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New rule regarding inaccessible content

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Deagonx

VS Battles
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Good morning,

This concept was briefly discussed as an extension of the DMC situation with fake scans. Fake scans are not a new thing to battleboards, but often they are not extremely difficult to identify as we often have full access to the source material that these alleged scans come from, and anyone can go and check to see if it's there or not.

The issue with DMC is that the alleged scans were said to be no longer in the game, and thus, verification was impossible. It was argued that these scans were still valid because of the nature of a mobile game (time-limited events with lore info that won't always be available) and this is how these scans avoided being identified as fakes for over a year, in addition to the fact that they contained lore information allegedly only available in a mobile game exclusively released in China, which is its own issue.

In my view, it really isn't acceptable to base any of our profiles on information that no one is able to authenticate. I want to distinguish "authenticate" and "vouch for." It's not sufficient that a user or multiple users claim they saw the content in question. I propose that in situations like this one, we disallow content that cannot be accessed unless it was archived on a website like wayback machine, or it can be found in a legitimate source that isn't related to battleboards. In the DMC situation, for instance, I would've accepted the scans appearing in a gameplay video from a known gaming channel or official developer channel.

With that in mind, I propose adding the following statement to our discussion rules:

Scans of material that can no longer be accessed are not acceptable for use on profiles unless they have been digitally archived or can be found in an authentic source independent of our community. This is due to the high propensity for faking such material, and our inability to independently confirm their legitimacy.
 
Basically anything appearing in popular websites with a sufficient number of views like Youtube or in sites that has no relation to battleboarding like Reddit with has verse specific subreddits that usually have lots of info would be good.

Ideally the more exposure a content has and the more times it has been recorded boost it's validity. Anything else should be denied until more evidence is given to support it. I mean nowadays with all the recordings beind done, not finding clear cut evidence is at least weird and usually prime suspect of foul play. Like the chance that a verse actually misses out on an upgrade due to that is pretty low and it probably wouldn't even be main content as that for sure has a lot more backing. Also eventually most stuff will be translated in one form or the other so it's better to wait for that version and maybe then compare it with the original. But never the original version itself without proof of it's validity.
 
What about purchased materials? They are inaccessible in the sense you are required to purchase.
In my view, as long as it can be independently verified (other people are able to buy it, copies are available online, et cetera) I am fine with that. If it's a situation where the material in question is no longer available, no one seems to have a copy, and there appears to be no way for anyone here to access it or verify it, I would lean towards not including it, but I am not sure how likely that is to happen.
 
dmc bros don't give up, find another wiki loophole, you can do it. do it for humor's sake.

Also for the record this is a devastating concept for a significant portion of verses, unless you and the wiki literally have to acknowledge that yes, we are allowing piracy (you know, the illegal thing) as a relevant method of accessing media, since media can very easily be taken out of circulation or rendered inaccessible due to region-locks (And also, it utterly wrecks internet and retro verses in general, where a source material can very well be lost but there are well-accepted accounts of them in the community)

Doesn't seem like a wise move, just ask for tangible proofing for these scans. It ends there, no reason to accept shit face value, we have never allowed for it. The sheer fact something so baseless was okay'd in the wiki for as long as it did is the issue with the evaluators, not the rules.
 
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the wiki literally have to acknowledge that yes, we are allowing piracy as a relevant method of accessing media, since media can very easily be taken out of circulation or rendered inaccessible due to region-locks (And also, it utterly wrecks internet and retro verses in general, where a source material can very well be lost but there are well-accepted accounts of them in the community)
I think I probably didn't explain my position with enough clarity. Things IRL have been very stressful and busy for me, so I'm stretched a bit thin.

I am mostly looking to make sure we are not scaling based on scans that seemingly only exist within battleboarding circles. I consider the list of exceptions to the rule above fairly long. For instance:

As long as multiple people can provide their own scans of a certain feat, or show the scan being referenced in a context distinctly unrelated to battleboarding from a source that is established and authentic, it will be fine.

