Talk:Mata Nui Online Game

From BIONICLEsector01

Is there a place you can go to download this? --ToaJuaraevo01 (talk) 11:00, 3 September 2013 (PDT)

Matoran Identities

Greg just confirmed that the MNOG Sanctum Guard are Talvi and Pakastaa, BTW. --Angel Bob (talk) 15:14, 8 October 2014 (CEST)

Wow. I figured he'd give his usual "I don't know". Still, he didn't really confirm it, he just said it's a safe assumption. And this wiki does not assume, or make guesses, as far as I know.
Don't get me wrong; I'd love to see confirmation of that. While we at it, the Matoran in the Vahki online animations could be named, and some Matoran in the Bohrok Online Animations (Ally and Piatra). But I just don't think it'll happen. We were lucky we got Midak and the Mystery of Metru Nui Matoran.
But I'm not in charge. I say it's an assumption, and we shouldn't guess, but someone else could disagree.--Willess12 (talk) 17:10, 8 October 2014 (CEST)
I'm hesitant to give a final ruling on this. On the one hand, this is probably as certain as Greg can get, and there are a lot of clear-cut cases where we can put MNOLG Tohunga side-by-side with MNOLG2 Matoran and say, "Yes, that's them." But it's not consistent. Most of the Tohunga in Ta-Koro and Ga-Koro wore the same Kakama; we can't really do many positive IDs there. There are also a number of unique Tohunga that don't have counterpart Matoran, notably in Onu-Koro. And then there's Kotu, Taipu, Hafu, Kapura, all characters who changed their appearances between the two games. Who's to say others didn't follow suit?
I would love for this to be canon, but we can't be certain. We can assume, but assumptions aren't enough here; we have to know. I'm going to send a message to Templar; it's an incredibly, incredibly long shot, but if they can confirm that identical Tohunga and Matoran are meant to be the same characters, I think they can go on the pages. For now, they stay off. --Master of the Rahkshi Ask, and ye shall receive. Eventually. 19:42, 8 October 2014 (CEST)

Pardon me, but that's the most laughably ridiculous level of strict interpretation of canon I've ever encountered. Sure, some Matoran changed their appearance, but I would wager most of them did not change their jobs. Since these two hold the same job, the same appearance, and the same masks in both games, the logical conclusion is immediately apparent. For cases such as Agni supposedly sounding the horn in MNOGII, I understand the need for clarification, but this is just mind-numbingly obvious. --Angel Bob (talk) 21:25, 8 October 2014 (CEST)

Feel free to laugh all you want. But obvious ≠ true. Assumptions are not facts, and facts are what we put on the pages. Come back with a solid 'yes, if they look the same they are the same' from Greg, or better yet, from the guys who wrote the games, and I'll help you put all of them on the pages. But as it stands, this is speculation, and speculation does not go on the wiki proper. That is item #1 on the rules, and that doesn't change because all of us nod our heads and say, "Yes, that makes sense."
Like I said. I like the idea. I'd like to see this on the wiki. But until we get rock-solid confirmation, there's nothing to add. --Master of the Rahkshi Ask, and ye shall receive. Eventually. 22:10, 8 October 2014 (CEST)

Now people are adding the appearances again. My question is, should the pages be locked, like was the case with Lhikan? Until there's confirmation/denial.--Willess12 (talk) 02:32, 9 October 2014 (CEST)

I hate to double-post here, but okay, now people are editing every page with even a vague resemblance to their MNOG II counterparts. If I had authority, I'd say NO to all of this, but I don't, so, might someone with authority weigh in on this?

I hate to sound like I'm complaining, but people are taking this "guessing game" to the xtreme. And we seem to have agreed not to have anything assuming.

