The Universal Counting Method

[SofaMan]

+ "i before e except after c" except for beige, cleidoic, codeine, conscience, deify, deity, deign, dreidel, eider, eight, either, feign, feint, feisty, foreign, forfeit, freight, gleisation, gneiss, greige, greisen, heifer, heigh-ho, height, heinous, heir, heist, leitmotiv, neigh, neighbor, neither, peignoir, prescient, rein, science, seiche, seidel, seine, seismic, seize, sheik, society, sovereign, surfeit, teiid, veil, vein, weight, weir and weird. Good rule, eh?

On a trivial off-topic note, let's not forget that at least half a dozen of those words originated in German, and one is Arabic. English is a very accepting language.

[Saintly]

sorry jumping in alittle late with my two cents...

isn't the votes THE democractic system for what counts in the UCM? :/

speaking of the UCM, when is the 2008 polling beginning??

[GoktimusPrime]

That's the only issue I see too. Well not the only one, I'll get to that later.

Why do revoltings count and replicas don't? As far as I'm concerned, none of those should count as they don't transform.

Because that's what the majority of voters elected for. Please stop trying to derail this thread by opening debate about it.

[jaydisc]

Please stop trying to derail this thread by opening debate about it.

This is the part I find the most challenging. Why is it closed to debate? Talk is cheap and free. No one is forcing your hand to change anything or re-poll, but if people want to discuss it, why not?

[GoktimusPrime]

First of all we've already HAD the debate in 2005-2007. For every one of those Articles, there were debates! Every time a rule was added, there were polls - and on every poll thread, people debated. And not just here, the debates raged across numerous Transformer forums where fans from around the world debated over each of the merits of having a universal counting method and the individual articles over a period of 2 years.

That was the window of opportunity to submit your arguments -- once the results were collated for the 2007 Collection Survey, the debating was CLOSED. The system has now been made. There is nothing to be gained over debating over the Articles that already exist because they have been LOCKED. And as dirge explained, in order for the annual survey to work, they must be locked.

Further Articles will be added as the need arises, and everyone will be welcome to come and debate those future issues when it happens. But the window of opportunity for debating the issues covered in Articles 02-19 has already passed.

Secondly, it has NEVER been the intention of this thread to re-open debate about the issues in Articles 02-19 or to re-open debate about the merits of having a universal/common counting method. I made this thread as a handy quick reference and questions about clarification of existing articles is fine.

This is the absolute last time I am going to ask people to STOP trying to derail this thread by trying to re-open these old, old debates.

Thank you.

[Saintly]

delete all the posts and lock for comments

[SofaMan]

Poor Gok - every time this thread gets relaunched, always the debates start again.

I'm in agreeance with Gok and Dirge here, Jaydisc. How you count your own collection is up to you - for the purposes of meaningful data comparison, the terms of reference must be clearly defined and consistent, which they are.

Try to think of this less as a democratic government process and more as a consultative academic one. Democratic governments have an obligation to periodically submit to democratic review. Academic consultation, once done, has no such obligation unless there is overhwelmingly compelling reasons, which in this case there is not.

Adding or changing articles must be done for compelling reasons, of which there are few (there may be reasons for occasionally adding new articles, but few reasons for changing existing ones, short of assigning new figures in existing definitions).

It is reasonable to suggest that most people would agree with most of the articles here, and even the ones that they disagree on may well amount to a bit of statistical noise for most collectors. I mean, we're only talking about numbering collections to the nearest 100, for heaven's sake. A slight difference in a definition from your own count to that of the universal system probably won't make a big difference to the number you put in the survey anyway.

I mean, I don't count doubles in my collection, but I have so few doubles anyway that they wouldn't affect my 'nearest 100' count anyway.

[jaydisc]

I'm in agreeance with Gok and Dirge here, Jaydisc.

Don't worry about me. I've conceded. I will either play ball for the survey or not participate.

I just find it quite funny that after I had conceded, someone else complained (MV75) and someone else asked about re-polling (Saintly). To me, this just shows the inevitability that this topic will always attract discussion and debate, regardless of whether or not Gok is going to do anything about it (and at this point, I"m quite confident he won't).

Therefore, I must ask, what's the real issue? Is it:

1. The fact that people are commenting on, complaining about or debating the UCM? or
2. The fact that the debate and discussion is happening in this thread?

If it's the latter, why don't the mods lock it up. If it's the former, "tough" I say.

[Borgeman]

First of all we've already HAD the debate in 2005-2007...That was the window of opportunity to submit your arguments -- once the results were collated for the 2007 Collection Survey, the debating was CLOSED.

Debates and discussions are never closed, thats what makes them debates and discussions. Myself and many others here were not present for most/all of these articles, and hence had no say in their conception. That is why we are questioning them now. Just because you are not wanting to discuss it doesnt mean we cant. We arent all saying we WANT them changed - we just dont agree on all of them for various reasons.

This is the absolute last time I am going to ask people to STOP trying to derail this thread by trying to re-open these old, old debates.

They may be old debates for you, but not for many of us. No one is trying to derail this thread gok, we are allowed to discuss whatever (within reason) TF related things we want on this board, and you are not one to say otherwise. That is for the mods to detemine.

If you think what we are posting is wrong, then make a new thread with the counting guidelines, have a mod close the thread and sticky it, so we can all see it but not post in it. Then we can use this thread for our discussions - and that way, anyone who does not want to discuss the nature of the articles wont read this thread.

George

[dirge]

To me, this just shows the inevitability that this topic will always attract discussion and debate, regardless of whether or not Gok is going to do anything about it (and at this point, I"m quite confident he won't).

Therefore, I must ask, what's the real issue? Is it:

1. The fact that people are commenting on, complaining about or debating the UCM? or
2. The fact that the debate and discussion is happening in this thread?

There will always be disagreements on how to count... because:

1) There are so many variants... to the point where most of us would consider it ridiculous -

Fred's variants page


2) Hasbro & Takara have produced quite a few non-transforming, Transformers themed, lines. Other than Actionmasters, neither ever made any real effort to include (or exclude) them from the main line (especially Hasbro's recent movie spinoffs)

3) Some fans out there feel the need to boost their numbers in silly ways, others feel the need to apply purist standards. And everything in between (which is most of us).

Debates and discussions are never closed, thats what makes them debates and discussions.

Yes, but Goktimus has stated that this thread is not the place for that debate. End of the story (here). Respect that and debate in the appropriate location.

On that note:

Discussion of counting methods

Oh, and this thread isn't being locked, since this thread _is_ the place where new clauses will be added - and their polls announced. It _is_ also the place where we can ask for clarifications and the like.