For the PoC example I would've accepted a Let's Play YouTube video where the scans came up.

If it's an online thing ideally it would be Wayback Machined or talked about/screenshotted in non-battleboarding communities. Fuji referenced now lost interviews with authors but that are transcribed in the Touhou Wiki and have been for a long time. This is fine because we will have access to the edit logs and the Touhou wiki is not about battleboarding. Et cetera.
 
I know quite a few franchises that have a lot of unavailable materials in any official means and can only be accessed thanks to fan efforts, but I understand it needs to have some rules on how to manage them so I'm fine with a rule to deal with content that can't be proven (Although I guess I'll need to get away from the community if I want to continue with my Digimon archival efforts).

Some examples I remember are Before Crisis -Final Fantasy VII-, various Megami Tensei mobile games and an MMORPG (Both with important content that are currently being used in the Cosmology page), and various Digimon Mobile games (Various with important scaling and lore that are currently being used in the pages).

I guess it could be useful to give examples of which kinds of sources we accept when the source material isn't available anymore. For example, one of the games featured in the Megami Tensei cosmology page is "Shin Megami Tensei: if... Hazama's Chapter" and the source of the information is a fanpage with the game script. Is that a valid case?
 
I think I probably didn't explain my position with enough clarity. Things IRL have been very stressful and busy for me, so I'm stretched a bit thin.

I am mostly looking to make sure we are not scaling based on scans that seemingly only exist within battleboarding circles. I consider the list of exceptions to the rule above fairly long. For instance:

As long as multiple people can provide their own scans of a certain feat, or show the scan being referenced in a context distinctly unrelated to battleboarding from a source that is established and authentic, it will be fine.

For the PoC example I would've accepted a Let's Play YouTube video where the scans came up.

If it's an online thing ideally it would be Wayback Machined or talked about/screenshotted in non-battleboarding communities. Fuji referenced now lost interviews with authors but that are transcribed in the Touhou Wiki and have been for a long time. This is fine because we will have access to the edit logs and the Touhou wiki is not about battleboarding. Et cetera.

Mate just make the rule "Scans provided for the should be well-attested by valid sources (official or reputable) as legitimate"
 
So, consider this example: if I record gameplay for educational purposes, specifically battleboarding, to illustrate exactly what I am referring to, is this not allowed?

I mean, the logic here doesn't work, frankly. Not every individual is interested in the details of powerscaling, whereas we, as members of the community, are more interested in this aspect. So, if we record the games or take screenshots of extensive text, are we no longer allowed to do so unless we search for alternative recordings or screenshots from non-powerscaling individuals?
 
Scans provided for the should be well-attested by valid sources (official or reputable) as legitimate
I'm fine with that, but I would prefer to make sure it is not insular to our community, as it creates a conflict of interest.

So, take it as an example, if I recorded a gameplay for educational (educational = battleboarding) purposes, to show exactly of what I am referring to, this is not allowed?

I mean, the logic here does not work frankly, not every individual is interested on the details of powerscaling, where we (as members of the community) are more interested on this path. So if we record the games, or took screenshots of huge text, we are no longer allowed to, unless we search for other alternatives of other non-powerscaling individuals that have recorded them (or took screenshots of them)?
Well, I struggle to see a scenario in which someone here would be doing something like that, but where no other member here would have access to the content in question.

I'm not against us making our own videos or taking our own screenshots. My issue is relying on battleboarder submitted screenshots of content no one else can find or has access to and simply trusting they were actually in the source material without anyone being able to prove or disprove it.
 
Well, I struggle to see a scenario in which someone here would be doing something like that, but where no other member here would have access to the content in question.
Deagonx, I am not sure of your personal experience on this, but 99% of all scans we use here, are relevant powerscaling scans. So to search for a specific detail that is relevant to powerscaling in Google, you will only find in the sites that have the same interest and relevancy, not somewhere else.

