Chat with Greg Farshtey Guidelines

[Thormen]

In light of recent discussions regarding how to go about using the Chat with Greg Farshtey on the Lego Message Boards it's been decided to write a set of guidelines on this subject. Please note that these are not rules, but guidelines. You are allowed to ignore them if you want to.

 

Chat with Greg Farshtey Guidelines (current draft)

 

1. Before asking a question, try to find out whether this question was somehow previously answered by official BIONICLE storyline sources. You could check BIONICLEsector01 for example, or even better: ask the question in this forum.

2. Provide as much relevant context in your question as possible. DO NOT purposefully try to hide relevant information from Greg. We want him to make an informed decision, we don't want to trick him into canonizing something he doesn't like.

3. Discuss the way you want to ask Greg a question with other people on BZP. Ideally, work together to write the actual question itself. If multiple people take a look at your question, the chances that guideline #1 and #2 are violated are smaller.

4. Make sure to present both sides of a question regarding something that may be controversial or ambiguous.

 

 

 

The guidelines are essentially good advice written not only for you, but also by you. Anyone can participate: just post what you think should be added, deleted or changed in the guidelines and if nobody objects to your idea within seven days it will be incorporated in the guidelines listed in this first post. And when I say 'object' I don't mean a simple "I don't like it.", I mean people are supposed to present arguments against your idea.

 

Do I think these guidelines will achieve anything if they are not binding? Yes, I do. The thing is, everybody who is on the LMB, including Greg himself, ultimately has the same goal: to add new awesome details to the Gen 1 BIONICLE storyline. Our opinions may differ on what exactly "awesome" is, but since we were all attracted to BIONICLE in the first place our interests can't be that far apart, and in any case Greg is the one who actually decides what the new story content is. I'm sure we can get somewhere if we take our common goal as a starting point and have a reasonable discussion from there on.

 

So, to start off, here are my own ideas for a set of guidelines:

 

1. Before asking a question, try to find out whether this question was somehow previously answered by official BIONICLE storyline sources. You could check BIONICLEsector01 for example, or simply ask the question in this forum.

2. Provide as much relevant context in your question as possible. DO NOT purposefully try to hide relevant information from Greg. We want him to make an informed decision, we don't want to trick him into canonizing something he doesn't like.

3. Discuss the way you want to ask Greg a question with other people on BZP. Ideally, work together to write the actual question itself. If multiple people take a look at your question, the chances that guideline #1 and #2 are violated are smaller.

 

If these go seven days without objections, they will become the first draft of the Chat with Greg Farshtey Guidelines. What does everybody think?

 

Edit: Updated to incorporate guideline #4, which was unchallenged for 7 days.

Edited November 6, 2014 by Thormen

[Seaborgium]

Honestly the canonizing thing has gotten way out of hand. It's like making a law for dead country; it has no effect. If Greg wants to clarify preexisting canon, so be it. But getting something canonized is neither really an achievement nor a crime, so we should all just stop worrying about it.

 

Also rules 1. and 2. seem to boil down to "get your question preapproved". Do we really need all that red tape? I'd rather have people ask Greg questions freely, even if that means Turaga Duracell is now canon, than everyone get uptight about it. We really don't need to be uptight about it. That wasn't what the Chat with Greg was intended to be like, and really it needn't be that way.

 

If you want to make a "ask this question before you ask Greg about it" topic, fine, but I see no need to add unnecessary rules.

[bonesiii]

I know this is covered under #3, but you might want to start with "Try posting a topic asking the question of fans first -- if there's already an answer, or problems with the question/suggestion that's the fastest way usually to find out." (Or words to that effect. )

 

Although "first" should probably be after at least checking basic BS01 pages on the subject so you're not wasting our time either of course.

[TheSkeletonMan939]

You seem to be under the impression that every LMB member is also a BZP member who will be happy to follow your guidelines.

 

I feel like when people canonize something they're doing it more for the street cred than anything else; I mean, it's almost been five years since Gen. 1 ended; honestly, who cares if someone thinks Toa Cordak is a good name?

Edited October 27, 2014 by TheSkeletonMan939

[bonesiii]

You seem to be under the impression that every LMB member is also a BZP member who will be happy to follow your guidelines.

Nobody is under any such impression. (I'm a little disappointed anybody thought it even needed said... )

[TheSkeletonMan939]

Okay, I exaggerated a little. Of course no one is under that impression, really. 

 

 

If these go seven days without objections, they will become the first draft of the Chat with Greg Farshtey Guidelines.

But, as you can tell, this really only works if LMB members were only BZP members.

[ALVIS]

Well, we could never really control the enthusiasm of LMB posters who do not belong to BZP, and I'm not sure we should. Many of them are just children anyway, and their exuberance and curiosity should not be stifled or discouraged. I support Thormen's guidelines, however, because BZP members who utilize the LMB thread should try to do so in a manner that doesn't cause conflict and discord. By minimizing the disruptive questions we ask, we will be better prepared to deal with any problem questions that the other posters throw at Greg.

