YouTube Profiles Quality Control Discussion 2 (STAFF ONLY)

[Antvasima]

As usual, I agree with Sera.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

The main series AVGN is currently rated as 3-C based on his feat in the Nintendo Power intro, though; there are concerns of it being a gag. And he does have a key of him becoming Low 2-C via "Becoming one with the Universe" in his Earthbound video.

 

[Sera_EX]

I've never heard anything more ludicrous in a long time. Galaxy level feat via an intro? So I guess if in the next Boruto anime opening they show Boruto blow up the universe that's 3-A. I guess Cleveland Brown and Stan Smith can have Time Travel because they reversed time in a Superman like fashion via reversing the Earth's rotation. Even though that was just a bit. It's not to be taken seriously. This is the problem with comedy and gag series here at VSBW. It's resulted in some of the worst stats or propositions for stats in our site's history.

Tier 0 Saitama, 1-B Patrick Star (that one was my favorite), "Impossible to Define" Bugs Bunny...the list goes on.

See, that's the type of nonsense that we need to avoid. Forget other commumities, it's our viewers who will start to see us as a joke and not be interested in us anymore because we lost our credibility, making the several hundred hours most staff have put into this site all for nothing. We're already doing this for free.

The several copy cat wikis that just copy-pasted our original formula have more integrity than us nowadays, and that is nothing short of pitiful.

 

[Andytrenom]

The rant seemed unnecessary, tho I do understand the problem with this rating

 

[Sera_EX]

That wasn't a rant :<

 

[Andytrenom]

Mini rant at least

 

[Sera_EX]

I mean, I was not in any negative emotional state when I wrote that, I've been neutral this entire time, but if you insist, we can go that route. After all, I'm not ashamed to admit something is dangerous to the site. I'm not here trying to outlaw profiles due to the medium of which they were posted. Heck, I literally brought up examples from television. Bad practice is bad practice, and if I have to speak bluntly just so we finally get the memo, then so be it. No one else is gonna do it except Dargoo.

 

[Ultima_Reality]

Yeah, this wiki has produced a lot of cringey, stupid memes over the years, but at least those remained as mostly internal jokes between us, and nothing else.

Yes, we are a huge jest when it comes to this sort of thing, but we should definitely draw a line between our meme-y, goofy side and the objective, no-nonsense side a big community like this one should naturally have.

In general, we should always try to maintain at least semblance of professionalism and credibility when dealing with the more "technical" aspect of the wiki, not allow it to be filled with memes and shit that would logically only belong in Joke Battles Wiki.

Like, for fred fuchs' sake at this point we are literally treating comedic skits and one-offs as legitimate feats and using cross-scaling to rate characters like the AVGN. Y'all should just use thy heads by now.

 

[Sera_EX]

Luceheird Heyrimon when?

 

[Sir_Ovens]

To be honest, I always saw Joke Battles as a wiki where stats and coherence lose all meaning, and profiles were made just for the heck of it. If a profile is made here, intention aside, it should be made with coherence and proper stats, regardless of whatever status it has outside the wiki.

I do think that a line should be drawn between joke profiles and real profiles, but I honestly don't see the original Pepe the Frog as a joke profile. Sure, it was made because someone thought it'd be a good meme, but so was Lightning McQueen and hell, Thunder McQueen as well. As long as the stats on the profile are accurate and the profile is coherent I don't see why we shouldn't have it on the site.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

There's no cross-scaling; again, I noted there are good points about the 3-C feat. But the Magicant merging one was legit AVGN described as becoming one with the universe in the actual video. It's not cross scaling per say, and it is copying an ability that happens. But on a different note, it still showcases the same level of power. Example of cross scaling would again, rating them as High 4-C via scaling them from Bugs Bunny; which is a huge no here for obvious reasons.

Again, I'm fine just having his AVGN Adventures abilities for reasons above. I also agree that Pepe should be deleted given he appears to be an inappropriate character.