I'm not against us making our own videos or taking our own screenshots. My issue is relying on battleboarder submitted screenshots of content no one else can find or has access to and simply trusting they were actually in the source material without anyone being able to prove or disprove it.
You need to be more specific in your wording, as it implies preventing these cases. Frankly speaking, I am not sure how you are going to word it either, as it simply suggests accurately listing the reference to the scan, which we do on a daily basis anyway.
 
but I would prefer to make sure it is not insular to our community, as it creates a conflict of interest.
...this is unnecessarily paranoid. A reputable source isn't insular, it is quite the opposite, it is definite or popular.

VSBW really just loves to talk about shit you CAN'T do on it rather than shit it WANTS you to do huh
 
Deagonx, I am not sure of your personal experience on this, but 99% of all scans we use here, are relevant powerscaling scans. So to search for a specific detail that is relevant to powerscaling in Google, you will only find in the sites that have the same interest and relevancy, not somewhere else.
Dread, that isn't what I'm saying. I am fine with screenshots coming from our users. I am not fine with unverifiable screenshots of content no one has access to and can never verify.
Then you need to be too specific in your wording, because it suggests preventing these cases.
Okay. I am trying to improve the wording through this discussion.
...this is unnecessarily paranoid. A reputable source isn't insular, it is quite the opposite, it is definite or popular.
Okay. Can you be more specific about what you mean by a reputable source and what that would look like in practice? I am not sure I understood you.
VSBW really just loves to talk about shit you CAN'T do on it rather than shit it WANTS you to do huh
I don't understand.
 
Okay. Can you be more specific about what you mean by a reputable source and what that would look like in practice? I am not sure I understood you.
A prominent unbiased commentator who gives an attestation on the existence of a media piece and has no skin in the game in doctoring a scan.

So say a well-respected archive (including grey-black area ones), those aren't official sources but it would be antithetical for them to doctor scans. They'd be reputable sources, or maybe testaments from those known to be close to the production process i.e. WoG.

A non-reputable source may be a versus or clickbait blog, if they are the SOLE ATTESTATION.
I don't understand.
You're creating a rule disallowing a very specific type of forgery which may lead to other potential forgeries through loopholes, but you can just... give a definite rule on what kind of scans are admissable, which gives a rigid answer on what we WANT on the file, thus eliminating need for more potential rules.
 
A prominent unbiased commentator who gives an attestation on the existence of a media piece and has no skin in the game in doctoring a scan.

So say an archive (including grey-black area ones), those aren't official sources but it would be antithetical for them to doctor scans. They'd be reputable sources, or maybe testaments from those known to be close to the production process i.e. WoG.

A non-reputable source may be a versus or clickbait blog, if they are the SOLE ATTESTATION.
Yeah this is essentially my same feeling. I'm fine with this notion of a reputable source. The "no skin in the game of doctoring a scan" is what I was trying to say about where we can accept info from.

I mostly want to avoid errant imgur links from the void to be used for scaling if, even upon multiple people trying, no one can find the source material or prove what the scan says is faithful to what was originally in the work.

I'm also fine with people close to the production confirming authenticity (so long as that confirmation is explicit/definite and is itself accessible, not like a private message).
 
Impress still seems to make sense to me above.

Let's not be hasty and do anything ill-considered and destructive here please. 🙏
 
dmc bros don't give up, find another wiki loophole, you can do it. do it for humor's sake.

Also for the record this is a devastating concept for a significant portion of verses, unless you and the wiki literally have to acknowledge that yes, we are allowing piracy (you know, the illegal thing) as a relevant method of accessing media, since media can very easily be taken out of circulation or rendered inaccessible due to region-locks (And also, it utterly wrecks internet and retro verses in general, where a source material can very well be lost but there are well-accepted accounts of them in the community)

Doesn't seem like a wise move, just ask for tangible proofing for these scans. It ends there, no reason to accept shit face value, we have never allowed for it. The sheer fact something so baseless was okay'd in the wiki for as long as it did is the issue with the evaluators, not the rules.
Those are pretty much my views.
 
