MediaWiki - User contributions [en]

Talk:Rise of the Constructicons

2008-05-19T01:10:23Z

75.168.112.43: /* off model? */ new section

Apparently it's already aired in the Middle-East. I've seen pictures. --[[User:Hunter-113|Hunter-113]] 16:07, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

==Gurren Lagann==
Okay, one guy throws a hissy fit about some anime I've never heard of, now we have to placate the anime fans by finding a reference in every episode of Animated? -- [[User:SFH|SFH]] 19:25, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
: Yes, because nobody ''ever used drill-hand attacks ever in the history of anything''. Or... no, because that's a steaming pile of bullshit and it's not a goddamn GD reference. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 19:27, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
: ''Energon'', for chrissakes. DON'T THINK I WON'T USE THIS KNIFE! - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 19:28, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
::Yes, Optimus Prime in super mode. He announced it all the time. -- [[User:SFH|SFH]] 19:33, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
:::G1 Ironhide had a drill-hand in at least one episode. And then there was Augur from "Inhumanoids." And if I actually cared to dignify this Lagann mass hysteria with any effort, I'm sure I could find more examples. --[[User:Thylacine 2000|Thylacine 2000]] 19:40, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
::::Meh. I was considering Wyatt saying ''Gurren Lagann'' did have some degree of influence on the second season and drill hands were the most likely reference to it so far. (Better than "Two triangles together as eyes! Reference!" or "He is pointing! Reference!") I'm not gonna fight over it. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 19:41, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

:::::Yes, because it's not like Devastator [http://web.archive.org/web/20060421234728/home.earthlink.net/~jrunski/rwkpia/constcon.jpg had optional drill-hands] or anything. -[[User:150.253.90.112|150.253.90.112]] 20:17, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

== Mmm, moose. ==

God bless the moose, we may talk about Constructicons now.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 23:59, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

:I curse them, they know I can't hold out for a week, forcing me to watch the episodes in (not quite legal) youtube quality. I'd rather wait, but I can't resist. It also doesn't help that I live two hours away from the border. [[User:(Undecided)|(Undecided)]] 03:26, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
::Eh, I've no qualms youtubing it, as I don't have cable anyway. I was a little irked when my usual source put up a video of a guy ''camcordering'' it, so I held off until the real broadcast was available. I figure as long as it was up for broadcast in North America, it's not cheating to watch it.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 18:13, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

== Italian Accents? WTF? ==

"Miscellaneous trivia
The new Constructicons Mixmaster and Scrapper have a very loose resemblance to Nintendo's Mario and Luigi, respectively, even with Italian accents. "

Seriously, where do people come up with this stuff? If I were gonna say they bore resemblance to something, then I'd say any average stereotypical blue collar worker. Which, coincidentally, were exactly what Mario and Luigi were modeled after. And also... Italian accents? Give me a break! They obviously are meant to have mild New York dilects. Why does every single non New Yorker think New Yorkers all sound Italian? Why?!? Personally, I blame all those crappy Mafia flicks. But seriously, I noticed this on the G1 Wheeljack page too. It's really annoying, not to mention totally innaccurate. [[User:Rose.T|Rose.T]] 04:30, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Mario isn't from Brooklyn ? Mix kinda looks like Mario, but it's certainly a coincidence, 'cause Scrap doesn't look like Luigi at all. But the similarities, even coincidential, could be a trivia.

He's only from Brooklyn in the cartoons, in the games mario has a totally different accent. And both of them look nothing like the mario brothers, apart that mixmaster is "short" and tubby and scrapper is tall and skinny, because of this, i think it's worthless to note this as trivia.--[[User:Grand-majin|Grand-majin]] 20:18, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

== Animation ==

To anyone else who's watched this episode: Is it just me or did the animation in this episode look notably lower in quality than previous episode? Maybe not to the level of AKOM, but still considerably lower in quality... --[[User:Detour|Detour]] 08:51, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
: The animation looked FANTASTIC to me, especially in the faces. There's not usually that much squash and stretch, which is a pity. --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 20:07, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
::I have to admit that, to me, the animation in this episode seemed decidedly lower quality than previous episodes... [[User:Gspro15198|Gspro15198]] 22:27, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
::: I thought it was great. So much life and motion and expression, perfect for the models. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 22:56, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

==Not green and purple?==
Even if we disagree on whether they're green, yellow-green, or yellow, both Mixmaster and Scrapper definitely have purple. --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 20:07, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
:No, they're yellow, gray and brown. No purple. Little blue tinted on the grey in the night scenes, but they don't have purple yet.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 20:07, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
::Though I do find it neat that they're going to be two of the few Transformers that get an ''in continuity'' [[repaint]].--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:08, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

== Continuity error? ==

*When the Constructicons show up they show no knowledge of autobots, decepticons or of transformers as a hole ,yet they knew what and how to construct a spacebridge without prior knowledge than the plan Megatron shows them.
This isn't a continuity error to me. It's just their special power. They intuitively grok construction projects.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 20:12, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
:I agree. --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 20:19, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
::It should probably still go under "Other Notes", but not as an error, then.--[[User:Apcog|Apcog]] 21:16, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
:::I think it serves quite well on the character pages as just a mention that the Constructicons are ''really good'' at this stuff.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:17, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

== Constructibots or Constructobots? ==

I know this seems like pedantry, but can we standardize a spelling for the pre-evil Constructicons? It just seems a little sloppy to me to have examples of both variants existing on the same page, as well as across the wiki. If there's a vote, I'd go for Construct'''o'''bots; it's more consistent with previous Autobot factions (Protectobots, Technobots), and it's closer to the way that Mixmaster actually pronounces it in the episode... -- [[User:Muddtallica|Muddtallica]] 21:19, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

== off model? ==

Is it just me, or did this episode's animation seems really off model? Even allowing for the more exaggerated expressions of the Constructibots- when Prime was moving around it felt like he was drawn in 3 separate styles, and the keying was absolutely ''bizarre''. -[[Special:Contributions/75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 01:10, 19 May 2008 (UTC)<div id="wikia-credits"> From [http://transformers.wikia.com Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki], a [http://www.wikia.com Wikia] wiki.</div>

Category talk:Articles with spoilers

2008-05-15T21:47:53Z

75.168.112.43:

Well, since there were concerns voiced about how to track down expiring spoiler tags, this category seems like it would be useful. The only problem is that it seems that an article with a spoiler tag would need to be edited before it gets resorted into this category, but when they do, they'll start showing up.[[User:KrytenKoro|KrytenKoro]] 21:17, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
:Template:Spoilers doesn't have a lot of stragglers though- not like Template:coming_soon does. Coming_soon still has 'don't add this yet' notices from almost 6 months ago. Hrm, you could actually turn coming_soon into a good maintenance system if you... (lost in thought.) -[[Special:Contributions/75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 21:47, 15 May 2008 (UTC)<div id="wikia-credits"> From [http://transformers.wikia.com Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki], a [http://www.wikia.com Wikia] wiki.</div>

Template talk:Spoilerabuse

2008-05-14T19:34:49Z

75.168.112.43:

This is beautiful. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 19:30, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

: :~) -[[Special:Contributions/75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 19:34, 14 May 2008 (UTC)<div id="wikia-credits"> From [http://transformers.wikia.com Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki], a [http://www.wikia.com Wikia] wiki.</div>

Talk:Autoboot Camp

2008-05-10T04:54:00Z

75.168.112.43:

[http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/animated-8/pictures-and-summary-for-animated-episode-25-autoboot-camp-spoilers-164832/ Guess who's confirmed for this episode?]
--[[User:Hunter-113|Hunter-113]] 19:13, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
:EDITED FOR SPOILER --[[User:Dynamus Prime|Dynamus Prime]] 22:01, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
::Disregard that, apparently it doesn't count if it hasn't aired in America.
--[[User:Hunter-113|Hunter-113]] 10:10, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
:::I'm sorry we would prefer not to rely on second-hand information. And stop putting your signature on a separate line. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 10:16, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

== How to tell people NOT to update... ==

Do we have a big giant banner/template thing specifically for when we DO NOT want a page updated yet
on pain of death, because news on something is unofficial, leeked, or simply would be an exeptionally
annoying spoiler that a large chunk of the fandom may not want to know about? If yes we should put
it bang at the top middle of all these upcomming episode pages. If not can we make one?
--[[User:ZacWilliam|ZacWilliam]] 11:40, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
{{comingsoon|No updatey until it airs in the western hemisphere.}}
:Is the problem that we don't want a page updated until it airs in North America, or is the problem that we don't want people to fill in episode details unless they've seen the episode themselves?
:I mean, if the episode aired, then the episode aired, presumably with Hasbro's approval. I would think we'd actually want to encourage our lucky non-North American counterparts to keep the wiki up to date.
:If I, personally, as a resident of North America, don't want to get spoiled, it's my responsibility to stay away from the page in question. (I have the same problem with ''Devastation'' spoliers, since it hasn't been released in TPB yet.) [[User:JW|JW]] 14:29, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
::I actually think Devastation is in TPB now. Could have sworn I saw it at Borders. I'll have to double-check.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 14:42, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
::Secondhand fillins are probably the greater concern- but really it's both. Being spoiled /badly/ by secondhand information that's been awkwardly grapevined by people wanting to shout "FIRST POST!!1" is even more annoying than simply being spoiled. -[[Special:Contributions/75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 14:36, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

:::Why is it both? I can understand not wanting to add possibly-garbled secondhand stuff. I can't understand prioritising the "Western Hemisphere" airings by themselves.
:::After all, GIGO was filled in before the episode aired to the Canuckleheads, and still hasn't aired in the middle bit of NA, AFAIK. Black Friday has been filled in and hasn't aired in NA at all. [Hell, Japanese episodes, including the "lost" episode of Energon, have been filled in when they're never going to air in NA at all!]
:::Why does a BotCon airing to a small audience get okayed, and a mass airing in a country outside of NA doesn't? - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 15:14, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
::::I think the secondhand bit is the main concern here. A sufficient number of users were at the BotCon showings to check each other's work on those two episodes, and the spoilers have been confined to the episode articles themselves (IE they haven't been added to character articles yet). These episodes aired in the Middle East? Most of the existing synopses involve spotty reception that cut out at critical moments during the episode, and thus can't be considered reliable. As well, the episodes aren't widely available so people can't check each other's work. It just makes for bad methodology.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 15:28, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
:::::It also skips ahead 5 episodes in chronology, which is... spoilery-er than usual. No one's actually seen seen it except a handful of random fans- and there doesn't to be confidence that the ones updating this article are the ones who /have/ seen it. (Rather, the general belief seems to be that all the who-are-you's editing this article almost certainly ''haven't'' seen it.) That's bad, if no one's seen the episode (including the people editing it) how can we correct inaccuracies? -[[Special:Contributions/75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 04:54, 10 May 2008 (UTC)<div id="wikia-credits"> From [http://transformers.wikia.com Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki], a [http://www.wikia.com Wikia] wiki.</div>

Talk:Autoboot Camp

2008-05-09T14:37:35Z

75.168.112.43: /* How to tell people NOT to update... */

Talk:Autoboot Camp

2008-05-09T14:36:58Z

75.168.112.43: /* How to tell people NOT to update... */

Template:Coming soon

2008-05-09T14:22:29Z

75.168.112.43:

{{Messagebox|
|message_text=Further information in this article is '''coming [[soon]]''' as it pertains to information that {{#switch:{{{1|}}} | unreleased=has not yet been officially released. | fanclub=has only recently been released to the [[Fan Club]].| is not currently appropriate for inclusion.}}
 See the relevant [[Help: Coming soon|policy page]] for the reasons why, and do not add further information pending [[{{TALKPAGENAME}}|review]].
{{ #if: {{{when|}}} | The suggested fair-game date on this article is: '''{{{when}}}''' | }}
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It can also take an optional parameter 'when', allowing you to suggest a date when the article becomes 'fair game.' <nowiki>{{coming soon|when=July 3, 2007}}</nowiki>
{{coming soon|when=July 3, 2007}}

==See also==
*[[Template:Comingsoontoy]], for upcoming toy releases.
*[[Help:Coming soon]], the {{SITENAME}} policy page about advance info.

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Talk:Autoboot Camp

2008-05-09T14:17:04Z

75.168.112.43: /* How to tell people NOT to update... */

Talk:Greatshot

2008-05-09T05:49:35Z

75.168.112.43:

==Robot Masters/Decepticonness==
Er... where is Greatshot in Robot Masters? Also, was it outright said anywhere that he was a former Decepticon? I know he hung out with the mercenary Crossformers and Gaihawk, but I don't necessarily know if that means he was definitely a Decepticon himself... McFeely? Do you remember anything concrete on this? --[[User:Monzo|Monzo]] 03:55, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
:In episode 17, Greatshot explicity states he has joined the Cybertrons since his days with the Crossformers.
He was 'great friends' with Gaihawk and Star Saber says Greratshot is 'very familiar' with the satelite prison.

:It looks like Greatshot was a destron who got busted and sent to the prison- then spriung by Star Saber for a mission- which so impressed Greatshot that he converted.
:The timeline's a bit dodgy, since Gaihawk was also busted by Star Saber- but was unaware Greatshot has converted to the Cybertrons. They both got busted by the same guy and sent to the same prison- but Gaihawk wasn't aware Greatshot had been sprung/converted? It can work, it's just... a bit odd. On the other hand, Greatshot's conversion /sounds/ like it took place a few years ago, and he's probably avoided the Destrons since, so maybe Gaihawk simply didn't know.
:If he wasn't a Destron, he was a merc working for the Destrons with everything else exactly the same. It really looks like the 'toon intended him to be a former Destron, but it didn't state this explicitly.

Also, while Greatshot talks like a samurai, he uses 'ninjitsu' trick attacks in his premiere episode, and standard ninja moves regularly after. He didn't quit the destrons because he was tired of blowing stuff up- he quit because the crossformers betrayed him then Star Saber gave 'a knave like him' a second chance.-[[Special:Contributions/75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 05:49, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

==Old Stuff==
I fully admit to not being very up on a lot of Japanese continuity, but I assume given that bio that there's speculation at least that this is a new form aof Sixshot (given the events of Headmasters) Can anyone give any pros and cons of the idea?--[[User:ZacWilliam|ZacWilliam]] 09:10, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
: I thought the Decepticons he doublecrossed were Black Shadow and Blue Bacchus. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 09:46, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
::Great Shot is speculated to either be an upgraded SixShot, or SixShot's son. [[User:85.195.123.24|85.195.123.24]] 22:49, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
:::Which is utterly meaningless without ''proof''. Fans make a lot of stupid "this guy is really this old guy we already know!" speculations. Remember when --according to fans-- Rhinox was Ironhide, Cheetor was Hot Rod, etc? --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 00:39, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

:I think I remember having this conversation with Hydra back in the day. I ''think'' his conclusion was that, while the two scenarios are pretty similar- there was nothing everr published, anywhere, to make them the same guy-- and the lack of any connection in the E-hobby reissues sort of 'passively' supports them being different people (because making/exploiting that connection is right up e-bobby's alley- and they didn't.) Sadly, I don't know Hydra's thoughts on this ''today'', since he's likely to have a more refined argument than I do. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 00:10, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

For what its worth, the PDType comics have Sixshot and Greatshot running around at the same time. But those comics also have Megatron and Galvatron running around together, so its not really the best material to draw conclusions from. --[[User:DrSpengler|DrSpengler]] 01:00, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I strongly expect that they were originally intended to be the same guy, but that someone decided they didn't want that much continuity between series. See: Galaxy Force. [[User:Chip|Chip]] 03:33, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

:That does seem to be the likeliest conclusion to draw, given what we know. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 03:50, 18 July 2007 (UTC)<div id="wikia-credits"> From [http://transformers.wikia.com Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki], a [http://www.wikia.com Wikia] wiki.</div>

Template:Click

2008-05-09T01:49:06Z

75.168.112.43: Reverting

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2008-05-09T01:47:19Z

75.168.112.43: Poking the offsets at Suki's request

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Talk:Main Page

2008-05-09T01:35:31Z

75.168.112.43: /* Main "Transformers Animated" image */

THE FUNNY STAYS.
-The Management

__TOC__

Please use this talk page for discussion about the [[Main Page]].

To discuss site-wide policies, please visit [[Transformers Wiki Talk:Community Portal|the Community Portal talk page]].

==Archives==
*[[Talk:Main_Page/Archive1|Archive1]]
*[[Talk:Main_Page/Archive2|Archive2]]

== The Funny ==

Maybe if the stuff you said was funny, no one would have a problem with it, but most of the jokes on here are pretty lame, it's not about transformers fans being serious, it's about your jokes being bad. When other people try to put there humor in it, you erase it. Sooooo make the jokes funny and you wont have to worry about it. Besides the Real Wikipedia has more information on transformers than the one dedicated to transformers have, what gives. Maybe before you work on your lame jokes you can fill out the information on the article. Sorry just what I think about it, don't take to much offence. {{unsigned|67.140.110.210}}

:Humor is subjective. Pesonally, I consider most of the jokes on this site to be neutral. They are clearly trying to be silly, but neither funny nor painful. They merely lighten the tone. Users who show up here and do nothing but change jokes into different jokes are clearly not accomplishing anything. The new jokes are never any better -- they are merely different, and often worse. That is a waste of everybody's time. I haven't spent a lot of time browsing Transformers material on Wikipedia, but I highly doubt that their information is ''better'', even if there might be a larger quantity of it. What little I've seen there has been disorganized, mixes fan assertions with canon, and is at times not even reliable. ''If'' they have more information than we do, it is only because people have been adding TF info there for at least twice as long as this specialized wiki has existed. --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 15:57, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

::Yep, this wiki is a far more reliable source of information for Transformers than the Wikipedia shall ever be. I've corrected some of their base assumptions and half-truths upon occassion. If we lack information for something, '''then feel free to contribute''' to our wiki or wait for one of us to get around to it. Really, what the Wikipedia offers is rather generalised information and (as steve-o points out) fan-assumed fanon and downright false information. Besides, we provide the Transformers info that the users on the wikipedia either don't know or won't bother with, such as info on the toys, their designers, toy construction materials, obscure series and/or characters and so on.
:: And yes, we think captioning a picture of say, Megatron with 'Art of Megatron' or some such is really patronising. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 17:00, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I, as a fellow Transformer fan, agree that "the funny" is lame.

One time I tried to change [[Nautilator]]'s bio; stating that he carries a powerful weapon, transforms INTO a powerful weapon, and is an undersea version of [[Constructicon]] [[Scavager]]. But none of that went through.

I'm sensing "the bias" here.

[http://www.geocities.com/tenou_clock/ Tyrenol]

:''I, as a fellow Transformer fan, agree that "the funny" is lame.'' 
: Some of it is certainly very very lame. If you would like to raise the level of humor here, then A) become a regular and respected contributor of useful non-funny stuff, ''then'' B) improve the funny. What we most strongly object to is newcomers who contribute ''nothing'' except changes to the humor. Changing the funny is an earned privilege. [[User:JW|JW]] 19:44, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
::'''Tyrenol:''' Your [[Nautilator (G1)|Nautilator]] bio was, as far as I can tell, at best [[fanon]] or at worst fan fiction. Steve-o (an admin) points out that your edit had nothing to do with the established Hasbro toy bio. Despite our humour and over-the-top references to a character's foibles, we base what we write on official material approved by Hasbro/Takara.

::That's not 'bias', that's the rules.

:::Okay, then. Here's another idea: How about you guys use the exact wording from the bios as oppose to just sticking stuff in and thinking that everyone else will agree with its hilariousness.

:::Besides; I have two problems with anything Wiki. 1) Things don't stay changed when they get changed. Annoyances like needed citations and reliable sources that have a problem staying reliable. 2) I have a life to live, a job to pay for where I live, and I really don't have the time to watch everything on the web like a cold-stare hawk.

:::My apologies for being new. My apologies for calling your jokes lame. But what is everybody doing on the web when they can't take the sharp, cold knife in the back that's called "criticism?" The same rules apply for me. [http://www.geocities.com/tenou_clock/ Tyrenol]

::::We have a specific policy AGAINST cut-and-pasting from bios, one of many reasons being that those are a) copyrighted and b) not always applicable. After all, Shockwave sure wasn't anything like his toy bio in the cartoon. Character overviews on this resource are "all-encompassing", in order to reflect changes and evolutions in the character. And what do you do when a character -like, say, Optimus Prime- has several dozen bios over the course of 20 years?
::::Maybe you should apologize for playing the "I have a life" card that screams "I have no actual argument so I'll imply you all are losers". And don't confuse "whinging" with "criticism", or "disagreeing with" as "can't take it". This argument has come up with many an anon IP who is more interested in fighting a long-established precedent for this wiki which has garnered far more positive attention than negative than they are in contributing, and if they didn't change thing one about it, neither will you. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]]

::As for humour being lame, let me ask you a question: Do you wander onto privately-run Tranformers fan sites and message boards, see something you don't like (that isn't necessarily offensive) and proceed to tell off the admins for how they run their website? Much of the reason the wiki is the way it is is because the people who run this wiki and the majority of regular contributors have a sense of humour. I find it odd that newcomers will question our policies as if they claim some sort of ownership over the wiki, yet have contributed little to it. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 02:24, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

:I'm a newcomer, but I have to admit that the policies regarding jokes ''prevent'' unfair bias, if anything. Additionally, it helps newcomers achieve a sense of ownership. Maybe we don't all get the lame obscure reference on [[Special:Random|whatever]] page, but whoever put it there probably thinks it's hilarious! Thanks to the established policies he/she doesn't need to worry about someone replacing it with another, equally-lame obscure reference. --[[User:Starcrunch|Starcrunch]] 19:05, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

::Make jokes and be merry. My message to any readers is if you get offended by jokes, then you take Transformers way too seriously :-D --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 03:01, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

:::haha... Transformers too seriously?! ''Only'' five of my nine open browser tabs are occupied with something Transformers related right now. If that's not moderation, then I don't know what is! ...but yes, if your reason for being put-off is a bent sense of humor, then you're probably in in the wrong place! --[[User:Starcrunch|Starcrunch]] 18:16, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
::::I thought the Ladiesman217 article was funny. Needed some fixing for the caption with the police car. It's not funny.

When I read these articles for information, and some stupid joke gets thrown in, it really throws my thought process off. I'm sure it's that way for a lot of people too. Don't forget you're writing this for other people and it's not a good idea to screw with them, or whatever [[User:FartboyExtreme|FartboyExtreme]] 03:36, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
:For every person that hates the joking and non-serious nature of the wiki, there's somebody else that loves it. If people can't hack the humour, well I'm sorry, but that's your problem. As for writing this for other people, I contribute to this wiki for the sheer pleasure of having fun with my stupid toy & cartoon hobby, not out of some obligation or duty to provide an encyclopedia for the fandom. As far as I am concerned, so long as we are accurate and detailed, we can also make light of our hobby. -[[User:FFN|FFN]] 05:31, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
::I think there needs to be some rules on where the jokes can be. I personally don't mind them when they're in image captions and such, but I think in the middle of a paragraph isn't very appropriate. Know what I mean? [[User:FartboyExtreme|FartboyExtreme]] 21:01, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
:::Could you provide an example of "middle of the paragraph" humor where you find it inappropriate?
:::Also, just a note: It's hard to take you seriously with that username. [[User:JW|JW]] 21:17, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
::::I think he's talking about things like my edits to [[Sparkplug Witwicky]]'s cartoon section where I said the Autobots saved the oil rig workers "from a death exactly the same as death", or references to characters freaking out.
::::As for establishing rules to prevent people from placing jokes within paragraphs, I highly doubt that will come to pass as most of the regular contributors and the administration staff write in this manner. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 06:28, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::Seriously, people saying BAWWW WIKI NOT SERIOUS ENOUGH irritates the fuck out of me. I'm sorry our little collection of information about giant toy space robots isn't serious enough for you. Maybe you should go read a Serious Encyclopedia, like the one dedicated to Everything The Goddamn Ewoks Ever Did. That's a serious topic worthy of intense consideration, and it should be treated with the respect it deserves. [[User:Hooper X|-hx]] 13:49, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::People with names like ''FartboyExtreme'' complaining that the wiki isn't serious enough set off my bullshit meter something fierce.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 14:13, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::: That comment about writing this for other people really shit me up the wall. I was not aware I was doing this wiki as my job. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 15:07, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Hello....I'm italian girl...ehm...I don't good to talk!!=P ciao ciao =hello hello!! sono molto felice=I'm very happy...XD {{unsigned|83.190.10.250}}

==Featured Article for October==

So...are we ever going to change the featured article? It's been Megatron for, like, two months now. [[User:Cyberlink420|Cyberlink420]] 03:58, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
:It depends on what the management thinks is complete enough in terms of length and content. I think Movie Prime's article should be given a go since October will be the month of the DVD release in the US and the article is more or less complete. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 04:14, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
:How about something other than a character page?--[[User:Zodberg|Zodberg]] 12:16, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
::I nominate Sector Seven, because the article is fairly thorough, references a lot of material, and will be useful to the fans directed here who liked the movie but haven't read all the minor, wacky background material. That article is still listed as a "Stub," though as with a great many "stubs" on this wiki I kind of don't see why. It could be made ''longer'', like all of them, but it's not like it's missing anything critical or is just a halfassed paragraph. --[[User:Thylacine 2000|Thylacine 2000]] 14:33, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
:::I think we should make articles for Rebecca Howard and Alexander Powers before we feature it, since they're pretty important to the ARG storyline, which, as you said, is the wacky background material 99% of people would never seen or heard of. Plus they're linked right at the start of the article. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 14:41, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

By the way when it comes doing the most wanted page list means I will do it but someone must back me up when I go do yardwork.(Spearhead 08:03, 7 October 2007 (UTC))

Sweet zombie Jesus, the Featured Article changed!!! I think I may faint! ...But one request: Please don't change it back to [[Megatron_%28G1%29|Megatron]] in November! --[[User:Starcrunch|Starcrunch]] 15:45, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Nice going guys. You finally got rid of Megatron... and then replaced him with Primal Prime, who's been on for three months. Either someone tell me how to change that article, or ''please'' replace it with something new--how about Optimus Prime's G1 toys? [[User:Crosshairs-1|"MovieMan"]] 11:17, 24 February 2008 (UTC)Crosshairs-1

== "By series" column is missing... ==

"Comics" for Beast Wars.--[[User:Nevermore|Nevermore]] 13:51, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

== Just a little question... ==

Is there anywhere I can find a NON parody wiki? - Anonymous

: Right here? --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 19:31, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
:wikipedia--[[User:Carrion|Carrion]] 19:33, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
::But their TF pages suck. So dry and boring and light on content and all Mignashy. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 19:35, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
:::Mostly the Mignashy part. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 20:48, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
:::Wikipedia Transformers stuff is full on content! It's just all made up. --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 20:59, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't think you understand the meaning of "parody", Mister Anonymous. "It has humor in it" is not what parody entails. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 20:48, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

:Yeah, plus beneath our bad captions and jokes there's a wealth of information you will not likely find anywhere else, at least not all in one place. I think people are too used to the "[insert franchise] is ''Serious Business''" natures of the large, dry wikis like Memory Alpha and the Star Wars Wiki. That or they are unable to laugh at Transformers because they take it too seriously. Or they think this entire wiki is written solely by Walky, and since they hate Walky, they hate the wiki. Those last people suck. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 20:58, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

== Logo--Good Wiki!==
Hi guys!!! This is a very creative wiki! But I am not keen on the logo. Right now is: [[Image:wiki.png]] 
{{unsigned|Thatkidjasper}}

:Please sign your posts to talk pages by typing four tildes (<nowiki>~~~~</nowiki>) at the end.
:Also, you'll have more luck getting us to change our logo if you spend a few months as a regular contributor, first. [[User:JW|JW]] 19:22, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

How do u put your logo on the upper left?--[[User:Farragut79|Farragut79]] 14:07, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

== Caps? ==

Do we want to implement sabrblade's suggestion of replacing

(toyline/cartoon/comic)

with

(Toyline/Cartoon/Comic)

. . . ? Personally, I think it makes the page look more cluttered. [[User:JW|JW]] 22:07, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
:Well, I just thought it would make it look a little neater. I didn't mean anything by it. I also thought it would make more sense to change "comic" to "comics" under Generation 1 and Beast Wars since they both had more than one comic series. I also put a "comic" link under Beast Machines that goes to the Wreckers comic since that ''is'' a Beast Machines comic series. And I thought "comics" should be "comic" under Animated since so far it only had one comic series that we know of. And "Sequel" was already put under Transformers (2007), since I saw that it was capitalized, that's what gave me the idea to capitalize the rest. But I see that someone erased "Sequel" from the main page. [[User:Sabrblade|Sabrblade]] 23:11, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

== Putting Headmasters/Masterforce/Victory links in the "by series" column ==

Would anyone object if I put bulleted links for Headmaster/Masterforce/Victory in the "by series" column? I acknowledge that the series are linked under G1 articles, but it's arguable that they are not "true G1", but rather a non-canonical branch of that continuity.

For example:
* ''[[Generation 1]]'' ([[Generation 1 (toyline)|toyline]]/[[Generation 1 (cartoon)|cartoon]]/[[Generation 1 (comic)|comic]])
** ''[[Headmasters]]''
** ''[[Masterforce]]''
** ''[[Victory]]''
* ''[[Generation 2]]'' ([[Generation 2 (toyline)|toyline]]/[[Generation 2 (cartoon)|cartoon]]/[[Generation 2 (Marvel comic)|comic]])

And yes, I am a newb and I know that that impacts the consideration of my suggestion.

[[User:GrantB|GrantB]] 00:34, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:Headmasters/Masterforce/Victory ARE true, canonical G1, but I think the main page list is long enough already without us lengthening it. --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 00:37, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::I don't really have a problem with it, but yeah it would make the list longer too much. Besides, you forgot Zone, Battlestars, and Operation: Combination. [[User:Sabrblade|Sabrblade]] 00:50, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::1) I don't want to be combative, but can ItsWalky support the G1-canon assertion? Only the hardcore fanbase is familiar with the Japanese series. If these shows are G1, then why don't the G1 cartoon/comic/toy pages consistently contain info about those toys? For instance, the G1 toy page doesn't list the Japan-series-exclusive toys.
:::2) Each Japanese series has its own toyline/comic/cartoon links in this wiki. It only seems proper to list them here.
:::3) I disagree that this would make the list too long.
:::4) I'm afraid I don't know enough about Zone/Battlestars/Op:Com. Time to surf some more...
:::[[User:GrantB|GrantB]] 00:57, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::In Transformers, and by the standards of this wiki, everything that is approved by Hasbro or Takara is canon. Without exception. It does not matter whether you have seen it or not. --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 01:02, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::ItsWalky, do you have any non-length-related objection? [[User:GrantB|GrantB]] 01:29, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::::Well, ItsWalky, since you're not buyin' his idea, how about this then. Make a drop-down list for all the JG1 series drop under the Generation 1 text by pressing a [+] button, ya know like the ones seen in Category pages and such. Does that sound okay? And maybe one to drop under Beast Wars for Beast Wars II and Neo? [[User:Sabrblade|Sabrblade]] 01:34, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I am really not sure how we would jigger a collapsible continuity tree list. I would assume though if anyone knew how to accomplish this it would involve some sort of sinister faustian bargain with the fount of Dark Science that is [[User:Derik|Derik]].--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 01:42, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:Or we could just implement my suggestion. Problem solved! [[User:GrantB|GrantB]] 01:49, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::Not quite. You say, "put them on the list," he says, "no, it'll be too long," I say "compromise, a drop-down list '''if it's possible'''" [[User:Sabrblade|Sabrblade]] 02:17, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::If we include the various Japanese G1 franchises we would also need to include Battle For the Spark, Unicron Battles, Powerlinx Battles, Primus Unleashed and Allspark Battles. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 02:53, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::None of those are quite the seperate, distinct entity that the Japanese lines mentioned are. BftS, etc. are sublines of their respective ongoing lines. Masterforce, Victory, etc. are mainlines themselves, with the only higher hierarchy level being "Transformers", or arguably "Transformers Japan".
::::I think the list is long enough. The Japanese series are all linked too off of the summary [[Generation 1]] page. A collapsible list would probably uglify the aesthetic table we have in place, to say nothing of the technical difficulties to make it work. --[[User:Sntint|Sntint]] 05:15, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::'''Then it follows that some work should be done to include the japanese-exclusive toys from these series in the G1 toys pages, and include the japan-manga for these series in the G1 comics pages. Do you all think that is appropriate? The way I see it, these series are either within G1 (for the wiki), or they aren't. Right now it seems like they halfway are.'''[[User:GrantB|GrantB]] 16:40, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:Yay, I'm faustian! You have no idea how happy that makes me.
:Unfortunately, a quick investigation tells me that Wikia does not come equipped with any of the table-collapse scripts found on Wikipedia (they have custom ones for the table of contents and category trees, but they aren't cross-adaptable.) It ''might'' be possible to install one of them purely in the Monobook.js file we can edit (I feel like there might be PHP integration, which we can't) but even then the scripts are very limited, and don't do quite what we want.
:Wikipedia has generally be very, very distrustful of implementing those kind of drop-downs because of compatibility issues. Making Javascript a fundamental part of your site's navigation is bad because if someone turns it off or cripples its functions to suppress annoying ads... thennt his site ceases to function.
:So, while a drop-down may be ''possible'' with considerable effort, it brings entailed problems that would seem to outweigh any benefits it delivers. Without a more compelling application for a drop-down, I wouldn't be interested in even ''trying'' to get it working. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 08:18, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::Uh, I'm sorry, I don't know how I totally missed this conversation. The javascript that Derik describes here is not only not hard to do, but it's actually phenomenally easy. The only question is would it LOOK good on the page; I assure you, the technical end is not an issue.

::If anyone still cares. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 05:21, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

:Let me draw your attention to my bolded post above... Any comments? [[User:GrantB|GrantB]] 00:41, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
::I don't think we care enough about those series to list them. We prefer to mock them. List is too long, anyway. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 05:50, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

==Weird Wikia Spotlight image==
Is it just me or is that Autobot symbol Wikia is using to Spotlight our site an unofficial fan-made version? --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 05:55, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
:Yeah, that's... pretty lame. You'd think they could have grabbed one of the ones here in the wiki. [[User:Semysane|Semysane]] 09:00, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
::God fucking dammit. That's Neale's erroneous font, with the three hash-marks per forehead instead of two. I will not allow this. Who do I yell at? --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 01:45, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
:I never thought an Autobrand could look so angry...-- [[User:SFH|SFH]] 02:05, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

:How to fix the image:
:1. make new image using official Autobot sigil from... anywhere
:2. go [[w:Image:Transformers-monaco.gif|here]].
:3. upload new image
:4. ???
:5. PROFIT!!! --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 02:41, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
::Man that is pretty dang shitty. Why does Wikia keep trying to make logos '''for''' us?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 03:00, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
:::I have done my level best to try to turn our masthead into a little spotlight image there.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 03:15, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
:::[[w:Image:Transformers120.png|Here]], actually. And done. Thank God. --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 03:58, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
::::Wow, much better! :D --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 09:14, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Walky, I [[W:Image:Transformers125.png|found another one]], I assume you have a larger original file that you can replace it with?. Hopefully they didn't make anymore, because that fake Autobot symbol is fucking awful. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 03:45, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

:Hi, guys -- I'm sorry that you didn't like the spotlight image, and I'm glad that you made your own. [[w:Image:Transformers-monaco.gif|This one]] is terrific; much better than the other one.

:If you guys ever have any concerns (or complaints) about the spotlights or any kind of promotional stuff, please let me know... We're trying to support you and your wiki, and obviously we don't want to do anything that you don't like. Teletraan I is an awesome wiki, and I want to make sure that lots of people know about it.

:So... I'm the person you yell at. And also, hopefully, I'm the person that you can come to with ideas about how to make your site better. Let me know what you think. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 06:10, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

::Hi, at least speaking for myself, we're not actually that angry... I think :) Just that the fake Autobot symbol has some minor controversy surrounding it ever since it was accidently used by [[IDW Publishing]] for one of their [[Stormbringer issue 1|early Transformers comics]]. Plus, we try to keep on the good side of Hasbro by using their approved logos and such. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 20:10, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

:::Thank you for the response - and the desire to promote our wiki. I'd agree with FFN that there's not much actual anger here, and any dissatisfaction is easily remedied. Just let us know whenever you want to run any promos, and we'll cook up whatever imagery and so forth you need. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 21:28, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

::::Okay, cool. We're going to be building up an Entertainment-hub wiki pretty soon, and I may take you up on that offer. :) It's going to take us a little bit to figure out how to do it, but the idea is to have a place where people can promote their wiki, show off a bit, and make connections with other wiki people. It should be fun. I'll let you guys know when it goes up... -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 23:35, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

==Death becomes you==

Why not add a section relating to death in Transformers (character deaths, permanence etc) with a special section for the way Optimus' pop their clogs...a lot[[User:GWolfv2]]
:We have [[The many deaths of Optimus Prime]]. An article on [[Death]] in general might not be amiss. [[User:JW|JW]] 13:26, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
::Well, I started it. It's very slim, cause I'm sure there's people out there more informed then me. I'll try and add what I can once a style is put in place [[User:GWolfv2]]

== april fools day plans ==

i recomend that for april fools day we lock the main page and save a copy of some of the longest/most important pages[[User:81.108.233.59|81.108.233.59]] 16:10, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
:No real need to save a copy. Wiki software archives older versions automatically.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 16:23, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
:And, the main page is already semiprotected. [[User:JW|JW]] 16:26, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

==Shift from movie to Animated?==
I'm just thinking that maybe the frontpage's "highlight" should change from the TF movie, which is well wound-down, to Animated, which is new and big and running full-steam. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 00:04, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
: Sure. That seems like an easy change... --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 01:19, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

== Featured article ==

We have had the same thing there for like 50 years{{unsigned|Human in Disguise|02:22, 7 April 2008}}
:Not really. Jhiaxus was only made a Featured Article on March 2, 2008.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 06:05, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
::With 6k articles, maybe we could switch the featured article every month?[[User:Spriteless|Spriteless]] 05:45, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
:::We try to when we can, but usually that involves a big push to improve the given article to featured article standards.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 06:30, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

== front tf page ==

i hate april fool pranks on my fave tf front page -dr
:What? [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 23:11, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

== Funny ==
I think we should remove the funny nes on the page, If it stays, It will sound like a child has being messing up this place and Other people will think it doesn't make sense. [[User:Black rhino ranger|Black rhino ranger]] 09:01, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
:You're going to find yourself in the minority regarding this opinion.--[[User:Suzyprime|Suzyprime]] 13:02, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

:Actually, Ranger, people are more likely to think this wiki "doesn't make sense" if it's edited by people who can't spell, conjugate, or use capital letters correctly. [[User:JW|JW]] 18:37, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Who made this again. [[User:Black rhino ranger|Black rhino ranger]] 19:55, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
:If that's a question, I don't understand it. [[User:JW|JW]] 20:33, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

==Search==
So, uh, what happened to the ability to type something into the text box, click "search," and not have it take me directly to a page, but give me a list of pages the term appears in instead? There is no search button on the front page! --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 11:37, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
:For as long as I've used the wiki, the Search function has only done that for me if what I've typed didn't match the title of any article exactly. As for the front page, I still see the Search box. I don't know if it makes a difference, but I'm using the Monaco skin.--[[User:Apcog|Apcog]] 14:12, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
::That doesn't match my experiences. I could type in "Megatron," click Search, and then it'd give me a list of pages that mention "Megatron" in the body of the text. It was very useful. --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 14:54, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
::On the topic of the Monaco skin, can we get some admin feedback on the Monaco skin discussion, please? --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 14:32, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
::To be sure, yes, that would be useful. As it is, now you'd have to type something like "Megatron's" or "Megatron" and another word to get similar results. And yeah, I've seen notices for the admins from [[User:Toughpigs|Toughpigs]] asking for feedback and wondered when that was going to be resolved.--[[User:Apcog|Apcog]] 15:13, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
:Regarding the search box - typing something into the box and hitting "enter," or clicking "go," is the option that takes you directly to the page with the title you've typed. Typing something into the box and actually clicking the button marked "search" is the option that brings up a list of stuff containing the term, and that's the button we appear to have lost here (although on my screen at least, it's coming and going intermittently, but that's probably a browser cache thing). I've not got the Monaco skin on, but regarding that, I rather like it, and I'd like to see it implimented. There's something very "bare bones" about our set up here, and of course, I know that we kinda have that as a show of "not taking everything too seriously," but I'd personally like to see the Monaco skin in use. - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 15:30, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
::The same function is in the "Advanced Search" link. Am I the only one who sees it or something? [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 18:17, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Cripes, I can't insert a comment before three more jump in before me. No, there's definitely no Search button visible in the Monaco skin as I'm using it, just an arrow with a magnifying glass icon in it (the equivalent of the "Go" button, obviously). I see the "Advanced search" link too, but it doesn't offer quite the same function, in that it doesn't default to the "all text occurrences" option. Rather, you have to choose settings to get that. Not a terrible extra step, but still...--[[User:Apcog|Apcog]] 18:32, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
:::I see the advanced search link. I also ''REALLY LIKE'' the new 'random page image link' above the search box. Who do I have to thank for that? --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 18:28, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
::::I put it in, but it was Siph's idea. Breaking the "Search" button under non-Monaco themes was also my doing, I'm afraid; I was a little zealous with putting in a more useful search and it didn't quite work. It should be back in a day or two. I somehow totally missed any discussion on Monaco coming up; I'll get to commenting on that. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 19:50, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::Primarily Wookieepedia for the idea, Blitz for the implementation, and I suppose me for harraunging her about it. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 19:48, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
::::::A random page on search function is really a good idea because that would make us know about more characters. By the way, I think there still need a normal ''search button'' in the original place . :D --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 01:37, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::::Then I thank you guys for it. '''IF''' we switch to Monaco, is there any way to do a similar function with that skin? I think the function is very helpful for newcomers to the wiki (and Transformers in general) for they don't have to look through lists of names or randomly search for things. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 05:17, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
::::::::I don't think it'd be too hard. If we ''do'' switch to Monaco, there'd need to be some changes done to the search box anyway, since under that, there's no "search" button. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 05:56, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
: Is there a way to make the search image load earlier? Right now it's the very last thing to load; even the flash ads come up earlier. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 02:24, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
:: The short answer is no, unfortunately. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 05:56, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Why does the bar show pictures of random characters, but when you go to their pages they have no visual representation? [[User:90.198.228.42|90.198.228.42]] 20:28, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
:Because... I don't know really. I don't know why the powers-at-be chose to create these little search pictures for characters that have no pictures. One would think if they had a reasonably sized image to create the search button picture, they could have uploaded the full size image for the page itself. And/or create searchbox pic-links for characters that DO have decent visual representation AND largely completed articles. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 22:39, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
==Familial relationships==

Should we put something up, relating to the idea of siblings or such[[User:GWolfv2]]
:See [[Relatives]].--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 15:07, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

== Redesigning the front page ==

Now that the Monaco skin is the default, and Toughpigs is around to help us out, I suggest we figure out a way to redesign the front page so it isn't just a columns of text. Is there any reasonable way for us to have the franchises in the By Series (or anywhere else, really) represented by the franchise logos? The logos can be as recognisable as the names alone, and given we're getting more and more visitors every day, it would be helpful to make the place more visually pleasing and more user-friendly. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 20:30, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
:I think that's still a [[Talk:Main_Page/Archive2#Logos_for_.27By_series.27_column|bad idea]]. The logos were never designed to look good together, and some (like the 2007 movie) are anti-informative. If you can present a design that somehow makes it work, please do. But I don't see how the new skin changes the basic problems. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 20:56, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
::I tend to think the Main Page and its columns of text are just fine as is. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 21:04, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
::Also, wouldn't it perhaps be best to wait a few days for everyone to get home from BotCon before starting a discussion on more major changes like this? --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 21:08, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Didn't stop Toughpigs redesigning the whole Wiki... - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 21:18, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Toughpigs has been touting the switch to Monaco for quite some time, and he only finally got the nod from an admin just before BotCon.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 23:22, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
Just wanted to say I love the new look.

===Ad bar issues with Monaco?===
I don't know if it's just me, but trying to load the Wiki in Firefox results in it loading everything up to the adserver stuff, and then Firefox proceeds to hang the fuck up, completely use up all available memory, and force me to kill it through Task Manager. It's kind of a pain in the ass.(I'm using explorer right now) [[User:Hooper X|-hx]] 00:22, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
:I've had no troubles with Firefox 2, nor Firefox 3 beta 5.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 00:37, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

== Improvement Drive ==
I have no idea how long the "Improvement Drive" column has been there, but it's a great idea, content-wise. However, IMO the links it contains should really be a permanent part of the Help/Start Here column. It's the kind of thing I was talking about [http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Transformers_Wiki_talk:Community_Portal#.22First_go_here.21__Next_go_here..22 a while ago]. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 22:56, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

== Main "Transformers Animated" image ==

It really ought to be clickable. Unfortunately, [[:Template:Click]] currently doesn't actually let you center an image-- it probably needs to be rewritten at some point. Unless someone else volunteers, this is mostly just a reminder to myself. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 18:53, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
:Someone just did that and now the link messes up the main page by covering the links to "Comics", "Generation 1", "(toyline/cartoon/comic)", "Generation 2", and "Help contents". Ugh, it was better off the way it was before. Besides, there was a link to the Animated franchise below the giant logo. --[[User:Sabrblade|Sabrblade]] 23:27, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
::What poor excuse for a browser are you using? The TFA logo is ''above'' all that stuff. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 23:35, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
:::The image is, but the link is stretching down over the ones below it. --[[User:Sabrblade|Sabrblade]] 23:59, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
::::I'm using Firefox, and the link ends WAY before that. I have no troubles whatsoever. - [[User:Semysane|Semysane]] 00:20, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
::::Sabrblade, to repeat- "What browser are you using?" -[[Special:Contributions/75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 01:35, 9 May 2008 (UTC)<div id="wikia-credits"> From [http://transformers.wikia.com Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki], a [http://www.wikia.com Wikia] wiki.</div>

Template:Coming soon

2008-05-03T23:41:02Z

75.168.112.43:

{{Messagebox|
|message_text=Further information in this article is '''coming [[soon]]''' as it pertains to information that {{#switch:{{{1|}}} | unreleased=has not yet been officially released. | fanclub=has only recently been released to the [[Fan Club]].| is not currently appropriate for inclusion.}}
 See the relevant [[Help: Coming soon|policy page]] for the reasons why, and do not add further information pending [[{{TALKPAGENAME}}|review]].
{{ #if: {{{when|}}} | The suggested fair-game date on this article is: '''{{{when}}}''' | }}
|border=999999
|bgcolor=FAFAFA
|categories=[[Category:Coming soon]]
}}
<noinclude>

{{Coming soon|unreleased}}
{{Coming soon|fanclub}}

This template can take either "unreleased" or "fanclub" as parameters, depending on which reason the article should not be created. It can be called as either <nowiki>{{Coming soon|unreleased}}</nowiki> or <nowiki>{{Coming soon|fanclub}}</nowiki>.

It can also take an optional parameter 'when', allowing you to suggest a date when the article becomes 'fair game.' <nowiki>{{coming soon|when=July 3, 2007}}</nowiki>
{{coming soon|when=July 3, 2007}}

==See also==
*[[Template:Comingsoontoy]], for upcoming toy releases.
*[[Help:Coming soon]], the {{SITENAME}} policy page about advance info.

[[Category:Templates]]</noinclude>

File:Beemeatcycle.jpg

2008-05-03T22:26:36Z

75.168.112.43: fixed li9nk

[[Bumblebee (Animated)|Bumblebee]] blocks [[Wreck-Gar (G1)|some debris]] with some meat, in [[Garbage In, Garbage Out]].

{{hastak}}<div id="wikia-credits"> From [http://transformers.wikia.com Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki], a [http://www.wikia.com Wikia] wiki.</div>

MediaWiki talk:Community Portal

2008-04-29T10:10:24Z

75.168.112.43: /* Monaco top-of-article spam */

==Archives==
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive1|Archive1]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive2|Archive2]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive3|Archive3]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive4|Archive4]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive5|Archive5]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive6|Archive6]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive7|Archive7]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive8|Archive8]]

== Continuity / Timeline ==
I'm trying to make some sense of how the various major continuities are handled, overview-wise. Some have their own continuity page; IDW's just got a timeline, with overview stuff shoved here and there among the individual miniseries. Some don't have anything. Some, like the G1 cartoon, are not much more than lists. The ones that exist tend to be hard to find, aren't categorized uniformly, etc... is there a master format for this stuff?{{unsigned|Repowers|12:15, 29 October 2007}}
:There is no master format for continuity pages. Please feel free to make one! It would be a good thing to have! --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 00:55, show30 October 2007 (UTC)
:: You know, I think it would be hot if once we got more timelines up, we began putting Chronology links to the timetable on the story pages. Several Dreamwave comic pages have them, and I think IDW comics should too, since IDW really isn't telling the story in a linear fashion.--[[User:Zodberg|Zodberg]] 09:36, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::Sounds like a good idea. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 13:51, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::Would it make sense to have an overview writeup at the start of each timeline, a few paragraphs or so? Or should "continuity" be a separate page? Where should a chronological list of issues go -- publisher's page, continuity page, timeline page? That's not such a problem with, say, Marvel G1, but Dreamwave's a little messier, IDW's all over the place, and gods help you if you want to sort out the mess that is Marvel UK. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 14:29, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:: A continuity page should have the following (in my opinion):
:: * A one-paragraph description of the continuity, not more than a few sentences long.
:: * A list of what media belongs to this continuity (which can include some stuff that's vaguely contradictory, but should exclude stuff that's way out there, like Earthforce relative to G1 comics). This can be sorted by publication order, or internal chronology, but if there's a major difference between the two, it should be spelled out.
:: * An overall description of the main events in that continuity, focusing on the events actually chronicled (not the distant past). In particular, for most continuities, changes in the leadership of either side, the changing status (living/dead, present/absent, duplicated by Straxus/encoded on a floppy, etc.)of the big two leaders (usually Optimus Prime and Megatron), any events involving Unicron or Primus, and introductions of major teams or groups of characters (Headmasters, Fuzors) should be in the summary.
:: * If necessary, a timeline, which may end up integrated with one of the above parts.
:: * Pointers to important and closely-related continuities (again, such as Earthforce), discussion of divergences, etc. [[User:JW|JW]] 15:14, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::All that sounds pretty good, though I wouldn't get too hung up on following individual characters too much, even the leaders. In Marvel G1, at least, they changed over on a pretty regular basis.
:::On a related note... this and a lot of other overview-type pages are really lost in the shuffle. They should be top-level pages, with everything branching off of them and linking back to them, but instead they're buried and nothing links to them. You start off reading, say, the article on [[Spotlight: Soundwave]]. Where do you go from there to find out more? The IDW issues category? That's the only link out of that page. If you're a newcomer, or even someone with an imperfect memory, how do you know what comes next? Either the individual issue pages need to link to the timeline and continuity pages, or the category page does, or... something.
:::Taking care of it on the category page might be simplest, like what's on the Category:Marvel US issues page. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 19:12, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::: Yes, the site is sadly lacking in both "uplinks" and "sidelinks" for the media; links from a TV episode to the TV series, links from an issue of a comic to an overview of the comic, links from one comic to the next comic in that series, etc. [[User:JW|JW]] 19:21, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::: I'm still poking around and figuring out what's been done and what's needed; it might take a while to figure out how to start cleaning things up. It looks like we've got some random timelines started (still need ones for the Beast era and a few others), as well as continuity pages for some but not all of the major storylines, so I suppose each major continuity should have both kinds of pages. I wonder if there's a way to use a category or subcategory to get individual episode/issue pages to quickly link back to the main overview pages?... -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 19:28, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::: JW, we do have that comics nav template, though I like the comic infobox on wikipedia more. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:04, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::: Ah... http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Template:Comicnav ...so we do. Very useful. Now we just gotta propagate it over a few hundred comic issue... :S -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 20:25, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::: Also, the nav setup only can link up one level. So Infiltration #2 can link up to the main Infiltration page, but not to the IDW continuity page above that. Would putting a variant of this template on the main page for each miniseries, linking up to the continuity page, work instead? Then you're never more than two clicks away from an individual issue to the continuity overview. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 20:25, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::::: That, or somehow add it to the main comicnav template, perhaps in small letters above the series name. I don't wanna step on anyone's toes though. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:45, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::::: That'd make the most sense, to add a "Continuity" level to the template, or alternately a lower-end "Mini-series" option. But hell if I can make sense out of how these things work... that might be a rainy day project, figuring that out. :\ -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 20:51, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

==Image Copyrights==
I asked awhile ago, and nobody seemed to know, so...

I've always been under the impression that images {{c}} someone else should be credited ''not'' just with a note that they belong to someone else, but a ''year'', for much the same reasons we identify ''who'' the image belongs to rather than simply saying 'we don't own it, but it's fair use.' The more info we provide, the more 'seriously' the copyright is being taken. if we wipe our ass with an unadorned, <nowiki>{{fairuse}}</nowiki> clearly we don't think the holder of the copyright is ''important''... or something.

I have a script I've been poking at. It can run through every image detail page on the wiki through a regular expression and pick out which images don't have copyright owners (Hasbro or Takara-- you're supposed to ID which even if you're using <nowiki>{{hastak}}</nowiki>,) which don't have dates, and which don't have any sort of copyright notice at all. (A significant chunk of our images have no notices that they belong to someone else.) It could also drop the offending images into categories to be sorted out and properly labeled. (I imagine I'd give it Steve-o and let it do so logged in as the bot to avoid the update-floods.)

...is anyone interested in this? Does it seem like a good idea? Terrible idea? ...Bueler? -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 15:29, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

==Cartoon Episode Format Mark II==
Picking up an old thread here... per some changes I just finished making to all the Beast Era episode pages, IMO:
* The one-line summary should be bold. It's the single most important thing on the page; your eye should leap right to it.
* It should be the very first thing on the page, above the nav box (barring temporary templates like "pics needed".)
* It should be free of links. They're distracting and ugly, and it's kinda absurd to think someone's going to click right off the summary to see what a "Maximal" or whatever is. Links can easily be integrated into the body of the plot summary.

I'd also rather see Quotes before Stats, to keep all the in-universe stuff together before moving to out-universe stuff like writers, air dates, commentary, order of appearance, etc. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 00:13, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

:I agree with all of this, except for the one-line summary being above the nav box. Pure personal preference, though, rather than any sort of functionality - I just don't like the way it looks. In fact, I think putting it below the nav box actually ''helps'' its notice-ability - it "frames" the summary quite nicely between the nav box and the contents box. - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 00:22, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
::Heh, I see it the opposite way -- having the summary first provides a frame for the inevitable white space that accompanies the nav box. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 06:24, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

::Picking up on what I said above, putting the stats section down below not just the extended summary but now below the quotes section as well is something I strongly oppose. Episode writers do not get the recognition they deserve. We should not be burying their credits like that. That section belongs ''above'' the summary. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 03:21, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
:::I do hear what you're saying, but honestly I'm less bothered by the recognition factor than by the inconsistency with comic format, where all that junk ''is'' up front (though it often looks pretty bad, IMO.) If it were ''just'' the writer credit, I'd be okay with having it up front (though I ain't gonna be the one who goes back through 78 Beast Era episode pages to change it!) But then you get into the odd condition of having that one bit of info up front, while the rest of the standard information external to the episode's events is much deeper in the article. Having much more stuff up front than that makes for a messy, unattractive, and harder-to-read format compared to having it all bundled in the Stats section... IMO, natch.
:::"If "recognition" is the concern, heck, think of the animators who slaved a lot more than the writers ever did to bring each episode to life. They get no credits at all. Neither does Robert Buckley, who provided music for both Beast series. The list goes on and on. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 06:24, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
::::The information I am suggesting be up front would only be three lines (Written by, Directed by, air date), which I don't think would be very intrusive at all. To my mind, before the summary is the only logical place for this information to be presented, as episodes themselves generally present those two credits up front, and air date is a known factor when watching an episode when it debuts.
::::On the issue of recognition, you make a good point, however my concern is a bit different. Robert Buckley may not get a lot of recognition from the fandom for the music of Beast Wars, but it's not like they give someone ''else'' all the credit on that score, pun semi-intended. But the writers? The fandom often enough acts as if Forward and DiTillio wrote every single word of Beast Wars, and Skir (alone, of course, as the Isenberg Uncertainty Principle remains in full effect) the same for Beast Machines. The story editors are obviously the most important writers, but they didn't do it all on their own.
::::Burying the names of episode writers down below the summary and quotes sections just doesn't sit right with me, is all. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 04:46, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
:::::Hrm... combined with Steve-o's consistency argument, I suppose I could go along with doing it this way, with them all tucked together and separate from/below the one line summary. Written By and Air Date are in one little combined pair of lines now, an easy cut-n-paste to move up front. I don't think anyone's added Director credits to any of the episodes, by the by.
:::::As I said, I'm in no great hurry to do it myself -- my main concern was that the Beast Era show pages had drifted into all sorts of different arrangements, some of which looked pretty sloppy. For better or worse, they're all uniform now. If we're gonna change the layout, let's work on getting one sample page ''just right'', then we can worry about propagating it. To that end, have a look at "[[Chain of Command]]", see if it clicks for you. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 05:33, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm thinking if we could merge the ''Japanese title'' into the '''''Stats''' section'' because it seems to fit the section better. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 03:14, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't have much of a preference, personally, about how to organize these things. However, I do feel pretty strongly that it should be more or less the same for both cartoon episodes and comic issues. Having different organizational schemes for different sorts of fiction doesn't serve much purpose, and makes things harder to get used to. (On the other hand, I ''also'' feel strongly that all of our passages relating fictional events should be in the same tense regardless of if they happen to be on a character page or a story page, but apparently that makes me insane, so don't take my pleas for consistency too seriously.) --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 02:35, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

===Cartoon format mark II.5===
Did we ever make a decision on whether to place the quotes area before the stats section? Because the sheer majority of episode articles (including old ones recently converted to current standards) place the stats before the quotes, but I notice some of the latest Cybertron episode articles are placing the quotes before the stats, which is creating inconsistencies in layout. Bear in mind it will create less work for us if we just leave things the way they are, with stats before quotes. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 09:34, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

==Cartoon continuity headings==
Have we decided on a definative format for this yet? most of the pages with characters who appeared in Sunbow's G1 through to the japanese series (and maybe Beast Wars as well) have quite different headings, and I recall we were worried about ''Transformers Animated'' causing problems with all the 'Animated continuity' headings on character pages. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 07:08, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
:I think we had decided on using "cartoon" instead of "animated." So use "cartoon continuity," or for those who appear in more than one cartoon continuity, use "Generation 1 cartoon continuity," "Beast Wars cartoon continuity," etc. --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 07:13, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
::Can we have Diagnostic Drone change all occurrences of "Animated continuity" to "Cartoon continuity"? That'll require some cleanup in the Animated articles, but there are far fewer of those than there are of G1 subjects that are currently mislabeled. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 17:54, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

== Section-title master list ==

I've made a sandbox for the purpose of assembling a [[User:Jackpot/Sandbox/Sections|master list of all section titles]], their relation to each other, and their proper wording/formatting. Please discuss; I've introduced some new ideas, and I'd love to see a consistent guide established. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 01:04, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
:Wow, I think this really look nice and useful. ;D --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 03:44, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

== "First go here! Next go here." ==
I was thinking a bit about the various problems we've got around here -- stuff like incomplete image descriptions, orphaned articles, etc. There's really no one central place where a newcomer (or a regular who feels like doing something useful but doesn't know what) can go to find a quick list of things that need doing. The current help pages just send you to the list of articles in need of creation, which is kind of daunting, especially for a newcomer who has to learn a million standards and Wikia tags. Is there a more comprehensive way to point people in the direction of useful things they could be doing? Whatever it might be, it should include links to:
* Pages in need of creation
* Orphaned pages
* Stubs
* Pics needed
* Any current projects, like the Beast Wars one. Hell, I couldn't find that thing if my life depended on it.
...as well as a note about common problems: dead/missing storylinks, incomplete image descriptions, and whatever else. (Heck, who knows? Maybe it could even distract an IP person long enough to prevent them from screwing with captions.... ahh, who'm I kidding?} -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 21:51, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

:There are some of those things catalogued [[Special:Specialpages|here]], but I think making links to the most important of these categories, and placing them together in one easy-to-find link off the main page, would be best. Perhaps on the Help contents page, since it's linked right off the main page already, in the most logical location? I think that link is a bit small, for what it's worth. --[[User:Sntint|Sntint]] 22:09, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
::One of the projects in the back of my head is a help-page/guide specifically breaking down the creation of character pages, plus the use of "common templates" for them (disambigs, stubs, notes). I'll see if I can scrounge up some time to rough-copy one. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 22:56, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

==Other Maintenance Templates?==
I haven't had much time to do more "substantial" wiki edits lately, but I've been prepping for later with the charstub sub-categories. Fiction really isn't my bag... I mean, I know it in general, but not issue titles and numbers and bla bla. But I figure it's also nice to have the "really needs a lot of stuff" pages separated from the "just needs some stuff in one subsection" ones, especially once I can make a concentrated effort to update the toy sections of various pages. I've been thinking about other similar "needs maintenance" template/categories, but I thought I'd bring it up here since I'm not sure who else might make use of them... 
I've noticed quite a lot of pages missing storylinks. I'm not intending on going through a big wiki-wide hunt, but as I go through the stubs and other pages doing little maintenance and tweaks, well, I think I'd like to be able to mark pages I come across that are missing those links they should have. Picture and quote? Isaac Sumdac and/or Tutorbot, "I cannot believe I programmed you with such simplistic information!" (Idea courtesy of Trent Troop.) 
I'd swear there was another one, but right now, too tired to think of it and must sleep. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 06:53, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
:Perhaps a tag for a page with too many damn redlinks for concepts that will never need articles?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 07:08, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
::I don't think that will be neccessary, as it's a simple matter of removing the [[ and <nowiki>]]</nowiki>s. Storylinks, though, require some research. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 15:40, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
:::I usually label such pages with <nowiki>{{stub|storylinks}}</nowiki>. [[User:JW|JW]] 15:44, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
::::Trick is, often they're not really stubs, are they? the main info is there, there's just not a "where'd this happen?" link. And maybe it's the data-manager in me that says this, but I think it'd be a lot easier to have a common problem like lack of storylinks as a category all its own, all together for easy identification and maintenance. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 16:11, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

== Disambiguation ==

We need a consensus on hiw we handle disambuigation in article titles. We've had some moving between [[Silverbolt (BW)]] and [[Silverbolt (Fuzor)]], and [[Dirge (Timelines)]] and [[Dirge (Whatever the Botcon 05 set was)]] because there are two Silverbolts in BW and two Dirges in Timelines. However, since one of those Dirges and one of those Silverbolts are G1 characters, the (BW) and (Timelines) tags are fine for the other two. The tags are simply for keeping the articles separate; not for telling you what continuity they're in. Plus, (Timelines) is much easier to type than "(Botcon boxset name I can't remember)". --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 23:35, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

:Somewhat related to the discussion at [[Talk:Starscream (Timelines)]]. My personal criteria is that a name used for two (or more) characters in the same toyline requires more specific disambiguation, regardless of the characters' origin, because readers shouldn't be expected to remember whether some character was already in another toyline. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 23:51, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

::So... what should disambigs be?
:# Distinguished ''only'' when strictly necessary. "Silverbolt (BW)" is fine because, while there were 2 Silverbolt toys in the BW Toyline, the other one is actually Silverbolt (G1)- so only one entry is trying 'sits' in the (BW) disambig, and no more specific disambing is needed. Parenthetical disambigs should be the broadest possible category the article can sit in without conflicting with another article, (usually a continuity family or franchise.) Absolutely no 'bumping' of disambigs as a concession to aesthetics.
:# Distinguished on a logical basis. "Silverbolt (Fuzor)" because there are two Silverbolts in the BW toyline, and the article title should not allow for confusion between the two.
:# Providing continuty info. A hypothetical new character Roller in the 2008 Universe line would be "Roller (Classic)" not "Roller (Universe)"-- so that the article title doesn't mislead people into thinking he's part of the 2004 Universe continuity.
::My problem with #2 ''and'' #3 is that the diambig isn't supposed to convey that information. The first line of the article, right below the title does. It will say 'Silverbolt is a Fuzor in the Beast Wars continuity family...' or 'Roller is a Ultracon in the Classics portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.'
::We are currently usign method #1. I oppose a change to methods 2 or 3 for the following reasons:
:# The '''first line''' of the article already supplies the information that solutions 2 & 3 would seek to add- and does it ''better.''
:# Implementing 2 or 3 would make it harder for ''editors'' to know where article are sitting ("I know there was only one Silverbolt in BW, why is my link to Silverbolt (BW) broken?")
:# The purpose of the parenthetical disambigs is not to convey info- it is to keep articles with the same title from sitting in the same namespace. Attempting to make disambigs convey information actually ''adds ambiguity'', because it would force the the locations the articles sit in to become ''less'' standard.
::Let diambigs be disambigs. If we want to make continuity notes clearer or more prominent, we can look at revising our approach to '''them'''. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 00:41, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

::We already have [[Help:Disambiguation]] to more or less lay this out. (I've just made a couple small changes to it for clarification.) There is going to be no simple rule of thumb which leads to tbe best results in every case, so make the parenthetical as brief and clear as you can. Derik is correct that the purpose of the parenthetical is to give the articles different names so the database doesn't get confused. To help out editors when we make links, it is good for them to be short and easy to remember. --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 21:35, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

So, should we move [[Silverbolt (Fuzor)]] and [[Dirge (Decent into Evil)]] and the mirrorverse guys back to [[Silverbolt (BW)]], [[Dirge (Timelines)]] and [[mirrorverse guys (Timelines)]]? --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 22:42, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
:Wait to see if others have strong feelings/argument first. (We have a policy, but it's subject to conseunsus, remember? Also- I think I wrote most of that page so my point of view is unfairly over-represented there.) ''On review, no, apparently this is one policy page I '''didn't''' write. ...why can't I tell Steve-o's writing apart from my own? Scary. :~(
:Personally I say emphatically yes on Dirge, indifferent affirmative on Silverbolt, and wait and see on the Shattered Glass pages. We don't now where/if they fit in existing continuity. There's no point in movinf them a half-dozen times while arguing about unknowables. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 23:13, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

== Pages about fan sites ==

Is there a policy about this? I wanted to add TF Pulp, but I didn't see any other TF sites on here at all, so I figured I should ask first.
{{unsigned|Might Gaine|2008-02-27T14:04:54}}

:We don't give unofficial sites their own articles. You can link to information on TF Pulp from appropriate pre-existing articles, though. That sort of thing enhances the wiki by allowing people to find further information on the topics they are reading about. Just put it into an "External links" section right before the categories. --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 21:18, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

==Cartoon episode title cards redundancy==
Why are we moving towards using the title cards of episodes for the main/starting picture of episode articles? Isn't it redundant to have a boring screenshot with the name of the episode placed next to...... the name of the episode in the actual article itself? Wouldn't it be more interesting to do what we have been doing, and use a screen capture that somehow encapsulates the whole episode, or shows a pivitol point in it that sticks in our memory? --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 02:55, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
:I've wondered the same thing myself, but figured it was a done deal. I too support the "memorable/encapsulating moment" approach. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 03:04, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
::Uh... I'm sorry, I think I started it. ;-) When I was doing some early RiD ep stubs I threw in the titlecards because the early episodes were boring as sin. I think McFeely did it for the JP eps because they tend to have those painterly titlecards...
::Really, it's just something you do if there isn't a ''good'' representative image. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 17:39, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
:::Like Code of Hero (an article that needs a major overhaul itself), I originally put an image of Dinobot's sword lying on the deck of his quarters, because it looked poignant. Did the same for various other Beast Wars episodes. Then Interrobang replaced them all with screencap of the title screens. Gah. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 07:05, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::So tell him to stop! ;) -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 07:58, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::Sigh. I did it because I like consistency, even with Japanese series. "Dinobot's sword on the ground" might be your favoritest image ever but it's the odd duck out now. (It also looks terrible due to the artifacting brought about by needlessly screwing with the brightness and contrast.) [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 08:36, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::::Consistency is Victory- but Transformers Victory was incredibly boring. (Victory Gundam was pretty good though...) [[The Weak Component]], [[Survivor]] and [[End of the Line]] all have virtually ''identical'' title screens- an aerial shot of the Cybertropolis spaceport. That sucks— I'd much rather have an iconic image from each episode. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 10:07, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::::::I agree. Using iconic images is really good for the most episode guides, such as [[Code of Hero]], [[The Weak Component]], and several [[B.O.T. (episode)|others]], especially "Code of Hero" and "The Weak Component" are great and good examples. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 13:38, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::::Personally, I started doing for the Japanese series for the reason Derik gives, because it was usually a unique image made for the title card, or a good one that's representative of the episode. There were some duds, but... consistency. And then... ''Masterforce'' started to do really, ''really'' boring ones, and I was about to give up, then it occurred to me to start using the image from the next-ep preview, which proved a winner in most cases (in fact, I may yet go back and change swap out some of the title-card images with these, if it's a better option). The mention of Victory here amuses me, though, 'cause it's a good example of title cards being boring - it's the same two images of Star Saber and Deathsaurus, rotated in and out, for the whole series. I've used them for the first two episodes just to get them on show, but I plan to use the title-images from the next-episode previews for this one. I mean, when I wake up from the dullness-inducing stupor that Victory induces. - McFeely, at work
::::::::I reverted Dinobot's sword back to the version I uploaded. As I had not viewed the page much since last year, I didn't realize that Repowers tried to brighten it up for some reason - that moment is supposed to focus on the sword, not the room. And it's the 'odd duck out' now because some people have been replacing whatever had served as the main image with the title card. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 12:24, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::I brightened it because, when it's reduced for the actual episode page where most people are going to see it, you can't tell what the heck you're looking at. Right now it looks a little bit of vague white stuff in darkness. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 13:36, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::::::::Vaat? I can see if plenty fine there, unless you're using a very, very high resolution that makes everything tiny. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 13:54, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::::Could be my home monitor, which is HUGE. It does look more discernable from a work computer, though IMO it could still stand to be a tad brighter. -- [[user:repowers|repowers]], not signed in
I've changed my mind on this situation after mulling it over. A winner is FNN. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 03:31, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
:FNN sounds even more like a Simon Furman sound effect than FFN :D --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 04:26, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
::You clearly changed your name after I replied. There's no another answer. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 04:33, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
:::Hnh. FNN never DID want to live forever. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 04:55, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

==Help/policy page namespaces==
As part of the help/policy page revamp I plan to do... eventually... I kind of want to consolidate the pages all into a single namespace. Right now we have [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=12 a bunch of stuff] in the Help namepsace, and [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=4 a bunch of other stuff] in the Transformers Wiki (aka "meta") namespace. This is needlessly confusing. I vastly prefer "Help" for the purposes of typing it all the time, but, the meta namespace is more general purpose and standard... and possibly required for some pages like the title blacklist. So I am inclined to shuffle all the Help namespace pages over to the meta namespace. Does anybody have an opinion on this? --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 17:37, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
:Help seems fine to me. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 17:45, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

== "The Battlestars" page disappeared ==

When the "Battlestar" (team) page got changed to "Battlestars", then "The Battlestars" page, which was the manga, disappeared. What happened? --[[User:Might Gaine|Might Gaine]] 13:36, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
:I don't think that page actually existed in the first place. It was a red link before any moving was done - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 14:04, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
::Hmm. My bad. --[[User:Might Gaine|Might Gaine]] 15:01, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

==Comic character box format Part IV==
I believe we should change it from 'Major characters' to 'Featured characters' like we do in the cartoon recap articles. Doing it as 'Major characters' means writers of these comic articles will just not bother list the incidental characters, such as humans, even ones with dialogue, and if any of these characters have articles, they become orphaned articles. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 06:32, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
:Well I have gone thru nearly the entire U.S. Marvel series and I think I've included just about everyone who had a speaking line, except for folks who were un-named and such. If someone wants to change from "major" to "featured", it doesn't matter to me, but I'm not gonna go thru all 80 issues again and do it. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:18, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
::I was concerned because I was looking for the article for that [[Professor Goring]] guy from [[Spotlight: Shockwave]] so I could update the article. To my surprise, Shockwave didn't link or even name him, and somebody had eliminated the 'human' column altogether because evidently we only dealt with 'major' characters. Essentially, Goring's article became orphaned. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 20:32, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
:::Well that was dumb; he should indeed be re-added. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:39, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
:::Uh, yeah. That's not good. I support the change to "Featured" not just for this... but let's face it, this wiki is not simply about "Major" characters. The vast wealth of non-major character information is what makes this wiki great, and we should make sure that they are properly linked to so people can find them, even if they weren't looking. "Oh, hey, who's this?" --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 20:39, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
::::MistaTee, well sometimes even unnamed characters can be interesting enough to warrant their own articles if they are interesting in some way/stand out in some way. After all, we have an entire category devoted to unnamed characters. So I think they should have been mentioned in the article in some way. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 04:45, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::Oh, I agree, and if I've missed any, please feel free to add. I do think the 80 issues I've updated is a lot better than they were before though. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 13:58, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::Of course. Is there article template pages somewhere on this wiki or are we copy pasting every time we write a new article? --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 14:07, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::::I've just been going through the Stormbringer articles, and I was ''not at all'' happy with the with the way characters who didn't have significant dialogue (such as ''every'' Pretender besides Bludgeon) were for the most part not even mentioned in the articles. I assume the original writer of these articles just didn't know who they were, but frankly it's just sloppy considering the information available on this wiki even in 2006. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 14:38, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::::I believe I reformatted them to the new format, but just copied the character list from what was there. When I get the chance to re-read, I will add in the others, if someone doesn't beat me to it. Oh, and I am copying and pasting from the previous article, but trying to be consistent. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 15:31, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

:So... what becomes of the former "minor characters" list? Do we even care about those dudes? Take [[Totaled!]] for example -- almost every Earth Autobot to date appears in the story (and most of the Decepticons), but the page currently lists only the speaking ones. Gods help the poor soul who decides to take that task on, but when some nobody like Air Raid makes a rare appearance in the comics, it seems worth noting. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 15:25, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
::IMO, I think those characters should perhaps be in a cameos section, a subset of "Items of note". But I sure as hellz am not going thru the whole Marvel series again to do that. Someone else can have a go at it. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 15:31, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

==Navigation boxes for shared US/UK stories==
I wish I'd noticed [[user:MistaTee|MistaTee]]'s changes to the Marvel US navigation boxes sooner, but that's water under the bridge now. When I set the boxes up, I deliberately left out certain links at points where the continuities split and come back together. The point was that there would be no duplicate links in the box. One hopes that the reader following the UK chain will be smart enough to figure out that the only "Next" link shown will lead to the next step in the chain. This goes double for US stories that have the same Next and Previous links for the UK. Why do the same links need to be duplicated?

Compare:
* [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Cold_War%21&oldid=129298 Old version of Cold War]. There's no "next" for the UK spot, 'cause it would just be the same as the US "next" link.
* [[Cold War!|current version of Cold War!]] - two "next" links are identical.

Also compare:
* [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Dark_Star%21&oldid=152775 Old version of Dark Star!] - no extraneous info.
* [[Dark Star!|Current version of Dark Star!]] - ''two'' redundant links.

To sum up my take on current version:

Minus:
* Redundant links add to confusion
* Double nav box is ugly and should be avoided when possible

Plus:
* Lists UK publication number right up front
* Consistent format for all US issues.

But I've never been one to favor consistency at the expense of practicality. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 17:54, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

:Now see, I didn't like '''not''' having a next for the UK, even if it's the same as the US one. What I think we really need is a revision of the nav box, and maybe have some more options. First, I think there should be a separator line between the US and UK nav. Secondly, maybe some logic could be programmed in so that IF "next2"="next" THEN it would say "same as U.S. version" or something along those lines. Same for the "prev"/"prev2" naturally. Thoughts? --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 18:10, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
::That sounds like an excellent trade-off -- it gets rid of the bothersome parts while keeping the good bits. Uhhh.... anybody have any idea how to do it? The coding of these things is an utter mystery to me. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 18:20, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

== How to spell Malay. ==

Hello everyone, I've noticed that on the 'English/Malay' dubs, people have spelt word 'Malay' wrong. It doesn't have a 'y', because 'Maylay' is incorrect, so if you see any mistakes, please correct it, thank you! Also, can we not put the word crack head next to it? It's quite offensive.--[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
:It's meant in jest because the [[RTM 1 dub]] is really, really bad, as if the dubbers didn't know what the hell was going on half of the time. But we have been changing such instances to 'RTM 1 dub name:' lately. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 15:29, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
:"crack head" is describing the dubs, and with good reason. Battleship Maximus is called "Spaceship Bruce", Blaster is called "Billy", Twincast "Blaster", Metroplex "Phillip", Spike "Sparkle", Soundblaster "New Soundwave", Minevera "Nightbeat", The Matrix and Energon cubes "Power Packs, etc... --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 15:35, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
::We should probably get the drone onto the task of replacing "Maylay" with "Malay", however. [[User:JW|JW]] 15:42, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
:::I don't know about the crack head comment, it's better to avoid offending people; 'though, Spaceship Bruce is my favourite, next to Wally. Also, you got your drone right here (yay?), but do we replace it with 'English/Malay dub', or 'RTM dub'? --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
::::I fully agree with the removal of "crackhead." Frankly, it IS offensive to equate the oddities that arise from the translation of Japanese into English done by people who's first language was likely neither with being on crack. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 19:14, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::Can we leave it in for just Spaceship Bruce? The others are at least somewhat understandable, but ''Spaceship Bruce''? WTCHOP? --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 19:37, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::Sorry, but I don't wanna label another country saying it's populated by drug addicts. If it weren't for them, we wouldn't have Headmasters/Masterforce/Victory in English in the early 90's(?), and for a non-Japanese speaking country, they made a good effort. I guess you can emphasise the weirdness that is Spaceship Bruce, in his bio or the RTM page. So, 'RTM dub' or 'Englsh/Malay' dub? Technically, there was no Malay in the English dubs in the first place, so I'd go for RTM dub :) --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
:::::::It takes a real willfully oppressed state of mind to interpret that as a racial/nationalist insult. I mean, you have to really ''want'' to be offended by something, and be on the lookout for any little thing to jump on. 'Cause "crack-head" is pretty clearly referring to the ''dubs'', not the ''entire freaking country'', and I'm not sure why anyone would decide to think otherwise. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 11:32, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::::You know, crackhead is generally a term that refers to ''people'', not ''things''. As I said above, we shouldn't be seen to be equating the people who produced these dubs with crackheads because of what we perceive as humorous oddities in the translation, which are possibly just the perfectly natural result of cultural and linguistic confusion. Now it might not be an insult to the entire nation of Malaysia, but it is still, I think, a bit offensive. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 16:13, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::Well, regardless.... shouldn't it actually be the "Crackhead ''RTM-1'' dub"? -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 16:23, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::::::'Cracked-up English/Malay' dub, 'though it's not my idea, and it's not so blunt. Or the shorter 'RTM dub', since there is an [[RTM 1 dub]] page where people can redirect themselves there and elucidate the weirdness of weird names; but do we have to spell Malay with two 'y's? Maybe we can make reference to that on the RTM page again. --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
:::::::::I think 'Cracked-up English/Malay' could be used for the article such as [[Ginrai]] and [[Minerva]]('cause their RTM dub name "Optimus Prime" and "Nightbeat" were too... hilarious?), while just "RTM dub" for Fortress Maximus' Spaceship Bruce. Well, just a little opinion. :) --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 12:11, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::: Agree! :D --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]

==Trivia section image formatting==
This issue came up a while ago on [[Talk:Frenzy_%28Movie%29#Image_format|Frenzy's talk page]]. There were opnions both ways, and it wasn't really resolved. The issue is, should images in trivia sections alternate left-right, or be all on one side?

Part of the trouble with alternating sides is that it kills the bullet points. A double bullet has to be inserted for it to show up, and then there's some ambiguity over which bullets should be doubled and which left single. Dpouble bullets can also cause images to overlap the text.

Several folks said there's a lot of ugly white space when the images are stacked on one side. I see it just the opposite on my (admittedly gigantic) screen, with every image having a big empty white space below it when they alternate sides. Apparently it's got something to do with monitor resolution, so there might not be a solid answer. But --

I'd ''love'' so see some screencaps from folks showing how they see things on their monitors. It's a little hard to understand this problem without seeing it from other people's POV.

I started a little Sandbox at [[:user talk:repowers/Sandbox2]] with two different versions of Frenzy's trivia. The first one stacks all the images at the top. Does this work for people on lower monitor resolutions, or does it still look like crap? With them all stacked at the front, I don't see how they could have any white space, regardless of monitor resolution. On my screen, it looks very neat and tidy, while the second one is messy. See:

[http://www.builtstlouis.net/tf/frenzy1.jpg Stacked] 
[http://www.builtstlouis.net/tf/frenzy2.jpg Alternating]

Thoughts and input welcomed. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 01:36, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

:Alternating does kind of suck now. I've been putting pics all on the right side where there are bullet points since Wikia updated their software... an update which covered single bullet points if you put an image on the left side of the screen. I suggest cutting down on images in Trivia, since most users here have smaller monitors and use lower resolutions. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 05:44, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
::I think the easiest answer is to just remove the head images. They're essentially redundant and don't really add anything to the reader's understanding. I'd call for a general limit on how many images you can stuff into a section. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 06:27, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
:::I'd remove the head images from the article proper... but then make a text link to them within the relevant paragraph so people can see them anyway if they want to. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 06:35, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
::::That works. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 07:11, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

== Foreign name format ==
I just found the foreign names doesn't have an unified format.
:For example, some are
::''Hungarian name:'' '''Kerék''' ("Wheel"(with or without ""))
:others are
::''Hungarian name'': '''Kerék''' (meaning Wheel(or "Wheel"))

I suggest we could use an unified format like the below:
:<nowiki>:''Foreign name 1:'' '''Name A''' (Form A), '''Name B''' (Form B)</nowiki>
:<nowiki>:''Foreign name 2:'' '''Name''' ("English meaning")</nowiki>

Take [[Hot Rod]] for example, it will look like:
:''Japanese name:'' '''Hot Rodimus''' (Hot Rod), '''Rodimus Convoy''' (Rodimus Prime)
:''Hungarian names:'' '''Nagyágyú''' ("Hot ''Shot''"), '''Rodimusz Fővezér''' ("Prime Commander Rodimus")

Thoughts and idea are welcomed :) --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 09:09, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
:I don't have a strong opinion on how the international names are standardized, but I strongly agree that they should be. I nominate someone else to go through and do it. -[[User:LV|LV]] 21:40, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

== Wookiepedia has a darn nifty interface ==

What would it take for us to create something similar but Transformers-y?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:36, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
:I think the admins were adament that we keep a simple, bare-bones default look to the TF wiki, in keeping with our 'let's not take this stuff too seriously' attitude and tone. At least that's what I remember them saying when I suggested an orange layout like what Teletraan I looked like in the cartoon. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 09:34, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
::The current Wookieepedia also doesn't seem to want to cooperate with my comp here at work. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 18:27, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

==Characters lacking visuals category?==
It's dawned on me that there are actually quite a few characters who don't have any form of visual representation. They may have been described, but there are no ''pictures''. While a bulk of these are from prose stories, there's several who were simply mentioned by name in comics, or in external sources (Key Code info, S7 site, etc). More than enough to justify a category. 
I think that maybe there should also be a template/visual for this to call attention to this fact on the page right up front. I'm thinking a variation on the current <nowiki>{{mainpic}}</nowiki> template... a silhouette, (different from the mainpic one) and some text saying "This character has no known official visual depiction" or something. Anyone? --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 18:33, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
:Well, for the characters with the mainpic template, the idea is that the mainpic image is there as a placeholder, and to annoy people into tracking down an image.
:However, characters that have never had any visual depiction, and are unlikely to ever get one, don't need a placeholder for their image, and the template will just pointlessly take up room. I'm against the template, but I think the category is a good idea, and will suffice to identify these characters. [[User:JW|JW]] 18:44, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
::I disagree. The point is specifically to call attention to their lack of imagery, so nobody thinks "maybe they do have an image". And considering how little there ''is'' to most of those characters, a little extra visual pizzaz to their pages can't hurt. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 19:06, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
:::''so nobody thinks "maybe they do have an image"'' Are you intending to convey that message to ''editors,'' or casual users? Editors will, in theory, know enough to look for the category. I'm not sure casual users need to have the point brought to their attention.
:::And, it's not like we have scads of frantic editors running around trying to find pics for characters who have only appeared in prose. This may be a solution without a problem. [[User:JW|JW]] 19:27, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

== Timelines disambuig ==

There doesn't seem to be a consensus on how to name the various Timelines articles.

I feel that any disambiguation in the article title should be limited to keeping the articles separate. For instance, [[Optimus Prime (Shattered Glass)]] should be at [[Optimus Prime (Timelines)]] unless there is another Optimus Prime who's first appearance in anything was in Timelines. G1 Prime appearing in the 2007 Timelines comic does not affect this, as he is already at [[Optimus Prime (G1)]]. If G1 Prime being in a Timelines comic affected this, we would need to move [[Cyclonus (Armada)]] to [[Cyclonus (Armada whatever size class he is)]] because a version of G1 Cyclonus appeared in ''Worlds Collide''. The only reason to include the set name in the article title is ''two'' separate characters who first official anything is in ''Timelines''. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 17:18, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

== Shattered Expectations ==

Um, shouldn't those[[Deathsaurus|1]][[Bug Bite|2]] who appear in ''[[Shattered Expectations]]'' have their own page like others[[Optimus Prime (Timelines)|1]][[Grimlock (Timelines)|2]] even their counterparts' article would be short? --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 06:28, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
:I brought this up on [[Category_talk:Mayhem_Suppression_Squad]]. As I said there, I think they should either get their own articles or if that's not warranted just be covered on the Mayhem Suppression Squad article. Either way, I don't think "Shattered Expectations" fiction sections belong on the normal-verse guys' pages. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 07:08, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

==Monaco skin==

Hi -- Have you guys seen the new Monaco skin that's being used on Wikia now? You can see it at [[w:c:muppet|Muppet Wiki]] and [[w:c:marveldatabase|Marvel Database]].

As we've been rolling the skin out across Wikia, there are a few things that we've found when wikis switch to Monaco:

* The number of pageviews goes up. The flyout menus encourage new readers to explore the content on the site, and people end up sticking around on the site for longer.

* The number of new editors goes up. Readers spend more time on the site, and find pages that they want to contribute to. Also, the design makes the edit button more prominent.

* The site is faster. There were some changes made last week to Monaco that make pages load a lot faster than Monobook. Hit "random page" a few times on a Monaco wiki, and you'll see what I mean.

So I'm going around and proselytizing to the Entertainment wikis that are still using Monobook. If you want to make a custom Monaco skin like Marvel Database and Wookieepedia have, I can help you make that happen. What do you guys think? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:31, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

:Monaco does look nice, though it might go against what I understand is the wiki's purpose, which is to be quick and dirty, no fancy stuff and no pretention that this wiki is in any way officially endorsed or serious. At least that's the gist of what I was told after I previously suggested we could make the default colour of this wiki a shade of orange, like the computer systems in the original Transformers cartoons. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 23:16, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

::Yeah, we don't have to do a custom skin -- it could be the basic blue and white. I'm mostly interested in the improved functionality. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 23:24, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Eh, if it makes the place ''easier'', I don't think the "pure and simple" folks will object.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 23:26, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

And truth be told, I think the main dealbreaker here might be the extent to which Suki and Derik may or may not have farted about with tweaking Monobook. I know they've both made alterations, but I don't know quite what.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 23:34, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

:That stuff won't be affected at all. We can copy Monobook.css over to Common.css, and all of the tweaks that they made will still work. No problems. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 23:52, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

My biggest concern is the menus. The "by series" list could easily fill the entire vertical direction of the screen. We don't actually have all the series listed on the main page now (Machine Wars, Dinobots, Timelines, Universe (2008), not to mention licenced lines like Animorphs, SWTF, Crossovers).--[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 00:45, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

:Well, the idea with the menus is to be selective rather than comprehensive. It's not supposed to be a complete sitemap for the wiki -- you just want to give the new readers something to click on first.

:On [[w:c:Muppet|Muppet Wiki]], we put up the most popular Muppet Show and Sesame Street characters, and then a link to "More characters". We just want to entice people into making that first click, without overwhelming them with choices.

:I have access to click-through data for the Monaco menus, so it's possible to run some tests. You could put up a set of menus for a few days, and then I'll be able to tell you which items are getting clicked. That way, you could refine the menus so that you could highlight the items that are most likely to get clicked on. I've been doing that with the Muppet menus, and it's fun to see what the readers are actually interested in reading about. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 23:34, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

::So what do you guys think? I'd like to help you switch over to the new skin... -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 19:10, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
:::For some reason none of the admins have chimed in. I assume they're all off doing useless things like living in Real Life. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 21:10, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

::::Yeah, I left messages for Chris and ItsWalky... -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:12, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::You might want to leave messages for [[User:Suki Brits]] and [[User:Steve-o]] as well. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 13:28, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Well admins? Let's hear your opinions! I find the silence from the staff to be discouraging. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 16:18, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

If there's an actual interest in switching over to Monaco, then I would certainly have nothing against that... but I'd definitely like to hear more from the community first. Aside from that, I have no objections speaking as an admin; the modifications really aren't an issue. On the other hand, speaking as a wiki editor and professional web designer... I would definitely want to use a modified version, as it's got several pretty important issues. My thoughts, in no particular order:
* Search is nigh useless, again. Right now it resembles our ''broken'' Monobook search. I don't think that's a good thing. On the other hand, I'm currently working on fixing that anyway, so it's not like the same couldn't be done for Monaco.
* The header sucks. It really, really does. It's only 150px tall, but it sends a pretty powerful message: we'd rather show you this pretty, irrelevant picture then let you immediately get to article. ''I'' would want the top of the article as close to the top as possible.
:: Gah, I brought it over into another browser that doesn't block ads... and now I see why it's so obnoxiously huge. I am ''strongly'' opposed to putting giant hideous banner ads at the top of everything. Like, it's a little insulting that Wikia really thinks that ''that'' should be the first thing readers see. Teletraan I, like everything else on Wikia, is naturally ad-driven; but Monobook isn't offensive about it.
* The language selection is in a dropdown box, which is a TERRIBLE idea. This personally doesn't affect me, as I don't speak Hungarian, but it's pretty awful for anyone who actually is interested in seeing foreign language versions of articles... and has to click a dropdown menu on every single page if they're curious.
* The "community" box is really unhelpful. Half the content (user page, user talk, etc.) is redundant with the top of the screen, and absolutely nobody is interested in just the most recent two edits. That just leaves the number of articles. This is a lot of wasted room for nothing.
* I ''do'' like that the obnoxious sidebar on the right is gone. The current framing in Monobook wastes all sorts of space and Monaco definitely doesn't ''look'' like it has that problem.
There's also a bunch of minor things, but they don't really matter so much. The big issues are the useless space, a need to do major fixes to search, and the huge obtrusive banner ads (as opposed to the ones on the side in Monobook). But if Wikia's really willing to work with us on it, then by all means, it's up to what the community thinks. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 20:48, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

:I've been around the Wookieepeedia lately, and I've noticed when you click edit, it loads significantly slower on Monaco than it does on the Monobook format. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 05:25, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

::Hi guys -- Sorry it took me so long to respond. I'll make up for it with a super-long answer. :)

::Yes, absolutely -- I want to work with you on this. Some of the things you've raised I can clear up immediately. For some, I can explain the rationale behind the approach, and show you some stats that may help. And if there are some things that need to get tweaked, I can talk to the designers & tech folks to see if we can come up with a solution.

::Just so you know: I work for Wikia now, but I started out in 2005 as the founder of [[w:c:muppet|Muppet Wiki]]. Working on wikis is my job now, but Muppet Wiki is where my heart lives, so I'm always looking out for what's going to help or hurt "my wiki". I am/was a big Monobook fan, and I was skeptical about Monaco as it was being designed. The thing that made me a Monaco fan was actually trying it out on Muppet Wiki, and then looking at the stats to see how it was working. Muppet Wiki and Teletraan I are very similar -- about a dozen really active contributors, a strong admin team and a community of about 60-80 contributors. So I can share with you what I saw on Muppet Wiki, and what I can see in the pageviews stats.

::First up, the rationale behind some of the decisions made with the new skin. There are some features on the new skin that the most active editors think are useless, like the Community box or the flyout menus. And it's true, those aren't very helpful for the active contributors. They're designed for the anonymous/new people, who are the vast majority of our readers.

::Here's the stats on unique visits for Teletraan I. (Unique visits counts the number of visits to a site, and not the number of pages you look at in each visit. So if you come to the wiki and look at 100 pages, that counts as one unique.) In the last month, there have been 2,725,000 anonymous visits, and 261,000 logged-in user visits. That means 91% of the visits to the site aren't logged-in contributors.

::Logged-in editors make 77% of the edits here, so obviously we're the people who are actually building the content that people are reading. Logged-in editors are important, and the dozen people who make over 100 edits here every month are especially important. Still, if you want to make the community bigger and more active, then you have to think about whether the design of the site encourages anonymous users to sign in and become active members.

::The purpose of designing the new skin was to make the wiki more accessible to the 91% of anonymous readers. Obviously, we have to keep the functionality that the active contributors need in order to build the wiki. At the same time, we have to be aware that the Monobook skin that we're familiar with is kind of confusing for brand-new people.

::For example, the "log in" button is in really small type at the very top right of the screen. From a website design perspective, that's crazy -- it's like we don't want people to find it. The log-in buttons on Monaco are big, green, candy-like buttons. There's one at the top right, and there's another one in the Community box on the sidebar. We want to encourage people to log in.

::In general, having all the important Monobook controls in little bitty tiny type says: We hate people who are older than 40. ("Go back to AOL, old man!") All of the Monobook buttons are in the same font, from the crucial stuff like "Log in" and "Edit this page" to the more obscure controls like "Related changes" and "Permanent link". On Monaco, the stuff that's important to brand-new users is bigger -- log-in, edit, the link to the home page. The search box is at the top, rather than being buried down in the sidebar. The controls that logged-in users need, like "What links here" and "Special pages", are in smaller type -- they're important to us, but a brand-new user wouldn't know what to do with them.

::Okay, so that's my very long introduction... Now I'll respond to the points that you guys have brought up.

::'''Search''': I think when you say that search is broken, you mean that there's just a "Go" button and not a "Search" button next to the search box. (If you mean something else, then let me know.) That's true, and it's something that I struggled with as the design for Monaco was taking shape. I use the Search button all the time, and I was frustrated that it wasn't included. Then I looked at the stats. On Teletraan I in the last month, logged-in users used Go for 91% of searches, and Search for 9%. Anonymous users used Go for 97% of searches. Given that, I think it's okay to make the Search button less prominent. I remember when I first started using wikis, I was totally confused by having two buttons. (Do I want to Go or Search? Well, I want to search, and then go to the search results...) I only figured out the difference through trial and error. So in Monaco, the search box at the top is Go, and then you can have a link to [[Special:Search]] in the toolbox. (Some wikis have that, and some don't -- Muppet has it, if you want to see how it works.)

::'''Community box''': That's one of the features that's designed to encourage brand-new users to explore the site. When you look at a wiki as a new reader, it's not always apparent that there's a community there. You read pages, but you don't necessarily know whether the articles were written today or a year ago. (Unless you look at Recent changes, which a brand-new reader doesn't know to do.) The Community box is designed to bring a little taste of the community activity up to their view. It's not a helpful way for a contributor to keep track of Recent changes, but it does show new people that something's going on. If you come to the site and see that somebody edited a page 15 seconds ago, then you understand that there's an active community. On Muppet Wiki in the last month, 1,404 anonymous readers logged in using the button in the Community box, 1,539 anon readers clicked the "more..." button to go to Recent changes, and 1,287 clicked on article links that they saw in the Latest Activity area. Those are readers who may not have been engaged with the site if they hadn't seen the activity going on in the Community box. On the other hand, logged-in contributors only clicked in the Community box 350 times. It's not designed for us; it's for the 91% of anons.

::'''Obnoxious ads''': This is the one area that's designed to help the company rather than the wiki. Basically, the deal is that Wikia doesn't make a lot of money from the "skyscraper" ads on the right sidebar. Nobody clicks on them, and most advertisers don't bother to make ads like that anymore. Advertisers want banner ads, and they want them at the top of the page. I can't justify this one in wiki terms, except to say that if we want Wikia to stay in business and continue to host wikis, then we need to change the skin to accommodate the changing ad market. Otherwise, there won't be a Wikia after a while.

::'''Languages drop-down''': We changed the list into a drop-down menu because sites like Wookieepedia had a long list, which took up a lot of sidebar space, and only had about 100 clicks on language links in a month. On Teletraan I, there have only been 2 clicks on the language links since October.

::'''Content space''': There is slightly less content area on Monaco when you first come to the page. The sidebar is smaller than the combined left & right Monobook sidebars, so the content area is wider. The banner ad means that the height takes a hit for the first screen. As you scroll down, though, the Monaco content area is bigger than on Monobook, because the page is wider. I can show you some screencaps if you want more info on this.

::'''Slow edits on Wookieepedia''': That looks like a bug that's specific to Wookieepedia... I'm not sure what's going on there. It looks like when you hit edit on Wookiee, it's looking for something from maps.google, and that can slow down the page load for the edit screen. I hadn't seen that before, so I'm really glad you pointed it out. That's not affecting other Monaco wikis like Muppet Wiki or Marvel Database, so there must be something in Wookieepedia's css that's causing that. I'll look into it. If you look at Muppet or Marvel, you'll see that the page load is lightning fast right now. (Not counting periods of site-wide database problems, which affect every skin.)

::So anyway -- this is a huge long post, but I think I responded to everything. As you can tell, I take this stuff really seriously, and I'm willing to put in the time to research the impact and explain what's going on. Do folks have other questions or concerns about Monaco? I could keep talking about this stuff all day. :) -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 17:33, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

:::Personally, as regular contributor, I'm fine with switching to Monaco, so long as we get to keep our new 'random page thumbnail' above the search box (or anywhere, really). I think it's useful for visitors to be able to visit a random page with an interesting thumbnail image rather than simply doing random searches or hitting Random page repeatedly. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 17:44, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

::::I knew there was something I forgot to mention! Yeah, the featured page thumbnail. I think that's something that we can adapt.

::::That feature doesn't have anything to do with search -- it just happens that you can put a picture in the Monobook search box. I actually think what you've made is a little misleading. The picture says "Search" on it, and it's right above the search box -- so as a user, I would assume that if I click that, I'll get some kind of search results page. Instead, it goes to a featured article, which isn't necessarily what you'd expect.

::::The feature is really a rotating spotlight for featured articles, which is cool and visual, and helps to bring readers deeper into the content. It's a great idea. I think it would actually be more effective if it was split away from search, so readers would be more likely to recognize it as a featured-article spotlight.

::::So there are a couple ways to do that in Monaco. The easiest way would be to put it in the sidebar -- check out [[MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar]] for an example. Here's pics to show what that would look like.

<gallery>
Image:Monacosidebar1.jpg
Image:Monacosidebar2.jpg|You can update this list anytime, so you can freshen it up every day or every week. Or never.
Image:Monacosidebar3.jpg|That big green, fire-snortin' lizard must be included.
Image:Monacosidebar4.jpg|If you click on "Embrace the Knowledge", it takes you to the Allspark article. Obviously.
</gallery>

::::It's not graphical, but it allows you to bring the funny into the sidebar, which you've never been able to do before. One advantage of this approach is that you can add in new articles to the sidebar without having to wait for somebody to make a graphic.