 

[Andytrenom]

@Ultima I definitely agree with that. Things like page structure and ratings need to be regulated seriously. But things like vs matchups and other inconsequential discussions can do with a more relaxed approach

 

[Sera_EX]

@Ovens

Pepe isn't allowed due to political controversy thanks to our pals over at 4chan.

 

[Sir_Ovens]

Ah, the white power controversy. If it's for that reason, I'm fine with not having the profile. It's stupid, but we really don't have a say in that.

 

[Antvasima]

I don't have enough free time and energy to argue about it, but for what it is worth, I strongly agree with Dargoo, Promestein, Sera, and Ultima. We should stop dragging this out and start to get rid of all the profiles that severely damage our credibility and are against our rules and/or common sense to feature here.

 

[Sera_EX]

Agreed.

 

[Andytrenom]

@Ant Are we in the process of better defining the rules here or deleting the pages in an efficient manner? Because at some point it seemed like things shifted from just reviewing the profiles according to our written standards to questioning the standards themselves, I would avoid deleting profiles unless we're past that

 

[Antvasima]

As far as I have understood, we feature several profiles that are against our current standards, but if they need to be defined to turn stricter first, I am fine with that.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

I just wanna say for the record I agree partially with both sides. Dargoo and co make plenty of fairly solid points but Ovens is correct in my opinion. You can't just disregard a page because you think it's stupid, cringey (ye gods why is this word still in existence) or childish. Even if you'd like to. Otherwise I could say, oh I dunno, Digimon is childish.

Just dropping that in. None of those are reasons to get rid of a verse. Apply the same logic you would elsewhere with the added on logic of "personas of real and actual people should probably not be allowed".

 

[Sera_EX]

Who said because it's cringey it has to go?

I literally already said "it's not the content, it's the composition" of the verse that matters. Case-in-point, Suggsverse.

 

[Antvasima]

@Dargoo, Promestein, Sera & Ultima

Are our current regulations sufficient, or should they be modified to turn stricter, in order to avoid the above-mentioned problems?

 

[Dargoo_Faust]

@Ant

While I feel the rules could be much stricter, much of these profiles are just a result of the rules not even being applied to begin with for technical reasons.

I can't send another wall of text today in response to Andy in good faith that I'll keep my cool, so I'll just respond in short posts for now.

 

[Dargoo_Faust]

@Sera Again, thank you for being a voice of common sense on this thread. Keeps me going.

 

[Antvasima]

Okay. So should we start with focusing on getting rid of all the profiles that break our current rules then?

 

[Dargoo_Faust]

Okay. So should we start with focusing on getting rid of all the profiles that break our current rules then?

Correct.

As for additions to existing rules: we should explicitly explain that verses as a whole that revolve around a YT persona (i.e. Who Killed Markiplier) or liscenced games/books based on a YT persona (Tobuscus, AVGN Adventures, like a million PewDiePie clones) should not be allowed.

It's abundantly clear they present the same issues as the persona profiles themselves in practice. I go back to the "Bill Murray (Zombieland)" example. It's still a person/persona as themselves, just in a different medium. It does not make it suddenly okay.

Yes - this means we should remove self-inserts of prominent actors such as Vanilla Ice. We don't want VS threads between real, living people and for good reason. Without these rules, dozens upon dozens of profiles can just drive around the spirit of the rules we make.

Pepe, as I mentioned earlier, should honestly be an exception to all the above regulations and just be deleted regardless that outside the context of the meme he's a regular character. Because the people who made the profile, and the people who make threads about the profile, are very obviously just using it as a platform to launch "legit" meme matchups and joke threads. It's an example of an otherwise legitimate character who was brought to the site for the sole purpose of shitposting. If we can ban certain matchups and verse vs verse threads because time has proven that they're toxic, we can remove a single profile for the same exactly scenario.

