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YouTube Profiles Quality Control Discussion 2 (STAFF ONLY)

WeeklyBattles said:
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.
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I shouldn't need to watch the movie if you can't come up with more arguments or proof to defend it.

If there's anything I'm missing, you do the work and link it. I have nothing I need to prove here.
 
I continue to strongly agree with Dargoo here, as we need to have some kind of resasonable standards, and distinguish ourselves from Joke Battles and FCOC. However, I technically do not mind the video game version of Pewdiepie and the like.

In addition, allowing regular members who support ones own arguments to respond here is not acceptable in this case, as we are discussing a wiki-affecting policy issue. In that case I could start to zero in on people like Agnaa and similar, in order to get more traction for my viewpoints. He has repeatedly refused to become staff, so it would technically be more warranted.
 
Ant, im really sorry i have to be the one that has to say this but from what Dargoo just said his entire argument up to this point has been entirely from conjecture, he hasnt even bothered to look into what he is arguing against.
 
Andytrenom said:
...were you seriously having this whole argument about Who killed Markiplier not being fit for the site without even watching Who Killed Markiplier?
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Why should I need to watch the full movie?

You're asking me to 'disprove' the verse; I'm only going to comment on what you provide me. I shouldn't need to go through an entire movie to determine if it is or is not based on a youtube personality. If there's key information I'm not aware of? Something that needs to be brought up for discussion? Bring it up yourselves. Go ahead and correct me.

What, do you want me to watch through every other single youtube series, every Smosh and CalebCity video for me to give a say on them too? You're asking for the ridiculous.
 
Why should I need to watch the full movie?

You're asking me to 'disprove' the verse; I'm only going to comment on what you provide me. I shouldn't need to go through an entire movie to determine if it is or is not based on a youtube personality. If there's key information I'm not aware of? Something that needs to be brought up for discussion? Bring it up yourselves. Go ahead and correct me.

If you were just suspicious on them but overall neutral then no, I wouldn't. But when you take a definitive stance on opposing a verse and make assessment on what it is like and how it should be treated then that's when I expect you to actually know what you're arguing.

You are not making any less claims about the verse than your opposition is, you have just as much responsibility to be familar with the subject as they are, otherwise it jist harms your credibility. Don't put the burden of proving things squarely on the other person and excuse yourself from the same effort. If you want to argue from a position of not actually knowing the verse then fine, but at least make that clear
 
Andytrenom said:
But when you take a definitive stance on opposing a verse and make assessment on what it is like and how it should be treated then that's when I expect you to actually know what you're arguing.
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From what I'm aware of the verse, it has a character named Markiplier and Mark himself acting in the movie. It revolves around the stage persona/representation thereof that we wouldn't otherwise want on the wiki. That's enough for me. If we made rules to not have a Markiplier profile, allowing stuff from a movie called "Who Killed Markiplier" played by Markiplier is against the spirit of the rules we set up.

If what I know is wrong, you can correct me. You don't pass off everything I said previously because I had the audacity to not want the verse on the site while not watching the movie in question.

Otherwise, none of us here have any say on any verses we haven't watched entirely. We might as well just close the thread here, if discussion is going to devolve into "who's seen the matieral", as nothing will get done.

Andytrenom said:
You are not making any less claims about the verse than your opposition is, you have just as much responsibility to be familar with the subject as they are, otherwise it jist harms your credibility.
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No. I have no such responsibility. I'm making claims based on information given to me by the wiki and you two. If that information is too limited, if there is something I'm missing, you can just tell me instead of going on a tangent about how I "don't know enough" while not actually telling me anything.
 
>From what I'm aware of the verse, it has a character named Markiplier and Mark himself acting in the movie. It revolves around the stage persona/representation thereof that we wouldn't otherwise want on the wiki. That's enough for me.

This is where you are wrong. It has nothing to do with the youtube persona Markiplier, it is a completely separate, actual character, not a persona but an actual original fictional character named Markiplier.
 
WeeklyBattles said:
This is where you are wrong. It has nothing to do with the youtube persona Markiplier, it is a completely separate, actual character, not a persona but an actual original fictional character named Markiplier.
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By all means, define "the youtube persona Markiplier" and explain how it doesn't apply here.