Just wondering, are all the people that have authority at NYCC or something? Again, not complaining; I'd pay to be at NYCC tomorrow.--Willess12 (talk) 03:08, 9 October 2014 (CEST)

(God, I WISH I was going to NYCC. Wasn't able to get in. I have some cool, unrelated news I'm working on as well, but that's gotta be saved for a bit later.)
Anyway, I thought MotR had it, but I've just been catching up.
I mean, Greg will very obviously say "yes" when asked further. That's a given. But since there are some discrepancies, apparently (I never got that far into MNOG2, so I'm not entirely qualified to place what where) I'd say create a list of all the pre and post appearances that are in question, then eliminate the ones where there is no evidence or that just wouldn't make any sense.
Locking the pages seems like a hassle, since it's just gonna be temporary anyway (and there are a lot of those Matoran pages...) -- I AM THE DOREK do not truffle with me 03:23, 9 October 2014 (CEST)
For your convenience, all of the Mata Nui Matoran that might be in question: Aft, Agni, Aodhan, Brander, Kalama, Keahi, Maglya, Tiribomba, Vohon, Arktinen, Jaa, Jaatiko, Kantai, Kokkan, Kylma, Lumi, Pakastaa, Talvi, Toudo, Amaya, Kai, Kailani, Kotu, Marka, Nireta, Okoth, Pelagia, Sasha, Ally, Bour, Epena, Gadjati, Golyo, Kamen, Kivi, Pekka, Piatra, Aiyetoro, Akamu, Azibo, Dorek, Dosne, Kaj, Mamru/Mamoru, Zemya, Kumo, Makani, Sanso, Tuuli, Vira. Believe it or not, I can recite all the Mata Nui Matoran from memory. (Not that I just did; I had that list already made for other reasons)

Oh yeah, and I suggested locking the pages before I noticed every page was being altered all of a sudden.--Willess12 (talk) 03:39, 9 October 2014 (CEST)

Dear lord, SOMEONE got a little carried away with this. The "Azibo" and "Mamru" edits don't even match in coloration, for god's sake!
I still endorse the Talvi and Pakastaa images, since they even share the same occupation; they're clearly the same individuals. However, this is just ridiculous. If that kind of answer from Greg is going to inspire some crazed upload of bad images on shaky logic, then I would join with MotR and say that's not clear enough clarification. This can't be tolerated. --Angel Bob (talk) 04:24, 9 October 2014 (CEST)

Yeah, this is one thing I was worried about. It's one thing to say an exact match is the same person, but 'close enough' just doesn't cut it. If this DOES wind up happening, we're going to have to lay down parameters of what is acceptably close, and we'll have to do it using exactly what they say. So, in essence, we need more confirmation. And until then, these images should stay off until we actually know what we're doing. --Master of the Rahkshi Ask, and ye shall receive. Eventually. 05:05, 9 October 2014 (CEST)

All right, I sent a message to Templar. They said they'd talk to people who were on the Bionicle teams and get back to me in a bit. --Master of the Rahkshi Ask, and ye shall receive. Eventually. 16:14, 9 October 2014 (CEST)

GOOD NEWS! I got a response back from Templar, and it's almost everything we could hope for (response unedited except for the part where my real name was used):

Hi MotR!

Great question! Originally there was supposed to be a small fixed number of Matorans per village. In the movies there are thousands, but that’s past our time involved.

With the original McDonalds kids-meal Villagers toys (when they were called Tohunga) there were 2 named ‘hero’ characters from each village, 12 in total. These characters are all make up the fellowship in MNOLG: Kapura, Taipu, Tamaru, Maku etc.

These hero characters had names, masks and color configurations designated by LEGO, as well as minor personality and ability traits: Captain of the guard. Afraid to fly. Farts fire etc.

We were free to make up the other villagers based on color combinations assigned to each region. Ta-Wahi is red, black, yellow, orange. Ko-Wahi is white, grey, lightblue. Po-Wahi Black, grey, brown, orange etc

We didn’t have names for all of them, but we’d keep track of their look to keep diversity. eg Po-Wahi GoatHandler is black Kakama, tan body, brown feet.

