New rule regarding inaccessible content

[Agnaa]

Yes. Deagon's rule is worded poorly and the problem it's trying to tackle can be fixed easily another way.

Ah okay, if the issue's just a wording thing (or how it's proposed as a rule rather than a reminder) then that's cool. I don't care too much about any particular implementation proposed so far, positively or negatively.

i am not against the core concept of the rule I despise the wording of it as it leads to unintended exclusion of verses

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.

I don't really see how it'd do that.

You seem to have had an earlier post about that, but I don't really follow its reasoning.

1. We don't need to explicitly mention piracy for "material that can no longer be accessed... unless they have been digitally archived or can be found in an authentic source independent of our community" to avoid verses being nuked the second they're not sold at a store.
2. Our Site Rules already mention piracy, as the one example of "online criminal activity" that we don't care about. Our Editing Rules do too, only saying that certain websites should be avoided since they can cause legal troubles for users living in countries where anti-piracy laws are strictly enforced.
3. If an internet/retro verse is truly lost, such that there is literally zero footage of it, and the only things we have left for indexing are people's vague recollections, then I think we shouldn't index it. I consider this intended exclusion of verses. It's weird since you say right after that you want tangible proof for scans, but that would also exclude these sorts of verses.

An authentic source is harder to contextualize than a reputable source, and the term excludes translations altogether.

I don't really understand what you're saying here. I'd consider "authentic source independent of our community" to obviously include translations.

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.

As said, I'd support this, but I'd like to do some more pruning if we're moving to that sort of system.

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.

Originally, sure, but when sharing them with other users we put them on sites like Imgur or, well, the wiki itself.

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?

I really don't. Our legal obligation to dance around those topics only extends so far, so that's the distance we'll take.

 

[Hypertornado099]

I got permission to comment from Deagon.

What about inaccessible obscure secondary material? This could include stuff like Japanese guidebooks on video games, or novelizations that are nearly impossible to find. If this rule goes through, I think there should be a rule where ancient guidebook scans need to be sourced (or preferably include a PDF to read it even in raws in the CRT) so people can verify it. Some guidebooks are pretty much inaccessible unless someone actually bought them from Japan

 

[Armorchompy]

That would be piracy. Those guidebooks aren't free- legally, anyways.

 

[ByAsura]

I've been thinking about that specific issue, since I have some incredibly obscure Doctor Who and Gunbuster guides that I'm confident almost nobody else on the wiki would have.

In private discussions off-wiki, I've just taken recordings of certain sections (like 5 pages) with an external camera and scrolled through really quickly at certain points.

It takes a lot of skill to fake that kind of recording, and I have yet to find a faked multi-page guide book that's even remotely convincing to someone with more than two brain cells (God of War and One Piece fans will probably agree with me here).

Since it's just a sample, I'm pretty sure that it wouldn't be piracy to do this publicly, but I haven't tried it on VSBW yet.

 

[ImmortalDread]

So let me provide one practical, relevant instance that may be affected if the rule is passed to demonstrate an overview of the consequences.

This thread has been relying on Imgur scans from physical books, so once I asked if they are any digital available ones to verify them, if I recall, there were none.

If the rule has been enacted, all those Imgur scans are considered invalid due to the inability to confirm their authenticity. I am not questioning the integrity of the staff member involved; rather, I am establishing the criteria for this rule. Creating exceptions for staff members could establish a negative precedent for outsiders.

 

[Agnaa]

I got permission to comment from Deagon.

What about inaccessible obscure secondary material? This could include stuff like Japanese guidebooks on video games, or novelizations that are nearly impossible to find. If this rule goes through, I think there should be a rule where ancient guidebook scans need to be sourced (or preferably include a PDF to read it even in raws in the CRT) so people can verify it. Some guidebooks are pretty much inaccessible unless someone actually bought them from Japan

That's not inaccessible, it's just obscure.

All references need to be sourced already.

An entire copy of the original book wouldn't need to be included, only a screenshot would.

Those don't come under this rule. They're "pretty much inaccessible unless someone actually bought them from Japan" which means that they're accessible.

So let me provide one practical, relevant instance that may be affected if the rule is passed to demonstrate an overview of the consequences.

