The Energon Pub

In 2010, Hasbro founded its Transformers Hall of Fame, honoring both robotic characters and some of the humans responsible for their creation that have left an everlasting mark on the world of our favorite Robots in Disguise. Now in its seventh year, Hasbro is once again turning to fans to help select three Fans’ Choice inductees for the class of 2016!



That's right, this year there are three Fans' Choice categories, and these are:

FAVORITE TRANSFORMERS CHARACTER (Fictional Robot Character)

** VOTE FOR YOUR 2016 "FAVORITE TRANSFORMERS CHARACTER" CHOICE BY CLICKING HERE **


FAVORITE UNDERRATED TRANSFORMERS CHARACTER (Fictional Robot Character)

** VOTE FOR YOUR 2016 "FAVORITE UNDERRATED TRANSFORMERS CHARACTER" CHOICE BY CLICKING HERE **


BEST TRANSFORMERS-RELATED MUSICAL ACT (REAL-LIFE HUMANS)

** VOTE FOR YOUR 2016 "BEST TRANSFORMERS-RELATED MUSICAL ACT" CHOICE BY CLICKING HERE **

All polling result lists from the various Transformers fansites will be combined together (each outlet getting an equal voice) to generate the final ballot of three choices for each category. Details for the final ballot's voting process are forthcoming.

Winners of the final polling will be announced at BotCon 2016, the official Transformers Convention, in Louisville, KY, April 7 - 10!

As a reminder, below are the characters and people who have already been inducted into the Hall of Fame and are not eligible to be inducted this year:

TRANSFORMERS CURRENTLY IN THE HALL OF FAME:

• Arcee* (Class of 2014)
• Bumblebee (Class of 2010)
• Dinobot* (Class of 2010)
• Grimlock (Class of 2012)
• Ironhide (Class of 2011)
• Jazz (Class of 2012)
• Megatron (Class of 2010)
• Megatron – Beast Wars* (Class of 2013)
• Optimus Prime (Class of 2010)
• Predaking (Class of 2015)
• Prowl (Class of 2015)
• Ratchet (Class of 2011)
• Rodimus* (Class of 2014)
• Shockwave (Class of 2012)
• Soundwave (Class of 2011)
• Starscream (Class of 2010)
• Ultra Magnus* (Class of 2013)
• Waspinator* (Class of 2011)
• Wheeljack* (Class of 2012)

*indicates fan-voted inductee

Human Inductees:

• Michael Bay (Class of 2011)
• Bob Budiansky (Class of 2010)
• Stan Bush (Class of 2014)
• Vince DiCola (Class of 2015)
• Simon Furman (Class of 2012)
• Yoke Hideaki (Class of 2010)
• Chris Latta (Class of 2012)
• Kojin Ohno (Class of 2010)
• Steven Spielberg (Class of 2011)
• Frank Welker (Class of 2015)

To recap, here's how the process will work:

Phase 1: Using our results from previous years, combined with staff input, we've created polls which will allow you to select which 3 characters you'd like to see selected. Due to the small time window for collection of votes, the options on these polls have been pre-selected by the site staff, which is a departure from the open nomination structure that we've used in past years. We'll tally those poll results together on the morning (in the US) of Wednesday, March 9, 2016 to determine which Transformers characters the fans on Seibertron.com think should be considered, and the results will then be sent to Hasbro.

Nominees for the "Favorite Transformers Character" category, mostly based on data from previous years, include: Blackarachnia, Cyclonus, Galvatron, Omega Supreme, Rattrap, Ravage, Scorponok, Springer, Thundercracker, and Unicron.
You may vote for the "Favorite Transformers Character" category on our forums by clicking here.

Nominees for the "Favorite Underrated Transformers Character" category, based somewhat on data from previous years as well as a heavy dose of staff input, include: Cosmos, First Aid, Heatwave the Fire-Bot, Hot Shot, Lockdown, Lugnut, Noble, Punch/Counterpunch, Rhinox, Rung, Scrounge, Sideways, Sky-Byte, Transmutate, and Whirl.
You may vote for the "Favorite Underrated Transformers Character" category on our forums by clicking here.

