Aren't we being too pedantic about "official toys"?

[Pontus]

I've yet to see any rules as such, and even if so, it's obviously not even consistent, but why is the Toy section only for official "Macross" toys and not Robotech/HG?

We have threads in the Toy section for Toynami which is clearly not official.  There's even a morally questionable gray market thread in Toys.  And the recently purchased thread is full of non-macross.

So why the mixed messaging?  @Stampeed Valkyrie just had his post about the latest release of Caliber Wings closed.  I realize that was because there was already an existing thread, but it's not in the Toy section just like his KitzConcept thread (and why not merge them instead of closing it).  I've totally missed these threads until recently because I didn't know they didn't belong in "toys" for some strange reason.  I would think that Kitz and Caliber should be moved into the official toy forum.

Sorry if I'm being rude or ignorant here, but it just seems odd and causes people to miss things in an unexpected forum (or at least it did for me).  I understand some people don't like HG for good reason, but they're still Macross toys.  That just seems pedantic and silly.

[jenius]

Convert this to a poll thread and let's vote if Robotech and KO toys should all just go under one 'toy' section.

I assume you would put Mospeada in 'other anime' still? 

[Seto Kaiba]

I'm not much of a toy collector, but isn't the reason for the seemingly incongruous approach is that it predates the settling of Big West and Harmony Gold's rights dispute by like 20 years?  Y'know, back when there was an abundant wellspring of ill will towards Harmony Gold over their Macross licensing embargo?  

Standards have just gradually relaxed over the years as various methods to circumvent the problem emerged and Robotech's toy line began producing products other than copies of official Macross goods.

Now that both parties have buried the hatchet and Big West has partial control over Robotech, the reasons to make a firm distinction are fewer and farther between.

[Big s]

3 hours ago, Pontus said:

We have threads in the Toy section for Toynami which is clearly not official.  There's even a morally questionable gray market thread in Toys.  And the recently purchased thread is full of non-macross.

Toynami at one point had official Macross toys when they first started. They even did items for the Macross movie. That was back when they were doing upscaled Banpresto Valkyries. I think there was a bit of licensing issues and they eventually could only do the Robotech branding and only items from the original Macross. 

Now I will say official as in they were branded Macross, but I’m not so sure if they were official by a licensing standpoint.

I do feel that the Robotech toys from Macross should stay separate from the real Macross stuff though. As far as knockoffs, it’s kinda fun to show some of the ones that are based on the original toys kinda like the knockoffs of the Takatoku’s, but I think a third party item wether it’s a quality item or a trash item should be in a separate section if it isn’t based of an official toy

[Pontus]

1 hour ago, jenius said:

Convert this to a poll thread and let's vote if Robotech and KO toys should all just go under one 'toy' section.

I assume you would put Mospeada in 'other anime' still? 

I considered that for a minute, and I see the wisdom in letting the community decide, but this seems to have been addressed solely through moderation, not community, or else everyone would complain whenever an offending post is made.  So far, I haven't seen any of that, so obviously the community at large doesn't really care.  And since this seems to me to be a common sense issue, I don't think asking for a poll will do anything except cloud the issue when it could just be decided by common sense moderation and done.

It seems like the frustration and dislike for HG or Robotech is being taken out on forum members who buy the stuff despite these past issues and just want to discuss them with their peers.  Closing threads without merging and telling people their posts about Macross toys don't belong in the forum pertaining to it only serves to alienate and lose members that I don't feel we can afford to lose.

As for Mospeada... it might be a non-canon extension to our beloved OG Macross through HG BS we don't like, but a lot of us grew up on that.  I don't see why we can't evolve as a forum to include it (I'm personally not a fan, but I'm open to allowing it).  Almost everyone who's a fan of Macross is also a fan of Orguss, Mospeada, and Southern Cross.  Perhaps we could create forums for those since there certainly seems to be enough love for them here.

Or, conversely, perhaps including Robotech and evolving as a forum would upset so many people here that THEY'D leave, and the status quo would be better.  So perhaps forgive me for saying as such, and I won't bring it up again.  As far as I'm concerned, do as the forum will, and I'll still keep posting if allowed.  I'm just perturbed about it I guess, not trying to create drama, just trying to see us evolve to be more inclusive (and less confusing). 

At least make the rules clear about it... but wouldn't that seem like a silly thing to sit down and write out what toys you can and cannot post about?  That's my point.

Edited November 1, 2023 by Pontus

[Stampeed Valkyrie]

I do agree that having a separate forum for Both RT "Macross" toys and Macross toys is silly.      I think the issues were with the all things RT were bad crowd,  this has largely abated as the fandom aged but its still there.       Call it Purists,  or Fanboys...  whatever.

Looking past that I want to talk about Calibre Wings directly..     Where in the MW rules does its say we cannot discuss Calibre Wings?

For those that don't know.. original post is here..  

 

Then when that thread closed.. I started this one.. 

 

My issue is that the thread was closed without any reason other then pointing back to a closed thread.      

I am not trying to pick on the Moderators here,  but really?       I want to discuss the product,  if I can't because the same few people are causing issues.. This seems to be the same in other threads, so deal with the trouble makers.   Simply put that is what a moderator is for.     

