POLL: BIONICLE G1 Canonization Contests?

It’s an interesting prospect, and one that I definitely sympathize with. Prior community-driven contests with a voting element have certainly devolved into popularity contests at points. Who’s to say what motivates a person to vote for a certain submission; the entry’s quality, or the reputation of its creator? There’s no real to tell for certain, but there have been definitely been elements of that in prior contests.

That being said… making it so the creators of the submissions are hidden doesn’t really do anything and serves as a complete half measure. We only have control over our platform; our boards, our channel, etc. That’s the only place our rules can be enforced. If someone truly famous in the community opts to enter our poll, what’s to stop them from promoting and publicizing their submission on the platform they’re famous on? All of their supporters (AKA the ones likely to vote for them anyway based upon their prestige) would see that it’s made by them and would flock to our polls anyway.

The way I see it, these things are unavoidable anytime that public voting is concerned… If you want to mitigate it, don’t look to us to make rules precluding people from joining simply based on their community status or hide the identity of the submissions’ creators; simply spread the word and encourage voting based upon the merits of the contest, those being… making good quality visual representations of BIONICLE characters. It’s an honest goal, so try to spread that message and keep the spirit alive. Hopefully people will listen, because that’s all that can really be done and all that we’re really willing to do.

-Mesonak

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Perhaps the conclusion is that you think that overcomplicating the entry process will remove an unavoidable issue, as well as preventing creators from discussing their entries until it doesn’t matter anymore.

In fact, I’d argue not trying to make things “anonymous” makes things more equal.

In the scenario you posited, one popular person says “this moc is mine” and swoops up all the vote. With the creator of each entry known, however, people may see a mom from a creator they like, who might not have promoted their own moc.

Perhaps, but these forums are already super clique-y. Doesn’t really matter I guess. Everyone here who is older on these forums is fairly in their ways. I was simply trying to provide a different perspective.

Which you did.

Yeah, maybe.

Sorry folks, this is gonna be a long one:

First of all, I agree with everything in Nitro’s comment, especially the part about masks. It just makes much more sence to focus on preexisting parts like G2 masks, Hero Factory Helmets, Throwbot and Roborder heads, and parts from other themes, withing reason, of course. If you wanted to use K2-SO’s head as a mask, you’d have to use it n a creative configuration, but you could still make t work, and there are HF helmets in their base-forms that just scream G1 Kanohi to me (such as Core Hunter and Stringer). Also, @Planetperson and others, if the concern is fitting the masks on G1 heads, just use Knights Kingdom visors- they can fit on a Metru head.

And, if you want to avoid bringing those pieces into canon, you could just build your own masks from preexisting small parts. Masks built this way always stand out to me as cool and creative.

This s assuming, of course, that the masks will be decided by MOC contests at all. I personally favor the use of art contests to make Kanohi designs. Or, what if we made Kanohi contests in the style of the G2 Mask of Creation contests, where MOCists can create them large-scale? That could give us some fun, new designs that would stand out from existing masks.

(also, if there’s ever a contest for a Skakdi, it would be a shame not to use the Black Phantom helmet with brick-built teeth.)

@Gilahu, about CCBS: You and many others including Messo have said that you “value the G1 aesthetic”. But I ask you- what aesthetic? If you compare Tahu '01 to Tahu '10, I would argue the two feature different aesthetics by definition, since they depict the same character, n the same form, in two different styles. I think that’s part of the beauty of Bionicle: seeing the hodge-podge of different characters in different styles come together on the same plane. I would say that the Toa Nuva feature a completely distinct aesthetic from the Toa Inika, but in canon they’re both valid. I think it would be a shame to discount someone’s interpretation because it features fewer pistons than a MOC from 2011, since, to be frank, it’s no longer 2011. Design sensibilities have shifted, and I think that the Bionicle canon should reflect this, not deny it.

I will say that @Gonel makes by far the best argument for limiting post-bionicle parts, but I would say a good compromise would be to not use the identity-centric pieces in the same way as the previous sets.For instance, I understand frowning upon the use of Hero chest plates and Shadow Traps being used in the same way as their original sets, but it would seem silly to limit their potential as creative armor and weapons.

Also, allowing Ben-10 parts will at least be essential to making a canon-aligning version of Artahka since Swampfire introduced so many sand-green parts.

@Mesonak, question: you’ve stated that this will only be for characters with speaking roles. This raises the question: what about Rahi? There are many species that effect the plot (especially during the Metru Nui years) that never got depicted (such as Trollers, Tunnelers, and Lava Eels). I would hope these would get depictions to, no?

