Talk:Transformer (robot)

Move

Misspoke, clearly they're robots from the name. But there's no evidence connecting a larger organization to individual members. This is a single line in a book. You want to use a different page. Najawin ☎ 03:42, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

No I don't. For the same reason we don't need six pages for Martin Luther King just because each story doesn't use the same name. OS25🤙☎️ 03:45, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

I am now finished with my revisions to the page. I assume most of your assumptions about my edits predate me actual finishing my work on the article. OS25🤙☎️ 03:50, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

No, I assumed it was going to be something like this. I completely and unilaterally stand behind my statement. It's clear from the context of the statement made by Primo that he's referring to an organization or group rather than a species of being. Unless you have an IU source connecting the two, they need to be separated. Najawin ☎ 03:55, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Indeed, it's impossible to have both on the same page, since the page as it was written had the category "organization", and your rewrite, ostensibly, would change what categories it was in to something else. These are just two different things - it's a category error, you're confusing an organized group of these creatures with the species itself. Najawin ☎ 03:59, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

What do we have to gain by lying and claiming that the Transformers who make up Galvatron and Unicron and the "Transformers" who are "robots in disguise" are different Transformers? Again, this is the same as the old debate to have Martin Luther King as three separate pages. This is the sort of terrible reading of T:NO RW that makes me thing we need it rewritten at this point.

Furthermore, I only removed categories which are not backed-up by in-universe sources. Nothing in this article suggests that the Transformers are toys. OS25🤙☎️ 04:02, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

I didn't add those categories, that was done while I was gone. Regardless, you're confusing individuals with the group, this is the main issue here. It's like conflating Dalek with Dalek Empire. Makes no sense from an IU perspective.

Now, look, should we change T:NO RW? Yeah, probably, I've been vocal about it in the past. But that's the rule. So we need to abide by it. So they should be two separate pages. All there is to it. You don't have to like it, I don't like a lot of applications of T:NO RW. But it is what it is, there should be two pages. Najawin ☎ 04:15, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

But what justifies two pages? As it stands, Galatron is referred to as a Transformer. They don't even say his species is Transformer. So your argument is there are two organisations in-universe. One is called Transformers. The other is called The Transformers, robots in disguise.

I must cite T:BOUND. Several years ago, we had two pages for Martin Luther King, simply because two stories used different names for him. We had a forum debate and decided to keep all the info on one page. That is an example of site policy and precedent about how to read T:NO RW in these cases. If you think this is an exception, you'll need a mighty big reason why. OS25🤙☎️ 04:20, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Checking the archives, I can see that the forum was actually closed without resolution, and I am remembering the circumstances incorrectly. Despite this, the ability to make very obvious connections in-universe has been established by the "Donald Trump" precedent without question. OS25🤙☎️ 04:39, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

...Where? It's in none of the saved Panopticon forums, either I, II, III or IV. The thread might or might not be applicable, you can't just insist it is without seeing the specific discussion and conclusion. (Also, the Donald Trump issue was specifically forbidden on the article's talk page due to T:NO RW. People just ignored it. I believe there was a mass merging of certain pages with different names that probably shouldn't have been merged under a strict reading of T:NO RW sans discussion while I was gone. Arguably now T:BOUND under the recent revision, I admit, but it certainly wasn't something discussed, it was a unilateral decision.)

Regardless, if we were to merge the pages as you're suggesting, the proper title wouldn't, in that case, be "Transformer (robot)", as that's a page title for individual robots or types of robots. (Hence what I'm taking exception to here!) If we're referring to a group, members of which happen to be robots, we'd just refer to them as "Transformers", or "Transformers (group)". Najawin ☎ 04:45, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Hey, the thread actually is on Archive III, but I haven't gotten that far yet in cleaning up The Panopticon. As it happens, the bottom few threads on just that page are not displaying due to total page size. This just happened to be one of the unlucky ones. Very slim chances. But OS25 would know, as the user who wrote the opening post. I'll shift things around and link here.
×   SOTO contribs ×°/↯/•]   💬•| {/-//:   05:22, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Fair enough! I completely understand that the project is in flux, I figured it might have been in a different forum he could direct me to. Najawin ☎ 05:25, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, these aren't ready to be launched just yet. Please stand by as I get everything in order for public release. It's now the first thread at User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon IV, by the way!
×   SOTO contribs ×°/↯/•]   💬•| {/-//:   05:44, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for that SOTO!

I must say I don't see the similarities. Amorkuz steadfastly denies that there should have been multiple pages. Seems more akin to how there used to be pages like Onanism (See Talk:Onanism.) Again, maybe it's now T:BOUND to merge pages like this, though I think there's some ambiguity, iirc there's some real life people still that have distinct pages because they're not identified as the same in the narratives, like an English monarch. But even if we keep them merged we need to change the page name. Najawin ☎ 05:52, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

This doesn't matter. The point is that we do not have precedent for creating two pages for the same thing simply because of a minor disagreement. There is no reason to have different pages for the Transformers and the Transformers, robots in disguise. We have no proof they aren't the same organization. OS25🤙☎️ 06:11, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

But we did have precedent, up until last year. Up until last year there were a ton of pages like this, so much so that I contemplated writing a short story as a joke that had a very loose framing device with a segment in the middle that just said all of the concepts were the same.