Nominees for the "Favorite Transformers-Related Musical Act" category, based on an entirely unscientific process, include many popular and iconic music acts from throughout the years of the Transformers brand, plus a couple of "just for fun" options!
You may vote for the "Favorite Transformers-Related Musical Act" category on our forums by clicking here.

Phase 2: Hasbro will then tally the results together from all of the Transformers fan sites to create the final ballot. Details on this voting process will follow in the coming weeks.

Phase 3: The winning Transformers characters and Musical Act will be announced at BotCon 2016 in Louisville, KY.

Have fun voting, and remember to keep your optic sensors here on Seibertron.com for all the latest News, Transformers Toy Galleries, Podcasts, and more, MUCH more than meets the eye!

So, who will be the B.S. joke nominee for this year?

Deathsanras wrote:So, who will be the B.S. joke nominee for this year?

I'm more worried about people voting for a certain character because they think it will lead to a new toy, because Hasbro once said they use the Hall of Fame votes as a form of market research. I kind of suspect that's what happened with Predaking last year.

Wait, we can't make our own choices this year? How were the polled choices decided?

Sabrblade wrote:Wait, we can't make our own choices this year? How were the polled choices decided?

The "anybody can nominate anything" followed by another round of voting is very labor intensive. Additionally, there is only a small window for voting. Beyond that, the Hall of Fame hasn't been treated as nearly as big a deal the past several years as it was at its inception. With the combination of all that, ultimately this was our way of still participating while trying to make it as easy as possible. If you'll recall, the site didn't participate at all last year due to said factors.

As far as how they were decided, I have no problem answering this since it's tough to parse out from all the material already posted (although it's there in brief).

• Favorite Character nomination: Top 10 (I think) results from 2014's site polling, minus any characters that got in either that year or in 2015. Added bots in by going down the result list (so #11 got in when Arcee was removed, and so on). Chose Galvatron to replace Devastator since Devastator couldn't even win a combiner-only category last year and that looked to be a popular 1st or 2nd runner up on other fan sites' 2015 votes.
• Underrated Character nominations: I came up with an initial list using this criteria - A couple of them are past losers, others a sampling of memorable characters from through the years that were coming up in initial internet reaction to Hasbro's announcement of the category. Staff then discussed it and made several changes. Ended up with a much bigger list than what we started with to give plenty of variety. I'm sure this is the one that'll cause the most heartburn but to be honest, I think we have a good spread here with several characters that have legitimate chances of winning. If there's a frequently mentioned "snub" then we'll throw that character into next year's voting.
• Musical Act nominations: This was pretty easy to come up with. I threw in two "ah why not, let's have fun because these won't win anyway" entries which should be pretty obvious. Rotorstorm gave some great input here thanks to her encyclopedic knowledge of anything with a guitar and an amplifier.

In as few words as possible: Site staff agreed to these lists. Premade lists were done because just coming up with stuff to vote on is the easiest way for us to do this on short notice with a small window of time for voting.

ScottyP wrote:The "anybody can nominate anything" followed by another round of voting is very labor intensive.

Understandable, but why not just tally up the top results from a single "anybody can nominate anything" round and submit those as the site's final top choices and forgo the second round of poll voting (instead of forgoing the usual "vote anything" first round and jumping straight the second-round poll voting)?

ScottyP wrote:Favorite Character nomination: Top 10 (I think) results from 2014's site polling, minus any characters that got in either that year or in 2015. Added bots in by going down the result list (so #11 got in when Arcee was removed, and so on). Chose Galvatron to replace Devastator since Devastator couldn't even win a combiner-only category last year and that looked to be a popular 1st or 2nd runner up on other fan sites' 2015 votes.

Make sense. Though it is odd seeing someone like Optimus Primal absent considering this is the anniversary year of his show.

ScottyP wrote:Underrated Character nominations: I came up with an initial list using this criteria - A couple of them are past losers, others a sampling of memorable characters from through the years that were coming up in initial internet reaction to Hasbro's announcement of the category. Staff then discussed it and made several changes. Ended up with a much bigger list than what we started with to give plenty of variety. I'm sure this is the one that'll cause the most heartburn but to be honest, I think we have a good spread here with several characters that have legitimate chances of winning. If there's a frequently mentioned "snub" then we'll throw that character into next year's voting.

