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Our rules regarding composite profiles (Staff only)

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DarkGrath

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This is a big topic currently being discussed in this thread. To elaborate on it further (without flooding a simple Fun and Games thread) this has been created.

Basically, there is a big problem with composite profiles throughout the wiki. The most notable problem has to do with our current composite profile rules versus the composite profiles that were created before these rules came into effect.

The thread in particular largely discussed the idea of a composite profile for the character Dante. The problem is, while the profile would conflict with most current rules regarding composite profiles, there are plenty more that already conflict with these rules that have been allowed to stay. The majority of these were created before the current rules came into play, such as Godzilla (Composite).

So, there are potential new composite profiles that are being rejected based on current composite profile rules, whereas older composite profiles are not being subjected to this at the same level.

This is only one of the major problems that the thread has delved into, and all of them point to one thing; there should be a discussion regarding composite profile rules and which composite profiles should be allowed to stay. This is why this discussion thread has been created.
 
To be fair, there are plenty of staff members with problems regarding composite and alternate canon profiles. Not that there's anything wrong with them existing, but there does need to be a line drawn. Obviously, if a character has a main canon that has priority over every other canon; then I wouldn't composite the canon and non-canon versions. And we definitely do not make canons for Marvel/DC characters.

Link (Composite) for example is alright, because there are many Links who are all equally canon and important to the series. I'm neutral regarding Godzilla however; but I will note some things. Godzilla doesn't have a set canon and is just a bunch of characters from many different canons rolled into one. Characters like that are a bit more case by case. I recall Saikou mentioning that characters such as Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse are characters that need to be composite given the countless stories that don't really have a set canon, but a lot of the characters basically seem to treat them as stuff like everything is canon.

May have more to add, but like to hear more input first.
 
Composite profiles shouldn't exist at all.

They're essentially made-up characters on our part by smashing together a bunch of unrelated stories under the same moniker for the fun of it. If an alt-canon version of a character is significant enough to warrant its own profile, give it its own profile, specifying the canon used in the profile name.

As for characters that 'need' to be composited, that's essentially saying "the plot that this character is a part of is too loose to be coherently used for the wiki in itself, so let's just call everything correct in spite of no consistent canon existing". We have rules on verses that don't have a consistent story/plot, if there is a 'need' to composite the character for them to exist, it might be because the character shouldn't be on the site for lack of consistency.

That's my take at least. Composites on the site have bothered me for a while, now, and despite the fact that I've made composite profiles myself, I'd gladly accept their removal if it means greater consistency and quality on the site as a whole.

I'd also like to suggest that, perhaps, on verse pages, we should specify the canon we are specifically using for the verse; or more clearly establish general rules for how we define canon for series (for mangas/animes, as an example, we explain that we utilize the original source material unless specified otherwise, or the manga).
 
Well, we would have to delete all of our Pokémo profiles if we would not allow composites at all, but I have been told that our current rules are so loose that they would technically allow composite Dante, Goku, or Superman, so they probably need to be reworded to turn stricter.
 
The only "composite" profiles I have much interest in defending are Sweet Tooth and Calypso, and that's more due to the fact that the games they come from have negative continuity and each game's depiction of those characters is as valid as the next. And I don't think we should exclude those characters entirely, because they're both notable enough characters that we should, in fact, be indexing them.

I don't have anything to say about the rest of the composite profiles we have. What happens to them doesn't matter to me.
 
I'd rather not turn this into a discussion about Pokémon exclusively; I'll just note that I don't find it impossible for the verse's profiles to be reworked into something that isn't a composite. It's rather that we ingrained the compositing so far with how we treat the verse that fixing it would take some ungodly amount of work.

As for the rest I'm not entirely sure why they can't be either split into multiple profiles, multiple keys, deleted outright if there's no consistent canon at all, or be reworked to feature the most significant canon while dropping the rest.

I've mentioned before that Mr. Game & Watch is a gross example of compositing on the site and isn't even a character outside of Smash. It's not even a composite of the same character over multiple mediums, but rather every character on a gaming platform/series due to presentation in Smash, a game whoally unrelated to whatever story the original G&W games have.
 