Yeah, I agree with this decision. Content where the original sources came from can eventually get lost to time due to things like them being limited time events, the content being deleted by the original posters themselves, etcetera. This is why we should use the Wayback Machine more often to archive scans so we know they are legitimate and not made-up fakes.
 
I agree with this, and frankly don't understand the opposition.

Impress's points read to me like (she may not actually mean this, I could just be misundstanding):
  1. "We shouldn't do this. We should instead do [restates Deagon's suggestion]."
  2. "Other people attesting to seeing it is good enough."
    • But that's what gave us the DMC issue in the first place. Unless you mean non-battleboarders attesting to it, which is just Deagon's suggestion again.
  3. "This could create bad loopholes."
    • This needs to be elaborated on. I cannot comprehend what new loopholes would be created by saying that a certain type of scan can't be used. It's not like this rule would be used as a bludgeon to say that any scan that isn't like this has to be automatically accepted.
  4. "We should have never allowed scans like this in the first place. Blame the evaluators."
    • True, but if we want people to not fall for this in the future, the info should probably go somewhere. I don't like the cluttering of our rules pages, but if we are seriously taking a different direction in trying to cut those down, I'd chuck something like this into a set of reminders sent to all staff on a rotating basis.
 
I mostly agree with this, at least, especially if it cuts down on people trying to pass off obviously fake interviews that literally nobody is able to verify.
 
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I think one of the main concerns has less to do with "It's hard for people to access without resorting to piracy" and more to do with the existence retcons is the general issues with content inaccessible without Wayback Machine and what not.
 
I think one of the main concerns has less to do with "It's hard for people to access without resorting to piracy" and more to do with the existence retcons is the general issues with content inaccessible without Wayback Machine and what not.
It depends on the franchise and those in charge of it. Like, with the Sonic series, we know the opinion of Ian Flynn, if they can't access the material and there's no way for fans to get their hands on them officially, there's no need to worry. It's just non-canon by default (Of course, Ian isn't the one making the calls for everything Sonic-related, but the point is more to give the idea that at least someone who works making fiction, thinks that if you can't get hands in the material officially, it can't be considered canon).

Yet there are franchises that basically don't care about it and continuously bring back "dead" material and even encourage fans to archive information because they know they can't do that and hope fans will do that so they can use fans' archives like the Digimon franchise. They have recently brought back a lot of materials thanks to fans who archived this material (They even get credited for their help). So for certain series, getting to say that this kind of material shouldn't be used kinda of goes against what the team in charge encourages the fans to do (This includes me, even the director of Digimon Adventure was surprised by how much material I was able to gather in Japanese even they don't know how to get anymore).

Of course, this goes to the usual "case by case" thing and how to manage it. The priority in the end is to be sure the material is true, valid to be used, and prevent falsifications like the ones that happened before.
 
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Yeah. I don't want people to think we're going to ax a bunch of things. There just needs to be some way of ensuring it's validity. If that validation can't come from an official source, it just needs to come from outside our community. A source that, as Zark put it, has no skin in the game of faking scans.
 
Yeah I was initially cautious about this from seeing the title, but from reading the guidelines it seems like even obscure material only made public by one person would be considered usable since they're outside of our community.

(Although saying that I do realise a potentially annoying factor; I personally look into and document some of this stuff. Luckily, so far, I've had physical documents sent to others in those fanbases for scanning, so maybe that'd be considered having no skin in the game? If that's sufficient then I expect digital archives should catch any other cases.)
 
Actually, I do wonder if this runs up against our rules implemented not too long ago for social media links.

The issue at hand being that some digital archive methods don't work for certain social media websites, yet such content is always at risk of deletion.

Our decision was to link them, provide screenshots, and provide archive links if possible.

But if we are really running hard into "screenshots from within the community aren't enough", we may need to do something more here.