In Hahli’s Quest the number of Matorans was cut down to just 20(?) per village. We tried to reuse as many of the notable BG characters as possible, since they were the same villagers just upgraded.

They all got names, professions and personalities and some even went on to become Toa themselves! Nice going Nuparu!

So Yes, if you see the same character mask/color combinations in MNLOG1 & 2 it’s probably supposed to be the same character.

in 2003 LEGO moved Bionicle development to their UK offices so we weren’t that involved when we worked on the Vahki animations. All we knew was setting, bad guys and abilities. The matorans shown are hapless randoms, any similarity is purely coincidental.

Hope that answered your question, feel free to ask any others!

Cheers

Gordo

So, based on this, the important thing seems to be (apart from the fact that the farting thing was NOT Templar's fault) that Matoran with the same color configurations and the same jobs ARE the same characters. Unfortunately, this does not extend to the Vahki animations, so those Matoran will have to stay anonymous.

So, my ruling is: same colors, same mask, same job, same character. If the mask but not the colors match up, it's a different guy/gal. Same goes for the job; if the appearance matches but not the occupation, it's a different character. If there are any ambiguous examples, bring them up here and we can sort them out on a case-by-case basis.

AND BETTER NEWS! Yes, that last line means exactly what you think it means: they've given me permission to send them any other questions we may have. In fact, they're grateful there are still people around who care about their work. :) So if you guys have any questions about things of this nature, put them on my talkpage and I'll compile emails to send; I probably won't do it that often, though, I get the impression they're pretty busy and I don't want to wear out their goodwill. Let's handle this carefully. --Master of the Rahkshi Ask, and ye shall receive. Eventually. 21:05, 21 October 2014 (CEST)

Looking at a few sample areas, I think some MINOR fudging of colors would be acceptable. I'm talking shades, not different colors entirely. So, blue -> light blue = acceptable. HOWEVER, black -> orange = not acceptable. Sound good? --Master of the Rahkshi Ask, and ye shall receive. Eventually. 21:59, 21 October 2014 (CEST)

Wow, seems like everything worked out just as well as it could have. I'll leave the honors to other editors, but I'm glad to see this finally cleared up. --Angel Bob (talk) 03:32, 22 October 2014 (CEST)

I'm glad we cleared this all up so well. Shout-out to Templar for the awesome help! LockmanCapulet Crusty relics! 17:21, 22 October 2014 (CEST)

Character list

Yeah, yeah, I know it's not this wiki's custom to have character lists for games, but with the confirmation of the MNOG Matoran being the same as the MNOG II Matoran, this page probably needs one.--Willess12 (talk) 18:33, 6 November 2014 (CET)

Last Update

The head says that the last intro was in December, but the Chapters subsection says the last one was September. Master Inika (Talk) 01:56, 15 January 2015 (CET)

Matoran identities continued

I think a lot of the recent edits linking MNOG and MNOG2 Matoran are pretty reasonable. Still I want to list potential problems for the sake of reference/to spur discussion. Here they are, in rough order from most to least significant.

  • Amaya: The Matoran in the MNOG is guarding Ga-Koro, but Amaya is not a guard in MNOG2.
  • Shasa: The Matoran in the MNOG is guarding Ga-Koro but Amaya is not a guard in MNOG2.
  • Tuuli: As far as I know, the Matoran in the MNOG only shows up in one cutscene jumping on a Kahu to fly to the Nui-Rama hive—so it seems like he's part of the Gukko force, not a trader like Tuuli.
  • Epena: There's nothing indicating the Matoran in the MNOG has Epena's job.
  • Gadjati: There's nothing indicating the Matoran in the MNOG has Gadjati's job.
  • Kumo: There's nothing indicating the Matoran in the MNOG has Kumo's job.
  • Pekka (Bohrok Online Animations): There's nothing indicating the Matoran in the animation has Pekka's job.
  • Aiyetoro: Most of the background miners in the MNOG look pretty generic (all their armor and masks are black). The resemblance between Aiyetoro from MNOG2 and the sleeping miner in the MNOG may be a coincidence.
  • Kai: A Matoran that looks like Kai is weaving in the MNOG, but there are two other Matoran in the same scene who also have Kakamas, so it seems it's likely a generic Matoran rather than a specific character.
  • Zemya: The Matoran that looks like him is referred to as "Guildmaster" of the Trading Guilds rather than a plain old "Trader" in MNOG. The Matoran in question is most definitely Zemya, but it's worth mentioning.