 

[Dargoo_Faust]

To be honest, I always saw Joke Battles as a wiki where stats and coherence lose all meaning, and profiles were made just for the heck of it. If a profile is made here, intention aside, it should be made with coherence and proper stats, regardless of whatever status it has outside the wiki.

To be frank, coherent joke profiles stopped existing on JokesBattles because they were moved to or posted here instead.

You can have a profile with coherency on JokesBattles. It's a shame we've become an extension of JB because we've associated coherency with "should be on VSBW".

 

[Sera_EX]

The reason why I give video game incarnations a pass is because if we didn't, we'd have a glaring issue of, say, "alternative canon" profiles being outlawed in general for violating essentially the same core principle of "just being that character but in a different medium". For example, DBX Goku, which is literally just Goku in a video game with extra feats and a higher tier.

 

[Sir_Ovens]

I'm confused about the last bit of your argument Dargoo. Are you saying that a meme character instigates meme matchups? I mean, you're not wrong, but again, how much fun do you want to suck out of a debate?

Almost all Thunder McQueen matches are made because "lol funny inconclusive man". Just replace Thunder with a mainstream meme like live action Sonic (when he eventually gets a profile) and suddenly, it's not ok.

Again, intention to create a profile should not be our main concern. Tons of perfectly fine profiles were added here on the premise of a joke to begin with. I made Derek Zoolander because he had legitimate feats and I thought it would have been funny if characters have to fight a supermodel. Care Bears was made because Arrogant and I made a joke off wiki about adding them to the site. Turns out, they actually can and Arrogant went for it.

You see how flawed your argment is when you take into consideration that we can't 100% judge intention from a profile?

 

[Imaginym]

(Apologies in advance about my verbosity.)

Commenting with AndyTrenom's permission, as given here: https://vsbattles.com/vsbattles/3336598 Apologies if I'm being out of place; It seems both me and Andy feel I should simply comment myself, clarifying I had permissio. (Despite us both knowing the opening post of this thread saying "If any non-Staff wishes to make a comment here, bring it up with one of the staff members who can convey your message here.".)

Now then....

My opinion is that we shouldn't punish fiction/profiles for the acts of people.

If I understand right (I'd like to think I do, but I'm not 100% sure), we're proposing to delete a number of profiles. I can agree, in part with that.

Some have poor premises (Wrong kind of character for our Wiki, whatever kind(s) that is, invalid feats, etc.), & in some cases, the deletion isn't "permanent" since some of the profile(s) in question may be so poorly formatted that remaking it would be easier than "fixing" it.

But then we come to profiles, accused of being made for memes/"shitposting", etc. I speak as someone who almost never makes profiles. (Solrock & Lunatone, & I think Equinox from Batman: the Brave and the Bold.) I don't go out of my way to make "memes".

If I may be so bold, it seems like a number of users feel we should delete the profiles for the INTENT of the USERS who created the profiles, rather than the contents themselves.

Correct me if I'm wrong, please.

Is how a fanbase behaves the fault of the source material?

Aren't Versus Threads one of the least important parts of this Wiki, as opposed to creating profiles, indexing statistics and revising our standards, policy & wiki?

I think that users editing in shoddy, improper ways, & behaving badly is the fault of the users, not the works that they (mis)behave with in their minds when they act.

Yes, there may be some Youtube personas, playing versions of themselves, or playing characters unrelated to themselves, especially in media other than Youtube. But their validity as profiles should be evaluated based on the work the profile is based on.

Not something like how the users misbehave regarding it, nor how "unprofessional" it makes us look; Plenty of legitimate works (Pokemon, My Little Pony, Kingdom Hearts, Sonic) have characters that are NOT thought of highly by some people.

Indeed, there are people who would think less of us for indexing characters from what we consider legitimate Verses.

Why is how disliked or non-serious seeming a work is by people who didn't contribute to the work's creation suddenly a criteria in its inclusion?

