Regarding author statements from Twitter, Facebook and other social media (Staff Only)

[Antvasima]

It is probably best to keep this doscussion between the staff. It would likely turn too hard to manage otherwise, and if some regular members (who are not honorary staff, such as Agnaa and former staff members) can comment, it will easily lead to confusion among others and lead them to comment as well.

 

[M3X_2.0]

A question. If someone sent an e-mail to the author and he answer that politely and nothing contradicted the work, can the information be used?

I am asking this because e-mail is something different from Twitter or Facebook

 

[Antvasima]

Anyway, like other staff members who have commented here, I think that our current regulations for this are likely mostly sufficient.

 

[Antvasima]

To elaborate a little bit, casual non-serious replies that have not been officially confirmed within a series in any way, for which the relevant fiction may not even be under the complete control of whoever responded, would obviously be much less reliable than serious elaborate texts that give specific information from somebody who does in fact currently write and control a certain franchise. So yes, we have to use common sense on a case-by-case basis.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

99% of the time, statements from authors should be taken with a grain of salt and considered invalid. There are a lot of problems but first and foremost, a lot of big franchises don't actually have full ownership or authority over their own work. Reason is because the development is often done by the entire company and not just the author/director/original planner, ect. And often times, the author often needed to make changes for their work against their will based on requiring publisher approval.

Other examples include the fact that many authors aren't actually scientists, and some of them are also not vocabulary experts. They may often be prone to hyperboles and understatements. And sometimes, the word Universe is sometimes used to describe the entire cosmology of the verse rather than just a single Universe. Example was that one of the Dragon Ball staff considered Zen'o to be "The only character capable of destroying the Universe," pretty sure Universe in that context means the entire Macrocosm put together and not just Universe 7. As everyone who watches the series knows all Gods of Destruction are beyond capable of destroying their respective "Universes". And of course, all uses of the word Omnipotent should be disregarded as hyperboles.

And as others have said. Plenty of authors actually flat out hate questions related to power-scaling or Vs Debating and may sometimes even give troll answers for the sake of fan service so that they would "Shut up". And some authors even consider asking them questions to be harassment. So that's why it's against the rules to beg some staff members for answers.

Of course, there are only very few author statements on social media that are okay. I recall DontTalk actually accepted one statement from Christopher Paolini regarding Inheritance Cycle. Examples of single authors who actually do have full ownership of their own books could have some form of credibility. And perhaps answers for minor details about characters are fine such as the size of the Dragons. There was a fanart that compared the size of the Dragons to each other and to the size of a human. Which the author actually considered the Dragon's sizes to be low-balled but more or less pretty accurate. Book characters that pretty much have no official character design from the staff outside of textbook statements have pretty much been our exception for using fan art as opposed to official art.

So in other words, we should be strict regarding Twitter statements. With only very few exceptions being minor details regarding works that don't actually have any on screen content in canon. And only if those details are 100% uncontroversial.

 

[Crabwhale]

Using Transformers as the example here is erroneous, as Ask Vector Prime, as much as it is about fan feedback, is an entirely canon part of the Transformers multiverse. That is to say, Hasbro themselves has sanctioned the account specifically and with no other purpose than to answer fan questions.

Some of the most important pieces of lore have been taken from these posts, not to mention clarifying many continuity mistakes and the such, along with creating entirely concepts that have made their way to other stories.

If there is one, a single WOD account that we should take 100% at face value, it is it.

 

[Antvasima]

I agree with Crabwhale.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

I do agree that statements from the whole company are far more reliable than statements from single individual staff members.

 

[Celestial_Pegasus]

Agree with what's been said here, this should be case by case and considered secondary canon.

 

[Sera_EX]

As long as WoG stays "secondary canon", I don't really care where it comes from. The exception is crossover-powerscaling statements from two of their works that are not part of the universe. That shouldn't be used to justify legitimate power-scaling between two characters.

 

[Antvasima]

@Sera

Well, we recently updated our Crossovers scaling rules regarding that issue.

 

[ShadowWarrior1999]

Obvious bait questions so that a random user gets an answer they want to hear should definitely be ignored.

Also depends on whether it comes from a low-ranking employee within the company or one of the top figures that plans out the details. The former is far less likely to be valid.

I believe we already disregard WOG if the work itself contradicts it. WOG should be used as supporting details for events that happened in the series.