And here are some that are beyond doubt:

  • Marka: same coloring more or less, same mask, same job
  • Sanso: same coloring more or less, same mask, same job
  • Makani: same coloring, same mask, same job
  • Vira: (Matau's Toa Metru Mini Promo CD): same coloring, same mask, similar jobs (chute station attendant and air traffic controller)
  • Damek: same coloring, same mask, same job
  • Kaj: same coloring, same mask, same job
  • Jaa: same coloring, same mask, same job
  • Lumi: same coloring, same mask, same job
  • Pakastaa: same coloring, same mask, same job
  • Talvi: same coloring, same mask, same job
  • Agni: same coloring, same mask, same job
  • Kalama (Bohrok-Kal Online Animations): same coloring, same mask, same job
  • Keahi (Bohrok-Kal Online Animations): same coloring, same mask, same job
  • Maglya: same coloring, same mask, same job. Also a Kakama background character like Kai, so maybe Kai should be on this list instead.
  • Ally: (Bohrok Online Animations): same coloring, same mask, same job
  • Piatra (Bohrok Online Animations): same coloring, same mask, same job

Finally, we should add a MNOG image for Mamru, the Chief Prospector in both games.

-- Morris the Mata Nui Cow (talk) 04:05, 14 October 2016 (CET)

In the MNOG the Chief Prospector's mask is black, in the MNOG2 the mask is orange, that's the reason why I didn't add it yet. And Vira is mentioned in the MNOG2 by a Le-Matoran (Maybe by Kongu, I'm not sure...). Also Tuuli was dancing after Lewa got his Golden Mask. About Amaya, Shasa and Pekka: the whole island was a battlefield, don't be surprised if a matoran acted like a soldier rather than doing his/or own job. -- Surel-Nuva (Talk) 11:11, 14 October 2016 (CET)


Could Azibo be the matoran from picture on the right? Azibo had Kanohi Matatu. And Mamru wore black Mahiki in MNOG, but he wore an orange one in MNOG2, so Azibo's mask color could change like this, I think. And could the Rau wearer-Matoran be a Akamu from the picture on the left? -- Surel-Nuva (Talk) 12:17, 14 October 2016 (CET) Is he Azibo? Is the Rau wearer Akamu?

And, Can I add the two matoran's pictures to the galleries from an unused scene of the MNOLG? One is a Purple Akaku wearer (whose mask is mirrored, and asked you "Join search party for Onua?") and a purple Rau wearer, who holds a torch. -- Surel-Nuva (Talk) 12:46, 14 October 2016 (CET)
I think Mamru is fine because a) the foreman in the MNOG has the same armor coloring, sans mask, b) the mask design is the same, and c) the character is unique enough (unique job, plus you actually speak with him in MNOG) that the designers probably intended the MNOG foreman to be Mamru. Also, I think orange was only introduced as a mask color for Onu-Matoran in 2002 when Nuparu came out, so none of the MNOG Onu-Matoran had orange masks. That excuses the change at least somewhat. If the mask changed from black to purple I'd be less convinced.
Gonna ixnay Azibo and Akamu. Azibo would be convenient since he's a prospector, but all his armor is colored differently than the MNOG Matoran. (If it were just his mask turning orange like Mamru, I'd give him a pass.) Akamu is a crafter, not a miner, and his mask color is different. (Again, I think an exception can be made for Mamru since Onu-Matoran didn't wear orange masks until 2002.) Plus all the strikers are super generic, I don't think they were intended as actual characters. (In fact on second thought I think Aiyetoro should be removed for similar reasons, unless there's some comment about him being sleepy in MNOG2, but I don't think there is.)
Finally if the Onu-Matoran only show up in unused scenes, they aren't canon, so they shouldn't go in the gallery. -- Morris the Mata Nui Cow (talk) 01:43, 15 October 2016 (CET)

