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Reality Equalization: A compromise of arbitrarity

Yeah no, I do not agree with Tllmbrg's take (Especially if he's actually serious) that all "Characters made of data" should default to Tier 11 and we deliberately ignore all the numerous superhuman feats especially ones that have blatant cosmic to Meta-Fiction level stuff.
 
One of the reasons I find it silly to take stuff that's explicitly mundane data with the same standards as if it was the "baseline" reality (with Reality Equalization) comes from how we still apply calcs to it and whatever as normal, even though such stuff has no reason whatsoever to adhere to reality, the assumptions we make for the sake of make stuff quantificable just fall apart when we no longer have a good reason to assume them in this kind of cases, as much video games aren't remotely obligated to make a perfect replication of IRL's physics beyond NASA's dream, and in fact is even more unrealistic.
 
Bobsican said:
One of the reasons I find it silly to take stuff that's explicitly mundane data with the same standards as if it was the "baseline" reality (with Reality Equalization) comes from how we still apply calcs to it and whatever as normal, even though such stuff has no reason whatsoever to adhere to reality, the assumptions we make for the sake of make stuff quantificable just fall apart when we no longer have a good reason to assume them in this kind of cases, as much video games aren't remotely obligated to make a perfect replication of IRL's physics beyond NASA's dream, and in fact is even more unrealistic.
Click to expand...
That could perhaps be incorporated into a rule where we deem calculations more or less reliable based on the medium they occur in?
 
What are the current conclusions here?
 
IdiosyncraticLawyer said:
I would like to offer my opinion on this topic if that's okay. The way I see it, there are two different types of reality equalization being tackled here - the type where things like Sword Art Online and The Matrix are made of data or dreams but have a separate tier for their appearances in-universe, and the type with things like the SCP Foundation that employ literal metafiction as part of their fantasy cosmology. I would argue that the policy for instances with and without qualitative superiority should be different and that the RE policy needs a serious overhaul like we're currently doing with the RFT page.
  • For the former with dreams and data, I could see it working because data and dreams are objectively fairly normal physical matter regardless of what it's simulated as inside digital worlds; also, there's already some precedent for it in stuff like SCP, like with CORE.exe, which is High 1-A in the digital world but Tier 9 in the physical world (its data is Tier 10 but it's ranked as Tier 9 because it can possess devices that are that powerful). As such, a tier like 10-C (Made of data/dreams), <INSERT TIER> in the digital/mental world (<FEAT JUSTIFICATION>) for them is likely well-justified.
  • For the latter with cases of genuine RFT, I'm still fresh off a Q&A thread about this topic where someone brought up some r/CharacterRant posts to argue that we should tier cases of proven RFT by always treating the top layer as the baseline and tiering everything below that as Tier 11 because most stuff is real in-universe despite being fictional while verses with RFT are fiction within fiction. I and a few other people, including some staff, quickly shot down that idea because it amounted to a gross misunderstanding of how RFT is supposed to work, given how this stance seemed to be a misinterpretation of the rule that RFT can't make you interact with the real world to say that it must instead make you inferior to verses that don't have it. Not to mention, it would flood the wiki with unreliable profiles because most authors consider incorporating transcendent layers to be an upwards climb, not something that pushes their power levels down (If proven, the second type of metafiction would actually cause the characters to be Tier 11, an example being the narratives in the SCP Foundation cosmology that are explicitly portrayed as inferior to the main narrative). I would argue that reality equalization as a policy shouldn't even be related to this type of genuine RFT, as to say "reality equalization" implies that the obvious baseline realities in types of verses like SCP are inherently unequal to verses that don't use RFT and we have to use a convention to make them equal, which provides ammunition to ranters who hate on our Tiering System. When I tried to argue for a more comprehensive note to guard against this misconception, DontTalkDT told me the reality equalization page covered it, and though I didn't agree, I didn't push the issue at the time because Ant agreed with him and I had already gotten the Q&A thread to say that VS Battles Wiki doesn't recognize r/CharacterRant's butchering of our RFT policies.
TL;DR: I believe Reality Equalization should be deleted and split into two different policies, the first being something like "Existence Equalization" that would cover dreams, data, and the like receiving different tiers for their data and their "internal" portrayals, and the second could be incorporated into the RFT page as a more comprehensive policy to determine which layer in a metafictional reality-fiction hierarchy we treat as the baseline.
Click to expand...
This still has mixed staff reception and could use more input on the matter overall.