::::If that's not enough and you need to go graphical, then I can talk to our designer, Christian, about creating a widget that can go into the sidebar and have the same function. It could sit above or below the Community box. It would be separate from search, but like I said, that may be a good thing. What do you think? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:48, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

If you want to sell this to Walky... make it orange.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 22:05, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
[[Image:Orangemonaco.jpg|thumb|250px|It could be even oranger if that would help.]]
:Does this work? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:13, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

::The brick skin has a pretty nice brown/orange thing going. That's what I'm using at the moment. --[[User:Professor Icepick|Professor Icepick]] 22:17, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
:::See, that's what was needed to get his attention. The orange will draw him, like a moth to a flame.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 22:24, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
[[Image:Monacobrick.jpg|thumb|250px|Monaco Brick, in all its dark red and orange glory.]]
::::Here's how Brick looks... -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:28, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

:::::Do it! --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 00:41, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
::::::I TOLD you guys that we should make this wiki orange (to actually look like Teletraan 1) way back before we even knew about Monaco, but you were all "We are serious business about not taking ourselves seriously". --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 06:44, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

:I don't know all that much about what can and can't be modified, but can't a number of the problems with Monobook be solved simply by changing the css or js files? I'm mainly talking about the small text size for the tabs and login. Plus, most people who edit wikies are probably familiar with Wikipedia's Monobook interface. Plus, I don't think anyone wants the trouble from the ad format being changed again. A few months ago the site started taking showing wider vertical ads, and it was awhile before the horizontal scrolling mess got cleaned up. But then again I'm the guy who uses XP's Classic Windows scheme with Windows 98's colors and icons, so I may be biased when it comes to new interfaces. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 22:41, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

::The Monobook problems can't be solved with css changes. The type size is an example, but it's really a general problem with the layout. Wiki veterans are used to Monobook, but it's not necessarily a great layout for new people. I meet people all the time who read Wikipedia, but when I ask if they've ever made an edit, they say no -- it never occurred to them. I think it's important to make wikis more accessible to new people, and we're finding that Monaco is helping people to explore the wikis and make their first edit.

::Are there other concerns that people have that I can help with? I know that this discussion has gone on a bit, and I'd hate to have it just run out of steam before it gets to a decision. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 18:15, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::It seems like there aren't any more concerns about the new skin, so I'm thinking about changing it over to Monaco tomorrow, unless someone has objections. Once it's switched over, then I can help you out with whatever customization you want. Is that cool? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 15:55, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
::::A great number of us are indisposed at [[BotCon 2008]] this weekend, but there should still be a handful of us around. So you know! --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 16:09, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::Gyah. I thought we were doing Brick?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:17, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:We can do anything you guys want... I'm just playing around for a minute to see if I can come up with something interesting. It's gonna look bad for the next five minutes... and then we can talk about what you guys want, and fix it up nice. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:21, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::Okay, never mind. That just looked bad. :) So I set it to Brick. If you guys want to change these colors, we can change them to whatever you like. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:25, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

===Apparently implemented===
Is there any way to override this that '''doesn't''' override the skins on ''every'' Wikia-hosted wiki? - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 21:19, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:Do you mean, you want to see the skin in Monobook? You can go to Preferences --> Skins, and set your preferred skin to Monobook. You can check or uncheck the box that says "Let the admins override my skin choice" to either see customized skins or not. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:27, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::Yes, I know that. My problem with that is the "This setting will follow you across Wikia." clause. I don't want to override EVERYWHERE (e.g. Memory Alpha). Just Monaco wikis. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 21:30, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::Actually, they're working on switching over to the Monaco skin on Memory Alpha too... At a certain point, pretty much every Wikia wiki is going to end up on Monaco. Is there something about Monaco that you don't like? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:43, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::::The flyouts. Certainly not the only thing - the more I look, the less I like, especially the pathetic "Latest Activity" box with a practically-camouflaged recentchanges link, and why exactly are the preferences hidden? - but they're the biggest dealbreaker. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 22:01, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::::Yeah, at first I wasn't crazy about the flyouts either. We tested out using the sidebar without the flyouts on Muppet Wiki, but then I looked at the click stats and found that they really helped new readers to find content on the wiki. The pageviews went down when we took the flyouts out. If you're interested, there's details here: [[w:c:muppet:Muppet_Wiki:Current_events#Sidebar_menus|Muppet Wiki:Current events]].

:::::The "Community" box is also something for the new users. When you first come to the wiki, you might think that it's just a static site... There's no way to know that there's a living community. The latest activity shows people that there are pages that were edited in the last couple minutes. Also, logged-out users see a log-in button in that box. For active logged-in users, a lot of these features aren't that useful. They're really aimed at the 90-something% of readers that aren't logged in. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:10, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::::::(NB: I was expanding my post at the same time you were typing, since I was spending a bit of time looking around).
::::::See, I'm not coming at it from the "guy who runs the wiki" perspective. I'm not a sysop on a Wikia wiki, so "this will boost Teh Stats" has no effect on me [perhaps that means you consider my position irrelevant. I can't help that]. Nor am I a newbie to Wikis, so again, not the target group.
::::::My problem is that (1) they require me to turn JavaScript on in the first place (strictly, add to the NoScript whitelist, but...) and (2) the click-on flyout in the top right is worse than pointless, since there's room for the links without that and it just makes preferences harder to access and (3) I hate non-click flyouts since you they will inevitably be scrolled at the wrong moment, trebly so since they're on the side rather than the top. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 22:08, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::::::I think "this will boost Teh Stats" actually matters to everybody. More readers looking at more pages = more potential contributors = a more active community = more and better content on the site. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:12, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::::::::By the way, I'm not trying to make you like the skin. Either you like it, or you don't. I'm just explaining the rationale behind some of the design decisions, so you know that it wasn't just random or malicious. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:17, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

There are three things that would make me more... reconciled... to it. I still probably won't ''like'' it, but...
#On your own "help.wikia", there's a group of links beneath the flyouts to Recent Changes/Upload/etc. They don't appear here or on most Wikia wikis (well, strictly they appear for about half a second on a Ctrl-F5, which suggests they're present but being hidden with CSS or something). They should be there as standard.
#Links to Special:Preferences and Special:Contributions/(self) should be available with a single non-flyover click, either in the "Community" box or at the top right, not in a flyover only. '''ESPECIALLY''' Special:Preferences.
#Be able to override the colour scheme on an individual wiki basis, rather than just "all or nothing" - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 22:29, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::For #1, I'm not sure why you're not seeing the toolbox links. That's an important part of the skin, and it's on every wiki. Check out the screenshots that I added above -- every wiki has links to Recent changes and Upload. If you're not seeing it, then that's a weird bug which we can try to figure out. What browser are you using? Are you only seeing the toolbox disappearing on Transformers, or on other wikis too?

::If you want it, we can put links to Preferences and Contributions in the toolbox, or in the sidebar. I don't know how to change the top header.

::Can you give me an example of what you'd like to see as far as overriding the color schemes? I think it's possible that what you want is currently possible, but I'm not sure. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:54, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::Okay, #1 was my own fault. An in-browser hack I'd done on Monobook was interacting "unpredictably" with Monaco, and had knocked that (and some minor stuff that doesn't make any difference) out of joint.
:::Okay on #2. I'd be interested to find out how many people ever use Special:Preferences on any skin(s) while you're trotting out stats...
:::On #3, basically, being able to use different (non-default) skins, or at least colour schemes from the chosen skin on different wikis without being limited to the "this will follow you across Wikia". Just because one wiki chooses to smother the page in bright pink (or orange...) doesn't mean I want to change the colour scheme on every wikia. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 23:32, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Sure, I love trotting out stats!

Here's the stats on how Transformers contributors click on those links. In the last month, there have been the following clicks:

* Watchlist: 3,114
* Contributions: 427
* User page: 213
* Talk page: 67
* Preferences: 22

So, yeah, contributions is #2 on that list, but preferences is all the way down at the bottom. Preferences is useful when you need it, but people don't need it that often.

But the hypothesis is: If you put Contributions and Preferences into a drop-down menu, people won't click on it as much, and you'll see clicks on those two items going down.

To make a comparison, I looked at Muppet Wiki editors' clicks in February (on Monobook) and in April (using Monaco).

Here's the clicks on Monobook:

* Contributions: 403 (52%)
* Watchlist: 148 (19%)
* Talk page: 132 (17%)
* User page: 83 (11.5%)
* Preferences: 4 (0.5%)

Here's the clicks on Monaco:

* Contributions: 320 (60%)
* Watchlist: 123 (23%)
* Talk page: 53 (10%)
* User page: 23 (4%)
* Preferences: 15 (3%)

The hypothesis doesn't seem to hold up. Percentage-wise, clicks on Contributions and Preferences went up using Monaco. This is a really small sample, so it's not proof of anything... but it indicates that the drop-down menu doesn't chase away clicks.

As far as seeing wikis in different skins, try choosing Monobook in your skin preferences, and keep "allow admins to override my choices" checked. Transformers isn't using a custom skin right now, so you should see this wiki in Monobook -- and you'll also see the customization on Memory Alpha, etc. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 00:19, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

==Script-style quotes==
There seems to be some disagreement on whether script-style quotes should have quotation marks or not. Personally, I strongly favor including them, for two reasons:
* Visual consistency. There's no reason not to have all the quotes in as similar a format as possible. Having some with quotation marks, and some without, ''in the same section'', seems like needless variation.
* It's... well... it's a ''quote''. We're not writing a screenplay; we're quoting something someone actually said. And a quote gets quotation marks.... fullstop. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 21:18, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

:Hmm, I'm afraid I disagree. They're simply not necessary, and they clutter the page.
:And, regardless of whether we decide to use double-quotes, can we put a stop to script-style where the quotes are are in double-quotes ''and'' italicized? {shudder} [[User:JW|JW]] 21:21, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
::The italics stuff is flat out bad formatting, no disagreement here. There's an earlier discussion about it somewhere on this page or the archives. Nobody should be adding stuff in that format anymore... I hope.
::As for double quotes... um... I have no clue what you're referring to. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 21:23, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

==Gone Too Far==
I've been alerted it's past the 30-day period for "coming soon Club stuff" non-updating. Have at it. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 22:03, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

==Searchbox improvement drive==
So now we have a very nice set of searchboxes, thanks to the lovely design work of M Sipher and the superhuman coding skills of Suki Brits. The effort of these boxes is to show the visitor all of the awesome crap we have. To do that, said cap must in fact be awesome. Unfortunately, a lot of the pages linked to by searchboxes are [[Shatterpoint|imageless]], [[T-AI|missing fiction]], or [[High Wire (Armada)|pretty much content-free]]. Thus, I propose an improvement drive of the searchbox articles. When you click on one of those suckers, try and add something. I dunno how we'd make this official, exactly... - [[User:RolonBolon|RolonBolon]] 06:49, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
:Are these images supposed to show up automatically by/around/with the actual text box in which you type your search parameters? If so, I'm not seeing them in the current Monaco skin.--[[User:Apcog|Apcog]] 14:29, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
::They don't show up in Monaco, Quartz, Cologne Blue, or any other custom theme. Just Monobook, the default. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 20:15, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Is there a way to get the search box changes to load sooner? The way it is now the custom settings for the box are the last thing to load; it uses the default settings until the google ads finish loading. This can take awhile depending on how the crappy campus wireless is acting. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 20:39, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with RolonBolon about the searchbox thing. I know we're hard up for help, but why are we spending time creating these little searchbox images using pics from God knows where, yet we've neglected to upload a single image for the actual pages these buttons lead to? Not the mention pages that have absolutely no content whatsoever.
I think we've overreached ourselves, and in the future we should only do these searchbox things for articles that are largely complete and/or have alot of content and imagery, otherwise we look really half-ass and unfocused. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 22:37, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
:Yeah, what drove it home for me was Sixtrain. I see Sixtrain in the Search box. It looks nifty, like it's his box art. I click on the article, no images. Why the heck can't we upload Sixtrain's box art when we evidently have a clear enough copy of it to make a search teaser?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 23:33, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
::I was simply making boxes using what I had on the hard drive as examples, and not everything is good quality at main-image size. I don't think we've "overreached ourselves" at all. At worst, we omit a few items from the searchbox list if their entries are that empty for a little while, OH NOES. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 00:22, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
:::I am of the opinion that a fuzzy picture that can be replaced later is better than no picture at all. It helps users know what it's talking about in the meantime, right? [[User:Spriteless|Spriteless]] 02:24, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
::::We prefer no pic/no content to a crap pic/crap content. I've been taking a break from the Wiki, but it looks like I'm going on another image safari. My scanner not working is annoying. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 06:54, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

The fact that the image is the last one on the page to load isn't just visually annoying; it for some reason also makes whatever you've typed in the search field vanish in Firefox. I've had this happen to me a bunch of times. A lesser annoyance is that the input box moves when the image appears; it would be nice if it could stay in the same place (maybe by making the whole Search box a fixed size?), as it's a bad idea to have a clickable thing that spontaneously jumps around. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 20:31, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
: The way the Search Image works right now, I'd rather not even have them. My computer has slowed down ''epically'' trying to load those images each time, and if it's a high traffic time of day, the rest of the page will basically freeze for 30 seconds or more until that search image gets around to loading. This is extremely annoying when I just need a quick peek at a page before making a link, like checking if Stormcloud is one word or two or if Whirl needs to be disambig-ed in the link. And if I try to click Search to move on to a next page too early, the Image drops down in front and shang-hais my "click", so I go there instead of being able to type in where I want to go.

: I don't like the thing at all. It's been nothing but a hassle for the last day or so. There's already a Random page button right about it -- do we really need this too? --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 00:30, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::The same thing has been happening to me lately, and I've never experienced that problem on Wookieepedia. And this is a real problem for me, as I'm actually ''supportive'' of the image icons. We may want review the system. -- [[User:SFH|SFH]] 01:30, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Though in fairness, some of that may be due to Wikia's tendency to nearly-crash every weekend. And to be honest, this weekend has been rather traffic low. I mean, seriously, did every head to BotCon a week early? -- [[User:SFH|SFH]] 02:09, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Let me know if this continues to be an issue during weekdays (well, before Thursday, anyway). If it is, I'll figure out a way to let users optionally turn them off. I've never noticed it slowing down while trying to load, and any sane browser ''shouldn't'', but if that really is happening for some users, something definitely ought to be done about it.
::::I'll also take a look at preserving the form data while the images load, because that is definitely something that really ''should'' happen, too. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 03:44, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::Things sped back up again shortly after SFH's last post, but I'll post again if it keeps happening regularly. Maybe it was just an anomaly. --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 03:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::'''Furthermore:''' I did a bit of code modification that should make the form retain anything you've typed before the images loads. You may need to do a hard refresh for the change to show up, but lemme know if that doesn't work for anyone. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 03:52, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

==Templates listing==
Is there a page editors can refer to for templates (messagebox, user notices ect) without having to go through the categories or remembering the last time somebody used it so they can copy-paste it? They seem to be unnecessarily difficult to track down. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 03:43, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
:[http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=10 here] --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 04:50, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
::My main concern was not requiring the page soley for myself, but was this page obviously linked on a help page or something somewhere that anybody could find easily? I'd personally like to see this wiki become more user-friendly. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 07:25, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Agreed, as I've [http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Transformers_Wiki_talk:Community_Portal#.22First_go_here.21__Next_go_here..22 said before on this very page]. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 15:05, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Yeah. Our lack of user friendliness might discourage people from joining up. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 17:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:What I'm worried about is that some of the other users would actually be okay with that...-- [[User:SFH|SFH]] 17:48, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::Well, last time I checked some of these other users don't own the wiki. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 09:12, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

== new template: Comicinfo ==

Please checkout [[Template:Comicinfo]]. It's a little rough around the edges, but something I think could be useful on the comics pages. Comments and suggestions are welcome.--[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 02:42, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

== Masthead ==

Okay, the old Monobook masthead doesn't look so good under Monaco. How do we change this?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:31, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
:I've looked around and seen that other wikis have already taken advantage of the extra masthead space. Question is, how do we do so, and what dimensions would the new masthead be?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 16:05, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
::Before we do anything, I would recommend keeping the masthead's filesize reasonable, because there's nothing worse than trying to load a site with a masthead image that is like a megabyte or something. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 16:22, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Oh, absolutely. I was mainly thinking perhaps something involving a 'shopping of the TFA logo, considering it'd fit the color scheme nicely. Alternatively, maybe something aping the "grid" of G1.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 16:26, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Another thought is whether it's possible for the masthead to be random/rotating. If so, it'd let us do Autobot/Decepticon versions of the same masthead (via color swap) or even rotating versions for different franchises (G1, BW, UT, etc.)--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 16:35, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

== Sidebar ==

Given that we're getting a lot of Transformers Animated traffic lately, I'd say an item in the Monaco sidebar is likely going to help direct people to the right articles.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:45, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:Okay, I put it in the sidebar. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:56, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

The more I think on it, the more it seems we'd be best served by condensing the G1 and TFA menus and instead just having one menu that's franchise navigation. I dunno. I'm a little bothered that we can't seem to get the admins to chime in on this, since they're the ones that can edit the sidebar setup the most easily.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 19:02, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:Eh. Monday after BotCon. A lot of them are probably still sleeping off their flight / drive / booze. Another reason why big changes probably shouldn't've happened this weekend. Give it a day or so. --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 19:12, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

The sidebar does need major work, and [[MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar]] is a protected page so I guess it's not just easier for admins to change it, they're the only ones who can?

The issues I have with it are:

* "Featured characters" menu still includes articles that haven't actually been Featured, as well as [[Spark]], which ''has'' been featured but is not a ''character''.
* Generation 1 and Animated are the only franchises listed.
* The G1 and Animated menus are inconsistent in the sorts of articles they list. The Generation 1 menu includes [[Autobot]] and [[Decepticon]], articles were not restricted to G1, then several high profile characters and one obscure, jokey one. The Animated menu, on the other hand, just lists the franchise's cartoon, comic, toyline, and books articles.
* The "Embrace the Knowledge" menu seems to take a bit of scattershot approach. [[Marvel Comics]] is listed, but none of the other publishers. Hasbro is there, but not Takara. With [[Mini-Con]] there, might this be a better place for the Autobot and Decepticon articles, and other factions as well?
--[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 19:55, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:[[MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar]] can only be edited by admins. That's true for all MediaWiki pages. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 20:31, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

== Hate the new skin. ==

Hate this new skin. Just wanted to say it. The old look was much more pleasent and open to read. New one is just crouded and Blah. THIS is gonna take getting use to. No Sir, I don't like it.

:Can it at least not be burgundy and orange? - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 22:08, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::Yeah, it can be any color you like. I was messing around with colors before, but wasn't doing a great job with it, and Rosicrucian said he wanted this color scheme. Any admin can change the colors by editing [[MediaWiki:Monaco.css]]. There's instructions on how to do it here: [[w:c:help:Customizing Monaco|Customizing Monaco]]. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:15, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
:::I mainly liked this because it fits with the color scheme of Teletraan itself. I'm not married to the idea, though. I also figured I'd speak up about it because Walky liked it, and he's off enjoying his ridiculously expensive Transformers collector's items at BotCon.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 22:21, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Ahh, right, well, I can see the logic, there, all right... I'm just not dying about the dark-coloured backgrounds, since it's a big visually jarring to have big white boxes of text in the middle of them. - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 22:24, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

: Seconding the hate. [[User:Hooper X|-hx]] 00:04, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
:: This looks pretty hideous compared to MonoBook... and it's hard to navigate. Well, at least I can override it in preferences, but I think I'll be ignoring admin skin choices unless a custom one appears in the future.--[[User:MCRG|MCRG]] 00:44, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

:::I think I can try to get used to the new skin unless/until I find something inconvenient. Well, so far so good. At least the seach function is better. But the logo on the left side of the top, well... um, oh. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 01:23, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
::Fourthing the hate. The colors hurt my eyes. That, and the obscure character search images are gone. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 01:45, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

:I'm afraid I don't much like it either. Fortunately, it was pretty easy to uncheck the "override" box on my preferences. [[User:JW|JW]] 01:54, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't like the new skin either. I don't get the menus at the side. "Featured characters" includes articles that I don't think have actually been Featured. G1 and Animated are listed, but no other franchises. And the menus are inconsistent. The G1 menu lists Autobot, Decepticon, and then a bunch of character pages, while the Animated menu lists Animated's toy line, cartoon, comic, and books articles. Why the difference? And what was the selection process for the "Embrace the Knowledge" menu?

By the way, in the middle of BotCon is probably the worst possible time for major changes like this to be made. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 04:29, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

:The menus at the side are examples that I made up. You guys can change them to be anything you want, by editing [[MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar]]. I'm sorry about the timing... We've been talking about this for maybe three weeks.

:Lots of things can be changed -- the colors, the menus, the logo. I'll put it back to the basic Sapphire for now, which is more like Monobook. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 05:08, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Not a fan of the skin, either. Losing the brown and yellow from earlier was a step up, but it still doesn't quite work. The extra crap on the side feels ''bigger'' now, so the actual articles feel ''smaller''. And those blamed automatic pulldown menus keep getting in the way everytime I move my cursor to or from the Search box. Annoying. --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 17:02, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:I'm a little unclear- you say Monaco is the new Wikia standard skin. No one likes it. But we can override the style in our preferences to set it back to Monobook.
:So does TT1 have the ''option'' of deciding to switch back to Monobook if that's what the consensus decides? Danny is saying they are switching Memory Alpha Monaco and "at a certain point, pretty much every Wikia wiki is going to end up on Monaco." So is this something we get to decide for ourselves, or will Monaco be forced on us even if we don't want it? -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 18:55, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

::What I find interesting on the MΑ example is that Toughpigs said, and I quote:
:::''Actually, they're working on switching over to the Monaco skin on Memory Alpha too''
::Now, who are "they"? Because I've just looked at MΑ - and in the designated [[MemoryAlpha:Forum:Monaco skin|forum on the matter]], one Wikia staff member (who has no main namespace edits on MΑ in the past three years) is the only user pushing for it. Only two other users have (briefly) commented - one admin who's strongly against it because of the top ad banner, and one other user who dittoed that. The only other place it is mentioned is on [[MemoryAlpha:Portal talk:Main#Monaco skin|their main page talk]], where one "[[Wikia:Wikia Helper Group|Wikia Helper Group]]" member (who has no MΑ edits on any other matter, main namespace or otherwise) shilled it - and in response, got a reply from one user that they were confused, and another user that they preferred Monobook. Unless there's some hidden forum somewhere, there's no consensus from MΑ that they want to switch.

::If Toughpigs's line is intended to say there's a push ''from'' MΑ as a "do you want T1 to be left out", it's, well, draw your own conclusions. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 19:42, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I've been vague about what the future holds, because I don't know. Right now, the community does have the option to switch the site back to Monobook, if that's what you decide.

However, at some point in the future, Wikia may need to switch everybody over to Monaco. We need to figure out how to get more advertisers to buy ads on Wikia. We're exploring a lot of different possibilities right now, so I can't predict how that's going to go yet. But we may find that it hurts us to have skins with completely different ad sizes all over the site. Companies don't want to advertise on sites that have a leaderboard on some pages and a skyscraper on others.

Right now, we're able to offer a lot of flexibility with the skins, and we're not forcing a change on any community. But if you think about it, no other (sane) website does that. Ad-supported websites have a format, and everything on the site is in that format.
:I have no real problem with Wikia's need to place more prominent banners. I don't ''like'' them, but I recognize that it is a reality of your business model.
:I ''do'' take issue with the banners being tied to a sucky new UI that's being forced on us, hammering us with a double-negative. Is there any way to place the new banners (satisfying Wikia's business imperatives) in the old skin (satisfying our desire to not have the site suck so badly?) Maybe we can find a treatment that makes them less obnoxious without de-valuing them.
:Of course- you keep stressing how this new UI causes more clicks... which means more pageviews, with means more bannerviews, which means more ad revenue. I really feel like your entire pitch is a thinly veiled attempt to monetize this wiki regardless of what the users want. So not only do we have to have the banners that generate more revenue-- we have to have the UI that's editor-unfriendly but promotes more pageviews.
:Why don't you just rewrite the site interface so you have to click 8 times to do anything like MySpace? I mean- that seems consistent with the whole 'sacrifice the user experience in exchange for saleable ad impressions' philosophy you're espousing here.
:You quote a lot of statistics. Are they internal? Do/can we have access to them? Would TT1 be allowed to pursue evolving our interface to maximize pageviews ''without'' having to buy into Monaco?
:Strictly speaking the best way to increase pageviews on this wiki would to make all the links un-disambiguated, so every time you click on a link you have to view the disambig page before you can select the page you ''actually'' wanted to see from the list. There- pageviews have increased... at the expense of the user experience.
:Packaging ''can'' be a force multiplier to make content more attractive... slightly more attractive. But in the end it's the quality of the content that drives readers. If we have to increase viewership to pad Wikia's bottom line, I'd ''really'' rather we did so by offering different or better content- not by putting obnoxious shiny packaging around it. (And yeah, that's a toy marketing metaphor. You get a lot of those here.) -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 07:05, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I know that the obvious response to the ad talk is "that's your problem", but it's actually everybody's problem. Wikia offers free hosting to communities like this one because we're advertiser-supported. But the ad market is changing -- and if we don't keep up, then we go out of business, and we can't host wikis anymore.

Anyway, we're not anywhere near a problem at the moment. Wikia is fine, and if the community decides to switch back to Monobook, then that's fine. But it will be easier in the long run if folks give Monaco a chance, and see if we can make it work the way that you want it to work.

Meanwhile, I can address a couple of the concerns that people have posted about. First up: The size of the content area. Xaaron says that the crap on the side feels bigger, so the content area feels smaller. I took screenshots of the same page using both Monaco and Monobook, at the same browser size and screen resolution.

<gallery>
Image:Megatron-monaco.jpg|Monaco
Image:Megatron-monobook.jpg|Monobook
</gallery>

You can see from those pictures that Monaco gives you a wider content area. The first two paragraphs take up 16 lines in Monobook. On Monaco, it takes up 13 lines.

The number of logins has gone up just in the last few days. On April 26-27, 41 people logged in to the site (20.5 per day). From March 1-31, there were 381 logins (12.3 per day). This may be because of the interest generated at BotCon, but it also seems like being at BotCon over the weekend kept people away from the website. The increase in logins is consistent with what we've seen on other sites -- Monaco makes logging in more visible to new users.

On the sidebar over the last couple days, these are the most clicked on items:

# Transformers Animated (cartoon): 295 clicks
# Murdered puppy: 192 clicks
# That big green, fire-snortin' lizard: 168 clicks
# Transformers Animated (toy line): 131
# Autobot: 111
# Optimus Minor: 108
# More featured characters: 83
# Optimus Prime: 76
# Gas Skunk: 74
# Airazor (BW): 72

Pageviews for April 26-27 are up 21% over the average from the previous 30 days. That may be because of the interest around BotCon and the new episodes, but it might also be because the sidebar is helping new readers find articles that they're interested in, and because the pages load faster with Monaco. In any event, it doesn't seem like Monaco is chasing people away. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 20:27, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:It could also be because existing users have been giving the new skin a test drive. Anyway, couple of things about the skin that I'm wondering. First, the Teletraan 1 image in the upper left corner is now tiny with ugly, empty whitespace on three sides. Can it be enlarged? Second, can the recently-added neat little search box images be included in the new skin? --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 20:51, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

::The logo can be changed by uploading a new image to [[:Image:Wiki_wide.png]].

::The search box images are a neat idea, but I'm confused about why they're attached to search. They don't take you to a search page. They're basically a random featured-article generator. If you want, I can talk to the designer here about creating a randomized featured-article widget for the sidebar. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 20:59, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Basic test image for the top left:

[[Image:TFfactions.png|266x75px]]

- [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 21:58, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:I've got some ideas for the masthead. I'll 'shop something up when I get home from work.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 22:05, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
::My proposal:
::[[Image:Teletraan masthead.png]]
::Whaddaya think?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 02:16, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:::That one is beautiful. --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 02:20, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Look nice for Rosi's. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 02:26, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Ooo, rock me, Amadeus. Verra nice. [[User:JW|JW]] 02:56, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
::::That is perfect, Rosicrucian. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 04:36, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::That is lovely. --[[User:Sntint|Sntint]] 04:38, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

== Anonymous edits ==

Lately, I've been looking at wikis that have decided to turn off anonymous edits, and have everybody log in before contributing to the wiki. The idea is that having everybody log in builds a stronger sense of community, because you always have a name to associate with an edit, rather than a random string of numbers. It's easier to talk to people who have names. It also gives you more control over vandalism, since you can recognize potential vandals more easily.

Some people don't like the idea, because they're worried that logging in is a barrier to entry -- if you have to log in to edit, then you won't bother, and you'll go away. Looking at the wikis that require login, that doesn't seem to be true. [[w:c:muppet|Muppet Wiki]] turned off anon edits last April, and the number of active editors has actually gone up. Some of our most active wikis require login -- [[w:c:wowwiki|World of Warcraft]], [[w:c:ffxi|FFXIclopedia]], [[w:c:tibia|Tibia Wiki]] and [[w:c:marveldatabase|Marvel Database]]. (WoW and FFXI actually require a confirmed e-mail address before you can edit.)

So I've been talking to folks about this, and we've decided to allow wiki communities to turn off anonymous edits if they want to. There are a lot of anonymous editors here, so I'm wondering what you guys think about it. Would it be helpful to require login for everybody?

Obviously, that's a big community decision... I just want to throw out the possibility, and see what you think. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 20:38, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

:I strongly oppose disabling anonymous edits! (I also oppose sweeping changes performed over botcon, and unilaterally re-skining the site when the community can argue for weeks or month about proposed style changes to individual ''templates'' without reaching a consensus-- but if you're willing to ignore the needs of registered users while making such 'big community decisions,' why would you listen to anon users?) -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 08:18, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
::Well, let's get an opposing viewpoint here. Why are you, 75.168.112.43, unwilling to get an account? [[User:JW|JW]] 11:16, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:::You assume I don't have an account.
:::I strongly oppose disabling anonymous edits because;
::::# It puts up a gateway that discourages first time users. Not a tall gateway- but a gateway nonetheless. Even if it only turns back 30% of new editors, that's 30% of people who could potentially become productive members of the community we're turning away out of hand.
::::# Equally important to the new users are the 'casual fixers', people who will /never/ become regulars on this wiki but, while clicking around, notice a link leading to '''Megatron''' instead of '''Megatron (G1)'''. If they have to register to make that simple fix? 9 times out of 10 that kind of fix will not get done.
::::# The problem 'disabling anonymous edits' seeks to fix- trolls- will not be solved. We already have trolls who register for accounts-- right now we don't even require an e-mail address. So ''next'' to combat Troll,s we'll require all accounts to have e-mail addresses. Then we'll require those e-mails be ''verified'', then maybe we'll set up a system where new users have to be ''approved'' like so many online communities before they can use their account. IP Tracking! Requiring Persistent Cookies! Each and ''any'' of these steps makes the online experience just a little bit more unpleasant for the user (and each hoop to jump throuhg makes new users just a little disinclined to join) but none of them actually stops trolls! Clear your cache, sign up for a yahoo account and you're up and running again. The trolls that regularly bother TT1 have already demonstrated they are willing to go to these lengths to evade bans. I am opposed to any measure that would punish the general body of users (registered and non) to deal with trolls. I am '''strongly''' opposed to any measure that would punish users and '''not''' deal with trolls, which is what this promises to do.

::::And seriously- while I'm tickled to death to know that the 'wikia community developer' has been attracted to communities that place restrictions on their users, I'm not thrilled to see someone who's not part of the community lobbying that we become more insular. I think changing TT1 to a UI that's different from Wikipedia makes the site harder to use (both for new users, and for users who make contributions to multiple wikis) is an objectively bad decision that was made with little discussion because 'it looks better.' And I really dislike that this was done while everyone was gone at Botcon and it was impossible to form a quorum for proper discussion. Monorail guy dances into town and starts making global changes that he thinks 'make more sense' without understanding that [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Talk:Megatron_Rising_-_Part_2&action=history they were that way for a reason], and his whims would require massive secondary cleanup effort to enact. I don't think someone who's not a participating member of this community should be initiating that kind of change, or throwing his weight behind them for them while 'polling for consensus. On a more fundamental level- I'm suspicious about external voices telling us how we should be running this wiki, because sooner or later they're gong to tell us The Funny Should Go.
::::I feel the burden of proof is on the other side here-- show that there will be a concrete and measurable improvement to the wiki by disabling anonymous edits that will NOT place an unnecessary burden on users. -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 12:38, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::''"You assume I don't have an account."'' Well, then, please tell us why you aren't willing to use it. I'm truly curious. [[User:JW|JW]] 13:04, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::More to the point, the IP address 75.168.112.43 has only made 10 contributions to this wiki, of which only 4 are of actual substance. Your comments will carry more weight if you tell us which long-established editor you in fact ''are.'' Otherwise, ''you<nowiki>'</nowiki>re'' the "external voice telling us how we should be running this wiki". [[User:JW|JW]] 13:16, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

::::::I oppose to disable anonymous edit, too. I was once a anonymous user . If the anonymous edit is disabled, that would mean we close the door for many potential users-to-be. Though I hate anonymous vandalizing, which is really a problem. But any bad anonymous user can get an account to vandalize, too. ''Urgh''.--[[User:TX55|TX55]] 13:56, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

The Funny Should Definitely Not Go. The reason why I've been hanging out on this wiki lately is because I like it -- specifically, because I like the Funny. I don't want to annoy people or screw stuff up; I'm just trying to help out in ways that I know how to help.

I didn't unilaterally change the skin... If you look above, the conversation about the skin started on April 7th. On Thursday, I asked if there were any more comments before I switched it over. The only response was from ItsWalky, who indicated that it would be okay. I've been keeping an eye on the stats -- the number of edits, registrations and pageviews have all gone up since the wiki switched to Monaco. (Saturday was the highest single day for registrations on the wiki since January.)

As I said, anonymous edits is totally a community decision. I just wanted to let you know that it's an option if the community wants it. It's a long-term discussion, and I don't have an interest in pushing it one way or the other. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 14:31, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:I would be against restricting edits to registered members. This wiki already has a reputation in the Transformers community as alledgedly being the playground for a very specific group of fans. Restricting edits will only further this perception. But more importantly:

:*I tend to agree that if one has no intention of making significant edits, but very occassionally fixes minor mistakes that one sees, then one shouldn't be forced to register to do so.

:*Some of us would prefer not to login while accessing the wiki at school or at work. Yeah, we have our reasons.

:*Chris McFeely, one of our staff members, sometimes has trouble logging onto the wiki when he's not at home, so if we restrict edits to logged-in users, he can't make any contributions if he happens to have free time while out and about.

:*Good anonymous editors sometimes eventually become registered members if they find they enjoy making the edits and would to participate in the little community we have.

:*Trolls and vandals who go to the effort of being repeat offenders will not be scared off by a registration process. I think we'll find that these people have ''alot'' of free time on their hands. Even more than I do!

:--[[User:FFN|FFN]] 15:03, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:I'd be more willing to believe that the increase in edits on Saturday was due to the new skin if Saturday didn't happen to be the day most of the BotCon panels were held. Those give us a lot of new information that needs to be added to the wiki. Plus, two (or three) new episodes were shown that morning: Return of the Headmaster in the US, Mission Accomplished in Canada, and Collect and Save at Botcon. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 15:46, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

::No kidding. You could've changed the site to pink-and-purple polka dots, and traffic still would've increased this weekend, with everyone fighting to be the first to add all the new scraps of information from the convention. --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 17:05, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:::I'm no one special on this wiki, but I wanted to weigh in. Considering that everything else on the web seems to require a login, it isn't asking too much for people to sign up. All the forums require a login so people can own their opinions, why not here? Also, isn't most of the caption bastardry done by anons? Maybe forcing registration might stop some of those careless edits. Requiring an email? Now that might scare people off.--[[User:Suzyprime|Suzyprime]] 04:51, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

==Image overlap==
[[image:Templateximage.JPG|thumb|I'm ugly]]
Umm, did this overlap happen before the new skin? If so, I never noticed it. If not, then why is it changing what goes on inside the content part of the site, not just the menus and adds and umm, everything that I can't edit as an anon? [[User:Spriteless|Spriteless]] 04:04, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:We're trying to figure it out over on [[User Talk:Toughpigs]].--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 04:08, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
::That particular ''overlap'' always happened- but the transparent frame was apparently a result of some global CSS change Wikia made ~4-6 months ago.
::It looks like the fix was posted on the [http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Monobook.css monobook.css] discussion page, but never implemented. -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 05:25, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:::(Oh, i see this was already discussed. Hrm.) -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 05:43, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
::::The problem with overlaps like on the [[Blackthorne Publishing]] page in the image can be solved by putting one of these <nowiki>{{-}}</nowiki> in, which I just did on that page. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 05:59, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
I've had a slightly different problem with image overlap in the past few days. If there's a stub box or a "needs images" box on a page, occasionally the box's pic will remain stuck at the top of the page. For instance, in the example on the right, Kup's pic would be stuck in the top left corner, covering part of the Blackthorne Publishing title bar. It has also happened on the front page, with Jhiaxus's image from the featured article covering the Primes. --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 05:41, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:What broswer? (The messagebox template uses styles that render differently on IE and Geko-based browsers... but the difference shoudl eb cosmetic, not functional like that.) -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 05:43, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
[[Image:Imageproblem2.GIF|right|thumb|150px]]
::I saw the case several time. When the page is loading, the box's pic such as [[Megatron (Animated)|AniMeg]]'s head or [[Kup]] will remain stuck on the page, but soon it will be back to the right place. It only happen when I use the IE6 (log in or not).
::Speaking of the image problem, it reminds me of another one. When open page with IE(well, 6), some images will be "slashed" by a line, just like the picture shows. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 08:06, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:::It doesn't appear to be happening on IE7. This sounds like a rendering issue with IE. (One of many...) Doesn't mean it doesn't need to be accomodated though.
:::When an image gets stuck int the top-left, is that in IE? What happens when you resize the window? -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 08:13, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
::::When use IE6, the image only gets stuck in the left of the top when the page is loading. After the page completes loading, all things are back to normal. If I resize the window to small when loading, the image gets stuck in the left of the bottom instead, but back to normal after finishing loading. So, it won't become a problem for me. :D --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 10:08, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

== Monaco top-of-article spam ==

[http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm109/nadanada0/this_is_new.png This is new, right?] -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 09:03, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:IIRC, it has existed for a while. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 10:03, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
::Ugh, is there a way to turn it off?
::We downgraded visibility of the 'pics needed' templates precisely because we didn't think it was right to harass the 91% of our wiki user who are just readers with demands they join and contribute. -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 10:10, 29 April 2008 (UTC)<div id="wikia-credits"> From [http://transformers.wikia.com Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki], a [http://www.wikia.com Wikia] wiki.</div>

User talk:Toughpigs

2008-04-29T09:13:41Z

75.168.112.43: /* Lines through picture frames */ This reply was a lot more polite before I started seeing registration spam appearing ''within'' the body of articles.

== Lines through picture frames ==

Okay, I'm glad to know that the template problem was fixable. While we're on the subject, do you know why header lines seem to go through the picture frames here? I haven't seen that on any other wiki -- I think it's something in the Transformers css that's making the frames not wrap correctly. Do you know anything about that? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 19:20, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
:That I'm still not sure on. Templates that use [[Template:Messagebox]] as their basis seem to do it the most, but it also seems to depend on where in the paragraph the template ends up. If they land in the middle of the picture, they wrap correctly. If not, they take up the whole column and often layer below image captions. [[Template:Spoiler]] is immune by design, because it's supposed to add a manual page break before it to make extra spoiler space.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 19:30, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
::And really, I'm mostly on stopgap duty while the admins are off at BotCon. I suspect you'll be able to get more meaningful answers out of Suki.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 19:33, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
:::No, I'm talking about something different. Here's some screenshots to show you what I mean. On Transformers, the lines under the headings go through the picture frames, and you can see them cutting through the captions. That doesn't happen on other wikis.

<center><gallery>
Image:Transformers-frame.jpg|Teletraan-I in Monaco
Image:Monobook-frame.jpg|Teletraan-I in Monobook
Image:Muppet-frame.jpg|Muppet Wiki
Image:Starwars-frame.jpg|Wookieepedia
Image:Marvel-frame.jpg|Marvel Database
Image:Buffy-frame.jpg|Buffy
</gallery></center>

:::There must be something in the css here that messes up the frames, so the text doesn't wrap around the picture frames properly. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 19:41, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
::::One thing I do notice- the two examples you give (Muppets and Wookiepedia) each have bgcolor traits set.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 19:42, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

:::::Sorry, I'm not familiar with bgcolor traits... What does it mean? I added a couple more examples -- Marvel Database and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I look at tons of wikis all the time, and this is the only wiki where I've seen this problem. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 20:02, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
::::::Well from an HTML/CSS standpoint, bgcolor is setting a background on a website or on an object within it (like a table object or a frame). If it's not set, the background is transparent.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 20:08, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Is it possible that the bgcolor is set by default on Wikia, and this wiki has added something that accidentally over-rides the default?

This is in [[MediaWiki:Monaco.css]] (which is copied over from Monobook.css):

/*Fix the 'see-through image borders' problem.*/
.thumb{ background-color:white;}

So it looks like Suki tried to fix this problem in late February, but as far as I can tell, it didn't work. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 20:13, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
:Ah, that makes a fair bit of sense, then. Like I said, Suki would know the guts of it better than I would.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 20:20, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

::The lines through captions problem ''was'' fixed. Looks like it got unfixed. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 20:53, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

:::Looking at it in Monobook, the line doesn't go through the captions -- but there's still something strange about the frames. If you look closely, the header line still goes through the picture -- you can see it peeking out a tiny bit on the other side. Also, the text wraps much closer to the picture -- look at where the [edit] link is on the Teletraan pics, and compare that to the [edit] link on any of the others.

:::It looks like the pictures are floated somehow... the page renders without them, and then the pictures are floated on top. The fix that Suki made was disguising the problem, but didn't actually fix it. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:27, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Thumbnails ''are'' floated. That's why the text flows around them. Or are you referring to something else?
::::It looks like the existing .thumb selector (which should be blocking the lines throught he frame) is not working. (Which is strange because it /was/ working.) Either it's not being effected (due to markup errors of wikia overriding it) or the problem is something else- like z-index. (But that's nonsensical because it's not blocking the image ''inside'' the frame.) I recommend changing the declaration to a hex value instead of a color string. (The string '''shouldn't''' be a problem- but the mediawiki software actually parses a lot of CSS instead of just using it...)
<pre>/*Fix the 'see-through image borders' problem.*/
.thumb{ background-color:#ffffff;}
</pre>
::::You said that the muppet wiki actually sets 'bgcolor.' ...where? bgcolor is a HTML attribute, an old one you're not suposed ot use anymore, not a CSS property. Can you point to where this is being used?
::::Are the styles we're setting even being ''loaded''? Is the reasson the non-Messagebox templates broke when we went Monaco because Monorail guy didn't port things right?
:::: I see eight CSS files being loaded by a page. [http://images.wikia.com/common/releases_200805.1/skins/monaco/css/allinone.css?20080428115657 1] [http://images.wikia.com/common/releases_200805.1/skins/monaco/css/monaco_ltie7.css?20080428121435 2] [http://images.wikia.com/common/releases_200805.1/skins/common/commonPrint.css?20080428121435 3] [http://images.wikia.com/common/releases_200805.1/skins/monaco/css/print.css?20080428121435 4] [http://images.wikia.com/common/releases_200805.1/skins/monaco/css/noscript.css 5] [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Common.css&usemsgcache=yes&action=raw&ctype=text/css&smaxage=18000 6] [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=-&action=raw&gen=css&maxage=18000 7] [http://images.wikia.com/common/releases_200805.1/extensions/wikia/ProblemReports/css/ProblemReports.ieFixes.css?20080428121435 8]. Some are print-only, some are IE only, some only load if you have Javascript. '''None''' of them contain the code on [[MediaWiki:Monaco.css]]. No .thumb fix, no messagebox styles, none of our nowrap fixes...
:::: If you look at [[Units of time]] it's really obvious- the wikitable classes clearly aren't even being loaded.
:::: Hey guys! I think I found the problem! Monorail Guy didn't migrate our styles properly! No wonder be broke all our old CSS-based templates-- he basically deleted all the code!
::::Does that help in pinpointing the source of the problem on this wiki? <nowiki></scarcasm></nowiki> -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 09:13, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

:There's a selector in Common.css that's doing it. Monaco uses monobook_modified, a lighterweight monobook.css (modified by me) that removes a lot of the bizarre practices of monobook (big white borders around images instead of margins was one issue that comes to mind). With monobook_modified as a foundation, Monaco becomes much easier to customize than Quartz or Monobook. The selector in question is:
<pre>
div.thumbinner {
background: inherit;
border: none;
}
</pre>
:The first line should be changed to:
<pre>
wikiaSkinMonobook div.thumbinner, wikiaSkinQuartz div.thumbinner {
</pre>
:This will make the style only apply to monobook and quartz. Or, you can probably safely remove "background: inherit;" alltogether and ignore the prior suggestion. -- [[User:BladeBronson|Christian]] <staff /> 27 April 2008

== Monacoizing templates ==

Hi -- I saw that you "Monacoized" some templates... What was happening to the existing templates? I'm surprised that there were problems -- as far as I know, what happens in the content space should be exactly the same no matter what skin you're using. So I want to figure out whether this is a Transformers problem, or a global Wikia problem. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 15:43, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
:I'm not sure exactly what's wrong, but the affected templates were:
:*[[Template:comingsoon]]
:*[[Template:comingsoontoy]]
:*[[Template:spoiler]]
:Something in them did not like having their messageboxes manually coded in. Their borders did not show up, nor did their bgcolor or any images they had. I assume they called upon Monobook in some fashion. What I noticed however is that any template that called upon [[Template:messagebox]] ''was'' functional after the switch over to Monaco, so I converted these three templates over to use it instead of their own hardcoded messageboxes, which seems to have worked out with very little difference in the end product and no loss of functionality.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 16:49, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
::It should also be noted that these three templates were also the ones that usually broke when the admins farted around with Monobook, so I believe my suspicions are correct. This is likely not a fault of Monaco ''per se'', but a fact that the admins tied these three a little too closely into the old skin. I've now tested all three in both Monobook and Monaco, and they appear stable now.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 17:01, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

==Titles of comic stories==
Look, we go by what the issue says. If it has a colon, then it has a colon. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 19:04, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

:Fair enough. So the first two parts of "[[Crossing Over, Part 1|Crossing Over]]" had commas, and parts 3-6 had colons? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:34, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
::You'll have to ask the people who have the issues for specifics, but yes, 3-6 have colons. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 22:39, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Okay, that makes sense. I don't have the issues myself, but maybe somebody else does. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:52, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

== WGU adds ==

I found another one. I don't know exactly what you need, so here's the offending code.

<nowiki><div id="column-google-right"><SCRIPT language="JavaScript">bannerid="WSBL2073";</script>


<SCRIPT language="JavaScript">

</SCRIPT>
</div></nowiki>

--[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 16:19, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

:Aargh. It looks like that's coming through from two sources. I'm working with the ad guy right now to make sure that we get it off. I'll let you know what I find out... -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]] ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 17:50, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

== On redirects to categories ==

I don't believe we have any rules on having pages in the main namespace redirecting to categories, but it probably isn't a good idea since most categories have an article with the same name or will at some point (e.g, Activision) --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 19:57, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

:I think redirects to categories can be really helpful. As I was just poking around the site, I was trying to find the Books category, but searching for "Books" gave me kind of a random selection of article titles. I think that's a common experience -- people often use the search box to help them navigate around the site, and they won't necessarily go to the main page to find the major categories.

:But obviously, I'm new to this site, so if those are inappropriate, I can take them out. I just wanted to explain my rationale for creating them. Do you think other folks on the wiki would have a comment about it? I could bring it up on the community portal. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]] ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 20:55, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
:Until the event that we create any of those pages for real, I think they'll be quite helpful. --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 21:03, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

== Break template ==

We have a <nowiki>{{-}}</nowiki> template that encapsulates <nowiki> </nowiki>. [[User:JW|JW]] 20:18, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

:Oh, that's good to know! Thanks for telling me. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 20:35, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

::And now comes the hard part... Remembering that for next time. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 20:35, 17 April 2008 (UTC)<div id="wikia-credits"> From [http://transformers.wikia.com Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki], a [http://www.wikia.com Wikia] wiki.</div>

MediaWiki talk:Community Portal

2008-04-29T09:03:50Z

75.168.112.43: /* Monaco top-of-article spam */ new section

==Archives==
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive1|Archive1]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive2|Archive2]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive3|Archive3]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive4|Archive4]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive5|Archive5]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive6|Archive6]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive7|Archive7]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive8|Archive8]]

== Continuity / Timeline ==
I'm trying to make some sense of how the various major continuities are handled, overview-wise. Some have their own continuity page; IDW's just got a timeline, with overview stuff shoved here and there among the individual miniseries. Some don't have anything. Some, like the G1 cartoon, are not much more than lists. The ones that exist tend to be hard to find, aren't categorized uniformly, etc... is there a master format for this stuff?{{unsigned|Repowers|12:15, 29 October 2007}}
:There is no master format for continuity pages. Please feel free to make one! It would be a good thing to have! --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 00:55, show30 October 2007 (UTC)
:: You know, I think it would be hot if once we got more timelines up, we began putting Chronology links to the timetable on the story pages. Several Dreamwave comic pages have them, and I think IDW comics should too, since IDW really isn't telling the story in a linear fashion.--[[User:Zodberg|Zodberg]] 09:36, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::Sounds like a good idea. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 13:51, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::Would it make sense to have an overview writeup at the start of each timeline, a few paragraphs or so? Or should "continuity" be a separate page? Where should a chronological list of issues go -- publisher's page, continuity page, timeline page? That's not such a problem with, say, Marvel G1, but Dreamwave's a little messier, IDW's all over the place, and gods help you if you want to sort out the mess that is Marvel UK. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 14:29, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:: A continuity page should have the following (in my opinion):
:: * A one-paragraph description of the continuity, not more than a few sentences long.
:: * A list of what media belongs to this continuity (which can include some stuff that's vaguely contradictory, but should exclude stuff that's way out there, like Earthforce relative to G1 comics). This can be sorted by publication order, or internal chronology, but if there's a major difference between the two, it should be spelled out.
:: * An overall description of the main events in that continuity, focusing on the events actually chronicled (not the distant past). In particular, for most continuities, changes in the leadership of either side, the changing status (living/dead, present/absent, duplicated by Straxus/encoded on a floppy, etc.)of the big two leaders (usually Optimus Prime and Megatron), any events involving Unicron or Primus, and introductions of major teams or groups of characters (Headmasters, Fuzors) should be in the summary.
:: * If necessary, a timeline, which may end up integrated with one of the above parts.
:: * Pointers to important and closely-related continuities (again, such as Earthforce), discussion of divergences, etc. [[User:JW|JW]] 15:14, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::All that sounds pretty good, though I wouldn't get too hung up on following individual characters too much, even the leaders. In Marvel G1, at least, they changed over on a pretty regular basis.
:::On a related note... this and a lot of other overview-type pages are really lost in the shuffle. They should be top-level pages, with everything branching off of them and linking back to them, but instead they're buried and nothing links to them. You start off reading, say, the article on [[Spotlight: Soundwave]]. Where do you go from there to find out more? The IDW issues category? That's the only link out of that page. If you're a newcomer, or even someone with an imperfect memory, how do you know what comes next? Either the individual issue pages need to link to the timeline and continuity pages, or the category page does, or... something.
:::Taking care of it on the category page might be simplest, like what's on the Category:Marvel US issues page. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 19:12, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::: Yes, the site is sadly lacking in both "uplinks" and "sidelinks" for the media; links from a TV episode to the TV series, links from an issue of a comic to an overview of the comic, links from one comic to the next comic in that series, etc. [[User:JW|JW]] 19:21, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::: I'm still poking around and figuring out what's been done and what's needed; it might take a while to figure out how to start cleaning things up. It looks like we've got some random timelines started (still need ones for the Beast era and a few others), as well as continuity pages for some but not all of the major storylines, so I suppose each major continuity should have both kinds of pages. I wonder if there's a way to use a category or subcategory to get individual episode/issue pages to quickly link back to the main overview pages?... -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 19:28, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::: JW, we do have that comics nav template, though I like the comic infobox on wikipedia more. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:04, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::: Ah... http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Template:Comicnav ...so we do. Very useful. Now we just gotta propagate it over a few hundred comic issue... :S -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 20:25, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::: Also, the nav setup only can link up one level. So Infiltration #2 can link up to the main Infiltration page, but not to the IDW continuity page above that. Would putting a variant of this template on the main page for each miniseries, linking up to the continuity page, work instead? Then you're never more than two clicks away from an individual issue to the continuity overview. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 20:25, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::::: That, or somehow add it to the main comicnav template, perhaps in small letters above the series name. I don't wanna step on anyone's toes though. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:45, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::::: That'd make the most sense, to add a "Continuity" level to the template, or alternately a lower-end "Mini-series" option. But hell if I can make sense out of how these things work... that might be a rainy day project, figuring that out. :\ -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 20:51, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

==Image Copyrights==
I asked awhile ago, and nobody seemed to know, so...

I've always been under the impression that images {{c}} someone else should be credited ''not'' just with a note that they belong to someone else, but a ''year'', for much the same reasons we identify ''who'' the image belongs to rather than simply saying 'we don't own it, but it's fair use.' The more info we provide, the more 'seriously' the copyright is being taken. if we wipe our ass with an unadorned, <nowiki>{{fairuse}}</nowiki> clearly we don't think the holder of the copyright is ''important''... or something.

I have a script I've been poking at. It can run through every image detail page on the wiki through a regular expression and pick out which images don't have copyright owners (Hasbro or Takara-- you're supposed to ID which even if you're using <nowiki>{{hastak}}</nowiki>,) which don't have dates, and which don't have any sort of copyright notice at all. (A significant chunk of our images have no notices that they belong to someone else.) It could also drop the offending images into categories to be sorted out and properly labeled. (I imagine I'd give it Steve-o and let it do so logged in as the bot to avoid the update-floods.)

...is anyone interested in this? Does it seem like a good idea? Terrible idea? ...Bueler? -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 15:29, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

==Cartoon Episode Format Mark II==
Picking up an old thread here... per some changes I just finished making to all the Beast Era episode pages, IMO:
* The one-line summary should be bold. It's the single most important thing on the page; your eye should leap right to it.
* It should be the very first thing on the page, above the nav box (barring temporary templates like "pics needed".)
* It should be free of links. They're distracting and ugly, and it's kinda absurd to think someone's going to click right off the summary to see what a "Maximal" or whatever is. Links can easily be integrated into the body of the plot summary.

I'd also rather see Quotes before Stats, to keep all the in-universe stuff together before moving to out-universe stuff like writers, air dates, commentary, order of appearance, etc. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 00:13, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

:I agree with all of this, except for the one-line summary being above the nav box. Pure personal preference, though, rather than any sort of functionality - I just don't like the way it looks. In fact, I think putting it below the nav box actually ''helps'' its notice-ability - it "frames" the summary quite nicely between the nav box and the contents box. - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 00:22, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
::Heh, I see it the opposite way -- having the summary first provides a frame for the inevitable white space that accompanies the nav box. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 06:24, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

::Picking up on what I said above, putting the stats section down below not just the extended summary but now below the quotes section as well is something I strongly oppose. Episode writers do not get the recognition they deserve. We should not be burying their credits like that. That section belongs ''above'' the summary. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 03:21, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
:::I do hear what you're saying, but honestly I'm less bothered by the recognition factor than by the inconsistency with comic format, where all that junk ''is'' up front (though it often looks pretty bad, IMO.) If it were ''just'' the writer credit, I'd be okay with having it up front (though I ain't gonna be the one who goes back through 78 Beast Era episode pages to change it!) But then you get into the odd condition of having that one bit of info up front, while the rest of the standard information external to the episode's events is much deeper in the article. Having much more stuff up front than that makes for a messy, unattractive, and harder-to-read format compared to having it all bundled in the Stats section... IMO, natch.
:::"If "recognition" is the concern, heck, think of the animators who slaved a lot more than the writers ever did to bring each episode to life. They get no credits at all. Neither does Robert Buckley, who provided music for both Beast series. The list goes on and on. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 06:24, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
::::The information I am suggesting be up front would only be three lines (Written by, Directed by, air date), which I don't think would be very intrusive at all. To my mind, before the summary is the only logical place for this information to be presented, as episodes themselves generally present those two credits up front, and air date is a known factor when watching an episode when it debuts.
::::On the issue of recognition, you make a good point, however my concern is a bit different. Robert Buckley may not get a lot of recognition from the fandom for the music of Beast Wars, but it's not like they give someone ''else'' all the credit on that score, pun semi-intended. But the writers? The fandom often enough acts as if Forward and DiTillio wrote every single word of Beast Wars, and Skir (alone, of course, as the Isenberg Uncertainty Principle remains in full effect) the same for Beast Machines. The story editors are obviously the most important writers, but they didn't do it all on their own.
::::Burying the names of episode writers down below the summary and quotes sections just doesn't sit right with me, is all. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 04:46, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
:::::Hrm... combined with Steve-o's consistency argument, I suppose I could go along with doing it this way, with them all tucked together and separate from/below the one line summary. Written By and Air Date are in one little combined pair of lines now, an easy cut-n-paste to move up front. I don't think anyone's added Director credits to any of the episodes, by the by.
:::::As I said, I'm in no great hurry to do it myself -- my main concern was that the Beast Era show pages had drifted into all sorts of different arrangements, some of which looked pretty sloppy. For better or worse, they're all uniform now. If we're gonna change the layout, let's work on getting one sample page ''just right'', then we can worry about propagating it. To that end, have a look at "[[Chain of Command]]", see if it clicks for you. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 05:33, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm thinking if we could merge the ''Japanese title'' into the '''''Stats''' section'' because it seems to fit the section better. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 03:14, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't have much of a preference, personally, about how to organize these things. However, I do feel pretty strongly that it should be more or less the same for both cartoon episodes and comic issues. Having different organizational schemes for different sorts of fiction doesn't serve much purpose, and makes things harder to get used to. (On the other hand, I ''also'' feel strongly that all of our passages relating fictional events should be in the same tense regardless of if they happen to be on a character page or a story page, but apparently that makes me insane, so don't take my pleas for consistency too seriously.) --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 02:35, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

===Cartoon format mark II.5===
Did we ever make a decision on whether to place the quotes area before the stats section? Because the sheer majority of episode articles (including old ones recently converted to current standards) place the stats before the quotes, but I notice some of the latest Cybertron episode articles are placing the quotes before the stats, which is creating inconsistencies in layout. Bear in mind it will create less work for us if we just leave things the way they are, with stats before quotes. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 09:34, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

==Cartoon continuity headings==
Have we decided on a definative format for this yet? most of the pages with characters who appeared in Sunbow's G1 through to the japanese series (and maybe Beast Wars as well) have quite different headings, and I recall we were worried about ''Transformers Animated'' causing problems with all the 'Animated continuity' headings on character pages. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 07:08, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
:I think we had decided on using "cartoon" instead of "animated." So use "cartoon continuity," or for those who appear in more than one cartoon continuity, use "Generation 1 cartoon continuity," "Beast Wars cartoon continuity," etc. --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 07:13, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
::Can we have Diagnostic Drone change all occurrences of "Animated continuity" to "Cartoon continuity"? That'll require some cleanup in the Animated articles, but there are far fewer of those than there are of G1 subjects that are currently mislabeled. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 17:54, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

== Section-title master list ==

I've made a sandbox for the purpose of assembling a [[User:Jackpot/Sandbox/Sections|master list of all section titles]], their relation to each other, and their proper wording/formatting. Please discuss; I've introduced some new ideas, and I'd love to see a consistent guide established. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 01:04, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
:Wow, I think this really look nice and useful. ;D --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 03:44, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

== "First go here! Next go here." ==
I was thinking a bit about the various problems we've got around here -- stuff like incomplete image descriptions, orphaned articles, etc. There's really no one central place where a newcomer (or a regular who feels like doing something useful but doesn't know what) can go to find a quick list of things that need doing. The current help pages just send you to the list of articles in need of creation, which is kind of daunting, especially for a newcomer who has to learn a million standards and Wikia tags. Is there a more comprehensive way to point people in the direction of useful things they could be doing? Whatever it might be, it should include links to:
* Pages in need of creation
* Orphaned pages
* Stubs
* Pics needed
* Any current projects, like the Beast Wars one. Hell, I couldn't find that thing if my life depended on it.
...as well as a note about common problems: dead/missing storylinks, incomplete image descriptions, and whatever else. (Heck, who knows? Maybe it could even distract an IP person long enough to prevent them from screwing with captions.... ahh, who'm I kidding?} -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 21:51, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

:There are some of those things catalogued [[Special:Specialpages|here]], but I think making links to the most important of these categories, and placing them together in one easy-to-find link off the main page, would be best. Perhaps on the Help contents page, since it's linked right off the main page already, in the most logical location? I think that link is a bit small, for what it's worth. --[[User:Sntint|Sntint]] 22:09, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
::One of the projects in the back of my head is a help-page/guide specifically breaking down the creation of character pages, plus the use of "common templates" for them (disambigs, stubs, notes). I'll see if I can scrounge up some time to rough-copy one. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 22:56, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

==Other Maintenance Templates?==
I haven't had much time to do more "substantial" wiki edits lately, but I've been prepping for later with the charstub sub-categories. Fiction really isn't my bag... I mean, I know it in general, but not issue titles and numbers and bla bla. But I figure it's also nice to have the "really needs a lot of stuff" pages separated from the "just needs some stuff in one subsection" ones, especially once I can make a concentrated effort to update the toy sections of various pages. I've been thinking about other similar "needs maintenance" template/categories, but I thought I'd bring it up here since I'm not sure who else might make use of them... 
I've noticed quite a lot of pages missing storylinks. I'm not intending on going through a big wiki-wide hunt, but as I go through the stubs and other pages doing little maintenance and tweaks, well, I think I'd like to be able to mark pages I come across that are missing those links they should have. Picture and quote? Isaac Sumdac and/or Tutorbot, "I cannot believe I programmed you with such simplistic information!" (Idea courtesy of Trent Troop.) 
I'd swear there was another one, but right now, too tired to think of it and must sleep. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 06:53, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
:Perhaps a tag for a page with too many damn redlinks for concepts that will never need articles?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 07:08, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
::I don't think that will be neccessary, as it's a simple matter of removing the [[ and <nowiki>]]</nowiki>s. Storylinks, though, require some research. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 15:40, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
:::I usually label such pages with <nowiki>{{stub|storylinks}}</nowiki>. [[User:JW|JW]] 15:44, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
::::Trick is, often they're not really stubs, are they? the main info is there, there's just not a "where'd this happen?" link. And maybe it's the data-manager in me that says this, but I think it'd be a lot easier to have a common problem like lack of storylinks as a category all its own, all together for easy identification and maintenance. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 16:11, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

== Disambiguation ==

We need a consensus on hiw we handle disambuigation in article titles. We've had some moving between [[Silverbolt (BW)]] and [[Silverbolt (Fuzor)]], and [[Dirge (Timelines)]] and [[Dirge (Whatever the Botcon 05 set was)]] because there are two Silverbolts in BW and two Dirges in Timelines. However, since one of those Dirges and one of those Silverbolts are G1 characters, the (BW) and (Timelines) tags are fine for the other two. The tags are simply for keeping the articles separate; not for telling you what continuity they're in. Plus, (Timelines) is much easier to type than "(Botcon boxset name I can't remember)". --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 23:35, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

:Somewhat related to the discussion at [[Talk:Starscream (Timelines)]]. My personal criteria is that a name used for two (or more) characters in the same toyline requires more specific disambiguation, regardless of the characters' origin, because readers shouldn't be expected to remember whether some character was already in another toyline. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 23:51, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

::So... what should disambigs be?
:# Distinguished ''only'' when strictly necessary. "Silverbolt (BW)" is fine because, while there were 2 Silverbolt toys in the BW Toyline, the other one is actually Silverbolt (G1)- so only one entry is trying 'sits' in the (BW) disambig, and no more specific disambing is needed. Parenthetical disambigs should be the broadest possible category the article can sit in without conflicting with another article, (usually a continuity family or franchise.) Absolutely no 'bumping' of disambigs as a concession to aesthetics.
:# Distinguished on a logical basis. "Silverbolt (Fuzor)" because there are two Silverbolts in the BW toyline, and the article title should not allow for confusion between the two.
:# Providing continuty info. A hypothetical new character Roller in the 2008 Universe line would be "Roller (Classic)" not "Roller (Universe)"-- so that the article title doesn't mislead people into thinking he's part of the 2004 Universe continuity.
::My problem with #2 ''and'' #3 is that the diambig isn't supposed to convey that information. The first line of the article, right below the title does. It will say 'Silverbolt is a Fuzor in the Beast Wars continuity family...' or 'Roller is a Ultracon in the Classics portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.'
::We are currently usign method #1. I oppose a change to methods 2 or 3 for the following reasons:
:# The '''first line''' of the article already supplies the information that solutions 2 & 3 would seek to add- and does it ''better.''
:# Implementing 2 or 3 would make it harder for ''editors'' to know where article are sitting ("I know there was only one Silverbolt in BW, why is my link to Silverbolt (BW) broken?")
:# The purpose of the parenthetical disambigs is not to convey info- it is to keep articles with the same title from sitting in the same namespace. Attempting to make disambigs convey information actually ''adds ambiguity'', because it would force the the locations the articles sit in to become ''less'' standard.
::Let diambigs be disambigs. If we want to make continuity notes clearer or more prominent, we can look at revising our approach to '''them'''. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 00:41, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

::We already have [[Help:Disambiguation]] to more or less lay this out. (I've just made a couple small changes to it for clarification.) There is going to be no simple rule of thumb which leads to tbe best results in every case, so make the parenthetical as brief and clear as you can. Derik is correct that the purpose of the parenthetical is to give the articles different names so the database doesn't get confused. To help out editors when we make links, it is good for them to be short and easy to remember. --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 21:35, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

So, should we move [[Silverbolt (Fuzor)]] and [[Dirge (Decent into Evil)]] and the mirrorverse guys back to [[Silverbolt (BW)]], [[Dirge (Timelines)]] and [[mirrorverse guys (Timelines)]]? --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 22:42, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
:Wait to see if others have strong feelings/argument first. (We have a policy, but it's subject to conseunsus, remember? Also- I think I wrote most of that page so my point of view is unfairly over-represented there.) ''On review, no, apparently this is one policy page I '''didn't''' write. ...why can't I tell Steve-o's writing apart from my own? Scary. :~(
:Personally I say emphatically yes on Dirge, indifferent affirmative on Silverbolt, and wait and see on the Shattered Glass pages. We don't now where/if they fit in existing continuity. There's no point in movinf them a half-dozen times while arguing about unknowables. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 23:13, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

== Pages about fan sites ==

Is there a policy about this? I wanted to add TF Pulp, but I didn't see any other TF sites on here at all, so I figured I should ask first.
{{unsigned|Might Gaine|2008-02-27T14:04:54}}

:We don't give unofficial sites their own articles. You can link to information on TF Pulp from appropriate pre-existing articles, though. That sort of thing enhances the wiki by allowing people to find further information on the topics they are reading about. Just put it into an "External links" section right before the categories. --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 21:18, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

==Cartoon episode title cards redundancy==
Why are we moving towards using the title cards of episodes for the main/starting picture of episode articles? Isn't it redundant to have a boring screenshot with the name of the episode placed next to...... the name of the episode in the actual article itself? Wouldn't it be more interesting to do what we have been doing, and use a screen capture that somehow encapsulates the whole episode, or shows a pivitol point in it that sticks in our memory? --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 02:55, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
:I've wondered the same thing myself, but figured it was a done deal. I too support the "memorable/encapsulating moment" approach. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 03:04, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
::Uh... I'm sorry, I think I started it. ;-) When I was doing some early RiD ep stubs I threw in the titlecards because the early episodes were boring as sin. I think McFeely did it for the JP eps because they tend to have those painterly titlecards...
::Really, it's just something you do if there isn't a ''good'' representative image. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 17:39, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
:::Like Code of Hero (an article that needs a major overhaul itself), I originally put an image of Dinobot's sword lying on the deck of his quarters, because it looked poignant. Did the same for various other Beast Wars episodes. Then Interrobang replaced them all with screencap of the title screens. Gah. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 07:05, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::So tell him to stop! ;) -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 07:58, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::Sigh. I did it because I like consistency, even with Japanese series. "Dinobot's sword on the ground" might be your favoritest image ever but it's the odd duck out now. (It also looks terrible due to the artifacting brought about by needlessly screwing with the brightness and contrast.) [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 08:36, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::::Consistency is Victory- but Transformers Victory was incredibly boring. (Victory Gundam was pretty good though...) [[The Weak Component]], [[Survivor]] and [[End of the Line]] all have virtually ''identical'' title screens- an aerial shot of the Cybertropolis spaceport. That sucks— I'd much rather have an iconic image from each episode. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 10:07, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::::::I agree. Using iconic images is really good for the most episode guides, such as [[Code of Hero]], [[The Weak Component]], and several [[B.O.T. (episode)|others]], especially "Code of Hero" and "The Weak Component" are great and good examples. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 13:38, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::::Personally, I started doing for the Japanese series for the reason Derik gives, because it was usually a unique image made for the title card, or a good one that's representative of the episode. There were some duds, but... consistency. And then... ''Masterforce'' started to do really, ''really'' boring ones, and I was about to give up, then it occurred to me to start using the image from the next-ep preview, which proved a winner in most cases (in fact, I may yet go back and change swap out some of the title-card images with these, if it's a better option). The mention of Victory here amuses me, though, 'cause it's a good example of title cards being boring - it's the same two images of Star Saber and Deathsaurus, rotated in and out, for the whole series. I've used them for the first two episodes just to get them on show, but I plan to use the title-images from the next-episode previews for this one. I mean, when I wake up from the dullness-inducing stupor that Victory induces. - McFeely, at work
::::::::I reverted Dinobot's sword back to the version I uploaded. As I had not viewed the page much since last year, I didn't realize that Repowers tried to brighten it up for some reason - that moment is supposed to focus on the sword, not the room. And it's the 'odd duck out' now because some people have been replacing whatever had served as the main image with the title card. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 12:24, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::I brightened it because, when it's reduced for the actual episode page where most people are going to see it, you can't tell what the heck you're looking at. Right now it looks a little bit of vague white stuff in darkness. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 13:36, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::::::::Vaat? I can see if plenty fine there, unless you're using a very, very high resolution that makes everything tiny. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 13:54, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::::Could be my home monitor, which is HUGE. It does look more discernable from a work computer, though IMO it could still stand to be a tad brighter. -- [[user:repowers|repowers]], not signed in
I've changed my mind on this situation after mulling it over. A winner is FNN. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 03:31, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
:FNN sounds even more like a Simon Furman sound effect than FFN :D --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 04:26, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
::You clearly changed your name after I replied. There's no another answer. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 04:33, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
:::Hnh. FNN never DID want to live forever. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 04:55, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

==Help/policy page namespaces==
As part of the help/policy page revamp I plan to do... eventually... I kind of want to consolidate the pages all into a single namespace. Right now we have [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=12 a bunch of stuff] in the Help namepsace, and [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=4 a bunch of other stuff] in the Transformers Wiki (aka "meta") namespace. This is needlessly confusing. I vastly prefer "Help" for the purposes of typing it all the time, but, the meta namespace is more general purpose and standard... and possibly required for some pages like the title blacklist. So I am inclined to shuffle all the Help namespace pages over to the meta namespace. Does anybody have an opinion on this? --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 17:37, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
:Help seems fine to me. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 17:45, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

== "The Battlestars" page disappeared ==

When the "Battlestar" (team) page got changed to "Battlestars", then "The Battlestars" page, which was the manga, disappeared. What happened? --[[User:Might Gaine|Might Gaine]] 13:36, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
:I don't think that page actually existed in the first place. It was a red link before any moving was done - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 14:04, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
::Hmm. My bad. --[[User:Might Gaine|Might Gaine]] 15:01, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

==Comic character box format Part IV==
I believe we should change it from 'Major characters' to 'Featured characters' like we do in the cartoon recap articles. Doing it as 'Major characters' means writers of these comic articles will just not bother list the incidental characters, such as humans, even ones with dialogue, and if any of these characters have articles, they become orphaned articles. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 06:32, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
:Well I have gone thru nearly the entire U.S. Marvel series and I think I've included just about everyone who had a speaking line, except for folks who were un-named and such. If someone wants to change from "major" to "featured", it doesn't matter to me, but I'm not gonna go thru all 80 issues again and do it. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:18, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
::I was concerned because I was looking for the article for that [[Professor Goring]] guy from [[Spotlight: Shockwave]] so I could update the article. To my surprise, Shockwave didn't link or even name him, and somebody had eliminated the 'human' column altogether because evidently we only dealt with 'major' characters. Essentially, Goring's article became orphaned. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 20:32, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
:::Well that was dumb; he should indeed be re-added. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:39, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
:::Uh, yeah. That's not good. I support the change to "Featured" not just for this... but let's face it, this wiki is not simply about "Major" characters. The vast wealth of non-major character information is what makes this wiki great, and we should make sure that they are properly linked to so people can find them, even if they weren't looking. "Oh, hey, who's this?" --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 20:39, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
::::MistaTee, well sometimes even unnamed characters can be interesting enough to warrant their own articles if they are interesting in some way/stand out in some way. After all, we have an entire category devoted to unnamed characters. So I think they should have been mentioned in the article in some way. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 04:45, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::Oh, I agree, and if I've missed any, please feel free to add. I do think the 80 issues I've updated is a lot better than they were before though. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 13:58, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::Of course. Is there article template pages somewhere on this wiki or are we copy pasting every time we write a new article? --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 14:07, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::::I've just been going through the Stormbringer articles, and I was ''not at all'' happy with the with the way characters who didn't have significant dialogue (such as ''every'' Pretender besides Bludgeon) were for the most part not even mentioned in the articles. I assume the original writer of these articles just didn't know who they were, but frankly it's just sloppy considering the information available on this wiki even in 2006. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 14:38, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::::I believe I reformatted them to the new format, but just copied the character list from what was there. When I get the chance to re-read, I will add in the others, if someone doesn't beat me to it. Oh, and I am copying and pasting from the previous article, but trying to be consistent. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 15:31, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

:So... what becomes of the former "minor characters" list? Do we even care about those dudes? Take [[Totaled!]] for example -- almost every Earth Autobot to date appears in the story (and most of the Decepticons), but the page currently lists only the speaking ones. Gods help the poor soul who decides to take that task on, but when some nobody like Air Raid makes a rare appearance in the comics, it seems worth noting. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 15:25, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
::IMO, I think those characters should perhaps be in a cameos section, a subset of "Items of note". But I sure as hellz am not going thru the whole Marvel series again to do that. Someone else can have a go at it. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 15:31, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

==Navigation boxes for shared US/UK stories==
I wish I'd noticed [[user:MistaTee|MistaTee]]'s changes to the Marvel US navigation boxes sooner, but that's water under the bridge now. When I set the boxes up, I deliberately left out certain links at points where the continuities split and come back together. The point was that there would be no duplicate links in the box. One hopes that the reader following the UK chain will be smart enough to figure out that the only "Next" link shown will lead to the next step in the chain. This goes double for US stories that have the same Next and Previous links for the UK. Why do the same links need to be duplicated?

Compare:
* [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Cold_War%21&oldid=129298 Old version of Cold War]. There's no "next" for the UK spot, 'cause it would just be the same as the US "next" link.
* [[Cold War!|current version of Cold War!]] - two "next" links are identical.

Also compare:
* [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Dark_Star%21&oldid=152775 Old version of Dark Star!] - no extraneous info.
* [[Dark Star!|Current version of Dark Star!]] - ''two'' redundant links.

To sum up my take on current version:

Minus:
* Redundant links add to confusion
* Double nav box is ugly and should be avoided when possible

Plus:
* Lists UK publication number right up front
* Consistent format for all US issues.

But I've never been one to favor consistency at the expense of practicality. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 17:54, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

:Now see, I didn't like '''not''' having a next for the UK, even if it's the same as the US one. What I think we really need is a revision of the nav box, and maybe have some more options. First, I think there should be a separator line between the US and UK nav. Secondly, maybe some logic could be programmed in so that IF "next2"="next" THEN it would say "same as U.S. version" or something along those lines. Same for the "prev"/"prev2" naturally. Thoughts? --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 18:10, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
::That sounds like an excellent trade-off -- it gets rid of the bothersome parts while keeping the good bits. Uhhh.... anybody have any idea how to do it? The coding of these things is an utter mystery to me. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 18:20, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

== How to spell Malay. ==

Hello everyone, I've noticed that on the 'English/Malay' dubs, people have spelt word 'Malay' wrong. It doesn't have a 'y', because 'Maylay' is incorrect, so if you see any mistakes, please correct it, thank you! Also, can we not put the word crack head next to it? It's quite offensive.--[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
:It's meant in jest because the [[RTM 1 dub]] is really, really bad, as if the dubbers didn't know what the hell was going on half of the time. But we have been changing such instances to 'RTM 1 dub name:' lately. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 15:29, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
:"crack head" is describing the dubs, and with good reason. Battleship Maximus is called "Spaceship Bruce", Blaster is called "Billy", Twincast "Blaster", Metroplex "Phillip", Spike "Sparkle", Soundblaster "New Soundwave", Minevera "Nightbeat", The Matrix and Energon cubes "Power Packs, etc... --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 15:35, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
::We should probably get the drone onto the task of replacing "Maylay" with "Malay", however. [[User:JW|JW]] 15:42, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
:::I don't know about the crack head comment, it's better to avoid offending people; 'though, Spaceship Bruce is my favourite, next to Wally. Also, you got your drone right here (yay?), but do we replace it with 'English/Malay dub', or 'RTM dub'? --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
::::I fully agree with the removal of "crackhead." Frankly, it IS offensive to equate the oddities that arise from the translation of Japanese into English done by people who's first language was likely neither with being on crack. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 19:14, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::Can we leave it in for just Spaceship Bruce? The others are at least somewhat understandable, but ''Spaceship Bruce''? WTCHOP? --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 19:37, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::Sorry, but I don't wanna label another country saying it's populated by drug addicts. If it weren't for them, we wouldn't have Headmasters/Masterforce/Victory in English in the early 90's(?), and for a non-Japanese speaking country, they made a good effort. I guess you can emphasise the weirdness that is Spaceship Bruce, in his bio or the RTM page. So, 'RTM dub' or 'Englsh/Malay' dub? Technically, there was no Malay in the English dubs in the first place, so I'd go for RTM dub :) --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
:::::::It takes a real willfully oppressed state of mind to interpret that as a racial/nationalist insult. I mean, you have to really ''want'' to be offended by something, and be on the lookout for any little thing to jump on. 'Cause "crack-head" is pretty clearly referring to the ''dubs'', not the ''entire freaking country'', and I'm not sure why anyone would decide to think otherwise. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 11:32, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::::You know, crackhead is generally a term that refers to ''people'', not ''things''. As I said above, we shouldn't be seen to be equating the people who produced these dubs with crackheads because of what we perceive as humorous oddities in the translation, which are possibly just the perfectly natural result of cultural and linguistic confusion. Now it might not be an insult to the entire nation of Malaysia, but it is still, I think, a bit offensive. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 16:13, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::Well, regardless.... shouldn't it actually be the "Crackhead ''RTM-1'' dub"? -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 16:23, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::::::'Cracked-up English/Malay' dub, 'though it's not my idea, and it's not so blunt. Or the shorter 'RTM dub', since there is an [[RTM 1 dub]] page where people can redirect themselves there and elucidate the weirdness of weird names; but do we have to spell Malay with two 'y's? Maybe we can make reference to that on the RTM page again. --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
:::::::::I think 'Cracked-up English/Malay' could be used for the article such as [[Ginrai]] and [[Minerva]]('cause their RTM dub name "Optimus Prime" and "Nightbeat" were too... hilarious?), while just "RTM dub" for Fortress Maximus' Spaceship Bruce. Well, just a little opinion. :) --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 12:11, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::: Agree! :D --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]

==Trivia section image formatting==
This issue came up a while ago on [[Talk:Frenzy_%28Movie%29#Image_format|Frenzy's talk page]]. There were opnions both ways, and it wasn't really resolved. The issue is, should images in trivia sections alternate left-right, or be all on one side?

Part of the trouble with alternating sides is that it kills the bullet points. A double bullet has to be inserted for it to show up, and then there's some ambiguity over which bullets should be doubled and which left single. Dpouble bullets can also cause images to overlap the text.

Several folks said there's a lot of ugly white space when the images are stacked on one side. I see it just the opposite on my (admittedly gigantic) screen, with every image having a big empty white space below it when they alternate sides. Apparently it's got something to do with monitor resolution, so there might not be a solid answer. But --

I'd ''love'' so see some screencaps from folks showing how they see things on their monitors. It's a little hard to understand this problem without seeing it from other people's POV.

I started a little Sandbox at [[:user talk:repowers/Sandbox2]] with two different versions of Frenzy's trivia. The first one stacks all the images at the top. Does this work for people on lower monitor resolutions, or does it still look like crap? With them all stacked at the front, I don't see how they could have any white space, regardless of monitor resolution. On my screen, it looks very neat and tidy, while the second one is messy. See:

[http://www.builtstlouis.net/tf/frenzy1.jpg Stacked] 
[http://www.builtstlouis.net/tf/frenzy2.jpg Alternating]

Thoughts and input welcomed. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 01:36, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

:Alternating does kind of suck now. I've been putting pics all on the right side where there are bullet points since Wikia updated their software... an update which covered single bullet points if you put an image on the left side of the screen. I suggest cutting down on images in Trivia, since most users here have smaller monitors and use lower resolutions. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 05:44, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
::I think the easiest answer is to just remove the head images. They're essentially redundant and don't really add anything to the reader's understanding. I'd call for a general limit on how many images you can stuff into a section. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 06:27, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
:::I'd remove the head images from the article proper... but then make a text link to them within the relevant paragraph so people can see them anyway if they want to. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 06:35, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
::::That works. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 07:11, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

== Foreign name format ==
I just found the foreign names doesn't have an unified format.
:For example, some are
::''Hungarian name:'' '''Kerék''' ("Wheel"(with or without ""))
:others are
::''Hungarian name'': '''Kerék''' (meaning Wheel(or "Wheel"))

I suggest we could use an unified format like the below:
:<nowiki>:''Foreign name 1:'' '''Name A''' (Form A), '''Name B''' (Form B)</nowiki>
:<nowiki>:''Foreign name 2:'' '''Name''' ("English meaning")</nowiki>

Take [[Hot Rod]] for example, it will look like:
:''Japanese name:'' '''Hot Rodimus''' (Hot Rod), '''Rodimus Convoy''' (Rodimus Prime)
:''Hungarian names:'' '''Nagyágyú''' ("Hot ''Shot''"), '''Rodimusz Fővezér''' ("Prime Commander Rodimus")

Thoughts and idea are welcomed :) --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 09:09, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
:I don't have a strong opinion on how the international names are standardized, but I strongly agree that they should be. I nominate someone else to go through and do it. -[[User:LV|LV]] 21:40, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

== Wookiepedia has a darn nifty interface ==

What would it take for us to create something similar but Transformers-y?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:36, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
:I think the admins were adament that we keep a simple, bare-bones default look to the TF wiki, in keeping with our 'let's not take this stuff too seriously' attitude and tone. At least that's what I remember them saying when I suggested an orange layout like what Teletraan I looked like in the cartoon. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 09:34, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
::The current Wookieepedia also doesn't seem to want to cooperate with my comp here at work. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 18:27, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

==Characters lacking visuals category?==
It's dawned on me that there are actually quite a few characters who don't have any form of visual representation. They may have been described, but there are no ''pictures''. While a bulk of these are from prose stories, there's several who were simply mentioned by name in comics, or in external sources (Key Code info, S7 site, etc). More than enough to justify a category. 
I think that maybe there should also be a template/visual for this to call attention to this fact on the page right up front. I'm thinking a variation on the current <nowiki>{{mainpic}}</nowiki> template... a silhouette, (different from the mainpic one) and some text saying "This character has no known official visual depiction" or something. Anyone? --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 18:33, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
:Well, for the characters with the mainpic template, the idea is that the mainpic image is there as a placeholder, and to annoy people into tracking down an image.
:However, characters that have never had any visual depiction, and are unlikely to ever get one, don't need a placeholder for their image, and the template will just pointlessly take up room. I'm against the template, but I think the category is a good idea, and will suffice to identify these characters. [[User:JW|JW]] 18:44, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
::I disagree. The point is specifically to call attention to their lack of imagery, so nobody thinks "maybe they do have an image". And considering how little there ''is'' to most of those characters, a little extra visual pizzaz to their pages can't hurt. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 19:06, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
:::''so nobody thinks "maybe they do have an image"'' Are you intending to convey that message to ''editors,'' or casual users? Editors will, in theory, know enough to look for the category. I'm not sure casual users need to have the point brought to their attention.
:::And, it's not like we have scads of frantic editors running around trying to find pics for characters who have only appeared in prose. This may be a solution without a problem. [[User:JW|JW]] 19:27, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

== Timelines disambuig ==

There doesn't seem to be a consensus on how to name the various Timelines articles.

I feel that any disambiguation in the article title should be limited to keeping the articles separate. For instance, [[Optimus Prime (Shattered Glass)]] should be at [[Optimus Prime (Timelines)]] unless there is another Optimus Prime who's first appearance in anything was in Timelines. G1 Prime appearing in the 2007 Timelines comic does not affect this, as he is already at [[Optimus Prime (G1)]]. If G1 Prime being in a Timelines comic affected this, we would need to move [[Cyclonus (Armada)]] to [[Cyclonus (Armada whatever size class he is)]] because a version of G1 Cyclonus appeared in ''Worlds Collide''. The only reason to include the set name in the article title is ''two'' separate characters who first official anything is in ''Timelines''. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 17:18, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

== Shattered Expectations ==

Um, shouldn't those[[Deathsaurus|1]][[Bug Bite|2]] who appear in ''[[Shattered Expectations]]'' have their own page like others[[Optimus Prime (Timelines)|1]][[Grimlock (Timelines)|2]] even their counterparts' article would be short? --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 06:28, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
:I brought this up on [[Category_talk:Mayhem_Suppression_Squad]]. As I said there, I think they should either get their own articles or if that's not warranted just be covered on the Mayhem Suppression Squad article. Either way, I don't think "Shattered Expectations" fiction sections belong on the normal-verse guys' pages. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 07:08, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

==Monaco skin==

Hi -- Have you guys seen the new Monaco skin that's being used on Wikia now? You can see it at [[w:c:muppet|Muppet Wiki]] and [[w:c:marveldatabase|Marvel Database]].

As we've been rolling the skin out across Wikia, there are a few things that we've found when wikis switch to Monaco:

* The number of pageviews goes up. The flyout menus encourage new readers to explore the content on the site, and people end up sticking around on the site for longer.

* The number of new editors goes up. Readers spend more time on the site, and find pages that they want to contribute to. Also, the design makes the edit button more prominent.

* The site is faster. There were some changes made last week to Monaco that make pages load a lot faster than Monobook. Hit "random page" a few times on a Monaco wiki, and you'll see what I mean.

So I'm going around and proselytizing to the Entertainment wikis that are still using Monobook. If you want to make a custom Monaco skin like Marvel Database and Wookieepedia have, I can help you make that happen. What do you guys think? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:31, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

:Monaco does look nice, though it might go against what I understand is the wiki's purpose, which is to be quick and dirty, no fancy stuff and no pretention that this wiki is in any way officially endorsed or serious. At least that's the gist of what I was told after I previously suggested we could make the default colour of this wiki a shade of orange, like the computer systems in the original Transformers cartoons. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 23:16, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

::Yeah, we don't have to do a custom skin -- it could be the basic blue and white. I'm mostly interested in the improved functionality. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 23:24, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Eh, if it makes the place ''easier'', I don't think the "pure and simple" folks will object.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 23:26, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

And truth be told, I think the main dealbreaker here might be the extent to which Suki and Derik may or may not have farted about with tweaking Monobook. I know they've both made alterations, but I don't know quite what.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 23:34, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

:That stuff won't be affected at all. We can copy Monobook.css over to Common.css, and all of the tweaks that they made will still work. No problems. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 23:52, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

My biggest concern is the menus. The "by series" list could easily fill the entire vertical direction of the screen. We don't actually have all the series listed on the main page now (Machine Wars, Dinobots, Timelines, Universe (2008), not to mention licenced lines like Animorphs, SWTF, Crossovers).--[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 00:45, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

:Well, the idea with the menus is to be selective rather than comprehensive. It's not supposed to be a complete sitemap for the wiki -- you just want to give the new readers something to click on first.

:On [[w:c:Muppet|Muppet Wiki]], we put up the most popular Muppet Show and Sesame Street characters, and then a link to "More characters". We just want to entice people into making that first click, without overwhelming them with choices.

:I have access to click-through data for the Monaco menus, so it's possible to run some tests. You could put up a set of menus for a few days, and then I'll be able to tell you which items are getting clicked. That way, you could refine the menus so that you could highlight the items that are most likely to get clicked on. I've been doing that with the Muppet menus, and it's fun to see what the readers are actually interested in reading about. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 23:34, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

::So what do you guys think? I'd like to help you switch over to the new skin... -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 19:10, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
:::For some reason none of the admins have chimed in. I assume they're all off doing useless things like living in Real Life. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 21:10, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

::::Yeah, I left messages for Chris and ItsWalky... -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:12, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::You might want to leave messages for [[User:Suki Brits]] and [[User:Steve-o]] as well. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 13:28, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Well admins? Let's hear your opinions! I find the silence from the staff to be discouraging. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 16:18, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

If there's an actual interest in switching over to Monaco, then I would certainly have nothing against that... but I'd definitely like to hear more from the community first. Aside from that, I have no objections speaking as an admin; the modifications really aren't an issue. On the other hand, speaking as a wiki editor and professional web designer... I would definitely want to use a modified version, as it's got several pretty important issues. My thoughts, in no particular order:
* Search is nigh useless, again. Right now it resembles our ''broken'' Monobook search. I don't think that's a good thing. On the other hand, I'm currently working on fixing that anyway, so it's not like the same couldn't be done for Monaco.
* The header sucks. It really, really does. It's only 150px tall, but it sends a pretty powerful message: we'd rather show you this pretty, irrelevant picture then let you immediately get to article. ''I'' would want the top of the article as close to the top as possible.
:: Gah, I brought it over into another browser that doesn't block ads... and now I see why it's so obnoxiously huge. I am ''strongly'' opposed to putting giant hideous banner ads at the top of everything. Like, it's a little insulting that Wikia really thinks that ''that'' should be the first thing readers see. Teletraan I, like everything else on Wikia, is naturally ad-driven; but Monobook isn't offensive about it.
* The language selection is in a dropdown box, which is a TERRIBLE idea. This personally doesn't affect me, as I don't speak Hungarian, but it's pretty awful for anyone who actually is interested in seeing foreign language versions of articles... and has to click a dropdown menu on every single page if they're curious.
* The "community" box is really unhelpful. Half the content (user page, user talk, etc.) is redundant with the top of the screen, and absolutely nobody is interested in just the most recent two edits. That just leaves the number of articles. This is a lot of wasted room for nothing.
* I ''do'' like that the obnoxious sidebar on the right is gone. The current framing in Monobook wastes all sorts of space and Monaco definitely doesn't ''look'' like it has that problem.
There's also a bunch of minor things, but they don't really matter so much. The big issues are the useless space, a need to do major fixes to search, and the huge obtrusive banner ads (as opposed to the ones on the side in Monobook). But if Wikia's really willing to work with us on it, then by all means, it's up to what the community thinks. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 20:48, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

:I've been around the Wookieepeedia lately, and I've noticed when you click edit, it loads significantly slower on Monaco than it does on the Monobook format. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 05:25, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

::Hi guys -- Sorry it took me so long to respond. I'll make up for it with a super-long answer. :)

::Yes, absolutely -- I want to work with you on this. Some of the things you've raised I can clear up immediately. For some, I can explain the rationale behind the approach, and show you some stats that may help. And if there are some things that need to get tweaked, I can talk to the designers & tech folks to see if we can come up with a solution.

::Just so you know: I work for Wikia now, but I started out in 2005 as the founder of [[w:c:muppet|Muppet Wiki]]. Working on wikis is my job now, but Muppet Wiki is where my heart lives, so I'm always looking out for what's going to help or hurt "my wiki". I am/was a big Monobook fan, and I was skeptical about Monaco as it was being designed. The thing that made me a Monaco fan was actually trying it out on Muppet Wiki, and then looking at the stats to see how it was working. Muppet Wiki and Teletraan I are very similar -- about a dozen really active contributors, a strong admin team and a community of about 60-80 contributors. So I can share with you what I saw on Muppet Wiki, and what I can see in the pageviews stats.

::First up, the rationale behind some of the decisions made with the new skin. There are some features on the new skin that the most active editors think are useless, like the Community box or the flyout menus. And it's true, those aren't very helpful for the active contributors. They're designed for the anonymous/new people, who are the vast majority of our readers.

::Here's the stats on unique visits for Teletraan I. (Unique visits counts the number of visits to a site, and not the number of pages you look at in each visit. So if you come to the wiki and look at 100 pages, that counts as one unique.) In the last month, there have been 2,725,000 anonymous visits, and 261,000 logged-in user visits. That means 91% of the visits to the site aren't logged-in contributors.

::Logged-in editors make 77% of the edits here, so obviously we're the people who are actually building the content that people are reading. Logged-in editors are important, and the dozen people who make over 100 edits here every month are especially important. Still, if you want to make the community bigger and more active, then you have to think about whether the design of the site encourages anonymous users to sign in and become active members.

::The purpose of designing the new skin was to make the wiki more accessible to the 91% of anonymous readers. Obviously, we have to keep the functionality that the active contributors need in order to build the wiki. At the same time, we have to be aware that the Monobook skin that we're familiar with is kind of confusing for brand-new people.

::For example, the "log in" button is in really small type at the very top right of the screen. From a website design perspective, that's crazy -- it's like we don't want people to find it. The log-in buttons on Monaco are big, green, candy-like buttons. There's one at the top right, and there's another one in the Community box on the sidebar. We want to encourage people to log in.

::In general, having all the important Monobook controls in little bitty tiny type says: We hate people who are older than 40. ("Go back to AOL, old man!") All of the Monobook buttons are in the same font, from the crucial stuff like "Log in" and "Edit this page" to the more obscure controls like "Related changes" and "Permanent link". On Monaco, the stuff that's important to brand-new users is bigger -- log-in, edit, the link to the home page. The search box is at the top, rather than being buried down in the sidebar. The controls that logged-in users need, like "What links here" and "Special pages", are in smaller type -- they're important to us, but a brand-new user wouldn't know what to do with them.

::Okay, so that's my very long introduction... Now I'll respond to the points that you guys have brought up.

::'''Search''': I think when you say that search is broken, you mean that there's just a "Go" button and not a "Search" button next to the search box. (If you mean something else, then let me know.) That's true, and it's something that I struggled with as the design for Monaco was taking shape. I use the Search button all the time, and I was frustrated that it wasn't included. Then I looked at the stats. On Teletraan I in the last month, logged-in users used Go for 91% of searches, and Search for 9%. Anonymous users used Go for 97% of searches. Given that, I think it's okay to make the Search button less prominent. I remember when I first started using wikis, I was totally confused by having two buttons. (Do I want to Go or Search? Well, I want to search, and then go to the search results...) I only figured out the difference through trial and error. So in Monaco, the search box at the top is Go, and then you can have a link to [[Special:Search]] in the toolbox. (Some wikis have that, and some don't -- Muppet has it, if you want to see how it works.)

::'''Community box''': That's one of the features that's designed to encourage brand-new users to explore the site. When you look at a wiki as a new reader, it's not always apparent that there's a community there. You read pages, but you don't necessarily know whether the articles were written today or a year ago. (Unless you look at Recent changes, which a brand-new reader doesn't know to do.) The Community box is designed to bring a little taste of the community activity up to their view. It's not a helpful way for a contributor to keep track of Recent changes, but it does show new people that something's going on. If you come to the site and see that somebody edited a page 15 seconds ago, then you understand that there's an active community. On Muppet Wiki in the last month, 1,404 anonymous readers logged in using the button in the Community box, 1,539 anon readers clicked the "more..." button to go to Recent changes, and 1,287 clicked on article links that they saw in the Latest Activity area. Those are readers who may not have been engaged with the site if they hadn't seen the activity going on in the Community box. On the other hand, logged-in contributors only clicked in the Community box 350 times. It's not designed for us; it's for the 91% of anons.

::'''Obnoxious ads''': This is the one area that's designed to help the company rather than the wiki. Basically, the deal is that Wikia doesn't make a lot of money from the "skyscraper" ads on the right sidebar. Nobody clicks on them, and most advertisers don't bother to make ads like that anymore. Advertisers want banner ads, and they want them at the top of the page. I can't justify this one in wiki terms, except to say that if we want Wikia to stay in business and continue to host wikis, then we need to change the skin to accommodate the changing ad market. Otherwise, there won't be a Wikia after a while.

::'''Languages drop-down''': We changed the list into a drop-down menu because sites like Wookieepedia had a long list, which took up a lot of sidebar space, and only had about 100 clicks on language links in a month. On Teletraan I, there have only been 2 clicks on the language links since October.

::'''Content space''': There is slightly less content area on Monaco when you first come to the page. The sidebar is smaller than the combined left & right Monobook sidebars, so the content area is wider. The banner ad means that the height takes a hit for the first screen. As you scroll down, though, the Monaco content area is bigger than on Monobook, because the page is wider. I can show you some screencaps if you want more info on this.

::'''Slow edits on Wookieepedia''': That looks like a bug that's specific to Wookieepedia... I'm not sure what's going on there. It looks like when you hit edit on Wookiee, it's looking for something from maps.google, and that can slow down the page load for the edit screen. I hadn't seen that before, so I'm really glad you pointed it out. That's not affecting other Monaco wikis like Muppet Wiki or Marvel Database, so there must be something in Wookieepedia's css that's causing that. I'll look into it. If you look at Muppet or Marvel, you'll see that the page load is lightning fast right now. (Not counting periods of site-wide database problems, which affect every skin.)

::So anyway -- this is a huge long post, but I think I responded to everything. As you can tell, I take this stuff really seriously, and I'm willing to put in the time to research the impact and explain what's going on. Do folks have other questions or concerns about Monaco? I could keep talking about this stuff all day. :) -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 17:33, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

:::Personally, as regular contributor, I'm fine with switching to Monaco, so long as we get to keep our new 'random page thumbnail' above the search box (or anywhere, really). I think it's useful for visitors to be able to visit a random page with an interesting thumbnail image rather than simply doing random searches or hitting Random page repeatedly. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 17:44, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

::::I knew there was something I forgot to mention! Yeah, the featured page thumbnail. I think that's something that we can adapt.

::::That feature doesn't have anything to do with search -- it just happens that you can put a picture in the Monobook search box. I actually think what you've made is a little misleading. The picture says "Search" on it, and it's right above the search box -- so as a user, I would assume that if I click that, I'll get some kind of search results page. Instead, it goes to a featured article, which isn't necessarily what you'd expect.

::::The feature is really a rotating spotlight for featured articles, which is cool and visual, and helps to bring readers deeper into the content. It's a great idea. I think it would actually be more effective if it was split away from search, so readers would be more likely to recognize it as a featured-article spotlight.

::::So there are a couple ways to do that in Monaco. The easiest way would be to put it in the sidebar -- check out [[MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar]] for an example. Here's pics to show what that would look like.

<gallery>
Image:Monacosidebar1.jpg
Image:Monacosidebar2.jpg|You can update this list anytime, so you can freshen it up every day or every week. Or never.
Image:Monacosidebar3.jpg|That big green, fire-snortin' lizard must be included.
Image:Monacosidebar4.jpg|If you click on "Embrace the Knowledge", it takes you to the Allspark article. Obviously.
</gallery>

::::It's not graphical, but it allows you to bring the funny into the sidebar, which you've never been able to do before. One advantage of this approach is that you can add in new articles to the sidebar without having to wait for somebody to make a graphic.