Chapter headers

In the "Chapters" section, what do you guys think of adding each chapter number alongside each chapter date? The chapter numbers would reflect the order in which they were released (e.g., Ta-Koro would be Chapter 2, not 3). Then all MNOG refs would cite chapters based on their number in-game, not their release date or their number in the walkthrough. This, combined with the new note about chapter numbers on the walkthrough page, should be enough to make MNOG refs consistent and unambiguous. -- Morris the Mata Nui Cow (talk) 04:31, 30 March 2017 (CET)

A little in-game error I found

While I was playing the game today, I noticed an error that I haven't seen anyone else talk about. If you ask Maku "What happened?", then say that you can't help her, and finally click on the stone with the red arrow, you end up at the pier in Po-Koro. Although nothing too special, I think it might be interesting to have in the Trivia section. But first, we need to make sure that this happens in every copy of the game, as it may simply be a problem of the one I downloaded. I can't use my PC right now, and I won't be able to use it for hours, so can somebody here check other versions? ~OnionShark 23:41, 29 July 2017 (CET)

This happens on the version hosted on templar.com too. -- Morris the Mata Nui Cow (talk) 00:12, 30 July 2017 (CET)
And happens in the original one what I downloaded from the archived BIONICLE.com link. — SurelNuva (Talk) 00:17, 30 July 2017 (CET)
onion, were you playing the game not on a pc? also, i think we should note somewhere that this error was found 16 years after the game's release 0 that's kinda cool/special that it wasn't noticed before. Intelligence4 (talk) 02:29, 30 July 2017 (CET)
No, I was playing the game on PC, then I got out of home and had to stay there for some hours. It's then that I had the idea of adding this piece of trivia. Anyway, it seems that there's enough reason to add it. Should we use this page as a citation for the fact that it was found 16 years later? ~OnionShark 10:35, 30 July 2017 (CET)
Just to clairify. I downloaded the game in 2008 and I noticed it when I first played, but I thought it's all right fir it's just an old game. I also checked every file of the game which indicated that it's not a mistake for you can travel in Po-Wahi and if you rotate back you can see the Po-Matoran Pekka clone with Macku on the beach. Exactly, it happens just after the flashback cutscene. I thought everyone noticed that before, that could be the reason why it is not a trivia. — SurelNuva (Talk) 14:27, 30 July 2017 (CET)

I just checked this myself with the templar version. are we sure it's a bug, not a feature? ("feature" lol) When you turn around, you're in po-wahi, and you can go forward and explore and such. but if you turn back to the pier, macku and the po-matoran with the hau are standing there waving at you - same as later in the game except there's no maku - i'm highly inclined to say that it's a glitch b/c you start off in ta-wahi, but you're not shown traveling anywhere, and then you're in po-wahi, but the one thing that's holding me back is we could explain it as takua and macku traveled to po-wahi while she was telling her story - there's a cutscene in there, after all. and if you say you'll help, then you're immediately ferried to ga-koro. thoughts? Intelligence4 (talk) 20:13, 30 July 2017 (CET)