I'd remind we've already mostly moved on from the original premise of the OP as I've conceded most of the points, bar this, which DontTalk also appears to lean to be fine with:

Bobsican said:
I'd still think a character should be specified to be tiered with reality equalization, be it on the page or on the verse page.
Sure, merely checking the premise may imply that'd be the case for verses that heavily rely on it for their ratings on the site, but it's not really inherent and we're here to make stuff clear to visitors in the first place.

Perhaps we could start by writing a standard for that bit? DT already appears to somewhat agree on this bit in particular.
Click to expand...
 
Well, I do not really mind the suggestion in your last quote if DontTalk is fine with it, but what do the other staff members here think regarding the issue?
 
Bobsican said:
I'd still think a character should be specified to be tiered with reality equalization, be it on the page or on the verse page.
Sure, merely checking the premise may imply that'd be the case for verses that heavily rely on it for their ratings on the site, but it's not really inherent and we're here to make stuff clear to visitors in the first place.
Click to expand...
I think adding this to the reality equalization page is better than having to list it on every verse with RFT.

We need to treat our audience with some level of intelligence lest we dumb down the entire wiki for no reason. Nobody is looking at r/CharacterRant's standards and saying "Golly gee, Batman should be tier 11!" without being beaten with sticks.
 
Yes. Agreed. Head glitch on my part. My apologies, and thank you for paying attention. 🙏
 
Sir_Ovens said:
We need to treat our audience with some level of intelligence lest we dumb down the entire wiki for no reason. Nobody is looking at r/CharacterRant's standards and saying "Golly gee, Batman should be tier 11!" without being beaten with sticks.
Click to expand...
I mean I think Batman should be rated tier 11 but that's besides the point I guess
 
I think any cosmology that just has an IRL dude/writer as the supreme deity treat the rest of the verse as tier 11
 
Tllmbrg said:
The Writer exists from what I'm aware
Also you didn't, your position is just the more popular around which I can't do much against
Click to expand...
The Writer's profile was deleted for being "borderline speculative fanfiction" according to Ant. Also, let me elaborate on this for you; the fact that a work doesn't acknowledge that it's fictional doesn't mean it isn't. All works we index are fictional, and trying to claim that fictional verses are tier 11 would require all of fiction to be downgraded to tier 11. Also also, all of battleboarding is based on "more popular opinions" because we can't bring characters into reality for empirical testing, so criticizing my debunk on those grounds is pretty meaningless. Kindly stop derailing this thread.
 
Yes, we should preferably try to stay on topic here.
 
While I totally understand from where Tlimbrg is coming from, as DT already explained and I've heard from multiple explanations off-site on this, overall multiple compromises are done right now regarding tiering based around R>F stuff, which are a sort of necessary evil for the sake of being able to index stuff for our purposes, it's no secret that authors couldn't care less about the laws of physics and overall their stuff isn't meant to be quantificable, yet we just assume they work as they should for the sake of calculations, for instance.

Anyways...

Sir_Ovens said:
I think adding this to the reality equalization page is better than having to list it on every verse with RFT.

We need to treat our audience with some level of intelligence lest we dumb down the entire wiki for no reason. Nobody is looking at r/CharacterRant's standards and saying "Golly gee, Batman should be tier 11!" without being beaten with sticks.
Click to expand...
Thing is that some cases can be argued to be 10-C over 11-A or the like, and the gap between the two is literally a qualitative superiority, the fact there's barely any tier 11 characters on the site speaks by itself on Reality Equalization being used way more often than what you may think.

Batman is also a quite extreme and inappropiate example, we're not going to specify that every character can be any qualitatively superior tier within the size and given perspective of a cosmology as that'd be misleading and redundant as DT explained.