::::If that's not enough and you need to go graphical, then I can talk to our designer, Christian, about creating a widget that can go into the sidebar and have the same function. It could sit above or below the Community box. It would be separate from search, but like I said, that may be a good thing. What do you think? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:48, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

If you want to sell this to Walky... make it orange.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 22:05, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
[[Image:Orangemonaco.jpg|thumb|250px|It could be even oranger if that would help.]]
:Does this work? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:13, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

::The brick skin has a pretty nice brown/orange thing going. That's what I'm using at the moment. --[[User:Professor Icepick|Professor Icepick]] 22:17, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
:::See, that's what was needed to get his attention. The orange will draw him, like a moth to a flame.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 22:24, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
[[Image:Monacobrick.jpg|thumb|250px|Monaco Brick, in all its dark red and orange glory.]]
::::Here's how Brick looks... -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:28, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

:::::Do it! --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 00:41, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
::::::I TOLD you guys that we should make this wiki orange (to actually look like Teletraan 1) way back before we even knew about Monaco, but you were all "We are serious business about not taking ourselves seriously". --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 06:44, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

:I don't know all that much about what can and can't be modified, but can't a number of the problems with Monobook be solved simply by changing the css or js files? I'm mainly talking about the small text size for the tabs and login. Plus, most people who edit wikies are probably familiar with Wikipedia's Monobook interface. Plus, I don't think anyone wants the trouble from the ad format being changed again. A few months ago the site started taking showing wider vertical ads, and it was awhile before the horizontal scrolling mess got cleaned up. But then again I'm the guy who uses XP's Classic Windows scheme with Windows 98's colors and icons, so I may be biased when it comes to new interfaces. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 22:41, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

::The Monobook problems can't be solved with css changes. The type size is an example, but it's really a general problem with the layout. Wiki veterans are used to Monobook, but it's not necessarily a great layout for new people. I meet people all the time who read Wikipedia, but when I ask if they've ever made an edit, they say no -- it never occurred to them. I think it's important to make wikis more accessible to new people, and we're finding that Monaco is helping people to explore the wikis and make their first edit.

::Are there other concerns that people have that I can help with? I know that this discussion has gone on a bit, and I'd hate to have it just run out of steam before it gets to a decision. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 18:15, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::It seems like there aren't any more concerns about the new skin, so I'm thinking about changing it over to Monaco tomorrow, unless someone has objections. Once it's switched over, then I can help you out with whatever customization you want. Is that cool? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 15:55, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
::::A great number of us are indisposed at [[BotCon 2008]] this weekend, but there should still be a handful of us around. So you know! --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 16:09, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::Gyah. I thought we were doing Brick?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:17, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:We can do anything you guys want... I'm just playing around for a minute to see if I can come up with something interesting. It's gonna look bad for the next five minutes... and then we can talk about what you guys want, and fix it up nice. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:21, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::Okay, never mind. That just looked bad. :) So I set it to Brick. If you guys want to change these colors, we can change them to whatever you like. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:25, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

===Apparently implemented===
Is there any way to override this that '''doesn't''' override the skins on ''every'' Wikia-hosted wiki? - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 21:19, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:Do you mean, you want to see the skin in Monobook? You can go to Preferences --> Skins, and set your preferred skin to Monobook. You can check or uncheck the box that says "Let the admins override my skin choice" to either see customized skins or not. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:27, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::Yes, I know that. My problem with that is the "This setting will follow you across Wikia." clause. I don't want to override EVERYWHERE (e.g. Memory Alpha). Just Monaco wikis. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 21:30, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::Actually, they're working on switching over to the Monaco skin on Memory Alpha too... At a certain point, pretty much every Wikia wiki is going to end up on Monaco. Is there something about Monaco that you don't like? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:43, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::::The flyouts. Certainly not the only thing - the more I look, the less I like, especially the pathetic "Latest Activity" box with a practically-camouflaged recentchanges link, and why exactly are the preferences hidden? - but they're the biggest dealbreaker. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 22:01, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::::Yeah, at first I wasn't crazy about the flyouts either. We tested out using the sidebar without the flyouts on Muppet Wiki, but then I looked at the click stats and found that they really helped new readers to find content on the wiki. The pageviews went down when we took the flyouts out. If you're interested, there's details here: [[w:c:muppet:Muppet_Wiki:Current_events#Sidebar_menus|Muppet Wiki:Current events]].

:::::The "Community" box is also something for the new users. When you first come to the wiki, you might think that it's just a static site... There's no way to know that there's a living community. The latest activity shows people that there are pages that were edited in the last couple minutes. Also, logged-out users see a log-in button in that box. For active logged-in users, a lot of these features aren't that useful. They're really aimed at the 90-something% of readers that aren't logged in. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:10, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::::::(NB: I was expanding my post at the same time you were typing, since I was spending a bit of time looking around).
::::::See, I'm not coming at it from the "guy who runs the wiki" perspective. I'm not a sysop on a Wikia wiki, so "this will boost Teh Stats" has no effect on me [perhaps that means you consider my position irrelevant. I can't help that]. Nor am I a newbie to Wikis, so again, not the target group.
::::::My problem is that (1) they require me to turn JavaScript on in the first place (strictly, add to the NoScript whitelist, but...) and (2) the click-on flyout in the top right is worse than pointless, since there's room for the links without that and it just makes preferences harder to access and (3) I hate non-click flyouts since you they will inevitably be scrolled at the wrong moment, trebly so since they're on the side rather than the top. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 22:08, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::::::I think "this will boost Teh Stats" actually matters to everybody. More readers looking at more pages = more potential contributors = a more active community = more and better content on the site. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:12, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::::::::By the way, I'm not trying to make you like the skin. Either you like it, or you don't. I'm just explaining the rationale behind some of the design decisions, so you know that it wasn't just random or malicious. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:17, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

There are three things that would make me more... reconciled... to it. I still probably won't ''like'' it, but...
#On your own "help.wikia", there's a group of links beneath the flyouts to Recent Changes/Upload/etc. They don't appear here or on most Wikia wikis (well, strictly they appear for about half a second on a Ctrl-F5, which suggests they're present but being hidden with CSS or something). They should be there as standard.
#Links to Special:Preferences and Special:Contributions/(self) should be available with a single non-flyover click, either in the "Community" box or at the top right, not in a flyover only. '''ESPECIALLY''' Special:Preferences.
#Be able to override the colour scheme on an individual wiki basis, rather than just "all or nothing" - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 22:29, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::For #1, I'm not sure why you're not seeing the toolbox links. That's an important part of the skin, and it's on every wiki. Check out the screenshots that I added above -- every wiki has links to Recent changes and Upload. If you're not seeing it, then that's a weird bug which we can try to figure out. What browser are you using? Are you only seeing the toolbox disappearing on Transformers, or on other wikis too?

::If you want it, we can put links to Preferences and Contributions in the toolbox, or in the sidebar. I don't know how to change the top header.

::Can you give me an example of what you'd like to see as far as overriding the color schemes? I think it's possible that what you want is currently possible, but I'm not sure. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:54, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::Okay, #1 was my own fault. An in-browser hack I'd done on Monobook was interacting "unpredictably" with Monaco, and had knocked that (and some minor stuff that doesn't make any difference) out of joint.
:::Okay on #2. I'd be interested to find out how many people ever use Special:Preferences on any skin(s) while you're trotting out stats...
:::On #3, basically, being able to use different (non-default) skins, or at least colour schemes from the chosen skin on different wikis without being limited to the "this will follow you across Wikia". Just because one wiki chooses to smother the page in bright pink (or orange...) doesn't mean I want to change the colour scheme on every wikia. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 23:32, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Sure, I love trotting out stats!

Here's the stats on how Transformers contributors click on those links. In the last month, there have been the following clicks:

* Watchlist: 3,114
* Contributions: 427
* User page: 213
* Talk page: 67
* Preferences: 22

So, yeah, contributions is #2 on that list, but preferences is all the way down at the bottom. Preferences is useful when you need it, but people don't need it that often.

But the hypothesis is: If you put Contributions and Preferences into a drop-down menu, people won't click on it as much, and you'll see clicks on those two items going down.

To make a comparison, I looked at Muppet Wiki editors' clicks in February (on Monobook) and in April (using Monaco).

Here's the clicks on Monobook:

* Contributions: 403 (52%)
* Watchlist: 148 (19%)
* Talk page: 132 (17%)
* User page: 83 (11.5%)
* Preferences: 4 (0.5%)

Here's the clicks on Monaco:

* Contributions: 320 (60%)
* Watchlist: 123 (23%)
* Talk page: 53 (10%)
* User page: 23 (4%)
* Preferences: 15 (3%)

The hypothesis doesn't seem to hold up. Percentage-wise, clicks on Contributions and Preferences went up using Monaco. This is a really small sample, so it's not proof of anything... but it indicates that the drop-down menu doesn't chase away clicks.

As far as seeing wikis in different skins, try choosing Monobook in your skin preferences, and keep "allow admins to override my choices" checked. Transformers isn't using a custom skin right now, so you should see this wiki in Monobook -- and you'll also see the customization on Memory Alpha, etc. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 00:19, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

==Script-style quotes==
There seems to be some disagreement on whether script-style quotes should have quotation marks or not. Personally, I strongly favor including them, for two reasons:
* Visual consistency. There's no reason not to have all the quotes in as similar a format as possible. Having some with quotation marks, and some without, ''in the same section'', seems like needless variation.
* It's... well... it's a ''quote''. We're not writing a screenplay; we're quoting something someone actually said. And a quote gets quotation marks.... fullstop. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 21:18, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

:Hmm, I'm afraid I disagree. They're simply not necessary, and they clutter the page.
:And, regardless of whether we decide to use double-quotes, can we put a stop to script-style where the quotes are are in double-quotes ''and'' italicized? {shudder} [[User:JW|JW]] 21:21, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
::The italics stuff is flat out bad formatting, no disagreement here. There's an earlier discussion about it somewhere on this page or the archives. Nobody should be adding stuff in that format anymore... I hope.
::As for double quotes... um... I have no clue what you're referring to. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 21:23, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

==Gone Too Far==
I've been alerted it's past the 30-day period for "coming soon Club stuff" non-updating. Have at it. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 22:03, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

==Searchbox improvement drive==
So now we have a very nice set of searchboxes, thanks to the lovely design work of M Sipher and the superhuman coding skills of Suki Brits. The effort of these boxes is to show the visitor all of the awesome crap we have. To do that, said cap must in fact be awesome. Unfortunately, a lot of the pages linked to by searchboxes are [[Shatterpoint|imageless]], [[T-AI|missing fiction]], or [[High Wire (Armada)|pretty much content-free]]. Thus, I propose an improvement drive of the searchbox articles. When you click on one of those suckers, try and add something. I dunno how we'd make this official, exactly... - [[User:RolonBolon|RolonBolon]] 06:49, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
:Are these images supposed to show up automatically by/around/with the actual text box in which you type your search parameters? If so, I'm not seeing them in the current Monaco skin.--[[User:Apcog|Apcog]] 14:29, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
::They don't show up in Monaco, Quartz, Cologne Blue, or any other custom theme. Just Monobook, the default. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 20:15, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Is there a way to get the search box changes to load sooner? The way it is now the custom settings for the box are the last thing to load; it uses the default settings until the google ads finish loading. This can take awhile depending on how the crappy campus wireless is acting. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 20:39, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with RolonBolon about the searchbox thing. I know we're hard up for help, but why are we spending time creating these little searchbox images using pics from God knows where, yet we've neglected to upload a single image for the actual pages these buttons lead to? Not the mention pages that have absolutely no content whatsoever.
I think we've overreached ourselves, and in the future we should only do these searchbox things for articles that are largely complete and/or have alot of content and imagery, otherwise we look really half-ass and unfocused. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 22:37, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
:Yeah, what drove it home for me was Sixtrain. I see Sixtrain in the Search box. It looks nifty, like it's his box art. I click on the article, no images. Why the heck can't we upload Sixtrain's box art when we evidently have a clear enough copy of it to make a search teaser?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 23:33, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
::I was simply making boxes using what I had on the hard drive as examples, and not everything is good quality at main-image size. I don't think we've "overreached ourselves" at all. At worst, we omit a few items from the searchbox list if their entries are that empty for a little while, OH NOES. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 00:22, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
:::I am of the opinion that a fuzzy picture that can be replaced later is better than no picture at all. It helps users know what it's talking about in the meantime, right? [[User:Spriteless|Spriteless]] 02:24, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
::::We prefer no pic/no content to a crap pic/crap content. I've been taking a break from the Wiki, but it looks like I'm going on another image safari. My scanner not working is annoying. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 06:54, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

The fact that the image is the last one on the page to load isn't just visually annoying; it for some reason also makes whatever you've typed in the search field vanish in Firefox. I've had this happen to me a bunch of times. A lesser annoyance is that the input box moves when the image appears; it would be nice if it could stay in the same place (maybe by making the whole Search box a fixed size?), as it's a bad idea to have a clickable thing that spontaneously jumps around. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 20:31, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
: The way the Search Image works right now, I'd rather not even have them. My computer has slowed down ''epically'' trying to load those images each time, and if it's a high traffic time of day, the rest of the page will basically freeze for 30 seconds or more until that search image gets around to loading. This is extremely annoying when I just need a quick peek at a page before making a link, like checking if Stormcloud is one word or two or if Whirl needs to be disambig-ed in the link. And if I try to click Search to move on to a next page too early, the Image drops down in front and shang-hais my "click", so I go there instead of being able to type in where I want to go.

: I don't like the thing at all. It's been nothing but a hassle for the last day or so. There's already a Random page button right about it -- do we really need this too? --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 00:30, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::The same thing has been happening to me lately, and I've never experienced that problem on Wookieepedia. And this is a real problem for me, as I'm actually ''supportive'' of the image icons. We may want review the system. -- [[User:SFH|SFH]] 01:30, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Though in fairness, some of that may be due to Wikia's tendency to nearly-crash every weekend. And to be honest, this weekend has been rather traffic low. I mean, seriously, did every head to BotCon a week early? -- [[User:SFH|SFH]] 02:09, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Let me know if this continues to be an issue during weekdays (well, before Thursday, anyway). If it is, I'll figure out a way to let users optionally turn them off. I've never noticed it slowing down while trying to load, and any sane browser ''shouldn't'', but if that really is happening for some users, something definitely ought to be done about it.
::::I'll also take a look at preserving the form data while the images load, because that is definitely something that really ''should'' happen, too. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 03:44, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::Things sped back up again shortly after SFH's last post, but I'll post again if it keeps happening regularly. Maybe it was just an anomaly. --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 03:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::'''Furthermore:''' I did a bit of code modification that should make the form retain anything you've typed before the images loads. You may need to do a hard refresh for the change to show up, but lemme know if that doesn't work for anyone. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 03:52, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

==Templates listing==
Is there a page editors can refer to for templates (messagebox, user notices ect) without having to go through the categories or remembering the last time somebody used it so they can copy-paste it? They seem to be unnecessarily difficult to track down. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 03:43, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
:[http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=10 here] --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 04:50, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
::My main concern was not requiring the page soley for myself, but was this page obviously linked on a help page or something somewhere that anybody could find easily? I'd personally like to see this wiki become more user-friendly. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 07:25, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Agreed, as I've [http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Transformers_Wiki_talk:Community_Portal#.22First_go_here.21__Next_go_here..22 said before on this very page]. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 15:05, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Yeah. Our lack of user friendliness might discourage people from joining up. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 17:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:What I'm worried about is that some of the other users would actually be okay with that...-- [[User:SFH|SFH]] 17:48, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::Well, last time I checked some of these other users don't own the wiki. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 09:12, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

== new template: Comicinfo ==

Please checkout [[Template:Comicinfo]]. It's a little rough around the edges, but something I think could be useful on the comics pages. Comments and suggestions are welcome.--[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 02:42, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

== Masthead ==

Okay, the old Monobook masthead doesn't look so good under Monaco. How do we change this?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:31, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
:I've looked around and seen that other wikis have already taken advantage of the extra masthead space. Question is, how do we do so, and what dimensions would the new masthead be?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 16:05, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
::Before we do anything, I would recommend keeping the masthead's filesize reasonable, because there's nothing worse than trying to load a site with a masthead image that is like a megabyte or something. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 16:22, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Oh, absolutely. I was mainly thinking perhaps something involving a 'shopping of the TFA logo, considering it'd fit the color scheme nicely. Alternatively, maybe something aping the "grid" of G1.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 16:26, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Another thought is whether it's possible for the masthead to be random/rotating. If so, it'd let us do Autobot/Decepticon versions of the same masthead (via color swap) or even rotating versions for different franchises (G1, BW, UT, etc.)--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 16:35, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

== Sidebar ==

Given that we're getting a lot of Transformers Animated traffic lately, I'd say an item in the Monaco sidebar is likely going to help direct people to the right articles.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:45, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:Okay, I put it in the sidebar. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:56, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

The more I think on it, the more it seems we'd be best served by condensing the G1 and TFA menus and instead just having one menu that's franchise navigation. I dunno. I'm a little bothered that we can't seem to get the admins to chime in on this, since they're the ones that can edit the sidebar setup the most easily.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 19:02, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:Eh. Monday after BotCon. A lot of them are probably still sleeping off their flight / drive / booze. Another reason why big changes probably shouldn't've happened this weekend. Give it a day or so. --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 19:12, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

The sidebar does need major work, and [[MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar]] is a protected page so I guess it's not just easier for admins to change it, they're the only ones who can?

The issues I have with it are:

* "Featured characters" menu still includes articles that haven't actually been Featured, as well as [[Spark]], which ''has'' been featured but is not a ''character''.
* Generation 1 and Animated are the only franchises listed.
* The G1 and Animated menus are inconsistent in the sorts of articles they list. The Generation 1 menu includes [[Autobot]] and [[Decepticon]], articles were not restricted to G1, then several high profile characters and one obscure, jokey one. The Animated menu, on the other hand, just lists the franchise's cartoon, comic, toyline, and books articles.
* The "Embrace the Knowledge" menu seems to take a bit of scattershot approach. [[Marvel Comics]] is listed, but none of the other publishers. Hasbro is there, but not Takara. With [[Mini-Con]] there, might this be a better place for the Autobot and Decepticon articles, and other factions as well?
--[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 19:55, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:[[MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar]] can only be edited by admins. That's true for all MediaWiki pages. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 20:31, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

== Hate the new skin. ==

Hate this new skin. Just wanted to say it. The old look was much more pleasent and open to read. New one is just crouded and Blah. THIS is gonna take getting use to. No Sir, I don't like it.

:Can it at least not be burgundy and orange? - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 22:08, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::Yeah, it can be any color you like. I was messing around with colors before, but wasn't doing a great job with it, and Rosicrucian said he wanted this color scheme. Any admin can change the colors by editing [[MediaWiki:Monaco.css]]. There's instructions on how to do it here: [[w:c:help:Customizing Monaco|Customizing Monaco]]. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:15, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
:::I mainly liked this because it fits with the color scheme of Teletraan itself. I'm not married to the idea, though. I also figured I'd speak up about it because Walky liked it, and he's off enjoying his ridiculously expensive Transformers collector's items at BotCon.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 22:21, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Ahh, right, well, I can see the logic, there, all right... I'm just not dying about the dark-coloured backgrounds, since it's a big visually jarring to have big white boxes of text in the middle of them. - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 22:24, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

: Seconding the hate. [[User:Hooper X|-hx]] 00:04, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
:: This looks pretty hideous compared to MonoBook... and it's hard to navigate. Well, at least I can override it in preferences, but I think I'll be ignoring admin skin choices unless a custom one appears in the future.--[[User:MCRG|MCRG]] 00:44, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

:::I think I can try to get used to the new skin unless/until I find something inconvenient. Well, so far so good. At least the seach function is better. But the logo on the left side of the top, well... um, oh. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 01:23, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
::Fourthing the hate. The colors hurt my eyes. That, and the obscure character search images are gone. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 01:45, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

:I'm afraid I don't much like it either. Fortunately, it was pretty easy to uncheck the "override" box on my preferences. [[User:JW|JW]] 01:54, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't like the new skin either. I don't get the menus at the side. "Featured characters" includes articles that I don't think have actually been Featured. G1 and Animated are listed, but no other franchises. And the menus are inconsistent. The G1 menu lists Autobot, Decepticon, and then a bunch of character pages, while the Animated menu lists Animated's toy line, cartoon, comic, and books articles. Why the difference? And what was the selection process for the "Embrace the Knowledge" menu?

By the way, in the middle of BotCon is probably the worst possible time for major changes like this to be made. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 04:29, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

:The menus at the side are examples that I made up. You guys can change them to be anything you want, by editing [[MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar]]. I'm sorry about the timing... We've been talking about this for maybe three weeks.

:Lots of things can be changed -- the colors, the menus, the logo. I'll put it back to the basic Sapphire for now, which is more like Monobook. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 05:08, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Not a fan of the skin, either. Losing the brown and yellow from earlier was a step up, but it still doesn't quite work. The extra crap on the side feels ''bigger'' now, so the actual articles feel ''smaller''. And those blamed automatic pulldown menus keep getting in the way everytime I move my cursor to or from the Search box. Annoying. --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 17:02, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:I'm a little unclear- you say Monaco is the new Wikia standard skin. No one likes it. But we can override the style in our preferences to set it back to Monobook.
:So does TT1 have the ''option'' of deciding to switch back to Monobook if that's what the consensus decides? Danny is saying they are switching Memory Alpha Monaco and "at a certain point, pretty much every Wikia wiki is going to end up on Monaco." So is this something we get to decide for ourselves, or will Monaco be forced on us even if we don't want it? -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 18:55, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

::What I find interesting on the MΑ example is that Toughpigs said, and I quote:
:::''Actually, they're working on switching over to the Monaco skin on Memory Alpha too''
::Now, who are "they"? Because I've just looked at MΑ - and in the designated [[MemoryAlpha:Forum:Monaco skin|forum on the matter]], one Wikia staff member (who has no main namespace edits on MΑ in the past three years) is the only user pushing for it. Only two other users have (briefly) commented - one admin who's strongly against it because of the top ad banner, and one other user who dittoed that. The only other place it is mentioned is on [[MemoryAlpha:Portal talk:Main#Monaco skin|their main page talk]], where one "[[Wikia:Wikia Helper Group|Wikia Helper Group]]" member (who has no MΑ edits on any other matter, main namespace or otherwise) shilled it - and in response, got a reply from one user that they were confused, and another user that they preferred Monobook. Unless there's some hidden forum somewhere, there's no consensus from MΑ that they want to switch.

::If Toughpigs's line is intended to say there's a push ''from'' MΑ as a "do you want T1 to be left out", it's, well, draw your own conclusions. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 19:42, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I've been vague about what the future holds, because I don't know. Right now, the community does have the option to switch the site back to Monobook, if that's what you decide.

However, at some point in the future, Wikia may need to switch everybody over to Monaco. We need to figure out how to get more advertisers to buy ads on Wikia. We're exploring a lot of different possibilities right now, so I can't predict how that's going to go yet. But we may find that it hurts us to have skins with completely different ad sizes all over the site. Companies don't want to advertise on sites that have a leaderboard on some pages and a skyscraper on others.

Right now, we're able to offer a lot of flexibility with the skins, and we're not forcing a change on any community. But if you think about it, no other (sane) website does that. Ad-supported websites have a format, and everything on the site is in that format.
:I have no real problem with Wikia's need to place more prominent banners. I don't ''like'' them, but I recognize that it is a reality of your business model.
:I ''do'' take issue with the banners being tied to a sucky new UI that's being forced on us, hammering us with a double-negative. Is there any way to place the new banners (satisfying Wikia's business imperatives) in the old skin (satisfying our desire to not have the site suck so badly?) Maybe we can find a treatment that makes them less obnoxious without de-valuing them.
:Of course- you keep stressing how this new UI causes more clicks... which means more pageviews, with means more bannerviews, which means more ad revenue. I really feel like your entire pitch is a thinly veiled attempt to monetize this wiki regardless of what the users want. So not only do we have to have the banners that generate more revenue-- we have to have the UI that's editor-unfriendly but promotes more pageviews.
:Why don't you just rewrite the site interface so you have to click 8 times to do anything like MySpace? I mean- that seems consistent with the whole 'sacrifice the user experience in exchange for saleable ad impressions' philosophy you're espousing here.
:You quote a lot of statistics. Are they internal? Do/can we have access to them? Would TT1 be allowed to pursue evolving our interface to maximize pageviews ''without'' having to buy into Monaco?
:Strictly speaking the best way to increase pageviews on this wiki would to make all the links un-disambiguated, so every time you click on a link you have to view the disambig page before you can select the page you ''actually'' wanted to see from the list. There- pageviews have increased... at the expense of the user experience.
:Packaging ''can'' be a force multiplier to make content more attractive... slightly more attractive. But in the end it's the quality of the content that drives readers. If we have to increase viewership to pad Wikia's bottom line, I'd ''really'' rather we did so by offering different or better content- not by putting obnoxious shiny packaging around it. (And yeah, that's a toy marketing metaphor. You get a lot of those here.) -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 07:05, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I know that the obvious response to the ad talk is "that's your problem", but it's actually everybody's problem. Wikia offers free hosting to communities like this one because we're advertiser-supported. But the ad market is changing -- and if we don't keep up, then we go out of business, and we can't host wikis anymore.

Anyway, we're not anywhere near a problem at the moment. Wikia is fine, and if the community decides to switch back to Monobook, then that's fine. But it will be easier in the long run if folks give Monaco a chance, and see if we can make it work the way that you want it to work.

Meanwhile, I can address a couple of the concerns that people have posted about. First up: The size of the content area. Xaaron says that the crap on the side feels bigger, so the content area feels smaller. I took screenshots of the same page using both Monaco and Monobook, at the same browser size and screen resolution.

<gallery>
Image:Megatron-monaco.jpg|Monaco
Image:Megatron-monobook.jpg|Monobook
</gallery>

You can see from those pictures that Monaco gives you a wider content area. The first two paragraphs take up 16 lines in Monobook. On Monaco, it takes up 13 lines.

The number of logins has gone up just in the last few days. On April 26-27, 41 people logged in to the site (20.5 per day). From March 1-31, there were 381 logins (12.3 per day). This may be because of the interest generated at BotCon, but it also seems like being at BotCon over the weekend kept people away from the website. The increase in logins is consistent with what we've seen on other sites -- Monaco makes logging in more visible to new users.

On the sidebar over the last couple days, these are the most clicked on items:

# Transformers Animated (cartoon): 295 clicks
# Murdered puppy: 192 clicks
# That big green, fire-snortin' lizard: 168 clicks
# Transformers Animated (toy line): 131
# Autobot: 111
# Optimus Minor: 108
# More featured characters: 83
# Optimus Prime: 76
# Gas Skunk: 74
# Airazor (BW): 72

Pageviews for April 26-27 are up 21% over the average from the previous 30 days. That may be because of the interest around BotCon and the new episodes, but it might also be because the sidebar is helping new readers find articles that they're interested in, and because the pages load faster with Monaco. In any event, it doesn't seem like Monaco is chasing people away. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 20:27, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:It could also be because existing users have been giving the new skin a test drive. Anyway, couple of things about the skin that I'm wondering. First, the Teletraan 1 image in the upper left corner is now tiny with ugly, empty whitespace on three sides. Can it be enlarged? Second, can the recently-added neat little search box images be included in the new skin? --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 20:51, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

::The logo can be changed by uploading a new image to [[:Image:Wiki_wide.png]].

::The search box images are a neat idea, but I'm confused about why they're attached to search. They don't take you to a search page. They're basically a random featured-article generator. If you want, I can talk to the designer here about creating a randomized featured-article widget for the sidebar. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 20:59, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Basic test image for the top left:

[[Image:TFfactions.png|266x75px]]

- [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 21:58, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:I've got some ideas for the masthead. I'll 'shop something up when I get home from work.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 22:05, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
::My proposal:
::[[Image:Teletraan masthead.png]]
::Whaddaya think?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 02:16, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:::That one is beautiful. --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 02:20, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Look nice for Rosi's. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 02:26, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Ooo, rock me, Amadeus. Verra nice. [[User:JW|JW]] 02:56, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
::::That is perfect, Rosicrucian. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 04:36, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::That is lovely. --[[User:Sntint|Sntint]] 04:38, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

== Anonymous edits ==

Lately, I've been looking at wikis that have decided to turn off anonymous edits, and have everybody log in before contributing to the wiki. The idea is that having everybody log in builds a stronger sense of community, because you always have a name to associate with an edit, rather than a random string of numbers. It's easier to talk to people who have names. It also gives you more control over vandalism, since you can recognize potential vandals more easily.

Some people don't like the idea, because they're worried that logging in is a barrier to entry -- if you have to log in to edit, then you won't bother, and you'll go away. Looking at the wikis that require login, that doesn't seem to be true. [[w:c:muppet|Muppet Wiki]] turned off anon edits last April, and the number of active editors has actually gone up. Some of our most active wikis require login -- [[w:c:wowwiki|World of Warcraft]], [[w:c:ffxi|FFXIclopedia]], [[w:c:tibia|Tibia Wiki]] and [[w:c:marveldatabase|Marvel Database]]. (WoW and FFXI actually require a confirmed e-mail address before you can edit.)

So I've been talking to folks about this, and we've decided to allow wiki communities to turn off anonymous edits if they want to. There are a lot of anonymous editors here, so I'm wondering what you guys think about it. Would it be helpful to require login for everybody?

Obviously, that's a big community decision... I just want to throw out the possibility, and see what you think. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 20:38, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

:I strongly oppose disabling anonymous edits! (I also oppose sweeping changes performed over botcon, and unilaterally re-skining the site when the community can argue for weeks or month about proposed style changes to individual ''templates'' without reaching a consensus-- but if you're willing to ignore the needs of registered users while making such 'big community decisions,' why would you listen to anon users?) -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 08:18, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
::Well, let's get an opposing viewpoint here. Why are you, 75.168.112.43, unwilling to get an account? [[User:JW|JW]] 11:16, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:::You assume I don't have an account.
:::I strongly oppose disabling anonymous edits because;
::::# It puts up a gateway that discourages first time users. Not a tall gateway- but a gateway nonetheless. Even if it only turns back 30% of new editors, that's 30% of people who could potentially become productive members of the community we're turning away out of hand.
::::# Equally important to the new users are the 'casual fixers', people who will /never/ become regulars on this wiki but, while clicking around, notice a link leading to '''Megatron''' instead of '''Megatron (G1)'''. If they have to register to make that simple fix? 9 times out of 10 that kind of fix will not get done.
::::# The problem 'disabling anonymous edits' seeks to fix- trolls- will not be solved. We already have trolls who register for accounts-- right now we don't even require an e-mail address. So ''next'' to combat Troll,s we'll require all accounts to have e-mail addresses. Then we'll require those e-mails be ''verified'', then maybe we'll set up a system where new users have to be ''approved'' like so many online communities before they can use their account. IP Tracking! Requiring Persistent Cookies! Each and ''any'' of these steps makes the online experience just a little bit more unpleasant for the user (and each hoop to jump throuhg makes new users just a little disinclined to join) but none of them actually stops trolls! Clear your cache, sign up for a yahoo account and you're up and running again. The trolls that regularly bother TT1 have already demonstrated they are willing to go to these lengths to evade bans. I am opposed to any measure that would punish the general body of users (registered and non) to deal with trolls. I am '''strongly''' opposed to any measure that would punish users and '''not''' deal with trolls, which is what this promises to do.

::::And seriously- while I'm tickled to death to know that the 'wikia community developer' has been attracted to communities that place restrictions on their users, I'm not thrilled to see someone who's not part of the community lobbying that we become more insular. I think changing TT1 to a UI that's different from Wikipedia makes the site harder to use (both for new users, and for users who make contributions to multiple wikis) is an objectively bad decision that was made with little discussion because 'it looks better.' And I really dislike that this was done while everyone was gone at Botcon and it was impossible to form a quorum for proper discussion. Monorail guy dances into town and starts making global changes that he thinks 'make more sense' without understanding that [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Talk:Megatron_Rising_-_Part_2&action=history they were that way for a reason], and his whims would require massive secondary cleanup effort to enact. I don't think someone who's not a participating member of this community should be initiating that kind of change, or throwing his weight behind them for them while 'polling for consensus. On a more fundamental level- I'm suspicious about external voices telling us how we should be running this wiki, because sooner or later they're gong to tell us The Funny Should Go.
::::I feel the burden of proof is on the other side here-- show that there will be a concrete and measurable improvement to the wiki by disabling anonymous edits that will NOT place an unnecessary burden on users. -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 12:38, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::''"You assume I don't have an account."'' Well, then, please tell us why you aren't willing to use it. I'm truly curious. [[User:JW|JW]] 13:04, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::More to the point, the IP address 75.168.112.43 has only made 10 contributions to this wiki, of which only 4 are of actual substance. Your comments will carry more weight if you tell us which long-established editor you in fact ''are.'' Otherwise, ''you<nowiki>'</nowiki>re'' the "external voice telling us how we should be running this wiki". [[User:JW|JW]] 13:16, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

::::::I oppose to disable anonymous edit, too. I was once a anonymous user . If the anonymous edit is disabled, that would mean we close the door for many potential users-to-be. Though I hate anonymous vandalizing, which is really a problem. But any bad anonymous user can get an account to vandalize, too. ''Urgh''.--[[User:TX55|TX55]] 13:56, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

The Funny Should Definitely Not Go. The reason why I've been hanging out on this wiki lately is because I like it -- specifically, because I like the Funny. I don't want to annoy people or screw stuff up; I'm just trying to help out in ways that I know how to help.

I didn't unilaterally change the skin... If you look above, the conversation about the skin started on April 7th. On Thursday, I asked if there were any more comments before I switched it over. The only response was from ItsWalky, who indicated that it would be okay. I've been keeping an eye on the stats -- the number of edits, registrations and pageviews have all gone up since the wiki switched to Monaco. (Saturday was the highest single day for registrations on the wiki since January.)

As I said, anonymous edits is totally a community decision. I just wanted to let you know that it's an option if the community wants it. It's a long-term discussion, and I don't have an interest in pushing it one way or the other. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 14:31, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:I would be against restricting edits to registered members. This wiki already has a reputation in the Transformers community as alledgedly being the playground for a very specific group of fans. Restricting edits will only further this perception. But more importantly:

:*I tend to agree that if one has no intention of making significant edits, but very occassionally fixes minor mistakes that one sees, then one shouldn't be forced to register to do so.

:*Some of us would prefer not to login while accessing the wiki at school or at work. Yeah, we have our reasons.

:*Chris McFeely, one of our staff members, sometimes has trouble logging onto the wiki when he's not at home, so if we restrict edits to logged-in users, he can't make any contributions if he happens to have free time while out and about.

:*Good anonymous editors sometimes eventually become registered members if they find they enjoy making the edits and would to participate in the little community we have.

:*Trolls and vandals who go to the effort of being repeat offenders will not be scared off by a registration process. I think we'll find that these people have ''alot'' of free time on their hands. Even more than I do!

:--[[User:FFN|FFN]] 15:03, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:I'd be more willing to believe that the increase in edits on Saturday was due to the new skin if Saturday didn't happen to be the day most of the BotCon panels were held. Those give us a lot of new information that needs to be added to the wiki. Plus, two (or three) new episodes were shown that morning: Return of the Headmaster in the US, Mission Accomplished in Canada, and Collect and Save at Botcon. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 15:46, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

::No kidding. You could've changed the site to pink-and-purple polka dots, and traffic still would've increased this weekend, with everyone fighting to be the first to add all the new scraps of information from the convention. --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 17:05, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:::I'm no one special on this wiki, but I wanted to weigh in. Considering that everything else on the web seems to require a login, it isn't asking too much for people to sign up. All the forums require a login so people can own their opinions, why not here? Also, isn't most of the caption bastardry done by anons? Maybe forcing registration might stop some of those careless edits. Requiring an email? Now that might scare people off.--[[User:Suzyprime|Suzyprime]] 04:51, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

==Image overlap==
[[image:Templateximage.JPG|thumb|I'm ugly]]
Umm, did this overlap happen before the new skin? If so, I never noticed it. If not, then why is it changing what goes on inside the content part of the site, not just the menus and adds and umm, everything that I can't edit as an anon? [[User:Spriteless|Spriteless]] 04:04, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:We're trying to figure it out over on [[User Talk:Toughpigs]].--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 04:08, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
::That particular ''overlap'' always happened- but the transparent frame was apparently a result of some global CSS change Wikia made ~4-6 months ago.
::It looks like the fix was posted on the [http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Monobook.css monobook.css] discussion page, but never implemented. -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 05:25, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:::(Oh, i see this was already discussed. Hrm.) -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 05:43, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
::::The problem with overlaps like on the [[Blackthorne Publishing]] page in the image can be solved by putting one of these <nowiki>{{-}}</nowiki> in, which I just did on that page. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 05:59, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
I've had a slightly different problem with image overlap in the past few days. If there's a stub box or a "needs images" box on a page, occasionally the box's pic will remain stuck at the top of the page. For instance, in the example on the right, Kup's pic would be stuck in the top left corner, covering part of the Blackthorne Publishing title bar. It has also happened on the front page, with Jhiaxus's image from the featured article covering the Primes. --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 05:41, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:What broswer? (The messagebox template uses styles that render differently on IE and Geko-based browsers... but the difference shoudl eb cosmetic, not functional like that.) -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 05:43, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
[[Image:Imageproblem2.GIF|right|thumb|150px]]
::I saw the case several time. When the page is loading, the box's pic such as [[Megatron (Animated)|AniMeg]]'s head or [[Kup]] will remain stuck on the page, but soon it will be back to the right place. It only happen when I use the IE6 (log in or not).
::Speaking of the image problem, it reminds me of another one. When open page with IE(well, 6), some images will be "slashed" by a line, just like the picture shows. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 08:06, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:::It doesn't appear to be happening on IE7. This sounds like a rendering issue with IE. (One of many...) Doesn't mean it doesn't need to be accomodated though.
:::When an image gets stuck int he top-left, is that in IE? What happens when you resize the window? -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 08:13, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

== Monaco top-of-article spam ==

[http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm109/nadanada0/this_is_new.png This is new, right?] -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 09:03, 29 April 2008 (UTC)<div id="wikia-credits"> From [http://transformers.wikia.com Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki], a [http://www.wikia.com Wikia] wiki.</div>

MediaWiki talk:Community Portal

2008-04-29T08:13:31Z

75.168.112.43: /* Image overlap */

==Archives==
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive1|Archive1]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive2|Archive2]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive3|Archive3]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive4|Archive4]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive5|Archive5]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive6|Archive6]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive7|Archive7]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive8|Archive8]]

== Continuity / Timeline ==
I'm trying to make some sense of how the various major continuities are handled, overview-wise. Some have their own continuity page; IDW's just got a timeline, with overview stuff shoved here and there among the individual miniseries. Some don't have anything. Some, like the G1 cartoon, are not much more than lists. The ones that exist tend to be hard to find, aren't categorized uniformly, etc... is there a master format for this stuff?{{unsigned|Repowers|12:15, 29 October 2007}}
:There is no master format for continuity pages. Please feel free to make one! It would be a good thing to have! --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 00:55, show30 October 2007 (UTC)
:: You know, I think it would be hot if once we got more timelines up, we began putting Chronology links to the timetable on the story pages. Several Dreamwave comic pages have them, and I think IDW comics should too, since IDW really isn't telling the story in a linear fashion.--[[User:Zodberg|Zodberg]] 09:36, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::Sounds like a good idea. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 13:51, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::Would it make sense to have an overview writeup at the start of each timeline, a few paragraphs or so? Or should "continuity" be a separate page? Where should a chronological list of issues go -- publisher's page, continuity page, timeline page? That's not such a problem with, say, Marvel G1, but Dreamwave's a little messier, IDW's all over the place, and gods help you if you want to sort out the mess that is Marvel UK. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 14:29, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:: A continuity page should have the following (in my opinion):
:: * A one-paragraph description of the continuity, not more than a few sentences long.
:: * A list of what media belongs to this continuity (which can include some stuff that's vaguely contradictory, but should exclude stuff that's way out there, like Earthforce relative to G1 comics). This can be sorted by publication order, or internal chronology, but if there's a major difference between the two, it should be spelled out.
:: * An overall description of the main events in that continuity, focusing on the events actually chronicled (not the distant past). In particular, for most continuities, changes in the leadership of either side, the changing status (living/dead, present/absent, duplicated by Straxus/encoded on a floppy, etc.)of the big two leaders (usually Optimus Prime and Megatron), any events involving Unicron or Primus, and introductions of major teams or groups of characters (Headmasters, Fuzors) should be in the summary.
:: * If necessary, a timeline, which may end up integrated with one of the above parts.
:: * Pointers to important and closely-related continuities (again, such as Earthforce), discussion of divergences, etc. [[User:JW|JW]] 15:14, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::All that sounds pretty good, though I wouldn't get too hung up on following individual characters too much, even the leaders. In Marvel G1, at least, they changed over on a pretty regular basis.
:::On a related note... this and a lot of other overview-type pages are really lost in the shuffle. They should be top-level pages, with everything branching off of them and linking back to them, but instead they're buried and nothing links to them. You start off reading, say, the article on [[Spotlight: Soundwave]]. Where do you go from there to find out more? The IDW issues category? That's the only link out of that page. If you're a newcomer, or even someone with an imperfect memory, how do you know what comes next? Either the individual issue pages need to link to the timeline and continuity pages, or the category page does, or... something.
:::Taking care of it on the category page might be simplest, like what's on the Category:Marvel US issues page. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 19:12, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::: Yes, the site is sadly lacking in both "uplinks" and "sidelinks" for the media; links from a TV episode to the TV series, links from an issue of a comic to an overview of the comic, links from one comic to the next comic in that series, etc. [[User:JW|JW]] 19:21, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::: I'm still poking around and figuring out what's been done and what's needed; it might take a while to figure out how to start cleaning things up. It looks like we've got some random timelines started (still need ones for the Beast era and a few others), as well as continuity pages for some but not all of the major storylines, so I suppose each major continuity should have both kinds of pages. I wonder if there's a way to use a category or subcategory to get individual episode/issue pages to quickly link back to the main overview pages?... -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 19:28, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::: JW, we do have that comics nav template, though I like the comic infobox on wikipedia more. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:04, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::: Ah... http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Template:Comicnav ...so we do. Very useful. Now we just gotta propagate it over a few hundred comic issue... :S -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 20:25, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::: Also, the nav setup only can link up one level. So Infiltration #2 can link up to the main Infiltration page, but not to the IDW continuity page above that. Would putting a variant of this template on the main page for each miniseries, linking up to the continuity page, work instead? Then you're never more than two clicks away from an individual issue to the continuity overview. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 20:25, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::::: That, or somehow add it to the main comicnav template, perhaps in small letters above the series name. I don't wanna step on anyone's toes though. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:45, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::::: That'd make the most sense, to add a "Continuity" level to the template, or alternately a lower-end "Mini-series" option. But hell if I can make sense out of how these things work... that might be a rainy day project, figuring that out. :\ -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 20:51, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

==Image Copyrights==
I asked awhile ago, and nobody seemed to know, so...

I've always been under the impression that images {{c}} someone else should be credited ''not'' just with a note that they belong to someone else, but a ''year'', for much the same reasons we identify ''who'' the image belongs to rather than simply saying 'we don't own it, but it's fair use.' The more info we provide, the more 'seriously' the copyright is being taken. if we wipe our ass with an unadorned, <nowiki>{{fairuse}}</nowiki> clearly we don't think the holder of the copyright is ''important''... or something.

I have a script I've been poking at. It can run through every image detail page on the wiki through a regular expression and pick out which images don't have copyright owners (Hasbro or Takara-- you're supposed to ID which even if you're using <nowiki>{{hastak}}</nowiki>,) which don't have dates, and which don't have any sort of copyright notice at all. (A significant chunk of our images have no notices that they belong to someone else.) It could also drop the offending images into categories to be sorted out and properly labeled. (I imagine I'd give it Steve-o and let it do so logged in as the bot to avoid the update-floods.)

...is anyone interested in this? Does it seem like a good idea? Terrible idea? ...Bueler? -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 15:29, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

==Cartoon Episode Format Mark II==
Picking up an old thread here... per some changes I just finished making to all the Beast Era episode pages, IMO:
* The one-line summary should be bold. It's the single most important thing on the page; your eye should leap right to it.
* It should be the very first thing on the page, above the nav box (barring temporary templates like "pics needed".)
* It should be free of links. They're distracting and ugly, and it's kinda absurd to think someone's going to click right off the summary to see what a "Maximal" or whatever is. Links can easily be integrated into the body of the plot summary.

I'd also rather see Quotes before Stats, to keep all the in-universe stuff together before moving to out-universe stuff like writers, air dates, commentary, order of appearance, etc. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 00:13, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

:I agree with all of this, except for the one-line summary being above the nav box. Pure personal preference, though, rather than any sort of functionality - I just don't like the way it looks. In fact, I think putting it below the nav box actually ''helps'' its notice-ability - it "frames" the summary quite nicely between the nav box and the contents box. - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 00:22, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
::Heh, I see it the opposite way -- having the summary first provides a frame for the inevitable white space that accompanies the nav box. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 06:24, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

::Picking up on what I said above, putting the stats section down below not just the extended summary but now below the quotes section as well is something I strongly oppose. Episode writers do not get the recognition they deserve. We should not be burying their credits like that. That section belongs ''above'' the summary. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 03:21, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
:::I do hear what you're saying, but honestly I'm less bothered by the recognition factor than by the inconsistency with comic format, where all that junk ''is'' up front (though it often looks pretty bad, IMO.) If it were ''just'' the writer credit, I'd be okay with having it up front (though I ain't gonna be the one who goes back through 78 Beast Era episode pages to change it!) But then you get into the odd condition of having that one bit of info up front, while the rest of the standard information external to the episode's events is much deeper in the article. Having much more stuff up front than that makes for a messy, unattractive, and harder-to-read format compared to having it all bundled in the Stats section... IMO, natch.
:::"If "recognition" is the concern, heck, think of the animators who slaved a lot more than the writers ever did to bring each episode to life. They get no credits at all. Neither does Robert Buckley, who provided music for both Beast series. The list goes on and on. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 06:24, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
::::The information I am suggesting be up front would only be three lines (Written by, Directed by, air date), which I don't think would be very intrusive at all. To my mind, before the summary is the only logical place for this information to be presented, as episodes themselves generally present those two credits up front, and air date is a known factor when watching an episode when it debuts.
::::On the issue of recognition, you make a good point, however my concern is a bit different. Robert Buckley may not get a lot of recognition from the fandom for the music of Beast Wars, but it's not like they give someone ''else'' all the credit on that score, pun semi-intended. But the writers? The fandom often enough acts as if Forward and DiTillio wrote every single word of Beast Wars, and Skir (alone, of course, as the Isenberg Uncertainty Principle remains in full effect) the same for Beast Machines. The story editors are obviously the most important writers, but they didn't do it all on their own.
::::Burying the names of episode writers down below the summary and quotes sections just doesn't sit right with me, is all. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 04:46, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
:::::Hrm... combined with Steve-o's consistency argument, I suppose I could go along with doing it this way, with them all tucked together and separate from/below the one line summary. Written By and Air Date are in one little combined pair of lines now, an easy cut-n-paste to move up front. I don't think anyone's added Director credits to any of the episodes, by the by.
:::::As I said, I'm in no great hurry to do it myself -- my main concern was that the Beast Era show pages had drifted into all sorts of different arrangements, some of which looked pretty sloppy. For better or worse, they're all uniform now. If we're gonna change the layout, let's work on getting one sample page ''just right'', then we can worry about propagating it. To that end, have a look at "[[Chain of Command]]", see if it clicks for you. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 05:33, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm thinking if we could merge the ''Japanese title'' into the '''''Stats''' section'' because it seems to fit the section better. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 03:14, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't have much of a preference, personally, about how to organize these things. However, I do feel pretty strongly that it should be more or less the same for both cartoon episodes and comic issues. Having different organizational schemes for different sorts of fiction doesn't serve much purpose, and makes things harder to get used to. (On the other hand, I ''also'' feel strongly that all of our passages relating fictional events should be in the same tense regardless of if they happen to be on a character page or a story page, but apparently that makes me insane, so don't take my pleas for consistency too seriously.) --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 02:35, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

===Cartoon format mark II.5===
Did we ever make a decision on whether to place the quotes area before the stats section? Because the sheer majority of episode articles (including old ones recently converted to current standards) place the stats before the quotes, but I notice some of the latest Cybertron episode articles are placing the quotes before the stats, which is creating inconsistencies in layout. Bear in mind it will create less work for us if we just leave things the way they are, with stats before quotes. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 09:34, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

==Cartoon continuity headings==
Have we decided on a definative format for this yet? most of the pages with characters who appeared in Sunbow's G1 through to the japanese series (and maybe Beast Wars as well) have quite different headings, and I recall we were worried about ''Transformers Animated'' causing problems with all the 'Animated continuity' headings on character pages. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 07:08, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
:I think we had decided on using "cartoon" instead of "animated." So use "cartoon continuity," or for those who appear in more than one cartoon continuity, use "Generation 1 cartoon continuity," "Beast Wars cartoon continuity," etc. --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 07:13, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
::Can we have Diagnostic Drone change all occurrences of "Animated continuity" to "Cartoon continuity"? That'll require some cleanup in the Animated articles, but there are far fewer of those than there are of G1 subjects that are currently mislabeled. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 17:54, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

== Section-title master list ==

I've made a sandbox for the purpose of assembling a [[User:Jackpot/Sandbox/Sections|master list of all section titles]], their relation to each other, and their proper wording/formatting. Please discuss; I've introduced some new ideas, and I'd love to see a consistent guide established. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 01:04, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
:Wow, I think this really look nice and useful. ;D --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 03:44, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

== "First go here! Next go here." ==
I was thinking a bit about the various problems we've got around here -- stuff like incomplete image descriptions, orphaned articles, etc. There's really no one central place where a newcomer (or a regular who feels like doing something useful but doesn't know what) can go to find a quick list of things that need doing. The current help pages just send you to the list of articles in need of creation, which is kind of daunting, especially for a newcomer who has to learn a million standards and Wikia tags. Is there a more comprehensive way to point people in the direction of useful things they could be doing? Whatever it might be, it should include links to:
* Pages in need of creation
* Orphaned pages
* Stubs
* Pics needed
* Any current projects, like the Beast Wars one. Hell, I couldn't find that thing if my life depended on it.
...as well as a note about common problems: dead/missing storylinks, incomplete image descriptions, and whatever else. (Heck, who knows? Maybe it could even distract an IP person long enough to prevent them from screwing with captions.... ahh, who'm I kidding?} -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 21:51, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

:There are some of those things catalogued [[Special:Specialpages|here]], but I think making links to the most important of these categories, and placing them together in one easy-to-find link off the main page, would be best. Perhaps on the Help contents page, since it's linked right off the main page already, in the most logical location? I think that link is a bit small, for what it's worth. --[[User:Sntint|Sntint]] 22:09, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
::One of the projects in the back of my head is a help-page/guide specifically breaking down the creation of character pages, plus the use of "common templates" for them (disambigs, stubs, notes). I'll see if I can scrounge up some time to rough-copy one. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 22:56, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

==Other Maintenance Templates?==
I haven't had much time to do more "substantial" wiki edits lately, but I've been prepping for later with the charstub sub-categories. Fiction really isn't my bag... I mean, I know it in general, but not issue titles and numbers and bla bla. But I figure it's also nice to have the "really needs a lot of stuff" pages separated from the "just needs some stuff in one subsection" ones, especially once I can make a concentrated effort to update the toy sections of various pages. I've been thinking about other similar "needs maintenance" template/categories, but I thought I'd bring it up here since I'm not sure who else might make use of them... 
I've noticed quite a lot of pages missing storylinks. I'm not intending on going through a big wiki-wide hunt, but as I go through the stubs and other pages doing little maintenance and tweaks, well, I think I'd like to be able to mark pages I come across that are missing those links they should have. Picture and quote? Isaac Sumdac and/or Tutorbot, "I cannot believe I programmed you with such simplistic information!" (Idea courtesy of Trent Troop.) 
I'd swear there was another one, but right now, too tired to think of it and must sleep. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 06:53, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
:Perhaps a tag for a page with too many damn redlinks for concepts that will never need articles?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 07:08, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
::I don't think that will be neccessary, as it's a simple matter of removing the [[ and <nowiki>]]</nowiki>s. Storylinks, though, require some research. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 15:40, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
:::I usually label such pages with <nowiki>{{stub|storylinks}}</nowiki>. [[User:JW|JW]] 15:44, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
::::Trick is, often they're not really stubs, are they? the main info is there, there's just not a "where'd this happen?" link. And maybe it's the data-manager in me that says this, but I think it'd be a lot easier to have a common problem like lack of storylinks as a category all its own, all together for easy identification and maintenance. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 16:11, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

== Disambiguation ==

We need a consensus on hiw we handle disambuigation in article titles. We've had some moving between [[Silverbolt (BW)]] and [[Silverbolt (Fuzor)]], and [[Dirge (Timelines)]] and [[Dirge (Whatever the Botcon 05 set was)]] because there are two Silverbolts in BW and two Dirges in Timelines. However, since one of those Dirges and one of those Silverbolts are G1 characters, the (BW) and (Timelines) tags are fine for the other two. The tags are simply for keeping the articles separate; not for telling you what continuity they're in. Plus, (Timelines) is much easier to type than "(Botcon boxset name I can't remember)". --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 23:35, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

:Somewhat related to the discussion at [[Talk:Starscream (Timelines)]]. My personal criteria is that a name used for two (or more) characters in the same toyline requires more specific disambiguation, regardless of the characters' origin, because readers shouldn't be expected to remember whether some character was already in another toyline. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 23:51, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

::So... what should disambigs be?
:# Distinguished ''only'' when strictly necessary. "Silverbolt (BW)" is fine because, while there were 2 Silverbolt toys in the BW Toyline, the other one is actually Silverbolt (G1)- so only one entry is trying 'sits' in the (BW) disambig, and no more specific disambing is needed. Parenthetical disambigs should be the broadest possible category the article can sit in without conflicting with another article, (usually a continuity family or franchise.) Absolutely no 'bumping' of disambigs as a concession to aesthetics.
:# Distinguished on a logical basis. "Silverbolt (Fuzor)" because there are two Silverbolts in the BW toyline, and the article title should not allow for confusion between the two.
:# Providing continuty info. A hypothetical new character Roller in the 2008 Universe line would be "Roller (Classic)" not "Roller (Universe)"-- so that the article title doesn't mislead people into thinking he's part of the 2004 Universe continuity.
::My problem with #2 ''and'' #3 is that the diambig isn't supposed to convey that information. The first line of the article, right below the title does. It will say 'Silverbolt is a Fuzor in the Beast Wars continuity family...' or 'Roller is a Ultracon in the Classics portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.'
::We are currently usign method #1. I oppose a change to methods 2 or 3 for the following reasons:
:# The '''first line''' of the article already supplies the information that solutions 2 & 3 would seek to add- and does it ''better.''
:# Implementing 2 or 3 would make it harder for ''editors'' to know where article are sitting ("I know there was only one Silverbolt in BW, why is my link to Silverbolt (BW) broken?")
:# The purpose of the parenthetical disambigs is not to convey info- it is to keep articles with the same title from sitting in the same namespace. Attempting to make disambigs convey information actually ''adds ambiguity'', because it would force the the locations the articles sit in to become ''less'' standard.
::Let diambigs be disambigs. If we want to make continuity notes clearer or more prominent, we can look at revising our approach to '''them'''. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 00:41, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

::We already have [[Help:Disambiguation]] to more or less lay this out. (I've just made a couple small changes to it for clarification.) There is going to be no simple rule of thumb which leads to tbe best results in every case, so make the parenthetical as brief and clear as you can. Derik is correct that the purpose of the parenthetical is to give the articles different names so the database doesn't get confused. To help out editors when we make links, it is good for them to be short and easy to remember. --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 21:35, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

So, should we move [[Silverbolt (Fuzor)]] and [[Dirge (Decent into Evil)]] and the mirrorverse guys back to [[Silverbolt (BW)]], [[Dirge (Timelines)]] and [[mirrorverse guys (Timelines)]]? --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 22:42, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
:Wait to see if others have strong feelings/argument first. (We have a policy, but it's subject to conseunsus, remember? Also- I think I wrote most of that page so my point of view is unfairly over-represented there.) ''On review, no, apparently this is one policy page I '''didn't''' write. ...why can't I tell Steve-o's writing apart from my own? Scary. :~(
:Personally I say emphatically yes on Dirge, indifferent affirmative on Silverbolt, and wait and see on the Shattered Glass pages. We don't now where/if they fit in existing continuity. There's no point in movinf them a half-dozen times while arguing about unknowables. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 23:13, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

== Pages about fan sites ==

Is there a policy about this? I wanted to add TF Pulp, but I didn't see any other TF sites on here at all, so I figured I should ask first.
{{unsigned|Might Gaine|2008-02-27T14:04:54}}

:We don't give unofficial sites their own articles. You can link to information on TF Pulp from appropriate pre-existing articles, though. That sort of thing enhances the wiki by allowing people to find further information on the topics they are reading about. Just put it into an "External links" section right before the categories. --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 21:18, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

==Cartoon episode title cards redundancy==
Why are we moving towards using the title cards of episodes for the main/starting picture of episode articles? Isn't it redundant to have a boring screenshot with the name of the episode placed next to...... the name of the episode in the actual article itself? Wouldn't it be more interesting to do what we have been doing, and use a screen capture that somehow encapsulates the whole episode, or shows a pivitol point in it that sticks in our memory? --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 02:55, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
:I've wondered the same thing myself, but figured it was a done deal. I too support the "memorable/encapsulating moment" approach. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 03:04, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
::Uh... I'm sorry, I think I started it. ;-) When I was doing some early RiD ep stubs I threw in the titlecards because the early episodes were boring as sin. I think McFeely did it for the JP eps because they tend to have those painterly titlecards...
::Really, it's just something you do if there isn't a ''good'' representative image. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 17:39, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
:::Like Code of Hero (an article that needs a major overhaul itself), I originally put an image of Dinobot's sword lying on the deck of his quarters, because it looked poignant. Did the same for various other Beast Wars episodes. Then Interrobang replaced them all with screencap of the title screens. Gah. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 07:05, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::So tell him to stop! ;) -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 07:58, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::Sigh. I did it because I like consistency, even with Japanese series. "Dinobot's sword on the ground" might be your favoritest image ever but it's the odd duck out now. (It also looks terrible due to the artifacting brought about by needlessly screwing with the brightness and contrast.) [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 08:36, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::::Consistency is Victory- but Transformers Victory was incredibly boring. (Victory Gundam was pretty good though...) [[The Weak Component]], [[Survivor]] and [[End of the Line]] all have virtually ''identical'' title screens- an aerial shot of the Cybertropolis spaceport. That sucks— I'd much rather have an iconic image from each episode. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 10:07, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::::::I agree. Using iconic images is really good for the most episode guides, such as [[Code of Hero]], [[The Weak Component]], and several [[B.O.T. (episode)|others]], especially "Code of Hero" and "The Weak Component" are great and good examples. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 13:38, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::::Personally, I started doing for the Japanese series for the reason Derik gives, because it was usually a unique image made for the title card, or a good one that's representative of the episode. There were some duds, but... consistency. And then... ''Masterforce'' started to do really, ''really'' boring ones, and I was about to give up, then it occurred to me to start using the image from the next-ep preview, which proved a winner in most cases (in fact, I may yet go back and change swap out some of the title-card images with these, if it's a better option). The mention of Victory here amuses me, though, 'cause it's a good example of title cards being boring - it's the same two images of Star Saber and Deathsaurus, rotated in and out, for the whole series. I've used them for the first two episodes just to get them on show, but I plan to use the title-images from the next-episode previews for this one. I mean, when I wake up from the dullness-inducing stupor that Victory induces. - McFeely, at work
::::::::I reverted Dinobot's sword back to the version I uploaded. As I had not viewed the page much since last year, I didn't realize that Repowers tried to brighten it up for some reason - that moment is supposed to focus on the sword, not the room. And it's the 'odd duck out' now because some people have been replacing whatever had served as the main image with the title card. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 12:24, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::I brightened it because, when it's reduced for the actual episode page where most people are going to see it, you can't tell what the heck you're looking at. Right now it looks a little bit of vague white stuff in darkness. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 13:36, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::::::::Vaat? I can see if plenty fine there, unless you're using a very, very high resolution that makes everything tiny. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 13:54, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::::Could be my home monitor, which is HUGE. It does look more discernable from a work computer, though IMO it could still stand to be a tad brighter. -- [[user:repowers|repowers]], not signed in
I've changed my mind on this situation after mulling it over. A winner is FNN. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 03:31, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
:FNN sounds even more like a Simon Furman sound effect than FFN :D --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 04:26, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
::You clearly changed your name after I replied. There's no another answer. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 04:33, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
:::Hnh. FNN never DID want to live forever. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 04:55, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

==Help/policy page namespaces==
As part of the help/policy page revamp I plan to do... eventually... I kind of want to consolidate the pages all into a single namespace. Right now we have [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=12 a bunch of stuff] in the Help namepsace, and [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=4 a bunch of other stuff] in the Transformers Wiki (aka "meta") namespace. This is needlessly confusing. I vastly prefer "Help" for the purposes of typing it all the time, but, the meta namespace is more general purpose and standard... and possibly required for some pages like the title blacklist. So I am inclined to shuffle all the Help namespace pages over to the meta namespace. Does anybody have an opinion on this? --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 17:37, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
:Help seems fine to me. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 17:45, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

== "The Battlestars" page disappeared ==

When the "Battlestar" (team) page got changed to "Battlestars", then "The Battlestars" page, which was the manga, disappeared. What happened? --[[User:Might Gaine|Might Gaine]] 13:36, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
:I don't think that page actually existed in the first place. It was a red link before any moving was done - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 14:04, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
::Hmm. My bad. --[[User:Might Gaine|Might Gaine]] 15:01, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

==Comic character box format Part IV==
I believe we should change it from 'Major characters' to 'Featured characters' like we do in the cartoon recap articles. Doing it as 'Major characters' means writers of these comic articles will just not bother list the incidental characters, such as humans, even ones with dialogue, and if any of these characters have articles, they become orphaned articles. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 06:32, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
:Well I have gone thru nearly the entire U.S. Marvel series and I think I've included just about everyone who had a speaking line, except for folks who were un-named and such. If someone wants to change from "major" to "featured", it doesn't matter to me, but I'm not gonna go thru all 80 issues again and do it. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:18, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
::I was concerned because I was looking for the article for that [[Professor Goring]] guy from [[Spotlight: Shockwave]] so I could update the article. To my surprise, Shockwave didn't link or even name him, and somebody had eliminated the 'human' column altogether because evidently we only dealt with 'major' characters. Essentially, Goring's article became orphaned. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 20:32, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
:::Well that was dumb; he should indeed be re-added. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:39, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
:::Uh, yeah. That's not good. I support the change to "Featured" not just for this... but let's face it, this wiki is not simply about "Major" characters. The vast wealth of non-major character information is what makes this wiki great, and we should make sure that they are properly linked to so people can find them, even if they weren't looking. "Oh, hey, who's this?" --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 20:39, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
::::MistaTee, well sometimes even unnamed characters can be interesting enough to warrant their own articles if they are interesting in some way/stand out in some way. After all, we have an entire category devoted to unnamed characters. So I think they should have been mentioned in the article in some way. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 04:45, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::Oh, I agree, and if I've missed any, please feel free to add. I do think the 80 issues I've updated is a lot better than they were before though. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 13:58, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::Of course. Is there article template pages somewhere on this wiki or are we copy pasting every time we write a new article? --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 14:07, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::::I've just been going through the Stormbringer articles, and I was ''not at all'' happy with the with the way characters who didn't have significant dialogue (such as ''every'' Pretender besides Bludgeon) were for the most part not even mentioned in the articles. I assume the original writer of these articles just didn't know who they were, but frankly it's just sloppy considering the information available on this wiki even in 2006. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 14:38, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::::I believe I reformatted them to the new format, but just copied the character list from what was there. When I get the chance to re-read, I will add in the others, if someone doesn't beat me to it. Oh, and I am copying and pasting from the previous article, but trying to be consistent. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 15:31, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

:So... what becomes of the former "minor characters" list? Do we even care about those dudes? Take [[Totaled!]] for example -- almost every Earth Autobot to date appears in the story (and most of the Decepticons), but the page currently lists only the speaking ones. Gods help the poor soul who decides to take that task on, but when some nobody like Air Raid makes a rare appearance in the comics, it seems worth noting. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 15:25, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
::IMO, I think those characters should perhaps be in a cameos section, a subset of "Items of note". But I sure as hellz am not going thru the whole Marvel series again to do that. Someone else can have a go at it. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 15:31, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

==Navigation boxes for shared US/UK stories==
I wish I'd noticed [[user:MistaTee|MistaTee]]'s changes to the Marvel US navigation boxes sooner, but that's water under the bridge now. When I set the boxes up, I deliberately left out certain links at points where the continuities split and come back together. The point was that there would be no duplicate links in the box. One hopes that the reader following the UK chain will be smart enough to figure out that the only "Next" link shown will lead to the next step in the chain. This goes double for US stories that have the same Next and Previous links for the UK. Why do the same links need to be duplicated?

Compare:
* [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Cold_War%21&oldid=129298 Old version of Cold War]. There's no "next" for the UK spot, 'cause it would just be the same as the US "next" link.
* [[Cold War!|current version of Cold War!]] - two "next" links are identical.

Also compare:
* [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Dark_Star%21&oldid=152775 Old version of Dark Star!] - no extraneous info.
* [[Dark Star!|Current version of Dark Star!]] - ''two'' redundant links.

To sum up my take on current version:

Minus:
* Redundant links add to confusion
* Double nav box is ugly and should be avoided when possible

Plus:
* Lists UK publication number right up front
* Consistent format for all US issues.

But I've never been one to favor consistency at the expense of practicality. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 17:54, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

:Now see, I didn't like '''not''' having a next for the UK, even if it's the same as the US one. What I think we really need is a revision of the nav box, and maybe have some more options. First, I think there should be a separator line between the US and UK nav. Secondly, maybe some logic could be programmed in so that IF "next2"="next" THEN it would say "same as U.S. version" or something along those lines. Same for the "prev"/"prev2" naturally. Thoughts? --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 18:10, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
::That sounds like an excellent trade-off -- it gets rid of the bothersome parts while keeping the good bits. Uhhh.... anybody have any idea how to do it? The coding of these things is an utter mystery to me. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 18:20, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

== How to spell Malay. ==

Hello everyone, I've noticed that on the 'English/Malay' dubs, people have spelt word 'Malay' wrong. It doesn't have a 'y', because 'Maylay' is incorrect, so if you see any mistakes, please correct it, thank you! Also, can we not put the word crack head next to it? It's quite offensive.--[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
:It's meant in jest because the [[RTM 1 dub]] is really, really bad, as if the dubbers didn't know what the hell was going on half of the time. But we have been changing such instances to 'RTM 1 dub name:' lately. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 15:29, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
:"crack head" is describing the dubs, and with good reason. Battleship Maximus is called "Spaceship Bruce", Blaster is called "Billy", Twincast "Blaster", Metroplex "Phillip", Spike "Sparkle", Soundblaster "New Soundwave", Minevera "Nightbeat", The Matrix and Energon cubes "Power Packs, etc... --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 15:35, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
::We should probably get the drone onto the task of replacing "Maylay" with "Malay", however. [[User:JW|JW]] 15:42, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
:::I don't know about the crack head comment, it's better to avoid offending people; 'though, Spaceship Bruce is my favourite, next to Wally. Also, you got your drone right here (yay?), but do we replace it with 'English/Malay dub', or 'RTM dub'? --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
::::I fully agree with the removal of "crackhead." Frankly, it IS offensive to equate the oddities that arise from the translation of Japanese into English done by people who's first language was likely neither with being on crack. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 19:14, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::Can we leave it in for just Spaceship Bruce? The others are at least somewhat understandable, but ''Spaceship Bruce''? WTCHOP? --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 19:37, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::Sorry, but I don't wanna label another country saying it's populated by drug addicts. If it weren't for them, we wouldn't have Headmasters/Masterforce/Victory in English in the early 90's(?), and for a non-Japanese speaking country, they made a good effort. I guess you can emphasise the weirdness that is Spaceship Bruce, in his bio or the RTM page. So, 'RTM dub' or 'Englsh/Malay' dub? Technically, there was no Malay in the English dubs in the first place, so I'd go for RTM dub :) --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
:::::::It takes a real willfully oppressed state of mind to interpret that as a racial/nationalist insult. I mean, you have to really ''want'' to be offended by something, and be on the lookout for any little thing to jump on. 'Cause "crack-head" is pretty clearly referring to the ''dubs'', not the ''entire freaking country'', and I'm not sure why anyone would decide to think otherwise. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 11:32, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::::You know, crackhead is generally a term that refers to ''people'', not ''things''. As I said above, we shouldn't be seen to be equating the people who produced these dubs with crackheads because of what we perceive as humorous oddities in the translation, which are possibly just the perfectly natural result of cultural and linguistic confusion. Now it might not be an insult to the entire nation of Malaysia, but it is still, I think, a bit offensive. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 16:13, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::Well, regardless.... shouldn't it actually be the "Crackhead ''RTM-1'' dub"? -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 16:23, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::::::'Cracked-up English/Malay' dub, 'though it's not my idea, and it's not so blunt. Or the shorter 'RTM dub', since there is an [[RTM 1 dub]] page where people can redirect themselves there and elucidate the weirdness of weird names; but do we have to spell Malay with two 'y's? Maybe we can make reference to that on the RTM page again. --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
:::::::::I think 'Cracked-up English/Malay' could be used for the article such as [[Ginrai]] and [[Minerva]]('cause their RTM dub name "Optimus Prime" and "Nightbeat" were too... hilarious?), while just "RTM dub" for Fortress Maximus' Spaceship Bruce. Well, just a little opinion. :) --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 12:11, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::: Agree! :D --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]

==Trivia section image formatting==
This issue came up a while ago on [[Talk:Frenzy_%28Movie%29#Image_format|Frenzy's talk page]]. There were opnions both ways, and it wasn't really resolved. The issue is, should images in trivia sections alternate left-right, or be all on one side?

Part of the trouble with alternating sides is that it kills the bullet points. A double bullet has to be inserted for it to show up, and then there's some ambiguity over which bullets should be doubled and which left single. Dpouble bullets can also cause images to overlap the text.

Several folks said there's a lot of ugly white space when the images are stacked on one side. I see it just the opposite on my (admittedly gigantic) screen, with every image having a big empty white space below it when they alternate sides. Apparently it's got something to do with monitor resolution, so there might not be a solid answer. But --

I'd ''love'' so see some screencaps from folks showing how they see things on their monitors. It's a little hard to understand this problem without seeing it from other people's POV.

I started a little Sandbox at [[:user talk:repowers/Sandbox2]] with two different versions of Frenzy's trivia. The first one stacks all the images at the top. Does this work for people on lower monitor resolutions, or does it still look like crap? With them all stacked at the front, I don't see how they could have any white space, regardless of monitor resolution. On my screen, it looks very neat and tidy, while the second one is messy. See:

[http://www.builtstlouis.net/tf/frenzy1.jpg Stacked] 
[http://www.builtstlouis.net/tf/frenzy2.jpg Alternating]

Thoughts and input welcomed. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 01:36, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

:Alternating does kind of suck now. I've been putting pics all on the right side where there are bullet points since Wikia updated their software... an update which covered single bullet points if you put an image on the left side of the screen. I suggest cutting down on images in Trivia, since most users here have smaller monitors and use lower resolutions. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 05:44, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
::I think the easiest answer is to just remove the head images. They're essentially redundant and don't really add anything to the reader's understanding. I'd call for a general limit on how many images you can stuff into a section. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 06:27, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
:::I'd remove the head images from the article proper... but then make a text link to them within the relevant paragraph so people can see them anyway if they want to. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 06:35, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
::::That works. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 07:11, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

== Foreign name format ==
I just found the foreign names doesn't have an unified format.
:For example, some are
::''Hungarian name:'' '''Kerék''' ("Wheel"(with or without ""))
:others are
::''Hungarian name'': '''Kerék''' (meaning Wheel(or "Wheel"))

I suggest we could use an unified format like the below:
:<nowiki>:''Foreign name 1:'' '''Name A''' (Form A), '''Name B''' (Form B)</nowiki>
:<nowiki>:''Foreign name 2:'' '''Name''' ("English meaning")</nowiki>

Take [[Hot Rod]] for example, it will look like:
:''Japanese name:'' '''Hot Rodimus''' (Hot Rod), '''Rodimus Convoy''' (Rodimus Prime)
:''Hungarian names:'' '''Nagyágyú''' ("Hot ''Shot''"), '''Rodimusz Fővezér''' ("Prime Commander Rodimus")

Thoughts and idea are welcomed :) --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 09:09, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
:I don't have a strong opinion on how the international names are standardized, but I strongly agree that they should be. I nominate someone else to go through and do it. -[[User:LV|LV]] 21:40, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

== Wookiepedia has a darn nifty interface ==

What would it take for us to create something similar but Transformers-y?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:36, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
:I think the admins were adament that we keep a simple, bare-bones default look to the TF wiki, in keeping with our 'let's not take this stuff too seriously' attitude and tone. At least that's what I remember them saying when I suggested an orange layout like what Teletraan I looked like in the cartoon. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 09:34, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
::The current Wookieepedia also doesn't seem to want to cooperate with my comp here at work. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 18:27, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

==Characters lacking visuals category?==
It's dawned on me that there are actually quite a few characters who don't have any form of visual representation. They may have been described, but there are no ''pictures''. While a bulk of these are from prose stories, there's several who were simply mentioned by name in comics, or in external sources (Key Code info, S7 site, etc). More than enough to justify a category. 
I think that maybe there should also be a template/visual for this to call attention to this fact on the page right up front. I'm thinking a variation on the current <nowiki>{{mainpic}}</nowiki> template... a silhouette, (different from the mainpic one) and some text saying "This character has no known official visual depiction" or something. Anyone? --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 18:33, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
:Well, for the characters with the mainpic template, the idea is that the mainpic image is there as a placeholder, and to annoy people into tracking down an image.
:However, characters that have never had any visual depiction, and are unlikely to ever get one, don't need a placeholder for their image, and the template will just pointlessly take up room. I'm against the template, but I think the category is a good idea, and will suffice to identify these characters. [[User:JW|JW]] 18:44, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
::I disagree. The point is specifically to call attention to their lack of imagery, so nobody thinks "maybe they do have an image". And considering how little there ''is'' to most of those characters, a little extra visual pizzaz to their pages can't hurt. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 19:06, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
:::''so nobody thinks "maybe they do have an image"'' Are you intending to convey that message to ''editors,'' or casual users? Editors will, in theory, know enough to look for the category. I'm not sure casual users need to have the point brought to their attention.
:::And, it's not like we have scads of frantic editors running around trying to find pics for characters who have only appeared in prose. This may be a solution without a problem. [[User:JW|JW]] 19:27, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

== Timelines disambuig ==

There doesn't seem to be a consensus on how to name the various Timelines articles.

I feel that any disambiguation in the article title should be limited to keeping the articles separate. For instance, [[Optimus Prime (Shattered Glass)]] should be at [[Optimus Prime (Timelines)]] unless there is another Optimus Prime who's first appearance in anything was in Timelines. G1 Prime appearing in the 2007 Timelines comic does not affect this, as he is already at [[Optimus Prime (G1)]]. If G1 Prime being in a Timelines comic affected this, we would need to move [[Cyclonus (Armada)]] to [[Cyclonus (Armada whatever size class he is)]] because a version of G1 Cyclonus appeared in ''Worlds Collide''. The only reason to include the set name in the article title is ''two'' separate characters who first official anything is in ''Timelines''. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 17:18, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

== Shattered Expectations ==

Um, shouldn't those[[Deathsaurus|1]][[Bug Bite|2]] who appear in ''[[Shattered Expectations]]'' have their own page like others[[Optimus Prime (Timelines)|1]][[Grimlock (Timelines)|2]] even their counterparts' article would be short? --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 06:28, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
:I brought this up on [[Category_talk:Mayhem_Suppression_Squad]]. As I said there, I think they should either get their own articles or if that's not warranted just be covered on the Mayhem Suppression Squad article. Either way, I don't think "Shattered Expectations" fiction sections belong on the normal-verse guys' pages. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 07:08, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

==Monaco skin==

Hi -- Have you guys seen the new Monaco skin that's being used on Wikia now? You can see it at [[w:c:muppet|Muppet Wiki]] and [[w:c:marveldatabase|Marvel Database]].

As we've been rolling the skin out across Wikia, there are a few things that we've found when wikis switch to Monaco:

* The number of pageviews goes up. The flyout menus encourage new readers to explore the content on the site, and people end up sticking around on the site for longer.

* The number of new editors goes up. Readers spend more time on the site, and find pages that they want to contribute to. Also, the design makes the edit button more prominent.

* The site is faster. There were some changes made last week to Monaco that make pages load a lot faster than Monobook. Hit "random page" a few times on a Monaco wiki, and you'll see what I mean.

So I'm going around and proselytizing to the Entertainment wikis that are still using Monobook. If you want to make a custom Monaco skin like Marvel Database and Wookieepedia have, I can help you make that happen. What do you guys think? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:31, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

:Monaco does look nice, though it might go against what I understand is the wiki's purpose, which is to be quick and dirty, no fancy stuff and no pretention that this wiki is in any way officially endorsed or serious. At least that's the gist of what I was told after I previously suggested we could make the default colour of this wiki a shade of orange, like the computer systems in the original Transformers cartoons. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 23:16, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

::Yeah, we don't have to do a custom skin -- it could be the basic blue and white. I'm mostly interested in the improved functionality. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 23:24, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Eh, if it makes the place ''easier'', I don't think the "pure and simple" folks will object.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 23:26, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

And truth be told, I think the main dealbreaker here might be the extent to which Suki and Derik may or may not have farted about with tweaking Monobook. I know they've both made alterations, but I don't know quite what.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 23:34, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

:That stuff won't be affected at all. We can copy Monobook.css over to Common.css, and all of the tweaks that they made will still work. No problems. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 23:52, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

My biggest concern is the menus. The "by series" list could easily fill the entire vertical direction of the screen. We don't actually have all the series listed on the main page now (Machine Wars, Dinobots, Timelines, Universe (2008), not to mention licenced lines like Animorphs, SWTF, Crossovers).--[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 00:45, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

:Well, the idea with the menus is to be selective rather than comprehensive. It's not supposed to be a complete sitemap for the wiki -- you just want to give the new readers something to click on first.

:On [[w:c:Muppet|Muppet Wiki]], we put up the most popular Muppet Show and Sesame Street characters, and then a link to "More characters". We just want to entice people into making that first click, without overwhelming them with choices.

:I have access to click-through data for the Monaco menus, so it's possible to run some tests. You could put up a set of menus for a few days, and then I'll be able to tell you which items are getting clicked. That way, you could refine the menus so that you could highlight the items that are most likely to get clicked on. I've been doing that with the Muppet menus, and it's fun to see what the readers are actually interested in reading about. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 23:34, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

::So what do you guys think? I'd like to help you switch over to the new skin... -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 19:10, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
:::For some reason none of the admins have chimed in. I assume they're all off doing useless things like living in Real Life. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 21:10, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

::::Yeah, I left messages for Chris and ItsWalky... -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:12, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::You might want to leave messages for [[User:Suki Brits]] and [[User:Steve-o]] as well. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 13:28, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Well admins? Let's hear your opinions! I find the silence from the staff to be discouraging. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 16:18, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

If there's an actual interest in switching over to Monaco, then I would certainly have nothing against that... but I'd definitely like to hear more from the community first. Aside from that, I have no objections speaking as an admin; the modifications really aren't an issue. On the other hand, speaking as a wiki editor and professional web designer... I would definitely want to use a modified version, as it's got several pretty important issues. My thoughts, in no particular order:
* Search is nigh useless, again. Right now it resembles our ''broken'' Monobook search. I don't think that's a good thing. On the other hand, I'm currently working on fixing that anyway, so it's not like the same couldn't be done for Monaco.
* The header sucks. It really, really does. It's only 150px tall, but it sends a pretty powerful message: we'd rather show you this pretty, irrelevant picture then let you immediately get to article. ''I'' would want the top of the article as close to the top as possible.
:: Gah, I brought it over into another browser that doesn't block ads... and now I see why it's so obnoxiously huge. I am ''strongly'' opposed to putting giant hideous banner ads at the top of everything. Like, it's a little insulting that Wikia really thinks that ''that'' should be the first thing readers see. Teletraan I, like everything else on Wikia, is naturally ad-driven; but Monobook isn't offensive about it.
* The language selection is in a dropdown box, which is a TERRIBLE idea. This personally doesn't affect me, as I don't speak Hungarian, but it's pretty awful for anyone who actually is interested in seeing foreign language versions of articles... and has to click a dropdown menu on every single page if they're curious.
* The "community" box is really unhelpful. Half the content (user page, user talk, etc.) is redundant with the top of the screen, and absolutely nobody is interested in just the most recent two edits. That just leaves the number of articles. This is a lot of wasted room for nothing.
* I ''do'' like that the obnoxious sidebar on the right is gone. The current framing in Monobook wastes all sorts of space and Monaco definitely doesn't ''look'' like it has that problem.
There's also a bunch of minor things, but they don't really matter so much. The big issues are the useless space, a need to do major fixes to search, and the huge obtrusive banner ads (as opposed to the ones on the side in Monobook). But if Wikia's really willing to work with us on it, then by all means, it's up to what the community thinks. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 20:48, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

:I've been around the Wookieepeedia lately, and I've noticed when you click edit, it loads significantly slower on Monaco than it does on the Monobook format. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 05:25, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

::Hi guys -- Sorry it took me so long to respond. I'll make up for it with a super-long answer. :)

::Yes, absolutely -- I want to work with you on this. Some of the things you've raised I can clear up immediately. For some, I can explain the rationale behind the approach, and show you some stats that may help. And if there are some things that need to get tweaked, I can talk to the designers & tech folks to see if we can come up with a solution.

::Just so you know: I work for Wikia now, but I started out in 2005 as the founder of [[w:c:muppet|Muppet Wiki]]. Working on wikis is my job now, but Muppet Wiki is where my heart lives, so I'm always looking out for what's going to help or hurt "my wiki". I am/was a big Monobook fan, and I was skeptical about Monaco as it was being designed. The thing that made me a Monaco fan was actually trying it out on Muppet Wiki, and then looking at the stats to see how it was working. Muppet Wiki and Teletraan I are very similar -- about a dozen really active contributors, a strong admin team and a community of about 60-80 contributors. So I can share with you what I saw on Muppet Wiki, and what I can see in the pageviews stats.

::First up, the rationale behind some of the decisions made with the new skin. There are some features on the new skin that the most active editors think are useless, like the Community box or the flyout menus. And it's true, those aren't very helpful for the active contributors. They're designed for the anonymous/new people, who are the vast majority of our readers.

::Here's the stats on unique visits for Teletraan I. (Unique visits counts the number of visits to a site, and not the number of pages you look at in each visit. So if you come to the wiki and look at 100 pages, that counts as one unique.) In the last month, there have been 2,725,000 anonymous visits, and 261,000 logged-in user visits. That means 91% of the visits to the site aren't logged-in contributors.

::Logged-in editors make 77% of the edits here, so obviously we're the people who are actually building the content that people are reading. Logged-in editors are important, and the dozen people who make over 100 edits here every month are especially important. Still, if you want to make the community bigger and more active, then you have to think about whether the design of the site encourages anonymous users to sign in and become active members.

::The purpose of designing the new skin was to make the wiki more accessible to the 91% of anonymous readers. Obviously, we have to keep the functionality that the active contributors need in order to build the wiki. At the same time, we have to be aware that the Monobook skin that we're familiar with is kind of confusing for brand-new people.

::For example, the "log in" button is in really small type at the very top right of the screen. From a website design perspective, that's crazy -- it's like we don't want people to find it. The log-in buttons on Monaco are big, green, candy-like buttons. There's one at the top right, and there's another one in the Community box on the sidebar. We want to encourage people to log in.

::In general, having all the important Monobook controls in little bitty tiny type says: We hate people who are older than 40. ("Go back to AOL, old man!") All of the Monobook buttons are in the same font, from the crucial stuff like "Log in" and "Edit this page" to the more obscure controls like "Related changes" and "Permanent link". On Monaco, the stuff that's important to brand-new users is bigger -- log-in, edit, the link to the home page. The search box is at the top, rather than being buried down in the sidebar. The controls that logged-in users need, like "What links here" and "Special pages", are in smaller type -- they're important to us, but a brand-new user wouldn't know what to do with them.

::Okay, so that's my very long introduction... Now I'll respond to the points that you guys have brought up.

::'''Search''': I think when you say that search is broken, you mean that there's just a "Go" button and not a "Search" button next to the search box. (If you mean something else, then let me know.) That's true, and it's something that I struggled with as the design for Monaco was taking shape. I use the Search button all the time, and I was frustrated that it wasn't included. Then I looked at the stats. On Teletraan I in the last month, logged-in users used Go for 91% of searches, and Search for 9%. Anonymous users used Go for 97% of searches. Given that, I think it's okay to make the Search button less prominent. I remember when I first started using wikis, I was totally confused by having two buttons. (Do I want to Go or Search? Well, I want to search, and then go to the search results...) I only figured out the difference through trial and error. So in Monaco, the search box at the top is Go, and then you can have a link to [[Special:Search]] in the toolbox. (Some wikis have that, and some don't -- Muppet has it, if you want to see how it works.)

::'''Community box''': That's one of the features that's designed to encourage brand-new users to explore the site. When you look at a wiki as a new reader, it's not always apparent that there's a community there. You read pages, but you don't necessarily know whether the articles were written today or a year ago. (Unless you look at Recent changes, which a brand-new reader doesn't know to do.) The Community box is designed to bring a little taste of the community activity up to their view. It's not a helpful way for a contributor to keep track of Recent changes, but it does show new people that something's going on. If you come to the site and see that somebody edited a page 15 seconds ago, then you understand that there's an active community. On Muppet Wiki in the last month, 1,404 anonymous readers logged in using the button in the Community box, 1,539 anon readers clicked the "more..." button to go to Recent changes, and 1,287 clicked on article links that they saw in the Latest Activity area. Those are readers who may not have been engaged with the site if they hadn't seen the activity going on in the Community box. On the other hand, logged-in contributors only clicked in the Community box 350 times. It's not designed for us; it's for the 91% of anons.

::'''Obnoxious ads''': This is the one area that's designed to help the company rather than the wiki. Basically, the deal is that Wikia doesn't make a lot of money from the "skyscraper" ads on the right sidebar. Nobody clicks on them, and most advertisers don't bother to make ads like that anymore. Advertisers want banner ads, and they want them at the top of the page. I can't justify this one in wiki terms, except to say that if we want Wikia to stay in business and continue to host wikis, then we need to change the skin to accommodate the changing ad market. Otherwise, there won't be a Wikia after a while.

::'''Languages drop-down''': We changed the list into a drop-down menu because sites like Wookieepedia had a long list, which took up a lot of sidebar space, and only had about 100 clicks on language links in a month. On Teletraan I, there have only been 2 clicks on the language links since October.

::'''Content space''': There is slightly less content area on Monaco when you first come to the page. The sidebar is smaller than the combined left & right Monobook sidebars, so the content area is wider. The banner ad means that the height takes a hit for the first screen. As you scroll down, though, the Monaco content area is bigger than on Monobook, because the page is wider. I can show you some screencaps if you want more info on this.

::'''Slow edits on Wookieepedia''': That looks like a bug that's specific to Wookieepedia... I'm not sure what's going on there. It looks like when you hit edit on Wookiee, it's looking for something from maps.google, and that can slow down the page load for the edit screen. I hadn't seen that before, so I'm really glad you pointed it out. That's not affecting other Monaco wikis like Muppet Wiki or Marvel Database, so there must be something in Wookieepedia's css that's causing that. I'll look into it. If you look at Muppet or Marvel, you'll see that the page load is lightning fast right now. (Not counting periods of site-wide database problems, which affect every skin.)

::So anyway -- this is a huge long post, but I think I responded to everything. As you can tell, I take this stuff really seriously, and I'm willing to put in the time to research the impact and explain what's going on. Do folks have other questions or concerns about Monaco? I could keep talking about this stuff all day. :) -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 17:33, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

:::Personally, as regular contributor, I'm fine with switching to Monaco, so long as we get to keep our new 'random page thumbnail' above the search box (or anywhere, really). I think it's useful for visitors to be able to visit a random page with an interesting thumbnail image rather than simply doing random searches or hitting Random page repeatedly. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 17:44, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

::::I knew there was something I forgot to mention! Yeah, the featured page thumbnail. I think that's something that we can adapt.

::::That feature doesn't have anything to do with search -- it just happens that you can put a picture in the Monobook search box. I actually think what you've made is a little misleading. The picture says "Search" on it, and it's right above the search box -- so as a user, I would assume that if I click that, I'll get some kind of search results page. Instead, it goes to a featured article, which isn't necessarily what you'd expect.

::::The feature is really a rotating spotlight for featured articles, which is cool and visual, and helps to bring readers deeper into the content. It's a great idea. I think it would actually be more effective if it was split away from search, so readers would be more likely to recognize it as a featured-article spotlight.

::::So there are a couple ways to do that in Monaco. The easiest way would be to put it in the sidebar -- check out [[MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar]] for an example. Here's pics to show what that would look like.

<gallery>
Image:Monacosidebar1.jpg
Image:Monacosidebar2.jpg|You can update this list anytime, so you can freshen it up every day or every week. Or never.
Image:Monacosidebar3.jpg|That big green, fire-snortin' lizard must be included.
Image:Monacosidebar4.jpg|If you click on "Embrace the Knowledge", it takes you to the Allspark article. Obviously.
</gallery>

::::It's not graphical, but it allows you to bring the funny into the sidebar, which you've never been able to do before. One advantage of this approach is that you can add in new articles to the sidebar without having to wait for somebody to make a graphic.

::::If that's not enough and you need to go graphical, then I can talk to our designer, Christian, about creating a widget that can go into the sidebar and have the same function. It could sit above or below the Community box. It would be separate from search, but like I said, that may be a good thing. What do you think? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:48, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

If you want to sell this to Walky... make it orange.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 22:05, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
[[Image:Orangemonaco.jpg|thumb|250px|It could be even oranger if that would help.]]
:Does this work? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:13, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

::The brick skin has a pretty nice brown/orange thing going. That's what I'm using at the moment. --[[User:Professor Icepick|Professor Icepick]] 22:17, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
:::See, that's what was needed to get his attention. The orange will draw him, like a moth to a flame.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 22:24, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
[[Image:Monacobrick.jpg|thumb|250px|Monaco Brick, in all its dark red and orange glory.]]
::::Here's how Brick looks... -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:28, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

:::::Do it! --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 00:41, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
::::::I TOLD you guys that we should make this wiki orange (to actually look like Teletraan 1) way back before we even knew about Monaco, but you were all "We are serious business about not taking ourselves seriously". --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 06:44, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

:I don't know all that much about what can and can't be modified, but can't a number of the problems with Monobook be solved simply by changing the css or js files? I'm mainly talking about the small text size for the tabs and login. Plus, most people who edit wikies are probably familiar with Wikipedia's Monobook interface. Plus, I don't think anyone wants the trouble from the ad format being changed again. A few months ago the site started taking showing wider vertical ads, and it was awhile before the horizontal scrolling mess got cleaned up. But then again I'm the guy who uses XP's Classic Windows scheme with Windows 98's colors and icons, so I may be biased when it comes to new interfaces. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 22:41, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

::The Monobook problems can't be solved with css changes. The type size is an example, but it's really a general problem with the layout. Wiki veterans are used to Monobook, but it's not necessarily a great layout for new people. I meet people all the time who read Wikipedia, but when I ask if they've ever made an edit, they say no -- it never occurred to them. I think it's important to make wikis more accessible to new people, and we're finding that Monaco is helping people to explore the wikis and make their first edit.

::Are there other concerns that people have that I can help with? I know that this discussion has gone on a bit, and I'd hate to have it just run out of steam before it gets to a decision. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 18:15, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::It seems like there aren't any more concerns about the new skin, so I'm thinking about changing it over to Monaco tomorrow, unless someone has objections. Once it's switched over, then I can help you out with whatever customization you want. Is that cool? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 15:55, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
::::A great number of us are indisposed at [[BotCon 2008]] this weekend, but there should still be a handful of us around. So you know! --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 16:09, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::Gyah. I thought we were doing Brick?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:17, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:We can do anything you guys want... I'm just playing around for a minute to see if I can come up with something interesting. It's gonna look bad for the next five minutes... and then we can talk about what you guys want, and fix it up nice. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:21, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::Okay, never mind. That just looked bad. :) So I set it to Brick. If you guys want to change these colors, we can change them to whatever you like. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:25, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

===Apparently implemented===
Is there any way to override this that '''doesn't''' override the skins on ''every'' Wikia-hosted wiki? - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 21:19, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:Do you mean, you want to see the skin in Monobook? You can go to Preferences --> Skins, and set your preferred skin to Monobook. You can check or uncheck the box that says "Let the admins override my skin choice" to either see customized skins or not. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:27, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::Yes, I know that. My problem with that is the "This setting will follow you across Wikia." clause. I don't want to override EVERYWHERE (e.g. Memory Alpha). Just Monaco wikis. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 21:30, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::Actually, they're working on switching over to the Monaco skin on Memory Alpha too... At a certain point, pretty much every Wikia wiki is going to end up on Monaco. Is there something about Monaco that you don't like? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:43, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::::The flyouts. Certainly not the only thing - the more I look, the less I like, especially the pathetic "Latest Activity" box with a practically-camouflaged recentchanges link, and why exactly are the preferences hidden? - but they're the biggest dealbreaker. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 22:01, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::::Yeah, at first I wasn't crazy about the flyouts either. We tested out using the sidebar without the flyouts on Muppet Wiki, but then I looked at the click stats and found that they really helped new readers to find content on the wiki. The pageviews went down when we took the flyouts out. If you're interested, there's details here: [[w:c:muppet:Muppet_Wiki:Current_events#Sidebar_menus|Muppet Wiki:Current events]].

:::::The "Community" box is also something for the new users. When you first come to the wiki, you might think that it's just a static site... There's no way to know that there's a living community. The latest activity shows people that there are pages that were edited in the last couple minutes. Also, logged-out users see a log-in button in that box. For active logged-in users, a lot of these features aren't that useful. They're really aimed at the 90-something% of readers that aren't logged in. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:10, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::::::(NB: I was expanding my post at the same time you were typing, since I was spending a bit of time looking around).
::::::See, I'm not coming at it from the "guy who runs the wiki" perspective. I'm not a sysop on a Wikia wiki, so "this will boost Teh Stats" has no effect on me [perhaps that means you consider my position irrelevant. I can't help that]. Nor am I a newbie to Wikis, so again, not the target group.
::::::My problem is that (1) they require me to turn JavaScript on in the first place (strictly, add to the NoScript whitelist, but...) and (2) the click-on flyout in the top right is worse than pointless, since there's room for the links without that and it just makes preferences harder to access and (3) I hate non-click flyouts since you they will inevitably be scrolled at the wrong moment, trebly so since they're on the side rather than the top. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 22:08, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::::::I think "this will boost Teh Stats" actually matters to everybody. More readers looking at more pages = more potential contributors = a more active community = more and better content on the site. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:12, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::::::::By the way, I'm not trying to make you like the skin. Either you like it, or you don't. I'm just explaining the rationale behind some of the design decisions, so you know that it wasn't just random or malicious. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:17, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

There are three things that would make me more... reconciled... to it. I still probably won't ''like'' it, but...
#On your own "help.wikia", there's a group of links beneath the flyouts to Recent Changes/Upload/etc. They don't appear here or on most Wikia wikis (well, strictly they appear for about half a second on a Ctrl-F5, which suggests they're present but being hidden with CSS or something). They should be there as standard.
#Links to Special:Preferences and Special:Contributions/(self) should be available with a single non-flyover click, either in the "Community" box or at the top right, not in a flyover only. '''ESPECIALLY''' Special:Preferences.
#Be able to override the colour scheme on an individual wiki basis, rather than just "all or nothing" - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 22:29, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::For #1, I'm not sure why you're not seeing the toolbox links. That's an important part of the skin, and it's on every wiki. Check out the screenshots that I added above -- every wiki has links to Recent changes and Upload. If you're not seeing it, then that's a weird bug which we can try to figure out. What browser are you using? Are you only seeing the toolbox disappearing on Transformers, or on other wikis too?

::If you want it, we can put links to Preferences and Contributions in the toolbox, or in the sidebar. I don't know how to change the top header.

::Can you give me an example of what you'd like to see as far as overriding the color schemes? I think it's possible that what you want is currently possible, but I'm not sure. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:54, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::Okay, #1 was my own fault. An in-browser hack I'd done on Monobook was interacting "unpredictably" with Monaco, and had knocked that (and some minor stuff that doesn't make any difference) out of joint.
:::Okay on #2. I'd be interested to find out how many people ever use Special:Preferences on any skin(s) while you're trotting out stats...
:::On #3, basically, being able to use different (non-default) skins, or at least colour schemes from the chosen skin on different wikis without being limited to the "this will follow you across Wikia". Just because one wiki chooses to smother the page in bright pink (or orange...) doesn't mean I want to change the colour scheme on every wikia. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 23:32, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Sure, I love trotting out stats!

Here's the stats on how Transformers contributors click on those links. In the last month, there have been the following clicks:

* Watchlist: 3,114
* Contributions: 427
* User page: 213
* Talk page: 67
* Preferences: 22

So, yeah, contributions is #2 on that list, but preferences is all the way down at the bottom. Preferences is useful when you need it, but people don't need it that often.

But the hypothesis is: If you put Contributions and Preferences into a drop-down menu, people won't click on it as much, and you'll see clicks on those two items going down.

To make a comparison, I looked at Muppet Wiki editors' clicks in February (on Monobook) and in April (using Monaco).

Here's the clicks on Monobook:

* Contributions: 403 (52%)
* Watchlist: 148 (19%)
* Talk page: 132 (17%)
* User page: 83 (11.5%)
* Preferences: 4 (0.5%)

Here's the clicks on Monaco:

* Contributions: 320 (60%)
* Watchlist: 123 (23%)
* Talk page: 53 (10%)
* User page: 23 (4%)
* Preferences: 15 (3%)

The hypothesis doesn't seem to hold up. Percentage-wise, clicks on Contributions and Preferences went up using Monaco. This is a really small sample, so it's not proof of anything... but it indicates that the drop-down menu doesn't chase away clicks.