Maybe we could require multiple unrelated staff members to verify that the social media post(s) say the exact same thing as the screenshot(s)?
 
I’d be careful trying to include the “no source from vs debaters” rule too widely, as Agnaa has shown some of us do like to partake in archival work, youtubing and whatever ourselves.

Other than that I really don’t think this changes anything either way, so.
 
On principle, I dislike changes that are evidently based on reactions to recent controversies. There is a fine line between making a change because a recent event has alerted us to the fact that things would be better off with that change, and making a change because a recent event has made us paranoid of similar events occurring in the future. In the moment, when a controversy is fresh in our minds, it can be easy to see the latter for the former and to make changes that may not benefit (or may even harm) us in the long term.

That being said, I do think this can be to our benefit with enough careful tweaking. Consider - how many verses use scans from wholly unverifiable content in the first place? I have no doubt they exist, but I can't even think of one other example off the top of my head. I would be remiss to say they are common. And I'm willing to assert that the reason they are uncommon is not just because wholly unverifiable content for a verse is rare, but because we would tend not to reference such content in our indexing in the first place. If someone makes a CRT with claims about a verse that they wish to index, the information in question is unverifiable, and the only source for the information's existence is their own scans/footage, we would tend to reject such information simply because it's a very low standard of evidence. The recent circumstances with DMC have been an outlier in this regard, as very specific, circumstantial reasoning related to the verse, combined with convincingly doctored scans, vested interest, lack of auditing, and misplaced trust culminated in everyone largely just assuming there was some concrete verification of the unverified sources. If we had approached DMC with the same scrutiny that we approach most other verses, I'm willing to say this would have never been passed in the first place.

As such, I would think that an ideal rule would be one that does not necessarily make our standards stricter, but rather, just clearer. Up until this point, instances of unverifiable sources (like the example I've listed above) would have likely been rejected on the basis of discretionary reasoning. Having something codified we can point to, an actual rule we can reference in discussions to say 'this is "objectively" not an acceptable standard of evidence for indexing', could prove useful for ensuring all verses are held to the same standard. Importantly, I don't think it ought to be worded in a way that could be used to reject evidence we would otherwise affirm on the basis of discretionary reasoning - it would just ensure it is applied fairly.

Now, this is all admittedly quite a verbose way of saying what I suspect Deagonx was already intending. The reason I wanted to elaborate on all of this is because it seems as though something along these lines is the perspective of a lot of people in this thread - both those in favour of the change, and those against it. The concern is not whether we should apply such a standard fairly to all verses - we all seem to agree on that - but whether the current phrasing of the rule would overstretch our boundaries. I think Impress' suggestion, with some minor tweaking, would work well:

Scans provided for the should be well-attested by valid sources (official or reputable) as legitimate

I don't think an addendum regarding sources gained in battleboarding communities is warranted. It'd be quite possible for a source attained through a battleboarding community to still be reputable and to have no vested interest, i.e., through reliable archivers in a battleboarding community. For one example, I can say I doubt any of us would reject Agnaa's archived sources he mentioned earlier in this thread if he presented them in a CRT - this would indicate that adding an addendum that would reject those sources would be making our standards stricter, which I have already expressed I do not support. The difference between Agnaa's archiving and the recent DMC controversy is that one is from an administrator and reputable archivist in our community, and the other was from a regular user who had a personal interest in upgrading the verse - there is a large gap in credibility. I consider using the reputability of a source as a factor in whether we accept a source to be obviously reasonable, whether or not it comes from a battleboarding community. To clean up the suggestion with this in mind, I would suggest a rule phrased like so:

Evidence provided in CRTs must be verifiable. In the instance that evidence comes from material which is inaccessible, evidence can be considered verifiable if it can be attested to by an official source (i.e.: the creator of the material) or otherwise by a reputable source (i.e.: a credible archivist). Information that comes from inaccessible material that cannot be attested to by an official or reputable source is not permitted for indexing.
 
