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VSBW Profile Standards (Staff Only)

Sera_EX

She Who Dabbles in Fiction
VS Battles
Retired
6,104
5,106
Alright, we've put this off long enough. We've recently came across an epidemic involving what is and isn't allowed on our site due to "notable works of fiction" being vaguely defined. We've had discussions over profiles for verses originating from youtube, verses based on toys, verses based on advertisements, and verses with high sexual content. Now the last one has been dealt with, all we need to do is make the mature rating scale (though I am questioning if that's still necessary). However, the other three are a recurring problem.

Therefore, we should end this in one summarized conclusive thread and redefine our standards for what's allowed. This may or may not involve rewriting the Canon page, but let's see first. As for where we're at with these discussions, please skim over the past threads to refresh your mind on the arguments that were made and what the base consensus was before the threads became forgotten.

The Rules

  • The VS Battles Wiki is, first and foremost, a fictional character indexing site. All featured characters in our profiles should originate within actual stories, from notable or popular works. A story includes a plot, a fictional setting, and having a defined canon. At the very least, the setting should be entirely fictional in nature, with no true bearing over the real world.
  • Do not add any original or fan-made characters to the wiki. If you wish to create any original/fan-made character profiles, feel free to do so in the FC/OC wiki.
  • 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 behavioural 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.
  • Corporate mascots and advertisement characters are not part of fictional storylines, regardless of feats in commercials and similar. It is preferable to not allow any incoherent figments without substance to be featured here. However, if they have officially published comicbooks, games, etcetera to scale from, they can probably be included.
  • The only exception to these rules is Real Life, which serves as more of a reference for feats and common weapons, events, and animals, rather than being an actual verse.
 
I...honestly don't think this is a good idea. It'll just be a cluttered mess. People will say something about one issue, but then the other people might think they might be talking about a different issue. It'll just be confusing. We should pick them off one by one.
 
BigSmoke4269 said:
I...honestly don't think this is a good idea. It'll just be a cluttered mess. People will say something about one issue, but then the other people might think they might be talking about a different issue. It'll just be confusing. We should pick them off one by one.
All of them with the exception with "lewd verses" are rejected for the exact same reason. We can address them all at once. I may even throw in Barney as a bonus...
 
Copied from old thread

We actually have a few already.

Henry Stickmi

Madness Combat

Xionic Madness

I don't see the issue if they fit the other standards for verses just because where they're hosted. We also got self published stuff like Parahumans (Verse) (until he finds an actual publisher) and that never really caused issue.
 
Seriously fellas, staff only. If you want to speak on this thread, please talk to a staff member on their wall.

My own opinions. The YouTube quality thread has done it's fair share of work and the result created there is generally satisfactory. I won't post the whole thing here since even the TL;DR is long as hell, but the TL;DR of that TL;DR is that No story, bad, real people even using persona, bad, yay other stuff.

I... don't really know about toys? I'm kind of surprised that had an issue to begin with. If it has a form of canon I guess that's just a story to back a product but a story nonetheless.

No to advertisements on the premise that even if they showed feats it's not a story, it's just something to get people to buy something that MIGHT have a story. Biggum nope on these.
 
@Crab

I moved it to general discussions

Considering I am the harbinger of this thread, it won't be derailed into nonexistence since I'm keeping an eye on it.

I'll move it back if it somehow gets out of control again.
 
@Crab It's not staff only.

Sera EX said:
All of them with the exception with "lewd verses" are rejected for the exact same reason. We can address them all at once. I may even throw in Barney as a bonus...
Now you're trying to add Newgrounds to the mix because it's FC/OC material. That is a wildly different reason than why advertisement/toy verses were rejected.
 
Mr. Bambu said:
I... don't really know about toys? I'm kind of surprised that had an issue to begin with. If it has a form of canon I guess that's just a story to back a product but a story nonetheless.

No to advertisements on the premise that even if they showed feats it's not a story, it's just something to get people to buy something that MIGHT have a story. Biggum nope on these.
Toy profiles are an issue because of people trying to push the boundaries. "Well if these toys that are part of a coherent story have a profile why not these random toy-adjacent verses with no story?" There wasn't much of an inherent issue here imo.

Advertisement profiles were an issue because the current rule was vague and didn't really get into that sort of criteria, the goal of the thread was to rewrite the rule making that clear.

@Sera These profiles are generally being rejected because of lack of story, not because they're OCs.
 
Agnaa said:
Now you're trying to add Newgrounds to the mix because it's FC/OC material. That is a wildly different reason than why advertisement/toy verses were rejected.
I'm actually the one responsible for this whole Newgrounds thing since I asked whether Beebo and other Newgrounds characters were allowed.
 
BigSmoke4269 said:
I'm actually the one responsible for this whole Newgrounds thing since I asked whether Beebo and other Newgrounds characters were allowed.
Yes but the unanimous opinion on Newgrounds characters in the past has been "They're allowed", that's why there's at least four Newgrounds-based verses on the site. Only just now has Sera said they shouldn't and lumped it in with these other issues.
 
I mean, we can address them separately, but Newgrounds literally being akin to OC verses is enough to just say "no".
 
As I mentioned in the newgrounds thread, "Newgrounds = OC" doesn't seem to be the general opinion, so that point warrants further discussion.
 
We differentiate official characters from original characters just as we differentiate original characters from fan fiction characters.
 
Sera EX said:
We differentiate official characters from original characters just as we differentiate original characters from fan fiction characters.
Fan fiction characters are based on a pre-existing property made by another author, how do we differentiate official characters from original characters?
 
BigSmoke4269 said:
Slenderma is a literal meme. Please explain how he exists.
Because each of those are their own games, properties, movies, books, etc. idk about calling Slenderman a meme, seems more like an urban legend.
 
BigSmoke4269 said:
How about that one version of him where his classification is literally "memetic entity"?
?????

I don't care if the movie itself calls Slenderman a "memetic entity" if it's still from a movie.
 
@Agnaa

Notability. Should be simple enough.
 
Sera EX said:
@Agnaa

Notability. Should be simple enough.
So what you're telling me is that if you make a profile about an obscure character, it gets deleted because the character isn't POPULAR?
 
I think the current definition's fine and doesn't really apply to the cases we're looking at, but you're free to propose how you think it should change.
 
Oh, I must've missed that. Have fun then
 
Let me explain. I think I found a solution we can work with.

Official character = copyrighted work

Original character = not protected under any form of copyright (except the the most basic "if it's your idea you own it" one)

That solves our YouTube and Newgrounds problem. Yes?
 
No it doesn't.

Adventure Quest is an online game that's officially endorsed. Has merchandise and everything and is allowed here. We already have profiles for example.

And no Suggsverse strawman. Suggs is disallowed for a different reason entirely.
 
I'm talking about stuff like webcomics, that we have profiles for, and the dozens of YouTube verses that were accepted as allowed. This seems to more boil down to "is licensed" which inherently excludes a lot of indie works.

Suggs is disallowed because of notoriety, I thought you were trying to redefine the notoriety rules.
 
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