As far as seeing wikis in different skins, try choosing Monobook in your skin preferences, and keep "allow admins to override my choices" checked. Transformers isn't using a custom skin right now, so you should see this wiki in Monobook -- and you'll also see the customization on Memory Alpha, etc. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 00:19, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

==Script-style quotes==
There seems to be some disagreement on whether script-style quotes should have quotation marks or not. Personally, I strongly favor including them, for two reasons:
* Visual consistency. There's no reason not to have all the quotes in as similar a format as possible. Having some with quotation marks, and some without, ''in the same section'', seems like needless variation.
* It's... well... it's a ''quote''. We're not writing a screenplay; we're quoting something someone actually said. And a quote gets quotation marks.... fullstop. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 21:18, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

:Hmm, I'm afraid I disagree. They're simply not necessary, and they clutter the page.
:And, regardless of whether we decide to use double-quotes, can we put a stop to script-style where the quotes are are in double-quotes ''and'' italicized? {shudder} [[User:JW|JW]] 21:21, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
::The italics stuff is flat out bad formatting, no disagreement here. There's an earlier discussion about it somewhere on this page or the archives. Nobody should be adding stuff in that format anymore... I hope.
::As for double quotes... um... I have no clue what you're referring to. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 21:23, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

==Gone Too Far==
I've been alerted it's past the 30-day period for "coming soon Club stuff" non-updating. Have at it. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 22:03, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

==Searchbox improvement drive==
So now we have a very nice set of searchboxes, thanks to the lovely design work of M Sipher and the superhuman coding skills of Suki Brits. The effort of these boxes is to show the visitor all of the awesome crap we have. To do that, said cap must in fact be awesome. Unfortunately, a lot of the pages linked to by searchboxes are [[Shatterpoint|imageless]], [[T-AI|missing fiction]], or [[High Wire (Armada)|pretty much content-free]]. Thus, I propose an improvement drive of the searchbox articles. When you click on one of those suckers, try and add something. I dunno how we'd make this official, exactly... - [[User:RolonBolon|RolonBolon]] 06:49, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
:Are these images supposed to show up automatically by/around/with the actual text box in which you type your search parameters? If so, I'm not seeing them in the current Monaco skin.--[[User:Apcog|Apcog]] 14:29, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
::They don't show up in Monaco, Quartz, Cologne Blue, or any other custom theme. Just Monobook, the default. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 20:15, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Is there a way to get the search box changes to load sooner? The way it is now the custom settings for the box are the last thing to load; it uses the default settings until the google ads finish loading. This can take awhile depending on how the crappy campus wireless is acting. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 20:39, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with RolonBolon about the searchbox thing. I know we're hard up for help, but why are we spending time creating these little searchbox images using pics from God knows where, yet we've neglected to upload a single image for the actual pages these buttons lead to? Not the mention pages that have absolutely no content whatsoever.
I think we've overreached ourselves, and in the future we should only do these searchbox things for articles that are largely complete and/or have alot of content and imagery, otherwise we look really half-ass and unfocused. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 22:37, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
:Yeah, what drove it home for me was Sixtrain. I see Sixtrain in the Search box. It looks nifty, like it's his box art. I click on the article, no images. Why the heck can't we upload Sixtrain's box art when we evidently have a clear enough copy of it to make a search teaser?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 23:33, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
::I was simply making boxes using what I had on the hard drive as examples, and not everything is good quality at main-image size. I don't think we've "overreached ourselves" at all. At worst, we omit a few items from the searchbox list if their entries are that empty for a little while, OH NOES. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 00:22, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
:::I am of the opinion that a fuzzy picture that can be replaced later is better than no picture at all. It helps users know what it's talking about in the meantime, right? [[User:Spriteless|Spriteless]] 02:24, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
::::We prefer no pic/no content to a crap pic/crap content. I've been taking a break from the Wiki, but it looks like I'm going on another image safari. My scanner not working is annoying. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 06:54, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

The fact that the image is the last one on the page to load isn't just visually annoying; it for some reason also makes whatever you've typed in the search field vanish in Firefox. I've had this happen to me a bunch of times. A lesser annoyance is that the input box moves when the image appears; it would be nice if it could stay in the same place (maybe by making the whole Search box a fixed size?), as it's a bad idea to have a clickable thing that spontaneously jumps around. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 20:31, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
: The way the Search Image works right now, I'd rather not even have them. My computer has slowed down ''epically'' trying to load those images each time, and if it's a high traffic time of day, the rest of the page will basically freeze for 30 seconds or more until that search image gets around to loading. This is extremely annoying when I just need a quick peek at a page before making a link, like checking if Stormcloud is one word or two or if Whirl needs to be disambig-ed in the link. And if I try to click Search to move on to a next page too early, the Image drops down in front and shang-hais my "click", so I go there instead of being able to type in where I want to go.

: I don't like the thing at all. It's been nothing but a hassle for the last day or so. There's already a Random page button right about it -- do we really need this too? --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 00:30, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::The same thing has been happening to me lately, and I've never experienced that problem on Wookieepedia. And this is a real problem for me, as I'm actually ''supportive'' of the image icons. We may want review the system. -- [[User:SFH|SFH]] 01:30, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Though in fairness, some of that may be due to Wikia's tendency to nearly-crash every weekend. And to be honest, this weekend has been rather traffic low. I mean, seriously, did every head to BotCon a week early? -- [[User:SFH|SFH]] 02:09, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Let me know if this continues to be an issue during weekdays (well, before Thursday, anyway). If it is, I'll figure out a way to let users optionally turn them off. I've never noticed it slowing down while trying to load, and any sane browser ''shouldn't'', but if that really is happening for some users, something definitely ought to be done about it.
::::I'll also take a look at preserving the form data while the images load, because that is definitely something that really ''should'' happen, too. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 03:44, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::Things sped back up again shortly after SFH's last post, but I'll post again if it keeps happening regularly. Maybe it was just an anomaly. --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 03:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::'''Furthermore:''' I did a bit of code modification that should make the form retain anything you've typed before the images loads. You may need to do a hard refresh for the change to show up, but lemme know if that doesn't work for anyone. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 03:52, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

==Templates listing==
Is there a page editors can refer to for templates (messagebox, user notices ect) without having to go through the categories or remembering the last time somebody used it so they can copy-paste it? They seem to be unnecessarily difficult to track down. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 03:43, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
:[http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=10 here] --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 04:50, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
::My main concern was not requiring the page soley for myself, but was this page obviously linked on a help page or something somewhere that anybody could find easily? I'd personally like to see this wiki become more user-friendly. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 07:25, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Agreed, as I've [http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Transformers_Wiki_talk:Community_Portal#.22First_go_here.21__Next_go_here..22 said before on this very page]. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 15:05, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Yeah. Our lack of user friendliness might discourage people from joining up. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 17:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:What I'm worried about is that some of the other users would actually be okay with that...-- [[User:SFH|SFH]] 17:48, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::Well, last time I checked some of these other users don't own the wiki. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 09:12, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

== new template: Comicinfo ==

Please checkout [[Template:Comicinfo]]. It's a little rough around the edges, but something I think could be useful on the comics pages. Comments and suggestions are welcome.--[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 02:42, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

== Masthead ==

Okay, the old Monobook masthead doesn't look so good under Monaco. How do we change this?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:31, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
:I've looked around and seen that other wikis have already taken advantage of the extra masthead space. Question is, how do we do so, and what dimensions would the new masthead be?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 16:05, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
::Before we do anything, I would recommend keeping the masthead's filesize reasonable, because there's nothing worse than trying to load a site with a masthead image that is like a megabyte or something. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 16:22, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Oh, absolutely. I was mainly thinking perhaps something involving a 'shopping of the TFA logo, considering it'd fit the color scheme nicely. Alternatively, maybe something aping the "grid" of G1.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 16:26, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Another thought is whether it's possible for the masthead to be random/rotating. If so, it'd let us do Autobot/Decepticon versions of the same masthead (via color swap) or even rotating versions for different franchises (G1, BW, UT, etc.)--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 16:35, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

== Sidebar ==

Given that we're getting a lot of Transformers Animated traffic lately, I'd say an item in the Monaco sidebar is likely going to help direct people to the right articles.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:45, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:Okay, I put it in the sidebar. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:56, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

The more I think on it, the more it seems we'd be best served by condensing the G1 and TFA menus and instead just having one menu that's franchise navigation. I dunno. I'm a little bothered that we can't seem to get the admins to chime in on this, since they're the ones that can edit the sidebar setup the most easily.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 19:02, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:Eh. Monday after BotCon. A lot of them are probably still sleeping off their flight / drive / booze. Another reason why big changes probably shouldn't've happened this weekend. Give it a day or so. --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 19:12, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

The sidebar does need major work, and [[MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar]] is a protected page so I guess it's not just easier for admins to change it, they're the only ones who can?

The issues I have with it are:

* "Featured characters" menu still includes articles that haven't actually been Featured, as well as [[Spark]], which ''has'' been featured but is not a ''character''.
* Generation 1 and Animated are the only franchises listed.
* The G1 and Animated menus are inconsistent in the sorts of articles they list. The Generation 1 menu includes [[Autobot]] and [[Decepticon]], articles were not restricted to G1, then several high profile characters and one obscure, jokey one. The Animated menu, on the other hand, just lists the franchise's cartoon, comic, toyline, and books articles.
* The "Embrace the Knowledge" menu seems to take a bit of scattershot approach. [[Marvel Comics]] is listed, but none of the other publishers. Hasbro is there, but not Takara. With [[Mini-Con]] there, might this be a better place for the Autobot and Decepticon articles, and other factions as well?
--[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 19:55, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:[[MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar]] can only be edited by admins. That's true for all MediaWiki pages. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 20:31, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

== Hate the new skin. ==

Hate this new skin. Just wanted to say it. The old look was much more pleasent and open to read. New one is just crouded and Blah. THIS is gonna take getting use to. No Sir, I don't like it.

:Can it at least not be burgundy and orange? - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 22:08, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::Yeah, it can be any color you like. I was messing around with colors before, but wasn't doing a great job with it, and Rosicrucian said he wanted this color scheme. Any admin can change the colors by editing [[MediaWiki:Monaco.css]]. There's instructions on how to do it here: [[w:c:help:Customizing Monaco|Customizing Monaco]]. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:15, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
:::I mainly liked this because it fits with the color scheme of Teletraan itself. I'm not married to the idea, though. I also figured I'd speak up about it because Walky liked it, and he's off enjoying his ridiculously expensive Transformers collector's items at BotCon.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 22:21, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Ahh, right, well, I can see the logic, there, all right... I'm just not dying about the dark-coloured backgrounds, since it's a big visually jarring to have big white boxes of text in the middle of them. - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 22:24, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

: Seconding the hate. [[User:Hooper X|-hx]] 00:04, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
:: This looks pretty hideous compared to MonoBook... and it's hard to navigate. Well, at least I can override it in preferences, but I think I'll be ignoring admin skin choices unless a custom one appears in the future.--[[User:MCRG|MCRG]] 00:44, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

:::I think I can try to get used to the new skin unless/until I find something inconvenient. Well, so far so good. At least the seach function is better. But the logo on the left side of the top, well... um, oh. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 01:23, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
::Fourthing the hate. The colors hurt my eyes. That, and the obscure character search images are gone. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 01:45, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

:I'm afraid I don't much like it either. Fortunately, it was pretty easy to uncheck the "override" box on my preferences. [[User:JW|JW]] 01:54, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't like the new skin either. I don't get the menus at the side. "Featured characters" includes articles that I don't think have actually been Featured. G1 and Animated are listed, but no other franchises. And the menus are inconsistent. The G1 menu lists Autobot, Decepticon, and then a bunch of character pages, while the Animated menu lists Animated's toy line, cartoon, comic, and books articles. Why the difference? And what was the selection process for the "Embrace the Knowledge" menu?

By the way, in the middle of BotCon is probably the worst possible time for major changes like this to be made. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 04:29, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

:The menus at the side are examples that I made up. You guys can change them to be anything you want, by editing [[MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar]]. I'm sorry about the timing... We've been talking about this for maybe three weeks.

:Lots of things can be changed -- the colors, the menus, the logo. I'll put it back to the basic Sapphire for now, which is more like Monobook. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 05:08, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Not a fan of the skin, either. Losing the brown and yellow from earlier was a step up, but it still doesn't quite work. The extra crap on the side feels ''bigger'' now, so the actual articles feel ''smaller''. And those blamed automatic pulldown menus keep getting in the way everytime I move my cursor to or from the Search box. Annoying. --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 17:02, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:I'm a little unclear- you say Monaco is the new Wikia standard skin. No one likes it. But we can override the style in our preferences to set it back to Monobook.
:So does TT1 have the ''option'' of deciding to switch back to Monobook if that's what the consensus decides? Danny is saying they are switching Memory Alpha Monaco and "at a certain point, pretty much every Wikia wiki is going to end up on Monaco." So is this something we get to decide for ourselves, or will Monaco be forced on us even if we don't want it? -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 18:55, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

::What I find interesting on the MΑ example is that Toughpigs said, and I quote:
:::''Actually, they're working on switching over to the Monaco skin on Memory Alpha too''
::Now, who are "they"? Because I've just looked at MΑ - and in the designated [[MemoryAlpha:Forum:Monaco skin|forum on the matter]], one Wikia staff member (who has no main namespace edits on MΑ in the past three years) is the only user pushing for it. Only two other users have (briefly) commented - one admin who's strongly against it because of the top ad banner, and one other user who dittoed that. The only other place it is mentioned is on [[MemoryAlpha:Portal talk:Main#Monaco skin|their main page talk]], where one "[[Wikia:Wikia Helper Group|Wikia Helper Group]]" member (who has no MΑ edits on any other matter, main namespace or otherwise) shilled it - and in response, got a reply from one user that they were confused, and another user that they preferred Monobook. Unless there's some hidden forum somewhere, there's no consensus from MΑ that they want to switch.

::If Toughpigs's line is intended to say there's a push ''from'' MΑ as a "do you want T1 to be left out", it's, well, draw your own conclusions. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 19:42, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I've been vague about what the future holds, because I don't know. Right now, the community does have the option to switch the site back to Monobook, if that's what you decide.

However, at some point in the future, Wikia may need to switch everybody over to Monaco. We need to figure out how to get more advertisers to buy ads on Wikia. We're exploring a lot of different possibilities right now, so I can't predict how that's going to go yet. But we may find that it hurts us to have skins with completely different ad sizes all over the site. Companies don't want to advertise on sites that have a leaderboard on some pages and a skyscraper on others.

Right now, we're able to offer a lot of flexibility with the skins, and we're not forcing a change on any community. But if you think about it, no other (sane) website does that. Ad-supported websites have a format, and everything on the site is in that format.
:I have no real problem with Wikia's need to place more prominent banners. I don't ''like'' them, but I recognize that it is a reality of your business model.
:I ''do'' take issue with the banners being tied to a sucky new UI that's being forced on us, hammering us with a double-negative. Is there any way to place the new banners (satisfying Wikia's business imperatives) in the old skin (satisfying our desire to not have the site suck so badly?) Maybe we can find a treatment that makes them less obnoxious without de-valuing them.
:Of course- you keep stressing how this new UI causes more clicks... which means more pageviews, with means more bannerviews, which means more ad revenue. I really feel like your entire pitch is a thinly veiled attempt to monetize this wiki regardless of what the users want. So not only do we have to have the banners that generate more revenue-- we have to have the UI that's editor-unfriendly but promotes more pageviews.
:Why don't you just rewrite the site interface so you have to click 8 times to do anything like MySpace? I mean- that seems consistent with the whole 'sacrifice the user experience in exchange for saleable ad impressions' philosophy you're espousing here.
:You quote a lot of statistics. Are they internal? Do/can we have access to them? Would TT1 be allowed to pursue evolving our interface to maximize pageviews ''without'' having to buy into Monaco?
:Strictly speaking the best way to increase pageviews on this wiki would to make all the links un-disambiguated, so every time you click on a link you have to view the disambig page before you can select the page you ''actually'' wanted to see from the list. There- pageviews have increased... at the expense of the user experience.
:Packaging ''can'' be a force multiplier to make content more attractive... slightly more attractive. But in the end it's the quality of the content that drives readers. If we have to increase viewership to pad Wikia's bottom line, I'd ''really'' rather we did so by offering different or better content- not by putting obnoxious shiny packaging around it. (And yeah, that's a toy marketing metaphor. You get a lot of those here.) -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 07:05, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I know that the obvious response to the ad talk is "that's your problem", but it's actually everybody's problem. Wikia offers free hosting to communities like this one because we're advertiser-supported. But the ad market is changing -- and if we don't keep up, then we go out of business, and we can't host wikis anymore.

Anyway, we're not anywhere near a problem at the moment. Wikia is fine, and if the community decides to switch back to Monobook, then that's fine. But it will be easier in the long run if folks give Monaco a chance, and see if we can make it work the way that you want it to work.

Meanwhile, I can address a couple of the concerns that people have posted about. First up: The size of the content area. Xaaron says that the crap on the side feels bigger, so the content area feels smaller. I took screenshots of the same page using both Monaco and Monobook, at the same browser size and screen resolution.

<gallery>
Image:Megatron-monaco.jpg|Monaco
Image:Megatron-monobook.jpg|Monobook
</gallery>

You can see from those pictures that Monaco gives you a wider content area. The first two paragraphs take up 16 lines in Monobook. On Monaco, it takes up 13 lines.

The number of logins has gone up just in the last few days. On April 26-27, 41 people logged in to the site (20.5 per day). From March 1-31, there were 381 logins (12.3 per day). This may be because of the interest generated at BotCon, but it also seems like being at BotCon over the weekend kept people away from the website. The increase in logins is consistent with what we've seen on other sites -- Monaco makes logging in more visible to new users.

On the sidebar over the last couple days, these are the most clicked on items:

# Transformers Animated (cartoon): 295 clicks
# Murdered puppy: 192 clicks
# That big green, fire-snortin' lizard: 168 clicks
# Transformers Animated (toy line): 131
# Autobot: 111
# Optimus Minor: 108
# More featured characters: 83
# Optimus Prime: 76
# Gas Skunk: 74
# Airazor (BW): 72

Pageviews for April 26-27 are up 21% over the average from the previous 30 days. That may be because of the interest around BotCon and the new episodes, but it might also be because the sidebar is helping new readers find articles that they're interested in, and because the pages load faster with Monaco. In any event, it doesn't seem like Monaco is chasing people away. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 20:27, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:It could also be because existing users have been giving the new skin a test drive. Anyway, couple of things about the skin that I'm wondering. First, the Teletraan 1 image in the upper left corner is now tiny with ugly, empty whitespace on three sides. Can it be enlarged? Second, can the recently-added neat little search box images be included in the new skin? --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 20:51, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

::The logo can be changed by uploading a new image to [[:Image:Wiki_wide.png]].

::The search box images are a neat idea, but I'm confused about why they're attached to search. They don't take you to a search page. They're basically a random featured-article generator. If you want, I can talk to the designer here about creating a randomized featured-article widget for the sidebar. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 20:59, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Basic test image for the top left:

[[Image:TFfactions.png|266x75px]]

- [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 21:58, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:I've got some ideas for the masthead. I'll 'shop something up when I get home from work.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 22:05, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
::My proposal:
::[[Image:Teletraan masthead.png]]
::Whaddaya think?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 02:16, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:::That one is beautiful. --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 02:20, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Look nice for Rosi's. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 02:26, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Ooo, rock me, Amadeus. Verra nice. [[User:JW|JW]] 02:56, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
::::That is perfect, Rosicrucian. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 04:36, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::That is lovely. --[[User:Sntint|Sntint]] 04:38, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

== Anonymous edits ==

Lately, I've been looking at wikis that have decided to turn off anonymous edits, and have everybody log in before contributing to the wiki. The idea is that having everybody log in builds a stronger sense of community, because you always have a name to associate with an edit, rather than a random string of numbers. It's easier to talk to people who have names. It also gives you more control over vandalism, since you can recognize potential vandals more easily.

Some people don't like the idea, because they're worried that logging in is a barrier to entry -- if you have to log in to edit, then you won't bother, and you'll go away. Looking at the wikis that require login, that doesn't seem to be true. [[w:c:muppet|Muppet Wiki]] turned off anon edits last April, and the number of active editors has actually gone up. Some of our most active wikis require login -- [[w:c:wowwiki|World of Warcraft]], [[w:c:ffxi|FFXIclopedia]], [[w:c:tibia|Tibia Wiki]] and [[w:c:marveldatabase|Marvel Database]]. (WoW and FFXI actually require a confirmed e-mail address before you can edit.)

So I've been talking to folks about this, and we've decided to allow wiki communities to turn off anonymous edits if they want to. There are a lot of anonymous editors here, so I'm wondering what you guys think about it. Would it be helpful to require login for everybody?

Obviously, that's a big community decision... I just want to throw out the possibility, and see what you think. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 20:38, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

:I strongly oppose disabling anonymous edits! (I also oppose sweeping changes performed over botcon, and unilaterally re-skining the site when the community can argue for weeks or month about proposed style changes to individual ''templates'' without reaching a consensus-- but if you're willing to ignore the needs of registered users while making such 'big community decisions,' why would you listen to anon users?) -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 08:18, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
::Well, let's get an opposing viewpoint here. Why are you, 75.168.112.43, unwilling to get an account? [[User:JW|JW]] 11:16, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:::You assume I don't have an account.
:::I strongly oppose disabling anonymous edits because;
::::# It puts up a gateway that discourages first time users. Not a tall gateway- but a gateway nonetheless. Even if it only turns back 30% of new editors, that's 30% of people who could potentially become productive members of the community we're turning away out of hand.
::::# Equally important to the new users are the 'casual fixers', people who will /never/ become regulars on this wiki but, while clicking around, notice a link leading to '''Megatron''' instead of '''Megatron (G1)'''. If they have to register to make that simple fix? 9 times out of 10 that kind of fix will not get done.
::::# The problem 'disabling anonymous edits' seeks to fix- trolls- will not be solved. We already have trolls who register for accounts-- right now we don't even require an e-mail address. So ''next'' to combat Troll,s we'll require all accounts to have e-mail addresses. Then we'll require those e-mails be ''verified'', then maybe we'll set up a system where new users have to be ''approved'' like so many online communities before they can use their account. IP Tracking! Requiring Persistent Cookies! Each and ''any'' of these steps makes the online experience just a little bit more unpleasant for the user (and each hoop to jump throuhg makes new users just a little disinclined to join) but none of them actually stops trolls! Clear your cache, sign up for a yahoo account and you're up and running again. The trolls that regularly bother TT1 have already demonstrated they are willing to go to these lengths to evade bans. I am opposed to any measure that would punish the general body of users (registered and non) to deal with trolls. I am '''strongly''' opposed to any measure that would punish users and '''not''' deal with trolls, which is what this promises to do.

::::And seriously- while I'm tickled to death to know that the 'wikia community developer' has been attracted to communities that place restrictions on their users, I'm not thrilled to see someone who's not part of the community lobbying that we become more insular. I think changing TT1 to a UI that's different from Wikipedia makes the site harder to use (both for new users, and for users who make contributions to multiple wikis) is an objectively bad decision that was made with little discussion because 'it looks better.' And I really dislike that this was done while everyone was gone at Botcon and it was impossible to form a quorum for proper discussion. Monorail guy dances into town and starts making global changes that he thinks 'make more sense' without understanding that [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Talk:Megatron_Rising_-_Part_2&action=history they were that way for a reason], and his whims would require massive secondary cleanup effort to enact. I don't think someone who's not a participating member of this community should be initiating that kind of change, or throwing his weight behind them for them while 'polling for consensus. On a more fundamental level- I'm suspicious about external voices telling us how we should be running this wiki, because sooner or later they're gong to tell us The Funny Should Go.
::::I feel the burden of proof is on the other side here-- show that there will be a concrete and measurable improvement to the wiki by disabling anonymous edits that will NOT place an unnecessary burden on users. -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 12:38, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::''"You assume I don't have an account."'' Well, then, please tell us why you aren't willing to use it. I'm truly curious. [[User:JW|JW]] 13:04, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::More to the point, the IP address 75.168.112.43 has only made 10 contributions to this wiki, of which only 4 are of actual substance. Your comments will carry more weight if you tell us which long-established editor you in fact ''are.'' Otherwise, ''you<nowiki>'</nowiki>re'' the "external voice telling us how we should be running this wiki". [[User:JW|JW]] 13:16, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

::::::I oppose to disable anonymous edit, too. I was once a anonymous user . If the anonymous edit is disabled, that would mean we close the door for many potential users-to-be. Though I hate anonymous vandalizing, which is really a problem. But any bad anonymous user can get an account to vandalize, too. ''Urgh''.--[[User:TX55|TX55]] 13:56, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

The Funny Should Definitely Not Go. The reason why I've been hanging out on this wiki lately is because I like it -- specifically, because I like the Funny. I don't want to annoy people or screw stuff up; I'm just trying to help out in ways that I know how to help.

I didn't unilaterally change the skin... If you look above, the conversation about the skin started on April 7th. On Thursday, I asked if there were any more comments before I switched it over. The only response was from ItsWalky, who indicated that it would be okay. I've been keeping an eye on the stats -- the number of edits, registrations and pageviews have all gone up since the wiki switched to Monaco. (Saturday was the highest single day for registrations on the wiki since January.)

As I said, anonymous edits is totally a community decision. I just wanted to let you know that it's an option if the community wants it. It's a long-term discussion, and I don't have an interest in pushing it one way or the other. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 14:31, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:I would be against restricting edits to registered members. This wiki already has a reputation in the Transformers community as alledgedly being the playground for a very specific group of fans. Restricting edits will only further this perception. But more importantly:

:*I tend to agree that if one has no intention of making significant edits, but very occassionally fixes minor mistakes that one sees, then one shouldn't be forced to register to do so.

:*Some of us would prefer not to login while accessing the wiki at school or at work. Yeah, we have our reasons.

:*Chris McFeely, one of our staff members, sometimes has trouble logging onto the wiki when he's not at home, so if we restrict edits to logged-in users, he can't make any contributions if he happens to have free time while out and about.

:*Good anonymous editors sometimes eventually become registered members if they find they enjoy making the edits and would to participate in the little community we have.

:*Trolls and vandals who go to the effort of being repeat offenders will not be scared off by a registration process. I think we'll find that these people have ''alot'' of free time on their hands. Even more than I do!

:--[[User:FFN|FFN]] 15:03, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:I'd be more willing to believe that the increase in edits on Saturday was due to the new skin if Saturday didn't happen to be the day most of the BotCon panels were held. Those give us a lot of new information that needs to be added to the wiki. Plus, two (or three) new episodes were shown that morning: Return of the Headmaster in the US, Mission Accomplished in Canada, and Collect and Save at Botcon. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 15:46, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

::No kidding. You could've changed the site to pink-and-purple polka dots, and traffic still would've increased this weekend, with everyone fighting to be the first to add all the new scraps of information from the convention. --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 17:05, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:::I'm no one special on this wiki, but I wanted to weigh in. Considering that everything else on the web seems to require a login, it isn't asking too much for people to sign up. All the forums require a login so people can own their opinions, why not here? Also, isn't most of the caption bastardry done by anons? Maybe forcing registration might stop some of those careless edits. Requiring an email? Now that might scare people off.--[[User:Suzyprime|Suzyprime]] 04:51, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

==Image overlap==
[[image:Templateximage.JPG|thumb|I'm ugly]]
Umm, did this overlap happen before the new skin? If so, I never noticed it. If not, then why is it changing what goes on inside the content part of the site, not just the menus and adds and umm, everything that I can't edit as an anon? [[User:Spriteless|Spriteless]] 04:04, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:We're trying to figure it out over on [[User Talk:Toughpigs]].--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 04:08, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
::That particular ''overlap'' always happened- but the transparent frame was apparently a result of some global CSS change Wikia made ~4-6 months ago.
::It looks like the fix was posted on the [http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Monobook.css monobook.css] discussion page, but never implemented. -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 05:25, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:::(Oh, i see this was already discussed. Hrm.) -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 05:43, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
::::The problem with overlaps like on the [[Blackthorne Publishing]] page in the image can be solved by putting one of these <nowiki>{{-}}</nowiki> in, which I just did on that page. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 05:59, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
I've had a slightly different problem with image overlap in the past few days. If there's a stub box or a "needs images" box on a page, occasionally the box's pic will remain stuck at the top of the page. For instance, in the example on the right, Kup's pic would be stuck in the top left corner, covering part of the Blackthorne Publishing title bar. It has also happened on the front page, with Jhiaxus's image from the featured article covering the Primes. --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 05:41, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:What broswer? (The messagebox template uses styles that render differently on IE and Geko-based browsers... but the difference shoudl eb cosmetic, not functional like that.) -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 05:43, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
[[Image:Imageproblem2.GIF|right|thumb|150px]]
::I saw the case several time. When the page is loading, the box's pic such as [[Megatron (Animated)|AniMeg]]'s head or [[Kup]] will remain stuck on the page, but soon it will be back to the right place. It only happen when I use the IE6 (log in or not).
::Speaking of the image problem, it reminds me of another one. When open page with IE(well, 6), some images will be "slashed" by a line, just like the picture shows. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 08:06, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:::It doesn't appear to be happening on IE7. This sounds like a rendering issue with IE. (One of many...) Doesn't mean it doesn't need to be accomodated though.
:::When an image gets stuck int he top-left, is that in IE? What happens when you resize the window? -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 08:13, 29 April 2008 (UTC)<div id="wikia-credits"> From [http://transformers.wikia.com Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki], a [http://www.wikia.com Wikia] wiki.</div>

Talk:Transformers Animated (cartoon)

2008-04-29T07:29:34Z

75.168.112.43: /* Making new pages for episodes...? */

==Cybertron Modes==

Anyone else think that we should add images of all the Cybertron forms in the profile pages

==Wasp, Warp and Swind==

Ok, anyone got a link confirming these three. Cause I know Waspy was just a rumour to start off with, and Skywarp and Swindle are completely new to me[[User:GWolfv2]]
: http://www.seibertron.com/news/view.php?id=12617& , but it's STILL a rumour. We should wait for an official statement. --[[User:Hepathos|Hepathos]] 16:32, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
::Or at least until we know which factions the new characters are. Skywarp we can take for granted, but the other two? --[[User:Thylacine 2000|Thylacine 2000]] 18:36, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

==Mixmaster==

Is this confirmed?
*I believe this info came from the same person who posted a lot of the design sheets on different message boards. I'd assume he's in the know if he got his hands on those, but at the same time, I'm not sure I'd call it official. [[User:Koh4711|Koh4711]] 02:05, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

== Waspinator? ==

When has there been any mention of him appearing?
*David Kaye talked about Waspinator appearing in the show during BotCon '07. -[[User:Awa64|Awa64]] 01:23, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
*He wasn't confirmed in anyway though. And as far as I can tell, there's nowhere in the episode guide that introduces him

Yeah, I don't really think that we should have him there right now. Hope to god he's in though. [[User:Ragingtsunami726|Ragingtsunami726]] 02:23, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

==Ironhide==
*sooooo...Ironhide is not one of the Cybertrons Elite Guards anymore now that he got placed in the normal cast of autobots?--[[User:Grand-majin|Grand-majin]] 16:38, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

== UK Intro ==

I was watching TF:A in the UK and noticed that the intro has gained the adition of two red bars at the top and bottom of the screen, these are not in the versions i have downloaded... is this because of the change from NTSC to PAL or is it because they were animated in 16x9 while the rest of the show is 4x3?

==Season 3?==
"Season 3 is already in the works and season 4 is quite possible"--where was that ever confirmed? I thought we hadn't heard anything about the cartoon past "A Bridge Too Close." --[[User:Thylacine 2000|Thylacine 2000]] 16:21, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
:Either Botcon or Comicon, if I recall. Mentioned that 1 and 2 were already in the can (and we know why now, given the way they're being aired back to back) and that they were taking this all the way.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 16:25, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

== Cast List & Non-Show Characters ==

We have probably reached the point where the cast list on this page should be pruned of characters who haven't actually appeared in the show, like Blurr and Laserbeak. Opinions? [[User:JW|JW]] 17:56, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
:Well, there is the possiblity of Blurr in Velocity, but I think Laserbeak can go for now. -- [[User:SFH|SFH]] 18:28, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
::Laserbeak is being planned for S3 apparently [[User:GWolfv2]]
:::Our general rule is that we wait for things to actually happen before putting them in the wiki, n'est-ce pas? [[User:JW|JW]] 19:47, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
::::How about Oil Slick? He was designed to be a toy only character. And I have a hunch, so does Jetfire & Jetstrom. Where do we put them? --[[User:Hepathos|Hepathos]] 11:01, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::They're in [[:Category:Animated characters]] and [[:Category:Toy-only characters]]. That's the way we normally handle toy-only characters. [[User:JW|JW]] 11:18, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::Well, toy-only characters might be found under.... oh, I dunno... maybe... [[Animated (toyline)]]? -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 14:16, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Once again, barring dissent, I'm going to go through the cast list and prune it of characters who haven't ''already appeared'' in the show. That way we don't try to predict who's a toy-only character, and we don't post stuff in advance of official announcements. Toy characters go on [[Animated (toyline)]], and all characters go in [[:Category:Animated characters]], but the cast list is for people who ''have appeared.'' Dissent? [[User:JW|JW]] 20:46, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

== Criminy ==

Every time a writer or voice actor mentions someone as a "possibility" we have to spend three months removing them from the cast list. Now, it begins for Galvatron and Ratbat. And they're still talking about Waspinator as a "possibility" so we're still dealing with that one.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 23:56, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

== Making new pages for episodes...? ==

So I was thinking I would try my hand at actually creating a page and adding some real content. I was gonna do it for Black Friday since it doesn't have a page, but I wanted to make sure there wasn't some rule against doing this for episodes that haven't aired yet, even though they already showed this one at Botcon. --[[User:Rose.T|Rose.T]] 06:48, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:We have a 30 day moratorium on 'club-exclusive' material. (So people don't just rush here and reach rephrased synopses instead of signing up. Also because if you opt for the cheap shipping your stuff arrives later.) In that instance, the material being 'protected' by the moratorium increases in value (for Fun Pub) because it is protected. Black Friday is not a club exclusive (it was a con exclusive,) refraining from documenting it does not increase its value- or offer any secondary value to people who sign up for the collector's club in the future (unlike other club premiums, future members will never 'get' to watch he episode early again.)
:The Botcon airing of Black Friday doesn't seem to be protected for any of the reasons we normally protect stuff. I'd say 'go ahead' unless someone else voices an objection. -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 07:29, 29 April 2008 (UTC)<div id="wikia-credits"> From [http://transformers.wikia.com Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki], a [http://www.wikia.com Wikia] wiki.</div>

MediaWiki talk:Community Portal

2008-04-29T07:09:49Z

75.168.112.43: /* Hate the new skin. */ Fixing typos

==Archives==
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive1|Archive1]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive2|Archive2]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive3|Archive3]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive4|Archive4]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive5|Archive5]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive6|Archive6]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive7|Archive7]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive8|Archive8]]

== Continuity / Timeline ==
I'm trying to make some sense of how the various major continuities are handled, overview-wise. Some have their own continuity page; IDW's just got a timeline, with overview stuff shoved here and there among the individual miniseries. Some don't have anything. Some, like the G1 cartoon, are not much more than lists. The ones that exist tend to be hard to find, aren't categorized uniformly, etc... is there a master format for this stuff?{{unsigned|Repowers|12:15, 29 October 2007}}
:There is no master format for continuity pages. Please feel free to make one! It would be a good thing to have! --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 00:55, show30 October 2007 (UTC)
:: You know, I think it would be hot if once we got more timelines up, we began putting Chronology links to the timetable on the story pages. Several Dreamwave comic pages have them, and I think IDW comics should too, since IDW really isn't telling the story in a linear fashion.--[[User:Zodberg|Zodberg]] 09:36, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::Sounds like a good idea. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 13:51, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::Would it make sense to have an overview writeup at the start of each timeline, a few paragraphs or so? Or should "continuity" be a separate page? Where should a chronological list of issues go -- publisher's page, continuity page, timeline page? That's not such a problem with, say, Marvel G1, but Dreamwave's a little messier, IDW's all over the place, and gods help you if you want to sort out the mess that is Marvel UK. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 14:29, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:: A continuity page should have the following (in my opinion):
:: * A one-paragraph description of the continuity, not more than a few sentences long.
:: * A list of what media belongs to this continuity (which can include some stuff that's vaguely contradictory, but should exclude stuff that's way out there, like Earthforce relative to G1 comics). This can be sorted by publication order, or internal chronology, but if there's a major difference between the two, it should be spelled out.
:: * An overall description of the main events in that continuity, focusing on the events actually chronicled (not the distant past). In particular, for most continuities, changes in the leadership of either side, the changing status (living/dead, present/absent, duplicated by Straxus/encoded on a floppy, etc.)of the big two leaders (usually Optimus Prime and Megatron), any events involving Unicron or Primus, and introductions of major teams or groups of characters (Headmasters, Fuzors) should be in the summary.
:: * If necessary, a timeline, which may end up integrated with one of the above parts.
:: * Pointers to important and closely-related continuities (again, such as Earthforce), discussion of divergences, etc. [[User:JW|JW]] 15:14, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::All that sounds pretty good, though I wouldn't get too hung up on following individual characters too much, even the leaders. In Marvel G1, at least, they changed over on a pretty regular basis.
:::On a related note... this and a lot of other overview-type pages are really lost in the shuffle. They should be top-level pages, with everything branching off of them and linking back to them, but instead they're buried and nothing links to them. You start off reading, say, the article on [[Spotlight: Soundwave]]. Where do you go from there to find out more? The IDW issues category? That's the only link out of that page. If you're a newcomer, or even someone with an imperfect memory, how do you know what comes next? Either the individual issue pages need to link to the timeline and continuity pages, or the category page does, or... something.
:::Taking care of it on the category page might be simplest, like what's on the Category:Marvel US issues page. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 19:12, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::: Yes, the site is sadly lacking in both "uplinks" and "sidelinks" for the media; links from a TV episode to the TV series, links from an issue of a comic to an overview of the comic, links from one comic to the next comic in that series, etc. [[User:JW|JW]] 19:21, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::: I'm still poking around and figuring out what's been done and what's needed; it might take a while to figure out how to start cleaning things up. It looks like we've got some random timelines started (still need ones for the Beast era and a few others), as well as continuity pages for some but not all of the major storylines, so I suppose each major continuity should have both kinds of pages. I wonder if there's a way to use a category or subcategory to get individual episode/issue pages to quickly link back to the main overview pages?... -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 19:28, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::: JW, we do have that comics nav template, though I like the comic infobox on wikipedia more. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:04, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::: Ah... http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Template:Comicnav ...so we do. Very useful. Now we just gotta propagate it over a few hundred comic issue... :S -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 20:25, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::: Also, the nav setup only can link up one level. So Infiltration #2 can link up to the main Infiltration page, but not to the IDW continuity page above that. Would putting a variant of this template on the main page for each miniseries, linking up to the continuity page, work instead? Then you're never more than two clicks away from an individual issue to the continuity overview. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 20:25, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::::: That, or somehow add it to the main comicnav template, perhaps in small letters above the series name. I don't wanna step on anyone's toes though. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:45, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::::: That'd make the most sense, to add a "Continuity" level to the template, or alternately a lower-end "Mini-series" option. But hell if I can make sense out of how these things work... that might be a rainy day project, figuring that out. :\ -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 20:51, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

==Image Copyrights==
I asked awhile ago, and nobody seemed to know, so...

I've always been under the impression that images {{c}} someone else should be credited ''not'' just with a note that they belong to someone else, but a ''year'', for much the same reasons we identify ''who'' the image belongs to rather than simply saying 'we don't own it, but it's fair use.' The more info we provide, the more 'seriously' the copyright is being taken. if we wipe our ass with an unadorned, <nowiki>{{fairuse}}</nowiki> clearly we don't think the holder of the copyright is ''important''... or something.

I have a script I've been poking at. It can run through every image detail page on the wiki through a regular expression and pick out which images don't have copyright owners (Hasbro or Takara-- you're supposed to ID which even if you're using <nowiki>{{hastak}}</nowiki>,) which don't have dates, and which don't have any sort of copyright notice at all. (A significant chunk of our images have no notices that they belong to someone else.) It could also drop the offending images into categories to be sorted out and properly labeled. (I imagine I'd give it Steve-o and let it do so logged in as the bot to avoid the update-floods.)

...is anyone interested in this? Does it seem like a good idea? Terrible idea? ...Bueler? -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 15:29, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

==Cartoon Episode Format Mark II==
Picking up an old thread here... per some changes I just finished making to all the Beast Era episode pages, IMO:
* The one-line summary should be bold. It's the single most important thing on the page; your eye should leap right to it.
* It should be the very first thing on the page, above the nav box (barring temporary templates like "pics needed".)
* It should be free of links. They're distracting and ugly, and it's kinda absurd to think someone's going to click right off the summary to see what a "Maximal" or whatever is. Links can easily be integrated into the body of the plot summary.

I'd also rather see Quotes before Stats, to keep all the in-universe stuff together before moving to out-universe stuff like writers, air dates, commentary, order of appearance, etc. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 00:13, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

:I agree with all of this, except for the one-line summary being above the nav box. Pure personal preference, though, rather than any sort of functionality - I just don't like the way it looks. In fact, I think putting it below the nav box actually ''helps'' its notice-ability - it "frames" the summary quite nicely between the nav box and the contents box. - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 00:22, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
::Heh, I see it the opposite way -- having the summary first provides a frame for the inevitable white space that accompanies the nav box. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 06:24, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

::Picking up on what I said above, putting the stats section down below not just the extended summary but now below the quotes section as well is something I strongly oppose. Episode writers do not get the recognition they deserve. We should not be burying their credits like that. That section belongs ''above'' the summary. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 03:21, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
:::I do hear what you're saying, but honestly I'm less bothered by the recognition factor than by the inconsistency with comic format, where all that junk ''is'' up front (though it often looks pretty bad, IMO.) If it were ''just'' the writer credit, I'd be okay with having it up front (though I ain't gonna be the one who goes back through 78 Beast Era episode pages to change it!) But then you get into the odd condition of having that one bit of info up front, while the rest of the standard information external to the episode's events is much deeper in the article. Having much more stuff up front than that makes for a messy, unattractive, and harder-to-read format compared to having it all bundled in the Stats section... IMO, natch.
:::"If "recognition" is the concern, heck, think of the animators who slaved a lot more than the writers ever did to bring each episode to life. They get no credits at all. Neither does Robert Buckley, who provided music for both Beast series. The list goes on and on. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 06:24, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
::::The information I am suggesting be up front would only be three lines (Written by, Directed by, air date), which I don't think would be very intrusive at all. To my mind, before the summary is the only logical place for this information to be presented, as episodes themselves generally present those two credits up front, and air date is a known factor when watching an episode when it debuts.
::::On the issue of recognition, you make a good point, however my concern is a bit different. Robert Buckley may not get a lot of recognition from the fandom for the music of Beast Wars, but it's not like they give someone ''else'' all the credit on that score, pun semi-intended. But the writers? The fandom often enough acts as if Forward and DiTillio wrote every single word of Beast Wars, and Skir (alone, of course, as the Isenberg Uncertainty Principle remains in full effect) the same for Beast Machines. The story editors are obviously the most important writers, but they didn't do it all on their own.
::::Burying the names of episode writers down below the summary and quotes sections just doesn't sit right with me, is all. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 04:46, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
:::::Hrm... combined with Steve-o's consistency argument, I suppose I could go along with doing it this way, with them all tucked together and separate from/below the one line summary. Written By and Air Date are in one little combined pair of lines now, an easy cut-n-paste to move up front. I don't think anyone's added Director credits to any of the episodes, by the by.
:::::As I said, I'm in no great hurry to do it myself -- my main concern was that the Beast Era show pages had drifted into all sorts of different arrangements, some of which looked pretty sloppy. For better or worse, they're all uniform now. If we're gonna change the layout, let's work on getting one sample page ''just right'', then we can worry about propagating it. To that end, have a look at "[[Chain of Command]]", see if it clicks for you. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 05:33, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm thinking if we could merge the ''Japanese title'' into the '''''Stats''' section'' because it seems to fit the section better. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 03:14, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't have much of a preference, personally, about how to organize these things. However, I do feel pretty strongly that it should be more or less the same for both cartoon episodes and comic issues. Having different organizational schemes for different sorts of fiction doesn't serve much purpose, and makes things harder to get used to. (On the other hand, I ''also'' feel strongly that all of our passages relating fictional events should be in the same tense regardless of if they happen to be on a character page or a story page, but apparently that makes me insane, so don't take my pleas for consistency too seriously.) --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 02:35, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

===Cartoon format mark II.5===
Did we ever make a decision on whether to place the quotes area before the stats section? Because the sheer majority of episode articles (including old ones recently converted to current standards) place the stats before the quotes, but I notice some of the latest Cybertron episode articles are placing the quotes before the stats, which is creating inconsistencies in layout. Bear in mind it will create less work for us if we just leave things the way they are, with stats before quotes. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 09:34, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

==Cartoon continuity headings==
Have we decided on a definative format for this yet? most of the pages with characters who appeared in Sunbow's G1 through to the japanese series (and maybe Beast Wars as well) have quite different headings, and I recall we were worried about ''Transformers Animated'' causing problems with all the 'Animated continuity' headings on character pages. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 07:08, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
:I think we had decided on using "cartoon" instead of "animated." So use "cartoon continuity," or for those who appear in more than one cartoon continuity, use "Generation 1 cartoon continuity," "Beast Wars cartoon continuity," etc. --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 07:13, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
::Can we have Diagnostic Drone change all occurrences of "Animated continuity" to "Cartoon continuity"? That'll require some cleanup in the Animated articles, but there are far fewer of those than there are of G1 subjects that are currently mislabeled. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 17:54, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

== Section-title master list ==

I've made a sandbox for the purpose of assembling a [[User:Jackpot/Sandbox/Sections|master list of all section titles]], their relation to each other, and their proper wording/formatting. Please discuss; I've introduced some new ideas, and I'd love to see a consistent guide established. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 01:04, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
:Wow, I think this really look nice and useful. ;D --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 03:44, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

== "First go here! Next go here." ==
I was thinking a bit about the various problems we've got around here -- stuff like incomplete image descriptions, orphaned articles, etc. There's really no one central place where a newcomer (or a regular who feels like doing something useful but doesn't know what) can go to find a quick list of things that need doing. The current help pages just send you to the list of articles in need of creation, which is kind of daunting, especially for a newcomer who has to learn a million standards and Wikia tags. Is there a more comprehensive way to point people in the direction of useful things they could be doing? Whatever it might be, it should include links to:
* Pages in need of creation
* Orphaned pages
* Stubs
* Pics needed
* Any current projects, like the Beast Wars one. Hell, I couldn't find that thing if my life depended on it.
...as well as a note about common problems: dead/missing storylinks, incomplete image descriptions, and whatever else. (Heck, who knows? Maybe it could even distract an IP person long enough to prevent them from screwing with captions.... ahh, who'm I kidding?} -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 21:51, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

:There are some of those things catalogued [[Special:Specialpages|here]], but I think making links to the most important of these categories, and placing them together in one easy-to-find link off the main page, would be best. Perhaps on the Help contents page, since it's linked right off the main page already, in the most logical location? I think that link is a bit small, for what it's worth. --[[User:Sntint|Sntint]] 22:09, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
::One of the projects in the back of my head is a help-page/guide specifically breaking down the creation of character pages, plus the use of "common templates" for them (disambigs, stubs, notes). I'll see if I can scrounge up some time to rough-copy one. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 22:56, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

==Other Maintenance Templates?==
I haven't had much time to do more "substantial" wiki edits lately, but I've been prepping for later with the charstub sub-categories. Fiction really isn't my bag... I mean, I know it in general, but not issue titles and numbers and bla bla. But I figure it's also nice to have the "really needs a lot of stuff" pages separated from the "just needs some stuff in one subsection" ones, especially once I can make a concentrated effort to update the toy sections of various pages. I've been thinking about other similar "needs maintenance" template/categories, but I thought I'd bring it up here since I'm not sure who else might make use of them... 
I've noticed quite a lot of pages missing storylinks. I'm not intending on going through a big wiki-wide hunt, but as I go through the stubs and other pages doing little maintenance and tweaks, well, I think I'd like to be able to mark pages I come across that are missing those links they should have. Picture and quote? Isaac Sumdac and/or Tutorbot, "I cannot believe I programmed you with such simplistic information!" (Idea courtesy of Trent Troop.) 
I'd swear there was another one, but right now, too tired to think of it and must sleep. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 06:53, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
:Perhaps a tag for a page with too many damn redlinks for concepts that will never need articles?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 07:08, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
::I don't think that will be neccessary, as it's a simple matter of removing the [[ and <nowiki>]]</nowiki>s. Storylinks, though, require some research. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 15:40, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
:::I usually label such pages with <nowiki>{{stub|storylinks}}</nowiki>. [[User:JW|JW]] 15:44, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
::::Trick is, often they're not really stubs, are they? the main info is there, there's just not a "where'd this happen?" link. And maybe it's the data-manager in me that says this, but I think it'd be a lot easier to have a common problem like lack of storylinks as a category all its own, all together for easy identification and maintenance. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 16:11, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

== Disambiguation ==

We need a consensus on hiw we handle disambuigation in article titles. We've had some moving between [[Silverbolt (BW)]] and [[Silverbolt (Fuzor)]], and [[Dirge (Timelines)]] and [[Dirge (Whatever the Botcon 05 set was)]] because there are two Silverbolts in BW and two Dirges in Timelines. However, since one of those Dirges and one of those Silverbolts are G1 characters, the (BW) and (Timelines) tags are fine for the other two. The tags are simply for keeping the articles separate; not for telling you what continuity they're in. Plus, (Timelines) is much easier to type than "(Botcon boxset name I can't remember)". --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 23:35, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

:Somewhat related to the discussion at [[Talk:Starscream (Timelines)]]. My personal criteria is that a name used for two (or more) characters in the same toyline requires more specific disambiguation, regardless of the characters' origin, because readers shouldn't be expected to remember whether some character was already in another toyline. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 23:51, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

::So... what should disambigs be?
:# Distinguished ''only'' when strictly necessary. "Silverbolt (BW)" is fine because, while there were 2 Silverbolt toys in the BW Toyline, the other one is actually Silverbolt (G1)- so only one entry is trying 'sits' in the (BW) disambig, and no more specific disambing is needed. Parenthetical disambigs should be the broadest possible category the article can sit in without conflicting with another article, (usually a continuity family or franchise.) Absolutely no 'bumping' of disambigs as a concession to aesthetics.
:# Distinguished on a logical basis. "Silverbolt (Fuzor)" because there are two Silverbolts in the BW toyline, and the article title should not allow for confusion between the two.
:# Providing continuty info. A hypothetical new character Roller in the 2008 Universe line would be "Roller (Classic)" not "Roller (Universe)"-- so that the article title doesn't mislead people into thinking he's part of the 2004 Universe continuity.
::My problem with #2 ''and'' #3 is that the diambig isn't supposed to convey that information. The first line of the article, right below the title does. It will say 'Silverbolt is a Fuzor in the Beast Wars continuity family...' or 'Roller is a Ultracon in the Classics portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.'
::We are currently usign method #1. I oppose a change to methods 2 or 3 for the following reasons:
:# The '''first line''' of the article already supplies the information that solutions 2 & 3 would seek to add- and does it ''better.''
:# Implementing 2 or 3 would make it harder for ''editors'' to know where article are sitting ("I know there was only one Silverbolt in BW, why is my link to Silverbolt (BW) broken?")
:# The purpose of the parenthetical disambigs is not to convey info- it is to keep articles with the same title from sitting in the same namespace. Attempting to make disambigs convey information actually ''adds ambiguity'', because it would force the the locations the articles sit in to become ''less'' standard.
::Let diambigs be disambigs. If we want to make continuity notes clearer or more prominent, we can look at revising our approach to '''them'''. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 00:41, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

::We already have [[Help:Disambiguation]] to more or less lay this out. (I've just made a couple small changes to it for clarification.) There is going to be no simple rule of thumb which leads to tbe best results in every case, so make the parenthetical as brief and clear as you can. Derik is correct that the purpose of the parenthetical is to give the articles different names so the database doesn't get confused. To help out editors when we make links, it is good for them to be short and easy to remember. --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 21:35, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

So, should we move [[Silverbolt (Fuzor)]] and [[Dirge (Decent into Evil)]] and the mirrorverse guys back to [[Silverbolt (BW)]], [[Dirge (Timelines)]] and [[mirrorverse guys (Timelines)]]? --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 22:42, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
:Wait to see if others have strong feelings/argument first. (We have a policy, but it's subject to conseunsus, remember? Also- I think I wrote most of that page so my point of view is unfairly over-represented there.) ''On review, no, apparently this is one policy page I '''didn't''' write. ...why can't I tell Steve-o's writing apart from my own? Scary. :~(
:Personally I say emphatically yes on Dirge, indifferent affirmative on Silverbolt, and wait and see on the Shattered Glass pages. We don't now where/if they fit in existing continuity. There's no point in movinf them a half-dozen times while arguing about unknowables. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 23:13, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

== Pages about fan sites ==

Is there a policy about this? I wanted to add TF Pulp, but I didn't see any other TF sites on here at all, so I figured I should ask first.
{{unsigned|Might Gaine|2008-02-27T14:04:54}}

:We don't give unofficial sites their own articles. You can link to information on TF Pulp from appropriate pre-existing articles, though. That sort of thing enhances the wiki by allowing people to find further information on the topics they are reading about. Just put it into an "External links" section right before the categories. --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 21:18, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

==Cartoon episode title cards redundancy==
Why are we moving towards using the title cards of episodes for the main/starting picture of episode articles? Isn't it redundant to have a boring screenshot with the name of the episode placed next to...... the name of the episode in the actual article itself? Wouldn't it be more interesting to do what we have been doing, and use a screen capture that somehow encapsulates the whole episode, or shows a pivitol point in it that sticks in our memory? --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 02:55, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
:I've wondered the same thing myself, but figured it was a done deal. I too support the "memorable/encapsulating moment" approach. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 03:04, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
::Uh... I'm sorry, I think I started it. ;-) When I was doing some early RiD ep stubs I threw in the titlecards because the early episodes were boring as sin. I think McFeely did it for the JP eps because they tend to have those painterly titlecards...
::Really, it's just something you do if there isn't a ''good'' representative image. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 17:39, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
:::Like Code of Hero (an article that needs a major overhaul itself), I originally put an image of Dinobot's sword lying on the deck of his quarters, because it looked poignant. Did the same for various other Beast Wars episodes. Then Interrobang replaced them all with screencap of the title screens. Gah. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 07:05, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::So tell him to stop! ;) -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 07:58, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::Sigh. I did it because I like consistency, even with Japanese series. "Dinobot's sword on the ground" might be your favoritest image ever but it's the odd duck out now. (It also looks terrible due to the artifacting brought about by needlessly screwing with the brightness and contrast.) [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 08:36, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::::Consistency is Victory- but Transformers Victory was incredibly boring. (Victory Gundam was pretty good though...) [[The Weak Component]], [[Survivor]] and [[End of the Line]] all have virtually ''identical'' title screens- an aerial shot of the Cybertropolis spaceport. That sucks— I'd much rather have an iconic image from each episode. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 10:07, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::::::I agree. Using iconic images is really good for the most episode guides, such as [[Code of Hero]], [[The Weak Component]], and several [[B.O.T. (episode)|others]], especially "Code of Hero" and "The Weak Component" are great and good examples. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 13:38, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::::Personally, I started doing for the Japanese series for the reason Derik gives, because it was usually a unique image made for the title card, or a good one that's representative of the episode. There were some duds, but... consistency. And then... ''Masterforce'' started to do really, ''really'' boring ones, and I was about to give up, then it occurred to me to start using the image from the next-ep preview, which proved a winner in most cases (in fact, I may yet go back and change swap out some of the title-card images with these, if it's a better option). The mention of Victory here amuses me, though, 'cause it's a good example of title cards being boring - it's the same two images of Star Saber and Deathsaurus, rotated in and out, for the whole series. I've used them for the first two episodes just to get them on show, but I plan to use the title-images from the next-episode previews for this one. I mean, when I wake up from the dullness-inducing stupor that Victory induces. - McFeely, at work
::::::::I reverted Dinobot's sword back to the version I uploaded. As I had not viewed the page much since last year, I didn't realize that Repowers tried to brighten it up for some reason - that moment is supposed to focus on the sword, not the room. And it's the 'odd duck out' now because some people have been replacing whatever had served as the main image with the title card. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 12:24, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::I brightened it because, when it's reduced for the actual episode page where most people are going to see it, you can't tell what the heck you're looking at. Right now it looks a little bit of vague white stuff in darkness. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 13:36, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::::::::Vaat? I can see if plenty fine there, unless you're using a very, very high resolution that makes everything tiny. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 13:54, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::::Could be my home monitor, which is HUGE. It does look more discernable from a work computer, though IMO it could still stand to be a tad brighter. -- [[user:repowers|repowers]], not signed in
I've changed my mind on this situation after mulling it over. A winner is FNN. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 03:31, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
:FNN sounds even more like a Simon Furman sound effect than FFN :D --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 04:26, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
::You clearly changed your name after I replied. There's no another answer. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 04:33, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
:::Hnh. FNN never DID want to live forever. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 04:55, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

==Help/policy page namespaces==
As part of the help/policy page revamp I plan to do... eventually... I kind of want to consolidate the pages all into a single namespace. Right now we have [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=12 a bunch of stuff] in the Help namepsace, and [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=4 a bunch of other stuff] in the Transformers Wiki (aka "meta") namespace. This is needlessly confusing. I vastly prefer "Help" for the purposes of typing it all the time, but, the meta namespace is more general purpose and standard... and possibly required for some pages like the title blacklist. So I am inclined to shuffle all the Help namespace pages over to the meta namespace. Does anybody have an opinion on this? --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 17:37, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
:Help seems fine to me. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 17:45, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

== "The Battlestars" page disappeared ==

When the "Battlestar" (team) page got changed to "Battlestars", then "The Battlestars" page, which was the manga, disappeared. What happened? --[[User:Might Gaine|Might Gaine]] 13:36, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
:I don't think that page actually existed in the first place. It was a red link before any moving was done - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 14:04, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
::Hmm. My bad. --[[User:Might Gaine|Might Gaine]] 15:01, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

==Comic character box format Part IV==
I believe we should change it from 'Major characters' to 'Featured characters' like we do in the cartoon recap articles. Doing it as 'Major characters' means writers of these comic articles will just not bother list the incidental characters, such as humans, even ones with dialogue, and if any of these characters have articles, they become orphaned articles. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 06:32, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
:Well I have gone thru nearly the entire U.S. Marvel series and I think I've included just about everyone who had a speaking line, except for folks who were un-named and such. If someone wants to change from "major" to "featured", it doesn't matter to me, but I'm not gonna go thru all 80 issues again and do it. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:18, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
::I was concerned because I was looking for the article for that [[Professor Goring]] guy from [[Spotlight: Shockwave]] so I could update the article. To my surprise, Shockwave didn't link or even name him, and somebody had eliminated the 'human' column altogether because evidently we only dealt with 'major' characters. Essentially, Goring's article became orphaned. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 20:32, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
:::Well that was dumb; he should indeed be re-added. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:39, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
:::Uh, yeah. That's not good. I support the change to "Featured" not just for this... but let's face it, this wiki is not simply about "Major" characters. The vast wealth of non-major character information is what makes this wiki great, and we should make sure that they are properly linked to so people can find them, even if they weren't looking. "Oh, hey, who's this?" --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 20:39, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
::::MistaTee, well sometimes even unnamed characters can be interesting enough to warrant their own articles if they are interesting in some way/stand out in some way. After all, we have an entire category devoted to unnamed characters. So I think they should have been mentioned in the article in some way. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 04:45, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::Oh, I agree, and if I've missed any, please feel free to add. I do think the 80 issues I've updated is a lot better than they were before though. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 13:58, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::Of course. Is there article template pages somewhere on this wiki or are we copy pasting every time we write a new article? --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 14:07, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::::I've just been going through the Stormbringer articles, and I was ''not at all'' happy with the with the way characters who didn't have significant dialogue (such as ''every'' Pretender besides Bludgeon) were for the most part not even mentioned in the articles. I assume the original writer of these articles just didn't know who they were, but frankly it's just sloppy considering the information available on this wiki even in 2006. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 14:38, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::::I believe I reformatted them to the new format, but just copied the character list from what was there. When I get the chance to re-read, I will add in the others, if someone doesn't beat me to it. Oh, and I am copying and pasting from the previous article, but trying to be consistent. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 15:31, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

:So... what becomes of the former "minor characters" list? Do we even care about those dudes? Take [[Totaled!]] for example -- almost every Earth Autobot to date appears in the story (and most of the Decepticons), but the page currently lists only the speaking ones. Gods help the poor soul who decides to take that task on, but when some nobody like Air Raid makes a rare appearance in the comics, it seems worth noting. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 15:25, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
::IMO, I think those characters should perhaps be in a cameos section, a subset of "Items of note". But I sure as hellz am not going thru the whole Marvel series again to do that. Someone else can have a go at it. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 15:31, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

==Navigation boxes for shared US/UK stories==
I wish I'd noticed [[user:MistaTee|MistaTee]]'s changes to the Marvel US navigation boxes sooner, but that's water under the bridge now. When I set the boxes up, I deliberately left out certain links at points where the continuities split and come back together. The point was that there would be no duplicate links in the box. One hopes that the reader following the UK chain will be smart enough to figure out that the only "Next" link shown will lead to the next step in the chain. This goes double for US stories that have the same Next and Previous links for the UK. Why do the same links need to be duplicated?

Compare:
* [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Cold_War%21&oldid=129298 Old version of Cold War]. There's no "next" for the UK spot, 'cause it would just be the same as the US "next" link.
* [[Cold War!|current version of Cold War!]] - two "next" links are identical.

Also compare:
* [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Dark_Star%21&oldid=152775 Old version of Dark Star!] - no extraneous info.
* [[Dark Star!|Current version of Dark Star!]] - ''two'' redundant links.

To sum up my take on current version:

Minus:
* Redundant links add to confusion
* Double nav box is ugly and should be avoided when possible

Plus:
* Lists UK publication number right up front
* Consistent format for all US issues.

But I've never been one to favor consistency at the expense of practicality. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 17:54, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

:Now see, I didn't like '''not''' having a next for the UK, even if it's the same as the US one. What I think we really need is a revision of the nav box, and maybe have some more options. First, I think there should be a separator line between the US and UK nav. Secondly, maybe some logic could be programmed in so that IF "next2"="next" THEN it would say "same as U.S. version" or something along those lines. Same for the "prev"/"prev2" naturally. Thoughts? --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 18:10, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
::That sounds like an excellent trade-off -- it gets rid of the bothersome parts while keeping the good bits. Uhhh.... anybody have any idea how to do it? The coding of these things is an utter mystery to me. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 18:20, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

== How to spell Malay. ==

Hello everyone, I've noticed that on the 'English/Malay' dubs, people have spelt word 'Malay' wrong. It doesn't have a 'y', because 'Maylay' is incorrect, so if you see any mistakes, please correct it, thank you! Also, can we not put the word crack head next to it? It's quite offensive.--[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
:It's meant in jest because the [[RTM 1 dub]] is really, really bad, as if the dubbers didn't know what the hell was going on half of the time. But we have been changing such instances to 'RTM 1 dub name:' lately. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 15:29, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
:"crack head" is describing the dubs, and with good reason. Battleship Maximus is called "Spaceship Bruce", Blaster is called "Billy", Twincast "Blaster", Metroplex "Phillip", Spike "Sparkle", Soundblaster "New Soundwave", Minevera "Nightbeat", The Matrix and Energon cubes "Power Packs, etc... --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 15:35, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
::We should probably get the drone onto the task of replacing "Maylay" with "Malay", however. [[User:JW|JW]] 15:42, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
:::I don't know about the crack head comment, it's better to avoid offending people; 'though, Spaceship Bruce is my favourite, next to Wally. Also, you got your drone right here (yay?), but do we replace it with 'English/Malay dub', or 'RTM dub'? --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
::::I fully agree with the removal of "crackhead." Frankly, it IS offensive to equate the oddities that arise from the translation of Japanese into English done by people who's first language was likely neither with being on crack. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 19:14, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::Can we leave it in for just Spaceship Bruce? The others are at least somewhat understandable, but ''Spaceship Bruce''? WTCHOP? --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 19:37, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::Sorry, but I don't wanna label another country saying it's populated by drug addicts. If it weren't for them, we wouldn't have Headmasters/Masterforce/Victory in English in the early 90's(?), and for a non-Japanese speaking country, they made a good effort. I guess you can emphasise the weirdness that is Spaceship Bruce, in his bio or the RTM page. So, 'RTM dub' or 'Englsh/Malay' dub? Technically, there was no Malay in the English dubs in the first place, so I'd go for RTM dub :) --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
:::::::It takes a real willfully oppressed state of mind to interpret that as a racial/nationalist insult. I mean, you have to really ''want'' to be offended by something, and be on the lookout for any little thing to jump on. 'Cause "crack-head" is pretty clearly referring to the ''dubs'', not the ''entire freaking country'', and I'm not sure why anyone would decide to think otherwise. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 11:32, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::::You know, crackhead is generally a term that refers to ''people'', not ''things''. As I said above, we shouldn't be seen to be equating the people who produced these dubs with crackheads because of what we perceive as humorous oddities in the translation, which are possibly just the perfectly natural result of cultural and linguistic confusion. Now it might not be an insult to the entire nation of Malaysia, but it is still, I think, a bit offensive. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 16:13, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::Well, regardless.... shouldn't it actually be the "Crackhead ''RTM-1'' dub"? -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 16:23, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::::::'Cracked-up English/Malay' dub, 'though it's not my idea, and it's not so blunt. Or the shorter 'RTM dub', since there is an [[RTM 1 dub]] page where people can redirect themselves there and elucidate the weirdness of weird names; but do we have to spell Malay with two 'y's? Maybe we can make reference to that on the RTM page again. --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
:::::::::I think 'Cracked-up English/Malay' could be used for the article such as [[Ginrai]] and [[Minerva]]('cause their RTM dub name "Optimus Prime" and "Nightbeat" were too... hilarious?), while just "RTM dub" for Fortress Maximus' Spaceship Bruce. Well, just a little opinion. :) --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 12:11, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::: Agree! :D --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]

==Trivia section image formatting==
This issue came up a while ago on [[Talk:Frenzy_%28Movie%29#Image_format|Frenzy's talk page]]. There were opnions both ways, and it wasn't really resolved. The issue is, should images in trivia sections alternate left-right, or be all on one side?

Part of the trouble with alternating sides is that it kills the bullet points. A double bullet has to be inserted for it to show up, and then there's some ambiguity over which bullets should be doubled and which left single. Dpouble bullets can also cause images to overlap the text.

Several folks said there's a lot of ugly white space when the images are stacked on one side. I see it just the opposite on my (admittedly gigantic) screen, with every image having a big empty white space below it when they alternate sides. Apparently it's got something to do with monitor resolution, so there might not be a solid answer. But --

I'd ''love'' so see some screencaps from folks showing how they see things on their monitors. It's a little hard to understand this problem without seeing it from other people's POV.

I started a little Sandbox at [[:user talk:repowers/Sandbox2]] with two different versions of Frenzy's trivia. The first one stacks all the images at the top. Does this work for people on lower monitor resolutions, or does it still look like crap? With them all stacked at the front, I don't see how they could have any white space, regardless of monitor resolution. On my screen, it looks very neat and tidy, while the second one is messy. See:

[http://www.builtstlouis.net/tf/frenzy1.jpg Stacked] 
[http://www.builtstlouis.net/tf/frenzy2.jpg Alternating]

Thoughts and input welcomed. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 01:36, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

:Alternating does kind of suck now. I've been putting pics all on the right side where there are bullet points since Wikia updated their software... an update which covered single bullet points if you put an image on the left side of the screen. I suggest cutting down on images in Trivia, since most users here have smaller monitors and use lower resolutions. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 05:44, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
::I think the easiest answer is to just remove the head images. They're essentially redundant and don't really add anything to the reader's understanding. I'd call for a general limit on how many images you can stuff into a section. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 06:27, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
:::I'd remove the head images from the article proper... but then make a text link to them within the relevant paragraph so people can see them anyway if they want to. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 06:35, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
::::That works. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 07:11, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

== Foreign name format ==
I just found the foreign names doesn't have an unified format.
:For example, some are
::''Hungarian name:'' '''Kerék''' ("Wheel"(with or without ""))
:others are
::''Hungarian name'': '''Kerék''' (meaning Wheel(or "Wheel"))

I suggest we could use an unified format like the below:
:<nowiki>:''Foreign name 1:'' '''Name A''' (Form A), '''Name B''' (Form B)</nowiki>
:<nowiki>:''Foreign name 2:'' '''Name''' ("English meaning")</nowiki>

Take [[Hot Rod]] for example, it will look like:
:''Japanese name:'' '''Hot Rodimus''' (Hot Rod), '''Rodimus Convoy''' (Rodimus Prime)
:''Hungarian names:'' '''Nagyágyú''' ("Hot ''Shot''"), '''Rodimusz Fővezér''' ("Prime Commander Rodimus")

Thoughts and idea are welcomed :) --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 09:09, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
:I don't have a strong opinion on how the international names are standardized, but I strongly agree that they should be. I nominate someone else to go through and do it. -[[User:LV|LV]] 21:40, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

== Wookiepedia has a darn nifty interface ==

What would it take for us to create something similar but Transformers-y?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:36, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
:I think the admins were adament that we keep a simple, bare-bones default look to the TF wiki, in keeping with our 'let's not take this stuff too seriously' attitude and tone. At least that's what I remember them saying when I suggested an orange layout like what Teletraan I looked like in the cartoon. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 09:34, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
::The current Wookieepedia also doesn't seem to want to cooperate with my comp here at work. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 18:27, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

==Characters lacking visuals category?==
It's dawned on me that there are actually quite a few characters who don't have any form of visual representation. They may have been described, but there are no ''pictures''. While a bulk of these are from prose stories, there's several who were simply mentioned by name in comics, or in external sources (Key Code info, S7 site, etc). More than enough to justify a category. 
I think that maybe there should also be a template/visual for this to call attention to this fact on the page right up front. I'm thinking a variation on the current <nowiki>{{mainpic}}</nowiki> template... a silhouette, (different from the mainpic one) and some text saying "This character has no known official visual depiction" or something. Anyone? --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 18:33, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
:Well, for the characters with the mainpic template, the idea is that the mainpic image is there as a placeholder, and to annoy people into tracking down an image.
:However, characters that have never had any visual depiction, and are unlikely to ever get one, don't need a placeholder for their image, and the template will just pointlessly take up room. I'm against the template, but I think the category is a good idea, and will suffice to identify these characters. [[User:JW|JW]] 18:44, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
::I disagree. The point is specifically to call attention to their lack of imagery, so nobody thinks "maybe they do have an image". And considering how little there ''is'' to most of those characters, a little extra visual pizzaz to their pages can't hurt. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 19:06, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
:::''so nobody thinks "maybe they do have an image"'' Are you intending to convey that message to ''editors,'' or casual users? Editors will, in theory, know enough to look for the category. I'm not sure casual users need to have the point brought to their attention.
:::And, it's not like we have scads of frantic editors running around trying to find pics for characters who have only appeared in prose. This may be a solution without a problem. [[User:JW|JW]] 19:27, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

== Timelines disambuig ==

There doesn't seem to be a consensus on how to name the various Timelines articles.

I feel that any disambiguation in the article title should be limited to keeping the articles separate. For instance, [[Optimus Prime (Shattered Glass)]] should be at [[Optimus Prime (Timelines)]] unless there is another Optimus Prime who's first appearance in anything was in Timelines. G1 Prime appearing in the 2007 Timelines comic does not affect this, as he is already at [[Optimus Prime (G1)]]. If G1 Prime being in a Timelines comic affected this, we would need to move [[Cyclonus (Armada)]] to [[Cyclonus (Armada whatever size class he is)]] because a version of G1 Cyclonus appeared in ''Worlds Collide''. The only reason to include the set name in the article title is ''two'' separate characters who first official anything is in ''Timelines''. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 17:18, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

== Shattered Expectations ==

Um, shouldn't those[[Deathsaurus|1]][[Bug Bite|2]] who appear in ''[[Shattered Expectations]]'' have their own page like others[[Optimus Prime (Timelines)|1]][[Grimlock (Timelines)|2]] even their counterparts' article would be short? --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 06:28, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
:I brought this up on [[Category_talk:Mayhem_Suppression_Squad]]. As I said there, I think they should either get their own articles or if that's not warranted just be covered on the Mayhem Suppression Squad article. Either way, I don't think "Shattered Expectations" fiction sections belong on the normal-verse guys' pages. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 07:08, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

==Monaco skin==

Hi -- Have you guys seen the new Monaco skin that's being used on Wikia now? You can see it at [[w:c:muppet|Muppet Wiki]] and [[w:c:marveldatabase|Marvel Database]].

As we've been rolling the skin out across Wikia, there are a few things that we've found when wikis switch to Monaco:

* The number of pageviews goes up. The flyout menus encourage new readers to explore the content on the site, and people end up sticking around on the site for longer.

* The number of new editors goes up. Readers spend more time on the site, and find pages that they want to contribute to. Also, the design makes the edit button more prominent.

* The site is faster. There were some changes made last week to Monaco that make pages load a lot faster than Monobook. Hit "random page" a few times on a Monaco wiki, and you'll see what I mean.

So I'm going around and proselytizing to the Entertainment wikis that are still using Monobook. If you want to make a custom Monaco skin like Marvel Database and Wookieepedia have, I can help you make that happen. What do you guys think? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:31, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

:Monaco does look nice, though it might go against what I understand is the wiki's purpose, which is to be quick and dirty, no fancy stuff and no pretention that this wiki is in any way officially endorsed or serious. At least that's the gist of what I was told after I previously suggested we could make the default colour of this wiki a shade of orange, like the computer systems in the original Transformers cartoons. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 23:16, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

::Yeah, we don't have to do a custom skin -- it could be the basic blue and white. I'm mostly interested in the improved functionality. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 23:24, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Eh, if it makes the place ''easier'', I don't think the "pure and simple" folks will object.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 23:26, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

And truth be told, I think the main dealbreaker here might be the extent to which Suki and Derik may or may not have farted about with tweaking Monobook. I know they've both made alterations, but I don't know quite what.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 23:34, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

:That stuff won't be affected at all. We can copy Monobook.css over to Common.css, and all of the tweaks that they made will still work. No problems. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 23:52, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

My biggest concern is the menus. The "by series" list could easily fill the entire vertical direction of the screen. We don't actually have all the series listed on the main page now (Machine Wars, Dinobots, Timelines, Universe (2008), not to mention licenced lines like Animorphs, SWTF, Crossovers).--[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 00:45, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

:Well, the idea with the menus is to be selective rather than comprehensive. It's not supposed to be a complete sitemap for the wiki -- you just want to give the new readers something to click on first.

:On [[w:c:Muppet|Muppet Wiki]], we put up the most popular Muppet Show and Sesame Street characters, and then a link to "More characters". We just want to entice people into making that first click, without overwhelming them with choices.

:I have access to click-through data for the Monaco menus, so it's possible to run some tests. You could put up a set of menus for a few days, and then I'll be able to tell you which items are getting clicked. That way, you could refine the menus so that you could highlight the items that are most likely to get clicked on. I've been doing that with the Muppet menus, and it's fun to see what the readers are actually interested in reading about. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 23:34, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

::So what do you guys think? I'd like to help you switch over to the new skin... -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 19:10, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
:::For some reason none of the admins have chimed in. I assume they're all off doing useless things like living in Real Life. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 21:10, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

::::Yeah, I left messages for Chris and ItsWalky... -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:12, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::You might want to leave messages for [[User:Suki Brits]] and [[User:Steve-o]] as well. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 13:28, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Well admins? Let's hear your opinions! I find the silence from the staff to be discouraging. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 16:18, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

If there's an actual interest in switching over to Monaco, then I would certainly have nothing against that... but I'd definitely like to hear more from the community first. Aside from that, I have no objections speaking as an admin; the modifications really aren't an issue. On the other hand, speaking as a wiki editor and professional web designer... I would definitely want to use a modified version, as it's got several pretty important issues. My thoughts, in no particular order:
* Search is nigh useless, again. Right now it resembles our ''broken'' Monobook search. I don't think that's a good thing. On the other hand, I'm currently working on fixing that anyway, so it's not like the same couldn't be done for Monaco.
* The header sucks. It really, really does. It's only 150px tall, but it sends a pretty powerful message: we'd rather show you this pretty, irrelevant picture then let you immediately get to article. ''I'' would want the top of the article as close to the top as possible.
:: Gah, I brought it over into another browser that doesn't block ads... and now I see why it's so obnoxiously huge. I am ''strongly'' opposed to putting giant hideous banner ads at the top of everything. Like, it's a little insulting that Wikia really thinks that ''that'' should be the first thing readers see. Teletraan I, like everything else on Wikia, is naturally ad-driven; but Monobook isn't offensive about it.
* The language selection is in a dropdown box, which is a TERRIBLE idea. This personally doesn't affect me, as I don't speak Hungarian, but it's pretty awful for anyone who actually is interested in seeing foreign language versions of articles... and has to click a dropdown menu on every single page if they're curious.
* The "community" box is really unhelpful. Half the content (user page, user talk, etc.) is redundant with the top of the screen, and absolutely nobody is interested in just the most recent two edits. That just leaves the number of articles. This is a lot of wasted room for nothing.
* I ''do'' like that the obnoxious sidebar on the right is gone. The current framing in Monobook wastes all sorts of space and Monaco definitely doesn't ''look'' like it has that problem.
There's also a bunch of minor things, but they don't really matter so much. The big issues are the useless space, a need to do major fixes to search, and the huge obtrusive banner ads (as opposed to the ones on the side in Monobook). But if Wikia's really willing to work with us on it, then by all means, it's up to what the community thinks. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 20:48, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

:I've been around the Wookieepeedia lately, and I've noticed when you click edit, it loads significantly slower on Monaco than it does on the Monobook format. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 05:25, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

::Hi guys -- Sorry it took me so long to respond. I'll make up for it with a super-long answer. :)

::Yes, absolutely -- I want to work with you on this. Some of the things you've raised I can clear up immediately. For some, I can explain the rationale behind the approach, and show you some stats that may help. And if there are some things that need to get tweaked, I can talk to the designers & tech folks to see if we can come up with a solution.

::Just so you know: I work for Wikia now, but I started out in 2005 as the founder of [[w:c:muppet|Muppet Wiki]]. Working on wikis is my job now, but Muppet Wiki is where my heart lives, so I'm always looking out for what's going to help or hurt "my wiki". I am/was a big Monobook fan, and I was skeptical about Monaco as it was being designed. The thing that made me a Monaco fan was actually trying it out on Muppet Wiki, and then looking at the stats to see how it was working. Muppet Wiki and Teletraan I are very similar -- about a dozen really active contributors, a strong admin team and a community of about 60-80 contributors. So I can share with you what I saw on Muppet Wiki, and what I can see in the pageviews stats.

::First up, the rationale behind some of the decisions made with the new skin. There are some features on the new skin that the most active editors think are useless, like the Community box or the flyout menus. And it's true, those aren't very helpful for the active contributors. They're designed for the anonymous/new people, who are the vast majority of our readers.

::Here's the stats on unique visits for Teletraan I. (Unique visits counts the number of visits to a site, and not the number of pages you look at in each visit. So if you come to the wiki and look at 100 pages, that counts as one unique.) In the last month, there have been 2,725,000 anonymous visits, and 261,000 logged-in user visits. That means 91% of the visits to the site aren't logged-in contributors.

::Logged-in editors make 77% of the edits here, so obviously we're the people who are actually building the content that people are reading. Logged-in editors are important, and the dozen people who make over 100 edits here every month are especially important. Still, if you want to make the community bigger and more active, then you have to think about whether the design of the site encourages anonymous users to sign in and become active members.

::The purpose of designing the new skin was to make the wiki more accessible to the 91% of anonymous readers. Obviously, we have to keep the functionality that the active contributors need in order to build the wiki. At the same time, we have to be aware that the Monobook skin that we're familiar with is kind of confusing for brand-new people.

::For example, the "log in" button is in really small type at the very top right of the screen. From a website design perspective, that's crazy -- it's like we don't want people to find it. The log-in buttons on Monaco are big, green, candy-like buttons. There's one at the top right, and there's another one in the Community box on the sidebar. We want to encourage people to log in.

::In general, having all the important Monobook controls in little bitty tiny type says: We hate people who are older than 40. ("Go back to AOL, old man!") All of the Monobook buttons are in the same font, from the crucial stuff like "Log in" and "Edit this page" to the more obscure controls like "Related changes" and "Permanent link". On Monaco, the stuff that's important to brand-new users is bigger -- log-in, edit, the link to the home page. The search box is at the top, rather than being buried down in the sidebar. The controls that logged-in users need, like "What links here" and "Special pages", are in smaller type -- they're important to us, but a brand-new user wouldn't know what to do with them.

::Okay, so that's my very long introduction... Now I'll respond to the points that you guys have brought up.

::'''Search''': I think when you say that search is broken, you mean that there's just a "Go" button and not a "Search" button next to the search box. (If you mean something else, then let me know.) That's true, and it's something that I struggled with as the design for Monaco was taking shape. I use the Search button all the time, and I was frustrated that it wasn't included. Then I looked at the stats. On Teletraan I in the last month, logged-in users used Go for 91% of searches, and Search for 9%. Anonymous users used Go for 97% of searches. Given that, I think it's okay to make the Search button less prominent. I remember when I first started using wikis, I was totally confused by having two buttons. (Do I want to Go or Search? Well, I want to search, and then go to the search results...) I only figured out the difference through trial and error. So in Monaco, the search box at the top is Go, and then you can have a link to [[Special:Search]] in the toolbox. (Some wikis have that, and some don't -- Muppet has it, if you want to see how it works.)

::'''Community box''': That's one of the features that's designed to encourage brand-new users to explore the site. When you look at a wiki as a new reader, it's not always apparent that there's a community there. You read pages, but you don't necessarily know whether the articles were written today or a year ago. (Unless you look at Recent changes, which a brand-new reader doesn't know to do.) The Community box is designed to bring a little taste of the community activity up to their view. It's not a helpful way for a contributor to keep track of Recent changes, but it does show new people that something's going on. If you come to the site and see that somebody edited a page 15 seconds ago, then you understand that there's an active community. On Muppet Wiki in the last month, 1,404 anonymous readers logged in using the button in the Community box, 1,539 anon readers clicked the "more..." button to go to Recent changes, and 1,287 clicked on article links that they saw in the Latest Activity area. Those are readers who may not have been engaged with the site if they hadn't seen the activity going on in the Community box. On the other hand, logged-in contributors only clicked in the Community box 350 times. It's not designed for us; it's for the 91% of anons.

::'''Obnoxious ads''': This is the one area that's designed to help the company rather than the wiki. Basically, the deal is that Wikia doesn't make a lot of money from the "skyscraper" ads on the right sidebar. Nobody clicks on them, and most advertisers don't bother to make ads like that anymore. Advertisers want banner ads, and they want them at the top of the page. I can't justify this one in wiki terms, except to say that if we want Wikia to stay in business and continue to host wikis, then we need to change the skin to accommodate the changing ad market. Otherwise, there won't be a Wikia after a while.

::'''Languages drop-down''': We changed the list into a drop-down menu because sites like Wookieepedia had a long list, which took up a lot of sidebar space, and only had about 100 clicks on language links in a month. On Teletraan I, there have only been 2 clicks on the language links since October.

::'''Content space''': There is slightly less content area on Monaco when you first come to the page. The sidebar is smaller than the combined left & right Monobook sidebars, so the content area is wider. The banner ad means that the height takes a hit for the first screen. As you scroll down, though, the Monaco content area is bigger than on Monobook, because the page is wider. I can show you some screencaps if you want more info on this.

::'''Slow edits on Wookieepedia''': That looks like a bug that's specific to Wookieepedia... I'm not sure what's going on there. It looks like when you hit edit on Wookiee, it's looking for something from maps.google, and that can slow down the page load for the edit screen. I hadn't seen that before, so I'm really glad you pointed it out. That's not affecting other Monaco wikis like Muppet Wiki or Marvel Database, so there must be something in Wookieepedia's css that's causing that. I'll look into it. If you look at Muppet or Marvel, you'll see that the page load is lightning fast right now. (Not counting periods of site-wide database problems, which affect every skin.)

::So anyway -- this is a huge long post, but I think I responded to everything. As you can tell, I take this stuff really seriously, and I'm willing to put in the time to research the impact and explain what's going on. Do folks have other questions or concerns about Monaco? I could keep talking about this stuff all day. :) -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 17:33, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

:::Personally, as regular contributor, I'm fine with switching to Monaco, so long as we get to keep our new 'random page thumbnail' above the search box (or anywhere, really). I think it's useful for visitors to be able to visit a random page with an interesting thumbnail image rather than simply doing random searches or hitting Random page repeatedly. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 17:44, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

::::I knew there was something I forgot to mention! Yeah, the featured page thumbnail. I think that's something that we can adapt.

::::That feature doesn't have anything to do with search -- it just happens that you can put a picture in the Monobook search box. I actually think what you've made is a little misleading. The picture says "Search" on it, and it's right above the search box -- so as a user, I would assume that if I click that, I'll get some kind of search results page. Instead, it goes to a featured article, which isn't necessarily what you'd expect.

::::The feature is really a rotating spotlight for featured articles, which is cool and visual, and helps to bring readers deeper into the content. It's a great idea. I think it would actually be more effective if it was split away from search, so readers would be more likely to recognize it as a featured-article spotlight.

::::So there are a couple ways to do that in Monaco. The easiest way would be to put it in the sidebar -- check out [[MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar]] for an example. Here's pics to show what that would look like.

<gallery>
Image:Monacosidebar1.jpg
Image:Monacosidebar2.jpg|You can update this list anytime, so you can freshen it up every day or every week. Or never.
Image:Monacosidebar3.jpg|That big green, fire-snortin' lizard must be included.
Image:Monacosidebar4.jpg|If you click on "Embrace the Knowledge", it takes you to the Allspark article. Obviously.
</gallery>

::::It's not graphical, but it allows you to bring the funny into the sidebar, which you've never been able to do before. One advantage of this approach is that you can add in new articles to the sidebar without having to wait for somebody to make a graphic.

::::If that's not enough and you need to go graphical, then I can talk to our designer, Christian, about creating a widget that can go into the sidebar and have the same function. It could sit above or below the Community box. It would be separate from search, but like I said, that may be a good thing. What do you think? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:48, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

If you want to sell this to Walky... make it orange.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 22:05, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
[[Image:Orangemonaco.jpg|thumb|250px|It could be even oranger if that would help.]]
:Does this work? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:13, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

::The brick skin has a pretty nice brown/orange thing going. That's what I'm using at the moment. --[[User:Professor Icepick|Professor Icepick]] 22:17, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
:::See, that's what was needed to get his attention. The orange will draw him, like a moth to a flame.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 22:24, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
[[Image:Monacobrick.jpg|thumb|250px|Monaco Brick, in all its dark red and orange glory.]]
::::Here's how Brick looks... -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:28, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

:::::Do it! --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 00:41, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
::::::I TOLD you guys that we should make this wiki orange (to actually look like Teletraan 1) way back before we even knew about Monaco, but you were all "We are serious business about not taking ourselves seriously". --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 06:44, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

:I don't know all that much about what can and can't be modified, but can't a number of the problems with Monobook be solved simply by changing the css or js files? I'm mainly talking about the small text size for the tabs and login. Plus, most people who edit wikies are probably familiar with Wikipedia's Monobook interface. Plus, I don't think anyone wants the trouble from the ad format being changed again. A few months ago the site started taking showing wider vertical ads, and it was awhile before the horizontal scrolling mess got cleaned up. But then again I'm the guy who uses XP's Classic Windows scheme with Windows 98's colors and icons, so I may be biased when it comes to new interfaces. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 22:41, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

::The Monobook problems can't be solved with css changes. The type size is an example, but it's really a general problem with the layout. Wiki veterans are used to Monobook, but it's not necessarily a great layout for new people. I meet people all the time who read Wikipedia, but when I ask if they've ever made an edit, they say no -- it never occurred to them. I think it's important to make wikis more accessible to new people, and we're finding that Monaco is helping people to explore the wikis and make their first edit.

::Are there other concerns that people have that I can help with? I know that this discussion has gone on a bit, and I'd hate to have it just run out of steam before it gets to a decision. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 18:15, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::It seems like there aren't any more concerns about the new skin, so I'm thinking about changing it over to Monaco tomorrow, unless someone has objections. Once it's switched over, then I can help you out with whatever customization you want. Is that cool? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 15:55, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
::::A great number of us are indisposed at [[BotCon 2008]] this weekend, but there should still be a handful of us around. So you know! --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 16:09, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::Gyah. I thought we were doing Brick?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:17, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:We can do anything you guys want... I'm just playing around for a minute to see if I can come up with something interesting. It's gonna look bad for the next five minutes... and then we can talk about what you guys want, and fix it up nice. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:21, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::Okay, never mind. That just looked bad. :) So I set it to Brick. If you guys want to change these colors, we can change them to whatever you like. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:25, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

===Apparently implemented===
Is there any way to override this that '''doesn't''' override the skins on ''every'' Wikia-hosted wiki? - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 21:19, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:Do you mean, you want to see the skin in Monobook? You can go to Preferences --> Skins, and set your preferred skin to Monobook. You can check or uncheck the box that says "Let the admins override my skin choice" to either see customized skins or not. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:27, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::Yes, I know that. My problem with that is the "This setting will follow you across Wikia." clause. I don't want to override EVERYWHERE (e.g. Memory Alpha). Just Monaco wikis. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 21:30, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::Actually, they're working on switching over to the Monaco skin on Memory Alpha too... At a certain point, pretty much every Wikia wiki is going to end up on Monaco. Is there something about Monaco that you don't like? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:43, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::::The flyouts. Certainly not the only thing - the more I look, the less I like, especially the pathetic "Latest Activity" box with a practically-camouflaged recentchanges link, and why exactly are the preferences hidden? - but they're the biggest dealbreaker. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 22:01, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::::Yeah, at first I wasn't crazy about the flyouts either. We tested out using the sidebar without the flyouts on Muppet Wiki, but then I looked at the click stats and found that they really helped new readers to find content on the wiki. The pageviews went down when we took the flyouts out. If you're interested, there's details here: [[w:c:muppet:Muppet_Wiki:Current_events#Sidebar_menus|Muppet Wiki:Current events]].

:::::The "Community" box is also something for the new users. When you first come to the wiki, you might think that it's just a static site... There's no way to know that there's a living community. The latest activity shows people that there are pages that were edited in the last couple minutes. Also, logged-out users see a log-in button in that box. For active logged-in users, a lot of these features aren't that useful. They're really aimed at the 90-something% of readers that aren't logged in. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:10, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::::::(NB: I was expanding my post at the same time you were typing, since I was spending a bit of time looking around).
::::::See, I'm not coming at it from the "guy who runs the wiki" perspective. I'm not a sysop on a Wikia wiki, so "this will boost Teh Stats" has no effect on me [perhaps that means you consider my position irrelevant. I can't help that]. Nor am I a newbie to Wikis, so again, not the target group.
::::::My problem is that (1) they require me to turn JavaScript on in the first place (strictly, add to the NoScript whitelist, but...) and (2) the click-on flyout in the top right is worse than pointless, since there's room for the links without that and it just makes preferences harder to access and (3) I hate non-click flyouts since you they will inevitably be scrolled at the wrong moment, trebly so since they're on the side rather than the top. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 22:08, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::::::I think "this will boost Teh Stats" actually matters to everybody. More readers looking at more pages = more potential contributors = a more active community = more and better content on the site. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:12, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::::::::By the way, I'm not trying to make you like the skin. Either you like it, or you don't. I'm just explaining the rationale behind some of the design decisions, so you know that it wasn't just random or malicious. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:17, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

There are three things that would make me more... reconciled... to it. I still probably won't ''like'' it, but...
#On your own "help.wikia", there's a group of links beneath the flyouts to Recent Changes/Upload/etc. They don't appear here or on most Wikia wikis (well, strictly they appear for about half a second on a Ctrl-F5, which suggests they're present but being hidden with CSS or something). They should be there as standard.
#Links to Special:Preferences and Special:Contributions/(self) should be available with a single non-flyover click, either in the "Community" box or at the top right, not in a flyover only. '''ESPECIALLY''' Special:Preferences.
#Be able to override the colour scheme on an individual wiki basis, rather than just "all or nothing" - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 22:29, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::For #1, I'm not sure why you're not seeing the toolbox links. That's an important part of the skin, and it's on every wiki. Check out the screenshots that I added above -- every wiki has links to Recent changes and Upload. If you're not seeing it, then that's a weird bug which we can try to figure out. What browser are you using? Are you only seeing the toolbox disappearing on Transformers, or on other wikis too?

::If you want it, we can put links to Preferences and Contributions in the toolbox, or in the sidebar. I don't know how to change the top header.

::Can you give me an example of what you'd like to see as far as overriding the color schemes? I think it's possible that what you want is currently possible, but I'm not sure. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:54, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::Okay, #1 was my own fault. An in-browser hack I'd done on Monobook was interacting "unpredictably" with Monaco, and had knocked that (and some minor stuff that doesn't make any difference) out of joint.
:::Okay on #2. I'd be interested to find out how many people ever use Special:Preferences on any skin(s) while you're trotting out stats...
:::On #3, basically, being able to use different (non-default) skins, or at least colour schemes from the chosen skin on different wikis without being limited to the "this will follow you across Wikia". Just because one wiki chooses to smother the page in bright pink (or orange...) doesn't mean I want to change the colour scheme on every wikia. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 23:32, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Sure, I love trotting out stats!

Here's the stats on how Transformers contributors click on those links. In the last month, there have been the following clicks:

* Watchlist: 3,114
* Contributions: 427
* User page: 213
* Talk page: 67
* Preferences: 22

So, yeah, contributions is #2 on that list, but preferences is all the way down at the bottom. Preferences is useful when you need it, but people don't need it that often.

But the hypothesis is: If you put Contributions and Preferences into a drop-down menu, people won't click on it as much, and you'll see clicks on those two items going down.

To make a comparison, I looked at Muppet Wiki editors' clicks in February (on Monobook) and in April (using Monaco).

Here's the clicks on Monobook:

* Contributions: 403 (52%)
* Watchlist: 148 (19%)
* Talk page: 132 (17%)
* User page: 83 (11.5%)
* Preferences: 4 (0.5%)

Here's the clicks on Monaco:

* Contributions: 320 (60%)
* Watchlist: 123 (23%)
* Talk page: 53 (10%)
* User page: 23 (4%)
* Preferences: 15 (3%)

The hypothesis doesn't seem to hold up. Percentage-wise, clicks on Contributions and Preferences went up using Monaco. This is a really small sample, so it's not proof of anything... but it indicates that the drop-down menu doesn't chase away clicks.

As far as seeing wikis in different skins, try choosing Monobook in your skin preferences, and keep "allow admins to override my choices" checked. Transformers isn't using a custom skin right now, so you should see this wiki in Monobook -- and you'll also see the customization on Memory Alpha, etc. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 00:19, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

==Script-style quotes==
There seems to be some disagreement on whether script-style quotes should have quotation marks or not. Personally, I strongly favor including them, for two reasons:
* Visual consistency. There's no reason not to have all the quotes in as similar a format as possible. Having some with quotation marks, and some without, ''in the same section'', seems like needless variation.
* It's... well... it's a ''quote''. We're not writing a screenplay; we're quoting something someone actually said. And a quote gets quotation marks.... fullstop. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 21:18, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

:Hmm, I'm afraid I disagree. They're simply not necessary, and they clutter the page.
:And, regardless of whether we decide to use double-quotes, can we put a stop to script-style where the quotes are are in double-quotes ''and'' italicized? {shudder} [[User:JW|JW]] 21:21, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
::The italics stuff is flat out bad formatting, no disagreement here. There's an earlier discussion about it somewhere on this page or the archives. Nobody should be adding stuff in that format anymore... I hope.
::As for double quotes... um... I have no clue what you're referring to. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 21:23, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

==Gone Too Far==
I've been alerted it's past the 30-day period for "coming soon Club stuff" non-updating. Have at it. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 22:03, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

==Searchbox improvement drive==
So now we have a very nice set of searchboxes, thanks to the lovely design work of M Sipher and the superhuman coding skills of Suki Brits. The effort of these boxes is to show the visitor all of the awesome crap we have. To do that, said cap must in fact be awesome. Unfortunately, a lot of the pages linked to by searchboxes are [[Shatterpoint|imageless]], [[T-AI|missing fiction]], or [[High Wire (Armada)|pretty much content-free]]. Thus, I propose an improvement drive of the searchbox articles. When you click on one of those suckers, try and add something. I dunno how we'd make this official, exactly... - [[User:RolonBolon|RolonBolon]] 06:49, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
:Are these images supposed to show up automatically by/around/with the actual text box in which you type your search parameters? If so, I'm not seeing them in the current Monaco skin.--[[User:Apcog|Apcog]] 14:29, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
::They don't show up in Monaco, Quartz, Cologne Blue, or any other custom theme. Just Monobook, the default. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 20:15, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Is there a way to get the search box changes to load sooner? The way it is now the custom settings for the box are the last thing to load; it uses the default settings until the google ads finish loading. This can take awhile depending on how the crappy campus wireless is acting. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 20:39, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with RolonBolon about the searchbox thing. I know we're hard up for help, but why are we spending time creating these little searchbox images using pics from God knows where, yet we've neglected to upload a single image for the actual pages these buttons lead to? Not the mention pages that have absolutely no content whatsoever.
I think we've overreached ourselves, and in the future we should only do these searchbox things for articles that are largely complete and/or have alot of content and imagery, otherwise we look really half-ass and unfocused. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 22:37, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
:Yeah, what drove it home for me was Sixtrain. I see Sixtrain in the Search box. It looks nifty, like it's his box art. I click on the article, no images. Why the heck can't we upload Sixtrain's box art when we evidently have a clear enough copy of it to make a search teaser?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 23:33, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
::I was simply making boxes using what I had on the hard drive as examples, and not everything is good quality at main-image size. I don't think we've "overreached ourselves" at all. At worst, we omit a few items from the searchbox list if their entries are that empty for a little while, OH NOES. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 00:22, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
:::I am of the opinion that a fuzzy picture that can be replaced later is better than no picture at all. It helps users know what it's talking about in the meantime, right? [[User:Spriteless|Spriteless]] 02:24, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
::::We prefer no pic/no content to a crap pic/crap content. I've been taking a break from the Wiki, but it looks like I'm going on another image safari. My scanner not working is annoying. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 06:54, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

The fact that the image is the last one on the page to load isn't just visually annoying; it for some reason also makes whatever you've typed in the search field vanish in Firefox. I've had this happen to me a bunch of times. A lesser annoyance is that the input box moves when the image appears; it would be nice if it could stay in the same place (maybe by making the whole Search box a fixed size?), as it's a bad idea to have a clickable thing that spontaneously jumps around. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 20:31, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
: The way the Search Image works right now, I'd rather not even have them. My computer has slowed down ''epically'' trying to load those images each time, and if it's a high traffic time of day, the rest of the page will basically freeze for 30 seconds or more until that search image gets around to loading. This is extremely annoying when I just need a quick peek at a page before making a link, like checking if Stormcloud is one word or two or if Whirl needs to be disambig-ed in the link. And if I try to click Search to move on to a next page too early, the Image drops down in front and shang-hais my "click", so I go there instead of being able to type in where I want to go.