Honestly, despite being a notable Godzilla defender in threads, I do agree that Composite Godzilla is an absolute mess:

  • Godzilla is one of the characters on this entire wiki that has more alternate versions, incarnations, and different interpretations than almost any other, some of which are still coming out/being made to this very day. Outside of the movies, it's particularly difficult to keep track of all of them, epecially because we make profiles for incarnations of the character that are exclusive to certain games, even crossover ones (which by themselves are fine though), and once we take obscure, untranslated Japanese mangas from a thrid of a centuìary ago.
  • A major problem that people point out about composite profiles is that they shouldn't take into account non-canon versions of X character. Well, the problem here is that Godzilla has no cano. Sure, ther are continuities, what if scenarios that take places after certain movies (mostly the original 1954 one), but there is no such thing as a "Godzilla Multiverse" like in the case of Marvel, DC, or even Zelda, where there are multiple confirmed timelines where the characters change, thus coexisting in the same group of worlds. Godzilla doesn't work like that, excpet for a few samll cases: Godzilla tends to be portrayed as vastly different from incarnation to incarnation, from continuity to continuity, and while some characteristics tend to remain consistent, a lot of them are also freely contradicted from a continuity to another (just look at teh freaking Anime Trilogy).
    • Branching from my previous two points, essentially, the proifle seems to tqak into account anything about Godzilla that has been officially licensed by Toho. Other than the already, above metioned issues that this causes, a lot of stats, abilities, character traits, weaknesses differ from and contradict each other, and can't just be mish-mashed into one big hyphotetical character for the sake of making Big G strong, that resembles a Custom JRPG character, that somehow has every skill, class, item and weapon in the game AND from different games of the series, including spin-offs, equipped at the same time. Just look at some of the Vs. Threads: it's absolutely ridiculous.
I sincerely believe that "Composite Godzilla" is just as bad of an idea as "Composte Superman", the only difference is that the former doesn't have Tier 2/1 incarnations.
 
I agree that composite Godzilla should be deleted, and that our regulations need to be rewritten, but am a bit worried about all of the Pokémo, Looney Tunes, and similar profiles being removed due to having no coherent canon.
 
Dargoo Faust said:
Composite profiles shouldn't exist at all.
They're essentially made-up characters on our part by smashing together a bunch of unrelated stories under the same moniker for the fun of it. If an alt-canon version of a character is significant enough to warrant its own profile, give it its own profile, specifying the canon used in the profile name.

As for characters that 'need' to be composited, that's essentially saying "the plot that this character is a part of is too loose to be coherently used for the wiki in itself, so let's just call everything correct in spite of no consistent canon existing". We have rules on verses that don't have a consistent story/plot, if there is a 'need' to composite the character for them to exist, it might be because the character shouldn't be on the site for lack of consistency.

That's my take at least. Composites on the site have bothered me for a while, now, and despite the fact that I've made composite profiles myself, I'd gladly accept their removal if it means greater consistency and quality on the site as a whole.

I'd also like to suggest that, perhaps, on verse pages, we should specify the canon we are specifically using for the verse; or more clearly establish general rules for how we define canon for series (for mangas/animes, as an example, we explain that we utilize the original source material unless specified otherwise, or the manga).
Click to expand...
I 100% agree with this, actually

Why we need a composite profile if every version already have a separate, independant one ? To merge the abilities ? This really bugs me. There is no reason to use a Composite Link (for example) if each version already have a clear canon
 
I agree with Dargoo on the most part, but I believe a bit of leeway should be given to characters like Mickey Mouse, or Bugs Bunny, or even Pokémon profiles for that matter, reason being that for these characters, it is ludricuos to make profiles for every short the character has been in i.e. These profiles should stay because their canonicity is questionable to each other, and sometimes suggest that these all are the same individual across their multitude of appearances.

So therefore, essentially if a character legitimately no canon or extremely poor continuity, then a composite profile may be reasonable, but for characters like Godzilla (Composite), Link (Composite) and James Bond (Composite), who do have a clear continuity with frequent reboots, those composites shouldn't be on the wiki.
 
Colonel Krukov wants this addressed:

Can characters, who have different classes such as XCOM Soldier (Composite) and Commander Shepard, have a composite page? I do think that characters who have different classes should possibly have a page for each class, but at the same time, it's just the same person but with different powers available to them.
 
I think that Zark makes sense.
 
@Zark

Could you take a look at our regulation page and evaluate which parts that likely need to be rewritten?
 