Instead I'd sugges to add a standard in the Reality Equalization page, namely to request for verses that rely on it to specify in their Power of the Verse section its usage and the tier they'd be without it, maybe also clarify that such tiers are also usable for vs thread purposes, even if not directly listed on the page. This requires significantly less editing and is easier to moderate.
 
Sorry, your username is difficult to write.
Also, IDK how you'd spell it as it has two "L"s instead of some vowel in between, but that's besides the point.
 
Bobsican said:
While I totally understand from where Tlimbrg is coming from, as DT already explained and I've heard from multiple explanations off-site on this, overall multiple compromises are done right now regarding tiering based around R>F stuff, which are a sort of necessary evil for the sake of being able to index stuff for our purposes, it's no secret that authors couldn't care less about the laws of physics and overall their stuff isn't meant to be quantificable, yet we just assume they work as they should for the sake of calculations, for instance.
Click to expand...
I should remind everyone that understanding where someone's coming from doesn't mean we have to assign any merit to their views.
Bobsican said:
Thing is that some cases can be argued to be 10-C over 11-A or the like, and the gap between the two is literally a qualitative superiority, the fact there's barely any tier 11 characters on the site speaks by itself on Reality Equalization being used way more often than what you may think.
Click to expand...
No, it speaks to how authors aren't nearly as inclined to write characters infinitely weaker than tiers 10-3 as they are to write stuff infinitely stronger than that.
Bobsican said:
Batman is also a quite extreme and inappropiate example, we're not going to specify that every character can be any qualitatively superior tier within the size and given perspective of a cosmology as that'd be misleading and redundant as DT explained.

Instead I'd sugges to add a standard in the Reality Equalization page, namely to request for verses that rely on it to specify in their Power of the Verse section its usage and the tier they'd be without it, maybe also clarify that such tiers are also usable for vs thread purposes, even if not directly listed on the page. This requires significantly less editing and is easier to moderate.
Click to expand...
Are we still considering my proposal?
IdiosyncraticLawyer said:
I would like to offer my opinion on this topic if that's okay. The way I see it, there are two different types of reality equalization being tackled here - the type where things like Sword Art Online and The Matrix are made of data or dreams but have a separate tier for their appearances in-universe, and the type with things like the SCP Foundation that employ literal metafiction as part of their fantasy cosmology. I would argue that the policy for instances with and without qualitative superiority should be different and that the RE policy needs a serious overhaul like we're currently doing with the RFT page.
  • For the former with dreams and data, I could see it working because data and dreams are objectively fairly normal physical matter regardless of what it's simulated as inside digital worlds; also, there's already some precedent for it in stuff like SCP, like with CORE.exe, which is High 1-A in the digital world but Tier 9 in the physical world (its data is Tier 10 but it's ranked as Tier 9 because it can possess devices that are that powerful). As such, a tier like 10-C (Made of data/dreams), <INSERT TIER> in the digital/mental world (<FEAT JUSTIFICATION>) for them is likely well-justified.
  • For the latter with cases of genuine RFT, I'm still fresh off a Q&A thread about this topic where someone brought up some r/CharacterRant posts to argue that we should tier cases of proven RFT by always treating the top layer as the baseline and tiering everything below that as Tier 11 because most stuff is real in-universe despite being fictional while verses with RFT are fiction within fiction. I and a few other people, including some staff, quickly shot down that idea because it amounted to a gross misunderstanding of how RFT is supposed to work, given how this stance seemed to be a misinterpretation of the rule that RFT can't make you interact with the real world to say that it must instead make you inferior to verses that don't have it. Not to mention, it would flood the wiki with unreliable profiles because most authors consider incorporating transcendent layers to be an upwards climb, not something that pushes their power levels down (If proven, the second type of metafiction would actually cause the characters to be Tier 11, an example being the narratives in the SCP Foundation cosmology that are explicitly portrayed as inferior to the main narrative). I would argue that reality equalization as a policy shouldn't even be related to this type of genuine RFT, as to say "reality equalization" implies that the obvious baseline realities in types of verses like SCP are inherently unequal to verses that don't use RFT and we have to use a convention to make them equal, which provides ammunition to ranters who hate on our Tiering System. When I tried to argue for a more comprehensive note to guard against this misconception, DontTalkDT told me the reality equalization page covered it, and though I didn't agree, I didn't push the issue at the time because Ant agreed with him and I had already gotten the Q&A thread to say that VS Battles Wiki doesn't recognize r/CharacterRant's butchering of our RFT policies.
TL;DR: I believe Reality Equalization should be deleted and split into two different policies, the first being something like "Existence Equalization" that would cover dreams, data, and the like receiving different tiers for their data and their "internal" portrayals, and the second could be incorporated into the RFT page as a more comprehensive policy to determine which layer in a metafictional reality-fiction hierarchy we treat as the baseline.
Click to expand...
 