Also and @Eljay may want to chime in on this one, I feel that pre-mutation Baraki would be significant, since they would provide us representatives for what are, canonically, the ‘six prime species’ of the Matoran Universe. Not only would this fill in some slots on the wiki, but it could also inspire a whole slew of new MOCs that would use these images as creative spring-boards for species formally to amorphous to make anything ‘official-looking’. I think that they would encourage creativity rather than quash it.

As for only allowing 3-D printed Masks and weapons, this just seems silly. People will inevitably use masks as armor (think Luker) and incorporate ‘weapons’ into the structure of their builds. That’s the beauty of Lego and Lego-compatible parts: you don’t have to use them for their intended purpose. As stated, I don’t think 3-D masks need to be involved anyway, but if you do allow them, you should go all the way.

Finally, I know that it isn’t what this poll is about, but I’ like to throw my voice into the course that suggests an Order of Mata Nui contest, a another time, perhaps. That, I think, would breath even more life into the community than these competitions.

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There is a scenario imaginable, where some well-known MOCist who is also active on another site can generate additional votes for themselves from people who would otherwise not have voted/don’t actually care that much.

But I agree with Meso here. There’s really no way to prevent that if we have an open vote. It’d all depend on the the competitors acting honorably.

This is an argument I’ve been trying to figure out how to make all along. Having an example to work off of provides a baseline. There are several species that we don’t know what they look like, or have only seen mutated/altered versions. If we had some sort of baseline model, all the people trying to make a MOC of the given species, now have a target to shoot for or overcome. I don’t know about anyone else but I find working from a given example to be quite freeing. It gives me somewhere to start, and I can jump from there and alter it on it’s own. In some ways, that’s how the Lego system works in general compared to others. With say… Clay, for example, you simply have raw material, and you have to decide how everything has to fit together, whether it can hold the weight, etc. With the Lego system, someone has already decided how everything fits together, the very basics of what the finished products look like. A Baseline has been established. If anything, a baseline established this way is better than the one established by the sets. This way, a majority can agree upon what the baseline should look like, as opposed to a set designer. In addition, odds are it will be less restrictive, because it would A) provide a looser footprint, compared to say the Mata or Metru builds, B) would only require pieces that already exist, instead of new pieces you have to buy a new set for, which, in the long run is more expensive.

On another point, having models for known species can help too. There are several toa elements that we know the colors of but not the ratios. Psionics is the most notable example. Psionics is blue and gold, well, Water can be blue and gold as well. How do we distinguish the two? How do those in the canon distinguish the two? We simply don’t know, and having a contest like this will fill in these gaps.

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I second this. Also I just really want to see the pre-mutation Barraki.

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This brings up an interesting issue that, as far as I know, hasn’t been considered–have we established whether or not canonizing certain masks as being shaped like parts from another theme might be a violation of copyright in any way? While we have implicit approval to alter the BIONICLE canon from Greg, Hero Factory is still owned by LEGO. I may be overthinking this, but could it be potentially problematic to canonize parts that are recognizably from another theme as canonical BIONICLE parts?

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Hero Factory is owned by Lego.
Bionicle is owned by Lego.
There’s no copyright issues.

Now something like Star wars, for example, might pose a problem-- if, for example, someone used a Grievous head on an Artahka Moc, or something.

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Most Lego contests on lego ideas for example have a rule to exclude pieces that are exclusive/representative for a third party license. I think an example they used was a stormtrooper helmet.
So I guess by those rules all HF helmests… should be fine, but no SW constraction heads

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I’d like to see a conclusion to the story more than I’d like to see a contest in all honesty. I’m down for them but only until we get a resolution to the story serials

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Unfortunately, those aren’t going to be returning unless lego suddenly becomes willing to foot the bill for name legal checks.

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true…unless Greg could just tell us what the ending was planned and what would have happened to Velika once Takanuva fought him like he planned on

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That’s the thing, that has been asked, and he says he doesn’t know, because he didn’t plan it out. :sweat_smile:

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Not that I actually expect this to happen immediately, but man, a legit Bionicle MOC contest would be great right now, given that I assume a sizable portion of us are being encouraged to stay home as much as possible for the next few weeks. Regardless, I’m really excited to see where all of this goes! I think contests could be a great way to keep the community going, even if it’s in the good old argumentative, controversy-filled state that we all know and love.

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plus Furno 1.0’s head screams Fire Tribe Glatorian imho. I also wonder if parts from Bionicle G2 could be retconned to represent masks in G1 we have no canon depiction of (Mask of Creation, maybe Gali Master’s mask representing noble Kaukau and Onua Master’s Kanohi representing Noble Pakari so on and so forth)

idk why I am getting these idea’s they just sort of work imho

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I’ve thought the same, I advocated being in favor of just masks, weapons, and armor being allowed. They don’t take away from the aesthetic too terribly as long as they incorporate other G1 aesthetics.

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