Feats in openings that are wildly inconsistent or gags.... "Feats" that are just entertaining filler or aids in explaining their point of discussion. I think those are not good support for a profile.

But a large audience thinking "it's stupid!", "it's a joke!", &/or "it's a meme!"?

Outlook by audiences on the work & outlook on our Wiki by audiences shouldn't be a factor, but rather, how qualified the work is itself, should be, I think. Users here who misbehave & do shoddy work regarding it should be punished, not the fiction.

And yes, sometimes characters in fiction may share a likeness, voice &/or name with a Youtuber or other real person.

But we should evaluate if they have a coherent story, capabilities, & personality traits that distinguish them from those who they share a likeness with.

The perspectives of audiences & the (mis)behaviour of users regarding a work from a given medium shouldn't make us evaluate it so differently from other works from already accepted mediums.

The work itself should be the factor, & people with problematic perspectives or behaviour should be ignored, or held at fault, not the fiction.

 

[Dargoo_Faust]

@Sera

I... don't see the issue you speak of. Goku is not a youtube personality. Our issue is with youtube personalities, not with alternative versions of characters in general. The original character for the alt-Gokus is a valid profile; while the original 'character' for the alt-PewDiePies is not. Our rules can be specific when we need them to be. I feel like this is one of those cases. I really badly want to say I'm willing to compromise, but I've said those words on similar threads and nothing really got accomplished as a result. I don't think the alt-versions of the YT personas should be on the site.

@Ovens

I mean, you're not wrong, but again, how much fun do you want to suck out of a debate? I'm honestly surprised the 'fun police' argument didn't come sooner. Fun-ness does not equate to being good for the site. I can have fun talking about athletics, but I wouldn't crituqe someone for "sucking the fun" out of that discussion when they tell me I can't talk about athletics on a cooking forum. We have a fun and games forum. Use it, instead of spreading it to the other forums. You see how flawed your argment is when you take into consideration that we can't 100% judge intention from a profile? I called in an exception because it's an exception. It's kind of the definition of the word. It doesn't apply to every case. I hope there's some semblance of a group of people who see the issue with having a Pepe the Frog profile on the wiki. I consider few things self-evident, I'm hoping this is one of them.