If there is a "next year's voting", that is.

Though, I chuckle at seeing Rhinox on an "underrated" list.

ScottyP wrote:Musical Act nominations: This was pretty easy to come up with. I threw in two "ah why not, let's have fun because these won't win anyway" entries which should be pretty obvious. Rotorstorm gave some great input here thanks to her encyclopedic knowledge of anything with a guitar and an amplifier.

The ones that stand out to me as the most odd inclusions or exclusions would be the lack of Anne Bryant and Ford Kinder (who created the original Transformers theme song), and if any of the Japanese ones were to be thrown in as "ah, why not" ones, I'd have gone with Hironobu Kagayama instead of Koji Kaya since the former has performed more Transformers songs (14, to be exact) than any other Japanese singer, but that's just me.

Doth mine eyes deceiveth me? How can Michael Bay & Steven Spielberg of all people be among the list of Human Inductees while Peter Cullen remains absent?

MegaDump wrote:Doth mine eyes deceiveth me? How can Michael Bay & Steven Spielberg of all people be among the list of Human Inductees while Peter Cullen remains absent?

He was in the 2010 class. I copied the list from an email we got from Hasbro. Harmless here since we aren't doing the "open nomination" model but yes, Mr. Cullen is indeed in the TF HoF

ScottyP wrote:

MegaDump wrote:Doth mine eyes deceiveth me? How can Michael Bay & Steven Spielberg of all people be among the list of Human Inductees while Peter Cullen remains absent?

He was in the 2010 class. I copied the list from an email we got from Hasbro. Harmless here since we aren't doing the "open nomination" model but yes, Mr. Cullen is indeed in the TF HoF

Ah, my mistake then. It would have been a glaringly obvious omission.

ScottyP wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Wait, we can't make our own choices this year? How were the polled choices decided?

The "anybody can nominate anything" followed by another round of voting is very labor intensive...
In as few words as possible: Site staff agreed to these lists. Premade lists were done because just coming up with stuff to vote on is the easiest way for us to do this on short notice with a small window of time for voting.

Was Surveymonkey, or a similar survey resource, considered? User types in character name, staff receives tally of names chosen. Labor there would largely be "Okay, we need to combine the votes for Sideswipe, Side-swipe, Side Swipe and Sideswingo."

RevTibe wrote:

ScottyP wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Wait, we can't make our own choices this year? How were the polled choices decided?

The "anybody can nominate anything" followed by another round of voting is very labor intensive...
In as few words as possible: Site staff agreed to these lists. Premade lists were done because just coming up with stuff to vote on is the easiest way for us to do this on short notice with a small window of time for voting.

Was Surveymonkey, or a similar survey resource, considered? User types in character name, staff receives tally of names chosen. Labor there would largely be "Okay, we need to combine the votes for Sideswipe, Side-swipe, Side Swipe and Sideswingo."

No, but that's a potential consideration for the future.

ScottyP wrote:

RevTibe wrote:

ScottyP wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Wait, we can't make our own choices this year? How were the polled choices decided?

The "anybody can nominate anything" followed by another round of voting is very labor intensive...
In as few words as possible: Site staff agreed to these lists. Premade lists were done because just coming up with stuff to vote on is the easiest way for us to do this on short notice with a small window of time for voting.

Was Surveymonkey, or a similar survey resource, considered? User types in character name, staff receives tally of names chosen. Labor there would largely be "Okay, we need to combine the votes for Sideswipe, Side-swipe, Side Swipe and Sideswingo."

No, but that's a potential consideration for the future.

I've got a decent amount of experience with tools such as those + general data crunching, and would be happy to assist the staff with that next time year, if you're interested.

I'll be tallying the votes early in the 12:00 PM hour (US Eastern Time) tomorrow and sending them over. Going to try to shut the polls off then. If I can't, I'll make a post in each voting thread with the final totals and anything that comes in during the few hours until the polls auto-close won't count.

Thanks for voting everyone, and be sure to get your votes in very soon if you haven't yet!

