HRWiki:STUFF/Archive/New Boots

[edit] A Class of Its Own

From: New Boots
Posted on: 03:12, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Arguments for:

1. The Cheat Theme Song, Everybody to the Limit, These peoples try to fade me, and Experimental Film are all music videos. Website and mile are emails. Crazy Cartoon and bedtime story are excerpts of an email. Oh Yeah Yeah is a music video from an email.

Arguments against:

1. It's not the only standalone PbTC toon, and it's not the only PbTC toon to show a narrative rather than a musical structure; it just happens to be the intersection of these two categories. This is an overly restrictive distinction that isn't that notable.
2. There a music video at the end, which is clearly part of the cartoon. That kind of takes away from the fact.

Additional comments:

• Note that the fact says "first" as opposed to "only".
  • Note that this cartoon also is the first PbtC 'toon in the first place.
    • How do you reckon that? This toon is predated by a lot of PbTC things. It's neither the first standalone PbTC toon nor the first non-musical one.
• Wow, there are strong merits to both camps. While I can see why some would find it notable that this toon breaks a mold of sorts (being tied neither to email nor music), it's too picky of a distinction to merit a special notation.

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[edit] 2004 - The Year Of The Frames

From: New Boots
Posted on: 00:17, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Arguments for:

• From HRWiki:Standards: "A fun fact is anything about a toon that is unique or out of the ordinary"
  • This fact is unique, and out of the ordinary.
• The Brothers Chaps can easily know how many frames are in the flash file.
• 500 The Cheats is a precedent.
  • No it isn't. That info was there to illustrate that there really are 500 The Cheats, and was therefore relevant. This has nothing real to do with the toon at all.
    • Take a look at the remark in Not the 100th Email!!! regarding 404 frames.
      • How does that make this item any more relevant to this toon?
        • This may not have happend on purpose. But it is still worth mentioning.

Arguments against:

• A coincidence. Interesting, perhaps, but not really article-worthy.
• It has no relevance to the toon at all.
• Why would this toon be specially selected for the number of frames of that year?
  • The Fact isn't presented as an intentional reference, just an interesting observation.
• The toon wasn't released at the beginning or end of 2004, but randomly in the middle.
  • So, it wasn't released in a situation in which having exactly 2004 frames would be relevant. There's nothing in the toon that suggests any relevance to the number of frames, unlike 500 The Cheats and Not the 100th Email!!!. Therefore, this is either a coincidence, or one of the most pointless easter eggs ever. I'm leaning towards the former.
    • If it's a coincidence, it's one of the most pointless facts ever.
      • I'd say it's incredibly pointless whether it's coincidence or not. So there're 2004 frames and it was released in 2004. Big deal. Upon quick examination of the New Boots page, I see it wasn't released until April! If, and only if, this was either the first toon released that year, or if there was a tangible reason *in the toon* for the number of frames to refer to the year of release, I'd think about accepting this. As it stands, what we're dealing with is 100% pure coincidence, and not even a very interesting one. A "fact" like this is barely worthy of the STUFF process, because as noted, it's totally irrelevant to the toon itself (and would hardly add anything to the casual reader's experience of watching it).

Additional comments:

• If only we had a category "Coincidences" this would fit neatly there.
  • Wow. That would make all our pages really long!
• It should be noted that this is intended for Trivia, not as a reference.
• Was this the first toon released in 2004? If so, it's noteworthy. If not, it's... well, not.
  • It was the first Powered by The Cheat toon of '04. But that point is moot, the Fun Fact does not argue it was intentional, simply that it happened.
    • If this wasn't the first toon of 2004, and if the fun fact doesn't suggest that it was intentional, then I see no reason why this is noteworthy.
      • Actually, just having a fact like this on the page implies that it's intentional.
        • I don't see any problem with adding the word "Coincidentally" to the beginning of the Fact in question.
          • Because if it's a coincidence... why note it?
            • Because it's still a Fact, and in many people's opinion, interesting and Fun.
              • Then why don't we list the number of frames for *all* the toons, for people who care so much about something so trivial?
                • Because not all the toons' frame counts offer such neat synchronicity. 2004 happens to be an interesting number of frames. It's a trivially interesting and verifiable fact about the toon; whether intentional or not, it is true and interesting to (so far) a majority of [nearly half] of the voters.
                  • That said, there are a number of other facts that got declined on the grounds of being coincidences. Usually, the only debate on those facts is whether or not they're actually coincidences. But people who admit to this being a coincidence are voting in favor of this fact. Are we changing our own standards? As said before, if we were to start listing every mildly interesting coincidence on these pages, the articles would become really long.
• While researching this item, I came across other unusual frame counts, for example: 2222, which is arguably at least as interesting. But of course we shouldn't list that one, because it has nothing to do with the toon, just as 2004 has nothing to do with New Boots. This is talk page information. It doesn't belong in the article.
  • Interesting trivia does not exclude unintentional coincidences. Coincidences can be fascinating. For instance.
    • As many people keep saying, however, if we included every remotely interesting coincidence, the pages would get mighty huge. This fact seriously *needs* to be declined, or it will be used as the basis for many other stupid coincidences to be added later. Do we want that?
      • Yes, if they're facts. Wiki pages don't get too big, they just look that way before they're carefully written and organized.
        • Even then, this is a fact that is not remotely interesting (at least, not to me) unless it was intentional, and we don't know that it was intentional and have many reasons to think it wasn't. Again, if this was the first 'toon of 2004, or the fact that it took place in 2004 was somehow important, it'd be interesting.
• I'd like to elaborate. The reason I'm so against this fact is not because I feel it's untrue. I have absolutely no reason to doubt its validity as a statement. I'm against this fact because it's almost entirely irrelevant. It has no relation to the toon whatsoever. The argument for, going by 500 The Cheats and Not the 100th Email!!! are weak at best, as there are very good reasons for noting the number of frames: 500 The Cheats actually has more than 500 frames, but exactly 500 of them contain an image of The Cheat, thus that fact states that there *are* in fact, 500 The Cheats, "we counted". For Not the 100th Email!!!, the toon uses IE's (404) error page as the background. In other words, there's a *reason* to tie the number of frames to the toon. In New Boots, however, the only real connection is that it happens to contain the same number of frames as the year released, which is also a pretty loose connection because it's not the first or last toon of 2004, there's no mention of the year in the toon, and PBTC aren't exactly a major enough part of the site for "it was the first PBTC toon of 2004" to carry much weight. The first SBEMail, maybe. But think about it. Should we look for toons with 1987 frames and point it out? Or how about 1101 frames? Or should we find toons with 420 or 666 frames and explain their negative significance "because it's true, and people might not know", despite the lack of any relevance to the toons? No. Heck no at all. When we start to give relevance to the number of frames, you know we're scraping the bottom of the barrel. Perhaps it's not my place, as a relative newcomer, to speak here, but I've been watching the Wiki for quite a while, and I've seen many more credible fun facts than this tossed into the trash as coincidences. But this confuses me. It seems like we're voting on -- and accepting -- fun facts that only months ago would've either been declined 25-0, or been outright scrapped without even a STUFFing. As Jay said, *are* we changing our standards?
  • What standards are those, exactly? That a fun fact must be not only true, but also witty and intentional? I think that's an overly revisionist point of view. You don't have to go into theories as to why a toon has an odd number of frames, but when that number catches your attention for any reason, that's a fun fact.
    • So what makes this so much more interesting than my 1987 or 1101 frames analogies? As for standards, I'll leave that up to a sysadmin or someone with senority, but I was under the assumption that baseless coincidences do not make good fun facts.
      • If it were a Cheat Commandos toon with 1101 frames, especially one which had a figure for sale for $11.01, then sure. If there was no relationship to the $11.01 thing, then of course not. Similarly, if a 1987-frame toon referenced 1987 prominently, that would be notable. This piece of trivia is pointing out "This happens to have 2004 frames, and was released in 2004, wow, what are the odds?" It is not saying there was intention, simply synchronicity. Compare to Fall Float Parade where we note that a balloon accident happened in a parade a few days after the toon's release.There's no possibility of reference—it's a "baseless coincidence"—but I think most would agree that is notable. This might be more weakly relevant, but to this writer it just clears the hurdle of relevance.
        • What're the odds of a toon made in 2004 having 2004 frames? Pretty good, I'd say, given the number of toons TBC make every year. But unless there's a good reason to relate the two, which this toon does not contain, it's not notable. What really floors me is how many people *for* this have admitted it's "probably coincidence", yet are quick to decline the "Regenerator 4" (or whatever) below for the *exact same reason*, when, IMO, that seems more likely -- and more interesting -- than this.
          • Addendum: Turns out that one was closed recently, but here's an interesting comment from it: "I don't think the opponents can dispute the factuality of the similarities here. They apparantly think it's all a random coincidence though, not an intentional reference. Either that, or they don't think it's interesting enough." ... and how does that make this fact any different?
          • I voted yes on both cases, though I definetly agree that the likelihood of coincidence is higher here. What floors me is that the vote for this frame count is actually running even, while the case with multiple strong points of evidence ran at least three votes behind from the very beginning. I feel like STUFF was created to weed out whimsically falsified information, and it's now being abused to weed out less significant information. True facts should not be suppressed.
            • While this fact, as proposed, is indeed true, that's not really the issue. It's just not very notable. Most of its supporters have admitted it's coincidence, which honestly defeats the purpose of adding it. For the umteenth time, if this was the first or last toon of 2004, or it mentioned the year, there'd be less, if any, doubt. But as it stands, this is neither a notable frame count (such as 500 The Cheats or Not the 100th Email) nor a timely coincidence (such as the balloon going out of control or someone making a movie on their cell phone). It's just useless trivia that we can all live without. If you feel so strongly about this, why not create a "Frame Count" page?
• I suppose this isn't too terribly surprising. We've had a STUFF entry get accepted for being "Fun" while its factuality was extremely disputable (at least in my eyes); now we have one getting accepted for being a "Fact" while being dubiously fun.
  • It should be noted that "this fact is not fun" has long been considered a poor argument against a Fun Fact. Fun is, after all, in the eye of the beholder—which may explain why this one has such a neat division of opinion.
    • Perhaps, but how is a fact that says that a toon has a number of frames that very likely unintentionally matches the year of its release in a toon that never refers to the year of its release all that fun?
      • I'm declining this fact based solely on the bewitching run-on-itude of the above sentence. Sold!
• I don't know if this has been said yet, but, I thought Fun Facts weren't always intended? I mean, if TBC didn't mean it doesn't mean it's not a Fun Fact. Otherwise Goofs and Glitches aren't Fun Facts.
  • Goofs and Glitches are one thing. This is simultaneously unintentional and unremarkable.
    • Yes, but I would NEVER know this unless it was published on a site. That, and as said above from HRWiki:Standards: "A fun fact is anything about a toon that is unique or out of the ordinary". It also says that "If something is obvious to 95% of the audience" then it shouldn't be a Fun Fact. Should we also do the opposite? I bet there are TONS of fans out there who have no idea about that fact.
• You know, I've been thinking. "It's true and not obvious" is actually quite a weak argument to use. Almost as much so as "this fact isn't fun" and "it's probably coincidence". Admittedly, this fact *is* true, and *isn't* obvious. However, just because something fits that description doesn't automatically make it worthy of being added to the article. See the comments above about other unusual frame counts, and why we shouldn't note those. And similarly, there have been many facts saying such things as "This line was used in this movie". Not specifically stating it was a reference, just that it was used elsewhere. However, with the situation and context being completely different, they're almost always declined (and rightly so). I challenge someone to tell me just what makes this fact so much more noteworthy than other interesting coincidences that have been rejected in the past.

