Talk:I Love Bees/Archives/2012

Cleanup

Notes on cleanup: (July 15, 2006) This page is in desperate need of salvage. Much of the talk page has been deleted for some reason (although it's mostly too old to matter). What's left is... mostly too old to matter. And in general, things need a bit of a restart. Breaking a wiki taboo, I'm also adding headers to talk that was previously uncategorized- but actual content will remain as unchanged as possible, this is only for cleanup. Gspawn 13:43, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

About comments

Remember to post comments on what you've edited, unless its something minor such as spelling or syntax.

Major cleanup

gspawn says (sorry, account weirdness, anonymous atm): EDIT: Apparently, it wasn't quite as bad as I thought. the "new updates" section was deleted, as this information is better served on other sites that archive the course of the game. Some notes were changed to reflect that the game was over, and otherwise, I tried to clean up some grammar for clarity. Anyone with better Wiki skills, feel free to add cleanup.

Speculation

Do not post speculations here in this Wiki unless we can reach an NPOV on it, since Wikipedia has a NPOV policy. Discuss those on the NetNinja Wiki [1].

Keep us in the know regarding the Haunted Apiary.

Ghost Freeman 02:42, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I would vote that we remove the entire 'New Developments' section. Novody actualy has any dea what's going on, and the information is likely to be inaccurate and incomplete. Nobody even knows whether it is related to the original. Even if it is, it would be much better to post this information after people know what's actually going on.

--Justdig 10:31, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Article Focus

I'm not sure the focus of this article is right. The game is quite new, the article is detailed to a level that if the game progresses the way other ARGs have, the page will become behemoth; plus, it's full of speculation. I'm loath to change the article so much without discussion, though. My proposed changes would be to remove most of the detail about what's on the ilovebees.com website, and the more technical detail (i.e. pretty much all of sections 2 and 3), concentrate more on its use as a publicity stunt (but leave it more as a stub for a bit later when we know the extent of its link with Halo), and provide clearer links to the dedicated game wiki which is much more suited for this sort of detailed, ephemeral information than Wikipedia. We're trying to combine meta-information with detailed present-time information and speculation, and I think we should be concentrating on the former, otherwise we'll see a lot of wasted effort in duplicating pages in the future! --Jal 16:18, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I agree. I'm new to Wikipedia, therefore I still haven't gained a grasp of making whole entries (merely just editing them). However, the stub idea dosen't seem right, because we're trying to make a historical log of what major events have happened (for those who are late -- I know it sounds stupid, but there are people who live under rocks, so to speak). Anyways, regardless of the changes, just make sure its content goes in one direction, something I have not been able to do, and I apologize for not being able to. Guess we're newbies once in our lives. Ghost Freeman 00:18, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, by 'stub' I just meant its effectiveness as a publicity stunt should be fairly short and expanded later, not the whole article.

Pretty good effort for one new to Wikipedia though - congrats! I'll have a go at it later. --Jal 14:36, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Just got to see the new entry. Great work. Let's keep it in this format. Anything else that needs to be brought to my attention, do so through one of the contact methods on my User page. Ghost Freeman 08:01, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

• I did a series of large and small edits, altering focus somewhat, removing some over-specific paragraphs and providing more introductory material and phrasing that made the transition from describing the real life events surrounding the game to describing the in-game story. I also switched the plot back to present tense; not sure if it works, but I think it's more appropriate than past tense because the present captures the feel of the unfolding of the plot better (if it was all past tense, a reader might form the impression that it is backstory). I think the only other option would be to put it in real-life past tense, with constant mention that this is just a story, like: "Players next learned that blah blah blah happened, and that the sleeping princess blah blah. For reasons unknown, Melissa had done such and such, and players soon realized that she had been afraid..." The present tense allows this clumsiness to be avoided, and integration with mention of players' experiences is easier because it involves a tense change (that I find comfortable)...
• also, I used "Melissa" throughout instead of "The Operator." Is this ok? That's not the way any hardcore ILB sites seem to do it, but I found it more natural for telling the plot. If it's way off please change it, but be consistent and change it everywhere but the first mention of Melissa...
• and PLEASE PLEASE massage and improve the plot section; I didn't really play ILB, just admire it, and I know it needs work. Keep it as short as possible while covering the bases and mentioning the AI rivalries that were such an attractive part of the game. Brw12 06:04, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

I think the article focus needs to be reviewed in regards to the "radio drama" portion of the ilovebees ARG. It had a magnificent stand alone story and the lack of information on it as a single entity is a disservice to its quality. That, or a new entry needs to be made and a disambiguation should be created to clarify between the entire ARG, and the radio drama work. 74.98.56.245 02:01, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

NPOV?

I see a potential NPOV violation in the Starting Points section.

• and especially An open letter to Bungie, Xbox and Halo fans

I dont see a problem with the link, but the emphasis on especially might push us outside NPOV. I'll let you decide (I dont really care). You don't have to remove the link, though. --Ghost Freeman 21:57, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I happened to come across this today, which gives the name of the/an author of the game... --134.53.120.98 04:34, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Tenses

there was a lot of switiching from Past tense to literary present, and as the majority of it was written in the past tense, I edited everything in literary present to past tense.

