I wanted to throw my own $0.02 in to this entire mess of people whining and complaining regarding our coverage of two apparent hoaxes - Ghost MP Starscream and the "leaked" movie script. I've been doing this for nearly 10 years now so I have a little bit more weight in my words than the casual "Omg u guyz sux" poster.

When a retailer throws up information that they have received possible news regarding an upcoming item, it becomes increasingly hard as a news site to discredit it - it's not like we can call Hasbro and go "What's up!" because Hasbro has nothing to do with Takara-Tomy's Masterpiece figures and their choices at what to do - maybe they know, maybe they don't, depends on who you talk to and how open they want to be about it with NDA's and so forth.

Regarding the "leaked script" ... our frontpage post was very specific, almost blatantly calling out how much of a hoax it was, in the opening post, but left it open for the readers to make their own conclusion, because on something like that there is literally no way you can get a confirmation either way unless it's coming from the writer himself. Hasbro won't comment on it, Paramount won't comment on it, but at the same time if it was real ... do you really think it would STILL be available online?

When it comes to reporting rumors, you always have to take them with a grain of salt. It's annoying as hell on our end - when we know something for FACT that it is NOT a rumor, but report it as such as to not trouble those who have shared the information with us. A prime example was the ending of Transformers Animated with Season 3. When we received the information, we were able to privately confirm it, but couldn't publicly state it. We sat on that for over a week until we got an "anonymous E-mail" (seriously, they used the "submit news" and left no info) regarding the information ... so we gave notice before-hand that we were running the story as a rumor, but we knew all along that it was true. But because we won't reveal our sources (journalistic integrity) we aren't able to report it as "FACT".

But over half of you refused to believe that rumor, even though voice actors confirmed they were done working on Transformers Animated, interviews with Cartoon Network employees stated that they were no longer working on the show, and the head-writer was let go from his office.

So I find it beyond silly that a large contingent of you not only are pissed at THIS WEBSITE because of an uncontrollable prank from a Japanese retailer, but that you actually believed it so whole-heartedly with absolutely no evidence from ANY OTHER RETAILER or from Takara-Tomy. Yet when a rumor comes up that IS true WITH evidence, you all shoot it down.

It's not like we reported that Hasbro was releasing a Fortress Maximus re-issue, and included an incredibly obvious photoshopped "box" (TFormers), or had an entire section dedicated to someone's made-up rumors (Professor Smooth at Seibertron).

No site is perfect. Numerous sites listed those items as news, then removed the same stories without explanation. At least we report that "Hey, remember this rumor? Debunked!", and not try to sweep it under the rug. We're not perfect, when we make mistakes we'll be the first to admit it ... so why all this hate when we post a rumor from a retailer then debunk it the next day is beyond me - shift your hate to the retailer.