"An original fictional character named Markiplier played by Mark Fischbach" is literally what his persona is, by the way.
 
I still support Dargoo. Demanding that the staff should know every character that we evaluate in-depth is unreasonable.
 
I definitely am not demanding that only people knowledgeable on a verse say anything about the verse, you are allowed to ask for proof of certain claims or evaluate the basic logic of argument, but there are some things where it's simply unrrasonable to not be familiar with the subject and demand someone convince you of their stance regardless

Think about what you are asking proof of, that this verse you don't know about is using characters rather than personas. Do you expect some screenshots or quotes to be sent your way so that you can decide on this matter? No, unless you have actually seen for yourself how the characters are used in the context of the overall story, proving whether they they are treated more as characters than personas is not so simple. You are not excusing yourself from unnecessary hassle here, you are just making someone's job harder than it should be while avoiding effort yourself

And you also weren't solely pointing out logical errors in this argument, at the very beginning you asserted that the verse should be deleted while avoiding giving an opinion on another verse you didn't know about, and then you just kept making definite claims that the characters do not even qualify as characters and that it's obvious they should be deleted, this absolutely does not sound like you acknowledge your lack of familiarity with the verse, which you should when arguing about things you don't know

Finally, for someone who complains about having their viewpoint misrepresented, you sure are a fan of doing that yourself, I NEVER said anything along the lines of "lol this kid doesn't know anything", so how about you treat others like you want to be treated and not completely butcher up what I say. Have some level of self awareness and realize when you behave no better than everyone you keep complaining about, I wish I didn't have to say this, but this is my honest frank opinion on you right now
 
Pepe the original character would have been fine if it had not mainly turned into such a controversial meme. Otherwise we invite future conflicts during discussions involving him.
 
Anyway, I did plan to post a more comprehensive comment on why the verse should be allowed. It will be a while but I hope at least that clears up what issues there are
 
The double standard I mentioned before comes from the idea that, for example, if we swapped out AVGN in AVGN adventures and replaced him with Goku, we'd have Low 1-C Goku, which by our current understanding would be completely fine yet AVGN would not... Despite both being in the same game with the same story which feats can be judged the same way due to the narrative structure granted by modern gaming. The issue would be the same. Whether it's 10-B James Rolfe or Low 2-C Goku being wanked to High Heaven shouldn't matter. The core issue remains the same.
 
You know, looking back at my comment maybe I acted too harshly. I'll just clarify properly right now that you don't need to watch the whole thing to talk about it, but I do feel like you should have at least acknowledged from the get go that you were unfamiliar with the series, I would have done the same and it's just better to be honest about your knowledge regarding a verse you're discussing.

I'll try to explain the verse properly later today or more likely tomorrow, because honestly there's a lot to go over.
 
Time to give a more proper opinion on the Markiplier profile. Let me preface this by saying this first, this is not supposed to be a continuation of my arguments with Dargoo. This is me evaluating a verse by our guideleines, like we are supposed to be doing here

So I would very much appreciate if any discussion following from this is as focused on our actual rules as possible. Thank you

Summary
Alright, so first I'll give a summary of the Who Killed Markiplier Series and its continuations, which includes Wilford Motherloving Warfstache and Damien. You can see all the videos here
WKM: The story goes that Mark has called his friends for a celebration in his manor but never clarified why. His friends are Damien who he knows from childhood, Abe who's a detective, The colonel and another character who represents the viewer. After a night of partying everyone wakes up and after a while witness Mark's dead body dropping on the ground. From there on the detective calls for an investigation while the other guests deal with the situation in their own ways.

Later on a seer appears who reveals to have connections with Damien and the Colonel and explains that there are mysterious forces in play and that they need her expertise. She calls the viewer character and is accompanied by Damien to a ritual which allows the viewer character to visualize a groundskeeper. When the guests go to visit the groundskeeper he refuses to step into the mansion but when suddenly light starts to flash from that same building he hurries into it, and now everyone discovers that Damien and the seer have disappeared.

Further along the line, the colonel discovers that the Detective was keeping an eye on him and outraged he goes to confront him, which leads to an argument where the Detective tells Colonel that he had tricked Mark and stolen his love and then later murdered him (as he believed), distraught the colonel fires his gun and shoots the detective and later the viewer character in an accident.