 

[Matthew_Schroeder]

Hot take:

If a feat or, worse, an entire verse, requires Tweets or Facebook Conversations or whatever as the primary means through which their Tiering is confirmed. AKA, if a feat would be unquantifiable or invalid if not for a tweet (Or worse, if an entire verse would fall down several tiers over if not for a string of tweets serving as evidence) then it should not be allowed.

That's it. Learn to look at the actual text as it stands on its own.

 

[Agnaa]

@Ogbuna I noticed that you kudos'd Matt's comment, but his comment seems to go against every other comment you've made in the thread.

It seems like Matt's saying that if WoG changes the tier of the verse, it shouldn't be used, even if that WoG is clarifying things in the verse. While you were saying that WoG can be used if it backs up/clarifies something.

Or am I just misunderstanding what you/Matt said?

 

[Ogbunabali]

Yes, I agree that if the a tier is gained through a tweet, or whatever, as a primary source with no backing in the verse itself, then it shouldn't be used.

I don't see how that contradicts me saying that it's fine if a reliable WoG is sometimes used for clarifying an already established lore thing.

 

[Agnaa]

Because Matt used the example of:

AKA, if a feat would be unquantifiable or invalid if not for a tweet

This is a situation where there is backing in the verse itself. There is a feat described in the text which seems unquantifiable/invalid, but becomes quantifiable with WoG. How is this different from using WoG to clarify an established thing?

EDIT: Matt did also use the word "primary" but he said "primary means through which their tiering is confirmed". And gave an example where the text was the primary source, but the WoG confirmed it and made it usable. I think this may be the source of the confusion.

 

[Wokistan]

If the transformers account literally only exists for exposition purposes I don't see why it can't be used so long as it's following the WoG guidelines, like not being contradictory or whatever.

 

[Antoniofer]

I'm fine with using WoG outside of official guidelines, such well known social sites and forums, but these should be only used to clarify few ratings, like explained a suppossed inconsistence or an ability, but not to hold an entire rating. Aka, verses shouldn't be upgraded merely by a statement of the author, plus they are still subject to flowey language.

 

[KarmodF]

I just wanna point out that the Transformers account is an "in-universe" sort of account used by the writers to answer fan questions, similar to Bill Cipher's reddit AMA.

 

[Agnaa]

What does it mean to not have WoG hold an entire rating? If there's a book for a verse which describes a character engulfing a spaceship in an explosion, that's unquantifiable since we don't know how big it is. If WoG later explains how big that spaceship is, that's now a quantifiable feat, so the WoG kinda holds the entire rating. Would this not be acceptable for you guys @Antoni @Matt?

 

[ZacharyGrossman273]

Bill Cipher's AMA doesent impact the tier, it's just some minor lore and some very minor hax

 

[Antoniofer]

Lets stick to realistic scenarios, I highly doubt in a verse there's a spaceship busting feat, and then one of the writers write that the spaceship is infinite sized if hasn't been remotely suggested within the airing of the serie, that would lead to believe is flowey language, or the writter has no idea of what is he talking about.

 

[Agnaa]

Whoa whoa whoa why would you assume infinite size? I was imagining that feat might land around tier 7 or tier 6. I was trying to give a realistic scenario.

 

[Antoniofer]

Oh, weird, I was sure I read the word infinte somewhere else within your comment... My mistake then. Welp, stick to be reasonable, if we can see the spaceship, and the author gives us its dimensions then it fine to use it (al long its dimensions do not match the ship's), and remember that outliers also exist.

 

[Agnaa]

The point was kinda that we couldn't see the ship, since it happens in a book.

So you're fine with WoG holding entire ratings in cases like this?

 

[Nepuko]

Why wouldn't WoG be taken into account if it clarifies something in the verse and dosen't contradict with it? That seems a bit asinine imo. (There's also the recent case in Demonbane when the author ended up being right all along about his work's tiering, but that's another subject I guess)

Apologies if that was already answered.

 

[Antoniofer]

I'm good with clarifications, almost all the time that WoG is used is cuz of this (or a what if in any case); what I'm against is upgrading someone 2 or more tiers due what could possibly be flowey language and hasn't been even suggested in the serie itself only cuz "no contradiction" (of course, it may also be that people some times forget that outliers exist).

 

[Agnaa]

Fair enough.

• Flowery language should go for sure.
• Stuff that hasn't been suggested in the series should be fine if it's expanding a character's set of abilities which has already been demonstrate in-verse (i.e. a character who can rewind/speed up time for objects having WoG say she can heal wounds by speeding them up).

