MediaWiki talk:Community Portal

2009-05-12T07:00:50Z

207.224.65.37: /* Screencap templates */

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This is the place for discussion of topics that affect the entire wiki. Some topics that would ordinarily be here have merited their own pages:

'''The move away from Wikia:'''
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Arriving]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Leaving]]
* [[Transformers Wiki:Community Portal/Complaints]]

'''Our policy on having ads in the wiki:'''
* [[Transformers Wiki:Ads]]

'''The Bookworm database-crash:'''
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Damage Control Central]]
* [[Project:Bookworm Crash]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Leaving2]]

{{chapters
|title=Community Portal Archives
|content=*[[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive1|Archive 1]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive2|Archive 2]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive3|Archive 3]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive4|Archive 4]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive5|Archive 5]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive6|Archive 6]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive7|Archive 7]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive8|Archive 8]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive9|Archive 9]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive10|Archive 10]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive11|Archive 11]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive12|Archive 12]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive13|Archive 13]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive14|Archive 14]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive15|Archive 15]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive16|Archive 16]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive17|Archive 17]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive18|Archive 18]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive19|Archive 19]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive20|Archive 20]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive21|Archive 21]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive22|Archive 22]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive23|Archive 23]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive24|Archive 24]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive25|Archive 25]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive26|Archive 26]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive27|Archive 27]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive28|Archive 28]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive29|Archive 29]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive30|Archive 30]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive31|Archive 31]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive32|Archive 32]]
}}

==So what now?==
{{note|This discussion has been moved to [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Leaving2#So what now?]].}}

== Image aspect ratios ==

I notice a lot of ''Animated'' screencaps, like [[:Image:SariLayingDown1.jpg]], are out-of-aspect ratio, which is kinda annoying - neither NTSC (480i, typically 720x480, US/Japan) nor PAL (576i, typically 720x576, UK/Europe/Australia) use square pixels, while computers do. A screencap from a 4:3 NTSC source should really be resized to 640px wide for uploading here, while a screencap from a 4:3 PAL source should be resized to 768px wide. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 21:39, 26 March 2009 (EDT)
:Since screen caps usually have to be trimmed of black borders, I'm not going to bugger about trying to get the aspect ratio correct. I just upload whatever my DVD software gives me. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 03:05, 29 March 2009 (EDT)

== News from Wookieepedia ==

A while back, one of the users here [http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Forum:SH_Archive/Site_Partnership_with_TFWiki suggested a partnership] between Wookieepedia and this wiki.
In case you're wondering what happened with that, the ongoing nomination process is [http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Wookieepedia:Official_Friends_of_Wookieepedia/Nominations#TFWiki.net here]. [[User:Silly Dan|Silly Dan]] 22:44, 26 March 2009 (EDT)
:Awesome! Now, settle this argument - could Death Star transformed as Darth Vader beat Unicron? --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 07:13, 27 March 2009 (EDT)
:Cool. I think I made a vague overture there at one point specifically about the coverage of Attacktix and that weird Star Wars vs. TF packaging - I understand there have been some direct and less-direct TF references in SW (which I imagine will only continue to crop up, given that the current and incoming generations of SW official content creators are likely to be of the age where they're at least casually aware of TF, if not fans in their own right), so this is probably a pretty reasonable networking opportunity. We can explain to you guys why the Optimus Prime that fought Darth Vader doesn't look like the one you had as a kid, and you can explain to us how the entire thing was totally non-canonical anyway. Heh heh. [[User:Hooper X|Hooper_X]] 07:54, 27 March 2009 (EDT)

==Purging redirects==
I've noticed that the recovery process has been used as a good excuse for deleting useless redirects. I'm totally in support of this, and I'd like to figure out what counts as "useless." I used to think the more redirects, the better, since that would increase the chances of good results from people's misspelled or ill-informed searches. But now that we have that auto-drop-down suggestion thing, I've pulled a complete 180. Every redirect just clutters that menu up. To my mind, there are only five justifications for any redirect:
# It's the base version of an otherwise parenthetically-disambiguated set ([[Optimus Prime]])
# It's an alternate official term ([[Rodimus Prime]])
# It's a fan-term that is equally or more prevalent than the official term ([[Big Floating Head]])
# It's an alternate parenthetical that had received notable support in discussion (I think [[Sideways (Armada)]] was heading in that direction before the crash)
# It's a valid alternate spelling/parsing, especially if the auto-drop-down wouldn't naturally correct the user ([[STARS]])
I can't think of any other valid reason for a redirect existing. I bring this up because I've noticed in repairing the S.T.A.R.S. articles that there are both vestigial redirects from past improper capitalization ([[Have the Decepticons defeated us once and for all?|Have the Decepticons Defeated Us Once and For All?]]) and newly-created redirects compensating for a grammatical mistake on Hasbro's part ([[Rodimus Prime remembers the Transformers greatest battle on Earth.|Rodimus Prime remembers the Transformers' greatest battle on Earth.]]). I don't think either of those have sufficient reason to exist. What say you? 
- [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 12:38, 27 March 2009 (EDT)

:The less redirects, the better, I think. They just clutter up the search suggestion box, thereby getting in the way rather than helping. Talk page redirects should be killed on sight.
:But in this regard, we have Optimus (G1) redirecting to Optimus Prime (G1). Same for other Optimuses and Nemesises and the like. I'm in favour of getting rid of these as well (one such shortened version could stay to redirect to the dismabguation page, but that's it), but I'm not entirely sure. [[User:Geewunling|Geewunling]] 12:46, 27 March 2009 (EDT)
::Actually, looking at the auto-drop-down menu results for "Optimus (", it looks like every single series has its own version of that. That strikes me as silly; [[Optimus]] is all we need. But it depends on your approach: I'm taking a guilty-until-proven-innocent view, where redirects are assumed to be deletable unless they can be defended on the grounds stated above. I checked out [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Redirects for deletion#When should we delete a redirect?|how Wikipedia does it]], and they seem to favor the opposite view, based on the logic that a deleted redirect can cause unforeseen breakages (like if other websites link to the now-defunct redirect). I personally find their arguments unconvincing, but I don't know how other people feel. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 14:03, 27 March 2009 (EDT)

:::Not to mention it is confusing, like in the case of Nemesis (G1)/Nemesis Prime (G1) - most "Nemesis (" are redirects to their respective Nemesis Prime, but Nemesis (G1) leads to the ship, breaking any sense of consistency. As far as common shortened versions of names go, I think all we need is one that redirects to the disambiguation page. [[User:Geewunling|Geewunling]] 14:58, 27 March 2009 (EDT)
::::Absolutely agreed. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 19:00, 27 March 2009 (EDT)

:::I believe we need to give a little leeway to those who are even less than a casual fan. Having extra redirects for characters vaguely remembered (Optimus, Soundwave). Some people may just find the search box, type, and hit enter without even taking into account the drop down menu. One thing I think should remain to a point as well are acronyms minus the periods, i.e. GI Joe or STARS. A quick type, enter, and it redirects. I say this especially with GI Joe in mind since we may be getting traffic with the new movie and the JoePedia seems deader than the wikia TF.

:::I agree with Jackpot when it comes to redirects being linked to. I highly doubt that will be a problem. In-wiki we have a great team to fix all links before the page is deleted. In the case of out-wiki links, those who place the most around the net are very unlikely to link to a redirect. Those that do I think are too much of a minority to tip the balance against cleanliness of page numbers. Savvy? :::--[[User:Bluestreak7|Bluestreak7]] 16:53, 27 March 2009 (EDT)
::::Good point with the acronyms. I've added it to the list up above. I'm not sure what you mean about the "extra redirects for characters vaguely remembered", though. In the Optimus example, what less-than-casual fan is going to type "Optimus (G1)"? They're just going to type "[[Optimus]]", which will go to the disambig. All those "Optimus (__)" articles still seem completely useless to me. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 19:00, 27 March 2009 (EDT)
:::::I'd argue that gramatically correct forms of titles should remain as redirects. I don't want to expect a user to remember that one STARS flyer skimped on an apostrophe or that "Inferno Imprisoned" is actually spelled "Inferno Improsoned". Everything else I agree with you. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 19:16, 27 March 2009 (EDT)
::::::Though both of those would be wrong because it's actually [[Improsoned Inferno]]. I'm not being needlessly nitpicky: It demonstrates the point that I always make a habit of double-checking my links if there's the slightest question about them (especially given how many disambig-pages we have these days). Plus does this mean we should have [[Scorpinok|Scorponok (episode)]] and [[Trasformer|Transformers (Italy)]] pages?
::::::That having been said, I'm not particularly die-hard about this question. The "improsoned" example doesn't bother me that much because it's such a short title and therefore people would likely try to link it from memory. "[[Rodimus Prime remembers the Transformers greatest battle on Earth.]]", on the other hand, is so ridiculously long that I wouldn't expect ''anybody'' to try to use without looking it up first. It certainly took me a while to get comfortable with it, and I'm the S.T.A.R.S. expert here. Plus having the two(!) apostrophe'd redirects adds a level of absurdity to the drop-down, since you can't even see the difference in the limited space.
::::::Incidentally, right before we left Wikia, a feature was implemented that made the drop-down appear every time you typed a double-bracket while editing. I hadn't decided if that was awesome or annoying before it went away, but if it ever comes back, the argument for "correction" redirects will become even weaker, I think.
::::::- [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 20:13, 27 March 2009 (EDT)
:::::::While I agree about keeping useful redirects like the aforementioned STARS and Imprisoned Inferno, I do want to point out that our visitors are not either minimally knowledged on Transformers or complete retards. Someone with barely any knowledge on Transformers should still be able to find the correct article, if not through the search suggestion boxes, then through disambiguation banners or related pages (like "Energon (cartoon)" for Improsoned Inferno). And I doubt anyone would be annoyed about a tiny bit of searching. [[User:Geewunling|Geewunling]] 04:00, 28 March 2009 (EDT)