[Thormen]

Also rules 1. and 2. seem to boil down to "get your question preapproved".

I don’t see that at all, guideline #1 is more about checking previous canon (mainly to avoid Greg accidentally contradicting canon) than about getting people’s approval and guideline #2 doesn’t involve talking to other people at all, much less asking for their approval. Maybe guideline #3 implies something of the sort, but it is more about working together than about getting approval.

 

As for the rest of your post, yes I agree that things have gotten out of hand. As far as I can tell the original purpose of the Chat wasn't even to ask him questions as we used to do all the time on BZP, it looks to me like Greg just wanted to talk to his fans. But things got to where they are now and I can see people getting frustrated every time there is another 'forgetcon'. And those people include Greg himself, as is obvious every time somebody points out a forgetcon to him. You can choose to ignore the Chat for that reason if you want to, but personally I'd like to try and minimize the frustration in the future.

 

I know this is covered under #3, but you might want to start with "Try posting a topic asking the question of fans first -- if there's already an answer, or problems with the question/suggestion that's the fastest way usually to find out." (Or words to that effect. )

 

Although "first" should probably be after at least checking basic BS01 pages on the subject so you're not wasting our time either of course.

Actually I think that’s already covered under #1 (not so much under #3), namely in the part “or simply ask the question in this forum.”

 

You seem to be under the impression that every LMB member is also a BZP member who will be happy to follow your guidelines.

To add to what Bones and Yalda said, I think BZPers are on average more invested in the story and are therefore more prone to ask Greg difficult questions. I’m not worried when people ask Greg whether there were ever Toa-Kal, it’s when people already know the ins and outs of the storyline and start asking about obscure details that problems might arise, since Greg doesn’t remember all the obscure details either after all this time.

[bonesiii]

Actually I think that’s already covered under #1

Yeah, I noticed that in hindsight. What I mean is, I would word it in a way that emphasizes posting a question topic more prominently, as to me that's the single most important thing you can do; we want to have input from multiple fans and focus on the question, and that's what topics are designed for.

 

Maybe just bold that part?

[Zox Tomana]

I don't think you could ever get someone to get their questions pre-approved, nor did I read that in your first post. I think the most important thing is to talk to other people so that we don't A. Ask questions already answered, and B. Make sure to present both sides of a questions regarding something that may likely be controversial or just plain ambiguous (here's looking at you, bota/aqua Magna orbits). There are several places in the Canon where there has been a story team or Greg glossing-over of, say, contradictory images and we need to be careful how we present that question.

 

To people who are giving this topic the "0-o" look, I would say some guidelines for the LMB Greg Chat are kinda nice to toss around seeing how we don't want to be making BZP look bad by bugging Greg to death, or by looking like we are trying to trick him or take the storyline into our own hands. This community is only one part of the BIONICLE fandom and we don't want people to look down on this site because of how we treat Greg and the gift of being able to ask him questions. I notice BZPers in the LMB because either they keep the same online name or they have BZP are part of their signature to mention it in their post. Having a few guidelines about it not only helps us and Greg, but the good name of this site as well =)

[Thormen]

Yeah, I noticed that in hindsight. What I mean is, I would word it in a way that emphasizes posting a question topic more prominently, as to me that's the single most important thing you can do; we want to have input from multiple fans and focus on the question, and that's what topics are designed for.

 

Maybe just bold that part?

Yeah you're right, asking here is more air-tight than checking BS01. Bolding's a good idea, but maybe we should alter the wording a little bit as well. How about:

 

1. Before asking a question, try to find out whether this question was somehow previously answered by official BIONICLE storyline sources. You could check BIONICLEsector01 for example, or even better: ask the question in this forum.

 

I don't think you could ever get someone to get their questions pre-approved, nor did I read that in your first post. I think the most important thing is to talk to other people so that we don't A. Ask questions already answered, and B. Make sure to present both sides of a questions regarding something that may likely be controversial or just plain ambiguous

Do you think we should add another guideline about presenting both sides of the argument? To me, guideline #2 already implies presenting both sides, but I can see how you might prefer this to be more explicit.

[bonesiii]

That new wording looks good to me.

 

About both sides, personally how you worded it right here in this latest post looks pretty good, maybe just add that in; "present both sides of the argument."

[Thormen]

About both sides, personally how you worded it right here in this latest post looks pretty good, maybe just add that in; "present both sides of the argument."

Hmmm, personally I like the way Zox worded it originally better. It's more of a 'standalone' sentence if you know what I mean, seems more useful as a guideline to me:

 

4. Make sure to present both sides of a question regarding something that may be controversial or ambiguous.

I edited that a little bit but I think the gist is the same.