: I don't like the thing at all. It's been nothing but a hassle for the last day or so. There's already a Random page button right about it -- do we really need this too? --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 00:30, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::The same thing has been happening to me lately, and I've never experienced that problem on Wookieepedia. And this is a real problem for me, as I'm actually ''supportive'' of the image icons. We may want review the system. -- [[User:SFH|SFH]] 01:30, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Though in fairness, some of that may be due to Wikia's tendency to nearly-crash every weekend. And to be honest, this weekend has been rather traffic low. I mean, seriously, did every head to BotCon a week early? -- [[User:SFH|SFH]] 02:09, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Let me know if this continues to be an issue during weekdays (well, before Thursday, anyway). If it is, I'll figure out a way to let users optionally turn them off. I've never noticed it slowing down while trying to load, and any sane browser ''shouldn't'', but if that really is happening for some users, something definitely ought to be done about it.
::::I'll also take a look at preserving the form data while the images load, because that is definitely something that really ''should'' happen, too. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 03:44, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::Things sped back up again shortly after SFH's last post, but I'll post again if it keeps happening regularly. Maybe it was just an anomaly. --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 03:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::'''Furthermore:''' I did a bit of code modification that should make the form retain anything you've typed before the images loads. You may need to do a hard refresh for the change to show up, but lemme know if that doesn't work for anyone. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 03:52, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

==Templates listing==
Is there a page editors can refer to for templates (messagebox, user notices ect) without having to go through the categories or remembering the last time somebody used it so they can copy-paste it? They seem to be unnecessarily difficult to track down. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 03:43, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
:[http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=10 here] --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 04:50, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
::My main concern was not requiring the page soley for myself, but was this page obviously linked on a help page or something somewhere that anybody could find easily? I'd personally like to see this wiki become more user-friendly. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 07:25, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Agreed, as I've [http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Transformers_Wiki_talk:Community_Portal#.22First_go_here.21__Next_go_here..22 said before on this very page]. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 15:05, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Yeah. Our lack of user friendliness might discourage people from joining up. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 17:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:What I'm worried about is that some of the other users would actually be okay with that...-- [[User:SFH|SFH]] 17:48, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::Well, last time I checked some of these other users don't own the wiki. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 09:12, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

== new template: Comicinfo ==

Please checkout [[Template:Comicinfo]]. It's a little rough around the edges, but something I think could be useful on the comics pages. Comments and suggestions are welcome.--[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 02:42, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

== Masthead ==

Okay, the old Monobook masthead doesn't look so good under Monaco. How do we change this?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:31, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
:I've looked around and seen that other wikis have already taken advantage of the extra masthead space. Question is, how do we do so, and what dimensions would the new masthead be?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 16:05, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
::Before we do anything, I would recommend keeping the masthead's filesize reasonable, because there's nothing worse than trying to load a site with a masthead image that is like a megabyte or something. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 16:22, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Oh, absolutely. I was mainly thinking perhaps something involving a 'shopping of the TFA logo, considering it'd fit the color scheme nicely. Alternatively, maybe something aping the "grid" of G1.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 16:26, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Another thought is whether it's possible for the masthead to be random/rotating. If so, it'd let us do Autobot/Decepticon versions of the same masthead (via color swap) or even rotating versions for different franchises (G1, BW, UT, etc.)--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 16:35, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

== Sidebar ==

Given that we're getting a lot of Transformers Animated traffic lately, I'd say an item in the Monaco sidebar is likely going to help direct people to the right articles.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:45, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:Okay, I put it in the sidebar. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:56, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

The more I think on it, the more it seems we'd be best served by condensing the G1 and TFA menus and instead just having one menu that's franchise navigation. I dunno. I'm a little bothered that we can't seem to get the admins to chime in on this, since they're the ones that can edit the sidebar setup the most easily.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 19:02, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:Eh. Monday after BotCon. A lot of them are probably still sleeping off their flight / drive / booze. Another reason why big changes probably shouldn't've happened this weekend. Give it a day or so. --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 19:12, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

The sidebar does need major work, and [[MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar]] is a protected page so I guess it's not just easier for admins to change it, they're the only ones who can?

The issues I have with it are:

* "Featured characters" menu still includes articles that haven't actually been Featured, as well as [[Spark]], which ''has'' been featured but is not a ''character''.
* Generation 1 and Animated are the only franchises listed.
* The G1 and Animated menus are inconsistent in the sorts of articles they list. The Generation 1 menu includes [[Autobot]] and [[Decepticon]], articles were not restricted to G1, then several high profile characters and one obscure, jokey one. The Animated menu, on the other hand, just lists the franchise's cartoon, comic, toyline, and books articles.
* The "Embrace the Knowledge" menu seems to take a bit of scattershot approach. [[Marvel Comics]] is listed, but none of the other publishers. Hasbro is there, but not Takara. With [[Mini-Con]] there, might this be a better place for the Autobot and Decepticon articles, and other factions as well?
--[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 19:55, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:[[MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar]] can only be edited by admins. That's true for all MediaWiki pages. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 20:31, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

== Hate the new skin. ==

Hate this new skin. Just wanted to say it. The old look was much more pleasent and open to read. New one is just crouded and Blah. THIS is gonna take getting use to. No Sir, I don't like it.

:Can it at least not be burgundy and orange? - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 22:08, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::Yeah, it can be any color you like. I was messing around with colors before, but wasn't doing a great job with it, and Rosicrucian said he wanted this color scheme. Any admin can change the colors by editing [[MediaWiki:Monaco.css]]. There's instructions on how to do it here: [[w:c:help:Customizing Monaco|Customizing Monaco]]. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:15, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
:::I mainly liked this because it fits with the color scheme of Teletraan itself. I'm not married to the idea, though. I also figured I'd speak up about it because Walky liked it, and he's off enjoying his ridiculously expensive Transformers collector's items at BotCon.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 22:21, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Ahh, right, well, I can see the logic, there, all right... I'm just not dying about the dark-coloured backgrounds, since it's a big visually jarring to have big white boxes of text in the middle of them. - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 22:24, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

: Seconding the hate. [[User:Hooper X|-hx]] 00:04, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
:: This looks pretty hideous compared to MonoBook... and it's hard to navigate. Well, at least I can override it in preferences, but I think I'll be ignoring admin skin choices unless a custom one appears in the future.--[[User:MCRG|MCRG]] 00:44, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

:::I think I can try to get used to the new skin unless/until I find something inconvenient. Well, so far so good. At least the seach function is better. But the logo on the left side of the top, well... um, oh. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 01:23, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
::Fourthing the hate. The colors hurt my eyes. That, and the obscure character search images are gone. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 01:45, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

:I'm afraid I don't much like it either. Fortunately, it was pretty easy to uncheck the "override" box on my preferences. [[User:JW|JW]] 01:54, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't like the new skin either. I don't get the menus at the side. "Featured characters" includes articles that I don't think have actually been Featured. G1 and Animated are listed, but no other franchises. And the menus are inconsistent. The G1 menu lists Autobot, Decepticon, and then a bunch of character pages, while the Animated menu lists Animated's toy line, cartoon, comic, and books articles. Why the difference? And what was the selection process for the "Embrace the Knowledge" menu?

By the way, in the middle of BotCon is probably the worst possible time for major changes like this to be made. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 04:29, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

:The menus at the side are examples that I made up. You guys can change them to be anything you want, by editing [[MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar]]. I'm sorry about the timing... We've been talking about this for maybe three weeks.

:Lots of things can be changed -- the colors, the menus, the logo. I'll put it back to the basic Sapphire for now, which is more like Monobook. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 05:08, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Not a fan of the skin, either. Losing the brown and yellow from earlier was a step up, but it still doesn't quite work. The extra crap on the side feels ''bigger'' now, so the actual articles feel ''smaller''. And those blamed automatic pulldown menus keep getting in the way everytime I move my cursor to or from the Search box. Annoying. --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 17:02, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:I'm a little unclear- you say Monaco is the new Wikia standard skin. No one likes it. But we can override the style in our preferences to set it back to Monobook.
:So does TT1 have the ''option'' of deciding to switch back to Monobook if that's what the consensus decides? Danny is saying they are switching Memory Alpha Monaco and "at a certain point, pretty much every Wikia wiki is going to end up on Monaco." So is this something we get to decide for ourselves, or will Monaco be forced on us even if we don't want it? -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 18:55, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

::What I find interesting on the MΑ example is that Toughpigs said, and I quote:
:::''Actually, they're working on switching over to the Monaco skin on Memory Alpha too''
::Now, who are "they"? Because I've just looked at MΑ - and in the designated [[MemoryAlpha:Forum:Monaco skin|forum on the matter]], one Wikia staff member (who has no main namespace edits on MΑ in the past three years) is the only user pushing for it. Only two other users have (briefly) commented - one admin who's strongly against it because of the top ad banner, and one other user who dittoed that. The only other place it is mentioned is on [[MemoryAlpha:Portal talk:Main#Monaco skin|their main page talk]], where one "[[Wikia:Wikia Helper Group|Wikia Helper Group]]" member (who has no MΑ edits on any other matter, main namespace or otherwise) shilled it - and in response, got a reply from one user that they were confused, and another user that they preferred Monobook. Unless there's some hidden forum somewhere, there's no consensus from MΑ that they want to switch.

::If Toughpigs's line is intended to say there's a push ''from'' MΑ as a "do you want T1 to be left out", it's, well, draw your own conclusions. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 19:42, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I've been vague about what the future holds, because I don't know. Right now, the community does have the option to switch the site back to Monobook, if that's what you decide.

However, at some point in the future, Wikia may need to switch everybody over to Monaco. We need to figure out how to get more advertisers to buy ads on Wikia. We're exploring a lot of different possibilities right now, so I can't predict how that's going to go yet. But we may find that it hurts us to have skins with completely different ad sizes all over the site. Companies don't want to advertise on sites that have a leaderboard on some pages and a skyscraper on others.

Right now, we're able to offer a lot of flexibility with the skins, and we're not forcing a change on any community. But if you think about it, no other (sane) website does that. Ad-supported websites have a format, and everything on the site is in that format.
:I have no real problem with Wikia's need to place more prominent banners. I don't ''like'' them, but I recognize that it is a reality of your business model.
:I ''do'' take issue with the banners being tied to a sucky new UI that's being forced on us, hammering us with a double-negative. Is there any way to place the new banners (satisfying Wikia's business imperatives) in the old skin (satisfying our desire to not have the site suck so badly?) Maybe we can find a treatment that makes them less obnoxious without de-valuing them.
:Of course- you keep stressing how this new UI causes more clicks... which means more pageviews, with means more bannerviews, which means more ad revenue. I really feel like your entire pitch is a thinly veiled attempt to monetize this wiki regardless of what the users want. So not only do we have to have the banners that generate more revenue-- we have to have the UI that's editor-unfriendly but promotes more pageviews.
:Why don't you just rewrite the site interface so you have to click 8 times to do anything like MySpace? I mean- that seems consistent with the whole 'sacrifice the user experience in exchange for saleable ad impressions' philosophy you're espousing here.
:You quote a lot of statistics. Are they internal? Do/can we have access to them? Would TT1 be allowed to pursue evolving our interface to maximize pageviews ''without'' having to buy into Monaco?
:Strictly speaking the best way to increase pageviews on this wiki would to make all the links un-disambiguated, so every time you click on a link you have to view the disambig page before you can select the page you ''actually'' wanted to see from the list. There- pageviews have increased... at the expense of the user experience.
:Packaging ''can'' be a force multiplier to make content more attractive... slightly more attractive. But in the end it's the quality of the content that drives readers. If we have to increase viewership to pad Wikia's bottom line, I'd ''really'' rather we did so by offering different or better content- not by putting obnoxious shiny packaging around it. (And yeah, that's a toy marketing metaphor. You get a lot of those here.) -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 07:05, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I know that the obvious response to the ad talk is "that's your problem", but it's actually everybody's problem. Wikia offers free hosting to communities like this one because we're advertiser-supported. But the ad market is changing -- and if we don't keep up, then we go out of business, and we can't host wikis anymore.

Anyway, we're not anywhere near a problem at the moment. Wikia is fine, and if the community decides to switch back to Monobook, then that's fine. But it will be easier in the long run if folks give Monaco a chance, and see if we can make it work the way that you want it to work.

Meanwhile, I can address a couple of the concerns that people have posted about. First up: The size of the content area. Xaaron says that the crap on the side feels bigger, so the content area feels smaller. I took screenshots of the same page using both Monaco and Monobook, at the same browser size and screen resolution.

<gallery>
Image:Megatron-monaco.jpg|Monaco
Image:Megatron-monobook.jpg|Monobook
</gallery>

You can see from those pictures that Monaco gives you a wider content area. The first two paragraphs take up 16 lines in Monobook. On Monaco, it takes up 13 lines.

The number of logins has gone up just in the last few days. On April 26-27, 41 people logged in to the site (20.5 per day). From March 1-31, there were 381 logins (12.3 per day). This may be because of the interest generated at BotCon, but it also seems like being at BotCon over the weekend kept people away from the website. The increase in logins is consistent with what we've seen on other sites -- Monaco makes logging in more visible to new users.

On the sidebar over the last couple days, these are the most clicked on items:

# Transformers Animated (cartoon): 295 clicks
# Murdered puppy: 192 clicks
# That big green, fire-snortin' lizard: 168 clicks
# Transformers Animated (toy line): 131
# Autobot: 111
# Optimus Minor: 108
# More featured characters: 83
# Optimus Prime: 76
# Gas Skunk: 74
# Airazor (BW): 72

Pageviews for April 26-27 are up 21% over the average from the previous 30 days. That may be because of the interest around BotCon and the new episodes, but it might also be because the sidebar is helping new readers find articles that they're interested in, and because the pages load faster with Monaco. In any event, it doesn't seem like Monaco is chasing people away. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 20:27, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:It could also be because existing users have been giving the new skin a test drive. Anyway, couple of things about the skin that I'm wondering. First, the Teletraan 1 image in the upper left corner is now tiny with ugly, empty whitespace on three sides. Can it be enlarged? Second, can the recently-added neat little search box images be included in the new skin? --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 20:51, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

::The logo can be changed by uploading a new image to [[:Image:Wiki_wide.png]].

::The search box images are a neat idea, but I'm confused about why they're attached to search. They don't take you to a search page. They're basically a random featured-article generator. If you want, I can talk to the designer here about creating a randomized featured-article widget for the sidebar. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 20:59, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Basic test image for the top left:

[[Image:TFfactions.png|266x75px]]

- [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 21:58, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:I've got some ideas for the masthead. I'll 'shop something up when I get home from work.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 22:05, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
::My proposal:
::[[Image:Teletraan masthead.png]]
::Whaddaya think?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 02:16, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:::That one is beautiful. --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 02:20, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Look nice for Rosi's. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 02:26, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Ooo, rock me, Amadeus. Verra nice. [[User:JW|JW]] 02:56, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
::::That is perfect, Rosicrucian. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 04:36, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::That is lovely. --[[User:Sntint|Sntint]] 04:38, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

== Anonymous edits ==

Lately, I've been looking at wikis that have decided to turn off anonymous edits, and have everybody log in before contributing to the wiki. The idea is that having everybody log in builds a stronger sense of community, because you always have a name to associate with an edit, rather than a random string of numbers. It's easier to talk to people who have names. It also gives you more control over vandalism, since you can recognize potential vandals more easily.

Some people don't like the idea, because they're worried that logging in is a barrier to entry -- if you have to log in to edit, then you won't bother, and you'll go away. Looking at the wikis that require login, that doesn't seem to be true. [[w:c:muppet|Muppet Wiki]] turned off anon edits last April, and the number of active editors has actually gone up. Some of our most active wikis require login -- [[w:c:wowwiki|World of Warcraft]], [[w:c:ffxi|FFXIclopedia]], [[w:c:tibia|Tibia Wiki]] and [[w:c:marveldatabase|Marvel Database]]. (WoW and FFXI actually require a confirmed e-mail address before you can edit.)

So I've been talking to folks about this, and we've decided to allow wiki communities to turn off anonymous edits if they want to. There are a lot of anonymous editors here, so I'm wondering what you guys think about it. Would it be helpful to require login for everybody?

Obviously, that's a big community decision... I just want to throw out the possibility, and see what you think. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 20:38, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

:I strongly oppose disabling anonymous edits! (I also oppose sweeping changes performed over botcon, and unilaterally re-skining the site when the community can argue for weeks or month about proposed style changes to individual ''templates'' without reaching a consensus-- but if you're willing to ignore the needs of registered users while making such 'big community decisions,' why would you listen to anon users?) -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 08:18, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
::Well, let's get an opposing viewpoint here. Why are you, 75.168.112.43, unwilling to get an account? [[User:JW|JW]] 11:16, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:::You assume I don't have an account.
:::I strongly oppose disabling anonymous edits because;
::::# It puts up a gateway that discourages first time users. Not a tall gateway- but a gateway nonetheless. Even if it only turns back 30% of new editors, that's 30% of people who could potentially become productive members of the community we're turning away out of hand.
::::# Equally important to the new users are the 'casual fixers', people who will /never/ become regulars on this wiki but, while clicking around, notice a link leading to '''Megatron''' instead of '''Megatron (G1)'''. If they have to register to make that simple fix? 9 times out of 10 that kind of fix will not get done.
::::# The problem 'disabling anonymous edits' seeks to fix- trolls- will not be solved. We already have trolls who register for accounts-- right now we don't even require an e-mail address. So ''next'' to combat Troll,s we'll require all accounts to have e-mail addresses. Then we'll require those e-mails be ''verified'', then maybe we'll set up a system where new users have to be ''approved'' like so many online communities before they can use their account. IP Tracking! Requiring Persistent Cookies! Each and ''any'' of these steps makes the online experience just a little bit more unpleasant for the user (and each hoop to jump throuhg makes new users just a little disinclined to join) but none of them actually stops trolls! Clear your cache, sign up for a yahoo account and you're up and running again. The trolls that regularly bother TT1 have already demonstrated they are willing to go to these lengths to evade bans. I am opposed to any measure that would punish the general body of users (registered and non) to deal with trolls. I am '''strongly''' opposed to any measure that would punish users and '''not''' deal with trolls, which is what this promises to do.

::::And seriously- while I'm tickled to death to know that the 'wikia community developer' has been attracted to communities that place restrictions on their users, I'm not thrilled to see someone who's not part of the community lobbying that we become more insular. I think changing TT1 to a UI that's different from Wikipedia makes the site harder to use (both for new users, and for users who make contributions to multiple wikis) is an objectively bad decision that was made with little discussion because 'it looks better.' And I really dislike that this was done while everyone was gone at Botcon and it was impossible to form a quorum for proper discussion. Monorail guy dances into town and starts making global changes that he thinks 'make more sense' without understanding that [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Talk:Megatron_Rising_-_Part_2&action=history they were that way for a reason], and his whims would require massive secondary cleanup effort to enact. I don't think someone who's not a participating member of this community should be initiating that kind of change, or throwing his weight behind them for them while 'polling for consensus. On a more fundamental level- I'm suspicious about external voices telling us how we should be running this wiki, because sooner or later they're gong to tell us The Funny Should Go.
::::I feel the burden of proof is on the other side here-- show that there will be a concrete and measurable improvement to the wiki by disabling anonymous edits that will NOT place an unnecessary burden on users. -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 12:38, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::''"You assume I don't have an account."'' Well, then, please tell us why you aren't willing to use it. I'm truly curious. [[User:JW|JW]] 13:04, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::More to the point, the IP address 75.168.112.43 has only made 10 contributions to this wiki, of which only 4 are of actual substance. Your comments will carry more weight if you tell us which long-established editor you in fact ''are.'' Otherwise, ''you<nowiki>'</nowiki>re'' the "external voice telling us how we should be running this wiki". [[User:JW|JW]] 13:16, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

::::::I oppose to disable anonymous edit, too. I was once a anonymous user . If the anonymous edit is disabled, that would mean we close the door for many potential users-to-be. Though I hate anonymous vandalizing, which is really a problem. But any bad anonymous user can get an account to vandalize, too. ''Urgh''.--[[User:TX55|TX55]] 13:56, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

The Funny Should Definitely Not Go. The reason why I've been hanging out on this wiki lately is because I like it -- specifically, because I like the Funny. I don't want to annoy people or screw stuff up; I'm just trying to help out in ways that I know how to help.

I didn't unilaterally change the skin... If you look above, the conversation about the skin started on April 7th. On Thursday, I asked if there were any more comments before I switched it over. The only response was from ItsWalky, who indicated that it would be okay. I've been keeping an eye on the stats -- the number of edits, registrations and pageviews have all gone up since the wiki switched to Monaco. (Saturday was the highest single day for registrations on the wiki since January.)

As I said, anonymous edits is totally a community decision. I just wanted to let you know that it's an option if the community wants it. It's a long-term discussion, and I don't have an interest in pushing it one way or the other. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 14:31, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:I would be against restricting edits to registered members. This wiki already has a reputation in the Transformers community as alledgedly being the playground for a very specific group of fans. Restricting edits will only further this perception. But more importantly:

:*I tend to agree that if one has no intention of making significant edits, but very occassionally fixes minor mistakes that one sees, then one shouldn't be forced to register to do so.

:*Some of us would prefer not to login while accessing the wiki at school or at work. Yeah, we have our reasons.

:*Chris McFeely, one of our staff members, sometimes has trouble logging onto the wiki when he's not at home, so if we restrict edits to logged-in users, he can't make any contributions if he happens to have free time while out and about.

:*Good anonymous editors sometimes eventually become registered members if they find they enjoy making the edits and would to participate in the little community we have.

:*Trolls and vandals who go to the effort of being repeat offenders will not be scared off by a registration process. I think we'll find that these people have ''alot'' of free time on their hands. Even more than I do!

:--[[User:FFN|FFN]] 15:03, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:I'd be more willing to believe that the increase in edits on Saturday was due to the new skin if Saturday didn't happen to be the day most of the BotCon panels were held. Those give us a lot of new information that needs to be added to the wiki. Plus, two (or three) new episodes were shown that morning: Return of the Headmaster in the US, Mission Accomplished in Canada, and Collect and Save at Botcon. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 15:46, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

::No kidding. You could've changed the site to pink-and-purple polka dots, and traffic still would've increased this weekend, with everyone fighting to be the first to add all the new scraps of information from the convention. --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 17:05, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:::I'm no one special on this wiki, but I wanted to weigh in. Considering that everything else on the web seems to require a login, it isn't asking too much for people to sign up. All the forums require a login so people can own their opinions, why not here? Also, isn't most of the caption bastardry done by anons? Maybe forcing registration might stop some of those careless edits. Requiring an email? Now that might scare people off.--[[User:Suzyprime|Suzyprime]] 04:51, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

==Image overlap==
[[image:Templateximage.JPG|thumb|I'm ugly]]
Umm, did this overlap happen before the new skin? If so, I never noticed it. If not, then why is it changing what goes on inside the content part of the site, not just the menus and adds and umm, everything that I can't edit as an anon? [[User:Spriteless|Spriteless]] 04:04, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:We're trying to figure it out over on [[User Talk:Toughpigs]].--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 04:08, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
::That particular ''overlap'' always happened- but the transparent frame was apparently a result of some global CSS change Wikia made ~4-6 months ago.
::It looks like the fix was posted on the [http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Monobook.css monobook.css] discussion page, but never implemented. -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 05:25, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:::(Oh, i see this was already discussed. Hrm.) -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 05:43, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
::::The problem with overlaps like on the [[Blackthorne Publishing]] page in the image can be solved by putting one of these <nowiki>{{-}}</nowiki> in, which I just did on that page. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 05:59, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
I've had a slightly different problem with image overlap in the past few days. If there's a stub box or a "needs images" box on a page, occasionally the box's pic will remain stuck at the top of the page. For instance, in the example on the right, Kup's pic would be stuck in the top left corner, covering part of the Blackthorne Publishing title bar. It has also happened on the front page, with Jhiaxus's image from the featured article covering the Primes. --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 05:41, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:What broswer? (The messagebox template uses styles that render differently on IE and Geko-based browsers... but the difference shoudl eb cosmetic, not functional like that.) -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 05:43, 29 April 2008 (UTC)<div id="wikia-credits"> From [http://transformers.wikia.com Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki], a [http://www.wikia.com Wikia] wiki.</div>

MediaWiki talk:Community Portal

2008-04-29T07:05:53Z

75.168.112.43: /* Hate the new skin. */ Banners, monitization, et al.

==Archives==
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive1|Archive1]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive2|Archive2]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive3|Archive3]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive4|Archive4]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive5|Archive5]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive6|Archive6]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive7|Archive7]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive8|Archive8]]

== Continuity / Timeline ==
I'm trying to make some sense of how the various major continuities are handled, overview-wise. Some have their own continuity page; IDW's just got a timeline, with overview stuff shoved here and there among the individual miniseries. Some don't have anything. Some, like the G1 cartoon, are not much more than lists. The ones that exist tend to be hard to find, aren't categorized uniformly, etc... is there a master format for this stuff?{{unsigned|Repowers|12:15, 29 October 2007}}
:There is no master format for continuity pages. Please feel free to make one! It would be a good thing to have! --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 00:55, show30 October 2007 (UTC)
:: You know, I think it would be hot if once we got more timelines up, we began putting Chronology links to the timetable on the story pages. Several Dreamwave comic pages have them, and I think IDW comics should too, since IDW really isn't telling the story in a linear fashion.--[[User:Zodberg|Zodberg]] 09:36, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::Sounds like a good idea. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 13:51, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::Would it make sense to have an overview writeup at the start of each timeline, a few paragraphs or so? Or should "continuity" be a separate page? Where should a chronological list of issues go -- publisher's page, continuity page, timeline page? That's not such a problem with, say, Marvel G1, but Dreamwave's a little messier, IDW's all over the place, and gods help you if you want to sort out the mess that is Marvel UK. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 14:29, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:: A continuity page should have the following (in my opinion):
:: * A one-paragraph description of the continuity, not more than a few sentences long.
:: * A list of what media belongs to this continuity (which can include some stuff that's vaguely contradictory, but should exclude stuff that's way out there, like Earthforce relative to G1 comics). This can be sorted by publication order, or internal chronology, but if there's a major difference between the two, it should be spelled out.
:: * An overall description of the main events in that continuity, focusing on the events actually chronicled (not the distant past). In particular, for most continuities, changes in the leadership of either side, the changing status (living/dead, present/absent, duplicated by Straxus/encoded on a floppy, etc.)of the big two leaders (usually Optimus Prime and Megatron), any events involving Unicron or Primus, and introductions of major teams or groups of characters (Headmasters, Fuzors) should be in the summary.
:: * If necessary, a timeline, which may end up integrated with one of the above parts.
:: * Pointers to important and closely-related continuities (again, such as Earthforce), discussion of divergences, etc. [[User:JW|JW]] 15:14, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::All that sounds pretty good, though I wouldn't get too hung up on following individual characters too much, even the leaders. In Marvel G1, at least, they changed over on a pretty regular basis.
:::On a related note... this and a lot of other overview-type pages are really lost in the shuffle. They should be top-level pages, with everything branching off of them and linking back to them, but instead they're buried and nothing links to them. You start off reading, say, the article on [[Spotlight: Soundwave]]. Where do you go from there to find out more? The IDW issues category? That's the only link out of that page. If you're a newcomer, or even someone with an imperfect memory, how do you know what comes next? Either the individual issue pages need to link to the timeline and continuity pages, or the category page does, or... something.
:::Taking care of it on the category page might be simplest, like what's on the Category:Marvel US issues page. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 19:12, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::: Yes, the site is sadly lacking in both "uplinks" and "sidelinks" for the media; links from a TV episode to the TV series, links from an issue of a comic to an overview of the comic, links from one comic to the next comic in that series, etc. [[User:JW|JW]] 19:21, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::: I'm still poking around and figuring out what's been done and what's needed; it might take a while to figure out how to start cleaning things up. It looks like we've got some random timelines started (still need ones for the Beast era and a few others), as well as continuity pages for some but not all of the major storylines, so I suppose each major continuity should have both kinds of pages. I wonder if there's a way to use a category or subcategory to get individual episode/issue pages to quickly link back to the main overview pages?... -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 19:28, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::: JW, we do have that comics nav template, though I like the comic infobox on wikipedia more. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:04, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::: Ah... http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Template:Comicnav ...so we do. Very useful. Now we just gotta propagate it over a few hundred comic issue... :S -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 20:25, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::: Also, the nav setup only can link up one level. So Infiltration #2 can link up to the main Infiltration page, but not to the IDW continuity page above that. Would putting a variant of this template on the main page for each miniseries, linking up to the continuity page, work instead? Then you're never more than two clicks away from an individual issue to the continuity overview. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 20:25, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::::: That, or somehow add it to the main comicnav template, perhaps in small letters above the series name. I don't wanna step on anyone's toes though. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:45, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::::: That'd make the most sense, to add a "Continuity" level to the template, or alternately a lower-end "Mini-series" option. But hell if I can make sense out of how these things work... that might be a rainy day project, figuring that out. :\ -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 20:51, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

==Image Copyrights==
I asked awhile ago, and nobody seemed to know, so...

I've always been under the impression that images {{c}} someone else should be credited ''not'' just with a note that they belong to someone else, but a ''year'', for much the same reasons we identify ''who'' the image belongs to rather than simply saying 'we don't own it, but it's fair use.' The more info we provide, the more 'seriously' the copyright is being taken. if we wipe our ass with an unadorned, <nowiki>{{fairuse}}</nowiki> clearly we don't think the holder of the copyright is ''important''... or something.

I have a script I've been poking at. It can run through every image detail page on the wiki through a regular expression and pick out which images don't have copyright owners (Hasbro or Takara-- you're supposed to ID which even if you're using <nowiki>{{hastak}}</nowiki>,) which don't have dates, and which don't have any sort of copyright notice at all. (A significant chunk of our images have no notices that they belong to someone else.) It could also drop the offending images into categories to be sorted out and properly labeled. (I imagine I'd give it Steve-o and let it do so logged in as the bot to avoid the update-floods.)

...is anyone interested in this? Does it seem like a good idea? Terrible idea? ...Bueler? -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 15:29, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

==Cartoon Episode Format Mark II==
Picking up an old thread here... per some changes I just finished making to all the Beast Era episode pages, IMO:
* The one-line summary should be bold. It's the single most important thing on the page; your eye should leap right to it.
* It should be the very first thing on the page, above the nav box (barring temporary templates like "pics needed".)
* It should be free of links. They're distracting and ugly, and it's kinda absurd to think someone's going to click right off the summary to see what a "Maximal" or whatever is. Links can easily be integrated into the body of the plot summary.

I'd also rather see Quotes before Stats, to keep all the in-universe stuff together before moving to out-universe stuff like writers, air dates, commentary, order of appearance, etc. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 00:13, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

:I agree with all of this, except for the one-line summary being above the nav box. Pure personal preference, though, rather than any sort of functionality - I just don't like the way it looks. In fact, I think putting it below the nav box actually ''helps'' its notice-ability - it "frames" the summary quite nicely between the nav box and the contents box. - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 00:22, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
::Heh, I see it the opposite way -- having the summary first provides a frame for the inevitable white space that accompanies the nav box. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 06:24, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

::Picking up on what I said above, putting the stats section down below not just the extended summary but now below the quotes section as well is something I strongly oppose. Episode writers do not get the recognition they deserve. We should not be burying their credits like that. That section belongs ''above'' the summary. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 03:21, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
:::I do hear what you're saying, but honestly I'm less bothered by the recognition factor than by the inconsistency with comic format, where all that junk ''is'' up front (though it often looks pretty bad, IMO.) If it were ''just'' the writer credit, I'd be okay with having it up front (though I ain't gonna be the one who goes back through 78 Beast Era episode pages to change it!) But then you get into the odd condition of having that one bit of info up front, while the rest of the standard information external to the episode's events is much deeper in the article. Having much more stuff up front than that makes for a messy, unattractive, and harder-to-read format compared to having it all bundled in the Stats section... IMO, natch.
:::"If "recognition" is the concern, heck, think of the animators who slaved a lot more than the writers ever did to bring each episode to life. They get no credits at all. Neither does Robert Buckley, who provided music for both Beast series. The list goes on and on. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 06:24, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
::::The information I am suggesting be up front would only be three lines (Written by, Directed by, air date), which I don't think would be very intrusive at all. To my mind, before the summary is the only logical place for this information to be presented, as episodes themselves generally present those two credits up front, and air date is a known factor when watching an episode when it debuts.
::::On the issue of recognition, you make a good point, however my concern is a bit different. Robert Buckley may not get a lot of recognition from the fandom for the music of Beast Wars, but it's not like they give someone ''else'' all the credit on that score, pun semi-intended. But the writers? The fandom often enough acts as if Forward and DiTillio wrote every single word of Beast Wars, and Skir (alone, of course, as the Isenberg Uncertainty Principle remains in full effect) the same for Beast Machines. The story editors are obviously the most important writers, but they didn't do it all on their own.
::::Burying the names of episode writers down below the summary and quotes sections just doesn't sit right with me, is all. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 04:46, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
:::::Hrm... combined with Steve-o's consistency argument, I suppose I could go along with doing it this way, with them all tucked together and separate from/below the one line summary. Written By and Air Date are in one little combined pair of lines now, an easy cut-n-paste to move up front. I don't think anyone's added Director credits to any of the episodes, by the by.
:::::As I said, I'm in no great hurry to do it myself -- my main concern was that the Beast Era show pages had drifted into all sorts of different arrangements, some of which looked pretty sloppy. For better or worse, they're all uniform now. If we're gonna change the layout, let's work on getting one sample page ''just right'', then we can worry about propagating it. To that end, have a look at "[[Chain of Command]]", see if it clicks for you. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 05:33, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm thinking if we could merge the ''Japanese title'' into the '''''Stats''' section'' because it seems to fit the section better. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 03:14, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't have much of a preference, personally, about how to organize these things. However, I do feel pretty strongly that it should be more or less the same for both cartoon episodes and comic issues. Having different organizational schemes for different sorts of fiction doesn't serve much purpose, and makes things harder to get used to. (On the other hand, I ''also'' feel strongly that all of our passages relating fictional events should be in the same tense regardless of if they happen to be on a character page or a story page, but apparently that makes me insane, so don't take my pleas for consistency too seriously.) --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 02:35, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

===Cartoon format mark II.5===
Did we ever make a decision on whether to place the quotes area before the stats section? Because the sheer majority of episode articles (including old ones recently converted to current standards) place the stats before the quotes, but I notice some of the latest Cybertron episode articles are placing the quotes before the stats, which is creating inconsistencies in layout. Bear in mind it will create less work for us if we just leave things the way they are, with stats before quotes. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 09:34, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

==Cartoon continuity headings==
Have we decided on a definative format for this yet? most of the pages with characters who appeared in Sunbow's G1 through to the japanese series (and maybe Beast Wars as well) have quite different headings, and I recall we were worried about ''Transformers Animated'' causing problems with all the 'Animated continuity' headings on character pages. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 07:08, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
:I think we had decided on using "cartoon" instead of "animated." So use "cartoon continuity," or for those who appear in more than one cartoon continuity, use "Generation 1 cartoon continuity," "Beast Wars cartoon continuity," etc. --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 07:13, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
::Can we have Diagnostic Drone change all occurrences of "Animated continuity" to "Cartoon continuity"? That'll require some cleanup in the Animated articles, but there are far fewer of those than there are of G1 subjects that are currently mislabeled. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 17:54, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

== Section-title master list ==

I've made a sandbox for the purpose of assembling a [[User:Jackpot/Sandbox/Sections|master list of all section titles]], their relation to each other, and their proper wording/formatting. Please discuss; I've introduced some new ideas, and I'd love to see a consistent guide established. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 01:04, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
:Wow, I think this really look nice and useful. ;D --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 03:44, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

== "First go here! Next go here." ==
I was thinking a bit about the various problems we've got around here -- stuff like incomplete image descriptions, orphaned articles, etc. There's really no one central place where a newcomer (or a regular who feels like doing something useful but doesn't know what) can go to find a quick list of things that need doing. The current help pages just send you to the list of articles in need of creation, which is kind of daunting, especially for a newcomer who has to learn a million standards and Wikia tags. Is there a more comprehensive way to point people in the direction of useful things they could be doing? Whatever it might be, it should include links to:
* Pages in need of creation
* Orphaned pages
* Stubs
* Pics needed
* Any current projects, like the Beast Wars one. Hell, I couldn't find that thing if my life depended on it.
...as well as a note about common problems: dead/missing storylinks, incomplete image descriptions, and whatever else. (Heck, who knows? Maybe it could even distract an IP person long enough to prevent them from screwing with captions.... ahh, who'm I kidding?} -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 21:51, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

:There are some of those things catalogued [[Special:Specialpages|here]], but I think making links to the most important of these categories, and placing them together in one easy-to-find link off the main page, would be best. Perhaps on the Help contents page, since it's linked right off the main page already, in the most logical location? I think that link is a bit small, for what it's worth. --[[User:Sntint|Sntint]] 22:09, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
::One of the projects in the back of my head is a help-page/guide specifically breaking down the creation of character pages, plus the use of "common templates" for them (disambigs, stubs, notes). I'll see if I can scrounge up some time to rough-copy one. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 22:56, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

==Other Maintenance Templates?==
I haven't had much time to do more "substantial" wiki edits lately, but I've been prepping for later with the charstub sub-categories. Fiction really isn't my bag... I mean, I know it in general, but not issue titles and numbers and bla bla. But I figure it's also nice to have the "really needs a lot of stuff" pages separated from the "just needs some stuff in one subsection" ones, especially once I can make a concentrated effort to update the toy sections of various pages. I've been thinking about other similar "needs maintenance" template/categories, but I thought I'd bring it up here since I'm not sure who else might make use of them... 
I've noticed quite a lot of pages missing storylinks. I'm not intending on going through a big wiki-wide hunt, but as I go through the stubs and other pages doing little maintenance and tweaks, well, I think I'd like to be able to mark pages I come across that are missing those links they should have. Picture and quote? Isaac Sumdac and/or Tutorbot, "I cannot believe I programmed you with such simplistic information!" (Idea courtesy of Trent Troop.) 
I'd swear there was another one, but right now, too tired to think of it and must sleep. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 06:53, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
:Perhaps a tag for a page with too many damn redlinks for concepts that will never need articles?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 07:08, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
::I don't think that will be neccessary, as it's a simple matter of removing the [[ and <nowiki>]]</nowiki>s. Storylinks, though, require some research. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 15:40, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
:::I usually label such pages with <nowiki>{{stub|storylinks}}</nowiki>. [[User:JW|JW]] 15:44, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
::::Trick is, often they're not really stubs, are they? the main info is there, there's just not a "where'd this happen?" link. And maybe it's the data-manager in me that says this, but I think it'd be a lot easier to have a common problem like lack of storylinks as a category all its own, all together for easy identification and maintenance. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 16:11, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

== Disambiguation ==

We need a consensus on hiw we handle disambuigation in article titles. We've had some moving between [[Silverbolt (BW)]] and [[Silverbolt (Fuzor)]], and [[Dirge (Timelines)]] and [[Dirge (Whatever the Botcon 05 set was)]] because there are two Silverbolts in BW and two Dirges in Timelines. However, since one of those Dirges and one of those Silverbolts are G1 characters, the (BW) and (Timelines) tags are fine for the other two. The tags are simply for keeping the articles separate; not for telling you what continuity they're in. Plus, (Timelines) is much easier to type than "(Botcon boxset name I can't remember)". --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 23:35, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

:Somewhat related to the discussion at [[Talk:Starscream (Timelines)]]. My personal criteria is that a name used for two (or more) characters in the same toyline requires more specific disambiguation, regardless of the characters' origin, because readers shouldn't be expected to remember whether some character was already in another toyline. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 23:51, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

::So... what should disambigs be?
:# Distinguished ''only'' when strictly necessary. "Silverbolt (BW)" is fine because, while there were 2 Silverbolt toys in the BW Toyline, the other one is actually Silverbolt (G1)- so only one entry is trying 'sits' in the (BW) disambig, and no more specific disambing is needed. Parenthetical disambigs should be the broadest possible category the article can sit in without conflicting with another article, (usually a continuity family or franchise.) Absolutely no 'bumping' of disambigs as a concession to aesthetics.
:# Distinguished on a logical basis. "Silverbolt (Fuzor)" because there are two Silverbolts in the BW toyline, and the article title should not allow for confusion between the two.
:# Providing continuty info. A hypothetical new character Roller in the 2008 Universe line would be "Roller (Classic)" not "Roller (Universe)"-- so that the article title doesn't mislead people into thinking he's part of the 2004 Universe continuity.
::My problem with #2 ''and'' #3 is that the diambig isn't supposed to convey that information. The first line of the article, right below the title does. It will say 'Silverbolt is a Fuzor in the Beast Wars continuity family...' or 'Roller is a Ultracon in the Classics portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.'
::We are currently usign method #1. I oppose a change to methods 2 or 3 for the following reasons:
:# The '''first line''' of the article already supplies the information that solutions 2 & 3 would seek to add- and does it ''better.''
:# Implementing 2 or 3 would make it harder for ''editors'' to know where article are sitting ("I know there was only one Silverbolt in BW, why is my link to Silverbolt (BW) broken?")
:# The purpose of the parenthetical disambigs is not to convey info- it is to keep articles with the same title from sitting in the same namespace. Attempting to make disambigs convey information actually ''adds ambiguity'', because it would force the the locations the articles sit in to become ''less'' standard.
::Let diambigs be disambigs. If we want to make continuity notes clearer or more prominent, we can look at revising our approach to '''them'''. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 00:41, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

::We already have [[Help:Disambiguation]] to more or less lay this out. (I've just made a couple small changes to it for clarification.) There is going to be no simple rule of thumb which leads to tbe best results in every case, so make the parenthetical as brief and clear as you can. Derik is correct that the purpose of the parenthetical is to give the articles different names so the database doesn't get confused. To help out editors when we make links, it is good for them to be short and easy to remember. --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 21:35, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

So, should we move [[Silverbolt (Fuzor)]] and [[Dirge (Decent into Evil)]] and the mirrorverse guys back to [[Silverbolt (BW)]], [[Dirge (Timelines)]] and [[mirrorverse guys (Timelines)]]? --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 22:42, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
:Wait to see if others have strong feelings/argument first. (We have a policy, but it's subject to conseunsus, remember? Also- I think I wrote most of that page so my point of view is unfairly over-represented there.) ''On review, no, apparently this is one policy page I '''didn't''' write. ...why can't I tell Steve-o's writing apart from my own? Scary. :~(
:Personally I say emphatically yes on Dirge, indifferent affirmative on Silverbolt, and wait and see on the Shattered Glass pages. We don't now where/if they fit in existing continuity. There's no point in movinf them a half-dozen times while arguing about unknowables. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 23:13, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

== Pages about fan sites ==

Is there a policy about this? I wanted to add TF Pulp, but I didn't see any other TF sites on here at all, so I figured I should ask first.
{{unsigned|Might Gaine|2008-02-27T14:04:54}}

:We don't give unofficial sites their own articles. You can link to information on TF Pulp from appropriate pre-existing articles, though. That sort of thing enhances the wiki by allowing people to find further information on the topics they are reading about. Just put it into an "External links" section right before the categories. --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 21:18, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

==Cartoon episode title cards redundancy==
Why are we moving towards using the title cards of episodes for the main/starting picture of episode articles? Isn't it redundant to have a boring screenshot with the name of the episode placed next to...... the name of the episode in the actual article itself? Wouldn't it be more interesting to do what we have been doing, and use a screen capture that somehow encapsulates the whole episode, or shows a pivitol point in it that sticks in our memory? --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 02:55, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
:I've wondered the same thing myself, but figured it was a done deal. I too support the "memorable/encapsulating moment" approach. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 03:04, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
::Uh... I'm sorry, I think I started it. ;-) When I was doing some early RiD ep stubs I threw in the titlecards because the early episodes were boring as sin. I think McFeely did it for the JP eps because they tend to have those painterly titlecards...
::Really, it's just something you do if there isn't a ''good'' representative image. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 17:39, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
:::Like Code of Hero (an article that needs a major overhaul itself), I originally put an image of Dinobot's sword lying on the deck of his quarters, because it looked poignant. Did the same for various other Beast Wars episodes. Then Interrobang replaced them all with screencap of the title screens. Gah. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 07:05, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::So tell him to stop! ;) -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 07:58, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::Sigh. I did it because I like consistency, even with Japanese series. "Dinobot's sword on the ground" might be your favoritest image ever but it's the odd duck out now. (It also looks terrible due to the artifacting brought about by needlessly screwing with the brightness and contrast.) [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 08:36, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::::Consistency is Victory- but Transformers Victory was incredibly boring. (Victory Gundam was pretty good though...) [[The Weak Component]], [[Survivor]] and [[End of the Line]] all have virtually ''identical'' title screens- an aerial shot of the Cybertropolis spaceport. That sucks— I'd much rather have an iconic image from each episode. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 10:07, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::::::I agree. Using iconic images is really good for the most episode guides, such as [[Code of Hero]], [[The Weak Component]], and several [[B.O.T. (episode)|others]], especially "Code of Hero" and "The Weak Component" are great and good examples. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 13:38, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::::Personally, I started doing for the Japanese series for the reason Derik gives, because it was usually a unique image made for the title card, or a good one that's representative of the episode. There were some duds, but... consistency. And then... ''Masterforce'' started to do really, ''really'' boring ones, and I was about to give up, then it occurred to me to start using the image from the next-ep preview, which proved a winner in most cases (in fact, I may yet go back and change swap out some of the title-card images with these, if it's a better option). The mention of Victory here amuses me, though, 'cause it's a good example of title cards being boring - it's the same two images of Star Saber and Deathsaurus, rotated in and out, for the whole series. I've used them for the first two episodes just to get them on show, but I plan to use the title-images from the next-episode previews for this one. I mean, when I wake up from the dullness-inducing stupor that Victory induces. - McFeely, at work
::::::::I reverted Dinobot's sword back to the version I uploaded. As I had not viewed the page much since last year, I didn't realize that Repowers tried to brighten it up for some reason - that moment is supposed to focus on the sword, not the room. And it's the 'odd duck out' now because some people have been replacing whatever had served as the main image with the title card. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 12:24, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::I brightened it because, when it's reduced for the actual episode page where most people are going to see it, you can't tell what the heck you're looking at. Right now it looks a little bit of vague white stuff in darkness. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 13:36, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::::::::Vaat? I can see if plenty fine there, unless you're using a very, very high resolution that makes everything tiny. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 13:54, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::::Could be my home monitor, which is HUGE. It does look more discernable from a work computer, though IMO it could still stand to be a tad brighter. -- [[user:repowers|repowers]], not signed in
I've changed my mind on this situation after mulling it over. A winner is FNN. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 03:31, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
:FNN sounds even more like a Simon Furman sound effect than FFN :D --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 04:26, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
::You clearly changed your name after I replied. There's no another answer. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 04:33, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
:::Hnh. FNN never DID want to live forever. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 04:55, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

==Help/policy page namespaces==
As part of the help/policy page revamp I plan to do... eventually... I kind of want to consolidate the pages all into a single namespace. Right now we have [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=12 a bunch of stuff] in the Help namepsace, and [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=4 a bunch of other stuff] in the Transformers Wiki (aka "meta") namespace. This is needlessly confusing. I vastly prefer "Help" for the purposes of typing it all the time, but, the meta namespace is more general purpose and standard... and possibly required for some pages like the title blacklist. So I am inclined to shuffle all the Help namespace pages over to the meta namespace. Does anybody have an opinion on this? --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 17:37, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
:Help seems fine to me. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 17:45, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

== "The Battlestars" page disappeared ==

When the "Battlestar" (team) page got changed to "Battlestars", then "The Battlestars" page, which was the manga, disappeared. What happened? --[[User:Might Gaine|Might Gaine]] 13:36, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
:I don't think that page actually existed in the first place. It was a red link before any moving was done - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 14:04, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
::Hmm. My bad. --[[User:Might Gaine|Might Gaine]] 15:01, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

==Comic character box format Part IV==
I believe we should change it from 'Major characters' to 'Featured characters' like we do in the cartoon recap articles. Doing it as 'Major characters' means writers of these comic articles will just not bother list the incidental characters, such as humans, even ones with dialogue, and if any of these characters have articles, they become orphaned articles. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 06:32, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
:Well I have gone thru nearly the entire U.S. Marvel series and I think I've included just about everyone who had a speaking line, except for folks who were un-named and such. If someone wants to change from "major" to "featured", it doesn't matter to me, but I'm not gonna go thru all 80 issues again and do it. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:18, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
::I was concerned because I was looking for the article for that [[Professor Goring]] guy from [[Spotlight: Shockwave]] so I could update the article. To my surprise, Shockwave didn't link or even name him, and somebody had eliminated the 'human' column altogether because evidently we only dealt with 'major' characters. Essentially, Goring's article became orphaned. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 20:32, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
:::Well that was dumb; he should indeed be re-added. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:39, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
:::Uh, yeah. That's not good. I support the change to "Featured" not just for this... but let's face it, this wiki is not simply about "Major" characters. The vast wealth of non-major character information is what makes this wiki great, and we should make sure that they are properly linked to so people can find them, even if they weren't looking. "Oh, hey, who's this?" --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 20:39, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
::::MistaTee, well sometimes even unnamed characters can be interesting enough to warrant their own articles if they are interesting in some way/stand out in some way. After all, we have an entire category devoted to unnamed characters. So I think they should have been mentioned in the article in some way. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 04:45, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::Oh, I agree, and if I've missed any, please feel free to add. I do think the 80 issues I've updated is a lot better than they were before though. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 13:58, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::Of course. Is there article template pages somewhere on this wiki or are we copy pasting every time we write a new article? --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 14:07, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::::I've just been going through the Stormbringer articles, and I was ''not at all'' happy with the with the way characters who didn't have significant dialogue (such as ''every'' Pretender besides Bludgeon) were for the most part not even mentioned in the articles. I assume the original writer of these articles just didn't know who they were, but frankly it's just sloppy considering the information available on this wiki even in 2006. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 14:38, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::::I believe I reformatted them to the new format, but just copied the character list from what was there. When I get the chance to re-read, I will add in the others, if someone doesn't beat me to it. Oh, and I am copying and pasting from the previous article, but trying to be consistent. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 15:31, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

:So... what becomes of the former "minor characters" list? Do we even care about those dudes? Take [[Totaled!]] for example -- almost every Earth Autobot to date appears in the story (and most of the Decepticons), but the page currently lists only the speaking ones. Gods help the poor soul who decides to take that task on, but when some nobody like Air Raid makes a rare appearance in the comics, it seems worth noting. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 15:25, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
::IMO, I think those characters should perhaps be in a cameos section, a subset of "Items of note". But I sure as hellz am not going thru the whole Marvel series again to do that. Someone else can have a go at it. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 15:31, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

==Navigation boxes for shared US/UK stories==
I wish I'd noticed [[user:MistaTee|MistaTee]]'s changes to the Marvel US navigation boxes sooner, but that's water under the bridge now. When I set the boxes up, I deliberately left out certain links at points where the continuities split and come back together. The point was that there would be no duplicate links in the box. One hopes that the reader following the UK chain will be smart enough to figure out that the only "Next" link shown will lead to the next step in the chain. This goes double for US stories that have the same Next and Previous links for the UK. Why do the same links need to be duplicated?

Compare:
* [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Cold_War%21&oldid=129298 Old version of Cold War]. There's no "next" for the UK spot, 'cause it would just be the same as the US "next" link.
* [[Cold War!|current version of Cold War!]] - two "next" links are identical.

Also compare:
* [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Dark_Star%21&oldid=152775 Old version of Dark Star!] - no extraneous info.
* [[Dark Star!|Current version of Dark Star!]] - ''two'' redundant links.

To sum up my take on current version:

Minus:
* Redundant links add to confusion
* Double nav box is ugly and should be avoided when possible

Plus:
* Lists UK publication number right up front
* Consistent format for all US issues.

But I've never been one to favor consistency at the expense of practicality. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 17:54, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

:Now see, I didn't like '''not''' having a next for the UK, even if it's the same as the US one. What I think we really need is a revision of the nav box, and maybe have some more options. First, I think there should be a separator line between the US and UK nav. Secondly, maybe some logic could be programmed in so that IF "next2"="next" THEN it would say "same as U.S. version" or something along those lines. Same for the "prev"/"prev2" naturally. Thoughts? --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 18:10, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
::That sounds like an excellent trade-off -- it gets rid of the bothersome parts while keeping the good bits. Uhhh.... anybody have any idea how to do it? The coding of these things is an utter mystery to me. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 18:20, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

== How to spell Malay. ==

Hello everyone, I've noticed that on the 'English/Malay' dubs, people have spelt word 'Malay' wrong. It doesn't have a 'y', because 'Maylay' is incorrect, so if you see any mistakes, please correct it, thank you! Also, can we not put the word crack head next to it? It's quite offensive.--[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
:It's meant in jest because the [[RTM 1 dub]] is really, really bad, as if the dubbers didn't know what the hell was going on half of the time. But we have been changing such instances to 'RTM 1 dub name:' lately. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 15:29, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
:"crack head" is describing the dubs, and with good reason. Battleship Maximus is called "Spaceship Bruce", Blaster is called "Billy", Twincast "Blaster", Metroplex "Phillip", Spike "Sparkle", Soundblaster "New Soundwave", Minevera "Nightbeat", The Matrix and Energon cubes "Power Packs, etc... --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 15:35, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
::We should probably get the drone onto the task of replacing "Maylay" with "Malay", however. [[User:JW|JW]] 15:42, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
:::I don't know about the crack head comment, it's better to avoid offending people; 'though, Spaceship Bruce is my favourite, next to Wally. Also, you got your drone right here (yay?), but do we replace it with 'English/Malay dub', or 'RTM dub'? --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
::::I fully agree with the removal of "crackhead." Frankly, it IS offensive to equate the oddities that arise from the translation of Japanese into English done by people who's first language was likely neither with being on crack. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 19:14, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::Can we leave it in for just Spaceship Bruce? The others are at least somewhat understandable, but ''Spaceship Bruce''? WTCHOP? --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 19:37, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::Sorry, but I don't wanna label another country saying it's populated by drug addicts. If it weren't for them, we wouldn't have Headmasters/Masterforce/Victory in English in the early 90's(?), and for a non-Japanese speaking country, they made a good effort. I guess you can emphasise the weirdness that is Spaceship Bruce, in his bio or the RTM page. So, 'RTM dub' or 'Englsh/Malay' dub? Technically, there was no Malay in the English dubs in the first place, so I'd go for RTM dub :) --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
:::::::It takes a real willfully oppressed state of mind to interpret that as a racial/nationalist insult. I mean, you have to really ''want'' to be offended by something, and be on the lookout for any little thing to jump on. 'Cause "crack-head" is pretty clearly referring to the ''dubs'', not the ''entire freaking country'', and I'm not sure why anyone would decide to think otherwise. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 11:32, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::::You know, crackhead is generally a term that refers to ''people'', not ''things''. As I said above, we shouldn't be seen to be equating the people who produced these dubs with crackheads because of what we perceive as humorous oddities in the translation, which are possibly just the perfectly natural result of cultural and linguistic confusion. Now it might not be an insult to the entire nation of Malaysia, but it is still, I think, a bit offensive. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 16:13, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::Well, regardless.... shouldn't it actually be the "Crackhead ''RTM-1'' dub"? -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 16:23, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::::::'Cracked-up English/Malay' dub, 'though it's not my idea, and it's not so blunt. Or the shorter 'RTM dub', since there is an [[RTM 1 dub]] page where people can redirect themselves there and elucidate the weirdness of weird names; but do we have to spell Malay with two 'y's? Maybe we can make reference to that on the RTM page again. --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
:::::::::I think 'Cracked-up English/Malay' could be used for the article such as [[Ginrai]] and [[Minerva]]('cause their RTM dub name "Optimus Prime" and "Nightbeat" were too... hilarious?), while just "RTM dub" for Fortress Maximus' Spaceship Bruce. Well, just a little opinion. :) --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 12:11, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::: Agree! :D --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]

==Trivia section image formatting==
This issue came up a while ago on [[Talk:Frenzy_%28Movie%29#Image_format|Frenzy's talk page]]. There were opnions both ways, and it wasn't really resolved. The issue is, should images in trivia sections alternate left-right, or be all on one side?

Part of the trouble with alternating sides is that it kills the bullet points. A double bullet has to be inserted for it to show up, and then there's some ambiguity over which bullets should be doubled and which left single. Dpouble bullets can also cause images to overlap the text.

Several folks said there's a lot of ugly white space when the images are stacked on one side. I see it just the opposite on my (admittedly gigantic) screen, with every image having a big empty white space below it when they alternate sides. Apparently it's got something to do with monitor resolution, so there might not be a solid answer. But --

I'd ''love'' so see some screencaps from folks showing how they see things on their monitors. It's a little hard to understand this problem without seeing it from other people's POV.

I started a little Sandbox at [[:user talk:repowers/Sandbox2]] with two different versions of Frenzy's trivia. The first one stacks all the images at the top. Does this work for people on lower monitor resolutions, or does it still look like crap? With them all stacked at the front, I don't see how they could have any white space, regardless of monitor resolution. On my screen, it looks very neat and tidy, while the second one is messy. See:

[http://www.builtstlouis.net/tf/frenzy1.jpg Stacked] 
[http://www.builtstlouis.net/tf/frenzy2.jpg Alternating]

Thoughts and input welcomed. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 01:36, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

:Alternating does kind of suck now. I've been putting pics all on the right side where there are bullet points since Wikia updated their software... an update which covered single bullet points if you put an image on the left side of the screen. I suggest cutting down on images in Trivia, since most users here have smaller monitors and use lower resolutions. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 05:44, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
::I think the easiest answer is to just remove the head images. They're essentially redundant and don't really add anything to the reader's understanding. I'd call for a general limit on how many images you can stuff into a section. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 06:27, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
:::I'd remove the head images from the article proper... but then make a text link to them within the relevant paragraph so people can see them anyway if they want to. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 06:35, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
::::That works. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 07:11, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

== Foreign name format ==
I just found the foreign names doesn't have an unified format.
:For example, some are
::''Hungarian name:'' '''Kerék''' ("Wheel"(with or without ""))
:others are
::''Hungarian name'': '''Kerék''' (meaning Wheel(or "Wheel"))

I suggest we could use an unified format like the below:
:<nowiki>:''Foreign name 1:'' '''Name A''' (Form A), '''Name B''' (Form B)</nowiki>
:<nowiki>:''Foreign name 2:'' '''Name''' ("English meaning")</nowiki>

Take [[Hot Rod]] for example, it will look like:
:''Japanese name:'' '''Hot Rodimus''' (Hot Rod), '''Rodimus Convoy''' (Rodimus Prime)
:''Hungarian names:'' '''Nagyágyú''' ("Hot ''Shot''"), '''Rodimusz Fővezér''' ("Prime Commander Rodimus")

Thoughts and idea are welcomed :) --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 09:09, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
:I don't have a strong opinion on how the international names are standardized, but I strongly agree that they should be. I nominate someone else to go through and do it. -[[User:LV|LV]] 21:40, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

== Wookiepedia has a darn nifty interface ==

What would it take for us to create something similar but Transformers-y?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:36, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
:I think the admins were adament that we keep a simple, bare-bones default look to the TF wiki, in keeping with our 'let's not take this stuff too seriously' attitude and tone. At least that's what I remember them saying when I suggested an orange layout like what Teletraan I looked like in the cartoon. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 09:34, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
::The current Wookieepedia also doesn't seem to want to cooperate with my comp here at work. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 18:27, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

==Characters lacking visuals category?==
It's dawned on me that there are actually quite a few characters who don't have any form of visual representation. They may have been described, but there are no ''pictures''. While a bulk of these are from prose stories, there's several who were simply mentioned by name in comics, or in external sources (Key Code info, S7 site, etc). More than enough to justify a category. 
I think that maybe there should also be a template/visual for this to call attention to this fact on the page right up front. I'm thinking a variation on the current <nowiki>{{mainpic}}</nowiki> template... a silhouette, (different from the mainpic one) and some text saying "This character has no known official visual depiction" or something. Anyone? --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 18:33, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
:Well, for the characters with the mainpic template, the idea is that the mainpic image is there as a placeholder, and to annoy people into tracking down an image.
:However, characters that have never had any visual depiction, and are unlikely to ever get one, don't need a placeholder for their image, and the template will just pointlessly take up room. I'm against the template, but I think the category is a good idea, and will suffice to identify these characters. [[User:JW|JW]] 18:44, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
::I disagree. The point is specifically to call attention to their lack of imagery, so nobody thinks "maybe they do have an image". And considering how little there ''is'' to most of those characters, a little extra visual pizzaz to their pages can't hurt. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 19:06, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
:::''so nobody thinks "maybe they do have an image"'' Are you intending to convey that message to ''editors,'' or casual users? Editors will, in theory, know enough to look for the category. I'm not sure casual users need to have the point brought to their attention.
:::And, it's not like we have scads of frantic editors running around trying to find pics for characters who have only appeared in prose. This may be a solution without a problem. [[User:JW|JW]] 19:27, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

== Timelines disambuig ==

There doesn't seem to be a consensus on how to name the various Timelines articles.

I feel that any disambiguation in the article title should be limited to keeping the articles separate. For instance, [[Optimus Prime (Shattered Glass)]] should be at [[Optimus Prime (Timelines)]] unless there is another Optimus Prime who's first appearance in anything was in Timelines. G1 Prime appearing in the 2007 Timelines comic does not affect this, as he is already at [[Optimus Prime (G1)]]. If G1 Prime being in a Timelines comic affected this, we would need to move [[Cyclonus (Armada)]] to [[Cyclonus (Armada whatever size class he is)]] because a version of G1 Cyclonus appeared in ''Worlds Collide''. The only reason to include the set name in the article title is ''two'' separate characters who first official anything is in ''Timelines''. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 17:18, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

== Shattered Expectations ==

Um, shouldn't those[[Deathsaurus|1]][[Bug Bite|2]] who appear in ''[[Shattered Expectations]]'' have their own page like others[[Optimus Prime (Timelines)|1]][[Grimlock (Timelines)|2]] even their counterparts' article would be short? --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 06:28, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
:I brought this up on [[Category_talk:Mayhem_Suppression_Squad]]. As I said there, I think they should either get their own articles or if that's not warranted just be covered on the Mayhem Suppression Squad article. Either way, I don't think "Shattered Expectations" fiction sections belong on the normal-verse guys' pages. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 07:08, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

==Monaco skin==

Hi -- Have you guys seen the new Monaco skin that's being used on Wikia now? You can see it at [[w:c:muppet|Muppet Wiki]] and [[w:c:marveldatabase|Marvel Database]].

As we've been rolling the skin out across Wikia, there are a few things that we've found when wikis switch to Monaco:

* The number of pageviews goes up. The flyout menus encourage new readers to explore the content on the site, and people end up sticking around on the site for longer.

* The number of new editors goes up. Readers spend more time on the site, and find pages that they want to contribute to. Also, the design makes the edit button more prominent.

* The site is faster. There were some changes made last week to Monaco that make pages load a lot faster than Monobook. Hit "random page" a few times on a Monaco wiki, and you'll see what I mean.

So I'm going around and proselytizing to the Entertainment wikis that are still using Monobook. If you want to make a custom Monaco skin like Marvel Database and Wookieepedia have, I can help you make that happen. What do you guys think? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:31, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

:Monaco does look nice, though it might go against what I understand is the wiki's purpose, which is to be quick and dirty, no fancy stuff and no pretention that this wiki is in any way officially endorsed or serious. At least that's the gist of what I was told after I previously suggested we could make the default colour of this wiki a shade of orange, like the computer systems in the original Transformers cartoons. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 23:16, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

::Yeah, we don't have to do a custom skin -- it could be the basic blue and white. I'm mostly interested in the improved functionality. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 23:24, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Eh, if it makes the place ''easier'', I don't think the "pure and simple" folks will object.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 23:26, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

And truth be told, I think the main dealbreaker here might be the extent to which Suki and Derik may or may not have farted about with tweaking Monobook. I know they've both made alterations, but I don't know quite what.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 23:34, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

:That stuff won't be affected at all. We can copy Monobook.css over to Common.css, and all of the tweaks that they made will still work. No problems. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 23:52, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

My biggest concern is the menus. The "by series" list could easily fill the entire vertical direction of the screen. We don't actually have all the series listed on the main page now (Machine Wars, Dinobots, Timelines, Universe (2008), not to mention licenced lines like Animorphs, SWTF, Crossovers).--[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 00:45, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

:Well, the idea with the menus is to be selective rather than comprehensive. It's not supposed to be a complete sitemap for the wiki -- you just want to give the new readers something to click on first.

:On [[w:c:Muppet|Muppet Wiki]], we put up the most popular Muppet Show and Sesame Street characters, and then a link to "More characters". We just want to entice people into making that first click, without overwhelming them with choices.

:I have access to click-through data for the Monaco menus, so it's possible to run some tests. You could put up a set of menus for a few days, and then I'll be able to tell you which items are getting clicked. That way, you could refine the menus so that you could highlight the items that are most likely to get clicked on. I've been doing that with the Muppet menus, and it's fun to see what the readers are actually interested in reading about. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 23:34, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

::So what do you guys think? I'd like to help you switch over to the new skin... -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 19:10, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
:::For some reason none of the admins have chimed in. I assume they're all off doing useless things like living in Real Life. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 21:10, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

::::Yeah, I left messages for Chris and ItsWalky... -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:12, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::You might want to leave messages for [[User:Suki Brits]] and [[User:Steve-o]] as well. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 13:28, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Well admins? Let's hear your opinions! I find the silence from the staff to be discouraging. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 16:18, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

If there's an actual interest in switching over to Monaco, then I would certainly have nothing against that... but I'd definitely like to hear more from the community first. Aside from that, I have no objections speaking as an admin; the modifications really aren't an issue. On the other hand, speaking as a wiki editor and professional web designer... I would definitely want to use a modified version, as it's got several pretty important issues. My thoughts, in no particular order:
* Search is nigh useless, again. Right now it resembles our ''broken'' Monobook search. I don't think that's a good thing. On the other hand, I'm currently working on fixing that anyway, so it's not like the same couldn't be done for Monaco.
* The header sucks. It really, really does. It's only 150px tall, but it sends a pretty powerful message: we'd rather show you this pretty, irrelevant picture then let you immediately get to article. ''I'' would want the top of the article as close to the top as possible.
:: Gah, I brought it over into another browser that doesn't block ads... and now I see why it's so obnoxiously huge. I am ''strongly'' opposed to putting giant hideous banner ads at the top of everything. Like, it's a little insulting that Wikia really thinks that ''that'' should be the first thing readers see. Teletraan I, like everything else on Wikia, is naturally ad-driven; but Monobook isn't offensive about it.
* The language selection is in a dropdown box, which is a TERRIBLE idea. This personally doesn't affect me, as I don't speak Hungarian, but it's pretty awful for anyone who actually is interested in seeing foreign language versions of articles... and has to click a dropdown menu on every single page if they're curious.
* The "community" box is really unhelpful. Half the content (user page, user talk, etc.) is redundant with the top of the screen, and absolutely nobody is interested in just the most recent two edits. That just leaves the number of articles. This is a lot of wasted room for nothing.
* I ''do'' like that the obnoxious sidebar on the right is gone. The current framing in Monobook wastes all sorts of space and Monaco definitely doesn't ''look'' like it has that problem.
There's also a bunch of minor things, but they don't really matter so much. The big issues are the useless space, a need to do major fixes to search, and the huge obtrusive banner ads (as opposed to the ones on the side in Monobook). But if Wikia's really willing to work with us on it, then by all means, it's up to what the community thinks. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 20:48, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

:I've been around the Wookieepeedia lately, and I've noticed when you click edit, it loads significantly slower on Monaco than it does on the Monobook format. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 05:25, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

::Hi guys -- Sorry it took me so long to respond. I'll make up for it with a super-long answer. :)

::Yes, absolutely -- I want to work with you on this. Some of the things you've raised I can clear up immediately. For some, I can explain the rationale behind the approach, and show you some stats that may help. And if there are some things that need to get tweaked, I can talk to the designers & tech folks to see if we can come up with a solution.

::Just so you know: I work for Wikia now, but I started out in 2005 as the founder of [[w:c:muppet|Muppet Wiki]]. Working on wikis is my job now, but Muppet Wiki is where my heart lives, so I'm always looking out for what's going to help or hurt "my wiki". I am/was a big Monobook fan, and I was skeptical about Monaco as it was being designed. The thing that made me a Monaco fan was actually trying it out on Muppet Wiki, and then looking at the stats to see how it was working. Muppet Wiki and Teletraan I are very similar -- about a dozen really active contributors, a strong admin team and a community of about 60-80 contributors. So I can share with you what I saw on Muppet Wiki, and what I can see in the pageviews stats.

::First up, the rationale behind some of the decisions made with the new skin. There are some features on the new skin that the most active editors think are useless, like the Community box or the flyout menus. And it's true, those aren't very helpful for the active contributors. They're designed for the anonymous/new people, who are the vast majority of our readers.

::Here's the stats on unique visits for Teletraan I. (Unique visits counts the number of visits to a site, and not the number of pages you look at in each visit. So if you come to the wiki and look at 100 pages, that counts as one unique.) In the last month, there have been 2,725,000 anonymous visits, and 261,000 logged-in user visits. That means 91% of the visits to the site aren't logged-in contributors.

::Logged-in editors make 77% of the edits here, so obviously we're the people who are actually building the content that people are reading. Logged-in editors are important, and the dozen people who make over 100 edits here every month are especially important. Still, if you want to make the community bigger and more active, then you have to think about whether the design of the site encourages anonymous users to sign in and become active members.

::The purpose of designing the new skin was to make the wiki more accessible to the 91% of anonymous readers. Obviously, we have to keep the functionality that the active contributors need in order to build the wiki. At the same time, we have to be aware that the Monobook skin that we're familiar with is kind of confusing for brand-new people.

::For example, the "log in" button is in really small type at the very top right of the screen. From a website design perspective, that's crazy -- it's like we don't want people to find it. The log-in buttons on Monaco are big, green, candy-like buttons. There's one at the top right, and there's another one in the Community box on the sidebar. We want to encourage people to log in.

::In general, having all the important Monobook controls in little bitty tiny type says: We hate people who are older than 40. ("Go back to AOL, old man!") All of the Monobook buttons are in the same font, from the crucial stuff like "Log in" and "Edit this page" to the more obscure controls like "Related changes" and "Permanent link". On Monaco, the stuff that's important to brand-new users is bigger -- log-in, edit, the link to the home page. The search box is at the top, rather than being buried down in the sidebar. The controls that logged-in users need, like "What links here" and "Special pages", are in smaller type -- they're important to us, but a brand-new user wouldn't know what to do with them.

::Okay, so that's my very long introduction... Now I'll respond to the points that you guys have brought up.

::'''Search''': I think when you say that search is broken, you mean that there's just a "Go" button and not a "Search" button next to the search box. (If you mean something else, then let me know.) That's true, and it's something that I struggled with as the design for Monaco was taking shape. I use the Search button all the time, and I was frustrated that it wasn't included. Then I looked at the stats. On Teletraan I in the last month, logged-in users used Go for 91% of searches, and Search for 9%. Anonymous users used Go for 97% of searches. Given that, I think it's okay to make the Search button less prominent. I remember when I first started using wikis, I was totally confused by having two buttons. (Do I want to Go or Search? Well, I want to search, and then go to the search results...) I only figured out the difference through trial and error. So in Monaco, the search box at the top is Go, and then you can have a link to [[Special:Search]] in the toolbox. (Some wikis have that, and some don't -- Muppet has it, if you want to see how it works.)

::'''Community box''': That's one of the features that's designed to encourage brand-new users to explore the site. When you look at a wiki as a new reader, it's not always apparent that there's a community there. You read pages, but you don't necessarily know whether the articles were written today or a year ago. (Unless you look at Recent changes, which a brand-new reader doesn't know to do.) The Community box is designed to bring a little taste of the community activity up to their view. It's not a helpful way for a contributor to keep track of Recent changes, but it does show new people that something's going on. If you come to the site and see that somebody edited a page 15 seconds ago, then you understand that there's an active community. On Muppet Wiki in the last month, 1,404 anonymous readers logged in using the button in the Community box, 1,539 anon readers clicked the "more..." button to go to Recent changes, and 1,287 clicked on article links that they saw in the Latest Activity area. Those are readers who may not have been engaged with the site if they hadn't seen the activity going on in the Community box. On the other hand, logged-in contributors only clicked in the Community box 350 times. It's not designed for us; it's for the 91% of anons.

::'''Obnoxious ads''': This is the one area that's designed to help the company rather than the wiki. Basically, the deal is that Wikia doesn't make a lot of money from the "skyscraper" ads on the right sidebar. Nobody clicks on them, and most advertisers don't bother to make ads like that anymore. Advertisers want banner ads, and they want them at the top of the page. I can't justify this one in wiki terms, except to say that if we want Wikia to stay in business and continue to host wikis, then we need to change the skin to accommodate the changing ad market. Otherwise, there won't be a Wikia after a while.

::'''Languages drop-down''': We changed the list into a drop-down menu because sites like Wookieepedia had a long list, which took up a lot of sidebar space, and only had about 100 clicks on language links in a month. On Teletraan I, there have only been 2 clicks on the language links since October.

::'''Content space''': There is slightly less content area on Monaco when you first come to the page. The sidebar is smaller than the combined left & right Monobook sidebars, so the content area is wider. The banner ad means that the height takes a hit for the first screen. As you scroll down, though, the Monaco content area is bigger than on Monobook, because the page is wider. I can show you some screencaps if you want more info on this.

::'''Slow edits on Wookieepedia''': That looks like a bug that's specific to Wookieepedia... I'm not sure what's going on there. It looks like when you hit edit on Wookiee, it's looking for something from maps.google, and that can slow down the page load for the edit screen. I hadn't seen that before, so I'm really glad you pointed it out. That's not affecting other Monaco wikis like Muppet Wiki or Marvel Database, so there must be something in Wookieepedia's css that's causing that. I'll look into it. If you look at Muppet or Marvel, you'll see that the page load is lightning fast right now. (Not counting periods of site-wide database problems, which affect every skin.)

::So anyway -- this is a huge long post, but I think I responded to everything. As you can tell, I take this stuff really seriously, and I'm willing to put in the time to research the impact and explain what's going on. Do folks have other questions or concerns about Monaco? I could keep talking about this stuff all day. :) -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 17:33, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

:::Personally, as regular contributor, I'm fine with switching to Monaco, so long as we get to keep our new 'random page thumbnail' above the search box (or anywhere, really). I think it's useful for visitors to be able to visit a random page with an interesting thumbnail image rather than simply doing random searches or hitting Random page repeatedly. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 17:44, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

::::I knew there was something I forgot to mention! Yeah, the featured page thumbnail. I think that's something that we can adapt.

::::That feature doesn't have anything to do with search -- it just happens that you can put a picture in the Monobook search box. I actually think what you've made is a little misleading. The picture says "Search" on it, and it's right above the search box -- so as a user, I would assume that if I click that, I'll get some kind of search results page. Instead, it goes to a featured article, which isn't necessarily what you'd expect.

::::The feature is really a rotating spotlight for featured articles, which is cool and visual, and helps to bring readers deeper into the content. It's a great idea. I think it would actually be more effective if it was split away from search, so readers would be more likely to recognize it as a featured-article spotlight.

::::So there are a couple ways to do that in Monaco. The easiest way would be to put it in the sidebar -- check out [[MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar]] for an example. Here's pics to show what that would look like.

<gallery>
Image:Monacosidebar1.jpg
Image:Monacosidebar2.jpg|You can update this list anytime, so you can freshen it up every day or every week. Or never.
Image:Monacosidebar3.jpg|That big green, fire-snortin' lizard must be included.
Image:Monacosidebar4.jpg|If you click on "Embrace the Knowledge", it takes you to the Allspark article. Obviously.
</gallery>

::::It's not graphical, but it allows you to bring the funny into the sidebar, which you've never been able to do before. One advantage of this approach is that you can add in new articles to the sidebar without having to wait for somebody to make a graphic.

::::If that's not enough and you need to go graphical, then I can talk to our designer, Christian, about creating a widget that can go into the sidebar and have the same function. It could sit above or below the Community box. It would be separate from search, but like I said, that may be a good thing. What do you think? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:48, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

If you want to sell this to Walky... make it orange.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 22:05, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
[[Image:Orangemonaco.jpg|thumb|250px|It could be even oranger if that would help.]]
:Does this work? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:13, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

::The brick skin has a pretty nice brown/orange thing going. That's what I'm using at the moment. --[[User:Professor Icepick|Professor Icepick]] 22:17, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
:::See, that's what was needed to get his attention. The orange will draw him, like a moth to a flame.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 22:24, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
[[Image:Monacobrick.jpg|thumb|250px|Monaco Brick, in all its dark red and orange glory.]]
::::Here's how Brick looks... -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:28, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

:::::Do it! --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 00:41, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
::::::I TOLD you guys that we should make this wiki orange (to actually look like Teletraan 1) way back before we even knew about Monaco, but you were all "We are serious business about not taking ourselves seriously". --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 06:44, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

:I don't know all that much about what can and can't be modified, but can't a number of the problems with Monobook be solved simply by changing the css or js files? I'm mainly talking about the small text size for the tabs and login. Plus, most people who edit wikies are probably familiar with Wikipedia's Monobook interface. Plus, I don't think anyone wants the trouble from the ad format being changed again. A few months ago the site started taking showing wider vertical ads, and it was awhile before the horizontal scrolling mess got cleaned up. But then again I'm the guy who uses XP's Classic Windows scheme with Windows 98's colors and icons, so I may be biased when it comes to new interfaces. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 22:41, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

::The Monobook problems can't be solved with css changes. The type size is an example, but it's really a general problem with the layout. Wiki veterans are used to Monobook, but it's not necessarily a great layout for new people. I meet people all the time who read Wikipedia, but when I ask if they've ever made an edit, they say no -- it never occurred to them. I think it's important to make wikis more accessible to new people, and we're finding that Monaco is helping people to explore the wikis and make their first edit.

::Are there other concerns that people have that I can help with? I know that this discussion has gone on a bit, and I'd hate to have it just run out of steam before it gets to a decision. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 18:15, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::It seems like there aren't any more concerns about the new skin, so I'm thinking about changing it over to Monaco tomorrow, unless someone has objections. Once it's switched over, then I can help you out with whatever customization you want. Is that cool? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 15:55, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
::::A great number of us are indisposed at [[BotCon 2008]] this weekend, but there should still be a handful of us around. So you know! --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 16:09, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::Gyah. I thought we were doing Brick?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:17, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:We can do anything you guys want... I'm just playing around for a minute to see if I can come up with something interesting. It's gonna look bad for the next five minutes... and then we can talk about what you guys want, and fix it up nice. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:21, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::Okay, never mind. That just looked bad. :) So I set it to Brick. If you guys want to change these colors, we can change them to whatever you like. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:25, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

===Apparently implemented===
Is there any way to override this that '''doesn't''' override the skins on ''every'' Wikia-hosted wiki? - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 21:19, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:Do you mean, you want to see the skin in Monobook? You can go to Preferences --> Skins, and set your preferred skin to Monobook. You can check or uncheck the box that says "Let the admins override my skin choice" to either see customized skins or not. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:27, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::Yes, I know that. My problem with that is the "This setting will follow you across Wikia." clause. I don't want to override EVERYWHERE (e.g. Memory Alpha). Just Monaco wikis. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 21:30, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::Actually, they're working on switching over to the Monaco skin on Memory Alpha too... At a certain point, pretty much every Wikia wiki is going to end up on Monaco. Is there something about Monaco that you don't like? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:43, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::::The flyouts. Certainly not the only thing - the more I look, the less I like, especially the pathetic "Latest Activity" box with a practically-camouflaged recentchanges link, and why exactly are the preferences hidden? - but they're the biggest dealbreaker. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 22:01, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::::Yeah, at first I wasn't crazy about the flyouts either. We tested out using the sidebar without the flyouts on Muppet Wiki, but then I looked at the click stats and found that they really helped new readers to find content on the wiki. The pageviews went down when we took the flyouts out. If you're interested, there's details here: [[w:c:muppet:Muppet_Wiki:Current_events#Sidebar_menus|Muppet Wiki:Current events]].

:::::The "Community" box is also something for the new users. When you first come to the wiki, you might think that it's just a static site... There's no way to know that there's a living community. The latest activity shows people that there are pages that were edited in the last couple minutes. Also, logged-out users see a log-in button in that box. For active logged-in users, a lot of these features aren't that useful. They're really aimed at the 90-something% of readers that aren't logged in. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:10, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::::::(NB: I was expanding my post at the same time you were typing, since I was spending a bit of time looking around).
::::::See, I'm not coming at it from the "guy who runs the wiki" perspective. I'm not a sysop on a Wikia wiki, so "this will boost Teh Stats" has no effect on me [perhaps that means you consider my position irrelevant. I can't help that]. Nor am I a newbie to Wikis, so again, not the target group.
::::::My problem is that (1) they require me to turn JavaScript on in the first place (strictly, add to the NoScript whitelist, but...) and (2) the click-on flyout in the top right is worse than pointless, since there's room for the links without that and it just makes preferences harder to access and (3) I hate non-click flyouts since you they will inevitably be scrolled at the wrong moment, trebly so since they're on the side rather than the top. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 22:08, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::::::I think "this will boost Teh Stats" actually matters to everybody. More readers looking at more pages = more potential contributors = a more active community = more and better content on the site. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:12, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::::::::By the way, I'm not trying to make you like the skin. Either you like it, or you don't. I'm just explaining the rationale behind some of the design decisions, so you know that it wasn't just random or malicious. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:17, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

There are three things that would make me more... reconciled... to it. I still probably won't ''like'' it, but...
#On your own "help.wikia", there's a group of links beneath the flyouts to Recent Changes/Upload/etc. They don't appear here or on most Wikia wikis (well, strictly they appear for about half a second on a Ctrl-F5, which suggests they're present but being hidden with CSS or something). They should be there as standard.
#Links to Special:Preferences and Special:Contributions/(self) should be available with a single non-flyover click, either in the "Community" box or at the top right, not in a flyover only. '''ESPECIALLY''' Special:Preferences.
#Be able to override the colour scheme on an individual wiki basis, rather than just "all or nothing" - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 22:29, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::For #1, I'm not sure why you're not seeing the toolbox links. That's an important part of the skin, and it's on every wiki. Check out the screenshots that I added above -- every wiki has links to Recent changes and Upload. If you're not seeing it, then that's a weird bug which we can try to figure out. What browser are you using? Are you only seeing the toolbox disappearing on Transformers, or on other wikis too?

::If you want it, we can put links to Preferences and Contributions in the toolbox, or in the sidebar. I don't know how to change the top header.

::Can you give me an example of what you'd like to see as far as overriding the color schemes? I think it's possible that what you want is currently possible, but I'm not sure. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:54, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::Okay, #1 was my own fault. An in-browser hack I'd done on Monobook was interacting "unpredictably" with Monaco, and had knocked that (and some minor stuff that doesn't make any difference) out of joint.
:::Okay on #2. I'd be interested to find out how many people ever use Special:Preferences on any skin(s) while you're trotting out stats...
:::On #3, basically, being able to use different (non-default) skins, or at least colour schemes from the chosen skin on different wikis without being limited to the "this will follow you across Wikia". Just because one wiki chooses to smother the page in bright pink (or orange...) doesn't mean I want to change the colour scheme on every wikia. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 23:32, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Sure, I love trotting out stats!

Here's the stats on how Transformers contributors click on those links. In the last month, there have been the following clicks:

* Watchlist: 3,114
* Contributions: 427
* User page: 213
* Talk page: 67
* Preferences: 22

So, yeah, contributions is #2 on that list, but preferences is all the way down at the bottom. Preferences is useful when you need it, but people don't need it that often.

But the hypothesis is: If you put Contributions and Preferences into a drop-down menu, people won't click on it as much, and you'll see clicks on those two items going down.

To make a comparison, I looked at Muppet Wiki editors' clicks in February (on Monobook) and in April (using Monaco).

Here's the clicks on Monobook:

* Contributions: 403 (52%)
* Watchlist: 148 (19%)
* Talk page: 132 (17%)
* User page: 83 (11.5%)
* Preferences: 4 (0.5%)

Here's the clicks on Monaco:

* Contributions: 320 (60%)
* Watchlist: 123 (23%)
* Talk page: 53 (10%)
* User page: 23 (4%)
* Preferences: 15 (3%)

The hypothesis doesn't seem to hold up. Percentage-wise, clicks on Contributions and Preferences went up using Monaco. This is a really small sample, so it's not proof of anything... but it indicates that the drop-down menu doesn't chase away clicks.

As far as seeing wikis in different skins, try choosing Monobook in your skin preferences, and keep "allow admins to override my choices" checked. Transformers isn't using a custom skin right now, so you should see this wiki in Monobook -- and you'll also see the customization on Memory Alpha, etc. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 00:19, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

==Script-style quotes==
There seems to be some disagreement on whether script-style quotes should have quotation marks or not. Personally, I strongly favor including them, for two reasons:
* Visual consistency. There's no reason not to have all the quotes in as similar a format as possible. Having some with quotation marks, and some without, ''in the same section'', seems like needless variation.
* It's... well... it's a ''quote''. We're not writing a screenplay; we're quoting something someone actually said. And a quote gets quotation marks.... fullstop. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 21:18, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

:Hmm, I'm afraid I disagree. They're simply not necessary, and they clutter the page.
:And, regardless of whether we decide to use double-quotes, can we put a stop to script-style where the quotes are are in double-quotes ''and'' italicized? {shudder} [[User:JW|JW]] 21:21, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
::The italics stuff is flat out bad formatting, no disagreement here. There's an earlier discussion about it somewhere on this page or the archives. Nobody should be adding stuff in that format anymore... I hope.
::As for double quotes... um... I have no clue what you're referring to. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 21:23, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

==Gone Too Far==
I've been alerted it's past the 30-day period for "coming soon Club stuff" non-updating. Have at it. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 22:03, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

==Searchbox improvement drive==
So now we have a very nice set of searchboxes, thanks to the lovely design work of M Sipher and the superhuman coding skills of Suki Brits. The effort of these boxes is to show the visitor all of the awesome crap we have. To do that, said cap must in fact be awesome. Unfortunately, a lot of the pages linked to by searchboxes are [[Shatterpoint|imageless]], [[T-AI|missing fiction]], or [[High Wire (Armada)|pretty much content-free]]. Thus, I propose an improvement drive of the searchbox articles. When you click on one of those suckers, try and add something. I dunno how we'd make this official, exactly... - [[User:RolonBolon|RolonBolon]] 06:49, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
:Are these images supposed to show up automatically by/around/with the actual text box in which you type your search parameters? If so, I'm not seeing them in the current Monaco skin.--[[User:Apcog|Apcog]] 14:29, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
::They don't show up in Monaco, Quartz, Cologne Blue, or any other custom theme. Just Monobook, the default. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 20:15, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Is there a way to get the search box changes to load sooner? The way it is now the custom settings for the box are the last thing to load; it uses the default settings until the google ads finish loading. This can take awhile depending on how the crappy campus wireless is acting. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 20:39, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with RolonBolon about the searchbox thing. I know we're hard up for help, but why are we spending time creating these little searchbox images using pics from God knows where, yet we've neglected to upload a single image for the actual pages these buttons lead to? Not the mention pages that have absolutely no content whatsoever.
I think we've overreached ourselves, and in the future we should only do these searchbox things for articles that are largely complete and/or have alot of content and imagery, otherwise we look really half-ass and unfocused. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 22:37, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
:Yeah, what drove it home for me was Sixtrain. I see Sixtrain in the Search box. It looks nifty, like it's his box art. I click on the article, no images. Why the heck can't we upload Sixtrain's box art when we evidently have a clear enough copy of it to make a search teaser?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 23:33, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
::I was simply making boxes using what I had on the hard drive as examples, and not everything is good quality at main-image size. I don't think we've "overreached ourselves" at all. At worst, we omit a few items from the searchbox list if their entries are that empty for a little while, OH NOES. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 00:22, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
:::I am of the opinion that a fuzzy picture that can be replaced later is better than no picture at all. It helps users know what it's talking about in the meantime, right? [[User:Spriteless|Spriteless]] 02:24, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
::::We prefer no pic/no content to a crap pic/crap content. I've been taking a break from the Wiki, but it looks like I'm going on another image safari. My scanner not working is annoying. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 06:54, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

The fact that the image is the last one on the page to load isn't just visually annoying; it for some reason also makes whatever you've typed in the search field vanish in Firefox. I've had this happen to me a bunch of times. A lesser annoyance is that the input box moves when the image appears; it would be nice if it could stay in the same place (maybe by making the whole Search box a fixed size?), as it's a bad idea to have a clickable thing that spontaneously jumps around. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 20:31, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
: The way the Search Image works right now, I'd rather not even have them. My computer has slowed down ''epically'' trying to load those images each time, and if it's a high traffic time of day, the rest of the page will basically freeze for 30 seconds or more until that search image gets around to loading. This is extremely annoying when I just need a quick peek at a page before making a link, like checking if Stormcloud is one word or two or if Whirl needs to be disambig-ed in the link. And if I try to click Search to move on to a next page too early, the Image drops down in front and shang-hais my "click", so I go there instead of being able to type in where I want to go.

: I don't like the thing at all. It's been nothing but a hassle for the last day or so. There's already a Random page button right about it -- do we really need this too? --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 00:30, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::The same thing has been happening to me lately, and I've never experienced that problem on Wookieepedia. And this is a real problem for me, as I'm actually ''supportive'' of the image icons. We may want review the system. -- [[User:SFH|SFH]] 01:30, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Though in fairness, some of that may be due to Wikia's tendency to nearly-crash every weekend. And to be honest, this weekend has been rather traffic low. I mean, seriously, did every head to BotCon a week early? -- [[User:SFH|SFH]] 02:09, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Let me know if this continues to be an issue during weekdays (well, before Thursday, anyway). If it is, I'll figure out a way to let users optionally turn them off. I've never noticed it slowing down while trying to load, and any sane browser ''shouldn't'', but if that really is happening for some users, something definitely ought to be done about it.
::::I'll also take a look at preserving the form data while the images load, because that is definitely something that really ''should'' happen, too. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 03:44, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::Things sped back up again shortly after SFH's last post, but I'll post again if it keeps happening regularly. Maybe it was just an anomaly. --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 03:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::'''Furthermore:''' I did a bit of code modification that should make the form retain anything you've typed before the images loads. You may need to do a hard refresh for the change to show up, but lemme know if that doesn't work for anyone. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 03:52, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

==Templates listing==
Is there a page editors can refer to for templates (messagebox, user notices ect) without having to go through the categories or remembering the last time somebody used it so they can copy-paste it? They seem to be unnecessarily difficult to track down. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 03:43, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
:[http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=10 here] --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 04:50, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
::My main concern was not requiring the page soley for myself, but was this page obviously linked on a help page or something somewhere that anybody could find easily? I'd personally like to see this wiki become more user-friendly. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 07:25, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Agreed, as I've [http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Transformers_Wiki_talk:Community_Portal#.22First_go_here.21__Next_go_here..22 said before on this very page]. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 15:05, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Yeah. Our lack of user friendliness might discourage people from joining up. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 17:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:What I'm worried about is that some of the other users would actually be okay with that...-- [[User:SFH|SFH]] 17:48, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::Well, last time I checked some of these other users don't own the wiki. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 09:12, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

== new template: Comicinfo ==

Please checkout [[Template:Comicinfo]]. It's a little rough around the edges, but something I think could be useful on the comics pages. Comments and suggestions are welcome.--[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 02:42, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

== Masthead ==

Okay, the old Monobook masthead doesn't look so good under Monaco. How do we change this?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:31, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
:I've looked around and seen that other wikis have already taken advantage of the extra masthead space. Question is, how do we do so, and what dimensions would the new masthead be?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 16:05, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
::Before we do anything, I would recommend keeping the masthead's filesize reasonable, because there's nothing worse than trying to load a site with a masthead image that is like a megabyte or something. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 16:22, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Oh, absolutely. I was mainly thinking perhaps something involving a 'shopping of the TFA logo, considering it'd fit the color scheme nicely. Alternatively, maybe something aping the "grid" of G1.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 16:26, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Another thought is whether it's possible for the masthead to be random/rotating. If so, it'd let us do Autobot/Decepticon versions of the same masthead (via color swap) or even rotating versions for different franchises (G1, BW, UT, etc.)--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 16:35, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

== Sidebar ==

Given that we're getting a lot of Transformers Animated traffic lately, I'd say an item in the Monaco sidebar is likely going to help direct people to the right articles.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:45, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:Okay, I put it in the sidebar. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:56, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

The more I think on it, the more it seems we'd be best served by condensing the G1 and TFA menus and instead just having one menu that's franchise navigation. I dunno. I'm a little bothered that we can't seem to get the admins to chime in on this, since they're the ones that can edit the sidebar setup the most easily.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 19:02, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:Eh. Monday after BotCon. A lot of them are probably still sleeping off their flight / drive / booze. Another reason why big changes probably shouldn't've happened this weekend. Give it a day or so. --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 19:12, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

The sidebar does need major work, and [[MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar]] is a protected page so I guess it's not just easier for admins to change it, they're the only ones who can?

The issues I have with it are:

* "Featured characters" menu still includes articles that haven't actually been Featured, as well as [[Spark]], which ''has'' been featured but is not a ''character''.
* Generation 1 and Animated are the only franchises listed.
* The G1 and Animated menus are inconsistent in the sorts of articles they list. The Generation 1 menu includes [[Autobot]] and [[Decepticon]], articles were not restricted to G1, then several high profile characters and one obscure, jokey one. The Animated menu, on the other hand, just lists the franchise's cartoon, comic, toyline, and books articles.
* The "Embrace the Knowledge" menu seems to take a bit of scattershot approach. [[Marvel Comics]] is listed, but none of the other publishers. Hasbro is there, but not Takara. With [[Mini-Con]] there, might this be a better place for the Autobot and Decepticon articles, and other factions as well?
--[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 19:55, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:[[MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar]] can only be edited by admins. That's true for all MediaWiki pages. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 20:31, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

== Hate the new skin. ==

Hate this new skin. Just wanted to say it. The old look was much more pleasent and open to read. New one is just crouded and Blah. THIS is gonna take getting use to. No Sir, I don't like it.

:Can it at least not be burgundy and orange? - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 22:08, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::Yeah, it can be any color you like. I was messing around with colors before, but wasn't doing a great job with it, and Rosicrucian said he wanted this color scheme. Any admin can change the colors by editing [[MediaWiki:Monaco.css]]. There's instructions on how to do it here: [[w:c:help:Customizing Monaco|Customizing Monaco]]. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:15, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
:::I mainly liked this because it fits with the color scheme of Teletraan itself. I'm not married to the idea, though. I also figured I'd speak up about it because Walky liked it, and he's off enjoying his ridiculously expensive Transformers collector's items at BotCon.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 22:21, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Ahh, right, well, I can see the logic, there, all right... I'm just not dying about the dark-coloured backgrounds, since it's a big visually jarring to have big white boxes of text in the middle of them. - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 22:24, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

: Seconding the hate. [[User:Hooper X|-hx]] 00:04, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
:: This looks pretty hideous compared to MonoBook... and it's hard to navigate. Well, at least I can override it in preferences, but I think I'll be ignoring admin skin choices unless a custom one appears in the future.--[[User:MCRG|MCRG]] 00:44, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

:::I think I can try to get used to the new skin unless/until I find something inconvenient. Well, so far so good. At least the seach function is better. But the logo on the left side of the top, well... um, oh. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 01:23, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
::Fourthing the hate. The colors hurt my eyes. That, and the obscure character search images are gone. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 01:45, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

:I'm afraid I don't much like it either. Fortunately, it was pretty easy to uncheck the "override" box on my preferences. [[User:JW|JW]] 01:54, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't like the new skin either. I don't get the menus at the side. "Featured characters" includes articles that I don't think have actually been Featured. G1 and Animated are listed, but no other franchises. And the menus are inconsistent. The G1 menu lists Autobot, Decepticon, and then a bunch of character pages, while the Animated menu lists Animated's toy line, cartoon, comic, and books articles. Why the difference? And what was the selection process for the "Embrace the Knowledge" menu?

By the way, in the middle of BotCon is probably the worst possible time for major changes like this to be made. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 04:29, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

:The menus at the side are examples that I made up. You guys can change them to be anything you want, by editing [[MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar]]. I'm sorry about the timing... We've been talking about this for maybe three weeks.

:Lots of things can be changed -- the colors, the menus, the logo. I'll put it back to the basic Sapphire for now, which is more like Monobook. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 05:08, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Not a fan of the skin, either. Losing the brown and yellow from earlier was a step up, but it still doesn't quite work. The extra crap on the side feels ''bigger'' now, so the actual articles feel ''smaller''. And those blamed automatic pulldown menus keep getting in the way everytime I move my cursor to or from the Search box. Annoying. --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 17:02, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:I'm a little unclear- you say Monaco is the new Wikia standard skin. No one likes it. But we can override the style in our preferences to set it back to Monobook.
:So does TT1 have the ''option'' of deciding to switch back to Monobook if that's what the consensus decides? Danny is saying they are switching Memory Alpha Monaco and "at a certain point, pretty much every Wikia wiki is going to end up on Monaco." So is this something we get to decide for ourselves, or will Monaco be forced on us even if we don't want it? -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 18:55, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

::What I find interesting on the MΑ example is that Toughpigs said, and I quote:
:::''Actually, they're working on switching over to the Monaco skin on Memory Alpha too''
::Now, who are "they"? Because I've just looked at MΑ - and in the designated [[MemoryAlpha:Forum:Monaco skin|forum on the matter]], one Wikia staff member (who has no main namespace edits on MΑ in the past three years) is the only user pushing for it. Only two other users have (briefly) commented - one admin who's strongly against it because of the top ad banner, and one other user who dittoed that. The only other place it is mentioned is on [[MemoryAlpha:Portal talk:Main#Monaco skin|their main page talk]], where one "[[Wikia:Wikia Helper Group|Wikia Helper Group]]" member (who has no MΑ edits on any other matter, main namespace or otherwise) shilled it - and in response, got a reply from one user that they were confused, and another user that they preferred Monobook. Unless there's some hidden forum somewhere, there's no consensus from MΑ that they want to switch.

::If Toughpigs's line is intended to say there's a push ''from'' MΑ as a "do you want T1 to be left out", it's, well, draw your own conclusions. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 19:42, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I've been vague about what the future holds, because I don't know. Right now, the community does have the option to switch the site back to Monobook, if that's what you decide.

However, at some point in the future, Wikia may need to switch everybody over to Monaco. We need to figure out how to get more advertisers to buy ads on Wikia. We're exploring a lot of different possibilities right now, so I can't predict how that's going to go yet. But we may find that it hurts us to have skins with completely different ad sizes all over the site. Companies don't want to advertise on sites that have a leaderboard on some pages and a skyscraper on others.

Right now, we're able to offer a lot of flexibility with the skins, and we're not forcing a change on any community. But if you think about it, no other (sane) website does that. Ad-supported websites have a format, and everything on the site is in that format.
:I have no real problem with Wikia's need to place more prominent banners. I don't ''like'' them, but I recognize that it is a reality of your business model.
:I ''do'' take issue with the banners being tied to a sucky new UI that's being forced on us, hammering us with a double-negative. Is there any way to place the new banners (satisfying Wikia's business imperatives) in the old skin (satisfying our desire to not have the site suck so badly?) Maybe we can find a treatment that makes them less obnoxious without de-valuing them.
:Of course- you keep stressing how this new UI causes more clicks... which means more pageviews, with means more bannerviews, which means more ad revenue. I really feel like your entire pitch is a thinly veiled attempt to monetize this wiki regardless of what the users want. So not only do we have to have the banners that generate more revenue-- we have to have the UI that's editor-unfriendly but promotes more pageviews.
:Why don't you just rewrite the site interface so you have to click 8 times to do anything like MySpace? I mean- that seems consistent with the whole 'sacrifice the user experience in exchange for saleable ad impressions' philosiphy you're espousing here.
:You quote a lot of statistics. Are they internal? Do/can we have access to them? Would TT1 be allowed to pursue evolving our interface to maximize pageviews ''without'' having to buy into Monaco?
:Strictly speaking the best way to increase pageviews on this wiki would to make all the links un-disambiguated, so every time you click on a link you have to view the disambig page before you can select the page you ''actually'' wanted to see from the list. There- pageviews have increased... at the expense of the user experience.
:Packaging ''can'' be a fore multiplier to make content more attractive... slightly more attractive. But in the end it's the quality of the content that drives readers. If we have to increase viewership to pad Wikia's bottom line, I'd ''really'' rather we did so by offering different or better content- not by putting a shiny package around it. -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 07:05, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I know that the obvious response to the ad talk is "that's your problem", but it's actually everybody's problem. Wikia offers free hosting to communities like this one because we're advertiser-supported. But the ad market is changing -- and if we don't keep up, then we go out of business, and we can't host wikis anymore.

Anyway, we're not anywhere near a problem at the moment. Wikia is fine, and if the community decides to switch back to Monobook, then that's fine. But it will be easier in the long run if folks give Monaco a chance, and see if we can make it work the way that you want it to work.

Meanwhile, I can address a couple of the concerns that people have posted about. First up: The size of the content area. Xaaron says that the crap on the side feels bigger, so the content area feels smaller. I took screenshots of the same page using both Monaco and Monobook, at the same browser size and screen resolution.

<gallery>
Image:Megatron-monaco.jpg|Monaco
Image:Megatron-monobook.jpg|Monobook
</gallery>

You can see from those pictures that Monaco gives you a wider content area. The first two paragraphs take up 16 lines in Monobook. On Monaco, it takes up 13 lines.

The number of logins has gone up just in the last few days. On April 26-27, 41 people logged in to the site (20.5 per day). From March 1-31, there were 381 logins (12.3 per day). This may be because of the interest generated at BotCon, but it also seems like being at BotCon over the weekend kept people away from the website. The increase in logins is consistent with what we've seen on other sites -- Monaco makes logging in more visible to new users.