Future appearances of Haunted Apiary characters

Will any of the characters (including Janissary James) of this Halo ARG appear in future Halo novels, movies, or games (as main playable/supporting protagonists besides the Master Chief and the Arbiter)? - John-1107 4:34 P.M. 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)

According to this interview with Joe Staten, the ILB stuff is not Halo story canon. "Those guys basically did their own thing with very little Bungie input." --OGoncho 00:20, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

To note, I think Staten was saying what is now a fan concensus (for most people)- nothing about Ilovebees is STRICTLY canon. So in the absence of problems, you can call it whatever you want.Gspawn 13:59, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

The point is, basically, whether it even is canon or not, it's not likely to be included in future titles, and therefore doesn't truly matter as anything except expansion to the story. That's why he said they had "little input"- enough to make sure canon wasn't broken, but not particularly much pushing any specific story on them.Gspawn 13:59, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

TJI: Herzog gets a mention in the graphic novel. It's a chat transcript making fun of people in chatrooms, but they mention politics, including Herzog's death. --OGoncho 09:30, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

According to this later interview with Frank O'Connor, I Love Bees is now canon. Melissa, the Apocalypso, and the Forerunner artifact all appear in the official Halo Encyclopedia that came out last year. There were also some ILB references in Halo 3: ODST --Shadow (talk) 15:59, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

The link to the Haunted Apiary Wiki is broken. Is there a mirror of the site that is still active, or some other web-site that has the same information? --PeytonWestlake 23:31, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)

Title

Is it certain that the title should be Haunted Apiary? The forum at Unfiction is called "The Haunted Apiary (Let Op!)", this seems to be a reference to "Halo". It also says "(aka System Peril Distributed Reflex or ilovebees)", "ilovebees" seems to be more widely used. --OGoncho 06:35, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree. ilovebees seems more common, if less official. people who have heard of it casually almost always think of it as 'ilovebees' and haven't heard the phrase 'haunted apiary'.. --Brw12 16:46, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Actually, it's probably the other way around - 'ilovebees' is the term used by most Beekeepers as well as Bungie and Microsoft, while 'The Haunted Apiary' appears to be an invention of the ilovebees community. --Ethethlay 05:06, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

While looking at the Netninja ILB wiki, I saw this explaination for the name Haunted Apiary. --OGoncho 05:29, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

It's interesting that they decided against simply using the ilovebees name on Unfiction.

I'm willing to move this page and edit references accordingly if the consensus is to change the name, but as a redirect already exists from 'ilovebees' leaving the article alone won't hurt anything. --Ethethlay 06:13, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Recent Deleopment

"Interestingly, Bethesda (the developer behind Oblivion) has had no comment regarding ilovebees2.com, and in fact is blocking any mention of the site on the elder scrolls forum."

This is a lie, as there is a topic in the fourm of the above site and a staff member has made mention on the Ilovebees2.com. I vote for removing this portion of the thread

source: http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=252515&st=60

A fake... NOT!

Bungie has now said that ilovebees2.com is a fake http://www.bungie.net/News/TopStory.aspx?story=weeklyupdatemarch03

If you would look into it, they actually said in the post that: "We got a lot of inquiries about www.ilovebees2.com and I would like to say for the record that it's a fake. Or at least that it has nothing to do with us."

That doesn't neccesarily mean it is fake. Just that it is not related to the original ILB. And if you would actually care to RESEARCH, the site is a full on ARG!

I agree, the sole fact that this dosnt relate to "halo 3" dosnt mean it isnt a real, active "ARG"...

Proven fake long ago. Gspawn

I say REMOVE it. A site that contains links and themes to "hell.com" is a soft, yet obscene, shock site. --JDitto 06:26, 10 October 2006 (UTC) Thanks, OGoncho. --JDitto 07:24, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I dont know. They said the same thing about "See the light" recently? http://leadprophet.tripod.com/ it could be a fake... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.247.53.147 (talk • contribs)

I'm not sure about that. Unlike See the Light, Ilovebees2 had barely any references to Haloand has a lot of supernatural references such as reincarnation, etc. which are not found in Halo. Besides, it's not like See the Light endorsed by anything other than the automated ads... --JDitto 21:36, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Name Change?

Whose idea was it to call it "Haunted Apiary?" I was a beekeeper and I can guarantee you that nobody called it that. It was either "I Love Bees" or "ilovebees." The Haunted Apiary was just the primary message board. I've met the creators in person at the San Francisco meetup when the game ended and the phrase "haunted apiary" never came up once. Look, even the official 42 Entertainmetn site calls it ilovebees, as does the resumé of Kristen Rutherford, one of the writers/ the voice of Durga. So what gives? I know it's been discussed, but nothing came of it and it's still wrong. I'm a new user, so I'm sort of hesitant to make a big change like that myself, though, being a wuss and whatnot.Nameless Pete 12:03, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