This leads to the viewer character going to a black area where he encounters the seer and Damien who explain that for the sake of revenge, Mark had plotted this whole thing and used the dark powers of the manor to his advantage. He was now possessing Damien's own body. They agree to send the viewer character back but the end result is his body waking up to Colonel's shock who now convinces himself that the whole thing was a joke and that he hadn't lost his friends. Afterwards we get a shot into mirror where the viewer character's body is revelead to be possessed by something, and this person is what we refer to as Darkiplier, tho he was actually never called that in any of the seven relevant videos. In fact Mark even notes in one of his streams that Darkiplier hasn't been named in his videos up to Damie and asks everyone if they actually know who Darkiplier is among the characters in this universe

Wilford Motherloving Warfstache: This continues after the events of WKM and focuses on the detective who is hunting the colonel, because he killed his friends and shot him in the heart. He gets a lead that his target is operating under the name "Wilford Warfstache" and tracks him to a club. A commotion ensues but eventually the detective gets his hands on Wilford and brings him to the station. There he questions him and as events progress Wilford gets out of his restraints and begins a talk with the detective. He explains his viewpoints which were influenced by what happened in WKM and his experiences. He also pointed out to the detective that a person cannot survive being shot in the heart followed by the camera rolling to the detective's chest now carrying a gunshot wound. The implications of this are unclear at the moment. In the end Wilford persuades the detective into giving up his chase for him

Damien: If I am being perfectly honest, this is kinda hard to explain because the actual meaning of what happened is hard to explain in context of the overall narrative (in other words it is confusing af). The literal plot progression is as follows: A man named Damien is lost in the woods and living with his sister Celene in a cabin (Who btw is the seer I mentioned in the WKM section), he chops down trees and brings firewood back while Celene goes out hunting. One day he comes back and feels a sense of déj├á ―vu as he is able to predict the conversation which is strangely the very same one that happened last time. Celene leaves again and as Damien sits by himself he observes a mirror that wasn't there before, he looks into it hears a message back and is transported into the forest. He then hears his sister's cries and rushes in her direction which turns out to be trap and he is dragged inside someplace through the hole in a frozen lake.

He comes across Mark who he couldn't remember at first but as his memory is refreshed enough to call out his name Mark a conversation ensues. Mark explains how he had made a deal to get revenge on Celene, who broke his heart, and confesses that things hadn't perfectly gone according to plans. He also tells that Celene had been hiding things from him and also that he wants Damien to become a villain, because he perceives himself as the hero. During the conversation the location changes to the cabin and Damien appears to be in the middle of a transformation as Celene breaks her way in and throws an ax into Mark's body, causing him to disappear. A conversation follows, after which something happens, see for yourself, I won't be able to explain
Validity

Now for whether it breaks the rules. I can only see three entries in our Editing Rules which are relevant to these profiles

  • Do not create any joke profiles, as they do not fit into our tiering system. Also avoid creating profiles for fan characters, advertisement characters, memes, YouTube personalities, reality television, talk shows, music videos, stage personas, and the like. If you wish to create such profiles, feel free to do so in the Joke Battles wiki instead. Take note that there is obviously a difference between a profile written as a joke, and the character itself being automatically funny.
  • Take note that we are not experienced lawyers, so it is hard to precisely cover every angle, but to explain further, we are trying to keep the wiki reasonably streamlined and focused, to not allow in real people. Stage personas, such as YouTube and TV show hosts, tend to lack a 4th wall between them and the audience, and are not explicitly fictional in nature, as part of an actual story with a plot, regardless of special effects. They are real people who are affecting a behavioral change/acting out of character relative to their true personalities, but the setting is otherwise unchanged from reality and not fictional in nature. Characters are separate from the real actors portraying them, and are not just variations of themselves.
  • It is also prohibited to create profiles for fictionalised stage personas for other reasons, whether these have their origins in music videos, educational programs, or otherwise: For one thing, it is inappropriate for largely underage wiki members to discuss which real people that would hypothetically be most capable of killing each other, and for another, a vast majority of these artists are extremely willing to file lawsuits against anybody who uses their brand for which they own intellectual property rights, regardless whether or not these are meant to be used for commercial or fair use purposes. It would be recommended and preferable to avoid adding such profiles to Joke Battles as well.
The first one merely points out that the youtube personality and persona rule exist , only the second and third give us something to work with. Let's go over them shall we?

