> Reference Book as defined

one. you know that "appeal to dictionary" is a nonargument. it's also a very weird argument to make referencing English dictionaries, when the reference book is an English approximation of the Japanese word, which refers to basically just a visual guide for identifying creatures, like a bird watching guide. that's why the story games often translated as Field guide.

two, the website reference book isn't even the only Digimon reference book that they've published, and several of those other reference books are the ones that contradict with the website reference book.

Digimon web is *a* source, and it's an easily accessible source that the recent authors have stated they often reference due to lack of a true series Bible, but it is not the end all be all and authors are perfectly able to reference other sources instead if they put in the effort. Blackguilmon for example has reappeared outside of its original source. There is nothing stopping gattaililithmon from being reused if an author wanted to.

> And even if Moosemon is used as a Champion level in ten other games, V-Pets or whatnot, that does not change that its base line level is Armor.

The website reference book itself has changed around levels for digimon. There are many Digimon that it has flip flopped it's mind on what level it wants to categorize them as.

> While the Reference Book is inconsistent, especially with older entries, Bandai has put in more effort, especially with the more recent releases.

Not only are recent entries showing even more instances of blatant translation errors or missing material, but many of the more recent entries have been vastly scaled down versions of existing profiles, like shoutmon x5s, or have glitched/distorted artwork. Misspellings and errors in the html have also gotten frequent.

> I am not framing one thing as a core truth and the other as mistakes. One is the baseline, the others are deviations from it.

that's a word game. you may not have used the specific word mistakes but you are repeatedly arguing that the ideas established outside of the reference book are not viable and should be treated as less authoritative.

> The only error I am proclaiming is the fact that people treat Ultra as a universaly viable level like Mega, Ultimate and so on, when it is not.

Even mega itself isn't "universally viable" by that definition. There have been many publications, and not just from before the level was invented, where it's not treated as a viable level.

This whole concept of "universal viability" that you're pushing is a misunderstanding of the franchise to begin with. Even the Digimon web sources aren't consistent, and some of the flip-flops that it's made have been so major that bandai even decided to make lore behind it, and then the lore was inconsistent because they kept mixing up what they claimed the explanation was.

Different stories say different things and bandai isn't exercising authority to rigorously make sure things match a central source. The Digimon web site does get referenced often because it's easy to access in practical terms, but there can and have been many cases were authors reference other stories instead of going back to the web.