Talk:Battleboarding

Unsourced references

To user: 209.44.205.230 please put references if you want to add large revisions, especially when it comes to terminology. ChrisGultieri (talk) 15:15, 14 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Slander against the VS Battles Wiki

Hello.

I would like to request that the false and very severe allegation that the VS Battles Wiki discriminates against LGBTQIA+ people and characters is kindly removed please. First, the two sources/references that were used for this false accusation do not actually say anything nearly that severe, and secondly, as anybody can very easily read in the wiki's rule pages, it has even stricter rules against harrassment and bigotry than the rest of the Fandom wiki complex does, so this is blatantly inaccurate harmful slander.

Please read the pages linked below for further information:

https://vsbattles.fandom.com/wiki/Site_Rules#Be_Respectful

https://vsbattles.fandom.com/wiki/Editing_Rules#Creating_Pages

https://allthingsgeek.substack.com/p/the-5-best-battle-boards-online

https://vocal.media/geeks/versus-sites-and-battle-boards

David A (talk) 08:02, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

David A, what's keeping you from doing this yourself? You got years of experience and this article isn't edit protected. Be bold! soetermans. ^{↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK} 08:17, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I just wanted to make certain that I had support for this change, so I would not risk to break any rules. David A (talk) 08:22, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Inaccurate history?

Hey, I'm not really sure how to handle this, because I believe this would count as "original research", but I happen to have a lot of personal experience with this community (including formerly moderating VS Battles), and I know first or at most secondhand that some of the events or attributions here are incorrect. I'll ignore the "origins" of battleboarding, because that's a lot more subjective (personally, I'd say this comes from comics - Namor vs. the Human Torch being an early example of superhero vs. superhero crossovers).

Instead, I'm focusing more on "calcs". Death Battle does use calcs, yes, but the method of calculation used there actually comes from VS Battles. This can be seen through a few ways. The first is that their research team just readily admits this. The second is that their values and the "feats" they choose to calculate... tend to line up very closely with what VS Battles already uses. The third is the specific methods by which they calculate, that being using "fragmentation energy" and multiplying by volume (which, to be clear, is a pseudoscience and I feel like it should be labeled as such - even the VSBattles forum acknowledges this system is flawed). Though, this style/methodology sources itself further back to the Outskirts Battledome subsection on the Narutoforums website (now called FanVerse). Again, this is something VSBattles cites itself, so I feel this should be uncontroversial.

But, beyond this, the Outskirts Battledome style of calculation itself cites to a few specific users (their names are slipping my mind at the moment, perhaps ChaosTheory or Endless Mike?). Furthermore, "calcs" as a whole did not originate on the Narutoforums. This, almost certainly, traces back further to Mike Wong and the stardestroyer.net website in the 90s. The website b5tech is also a compendium of "calcs" on Babylon 5, also dating to the 90s. These earlier calcs... aren't unassailable, but their methodology (as in, the specific formulae used) are based in engineering knowledge. Again, this is almost certainly just because Mike Wong and Saxton were engineers/physicists.

Point being - there's kind of two "family lines" of "calcs" here. There were early forums in the 90s that "used calcs", and there's the current popular VSBattles/Narutoforums derived form of... I guess there's no term for it. Simple physics? And that influenced Death Battle from there. Death Battle is, of course, insanely popular, so you could probably say they "popularized it", but by the same token VSBattles is also insanely popular (enough that the article mentions this).

Again, not really sure what to do about this. This isn't really a hobby with a lot of official writing on it.

EDIT: I'd also like to mention what I believe is roughly the origin of the term "battleboard" itself - that possibly being Tom Brevoort (though I'm less sure on this). Brevoort was using the term in 2014 and I haven't found an earlier instance of the term, even though the hobby obviously existed. Usually, it was just called "vs" or "vs debating", to my knowledge. At the very least, Tom is the first instance I saw of the term, and it's why I started using it.