"We have no proof they aren't the same organization."

We have no proof Davros isn't The Doctor, but we aren't merging those pages. Don't be ridiculous. Look, sure, maybe we keep them merged, I'm willing to cede that maybe it's T:BOUND at the moment, though I really think we need a thread on T:NO RW sooner rather than later. But the title absolutely has to be changed. You should never have changed it to what you did, the dab is just completely incorrect. Najawin ☎ 06:22, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

I'm not being ridiculous! It's not ridiculous to say that the Transformers and the Transformers, robots in disguise are the same!

Personally, I even disagree that the Faction Paradox story says they're an organization. I understand T:NO RW says we shouldn't insert real world information, but it doesn't say we should ignore reading comprehension. "Saying she's a member of the Faction Paradox means as much as if I said I was a member of the Transformers" is supposed to not make sense. It doesn't make sense to us, it's not a contradiction when it doesn't make sense with other sources. She's being felicitous.

As per the DAB, I don't know what you want me to call it. Transformer (species) seems out the window, as you're claiming that they're not a species (despite this not being clarified in either sources we're pulling from). Robot just felt like the right DAB since The Incomplete Death's Head calls them robots. OS25🤙☎️ 06:40, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

What's ridiculous is that "we have no evidence" proves too much. That particular statement was ridiculous.

The point of the statement made is that Primo de la Vega has just been told by Gedarra something that gave him no information from his frame of reference, not something that literally lacked semantic meaning. Hence, referring to someone being in a random pop culture group that he knows vague things about at best. The idea that contradictions are okay because it's not supposed to make sense is confusing these two issues. It is not supposed to literally lack semantic meaning, it's not supposed to "not make sense" in that, well, sense.

I'm not claiming they're not a species. I'm saying that if they're a species then there should be two pages, since the reference the original page contained was about an organization, not a species. If you want to discuss the stuff you've added on a species page, feel free to remove it and make a species page. Please, in no way feel wedded to keeping information that might not belong to a page I created about an organization "Transformers, robots in disguise" on that page. (Robot) is clearly incorrect, as it's conflating the group members with the group. (Much like confusing Dalek with Dalek Empire, or the cells that make up the heart with the heart itself.) It should either be "Transformers", "Transformers (group)", Transformers (organization)", "Transformers, robots in disguise", or a similar dab to the middle two. Politely, the entire dab issue is just a giant category error. Najawin ☎ 07:03, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

But the thing is, I am just not convinced that "organization" is really strongly implied by any of these sources. "group" I guess makes sense... But why not use a DAB that implies the contents of the page? The Transformers are not a group or an organization. It just feels like we're extracting something not anywhere in the text. OS25🤙☎️ 07:42, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Because, again, it conflates the members of the group with the group itself. Category error, they're not the same thing. As an example, points in R^1 are not the same thing as the space R^1, and I know some people who would insist that the set R^1, so the intersection of all of these points, or members of the group, is different from the space R^1, or the group itself. Again, Dalek is not Dalek Empire

The Transformers are not a group or an organization.

I mean, this is clearly T:NO RW. Najawin ☎ 07:59, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

No it's not, because they don't say it is one in any of the stories we cover. You're not arguing for something in the text, you're arguing for something and then gliding off the fact that "hey, the stories don't say this isn't true!" OS25🤙☎️ 08:22, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

This is literally what you did. The statement made by Primo doesn't make sense if they're not a group. Najawin ☎ 08:41, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

I don't understand. As commonly defined, a species is a group, is it not? One can be a member of a species, correct? [Edit: Note that Faction Paradox is also both a joinable organisation and a species…]

The purpose of this wiki is to serve our readers, not to construct a fictional world out of our valid sources, like some kind of hyper-literal nominalist art project. I'm not saying that you're doing the latter, Najawin, but it seems to me that we best serve our readers if we cover all the information about Transformers on a single page, even if the different appearances cannot technically be connected together using only in-universe evidence. Cf the logic for the merger of President (The Pyramid at the End of the World) into Donald Trump. – n8 (☎) 16:16, 8 May 2023 (UTC) [edited 16:31, 8 May 2023 (UTC)]

That's why I've waffled back on "organization" and "group" here. Linguistically the statement made by Primo makes no sense in reference to a species, but the group in question doesn't necessarily have to have a particularly organized structure. (And, indeed, there's been some discussion on how best to interpret Faction Paradox members re Time Lords in our overall category system recently. see: Talk:Faction Paradox.)

Again, I will have no qualms with changing the rules in a reasonable manner. But as they stand, the current iteration of the page makes absolutely no sense. Najawin ☎ 17:42, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Not to sound condescending, but surely Primo's statement can be chalked up to one or two different things. A. he is not being literal. B. he is plain and simply wrong. Could it not be one of those two things?

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

17:58, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

I mean, surely it's B. But, you know, T:NO RW and all that. Hence, you know, U. We've discussed this before! Nobody likes it, but that's the way it is, and unless there's a workable, consistent way to enforce a change, that's the rule. At the very least the dab needs changing. I don't see why that's controversial. Najawin ☎ 18:27, 8 May 2023 (UTC)