Stage personas, such as YouTube and TV show hosts, tend to lack a 4th wall between them and the audience, and are not explicitly fictional in nature, as part of an actual story with a plot, regardless of special effects.


The setting in the WKM series, Wilford Warfstache and Damien is a Manor filled with magical powers that Mark lives in, a noiresque world where a criminal named Warfstache is running around killing people and a snowy forest which is heavily implied to be a dream Damien is in respectively. There's also no involvement of real life events and the only thing close to an audience interaction/acknowledgement is the presence of a viewer character who is clearly more of a metafictional element than a genuine lack of fourth wall.

We know that someone can act and script a video, pretend they're doing things they aren't in real life, or even add mystical elements to their work without proving they exist in a fictional setting, but usually that's because they're built on directly communicating with the audience (something that applies to review channels), discussing things that happened in reality (which apply to commentary channels and storytime youtubers), sharing real life activities, that at worst, you're not being honest with (applies to letsplayers, reactors etc). There is evidence that the real world is directly connected to the person and things displayed in the videos and it's why they can be asserted to not have a fictional setting

I think the easiest way to test if a verse has a fourth wall is asking this question, "Can the audience be considered non-existent from the perspective of the people in the verse?" Even if you are dealing with metafictional works, the question would usually be yes, the audience doesn't actually exist within such verses, it's just other characters and concepts within the work who represent the real life people. And I can definitely say the answer is yes in WKM's case

There is also definitely a story with a plot as I've summarized above, and they are not of a documentary nature or connected with the real world beyond a metafictional element. I personally think it's clear that there's a fourth wall, if you don't agree, I kindly request you explain why

They are real people who are affecting a behavioral change/acting out of character relative to their true personalities, but the setting is otherwise unchanged from reality and not fictional in nature. Characters are separate from the real actors portraying them, and are not just variations of themselves.

The difference between even the WKM version of Mark and youtuber Mark is so astronomical that it goes way past just being a variation of himself.

First of all, his backstory; He is a rich man who lives in a manor with a loyal butler and a creepy chef who actually exclaims that he spent 25 years working for his family. He has been friends with people like the Colonel and Damien for a long time, likely since childhood. And he had a wife who allegedly left him for the Colonel. I don't even remember any reference to the RL Markiplier's actual life (tho I can very well be wrong).

Now for what he does in the present, he makes some kind of deal to get revenge on Celene for breaking his heart,invites his friends to a celebration with devious intentions , plots his own death for the sake of revenge and bodynaps Damien after either allowing him to die or be trapped in a strange space. He then reappears before Damien and explains that his intention is to make him into a villain, because he believes himself to be a hero.

And this is the character named Mark, literally not the youtuber in anything other than name or appearance, how much do you think the other characters will represent him? Spoilers, not much.

The Colonel is an eccentric man who nevertheless cares about his friends, was in love with Celine, is traumatized after accidentally killing people and seeing them come back to life, causing his very views on life and death to be shifted and turning him into the criminal known as Wilford Warfstache

Damien is a mayor and a mild mannered man who is shaken after seeing his childhood friend die and has a sister who he cares deeply for and who protects him at the cost of completely sheltering him from the things that are happening come the events of Damien (the video). They ultimately end up having to come to terms with each other and Damien makes some kind of resolution, the context of which is not clear yet

They are clearly characters distinct from Mark and with enough substance to stand as their own entity, not solely defined by being Mark's persona

It is also prohibited to create profiles for fictionalised stage personas for other reasons, whether these have their origins in music videos, educational programs, or otherwise: For one thing, it is inappropriate for largely underage wiki members to discuss which real people that would hypothetically be most capable of killing each other

Now this is where I can see the point about being played by Mark in a Markiplier oriented series have merit. The fact that the characters are like this means that people would be more prone to view someone like Wilford as Markiplier than say, view Neo as Keanu Reeves. And maybe with that you can argue that discussing Wilford or Damien in a match comes off as debating Markiplier in a match.