::Speaking of the search suggestion box, is it possible to customise its behaviour to give priority to articles ''starting'' with whatever you type in? At the moment, if I type in "Megatron", I get a choice of "All Hail Megatron" issues rather than a choice of actual characters named "Megatron". This makes the suggestion thing less useful in my books, and it'd be better if it gave me a choice of articles with names ''starting'' with Megatron and ''then'' other articles with "Megatron" in the name. --[[User:Abates|abates]] 22:20, 12 April 2009 (EDT)
:::I don't think the search extension proper allows you to do this in settings, but it could be done by adjusting the code.
:::(You could also make it so redirects didn't show up in the search-suggestion box, which seems much more important to ''me''.)
:::Hh. I just discovered something ''hilarious'' about redirects, I'm gonna make it a new topic. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 22:38, 12 April 2009 (EDT)
::::I vote against the removal of redirects from the search-suggestion box. It would be ridiculous not to be suggested "Rodimus Prime (G1)" when searching for Rodimus because the article's name is "Hot Rod (G1)" with the other identity's name as redirect. [[User:Geewunling|Geewunling]] 00:47, 13 April 2009 (EDT)
:::::Can we have the search-menu program ignore redirects by default but have an option for exceptions? For instance, maybe there could be a template that we add to redirects that we actually WANT to have show up in the search-menu, like [[Rodimus Prime]]. I know nothing of the programming magic necessary to make this happen, so can someone in the know tell if this is feasible? - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 02:33, 13 April 2009 (EDT)
::::::But... what purpose do redirects serve if not to help people find an article? The only ones I'm sparing are ones someone arguably could use for their search? [[User:Geewunling|Geewunling]] 02:38, 13 April 2009 (EDT)
I'm gonna agree with Geewunling here. There is no meaningful way to differentiate redirects we want to show up in the searchbox from those we don't, and they are useful to show up as suggestions. The way to get that signal to noise ratio better is exactly what he's been doing, purging those redirects that are unlikely to be frequent search terms, and leaving the ones that people are likely to search by.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 02:41, 13 April 2009 (EDT)
: *Psst* "she". [[User:Geewunling|Geewunling]] 02:49, 13 April 2009 (EDT)
::No, no, I already deleted that redirect. "He" is all we have left.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 02:53, 13 April 2009 (EDT)
:Deleting "unworthy" redirects is a rather... violent solution. Even though I advocated it at the beginning of this discussion, I actually do prefer a surgical removal from just the search-menu instead if it's possible. As this discussion has shown, different people have different standards for what counts as worthwhile, and I'd rather see arguments revolve around something as easily changeable as a template than the creation/deletion of whole pages. Plus there's the sheer man-hours factor: My instinct is that more redirects are created by renaming ''badly''-titled articles than because of valid alternates, and therefore it will be more work to cull all the worthless redirects than it will be to modify the good ones for menu-inclusion.
:Plus I had another thought that might circumvent the need for ''any'' redirect-modification: What if typing the name of a redirect made the drop-down show only the actual article? For instance, the word "Rodimus" is in the name of ''four'' different redirects to [[Hot Rod (G1)]]: [[Rodimus Prime]], [[Rodimus Prime (G1)]], [[Hot Rodimus]], and [[New Rodimus]]. For some reason only the last two currently show up in the drop-down when you type "Rodimus", but that's still twice as many as there ought to be. If it just said "Hot Rod (G1)" instead of any of those, then we'd be keeping the drop-down clean without blocking the user's path, plus there would be no need at all to delete, modify, or otherwise discriminate among redirects.
:(Again, I have NO idea if this is programmatically feasible... but it's the best scenario I can envision.)
: - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 02:33, 13 April 2009 (EDT)
::''There is no meaningful way to differentiate redirects we want to show up in the searchbox from those we don't''
::We could have the search function not return redirects, which was the way it behaved on wikia.
::It's not a huge issue for most wikis-- but because we are ''so'' "disambiguated," (almost every major article having multiple disambigs and redirects,) it's kinda a big deal for us.
::So we probably want Scour to edit ''SearchSuggest.php'' so that.
<pre>if($location == 1){

$res = $db->select( 'page', 'page_title',
array( 'page_namespace' => 0,
'page_is_redirect' => 0,
"UPPER(page_title) LIKE '%" .$db->strencode( strtoupper ($term)). "%'" ),
"wfSajaxSearch",
array( 'LIMIT' => $limit )
);
} else {

$res = $db->select( 'page', 'page_title',
array( 'page_namespace' => 0,
'page_is_redirect' => 0,
"UPPER(page_title) LIKE '". $db->strencode( strtoupper ($term)) ."%'" ),
"wfSajaxSearch",
array( 'LIMIT' => $limit )
);
}</pre>
::We'd probably also want to set <tt>$location = 0;</tt> near the beginning of the file. (Match titles from the front only.) -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 07:23, 13 April 2009 (EDT)