aaand sorry to double post, but just to double check: are we sure there's no way to get to ga-koro besides by boat? here's what i'm thinking: since you can't get to ga-koro another way, they still wanted the game to be playable if you declined maku's offer. since, during the original release, there was lava preventing access to ta-koro, you were just defaulted to po-wahi, so that you could still play the game. we should check if you can, using this starting route/strategy, still get to ta-wahi through the tunnels, or if that's blocked off somehow. Intelligence4 (talk) 20:20, 30 July 2017 (CET)
update: you can travel to ta-wahi on the templar version, but i wonder if that's just because the whole game is unlocked in that version - or really any version available today, i guess. from there, if you walk to the beach, maku's not there but her boat is. you can use that boat to travel to ga-koro, and there's smoke coming from the village. i didn't try to go past the gate. then if you go back to the boat, you can travel back to the ta-wahi beach, but maku's still not there. you can then only use the boat to travel to ga-koro. if you do that, it gives you the option, as it did before, to travel to either po or ta koro, but choosing either of those options will put you right back on the ta-wahi beach. if you walk from there all the way through the tunnels back to po-koro, the dude is there, and the boat is there, per usual, but maku isn't. the boat can take you only to ga-koro (per usual) but from there you can only end up back on the ta-wahi beach, no matter what option you click. Intelligence4 (talk) 20:44, 30 July 2017 (CET)
then you can go into ga-koro and do the usual thing with the gali cutscene, and after that you can go to po-wahi normally. maku is in her hut btw, and only says that she hears po-wahi is in trouble. this was all with the templar online version. Intelligence4 (talk) 20:50, 30 July 2017 (CET)
Haven't you tried the one what you can download from the official archived bionicle website? I'm using/playing this, that's why I'm asking, but from the BMP you can download the one what's identical to the original, where you should see the Tahu cutscene what from the other versions, is removed. — SurelNuva (Talk) 21:53, 30 July 2017 (CET)

Does anyone care about this anymore? it's been almost a month since i've been on here bc real life happened, and i've got a ton of stuff on my watchlist to catchup on, and the plethora of recent edits (i tried opening them all and it actually crashed my browser lol). anyway, iirc, the tahu cutscene is still there, but the version that was removed was the part where the lava was blocking your path bc that part of the game hadn't been released yet. Intelligence4 (talk) 19:37, 29 August 2017 (CET)

"Speculation"

It's been, like, ten years since I did any significant editing on BS01 and I guess "no speculation at all" is A Thing here, but it seems needlessly... anti-informative to strip relevant contextual information just because it can only be inferred, and technically not 100% proven. It's technically not confirmed that Templar were given reference material from the development of the PC game, but we can infer it with near-certainty. Unless, that is, Templar just happened to design MNOG Ga-Koro to look exactly TLOMN's alpha Ga-Koro map. Or just happened to have the Toa circle up around the Suva-Kaita, switch to their Gold Masks, and then release the Makoki stones which flash on and off with light as they float together in a way that's identical to TLOMN's equivalent cutscene. And so on. Jalaguy (talk) 15:23, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Chiming in here feels a little silly, seeing as yesterday's edits were entirely the product of conversations between Jalaguy and I elsewhere (and most of the information I added to the page was based on his insights), but suffice to say I agree with this entirely.
To add my own viewpoint, I don't wanna barge in and be like "no, this is all wrong," but I've been quietly using BS01 for many years as a source of information and (even as a lifelong Bionicle fan!) consistently struggle to make sense of information on the franchise which should, by all accounts, be very basic. In trying to present a wholly-impartial view of the BIONICLE franchise, where the canonicity of every page and statement is rigorously tested, I think that this site has committed a very real kind of revisionism of its own. The page for the Mata Nui Online Game uses the name "Teridax", which appears nowhere in the game and was only invented years after its release - yet nowhere on the page is attention brought to this fact. Biosector01 treats the Bionicle universe as though it sprang into existence fully-formed at the beginning of 2001, while in reality it was an imperfect and often inconsistent web spun over the course of a decade. Those imperfections and inconsistencies were often explained away thanks to the diligence of Greg Farshtey, but it's not enough to explain how those inconsistencies went away - you must explain how they came to be, and the only way of doing that is by looking at the real-world events. Doing so is vital to understanding the shape of the BIONICLE franchise. Statements such as "it seems likely that" and "one possible explanation" may be speculation, but they are not misinformation - misinformation is pointing out the inconsistencies, and then shrugging as if there is no explanation whatsoever.
Many of the additions to the MNOG page across the subsequent edits have built on my own in a very constructive way - I'm only passingly familiar with content from the serials, for instance, and having those connections pointed out is valuable. In many places, the edits have improved the readability of what I added, and I appreciate that as well. However, a lot of the observations which have been removed are, I think, crucial to understanding the development of the earliest parts of the Bionicle story. Maybe not individually, but at least as part of a bigger picture.
I'm currently starting on a big read-through of, well, basically the whole story, and I'd kinda been planning to come here to help out - but I don't want to have to fight over each new bullet point. Y'all get, like, a dozen edits per day. Jalaguy and I want to help. Can we work something out? --The Wadapan (talk) 18:33, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