This thread has been relying on Imgur scans from physical books, so once I asked if they are any digital available ones to verify them, if I recall, there were none.

If the rule has been enacted, all those Imgur scans are considered invalid due to the inability to confirm their authenticity. I am not questioning the integrity of the staff member involved; rather, I am establishing the criteria for this rule. Creating exceptions for staff members could establish a negative precedent for outsiders.

No. They can be readily found through secondhand copies.

Why are y'all interpreting "can be found in an authentic source independent of our community" as "has to have a free copy available online known by every person creating a CRT for the verse"?

 

[Mr. Bambu]

On a surface level I think this is a great idea to implement. I think there is also a lot of minute details that make it more complicated than might be otherwise apparent. Some of those have been addressed above- whether satisfiably is for the reader to decide.

Ultimately, as a wiki, we are beholden to the people reading our profiles, such that we need to have some legitimacy to our claims. As such, we must be able to back up our claims. If media is well and truly lost (such as previous versions of games that are no longer accessible), that is saddening for a number of reasons. Still, we should not rely on totally inaccessible things, as we cannot use them to prove our claims. I am in agreement with the spirit of the thread- I'll let discussion carry on for awhile before I weigh in on specific phrasings of rules to be added, as I suspect it will be some time before we come to specifics in that department.

 

[Deagonx]

I appreciate everyone's input here.

I want to clarify that "inaccessible" isn't "difficult to access" it is "impossible to access." Rare books, pay walls, or region locks do not make it impossible to access content, they make it harder. The situation I am trying to avoid is one in which a scan is fake but we have literally no way of proving or disproving it.

However, as some have pointed out, sometimes content is literally wiped off the face of the planet and all we have are remnants reflected elsewhere. My goal is not to eliminate these cases, my goal is to make sure that the source of this information is someone or something that has no conflict of interest in portraying the information honestly. Most importantly, it should be clear who the source of that information is, not random imgur links or unlisted youtube videos.

In the rare case that the only effort being made to archive information that will soon be lost is being carried out by our community, it would be ideal for this to be a staff member or be verified by a staff member. Agnaa aptly points out that this is not a perfect solution, as staff members can and have deceived this commuinity, but it would be a compromise that I am willing to accept in order to ensure that this material is not made defunct.

 

[Qawsedf234]

If the scan can't be independently verified then I believe it can't be used.

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'm fine with this.

 

[Antvasima]

So let me provide one practical, relevant instance that may be affected if the rule is passed to demonstrate an overview of the consequences.

This thread has been relying on Imgur scans from physical books, so once I asked if they are any digital available ones to verify them, if I recall, there were none.

If the rule has been enacted, all those Imgur scans are considered invalid due to the inability to confirm their authenticity. I am not questioning the integrity of the staff member involved; rather, I am establishing the criteria for this rule. Creating exceptions for staff members could establish a negative precedent for outsiders.

I am also very concerned about this. We would risk to make our rules so strict that an enormous amount of currently accepted evidence for a massive amount of verses would have to automatically be disqualified and removed, with a ridiculous amount of following required revision work simply due to that it was obtained via online piracy, if I have understood correctly.

In addition, DarkGrath also seems to make sense above.

https://vsbattles.com/threads/new-rule-regarding-inaccessible-content.160179/post-6134525

 

[Agnaa]

As I've said above, I don't think you're understanding correctly, and I have no clue how you'd interpret "material must be able to be found in an authentic source independent of our community" as "it must be freely and legally available online, in its entirety".

Even if it costs $2000 to buy a VHS containing the material, I would still consider that "able to be found in an authentic source independent of our community". You can find it, it is authentic, and it is independent.

 

[Antvasima]

Okay. I apologise if I have misunderstood then. I just do not want us to shoot ourselves in our feet.

 

[Agnaa]

If there was a way we could word it to calm that concern (which didn't make the rule function significantly differently than intended), I'd be happy to include it.

But since I can't tell how the wording leads to that concern, I don't know how to reword it to alleviate that.

 

[Firestorm808]

I have no objections to the proposal.

 

[Antvasima]

If there was a way we could word it to calm that concern (which didn't make the rule function significantly differently than intended), I'd be happy to include it.

But since I can't tell how the wording leads to that concern, I don't know how to reword it to alleviate that.