It's an official-enough fan designation that I'm willing to go with it, mostly because I'm too lazy to change everything that would need changing. Personally, I also think Haunted Apiary is an odd name, but I also think it sounds more official. 'ilovebees' seems too much like a childish statement to be taken seriously, which I imagine was the impetus for "Haunted Apiary" as an article name. Could be wrong, though. Please feel free to correct. Gspawn 13:47, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, first of all, to clarify, "www.ilovebees.com" is the website address, while "I Love Bees" was the title of the website. The fan-created name may be "official-sounding", but it is still fan-created and not official. If 4orty2wo themselves call it "I Love Bees", I think we can accept that as the official title, and as such, I think it should be the name of the article. --OGoncho 22:53, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Yeah I agree, should be renamed to I Love Bees. KZF 23:22, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

I also agree - the name "The Haunted Apiary" was first imagined right when the game begin, as a way to distinguish it from other ongoing games. This was also, however, before players learned what the game was about (and consequently, that it would only be focused around one website rather than several). "I love bees" or "Ilovebees" is most definitely the current accepted name among the ARG community, and even among the scholarly writings of game creator Jane McGonigal (see her website: avantgame.com). QBKooky 01:24, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I did a full-page overhaul, and all I got was this lousy post

Much editing and hopefully improving, including summarizing, breaking down sections for better readability, etc. Logging out for a while. Gspawn 14:47, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

The Plot a Ripoff of .hack//SIGN?

I'm still rather skeptical how great this ILB thing was considering that I'm a gamer and have not heard anything about this until reading a newspaper article which praised but said nothing about the game. After reading the plot in the Wiki entry, I'm rather amazed how the story is nearly identical to the Japanese animation ".hack//SIGN" by GAINAX, with video game sequels by BANDAI. .hack//SIGN's story involved an Artificial Intelligence named "Aura" who evolves herself through the players' interactions and that of her own with players. She is hunted down by viruses that corrupts the game data and she was eventually broken down into fragments. The hero of the story has to collect each of these data fragments to restore her.

I'm curious if BANDAI America has something to say about this campaign. Having that said, I am still surprised if ILB truly stirred that much hype how is it that I have not heard anything about it from anyone, anywhere, up until now. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.134.121.254 (talk) 01:43, 17 January 2007 (UTC).

The premises are broadly similar, but nobody's suing anyone since a) vague plot outlines aren't copyright violation and b) it's the same premise as Neuromancer, which has 20 years on both. The stories have little else in common, as hack//SIGN is using it as the backdrop for a collect-the-crystals RPG plot whereas ILB was written partially in response to the actions of the participants.

As for importance, people were buzzing in the game press for quite a while when it was going on. It was an event, however, as much as it was a fictional work, so if you weren't paying attention when it was making news, you just missed it, that's all. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 04:23, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

i love both .hack//SIGN and ILB.

Shouldn't there be some kinda link to wikipedia's article about audio dramas in general, if we have one?

DOA4

Is this in any way linked to the SPARTAN in DOA4? 132.205.44.5 03:57, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes it is. It appears Spartan-458's backstory was written in homage to ILB, or in the same non-canon universe. --OGoncho 19:01, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Confusion

Hold on a moment... Are we saying that humans- Real, live humans- infiltrated a secure military complex and deactivated a device which gave the location of earth to the Covenant? And either way, isn't this story contradicted by the explanation given in Halo: Fall of Reach? 72.205.243.77 (talk) 20:00, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Not real humans, just humans in the context of the story. The ILB creators more or less just based their story off of what information was available at the time, and isn't proper Halo story canon. In the context of the ILB story, that's exactly what happened, though. --OGoncho (talk) 19:29, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:I Love Bees/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Excellent article, love the photo of players waiting by the phone. There would be virtually nothing stopping me from passing this straight away except:

• The plot section is completely unsourced, can't pass it until this is fixed. The external link to ilovebees is surplus, please replace with plain text. The section has a lot of very short paragraphs, could you condense them please?
• There's a general reference which is just a bare external link, could you fill it out as a reference?

That's it, nicely done. Someoneanother 00:52, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

I've removed the bare link (it was left over from the expansion.) About the paragraphs: looking through the non-plot sections, it seems all are 3+ sentences, and all are under distinct ideas, so I think it's best to leave them be. As for the plot, I'll get to sourcing and condensing it a bit; I'll leave you a note when I'm done. Thanks for the review, Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 22:05, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:I Love Bees/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

All issues bar the uncited plot section were covered during the last GA nomination which timed-out. The plot is now adequately cited, and having checked the edit history to check stability I'm satisfied that I Love Bees has made the grade. Excellent work. Someoneanother 00:16, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

External links

Curious: Is there a reason that the external links section is repeatedly reduced to one single link? There are a few informative and relevent, unique websites that can be included as resources. --Thebruce0 (talk) 18:53, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Image

I would advise replacing the image with one taken using IE as the browser. There is a prominent countdown that Firefox does not display. --OGoncho (talk) 09:39, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Created By

The A.I. ARG was not created by 42 Entertainment, but by Microsoft. The people later on left MS, and founded 42. I believe, but am not certain, that ILB was their first production under the banner of 4orty2wo Entertainment. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.249.35.198 (talk) 13:26, 25 October 2010 (UTC)