@Imaginym

"Punish"? We're not "punishing" anything. Removing profiles is just deciding we don't want that kind of content on the wiki. People using the content to mess with our site is just the cherry on the top of this issue. And yeah, after discussing this, I'm entirely convinced this is an elaborate ploy to mess with or discredit the site. I won't say that's why we need to remove the profiles, but it's part of the issue and I won't dance around it to make my argument sound better. Some have poor premises (Wrong kind of character for our Wiki That's an absolutely valid premise. Unless you'd like to argue that JokesBattles and FC/OC have no purpose as sites. If I may be so bold, it seems like a number of users feel we should delete the profiles for the INTENT of the USERS who created the profiles, rather than the contents themselves. Heck no. I'm calling out the intent of the users as it's part of the problem, not because it's the forefront of my argument. How many times do I have to say this. It's because of the content it's because we have other sites for this kind of content. Is that clear enough? Correct me if I'm wrong, please. You were, and I did. Is how a fanbase behaves the fault of the source material? No. However, we do restrict discussions of content and posting of content on the site (see: our VS and Site Rules) because of a history of a toxic, unmanageable community. I wouldn't call it "punishing" the content in question, I'd just call that sane management. Aren't Versus Threads one of the least important parts of this Wiki, as opposed to creating profiles, indexing statistics and revising our standards, policy & wiki? Who said this was just about verses threads? The profiles themselves are jokes. They're based on materials we have already deemed unfit for our site. We're an indexing wiki, yes. We also decide what we don't want to index, and we allocate them to different sites. Indexing memes, fanworks, gag collections; that's not what our site does, and I'm extremely unhappy it's become a hallmark of past couple of months. I think that users editing in shoddy, improper ways, & behaving badly is the fault of the users, not the works that they (mis)behave with in their minds when they act. I'm going to call this a red herring. The users being shitty and the works not having a place here are two different issues. You're focusing on half of the picture, and as a result your argument is half-baked. Yes, there may be some Youtube personas, playing versions of themselves, or playing characters unrelated to themselves, especially in media other than Youtube. But their validity as profiles should be evaluated based on the work the profile is based on. Sure. "We don't want Youtube personas on the site". "This is functionally the Youtube persona". "We should remove it from the site". Simple deduction from our rule's intent. nor how "unprofessional" it makes us look I'll agree to disagree here. If something makes us look bad at indexing? If something makes us look less reliable as a site? Yeah, I sure as hell have a problem with it. If something is making us look unprofessional, as a site, something is very wrong. Why is how disliked or non-serious seeming a work is by people who didn't contribute to the work's creation suddenly a criteria in its inclusion? Right, because the works being "non-serious" is the issue. I've rinsed and repeated how you're missing the entire point of my arguments, so I'll just move on. Feats in openings that are wildly inconsistent or gags.... "Feats" that are just entertaining filler or aids in explaining their point of discussion. I think those are not good support for a profile. But a large audience thinking "it's stupid!", "it's a joke!", &/or "it's a meme!"? Those two aren't mutually exclusive, just putting that out there. Outlook by audiences on the work & outlook on our Wiki by audiences shouldn't be a factor, but rather, how qualified the work is itself, should be, I think. Yeah. And by and large, none of the works I've put forward for deletion simply are just "muh opinion". There's legitimate issues with each of them. Some use materials from other verses. Some are stage-personas or actors from RL playing themselves. Some are "inconsistent gag feat collections" as you yourself mentioned above. This. Is. Not. Just. A. User. Issue. And yes, sometimes characters in fiction may share a likeness, voice &/or name with a Youtuber or other real person. "Likeness". A real person acting as themselves isn't just a "likeness". If we're banning match-ups between real people, there's no honest justifications for us having matchups between "real living people, but from a comedy television show". But we should evaluate if they have a coherent story, capabilities, & personality traits that distinguish them from those who they share a likeness with. *Looks back at the verses I picked out* No, no, no, and no. Also, that list of requirements is so ridiculously vague you could use it to pass off nearly any problem profile. The work itself should be the factor, & people with problematic perspectives or behaviour should be ignored, or held at fault, not the fiction. And the work itself is a factor here. Case closed.

 

[WeeklyBattles]

I... don't see the issue you speak of. Goku is not a youtube personality. Our issue is with youtube personalities, not with alternative versions of characters in general. The original character for the alt-Gokus is a valid profile; while the original 'character' for the alt-PewDiePies is not.

By this logic you can delete Goku's profiles by saying that he's just a character personality of Masako Nozawa/Sean Schemmel. Guys like Darkiplier and Wilford from Who Killed Markiplier are characters from a feature-length film with a multi-million dollar production value. By hand-waving them as being 'just youtube personalities' is invalidating every live-action movie and tv show in existence that uses real life people to play character roles as the same logic can label them as 'just tv personalities' thus invalidating them. At the same time profiles like LotB Pewdiepie are from a videogame, not from a youtube series, and Tobuscus is from a standalone animation and videogame series, so we can throw any videogame or animation character into this group as well as they are played by 'just vocal personalities'.

Discrediting these characters, and yes, they are CHARACTERS, solely for the reason that theyre from Youtube is both arbitrary and biased, and if the same logic were applied to the wiki as a whole the only thing that would be allowed to have profiles are comic and book characters (Some of which wouldnt even be allowed due to being author inserts) due to the characters being played by another person as a character role in some way.

 

[Dargoo_Faust]

By this logic you can delete Goku's profiles by saying that he's just a character personality of Masako Nozawa/Sean Schemmel.

No? I think you're going a bit too far down a slippery slope there.

Markiplier is a youtube personality. Who Killed Markplier? is a story about that youtube personality.