@ImmortalDread

Are you willing to take a look at our suggested rule text please?

 

[Qawsedf234]

We would risk to make our rules so strict that an enormous amount of currently accepted evidence for a massive amount of verses would have to automatically be disqualified and removed,

Well, not really. With a book you would just need to provide the page number and name of said book. It's the same criteria as sourcing a paper in any scientific paper.

What you wouldn't be able to do use a picture of something and then provide no details of where it came from or use evidence you yourself have no idea where it came from.

 

[ImmortalDread]

Spoiler: My thoughts to Agnaa response

This is funny because the user got banned permanently, and we are now creating a rule afterwards. The fact, we banned him before, already indicates that we don't take this information as valid or existent, to even requires a rule creation.

Agnaa did not effectively address my question or respond to my example. While you can theoretically distinguish between "material must be able to be found in an authentic source independent of our community" as "it must be freely and legally available online, in its entirety" for beginners, this cannot be applied to every genre.

Are you expecting me, as someone evaluating the content of the thread, to ask the OP if there is a chance to verify the information through digital means, and then the OP himself stated that he could not find anything online, so I should then purchase the books and verify it myself?

In my opinion, there is no difference between them. Perhaps you may consider purchased items accessible since you can still obtain them, but I don't see them as accessible for practical purposes. It is not my obligation to buy them, especially for powerscaling purposes. There are various levels of inaccessibility being discussed here.

Realistically, I am not willing to spend $2000 on a book to verify information crucial for powerscaling. If an authentic source independent of our community does not have the information, it does not mean the information does not exist. We are evaluating information highly relevant to powerscaling, which may not be a relevant aspect for communities outside our domain.

Now let's go for a necessity of this rule:

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.

To summarize, there has been only one case in our entire history that required a significant amount of evidence and effort to prove its non-existence. Let me be clear: not a single powerscaler (or human) here believes that despite all the efforts made by @Deagonx, we allowed this information to be considered valid or claimed its existence.

I will move on and state, "this is to make our stance clear regarding such cases."

I want to clarify that "inaccessible" isn't "difficult to access" it is "impossible to access." Rare books, pay walls, or region locks do not make it impossible to access content, they make it harder. The situation I am trying to avoid is one in which a scan is fake but we have literally no way of proving or disproving it.

Ya, but we are arguing on how practical is this difficulty to impose this rule. They don't make it impossible, but they are not significant enough for members to buy them to confirm its validity.

However, as some have pointed out, sometimes content is literally wiped off the face of the planet and all we have are remnants reflected elsewhere. My goal is not to eliminate these cases, my goal is to make sure that the source of this information is someone or something that has no conflict of interest in portraying the information honestly. Most importantly, it should be clear who the source of that information is, not random imgur links or unlisted youtube videos.

How can information be literally wiped off the face of the planet? Can you clarify this for me? I understand your goal, and I agree with it completely, but I don't see how applicable it is. Because those communities that have no conflict of interest may also lack information for various reasons, as I stated above – relevance being one of them. If it doesn't mean much to me, I am not going to publish it online or anywhere else.

The last concern is easily solved by our existing traditional rule – references. The “random Imgur” links are actually considered “scans” in our standards, not references. And they need references to be linked next to them.

In the rare case that the only effort being made to archive information that will soon be lost is being carried out by our community, it would be ideal for this to be a staff member or be verified by a staff member. Agnaa aptly points out that this is not a perfect solution, as staff members can and have deceived this commuinity, but it would be a compromise that I am willing to accept in order to ensure that this material is not made defunct.

How do we determine the reliability of information that may soon be lost? Let's consider an example:

• Suppose we have lore sourced from platforms like Reddit or YouTube, and we have extensively utilized this content. However, the original author suddenly deletes all related videos. Some users manage to archive the content, while others do not. How do we address this situation? One approach is to only accept information unrelated to powerscaling, discarding the rest as unverified by the “independent” community.
• Consider a scenario in a game, such as Clash of Clans, where the developer deletes all lore-related videos and subsequently recovers from bankruptcy. Should we delete the entire verse due to the lack of verification options? It is crucial to note that the information we incorporate into profiles primarily pertains to powerscaling. These details might not be as relevant to other “independent” communities. Thus, relying solely on the latter for verification while dismissing the rest as non-existent is not a realistic approach.