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[edit] No Soup for You!!

From: New Boots or different town
Posted on: 00:34, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Arguments for:

• Pouring hot soup on someone's eyes is a very specific form of punishment. Coincidence is unlikely.
• The OZ episode aired long before the email was made
• OZ - The Complete Third Season was available on DVD at the time that different town was made
• The reference was made more than one time, making it likely to have come from somewhere. This is the most likely source.
• During the 6 seasons OZ was on the air, it was immensely popular.
• This would not be the first such reference to a single TV show or event.
• Oz is a show that Strong Bad would watch.

Arguments against:

• It's unlikely that the Brothers Chaps would make a reference to a particular instance of prison violence from a particular episode of a particular TV show.
• The OZ episode aired long before the email was made.
• The circumstances are completely different: One is in a prison surrounded by a gang, the other is a picnic. If they were going to make a reference so long after the fact, they would have put in some other clues to tie it in.
• I thought it was pretty obvious it was a reference to email 99 different town where Strong Bad first replies to the email as if pouring hot soup in homestar's eyes was the request.
  • See related statement below.

Additional comments:

• OZ is an TV-MA-rated show, that most viewers won't be familiar with or have access to.
  • Many references on the site are to things that 'most viewers won't be familiar with or have access to', as they have referenced many extremely obscure things before.
• Jeepers—this seems to involve the same principles as Change of Pace. If there's a connection, then it's a direct acknowledgement of a single episode of a tv show. If there's none, it's an uncanny coincidence.
  • And, in the same vein, the "acknowledgement" seems more plagiarism than a legit reference if it's true.
    • Meh, even if this is an intentional reference (which I don't think it is), that doesn't make it plagiarism. Countless fictional works have in-jokes and homages to other works.
• This event was an important plot point through the beginning of Season 4, not just a passing instance of prison violence.
• Very obscure, too much so.
• The OZ episode aired long before the email was made Is this comment for or against? Why is it in both arguments?
  • Because, depending on your point of view, it either strenghens or weakens the case for the fact. On the one hand, the episode was made so long ago that the Chaps would have had time to see it, but on the other hand, it was made so long ago that they wouldn't bother referencing it now.
• Not sure how or why this was changed, but this was supposed to be a reference for different town. New Boots can indeed be considered a reference to different town. This addresses where the concept of pouring hot soup in someone's eyes originally came from.
  • Then it should be changed back again. In it's current form, there isn't even reason for debate: different town was released in February 2004; New Boots in April. If anything is a reference to Oz it's different town; new boots shouldn't even be up for debate.
    • Hardly. In different town, it's just throwaway joke that Strong Bad types. We don't see it at all. I don't see how that could be considered a reference, other than the circumstances being vaguely similar. New Boots, where it actually happens, has the strongest chance of being a reference. Deciding which toon this should go with is moot anyway, because it doesn't go with either.
      • I have amended it to go with both.

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