:::I can't tell what that code does, but from your description it sounds like it would just purge all redirects from the search drop-down. Thing is, so far you're the only one who thinks that's a good idea. I agree with Geewunling and Rosicrucian that at least ''some'' redirects are helpful, since there are so many valid alternate terms. So I've been suggesting middle-ground ideas, but I've got no clue if they can actually be done. What do you think of them? - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 07:33, 13 April 2009 (EDT)
::::When do you need a redirect in a search-suggestion? Searching for "Megatron" will give you a list of pages with disambigs after them. Searching for "Matrix" will give you a list of pages whose title starts with "Matrix." Matrix (Disambiguation) will be the first match because a "(" comes before any letter alphabetically.
::::What redirects do you want in there? "Humans" as well as "Human" You want "Brothers in Armor" (a redirect) to appear in addition to the real page "Brothers in Armor!!"
::::I assume you do have a reason why including redirects in the list of search suggestions would be an idea, an example-case I'm missing. Could you tell me what it is?
::::I mean-- we get 8 suggestions. '''There are more than 8 Optimus Primes'''. At this point I go to the (disambiguation) page, or click RiD Prime at random, then click its disambig link to navigate sideways to the Prime I want.
::::Wikia's search suggest nix'd redirects-- and a lot of times I just used it to to find a page title I knew was "right" rather than a redirect. So if I see the link to "Falcon" on this page is blinking because it's a redirect, I type "Falcon" into the search-suggest box to see what my options are. Having ''any'' redirects there, no matter how well-intentioned is bad. I don't WANT to see "Falcon" as a search-suggestion (it's the #1 match,) because that's a redirect.
::::When exactly is having a redirect in a search suggestion useful? -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 07:57, 13 April 2009 (EDT)
:::::An example has already been brought up: Rodimus Prime. If you type that in and the menu doesn't show redirects, you'll get [[Rodimus Prime (Animated)]] and [[Rodimus Prime remembers the Transformers greatest battle on Earth.]], but you WON'T get [[Hot Rod (G1)]], which is most likely what you were looking for. If you want more examples than that, a couple have already jumped to mind, but I hope you'll agree without further persuasion that there are lots of cases like this. Hence my two suggestions: We exclude redirects by default and either 1) have a template we can throw onto valuable redirects so they're not excluded, or 2) make it so the core article actually shows up in the menu even if the word you're typing isn't in its title. Like I also said, I have NO idea if either of those is feasible. But without some intercessory factor like that, I think simply excluding redirects is a little too baby-with-the-bathwater. In the meantime, Geewunling is weeding through dozens of redirects, marking for deletion all of the ones she judges unworthy. I think THAT solution is dismayingly painstaking and severe (even though I suggested it in the first place), but in the absence of a programmatic solution, it might end up being the best. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 09:04, 13 April 2009 (EDT)
::::::Geewunling likes to point out that she thinks a lot of these redirects should be fixed and/or deleted regardless. There's no point in keeping most of them, and they clog up things. I like some of the ideas mentioned here on how to have search suggestion box react on queries to exclude unhelpful redirects, but we should just get rid of a lot of them anyway. Btw, I've been wondering, is it possible to make the search suggestion box a bit longer than it currently is? [[User:Geewunling|Geewunling]] 09:30, 13 April 2009 (EDT)
:::::::Sorry, I didn't mean to disparage your efforts; I appreciate orderliness as much as anyone, and it's pleasing to see useless redirects vanish. By all means, as long as you have the gumption for it, knock yourself out. What's "dismaying" about it to me, the more I think about it, is the idea of it becoming our official solution to the problem of a cluttered search menu. That's a lot of painstaking work to put on the shoulders of the wiki in general, especially since we're never going to see the end of useless redirects as the wiki grows. And the thing is, if we can find a programmatic solution for the search-menu issue, then the only area where redirects will really "clog up things" the annoying realm of double-redirects, which have been popping up at a very manageable rate so far. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 09:47, 13 April 2009 (EDT)
::::::::Double redirects are easy-- have the 'bot fix 'em.
::::::::And ''thank you'' Jackpot, "Rodimus Prime (G1)" is a good example of a time when redirects in search boxes would be useful-- my imagination failed me.
::::::::Here's the thing-- the thing you're suggesting... hiding all redirects except ones we flag in-page is... not possible, at least not without a fundamental change to the core functionality of the wiki, which is code I wouldn't touch with a ten foot laser pole. The "page_is_redirect" flag is a fundamental yes-no boolean database field associated with the page entry. We can ''reference'' that, but turning it into something squishier like "is redirect, or is a page we like" sounds nightmarish. I guess ''maybe'' you could totally rewrite the database query to use a join that tests against a category id... or more likely a category name that would be... ugh, it's giving me a headache just ''thinking'' about it... you'd be transforming a light ajax query that might be performed 10 times when you're typing a single word into an incredibly ''heavy'' cross-referencing string-match join query-- it's the difference between using a cup-holder and getting out of the car to fetch your drink from the trunk every time you want to take a sip. ...not to mention you'd be making core wiki functionality dependent on proprietary hacks-- in the service of a function that's supposed to be a minor ''enhancement.''
::::::::Let me sketch another scenario for you.
::::::::#I want Rodimus Prime! I type him in the search box.
::::::::#I see several results, none of which looks like the one I want. Rather than "Rodimus (disambiguation)" I clock "Rodimus (Animated)," just ot be difficult.
::::::::#This isn't the guy I want! Oh look, there's a link at the top-- "Other people called Rodimus Prime..." Hey, it's a list! And I want the first one on it!
::::::::You know-- that's assuming that the person clicks on the search-suggest. Most people ''don't''. If they click "Search" it'll come up just liek ti always does. The suggest function is just a tiny helper, completely seperate from actual searching.
::::::::And finally (and this is the real thing) '''the search suggest function has been entirely replaced in the new version of MediaWiki.''' I don't know what's different about the new version, but I think it's stupid to sink too much time into making this version perfect. Slap it a few times to make it behave more like we want, but hold off on major changes until the upgrade.
::::::::And finally, I agree with Jackpot-- purging redirects (which may be ''linked to'' from off-site) in order to make the "search suggest" function work neater is incredibly wrong-headed. Purge redirects if you want-- we certainly need to get rid of some... but '''that should not be your reason'''.
::::::::We deleted the "Nest" -> "N.E.S.T." redirect yesterday. Because apparently no one will ''ever'' search for "Nest." This is out of control. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 10:17, 13 April 2009 (EDT)
:::::::::There is now a "NEST" -> "N.E.S.T." redirect and "NEST" comes up in the search box when you type "nest". And I click on the suggested list all the time. I think the only real improvement necessary is to assume that the what you are typing is the first word of the article. (so that "All Hail Megatron" doesn't come up when you type "Megatron") - [[User:Starfield|Starfield]] 10:27, 13 April 2009 (EDT)
:::::::::I'm not feeling my work trivialized; most of the things you have said so far count as compliments to me. I'm merely stating what I believe to be the right solution for practical reasons. My current reasoning is that once we have this redirect purging done, it is easier to prevent in the future. A lot of our current redirects to me seem the result of misspellings, disagreements and/or need for an identifier, mostly from a time when we didn't have that awesome search suggestion thing and didn't have a bot to change links for us. I figure that with a clean slate and slightly better organization (like, mark the damn talk page redirect for deletion once you've moved a page), we can prevent the ridicilousness of redirects we currently have. And I disagree with Starfield's suggestion. While we need something for the Megatron search "problem", I have gotten a lot of redirects deleted on the basis that a later word in the query gets you the correct suggestion. Most recent example would be the "Headmasters" redirects to "The Headmasters" articles. But also in case of titles like all the doctors we have, just a correct combination of symbols anywhere should get you the proper suggestions. [[User:Geewunling|Geewunling]] 10:44, 13 April 2009 (EDT)
::::::::::...crap, I forgot searches were case-insensitive, aren't they, even if the actual page ''links'' aren't. Bitchy complaint withdrawn.
::::::::::And yeah, it's annoying as fuck to see page-after-page of redirect-flagging and deleting every time I check the wiki... but it's not exactly ''unneeded'', and a bunch of that stems from imprort and page recovery, stuff that had moved etc... we're just getting it all at once and clearing out 2 years of accumulated deadwood all at once. I have no problem with that-- Deadwood should be cleared. As long as we're doing it for the right reasons. The volume will level off eventually. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 12:52, 13 April 2009 (EDT)

:::::::::Thank you, Derik, for explaining why my idea #1 won't work. What about #2? Can the search-suggest, in the process of not displaying redirects, recognize ''where'' each redirect is going and display those pages in the menu too? As I said when I first suggested it, I actually think that's the BEST option of all. Based on your explanation, I'm guessing it's not feasible, but since you only mentioned my first idea, I want to be extra-sure no options are being dismissed out of hand.
:::::::::I appreciate your point about the new MediaWiki, but given what happened the last time it was installed, do you really think we'll try again in the remotely near future? My instinct is that it's too far off to be a factor worth consideration. Besides, maybe we can find out right now if the whole point is moot or not. Do we know of any wikis that are using the new software?
:::::::::- [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 15:44, 13 April 2009 (EDT)

The last abortive attempt at a MediaWiki upgrade should not be taken as by any means typical, nor as an example of best practices performing such an upgrade. It can be done better, we know ''how'' to do it better, and the only reason it ''wasn't'' done better is because it was done by people other than the ones we generally trust with such things.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 16:16, 13 April 2009 (EDT)

== Page load issues ==
{{see|Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Leaving2}}

==Wikia credits in redirects==
I just discovered this... it looks liek all of our redirects have wikia credits in the code. They don't show up normally, but hit the edit button, and there they all are. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 01:33, 30 March 2009 (EDT)
:I noticed this as well, and pointed it out over on the Damage Control Central section.... What I'm curious about is, is there any way for a bot to seek and destroy these? Because there's no way to see them unless you hit the edit button... --[[User:Detour|Detour]] 01:42, 30 March 2009 (EDT)
::I'm wondering if, when we move servers, we can run the same script we used when moving here in order to purge all Wikia links. --[[User:Abates|abates]] 01:47, 30 March 2009 (EDT)
:::I think we're gonna run a SQL database import when we move servers- so probably not.
:::I (finally) have a complete list of all wiki pages (as of about a week ago) including redirects. I'll rig my de-wikia-er script over the redirects tonight as soon as Big Sweep 2.0 is done-- at least on the 4000-odd redirects in the name namespace. (2.0 does about 1/3 of what I'd hoped it would... the regex's were just breaking my fucking balls, so I resigned myself to taking baby steps. Right now it's fixing one sort of in-page template and fixing all the escaped HTML-- so stuff will at least start ''looking'' more right, even if it's not properly template'd.) -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 01:21, 5 April 2009 (EDT)

== Icons on external links ==

Derik is experimenting with sticking icons on the external links for common external link sites (both for branding, and because it lets you visually scan the links without reading them-- "I want the profile-- NTFA!") These icons require CSS3, and I THINK they work on all modern browsers... but I really dont' care because they fail silently (creating no problems) if they don't. These icons should ''only'' show up in the External Link section-- I'm worried they might screw up layouts elsewhere.

If you hate it, think it could be improved, or just want a site added- let me know. The community can feel free to vote to toss it out if it's annoying... I just thought it was worth trying. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 01:12, 5 April 2009 (EDT)

== Quotes ==
{{note|This discussion was moved from [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Damage Control Central#Quotes]].}}

Quotes now seem to look like this:

{{quote|Freedom is the right of all sentient beings|Optimus Prime}}

when IIRC before the crash they look like this:

{{bigquote|Freedom is the right of all sentient beings|Optimus Prime}}

Now, it seems we can get the second result using the <nowiki>{{bigquote}}</nowiki> template instead of the basic <nowiki>{{quote}}</nowiki> template that is currently populating most of the pages.