 

 

Sorry @Pontus  not trying to derail your thread..  your point is very valid just trying to show some history.

 

Edited November 1, 2023 by Stampeed Valkyrie
my derpness

[azrael]

4 hours ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

Looking past that I want to talk about Calibre Wings directly..     Where in the MW rules does its say we cannot discuss Calibre Wings?

For those that don't know.. original post is here..

Then when that thread closed.. I started this one.. 

That's because we locked it to let things cool off back then but forgot to reopen it. It's back open now.

[Seto Kaiba]

21 hours ago, Pontus said:

It seems like the frustration and dislike for HG or Robotech is being taken out on forum members who buy the stuff despite these past issues and just want to discuss them with their peers.  Closing threads without merging and telling people their posts about Macross toys don't belong in the forum pertaining to it only serves to alienate and lose members that I don't feel we can afford to lose.

To be fair, the site did and still does have the general rule "No Robotech"... and it wasn't exactly unjustified for Macross fans to take a dim view of supporting a company that was, at the time, actively working to keep legitimate Macross releases out of western hands. 🙄

 

21 hours ago, Pontus said:

As for Mospeada... it might be a non-canon extension to our beloved OG Macross through HG BS we don't like, but a lot of us grew up on that.  I don't see why we can't evolve as a forum to include it (I'm personally not a fan, but I'm open to allowing it).  Almost everyone who's a fan of Macross is also a fan of Orguss, Mospeada, and Southern Cross.  Perhaps we could create forums for those since there certainly seems to be enough love for them here.

With the legal dispute having effectively ended in a way that makes the distinction between the Japanese and western-licensed Macross toys academic, I don't see any reason to object to having those in the same area.  I think it would be better to keep content from unrelated properties like MOSPEADA separate however.

[Pontus]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

To be fair, the site did and still does have the general rule "No Robotech"... and it wasn't exactly unjustified for Macross fans to take a dim view of supporting a company that was, at the time, actively working to keep legitimate Macross releases out of western hands. 🙄

Quote

Section III: Robotech

Robotech may be discussed only as it relates to Macross. We do not want this forum to be another Robotech site. Macross World and its forums are dedicated to the original Japanese vision of Macross before Robotech changed so many aspects of it. Please do not just come here to attack or to defend Robotech or things related to it.

I guess I interpreted that as relating to discussion ABOUT Robotech, not toys that are identical in all other aspects (especially considering the inconsistency).  Some toys are only available as Robotech branded (like Kitz figures).  I guess the only real inconsistency was Toynami, but I didn't realize that they didn't start out that way and were sorta grandfathered in.

Anyway, sorry if I touched on a sore subject, and I'll shut up now.  Thank you to everyone that makes this site awesome despite all this Robotech doodoo.

On a side note, I had no idea there even were Robotech forums because why would you even go there if you knew it was just a hack job of Macross, lol.  Didn't make any sense to my brain, so the possibility didn't even enter my mind.

[Sanity is Optional]

Personally, I'd much rather see "robotech" merch in the Toys subforum than the daily multiple completely unrelated to macross in any way posts in the recent purchases thread on the toys subforum.

Especially with actual decent quality Robotech stuff starting to be produced these days, rather than just toynami figures.

As far as non-merch robotech stuff...that can definitely stay in the "Anime or Science Fiction" section.

[DewPoint]

I'm pretty much in the mind of letting the site owner decide how they want to do things as we don't pay anything into the site upkeep.  I also think that they have done an excellent job keeping this site out of trouble.

Maybe because I'm use to it, I like things the way they are.  If we let Robotech items into the Toys section, then we should let ALL toys into the toy section.  As I don't really collect Gundam, Votoms, Megazone, etc., I really don't want to sort through all of that.  But that's just me.

This is Macross World, so you know....

Edited November 5, 2023 by DewPoint
typos and such

[Shawn]

Thank you for the feedback it is always welcome!

I agree there are random 'it makes no sense type anomalies' like the crazy 'recent purchased Macross toy' thread that has all sorts of non-macross  related items, and HG Macross labeled toys in the generic Anime and Sci Fi section. I do think generally the rules worked well to corral our 20+ years of activity, even with some getting really seriously bent for long periods of time. I know we have some dirty bits, but we are not chaotic.

There definitely was a lingering long prior history that (unfortunately with many negatives) as the reason Robotech items having been confined to the generic anime forum vs the Macross toy forum.  Until recently its been very frustrating being a Macross fan outside of Japan with the license being in the state it was for 35+ years. Now that each side has chosen to agreeably stake out their claims, I agree some loosening of the older rules is probably warranted.

I don't necessarily want to see old Robotech Defender toys floating about in the Macross Toy section as one extreme, but I do think the new Valkyries from companies like Three-Zero are pretty cool, but they are labeled 'Robotech', not 'Macross' like some of the Toynami releases.

So does Robotech Three Zero get moved into the Macross Toy section next to the Bandai DX 1/48 thread?
Does an upcoming Robotech Bluray release get its own thread in the Macross Collectors section next to the upcoming Macross Zero release?

Let me think about it for a bit.

Thanks!
Shawn