We probably shouldn't scale characters to other characters/constructs in the story purely from WoG, right @Antoni? Statements like Character A from arc one could be killed by character B from arc three. Or, character C could destroy a certain castle. ofc assuming that no outliers or hax abilities make these statements unusable.

 

[Antoniofer]

Neither I have problems with that one, but beware, when author say stuff like "character A can defeat character B" do not refer to stuff like AP, rather, the combination of several factors (be speed, strength, combat capability, hax, endurance, stamina, etc.). Naturally, stuff like flowey language (although less common this time) and consistency still apply, if writer/author says a character can destroy a castle when it had failed to destroy a mansion in the past then the statement do not apply (unless the person refer to destroy given time, like destroying that wall, then the other room, etc.).

 

[Doorinmyhouse]

I'm good with clarifications, almost all the time that WoG is used is cuz of this (or a what if in any case); .

A verse which is shown to have at least innumerable universes, stated to have universes that branch off to infinity , a multiversal force that continues forever in every direction, a timestream being infinite ( which could be interpreted as either infinite timelines or each timeline being infinitely long), references a scientific theory that suggest there are anywhere between innumerable to possibly infinite universes, and a character who isnt credible made a last minute theory where she stated there are infinite universes.

If I asked the author of that verse " How big is the multiverse" without mentioning whatsoever whether there were infinite universes or not and he answered " There are infinite universes", would the WOG-statement apply?

 

[Agnaa]

@Antoniofer Ahh okay, that's fair.

 

[Nepuko]

I agree with @Antoni there. Unless of course flowery language or if it's inconsistent, I don't think we should ignore WoG even in cases like "Character A can beat character B". Though once again like Antoni has shown, such statements can be vague and we won't know for sure if it's about AP, speed blitz, hax etc. WoG like thse are prob only useful in matches, when said Character A fights said Character B.

I take it that when said statements are a bit more specific, such as "character A has more raw power than character B", and is neither flowery language nor really contradicting the work, we can use it for scaling?

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

I got to say stuff like Hideki Kamiya saying things like "Bayonetta would beat Dante because she's sexier" is a horrible tweet to take literally.

But other than that, if the social media statements quite literally contradict what is both shown in the actual work, we should probably disregard it. And I'm still siding with Matt with statements in those categories.

 

[Agnaa]

I'd really like Matt to come in and clarify his statement. His example vaguely mentioned "unknown or invalid" feats that are in the text and get clarified with WoG, while people that have "agreed" with him said they only want to disallow things that aren't hinted in the series at all (Antoniofer) or contradict what's shown in the text (DarkDragonMedeus), which is really different from what Matt said, as far as I can tell.

 

[Ionliosite]

>Looks at Doorinmyhouse's last question

>Looks at the newest 2-A Alien X thread

Loaded question.jpeg

 

[ProfessorKukui4Life]

>Looks at Doorinmyhouse's last question
>Looks at the newest 2-A Alien X thread

Loaded question.jpeg

*sigh*......

 

[Doorinmyhouse]

@Ionliosite I obviously made this thread specifically because of that thread??? What exactly are you surprised about, I even ******* linked the thread in the OP's first line, you are not doing some master detective work

 

[AKM sama]

I feel like the source material should always be the primary thing when determining any rating. Obviously official interviews are fine but if some verse changing statements come out of a casual conversation on twitter or some other social media platform which is often the result of a fan asking questions (sometimes leading) and the writer wanting to be done with it, and when that info is nowhere near to be found in the source material, it shouldn't be considered legit imo.

 

[Nepuko]

@Ionliosite I obviously made this thread specifically because of that thread??? What exactly are you surprised about, I even ******* linked the thread in the OP's first line, you are not doing some master detective work

No need to overreact man.

 

[Antoniofer]

I put an example and see if youlre all fine with it: in Anima, since there's hasn't been new content in a long time, its creator used to walk through the official forums (more recently we have interviews in DIscord like 3 times a year), and gave us canon info about the lore and rules. They're mostly clarification, errata's corrections, expanded rules, and info about characters, like backstory and how strong they are compared to other characters.

Take into account this franchise in not like DC or DnD, it has around 3-4 authors/writers, with the one that appears in the interview the main creator. Of course, there is info that was ignored (for the purpose of this wiki, although useless considering the current ratings), like the author power-wise comparing characters from the lore to other from other works, such Goku or the Endless.