I'm of the opinion that the bigquote look is much more pleasing to the eye and it also seemed to be the norm before the crash. Should we change the quotes to bigquotes on individual pages or just have someone with template knowledge make a change there? --[[User:Bluestreak7|Bluestreak7]] 23:29, 5 April 2009 (EDT)
:Discussion on [[Template_talk:Quote]] suggests that bigquote is the old style and quote is the new style. --[[User:Abates|abates]] 01:37, 6 April 2009 (EDT)
::Mind you I didn't ''ask'' anyone before swapping styles-- the intention was to give people a chance to evaluate the new look, but we only had it for a few days before the crash... so I don't think anyone noticed. :p
::It's my opinion that the old quote template took up too much space-- which is find for a single quote at the top of an article when you want to make a big thing of it, but I thought ''most'' uses of the template would look nicer with s smaller visual footprint. (Plus the html is more contextual.)
::Some people seem to dislike the chevron-style quoting... it's consistent with what, at the time, were our new reference templates-- also lost in the crash. The real appeal, to me, is that it lets you put quotes ''inside'' the quote template (such as an exchange between characters) without looking weird. The way we ''used'' to do that was multiple quote templates in a row, which (being oversize already) resulted in a massive on-screen footprint.
::If the consensus is to switch to the bigQuote format for all quotes instead of the smaller one, I guess that's the community's perogative... but I'm gonna argue against it until that decision is made.
::I ''like'' bitQuote-- it's great if you want a quote to be a big thing. Most of the time you don't. When you do-- why not just use <nowiki>{{bigquote}}</nowiki>? -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 01:48, 6 April 2009 (EDT)
:::Ahhh, my mistake! I coulda sworn I'd seen quote in use longer! --[[User:Abates|abates]] 01:55, 6 April 2009 (EDT)

::Why I don't like "quote":
::#It's ugly.
::#It's '''bigger''' than bigQuote. That seems to defeat the whole point.
::#Single guillemots ''don't get used as quotation marks in English'' and so '''they don't parse as quotation marks'''.
::#It's '''incredibly''' ugly.
::#And finally-if-slightly-tangentially, there's a conscious effort, it seems, to change all "bigquotes" to "quotes", which defeats the whole point of having two templates.
::Definite vote to revert - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 11:35, 6 April 2009 (EDT)

I vote against the revert. I do not like the old quote style, as noted on the above-linked discussion page. All we need to do is change the guillemots to quote marks and it's fine by me. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 04:08, 9 April 2009 (EDT)
In accordance with the general wishes of the community, the quotes have been changed from guillemots to standard quotation... though I think it looks terribly ''silly'' that way. You can see just how silly over at [[Template_talk:Quote]]. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 23:57, 10 April 2009 (EDT)
:Well, one day after updating the quote template, I finally ran into ''exactly'' the scenario I was talking about in regards to quotes within quotes. I need to quote this passage (which includes but is not composed exclusively of dialog) for an article.
{{quote|"Farewell Optimus prime," [Starscream] whispered to himself. "Time for Endspark."|[[Starscream (Movie)|Starscream]]|[[Ghosts of Yesterday]] p280}}
:That looks absolutely retarded. The guillemots may have been ugly-- but they were at least ''clear''. And none of the user suggestions (including [[User:Abates]] idea of using multiple parameters for a series of quotes) applies here-- because the text is ''inline''.
:You all suck. Does anyone have any suggestions ''other'' than guillemots to make that look less retarded? Because <nowiki>{{bigquote}}</nowiki> looks even ''worse''. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 02:53, 12 April 2009 (EDT)
::[http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/quotes.asp Rule four] suggests it should look like this:
{{quote|'Farewell Optimus prime,' [Starscream] whispered to himself. 'Time for Endspark.'|[[Starscream (Movie)|Starscream]]|[[Ghosts of Yesterday]] p280}}
::although you could also use ‘ and ’ maybe? --[[User:Abates|abates]] 03:33, 12 April 2009 (EDT)
:::I have restore the guillemots as an ''optional flag.'' (style=2) The entire ''point'' of using a non-english quotation mark was to avoid conflicts with English quotation marks, so the guillemots seem like a good fallback position when there is a conflict.
{{quote|'Farewell Optimus prime,' [Starscream] whispered to himself. 'Time for Endspark.'|[[Starscream (Movie)|Starscream]]|[[Ghosts of Yesterday]] p280|style=2}}
:::This necessitated html and css changes, so some quotes may look funny for the next 24 hours or so until the pages de-cache. (They'll preview properly, and if you save them they'll look right... but left on their own they will re-cache with the updated <nowiki>{{quote}}</nowiki> HTML in short order, so don't bother.) -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 03:50, 12 April 2009 (EDT)

::Uh, why not take the easy route. '''Leave out the opening and closing quotation marks when you post''', and the template fills them in. i.e.,
{{quote|Farewell Optimus prime," [Starscream] whispered to himself. "Time for Endspark.|[[Starscream (Movie)|Starscream]]|[[Ghosts of Yesterday]] p280}}
::There you go, simple and doesn't involve guillemots that don't parse for anyone. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 05:01, 12 April 2009 (EDT)
:::What a lovely mix of smart and dumb quotes you have created. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 05:46, 12 April 2009 (EDT)
::::Given the use of a monospaced font, it doesn't make sense to use "smart" quotation marks anyway... - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 07:24, 12 April 2009 (EDT)

:I prefer the old style quotes. Nobody can make me use the new ones. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 06:09, 12 April 2009 (EDT)
::I completely don't care about this discussion, but I must take the time to point out that it's "guillemet". "Guillemot" is a bird, which is decidedly not relevant to this discussion. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 03:49, 16 April 2009 (EDT)

== Epnav working? ==

I remember ''someone'' complaining that our episode navigation was broken when we first did crash recovery. Is that still the case?

(Let's pretend that this inquiry is NOT related to me going through goggle analytics and realizing, to my horror, what % of page traffic passes through those previous/next links.) -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 04:06, 6 April 2009 (EDT)

:I have no idea about the previous possible issues, but I'll point out here that some articles with epnavs converted so they look right, but when you edit them you'll see the epnav sectiosn were just converted to HTML equivalents of our epnav templates. I don't know if this is a problem, but I've placed a bookworm 2 on pages where I have found them regardless. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 07:40, 6 April 2009 (EDT)

:Interrobang fixed any issues with that a couple of days ago, I think. --[[User:Abates|abates]] 08:14, 6 April 2009 (EDT)

== Project: ==

For whatever reason, links to [[Project: Transtector]] (see [[Japanese Self Defense Core]] and [[Minerva]]) are automagically translated into links to "Transformers Wiki:Transtector". I'm thinking that's probably not the intended result. --[[User:Abates|abates]] 08:44, 6 April 2009 (EDT)
:Seems to be a kludge to redirect links to wikiprojects.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 13:51, 7 April 2009 (EDT)

== Blue boxes ==

Not sure where else to ask this question: Is there a reason the blue boxes (stub, coming soon, etc) don't have right hand borders? Or is this just something wonky with my computer? This has bothered me for some time, just thought it would be a good time to fix this (if it isn't just me) while all the other corrections are being made post-disaster.[[User:Khajidha|Khajidha]] 13:44, 7 April 2009 (EDT)
:Better suited for the community portal. The main page discussion is specifically for the main page itself. I've moved your question over.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 13:50, 7 April 2009 (EDT)

:Are you using IE 7? I lose the right-hand side of the stub box in that too. --[[User:Abates|abates]] 16:04, 7 April 2009 (EDT)

== Orphaned pages ==

Now that things are starting to get in order, I've started my work on the orphaned page list again. I've noticed something odd. It seems there are a bunch of pages with special characters on the orphaned pages listing that are obviously not orphaned. It mostly seems to be Japanese voice actors and such. If you go to the pages and click the "What links here" button, there are pages linking to it.

At first I thought maybe it was an old list, but since then I have integrated in other orphaned pages and the list does continue update. The question is can we even do anything about this due to the automation? I really would like to get that list down at least to one page. Orphaned pages annoy me.--[[User:Bluestreak7|Bluestreak7]] 17:12, 7 April 2009 (EDT)

:While I have no idea how to fix this, it seems like these special character pages have acquired some weird kind of duplicates. For example, type "rmun" into the search box, and the dropdown menu gives you two different "[[Jörmungandr]]" articles, apparently with the same name but using different URLs for the special characters: "Jo%CC%88rmungandr" and "J%C3%B6rmungandr". Wiki considers the former URL to be an orphaned article and the latter one to be "correct", but both lead to the same article, no Wiki redirects or nothing. --[[User:Apoc|Apoc]] 17:38, 7 April 2009 (EDT)
::I have some ideas about fixing the problem, but I'd rather set up a test server to try them on before doing them on the main site. --[[User:Abates|abates]] 17:41, 7 April 2009 (EDT)
:::FYI: [[Professor Gō]] has two entries in [[:Category:Scientists|Category sections]]. One is real (and filed under "G") and one is messed up (and filed under "P"). It isn't a redirect, it is some kind of ghost. - [[User:Starfield|Starfield]] 16:51, 13 April 2009 (EDT)

:::I've also noticed that our page count on the Main Page seems to be in a state of flux. It gets up higher and then lowers. I wonder if this is due to these "duplicate" pages sometimes getting counted and other times not. --[[User:Bluestreak7|Bluestreak7]] 10:42, 15 April 2009 (EDT)
::::I think I am the fault of that. I'm not sure if it goes for all instances, but at least when I put the delete template on a redirect, it suddenly counts as a "page". Wait until someone has removed those pages marked for deletion - the count will lower again. Then wait for me to mark a few more and the page count will go up again. [[User:Geewunling|Geewunling]] 11:02, 15 April 2009 (EDT)

== Comics copyright ==

Right now, the comiccover template states that:
:''This image is the cover of a single issue of a comic book, the copyright for which is owned by either the publisher or the artist who produced this cover.''
...and similarly, the comicinterior template says:
:''This image is a panel or sequence of panels of a comic book, the copyright for which is owned by either the publisher or the artist and/or writer who produced this issue.''