I'd be very careful considering users credible archivists just because they're staff members. Even very high ranking and seemingly reliable ones have turned out to be deceitful in the past (i.e. Sera).

For cases like DMC, that are hard to access even at the time, I'd prefer one non-battleboarding source, or multiple users independently verifying. With higher weight placed on users who can display their verification, and higher weight placed on methods of verification that are harder to fake (non-screen-recorded footage being the highest weight).

For cases like social media posts, that are easy to access at the time but could become inaccessible future, again I'd prefer non-battleboarding or archived sources, but when that's not possible, I'm open to some system of staff members checking and attesting to the veracity of screenshots. Either in the relevant CRTs, or in a wiki management thread.

But at this point, I can understand people thinking that the extra bureaucracy isn't worth the slight increase in reliability.
 
I'd be very careful considering users credible archivists just because they're staff members. Even very high ranking and seemingly reliable ones have turned out to be deceitful in the past (i.e. Sera).
To be clear, I don't think whether someone is a staff member or not is a huge factor in those kinds of circumstances, but it is a factor nonetheless. People become staff members because there is reason to highly trust them, and this goes especially so for administrators. When we are trusting someone with the duties and responsibilities of an administrator, we generally have very good reason to believe they won't be deceitful - for an administrator to intentionally fake scans would be extremely unusual. Sera's case was a flagrant exception to this, and I would not judge my trust of any other administrator on the basis of her circumstance.
 
Impress's points read to me like (she may not actually mean this, I could just be misundstanding):
  1. "We shouldn't do this. We should instead do [restates Deagon's suggestion]."
Yes. Deagon's rule is worded poorly and the problem it's trying to tackle can be fixed easily another way.
  1. "Other people attesting to seeing it is good enough."
    • But that's what gave us the DMC issue in the first place. Unless you mean non-battleboarders attesting to it, which is just Deagon's suggestion again.
Not intending the first one, do intending the second one. i am not against the core concept of the rule I despise the wording of it as it leads to unintended exclusion of verses and is unnecessarily wordy given Deagonx' idea to make "additional clarifications"
  1. "This could create bad loopholes."
    • This needs to be elaborated on.
Certainly, as said things go out of legal circulation constantly and the wiki does not NEED to acknowledge piracy as a valid alternative in its ruleset. An authentic source is harder to contextualize than a reputable source, and the term excludes translations altogether.
  1. "We should have never allowed scans like this in the first place. Blame the evaluators."
    • True, but if we want people to not fall for this in the future, the info should probably go somewhere. I don't like the cluttering of our rules pages, but if we are seriously taking a different direction in trying to cut those down, I'd chuck something like this into a set of reminders sent to all staff on a rotating basis.
There is a difference between a reminder and a rule, namely: rules are meant to be read together and acknowledged as a whole, which Vs. Battles Wiki refuses to do. There is likely not a single person on this wiki that can actually tell you all the rules on the wiki along its 20 or so rulepages, yet the staff would rather bulk up the page even more so it gets harder and harder to follow what is on the page anymore.

You can just GIVE reminders. Any time. And not make it a thing you have to memorize and expect every member to follow the logistics of alongside all the crap you've put there.

Agnaa I am not saying the DMC thing isn't an issue, but the addressal of it in such drastic way IS.
I think one of the main concerns has less to do with "It's hard for people to access without resorting to piracy" and more to do with the existence retcons is the general issues with content inaccessible without Wayback Machine and what not.
...yes DDM, I follow that, I have indeed read the OP. Main concerns of any CRT ever is to address the things the OP did NOT reflect in their post or had on their mind. That is why it's a CRT, a discussion, and not just a poll.

Wayback Machine isn't the primary source people get the scans from, it's through piracy sites like ************ or RCO or KissCartoons. Wayback Machine just happens to sound nicer in our ruleset.
 
and lo and behold, our filter already bans the use of one of the piracy sites that we are ever so willing to acknowledge as a "Authentic Source" by the proposed rule.

Follow the issue with the wording here?
 
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