I could give more examples to outline how non-practical this rule is, and should be entirely be evaluated in case-to-case basis.

What you wouldn't be able to do use a picture of something and then provide no details of where it came from or use evidence you yourself have no idea where it came from.

This is already not allowed, even without imposing this rule. We require mandatory references, so if a scan has no reference, it can't be added to the profiles. If a user is trying to upgrade something and does not provide details on where the information is coming from, then it is invalid, as we are required to provide references.

Are you willing to take a look at our suggested rule text please?

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.

I really don't know how to tackle the wording here since it is essentially being vague, and has issues within it. Ultimately, striking a balance between ensuring the accuracy of information and considering the practical limitations of community members is essential.

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 have reservations about the extent to which a source can be considered "reputable." Is "reputable powerscaler" an acceptable designation for this source? Based on my understanding, this source did not adequately address the concerns raised by OP. Upon reviewing your post, I perceived an implicit requirement for the presence of a staff member, which introduces an undisclosed factor into the rule. I find this undisclosed factor problematic. Additionally, I believe this distinction between a staff member and a regular user in terms of these attributes sets a concerning precedent, creating a perceived disparity between the two categories of users.

tl;dr

• Information availability varies widely based on region, language, and community relevance, making it difficult to universally define what constitutes an "authentic source."
• Requiring users to purchase materials for verification purposes creates a financial burden, especially for rare or expensive items, making it impractical and unfair to some members.
• Powerscaling-related information might be highly specialized and not widely documented, making it challenging to find authoritative sources beyond the community itself.
• Content creators might remove or change their work over time, impacting the ability to verify information that was once publicly available.
• Information deemed irrelevant to broader communities may not be preserved in mainstream sources, leading to its obscurity and making verification challenging.

Solution?
A flexible, case-by-case approach, considering the context and relevance, would be more practical and fair given the unique nature of the community and its content. A perfect example is Fuji's thread.

 

[Agnaa]

This is funny because the user got banned permanently, and we are now creating a rule afterwards. The fact, we banned him before, already indicates that we don't take this information as valid or existent, to even requires a rule creation.

But our lack of due diligence that let the scans be used for many upgrades shows that there is a need for clarity on these sorts of issues.

Are you expecting me, as someone evaluating the content of the thread, to ask the OP if there is a chance to verify the information through digital means, and then the OP himself stated that he could not find anything online, so I should then purchase the books and verify it myself?

In my opinion, there is no difference between them. Perhaps you may consider purchased items accessible since you can still obtain them, but I don't see them as accessible for practical purposes. It is not my obligation to buy them, especially for powerscaling purposes. There are various levels of inaccessibility being discussed here.

Realistically, I am not willing to spend $2000 on a book to verify information crucial for powerscaling. If an authentic source independent of our community does not have the information, it does not mean the information does not exist. We are evaluating information highly relevant to powerscaling, which may not be a relevant aspect for communities outside our domain.

You may not be willing to, but the fact that someone could is highly important. I'd expect some fan(s) of the series to be able to concretely prove/disprove it some day.

I don't think you, as some random user, have to purchase all material for every single verse on the site.

And overall, this is a weird angle to take.

To say "We shouldn't ban the use of information that is, as far as we know, impossible to verify" is a bad choice because then we should also ban information that's kind of hard to verify, which would be a bad policy?

Just don't go from the good policy to the bad policy!

If you think the provability is important, then let us ban evidence from material that is seemingly impossible to verify. If you think that search for provability could go too far and damage the integrity of our indexing, don't let it go too far. Simple.

How do we determine the reliability of information that may soon be lost? Let's consider an example:

• Suppose we have lore sourced from platforms like Reddit or YouTube, and we have extensively utilized this content. However, the original author suddenly deletes all related videos. Some users manage to archive the content, while others do not. How do we address this situation? One approach is to only accept information unrelated to powerscaling, discarding the rest as unverified by the “independent” community.
• Consider a scenario in a game, such as Clash of Clans, where the developer deletes all lore-related videos and subsequently recovers from bankruptcy. Should we delete the entire verse due to the lack of verification options? It is crucial to note that the information we incorporate into profiles primarily pertains to powerscaling. These details might not be as relevant to other “independent” communities. Thus, relying solely on the latter for verification while dismissing the rest as non-existent is not a realistic approach.