IdiosyncraticLawyer said:
I should remind everyone that understanding where someone's coming from doesn't mean we have to assign any merit to their views.
Click to expand...
Correct

IdiosyncraticLawyer said:
No, it speaks to how authors aren't nearly as inclined to write characters infinitely weaker than tiers 10-3 as they are to write stuff infinitely stronger than that.
Click to expand...
Strictly speaking this is more of our default stance leaning there than authors avoiding tier 11 on purpose, as most candidates for tier 11 aren't there at all out of Reality Equalization, which is part of what this thread wants to cover.

IdiosyncraticLawyer said:
Are we still considering my proposal?
Click to expand...
I'd think so, at least on my part.
 
Bobsican said:
Strictly speaking this is more of our default stance leaning there than authors avoiding tier 11 on purpose, as most candidates for tier 11 aren't there at all out of Reality Equalization, which is part of what this thread wants to cover.
Click to expand...
Define "most candidates for tier 11".
 
Basically most verses that use Reality Equalization for our purposes, as implied before.
 
Bobsican said:
Basically most verses that use Reality Equalization for our purposes, as implied before.
Click to expand...
Verses of data and dreams should have separate keys for their real-world 10-C forms and their forms within their mediums while verses employing literal metafiction shouldn't be considered "tier 11 candidates" for the reasons I've already explained.
 
That'd be fine by me, although that then raises the question on where'd we draw the line between 10-C and tier 11 here, unless we require tier 11 cases to specifically mention "2-D" or the like.

Edit: Looking further, it seems your proposal is meant to cover that too, so I agree with your proposal, although it'd be appreciated if you started writing some standards based on that for others to then evaluate/corroborate.
 
Sir_Ovens said:
I think adding this to the reality equalization page is better than having to list it on every verse with RFT.

We need to treat our audience with some level of intelligence lest we dumb down the entire wiki for no reason. Nobody is looking at r/CharacterRant's standards and saying "Golly gee, Batman should be tier 11!" without being beaten with sticks.
Click to expand...
So should this solution be applied then? And what other conclusions have our staff members made here?
 
Okay. Please quote or write explanations for what you suggest here.
 
Sir_Ovens said:
I think adding this to the reality equalization page is better than having to list it on every verse with RFT.

We need to treat our audience with some level of intelligence lest we dumb down the entire wiki for no reason. Nobody is looking at r/CharacterRant's standards and saying "Golly gee, Batman should be tier 11!" without being beaten with sticks.
Click to expand...
Antvasima said:
So should this solution be applied then? And what other conclusions have our staff members made here?
Click to expand...
IdiosyncraticLawyer said:
My proposal is still unevaluated.
Click to expand...
@DontTalkDT @ImmortalDread @Tllmbrg @Sir_Ovens @DarkDragonMedeus @IdiosyncraticLawyer @Bobsican
 
Antvasima said:
@DontTalkDT @ImmortalDread @Tllmbrg @Sir_Ovens @DarkDragonMedeus @IdiosyncraticLawyer @Bobsican
Click to expand...
I still have the same stance as @DontTalkDT

We can create a rule that in case of those instances, the key should be given to separate the difference. I don't think we should complicate it very much.
DontTalkDT said:
The only thing I can agree with here is that profiles using reality equalization should make it at least implicitly clear that it is being done. For me personally, the key being "inside the game" or something similar would be enough for that, though.
Click to expand...
 
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