On the sidebar over the last couple days, these are the most clicked on items:

# Transformers Animated (cartoon): 295 clicks
# Murdered puppy: 192 clicks
# That big green, fire-snortin' lizard: 168 clicks
# Transformers Animated (toy line): 131
# Autobot: 111
# Optimus Minor: 108
# More featured characters: 83
# Optimus Prime: 76
# Gas Skunk: 74
# Airazor (BW): 72

Pageviews for April 26-27 are up 21% over the average from the previous 30 days. That may be because of the interest around BotCon and the new episodes, but it might also be because the sidebar is helping new readers find articles that they're interested in, and because the pages load faster with Monaco. In any event, it doesn't seem like Monaco is chasing people away. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 20:27, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:It could also be because existing users have been giving the new skin a test drive. Anyway, couple of things about the skin that I'm wondering. First, the Teletraan 1 image in the upper left corner is now tiny with ugly, empty whitespace on three sides. Can it be enlarged? Second, can the recently-added neat little search box images be included in the new skin? --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 20:51, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

::The logo can be changed by uploading a new image to [[:Image:Wiki_wide.png]].

::The search box images are a neat idea, but I'm confused about why they're attached to search. They don't take you to a search page. They're basically a random featured-article generator. If you want, I can talk to the designer here about creating a randomized featured-article widget for the sidebar. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 20:59, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Basic test image for the top left:

[[Image:TFfactions.png|266x75px]]

- [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 21:58, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:I've got some ideas for the masthead. I'll 'shop something up when I get home from work.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 22:05, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
::My proposal:
::[[Image:Teletraan masthead.png]]
::Whaddaya think?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 02:16, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:::That one is beautiful. --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 02:20, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Look nice for Rosi's. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 02:26, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Ooo, rock me, Amadeus. Verra nice. [[User:JW|JW]] 02:56, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
::::That is perfect, Rosicrucian. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 04:36, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::That is lovely. --[[User:Sntint|Sntint]] 04:38, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

== Anonymous edits ==

Lately, I've been looking at wikis that have decided to turn off anonymous edits, and have everybody log in before contributing to the wiki. The idea is that having everybody log in builds a stronger sense of community, because you always have a name to associate with an edit, rather than a random string of numbers. It's easier to talk to people who have names. It also gives you more control over vandalism, since you can recognize potential vandals more easily.

Some people don't like the idea, because they're worried that logging in is a barrier to entry -- if you have to log in to edit, then you won't bother, and you'll go away. Looking at the wikis that require login, that doesn't seem to be true. [[w:c:muppet|Muppet Wiki]] turned off anon edits last April, and the number of active editors has actually gone up. Some of our most active wikis require login -- [[w:c:wowwiki|World of Warcraft]], [[w:c:ffxi|FFXIclopedia]], [[w:c:tibia|Tibia Wiki]] and [[w:c:marveldatabase|Marvel Database]]. (WoW and FFXI actually require a confirmed e-mail address before you can edit.)

So I've been talking to folks about this, and we've decided to allow wiki communities to turn off anonymous edits if they want to. There are a lot of anonymous editors here, so I'm wondering what you guys think about it. Would it be helpful to require login for everybody?

Obviously, that's a big community decision... I just want to throw out the possibility, and see what you think. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 20:38, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

:I strongly oppose disabling anonymous edits! (I also oppose sweeping changes performed over botcon, and unilaterally re-skining the site when the community can argue for weeks or month about proposed style changes to individual ''templates'' without reaching a consensus-- but if you're willing to ignore the needs of registered users while making such 'big community decisions,' why would you listen to anon users?) -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 08:18, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
::Well, let's get an opposing viewpoint here. Why are you, 75.168.112.43, unwilling to get an account? [[User:JW|JW]] 11:16, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:::You assume I don't have an account.
:::I strongly oppose disabling anonymous edits because;
::::# It puts up a gateway that discourages first time users. Not a tall gateway- but a gateway nonetheless. Even if it only turns back 30% of new editors, that's 30% of people who could potentially become productive members of the community we're turning away out of hand.
::::# Equally important to the new users are the 'casual fixers', people who will /never/ become regulars on this wiki but, while clicking around, notice a link leading to '''Megatron''' instead of '''Megatron (G1)'''. If they have to register to make that simple fix? 9 times out of 10 that kind of fix will not get done.
::::# The problem 'disabling anonymous edits' seeks to fix- trolls- will not be solved. We already have trolls who register for accounts-- right now we don't even require an e-mail address. So ''next'' to combat Troll,s we'll require all accounts to have e-mail addresses. Then we'll require those e-mails be ''verified'', then maybe we'll set up a system where new users have to be ''approved'' like so many online communities before they can use their account. IP Tracking! Requiring Persistent Cookies! Each and ''any'' of these steps makes the online experience just a little bit more unpleasant for the user (and each hoop to jump throuhg makes new users just a little disinclined to join) but none of them actually stops trolls! Clear your cache, sign up for a yahoo account and you're up and running again. The trolls that regularly bother TT1 have already demonstrated they are willing to go to these lengths to evade bans. I am opposed to any measure that would punish the general body of users (registered and non) to deal with trolls. I am '''strongly''' opposed to any measure that would punish users and '''not''' deal with trolls, which is what this promises to do.

::::And seriously- while I'm tickled to death to know that the 'wikia community developer' has been attracted to communities that place restrictions on their users, I'm not thrilled to see someone who's not part of the community lobbying that we become more insular. I think changing TT1 to a UI that's different from Wikipedia makes the site harder to use (both for new users, and for users who make contributions to multiple wikis) is an objectively bad decision that was made with little discussion because 'it looks better.' And I really dislike that this was done while everyone was gone at Botcon and it was impossible to form a quorum for proper discussion. Monorail guy dances into town and starts making global changes that he thinks 'make more sense' without understanding that [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Talk:Megatron_Rising_-_Part_2&action=history they were that way for a reason], and his whims would require massive secondary cleanup effort to enact. I don't think someone who's not a participating member of this community should be initiating that kind of change, or throwing his weight behind them for them while 'polling for consensus. On a more fundamental level- I'm suspicious about external voices telling us how we should be running this wiki, because sooner or later they're gong to tell us The Funny Should Go.
::::I feel the burden of proof is on the other side here-- show that there will be a concrete and measurable improvement to the wiki by disabling anonymous edits that will NOT place an unnecessary burden on users. -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 12:38, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::''"You assume I don't have an account."'' Well, then, please tell us why you aren't willing to use it. I'm truly curious. [[User:JW|JW]] 13:04, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::More to the point, the IP address 75.168.112.43 has only made 10 contributions to this wiki, of which only 4 are of actual substance. Your comments will carry more weight if you tell us which long-established editor you in fact ''are.'' Otherwise, ''you<nowiki>'</nowiki>re'' the "external voice telling us how we should be running this wiki". [[User:JW|JW]] 13:16, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

::::::I oppose to disable anonymous edit, too. I was once a anonymous user . If the anonymous edit is disabled, that would mean we close the door for many potential users-to-be. Though I hate anonymous vandalizing, which is really a problem. But any bad anonymous user can get an account to vandalize, too. ''Urgh''.--[[User:TX55|TX55]] 13:56, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

The Funny Should Definitely Not Go. The reason why I've been hanging out on this wiki lately is because I like it -- specifically, because I like the Funny. I don't want to annoy people or screw stuff up; I'm just trying to help out in ways that I know how to help.

I didn't unilaterally change the skin... If you look above, the conversation about the skin started on April 7th. On Thursday, I asked if there were any more comments before I switched it over. The only response was from ItsWalky, who indicated that it would be okay. I've been keeping an eye on the stats -- the number of edits, registrations and pageviews have all gone up since the wiki switched to Monaco. (Saturday was the highest single day for registrations on the wiki since January.)

As I said, anonymous edits is totally a community decision. I just wanted to let you know that it's an option if the community wants it. It's a long-term discussion, and I don't have an interest in pushing it one way or the other. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 14:31, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:I would be against restricting edits to registered members. This wiki already has a reputation in the Transformers community as alledgedly being the playground for a very specific group of fans. Restricting edits will only further this perception. But more importantly:

:*I tend to agree that if one has no intention of making significant edits, but very occassionally fixes minor mistakes that one sees, then one shouldn't be forced to register to do so.

:*Some of us would prefer not to login while accessing the wiki at school or at work. Yeah, we have our reasons.

:*Chris McFeely, one of our staff members, sometimes has trouble logging onto the wiki when he's not at home, so if we restrict edits to logged-in users, he can't make any contributions if he happens to have free time while out and about.

:*Good anonymous editors sometimes eventually become registered members if they find they enjoy making the edits and would to participate in the little community we have.

:*Trolls and vandals who go to the effort of being repeat offenders will not be scared off by a registration process. I think we'll find that these people have ''alot'' of free time on their hands. Even more than I do!

:--[[User:FFN|FFN]] 15:03, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:I'd be more willing to believe that the increase in edits on Saturday was due to the new skin if Saturday didn't happen to be the day most of the BotCon panels were held. Those give us a lot of new information that needs to be added to the wiki. Plus, two (or three) new episodes were shown that morning: Return of the Headmaster in the US, Mission Accomplished in Canada, and Collect and Save at Botcon. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 15:46, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

::No kidding. You could've changed the site to pink-and-purple polka dots, and traffic still would've increased this weekend, with everyone fighting to be the first to add all the new scraps of information from the convention. --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 17:05, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:::I'm no one special on this wiki, but I wanted to weigh in. Considering that everything else on the web seems to require a login, it isn't asking too much for people to sign up. All the forums require a login so people can own their opinions, why not here? Also, isn't most of the caption bastardry done by anons? Maybe forcing registration might stop some of those careless edits. Requiring an email? Now that might scare people off.--[[User:Suzyprime|Suzyprime]] 04:51, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

==Image overlap==
[[image:Templateximage.JPG|thumb|I'm ugly]]
Umm, did this overlap happen before the new skin? If so, I never noticed it. If not, then why is it changing what goes on inside the content part of the site, not just the menus and adds and umm, everything that I can't edit as an anon? [[User:Spriteless|Spriteless]] 04:04, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:We're trying to figure it out over on [[User Talk:Toughpigs]].--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 04:08, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
::That particular ''overlap'' always happened- but the transparent frame was apparently a result of some global CSS change Wikia made ~4-6 months ago.
::It looks like the fix was posted on the [http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Monobook.css monobook.css] discussion page, but never implemented. -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 05:25, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:::(Oh, i see this was already discussed. Hrm.) -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 05:43, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
::::The problem with overlaps like on the [[Blackthorne Publishing]] page in the image can be solved by putting one of these <nowiki>{{-}}</nowiki> in, which I just did on that page. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 05:59, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
I've had a slightly different problem with image overlap in the past few days. If there's a stub box or a "needs images" box on a page, occasionally the box's pic will remain stuck at the top of the page. For instance, in the example on the right, Kup's pic would be stuck in the top left corner, covering part of the Blackthorne Publishing title bar. It has also happened on the front page, with Jhiaxus's image from the featured article covering the Primes. --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 05:41, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:What broswer? (The messagebox template uses styles that render differently on IE and Geko-based browsers... but the difference shoudl eb cosmetic, not functional like that.) -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 05:43, 29 April 2008 (UTC)<div id="wikia-credits"> From [http://transformers.wikia.com Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki], a [http://www.wikia.com Wikia] wiki.</div>

Mission Accomplished

2008-04-29T06:15:04Z

75.168.112.43: /* Continuity errors */

{{episodenav|animated|19|season=2|prev=The Return of the Headmaster|next=Garbage In, Garbage Out}}

[[Image:Offlinescream.JPG|right|thumb|300px|I've fallen, and I can't get up.]]

'''Convinced there are no Decepticons left on Earth, the Elite Guard prepares to take Optimus Prime and his crew back to Cybertron, unaware of the increasing Decepticon activity taking place under their very noses.'''

==Summary==
The Autobot Ironhide sends a message to the Earth-based Autobots, revealing he is under attack from Decepticons, and has already lost one [[space bridge]]. He requests backup but the transmission is cut off. Ultra Magnus explains this is but one of many reports of rising Decepticon activity. Jazz thinks it is due to the rumours of Megatron's survival, and Sentinel can't resist an opportunity to make a snide comment about the source of those rumours: Optimus Prime. Magnus therefore decides that all Earth-bound Autobots will make preparations to leave the planet. When Optimus protests due to the presence of Decepticons on Earth, Ultra Magnus brushes him off, whilst Sentinel butts in with another tirade about putting Prime up for an inquiry (or a court martial, as Optimus perceives it). Ultra Magnus tries to make his position clear; that in the long run, everyone is better off believing Megatron is dead, rather than cause panic among the Autobots and strengthen the resolve of the Decepticons by putting forward the idea of the Decepticon leader surviving, and the [[AllSpark (Animated)|AllSpark]] being destroyed. An outraged Optimus is forced into compliance.

Back at the factory, Sari is heartbroken by the idea of her friends being forced to leave Earth. The situation is made worse when Sentinel shows up, and with his usual grace and tact, tells Sari to belt up, and officially inducts Optimus' team in the war effort. In the middle of insulting the "repair grunts", he makes a gesture of sorts to Optimus; do as Ultra Magnus says, admit he's been lying and Sentinel will use his connections to get Optimus' military career back on track, as thanks for the recent Headmaster incident. When Optimus tells him what to do with his offer, Sentinel places him under formal arrest.

[[Image:Tooyoungtodie.JPG|left|thumb|200px|Go to your happy place, Screamer.]]
On a garbage scow moving along the river, Starscream suddenly reactivates. Disorientated, he panics when he realises that not only can he not pick up any Decepticon energy signatures, he can't even pick up his own! After a moment of shock, he recovers and gets his bearings: he's alive, and still on Earth. Furious at Megatron's attempt on his life, he transforms and blasts off into the sky.

At the Decepticon base, Blitzwing and Lugnut successfully test out Professor Sumdac's new Decepticon signal dampener. Mildly impressed, Megatron quickly moves on, demanding the creation of a subspace communicator so he can contact his forces in space to call off the aimless skirmishes until he can build his own space bridge. When Sumdac comments that Earth technology is too primitive, he smugly informs him that they will simply steal the required tech from the Elite Guard's ship. Meanwhile, the Autobots are trying to figure out what to do with Sari, and take her to the most together human they know, Captain Fanzone, although they do point out that most of the humans they know are criminally insane. While they handle that, Optimus is on the Elite Guard's ship, with Sentinel still trying to convince him to play ball. While they argue, Lugnut and Blitzwing tunnel under the ship's shield, and steal a tachyon generator. As they make their escape, they fail to notice Starscream tailing them back to base.

[[Image:Swordscream.JPG|Left|thumb|200px|And so begins the greatest TF montage of all time.]]
As Lugnut presents his prize to Megatron, Starscream makes his presence known. What follows is a quick but decisive victory for Megatron who simply slashes Starscream, before blasting him point blank. Lugnut checks to see if Starscream is still online, and finding no spark, helps Blitzwing toss his corpse into the river. After floating downstream, Starscream suddenly reactivates, again. He realises he lacks a spark, and discovers he is being kept alive by a fragment of the AllSpark buried in his head, effectively making him immortal. Delighted, he declares the end of the Megatron's era. As Megatron sends his message out to the Decepticons, Starscream attacks!...and is promptly killed again. After a couple more fruitless attempts, he starts to wonder if he needs a new strategy. His fragment allows him to locate a second shard, and a plan begins to formulate...

[[Image:Sentinel Prime shocked.jpg|thumb|left|200px|Sentinel Prime: Totally owned. Again]]
At the Elite Guard ship, Magnus presses Optimus Prime to cooperate, when Jazz reveals that he's discovered a sudden surge in AllSpark energy. Concluding that it's another shard, Magnus and Jazz go to retrieve it, while Sentinel is to remain and watch Optimus. As Sentinel moans, Optimus realizes that they had only found AllSpark shards before due to [[Sari Sumdac's key|Sari's key]]. Doing a thermal scan, he discovers Starscream. Optimus tries to warn Ultra Magnus, but Sentinel threatens to put him in [[stasis cuffs]] if he tries to leave. Optimus is able to take Sentinel down and place him in the cuffs, then [[roll out|rolls out]].

Meanwhile, the Autobots are watching Sari "interview" Captain Fanzone, who is not very fond of children. Optimus contacts the Autobots and tells them to meet him en route to the train.

As Starscream gloats about his plan to draw Megatron out and kill him in a massive explosion, Ultra Magnus and Jazz arrive, as do Megatron and Blitzwing. Megatron realizes that it's a trap by Starscream, while Magnus and Jazz have trouble getting the shard out. An energy surge throws the Elite Guard off the train. Ahead of the tracks, Optimus orders Prowl to sever the passenger cars from main car, while Bumblebee takes Sari to use the to remove the shard. They succeed, but the train still nearly crashes, only stopped because Ratchet uses his magnets to stop them, while Bulkhead grabs the rear of the train, grounded by Optimus Prime. As Starscream fumes about the lost opportunity, Megatron appears, ready to beat him senseless.

[[Image:Jagged.JPG|right|thumb|170px|Starscream refused to invoke his right to remain silent, so the Autobots decided to enforce it.]]
On the ground, Ultra Magnus reprimands Optimus Prime, while Sentinel Prime arrives and accuses him of assault. Though Optimus defends his position, both Elite Guardsmen point out that there is no evidence of Decepticons{{m-}}only for Starscream to crash into the ground mere meters away, causing Sentinel Prime to freak out at the sight of an actual Decepticon. Quickly coming back online, Starscream takes advantage of Magnus' momentary inattention to blast the Autobot leader into unconsciousness from point-blank range, taking the shard with him. The Autobots' attempts to take down Starscream fail, until Optimus comes up with a plan - although an intervention from Jazz is required to make Sentinel go along with it. Having Sentinel draw his attention, Optimus uses the stasis-cuffs on Starscream, who is taken to the Elite Guard ship - with his mouth riveted shut.

Ultra Magnus admits that Optimus Prime was right about there being Decepticons on Earth, and though Sentinel Prime brings up the assault and insubordination charges, Magnus says that Optimus was still right. Magnus decides that Optimus Prime's crew will remain on Earth to locate the remaining AllSpark shards and capture the Decepticons, while the Elite Guard returns to Cybertron for Magnus to conduct the war effort. Sari is overjoyed that the Autobots are staying, but promises Captain Fanzone that they can still hang out.

Meanwhile, Megatron tells his minions to inform their double-agent that the Decepticons have repledged their allegiance to Megatron, and that their attacks will draw Autobot forces away from Cybertron. Once the space bridge technology is fully developed, they will return to Cybertron, and conquer the planet from within...

==Stats==

*'''Written by:''' [[Marsha Griffin]]
*'''Directed by:''' [[Irineo Maramba]] & [[Yoshio Chatani]]
*'''Original airdate:''' April 26, 2008

===Featured characters===


(''Numbers indicate order of appearance.)''
{|border=5 cellpadding=5 cellspacing=5 align=center style="border:#800000"

! style="background:#FFEEEE" | [[Autobot]]s
! style="background:#EEEEFE" | [[Decepticon]]s
! style="background:antiquewhite" | [[Human]]s
|-
| style="background:#FFEEEE" valign="top" |
*[[Ironhide (Animated)|Ironhide]] (1)
*[[Ultra Magnus (Animated)|Ultra Magnus]] (2)
*[[Jazz (Animated)|Jazz]] (3)
*[[Sentinel Prime (Animated)|Sentinel Prime]] (4)
*[[Optimus Prime (Animated)|Optimus Prime]] (5)
*[[Bumblebee (Animated)|Bumblebee]] (7)
*[[Bulkhead (Animated)|Bulkhead]] (8)
*[[Prowl (Animated)|Prowl]] (9)
*[[Ratchet (Animated)|Ratchet]] (10)
| style="background:#EEEEFE" valign="top" |
*[[Starscream (Animated)|Starscream]] (11)
*[[Blitzwing (Animated)|Blitzwing]] (12)
*[[Lugnut|Lugnut]] (13)
*[[Megatron (Animated)|Megatron]] (15)
| style="background:antiquewhite" valign="top" |
*[[Sari Sumdac]] (6)
*[[Isaac Sumdac]] (14)
*[[Captain Fanzone]] (16)

|}

==Quotes==
"You dare strike ME, Megatron? After all my loyal stellar cycles of- wh- wu- wait, where is everybody?"
:{{m-}}On coming back from the dead, '''Starscream''''s speech-making tendencies outweigh his observational skills.

'''Fanzone''': Why me? 
'''Bumblebee''': You're tops on the list of all the humans we know personally. 
'''Bulkhead''': Although, it is kinda a short list. 
'''Prowl''': And it does include [[Prometheus Black]] and [[Nanosec]]. 
'''Bumblebee''': But still, you're number one! 
:{{m-}}The Autobots try to get Captain Fanzone to adopt Sari. They need to work on their sales pitch.

"Is that the best you could do, Starscream? And to think you actually believed you could take over as leader of the Decepticons. You couldn't lead a parade."
:{{m-}}'''Megatron''' gives Starscream [[The Transformers: The Movie|a hint]].

"Fellow Decepticons, take heed. Your leader, Megatron, still lives! Though we remain dispersed throughout the far reaches of the galaxy, exiled from our true home, we are all still Decepticons, united by a common purpose. The time has come for us to put aside our differences, and act as one under my undisputed leadership. Only then can we cast off the shackles of Autobot oppression. Working together, we can raise up our glorious Empire once more, and crush all who stand in our way!"
:{{m-}}'''Megatron''' has a good speechwriter.

"When are you going to get it through your thick processor? There are no Decepticons on this planet! So keep your audio unit shut or I'll do it for you." ''[brandishes stasis cuffs]'' 
''[beat]'' "I'd like to see you try, you worthless crankshaft!" 
"THAT'S IT!" ''[ten seconds later]'' "You put me in stasis lock?!"
:{{m-}}'''Sentinel Prime''', owned by '''Optimus Prime''', yet again.

"ARGH! This day couldn't possibly get any worse!" 
[Megatron and Blitzwing appear] 
"I stand corrected."
:{{m-}}'''Starscream''', enjoying his luck to the fullest.

"STARSCREAM!" 
"Sorry, you must have me confused with some other harrier jet"
:{{m-}}'''Megatron''' and '''Starscream'''. I don't think he bought it, Screamer.

"WHAT IS THAT THING?!" 
"Oh, that's right, you've never seen one up close. It's called... a Decepticon."
:{{m-}}Starscream freaks '''Sentinel Prime''' out, as '''Optimus Prime''' finally gets the proof he needs.

"Yeesh, Optimus, think you could have drawn that one out any longer?" 
"You're welcome, Sentinel." 
:{{m-}}'''Sentinel Prime''' and '''Optimus Prime''', same old song and dance.

==Other notes==
*This episode was first broadcast in Canada on April 26, one week before its United States premiere, and during the American premiere of the episode "[[The Return of the Headmaster]]".

===Animation errors===
* While dropping into Megatron's mountain base for the first time, the 'glow' effect on Starscream's jet exhaust is misaligned for several seconds until he 'catches up' to it.
===Continuity errors===
*Megatron and the other Decepticons don't seem to wonder why it is that Starscream keeps coming back, despite the fact that they note that his spark compartment is empty.
*Megatron shattered Starscream's yellow cockpit the first and fourth times he "kills" him in the episode, leaving his empty spark chamber visible. When Starscream pulls a Captain Jack, it is still missing. After he sees his reflection in the water the first time, and simply when they cut to a different angle on the fourth time, it is suddenly present and intact once more. (It's possible that's because of the miraculous powers of the Allspark shard - if it can keep Starscream online, it surely can regenerate any damage he has taken.)
*How did Sentinel get the stasis cuffs off?
*When Optimus Prime puts the newly acquired fragment of the Allspark into its housing, there are four shards total, even though thus far, only two have been recovered by the Autobots on-screen (three if they ripped the one out of Starscream's brainpan, but seeing as he's still online, that's not likely).
*As Lugnut and Blitzwing tunnel under the force shield to the Elite Guard's ship, they leave a gigantic hole, which no one notices. And later on, the hole has mysteriously disappeared.

===Transformers references===
*Much like [[Starscream (G1)|his Generation 1 counterpart]], [[Starscream (Animated)|Starscream]] is now immortal, only this time they actually explain why and leave him with a body.

===Real-world references===
* [[Wikipedia:Mission Accomplished|The title. Nuff said.]]
* Starscream refers to his disguise as a [[Wikipedia:Harrier Jump Jet|Harrier Jet]]. Pity his model won't turn up for another hundred years or so.

===Miscellaneous trivia===
*Along with [[Transformer|machines]], it seems [[Captain Fanzone]] doesn't like kids.
*On the previous episodes the Autobots were seen cleaning up the place where they battled Megatron, thus one of them would have to have thrown Starscream's corpse into the trash. Kinda cold-hearted there.
*Starscream gets beaten up by Megatron five times in a ''single episode''. Must be a new record.
*The Elite Guard does not come off very well in this episode: Ultra Magnus and Jazz fail to notice a large hole the size of [[Lugnut|a B2 bomber]] when leaving their ship, a tachyon generator gets ripped off their ship without them even noticing, Sentinel Priem freaks out at the mere sight of a Decepticon, and Ultra Magnus got defeated by Starscream after only one shot (though at point blank range to the face), while Megatron shrugs them off and repeatedly defeats Starscream. If the Elite Guard are supposed to be the best and the brightest that Cybertron has to offer, then the Autobots are not going to fare very well in the upcoming war with the Decepticons.
*Megatron mentions having a double agent on Cybertron.

{{epstub}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mission Accomplished}}
[[Category:Animated episodes]]<div id="wikia-credits"> From [http://transformers.wikia.com Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki], a [http://www.wikia.com Wikia] wiki.</div>

MediaWiki talk:Community Portal

2008-04-29T05:43:57Z

75.168.112.43: /* Image overlap */

==Archives==
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive1|Archive1]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive2|Archive2]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive3|Archive3]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive4|Archive4]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive5|Archive5]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive6|Archive6]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive7|Archive7]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive8|Archive8]]

== Continuity / Timeline ==
I'm trying to make some sense of how the various major continuities are handled, overview-wise. Some have their own continuity page; IDW's just got a timeline, with overview stuff shoved here and there among the individual miniseries. Some don't have anything. Some, like the G1 cartoon, are not much more than lists. The ones that exist tend to be hard to find, aren't categorized uniformly, etc... is there a master format for this stuff?{{unsigned|Repowers|12:15, 29 October 2007}}
:There is no master format for continuity pages. Please feel free to make one! It would be a good thing to have! --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 00:55, show30 October 2007 (UTC)
:: You know, I think it would be hot if once we got more timelines up, we began putting Chronology links to the timetable on the story pages. Several Dreamwave comic pages have them, and I think IDW comics should too, since IDW really isn't telling the story in a linear fashion.--[[User:Zodberg|Zodberg]] 09:36, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::Sounds like a good idea. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 13:51, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::Would it make sense to have an overview writeup at the start of each timeline, a few paragraphs or so? Or should "continuity" be a separate page? Where should a chronological list of issues go -- publisher's page, continuity page, timeline page? That's not such a problem with, say, Marvel G1, but Dreamwave's a little messier, IDW's all over the place, and gods help you if you want to sort out the mess that is Marvel UK. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 14:29, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:: A continuity page should have the following (in my opinion):
:: * A one-paragraph description of the continuity, not more than a few sentences long.
:: * A list of what media belongs to this continuity (which can include some stuff that's vaguely contradictory, but should exclude stuff that's way out there, like Earthforce relative to G1 comics). This can be sorted by publication order, or internal chronology, but if there's a major difference between the two, it should be spelled out.
:: * An overall description of the main events in that continuity, focusing on the events actually chronicled (not the distant past). In particular, for most continuities, changes in the leadership of either side, the changing status (living/dead, present/absent, duplicated by Straxus/encoded on a floppy, etc.)of the big two leaders (usually Optimus Prime and Megatron), any events involving Unicron or Primus, and introductions of major teams or groups of characters (Headmasters, Fuzors) should be in the summary.
:: * If necessary, a timeline, which may end up integrated with one of the above parts.
:: * Pointers to important and closely-related continuities (again, such as Earthforce), discussion of divergences, etc. [[User:JW|JW]] 15:14, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::All that sounds pretty good, though I wouldn't get too hung up on following individual characters too much, even the leaders. In Marvel G1, at least, they changed over on a pretty regular basis.
:::On a related note... this and a lot of other overview-type pages are really lost in the shuffle. They should be top-level pages, with everything branching off of them and linking back to them, but instead they're buried and nothing links to them. You start off reading, say, the article on [[Spotlight: Soundwave]]. Where do you go from there to find out more? The IDW issues category? That's the only link out of that page. If you're a newcomer, or even someone with an imperfect memory, how do you know what comes next? Either the individual issue pages need to link to the timeline and continuity pages, or the category page does, or... something.
:::Taking care of it on the category page might be simplest, like what's on the Category:Marvel US issues page. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 19:12, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::: Yes, the site is sadly lacking in both "uplinks" and "sidelinks" for the media; links from a TV episode to the TV series, links from an issue of a comic to an overview of the comic, links from one comic to the next comic in that series, etc. [[User:JW|JW]] 19:21, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::: I'm still poking around and figuring out what's been done and what's needed; it might take a while to figure out how to start cleaning things up. It looks like we've got some random timelines started (still need ones for the Beast era and a few others), as well as continuity pages for some but not all of the major storylines, so I suppose each major continuity should have both kinds of pages. I wonder if there's a way to use a category or subcategory to get individual episode/issue pages to quickly link back to the main overview pages?... -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 19:28, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::: JW, we do have that comics nav template, though I like the comic infobox on wikipedia more. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:04, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::: Ah... http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Template:Comicnav ...so we do. Very useful. Now we just gotta propagate it over a few hundred comic issue... :S -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 20:25, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::: Also, the nav setup only can link up one level. So Infiltration #2 can link up to the main Infiltration page, but not to the IDW continuity page above that. Would putting a variant of this template on the main page for each miniseries, linking up to the continuity page, work instead? Then you're never more than two clicks away from an individual issue to the continuity overview. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 20:25, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::::: That, or somehow add it to the main comicnav template, perhaps in small letters above the series name. I don't wanna step on anyone's toes though. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:45, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::::: That'd make the most sense, to add a "Continuity" level to the template, or alternately a lower-end "Mini-series" option. But hell if I can make sense out of how these things work... that might be a rainy day project, figuring that out. :\ -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 20:51, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

==Image Copyrights==
I asked awhile ago, and nobody seemed to know, so...

I've always been under the impression that images {{c}} someone else should be credited ''not'' just with a note that they belong to someone else, but a ''year'', for much the same reasons we identify ''who'' the image belongs to rather than simply saying 'we don't own it, but it's fair use.' The more info we provide, the more 'seriously' the copyright is being taken. if we wipe our ass with an unadorned, <nowiki>{{fairuse}}</nowiki> clearly we don't think the holder of the copyright is ''important''... or something.

I have a script I've been poking at. It can run through every image detail page on the wiki through a regular expression and pick out which images don't have copyright owners (Hasbro or Takara-- you're supposed to ID which even if you're using <nowiki>{{hastak}}</nowiki>,) which don't have dates, and which don't have any sort of copyright notice at all. (A significant chunk of our images have no notices that they belong to someone else.) It could also drop the offending images into categories to be sorted out and properly labeled. (I imagine I'd give it Steve-o and let it do so logged in as the bot to avoid the update-floods.)

...is anyone interested in this? Does it seem like a good idea? Terrible idea? ...Bueler? -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 15:29, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

==Cartoon Episode Format Mark II==
Picking up an old thread here... per some changes I just finished making to all the Beast Era episode pages, IMO:
* The one-line summary should be bold. It's the single most important thing on the page; your eye should leap right to it.
* It should be the very first thing on the page, above the nav box (barring temporary templates like "pics needed".)
* It should be free of links. They're distracting and ugly, and it's kinda absurd to think someone's going to click right off the summary to see what a "Maximal" or whatever is. Links can easily be integrated into the body of the plot summary.

I'd also rather see Quotes before Stats, to keep all the in-universe stuff together before moving to out-universe stuff like writers, air dates, commentary, order of appearance, etc. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 00:13, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

:I agree with all of this, except for the one-line summary being above the nav box. Pure personal preference, though, rather than any sort of functionality - I just don't like the way it looks. In fact, I think putting it below the nav box actually ''helps'' its notice-ability - it "frames" the summary quite nicely between the nav box and the contents box. - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 00:22, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
::Heh, I see it the opposite way -- having the summary first provides a frame for the inevitable white space that accompanies the nav box. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 06:24, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

::Picking up on what I said above, putting the stats section down below not just the extended summary but now below the quotes section as well is something I strongly oppose. Episode writers do not get the recognition they deserve. We should not be burying their credits like that. That section belongs ''above'' the summary. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 03:21, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
:::I do hear what you're saying, but honestly I'm less bothered by the recognition factor than by the inconsistency with comic format, where all that junk ''is'' up front (though it often looks pretty bad, IMO.) If it were ''just'' the writer credit, I'd be okay with having it up front (though I ain't gonna be the one who goes back through 78 Beast Era episode pages to change it!) But then you get into the odd condition of having that one bit of info up front, while the rest of the standard information external to the episode's events is much deeper in the article. Having much more stuff up front than that makes for a messy, unattractive, and harder-to-read format compared to having it all bundled in the Stats section... IMO, natch.
:::"If "recognition" is the concern, heck, think of the animators who slaved a lot more than the writers ever did to bring each episode to life. They get no credits at all. Neither does Robert Buckley, who provided music for both Beast series. The list goes on and on. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 06:24, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
::::The information I am suggesting be up front would only be three lines (Written by, Directed by, air date), which I don't think would be very intrusive at all. To my mind, before the summary is the only logical place for this information to be presented, as episodes themselves generally present those two credits up front, and air date is a known factor when watching an episode when it debuts.
::::On the issue of recognition, you make a good point, however my concern is a bit different. Robert Buckley may not get a lot of recognition from the fandom for the music of Beast Wars, but it's not like they give someone ''else'' all the credit on that score, pun semi-intended. But the writers? The fandom often enough acts as if Forward and DiTillio wrote every single word of Beast Wars, and Skir (alone, of course, as the Isenberg Uncertainty Principle remains in full effect) the same for Beast Machines. The story editors are obviously the most important writers, but they didn't do it all on their own.
::::Burying the names of episode writers down below the summary and quotes sections just doesn't sit right with me, is all. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 04:46, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
:::::Hrm... combined with Steve-o's consistency argument, I suppose I could go along with doing it this way, with them all tucked together and separate from/below the one line summary. Written By and Air Date are in one little combined pair of lines now, an easy cut-n-paste to move up front. I don't think anyone's added Director credits to any of the episodes, by the by.
:::::As I said, I'm in no great hurry to do it myself -- my main concern was that the Beast Era show pages had drifted into all sorts of different arrangements, some of which looked pretty sloppy. For better or worse, they're all uniform now. If we're gonna change the layout, let's work on getting one sample page ''just right'', then we can worry about propagating it. To that end, have a look at "[[Chain of Command]]", see if it clicks for you. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 05:33, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm thinking if we could merge the ''Japanese title'' into the '''''Stats''' section'' because it seems to fit the section better. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 03:14, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't have much of a preference, personally, about how to organize these things. However, I do feel pretty strongly that it should be more or less the same for both cartoon episodes and comic issues. Having different organizational schemes for different sorts of fiction doesn't serve much purpose, and makes things harder to get used to. (On the other hand, I ''also'' feel strongly that all of our passages relating fictional events should be in the same tense regardless of if they happen to be on a character page or a story page, but apparently that makes me insane, so don't take my pleas for consistency too seriously.) --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 02:35, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

===Cartoon format mark II.5===
Did we ever make a decision on whether to place the quotes area before the stats section? Because the sheer majority of episode articles (including old ones recently converted to current standards) place the stats before the quotes, but I notice some of the latest Cybertron episode articles are placing the quotes before the stats, which is creating inconsistencies in layout. Bear in mind it will create less work for us if we just leave things the way they are, with stats before quotes. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 09:34, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

==Cartoon continuity headings==
Have we decided on a definative format for this yet? most of the pages with characters who appeared in Sunbow's G1 through to the japanese series (and maybe Beast Wars as well) have quite different headings, and I recall we were worried about ''Transformers Animated'' causing problems with all the 'Animated continuity' headings on character pages. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 07:08, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
:I think we had decided on using "cartoon" instead of "animated." So use "cartoon continuity," or for those who appear in more than one cartoon continuity, use "Generation 1 cartoon continuity," "Beast Wars cartoon continuity," etc. --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 07:13, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
::Can we have Diagnostic Drone change all occurrences of "Animated continuity" to "Cartoon continuity"? That'll require some cleanup in the Animated articles, but there are far fewer of those than there are of G1 subjects that are currently mislabeled. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 17:54, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

== Section-title master list ==

I've made a sandbox for the purpose of assembling a [[User:Jackpot/Sandbox/Sections|master list of all section titles]], their relation to each other, and their proper wording/formatting. Please discuss; I've introduced some new ideas, and I'd love to see a consistent guide established. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 01:04, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
:Wow, I think this really look nice and useful. ;D --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 03:44, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

== "First go here! Next go here." ==
I was thinking a bit about the various problems we've got around here -- stuff like incomplete image descriptions, orphaned articles, etc. There's really no one central place where a newcomer (or a regular who feels like doing something useful but doesn't know what) can go to find a quick list of things that need doing. The current help pages just send you to the list of articles in need of creation, which is kind of daunting, especially for a newcomer who has to learn a million standards and Wikia tags. Is there a more comprehensive way to point people in the direction of useful things they could be doing? Whatever it might be, it should include links to:
* Pages in need of creation
* Orphaned pages
* Stubs
* Pics needed
* Any current projects, like the Beast Wars one. Hell, I couldn't find that thing if my life depended on it.
...as well as a note about common problems: dead/missing storylinks, incomplete image descriptions, and whatever else. (Heck, who knows? Maybe it could even distract an IP person long enough to prevent them from screwing with captions.... ahh, who'm I kidding?} -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 21:51, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

:There are some of those things catalogued [[Special:Specialpages|here]], but I think making links to the most important of these categories, and placing them together in one easy-to-find link off the main page, would be best. Perhaps on the Help contents page, since it's linked right off the main page already, in the most logical location? I think that link is a bit small, for what it's worth. --[[User:Sntint|Sntint]] 22:09, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
::One of the projects in the back of my head is a help-page/guide specifically breaking down the creation of character pages, plus the use of "common templates" for them (disambigs, stubs, notes). I'll see if I can scrounge up some time to rough-copy one. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 22:56, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

==Other Maintenance Templates?==
I haven't had much time to do more "substantial" wiki edits lately, but I've been prepping for later with the charstub sub-categories. Fiction really isn't my bag... I mean, I know it in general, but not issue titles and numbers and bla bla. But I figure it's also nice to have the "really needs a lot of stuff" pages separated from the "just needs some stuff in one subsection" ones, especially once I can make a concentrated effort to update the toy sections of various pages. I've been thinking about other similar "needs maintenance" template/categories, but I thought I'd bring it up here since I'm not sure who else might make use of them... 
I've noticed quite a lot of pages missing storylinks. I'm not intending on going through a big wiki-wide hunt, but as I go through the stubs and other pages doing little maintenance and tweaks, well, I think I'd like to be able to mark pages I come across that are missing those links they should have. Picture and quote? Isaac Sumdac and/or Tutorbot, "I cannot believe I programmed you with such simplistic information!" (Idea courtesy of Trent Troop.) 
I'd swear there was another one, but right now, too tired to think of it and must sleep. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 06:53, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
:Perhaps a tag for a page with too many damn redlinks for concepts that will never need articles?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 07:08, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
::I don't think that will be neccessary, as it's a simple matter of removing the [[ and <nowiki>]]</nowiki>s. Storylinks, though, require some research. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 15:40, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
:::I usually label such pages with <nowiki>{{stub|storylinks}}</nowiki>. [[User:JW|JW]] 15:44, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
::::Trick is, often they're not really stubs, are they? the main info is there, there's just not a "where'd this happen?" link. And maybe it's the data-manager in me that says this, but I think it'd be a lot easier to have a common problem like lack of storylinks as a category all its own, all together for easy identification and maintenance. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 16:11, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

== Disambiguation ==

We need a consensus on hiw we handle disambuigation in article titles. We've had some moving between [[Silverbolt (BW)]] and [[Silverbolt (Fuzor)]], and [[Dirge (Timelines)]] and [[Dirge (Whatever the Botcon 05 set was)]] because there are two Silverbolts in BW and two Dirges in Timelines. However, since one of those Dirges and one of those Silverbolts are G1 characters, the (BW) and (Timelines) tags are fine for the other two. The tags are simply for keeping the articles separate; not for telling you what continuity they're in. Plus, (Timelines) is much easier to type than "(Botcon boxset name I can't remember)". --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 23:35, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

:Somewhat related to the discussion at [[Talk:Starscream (Timelines)]]. My personal criteria is that a name used for two (or more) characters in the same toyline requires more specific disambiguation, regardless of the characters' origin, because readers shouldn't be expected to remember whether some character was already in another toyline. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 23:51, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

::So... what should disambigs be?
:# Distinguished ''only'' when strictly necessary. "Silverbolt (BW)" is fine because, while there were 2 Silverbolt toys in the BW Toyline, the other one is actually Silverbolt (G1)- so only one entry is trying 'sits' in the (BW) disambig, and no more specific disambing is needed. Parenthetical disambigs should be the broadest possible category the article can sit in without conflicting with another article, (usually a continuity family or franchise.) Absolutely no 'bumping' of disambigs as a concession to aesthetics.
:# Distinguished on a logical basis. "Silverbolt (Fuzor)" because there are two Silverbolts in the BW toyline, and the article title should not allow for confusion between the two.
:# Providing continuty info. A hypothetical new character Roller in the 2008 Universe line would be "Roller (Classic)" not "Roller (Universe)"-- so that the article title doesn't mislead people into thinking he's part of the 2004 Universe continuity.
::My problem with #2 ''and'' #3 is that the diambig isn't supposed to convey that information. The first line of the article, right below the title does. It will say 'Silverbolt is a Fuzor in the Beast Wars continuity family...' or 'Roller is a Ultracon in the Classics portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.'
::We are currently usign method #1. I oppose a change to methods 2 or 3 for the following reasons:
:# The '''first line''' of the article already supplies the information that solutions 2 & 3 would seek to add- and does it ''better.''
:# Implementing 2 or 3 would make it harder for ''editors'' to know where article are sitting ("I know there was only one Silverbolt in BW, why is my link to Silverbolt (BW) broken?")
:# The purpose of the parenthetical disambigs is not to convey info- it is to keep articles with the same title from sitting in the same namespace. Attempting to make disambigs convey information actually ''adds ambiguity'', because it would force the the locations the articles sit in to become ''less'' standard.
::Let diambigs be disambigs. If we want to make continuity notes clearer or more prominent, we can look at revising our approach to '''them'''. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 00:41, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

::We already have [[Help:Disambiguation]] to more or less lay this out. (I've just made a couple small changes to it for clarification.) There is going to be no simple rule of thumb which leads to tbe best results in every case, so make the parenthetical as brief and clear as you can. Derik is correct that the purpose of the parenthetical is to give the articles different names so the database doesn't get confused. To help out editors when we make links, it is good for them to be short and easy to remember. --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 21:35, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

So, should we move [[Silverbolt (Fuzor)]] and [[Dirge (Decent into Evil)]] and the mirrorverse guys back to [[Silverbolt (BW)]], [[Dirge (Timelines)]] and [[mirrorverse guys (Timelines)]]? --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 22:42, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
:Wait to see if others have strong feelings/argument first. (We have a policy, but it's subject to conseunsus, remember? Also- I think I wrote most of that page so my point of view is unfairly over-represented there.) ''On review, no, apparently this is one policy page I '''didn't''' write. ...why can't I tell Steve-o's writing apart from my own? Scary. :~(
:Personally I say emphatically yes on Dirge, indifferent affirmative on Silverbolt, and wait and see on the Shattered Glass pages. We don't now where/if they fit in existing continuity. There's no point in movinf them a half-dozen times while arguing about unknowables. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 23:13, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

== Pages about fan sites ==

Is there a policy about this? I wanted to add TF Pulp, but I didn't see any other TF sites on here at all, so I figured I should ask first.
{{unsigned|Might Gaine|2008-02-27T14:04:54}}

:We don't give unofficial sites their own articles. You can link to information on TF Pulp from appropriate pre-existing articles, though. That sort of thing enhances the wiki by allowing people to find further information on the topics they are reading about. Just put it into an "External links" section right before the categories. --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 21:18, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

==Cartoon episode title cards redundancy==
Why are we moving towards using the title cards of episodes for the main/starting picture of episode articles? Isn't it redundant to have a boring screenshot with the name of the episode placed next to...... the name of the episode in the actual article itself? Wouldn't it be more interesting to do what we have been doing, and use a screen capture that somehow encapsulates the whole episode, or shows a pivitol point in it that sticks in our memory? --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 02:55, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
:I've wondered the same thing myself, but figured it was a done deal. I too support the "memorable/encapsulating moment" approach. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 03:04, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
::Uh... I'm sorry, I think I started it. ;-) When I was doing some early RiD ep stubs I threw in the titlecards because the early episodes were boring as sin. I think McFeely did it for the JP eps because they tend to have those painterly titlecards...
::Really, it's just something you do if there isn't a ''good'' representative image. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 17:39, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
:::Like Code of Hero (an article that needs a major overhaul itself), I originally put an image of Dinobot's sword lying on the deck of his quarters, because it looked poignant. Did the same for various other Beast Wars episodes. Then Interrobang replaced them all with screencap of the title screens. Gah. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 07:05, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::So tell him to stop! ;) -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 07:58, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::Sigh. I did it because I like consistency, even with Japanese series. "Dinobot's sword on the ground" might be your favoritest image ever but it's the odd duck out now. (It also looks terrible due to the artifacting brought about by needlessly screwing with the brightness and contrast.) [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 08:36, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::::Consistency is Victory- but Transformers Victory was incredibly boring. (Victory Gundam was pretty good though...) [[The Weak Component]], [[Survivor]] and [[End of the Line]] all have virtually ''identical'' title screens- an aerial shot of the Cybertropolis spaceport. That sucks— I'd much rather have an iconic image from each episode. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 10:07, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::::::I agree. Using iconic images is really good for the most episode guides, such as [[Code of Hero]], [[The Weak Component]], and several [[B.O.T. (episode)|others]], especially "Code of Hero" and "The Weak Component" are great and good examples. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 13:38, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::::Personally, I started doing for the Japanese series for the reason Derik gives, because it was usually a unique image made for the title card, or a good one that's representative of the episode. There were some duds, but... consistency. And then... ''Masterforce'' started to do really, ''really'' boring ones, and I was about to give up, then it occurred to me to start using the image from the next-ep preview, which proved a winner in most cases (in fact, I may yet go back and change swap out some of the title-card images with these, if it's a better option). The mention of Victory here amuses me, though, 'cause it's a good example of title cards being boring - it's the same two images of Star Saber and Deathsaurus, rotated in and out, for the whole series. I've used them for the first two episodes just to get them on show, but I plan to use the title-images from the next-episode previews for this one. I mean, when I wake up from the dullness-inducing stupor that Victory induces. - McFeely, at work
::::::::I reverted Dinobot's sword back to the version I uploaded. As I had not viewed the page much since last year, I didn't realize that Repowers tried to brighten it up for some reason - that moment is supposed to focus on the sword, not the room. And it's the 'odd duck out' now because some people have been replacing whatever had served as the main image with the title card. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 12:24, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::I brightened it because, when it's reduced for the actual episode page where most people are going to see it, you can't tell what the heck you're looking at. Right now it looks a little bit of vague white stuff in darkness. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 13:36, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::::::::Vaat? I can see if plenty fine there, unless you're using a very, very high resolution that makes everything tiny. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 13:54, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::::Could be my home monitor, which is HUGE. It does look more discernable from a work computer, though IMO it could still stand to be a tad brighter. -- [[user:repowers|repowers]], not signed in
I've changed my mind on this situation after mulling it over. A winner is FNN. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 03:31, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
:FNN sounds even more like a Simon Furman sound effect than FFN :D --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 04:26, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
::You clearly changed your name after I replied. There's no another answer. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 04:33, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
:::Hnh. FNN never DID want to live forever. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 04:55, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

==Help/policy page namespaces==
As part of the help/policy page revamp I plan to do... eventually... I kind of want to consolidate the pages all into a single namespace. Right now we have [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=12 a bunch of stuff] in the Help namepsace, and [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=4 a bunch of other stuff] in the Transformers Wiki (aka "meta") namespace. This is needlessly confusing. I vastly prefer "Help" for the purposes of typing it all the time, but, the meta namespace is more general purpose and standard... and possibly required for some pages like the title blacklist. So I am inclined to shuffle all the Help namespace pages over to the meta namespace. Does anybody have an opinion on this? --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 17:37, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
:Help seems fine to me. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 17:45, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

== "The Battlestars" page disappeared ==

When the "Battlestar" (team) page got changed to "Battlestars", then "The Battlestars" page, which was the manga, disappeared. What happened? --[[User:Might Gaine|Might Gaine]] 13:36, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
:I don't think that page actually existed in the first place. It was a red link before any moving was done - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 14:04, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
::Hmm. My bad. --[[User:Might Gaine|Might Gaine]] 15:01, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

==Comic character box format Part IV==
I believe we should change it from 'Major characters' to 'Featured characters' like we do in the cartoon recap articles. Doing it as 'Major characters' means writers of these comic articles will just not bother list the incidental characters, such as humans, even ones with dialogue, and if any of these characters have articles, they become orphaned articles. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 06:32, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
:Well I have gone thru nearly the entire U.S. Marvel series and I think I've included just about everyone who had a speaking line, except for folks who were un-named and such. If someone wants to change from "major" to "featured", it doesn't matter to me, but I'm not gonna go thru all 80 issues again and do it. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:18, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
::I was concerned because I was looking for the article for that [[Professor Goring]] guy from [[Spotlight: Shockwave]] so I could update the article. To my surprise, Shockwave didn't link or even name him, and somebody had eliminated the 'human' column altogether because evidently we only dealt with 'major' characters. Essentially, Goring's article became orphaned. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 20:32, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
:::Well that was dumb; he should indeed be re-added. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:39, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
:::Uh, yeah. That's not good. I support the change to "Featured" not just for this... but let's face it, this wiki is not simply about "Major" characters. The vast wealth of non-major character information is what makes this wiki great, and we should make sure that they are properly linked to so people can find them, even if they weren't looking. "Oh, hey, who's this?" --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 20:39, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
::::MistaTee, well sometimes even unnamed characters can be interesting enough to warrant their own articles if they are interesting in some way/stand out in some way. After all, we have an entire category devoted to unnamed characters. So I think they should have been mentioned in the article in some way. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 04:45, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::Oh, I agree, and if I've missed any, please feel free to add. I do think the 80 issues I've updated is a lot better than they were before though. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 13:58, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::Of course. Is there article template pages somewhere on this wiki or are we copy pasting every time we write a new article? --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 14:07, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::::I've just been going through the Stormbringer articles, and I was ''not at all'' happy with the with the way characters who didn't have significant dialogue (such as ''every'' Pretender besides Bludgeon) were for the most part not even mentioned in the articles. I assume the original writer of these articles just didn't know who they were, but frankly it's just sloppy considering the information available on this wiki even in 2006. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 14:38, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::::I believe I reformatted them to the new format, but just copied the character list from what was there. When I get the chance to re-read, I will add in the others, if someone doesn't beat me to it. Oh, and I am copying and pasting from the previous article, but trying to be consistent. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 15:31, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

:So... what becomes of the former "minor characters" list? Do we even care about those dudes? Take [[Totaled!]] for example -- almost every Earth Autobot to date appears in the story (and most of the Decepticons), but the page currently lists only the speaking ones. Gods help the poor soul who decides to take that task on, but when some nobody like Air Raid makes a rare appearance in the comics, it seems worth noting. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 15:25, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
::IMO, I think those characters should perhaps be in a cameos section, a subset of "Items of note". But I sure as hellz am not going thru the whole Marvel series again to do that. Someone else can have a go at it. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 15:31, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

==Navigation boxes for shared US/UK stories==
I wish I'd noticed [[user:MistaTee|MistaTee]]'s changes to the Marvel US navigation boxes sooner, but that's water under the bridge now. When I set the boxes up, I deliberately left out certain links at points where the continuities split and come back together. The point was that there would be no duplicate links in the box. One hopes that the reader following the UK chain will be smart enough to figure out that the only "Next" link shown will lead to the next step in the chain. This goes double for US stories that have the same Next and Previous links for the UK. Why do the same links need to be duplicated?

Compare:
* [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Cold_War%21&oldid=129298 Old version of Cold War]. There's no "next" for the UK spot, 'cause it would just be the same as the US "next" link.
* [[Cold War!|current version of Cold War!]] - two "next" links are identical.

Also compare:
* [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Dark_Star%21&oldid=152775 Old version of Dark Star!] - no extraneous info.
* [[Dark Star!|Current version of Dark Star!]] - ''two'' redundant links.

To sum up my take on current version:

Minus:
* Redundant links add to confusion
* Double nav box is ugly and should be avoided when possible

Plus:
* Lists UK publication number right up front
* Consistent format for all US issues.

But I've never been one to favor consistency at the expense of practicality. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 17:54, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

:Now see, I didn't like '''not''' having a next for the UK, even if it's the same as the US one. What I think we really need is a revision of the nav box, and maybe have some more options. First, I think there should be a separator line between the US and UK nav. Secondly, maybe some logic could be programmed in so that IF "next2"="next" THEN it would say "same as U.S. version" or something along those lines. Same for the "prev"/"prev2" naturally. Thoughts? --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 18:10, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
::That sounds like an excellent trade-off -- it gets rid of the bothersome parts while keeping the good bits. Uhhh.... anybody have any idea how to do it? The coding of these things is an utter mystery to me. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 18:20, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

== How to spell Malay. ==

Hello everyone, I've noticed that on the 'English/Malay' dubs, people have spelt word 'Malay' wrong. It doesn't have a 'y', because 'Maylay' is incorrect, so if you see any mistakes, please correct it, thank you! Also, can we not put the word crack head next to it? It's quite offensive.--[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
:It's meant in jest because the [[RTM 1 dub]] is really, really bad, as if the dubbers didn't know what the hell was going on half of the time. But we have been changing such instances to 'RTM 1 dub name:' lately. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 15:29, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
:"crack head" is describing the dubs, and with good reason. Battleship Maximus is called "Spaceship Bruce", Blaster is called "Billy", Twincast "Blaster", Metroplex "Phillip", Spike "Sparkle", Soundblaster "New Soundwave", Minevera "Nightbeat", The Matrix and Energon cubes "Power Packs, etc... --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 15:35, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
::We should probably get the drone onto the task of replacing "Maylay" with "Malay", however. [[User:JW|JW]] 15:42, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
:::I don't know about the crack head comment, it's better to avoid offending people; 'though, Spaceship Bruce is my favourite, next to Wally. Also, you got your drone right here (yay?), but do we replace it with 'English/Malay dub', or 'RTM dub'? --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
::::I fully agree with the removal of "crackhead." Frankly, it IS offensive to equate the oddities that arise from the translation of Japanese into English done by people who's first language was likely neither with being on crack. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 19:14, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::Can we leave it in for just Spaceship Bruce? The others are at least somewhat understandable, but ''Spaceship Bruce''? WTCHOP? --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 19:37, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::Sorry, but I don't wanna label another country saying it's populated by drug addicts. If it weren't for them, we wouldn't have Headmasters/Masterforce/Victory in English in the early 90's(?), and for a non-Japanese speaking country, they made a good effort. I guess you can emphasise the weirdness that is Spaceship Bruce, in his bio or the RTM page. So, 'RTM dub' or 'Englsh/Malay' dub? Technically, there was no Malay in the English dubs in the first place, so I'd go for RTM dub :) --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
:::::::It takes a real willfully oppressed state of mind to interpret that as a racial/nationalist insult. I mean, you have to really ''want'' to be offended by something, and be on the lookout for any little thing to jump on. 'Cause "crack-head" is pretty clearly referring to the ''dubs'', not the ''entire freaking country'', and I'm not sure why anyone would decide to think otherwise. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 11:32, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::::You know, crackhead is generally a term that refers to ''people'', not ''things''. As I said above, we shouldn't be seen to be equating the people who produced these dubs with crackheads because of what we perceive as humorous oddities in the translation, which are possibly just the perfectly natural result of cultural and linguistic confusion. Now it might not be an insult to the entire nation of Malaysia, but it is still, I think, a bit offensive. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 16:13, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::Well, regardless.... shouldn't it actually be the "Crackhead ''RTM-1'' dub"? -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 16:23, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::::::'Cracked-up English/Malay' dub, 'though it's not my idea, and it's not so blunt. Or the shorter 'RTM dub', since there is an [[RTM 1 dub]] page where people can redirect themselves there and elucidate the weirdness of weird names; but do we have to spell Malay with two 'y's? Maybe we can make reference to that on the RTM page again. --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
:::::::::I think 'Cracked-up English/Malay' could be used for the article such as [[Ginrai]] and [[Minerva]]('cause their RTM dub name "Optimus Prime" and "Nightbeat" were too... hilarious?), while just "RTM dub" for Fortress Maximus' Spaceship Bruce. Well, just a little opinion. :) --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 12:11, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::: Agree! :D --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]

==Trivia section image formatting==
This issue came up a while ago on [[Talk:Frenzy_%28Movie%29#Image_format|Frenzy's talk page]]. There were opnions both ways, and it wasn't really resolved. The issue is, should images in trivia sections alternate left-right, or be all on one side?

Part of the trouble with alternating sides is that it kills the bullet points. A double bullet has to be inserted for it to show up, and then there's some ambiguity over which bullets should be doubled and which left single. Dpouble bullets can also cause images to overlap the text.

Several folks said there's a lot of ugly white space when the images are stacked on one side. I see it just the opposite on my (admittedly gigantic) screen, with every image having a big empty white space below it when they alternate sides. Apparently it's got something to do with monitor resolution, so there might not be a solid answer. But --

I'd ''love'' so see some screencaps from folks showing how they see things on their monitors. It's a little hard to understand this problem without seeing it from other people's POV.

I started a little Sandbox at [[:user talk:repowers/Sandbox2]] with two different versions of Frenzy's trivia. The first one stacks all the images at the top. Does this work for people on lower monitor resolutions, or does it still look like crap? With them all stacked at the front, I don't see how they could have any white space, regardless of monitor resolution. On my screen, it looks very neat and tidy, while the second one is messy. See:

[http://www.builtstlouis.net/tf/frenzy1.jpg Stacked] 
[http://www.builtstlouis.net/tf/frenzy2.jpg Alternating]

Thoughts and input welcomed. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 01:36, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

:Alternating does kind of suck now. I've been putting pics all on the right side where there are bullet points since Wikia updated their software... an update which covered single bullet points if you put an image on the left side of the screen. I suggest cutting down on images in Trivia, since most users here have smaller monitors and use lower resolutions. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 05:44, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
::I think the easiest answer is to just remove the head images. They're essentially redundant and don't really add anything to the reader's understanding. I'd call for a general limit on how many images you can stuff into a section. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 06:27, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
:::I'd remove the head images from the article proper... but then make a text link to them within the relevant paragraph so people can see them anyway if they want to. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 06:35, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
::::That works. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 07:11, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

== Foreign name format ==
I just found the foreign names doesn't have an unified format.
:For example, some are
::''Hungarian name:'' '''Kerék''' ("Wheel"(with or without ""))
:others are
::''Hungarian name'': '''Kerék''' (meaning Wheel(or "Wheel"))

I suggest we could use an unified format like the below:
:<nowiki>:''Foreign name 1:'' '''Name A''' (Form A), '''Name B''' (Form B)</nowiki>
:<nowiki>:''Foreign name 2:'' '''Name''' ("English meaning")</nowiki>

Take [[Hot Rod]] for example, it will look like:
:''Japanese name:'' '''Hot Rodimus''' (Hot Rod), '''Rodimus Convoy''' (Rodimus Prime)
:''Hungarian names:'' '''Nagyágyú''' ("Hot ''Shot''"), '''Rodimusz Fővezér''' ("Prime Commander Rodimus")

Thoughts and idea are welcomed :) --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 09:09, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
:I don't have a strong opinion on how the international names are standardized, but I strongly agree that they should be. I nominate someone else to go through and do it. -[[User:LV|LV]] 21:40, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

== Wookiepedia has a darn nifty interface ==

What would it take for us to create something similar but Transformers-y?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:36, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
:I think the admins were adament that we keep a simple, bare-bones default look to the TF wiki, in keeping with our 'let's not take this stuff too seriously' attitude and tone. At least that's what I remember them saying when I suggested an orange layout like what Teletraan I looked like in the cartoon. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 09:34, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
::The current Wookieepedia also doesn't seem to want to cooperate with my comp here at work. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 18:27, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

==Characters lacking visuals category?==
It's dawned on me that there are actually quite a few characters who don't have any form of visual representation. They may have been described, but there are no ''pictures''. While a bulk of these are from prose stories, there's several who were simply mentioned by name in comics, or in external sources (Key Code info, S7 site, etc). More than enough to justify a category. 
I think that maybe there should also be a template/visual for this to call attention to this fact on the page right up front. I'm thinking a variation on the current <nowiki>{{mainpic}}</nowiki> template... a silhouette, (different from the mainpic one) and some text saying "This character has no known official visual depiction" or something. Anyone? --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 18:33, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
:Well, for the characters with the mainpic template, the idea is that the mainpic image is there as a placeholder, and to annoy people into tracking down an image.
:However, characters that have never had any visual depiction, and are unlikely to ever get one, don't need a placeholder for their image, and the template will just pointlessly take up room. I'm against the template, but I think the category is a good idea, and will suffice to identify these characters. [[User:JW|JW]] 18:44, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
::I disagree. The point is specifically to call attention to their lack of imagery, so nobody thinks "maybe they do have an image". And considering how little there ''is'' to most of those characters, a little extra visual pizzaz to their pages can't hurt. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 19:06, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
:::''so nobody thinks "maybe they do have an image"'' Are you intending to convey that message to ''editors,'' or casual users? Editors will, in theory, know enough to look for the category. I'm not sure casual users need to have the point brought to their attention.
:::And, it's not like we have scads of frantic editors running around trying to find pics for characters who have only appeared in prose. This may be a solution without a problem. [[User:JW|JW]] 19:27, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

== Timelines disambuig ==

There doesn't seem to be a consensus on how to name the various Timelines articles.

I feel that any disambiguation in the article title should be limited to keeping the articles separate. For instance, [[Optimus Prime (Shattered Glass)]] should be at [[Optimus Prime (Timelines)]] unless there is another Optimus Prime who's first appearance in anything was in Timelines. G1 Prime appearing in the 2007 Timelines comic does not affect this, as he is already at [[Optimus Prime (G1)]]. If G1 Prime being in a Timelines comic affected this, we would need to move [[Cyclonus (Armada)]] to [[Cyclonus (Armada whatever size class he is)]] because a version of G1 Cyclonus appeared in ''Worlds Collide''. The only reason to include the set name in the article title is ''two'' separate characters who first official anything is in ''Timelines''. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 17:18, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

== Shattered Expectations ==

Um, shouldn't those[[Deathsaurus|1]][[Bug Bite|2]] who appear in ''[[Shattered Expectations]]'' have their own page like others[[Optimus Prime (Timelines)|1]][[Grimlock (Timelines)|2]] even their counterparts' article would be short? --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 06:28, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
:I brought this up on [[Category_talk:Mayhem_Suppression_Squad]]. As I said there, I think they should either get their own articles or if that's not warranted just be covered on the Mayhem Suppression Squad article. Either way, I don't think "Shattered Expectations" fiction sections belong on the normal-verse guys' pages. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 07:08, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

==Monaco skin==

Hi -- Have you guys seen the new Monaco skin that's being used on Wikia now? You can see it at [[w:c:muppet|Muppet Wiki]] and [[w:c:marveldatabase|Marvel Database]].

As we've been rolling the skin out across Wikia, there are a few things that we've found when wikis switch to Monaco:

* The number of pageviews goes up. The flyout menus encourage new readers to explore the content on the site, and people end up sticking around on the site for longer.

* The number of new editors goes up. Readers spend more time on the site, and find pages that they want to contribute to. Also, the design makes the edit button more prominent.

* The site is faster. There were some changes made last week to Monaco that make pages load a lot faster than Monobook. Hit "random page" a few times on a Monaco wiki, and you'll see what I mean.

So I'm going around and proselytizing to the Entertainment wikis that are still using Monobook. If you want to make a custom Monaco skin like Marvel Database and Wookieepedia have, I can help you make that happen. What do you guys think? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:31, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

:Monaco does look nice, though it might go against what I understand is the wiki's purpose, which is to be quick and dirty, no fancy stuff and no pretention that this wiki is in any way officially endorsed or serious. At least that's the gist of what I was told after I previously suggested we could make the default colour of this wiki a shade of orange, like the computer systems in the original Transformers cartoons. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 23:16, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

::Yeah, we don't have to do a custom skin -- it could be the basic blue and white. I'm mostly interested in the improved functionality. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 23:24, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Eh, if it makes the place ''easier'', I don't think the "pure and simple" folks will object.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 23:26, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

And truth be told, I think the main dealbreaker here might be the extent to which Suki and Derik may or may not have farted about with tweaking Monobook. I know they've both made alterations, but I don't know quite what.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 23:34, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

:That stuff won't be affected at all. We can copy Monobook.css over to Common.css, and all of the tweaks that they made will still work. No problems. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 23:52, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

My biggest concern is the menus. The "by series" list could easily fill the entire vertical direction of the screen. We don't actually have all the series listed on the main page now (Machine Wars, Dinobots, Timelines, Universe (2008), not to mention licenced lines like Animorphs, SWTF, Crossovers).--[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 00:45, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

:Well, the idea with the menus is to be selective rather than comprehensive. It's not supposed to be a complete sitemap for the wiki -- you just want to give the new readers something to click on first.

:On [[w:c:Muppet|Muppet Wiki]], we put up the most popular Muppet Show and Sesame Street characters, and then a link to "More characters". We just want to entice people into making that first click, without overwhelming them with choices.

:I have access to click-through data for the Monaco menus, so it's possible to run some tests. You could put up a set of menus for a few days, and then I'll be able to tell you which items are getting clicked. That way, you could refine the menus so that you could highlight the items that are most likely to get clicked on. I've been doing that with the Muppet menus, and it's fun to see what the readers are actually interested in reading about. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 23:34, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

::So what do you guys think? I'd like to help you switch over to the new skin... -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 19:10, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
:::For some reason none of the admins have chimed in. I assume they're all off doing useless things like living in Real Life. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 21:10, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

::::Yeah, I left messages for Chris and ItsWalky... -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:12, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::You might want to leave messages for [[User:Suki Brits]] and [[User:Steve-o]] as well. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 13:28, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Well admins? Let's hear your opinions! I find the silence from the staff to be discouraging. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 16:18, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

If there's an actual interest in switching over to Monaco, then I would certainly have nothing against that... but I'd definitely like to hear more from the community first. Aside from that, I have no objections speaking as an admin; the modifications really aren't an issue. On the other hand, speaking as a wiki editor and professional web designer... I would definitely want to use a modified version, as it's got several pretty important issues. My thoughts, in no particular order:
* Search is nigh useless, again. Right now it resembles our ''broken'' Monobook search. I don't think that's a good thing. On the other hand, I'm currently working on fixing that anyway, so it's not like the same couldn't be done for Monaco.
* The header sucks. It really, really does. It's only 150px tall, but it sends a pretty powerful message: we'd rather show you this pretty, irrelevant picture then let you immediately get to article. ''I'' would want the top of the article as close to the top as possible.
:: Gah, I brought it over into another browser that doesn't block ads... and now I see why it's so obnoxiously huge. I am ''strongly'' opposed to putting giant hideous banner ads at the top of everything. Like, it's a little insulting that Wikia really thinks that ''that'' should be the first thing readers see. Teletraan I, like everything else on Wikia, is naturally ad-driven; but Monobook isn't offensive about it.
* The language selection is in a dropdown box, which is a TERRIBLE idea. This personally doesn't affect me, as I don't speak Hungarian, but it's pretty awful for anyone who actually is interested in seeing foreign language versions of articles... and has to click a dropdown menu on every single page if they're curious.
* The "community" box is really unhelpful. Half the content (user page, user talk, etc.) is redundant with the top of the screen, and absolutely nobody is interested in just the most recent two edits. That just leaves the number of articles. This is a lot of wasted room for nothing.
* I ''do'' like that the obnoxious sidebar on the right is gone. The current framing in Monobook wastes all sorts of space and Monaco definitely doesn't ''look'' like it has that problem.
There's also a bunch of minor things, but they don't really matter so much. The big issues are the useless space, a need to do major fixes to search, and the huge obtrusive banner ads (as opposed to the ones on the side in Monobook). But if Wikia's really willing to work with us on it, then by all means, it's up to what the community thinks. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 20:48, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

:I've been around the Wookieepeedia lately, and I've noticed when you click edit, it loads significantly slower on Monaco than it does on the Monobook format. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 05:25, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

::Hi guys -- Sorry it took me so long to respond. I'll make up for it with a super-long answer. :)

::Yes, absolutely -- I want to work with you on this. Some of the things you've raised I can clear up immediately. For some, I can explain the rationale behind the approach, and show you some stats that may help. And if there are some things that need to get tweaked, I can talk to the designers & tech folks to see if we can come up with a solution.

::Just so you know: I work for Wikia now, but I started out in 2005 as the founder of [[w:c:muppet|Muppet Wiki]]. Working on wikis is my job now, but Muppet Wiki is where my heart lives, so I'm always looking out for what's going to help or hurt "my wiki". I am/was a big Monobook fan, and I was skeptical about Monaco as it was being designed. The thing that made me a Monaco fan was actually trying it out on Muppet Wiki, and then looking at the stats to see how it was working. Muppet Wiki and Teletraan I are very similar -- about a dozen really active contributors, a strong admin team and a community of about 60-80 contributors. So I can share with you what I saw on Muppet Wiki, and what I can see in the pageviews stats.

::First up, the rationale behind some of the decisions made with the new skin. There are some features on the new skin that the most active editors think are useless, like the Community box or the flyout menus. And it's true, those aren't very helpful for the active contributors. They're designed for the anonymous/new people, who are the vast majority of our readers.

::Here's the stats on unique visits for Teletraan I. (Unique visits counts the number of visits to a site, and not the number of pages you look at in each visit. So if you come to the wiki and look at 100 pages, that counts as one unique.) In the last month, there have been 2,725,000 anonymous visits, and 261,000 logged-in user visits. That means 91% of the visits to the site aren't logged-in contributors.

::Logged-in editors make 77% of the edits here, so obviously we're the people who are actually building the content that people are reading. Logged-in editors are important, and the dozen people who make over 100 edits here every month are especially important. Still, if you want to make the community bigger and more active, then you have to think about whether the design of the site encourages anonymous users to sign in and become active members.

::The purpose of designing the new skin was to make the wiki more accessible to the 91% of anonymous readers. Obviously, we have to keep the functionality that the active contributors need in order to build the wiki. At the same time, we have to be aware that the Monobook skin that we're familiar with is kind of confusing for brand-new people.

::For example, the "log in" button is in really small type at the very top right of the screen. From a website design perspective, that's crazy -- it's like we don't want people to find it. The log-in buttons on Monaco are big, green, candy-like buttons. There's one at the top right, and there's another one in the Community box on the sidebar. We want to encourage people to log in.

::In general, having all the important Monobook controls in little bitty tiny type says: We hate people who are older than 40. ("Go back to AOL, old man!") All of the Monobook buttons are in the same font, from the crucial stuff like "Log in" and "Edit this page" to the more obscure controls like "Related changes" and "Permanent link". On Monaco, the stuff that's important to brand-new users is bigger -- log-in, edit, the link to the home page. The search box is at the top, rather than being buried down in the sidebar. The controls that logged-in users need, like "What links here" and "Special pages", are in smaller type -- they're important to us, but a brand-new user wouldn't know what to do with them.

::Okay, so that's my very long introduction... Now I'll respond to the points that you guys have brought up.

::'''Search''': I think when you say that search is broken, you mean that there's just a "Go" button and not a "Search" button next to the search box. (If you mean something else, then let me know.) That's true, and it's something that I struggled with as the design for Monaco was taking shape. I use the Search button all the time, and I was frustrated that it wasn't included. Then I looked at the stats. On Teletraan I in the last month, logged-in users used Go for 91% of searches, and Search for 9%. Anonymous users used Go for 97% of searches. Given that, I think it's okay to make the Search button less prominent. I remember when I first started using wikis, I was totally confused by having two buttons. (Do I want to Go or Search? Well, I want to search, and then go to the search results...) I only figured out the difference through trial and error. So in Monaco, the search box at the top is Go, and then you can have a link to [[Special:Search]] in the toolbox. (Some wikis have that, and some don't -- Muppet has it, if you want to see how it works.)

::'''Community box''': That's one of the features that's designed to encourage brand-new users to explore the site. When you look at a wiki as a new reader, it's not always apparent that there's a community there. You read pages, but you don't necessarily know whether the articles were written today or a year ago. (Unless you look at Recent changes, which a brand-new reader doesn't know to do.) The Community box is designed to bring a little taste of the community activity up to their view. It's not a helpful way for a contributor to keep track of Recent changes, but it does show new people that something's going on. If you come to the site and see that somebody edited a page 15 seconds ago, then you understand that there's an active community. On Muppet Wiki in the last month, 1,404 anonymous readers logged in using the button in the Community box, 1,539 anon readers clicked the "more..." button to go to Recent changes, and 1,287 clicked on article links that they saw in the Latest Activity area. Those are readers who may not have been engaged with the site if they hadn't seen the activity going on in the Community box. On the other hand, logged-in contributors only clicked in the Community box 350 times. It's not designed for us; it's for the 91% of anons.

::'''Obnoxious ads''': This is the one area that's designed to help the company rather than the wiki. Basically, the deal is that Wikia doesn't make a lot of money from the "skyscraper" ads on the right sidebar. Nobody clicks on them, and most advertisers don't bother to make ads like that anymore. Advertisers want banner ads, and they want them at the top of the page. I can't justify this one in wiki terms, except to say that if we want Wikia to stay in business and continue to host wikis, then we need to change the skin to accommodate the changing ad market. Otherwise, there won't be a Wikia after a while.

::'''Languages drop-down''': We changed the list into a drop-down menu because sites like Wookieepedia had a long list, which took up a lot of sidebar space, and only had about 100 clicks on language links in a month. On Teletraan I, there have only been 2 clicks on the language links since October.

::'''Content space''': There is slightly less content area on Monaco when you first come to the page. The sidebar is smaller than the combined left & right Monobook sidebars, so the content area is wider. The banner ad means that the height takes a hit for the first screen. As you scroll down, though, the Monaco content area is bigger than on Monobook, because the page is wider. I can show you some screencaps if you want more info on this.

::'''Slow edits on Wookieepedia''': That looks like a bug that's specific to Wookieepedia... I'm not sure what's going on there. It looks like when you hit edit on Wookiee, it's looking for something from maps.google, and that can slow down the page load for the edit screen. I hadn't seen that before, so I'm really glad you pointed it out. That's not affecting other Monaco wikis like Muppet Wiki or Marvel Database, so there must be something in Wookieepedia's css that's causing that. I'll look into it. If you look at Muppet or Marvel, you'll see that the page load is lightning fast right now. (Not counting periods of site-wide database problems, which affect every skin.)

::So anyway -- this is a huge long post, but I think I responded to everything. As you can tell, I take this stuff really seriously, and I'm willing to put in the time to research the impact and explain what's going on. Do folks have other questions or concerns about Monaco? I could keep talking about this stuff all day. :) -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 17:33, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

:::Personally, as regular contributor, I'm fine with switching to Monaco, so long as we get to keep our new 'random page thumbnail' above the search box (or anywhere, really). I think it's useful for visitors to be able to visit a random page with an interesting thumbnail image rather than simply doing random searches or hitting Random page repeatedly. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 17:44, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

::::I knew there was something I forgot to mention! Yeah, the featured page thumbnail. I think that's something that we can adapt.

::::That feature doesn't have anything to do with search -- it just happens that you can put a picture in the Monobook search box. I actually think what you've made is a little misleading. The picture says "Search" on it, and it's right above the search box -- so as a user, I would assume that if I click that, I'll get some kind of search results page. Instead, it goes to a featured article, which isn't necessarily what you'd expect.

::::The feature is really a rotating spotlight for featured articles, which is cool and visual, and helps to bring readers deeper into the content. It's a great idea. I think it would actually be more effective if it was split away from search, so readers would be more likely to recognize it as a featured-article spotlight.

::::So there are a couple ways to do that in Monaco. The easiest way would be to put it in the sidebar -- check out [[MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar]] for an example. Here's pics to show what that would look like.

<gallery>
Image:Monacosidebar1.jpg
Image:Monacosidebar2.jpg|You can update this list anytime, so you can freshen it up every day or every week. Or never.
Image:Monacosidebar3.jpg|That big green, fire-snortin' lizard must be included.
Image:Monacosidebar4.jpg|If you click on "Embrace the Knowledge", it takes you to the Allspark article. Obviously.
</gallery>

::::It's not graphical, but it allows you to bring the funny into the sidebar, which you've never been able to do before. One advantage of this approach is that you can add in new articles to the sidebar without having to wait for somebody to make a graphic.

::::If that's not enough and you need to go graphical, then I can talk to our designer, Christian, about creating a widget that can go into the sidebar and have the same function. It could sit above or below the Community box. It would be separate from search, but like I said, that may be a good thing. What do you think? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:48, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

If you want to sell this to Walky... make it orange.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 22:05, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
[[Image:Orangemonaco.jpg|thumb|250px|It could be even oranger if that would help.]]
:Does this work? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:13, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

::The brick skin has a pretty nice brown/orange thing going. That's what I'm using at the moment. --[[User:Professor Icepick|Professor Icepick]] 22:17, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
:::See, that's what was needed to get his attention. The orange will draw him, like a moth to a flame.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 22:24, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
[[Image:Monacobrick.jpg|thumb|250px|Monaco Brick, in all its dark red and orange glory.]]
::::Here's how Brick looks... -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:28, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

:::::Do it! --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 00:41, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
::::::I TOLD you guys that we should make this wiki orange (to actually look like Teletraan 1) way back before we even knew about Monaco, but you were all "We are serious business about not taking ourselves seriously". --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 06:44, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

:I don't know all that much about what can and can't be modified, but can't a number of the problems with Monobook be solved simply by changing the css or js files? I'm mainly talking about the small text size for the tabs and login. Plus, most people who edit wikies are probably familiar with Wikipedia's Monobook interface. Plus, I don't think anyone wants the trouble from the ad format being changed again. A few months ago the site started taking showing wider vertical ads, and it was awhile before the horizontal scrolling mess got cleaned up. But then again I'm the guy who uses XP's Classic Windows scheme with Windows 98's colors and icons, so I may be biased when it comes to new interfaces. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 22:41, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

::The Monobook problems can't be solved with css changes. The type size is an example, but it's really a general problem with the layout. Wiki veterans are used to Monobook, but it's not necessarily a great layout for new people. I meet people all the time who read Wikipedia, but when I ask if they've ever made an edit, they say no -- it never occurred to them. I think it's important to make wikis more accessible to new people, and we're finding that Monaco is helping people to explore the wikis and make their first edit.

::Are there other concerns that people have that I can help with? I know that this discussion has gone on a bit, and I'd hate to have it just run out of steam before it gets to a decision. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 18:15, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::It seems like there aren't any more concerns about the new skin, so I'm thinking about changing it over to Monaco tomorrow, unless someone has objections. Once it's switched over, then I can help you out with whatever customization you want. Is that cool? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 15:55, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
::::A great number of us are indisposed at [[BotCon 2008]] this weekend, but there should still be a handful of us around. So you know! --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 16:09, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::Gyah. I thought we were doing Brick?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:17, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:We can do anything you guys want... I'm just playing around for a minute to see if I can come up with something interesting. It's gonna look bad for the next five minutes... and then we can talk about what you guys want, and fix it up nice. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:21, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::Okay, never mind. That just looked bad. :) So I set it to Brick. If you guys want to change these colors, we can change them to whatever you like. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:25, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

===Apparently implemented===
Is there any way to override this that '''doesn't''' override the skins on ''every'' Wikia-hosted wiki? - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 21:19, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:Do you mean, you want to see the skin in Monobook? You can go to Preferences --> Skins, and set your preferred skin to Monobook. You can check or uncheck the box that says "Let the admins override my skin choice" to either see customized skins or not. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:27, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::Yes, I know that. My problem with that is the "This setting will follow you across Wikia." clause. I don't want to override EVERYWHERE (e.g. Memory Alpha). Just Monaco wikis. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 21:30, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::Actually, they're working on switching over to the Monaco skin on Memory Alpha too... At a certain point, pretty much every Wikia wiki is going to end up on Monaco. Is there something about Monaco that you don't like? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:43, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::::The flyouts. Certainly not the only thing - the more I look, the less I like, especially the pathetic "Latest Activity" box with a practically-camouflaged recentchanges link, and why exactly are the preferences hidden? - but they're the biggest dealbreaker. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 22:01, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::::Yeah, at first I wasn't crazy about the flyouts either. We tested out using the sidebar without the flyouts on Muppet Wiki, but then I looked at the click stats and found that they really helped new readers to find content on the wiki. The pageviews went down when we took the flyouts out. If you're interested, there's details here: [[w:c:muppet:Muppet_Wiki:Current_events#Sidebar_menus|Muppet Wiki:Current events]].

:::::The "Community" box is also something for the new users. When you first come to the wiki, you might think that it's just a static site... There's no way to know that there's a living community. The latest activity shows people that there are pages that were edited in the last couple minutes. Also, logged-out users see a log-in button in that box. For active logged-in users, a lot of these features aren't that useful. They're really aimed at the 90-something% of readers that aren't logged in. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:10, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::::::(NB: I was expanding my post at the same time you were typing, since I was spending a bit of time looking around).
::::::See, I'm not coming at it from the "guy who runs the wiki" perspective. I'm not a sysop on a Wikia wiki, so "this will boost Teh Stats" has no effect on me [perhaps that means you consider my position irrelevant. I can't help that]. Nor am I a newbie to Wikis, so again, not the target group.
::::::My problem is that (1) they require me to turn JavaScript on in the first place (strictly, add to the NoScript whitelist, but...) and (2) the click-on flyout in the top right is worse than pointless, since there's room for the links without that and it just makes preferences harder to access and (3) I hate non-click flyouts since you they will inevitably be scrolled at the wrong moment, trebly so since they're on the side rather than the top. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 22:08, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::::::I think "this will boost Teh Stats" actually matters to everybody. More readers looking at more pages = more potential contributors = a more active community = more and better content on the site. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:12, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::::::::By the way, I'm not trying to make you like the skin. Either you like it, or you don't. I'm just explaining the rationale behind some of the design decisions, so you know that it wasn't just random or malicious. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:17, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

There are three things that would make me more... reconciled... to it. I still probably won't ''like'' it, but...
#On your own "help.wikia", there's a group of links beneath the flyouts to Recent Changes/Upload/etc. They don't appear here or on most Wikia wikis (well, strictly they appear for about half a second on a Ctrl-F5, which suggests they're present but being hidden with CSS or something). They should be there as standard.
#Links to Special:Preferences and Special:Contributions/(self) should be available with a single non-flyover click, either in the "Community" box or at the top right, not in a flyover only. '''ESPECIALLY''' Special:Preferences.
#Be able to override the colour scheme on an individual wiki basis, rather than just "all or nothing" - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 22:29, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::For #1, I'm not sure why you're not seeing the toolbox links. That's an important part of the skin, and it's on every wiki. Check out the screenshots that I added above -- every wiki has links to Recent changes and Upload. If you're not seeing it, then that's a weird bug which we can try to figure out. What browser are you using? Are you only seeing the toolbox disappearing on Transformers, or on other wikis too?

::If you want it, we can put links to Preferences and Contributions in the toolbox, or in the sidebar. I don't know how to change the top header.

::Can you give me an example of what you'd like to see as far as overriding the color schemes? I think it's possible that what you want is currently possible, but I'm not sure. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:54, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::Okay, #1 was my own fault. An in-browser hack I'd done on Monobook was interacting "unpredictably" with Monaco, and had knocked that (and some minor stuff that doesn't make any difference) out of joint.
:::Okay on #2. I'd be interested to find out how many people ever use Special:Preferences on any skin(s) while you're trotting out stats...
:::On #3, basically, being able to use different (non-default) skins, or at least colour schemes from the chosen skin on different wikis without being limited to the "this will follow you across Wikia". Just because one wiki chooses to smother the page in bright pink (or orange...) doesn't mean I want to change the colour scheme on every wikia. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 23:32, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Sure, I love trotting out stats!

Here's the stats on how Transformers contributors click on those links. In the last month, there have been the following clicks:

* Watchlist: 3,114
* Contributions: 427
* User page: 213
* Talk page: 67
* Preferences: 22

So, yeah, contributions is #2 on that list, but preferences is all the way down at the bottom. Preferences is useful when you need it, but people don't need it that often.

But the hypothesis is: If you put Contributions and Preferences into a drop-down menu, people won't click on it as much, and you'll see clicks on those two items going down.

To make a comparison, I looked at Muppet Wiki editors' clicks in February (on Monobook) and in April (using Monaco).

Here's the clicks on Monobook:

* Contributions: 403 (52%)
* Watchlist: 148 (19%)
* Talk page: 132 (17%)
* User page: 83 (11.5%)
* Preferences: 4 (0.5%)

Here's the clicks on Monaco:

* Contributions: 320 (60%)
* Watchlist: 123 (23%)
* Talk page: 53 (10%)
* User page: 23 (4%)
* Preferences: 15 (3%)

The hypothesis doesn't seem to hold up. Percentage-wise, clicks on Contributions and Preferences went up using Monaco. This is a really small sample, so it's not proof of anything... but it indicates that the drop-down menu doesn't chase away clicks.

As far as seeing wikis in different skins, try choosing Monobook in your skin preferences, and keep "allow admins to override my choices" checked. Transformers isn't using a custom skin right now, so you should see this wiki in Monobook -- and you'll also see the customization on Memory Alpha, etc. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 00:19, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

==Script-style quotes==
There seems to be some disagreement on whether script-style quotes should have quotation marks or not. Personally, I strongly favor including them, for two reasons:
* Visual consistency. There's no reason not to have all the quotes in as similar a format as possible. Having some with quotation marks, and some without, ''in the same section'', seems like needless variation.
* It's... well... it's a ''quote''. We're not writing a screenplay; we're quoting something someone actually said. And a quote gets quotation marks.... fullstop. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 21:18, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

:Hmm, I'm afraid I disagree. They're simply not necessary, and they clutter the page.
:And, regardless of whether we decide to use double-quotes, can we put a stop to script-style where the quotes are are in double-quotes ''and'' italicized? {shudder} [[User:JW|JW]] 21:21, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
::The italics stuff is flat out bad formatting, no disagreement here. There's an earlier discussion about it somewhere on this page or the archives. Nobody should be adding stuff in that format anymore... I hope.
::As for double quotes... um... I have no clue what you're referring to. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 21:23, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

==Gone Too Far==
I've been alerted it's past the 30-day period for "coming soon Club stuff" non-updating. Have at it. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 22:03, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

==Searchbox improvement drive==
So now we have a very nice set of searchboxes, thanks to the lovely design work of M Sipher and the superhuman coding skills of Suki Brits. The effort of these boxes is to show the visitor all of the awesome crap we have. To do that, said cap must in fact be awesome. Unfortunately, a lot of the pages linked to by searchboxes are [[Shatterpoint|imageless]], [[T-AI|missing fiction]], or [[High Wire (Armada)|pretty much content-free]]. Thus, I propose an improvement drive of the searchbox articles. When you click on one of those suckers, try and add something. I dunno how we'd make this official, exactly... - [[User:RolonBolon|RolonBolon]] 06:49, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
:Are these images supposed to show up automatically by/around/with the actual text box in which you type your search parameters? If so, I'm not seeing them in the current Monaco skin.--[[User:Apcog|Apcog]] 14:29, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
::They don't show up in Monaco, Quartz, Cologne Blue, or any other custom theme. Just Monobook, the default. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 20:15, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Is there a way to get the search box changes to load sooner? The way it is now the custom settings for the box are the last thing to load; it uses the default settings until the google ads finish loading. This can take awhile depending on how the crappy campus wireless is acting. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 20:39, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with RolonBolon about the searchbox thing. I know we're hard up for help, but why are we spending time creating these little searchbox images using pics from God knows where, yet we've neglected to upload a single image for the actual pages these buttons lead to? Not the mention pages that have absolutely no content whatsoever.
I think we've overreached ourselves, and in the future we should only do these searchbox things for articles that are largely complete and/or have alot of content and imagery, otherwise we look really half-ass and unfocused. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 22:37, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
:Yeah, what drove it home for me was Sixtrain. I see Sixtrain in the Search box. It looks nifty, like it's his box art. I click on the article, no images. Why the heck can't we upload Sixtrain's box art when we evidently have a clear enough copy of it to make a search teaser?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 23:33, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
::I was simply making boxes using what I had on the hard drive as examples, and not everything is good quality at main-image size. I don't think we've "overreached ourselves" at all. At worst, we omit a few items from the searchbox list if their entries are that empty for a little while, OH NOES. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 00:22, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
:::I am of the opinion that a fuzzy picture that can be replaced later is better than no picture at all. It helps users know what it's talking about in the meantime, right? [[User:Spriteless|Spriteless]] 02:24, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
::::We prefer no pic/no content to a crap pic/crap content. I've been taking a break from the Wiki, but it looks like I'm going on another image safari. My scanner not working is annoying. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 06:54, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

The fact that the image is the last one on the page to load isn't just visually annoying; it for some reason also makes whatever you've typed in the search field vanish in Firefox. I've had this happen to me a bunch of times. A lesser annoyance is that the input box moves when the image appears; it would be nice if it could stay in the same place (maybe by making the whole Search box a fixed size?), as it's a bad idea to have a clickable thing that spontaneously jumps around. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 20:31, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
: The way the Search Image works right now, I'd rather not even have them. My computer has slowed down ''epically'' trying to load those images each time, and if it's a high traffic time of day, the rest of the page will basically freeze for 30 seconds or more until that search image gets around to loading. This is extremely annoying when I just need a quick peek at a page before making a link, like checking if Stormcloud is one word or two or if Whirl needs to be disambig-ed in the link. And if I try to click Search to move on to a next page too early, the Image drops down in front and shang-hais my "click", so I go there instead of being able to type in where I want to go.

: I don't like the thing at all. It's been nothing but a hassle for the last day or so. There's already a Random page button right about it -- do we really need this too? --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 00:30, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::The same thing has been happening to me lately, and I've never experienced that problem on Wookieepedia. And this is a real problem for me, as I'm actually ''supportive'' of the image icons. We may want review the system. -- [[User:SFH|SFH]] 01:30, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Though in fairness, some of that may be due to Wikia's tendency to nearly-crash every weekend. And to be honest, this weekend has been rather traffic low. I mean, seriously, did every head to BotCon a week early? -- [[User:SFH|SFH]] 02:09, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Let me know if this continues to be an issue during weekdays (well, before Thursday, anyway). If it is, I'll figure out a way to let users optionally turn them off. I've never noticed it slowing down while trying to load, and any sane browser ''shouldn't'', but if that really is happening for some users, something definitely ought to be done about it.
::::I'll also take a look at preserving the form data while the images load, because that is definitely something that really ''should'' happen, too. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 03:44, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::Things sped back up again shortly after SFH's last post, but I'll post again if it keeps happening regularly. Maybe it was just an anomaly. --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 03:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::'''Furthermore:''' I did a bit of code modification that should make the form retain anything you've typed before the images loads. You may need to do a hard refresh for the change to show up, but lemme know if that doesn't work for anyone. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 03:52, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

==Templates listing==
Is there a page editors can refer to for templates (messagebox, user notices ect) without having to go through the categories or remembering the last time somebody used it so they can copy-paste it? They seem to be unnecessarily difficult to track down. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 03:43, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
:[http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=10 here] --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 04:50, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
::My main concern was not requiring the page soley for myself, but was this page obviously linked on a help page or something somewhere that anybody could find easily? I'd personally like to see this wiki become more user-friendly. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 07:25, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Agreed, as I've [http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Transformers_Wiki_talk:Community_Portal#.22First_go_here.21__Next_go_here..22 said before on this very page]. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 15:05, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Yeah. Our lack of user friendliness might discourage people from joining up. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 17:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:What I'm worried about is that some of the other users would actually be okay with that...-- [[User:SFH|SFH]] 17:48, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::Well, last time I checked some of these other users don't own the wiki. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 09:12, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

== new template: Comicinfo ==

Please checkout [[Template:Comicinfo]]. It's a little rough around the edges, but something I think could be useful on the comics pages. Comments and suggestions are welcome.--[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 02:42, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

== Masthead ==

Okay, the old Monobook masthead doesn't look so good under Monaco. How do we change this?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:31, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
:I've looked around and seen that other wikis have already taken advantage of the extra masthead space. Question is, how do we do so, and what dimensions would the new masthead be?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 16:05, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
::Before we do anything, I would recommend keeping the masthead's filesize reasonable, because there's nothing worse than trying to load a site with a masthead image that is like a megabyte or something. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 16:22, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Oh, absolutely. I was mainly thinking perhaps something involving a 'shopping of the TFA logo, considering it'd fit the color scheme nicely. Alternatively, maybe something aping the "grid" of G1.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 16:26, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Another thought is whether it's possible for the masthead to be random/rotating. If so, it'd let us do Autobot/Decepticon versions of the same masthead (via color swap) or even rotating versions for different franchises (G1, BW, UT, etc.)--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 16:35, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

== Sidebar ==

Given that we're getting a lot of Transformers Animated traffic lately, I'd say an item in the Monaco sidebar is likely going to help direct people to the right articles.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:45, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:Okay, I put it in the sidebar. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:56, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

The more I think on it, the more it seems we'd be best served by condensing the G1 and TFA menus and instead just having one menu that's franchise navigation. I dunno. I'm a little bothered that we can't seem to get the admins to chime in on this, since they're the ones that can edit the sidebar setup the most easily.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 19:02, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:Eh. Monday after BotCon. A lot of them are probably still sleeping off their flight / drive / booze. Another reason why big changes probably shouldn't've happened this weekend. Give it a day or so. --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 19:12, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

The sidebar does need major work, and [[MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar]] is a protected page so I guess it's not just easier for admins to change it, they're the only ones who can?

The issues I have with it are:

* "Featured characters" menu still includes articles that haven't actually been Featured, as well as [[Spark]], which ''has'' been featured but is not a ''character''.
* Generation 1 and Animated are the only franchises listed.
* The G1 and Animated menus are inconsistent in the sorts of articles they list. The Generation 1 menu includes [[Autobot]] and [[Decepticon]], articles were not restricted to G1, then several high profile characters and one obscure, jokey one. The Animated menu, on the other hand, just lists the franchise's cartoon, comic, toyline, and books articles.
* The "Embrace the Knowledge" menu seems to take a bit of scattershot approach. [[Marvel Comics]] is listed, but none of the other publishers. Hasbro is there, but not Takara. With [[Mini-Con]] there, might this be a better place for the Autobot and Decepticon articles, and other factions as well?
--[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 19:55, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:[[MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar]] can only be edited by admins. That's true for all MediaWiki pages. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 20:31, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

== Hate the new skin. ==

Hate this new skin. Just wanted to say it. The old look was much more pleasent and open to read. New one is just crouded and Blah. THIS is gonna take getting use to. No Sir, I don't like it.

:Can it at least not be burgundy and orange? - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 22:08, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::Yeah, it can be any color you like. I was messing around with colors before, but wasn't doing a great job with it, and Rosicrucian said he wanted this color scheme. Any admin can change the colors by editing [[MediaWiki:Monaco.css]]. There's instructions on how to do it here: [[w:c:help:Customizing Monaco|Customizing Monaco]]. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:15, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
:::I mainly liked this because it fits with the color scheme of Teletraan itself. I'm not married to the idea, though. I also figured I'd speak up about it because Walky liked it, and he's off enjoying his ridiculously expensive Transformers collector's items at BotCon.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 22:21, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Ahh, right, well, I can see the logic, there, all right... I'm just not dying about the dark-coloured backgrounds, since it's a big visually jarring to have big white boxes of text in the middle of them. - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 22:24, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

: Seconding the hate. [[User:Hooper X|-hx]] 00:04, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
:: This looks pretty hideous compared to MonoBook... and it's hard to navigate. Well, at least I can override it in preferences, but I think I'll be ignoring admin skin choices unless a custom one appears in the future.--[[User:MCRG|MCRG]] 00:44, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

:::I think I can try to get used to the new skin unless/until I find something inconvenient. Well, so far so good. At least the seach function is better. But the logo on the left side of the top, well... um, oh. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 01:23, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
::Fourthing the hate. The colors hurt my eyes. That, and the obscure character search images are gone. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 01:45, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

:I'm afraid I don't much like it either. Fortunately, it was pretty easy to uncheck the "override" box on my preferences. [[User:JW|JW]] 01:54, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't like the new skin either. I don't get the menus at the side. "Featured characters" includes articles that I don't think have actually been Featured. G1 and Animated are listed, but no other franchises. And the menus are inconsistent. The G1 menu lists Autobot, Decepticon, and then a bunch of character pages, while the Animated menu lists Animated's toy line, cartoon, comic, and books articles. Why the difference? And what was the selection process for the "Embrace the Knowledge" menu?

By the way, in the middle of BotCon is probably the worst possible time for major changes like this to be made. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 04:29, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

:The menus at the side are examples that I made up. You guys can change them to be anything you want, by editing [[MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar]]. I'm sorry about the timing... We've been talking about this for maybe three weeks.

:Lots of things can be changed -- the colors, the menus, the logo. I'll put it back to the basic Sapphire for now, which is more like Monobook. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 05:08, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Not a fan of the skin, either. Losing the brown and yellow from earlier was a step up, but it still doesn't quite work. The extra crap on the side feels ''bigger'' now, so the actual articles feel ''smaller''. And those blamed automatic pulldown menus keep getting in the way everytime I move my cursor to or from the Search box. Annoying. --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 17:02, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:I'm a little unclear- you say Monaco is the new Wikia standard skin. No one likes it. But we can override the style in our preferences to set it back to Monobook.
:So does TT1 have the ''option'' of deciding to switch back to Monobook if that's what the consensus decides? Danny is saying they are switching Memory Alpha Monaco and "at a certain point, pretty much every Wikia wiki is going to end up on Monaco." So is this something we get to decide for ourselves, or will Monaco be forced on us even if we don't want it? -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 18:55, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

::What I find interesting on the MΑ example is that Toughpigs said, and I quote:
:::''Actually, they're working on switching over to the Monaco skin on Memory Alpha too''
::Now, who are "they"? Because I've just looked at MΑ - and in the designated [[MemoryAlpha:Forum:Monaco skin|forum on the matter]], one Wikia staff member (who has no main namespace edits on MΑ in the past three years) is the only user pushing for it. Only two other users have (briefly) commented - one admin who's strongly against it because of the top ad banner, and one other user who dittoed that. The only other place it is mentioned is on [[MemoryAlpha:Portal talk:Main#Monaco skin|their main page talk]], where one "[[Wikia:Wikia Helper Group|Wikia Helper Group]]" member (who has no MΑ edits on any other matter, main namespace or otherwise) shilled it - and in response, got a reply from one user that they were confused, and another user that they preferred Monobook. Unless there's some hidden forum somewhere, there's no consensus from MΑ that they want to switch.