Joshless128 (talk) 21:45, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have to disagree. It's not a matter whether or not what you say is true or not. This is Wikipedia, after all. The article is imperfect but at least it has sources. Your claims do not. So between the two, yours is the one that's original research. That being said, feel free to edit or revise the article as long as there are sources. Like actual sources like articles as such. Not forum posts or twitter posts. LimonX33 (talk) 01:36, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I mean, I feel like I provided sources there. Notably, the website stardestroyer.net (which can be verified by just checking its date) and the b5tech website (again, checking its date). Same with the brevoortformspring post, which again, is dated. VSBattles also sources Narutoforums for its calculation methods on its "Calculations" page in the line "Values taken from here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here". In general if this article is going to exist at all it's going to have to rely on forum posts, as it's a topic about forums and forum culture. Joshless128 (talk) 02:06, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Those are not sources. What I mean is articles and literature with authors, publications and dates, that state your claims. And no. Forum posts is not allowed in whatever article in Wikpedia. I suggest you check WPS to know the best reliable source you can use on the article. LimonX33 (talk) 02:36, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I mean, are those articles not themselves just citing those forum posts? This feels more like an argument that this article should just be deleted, if no primary sources are actually "counted". It's not as though a listicle for "The 5 Best Battle Boards Online" has any actual deeper and truer understanding of the subject, it's just a random listicle some guy on minimum wage made lol. I know - I used to write for websites like that. I don't really understand how a website describing itself as a vs. board that's verifiably older than other citations in the article doesn't itself count as a source. It'd be like not counting a book from 1700 as being older than a book from 1800. Joshless128 (talk) 03:28, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's just the way it is, man. You can't use forum posts as sources. To quote from Wikipedia:Reliable sources: For that reason, self-published sources are largely not acceptable. Self-published books and newsletters, personal pages on social networking sites, tweets, and posts on Internet forums are all examples of self-published media. GTALuisLopez (talk) 06:22, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Joshless about that it is very unfortunate that the information within this page is very incomplete, but mainstream media news articles have, also very unfortunately, not seriously covered the topic. It largely seems to have been deliberately hushed down despite its considerable popularity, except for when various writers make potshots against it within their stories, and we would likely receive a similar non-serious hollow treatment from news articles if they did cover it at some point, combined with heavily exaggerated or unfounded accusations. David A (talk) 08:27, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think anyone is disputing that the topic isn't covered well. It's really just the fact that we have to cover it by the standards of Wikipedia. As of now, we have to rely on what is available until more accurate article coverage comes up. If people truly think that the article, and the topic of Battleboarding, cannot stand without citing forum posts and subjective "If my memory serves..." thinking, then maybe it's too early for it to have an article. LimonX33 (talk) 14:00, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Going over the "Reliable sources" and "Original research" pages, I believe at the very least that stardestroyer.net and b5tech should count as reliable and non-original. Although they're both forums (or rather, link to forums), the specific fact being cited (that they predate Death Battle) is verifiably true through a number of ways (website registration, Wayback, the date listed at the bottom of the page, etc.) and does not itself rely on any individual's posts. The "Incredible Cross Sections" guide for Star Wars: Episode II is also a published work written by Curtis Saxton, which heavily draws upon his work from theforce.net (itself another early example of "calcs", dating to 2001). This requires no more hearsay than simply the content listed on the website (that being that it contains calcs and is old), so I feel like it shouldn't be any different than just citing a primary source in general. I really don't see anything on those pages to suggest that we'd need a second party to confirm "yes, this has an equation on it, is related to Star Wars, and is from the 90s/2000s" any more than we'd need a second party to confirm that Romeo dies at the end. Of course, I could be wrong but at that point I would just recommend deletion. Joshless128 (talk) 14:55, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Stardestroyer site is already in the article. I think youre not getting the problem. The problem isnt that the Stardestroyer site cannot be linked. It's the fsft that reliable sources need the actual statement from the actual an actual author or academician stating your claims. 15:39, 9 December 2024 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by LimonX33 (talk • contribs)

I feel like I'm being misunderstood in some way. Specifically, the information I would like to add is something along the lines of changing "Death Battle itself popularized the use of "calcs"" to "Although the concept existed beforehand [XYZ citations], Death Battle itself popularized the use of "calcs"". This would cite, also for example, stardestroyer.net (which you also say is already being cited, so I'm not sure how this is different), b5tech, or the Outskirts Battledome (which is itself also already cited). This would not be new information, it would just be a summary of existing information (something that's done on any article involving, for example, a summary of a film). I don't believe this would count as original research requiring a secondary summary, both because some of these websites are already cited and because this would lead to an infinite recursion of citations requiring summaries of summaries of summaries. Joshless128 (talk) 16:36, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think at this point, friend, we'll just have to agree to disagree. If I reply to your latest comment, I'll just be repeating myself and we'll go in circles again. You are free to edit the article if you can improve it. LimonX33 (talk) 16:48, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In the first place, the whole idea of a website "popularizing calcs" is just inherently silly and should come across as such to anyone reading, given how "calcs" are defined in this article as literally any combat-relevant comparison of two fictional things that rely on a mathematical calculation of any type. Even as something as basic as "50 meters is larger than 8 meters so King Kong is tiny compared to Godzilla" is technically a "calc", and obviously something acknowledged by King Kong vs. Godzilla (hence why Kong was supersized and given lightning powers) and the discussion around it even when it came out. The more specific "calc lineages" of VSBW's nonsense "fragmentation formulas" and the whole 1990s sci-fi subculture of "calculating" fictional spaceships seem like more specific things. On the latter - a relevant "official" source would be the "Star Wars: Attack of the Clones Incredible Cross-Sections" itself (a tech reference book which slaps specific numbers on things like weapon yields). Author Curtis Saxton, in the acknowledgements page, thanks Michael Wong (founder of stardestroyer.net who posted a bunch of "calcs" of his own there), Brian Young (who ran a webpage called the Turbolaser Commentaries where he tried to mathematically quantify Star Wars weapon yields), and others, referring to them as "prominent among the hundreds of people contributing to constructive debates about Star Wars technicalities over the years, resulting in the consensus of conceptual and physical foundations applied in these pages" - a direct reference to contemporary "battleboarding" websites. Saxton was brought on to write that book in the first place because he ran a website (Star Wars Technical Commentaries, went up in 1995 and last updated in 2001) where he posted long pages about Star Wars "calcs", which you can easily verify because he used his real name and email address, and the book uses very similar numbers to the ones he derived there. Saxton also openly talks about how he started posting Star Wars "calcs" online in 1995 in this theforce.net interview, and how these were the basis for the ICS books he later wrote in an official capacity. Even if one were to consider TheForce.Net as a self-published source, Saxton is an officially-credited author of several books in a major media franchise (on top of being an actual astrophysicist) and the website interviewing him was in part "battleboarding"-focused (the Star Wars Technical Commentaries were hosted there). So it should fulfill both the "self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert" and "self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, usually in articles about themselves or their activities" requirements (this being an article in large part about fanmade websites, and theforce.net being a notable enough one to have a page here in the first place).--Nihlus1 (talk) 17:40, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. So are you able to help out with improving this page accordingly? David A (talk) 19:44, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Its so funny how these VSB guys cannot comprehend what a reliable source is Lol. Unsurpriping coming from flipping VSBW. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:4454:79E:C400:A5E5:C407:11BC:366D (talk) 16:07, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]