There's a few things here, so I'll do my best to tackle them in order (and let me know if I missed anything).

  1. "No speculation at all": While I'll argue against the point that it's anti-informative, yeah, that's been our watchword from the beginning. As somebody who has been going through a lot of the history lately and trying to include things about development that were taken for granted, I most certainly empathize with wanting to get into the nitty gritty. There's sort of two parts to this; one is the language of the inference, and the other is the relevance threshold.
    Speculation is just a non-starter in general; there are alternative explanations (maybe they were given the same materials independently and never spoke to one another), but our job also isn't necessarily to MAKE that inference in the first place.
    This is where the language part comes in; generally speaking, I'm okay with presenting the information in an informative, unbiased way (i.e. "the scene in X is identical to/strongly resembles the scene in Y). There's nothing inherently wrong with that, and if the reader wants to make those assumptions, that's on them, and not in the way we have compiled the information.
    However, this is where the relevance threshold comes in. Is that information contextually useful TO anything? (I always like to say that information needs to be relevant to more than just itself.) If there is a link in the development, then yeah, that's interesting to the history and development of BIONICLE! But the strongest maybe is still weak. That's a standard we've always used.
  2. "Revisionism": To the point of the names, this isn't necessarily something I disagree with! I have a very constant struggle of figuring out how to present things, be it historically or holistically. On the one hand, you're right, Makuta is never referred to as "Teridax" (obviously) in MNOG. And to somebody new reading the page, that might be confusing, which is something I really don't want! That said, there is a difference between your point of presenting things as "fully formed" and information existing in a vacuum. Just because the character is not called that doesn't mean that's not his name, as clarified by what we have since learned in the story. Context, in this instance, is key: is this a historical account of the development, or is this a summary of the story? The application will change based on the context, because that's just the world we live in. But there does need to be a happy medium, and, surprise, that happy medium is extra legwork of citations, footnotes, pop-up text, and all those other pesky asides that we don't want to deal with unless we have to, which we absolutely should. (And there's always the added complexity of using the pre-Naming Day names because I'm never quiiiiite sure to what extent we can use those). But in that instance, just because it didn't happen doesn't necessarily mean nobody wanted it to happen, and it's great that it was brought up.
  3. "Misinformation": On that point, I think I disagree entirely. Pointing out inaccuracies (preferably with some hard data) allows people to understand the historical context and make their own informed decisions on how they want to engage with and experience the media. Presenting a narrative (even a compelling or potentially accurate one) without backing that up with data does a huge disservice to the reader and to the people this history is supposed to reflect.

Of course, there's always the obvious... has anybody tried contacting Templar to ask? We've hosted conversations with them before, and judging by their social media they're still active and remember a fair bit about their history. We could get it straight from the horse's mouth.

At the end of the day, I'm always going to ask people to do their homework and cite their sources, irrespective of what gives us more hits or traffic. To me, that's more important now than it ever was, because information decay is a real thing, and what we see now might not have the same kind of verification in the future.