I think this is only a problem if a character has nothing really defining him outside of being a persona of a celebrity, or if the point of the character is more being the celebrity than being viewed as a fictional entity playing his role in a cohesive narrative, whom the celebrity is merely portraying

I would personally be fine with disallowing a Mark profile if it's really necessary but I do think he is in a similar situation to what I'm about to describe. Wilford Warfstache and Damien do have enough going on to establish themselves as their own entities as opposed to just Markiplier with a different name and costume. They have their own personality completely unrelated to Markiplier, have a well defined role in a cohesive narrative, have relationships and motives that shape the course of the plot, have a past that is clearly alluded to and which once again helps to fuel the plot, such as Wilford's relationship with Mark's wife likely being a factor in Mark plotting much of his whole plan.

Being played by Mark in a Markiplier oriented show doesn't matter, the reasoning for why they can be identified as Markiplier is trumped by the reasons they can be identified as their own characters distinct from Mark and both the fact that they are developed in a way that separates them from Mark in terms of personality and history as well as how these things are assigned in a way that serve to enhance the plot of a narrative rather than simply add flavor to Mark's own personality like a persona is supposed to, make me feel there is far more grounds to consider them characters created by Mark to tell a good story than to consider them as just "Mark but not technically".

To summarize I don't think the profiles break our rules
Before leaving this off I would like to address something. The Darkiplier profile should be renamed or maybe looked over again because as stated by Mark, there isn't actually anyone canonically named Darkiplier in the series (here if you missed it)
 
Don't particularly have time to address the response to my argument Andy put forward and the additional wall of text in response to the situation today. I'll try and give a thorough response tomorrow or Sunday, ideally.

To summarize, though, my opinion hasn't changed by much.
 
@Andy

Not much of an issue but you might preferably want to collapse huge walls of text like that, as to make scrolling easier for those trying to skim the thread.
 
Antvasima said:
It seems like our current insufficiently strict approach inspires increasingly unacceptable profiles: https://vsbattles.fandom.com/wiki/Technoblade
We should try to put a stop to this situation before it deteriorates further.
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This. Right here. People claim "Oh, we shouldn't be that strict!" and "Oh, let's not ruin fun!" but then things spiral out of hand. We get the ASDF, we get the personas, and now it's devolving to such a point that people are actually considering making actual people such as Technoblade into profiles.
 
Agreed.
 
I'm on some heavy medication right now, so I've been struggling with revising the standards.
 
I'm not sick. It's just something strong that I've never taken before. I'm fine.
 
Is anyone going to give their comment on my post? Reminder that it wasn't aimed at Dargoo, it was meant for all staff to weigh in on

The first part is just summary anyway, which you can skip if you know the series
 
I do not have enough time, as I am overwhelmed with work as usual. My apologies.
 
Andytrenom said:
Is anyone going to give their comment on my post? Reminder that it wasn't aimed at Dargoo, it was meant for all staff to weigh in o
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If you want a quick bit: I disagree with most everything on there. I have a longer post in the works, I said it'll be up before the weekend's over.

Quoting Wok, "Hey, how about people don't make YouTube profiles while we're trying to figure out what should stay and go on a large scale? Any new files added before this over are just gonna be deleted."

I'd like to add this to the OP. Regardless of how you fall on this issue, it's not okay to take advantage of the confusion of our standards to post more pages that challenge them, and ultimately make our work increase in length until it becomes an unmanageable mess.

Users who repeatedly post profiles like these should be warned for spam, at the very least, if not more in terms of rule-breaking. I've been informed of some particulars who should be reported/monitored.

Again, it really doesn't matter where you fall on this: objectively speaking piling on more work to this thread will mean it will never reasonably conclude. Christ, imagine if we had three or four cases like Markiplier.
 
Just a note, this whole ordeal has been tiring for me as well. And I genuinely feel like the stress I have had with this discussion is getting out of hand, so I really would appreciate if other staff members knowledgeable on the series take my place in this Markiplier debate

I am not completely leaving this and I would intervene when necessary but just, there are more than two people who can discuss this and I would find it jolly if they can help out. I just wanted something that falls under our rules to actually be given a fair treatment and if it recieves it and is found to be legitimately against standards then fine, yeet it. I am counting on the people here to be objective so I don't have to force myself into any more of this frankly upsetting drama or whatever it is. Just do what you must I guess.
 
Well, for what it is worth, I appreciate that both of you are trying to help out.
 
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