Thing is, that's inaccurate in significant part - AIUI, Hasbro Transformers comic licencees have to surrender the copyrights on material published in a TF comic to Hasbro... with certain exceptions - primarily for our purposes, the publisher logos and publisher-owned characters. That's why Marvel went to the trouble of debuting Circuit Breaker and Death's Head (and others? Not counting issue 3 of the Marvel US series with long-established Spider-Man, Nick Fury, etc; of course) outside of their TF comics, so that they would retain the rights; and why Titan & IDW can reprint Marvel issues (although IDW seem to have a *lot* more trouble getting the rights to reprint the Marvel-owned stuff than Titan did).

Does anyone know enough of the details to write up versions of the templates suitable for Marvel US, Marvel UK, IDW, etc? [DW is more complicated, since their G1 ongoing and WW v3 fell into the black hole of their bankruptcy, when their earlier, nominally completed, stuff didn't] - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 11:53, 12 April 2009 (EDT)

== Redirects while editing ==

Go to [[User:Derik/Sandbox7]], hit edit, then ''preview''. (Hitting shift-refresh might be required to clear out your CSS cache if the effect isn't apparent.)

Links to redirects are highlighted ''in preview mode only''. If it's not highlighted, you know you're pointing to an actual page rather than a redirect. Should probably make it easier to just ''guess'' on a lot of links while still being assured you're picking valid ones.

(Pink is a terrible color to use for this. Any suggestions on how this should be styled? Sparkle-background?) -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 22:46, 12 April 2009 (EDT)
:Would making them simply underlined be too subtle? --[[User:Abates|abates]] 23:15, 12 April 2009 (EDT)
::I worry it's too subtle. What about this?
::If that's too subtle I could break out the sparkling text and have the wiki chant "Septus, Dominus!" every time you mouse over it...-[[User:Derik|Derik]] 23:30, 12 April 2009 (EDT)

Aw, what's wrong with the pink? I think that one's clear enough. [[User:Geewunling|Geewunling]] 00:39, 13 April 2009 (EDT)

Not bad. At least this way it'll be easier to catch the redirects, applying changes when necessary. Although pink... I think it'd be better if the color was a different contrast if it's in the colored section of the templates (as in the episode/comic templates). --[[User:Lonegamer78|Lonegamer78]] 01:34, 13 April 2009 (EDT)
:Abates suggested underlining... since the redirects ''only'' show up that way when in preview mode, I think it'd be a good idea to have multiple visual indications. (I don't think the previous/next links on the comicnav, for example, will change color... because they already ''have'' a color set. If you have multiple indicators (color underline, etc...) chances are at least one will remain noticable no matter what happens.
:Does anyone hate the blinking? (It's a firefox-only style.) Normally I HATE anything that blinks because its distracting, but the whole point here is to be able to easily spot the redirects. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 01:58, 13 April 2009 (EDT)
::Eh, blinking's fine. Not that of a biggy for me. --[[User:Lonegamer78|Lonegamer78]] 02:08, 13 April 2009 (EDT)

::It's only in the preview and not in the saved pages, so the blinking is ok so far as I'm concerned! --[[User:Abates|abates]] 02:15, 13 April 2009 (EDT)
::I think the feature is great? But yes, I hate the blinking. - [[User:Starfield|Starfield]] 10:03, 13 April 2009 (EDT)
This might be a good time to mention this, but just because a link is pink and flashy doesn't necessarily mean it is a mistake needing fixing, right? It is sometimes OK to use redirect links. If you are talking about Goldbug it is OK (and preferable in my opinion) to link to [[Goldbug (G1)]] and let the redirect do the work. I think having it stand out so much would tend to have editors feel the need to clean them all out. - [[User:Starfield|Starfield]] 10:17, 13 April 2009 (EDT)
:::There is potential for that. I agree that sometimes redirects are okay... <nowiki>*shrug*</nowiki> -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 12:44, 13 April 2009 (EDT)

How about "safety orange" or yellow? Those are universal "danger/warning" colors. (And less puke-inducing for me than pink). I don't mind the blinking either, considering that the idea is that the indicator is ''supposed'' to annoy the hell out of you until you change it. (FWIW, the whole thing works fine in Opera 9.63, too.)

As for Starfield's comment, eh, I just don't see it 99% of the time. If I wanted to link to something like Goldbug or Rodimus Prime, I would do <nowiki>[[Bumblebee (G1)|Goldbug]]</nowiki> or <nowiki>[[Hot Rod (G1)|Rodimus Prime]]</nowiki> instead. About the only time I could see it useful is if you were doing linking related to a spoiler (like Longarm Prime vs. Shockwave, for instance), but even then you'd still only need to do it for a month at most. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 16:15, 13 April 2009 (EDT)
:I don't personally see the sense in manually redirecting to Hot Rod when you are talking Rodimus Prime when there is perfectly valid actual redirect to use. You aren't talking about "Hot Rod". It is like word-linking that way, like you are trying to fake out the reader. "Rodimus Prime" is that character's name in that point of the story. I always thought that was the primary purpose of having redirects, and search boxes were secondary.
:Plus there is the added benefit of when you use the "what links here" page, you see what pages link to "Rodimus Prime", which is interesting information that is lost if everything links to "Hot Rod". - [[User:Starfield|Starfield]] 17:53, 13 April 2009 (EDT)
::Because it's the same character. We say "Spike" or "Daniel", but link to their full name. If someone refers to Bumblebee as a "giant yellow Volkswagon robot" in something, we might use that phrasing in the synopsis, but we'd still link to Bumblebee, not to "giant yellow Volkswagon robot" as a redirect. Etc. It's not a fakeout, it's just using the proper contextual name in the text, but cutting out the middleman for the actual link.
::Redirects can make linking easier for editors who don't know immediately what the proper link might be, so we don't end up with accidental duplicate pages (or as a shorter way to link to something like an oft-used section link), but on the whole I think it's mostly useful for searches.
::In short, while not all redirect linking is something to worry about, per se, I don't see anything wrong with encouraging editors to hunt down the correct linkage, even in those sorts of edge cases. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 18:19, 13 April 2009 (EDT)
:::"Goldbug" was a character in the comic [[Used Autobots]], the character was ''not'' "Bumblebee". In that way, it is different than using Spike's full name, or even [[Peter Parker]] vs [[Spider-Man]]. I think a link on the [[Used Autobots]] article to <nowiki>[[Bumblebee (G1)|Goldbug]]</nowiki> is incorrect because there was no "Bumblebee" in the story. - [[User:Starfield|Starfield]] 18:36, 13 April 2009 (EDT)
::::And yet, Bumblebee and Goldbug don't have separate articles, because we treat them as being the same character. *shrugs a little* I don't ''care'' either way, really, and wouldn't consider it worth worrying about if someone linked to Goldbug, I just don't see that as more correct. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 18:47, 13 April 2009 (EDT)
:::::Bumblebee/Goldbug is the same character. That is ''why'' I think it is OK to link to "Goldbug", even more correct to do so when you are talking about Goldbug. "Goldbug" is not a nickname for "Bumblebee", Goldbug is that character, at that point in the story. The article could be named "Goldbug (G1)" with Bumblebee redirecting to it or "Bumblebee/Goldbug", but for our, somewhat arbitrary, naming rules. I don't disagree with the naming rules, but just because the article is called "Bumblebee" doesn't mean that that always linking to "Bumblebee" is correct. - [[User:Starfield|Starfield]] 19:00, 13 April 2009 (EDT)
::::::And yet, even if you link to Goldbug, when you click on the link, you still end up at a page titled "Bumblebee (G1)". Is the little "redirected from" note really that crucial a difference? (Especially since the intro mentions the Goldbug change right at the top anyway.) It just seems like a difference that makes no difference to me. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 19:05, 13 April 2009 (EDT)
:::::::Yes, when you link to Goldbug, you end up at the right spot, so why the big push to not link to Goldbug when you are talking about Goldbug? And yes, in some way I like seeing "redirected from", it lets me know that Goldbug is just as correct but the title is called "Bumblebee" out of convenience. And don't forget about the "What links here" feature. It is a little useful being able to sort out the Goldbug references. - [[User:Starfield|Starfield]] 19:19, 13 April 2009 (EDT)
::::::Someone requested I link-fix a bunch of minor variants of Hot Rod/Rodimus Prime ot all point to "Hot Rod (G1)". Instead I split them, pointing to "Hot Rod (G1)" and "Rodimus Prime (G1)" as appropriate-- in case we one day decide to split the articles like we do Megatron/Galvatron.
::::::The same principle applies. A split is ''unlikely'', but this way if we ''do'' split the articles, all the links are already pointing to the appropriate destination, instead of having to sort through 500+ incoming links ''by hand'' (that's abotu the number Hot Rod has...) to figure out which need to go where. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 10:57, 15 April 2009 (EDT)