::If Toughpigs's line is intended to say there's a push ''from'' MΑ as a "do you want T1 to be left out", it's, well, draw your own conclusions. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 19:42, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I've been vague about what the future holds, because I don't know. Right now, the community does have the option to switch the site back to Monobook, if that's what you decide.

However, at some point in the future, Wikia may need to switch everybody over to Monaco. We need to figure out how to get more advertisers to buy ads on Wikia. We're exploring a lot of different possibilities right now, so I can't predict how that's going to go yet. But we may find that it hurts us to have skins with completely different ad sizes all over the site. Companies don't want to advertise on sites that have a leaderboard on some pages and a skyscraper on others.

Right now, we're able to offer a lot of flexibility with the skins, and we're not forcing a change on any community. But if you think about it, no other (sane) website does that. Ad-supported websites have a format, and everything on the site is in that format.

I know that the obvious response to the ad talk is "that's your problem", but it's actually everybody's problem. Wikia offers free hosting to communities like this one because we're advertiser-supported. But the ad market is changing -- and if we don't keep up, then we go out of business, and we can't host wikis anymore.

Anyway, we're not anywhere near a problem at the moment. Wikia is fine, and if the community decides to switch back to Monobook, then that's fine. But it will be easier in the long run if folks give Monaco a chance, and see if we can make it work the way that you want it to work.

Meanwhile, I can address a couple of the concerns that people have posted about. First up: The size of the content area. Xaaron says that the crap on the side feels bigger, so the content area feels smaller. I took screenshots of the same page using both Monaco and Monobook, at the same browser size and screen resolution.

<gallery>
Image:Megatron-monaco.jpg|Monaco
Image:Megatron-monobook.jpg|Monobook
</gallery>

You can see from those pictures that Monaco gives you a wider content area. The first two paragraphs take up 16 lines in Monobook. On Monaco, it takes up 13 lines.

The number of logins has gone up just in the last few days. On April 26-27, 41 people logged in to the site (20.5 per day). From March 1-31, there were 381 logins (12.3 per day). This may be because of the interest generated at BotCon, but it also seems like being at BotCon over the weekend kept people away from the website. The increase in logins is consistent with what we've seen on other sites -- Monaco makes logging in more visible to new users.

On the sidebar over the last couple days, these are the most clicked on items:

# Transformers Animated (cartoon): 295 clicks
# Murdered puppy: 192 clicks
# That big green, fire-snortin' lizard: 168 clicks
# Transformers Animated (toy line): 131
# Autobot: 111
# Optimus Minor: 108
# More featured characters: 83
# Optimus Prime: 76
# Gas Skunk: 74
# Airazor (BW): 72

Pageviews for April 26-27 are up 21% over the average from the previous 30 days. That may be because of the interest around BotCon and the new episodes, but it might also be because the sidebar is helping new readers find articles that they're interested in, and because the pages load faster with Monaco. In any event, it doesn't seem like Monaco is chasing people away. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 20:27, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:It could also be because existing users have been giving the new skin a test drive. Anyway, couple of things about the skin that I'm wondering. First, the Teletraan 1 image in the upper left corner is now tiny with ugly, empty whitespace on three sides. Can it be enlarged? Second, can the recently-added neat little search box images be included in the new skin? --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 20:51, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

::The logo can be changed by uploading a new image to [[:Image:Wiki_wide.png]].

::The search box images are a neat idea, but I'm confused about why they're attached to search. They don't take you to a search page. They're basically a random featured-article generator. If you want, I can talk to the designer here about creating a randomized featured-article widget for the sidebar. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 20:59, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Basic test image for the top left:

[[Image:TFfactions.png|266x75px]]

- [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 21:58, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:I've got some ideas for the masthead. I'll 'shop something up when I get home from work.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 22:05, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
::My proposal:
::[[Image:Teletraan masthead.png]]
::Whaddaya think?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 02:16, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:::That one is beautiful. --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 02:20, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Look nice for Rosi's. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 02:26, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Ooo, rock me, Amadeus. Verra nice. [[User:JW|JW]] 02:56, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
::::That is perfect, Rosicrucian. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 04:36, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::That is lovely. --[[User:Sntint|Sntint]] 04:38, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
== Anonymous edits ==

Lately, I've been looking at wikis that have decided to turn off anonymous edits, and have everybody log in before contributing to the wiki. The idea is that having everybody log in builds a stronger sense of community, because you always have a name to associate with an edit, rather than a random string of numbers. It's easier to talk to people who have names. It also gives you more control over vandalism, since you can recognize potential vandals more easily.

Some people don't like the idea, because they're worried that logging in is a barrier to entry -- if you have to log in to edit, then you won't bother, and you'll go away. Looking at the wikis that require login, that doesn't seem to be true. [[w:c:muppet|Muppet Wiki]] turned off anon edits last April, and the number of active editors has actually gone up. Some of our most active wikis require login -- [[w:c:wowwiki|World of Warcraft]], [[w:c:ffxi|FFXIclopedia]], [[w:c:tibia|Tibia Wiki]] and [[w:c:marveldatabase|Marvel Database]]. (WoW and FFXI actually require a confirmed e-mail address before you can edit.)

So I've been talking to folks about this, and we've decided to allow wiki communities to turn off anonymous edits if they want to. There are a lot of anonymous editors here, so I'm wondering what you guys think about it. Would it be helpful to require login for everybody?

Obviously, that's a big community decision... I just want to throw out the possibility, and see what you think. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 20:38, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

:I strongly oppose disabling anonymous edits! (I also oppose sweeping changes performed over botcon, and unilaterally re-skining the site when the community can argue for weeks or month about proposed style changes to individual ''templates'' without reaching a consensus-- but if you're willing to ignore the needs of registered users while making such 'big community decisions,' why would you listen to anon users?) -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 08:18, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
::Well, let's get an opposing viewpoint here. Why are you, 75.168.112.43, unwilling to get an account? [[User:JW|JW]] 11:16, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:::You assume I don't have an account.
:::I strongly oppose disabling anonymous edits because;
::::# It puts up a gateway that discourages first time users. Not a tall gateway- but a gateway nonetheless. Even if it only turns back 30% of new editors, that's 30% of people who could potentially become productive members of the community we're turning away out of hand.
::::# Equally important to the new users are the 'casual fixers', people who will /never/ become regulars on this wiki but, while clicking around, notice a link leading to '''Megatron''' instead of '''Megatron (G1)'''. If they have to register to make that simple fix? 9 times out of 10 that kind of fix will not get done.
::::# The problem 'disabling anonymous edits' seeks to fix- trolls- will not be solved. We already have trolls who register for accounts-- right now we don't even require an e-mail address. So ''next'' to combat Troll,s we'll require all accounts to have e-mail addresses. Then we'll require those e-mails be ''verified'', then maybe we'll set up a system where new users have to be ''approved'' like so many online communities before they can use their account. IP Tracking! Requiring Persistent Cookies! Each and ''any'' of these steps makes the online experience just a little bit more unpleasant for the user (and each hoop to jump throuhg makes new users just a little disinclined to join) but none of them actually stops trolls! Clear your cache, sign up for a yahoo account and you're up and running again. The trolls that regularly bother TT1 have already demonstrated they are willing to go to these lengths to evade bans. I am opposed to any measure that would punish the general body of users (registered and non) to deal with trolls. I am '''strongly''' opposed to any measure that would punish users and '''not''' deal with trolls, which is what this promises to do.

::::And seriously- while I'm tickled to death to know that the 'wikia community developer' has been attracted to communities that place restrictions on their users, I'm not thrilled to see someone who's not part of the community lobbying that we become more insular. I think changing TT1 to a UI that's different from Wikipedia makes the site harder to use (both for new users, and for users who make contributions to multiple wikis) is an objectively bad decision that was made with little discussion because 'it looks better.' And I really dislike that this was done while everyone was gone at Botcon and it was impossible to form a quorum for proper discussion. Monorail guy dances into town and starts making global changes that he thinks 'make more sense' without understanding that [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Talk:Megatron_Rising_-_Part_2&action=history they were that way for a reason], and his whims would require massive secondary cleanup effort to enact. I don't think someone who's not a participating member of this community should be initiating that kind of change, or throwing his weight behind them for them while 'polling for consensus. On a more fundamental level- I'm suspicious about external voices telling us how we should be running this wiki, because sooner or later they're gong to tell us The Funny Should Go.
::::I feel the burden of proof is on the other side here-- show that there will be a concrete and measurable improvement to the wiki by disabling anonymous edits that will NOT place an unnecessary burden on users. -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 12:38, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::''"You assume I don't have an account."'' Well, then, please tell us why you aren't willing to use it. I'm truly curious. [[User:JW|JW]] 13:04, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::More to the point, the IP address 75.168.112.43 has only made 10 contributions to this wiki, of which only 4 are of actual substance. Your comments will carry more weight if you tell us which long-established editor you in fact ''are.'' Otherwise, ''you<nowiki>'</nowiki>re'' the "external voice telling us how we should be running this wiki". [[User:JW|JW]] 13:16, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

::::::I oppose to disable anonymous edit, too. I was once a anonymous user . If the anonymous edit is disabled, that would mean we close the door for many potential users-to-be. Though I hate anonymous vandalizing, which is really a problem. But any bad anonymous user can get an account to vandalize, too. ''Urgh''.--[[User:TX55|TX55]] 13:56, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

The Funny Should Definitely Not Go. The reason why I've been hanging out on this wiki lately is because I like it -- specifically, because I like the Funny. I don't want to annoy people or screw stuff up; I'm just trying to help out in ways that I know how to help.

I didn't unilaterally change the skin... If you look above, the conversation about the skin started on April 7th. On Thursday, I asked if there were any more comments before I switched it over. The only response was from ItsWalky, who indicated that it would be okay. I've been keeping an eye on the stats -- the number of edits, registrations and pageviews have all gone up since the wiki switched to Monaco. (Saturday was the highest single day for registrations on the wiki since January.)

As I said, anonymous edits is totally a community decision. I just wanted to let you know that it's an option if the community wants it. It's a long-term discussion, and I don't have an interest in pushing it one way or the other. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 14:31, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:I would be against restricting edits to registered members. This wiki already has a reputation in the Transformers community as alledgedly being the playground for a very specific group of fans. Restricting edits will only further this perception. But more importantly:

:*I tend to agree that if one has no intention of making significant edits, but very occassionally fixes minor mistakes that one sees, then one shouldn't be forced to register to do so.

:*Some of us would prefer not to login while accessing the wiki at school or at work. Yeah, we have our reasons.

:*Chris McFeely, one of our staff members, sometimes has trouble logging onto the wiki when he's not at home, so if we restrict edits to logged-in users, he can't make any contributions if he happens to have free time while out and about.

:*Good anonymous editors sometimes eventually become registered members if they find they enjoy making the edits and would to participate in the little community we have.

:*Trolls and vandals who go to the effort of being repeat offenders will not be scared off by a registration process. I think we'll find that these people have ''alot'' of free time on their hands. Even more than I do!

:--[[User:FFN|FFN]] 15:03, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:I'd be more willing to believe that the increase in edits on Saturday was due to the new skin if Saturday didn't happen to be the day most of the BotCon panels were held. Those give us a lot of new information that needs to be added to the wiki. Plus, two (or three) new episodes were shown that morning: Return of the Headmaster in the US, Mission Accomplished in Canada, and Collect and Save at Botcon. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 15:46, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

::No kidding. You could've changed the site to pink-and-purple polka dots, and traffic still would've increased this weekend, with everyone fighting to be the first to add all the new scraps of information from the convention. --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 17:05, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:::I'm no one special on this wiki, but I wanted to weigh in. Considering that everything else on the web seems to require a login, it isn't asking too much for people to sign up. All the forums require a login so people can own their opinions, why not here? Also, isn't most of the caption bastardry done by anons? Maybe forcing registration might stop some of those careless edits. Requiring an email? Now that might scare people off.--[[User:Suzyprime|Suzyprime]] 04:51, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

==Image overlap==
[[image:Templateximage.JPG|thumb|I'm ugly]]
Umm, did this overlap happen before the new skin? If so, I never noticed it. If not, then why is it changing what goes on inside the content part of the site, not just the menus and adds and umm, everything that I can't edit as an anon? [[User:Spriteless|Spriteless]] 04:04, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:We're trying to figure it out over on [[User Talk:Toughpigs]].--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 04:08, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
::That particular ''overlap'' always happened- but the transparent frame was apparently a result of some global CSS change Wikia made ~4-6 months ago.
::It looks like the fix was posted on the [http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Monobook.css monobook.css] discussion page, but never implemented. -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 05:25, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:::(Oh, i see this was already discussed. Hrm.) -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 05:43, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
I've had a slightly different problem with image overlap in the past few days. If there's a stub box or a "needs images" box on a page, occasionally the box's pic will remain stuck at the top of the page. For instance, in the example on the right, Kup's pic would be stuck in the top left corner, covering part of the Blackthorne Publishing title bar. It has also happened on the front page, with Jhiaxus's image from the featured article covering the Primes. --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 05:41, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:What broswer? (The messagebox template uses styles that render differently on IE and Geko-based browsers... but the difference shoudl eb cosmetic, not functional like that.) -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 05:43, 29 April 2008 (UTC)<div id="wikia-credits"> From [http://transformers.wikia.com Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki], a [http://www.wikia.com Wikia] wiki.</div>

MediaWiki talk:Community Portal

2008-04-29T05:25:29Z

75.168.112.43: /* Image overlap */

==Archives==
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive1|Archive1]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive2|Archive2]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive3|Archive3]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive4|Archive4]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive5|Archive5]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive6|Archive6]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive7|Archive7]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive8|Archive8]]

== Continuity / Timeline ==
I'm trying to make some sense of how the various major continuities are handled, overview-wise. Some have their own continuity page; IDW's just got a timeline, with overview stuff shoved here and there among the individual miniseries. Some don't have anything. Some, like the G1 cartoon, are not much more than lists. The ones that exist tend to be hard to find, aren't categorized uniformly, etc... is there a master format for this stuff?{{unsigned|Repowers|12:15, 29 October 2007}}
:There is no master format for continuity pages. Please feel free to make one! It would be a good thing to have! --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 00:55, show30 October 2007 (UTC)
:: You know, I think it would be hot if once we got more timelines up, we began putting Chronology links to the timetable on the story pages. Several Dreamwave comic pages have them, and I think IDW comics should too, since IDW really isn't telling the story in a linear fashion.--[[User:Zodberg|Zodberg]] 09:36, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::Sounds like a good idea. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 13:51, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::Would it make sense to have an overview writeup at the start of each timeline, a few paragraphs or so? Or should "continuity" be a separate page? Where should a chronological list of issues go -- publisher's page, continuity page, timeline page? That's not such a problem with, say, Marvel G1, but Dreamwave's a little messier, IDW's all over the place, and gods help you if you want to sort out the mess that is Marvel UK. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 14:29, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:: A continuity page should have the following (in my opinion):
:: * A one-paragraph description of the continuity, not more than a few sentences long.
:: * A list of what media belongs to this continuity (which can include some stuff that's vaguely contradictory, but should exclude stuff that's way out there, like Earthforce relative to G1 comics). This can be sorted by publication order, or internal chronology, but if there's a major difference between the two, it should be spelled out.
:: * An overall description of the main events in that continuity, focusing on the events actually chronicled (not the distant past). In particular, for most continuities, changes in the leadership of either side, the changing status (living/dead, present/absent, duplicated by Straxus/encoded on a floppy, etc.)of the big two leaders (usually Optimus Prime and Megatron), any events involving Unicron or Primus, and introductions of major teams or groups of characters (Headmasters, Fuzors) should be in the summary.
:: * If necessary, a timeline, which may end up integrated with one of the above parts.
:: * Pointers to important and closely-related continuities (again, such as Earthforce), discussion of divergences, etc. [[User:JW|JW]] 15:14, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::All that sounds pretty good, though I wouldn't get too hung up on following individual characters too much, even the leaders. In Marvel G1, at least, they changed over on a pretty regular basis.
:::On a related note... this and a lot of other overview-type pages are really lost in the shuffle. They should be top-level pages, with everything branching off of them and linking back to them, but instead they're buried and nothing links to them. You start off reading, say, the article on [[Spotlight: Soundwave]]. Where do you go from there to find out more? The IDW issues category? That's the only link out of that page. If you're a newcomer, or even someone with an imperfect memory, how do you know what comes next? Either the individual issue pages need to link to the timeline and continuity pages, or the category page does, or... something.
:::Taking care of it on the category page might be simplest, like what's on the Category:Marvel US issues page. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 19:12, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::: Yes, the site is sadly lacking in both "uplinks" and "sidelinks" for the media; links from a TV episode to the TV series, links from an issue of a comic to an overview of the comic, links from one comic to the next comic in that series, etc. [[User:JW|JW]] 19:21, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::: I'm still poking around and figuring out what's been done and what's needed; it might take a while to figure out how to start cleaning things up. It looks like we've got some random timelines started (still need ones for the Beast era and a few others), as well as continuity pages for some but not all of the major storylines, so I suppose each major continuity should have both kinds of pages. I wonder if there's a way to use a category or subcategory to get individual episode/issue pages to quickly link back to the main overview pages?... -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 19:28, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::: JW, we do have that comics nav template, though I like the comic infobox on wikipedia more. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:04, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::: Ah... http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Template:Comicnav ...so we do. Very useful. Now we just gotta propagate it over a few hundred comic issue... :S -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 20:25, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::: Also, the nav setup only can link up one level. So Infiltration #2 can link up to the main Infiltration page, but not to the IDW continuity page above that. Would putting a variant of this template on the main page for each miniseries, linking up to the continuity page, work instead? Then you're never more than two clicks away from an individual issue to the continuity overview. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 20:25, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::::: That, or somehow add it to the main comicnav template, perhaps in small letters above the series name. I don't wanna step on anyone's toes though. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:45, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::::: That'd make the most sense, to add a "Continuity" level to the template, or alternately a lower-end "Mini-series" option. But hell if I can make sense out of how these things work... that might be a rainy day project, figuring that out. :\ -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 20:51, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

==Image Copyrights==
I asked awhile ago, and nobody seemed to know, so...

I've always been under the impression that images {{c}} someone else should be credited ''not'' just with a note that they belong to someone else, but a ''year'', for much the same reasons we identify ''who'' the image belongs to rather than simply saying 'we don't own it, but it's fair use.' The more info we provide, the more 'seriously' the copyright is being taken. if we wipe our ass with an unadorned, <nowiki>{{fairuse}}</nowiki> clearly we don't think the holder of the copyright is ''important''... or something.

I have a script I've been poking at. It can run through every image detail page on the wiki through a regular expression and pick out which images don't have copyright owners (Hasbro or Takara-- you're supposed to ID which even if you're using <nowiki>{{hastak}}</nowiki>,) which don't have dates, and which don't have any sort of copyright notice at all. (A significant chunk of our images have no notices that they belong to someone else.) It could also drop the offending images into categories to be sorted out and properly labeled. (I imagine I'd give it Steve-o and let it do so logged in as the bot to avoid the update-floods.)

...is anyone interested in this? Does it seem like a good idea? Terrible idea? ...Bueler? -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 15:29, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

==Cartoon Episode Format Mark II==
Picking up an old thread here... per some changes I just finished making to all the Beast Era episode pages, IMO:
* The one-line summary should be bold. It's the single most important thing on the page; your eye should leap right to it.
* It should be the very first thing on the page, above the nav box (barring temporary templates like "pics needed".)
* It should be free of links. They're distracting and ugly, and it's kinda absurd to think someone's going to click right off the summary to see what a "Maximal" or whatever is. Links can easily be integrated into the body of the plot summary.

I'd also rather see Quotes before Stats, to keep all the in-universe stuff together before moving to out-universe stuff like writers, air dates, commentary, order of appearance, etc. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 00:13, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

:I agree with all of this, except for the one-line summary being above the nav box. Pure personal preference, though, rather than any sort of functionality - I just don't like the way it looks. In fact, I think putting it below the nav box actually ''helps'' its notice-ability - it "frames" the summary quite nicely between the nav box and the contents box. - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 00:22, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
::Heh, I see it the opposite way -- having the summary first provides a frame for the inevitable white space that accompanies the nav box. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 06:24, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

::Picking up on what I said above, putting the stats section down below not just the extended summary but now below the quotes section as well is something I strongly oppose. Episode writers do not get the recognition they deserve. We should not be burying their credits like that. That section belongs ''above'' the summary. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 03:21, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
:::I do hear what you're saying, but honestly I'm less bothered by the recognition factor than by the inconsistency with comic format, where all that junk ''is'' up front (though it often looks pretty bad, IMO.) If it were ''just'' the writer credit, I'd be okay with having it up front (though I ain't gonna be the one who goes back through 78 Beast Era episode pages to change it!) But then you get into the odd condition of having that one bit of info up front, while the rest of the standard information external to the episode's events is much deeper in the article. Having much more stuff up front than that makes for a messy, unattractive, and harder-to-read format compared to having it all bundled in the Stats section... IMO, natch.
:::"If "recognition" is the concern, heck, think of the animators who slaved a lot more than the writers ever did to bring each episode to life. They get no credits at all. Neither does Robert Buckley, who provided music for both Beast series. The list goes on and on. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 06:24, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
::::The information I am suggesting be up front would only be three lines (Written by, Directed by, air date), which I don't think would be very intrusive at all. To my mind, before the summary is the only logical place for this information to be presented, as episodes themselves generally present those two credits up front, and air date is a known factor when watching an episode when it debuts.
::::On the issue of recognition, you make a good point, however my concern is a bit different. Robert Buckley may not get a lot of recognition from the fandom for the music of Beast Wars, but it's not like they give someone ''else'' all the credit on that score, pun semi-intended. But the writers? The fandom often enough acts as if Forward and DiTillio wrote every single word of Beast Wars, and Skir (alone, of course, as the Isenberg Uncertainty Principle remains in full effect) the same for Beast Machines. The story editors are obviously the most important writers, but they didn't do it all on their own.
::::Burying the names of episode writers down below the summary and quotes sections just doesn't sit right with me, is all. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 04:46, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
:::::Hrm... combined with Steve-o's consistency argument, I suppose I could go along with doing it this way, with them all tucked together and separate from/below the one line summary. Written By and Air Date are in one little combined pair of lines now, an easy cut-n-paste to move up front. I don't think anyone's added Director credits to any of the episodes, by the by.
:::::As I said, I'm in no great hurry to do it myself -- my main concern was that the Beast Era show pages had drifted into all sorts of different arrangements, some of which looked pretty sloppy. For better or worse, they're all uniform now. If we're gonna change the layout, let's work on getting one sample page ''just right'', then we can worry about propagating it. To that end, have a look at "[[Chain of Command]]", see if it clicks for you. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 05:33, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm thinking if we could merge the ''Japanese title'' into the '''''Stats''' section'' because it seems to fit the section better. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 03:14, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't have much of a preference, personally, about how to organize these things. However, I do feel pretty strongly that it should be more or less the same for both cartoon episodes and comic issues. Having different organizational schemes for different sorts of fiction doesn't serve much purpose, and makes things harder to get used to. (On the other hand, I ''also'' feel strongly that all of our passages relating fictional events should be in the same tense regardless of if they happen to be on a character page or a story page, but apparently that makes me insane, so don't take my pleas for consistency too seriously.) --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 02:35, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

===Cartoon format mark II.5===
Did we ever make a decision on whether to place the quotes area before the stats section? Because the sheer majority of episode articles (including old ones recently converted to current standards) place the stats before the quotes, but I notice some of the latest Cybertron episode articles are placing the quotes before the stats, which is creating inconsistencies in layout. Bear in mind it will create less work for us if we just leave things the way they are, with stats before quotes. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 09:34, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

==Cartoon continuity headings==
Have we decided on a definative format for this yet? most of the pages with characters who appeared in Sunbow's G1 through to the japanese series (and maybe Beast Wars as well) have quite different headings, and I recall we were worried about ''Transformers Animated'' causing problems with all the 'Animated continuity' headings on character pages. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 07:08, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
:I think we had decided on using "cartoon" instead of "animated." So use "cartoon continuity," or for those who appear in more than one cartoon continuity, use "Generation 1 cartoon continuity," "Beast Wars cartoon continuity," etc. --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 07:13, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
::Can we have Diagnostic Drone change all occurrences of "Animated continuity" to "Cartoon continuity"? That'll require some cleanup in the Animated articles, but there are far fewer of those than there are of G1 subjects that are currently mislabeled. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 17:54, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

== Section-title master list ==

I've made a sandbox for the purpose of assembling a [[User:Jackpot/Sandbox/Sections|master list of all section titles]], their relation to each other, and their proper wording/formatting. Please discuss; I've introduced some new ideas, and I'd love to see a consistent guide established. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 01:04, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
:Wow, I think this really look nice and useful. ;D --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 03:44, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

== "First go here! Next go here." ==
I was thinking a bit about the various problems we've got around here -- stuff like incomplete image descriptions, orphaned articles, etc. There's really no one central place where a newcomer (or a regular who feels like doing something useful but doesn't know what) can go to find a quick list of things that need doing. The current help pages just send you to the list of articles in need of creation, which is kind of daunting, especially for a newcomer who has to learn a million standards and Wikia tags. Is there a more comprehensive way to point people in the direction of useful things they could be doing? Whatever it might be, it should include links to:
* Pages in need of creation
* Orphaned pages
* Stubs
* Pics needed
* Any current projects, like the Beast Wars one. Hell, I couldn't find that thing if my life depended on it.
...as well as a note about common problems: dead/missing storylinks, incomplete image descriptions, and whatever else. (Heck, who knows? Maybe it could even distract an IP person long enough to prevent them from screwing with captions.... ahh, who'm I kidding?} -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 21:51, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

:There are some of those things catalogued [[Special:Specialpages|here]], but I think making links to the most important of these categories, and placing them together in one easy-to-find link off the main page, would be best. Perhaps on the Help contents page, since it's linked right off the main page already, in the most logical location? I think that link is a bit small, for what it's worth. --[[User:Sntint|Sntint]] 22:09, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
::One of the projects in the back of my head is a help-page/guide specifically breaking down the creation of character pages, plus the use of "common templates" for them (disambigs, stubs, notes). I'll see if I can scrounge up some time to rough-copy one. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 22:56, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

==Other Maintenance Templates?==
I haven't had much time to do more "substantial" wiki edits lately, but I've been prepping for later with the charstub sub-categories. Fiction really isn't my bag... I mean, I know it in general, but not issue titles and numbers and bla bla. But I figure it's also nice to have the "really needs a lot of stuff" pages separated from the "just needs some stuff in one subsection" ones, especially once I can make a concentrated effort to update the toy sections of various pages. I've been thinking about other similar "needs maintenance" template/categories, but I thought I'd bring it up here since I'm not sure who else might make use of them... 
I've noticed quite a lot of pages missing storylinks. I'm not intending on going through a big wiki-wide hunt, but as I go through the stubs and other pages doing little maintenance and tweaks, well, I think I'd like to be able to mark pages I come across that are missing those links they should have. Picture and quote? Isaac Sumdac and/or Tutorbot, "I cannot believe I programmed you with such simplistic information!" (Idea courtesy of Trent Troop.) 
I'd swear there was another one, but right now, too tired to think of it and must sleep. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 06:53, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
:Perhaps a tag for a page with too many damn redlinks for concepts that will never need articles?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 07:08, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
::I don't think that will be neccessary, as it's a simple matter of removing the [[ and <nowiki>]]</nowiki>s. Storylinks, though, require some research. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 15:40, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
:::I usually label such pages with <nowiki>{{stub|storylinks}}</nowiki>. [[User:JW|JW]] 15:44, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
::::Trick is, often they're not really stubs, are they? the main info is there, there's just not a "where'd this happen?" link. And maybe it's the data-manager in me that says this, but I think it'd be a lot easier to have a common problem like lack of storylinks as a category all its own, all together for easy identification and maintenance. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 16:11, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

== Disambiguation ==

We need a consensus on hiw we handle disambuigation in article titles. We've had some moving between [[Silverbolt (BW)]] and [[Silverbolt (Fuzor)]], and [[Dirge (Timelines)]] and [[Dirge (Whatever the Botcon 05 set was)]] because there are two Silverbolts in BW and two Dirges in Timelines. However, since one of those Dirges and one of those Silverbolts are G1 characters, the (BW) and (Timelines) tags are fine for the other two. The tags are simply for keeping the articles separate; not for telling you what continuity they're in. Plus, (Timelines) is much easier to type than "(Botcon boxset name I can't remember)". --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 23:35, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

:Somewhat related to the discussion at [[Talk:Starscream (Timelines)]]. My personal criteria is that a name used for two (or more) characters in the same toyline requires more specific disambiguation, regardless of the characters' origin, because readers shouldn't be expected to remember whether some character was already in another toyline. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 23:51, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

::So... what should disambigs be?
:# Distinguished ''only'' when strictly necessary. "Silverbolt (BW)" is fine because, while there were 2 Silverbolt toys in the BW Toyline, the other one is actually Silverbolt (G1)- so only one entry is trying 'sits' in the (BW) disambig, and no more specific disambing is needed. Parenthetical disambigs should be the broadest possible category the article can sit in without conflicting with another article, (usually a continuity family or franchise.) Absolutely no 'bumping' of disambigs as a concession to aesthetics.
:# Distinguished on a logical basis. "Silverbolt (Fuzor)" because there are two Silverbolts in the BW toyline, and the article title should not allow for confusion between the two.
:# Providing continuty info. A hypothetical new character Roller in the 2008 Universe line would be "Roller (Classic)" not "Roller (Universe)"-- so that the article title doesn't mislead people into thinking he's part of the 2004 Universe continuity.
::My problem with #2 ''and'' #3 is that the diambig isn't supposed to convey that information. The first line of the article, right below the title does. It will say 'Silverbolt is a Fuzor in the Beast Wars continuity family...' or 'Roller is a Ultracon in the Classics portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.'
::We are currently usign method #1. I oppose a change to methods 2 or 3 for the following reasons:
:# The '''first line''' of the article already supplies the information that solutions 2 & 3 would seek to add- and does it ''better.''
:# Implementing 2 or 3 would make it harder for ''editors'' to know where article are sitting ("I know there was only one Silverbolt in BW, why is my link to Silverbolt (BW) broken?")
:# The purpose of the parenthetical disambigs is not to convey info- it is to keep articles with the same title from sitting in the same namespace. Attempting to make disambigs convey information actually ''adds ambiguity'', because it would force the the locations the articles sit in to become ''less'' standard.
::Let diambigs be disambigs. If we want to make continuity notes clearer or more prominent, we can look at revising our approach to '''them'''. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 00:41, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

::We already have [[Help:Disambiguation]] to more or less lay this out. (I've just made a couple small changes to it for clarification.) There is going to be no simple rule of thumb which leads to tbe best results in every case, so make the parenthetical as brief and clear as you can. Derik is correct that the purpose of the parenthetical is to give the articles different names so the database doesn't get confused. To help out editors when we make links, it is good for them to be short and easy to remember. --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 21:35, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

So, should we move [[Silverbolt (Fuzor)]] and [[Dirge (Decent into Evil)]] and the mirrorverse guys back to [[Silverbolt (BW)]], [[Dirge (Timelines)]] and [[mirrorverse guys (Timelines)]]? --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 22:42, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
:Wait to see if others have strong feelings/argument first. (We have a policy, but it's subject to conseunsus, remember? Also- I think I wrote most of that page so my point of view is unfairly over-represented there.) ''On review, no, apparently this is one policy page I '''didn't''' write. ...why can't I tell Steve-o's writing apart from my own? Scary. :~(
:Personally I say emphatically yes on Dirge, indifferent affirmative on Silverbolt, and wait and see on the Shattered Glass pages. We don't now where/if they fit in existing continuity. There's no point in movinf them a half-dozen times while arguing about unknowables. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 23:13, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

== Pages about fan sites ==

Is there a policy about this? I wanted to add TF Pulp, but I didn't see any other TF sites on here at all, so I figured I should ask first.
{{unsigned|Might Gaine|2008-02-27T14:04:54}}

:We don't give unofficial sites their own articles. You can link to information on TF Pulp from appropriate pre-existing articles, though. That sort of thing enhances the wiki by allowing people to find further information on the topics they are reading about. Just put it into an "External links" section right before the categories. --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 21:18, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

==Cartoon episode title cards redundancy==
Why are we moving towards using the title cards of episodes for the main/starting picture of episode articles? Isn't it redundant to have a boring screenshot with the name of the episode placed next to...... the name of the episode in the actual article itself? Wouldn't it be more interesting to do what we have been doing, and use a screen capture that somehow encapsulates the whole episode, or shows a pivitol point in it that sticks in our memory? --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 02:55, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
:I've wondered the same thing myself, but figured it was a done deal. I too support the "memorable/encapsulating moment" approach. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 03:04, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
::Uh... I'm sorry, I think I started it. ;-) When I was doing some early RiD ep stubs I threw in the titlecards because the early episodes were boring as sin. I think McFeely did it for the JP eps because they tend to have those painterly titlecards...
::Really, it's just something you do if there isn't a ''good'' representative image. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 17:39, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
:::Like Code of Hero (an article that needs a major overhaul itself), I originally put an image of Dinobot's sword lying on the deck of his quarters, because it looked poignant. Did the same for various other Beast Wars episodes. Then Interrobang replaced them all with screencap of the title screens. Gah. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 07:05, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::So tell him to stop! ;) -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 07:58, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::Sigh. I did it because I like consistency, even with Japanese series. "Dinobot's sword on the ground" might be your favoritest image ever but it's the odd duck out now. (It also looks terrible due to the artifacting brought about by needlessly screwing with the brightness and contrast.) [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 08:36, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::::Consistency is Victory- but Transformers Victory was incredibly boring. (Victory Gundam was pretty good though...) [[The Weak Component]], [[Survivor]] and [[End of the Line]] all have virtually ''identical'' title screens- an aerial shot of the Cybertropolis spaceport. That sucks— I'd much rather have an iconic image from each episode. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 10:07, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::::::I agree. Using iconic images is really good for the most episode guides, such as [[Code of Hero]], [[The Weak Component]], and several [[B.O.T. (episode)|others]], especially "Code of Hero" and "The Weak Component" are great and good examples. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 13:38, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::::Personally, I started doing for the Japanese series for the reason Derik gives, because it was usually a unique image made for the title card, or a good one that's representative of the episode. There were some duds, but... consistency. And then... ''Masterforce'' started to do really, ''really'' boring ones, and I was about to give up, then it occurred to me to start using the image from the next-ep preview, which proved a winner in most cases (in fact, I may yet go back and change swap out some of the title-card images with these, if it's a better option). The mention of Victory here amuses me, though, 'cause it's a good example of title cards being boring - it's the same two images of Star Saber and Deathsaurus, rotated in and out, for the whole series. I've used them for the first two episodes just to get them on show, but I plan to use the title-images from the next-episode previews for this one. I mean, when I wake up from the dullness-inducing stupor that Victory induces. - McFeely, at work
::::::::I reverted Dinobot's sword back to the version I uploaded. As I had not viewed the page much since last year, I didn't realize that Repowers tried to brighten it up for some reason - that moment is supposed to focus on the sword, not the room. And it's the 'odd duck out' now because some people have been replacing whatever had served as the main image with the title card. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 12:24, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::I brightened it because, when it's reduced for the actual episode page where most people are going to see it, you can't tell what the heck you're looking at. Right now it looks a little bit of vague white stuff in darkness. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 13:36, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::::::::Vaat? I can see if plenty fine there, unless you're using a very, very high resolution that makes everything tiny. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 13:54, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::::Could be my home monitor, which is HUGE. It does look more discernable from a work computer, though IMO it could still stand to be a tad brighter. -- [[user:repowers|repowers]], not signed in
I've changed my mind on this situation after mulling it over. A winner is FNN. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 03:31, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
:FNN sounds even more like a Simon Furman sound effect than FFN :D --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 04:26, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
::You clearly changed your name after I replied. There's no another answer. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 04:33, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
:::Hnh. FNN never DID want to live forever. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 04:55, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

==Help/policy page namespaces==
As part of the help/policy page revamp I plan to do... eventually... I kind of want to consolidate the pages all into a single namespace. Right now we have [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=12 a bunch of stuff] in the Help namepsace, and [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=4 a bunch of other stuff] in the Transformers Wiki (aka "meta") namespace. This is needlessly confusing. I vastly prefer "Help" for the purposes of typing it all the time, but, the meta namespace is more general purpose and standard... and possibly required for some pages like the title blacklist. So I am inclined to shuffle all the Help namespace pages over to the meta namespace. Does anybody have an opinion on this? --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 17:37, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
:Help seems fine to me. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 17:45, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

== "The Battlestars" page disappeared ==

When the "Battlestar" (team) page got changed to "Battlestars", then "The Battlestars" page, which was the manga, disappeared. What happened? --[[User:Might Gaine|Might Gaine]] 13:36, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
:I don't think that page actually existed in the first place. It was a red link before any moving was done - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 14:04, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
::Hmm. My bad. --[[User:Might Gaine|Might Gaine]] 15:01, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

==Comic character box format Part IV==
I believe we should change it from 'Major characters' to 'Featured characters' like we do in the cartoon recap articles. Doing it as 'Major characters' means writers of these comic articles will just not bother list the incidental characters, such as humans, even ones with dialogue, and if any of these characters have articles, they become orphaned articles. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 06:32, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
:Well I have gone thru nearly the entire U.S. Marvel series and I think I've included just about everyone who had a speaking line, except for folks who were un-named and such. If someone wants to change from "major" to "featured", it doesn't matter to me, but I'm not gonna go thru all 80 issues again and do it. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:18, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
::I was concerned because I was looking for the article for that [[Professor Goring]] guy from [[Spotlight: Shockwave]] so I could update the article. To my surprise, Shockwave didn't link or even name him, and somebody had eliminated the 'human' column altogether because evidently we only dealt with 'major' characters. Essentially, Goring's article became orphaned. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 20:32, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
:::Well that was dumb; he should indeed be re-added. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:39, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
:::Uh, yeah. That's not good. I support the change to "Featured" not just for this... but let's face it, this wiki is not simply about "Major" characters. The vast wealth of non-major character information is what makes this wiki great, and we should make sure that they are properly linked to so people can find them, even if they weren't looking. "Oh, hey, who's this?" --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 20:39, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
::::MistaTee, well sometimes even unnamed characters can be interesting enough to warrant their own articles if they are interesting in some way/stand out in some way. After all, we have an entire category devoted to unnamed characters. So I think they should have been mentioned in the article in some way. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 04:45, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::Oh, I agree, and if I've missed any, please feel free to add. I do think the 80 issues I've updated is a lot better than they were before though. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 13:58, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::Of course. Is there article template pages somewhere on this wiki or are we copy pasting every time we write a new article? --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 14:07, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::::I've just been going through the Stormbringer articles, and I was ''not at all'' happy with the with the way characters who didn't have significant dialogue (such as ''every'' Pretender besides Bludgeon) were for the most part not even mentioned in the articles. I assume the original writer of these articles just didn't know who they were, but frankly it's just sloppy considering the information available on this wiki even in 2006. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 14:38, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::::I believe I reformatted them to the new format, but just copied the character list from what was there. When I get the chance to re-read, I will add in the others, if someone doesn't beat me to it. Oh, and I am copying and pasting from the previous article, but trying to be consistent. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 15:31, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

:So... what becomes of the former "minor characters" list? Do we even care about those dudes? Take [[Totaled!]] for example -- almost every Earth Autobot to date appears in the story (and most of the Decepticons), but the page currently lists only the speaking ones. Gods help the poor soul who decides to take that task on, but when some nobody like Air Raid makes a rare appearance in the comics, it seems worth noting. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 15:25, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
::IMO, I think those characters should perhaps be in a cameos section, a subset of "Items of note". But I sure as hellz am not going thru the whole Marvel series again to do that. Someone else can have a go at it. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 15:31, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

==Navigation boxes for shared US/UK stories==
I wish I'd noticed [[user:MistaTee|MistaTee]]'s changes to the Marvel US navigation boxes sooner, but that's water under the bridge now. When I set the boxes up, I deliberately left out certain links at points where the continuities split and come back together. The point was that there would be no duplicate links in the box. One hopes that the reader following the UK chain will be smart enough to figure out that the only "Next" link shown will lead to the next step in the chain. This goes double for US stories that have the same Next and Previous links for the UK. Why do the same links need to be duplicated?

Compare:
* [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Cold_War%21&oldid=129298 Old version of Cold War]. There's no "next" for the UK spot, 'cause it would just be the same as the US "next" link.
* [[Cold War!|current version of Cold War!]] - two "next" links are identical.

Also compare:
* [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Dark_Star%21&oldid=152775 Old version of Dark Star!] - no extraneous info.
* [[Dark Star!|Current version of Dark Star!]] - ''two'' redundant links.

To sum up my take on current version:

Minus:
* Redundant links add to confusion
* Double nav box is ugly and should be avoided when possible

Plus:
* Lists UK publication number right up front
* Consistent format for all US issues.

But I've never been one to favor consistency at the expense of practicality. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 17:54, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

:Now see, I didn't like '''not''' having a next for the UK, even if it's the same as the US one. What I think we really need is a revision of the nav box, and maybe have some more options. First, I think there should be a separator line between the US and UK nav. Secondly, maybe some logic could be programmed in so that IF "next2"="next" THEN it would say "same as U.S. version" or something along those lines. Same for the "prev"/"prev2" naturally. Thoughts? --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 18:10, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
::That sounds like an excellent trade-off -- it gets rid of the bothersome parts while keeping the good bits. Uhhh.... anybody have any idea how to do it? The coding of these things is an utter mystery to me. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 18:20, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

== How to spell Malay. ==

Hello everyone, I've noticed that on the 'English/Malay' dubs, people have spelt word 'Malay' wrong. It doesn't have a 'y', because 'Maylay' is incorrect, so if you see any mistakes, please correct it, thank you! Also, can we not put the word crack head next to it? It's quite offensive.--[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
:It's meant in jest because the [[RTM 1 dub]] is really, really bad, as if the dubbers didn't know what the hell was going on half of the time. But we have been changing such instances to 'RTM 1 dub name:' lately. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 15:29, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
:"crack head" is describing the dubs, and with good reason. Battleship Maximus is called "Spaceship Bruce", Blaster is called "Billy", Twincast "Blaster", Metroplex "Phillip", Spike "Sparkle", Soundblaster "New Soundwave", Minevera "Nightbeat", The Matrix and Energon cubes "Power Packs, etc... --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 15:35, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
::We should probably get the drone onto the task of replacing "Maylay" with "Malay", however. [[User:JW|JW]] 15:42, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
:::I don't know about the crack head comment, it's better to avoid offending people; 'though, Spaceship Bruce is my favourite, next to Wally. Also, you got your drone right here (yay?), but do we replace it with 'English/Malay dub', or 'RTM dub'? --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
::::I fully agree with the removal of "crackhead." Frankly, it IS offensive to equate the oddities that arise from the translation of Japanese into English done by people who's first language was likely neither with being on crack. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 19:14, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::Can we leave it in for just Spaceship Bruce? The others are at least somewhat understandable, but ''Spaceship Bruce''? WTCHOP? --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 19:37, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::Sorry, but I don't wanna label another country saying it's populated by drug addicts. If it weren't for them, we wouldn't have Headmasters/Masterforce/Victory in English in the early 90's(?), and for a non-Japanese speaking country, they made a good effort. I guess you can emphasise the weirdness that is Spaceship Bruce, in his bio or the RTM page. So, 'RTM dub' or 'Englsh/Malay' dub? Technically, there was no Malay in the English dubs in the first place, so I'd go for RTM dub :) --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
:::::::It takes a real willfully oppressed state of mind to interpret that as a racial/nationalist insult. I mean, you have to really ''want'' to be offended by something, and be on the lookout for any little thing to jump on. 'Cause "crack-head" is pretty clearly referring to the ''dubs'', not the ''entire freaking country'', and I'm not sure why anyone would decide to think otherwise. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 11:32, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::::You know, crackhead is generally a term that refers to ''people'', not ''things''. As I said above, we shouldn't be seen to be equating the people who produced these dubs with crackheads because of what we perceive as humorous oddities in the translation, which are possibly just the perfectly natural result of cultural and linguistic confusion. Now it might not be an insult to the entire nation of Malaysia, but it is still, I think, a bit offensive. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 16:13, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::Well, regardless.... shouldn't it actually be the "Crackhead ''RTM-1'' dub"? -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 16:23, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::::::'Cracked-up English/Malay' dub, 'though it's not my idea, and it's not so blunt. Or the shorter 'RTM dub', since there is an [[RTM 1 dub]] page where people can redirect themselves there and elucidate the weirdness of weird names; but do we have to spell Malay with two 'y's? Maybe we can make reference to that on the RTM page again. --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
:::::::::I think 'Cracked-up English/Malay' could be used for the article such as [[Ginrai]] and [[Minerva]]('cause their RTM dub name "Optimus Prime" and "Nightbeat" were too... hilarious?), while just "RTM dub" for Fortress Maximus' Spaceship Bruce. Well, just a little opinion. :) --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 12:11, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::: Agree! :D --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]

==Trivia section image formatting==
This issue came up a while ago on [[Talk:Frenzy_%28Movie%29#Image_format|Frenzy's talk page]]. There were opnions both ways, and it wasn't really resolved. The issue is, should images in trivia sections alternate left-right, or be all on one side?

Part of the trouble with alternating sides is that it kills the bullet points. A double bullet has to be inserted for it to show up, and then there's some ambiguity over which bullets should be doubled and which left single. Dpouble bullets can also cause images to overlap the text.

Several folks said there's a lot of ugly white space when the images are stacked on one side. I see it just the opposite on my (admittedly gigantic) screen, with every image having a big empty white space below it when they alternate sides. Apparently it's got something to do with monitor resolution, so there might not be a solid answer. But --

I'd ''love'' so see some screencaps from folks showing how they see things on their monitors. It's a little hard to understand this problem without seeing it from other people's POV.

I started a little Sandbox at [[:user talk:repowers/Sandbox2]] with two different versions of Frenzy's trivia. The first one stacks all the images at the top. Does this work for people on lower monitor resolutions, or does it still look like crap? With them all stacked at the front, I don't see how they could have any white space, regardless of monitor resolution. On my screen, it looks very neat and tidy, while the second one is messy. See:

[http://www.builtstlouis.net/tf/frenzy1.jpg Stacked] 
[http://www.builtstlouis.net/tf/frenzy2.jpg Alternating]

Thoughts and input welcomed. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 01:36, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

:Alternating does kind of suck now. I've been putting pics all on the right side where there are bullet points since Wikia updated their software... an update which covered single bullet points if you put an image on the left side of the screen. I suggest cutting down on images in Trivia, since most users here have smaller monitors and use lower resolutions. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 05:44, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
::I think the easiest answer is to just remove the head images. They're essentially redundant and don't really add anything to the reader's understanding. I'd call for a general limit on how many images you can stuff into a section. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 06:27, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
:::I'd remove the head images from the article proper... but then make a text link to them within the relevant paragraph so people can see them anyway if they want to. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 06:35, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
::::That works. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 07:11, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

== Foreign name format ==
I just found the foreign names doesn't have an unified format.
:For example, some are
::''Hungarian name:'' '''Kerék''' ("Wheel"(with or without ""))
:others are
::''Hungarian name'': '''Kerék''' (meaning Wheel(or "Wheel"))

I suggest we could use an unified format like the below:
:<nowiki>:''Foreign name 1:'' '''Name A''' (Form A), '''Name B''' (Form B)</nowiki>
:<nowiki>:''Foreign name 2:'' '''Name''' ("English meaning")</nowiki>

Take [[Hot Rod]] for example, it will look like:
:''Japanese name:'' '''Hot Rodimus''' (Hot Rod), '''Rodimus Convoy''' (Rodimus Prime)
:''Hungarian names:'' '''Nagyágyú''' ("Hot ''Shot''"), '''Rodimusz Fővezér''' ("Prime Commander Rodimus")

Thoughts and idea are welcomed :) --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 09:09, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
:I don't have a strong opinion on how the international names are standardized, but I strongly agree that they should be. I nominate someone else to go through and do it. -[[User:LV|LV]] 21:40, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

== Wookiepedia has a darn nifty interface ==

What would it take for us to create something similar but Transformers-y?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:36, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
:I think the admins were adament that we keep a simple, bare-bones default look to the TF wiki, in keeping with our 'let's not take this stuff too seriously' attitude and tone. At least that's what I remember them saying when I suggested an orange layout like what Teletraan I looked like in the cartoon. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 09:34, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
::The current Wookieepedia also doesn't seem to want to cooperate with my comp here at work. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 18:27, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

==Characters lacking visuals category?==
It's dawned on me that there are actually quite a few characters who don't have any form of visual representation. They may have been described, but there are no ''pictures''. While a bulk of these are from prose stories, there's several who were simply mentioned by name in comics, or in external sources (Key Code info, S7 site, etc). More than enough to justify a category. 
I think that maybe there should also be a template/visual for this to call attention to this fact on the page right up front. I'm thinking a variation on the current <nowiki>{{mainpic}}</nowiki> template... a silhouette, (different from the mainpic one) and some text saying "This character has no known official visual depiction" or something. Anyone? --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 18:33, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
:Well, for the characters with the mainpic template, the idea is that the mainpic image is there as a placeholder, and to annoy people into tracking down an image.
:However, characters that have never had any visual depiction, and are unlikely to ever get one, don't need a placeholder for their image, and the template will just pointlessly take up room. I'm against the template, but I think the category is a good idea, and will suffice to identify these characters. [[User:JW|JW]] 18:44, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
::I disagree. The point is specifically to call attention to their lack of imagery, so nobody thinks "maybe they do have an image". And considering how little there ''is'' to most of those characters, a little extra visual pizzaz to their pages can't hurt. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 19:06, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
:::''so nobody thinks "maybe they do have an image"'' Are you intending to convey that message to ''editors,'' or casual users? Editors will, in theory, know enough to look for the category. I'm not sure casual users need to have the point brought to their attention.
:::And, it's not like we have scads of frantic editors running around trying to find pics for characters who have only appeared in prose. This may be a solution without a problem. [[User:JW|JW]] 19:27, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

== Timelines disambuig ==

There doesn't seem to be a consensus on how to name the various Timelines articles.

I feel that any disambiguation in the article title should be limited to keeping the articles separate. For instance, [[Optimus Prime (Shattered Glass)]] should be at [[Optimus Prime (Timelines)]] unless there is another Optimus Prime who's first appearance in anything was in Timelines. G1 Prime appearing in the 2007 Timelines comic does not affect this, as he is already at [[Optimus Prime (G1)]]. If G1 Prime being in a Timelines comic affected this, we would need to move [[Cyclonus (Armada)]] to [[Cyclonus (Armada whatever size class he is)]] because a version of G1 Cyclonus appeared in ''Worlds Collide''. The only reason to include the set name in the article title is ''two'' separate characters who first official anything is in ''Timelines''. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 17:18, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

== Shattered Expectations ==

Um, shouldn't those[[Deathsaurus|1]][[Bug Bite|2]] who appear in ''[[Shattered Expectations]]'' have their own page like others[[Optimus Prime (Timelines)|1]][[Grimlock (Timelines)|2]] even their counterparts' article would be short? --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 06:28, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
:I brought this up on [[Category_talk:Mayhem_Suppression_Squad]]. As I said there, I think they should either get their own articles or if that's not warranted just be covered on the Mayhem Suppression Squad article. Either way, I don't think "Shattered Expectations" fiction sections belong on the normal-verse guys' pages. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 07:08, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

==Monaco skin==

Hi -- Have you guys seen the new Monaco skin that's being used on Wikia now? You can see it at [[w:c:muppet|Muppet Wiki]] and [[w:c:marveldatabase|Marvel Database]].

As we've been rolling the skin out across Wikia, there are a few things that we've found when wikis switch to Monaco:

* The number of pageviews goes up. The flyout menus encourage new readers to explore the content on the site, and people end up sticking around on the site for longer.

* The number of new editors goes up. Readers spend more time on the site, and find pages that they want to contribute to. Also, the design makes the edit button more prominent.

* The site is faster. There were some changes made last week to Monaco that make pages load a lot faster than Monobook. Hit "random page" a few times on a Monaco wiki, and you'll see what I mean.

So I'm going around and proselytizing to the Entertainment wikis that are still using Monobook. If you want to make a custom Monaco skin like Marvel Database and Wookieepedia have, I can help you make that happen. What do you guys think? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:31, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

:Monaco does look nice, though it might go against what I understand is the wiki's purpose, which is to be quick and dirty, no fancy stuff and no pretention that this wiki is in any way officially endorsed or serious. At least that's the gist of what I was told after I previously suggested we could make the default colour of this wiki a shade of orange, like the computer systems in the original Transformers cartoons. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 23:16, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

::Yeah, we don't have to do a custom skin -- it could be the basic blue and white. I'm mostly interested in the improved functionality. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 23:24, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Eh, if it makes the place ''easier'', I don't think the "pure and simple" folks will object.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 23:26, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

And truth be told, I think the main dealbreaker here might be the extent to which Suki and Derik may or may not have farted about with tweaking Monobook. I know they've both made alterations, but I don't know quite what.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 23:34, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

:That stuff won't be affected at all. We can copy Monobook.css over to Common.css, and all of the tweaks that they made will still work. No problems. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 23:52, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

My biggest concern is the menus. The "by series" list could easily fill the entire vertical direction of the screen. We don't actually have all the series listed on the main page now (Machine Wars, Dinobots, Timelines, Universe (2008), not to mention licenced lines like Animorphs, SWTF, Crossovers).--[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 00:45, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

:Well, the idea with the menus is to be selective rather than comprehensive. It's not supposed to be a complete sitemap for the wiki -- you just want to give the new readers something to click on first.

:On [[w:c:Muppet|Muppet Wiki]], we put up the most popular Muppet Show and Sesame Street characters, and then a link to "More characters". We just want to entice people into making that first click, without overwhelming them with choices.

:I have access to click-through data for the Monaco menus, so it's possible to run some tests. You could put up a set of menus for a few days, and then I'll be able to tell you which items are getting clicked. That way, you could refine the menus so that you could highlight the items that are most likely to get clicked on. I've been doing that with the Muppet menus, and it's fun to see what the readers are actually interested in reading about. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 23:34, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

::So what do you guys think? I'd like to help you switch over to the new skin... -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 19:10, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
:::For some reason none of the admins have chimed in. I assume they're all off doing useless things like living in Real Life. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 21:10, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

::::Yeah, I left messages for Chris and ItsWalky... -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:12, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::You might want to leave messages for [[User:Suki Brits]] and [[User:Steve-o]] as well. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 13:28, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Well admins? Let's hear your opinions! I find the silence from the staff to be discouraging. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 16:18, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

If there's an actual interest in switching over to Monaco, then I would certainly have nothing against that... but I'd definitely like to hear more from the community first. Aside from that, I have no objections speaking as an admin; the modifications really aren't an issue. On the other hand, speaking as a wiki editor and professional web designer... I would definitely want to use a modified version, as it's got several pretty important issues. My thoughts, in no particular order:
* Search is nigh useless, again. Right now it resembles our ''broken'' Monobook search. I don't think that's a good thing. On the other hand, I'm currently working on fixing that anyway, so it's not like the same couldn't be done for Monaco.
* The header sucks. It really, really does. It's only 150px tall, but it sends a pretty powerful message: we'd rather show you this pretty, irrelevant picture then let you immediately get to article. ''I'' would want the top of the article as close to the top as possible.
:: Gah, I brought it over into another browser that doesn't block ads... and now I see why it's so obnoxiously huge. I am ''strongly'' opposed to putting giant hideous banner ads at the top of everything. Like, it's a little insulting that Wikia really thinks that ''that'' should be the first thing readers see. Teletraan I, like everything else on Wikia, is naturally ad-driven; but Monobook isn't offensive about it.
* The language selection is in a dropdown box, which is a TERRIBLE idea. This personally doesn't affect me, as I don't speak Hungarian, but it's pretty awful for anyone who actually is interested in seeing foreign language versions of articles... and has to click a dropdown menu on every single page if they're curious.
* The "community" box is really unhelpful. Half the content (user page, user talk, etc.) is redundant with the top of the screen, and absolutely nobody is interested in just the most recent two edits. That just leaves the number of articles. This is a lot of wasted room for nothing.
* I ''do'' like that the obnoxious sidebar on the right is gone. The current framing in Monobook wastes all sorts of space and Monaco definitely doesn't ''look'' like it has that problem.
There's also a bunch of minor things, but they don't really matter so much. The big issues are the useless space, a need to do major fixes to search, and the huge obtrusive banner ads (as opposed to the ones on the side in Monobook). But if Wikia's really willing to work with us on it, then by all means, it's up to what the community thinks. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 20:48, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

:I've been around the Wookieepeedia lately, and I've noticed when you click edit, it loads significantly slower on Monaco than it does on the Monobook format. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 05:25, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

::Hi guys -- Sorry it took me so long to respond. I'll make up for it with a super-long answer. :)

::Yes, absolutely -- I want to work with you on this. Some of the things you've raised I can clear up immediately. For some, I can explain the rationale behind the approach, and show you some stats that may help. And if there are some things that need to get tweaked, I can talk to the designers & tech folks to see if we can come up with a solution.

::Just so you know: I work for Wikia now, but I started out in 2005 as the founder of [[w:c:muppet|Muppet Wiki]]. Working on wikis is my job now, but Muppet Wiki is where my heart lives, so I'm always looking out for what's going to help or hurt "my wiki". I am/was a big Monobook fan, and I was skeptical about Monaco as it was being designed. The thing that made me a Monaco fan was actually trying it out on Muppet Wiki, and then looking at the stats to see how it was working. Muppet Wiki and Teletraan I are very similar -- about a dozen really active contributors, a strong admin team and a community of about 60-80 contributors. So I can share with you what I saw on Muppet Wiki, and what I can see in the pageviews stats.

::First up, the rationale behind some of the decisions made with the new skin. There are some features on the new skin that the most active editors think are useless, like the Community box or the flyout menus. And it's true, those aren't very helpful for the active contributors. They're designed for the anonymous/new people, who are the vast majority of our readers.

::Here's the stats on unique visits for Teletraan I. (Unique visits counts the number of visits to a site, and not the number of pages you look at in each visit. So if you come to the wiki and look at 100 pages, that counts as one unique.) In the last month, there have been 2,725,000 anonymous visits, and 261,000 logged-in user visits. That means 91% of the visits to the site aren't logged-in contributors.

::Logged-in editors make 77% of the edits here, so obviously we're the people who are actually building the content that people are reading. Logged-in editors are important, and the dozen people who make over 100 edits here every month are especially important. Still, if you want to make the community bigger and more active, then you have to think about whether the design of the site encourages anonymous users to sign in and become active members.

::The purpose of designing the new skin was to make the wiki more accessible to the 91% of anonymous readers. Obviously, we have to keep the functionality that the active contributors need in order to build the wiki. At the same time, we have to be aware that the Monobook skin that we're familiar with is kind of confusing for brand-new people.

::For example, the "log in" button is in really small type at the very top right of the screen. From a website design perspective, that's crazy -- it's like we don't want people to find it. The log-in buttons on Monaco are big, green, candy-like buttons. There's one at the top right, and there's another one in the Community box on the sidebar. We want to encourage people to log in.

::In general, having all the important Monobook controls in little bitty tiny type says: We hate people who are older than 40. ("Go back to AOL, old man!") All of the Monobook buttons are in the same font, from the crucial stuff like "Log in" and "Edit this page" to the more obscure controls like "Related changes" and "Permanent link". On Monaco, the stuff that's important to brand-new users is bigger -- log-in, edit, the link to the home page. The search box is at the top, rather than being buried down in the sidebar. The controls that logged-in users need, like "What links here" and "Special pages", are in smaller type -- they're important to us, but a brand-new user wouldn't know what to do with them.

::Okay, so that's my very long introduction... Now I'll respond to the points that you guys have brought up.

::'''Search''': I think when you say that search is broken, you mean that there's just a "Go" button and not a "Search" button next to the search box. (If you mean something else, then let me know.) That's true, and it's something that I struggled with as the design for Monaco was taking shape. I use the Search button all the time, and I was frustrated that it wasn't included. Then I looked at the stats. On Teletraan I in the last month, logged-in users used Go for 91% of searches, and Search for 9%. Anonymous users used Go for 97% of searches. Given that, I think it's okay to make the Search button less prominent. I remember when I first started using wikis, I was totally confused by having two buttons. (Do I want to Go or Search? Well, I want to search, and then go to the search results...) I only figured out the difference through trial and error. So in Monaco, the search box at the top is Go, and then you can have a link to [[Special:Search]] in the toolbox. (Some wikis have that, and some don't -- Muppet has it, if you want to see how it works.)

::'''Community box''': That's one of the features that's designed to encourage brand-new users to explore the site. When you look at a wiki as a new reader, it's not always apparent that there's a community there. You read pages, but you don't necessarily know whether the articles were written today or a year ago. (Unless you look at Recent changes, which a brand-new reader doesn't know to do.) The Community box is designed to bring a little taste of the community activity up to their view. It's not a helpful way for a contributor to keep track of Recent changes, but it does show new people that something's going on. If you come to the site and see that somebody edited a page 15 seconds ago, then you understand that there's an active community. On Muppet Wiki in the last month, 1,404 anonymous readers logged in using the button in the Community box, 1,539 anon readers clicked the "more..." button to go to Recent changes, and 1,287 clicked on article links that they saw in the Latest Activity area. Those are readers who may not have been engaged with the site if they hadn't seen the activity going on in the Community box. On the other hand, logged-in contributors only clicked in the Community box 350 times. It's not designed for us; it's for the 91% of anons.

::'''Obnoxious ads''': This is the one area that's designed to help the company rather than the wiki. Basically, the deal is that Wikia doesn't make a lot of money from the "skyscraper" ads on the right sidebar. Nobody clicks on them, and most advertisers don't bother to make ads like that anymore. Advertisers want banner ads, and they want them at the top of the page. I can't justify this one in wiki terms, except to say that if we want Wikia to stay in business and continue to host wikis, then we need to change the skin to accommodate the changing ad market. Otherwise, there won't be a Wikia after a while.

::'''Languages drop-down''': We changed the list into a drop-down menu because sites like Wookieepedia had a long list, which took up a lot of sidebar space, and only had about 100 clicks on language links in a month. On Teletraan I, there have only been 2 clicks on the language links since October.

::'''Content space''': There is slightly less content area on Monaco when you first come to the page. The sidebar is smaller than the combined left & right Monobook sidebars, so the content area is wider. The banner ad means that the height takes a hit for the first screen. As you scroll down, though, the Monaco content area is bigger than on Monobook, because the page is wider. I can show you some screencaps if you want more info on this.

::'''Slow edits on Wookieepedia''': That looks like a bug that's specific to Wookieepedia... I'm not sure what's going on there. It looks like when you hit edit on Wookiee, it's looking for something from maps.google, and that can slow down the page load for the edit screen. I hadn't seen that before, so I'm really glad you pointed it out. That's not affecting other Monaco wikis like Muppet Wiki or Marvel Database, so there must be something in Wookieepedia's css that's causing that. I'll look into it. If you look at Muppet or Marvel, you'll see that the page load is lightning fast right now. (Not counting periods of site-wide database problems, which affect every skin.)

::So anyway -- this is a huge long post, but I think I responded to everything. As you can tell, I take this stuff really seriously, and I'm willing to put in the time to research the impact and explain what's going on. Do folks have other questions or concerns about Monaco? I could keep talking about this stuff all day. :) -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 17:33, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

:::Personally, as regular contributor, I'm fine with switching to Monaco, so long as we get to keep our new 'random page thumbnail' above the search box (or anywhere, really). I think it's useful for visitors to be able to visit a random page with an interesting thumbnail image rather than simply doing random searches or hitting Random page repeatedly. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 17:44, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

::::I knew there was something I forgot to mention! Yeah, the featured page thumbnail. I think that's something that we can adapt.

::::That feature doesn't have anything to do with search -- it just happens that you can put a picture in the Monobook search box. I actually think what you've made is a little misleading. The picture says "Search" on it, and it's right above the search box -- so as a user, I would assume that if I click that, I'll get some kind of search results page. Instead, it goes to a featured article, which isn't necessarily what you'd expect.

::::The feature is really a rotating spotlight for featured articles, which is cool and visual, and helps to bring readers deeper into the content. It's a great idea. I think it would actually be more effective if it was split away from search, so readers would be more likely to recognize it as a featured-article spotlight.

::::So there are a couple ways to do that in Monaco. The easiest way would be to put it in the sidebar -- check out [[MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar]] for an example. Here's pics to show what that would look like.

<gallery>
Image:Monacosidebar1.jpg
Image:Monacosidebar2.jpg|You can update this list anytime, so you can freshen it up every day or every week. Or never.
Image:Monacosidebar3.jpg|That big green, fire-snortin' lizard must be included.
Image:Monacosidebar4.jpg|If you click on "Embrace the Knowledge", it takes you to the Allspark article. Obviously.
</gallery>

::::It's not graphical, but it allows you to bring the funny into the sidebar, which you've never been able to do before. One advantage of this approach is that you can add in new articles to the sidebar without having to wait for somebody to make a graphic.

::::If that's not enough and you need to go graphical, then I can talk to our designer, Christian, about creating a widget that can go into the sidebar and have the same function. It could sit above or below the Community box. It would be separate from search, but like I said, that may be a good thing. What do you think? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:48, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

If you want to sell this to Walky... make it orange.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 22:05, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
[[Image:Orangemonaco.jpg|thumb|250px|It could be even oranger if that would help.]]
:Does this work? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:13, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

::The brick skin has a pretty nice brown/orange thing going. That's what I'm using at the moment. --[[User:Professor Icepick|Professor Icepick]] 22:17, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
:::See, that's what was needed to get his attention. The orange will draw him, like a moth to a flame.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 22:24, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
[[Image:Monacobrick.jpg|thumb|250px|Monaco Brick, in all its dark red and orange glory.]]
::::Here's how Brick looks... -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:28, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

:::::Do it! --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 00:41, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
::::::I TOLD you guys that we should make this wiki orange (to actually look like Teletraan 1) way back before we even knew about Monaco, but you were all "We are serious business about not taking ourselves seriously". --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 06:44, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

:I don't know all that much about what can and can't be modified, but can't a number of the problems with Monobook be solved simply by changing the css or js files? I'm mainly talking about the small text size for the tabs and login. Plus, most people who edit wikies are probably familiar with Wikipedia's Monobook interface. Plus, I don't think anyone wants the trouble from the ad format being changed again. A few months ago the site started taking showing wider vertical ads, and it was awhile before the horizontal scrolling mess got cleaned up. But then again I'm the guy who uses XP's Classic Windows scheme with Windows 98's colors and icons, so I may be biased when it comes to new interfaces. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 22:41, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

::The Monobook problems can't be solved with css changes. The type size is an example, but it's really a general problem with the layout. Wiki veterans are used to Monobook, but it's not necessarily a great layout for new people. I meet people all the time who read Wikipedia, but when I ask if they've ever made an edit, they say no -- it never occurred to them. I think it's important to make wikis more accessible to new people, and we're finding that Monaco is helping people to explore the wikis and make their first edit.

::Are there other concerns that people have that I can help with? I know that this discussion has gone on a bit, and I'd hate to have it just run out of steam before it gets to a decision. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 18:15, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::It seems like there aren't any more concerns about the new skin, so I'm thinking about changing it over to Monaco tomorrow, unless someone has objections. Once it's switched over, then I can help you out with whatever customization you want. Is that cool? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 15:55, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
::::A great number of us are indisposed at [[BotCon 2008]] this weekend, but there should still be a handful of us around. So you know! --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 16:09, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::Gyah. I thought we were doing Brick?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:17, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:We can do anything you guys want... I'm just playing around for a minute to see if I can come up with something interesting. It's gonna look bad for the next five minutes... and then we can talk about what you guys want, and fix it up nice. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:21, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::Okay, never mind. That just looked bad. :) So I set it to Brick. If you guys want to change these colors, we can change them to whatever you like. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:25, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

===Apparently implemented===
Is there any way to override this that '''doesn't''' override the skins on ''every'' Wikia-hosted wiki? - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 21:19, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:Do you mean, you want to see the skin in Monobook? You can go to Preferences --> Skins, and set your preferred skin to Monobook. You can check or uncheck the box that says "Let the admins override my skin choice" to either see customized skins or not. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:27, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::Yes, I know that. My problem with that is the "This setting will follow you across Wikia." clause. I don't want to override EVERYWHERE (e.g. Memory Alpha). Just Monaco wikis. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 21:30, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::Actually, they're working on switching over to the Monaco skin on Memory Alpha too... At a certain point, pretty much every Wikia wiki is going to end up on Monaco. Is there something about Monaco that you don't like? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:43, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::::The flyouts. Certainly not the only thing - the more I look, the less I like, especially the pathetic "Latest Activity" box with a practically-camouflaged recentchanges link, and why exactly are the preferences hidden? - but they're the biggest dealbreaker. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 22:01, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::::Yeah, at first I wasn't crazy about the flyouts either. We tested out using the sidebar without the flyouts on Muppet Wiki, but then I looked at the click stats and found that they really helped new readers to find content on the wiki. The pageviews went down when we took the flyouts out. If you're interested, there's details here: [[w:c:muppet:Muppet_Wiki:Current_events#Sidebar_menus|Muppet Wiki:Current events]].

:::::The "Community" box is also something for the new users. When you first come to the wiki, you might think that it's just a static site... There's no way to know that there's a living community. The latest activity shows people that there are pages that were edited in the last couple minutes. Also, logged-out users see a log-in button in that box. For active logged-in users, a lot of these features aren't that useful. They're really aimed at the 90-something% of readers that aren't logged in. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:10, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::::::(NB: I was expanding my post at the same time you were typing, since I was spending a bit of time looking around).
::::::See, I'm not coming at it from the "guy who runs the wiki" perspective. I'm not a sysop on a Wikia wiki, so "this will boost Teh Stats" has no effect on me [perhaps that means you consider my position irrelevant. I can't help that]. Nor am I a newbie to Wikis, so again, not the target group.
::::::My problem is that (1) they require me to turn JavaScript on in the first place (strictly, add to the NoScript whitelist, but...) and (2) the click-on flyout in the top right is worse than pointless, since there's room for the links without that and it just makes preferences harder to access and (3) I hate non-click flyouts since you they will inevitably be scrolled at the wrong moment, trebly so since they're on the side rather than the top. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 22:08, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::::::I think "this will boost Teh Stats" actually matters to everybody. More readers looking at more pages = more potential contributors = a more active community = more and better content on the site. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:12, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::::::::By the way, I'm not trying to make you like the skin. Either you like it, or you don't. I'm just explaining the rationale behind some of the design decisions, so you know that it wasn't just random or malicious. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:17, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

There are three things that would make me more... reconciled... to it. I still probably won't ''like'' it, but...
#On your own "help.wikia", there's a group of links beneath the flyouts to Recent Changes/Upload/etc. They don't appear here or on most Wikia wikis (well, strictly they appear for about half a second on a Ctrl-F5, which suggests they're present but being hidden with CSS or something). They should be there as standard.
#Links to Special:Preferences and Special:Contributions/(self) should be available with a single non-flyover click, either in the "Community" box or at the top right, not in a flyover only. '''ESPECIALLY''' Special:Preferences.
#Be able to override the colour scheme on an individual wiki basis, rather than just "all or nothing" - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 22:29, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::For #1, I'm not sure why you're not seeing the toolbox links. That's an important part of the skin, and it's on every wiki. Check out the screenshots that I added above -- every wiki has links to Recent changes and Upload. If you're not seeing it, then that's a weird bug which we can try to figure out. What browser are you using? Are you only seeing the toolbox disappearing on Transformers, or on other wikis too?

::If you want it, we can put links to Preferences and Contributions in the toolbox, or in the sidebar. I don't know how to change the top header.

::Can you give me an example of what you'd like to see as far as overriding the color schemes? I think it's possible that what you want is currently possible, but I'm not sure. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:54, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::Okay, #1 was my own fault. An in-browser hack I'd done on Monobook was interacting "unpredictably" with Monaco, and had knocked that (and some minor stuff that doesn't make any difference) out of joint.
:::Okay on #2. I'd be interested to find out how many people ever use Special:Preferences on any skin(s) while you're trotting out stats...
:::On #3, basically, being able to use different (non-default) skins, or at least colour schemes from the chosen skin on different wikis without being limited to the "this will follow you across Wikia". Just because one wiki chooses to smother the page in bright pink (or orange...) doesn't mean I want to change the colour scheme on every wikia. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 23:32, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Sure, I love trotting out stats!

Here's the stats on how Transformers contributors click on those links. In the last month, there have been the following clicks:

* Watchlist: 3,114
* Contributions: 427
* User page: 213
* Talk page: 67
* Preferences: 22

So, yeah, contributions is #2 on that list, but preferences is all the way down at the bottom. Preferences is useful when you need it, but people don't need it that often.

But the hypothesis is: If you put Contributions and Preferences into a drop-down menu, people won't click on it as much, and you'll see clicks on those two items going down.

To make a comparison, I looked at Muppet Wiki editors' clicks in February (on Monobook) and in April (using Monaco).

Here's the clicks on Monobook:

* Contributions: 403 (52%)
* Watchlist: 148 (19%)
* Talk page: 132 (17%)
* User page: 83 (11.5%)
* Preferences: 4 (0.5%)

Here's the clicks on Monaco:

* Contributions: 320 (60%)
* Watchlist: 123 (23%)
* Talk page: 53 (10%)
* User page: 23 (4%)
* Preferences: 15 (3%)

The hypothesis doesn't seem to hold up. Percentage-wise, clicks on Contributions and Preferences went up using Monaco. This is a really small sample, so it's not proof of anything... but it indicates that the drop-down menu doesn't chase away clicks.

As far as seeing wikis in different skins, try choosing Monobook in your skin preferences, and keep "allow admins to override my choices" checked. Transformers isn't using a custom skin right now, so you should see this wiki in Monobook -- and you'll also see the customization on Memory Alpha, etc. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 00:19, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

==Script-style quotes==
There seems to be some disagreement on whether script-style quotes should have quotation marks or not. Personally, I strongly favor including them, for two reasons:
* Visual consistency. There's no reason not to have all the quotes in as similar a format as possible. Having some with quotation marks, and some without, ''in the same section'', seems like needless variation.
* It's... well... it's a ''quote''. We're not writing a screenplay; we're quoting something someone actually said. And a quote gets quotation marks.... fullstop. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 21:18, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

:Hmm, I'm afraid I disagree. They're simply not necessary, and they clutter the page.
:And, regardless of whether we decide to use double-quotes, can we put a stop to script-style where the quotes are are in double-quotes ''and'' italicized? {shudder} [[User:JW|JW]] 21:21, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
::The italics stuff is flat out bad formatting, no disagreement here. There's an earlier discussion about it somewhere on this page or the archives. Nobody should be adding stuff in that format anymore... I hope.
::As for double quotes... um... I have no clue what you're referring to. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 21:23, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

==Gone Too Far==
I've been alerted it's past the 30-day period for "coming soon Club stuff" non-updating. Have at it. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 22:03, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

==Searchbox improvement drive==
So now we have a very nice set of searchboxes, thanks to the lovely design work of M Sipher and the superhuman coding skills of Suki Brits. The effort of these boxes is to show the visitor all of the awesome crap we have. To do that, said cap must in fact be awesome. Unfortunately, a lot of the pages linked to by searchboxes are [[Shatterpoint|imageless]], [[T-AI|missing fiction]], or [[High Wire (Armada)|pretty much content-free]]. Thus, I propose an improvement drive of the searchbox articles. When you click on one of those suckers, try and add something. I dunno how we'd make this official, exactly... - [[User:RolonBolon|RolonBolon]] 06:49, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
:Are these images supposed to show up automatically by/around/with the actual text box in which you type your search parameters? If so, I'm not seeing them in the current Monaco skin.--[[User:Apcog|Apcog]] 14:29, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
::They don't show up in Monaco, Quartz, Cologne Blue, or any other custom theme. Just Monobook, the default. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 20:15, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Is there a way to get the search box changes to load sooner? The way it is now the custom settings for the box are the last thing to load; it uses the default settings until the google ads finish loading. This can take awhile depending on how the crappy campus wireless is acting. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 20:39, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with RolonBolon about the searchbox thing. I know we're hard up for help, but why are we spending time creating these little searchbox images using pics from God knows where, yet we've neglected to upload a single image for the actual pages these buttons lead to? Not the mention pages that have absolutely no content whatsoever.
I think we've overreached ourselves, and in the future we should only do these searchbox things for articles that are largely complete and/or have alot of content and imagery, otherwise we look really half-ass and unfocused. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 22:37, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
:Yeah, what drove it home for me was Sixtrain. I see Sixtrain in the Search box. It looks nifty, like it's his box art. I click on the article, no images. Why the heck can't we upload Sixtrain's box art when we evidently have a clear enough copy of it to make a search teaser?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 23:33, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
::I was simply making boxes using what I had on the hard drive as examples, and not everything is good quality at main-image size. I don't think we've "overreached ourselves" at all. At worst, we omit a few items from the searchbox list if their entries are that empty for a little while, OH NOES. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 00:22, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
:::I am of the opinion that a fuzzy picture that can be replaced later is better than no picture at all. It helps users know what it's talking about in the meantime, right? [[User:Spriteless|Spriteless]] 02:24, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
::::We prefer no pic/no content to a crap pic/crap content. I've been taking a break from the Wiki, but it looks like I'm going on another image safari. My scanner not working is annoying. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 06:54, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

The fact that the image is the last one on the page to load isn't just visually annoying; it for some reason also makes whatever you've typed in the search field vanish in Firefox. I've had this happen to me a bunch of times. A lesser annoyance is that the input box moves when the image appears; it would be nice if it could stay in the same place (maybe by making the whole Search box a fixed size?), as it's a bad idea to have a clickable thing that spontaneously jumps around. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 20:31, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
: The way the Search Image works right now, I'd rather not even have them. My computer has slowed down ''epically'' trying to load those images each time, and if it's a high traffic time of day, the rest of the page will basically freeze for 30 seconds or more until that search image gets around to loading. This is extremely annoying when I just need a quick peek at a page before making a link, like checking if Stormcloud is one word or two or if Whirl needs to be disambig-ed in the link. And if I try to click Search to move on to a next page too early, the Image drops down in front and shang-hais my "click", so I go there instead of being able to type in where I want to go.

: I don't like the thing at all. It's been nothing but a hassle for the last day or so. There's already a Random page button right about it -- do we really need this too? --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 00:30, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::The same thing has been happening to me lately, and I've never experienced that problem on Wookieepedia. And this is a real problem for me, as I'm actually ''supportive'' of the image icons. We may want review the system. -- [[User:SFH|SFH]] 01:30, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Though in fairness, some of that may be due to Wikia's tendency to nearly-crash every weekend. And to be honest, this weekend has been rather traffic low. I mean, seriously, did every head to BotCon a week early? -- [[User:SFH|SFH]] 02:09, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Let me know if this continues to be an issue during weekdays (well, before Thursday, anyway). If it is, I'll figure out a way to let users optionally turn them off. I've never noticed it slowing down while trying to load, and any sane browser ''shouldn't'', but if that really is happening for some users, something definitely ought to be done about it.
::::I'll also take a look at preserving the form data while the images load, because that is definitely something that really ''should'' happen, too. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 03:44, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::Things sped back up again shortly after SFH's last post, but I'll post again if it keeps happening regularly. Maybe it was just an anomaly. --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 03:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::'''Furthermore:''' I did a bit of code modification that should make the form retain anything you've typed before the images loads. You may need to do a hard refresh for the change to show up, but lemme know if that doesn't work for anyone. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 03:52, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

==Templates listing==
Is there a page editors can refer to for templates (messagebox, user notices ect) without having to go through the categories or remembering the last time somebody used it so they can copy-paste it? They seem to be unnecessarily difficult to track down. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 03:43, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
:[http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=10 here] --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 04:50, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
::My main concern was not requiring the page soley for myself, but was this page obviously linked on a help page or something somewhere that anybody could find easily? I'd personally like to see this wiki become more user-friendly. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 07:25, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Agreed, as I've [http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Transformers_Wiki_talk:Community_Portal#.22First_go_here.21__Next_go_here..22 said before on this very page]. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 15:05, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Yeah. Our lack of user friendliness might discourage people from joining up. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 17:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:What I'm worried about is that some of the other users would actually be okay with that...-- [[User:SFH|SFH]] 17:48, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::Well, last time I checked some of these other users don't own the wiki. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 09:12, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

== new template: Comicinfo ==

Please checkout [[Template:Comicinfo]]. It's a little rough around the edges, but something I think could be useful on the comics pages. Comments and suggestions are welcome.--[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 02:42, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

== Masthead ==

Okay, the old Monobook masthead doesn't look so good under Monaco. How do we change this?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:31, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
:I've looked around and seen that other wikis have already taken advantage of the extra masthead space. Question is, how do we do so, and what dimensions would the new masthead be?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 16:05, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
::Before we do anything, I would recommend keeping the masthead's filesize reasonable, because there's nothing worse than trying to load a site with a masthead image that is like a megabyte or something. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 16:22, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Oh, absolutely. I was mainly thinking perhaps something involving a 'shopping of the TFA logo, considering it'd fit the color scheme nicely. Alternatively, maybe something aping the "grid" of G1.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 16:26, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Another thought is whether it's possible for the masthead to be random/rotating. If so, it'd let us do Autobot/Decepticon versions of the same masthead (via color swap) or even rotating versions for different franchises (G1, BW, UT, etc.)--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 16:35, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

== Sidebar ==

Given that we're getting a lot of Transformers Animated traffic lately, I'd say an item in the Monaco sidebar is likely going to help direct people to the right articles.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:45, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:Okay, I put it in the sidebar. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:56, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

The more I think on it, the more it seems we'd be best served by condensing the G1 and TFA menus and instead just having one menu that's franchise navigation. I dunno. I'm a little bothered that we can't seem to get the admins to chime in on this, since they're the ones that can edit the sidebar setup the most easily.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 19:02, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:Eh. Monday after BotCon. A lot of them are probably still sleeping off their flight / drive / booze. Another reason why big changes probably shouldn't've happened this weekend. Give it a day or so. --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 19:12, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

The sidebar does need major work, and [[MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar]] is a protected page so I guess it's not just easier for admins to change it, they're the only ones who can?

The issues I have with it are:

* "Featured characters" menu still includes articles that haven't actually been Featured, as well as [[Spark]], which ''has'' been featured but is not a ''character''.
* Generation 1 and Animated are the only franchises listed.
* The G1 and Animated menus are inconsistent in the sorts of articles they list. The Generation 1 menu includes [[Autobot]] and [[Decepticon]], articles were not restricted to G1, then several high profile characters and one obscure, jokey one. The Animated menu, on the other hand, just lists the franchise's cartoon, comic, toyline, and books articles.
* The "Embrace the Knowledge" menu seems to take a bit of scattershot approach. [[Marvel Comics]] is listed, but none of the other publishers. Hasbro is there, but not Takara. With [[Mini-Con]] there, might this be a better place for the Autobot and Decepticon articles, and other factions as well?
--[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 19:55, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:[[MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar]] can only be edited by admins. That's true for all MediaWiki pages. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 20:31, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

== Hate the new skin. ==

Hate this new skin. Just wanted to say it. The old look was much more pleasent and open to read. New one is just crouded and Blah. THIS is gonna take getting use to. No Sir, I don't like it.

:Can it at least not be burgundy and orange? - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 22:08, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::Yeah, it can be any color you like. I was messing around with colors before, but wasn't doing a great job with it, and Rosicrucian said he wanted this color scheme. Any admin can change the colors by editing [[MediaWiki:Monaco.css]]. There's instructions on how to do it here: [[w:c:help:Customizing Monaco|Customizing Monaco]]. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:15, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
:::I mainly liked this because it fits with the color scheme of Teletraan itself. I'm not married to the idea, though. I also figured I'd speak up about it because Walky liked it, and he's off enjoying his ridiculously expensive Transformers collector's items at BotCon.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 22:21, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Ahh, right, well, I can see the logic, there, all right... I'm just not dying about the dark-coloured backgrounds, since it's a big visually jarring to have big white boxes of text in the middle of them. - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 22:24, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

: Seconding the hate. [[User:Hooper X|-hx]] 00:04, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
:: This looks pretty hideous compared to MonoBook... and it's hard to navigate. Well, at least I can override it in preferences, but I think I'll be ignoring admin skin choices unless a custom one appears in the future.--[[User:MCRG|MCRG]] 00:44, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

:::I think I can try to get used to the new skin unless/until I find something inconvenient. Well, so far so good. At least the seach function is better. But the logo on the left side of the top, well... um, oh. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 01:23, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
::Fourthing the hate. The colors hurt my eyes. That, and the obscure character search images are gone. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 01:45, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

:I'm afraid I don't much like it either. Fortunately, it was pretty easy to uncheck the "override" box on my preferences. [[User:JW|JW]] 01:54, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't like the new skin either. I don't get the menus at the side. "Featured characters" includes articles that I don't think have actually been Featured. G1 and Animated are listed, but no other franchises. And the menus are inconsistent. The G1 menu lists Autobot, Decepticon, and then a bunch of character pages, while the Animated menu lists Animated's toy line, cartoon, comic, and books articles. Why the difference? And what was the selection process for the "Embrace the Knowledge" menu?

By the way, in the middle of BotCon is probably the worst possible time for major changes like this to be made. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 04:29, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

:The menus at the side are examples that I made up. You guys can change them to be anything you want, by editing [[MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar]]. I'm sorry about the timing... We've been talking about this for maybe three weeks.

:Lots of things can be changed -- the colors, the menus, the logo. I'll put it back to the basic Sapphire for now, which is more like Monobook. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 05:08, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Not a fan of the skin, either. Losing the brown and yellow from earlier was a step up, but it still doesn't quite work. The extra crap on the side feels ''bigger'' now, so the actual articles feel ''smaller''. And those blamed automatic pulldown menus keep getting in the way everytime I move my cursor to or from the Search box. Annoying. --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 17:02, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:I'm a little unclear- you say Monaco is the new Wikia standard skin. No one likes it. But we can override the style in our preferences to set it back to Monobook.
:So does TT1 have the ''option'' of deciding to switch back to Monobook if that's what the consensus decides? Danny is saying they are switching Memory Alpha Monaco and "at a certain point, pretty much every Wikia wiki is going to end up on Monaco." So is this something we get to decide for ourselves, or will Monaco be forced on us even if we don't want it? -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 18:55, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

::What I find interesting on the MΑ example is that Toughpigs said, and I quote:
:::''Actually, they're working on switching over to the Monaco skin on Memory Alpha too''
::Now, who are "they"? Because I've just looked at MΑ - and in the designated [[MemoryAlpha:Forum:Monaco skin|forum on the matter]], one Wikia staff member (who has no main namespace edits on MΑ in the past three years) is the only user pushing for it. Only two other users have (briefly) commented - one admin who's strongly against it because of the top ad banner, and one other user who dittoed that. The only other place it is mentioned is on [[MemoryAlpha:Portal talk:Main#Monaco skin|their main page talk]], where one "[[Wikia:Wikia Helper Group|Wikia Helper Group]]" member (who has no MΑ edits on any other matter, main namespace or otherwise) shilled it - and in response, got a reply from one user that they were confused, and another user that they preferred Monobook. Unless there's some hidden forum somewhere, there's no consensus from MΑ that they want to switch.

::If Toughpigs's line is intended to say there's a push ''from'' MΑ as a "do you want T1 to be left out", it's, well, draw your own conclusions. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 19:42, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I've been vague about what the future holds, because I don't know. Right now, the community does have the option to switch the site back to Monobook, if that's what you decide.

However, at some point in the future, Wikia may need to switch everybody over to Monaco. We need to figure out how to get more advertisers to buy ads on Wikia. We're exploring a lot of different possibilities right now, so I can't predict how that's going to go yet. But we may find that it hurts us to have skins with completely different ad sizes all over the site. Companies don't want to advertise on sites that have a leaderboard on some pages and a skyscraper on others.

Right now, we're able to offer a lot of flexibility with the skins, and we're not forcing a change on any community. But if you think about it, no other (sane) website does that. Ad-supported websites have a format, and everything on the site is in that format.

I know that the obvious response to the ad talk is "that's your problem", but it's actually everybody's problem. Wikia offers free hosting to communities like this one because we're advertiser-supported. But the ad market is changing -- and if we don't keep up, then we go out of business, and we can't host wikis anymore.

Anyway, we're not anywhere near a problem at the moment. Wikia is fine, and if the community decides to switch back to Monobook, then that's fine. But it will be easier in the long run if folks give Monaco a chance, and see if we can make it work the way that you want it to work.

Meanwhile, I can address a couple of the concerns that people have posted about. First up: The size of the content area. Xaaron says that the crap on the side feels bigger, so the content area feels smaller. I took screenshots of the same page using both Monaco and Monobook, at the same browser size and screen resolution.

<gallery>
Image:Megatron-monaco.jpg|Monaco
Image:Megatron-monobook.jpg|Monobook
</gallery>

You can see from those pictures that Monaco gives you a wider content area. The first two paragraphs take up 16 lines in Monobook. On Monaco, it takes up 13 lines.

The number of logins has gone up just in the last few days. On April 26-27, 41 people logged in to the site (20.5 per day). From March 1-31, there were 381 logins (12.3 per day). This may be because of the interest generated at BotCon, but it also seems like being at BotCon over the weekend kept people away from the website. The increase in logins is consistent with what we've seen on other sites -- Monaco makes logging in more visible to new users.

On the sidebar over the last couple days, these are the most clicked on items:

# Transformers Animated (cartoon): 295 clicks
# Murdered puppy: 192 clicks
# That big green, fire-snortin' lizard: 168 clicks
# Transformers Animated (toy line): 131
# Autobot: 111
# Optimus Minor: 108
# More featured characters: 83
# Optimus Prime: 76
# Gas Skunk: 74
# Airazor (BW): 72

Pageviews for April 26-27 are up 21% over the average from the previous 30 days. That may be because of the interest around BotCon and the new episodes, but it might also be because the sidebar is helping new readers find articles that they're interested in, and because the pages load faster with Monaco. In any event, it doesn't seem like Monaco is chasing people away. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 20:27, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:It could also be because existing users have been giving the new skin a test drive. Anyway, couple of things about the skin that I'm wondering. First, the Teletraan 1 image in the upper left corner is now tiny with ugly, empty whitespace on three sides. Can it be enlarged? Second, can the recently-added neat little search box images be included in the new skin? --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 20:51, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

::The logo can be changed by uploading a new image to [[:Image:Wiki_wide.png]].

::The search box images are a neat idea, but I'm confused about why they're attached to search. They don't take you to a search page. They're basically a random featured-article generator. If you want, I can talk to the designer here about creating a randomized featured-article widget for the sidebar. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 20:59, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Basic test image for the top left:

[[Image:TFfactions.png|266x75px]]

- [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 21:58, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:I've got some ideas for the masthead. I'll 'shop something up when I get home from work.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 22:05, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
::My proposal:
::[[Image:Teletraan masthead.png]]
::Whaddaya think?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 02:16, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:::That one is beautiful. --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 02:20, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Look nice for Rosi's. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 02:26, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Ooo, rock me, Amadeus. Verra nice. [[User:JW|JW]] 02:56, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
::::That is perfect, Rosicrucian. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 04:36, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::That is lovely. --[[User:Sntint|Sntint]] 04:38, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
== Anonymous edits ==

Lately, I've been looking at wikis that have decided to turn off anonymous edits, and have everybody log in before contributing to the wiki. The idea is that having everybody log in builds a stronger sense of community, because you always have a name to associate with an edit, rather than a random string of numbers. It's easier to talk to people who have names. It also gives you more control over vandalism, since you can recognize potential vandals more easily.

Some people don't like the idea, because they're worried that logging in is a barrier to entry -- if you have to log in to edit, then you won't bother, and you'll go away. Looking at the wikis that require login, that doesn't seem to be true. [[w:c:muppet|Muppet Wiki]] turned off anon edits last April, and the number of active editors has actually gone up. Some of our most active wikis require login -- [[w:c:wowwiki|World of Warcraft]], [[w:c:ffxi|FFXIclopedia]], [[w:c:tibia|Tibia Wiki]] and [[w:c:marveldatabase|Marvel Database]]. (WoW and FFXI actually require a confirmed e-mail address before you can edit.)

So I've been talking to folks about this, and we've decided to allow wiki communities to turn off anonymous edits if they want to. There are a lot of anonymous editors here, so I'm wondering what you guys think about it. Would it be helpful to require login for everybody?

Obviously, that's a big community decision... I just want to throw out the possibility, and see what you think. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 20:38, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

:I strongly oppose disabling anonymous edits! (I also oppose sweeping changes performed over botcon, and unilaterally re-skining the site when the community can argue for weeks or month about proposed style changes to individual ''templates'' without reaching a consensus-- but if you're willing to ignore the needs of registered users while making such 'big community decisions,' why would you listen to anon users?) -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 08:18, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
::Well, let's get an opposing viewpoint here. Why are you, 75.168.112.43, unwilling to get an account? [[User:JW|JW]] 11:16, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:::You assume I don't have an account.
:::I strongly oppose disabling anonymous edits because;
::::# It puts up a gateway that discourages first time users. Not a tall gateway- but a gateway nonetheless. Even if it only turns back 30% of new editors, that's 30% of people who could potentially become productive members of the community we're turning away out of hand.
::::# Equally important to the new users are the 'casual fixers', people who will /never/ become regulars on this wiki but, while clicking around, notice a link leading to '''Megatron''' instead of '''Megatron (G1)'''. If they have to register to make that simple fix? 9 times out of 10 that kind of fix will not get done.
::::# The problem 'disabling anonymous edits' seeks to fix- trolls- will not be solved. We already have trolls who register for accounts-- right now we don't even require an e-mail address. So ''next'' to combat Troll,s we'll require all accounts to have e-mail addresses. Then we'll require those e-mails be ''verified'', then maybe we'll set up a system where new users have to be ''approved'' like so many online communities before they can use their account. IP Tracking! Requiring Persistent Cookies! Each and ''any'' of these steps makes the online experience just a little bit more unpleasant for the user (and each hoop to jump throuhg makes new users just a little disinclined to join) but none of them actually stops trolls! Clear your cache, sign up for a yahoo account and you're up and running again. The trolls that regularly bother TT1 have already demonstrated they are willing to go to these lengths to evade bans. I am opposed to any measure that would punish the general body of users (registered and non) to deal with trolls. I am '''strongly''' opposed to any measure that would punish users and '''not''' deal with trolls, which is what this promises to do.

::::And seriously- while I'm tickled to death to know that the 'wikia community developer' has been attracted to communities that place restrictions on their users, I'm not thrilled to see someone who's not part of the community lobbying that we become more insular. I think changing TT1 to a UI that's different from Wikipedia makes the site harder to use (both for new users, and for users who make contributions to multiple wikis) is an objectively bad decision that was made with little discussion because 'it looks better.' And I really dislike that this was done while everyone was gone at Botcon and it was impossible to form a quorum for proper discussion. Monorail guy dances into town and starts making global changes that he thinks 'make more sense' without understanding that [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Talk:Megatron_Rising_-_Part_2&action=history they were that way for a reason], and his whims would require massive secondary cleanup effort to enact. I don't think someone who's not a participating member of this community should be initiating that kind of change, or throwing his weight behind them for them while 'polling for consensus. On a more fundamental level- I'm suspicious about external voices telling us how we should be running this wiki, because sooner or later they're gong to tell us The Funny Should Go.
::::I feel the burden of proof is on the other side here-- show that there will be a concrete and measurable improvement to the wiki by disabling anonymous edits that will NOT place an unnecessary burden on users. -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 12:38, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::''"You assume I don't have an account."'' Well, then, please tell us why you aren't willing to use it. I'm truly curious. [[User:JW|JW]] 13:04, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::More to the point, the IP address 75.168.112.43 has only made 10 contributions to this wiki, of which only 4 are of actual substance. Your comments will carry more weight if you tell us which long-established editor you in fact ''are.'' Otherwise, ''you<nowiki>'</nowiki>re'' the "external voice telling us how we should be running this wiki". [[User:JW|JW]] 13:16, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

::::::I oppose to disable anonymous edit, too. I was once a anonymous user . If the anonymous edit is disabled, that would mean we close the door for many potential users-to-be. Though I hate anonymous vandalizing, which is really a problem. But any bad anonymous user can get an account to vandalize, too. ''Urgh''.--[[User:TX55|TX55]] 13:56, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

The Funny Should Definitely Not Go. The reason why I've been hanging out on this wiki lately is because I like it -- specifically, because I like the Funny. I don't want to annoy people or screw stuff up; I'm just trying to help out in ways that I know how to help.

I didn't unilaterally change the skin... If you look above, the conversation about the skin started on April 7th. On Thursday, I asked if there were any more comments before I switched it over. The only response was from ItsWalky, who indicated that it would be okay. I've been keeping an eye on the stats -- the number of edits, registrations and pageviews have all gone up since the wiki switched to Monaco. (Saturday was the highest single day for registrations on the wiki since January.)

As I said, anonymous edits is totally a community decision. I just wanted to let you know that it's an option if the community wants it. It's a long-term discussion, and I don't have an interest in pushing it one way or the other. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 14:31, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:I would be against restricting edits to registered members. This wiki already has a reputation in the Transformers community as alledgedly being the playground for a very specific group of fans. Restricting edits will only further this perception. But more importantly:

:*I tend to agree that if one has no intention of making significant edits, but very occassionally fixes minor mistakes that one sees, then one shouldn't be forced to register to do so.

:*Some of us would prefer not to login while accessing the wiki at school or at work. Yeah, we have our reasons.

:*Chris McFeely, one of our staff members, sometimes has trouble logging onto the wiki when he's not at home, so if we restrict edits to logged-in users, he can't make any contributions if he happens to have free time while out and about.

:*Good anonymous editors sometimes eventually become registered members if they find they enjoy making the edits and would to participate in the little community we have.

:*Trolls and vandals who go to the effort of being repeat offenders will not be scared off by a registration process. I think we'll find that these people have ''alot'' of free time on their hands. Even more than I do!