I love that people are still passionate enough to bring these kinds of things up! I just want to make sure we're doing what we do in the most responsible way possible, because that's how we've gotten to where we are today. -- Dorek Talk external image 00:19, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

+1ing what Dorek wrote, but I'd like to add a few more things.
BS01's promise: BS01's promise to the fan community is available here. It needs a rewrite (it's corny and doesn't acknowledge gray areas, to name a few issues) but it does get our intent across. The tl;dr is that we'd much rather leave articles incomplete than inaccurate.
It's true, the staff expects more citation legwork from editors than we used to, and as pointed out earlier the site doesn't get that many edits per day, so the staff team really can (and does) go through every edit with a fine-toothed comb. We don't want you guys to feel like you have to argue over your every edit--it's frustrating, trust me, I get it! But in some sense we do expect you "defend" your edits by keeping them factual and by grounding them in citations.
The MNOG edit in particular: As for the edit itself, a lot of the speculation that I removed hinged on the assumption that Saffire shared resources with Templar. As Dorek points out, that is not the only plausible explanation, at least not given the evidence that I am aware of. (If there is evidence that eliminates other possibilities, please let us know! That would be valuable info to put on the page.) Again, BS01 is committed to not presenting false info, even if reaching that goal means we risk leaving out correct info, so I removed the Saffire speculation.
Now I would also like to note that I didn't delete everything to do with speculation. For example, you wrote:

In the fight between Lewa and Onua, the Matoran numbers 0 and 1 rapidly flash behind the characters when the Kanohi Komau is being used - presumably referencing binary numbers as the Mask of Mind Control "reprograms" the bio-mechanical Nui-Kopen.

which I changed to:

In the fight between Lewa and Onua, the Matoran numbers 0 and 1 rapidly flash behind the characters as Lewa uses his Kanohi Komau to control the mind of a Nui-Kopen.

Nothing was really lost by removing the speculation imo--readers can easily fill in the why on their own.
Also, you wrote:

Hafu and Taipu's Kanohi were swapped at some point in development - presumably as a result of their otherwise-identical coloration.

which I changed to:

Hafu and Taipu's Kanohi were swapped at some point in development, perhaps due to their identical coloration.

In this example, language matters. "Presumably" signals to the reader "we at BS01 are confident that this explanation is correct" while "perhaps" is less authoritative--it says "hey, this is one possible explanation, but maybe we're missing something!" Yes, I imagine Taipu and Hafu were probably switched because they look similar. But who knows, maybe TLG sent Templar materials with their names swapped! We can't really be sure without more info, and we have to be careful that our wording doesn't send the wrong message.
Please don't get me wrong--you added good material to the MNOG article and we'd very much appreciate future edits from you guys! But there is a difference between presenting all the evidence that leads to a conclusion, and presenting the conclusion itself. We have no problem putting all the dots on the page, but we won't connect them. If we draw the wrong conclusions, we risk breaking our promise to the community.
You may disagree with our reasoning, but if nothing else, I hope Dorek's and my responses show that the staff has put a fair bit of thought into BS01's speculation policies. I'll gladly discuss any of this further if you want. -- Morris the Mata Nui Cow (talk) 22:33, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
Been a lil busy these last couple of days, but I figure I owe y'all a talkpost. After carefully reading these responses, the site's promise, and batting ideas back and forth with Jalaguy, we've come to the conclusion that we're probably just gonna take our leave for now; the ideological divides here run deeper than we thought, and while we're pretty strongly convinced of our position, we don't think we stand much of a chance of convincing y'all we're right. (I for one really struggle with the asynchronicity of forums/talkpages, a fact which makes me much more inclined to give up than to push the issue.) I'm glad some of what I've offered's been of use so far, and hope the content at my sandbox proves useful (if that proposal goes ahead). Y'all have crafted a very valuable resource here, and though I think it could be more than it is, I wish you luck with it all the same. --The Wadapan (talk) 00:18, 1 July 2019 (UTC)