::::::::''Is the little "redirected from" note really that crucial a difference?''
::::::::For me, yes, it kinda is. It lets me know that the powers-that-be have decided that "Goldbug" is heavily subordinate to the character of Bumblebee, that they are well and truly one and the same, that there's not some other Goldbug article out there that I'm missing. That in itself is a significant bit of information, even before I've started reading the text. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 20:09, 22 April 2009 (EDT)

I think that the "What Links Here" issue is a fair point. But IMHO if you need the little "redirected from" note to tell you're in the right place instead of just by reading the intro, you're either lazy or the intro needs rewriting. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 21:14, 22 April 2009 (EDT) 
Edit: Realized I should mention that I'm liking the blinky thingy so far... it used to be annoying having to click through every new link I was adding to make sure it was the proper direct link instead of a redirect. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 21:18, 22 April 2009 (EDT)
:We should have one standard for linking or not linking to redirect pages. I much prefer being able to link to redirect pages and not get reverted, but I would go along with the other way if that is the standard. I started a draft proposal for a standard to be added to the style guide at my [[User:Starfield/Redirect linking|sandbox]]. Please feel free to comment or edit it or add reasons for/against. - [[User:Starfield|Starfield]] 10:51, 8 May 2009 (EDT)

== Moved talk pages ==

There should really be an option to delete the old talk page after it is moved instead of creating a redirect. - [[User:Starfield|Starfield]] 12:20, 17 April 2009 (EDT)

==DEFAULSORT problem?==
Several of the entries in the [[:Category:Voice actors|voice actors category]] are listed both under their surname and their first name. These appear to be the actors with some accent in their name: [[Ireneusz Załóg]], [[Márcio Seixas]], [[Maurício Berger]] and [[Willi Röbke]]. Having accents, but not having this problem are [[Fátima Noya]] (but that's not DEFAULTSORTed), [[José Santacruz]] and [[José Sant'anna]]. Apparently, there's some problem DEFAULTSORT has with some of the accented vowels ([é] does work, [á], [ó], [í] and [ö] don't). Can this problem be solved? -- [[User:Tupka86|Tupka86]] 09:06, 18 April 2009 (EDT)
:It's related to the [[Transformers_Wiki_talk:Community_Portal/Damage_Control_Central#Macron_issues|Macron issue mentioned here]]. Once we fix that, the listing under their first name will disappear. --[[User:Abates|abates]] 21:07, 18 April 2009 (EDT)

==Franchise identifier consistency==
At the moment, we have 34 "G1" articles with an identifier of a specific Japanese sub-franchise to distinguish them from articles on usually Western/G1 material. We also have about 9 "G1" articles who use a different kind of identifier, on basis that the Japanese continuities are G1. 
This already led to a bit of moving around with the Grandus article between (G1) and (ROC) when the Animated guy was introduced. To prevent that happening with the Dai Atlas, Sky Garry and possibly Cancer articles, I'd like to have the community make a decision on how to deal with the (G1) identifier vs the (Headmasters), (Masterforce), (Victory), (Zone), (ROC) and (OC) identifiers vs whatever else can be/is used as identifier. 
My preference would be to use the Japanese sub-franchise identifiers. Simple and in line with the whole "from the (Japanese franchise) portion of the G1 continuity" on top of those pages. For convenience, here's a list of the moves it would mean:
*Sandstorm (Autobot) -> Sandstorm (G1) (Note: we have a SG Sandstorm now, so (Autobot) it can't stay anyway.)
*Sandstorm (Decepticon) -> Sandstorm (OC)
*Falcon (Predator) -> Falcon (G1)
*Falcon (Micromaster) -> Falcon (OC)
*Ricochet (G1 Autobot) -> Ricochet (Headmasters)
*Metrotitan (G1) -> Metrotitan (Zone)
*Grandus (G1) -> Grandus (ROC)
*Star Saber (G1) -> Star Saber (Victory)
*Joe (Micromaster) -> Joe (ROC)
*Circuit (Action Master) -> Circuit (G1)
*Circuit (Micromaster) -> Circuit (OC)
*Convertor (Micromaster) -> Convertor (OC)
*Convertor (Recyclon) -> Convertor (G1), but I'm in favour of leaving this one as (Recyclon) because all other Recyclons with an identifier use (Recyclon).
Thoughts? [[User:Geewunling|Geewunling]] 03:48, 19 April 2009 (EDT)

:Sky Garry etc... all fall under (G1.) Widest possible identifier when there's no conflict.
:This confuses people because we use specific franchises for UT characters... but the UT has SO MUCH name overlap it'd be pointless-- no one would have the (UT) identifier even if it was standard. G1 has little enough name overlap internal to itself we can make (G1) the default.
:So it's inconsistent--but it's at least ''consistently'' inconsistent. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 06:55, 19 April 2009 (EDT)
::Diver, Planet X, Hydra, maaaaybe Overlord... No, we're not consistently inconsistent either. And now I'm only looking at G1 West vs Japan. With BW, we do seem to be consistent in acknowledging its Japanese sub-franchises in identifiers. [[User:Geewunling|Geewunling]] 07:20, 19 April 2009 (EDT)

::What's this "widest possible identifier," Derik? Didn't we go through that huge "Swarm (G1)" debate (which seems to have been ''completely lost'' in the Bookworm crash, fantastic) to cement the franchise-of-origin rule forever and ever amen? The only question here is: What counts as a separate franchise? To my mind, ''Zone'' bears about the same relationship to G1 as G2 does. And, as the Swarm debate established, G2 is never ever G1 as far as parentheticals are concerned. The UT example has nothing to do with what you said and everything to do with our one simple rule. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 00:21, 20 April 2009 (EDT)
:::...I don't remember anymore. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 00:31, 20 April 2009 (EDT)
::::At least remember to curse the name of Bookworm for three to seven generations. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 00:59, 20 April 2009 (EDT)
:::::Side note: Actually, the bit of the discussion that was on my User Page subpage isn't lost. I just didn't upload it anywhere because we never actually determined a good permanent place to move it to, so I didn't know ''where'' to upload it to. After a quickie Google search, it turns out there's still a good cache file for the Insecticon Swarm talk page, too. Anyhoo. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 02:19, 20 April 2009 (EDT)
::::::Hey, whatever you can find and restore, please do. The biggest value of preserving a debate like that is never having to go through it again. I'd say you should re-make your Sandbox and its Talk page exactly as they were before. I don't think a more "permanent" place is necessary; it's an aborted experiment, so it can stay on an "experimental" page. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 03:11, 20 April 2009 (EDT)

:::::I'm for moving those pages. Except for "OC" since it's based on a bad translation of a Japanese title. 合体大作戦 (''Gattai Daisakusen'') means "Great Combination Operation". Everybody who knows this, including me, just has been too lazy to correct it. (And Derik, the punctuation for a sentence is out of the parentheses. I'm not sure why you consistently make that mistake.) [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 01:54, 20 April 2009 (EDT)
::::::Then maybe this is a good moment to correct it? [[User:Geewunling|Geewunling]] 03:55, 20 April 2009 (EDT)
:::::::Well, problem is that "Operation Combination", as incorrect as it is, is what the majority of English people know it as. And then what to have the disambiguation parentheses as? "(GCO)"? I would prefer to have it as "Gattai Daisakusen", but my opinion of forgoing unofficial translations is decidedly unpopular. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 16:13, 20 April 2009 (EDT)
::::::::Then it depends on what this wiki cares more about: helping people find information or providing them with the correct information. By what you're saying, I'd say Operation Combination should become a redirect to the correctly named article. And from there, I don't think (OC) is going to be anymore clear on what continuity it represents than (GCO) or (GD). I don't think many will immediately guess "OC" stands for Operation Combination, and that's also not the point of identifiers. [[User:Geewunling|Geewunling]] 08:21, 21 April 2009 (EDT)
:::::::I'm in favor of using the Japanese sub-franchise names. I checked Beast Wars and we are using the sub-franchise names for that, (BWII), (BWN) so this would be consistent. - [[User:Starfield|Starfield]] 08:51, 20 April 2009 (EDT)
::::::::Except as someone (Interrobang?) keeps pointing out-- that's problematic in itself. There was no BWII Toyline. There was a BWII cartoon... and a Beast Wars Toyline. Japan considers all 4 BW series paer of 1 toyline franchise, much like Generation 1. (This argument hasn't received a lot of traction, but I'm bringing it up because it seems relevant.) -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 10:19, 20 April 2009 (EDT)
:::::::::FortMax brought it up at least twice. One could argue that since we focus on fiction, we should base our disambiguation system on it, but I dunno how to reconcile that with [[Cryotek (RID)]]. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 16:13, 20 April 2009 (EDT)
::::::::::Or [[Sideways (RID)]]. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 18:34, 20 April 2009 (EDT)
:::::::::::Sideways at least got a RID bio. All Cryotek gets is a quote. (And what if they have RID fiction with Cryotek in it? RID and BM are in two different continuity families which means we have to split the articles and argharghargh) [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 19:19, 20 April 2009 (EDT)
::::::::::::Disambiguating by fiction has been argued. It doesn't work/help. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 19:52, 20 April 2009 (EDT)

