Ignoring Origins?
Nidoking is based on Baragon — Tyranitar is based on Godzilla — Duraludon is based on Mechagodzilla — Baxcalibur is DEFINITELY based on Godzilla. Why are these intentionally omitted even though we are certain of this? It feels irresponsible of a wiki to intentionally omit important information like this for no reason. Buwbasaur (talk) 12:06, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- Sir, we need offical soruces to comfirm they were based in that. Plus we tend to avoid mentioning certain copyrights stuff to avoid getting into trouble with offical company of Nintendo and Pokemon if I recall?--Jacob9594 (talk) 13:41, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- I don't see how we'd get in trouble for that, especially with Baxcalibur being so blatant in its design, the fact this is a fan wiki, and how we never use definitive statements anyway, like "Toucannon may be a combination of the words toucan and cannon". Also, I'm a ma'am, but that's not here or there ;p Buwbasaur (talk) 15:29, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
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Per the Bulbapedia speculation policy, unsourced Pokémon origins should remain generic in scope and avoid explicit comparisons to specific outside characters or franchises.
Our responsibility as an encyclopedia is to only state with certainty facts that we can support with sources or evidence. We do allow speculation in a limited manner; however, a connection to an existing character or franchise may seem obvious to one person and a complete stretch to another person. In other words, this policy has less to do with litigation or copyright and more to do with just that it's very subjective.
Unless there is an obvious and unquestionable similarity to a character or franchise, it's more likely to be a generic reference than something specific, so if we're going to speculate, it's better to keep things general. For example, we state that Naclstack resembles voxel artwork rather than a specific reference like Minecraft, as this art style is not unique to Minecraft. Landfish7 16:54, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- It not being based in copyright makes sense, I never quite understood what a legal Toho representative who was looking to sue Pokémon would get out of "Origin: Baxcalibur is most likely based off Godzilla" that they couldn't have gotten out of just looking at it. Regardless, the speculative nature of the origin sections on Bulbapedia should more than make up for something like supposed shortcomings. Pokémon like Gorebyss and Slowbro have completely speculative origin sections, for example; and without being able to say Baxcalibur's origin as a Godzillike, its origin section as is is completely speculative, and gives the air of pussyfooting around Godzilla rather than embracing it.
- Also, there are plenty of cases where we're allowed to speculate something in Pokémon's origins being rooted in pop culture. Tangela's origin section specifically mentions "It!", Kadabra's mentions "The Metamorphosis", and pretty much all the trivia in each Pokéstar Studios film talks about what they're referencing, to say nothing of when anime episodes and manga chapters are allowed to explicitly say what references are contained in each one. It doesn't make much sense to have a double standard, allowing some references to be pointed out but not others. -- Buwbasaur (talk) 3:32, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- Specific exceptions can be granted on a case-by-case basis, but I think the fact that we allow speculation in Trivia sections at all isn't a reason to not have some limitations to it. In this case, while mentioning a specific movie or episode of a TV show or something is usually fine, the current policy stands that these references aren't to be made for specific characters or overall franchises. Speculation isn't a free-for-all, as explained in the policy I linked earlier, and I don't think it would be helpful or useful to ultimately end up listing out every possible loose reference people can come up with. Speculation is far more likely to be excluded than included, within reason, and a lot of speculation on articles could definitely be cleaned up. Now if a discussion here indicates a strong consensus in favor of including a specific character as a reference, it might be something to consider, but at the moment no such consensus exists here on the wiki. Landfish7 19:41, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- After lengthy discussion about this topic on Discord, I've gone ahead and made a talk page discussion on the policy talk page since I believe the issue is with the policy itself rather than any specific Pokémon. Meeper12346 (talk) 20:00, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- Specific exceptions can be granted on a case-by-case basis, but I think the fact that we allow speculation in Trivia sections at all isn't a reason to not have some limitations to it. In this case, while mentioning a specific movie or episode of a TV show or something is usually fine, the current policy stands that these references aren't to be made for specific characters or overall franchises. Speculation isn't a free-for-all, as explained in the policy I linked earlier, and I don't think it would be helpful or useful to ultimately end up listing out every possible loose reference people can come up with. Speculation is far more likely to be excluded than included, within reason, and a lot of speculation on articles could definitely be cleaned up. Now if a discussion here indicates a strong consensus in favor of including a specific character as a reference, it might be something to consider, but at the moment no such consensus exists here on the wiki. Landfish7 19:41, 30 April 2024 (UTC)