I could give more examples to outline how non-practical this rule is, and should be entirely be evaluated in case-to-case basis.

If it's inaccessible, then we're outta luck and have to delete it. A fair few times in the past, information has been grandfathered in, only to later be found to have been unreliable. Being able to re-evaluate things is important.

tl;dr

• Information availability varies widely based on region, language, and community relevance, making it difficult to universally define what constitutes an "authentic source."
• Requiring users to purchase materials for verification purposes creates a financial burden, especially for rare or expensive items, making it impractical and unfair to some members.
• Powerscaling-related information might be highly specialized and not widely documented, making it challenging to find authoritative sources beyond the community itself.
• Content creators might remove or change their work over time, impacting the ability to verify information that was once publicly available.
• Information deemed irrelevant to broader communities may not be preserved in mainstream sources, leading to its obscurity and making verification challenging.

1. A lot of things we have standards on are difficult to define, but this is not so difficult that it isn't something we should pursue.
2. We don't require users to purchase anything. And if you think needing to spend thousands of dollars to acquire something is too high a burden, imagine needing to find something that no longer exists! I just cannot see the sense in "Impossible-to-find things should be allowed as evidence because difficult-to-find-things exist and verifying them is hard".
3. Too bad. Being able to verify things is important. We should not take scans on faith.
4. Too bad, etc etc.
5. Too bad, etc etc.

You oddly enough seem to simultaneously be arguing that almost no unverifiable information is used, by the way you started this post, while also talking about how much our wiki would be harmed if we removed unverifiable content, which is strange to me.

Letting potentially doctored, out of context, and/or mistranslated scans fly isn't something we should be doing.

 

[Qawsedf234]

This is already not allowed, even without imposing this rule. We require mandatory references, so if a scan has no reference, it can't be added to the profiles.

It's inconsistent as a qualifier. You can write the source as just "Title of work" with nothing further. More evidence would be just being more specific.

it's inaccessible, then we're outta luck and have to delete it.

Basically this. If it's lost media then we can't profile/use the information.

 

[Deagonx]

I'm a bit frustrated at being misunderstood despite clarifying multiple times, so I will hopefully say this one last time.

Ya, but we are arguing on how practical is this difficulty to impose this rule. They don't make it impossible, but they are not significant enough for members to buy them to confirm its validity.

The rule I am proposing would not even apply to this content, because this content is not inaccessible. It doesn't matter if the only way to verify the content is to spend $10,000 on a vintage 1st edition book or something, that isn't inaccessible. It's just hard to access.

It needs to be completely gone for this rule to even be a consideration. This most commonly applies to online games, where the content is only available so long as the company keeps hosting and supporting the game. Once it's taken down, the content will only exist in screenshots and videos. This rule is aimed at such content, and stipulates that these screenshots and videos need to be from a reputable source, preferably someone outside this community with no skin in the game for faking scans, like the archive website Executor posted, a gaming youtuber who isn't a battleboarder, or -- if absolutely needed -- a credible archivist within our own community who is a member of staff or where a member of staff authenticated it at some point. I will clarify that "authenticate" doesn't mean "can verbally confirm they saw the content at some point" rather they need to have some involvement in an objective archival process and know who specifically is the source of the scans.

Content you have to pay for is not inaccessible. Rare books are not inaccessible. Region-locked content is not inaccessible. Content that can no longer be purchased is not inaccessible. Content that can only be found through piracy is not inaccessible. This rule is only modifying our policy on inaccessible content. Please stay on the topic I am attempting to address.

 

[ImmortalDread]

After reading through the posts, I have some disagreements but also concede to some points. However, I think it's best to avoid going back and forth to conclude this thread:

@ImmortalDread

Are you willing to take a look at our suggested rule text please?

After very careful consideration, I think @DarkGrath's version is better

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 (for example: the creator of the material) or otherwise by a reputable source (for example: 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.

This is without specifying "the independent community" etc which I still have issues with it.

I don't want to equate inaccessibility with invalidity through the suggested method path, but this draft provides a good solution for both sides. Personally, I'm not a fan of vagueness, but I think sometimes it is necessary to avoid limiting other possibilities.