:::::::::The Wiki calls Headmasters, Beast Wars II, etc. "franchises." I didn't know the weren't until just now. It seems useful enough to do so, even if it isn't 100% historically accurate. - [[User:Starfield|Starfield]] 19:07, 20 April 2009 (EDT)

== Alt Mode Header Pictures? ==

So, this is a pretty big suggestion, but it struck me that a nice addition to the vast majority of character pages would be, at the top of the page just below the character image, another image of them in their alt mode. I realize that some of the character images already have both representations in them, but plenty of pages (I was at [[Shrapnel_(G1)|Shrapnel]] when the idea hit me) don't even have a single visual representation of a Transformer's altmode!

I realize (or at least suspect) that this would be quite the undertaking, given that it would mean a change of the site's format standard, but it's something that I think would genuinely contribute to the overall quality of this wiki. An altmode is just as much a part of who a Transformer is, after all, and a lot of character intros don't reflect that enough. Hell, I've also wondered why we don't have a section right before "Fiction" called "Altmode(s)."

Please consider and respond, because I really think this is a good idea (and sort of an obvious one, too), but it's also a very big idea, and very big ideas tend to be retarded ideas incognito (especially if said ideas seem obvious). Tell other people to weigh in on this too! Preferably the people in charge.

[[User:Keegman|Keegman]] 16:32, 22 April 2009 (EDT)

:Usually, we try to include their (fiction-specific) alternate modes in relevant fiction sections. We don't normally include them as part of the main image because some of the more popular characters have had too many vehicle modes, and often, the main pictures we use up top never had an accompanying vehicle mode image. Personally, I prefer consistency in images so I would rather have, say, an image of Optimus Prime and his vehicle mode having been drawn by the same artist in the same style for the same project, rather than from two entirely different pieces of art. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 07:26, 23 April 2009 (EDT)

:Whenever I make a mainpic image, I include the altmode if there is one. (See [[Galvatron II]], [[Soundwave (Cybertron)]], [[Fastlane]], [[Flame (UK comic)]], and [[Cog (G1)]]. I even did one for a subsection, [[Optimus Primal#Cybertron comic]].) That's the way I personally prefer to see the idea executed, and it certainly doesn't require a change to the format of the wiki. You're not the first person to bring the idea up, so I'm kind of surprised I've never seen anyone but myself actually ''do'' it. I don't think it should ever be considered a ''requirement'' for a page, but I do consider it a preferred addition. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 16:18, 23 April 2009 (EDT)
::I think it'd be ''nice'' for a lot of characters... but in many cases it simply doesn't exist, or it'd look awkward. Look at the main image on [[Optimus Prime (G1)|Optimus Prime]], there simply ''is'' no vehicle mode art to match that beautiful body shot. And how do you present it? Verrtically? That'd push the dfirst section ''way'' down in most cases (it's already pushed down on most articles) whereas horizontally is unworkable for a bunch of other reasons.
::The mainpics seem to represent a sort of compromise... even if the character has has multiple incarnations, they all presumably look more-or-less like their original robot mode-- even if the vehicle changes wildly.
::And fundamentally-- I think you'd have people throwing fits if you squeezed an irrelevant Cheetah into [[Cheetor (BW)]]'s top section instead of his other robot modes. The beast mode is so... secondary. If we were gonna wedge more visuals into the main pics, vehicle modes would ''not'' be out first pic in many cases. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 16:47, 23 April 2009 (EDT)

== Cover artists ==

Anyone got a list of cover artists, especially for the Marvel US G1 series? I'm trying to fill our the image description pages for those right now, and I'm being hampered by the lack of info on that score. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 21:19, 22 April 2009 (EDT)
: I don't know of any pre-existing list. Some I can tell by the style, some I only can guess at due to the signature, and the rest who knows. They didn't credit those things back then beyond the signature, so... --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 21:26, 22 April 2009 (EDT)
::Well, most of the issue pages appear to have the artists listed (albeit buried at the bottom of the page...), and I've just found [http://www.maelmill-insi.de/UHBMCC/transfor.htm this page], so I've been filling them in.
::One slightly problematic one though - [[:Image:MarvelUS-62.jpg|Marvel US #62]]. There's two signatures, but the only intelligible one is "Rod Ramos" (Rodney Ramos, who as far as I'm aware works mostly as an inker), and he's given as the artist on the issue page. The current image-page description lists Geoff Senior as the artist, and I can believe it - but I'm not 100% sure, and he inked himself on the interiors. Can anyone confirm? - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 19:02, 23 April 2009 (EDT)

== Anti-troll ==

After another you-know-who rampage earlier, whatever happened to blacklisting "Detour" and "Fuck" from being used in page & user names, and requiring autoconfirmed priviliges to upload files? Was that a casualty of the Big Crash? - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 18:38, 23 April 2009 (EDT)
:I think plans to upgrade/add plugins to the software have been put on hold while the cleanup too place and we got ready for moving to a new host (how far away are we from setting a date for that anyway?). Perhaps it's time to revisit installing the title blacklist plugin? --[[User:Abates|abates]] 19:47, 23 April 2009 (EDT)

== Advertising Idea ==

So, I came up with a fun idea for advertising the wiki IRL. I decided to make an Autobot propaganda poster with the TFWiki.net watermark that people could print out and post in the colleges or whatever nerdy hangouts they use. I've uploaded it to my Photobucket account, so have a look and let me know what you think of it: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v168/Semysane/TFWiki%20Ads/OptimusPropaganda01-Beta.png This is just a test to see if I could make it not look like crap; it's still a work in progress (ie: still crap). If a more talented person wants to have a go at making a better one, go at it. BTW, the Ancient Autobot text there says "Till All Are One" -- [[User:Semysane|Semysane]] 22:20, 23 April 2009 (EDT)

:I think it looks pretty good. Certainly in very eye-catching colours. :) --[[User:Abates|abates]] 06:30, 24 April 2009 (EDT)
::Thank you! I'm thinking of making a Decepticon one as well. Any ideas on a slogan for that one? The Cons don't have many awesome ones like Till All Are One. "Transform and Rise Up" maybe? -- [[User:Semysane|Semysane]] 04:56, 25 April 2009 (EDT)

== <nowiki>{{mainpic}}</nowiki> ==

I've made an alteration to <nowiki>{{mainpic}}</nowiki> that's going to start tracking how ''long'' (in months) these articles have lacked main pictures for. In theory this'll (eventually) give us a way to triage these neglected articles. In practice, the dates are starting from ''now'', so there's gonna be a whole mess of articles with '0' months. It'll sort itself out over time.

This depends on me running a maintenece program every couple of weeks FYI, that replaces all instances of <nowiki>{{mainpic}} with {{mainpic|date}}</nowiki>. We'll see how ''that'' works. ;) -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 09:58, 24 April 2009 (EDT)

== Marvel G2 issues ==

The G2 comic pages are listed under story titles (e.g., [[Dark Shadows!]] from G2 #11), but backup stories (in the case of G2 #11, "Tales of Earth Part Eight") are listed on the same pages.