Dragon Ball Z isn't a story about Masako Nozawsa or Sean Schemmel; unless you want to get into some really abstract literary analysis.

At the same time profiles like LotB Pewdiepie are from a videogame, not from a youtube series, and Tobuscus is from a standalone animation and videogame series, so we can throw any videogame or animation character into this group as well as they are played by 'just vocal personalities'.

Except, if you've been reading my arguments, it's not that they're just played by personalities. They're playing representations of the personalities that we explicitly don't allow.

if the same logic were applied to the wiki as a whole the only thing that would be allowed to have profiles are comic and book characters

If that's your conclusion of my logic, I can't say anything other than you have a poor understanding of my logic.

 

[WeeklyBattles]

Markiplier is a youtube personality

Who Killed Markiplier is a feature length film in which Mark Fischback plays a character. It is not literally about Mark, it is a movie. Unless you think that Mark himself was murdered irl and this movie is a documentary about it.

Who Killed Markiplier isnt about Mark either so i see no difference between the two

Except, if you've been reading my arguments, it's not that they're just played by personalities. They're playing representations of the personalities that we explicitly don't allow.

So does literally every live action TV and movie actor in the world.

 

[Dargoo_Faust]

Unless you think that Mark himself was murdered irl and this movie is a documentary about it.

I think you're mixing up the "IRL people playing themselves" and "youtube personalities" arguments here. It's the personality I have a problem with, not the RL Mark.

Who Killed Markiplier isnt about Mark either so i see no difference between the two

It's about Markiplier, the personality, who we have an issue with.

So does literally every live action TV and movie actor in the world.

What are you even saying with this?

I think you're mixing up the RL people and YT personality issues again. They're two different issues, of course the former doesn't apply here because the latter does.

 

[WeeklyBattles]

Who Killed Markiplier had Mark Fischback acting in a character role in a movie, he was not being a youtube personality he was playing an actual fictional character.

 

[Dargoo_Faust]

Who Killed Markiplier had Mark Fischback acting in a character role in a movie, he was not being a youtube personality he was playing an actual fictional character.

My problem is with the movie as a whole for featuring/being about Markiplier, not with the other specific characters in it.

It's just that the movie as a whole happens to include those characters.

 

[WeeklyBattles]

But the problem with that train of thought is that Markiplier as a youtube personality and Markiplier as a character in the movie are two very, very different things. Just because they use the same name does not make them the same thing from an acting standpoint.

 

[WeeklyBattles]

To make a comparison, its like saying that Dave 'Bautista' as a wrestling persona and Dave Bautista playing Drax in the MCU are the same thing.

 

[Dargoo_Faust]

But the problem with that train of thought is that Markiplier as a youtube personality and Markiplier as a character in the movie are two very, very different things. Just because they use the same name does not make them the same thing from an acting standpoint.

Right, the character named Markiplier played by Markiplier is something very different than his YT persona, Markiplier. I'm not convinced the movie isn't about his youtube personality.

It's this same line of thinking that gives the fast-pass to actors playing as themselves.

To make a comparison, its like saying that Dave 'Bautista' as a wrestling persona and Dave Bautista playing Drax in the MCU are the same thing.

That's a frankly terrible comparison.

It's like saying Dave 'Bautista' as a wrestling persona and Dave 'Bautista', the animated wrestler played by Dave 'Bautista' are different things fundamentally.

This discussion is just an example of the careful wordplay used to justify these profiles. It's obvious the profiles are being made for the youtube personality, and that the movie here is about the YouTube personality, but hey, word it like he's a character, not the persona, and it's A-OK for the site.

This is exactly what's causing this issue. This is why I didn't want to entertain this pointless debate.

 

[WeeklyBattles]

> I'm not convinced the movie isn't about his youtube personality.

Alright then im going to be blunt here, watch the movie. Its available for free on youtube. It will save everyone here a lot of trouble.