We have an update on the 2016 edition of the Hasbro Transformers Hall of Fame, and the actual voting has literally just opened over on the official Transformers Facebook page. These include the Fans' Choice nominees as sourced from various sites, and feature the following:

FAVORITE TRANSFORMERS CHARACTER (Fictional Robot Character)

• Optimus Primal
• Galvatron
• Omega Supreme

FAVORITE UNDERRATED TRANSFORMERS CHARACTER (Fictional Robot Character)

• Beast Wars Inferno
• Predacon Tarantulas
• Autobot Cosmos

BEST TRANSFORMERS-RELATED MUSICAL ACT (Real-life Humans)

• Steve Jablonsky
• Weird Al
• Lion

The results will be announced and the winners entered into the Hall of Fame at BotCon 2016, taking place next weekend 7-10 April in Louisville, KY. Keep an optic tuned to Seibertron.com for full event coverage, as usual, too!



UPDATE: Hasbro confirms that Inferno is indeed our favourite fire ant - FOR THE ROYALTY!

Likely a stupid question, but which version of Inferno are they using?

Twitchythe3rd wrote:Likely a stupid question, but which version of Inferno are they using?

I'm pretty sure it was BW Inferno, but I'm not guaranteed.

Considering there's an Autobot Inferno, Mini-con Inferno, Movie Inferno and BW Inferno, it's not exactly straight-forward when they just trot out the name Inferno.

so im going to go out on a limb here and guess that you need a facebook account to vote

Megatron Wolf wrote:so im going to go out on a limb here and guess that you need a facebook account to vote

looks that way, unfortunately. My favorite TF is up for nomination, but even that isn't enough incentive for me to join.

Also..Which Predaking won last year? (G1 or Prime BH?) ....with so many Transformers having the same name, they should really make it more clear.

Twitchythe3rd wrote:Likely a stupid question, but which version of Inferno are they using?

It's just got to be "BURN for the ROYALTY!" Inferno, I can't see "that fire truck but not Optimus or the Combiner fire trucks" Inferno having that big of a fan base. But I just know it'll be represented by the most random version imaginable regardless.

Maddening that Tarantulas and Cosmos have the signifiers but the one shared name doesn't.



Calling it: Inferno is going to win because everyone's going to ask "which #Inferno?", while his opponents will all forget to add the faction along with the name.

Hasbro's PR clarified via email that it is Beast Wars Predacon Inferno.

o.supreme wrote:

Megatron Wolf wrote:so im going to go out on a limb here and guess that you need a facebook account to vote

looks that way, unfortunately. My favorite TF is up for nomination, but even that isn't enough incentive for me to join.

Also..Which Predaking won last year? (G1 or Prime BH?) ....with so many Transformers having the same name, they should really make it more clear.

It was G1, because the vote was for best Combiner (he was up against Devastator and Bruticus) and they were pushing Combiner Wars at the time. Hasbro cleared it up in the little announcement video they did. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqaGBO8XMOY (skip to 2:10 for the Combiner bit)

Anyway, I voted for Optimus Primal, Tarantulas and Steve Jablonsky, though I think Galvatron will win the main poll and Weird Al will win the music poll (I would argue that Jablosnky has contributed a Hell of a lot more to the Transformers franchise than the other two have). I think the underrated poll could go either way, which of course is great.

As far as I'm concerned Tarantulas and Cosmos are pretty well rated seeing as how both have had multiple figures over the years. BW Inferno on the other hand has had just one real figure (the BotCon custom class figure barely counts) and is in desperate need of a new one or at least a reissue with better material (his joints didn't hold up too well). He did get a short-released Robot Heroes figure so someone at Hasbro is a fan.

Also going with Optimus Primal and Weird Al.

Emerje

Now I need to try to straighten out the bullshit from someone getting into my account... Not that it's worth bothering, since as much as I want Primal to win, I can't imagine it'll happen.

I don't have the energy to figure out how they came up with these choices, but man, for the robots only our site's third place finishers showed up in the final listing :/

Put another way: Rung was robbed

Wow, nominate a band that didn't even make it out of the 80's. What are they thinking, besides a throwaway nomination, that Lion will reunite for some toy convention? I'd be in shock if Doug Aldrich can/will show up.