Shouldn't the pages either be moved to a page named after the issue, the way the current UK Titan series appears to be treated, or else split along story lines? - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 21:05, 24 April 2009 (EDT)

== Technical question: Firefox and history pages ==

Is anyone else running the latest version of Firefox and having trouble with the history pages? I'm running Firefox 3.0.10 and when I look at, say, the [http://tfwiki.net/w2/index.php?title=Optimus_Primal&limit=500&action=history Optimus Primal history page], Firefox locks up for half a minute while it runs the javasript to hide half of the radio buttons. It does it on two different computers running the same version of Firefox, but I don't have the same problem on Wikipedia or Wikia. --[[User:Abates|abates]] 20:56, 1 May 2009 (EDT)
:Oh wow, that ''was'' a pretty nasty stutter I got when I tried to reproduce your issue. Same version, same results.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:00, 1 May 2009 (EDT)
::Ayep, same here. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 22:02, 1 May 2009 (EDT)
:::Issue also reproduced on my home PC, which has more get up and go than my workstation, with Firefox 3.5 beta 4.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 22:34, 1 May 2009 (EDT)
::::Ditto on my notebook and tower unit. --[[User:Lonegamer78|Lonegamer78]] 23:06, 1 May 2009 (EDT)
::::...interesting. Why just firefox? (Clearly the 500+ items are an issue here-- but Safari has no problem with 500 items.) -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 23:26, 1 May 2009 (EDT)
:::::I'd be curious to know as well. I specifically tried it again with the beta release because it uses a different (and supposedly more efficient) Javascript engine.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 23:30, 1 May 2009 (EDT)
::::::And why only here and not on Wikipedia? Is there that much of a change in the Javascript between MediaWiki 1.12 and 1.14? --[[User:Abates|abates]] 23:32, 1 May 2009 (EDT)

Dropped down to Firefox 2...20 there to test, and clicking the radio buttons doesn't take very long, but the page DOES lock up for a while on initial load. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 18:28, 2 May 2009 (EDT)
:And FF 1.5.10 behaves as-FF2. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 18:38, 2 May 2009 (EDT)

== Bad images ==

My scanner is a piece o' crap. Is it better to upload dark and grainy pictures with a "badimage" tag or just put up a "picsneeded" tag? - [[User:Starfield|Starfield]] 21:38, 3 May 2009 (EDT)
:Depends. With recent comic stuff, I think "pics needed" would be better, as there's a good chance that someone else will have the issue (or can find scans, *cough*). I replaced all the Defiance ones, for instance. If you have in mind specific scenes you would have scanned, you can always leave a suggestion in the picsneeded tag or on the talk page.
:On the other hand, for stuff that's old or rare, where it might be a choice between a bad image or never having an image, IMHO a bad image is better than nothing.
:(If you ever replace your scanner, I recommend the Canon MP210. I use it with Irfanview, and god I love the thing. Prints like a charm, too.) --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 22:00, 3 May 2009 (EDT)

== New User Template ==

I remember... someone before the crash (FortMax maybe?) suggesting the idea of a template we can stick on the talk pages of new users to welcome them. I rather liked the idea, so I started a mockup idea here: [[User:Jeysie/NewUser]] Any ideas for a pic, info to add/change, etc?

Also, I noticed we don't have a New Users log enabled the way Wikia does... if we do create this sort of thing, having that sort of log would be helpful. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 16:21, 4 May 2009 (EDT)
:We'd need to either upgrade to MediaWiki 1.14 or install [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Newuserlog the extension] to get the new users log. It would be ''very'' useful, I'm thinking. --[[User:Abates|abates]] 16:35, 4 May 2009 (EDT)

== Screencap templates ==

Er... you know we can ''edit'' the text that appears on the file upload screen. Anyone got a list of screencap templates?

(I think you might even be able to set them up for one-click adding.) -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 20:37, 11 May 2009 (EDT)
:They are all listed at [[Transformers Wiki:Images]], to my knowledge. I added all the ones I knew of.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 20:42, 11 May 2009 (EDT)
::[[User:Derik/Sandbox7|This]] is what I'm looking at. It's kinda fugy. Anyone else want to take a whack at it? -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 21:16, 11 May 2009 (EDT)

I'm also working at templating the comics images:
*{{tl|MarvelUScover}} (Marvel US G1), {{tl|HMcover}} (Marvel Headmasters mini) and {{tl|MarvelG2cover}} are maxed out.
*I ''think'' I've got all the extant & relevant images for {{tl|MarvelG2interior}} - although I can't absolutely swear to it
*I'm currently working as and when I have the chance on moving the Marvel US G1 interiors and HM interiors to {{tl|MarvelUSinterior}} and {{tl|HMinterior}} from a variety of copyright tags and the absence thereof (including the ones that lost their descriptions in the Bookworm Incident)
Like I say, the covers are maxed out, but there's always the chance that other interiors will be uploaded (Walky's done a few recently), and it would help if they were added too. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 21:58, 11 May 2009 (EDT)
:Propose a visually compact way of doing so. ;) -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 22:10, 11 May 2009 (EDT)
{|border cellspacing="1" cellpadding="5" width="100%"
|-
!width=50%|General
!width=50%|Comic Cover
|-valign="top"
|width=50%|
*<charinsert><nowiki>{{hastak}}</nowiki></charinsert>
*<charinsert><nowiki>{{comicinterior}}</nowiki></charinsert>
*<charinsert><nowiki>{{comiccover}}</nowiki></charinsert>
*<charinsert><nowiki>{{screencap}}</nowiki></charinsert>
|width=50%|
*<charinsert><nowiki>{{MarvelUScover|(description)|(issue number)|(issue title)|(artist list)|(last two digits of publication year)}}</nowiki></charinsert>
*<charinsert><nowiki>{{HMcover|(description)|(issue number)|(issue title)|(artist list)}}</nowiki></charinsert>
*<charinsert><nowiki>{{MarvelG2cover|(description)|(issue number)|(issue title)|(artist list)|(last digit of publication year)}}</nowiki></charinsert>
|-
!width=50%|Screencap
!width=50%|Comic Interior
|-valign="top"
|width=50%|
*<charinsert><nowiki>{{titlecard}}</nowiki></charinsert>
*<charinsert><nowiki>{{g1cap|(imagedescription)|(episode name)|(last digit of premiere year originally aired)}}</nowiki></charinsert>
*<charinsert><nowiki>{{BWcap|(imagedescription)|(episode name)|(last digit of year originally aired)}}</nowiki></charinsert>
*<charinsert><nowiki>{{BMcap|(imagedescription)|(episode name)|(year originally aired)}}</nowiki></charinsert>
*<charinsert><nowiki>{{TFAcap|(imagedescription)|(episode name)|(year originally aired)}}</nowiki></charinsert>
|width=50%|
*<charinsert><nowiki>{{MarvelUSinterior|description=|issueno=|storytitle=|pageno=|panelno=|panelnos=|script=|line-art=|pencils=|inks=|colours=[[Nelson Yomtov]]|letters=|help=|year=(last two digits of publication year)}}</nowiki></charinsert>
*<charinsert><nowiki>{{HMinterior|description=|issueno=|storytitle=|pageno=|panelno=|panelnos=|letters=|help=}}</nowiki></charinsert>
*<charinsert><nowiki>{{MarvelG2interior|description=|issueno=|storytitle=|pageno=|panelno=|panelnos=|script=|pencils=|inks=|colours=|letters=|help=|year=(last digit of publication year)}}</nowiki></charinsert>
|}
...I don't know about visually compact, exactly, but considering how many image templates we have, I'm not sure "visually compact" is possible... --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 23:06, 11 May 2009 (EDT)
:Well, it's something to work on. Unfortunately the '''charinsert''' plugin doesn't have any way to display s short piece of text while inserting a long one.
:There's a rabid wolverine scrabbling around the back of my brain licking carnival pennies... I feel like when he comes down off his ''filth high'' he might have some ideas about Stupid CSS Tricks to make that less loathesome. (Failing that we could do something with Javascript, but it'd be a bitch to update so that's a last choice.) -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 01:35, 12 May 2009 (EDT)
::Yeah, it's pretty much the opposite... you can stick a description in the tooltip, but the actual text has to be visible. I honestly can't think of any way to do it in pure CSS without messing up the clickability of it.
::I guess we ''could'' just link to the plain vanilla templates with no parameters, but I kind of want to encourage people to be as thorough as possible with their info.
::I think we could also use a way to include a link to each template's page in case one needs to read the instructions. But I had trouble coming up with a way that's brief, clear, and won't get mistaken for the inserto-text link. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 01:53, 12 May 2009 (EDT)
::Addendum: We could go for a fake form with OPTION or a CSS-based drop-down list, but I think those would both need JS. (Admittedly the CSS based drop-down would need less JS, and only for the style, not the functionality.) (Why do I always have extra thoughts right ''after'' hitting the "submit" button?) --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 01:59, 12 May 2009 (EDT)
:::What about the Boilerplate plugin that was suggested a while back? Would that be more suitable for this sort of thing? --[[User:Abates|abates]] 02:04, 12 May 2009 (EDT)
::::No, unfortunately... it only works for articles, not on file pages. (At least, if there is a way to get it to work on file pages, I couldn't figure it out.) Although I still think we should give that extension a whirl at some point, it won't help out with this specific thing. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 02:07, 12 May 2009 (EDT)
::::My Wolverine stopped tripping long enough to say "<nowiki>{{MarvelG2}}</nowiki>:<charinsert><nowiki>{{MarvelG2interior|description=|issueno=|storytitle=|pageno=|panelno=|panelnos=|script=|pencils=|inks=|colours=|letters=|help=|year=(last digit of publication year)}}</nowiki></charinsert>."
::::He is a filthy, FILTHY beast, and the hackiness of that CSS shames me. (And it's still not ideal code anyway.)
::::I think Javascript is a likely fate here. -[[Special:Contributions/207.224.65.37|207.224.65.37]] 03:00, 12 May 2009 (EDT)

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