by-case approach where the profile is posted in a thread for evaluation first via a sandbox and it can be judged whether the character in question has solid-enough scaling to be granted a profile.

That would be terribly time-consuming to keep track of and constantly argue about, so I would prefer if our rules automatically sift away the most unreliable examples.

 

[M3X_2.0]

By the way, since this issue was broughten up:

In an ideal world we would mostly gauge them by the scale of their own feats though.

The Power-scaling Rules for Marvel and DC Comics page should be heavily reworked. The majority of the examples are honestly very bad, non-sense or simply wrong (The image used has Catwoman KOing two Flashes, despite them being mind-controlled by Ivy who didn't know how to use their powers correctly).