I think Link got mixed up with Godzilla; someone put them in the same category. But just going to address the difference. Link is many characters coming from one canon; such as Zelda has three canon timelines and some of the Link are either reincarnations and some are possible ancestors and descendants of other Links. Godzilla is just taking every single incarnation of Godzilla and merging him into one character.

I'm fine if Composite Godzilla gets removed, but I think people got confused with Link; as that's as said above many different characters within a single canon merged into one. And his current Composite profile doesn't even use non-canon stuff. I do agree that we should make our composite profiles more strict since obviously, Composite Goku, Superman, Sonic, or Dante via mixing canon with non-canon versions would just be a mess.
 
@Medeus

Thank you for helping out.
 
Pokémon: Feel like this is comparing apples to oranges. There's direct statements from the creators saying that what Pokémon can do in the anime they can do in the games, and another statement saying that Adventures is the truest vision of Pokémon, which is why games, anime, and manga feats are all allowed. Not to mention it's a species, and because the profiles are taken at their best, the profiles take into account the possibility that said Pokémon hit the genetic lottery and got everything they could possibly have. Best you could argue for is Legendaries.

Link: One main thing that separates Link from everyone else mentioned so far. It's the same soul. Literally. The Spirit of the Hero (canonical name for it) is present in all the Links. It's not a reboot/retcon like Superman, it's not a different canon like Godzilla or Dante. The rules about our composite should be simple. If the title of a series isn't even in the name of the property we're compositing (for example, Shin Megami Tensei doesn't have Devil May Cry in the title), then it shouldn't even be considered. Godzilla shouldn't have Marvel feats for the same reason Link doesn't have Soul Calibur or Smash or even CD-I feats.
 
I'm also not saying whether or not to get rid of the Composite Link or Composite Godzilla profiles. But as Cal said, the Pokemon profiles are literally an entire species and technically have a bunch of variables. That being said, it would get messy given there exist Baby Pokemon on par with the some of the Final Evolution. But I think the current scaling for general profiles are good. They're not 100% Composite per say, they're just a species that scales from regular feats.
 
Not sure what I can say about Pokémon that Cal and Dark haven't already said.

I agree with them on that particular subject, but I'll hold my opinion for basically anything else until later.
 
I agree with Zark's points. I also agree with with Saikou's points on Link.
 
I agree with removing composite link and godzilla and can elaborate later/in response to stuff.


As for krukov's thing: I'm working on making a file for the player character of Destiny. Their class would need to be specified, as would their loadout (though the latter can change mid fight), so I'll separate off class specific powers with tabbers. Besides that, not much of a hassle. People like the Adeptus Astartes are already like that where they either specify or get the bare minimum, so yeah.
 
We should likely define "composite" for say, Pokemon.

Most Pokemon files are basically just the species abilities that have been shown across the series. There may be issues for specific characters, but from my knowledge, they tend to have separate keys and things differentiating them from the main species. Is this really a "composite"? Or is it just the abilities granted by the species?
 
I think they're talking about the fact that we use feats and abilities from different media into one profile.
 
That isn't really the same thing though, don't we already account for canon heirarchies and things? Do pokemon have mutually exclusive powers or something?
 
Thank you for giving input everybody.

I would appreciate if you could also help out with suggestions for how we should specifically rewrite our current regulations.
 
The real cal howard said:
Link: One main thing that separates Link from everyone else mentioned so far. It's the same soul. Literally. The Spirit of the Hero (canonical name for it) is present in all the Links.
Click to expand...
I agree with everything you said but this reasoning doesn't seem like something that would justify a composite profile.

Edit: To clarify, Link having the same soul between each interation somehow makes Link's current composite profile which includes his equipment, items, magic and power up valid doesn't sound like a good reasoning for a composite profile. Link having The Spirit of the Hero doesn't allow him to keep most ,if not all, of his powers, abilities and equipment between each iteration canonically so it can't be used as a justification for a composite profile. At best I can see The Spirit of the Hero getting a profile from it but that's it.

Also, I don't believe we ever take having the same soul to mean anything by itself but I could be wrong.
 
Tbh there are no "current regulations" for composites, as it just boils down to "Eh, ask staff I guess" on the page, which of course, is a horrendous idea.

Also legit, the soul thing is an exceptionally poor excuse for composite Link. The characters each have different capabilities, personality and powers, while being canonically a different person. This'll be me compositing every Ghost Rider or Spider-Man into the same profile because they have "the same power source"
 
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