 

[Deagonx]

I am mostly fine with DarkGraths version, with one clarification or change:

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 (for example: the creator of the material) or otherwise by a reputable source (for example: 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 do not want "attested to by a reputable source" to encompass something like "a staff member said they remember that being in the game" or anything like that. I want something a little more concrete, or at the very least limit it to Admins. But preferably I would word it this way:

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 (for example: the creator of the material) or otherwise archived by a reputable source (for example: 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.

This way, it is not misunderstood to mean that verbal/written attestation by non-authors is sufficient, as far as I am concerned that's not much better than "trust me bro" and doesn't really help the problem.

 

[DarkGrath]

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 (for example: the creator of the material) or otherwise archived by a reputable source (for example: 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 happy with that. This does bring to mind some concerns expressed earlier in the thread - over, for example, how we would treat a case where a large number of people in a community can attest to something that is now inaccessible - but I'd not personally take any issue with this conceptualisation of the rule.

To be a bit pedantic, however, there are a couple of things worth adjusting:

1: The final sentence should be changed. I intentionally used the phrasing "attested to by an official or reputable source" to unambiguously tie in with the previous sentence, but now, it should be along the lines of "attested to by an official source or archived by a reputable source".

2: Following up "archived by a reputable source" with "(for example: a credible archivist)" is redundant. We may as well get rid of "(for example: a credible archivist)" if the rule is going to be that it has to be archived by someone credible, or perhaps replace it with a more appropriate example.

If we implemented those, the rule would simply change to:

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 (for example: the creator of the material) or otherwise archived by a reputable source. Information that comes from inaccessible material that cannot be attested to by an official source or is not archived by a reputable source is not permitted for indexing.

 

[Deagonx]

over, for example, how we would treat a case where a large number of people in a community can attest to something that is now inaccessible - but I'd not personally take any issue with this conceptualisation of the rule.

Yeah, I think there will always be certain circumstances where this rule unfortunately prevents the application of genuine scans because they cannot be found in any objective archival effort or were never captured in a video or something like that, but I think what Agnaa sort of gets at above is that even in these unfortunate circumstances it's just appropriate for us to disallow things when their validity is unfalsifiable. I am not trying to "throw the baby out with the bathwater" so to speak but some amount of it will be unavoidable if we want to ensure things are authentic.

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 (for example: the creator of the material) or otherwise archived by a reputable source. Information that comes from inaccessible material that cannot be attested to by an official source or is not archived by a reputable source is not permitted for indexing.

I'm okay with this.

 

[Deagonx]

These were the admins that agreed to the proposal:

@DarkDragonMedeus @Damage3245 @LordGriffin1000 @ByAsura @Agnaa @Mr._Bambu @Qawsedf234 @Firestorm808

This appears to be the final wording of the rule, based on discussions between myself, DarkGrath, Dread, and Agnaa. Please let me know if there are any changes that need to be made, otherwise we can move ahead with this:

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 (for example: the creator of the material) or otherwise archived by a reputable source. Information that comes from inaccessible material that cannot be attested to by an official source or is not archived by a reputable source is not permitted for indexing.

 

[Agnaa]

Seems fine.

 

[LordGriffin1000]

It's fine with me.

 

[IdiosyncraticLawyer]

These were the admins that agreed to the proposal:

@DarkDragonMedeus @Damage3245 @LordGriffin1000 @ByAsura @Agnaa @Mr._Bambu @Qawsedf234 @Firestorm808

This appears to be the final wording of the rule, based on discussions between myself, DarkGrath, Dread, and Agnaa. Please let me know if there are any changes that need to be made, otherwise we can move ahead with this:

Seems fine.

It's fine with me.

@Antvasima Can we apply this now?

 

[Antvasima]

I think so, yes.

 

[IdiosyncraticLawyer]

I think so, yes.

Done. This can be closed now.

Discussion Rules

VS Battles Wiki is a site where the members attempt to index the statistics of characters across different fictional franchises. These efforts lead to much discussion about certain feats, statements and calculations regarding their validity, reliability, etc. However, certain topics keep popping...

vsbattles.fandom.com

 

[Dereck03]

Closing this.