:--[[User:FFN|FFN]] 15:03, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:I'd be more willing to believe that the increase in edits on Saturday was due to the new skin if Saturday didn't happen to be the day most of the BotCon panels were held. Those give us a lot of new information that needs to be added to the wiki. Plus, two (or three) new episodes were shown that morning: Return of the Headmaster in the US, Mission Accomplished in Canada, and Collect and Save at Botcon. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 15:46, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

::No kidding. You could've changed the site to pink-and-purple polka dots, and traffic still would've increased this weekend, with everyone fighting to be the first to add all the new scraps of information from the convention. --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 17:05, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:::I'm no one special on this wiki, but I wanted to weigh in. Considering that everything else on the web seems to require a login, it isn't asking too much for people to sign up. All the forums require a login so people can own their opinions, why not here? Also, isn't most of the caption bastardry done by anons? Maybe forcing registration might stop some of those careless edits. Requiring an email? Now that might scare people off.--[[User:Suzyprime|Suzyprime]] 04:51, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

==Image overlap==
[[image:Templateximage.JPG|thumb|I'm ugly]]
Umm, did this overlap happen before the new skin? If so, I never noticed it. If not, then why is it changing what goes on inside the content part of the site, not just the menus and adds and umm, everything that I can't edit as an anon? [[User:Spriteless|Spriteless]] 04:04, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
:We're trying to figure it out over on [[User Talk:Toughpigs]].--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 04:08, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
::That particular ''overlap'' always happened- but the transparent frame was apparently a result of some global CSS change Wikia made ~4-6 months ago.
::It looks like the fix was posted on the [http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Monobook.css monobook.css] discussion page, but never implemented. -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 05:25, 29 April 2008 (UTC)<div id="wikia-credits"> From [http://transformers.wikia.com Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki], a [http://www.wikia.com Wikia] wiki.</div>

MediaWiki talk:Community Portal

2008-04-28T18:55:45Z

75.168.112.43: /* Hate the new skin. */

==Archives==
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive1|Archive1]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive2|Archive2]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive3|Archive3]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive4|Archive4]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive5|Archive5]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive6|Archive6]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive7|Archive7]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive8|Archive8]]

== Continuity / Timeline ==
I'm trying to make some sense of how the various major continuities are handled, overview-wise. Some have their own continuity page; IDW's just got a timeline, with overview stuff shoved here and there among the individual miniseries. Some don't have anything. Some, like the G1 cartoon, are not much more than lists. The ones that exist tend to be hard to find, aren't categorized uniformly, etc... is there a master format for this stuff?{{unsigned|Repowers|12:15, 29 October 2007}}
:There is no master format for continuity pages. Please feel free to make one! It would be a good thing to have! --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 00:55, show30 October 2007 (UTC)
:: You know, I think it would be hot if once we got more timelines up, we began putting Chronology links to the timetable on the story pages. Several Dreamwave comic pages have them, and I think IDW comics should too, since IDW really isn't telling the story in a linear fashion.--[[User:Zodberg|Zodberg]] 09:36, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::Sounds like a good idea. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 13:51, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::Would it make sense to have an overview writeup at the start of each timeline, a few paragraphs or so? Or should "continuity" be a separate page? Where should a chronological list of issues go -- publisher's page, continuity page, timeline page? That's not such a problem with, say, Marvel G1, but Dreamwave's a little messier, IDW's all over the place, and gods help you if you want to sort out the mess that is Marvel UK. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 14:29, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:: A continuity page should have the following (in my opinion):
:: * A one-paragraph description of the continuity, not more than a few sentences long.
:: * A list of what media belongs to this continuity (which can include some stuff that's vaguely contradictory, but should exclude stuff that's way out there, like Earthforce relative to G1 comics). This can be sorted by publication order, or internal chronology, but if there's a major difference between the two, it should be spelled out.
:: * An overall description of the main events in that continuity, focusing on the events actually chronicled (not the distant past). In particular, for most continuities, changes in the leadership of either side, the changing status (living/dead, present/absent, duplicated by Straxus/encoded on a floppy, etc.)of the big two leaders (usually Optimus Prime and Megatron), any events involving Unicron or Primus, and introductions of major teams or groups of characters (Headmasters, Fuzors) should be in the summary.
:: * If necessary, a timeline, which may end up integrated with one of the above parts.
:: * Pointers to important and closely-related continuities (again, such as Earthforce), discussion of divergences, etc. [[User:JW|JW]] 15:14, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::All that sounds pretty good, though I wouldn't get too hung up on following individual characters too much, even the leaders. In Marvel G1, at least, they changed over on a pretty regular basis.
:::On a related note... this and a lot of other overview-type pages are really lost in the shuffle. They should be top-level pages, with everything branching off of them and linking back to them, but instead they're buried and nothing links to them. You start off reading, say, the article on [[Spotlight: Soundwave]]. Where do you go from there to find out more? The IDW issues category? That's the only link out of that page. If you're a newcomer, or even someone with an imperfect memory, how do you know what comes next? Either the individual issue pages need to link to the timeline and continuity pages, or the category page does, or... something.
:::Taking care of it on the category page might be simplest, like what's on the Category:Marvel US issues page. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 19:12, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::: Yes, the site is sadly lacking in both "uplinks" and "sidelinks" for the media; links from a TV episode to the TV series, links from an issue of a comic to an overview of the comic, links from one comic to the next comic in that series, etc. [[User:JW|JW]] 19:21, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::: I'm still poking around and figuring out what's been done and what's needed; it might take a while to figure out how to start cleaning things up. It looks like we've got some random timelines started (still need ones for the Beast era and a few others), as well as continuity pages for some but not all of the major storylines, so I suppose each major continuity should have both kinds of pages. I wonder if there's a way to use a category or subcategory to get individual episode/issue pages to quickly link back to the main overview pages?... -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 19:28, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::: JW, we do have that comics nav template, though I like the comic infobox on wikipedia more. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:04, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::: Ah... http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Template:Comicnav ...so we do. Very useful. Now we just gotta propagate it over a few hundred comic issue... :S -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 20:25, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::: Also, the nav setup only can link up one level. So Infiltration #2 can link up to the main Infiltration page, but not to the IDW continuity page above that. Would putting a variant of this template on the main page for each miniseries, linking up to the continuity page, work instead? Then you're never more than two clicks away from an individual issue to the continuity overview. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 20:25, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::::: That, or somehow add it to the main comicnav template, perhaps in small letters above the series name. I don't wanna step on anyone's toes though. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:45, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::::: That'd make the most sense, to add a "Continuity" level to the template, or alternately a lower-end "Mini-series" option. But hell if I can make sense out of how these things work... that might be a rainy day project, figuring that out. :\ -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 20:51, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

==Image Copyrights==
I asked awhile ago, and nobody seemed to know, so...

I've always been under the impression that images {{c}} someone else should be credited ''not'' just with a note that they belong to someone else, but a ''year'', for much the same reasons we identify ''who'' the image belongs to rather than simply saying 'we don't own it, but it's fair use.' The more info we provide, the more 'seriously' the copyright is being taken. if we wipe our ass with an unadorned, <nowiki>{{fairuse}}</nowiki> clearly we don't think the holder of the copyright is ''important''... or something.

I have a script I've been poking at. It can run through every image detail page on the wiki through a regular expression and pick out which images don't have copyright owners (Hasbro or Takara-- you're supposed to ID which even if you're using <nowiki>{{hastak}}</nowiki>,) which don't have dates, and which don't have any sort of copyright notice at all. (A significant chunk of our images have no notices that they belong to someone else.) It could also drop the offending images into categories to be sorted out and properly labeled. (I imagine I'd give it Steve-o and let it do so logged in as the bot to avoid the update-floods.)

...is anyone interested in this? Does it seem like a good idea? Terrible idea? ...Bueler? -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 15:29, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

==Cartoon Episode Format Mark II==
Picking up an old thread here... per some changes I just finished making to all the Beast Era episode pages, IMO:
* The one-line summary should be bold. It's the single most important thing on the page; your eye should leap right to it.
* It should be the very first thing on the page, above the nav box (barring temporary templates like "pics needed".)
* It should be free of links. They're distracting and ugly, and it's kinda absurd to think someone's going to click right off the summary to see what a "Maximal" or whatever is. Links can easily be integrated into the body of the plot summary.

I'd also rather see Quotes before Stats, to keep all the in-universe stuff together before moving to out-universe stuff like writers, air dates, commentary, order of appearance, etc. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 00:13, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

:I agree with all of this, except for the one-line summary being above the nav box. Pure personal preference, though, rather than any sort of functionality - I just don't like the way it looks. In fact, I think putting it below the nav box actually ''helps'' its notice-ability - it "frames" the summary quite nicely between the nav box and the contents box. - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 00:22, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
::Heh, I see it the opposite way -- having the summary first provides a frame for the inevitable white space that accompanies the nav box. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 06:24, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

::Picking up on what I said above, putting the stats section down below not just the extended summary but now below the quotes section as well is something I strongly oppose. Episode writers do not get the recognition they deserve. We should not be burying their credits like that. That section belongs ''above'' the summary. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 03:21, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
:::I do hear what you're saying, but honestly I'm less bothered by the recognition factor than by the inconsistency with comic format, where all that junk ''is'' up front (though it often looks pretty bad, IMO.) If it were ''just'' the writer credit, I'd be okay with having it up front (though I ain't gonna be the one who goes back through 78 Beast Era episode pages to change it!) But then you get into the odd condition of having that one bit of info up front, while the rest of the standard information external to the episode's events is much deeper in the article. Having much more stuff up front than that makes for a messy, unattractive, and harder-to-read format compared to having it all bundled in the Stats section... IMO, natch.
:::"If "recognition" is the concern, heck, think of the animators who slaved a lot more than the writers ever did to bring each episode to life. They get no credits at all. Neither does Robert Buckley, who provided music for both Beast series. The list goes on and on. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 06:24, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
::::The information I am suggesting be up front would only be three lines (Written by, Directed by, air date), which I don't think would be very intrusive at all. To my mind, before the summary is the only logical place for this information to be presented, as episodes themselves generally present those two credits up front, and air date is a known factor when watching an episode when it debuts.
::::On the issue of recognition, you make a good point, however my concern is a bit different. Robert Buckley may not get a lot of recognition from the fandom for the music of Beast Wars, but it's not like they give someone ''else'' all the credit on that score, pun semi-intended. But the writers? The fandom often enough acts as if Forward and DiTillio wrote every single word of Beast Wars, and Skir (alone, of course, as the Isenberg Uncertainty Principle remains in full effect) the same for Beast Machines. The story editors are obviously the most important writers, but they didn't do it all on their own.
::::Burying the names of episode writers down below the summary and quotes sections just doesn't sit right with me, is all. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 04:46, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
:::::Hrm... combined with Steve-o's consistency argument, I suppose I could go along with doing it this way, with them all tucked together and separate from/below the one line summary. Written By and Air Date are in one little combined pair of lines now, an easy cut-n-paste to move up front. I don't think anyone's added Director credits to any of the episodes, by the by.
:::::As I said, I'm in no great hurry to do it myself -- my main concern was that the Beast Era show pages had drifted into all sorts of different arrangements, some of which looked pretty sloppy. For better or worse, they're all uniform now. If we're gonna change the layout, let's work on getting one sample page ''just right'', then we can worry about propagating it. To that end, have a look at "[[Chain of Command]]", see if it clicks for you. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 05:33, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm thinking if we could merge the ''Japanese title'' into the '''''Stats''' section'' because it seems to fit the section better. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 03:14, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't have much of a preference, personally, about how to organize these things. However, I do feel pretty strongly that it should be more or less the same for both cartoon episodes and comic issues. Having different organizational schemes for different sorts of fiction doesn't serve much purpose, and makes things harder to get used to. (On the other hand, I ''also'' feel strongly that all of our passages relating fictional events should be in the same tense regardless of if they happen to be on a character page or a story page, but apparently that makes me insane, so don't take my pleas for consistency too seriously.) --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 02:35, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

===Cartoon format mark II.5===
Did we ever make a decision on whether to place the quotes area before the stats section? Because the sheer majority of episode articles (including old ones recently converted to current standards) place the stats before the quotes, but I notice some of the latest Cybertron episode articles are placing the quotes before the stats, which is creating inconsistencies in layout. Bear in mind it will create less work for us if we just leave things the way they are, with stats before quotes. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 09:34, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

==Cartoon continuity headings==
Have we decided on a definative format for this yet? most of the pages with characters who appeared in Sunbow's G1 through to the japanese series (and maybe Beast Wars as well) have quite different headings, and I recall we were worried about ''Transformers Animated'' causing problems with all the 'Animated continuity' headings on character pages. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 07:08, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
:I think we had decided on using "cartoon" instead of "animated." So use "cartoon continuity," or for those who appear in more than one cartoon continuity, use "Generation 1 cartoon continuity," "Beast Wars cartoon continuity," etc. --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 07:13, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
::Can we have Diagnostic Drone change all occurrences of "Animated continuity" to "Cartoon continuity"? That'll require some cleanup in the Animated articles, but there are far fewer of those than there are of G1 subjects that are currently mislabeled. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 17:54, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

== Section-title master list ==

I've made a sandbox for the purpose of assembling a [[User:Jackpot/Sandbox/Sections|master list of all section titles]], their relation to each other, and their proper wording/formatting. Please discuss; I've introduced some new ideas, and I'd love to see a consistent guide established. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 01:04, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
:Wow, I think this really look nice and useful. ;D --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 03:44, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

== "First go here! Next go here." ==
I was thinking a bit about the various problems we've got around here -- stuff like incomplete image descriptions, orphaned articles, etc. There's really no one central place where a newcomer (or a regular who feels like doing something useful but doesn't know what) can go to find a quick list of things that need doing. The current help pages just send you to the list of articles in need of creation, which is kind of daunting, especially for a newcomer who has to learn a million standards and Wikia tags. Is there a more comprehensive way to point people in the direction of useful things they could be doing? Whatever it might be, it should include links to:
* Pages in need of creation
* Orphaned pages
* Stubs
* Pics needed
* Any current projects, like the Beast Wars one. Hell, I couldn't find that thing if my life depended on it.
...as well as a note about common problems: dead/missing storylinks, incomplete image descriptions, and whatever else. (Heck, who knows? Maybe it could even distract an IP person long enough to prevent them from screwing with captions.... ahh, who'm I kidding?} -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 21:51, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

:There are some of those things catalogued [[Special:Specialpages|here]], but I think making links to the most important of these categories, and placing them together in one easy-to-find link off the main page, would be best. Perhaps on the Help contents page, since it's linked right off the main page already, in the most logical location? I think that link is a bit small, for what it's worth. --[[User:Sntint|Sntint]] 22:09, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
::One of the projects in the back of my head is a help-page/guide specifically breaking down the creation of character pages, plus the use of "common templates" for them (disambigs, stubs, notes). I'll see if I can scrounge up some time to rough-copy one. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 22:56, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

==Other Maintenance Templates?==
I haven't had much time to do more "substantial" wiki edits lately, but I've been prepping for later with the charstub sub-categories. Fiction really isn't my bag... I mean, I know it in general, but not issue titles and numbers and bla bla. But I figure it's also nice to have the "really needs a lot of stuff" pages separated from the "just needs some stuff in one subsection" ones, especially once I can make a concentrated effort to update the toy sections of various pages. I've been thinking about other similar "needs maintenance" template/categories, but I thought I'd bring it up here since I'm not sure who else might make use of them... 
I've noticed quite a lot of pages missing storylinks. I'm not intending on going through a big wiki-wide hunt, but as I go through the stubs and other pages doing little maintenance and tweaks, well, I think I'd like to be able to mark pages I come across that are missing those links they should have. Picture and quote? Isaac Sumdac and/or Tutorbot, "I cannot believe I programmed you with such simplistic information!" (Idea courtesy of Trent Troop.) 
I'd swear there was another one, but right now, too tired to think of it and must sleep. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 06:53, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
:Perhaps a tag for a page with too many damn redlinks for concepts that will never need articles?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 07:08, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
::I don't think that will be neccessary, as it's a simple matter of removing the [[ and <nowiki>]]</nowiki>s. Storylinks, though, require some research. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 15:40, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
:::I usually label such pages with <nowiki>{{stub|storylinks}}</nowiki>. [[User:JW|JW]] 15:44, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
::::Trick is, often they're not really stubs, are they? the main info is there, there's just not a "where'd this happen?" link. And maybe it's the data-manager in me that says this, but I think it'd be a lot easier to have a common problem like lack of storylinks as a category all its own, all together for easy identification and maintenance. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 16:11, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

== Disambiguation ==

We need a consensus on hiw we handle disambuigation in article titles. We've had some moving between [[Silverbolt (BW)]] and [[Silverbolt (Fuzor)]], and [[Dirge (Timelines)]] and [[Dirge (Whatever the Botcon 05 set was)]] because there are two Silverbolts in BW and two Dirges in Timelines. However, since one of those Dirges and one of those Silverbolts are G1 characters, the (BW) and (Timelines) tags are fine for the other two. The tags are simply for keeping the articles separate; not for telling you what continuity they're in. Plus, (Timelines) is much easier to type than "(Botcon boxset name I can't remember)". --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 23:35, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

:Somewhat related to the discussion at [[Talk:Starscream (Timelines)]]. My personal criteria is that a name used for two (or more) characters in the same toyline requires more specific disambiguation, regardless of the characters' origin, because readers shouldn't be expected to remember whether some character was already in another toyline. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 23:51, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

::So... what should disambigs be?
:# Distinguished ''only'' when strictly necessary. "Silverbolt (BW)" is fine because, while there were 2 Silverbolt toys in the BW Toyline, the other one is actually Silverbolt (G1)- so only one entry is trying 'sits' in the (BW) disambig, and no more specific disambing is needed. Parenthetical disambigs should be the broadest possible category the article can sit in without conflicting with another article, (usually a continuity family or franchise.) Absolutely no 'bumping' of disambigs as a concession to aesthetics.
:# Distinguished on a logical basis. "Silverbolt (Fuzor)" because there are two Silverbolts in the BW toyline, and the article title should not allow for confusion between the two.
:# Providing continuty info. A hypothetical new character Roller in the 2008 Universe line would be "Roller (Classic)" not "Roller (Universe)"-- so that the article title doesn't mislead people into thinking he's part of the 2004 Universe continuity.
::My problem with #2 ''and'' #3 is that the diambig isn't supposed to convey that information. The first line of the article, right below the title does. It will say 'Silverbolt is a Fuzor in the Beast Wars continuity family...' or 'Roller is a Ultracon in the Classics portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.'
::We are currently usign method #1. I oppose a change to methods 2 or 3 for the following reasons:
:# The '''first line''' of the article already supplies the information that solutions 2 & 3 would seek to add- and does it ''better.''
:# Implementing 2 or 3 would make it harder for ''editors'' to know where article are sitting ("I know there was only one Silverbolt in BW, why is my link to Silverbolt (BW) broken?")
:# The purpose of the parenthetical disambigs is not to convey info- it is to keep articles with the same title from sitting in the same namespace. Attempting to make disambigs convey information actually ''adds ambiguity'', because it would force the the locations the articles sit in to become ''less'' standard.
::Let diambigs be disambigs. If we want to make continuity notes clearer or more prominent, we can look at revising our approach to '''them'''. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 00:41, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

::We already have [[Help:Disambiguation]] to more or less lay this out. (I've just made a couple small changes to it for clarification.) There is going to be no simple rule of thumb which leads to tbe best results in every case, so make the parenthetical as brief and clear as you can. Derik is correct that the purpose of the parenthetical is to give the articles different names so the database doesn't get confused. To help out editors when we make links, it is good for them to be short and easy to remember. --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 21:35, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

So, should we move [[Silverbolt (Fuzor)]] and [[Dirge (Decent into Evil)]] and the mirrorverse guys back to [[Silverbolt (BW)]], [[Dirge (Timelines)]] and [[mirrorverse guys (Timelines)]]? --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 22:42, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
:Wait to see if others have strong feelings/argument first. (We have a policy, but it's subject to conseunsus, remember? Also- I think I wrote most of that page so my point of view is unfairly over-represented there.) ''On review, no, apparently this is one policy page I '''didn't''' write. ...why can't I tell Steve-o's writing apart from my own? Scary. :~(
:Personally I say emphatically yes on Dirge, indifferent affirmative on Silverbolt, and wait and see on the Shattered Glass pages. We don't now where/if they fit in existing continuity. There's no point in movinf them a half-dozen times while arguing about unknowables. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 23:13, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

== Pages about fan sites ==

Is there a policy about this? I wanted to add TF Pulp, but I didn't see any other TF sites on here at all, so I figured I should ask first.
{{unsigned|Might Gaine|2008-02-27T14:04:54}}

:We don't give unofficial sites their own articles. You can link to information on TF Pulp from appropriate pre-existing articles, though. That sort of thing enhances the wiki by allowing people to find further information on the topics they are reading about. Just put it into an "External links" section right before the categories. --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 21:18, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

==Cartoon episode title cards redundancy==
Why are we moving towards using the title cards of episodes for the main/starting picture of episode articles? Isn't it redundant to have a boring screenshot with the name of the episode placed next to...... the name of the episode in the actual article itself? Wouldn't it be more interesting to do what we have been doing, and use a screen capture that somehow encapsulates the whole episode, or shows a pivitol point in it that sticks in our memory? --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 02:55, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
:I've wondered the same thing myself, but figured it was a done deal. I too support the "memorable/encapsulating moment" approach. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 03:04, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
::Uh... I'm sorry, I think I started it. ;-) When I was doing some early RiD ep stubs I threw in the titlecards because the early episodes were boring as sin. I think McFeely did it for the JP eps because they tend to have those painterly titlecards...
::Really, it's just something you do if there isn't a ''good'' representative image. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 17:39, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
:::Like Code of Hero (an article that needs a major overhaul itself), I originally put an image of Dinobot's sword lying on the deck of his quarters, because it looked poignant. Did the same for various other Beast Wars episodes. Then Interrobang replaced them all with screencap of the title screens. Gah. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 07:05, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::So tell him to stop! ;) -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 07:58, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::Sigh. I did it because I like consistency, even with Japanese series. "Dinobot's sword on the ground" might be your favoritest image ever but it's the odd duck out now. (It also looks terrible due to the artifacting brought about by needlessly screwing with the brightness and contrast.) [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 08:36, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::::Consistency is Victory- but Transformers Victory was incredibly boring. (Victory Gundam was pretty good though...) [[The Weak Component]], [[Survivor]] and [[End of the Line]] all have virtually ''identical'' title screens- an aerial shot of the Cybertropolis spaceport. That sucks— I'd much rather have an iconic image from each episode. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 10:07, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::::::I agree. Using iconic images is really good for the most episode guides, such as [[Code of Hero]], [[The Weak Component]], and several [[B.O.T. (episode)|others]], especially "Code of Hero" and "The Weak Component" are great and good examples. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 13:38, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::::Personally, I started doing for the Japanese series for the reason Derik gives, because it was usually a unique image made for the title card, or a good one that's representative of the episode. There were some duds, but... consistency. And then... ''Masterforce'' started to do really, ''really'' boring ones, and I was about to give up, then it occurred to me to start using the image from the next-ep preview, which proved a winner in most cases (in fact, I may yet go back and change swap out some of the title-card images with these, if it's a better option). The mention of Victory here amuses me, though, 'cause it's a good example of title cards being boring - it's the same two images of Star Saber and Deathsaurus, rotated in and out, for the whole series. I've used them for the first two episodes just to get them on show, but I plan to use the title-images from the next-episode previews for this one. I mean, when I wake up from the dullness-inducing stupor that Victory induces. - McFeely, at work
::::::::I reverted Dinobot's sword back to the version I uploaded. As I had not viewed the page much since last year, I didn't realize that Repowers tried to brighten it up for some reason - that moment is supposed to focus on the sword, not the room. And it's the 'odd duck out' now because some people have been replacing whatever had served as the main image with the title card. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 12:24, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::I brightened it because, when it's reduced for the actual episode page where most people are going to see it, you can't tell what the heck you're looking at. Right now it looks a little bit of vague white stuff in darkness. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 13:36, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::::::::Vaat? I can see if plenty fine there, unless you're using a very, very high resolution that makes everything tiny. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 13:54, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::::Could be my home monitor, which is HUGE. It does look more discernable from a work computer, though IMO it could still stand to be a tad brighter. -- [[user:repowers|repowers]], not signed in
I've changed my mind on this situation after mulling it over. A winner is FNN. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 03:31, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
:FNN sounds even more like a Simon Furman sound effect than FFN :D --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 04:26, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
::You clearly changed your name after I replied. There's no another answer. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 04:33, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
:::Hnh. FNN never DID want to live forever. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 04:55, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

==Help/policy page namespaces==
As part of the help/policy page revamp I plan to do... eventually... I kind of want to consolidate the pages all into a single namespace. Right now we have [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=12 a bunch of stuff] in the Help namepsace, and [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=4 a bunch of other stuff] in the Transformers Wiki (aka "meta") namespace. This is needlessly confusing. I vastly prefer "Help" for the purposes of typing it all the time, but, the meta namespace is more general purpose and standard... and possibly required for some pages like the title blacklist. So I am inclined to shuffle all the Help namespace pages over to the meta namespace. Does anybody have an opinion on this? --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 17:37, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
:Help seems fine to me. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 17:45, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

== "The Battlestars" page disappeared ==

When the "Battlestar" (team) page got changed to "Battlestars", then "The Battlestars" page, which was the manga, disappeared. What happened? --[[User:Might Gaine|Might Gaine]] 13:36, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
:I don't think that page actually existed in the first place. It was a red link before any moving was done - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 14:04, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
::Hmm. My bad. --[[User:Might Gaine|Might Gaine]] 15:01, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

==Comic character box format Part IV==
I believe we should change it from 'Major characters' to 'Featured characters' like we do in the cartoon recap articles. Doing it as 'Major characters' means writers of these comic articles will just not bother list the incidental characters, such as humans, even ones with dialogue, and if any of these characters have articles, they become orphaned articles. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 06:32, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
:Well I have gone thru nearly the entire U.S. Marvel series and I think I've included just about everyone who had a speaking line, except for folks who were un-named and such. If someone wants to change from "major" to "featured", it doesn't matter to me, but I'm not gonna go thru all 80 issues again and do it. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:18, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
::I was concerned because I was looking for the article for that [[Professor Goring]] guy from [[Spotlight: Shockwave]] so I could update the article. To my surprise, Shockwave didn't link or even name him, and somebody had eliminated the 'human' column altogether because evidently we only dealt with 'major' characters. Essentially, Goring's article became orphaned. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 20:32, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
:::Well that was dumb; he should indeed be re-added. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:39, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
:::Uh, yeah. That's not good. I support the change to "Featured" not just for this... but let's face it, this wiki is not simply about "Major" characters. The vast wealth of non-major character information is what makes this wiki great, and we should make sure that they are properly linked to so people can find them, even if they weren't looking. "Oh, hey, who's this?" --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 20:39, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
::::MistaTee, well sometimes even unnamed characters can be interesting enough to warrant their own articles if they are interesting in some way/stand out in some way. After all, we have an entire category devoted to unnamed characters. So I think they should have been mentioned in the article in some way. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 04:45, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::Oh, I agree, and if I've missed any, please feel free to add. I do think the 80 issues I've updated is a lot better than they were before though. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 13:58, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::Of course. Is there article template pages somewhere on this wiki or are we copy pasting every time we write a new article? --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 14:07, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::::I've just been going through the Stormbringer articles, and I was ''not at all'' happy with the with the way characters who didn't have significant dialogue (such as ''every'' Pretender besides Bludgeon) were for the most part not even mentioned in the articles. I assume the original writer of these articles just didn't know who they were, but frankly it's just sloppy considering the information available on this wiki even in 2006. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 14:38, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::::I believe I reformatted them to the new format, but just copied the character list from what was there. When I get the chance to re-read, I will add in the others, if someone doesn't beat me to it. Oh, and I am copying and pasting from the previous article, but trying to be consistent. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 15:31, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

:So... what becomes of the former "minor characters" list? Do we even care about those dudes? Take [[Totaled!]] for example -- almost every Earth Autobot to date appears in the story (and most of the Decepticons), but the page currently lists only the speaking ones. Gods help the poor soul who decides to take that task on, but when some nobody like Air Raid makes a rare appearance in the comics, it seems worth noting. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 15:25, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
::IMO, I think those characters should perhaps be in a cameos section, a subset of "Items of note". But I sure as hellz am not going thru the whole Marvel series again to do that. Someone else can have a go at it. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 15:31, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

==Navigation boxes for shared US/UK stories==
I wish I'd noticed [[user:MistaTee|MistaTee]]'s changes to the Marvel US navigation boxes sooner, but that's water under the bridge now. When I set the boxes up, I deliberately left out certain links at points where the continuities split and come back together. The point was that there would be no duplicate links in the box. One hopes that the reader following the UK chain will be smart enough to figure out that the only "Next" link shown will lead to the next step in the chain. This goes double for US stories that have the same Next and Previous links for the UK. Why do the same links need to be duplicated?

Compare:
* [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Cold_War%21&oldid=129298 Old version of Cold War]. There's no "next" for the UK spot, 'cause it would just be the same as the US "next" link.
* [[Cold War!|current version of Cold War!]] - two "next" links are identical.

Also compare:
* [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Dark_Star%21&oldid=152775 Old version of Dark Star!] - no extraneous info.
* [[Dark Star!|Current version of Dark Star!]] - ''two'' redundant links.

To sum up my take on current version:

Minus:
* Redundant links add to confusion
* Double nav box is ugly and should be avoided when possible

Plus:
* Lists UK publication number right up front
* Consistent format for all US issues.

But I've never been one to favor consistency at the expense of practicality. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 17:54, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

:Now see, I didn't like '''not''' having a next for the UK, even if it's the same as the US one. What I think we really need is a revision of the nav box, and maybe have some more options. First, I think there should be a separator line between the US and UK nav. Secondly, maybe some logic could be programmed in so that IF "next2"="next" THEN it would say "same as U.S. version" or something along those lines. Same for the "prev"/"prev2" naturally. Thoughts? --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 18:10, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
::That sounds like an excellent trade-off -- it gets rid of the bothersome parts while keeping the good bits. Uhhh.... anybody have any idea how to do it? The coding of these things is an utter mystery to me. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 18:20, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

== How to spell Malay. ==

Hello everyone, I've noticed that on the 'English/Malay' dubs, people have spelt word 'Malay' wrong. It doesn't have a 'y', because 'Maylay' is incorrect, so if you see any mistakes, please correct it, thank you! Also, can we not put the word crack head next to it? It's quite offensive.--[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
:It's meant in jest because the [[RTM 1 dub]] is really, really bad, as if the dubbers didn't know what the hell was going on half of the time. But we have been changing such instances to 'RTM 1 dub name:' lately. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 15:29, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
:"crack head" is describing the dubs, and with good reason. Battleship Maximus is called "Spaceship Bruce", Blaster is called "Billy", Twincast "Blaster", Metroplex "Phillip", Spike "Sparkle", Soundblaster "New Soundwave", Minevera "Nightbeat", The Matrix and Energon cubes "Power Packs, etc... --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 15:35, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
::We should probably get the drone onto the task of replacing "Maylay" with "Malay", however. [[User:JW|JW]] 15:42, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
:::I don't know about the crack head comment, it's better to avoid offending people; 'though, Spaceship Bruce is my favourite, next to Wally. Also, you got your drone right here (yay?), but do we replace it with 'English/Malay dub', or 'RTM dub'? --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
::::I fully agree with the removal of "crackhead." Frankly, it IS offensive to equate the oddities that arise from the translation of Japanese into English done by people who's first language was likely neither with being on crack. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 19:14, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::Can we leave it in for just Spaceship Bruce? The others are at least somewhat understandable, but ''Spaceship Bruce''? WTCHOP? --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 19:37, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::Sorry, but I don't wanna label another country saying it's populated by drug addicts. If it weren't for them, we wouldn't have Headmasters/Masterforce/Victory in English in the early 90's(?), and for a non-Japanese speaking country, they made a good effort. I guess you can emphasise the weirdness that is Spaceship Bruce, in his bio or the RTM page. So, 'RTM dub' or 'Englsh/Malay' dub? Technically, there was no Malay in the English dubs in the first place, so I'd go for RTM dub :) --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
:::::::It takes a real willfully oppressed state of mind to interpret that as a racial/nationalist insult. I mean, you have to really ''want'' to be offended by something, and be on the lookout for any little thing to jump on. 'Cause "crack-head" is pretty clearly referring to the ''dubs'', not the ''entire freaking country'', and I'm not sure why anyone would decide to think otherwise. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 11:32, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::::You know, crackhead is generally a term that refers to ''people'', not ''things''. As I said above, we shouldn't be seen to be equating the people who produced these dubs with crackheads because of what we perceive as humorous oddities in the translation, which are possibly just the perfectly natural result of cultural and linguistic confusion. Now it might not be an insult to the entire nation of Malaysia, but it is still, I think, a bit offensive. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 16:13, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::Well, regardless.... shouldn't it actually be the "Crackhead ''RTM-1'' dub"? -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 16:23, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::::::'Cracked-up English/Malay' dub, 'though it's not my idea, and it's not so blunt. Or the shorter 'RTM dub', since there is an [[RTM 1 dub]] page where people can redirect themselves there and elucidate the weirdness of weird names; but do we have to spell Malay with two 'y's? Maybe we can make reference to that on the RTM page again. --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
:::::::::I think 'Cracked-up English/Malay' could be used for the article such as [[Ginrai]] and [[Minerva]]('cause their RTM dub name "Optimus Prime" and "Nightbeat" were too... hilarious?), while just "RTM dub" for Fortress Maximus' Spaceship Bruce. Well, just a little opinion. :) --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 12:11, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::: Agree! :D --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]

==Trivia section image formatting==
This issue came up a while ago on [[Talk:Frenzy_%28Movie%29#Image_format|Frenzy's talk page]]. There were opnions both ways, and it wasn't really resolved. The issue is, should images in trivia sections alternate left-right, or be all on one side?

Part of the trouble with alternating sides is that it kills the bullet points. A double bullet has to be inserted for it to show up, and then there's some ambiguity over which bullets should be doubled and which left single. Dpouble bullets can also cause images to overlap the text.

Several folks said there's a lot of ugly white space when the images are stacked on one side. I see it just the opposite on my (admittedly gigantic) screen, with every image having a big empty white space below it when they alternate sides. Apparently it's got something to do with monitor resolution, so there might not be a solid answer. But --

I'd ''love'' so see some screencaps from folks showing how they see things on their monitors. It's a little hard to understand this problem without seeing it from other people's POV.

I started a little Sandbox at [[:user talk:repowers/Sandbox2]] with two different versions of Frenzy's trivia. The first one stacks all the images at the top. Does this work for people on lower monitor resolutions, or does it still look like crap? With them all stacked at the front, I don't see how they could have any white space, regardless of monitor resolution. On my screen, it looks very neat and tidy, while the second one is messy. See:

[http://www.builtstlouis.net/tf/frenzy1.jpg Stacked] 
[http://www.builtstlouis.net/tf/frenzy2.jpg Alternating]

Thoughts and input welcomed. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 01:36, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

:Alternating does kind of suck now. I've been putting pics all on the right side where there are bullet points since Wikia updated their software... an update which covered single bullet points if you put an image on the left side of the screen. I suggest cutting down on images in Trivia, since most users here have smaller monitors and use lower resolutions. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 05:44, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
::I think the easiest answer is to just remove the head images. They're essentially redundant and don't really add anything to the reader's understanding. I'd call for a general limit on how many images you can stuff into a section. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 06:27, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
:::I'd remove the head images from the article proper... but then make a text link to them within the relevant paragraph so people can see them anyway if they want to. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 06:35, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
::::That works. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 07:11, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

== Foreign name format ==
I just found the foreign names doesn't have an unified format.
:For example, some are
::''Hungarian name:'' '''Kerék''' ("Wheel"(with or without ""))
:others are
::''Hungarian name'': '''Kerék''' (meaning Wheel(or "Wheel"))

I suggest we could use an unified format like the below:
:<nowiki>:''Foreign name 1:'' '''Name A''' (Form A), '''Name B''' (Form B)</nowiki>
:<nowiki>:''Foreign name 2:'' '''Name''' ("English meaning")</nowiki>

Take [[Hot Rod]] for example, it will look like:
:''Japanese name:'' '''Hot Rodimus''' (Hot Rod), '''Rodimus Convoy''' (Rodimus Prime)
:''Hungarian names:'' '''Nagyágyú''' ("Hot ''Shot''"), '''Rodimusz Fővezér''' ("Prime Commander Rodimus")

Thoughts and idea are welcomed :) --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 09:09, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
:I don't have a strong opinion on how the international names are standardized, but I strongly agree that they should be. I nominate someone else to go through and do it. -[[User:LV|LV]] 21:40, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

== Wookiepedia has a darn nifty interface ==

What would it take for us to create something similar but Transformers-y?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:36, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
:I think the admins were adament that we keep a simple, bare-bones default look to the TF wiki, in keeping with our 'let's not take this stuff too seriously' attitude and tone. At least that's what I remember them saying when I suggested an orange layout like what Teletraan I looked like in the cartoon. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 09:34, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
::The current Wookieepedia also doesn't seem to want to cooperate with my comp here at work. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 18:27, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

==Characters lacking visuals category?==
It's dawned on me that there are actually quite a few characters who don't have any form of visual representation. They may have been described, but there are no ''pictures''. While a bulk of these are from prose stories, there's several who were simply mentioned by name in comics, or in external sources (Key Code info, S7 site, etc). More than enough to justify a category. 
I think that maybe there should also be a template/visual for this to call attention to this fact on the page right up front. I'm thinking a variation on the current <nowiki>{{mainpic}}</nowiki> template... a silhouette, (different from the mainpic one) and some text saying "This character has no known official visual depiction" or something. Anyone? --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 18:33, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
:Well, for the characters with the mainpic template, the idea is that the mainpic image is there as a placeholder, and to annoy people into tracking down an image.
:However, characters that have never had any visual depiction, and are unlikely to ever get one, don't need a placeholder for their image, and the template will just pointlessly take up room. I'm against the template, but I think the category is a good idea, and will suffice to identify these characters. [[User:JW|JW]] 18:44, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
::I disagree. The point is specifically to call attention to their lack of imagery, so nobody thinks "maybe they do have an image". And considering how little there ''is'' to most of those characters, a little extra visual pizzaz to their pages can't hurt. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 19:06, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
:::''so nobody thinks "maybe they do have an image"'' Are you intending to convey that message to ''editors,'' or casual users? Editors will, in theory, know enough to look for the category. I'm not sure casual users need to have the point brought to their attention.
:::And, it's not like we have scads of frantic editors running around trying to find pics for characters who have only appeared in prose. This may be a solution without a problem. [[User:JW|JW]] 19:27, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

== Timelines disambuig ==

There doesn't seem to be a consensus on how to name the various Timelines articles.

I feel that any disambiguation in the article title should be limited to keeping the articles separate. For instance, [[Optimus Prime (Shattered Glass)]] should be at [[Optimus Prime (Timelines)]] unless there is another Optimus Prime who's first appearance in anything was in Timelines. G1 Prime appearing in the 2007 Timelines comic does not affect this, as he is already at [[Optimus Prime (G1)]]. If G1 Prime being in a Timelines comic affected this, we would need to move [[Cyclonus (Armada)]] to [[Cyclonus (Armada whatever size class he is)]] because a version of G1 Cyclonus appeared in ''Worlds Collide''. The only reason to include the set name in the article title is ''two'' separate characters who first official anything is in ''Timelines''. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 17:18, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

== Shattered Expectations ==

Um, shouldn't those[[Deathsaurus|1]][[Bug Bite|2]] who appear in ''[[Shattered Expectations]]'' have their own page like others[[Optimus Prime (Timelines)|1]][[Grimlock (Timelines)|2]] even their counterparts' article would be short? --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 06:28, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
:I brought this up on [[Category_talk:Mayhem_Suppression_Squad]]. As I said there, I think they should either get their own articles or if that's not warranted just be covered on the Mayhem Suppression Squad article. Either way, I don't think "Shattered Expectations" fiction sections belong on the normal-verse guys' pages. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 07:08, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

==Monaco skin==

Hi -- Have you guys seen the new Monaco skin that's being used on Wikia now? You can see it at [[w:c:muppet|Muppet Wiki]] and [[w:c:marveldatabase|Marvel Database]].

As we've been rolling the skin out across Wikia, there are a few things that we've found when wikis switch to Monaco:

* The number of pageviews goes up. The flyout menus encourage new readers to explore the content on the site, and people end up sticking around on the site for longer.

* The number of new editors goes up. Readers spend more time on the site, and find pages that they want to contribute to. Also, the design makes the edit button more prominent.

* The site is faster. There were some changes made last week to Monaco that make pages load a lot faster than Monobook. Hit "random page" a few times on a Monaco wiki, and you'll see what I mean.

So I'm going around and proselytizing to the Entertainment wikis that are still using Monobook. If you want to make a custom Monaco skin like Marvel Database and Wookieepedia have, I can help you make that happen. What do you guys think? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:31, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

:Monaco does look nice, though it might go against what I understand is the wiki's purpose, which is to be quick and dirty, no fancy stuff and no pretention that this wiki is in any way officially endorsed or serious. At least that's the gist of what I was told after I previously suggested we could make the default colour of this wiki a shade of orange, like the computer systems in the original Transformers cartoons. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 23:16, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

::Yeah, we don't have to do a custom skin -- it could be the basic blue and white. I'm mostly interested in the improved functionality. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 23:24, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Eh, if it makes the place ''easier'', I don't think the "pure and simple" folks will object.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 23:26, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

And truth be told, I think the main dealbreaker here might be the extent to which Suki and Derik may or may not have farted about with tweaking Monobook. I know they've both made alterations, but I don't know quite what.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 23:34, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

:That stuff won't be affected at all. We can copy Monobook.css over to Common.css, and all of the tweaks that they made will still work. No problems. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 23:52, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

My biggest concern is the menus. The "by series" list could easily fill the entire vertical direction of the screen. We don't actually have all the series listed on the main page now (Machine Wars, Dinobots, Timelines, Universe (2008), not to mention licenced lines like Animorphs, SWTF, Crossovers).--[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 00:45, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

:Well, the idea with the menus is to be selective rather than comprehensive. It's not supposed to be a complete sitemap for the wiki -- you just want to give the new readers something to click on first.

:On [[w:c:Muppet|Muppet Wiki]], we put up the most popular Muppet Show and Sesame Street characters, and then a link to "More characters". We just want to entice people into making that first click, without overwhelming them with choices.

:I have access to click-through data for the Monaco menus, so it's possible to run some tests. You could put up a set of menus for a few days, and then I'll be able to tell you which items are getting clicked. That way, you could refine the menus so that you could highlight the items that are most likely to get clicked on. I've been doing that with the Muppet menus, and it's fun to see what the readers are actually interested in reading about. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 23:34, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

::So what do you guys think? I'd like to help you switch over to the new skin... -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 19:10, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
:::For some reason none of the admins have chimed in. I assume they're all off doing useless things like living in Real Life. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 21:10, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

::::Yeah, I left messages for Chris and ItsWalky... -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:12, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::You might want to leave messages for [[User:Suki Brits]] and [[User:Steve-o]] as well. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 13:28, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Well admins? Let's hear your opinions! I find the silence from the staff to be discouraging. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 16:18, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

If there's an actual interest in switching over to Monaco, then I would certainly have nothing against that... but I'd definitely like to hear more from the community first. Aside from that, I have no objections speaking as an admin; the modifications really aren't an issue. On the other hand, speaking as a wiki editor and professional web designer... I would definitely want to use a modified version, as it's got several pretty important issues. My thoughts, in no particular order:
* Search is nigh useless, again. Right now it resembles our ''broken'' Monobook search. I don't think that's a good thing. On the other hand, I'm currently working on fixing that anyway, so it's not like the same couldn't be done for Monaco.
* The header sucks. It really, really does. It's only 150px tall, but it sends a pretty powerful message: we'd rather show you this pretty, irrelevant picture then let you immediately get to article. ''I'' would want the top of the article as close to the top as possible.
:: Gah, I brought it over into another browser that doesn't block ads... and now I see why it's so obnoxiously huge. I am ''strongly'' opposed to putting giant hideous banner ads at the top of everything. Like, it's a little insulting that Wikia really thinks that ''that'' should be the first thing readers see. Teletraan I, like everything else on Wikia, is naturally ad-driven; but Monobook isn't offensive about it.
* The language selection is in a dropdown box, which is a TERRIBLE idea. This personally doesn't affect me, as I don't speak Hungarian, but it's pretty awful for anyone who actually is interested in seeing foreign language versions of articles... and has to click a dropdown menu on every single page if they're curious.
* The "community" box is really unhelpful. Half the content (user page, user talk, etc.) is redundant with the top of the screen, and absolutely nobody is interested in just the most recent two edits. That just leaves the number of articles. This is a lot of wasted room for nothing.
* I ''do'' like that the obnoxious sidebar on the right is gone. The current framing in Monobook wastes all sorts of space and Monaco definitely doesn't ''look'' like it has that problem.
There's also a bunch of minor things, but they don't really matter so much. The big issues are the useless space, a need to do major fixes to search, and the huge obtrusive banner ads (as opposed to the ones on the side in Monobook). But if Wikia's really willing to work with us on it, then by all means, it's up to what the community thinks. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 20:48, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

:I've been around the Wookieepeedia lately, and I've noticed when you click edit, it loads significantly slower on Monaco than it does on the Monobook format. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 05:25, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

::Hi guys -- Sorry it took me so long to respond. I'll make up for it with a super-long answer. :)

::Yes, absolutely -- I want to work with you on this. Some of the things you've raised I can clear up immediately. For some, I can explain the rationale behind the approach, and show you some stats that may help. And if there are some things that need to get tweaked, I can talk to the designers & tech folks to see if we can come up with a solution.

::Just so you know: I work for Wikia now, but I started out in 2005 as the founder of [[w:c:muppet|Muppet Wiki]]. Working on wikis is my job now, but Muppet Wiki is where my heart lives, so I'm always looking out for what's going to help or hurt "my wiki". I am/was a big Monobook fan, and I was skeptical about Monaco as it was being designed. The thing that made me a Monaco fan was actually trying it out on Muppet Wiki, and then looking at the stats to see how it was working. Muppet Wiki and Teletraan I are very similar -- about a dozen really active contributors, a strong admin team and a community of about 60-80 contributors. So I can share with you what I saw on Muppet Wiki, and what I can see in the pageviews stats.

::First up, the rationale behind some of the decisions made with the new skin. There are some features on the new skin that the most active editors think are useless, like the Community box or the flyout menus. And it's true, those aren't very helpful for the active contributors. They're designed for the anonymous/new people, who are the vast majority of our readers.

::Here's the stats on unique visits for Teletraan I. (Unique visits counts the number of visits to a site, and not the number of pages you look at in each visit. So if you come to the wiki and look at 100 pages, that counts as one unique.) In the last month, there have been 2,725,000 anonymous visits, and 261,000 logged-in user visits. That means 91% of the visits to the site aren't logged-in contributors.

::Logged-in editors make 77% of the edits here, so obviously we're the people who are actually building the content that people are reading. Logged-in editors are important, and the dozen people who make over 100 edits here every month are especially important. Still, if you want to make the community bigger and more active, then you have to think about whether the design of the site encourages anonymous users to sign in and become active members.

::The purpose of designing the new skin was to make the wiki more accessible to the 91% of anonymous readers. Obviously, we have to keep the functionality that the active contributors need in order to build the wiki. At the same time, we have to be aware that the Monobook skin that we're familiar with is kind of confusing for brand-new people.

::For example, the "log in" button is in really small type at the very top right of the screen. From a website design perspective, that's crazy -- it's like we don't want people to find it. The log-in buttons on Monaco are big, green, candy-like buttons. There's one at the top right, and there's another one in the Community box on the sidebar. We want to encourage people to log in.

::In general, having all the important Monobook controls in little bitty tiny type says: We hate people who are older than 40. ("Go back to AOL, old man!") All of the Monobook buttons are in the same font, from the crucial stuff like "Log in" and "Edit this page" to the more obscure controls like "Related changes" and "Permanent link". On Monaco, the stuff that's important to brand-new users is bigger -- log-in, edit, the link to the home page. The search box is at the top, rather than being buried down in the sidebar. The controls that logged-in users need, like "What links here" and "Special pages", are in smaller type -- they're important to us, but a brand-new user wouldn't know what to do with them.

::Okay, so that's my very long introduction... Now I'll respond to the points that you guys have brought up.

::'''Search''': I think when you say that search is broken, you mean that there's just a "Go" button and not a "Search" button next to the search box. (If you mean something else, then let me know.) That's true, and it's something that I struggled with as the design for Monaco was taking shape. I use the Search button all the time, and I was frustrated that it wasn't included. Then I looked at the stats. On Teletraan I in the last month, logged-in users used Go for 91% of searches, and Search for 9%. Anonymous users used Go for 97% of searches. Given that, I think it's okay to make the Search button less prominent. I remember when I first started using wikis, I was totally confused by having two buttons. (Do I want to Go or Search? Well, I want to search, and then go to the search results...) I only figured out the difference through trial and error. So in Monaco, the search box at the top is Go, and then you can have a link to [[Special:Search]] in the toolbox. (Some wikis have that, and some don't -- Muppet has it, if you want to see how it works.)

::'''Community box''': That's one of the features that's designed to encourage brand-new users to explore the site. When you look at a wiki as a new reader, it's not always apparent that there's a community there. You read pages, but you don't necessarily know whether the articles were written today or a year ago. (Unless you look at Recent changes, which a brand-new reader doesn't know to do.) The Community box is designed to bring a little taste of the community activity up to their view. It's not a helpful way for a contributor to keep track of Recent changes, but it does show new people that something's going on. If you come to the site and see that somebody edited a page 15 seconds ago, then you understand that there's an active community. On Muppet Wiki in the last month, 1,404 anonymous readers logged in using the button in the Community box, 1,539 anon readers clicked the "more..." button to go to Recent changes, and 1,287 clicked on article links that they saw in the Latest Activity area. Those are readers who may not have been engaged with the site if they hadn't seen the activity going on in the Community box. On the other hand, logged-in contributors only clicked in the Community box 350 times. It's not designed for us; it's for the 91% of anons.

::'''Obnoxious ads''': This is the one area that's designed to help the company rather than the wiki. Basically, the deal is that Wikia doesn't make a lot of money from the "skyscraper" ads on the right sidebar. Nobody clicks on them, and most advertisers don't bother to make ads like that anymore. Advertisers want banner ads, and they want them at the top of the page. I can't justify this one in wiki terms, except to say that if we want Wikia to stay in business and continue to host wikis, then we need to change the skin to accommodate the changing ad market. Otherwise, there won't be a Wikia after a while.

::'''Languages drop-down''': We changed the list into a drop-down menu because sites like Wookieepedia had a long list, which took up a lot of sidebar space, and only had about 100 clicks on language links in a month. On Teletraan I, there have only been 2 clicks on the language links since October.

::'''Content space''': There is slightly less content area on Monaco when you first come to the page. The sidebar is smaller than the combined left & right Monobook sidebars, so the content area is wider. The banner ad means that the height takes a hit for the first screen. As you scroll down, though, the Monaco content area is bigger than on Monobook, because the page is wider. I can show you some screencaps if you want more info on this.

::'''Slow edits on Wookieepedia''': That looks like a bug that's specific to Wookieepedia... I'm not sure what's going on there. It looks like when you hit edit on Wookiee, it's looking for something from maps.google, and that can slow down the page load for the edit screen. I hadn't seen that before, so I'm really glad you pointed it out. That's not affecting other Monaco wikis like Muppet Wiki or Marvel Database, so there must be something in Wookieepedia's css that's causing that. I'll look into it. If you look at Muppet or Marvel, you'll see that the page load is lightning fast right now. (Not counting periods of site-wide database problems, which affect every skin.)

::So anyway -- this is a huge long post, but I think I responded to everything. As you can tell, I take this stuff really seriously, and I'm willing to put in the time to research the impact and explain what's going on. Do folks have other questions or concerns about Monaco? I could keep talking about this stuff all day. :) -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 17:33, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

:::Personally, as regular contributor, I'm fine with switching to Monaco, so long as we get to keep our new 'random page thumbnail' above the search box (or anywhere, really). I think it's useful for visitors to be able to visit a random page with an interesting thumbnail image rather than simply doing random searches or hitting Random page repeatedly. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 17:44, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

::::I knew there was something I forgot to mention! Yeah, the featured page thumbnail. I think that's something that we can adapt.

::::That feature doesn't have anything to do with search -- it just happens that you can put a picture in the Monobook search box. I actually think what you've made is a little misleading. The picture says "Search" on it, and it's right above the search box -- so as a user, I would assume that if I click that, I'll get some kind of search results page. Instead, it goes to a featured article, which isn't necessarily what you'd expect.

::::The feature is really a rotating spotlight for featured articles, which is cool and visual, and helps to bring readers deeper into the content. It's a great idea. I think it would actually be more effective if it was split away from search, so readers would be more likely to recognize it as a featured-article spotlight.

::::So there are a couple ways to do that in Monaco. The easiest way would be to put it in the sidebar -- check out [[MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar]] for an example. Here's pics to show what that would look like.

<gallery>
Image:Monacosidebar1.jpg
Image:Monacosidebar2.jpg|You can update this list anytime, so you can freshen it up every day or every week. Or never.
Image:Monacosidebar3.jpg|That big green, fire-snortin' lizard must be included.
Image:Monacosidebar4.jpg|If you click on "Embrace the Knowledge", it takes you to the Allspark article. Obviously.
</gallery>

::::It's not graphical, but it allows you to bring the funny into the sidebar, which you've never been able to do before. One advantage of this approach is that you can add in new articles to the sidebar without having to wait for somebody to make a graphic.

::::If that's not enough and you need to go graphical, then I can talk to our designer, Christian, about creating a widget that can go into the sidebar and have the same function. It could sit above or below the Community box. It would be separate from search, but like I said, that may be a good thing. What do you think? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:48, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

If you want to sell this to Walky... make it orange.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 22:05, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
[[Image:Orangemonaco.jpg|thumb|250px|It could be even oranger if that would help.]]
:Does this work? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:13, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

::The brick skin has a pretty nice brown/orange thing going. That's what I'm using at the moment. --[[User:Professor Icepick|Professor Icepick]] 22:17, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
:::See, that's what was needed to get his attention. The orange will draw him, like a moth to a flame.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 22:24, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
[[Image:Monacobrick.jpg|thumb|250px|Monaco Brick, in all its dark red and orange glory.]]
::::Here's how Brick looks... -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:28, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

:::::Do it! --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 00:41, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
::::::I TOLD you guys that we should make this wiki orange (to actually look like Teletraan 1) way back before we even knew about Monaco, but you were all "We are serious business about not taking ourselves seriously". --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 06:44, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

:I don't know all that much about what can and can't be modified, but can't a number of the problems with Monobook be solved simply by changing the css or js files? I'm mainly talking about the small text size for the tabs and login. Plus, most people who edit wikies are probably familiar with Wikipedia's Monobook interface. Plus, I don't think anyone wants the trouble from the ad format being changed again. A few months ago the site started taking showing wider vertical ads, and it was awhile before the horizontal scrolling mess got cleaned up. But then again I'm the guy who uses XP's Classic Windows scheme with Windows 98's colors and icons, so I may be biased when it comes to new interfaces. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 22:41, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

::The Monobook problems can't be solved with css changes. The type size is an example, but it's really a general problem with the layout. Wiki veterans are used to Monobook, but it's not necessarily a great layout for new people. I meet people all the time who read Wikipedia, but when I ask if they've ever made an edit, they say no -- it never occurred to them. I think it's important to make wikis more accessible to new people, and we're finding that Monaco is helping people to explore the wikis and make their first edit.

::Are there other concerns that people have that I can help with? I know that this discussion has gone on a bit, and I'd hate to have it just run out of steam before it gets to a decision. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 18:15, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::It seems like there aren't any more concerns about the new skin, so I'm thinking about changing it over to Monaco tomorrow, unless someone has objections. Once it's switched over, then I can help you out with whatever customization you want. Is that cool? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 15:55, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
::::A great number of us are indisposed at [[BotCon 2008]] this weekend, but there should still be a handful of us around. So you know! --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 16:09, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::Gyah. I thought we were doing Brick?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:17, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:We can do anything you guys want... I'm just playing around for a minute to see if I can come up with something interesting. It's gonna look bad for the next five minutes... and then we can talk about what you guys want, and fix it up nice. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:21, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::Okay, never mind. That just looked bad. :) So I set it to Brick. If you guys want to change these colors, we can change them to whatever you like. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:25, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

===Apparently implemented===
Is there any way to override this that '''doesn't''' override the skins on ''every'' Wikia-hosted wiki? - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 21:19, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:Do you mean, you want to see the skin in Monobook? You can go to Preferences --> Skins, and set your preferred skin to Monobook. You can check or uncheck the box that says "Let the admins override my skin choice" to either see customized skins or not. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:27, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::Yes, I know that. My problem with that is the "This setting will follow you across Wikia." clause. I don't want to override EVERYWHERE (e.g. Memory Alpha). Just Monaco wikis. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 21:30, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::Actually, they're working on switching over to the Monaco skin on Memory Alpha too... At a certain point, pretty much every Wikia wiki is going to end up on Monaco. Is there something about Monaco that you don't like? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:43, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::::The flyouts. Certainly not the only thing - the more I look, the less I like, especially the pathetic "Latest Activity" box with a practically-camouflaged recentchanges link, and why exactly are the preferences hidden? - but they're the biggest dealbreaker. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 22:01, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::::Yeah, at first I wasn't crazy about the flyouts either. We tested out using the sidebar without the flyouts on Muppet Wiki, but then I looked at the click stats and found that they really helped new readers to find content on the wiki. The pageviews went down when we took the flyouts out. If you're interested, there's details here: [[w:c:muppet:Muppet_Wiki:Current_events#Sidebar_menus|Muppet Wiki:Current events]].

:::::The "Community" box is also something for the new users. When you first come to the wiki, you might think that it's just a static site... There's no way to know that there's a living community. The latest activity shows people that there are pages that were edited in the last couple minutes. Also, logged-out users see a log-in button in that box. For active logged-in users, a lot of these features aren't that useful. They're really aimed at the 90-something% of readers that aren't logged in. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:10, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::::::(NB: I was expanding my post at the same time you were typing, since I was spending a bit of time looking around).
::::::See, I'm not coming at it from the "guy who runs the wiki" perspective. I'm not a sysop on a Wikia wiki, so "this will boost Teh Stats" has no effect on me [perhaps that means you consider my position irrelevant. I can't help that]. Nor am I a newbie to Wikis, so again, not the target group.
::::::My problem is that (1) they require me to turn JavaScript on in the first place (strictly, add to the NoScript whitelist, but...) and (2) the click-on flyout in the top right is worse than pointless, since there's room for the links without that and it just makes preferences harder to access and (3) I hate non-click flyouts since you they will inevitably be scrolled at the wrong moment, trebly so since they're on the side rather than the top. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 22:08, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::::::I think "this will boost Teh Stats" actually matters to everybody. More readers looking at more pages = more potential contributors = a more active community = more and better content on the site. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:12, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::::::::By the way, I'm not trying to make you like the skin. Either you like it, or you don't. I'm just explaining the rationale behind some of the design decisions, so you know that it wasn't just random or malicious. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:17, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

There are three things that would make me more... reconciled... to it. I still probably won't ''like'' it, but...
#On your own "help.wikia", there's a group of links beneath the flyouts to Recent Changes/Upload/etc. They don't appear here or on most Wikia wikis (well, strictly they appear for about half a second on a Ctrl-F5, which suggests they're present but being hidden with CSS or something). They should be there as standard.
#Links to Special:Preferences and Special:Contributions/(self) should be available with a single non-flyover click, either in the "Community" box or at the top right, not in a flyover only. '''ESPECIALLY''' Special:Preferences.
#Be able to override the colour scheme on an individual wiki basis, rather than just "all or nothing" - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 22:29, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::For #1, I'm not sure why you're not seeing the toolbox links. That's an important part of the skin, and it's on every wiki. Check out the screenshots that I added above -- every wiki has links to Recent changes and Upload. If you're not seeing it, then that's a weird bug which we can try to figure out. What browser are you using? Are you only seeing the toolbox disappearing on Transformers, or on other wikis too?

::If you want it, we can put links to Preferences and Contributions in the toolbox, or in the sidebar. I don't know how to change the top header.

::Can you give me an example of what you'd like to see as far as overriding the color schemes? I think it's possible that what you want is currently possible, but I'm not sure. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:54, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::Okay, #1 was my own fault. An in-browser hack I'd done on Monobook was interacting "unpredictably" with Monaco, and had knocked that (and some minor stuff that doesn't make any difference) out of joint.
:::Okay on #2. I'd be interested to find out how many people ever use Special:Preferences on any skin(s) while you're trotting out stats...
:::On #3, basically, being able to use different (non-default) skins, or at least colour schemes from the chosen skin on different wikis without being limited to the "this will follow you across Wikia". Just because one wiki chooses to smother the page in bright pink (or orange...) doesn't mean I want to change the colour scheme on every wikia. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 23:32, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Sure, I love trotting out stats!

Here's the stats on how Transformers contributors click on those links. In the last month, there have been the following clicks:

* Watchlist: 3,114
* Contributions: 427
* User page: 213
* Talk page: 67
* Preferences: 22

So, yeah, contributions is #2 on that list, but preferences is all the way down at the bottom. Preferences is useful when you need it, but people don't need it that often.

But the hypothesis is: If you put Contributions and Preferences into a drop-down menu, people won't click on it as much, and you'll see clicks on those two items going down.

To make a comparison, I looked at Muppet Wiki editors' clicks in February (on Monobook) and in April (using Monaco).

Here's the clicks on Monobook:

* Contributions: 403 (52%)
* Watchlist: 148 (19%)
* Talk page: 132 (17%)
* User page: 83 (11.5%)
* Preferences: 4 (0.5%)

Here's the clicks on Monaco:

* Contributions: 320 (60%)
* Watchlist: 123 (23%)
* Talk page: 53 (10%)
* User page: 23 (4%)
* Preferences: 15 (3%)

The hypothesis doesn't seem to hold up. Percentage-wise, clicks on Contributions and Preferences went up using Monaco. This is a really small sample, so it's not proof of anything... but it indicates that the drop-down menu doesn't chase away clicks.

As far as seeing wikis in different skins, try choosing Monobook in your skin preferences, and keep "allow admins to override my choices" checked. Transformers isn't using a custom skin right now, so you should see this wiki in Monobook -- and you'll also see the customization on Memory Alpha, etc. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 00:19, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

==Script-style quotes==
There seems to be some disagreement on whether script-style quotes should have quotation marks or not. Personally, I strongly favor including them, for two reasons:
* Visual consistency. There's no reason not to have all the quotes in as similar a format as possible. Having some with quotation marks, and some without, ''in the same section'', seems like needless variation.
* It's... well... it's a ''quote''. We're not writing a screenplay; we're quoting something someone actually said. And a quote gets quotation marks.... fullstop. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 21:18, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

:Hmm, I'm afraid I disagree. They're simply not necessary, and they clutter the page.
:And, regardless of whether we decide to use double-quotes, can we put a stop to script-style where the quotes are are in double-quotes ''and'' italicized? {shudder} [[User:JW|JW]] 21:21, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
::The italics stuff is flat out bad formatting, no disagreement here. There's an earlier discussion about it somewhere on this page or the archives. Nobody should be adding stuff in that format anymore... I hope.
::As for double quotes... um... I have no clue what you're referring to. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 21:23, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

==Gone Too Far==
I've been alerted it's past the 30-day period for "coming soon Club stuff" non-updating. Have at it. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 22:03, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

==Searchbox improvement drive==
So now we have a very nice set of searchboxes, thanks to the lovely design work of M Sipher and the superhuman coding skills of Suki Brits. The effort of these boxes is to show the visitor all of the awesome crap we have. To do that, said cap must in fact be awesome. Unfortunately, a lot of the pages linked to by searchboxes are [[Shatterpoint|imageless]], [[T-AI|missing fiction]], or [[High Wire (Armada)|pretty much content-free]]. Thus, I propose an improvement drive of the searchbox articles. When you click on one of those suckers, try and add something. I dunno how we'd make this official, exactly... - [[User:RolonBolon|RolonBolon]] 06:49, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
:Are these images supposed to show up automatically by/around/with the actual text box in which you type your search parameters? If so, I'm not seeing them in the current Monaco skin.--[[User:Apcog|Apcog]] 14:29, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
::They don't show up in Monaco, Quartz, Cologne Blue, or any other custom theme. Just Monobook, the default. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 20:15, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Is there a way to get the search box changes to load sooner? The way it is now the custom settings for the box are the last thing to load; it uses the default settings until the google ads finish loading. This can take awhile depending on how the crappy campus wireless is acting. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 20:39, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with RolonBolon about the searchbox thing. I know we're hard up for help, but why are we spending time creating these little searchbox images using pics from God knows where, yet we've neglected to upload a single image for the actual pages these buttons lead to? Not the mention pages that have absolutely no content whatsoever.
I think we've overreached ourselves, and in the future we should only do these searchbox things for articles that are largely complete and/or have alot of content and imagery, otherwise we look really half-ass and unfocused. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 22:37, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
:Yeah, what drove it home for me was Sixtrain. I see Sixtrain in the Search box. It looks nifty, like it's his box art. I click on the article, no images. Why the heck can't we upload Sixtrain's box art when we evidently have a clear enough copy of it to make a search teaser?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 23:33, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
::I was simply making boxes using what I had on the hard drive as examples, and not everything is good quality at main-image size. I don't think we've "overreached ourselves" at all. At worst, we omit a few items from the searchbox list if their entries are that empty for a little while, OH NOES. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 00:22, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
:::I am of the opinion that a fuzzy picture that can be replaced later is better than no picture at all. It helps users know what it's talking about in the meantime, right? [[User:Spriteless|Spriteless]] 02:24, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
::::We prefer no pic/no content to a crap pic/crap content. I've been taking a break from the Wiki, but it looks like I'm going on another image safari. My scanner not working is annoying. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 06:54, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

The fact that the image is the last one on the page to load isn't just visually annoying; it for some reason also makes whatever you've typed in the search field vanish in Firefox. I've had this happen to me a bunch of times. A lesser annoyance is that the input box moves when the image appears; it would be nice if it could stay in the same place (maybe by making the whole Search box a fixed size?), as it's a bad idea to have a clickable thing that spontaneously jumps around. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 20:31, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
: The way the Search Image works right now, I'd rather not even have them. My computer has slowed down ''epically'' trying to load those images each time, and if it's a high traffic time of day, the rest of the page will basically freeze for 30 seconds or more until that search image gets around to loading. This is extremely annoying when I just need a quick peek at a page before making a link, like checking if Stormcloud is one word or two or if Whirl needs to be disambig-ed in the link. And if I try to click Search to move on to a next page too early, the Image drops down in front and shang-hais my "click", so I go there instead of being able to type in where I want to go.

: I don't like the thing at all. It's been nothing but a hassle for the last day or so. There's already a Random page button right about it -- do we really need this too? --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 00:30, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::The same thing has been happening to me lately, and I've never experienced that problem on Wookieepedia. And this is a real problem for me, as I'm actually ''supportive'' of the image icons. We may want review the system. -- [[User:SFH|SFH]] 01:30, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Though in fairness, some of that may be due to Wikia's tendency to nearly-crash every weekend. And to be honest, this weekend has been rather traffic low. I mean, seriously, did every head to BotCon a week early? -- [[User:SFH|SFH]] 02:09, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Let me know if this continues to be an issue during weekdays (well, before Thursday, anyway). If it is, I'll figure out a way to let users optionally turn them off. I've never noticed it slowing down while trying to load, and any sane browser ''shouldn't'', but if that really is happening for some users, something definitely ought to be done about it.
::::I'll also take a look at preserving the form data while the images load, because that is definitely something that really ''should'' happen, too. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 03:44, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::Things sped back up again shortly after SFH's last post, but I'll post again if it keeps happening regularly. Maybe it was just an anomaly. --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 03:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::'''Furthermore:''' I did a bit of code modification that should make the form retain anything you've typed before the images loads. You may need to do a hard refresh for the change to show up, but lemme know if that doesn't work for anyone. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 03:52, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

==Templates listing==
Is there a page editors can refer to for templates (messagebox, user notices ect) without having to go through the categories or remembering the last time somebody used it so they can copy-paste it? They seem to be unnecessarily difficult to track down. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 03:43, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
:[http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=10 here] --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 04:50, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
::My main concern was not requiring the page soley for myself, but was this page obviously linked on a help page or something somewhere that anybody could find easily? I'd personally like to see this wiki become more user-friendly. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 07:25, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Agreed, as I've [http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Transformers_Wiki_talk:Community_Portal#.22First_go_here.21__Next_go_here..22 said before on this very page]. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 15:05, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Yeah. Our lack of user friendliness might discourage people from joining up. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 17:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:What I'm worried about is that some of the other users would actually be okay with that...-- [[User:SFH|SFH]] 17:48, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::Well, last time I checked some of these other users don't own the wiki. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 09:12, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

== new template: Comicinfo ==

Please checkout [[Template:Comicinfo]]. It's a little rough around the edges, but something I think could be useful on the comics pages. Comments and suggestions are welcome.--[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 02:42, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

== Masthead ==

Okay, the old Monobook masthead doesn't look so good under Monaco. How do we change this?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:31, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
:I've looked around and seen that other wikis have already taken advantage of the extra masthead space. Question is, how do we do so, and what dimensions would the new masthead be?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 16:05, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
::Before we do anything, I would recommend keeping the masthead's filesize reasonable, because there's nothing worse than trying to load a site with a masthead image that is like a megabyte or something. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 16:22, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Oh, absolutely. I was mainly thinking perhaps something involving a 'shopping of the TFA logo, considering it'd fit the color scheme nicely. Alternatively, maybe something aping the "grid" of G1.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 16:26, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Another thought is whether it's possible for the masthead to be random/rotating. If so, it'd let us do Autobot/Decepticon versions of the same masthead (via color swap) or even rotating versions for different franchises (G1, BW, UT, etc.)--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 16:35, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

== Sidebar ==

Given that we're getting a lot of Transformers Animated traffic lately, I'd say an item in the Monaco sidebar is likely going to help direct people to the right articles.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:45, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:Okay, I put it in the sidebar. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:56, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

== Hate the new skin. ==

Hate this new skin. Just wanted to say it. The old look was much more pleasent and open to read. New one is just crouded and Blah. THIS is gonna take getting use to. No Sir, I don't like it.

:Can it at least not be burgundy and orange? - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 22:08, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::Yeah, it can be any color you like. I was messing around with colors before, but wasn't doing a great job with it, and Rosicrucian said he wanted this color scheme. Any admin can change the colors by editing [[MediaWiki:Monaco.css]]. There's instructions on how to do it here: [[w:c:help:Customizing Monaco|Customizing Monaco]]. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:15, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
:::I mainly liked this because it fits with the color scheme of Teletraan itself. I'm not married to the idea, though. I also figured I'd speak up about it because Walky liked it, and he's off enjoying his ridiculously expensive Transformers collector's items at BotCon.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 22:21, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Ahh, right, well, I can see the logic, there, all right... I'm just not dying about the dark-coloured backgrounds, since it's a big visually jarring to have big white boxes of text in the middle of them. - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 22:24, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

: Seconding the hate. [[User:Hooper X|-hx]] 00:04, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
:: This looks pretty hideous compared to MonoBook... and it's hard to navigate. Well, at least I can override it in preferences, but I think I'll be ignoring admin skin choices unless a custom one appears in the future.--[[User:MCRG|MCRG]] 00:44, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

:::I think I can try to get used to the new skin unless/until I find something inconvenient. Well, so far so good. At least the seach function is better. But the logo on the left side of the top, well... um, oh. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 01:23, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
::Fourthing the hate. The colors hurt my eyes. That, and the obscure character search images are gone. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 01:45, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

:I'm afraid I don't much like it either. Fortunately, it was pretty easy to uncheck the "override" box on my preferences. [[User:JW|JW]] 01:54, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't like the new skin either. I don't get the menus at the side. "Featured characters" includes articles that I don't think have actually been Featured. G1 and Animated are listed, but no other franchises. And the menus are inconsistent. The G1 menu lists Autobot, Decepticon, and then a bunch of character pages, while the Animated menu lists Animated's toy line, cartoon, comic, and books articles. Why the difference? And what was the selection process for the "Embrace the Knowledge" menu?

By the way, in the middle of BotCon is probably the worst possible time for major changes like this to be made. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 04:29, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

:The menus at the side are examples that I made up. You guys can change them to be anything you want, by editing [[MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar]]. I'm sorry about the timing... We've been talking about this for maybe three weeks.

:Lots of things can be changed -- the colors, the menus, the logo. I'll put it back to the basic Sapphire for now, which is more like Monobook. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 05:08, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Not a fan of the skin, either. Losing the brown and yellow from earlier was a step up, but it still doesn't quite work. The extra crap on the side feels ''bigger'' now, so the actual articles feel ''smaller''. And those blamed automatic pulldown menus keep getting in the way everytime I move my cursor to or from the Search box. Annoying. --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 17:02, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:I'm a little unclear- you say Monaco is the new Wikia standard skin. No one likes it. But we can override the style in our preferences to set it back to Monobook.
:So does TT1 have the ''option'' of deciding to switch back to Monobook if that's what the consensus decides? Danny is saying they are switching Memory Alpha Monaco and "at a certain point, pretty much every Wikia wiki is going to end up on Monaco." So is this something we get to decide for ourselves, or will Monaco be forced on us even if we don't want it? -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 18:55, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

== Anonymous edits ==

Lately, I've been looking at wikis that have decided to turn off anonymous edits, and have everybody log in before contributing to the wiki. The idea is that having everybody log in builds a stronger sense of community, because you always have a name to associate with an edit, rather than a random string of numbers. It's easier to talk to people who have names. It also gives you more control over vandalism, since you can recognize potential vandals more easily.

Some people don't like the idea, because they're worried that logging in is a barrier to entry -- if you have to log in to edit, then you won't bother, and you'll go away. Looking at the wikis that require login, that doesn't seem to be true. [[w:c:muppet|Muppet Wiki]] turned off anon edits last April, and the number of active editors has actually gone up. Some of our most active wikis require login -- [[w:c:wowwiki|World of Warcraft]], [[w:c:ffxi|FFXIclopedia]], [[w:c:tibia|Tibia Wiki]] and [[w:c:marveldatabase|Marvel Database]]. (WoW and FFXI actually require a confirmed e-mail address before you can edit.)

So I've been talking to folks about this, and we've decided to allow wiki communities to turn off anonymous edits if they want to. There are a lot of anonymous editors here, so I'm wondering what you guys think about it. Would it be helpful to require login for everybody?

Obviously, that's a big community decision... I just want to throw out the possibility, and see what you think. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 20:38, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

:I strongly oppose disabling anonymous edits! (I also oppose sweeping changes performed over botcon, and unilaterally re-skining the site when the community can argue for weeks or month about proposed style changes to individual ''templates'' without reaching a consensus-- but if you're willing to ignore the needs of registered users while making such 'big community decisions,' why would you listen to anon users?) -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 08:18, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
::Well, let's get an opposing viewpoint here. Why are you, 75.168.112.43, unwilling to get an account? [[User:JW|JW]] 11:16, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:::You assume I don't have an account.
:::I strongly oppose disabling anonymous edits because;
::::# It puts up a gateway that discourages first time users. Not a tall gateway- but a gateway nonetheless. Even if it only turns back 30% of new editors, that's 30% of people who could potentially become productive members of the community we're turning away out of hand.
::::# Equally important to the new users are the 'casual fixers', people who will /never/ become regulars on this wiki but, while clicking around, notice a link leading to '''Megatron''' instead of '''Megatron (G1)'''. If they have to register to make that simple fix? 9 times out of 10 that kind of fix will not get done.
::::# The problem 'disabling anonymous edits' seeks to fix- trolls- will not be solved. We already have trolls who register for accounts-- right now we don't even require an e-mail address. So ''next'' to combat Troll,s we'll require all accounts to have e-mail addresses. Then we'll require those e-mails be ''verified'', then maybe we'll set up a system where new users have to be ''approved'' like so many online communities before they can use their account. IP Tracking! Requiring Persistent Cookies! Each and ''any'' of these steps makes the online experience just a little bit more unpleasant for the user (and each hoop to jump throuhg makes new users just a little disinclined to join) but none of them actually stops trolls! Clear your cache, sign up for a yahoo account and you're up and running again. The trolls that regularly bother TT1 have already demonstrated they are willing to go to these lengths to evade bans. I am opposed to any measure that would punish the general body of users (registered and non) to deal with trolls. I am '''strongly''' opposed to any measure that would punish users and '''not''' deal with trolls, which is what this promises to do.

::::And seriously- while I'm tickled to death to know that the 'wikia community developer' has been attracted to communities that place restrictions on their users, I'm not thrilled to see someone who's not part of the community lobbying that we become more insular. I think changing TT1 to a UI that's different from Wikipedia makes the site harder to use (both for new users, and for users who make contributions to multiple wikis) is an objectively bad decision that was made with little discussion because 'it looks better.' And I really dislike that this was done while everyone was gone at Botcon and it was impossible to form a quorum for proper discussion. Monorail guy dances into town and starts making global changes that he thinks 'make more sense' without understanding that [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Talk:Megatron_Rising_-_Part_2&action=history they were that way for a reason], and his whims would require massive secondary cleanup effort to enact. I don't think someone who's not a participating member of this community should be initiating that kind of change, or throwing his weight behind them for them while 'polling for consensus. On a more fundamental level- I'm suspicious about external voices telling us how we should be running this wiki, because sooner or later they're gong to tell us The Funny Should Go.
::::I feel the burden of proof is on the other side here-- show that there will be a concrete and measurable improvement to the wiki by disabling anonymous edits that will NOT place an unnecessary burden on users. -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 12:38, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::''"You assume I don't have an account."'' Well, then, please tell us why you aren't willing to use it. I'm truly curious. [[User:JW|JW]] 13:04, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::More to the point, the IP address 75.168.112.43 has only made 10 contributions to this wiki, of which only 4 are of actual substance. Your comments will carry more weight if you tell us which long-established editor you in fact ''are.'' Otherwise, ''you<nowiki>'</nowiki>re'' the "external voice telling us how we should be running this wiki". [[User:JW|JW]] 13:16, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

::::::I oppose to disable anonymous edit, too. I was once a anonymous user . If the anonymous edit is disabled, that would mean we close the door for many potential users-to-be. Though I hate anonymous vandalizing, which is really a problem. But any bad anonymous user can get an account to vandalize, too. ''Urgh''.--[[User:TX55|TX55]] 13:56, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

The Funny Should Definitely Not Go. The reason why I've been hanging out on this wiki lately is because I like it -- specifically, because I like the Funny. I don't want to annoy people or screw stuff up; I'm just trying to help out in ways that I know how to help.

I didn't unilaterally change the skin... If you look above, the conversation about the skin started on April 7th. On Thursday, I asked if there were any more comments before I switched it over. The only response was from ItsWalky, who indicated that it would be okay. I've been keeping an eye on the stats -- the number of edits, registrations and pageviews have all gone up since the wiki switched to Monaco. (Saturday was the highest single day for registrations on the wiki since January.)

As I said, anonymous edits is totally a community decision. I just wanted to let you know that it's an option if the community wants it. It's a long-term discussion, and I don't have an interest in pushing it one way or the other. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 14:31, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:I would be against restricting edits to registered members. This wiki already has a reputation in the Transformers community as alledgedly being the playground for a very specific group of fans. Restricting edits will only further this perception. But more importantly:

:*I tend to agree that if one has no intention of making significant edits, but very occassionally fixes minor mistakes that one sees, then one shouldn't be forced to register to do so.

:*Some of us would prefer not to login while accessing the wiki at school or at work. Yeah, we have our reasons.

:*Chris McFeely, one of our staff members, sometimes has trouble logging onto the wiki when he's not at home, so if we restrict edits to logged-in users, he can't make any contributions if he happens to have free time while out and about.

:*Good anonymous editors sometimes eventually become registered members if they find they enjoy making the edits and would to participate in the little community we have.

:*Trolls and vandals who go to the effort of being repeat offenders will not be scared off by a registration process. I think we'll find that these people have ''alot'' of free time on their hands. Even more than I do!

:--[[User:FFN|FFN]] 15:03, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

:I'd be more willing to believe that the increase in edits on Saturday was due to the new skin if Saturday didn't happen to be the day most of the BotCon panels were held. Those give us a lot of new information that needs to be added to the wiki. Plus, two (or three) new episodes were shown that morning: Return of the Headmaster in the US, Mission Accomplished in Canada, and Collect and Save at Botcon. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 15:46, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

::No kidding. You could've changed the site to pink-and-purple polka dots, and traffic still would've increased this weekend, with everyone fighting to be the first to add all the new scraps of information from the convention. --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 17:05, 28 April 2008 (UTC)<div id="wikia-credits"> From [http://transformers.wikia.com Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki], a [http://www.wikia.com Wikia] wiki.</div>

MediaWiki talk:Community Portal

2008-04-28T12:38:18Z

75.168.112.43: /* Anonymous edits */

==Archives==
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive1|Archive1]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive2|Archive2]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive3|Archive3]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive4|Archive4]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive5|Archive5]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive6|Archive6]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive7|Archive7]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive8|Archive8]]

== Continuity / Timeline ==
I'm trying to make some sense of how the various major continuities are handled, overview-wise. Some have their own continuity page; IDW's just got a timeline, with overview stuff shoved here and there among the individual miniseries. Some don't have anything. Some, like the G1 cartoon, are not much more than lists. The ones that exist tend to be hard to find, aren't categorized uniformly, etc... is there a master format for this stuff?{{unsigned|Repowers|12:15, 29 October 2007}}
:There is no master format for continuity pages. Please feel free to make one! It would be a good thing to have! --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 00:55, show30 October 2007 (UTC)
:: You know, I think it would be hot if once we got more timelines up, we began putting Chronology links to the timetable on the story pages. Several Dreamwave comic pages have them, and I think IDW comics should too, since IDW really isn't telling the story in a linear fashion.--[[User:Zodberg|Zodberg]] 09:36, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::Sounds like a good idea. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 13:51, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::Would it make sense to have an overview writeup at the start of each timeline, a few paragraphs or so? Or should "continuity" be a separate page? Where should a chronological list of issues go -- publisher's page, continuity page, timeline page? That's not such a problem with, say, Marvel G1, but Dreamwave's a little messier, IDW's all over the place, and gods help you if you want to sort out the mess that is Marvel UK. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 14:29, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:: A continuity page should have the following (in my opinion):
:: * A one-paragraph description of the continuity, not more than a few sentences long.
:: * A list of what media belongs to this continuity (which can include some stuff that's vaguely contradictory, but should exclude stuff that's way out there, like Earthforce relative to G1 comics). This can be sorted by publication order, or internal chronology, but if there's a major difference between the two, it should be spelled out.
:: * An overall description of the main events in that continuity, focusing on the events actually chronicled (not the distant past). In particular, for most continuities, changes in the leadership of either side, the changing status (living/dead, present/absent, duplicated by Straxus/encoded on a floppy, etc.)of the big two leaders (usually Optimus Prime and Megatron), any events involving Unicron or Primus, and introductions of major teams or groups of characters (Headmasters, Fuzors) should be in the summary.
:: * If necessary, a timeline, which may end up integrated with one of the above parts.
:: * Pointers to important and closely-related continuities (again, such as Earthforce), discussion of divergences, etc. [[User:JW|JW]] 15:14, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::All that sounds pretty good, though I wouldn't get too hung up on following individual characters too much, even the leaders. In Marvel G1, at least, they changed over on a pretty regular basis.
:::On a related note... this and a lot of other overview-type pages are really lost in the shuffle. They should be top-level pages, with everything branching off of them and linking back to them, but instead they're buried and nothing links to them. You start off reading, say, the article on [[Spotlight: Soundwave]]. Where do you go from there to find out more? The IDW issues category? That's the only link out of that page. If you're a newcomer, or even someone with an imperfect memory, how do you know what comes next? Either the individual issue pages need to link to the timeline and continuity pages, or the category page does, or... something.
:::Taking care of it on the category page might be simplest, like what's on the Category:Marvel US issues page. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 19:12, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::: Yes, the site is sadly lacking in both "uplinks" and "sidelinks" for the media; links from a TV episode to the TV series, links from an issue of a comic to an overview of the comic, links from one comic to the next comic in that series, etc. [[User:JW|JW]] 19:21, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::: I'm still poking around and figuring out what's been done and what's needed; it might take a while to figure out how to start cleaning things up. It looks like we've got some random timelines started (still need ones for the Beast era and a few others), as well as continuity pages for some but not all of the major storylines, so I suppose each major continuity should have both kinds of pages. I wonder if there's a way to use a category or subcategory to get individual episode/issue pages to quickly link back to the main overview pages?... -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 19:28, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::: JW, we do have that comics nav template, though I like the comic infobox on wikipedia more. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:04, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::: Ah... http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Template:Comicnav ...so we do. Very useful. Now we just gotta propagate it over a few hundred comic issue... :S -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 20:25, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::: Also, the nav setup only can link up one level. So Infiltration #2 can link up to the main Infiltration page, but not to the IDW continuity page above that. Would putting a variant of this template on the main page for each miniseries, linking up to the continuity page, work instead? Then you're never more than two clicks away from an individual issue to the continuity overview. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 20:25, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::::: That, or somehow add it to the main comicnav template, perhaps in small letters above the series name. I don't wanna step on anyone's toes though. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:45, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::::: That'd make the most sense, to add a "Continuity" level to the template, or alternately a lower-end "Mini-series" option. But hell if I can make sense out of how these things work... that might be a rainy day project, figuring that out. :\ -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 20:51, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

==Image Copyrights==
I asked awhile ago, and nobody seemed to know, so...

I've always been under the impression that images {{c}} someone else should be credited ''not'' just with a note that they belong to someone else, but a ''year'', for much the same reasons we identify ''who'' the image belongs to rather than simply saying 'we don't own it, but it's fair use.' The more info we provide, the more 'seriously' the copyright is being taken. if we wipe our ass with an unadorned, <nowiki>{{fairuse}}</nowiki> clearly we don't think the holder of the copyright is ''important''... or something.

I have a script I've been poking at. It can run through every image detail page on the wiki through a regular expression and pick out which images don't have copyright owners (Hasbro or Takara-- you're supposed to ID which even if you're using <nowiki>{{hastak}}</nowiki>,) which don't have dates, and which don't have any sort of copyright notice at all. (A significant chunk of our images have no notices that they belong to someone else.) It could also drop the offending images into categories to be sorted out and properly labeled. (I imagine I'd give it Steve-o and let it do so logged in as the bot to avoid the update-floods.)

...is anyone interested in this? Does it seem like a good idea? Terrible idea? ...Bueler? -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 15:29, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

==Cartoon Episode Format Mark II==
Picking up an old thread here... per some changes I just finished making to all the Beast Era episode pages, IMO:
* The one-line summary should be bold. It's the single most important thing on the page; your eye should leap right to it.
* It should be the very first thing on the page, above the nav box (barring temporary templates like "pics needed".)
* It should be free of links. They're distracting and ugly, and it's kinda absurd to think someone's going to click right off the summary to see what a "Maximal" or whatever is. Links can easily be integrated into the body of the plot summary.

I'd also rather see Quotes before Stats, to keep all the in-universe stuff together before moving to out-universe stuff like writers, air dates, commentary, order of appearance, etc. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 00:13, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

:I agree with all of this, except for the one-line summary being above the nav box. Pure personal preference, though, rather than any sort of functionality - I just don't like the way it looks. In fact, I think putting it below the nav box actually ''helps'' its notice-ability - it "frames" the summary quite nicely between the nav box and the contents box. - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 00:22, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
::Heh, I see it the opposite way -- having the summary first provides a frame for the inevitable white space that accompanies the nav box. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 06:24, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

::Picking up on what I said above, putting the stats section down below not just the extended summary but now below the quotes section as well is something I strongly oppose. Episode writers do not get the recognition they deserve. We should not be burying their credits like that. That section belongs ''above'' the summary. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 03:21, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
:::I do hear what you're saying, but honestly I'm less bothered by the recognition factor than by the inconsistency with comic format, where all that junk ''is'' up front (though it often looks pretty bad, IMO.) If it were ''just'' the writer credit, I'd be okay with having it up front (though I ain't gonna be the one who goes back through 78 Beast Era episode pages to change it!) But then you get into the odd condition of having that one bit of info up front, while the rest of the standard information external to the episode's events is much deeper in the article. Having much more stuff up front than that makes for a messy, unattractive, and harder-to-read format compared to having it all bundled in the Stats section... IMO, natch.
:::"If "recognition" is the concern, heck, think of the animators who slaved a lot more than the writers ever did to bring each episode to life. They get no credits at all. Neither does Robert Buckley, who provided music for both Beast series. The list goes on and on. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 06:24, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
::::The information I am suggesting be up front would only be three lines (Written by, Directed by, air date), which I don't think would be very intrusive at all. To my mind, before the summary is the only logical place for this information to be presented, as episodes themselves generally present those two credits up front, and air date is a known factor when watching an episode when it debuts.
::::On the issue of recognition, you make a good point, however my concern is a bit different. Robert Buckley may not get a lot of recognition from the fandom for the music of Beast Wars, but it's not like they give someone ''else'' all the credit on that score, pun semi-intended. But the writers? The fandom often enough acts as if Forward and DiTillio wrote every single word of Beast Wars, and Skir (alone, of course, as the Isenberg Uncertainty Principle remains in full effect) the same for Beast Machines. The story editors are obviously the most important writers, but they didn't do it all on their own.
::::Burying the names of episode writers down below the summary and quotes sections just doesn't sit right with me, is all. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 04:46, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
:::::Hrm... combined with Steve-o's consistency argument, I suppose I could go along with doing it this way, with them all tucked together and separate from/below the one line summary. Written By and Air Date are in one little combined pair of lines now, an easy cut-n-paste to move up front. I don't think anyone's added Director credits to any of the episodes, by the by.
:::::As I said, I'm in no great hurry to do it myself -- my main concern was that the Beast Era show pages had drifted into all sorts of different arrangements, some of which looked pretty sloppy. For better or worse, they're all uniform now. If we're gonna change the layout, let's work on getting one sample page ''just right'', then we can worry about propagating it. To that end, have a look at "[[Chain of Command]]", see if it clicks for you. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 05:33, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm thinking if we could merge the ''Japanese title'' into the '''''Stats''' section'' because it seems to fit the section better. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 03:14, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't have much of a preference, personally, about how to organize these things. However, I do feel pretty strongly that it should be more or less the same for both cartoon episodes and comic issues. Having different organizational schemes for different sorts of fiction doesn't serve much purpose, and makes things harder to get used to. (On the other hand, I ''also'' feel strongly that all of our passages relating fictional events should be in the same tense regardless of if they happen to be on a character page or a story page, but apparently that makes me insane, so don't take my pleas for consistency too seriously.) --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 02:35, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

===Cartoon format mark II.5===
Did we ever make a decision on whether to place the quotes area before the stats section? Because the sheer majority of episode articles (including old ones recently converted to current standards) place the stats before the quotes, but I notice some of the latest Cybertron episode articles are placing the quotes before the stats, which is creating inconsistencies in layout. Bear in mind it will create less work for us if we just leave things the way they are, with stats before quotes. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 09:34, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

==Cartoon continuity headings==
Have we decided on a definative format for this yet? most of the pages with characters who appeared in Sunbow's G1 through to the japanese series (and maybe Beast Wars as well) have quite different headings, and I recall we were worried about ''Transformers Animated'' causing problems with all the 'Animated continuity' headings on character pages. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 07:08, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
:I think we had decided on using "cartoon" instead of "animated." So use "cartoon continuity," or for those who appear in more than one cartoon continuity, use "Generation 1 cartoon continuity," "Beast Wars cartoon continuity," etc. --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 07:13, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
::Can we have Diagnostic Drone change all occurrences of "Animated continuity" to "Cartoon continuity"? That'll require some cleanup in the Animated articles, but there are far fewer of those than there are of G1 subjects that are currently mislabeled. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 17:54, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

== Section-title master list ==

I've made a sandbox for the purpose of assembling a [[User:Jackpot/Sandbox/Sections|master list of all section titles]], their relation to each other, and their proper wording/formatting. Please discuss; I've introduced some new ideas, and I'd love to see a consistent guide established. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 01:04, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
:Wow, I think this really look nice and useful. ;D --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 03:44, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

== "First go here! Next go here." ==
I was thinking a bit about the various problems we've got around here -- stuff like incomplete image descriptions, orphaned articles, etc. There's really no one central place where a newcomer (or a regular who feels like doing something useful but doesn't know what) can go to find a quick list of things that need doing. The current help pages just send you to the list of articles in need of creation, which is kind of daunting, especially for a newcomer who has to learn a million standards and Wikia tags. Is there a more comprehensive way to point people in the direction of useful things they could be doing? Whatever it might be, it should include links to:
* Pages in need of creation
* Orphaned pages
* Stubs
* Pics needed
* Any current projects, like the Beast Wars one. Hell, I couldn't find that thing if my life depended on it.
...as well as a note about common problems: dead/missing storylinks, incomplete image descriptions, and whatever else. (Heck, who knows? Maybe it could even distract an IP person long enough to prevent them from screwing with captions.... ahh, who'm I kidding?} -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 21:51, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

:There are some of those things catalogued [[Special:Specialpages|here]], but I think making links to the most important of these categories, and placing them together in one easy-to-find link off the main page, would be best. Perhaps on the Help contents page, since it's linked right off the main page already, in the most logical location? I think that link is a bit small, for what it's worth. --[[User:Sntint|Sntint]] 22:09, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
::One of the projects in the back of my head is a help-page/guide specifically breaking down the creation of character pages, plus the use of "common templates" for them (disambigs, stubs, notes). I'll see if I can scrounge up some time to rough-copy one. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 22:56, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

==Other Maintenance Templates?==
I haven't had much time to do more "substantial" wiki edits lately, but I've been prepping for later with the charstub sub-categories. Fiction really isn't my bag... I mean, I know it in general, but not issue titles and numbers and bla bla. But I figure it's also nice to have the "really needs a lot of stuff" pages separated from the "just needs some stuff in one subsection" ones, especially once I can make a concentrated effort to update the toy sections of various pages. I've been thinking about other similar "needs maintenance" template/categories, but I thought I'd bring it up here since I'm not sure who else might make use of them... 
I've noticed quite a lot of pages missing storylinks. I'm not intending on going through a big wiki-wide hunt, but as I go through the stubs and other pages doing little maintenance and tweaks, well, I think I'd like to be able to mark pages I come across that are missing those links they should have. Picture and quote? Isaac Sumdac and/or Tutorbot, "I cannot believe I programmed you with such simplistic information!" (Idea courtesy of Trent Troop.) 
I'd swear there was another one, but right now, too tired to think of it and must sleep. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 06:53, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
:Perhaps a tag for a page with too many damn redlinks for concepts that will never need articles?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 07:08, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
::I don't think that will be neccessary, as it's a simple matter of removing the [[ and <nowiki>]]</nowiki>s. Storylinks, though, require some research. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 15:40, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
:::I usually label such pages with <nowiki>{{stub|storylinks}}</nowiki>. [[User:JW|JW]] 15:44, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
::::Trick is, often they're not really stubs, are they? the main info is there, there's just not a "where'd this happen?" link. And maybe it's the data-manager in me that says this, but I think it'd be a lot easier to have a common problem like lack of storylinks as a category all its own, all together for easy identification and maintenance. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 16:11, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

== Disambiguation ==

We need a consensus on hiw we handle disambuigation in article titles. We've had some moving between [[Silverbolt (BW)]] and [[Silverbolt (Fuzor)]], and [[Dirge (Timelines)]] and [[Dirge (Whatever the Botcon 05 set was)]] because there are two Silverbolts in BW and two Dirges in Timelines. However, since one of those Dirges and one of those Silverbolts are G1 characters, the (BW) and (Timelines) tags are fine for the other two. The tags are simply for keeping the articles separate; not for telling you what continuity they're in. Plus, (Timelines) is much easier to type than "(Botcon boxset name I can't remember)". --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 23:35, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

:Somewhat related to the discussion at [[Talk:Starscream (Timelines)]]. My personal criteria is that a name used for two (or more) characters in the same toyline requires more specific disambiguation, regardless of the characters' origin, because readers shouldn't be expected to remember whether some character was already in another toyline. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 23:51, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

::So... what should disambigs be?
:# Distinguished ''only'' when strictly necessary. "Silverbolt (BW)" is fine because, while there were 2 Silverbolt toys in the BW Toyline, the other one is actually Silverbolt (G1)- so only one entry is trying 'sits' in the (BW) disambig, and no more specific disambing is needed. Parenthetical disambigs should be the broadest possible category the article can sit in without conflicting with another article, (usually a continuity family or franchise.) Absolutely no 'bumping' of disambigs as a concession to aesthetics.
:# Distinguished on a logical basis. "Silverbolt (Fuzor)" because there are two Silverbolts in the BW toyline, and the article title should not allow for confusion between the two.
:# Providing continuty info. A hypothetical new character Roller in the 2008 Universe line would be "Roller (Classic)" not "Roller (Universe)"-- so that the article title doesn't mislead people into thinking he's part of the 2004 Universe continuity.
::My problem with #2 ''and'' #3 is that the diambig isn't supposed to convey that information. The first line of the article, right below the title does. It will say 'Silverbolt is a Fuzor in the Beast Wars continuity family...' or 'Roller is a Ultracon in the Classics portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.'
::We are currently usign method #1. I oppose a change to methods 2 or 3 for the following reasons:
:# The '''first line''' of the article already supplies the information that solutions 2 & 3 would seek to add- and does it ''better.''
:# Implementing 2 or 3 would make it harder for ''editors'' to know where article are sitting ("I know there was only one Silverbolt in BW, why is my link to Silverbolt (BW) broken?")
:# The purpose of the parenthetical disambigs is not to convey info- it is to keep articles with the same title from sitting in the same namespace. Attempting to make disambigs convey information actually ''adds ambiguity'', because it would force the the locations the articles sit in to become ''less'' standard.
::Let diambigs be disambigs. If we want to make continuity notes clearer or more prominent, we can look at revising our approach to '''them'''. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 00:41, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

::We already have [[Help:Disambiguation]] to more or less lay this out. (I've just made a couple small changes to it for clarification.) There is going to be no simple rule of thumb which leads to tbe best results in every case, so make the parenthetical as brief and clear as you can. Derik is correct that the purpose of the parenthetical is to give the articles different names so the database doesn't get confused. To help out editors when we make links, it is good for them to be short and easy to remember. --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 21:35, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

So, should we move [[Silverbolt (Fuzor)]] and [[Dirge (Decent into Evil)]] and the mirrorverse guys back to [[Silverbolt (BW)]], [[Dirge (Timelines)]] and [[mirrorverse guys (Timelines)]]? --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 22:42, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
:Wait to see if others have strong feelings/argument first. (We have a policy, but it's subject to conseunsus, remember? Also- I think I wrote most of that page so my point of view is unfairly over-represented there.) ''On review, no, apparently this is one policy page I '''didn't''' write. ...why can't I tell Steve-o's writing apart from my own? Scary. :~(
:Personally I say emphatically yes on Dirge, indifferent affirmative on Silverbolt, and wait and see on the Shattered Glass pages. We don't now where/if they fit in existing continuity. There's no point in movinf them a half-dozen times while arguing about unknowables. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 23:13, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

== Pages about fan sites ==

Is there a policy about this? I wanted to add TF Pulp, but I didn't see any other TF sites on here at all, so I figured I should ask first.
{{unsigned|Might Gaine|2008-02-27T14:04:54}}

:We don't give unofficial sites their own articles. You can link to information on TF Pulp from appropriate pre-existing articles, though. That sort of thing enhances the wiki by allowing people to find further information on the topics they are reading about. Just put it into an "External links" section right before the categories. --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 21:18, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

==Cartoon episode title cards redundancy==
Why are we moving towards using the title cards of episodes for the main/starting picture of episode articles? Isn't it redundant to have a boring screenshot with the name of the episode placed next to...... the name of the episode in the actual article itself? Wouldn't it be more interesting to do what we have been doing, and use a screen capture that somehow encapsulates the whole episode, or shows a pivitol point in it that sticks in our memory? --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 02:55, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
:I've wondered the same thing myself, but figured it was a done deal. I too support the "memorable/encapsulating moment" approach. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 03:04, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
::Uh... I'm sorry, I think I started it. ;-) When I was doing some early RiD ep stubs I threw in the titlecards because the early episodes were boring as sin. I think McFeely did it for the JP eps because they tend to have those painterly titlecards...
::Really, it's just something you do if there isn't a ''good'' representative image. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 17:39, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
:::Like Code of Hero (an article that needs a major overhaul itself), I originally put an image of Dinobot's sword lying on the deck of his quarters, because it looked poignant. Did the same for various other Beast Wars episodes. Then Interrobang replaced them all with screencap of the title screens. Gah. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 07:05, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::So tell him to stop! ;) -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 07:58, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::Sigh. I did it because I like consistency, even with Japanese series. "Dinobot's sword on the ground" might be your favoritest image ever but it's the odd duck out now. (It also looks terrible due to the artifacting brought about by needlessly screwing with the brightness and contrast.) [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 08:36, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::::Consistency is Victory- but Transformers Victory was incredibly boring. (Victory Gundam was pretty good though...) [[The Weak Component]], [[Survivor]] and [[End of the Line]] all have virtually ''identical'' title screens- an aerial shot of the Cybertropolis spaceport. That sucks— I'd much rather have an iconic image from each episode. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 10:07, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::::::I agree. Using iconic images is really good for the most episode guides, such as [[Code of Hero]], [[The Weak Component]], and several [[B.O.T. (episode)|others]], especially "Code of Hero" and "The Weak Component" are great and good examples. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 13:38, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::::Personally, I started doing for the Japanese series for the reason Derik gives, because it was usually a unique image made for the title card, or a good one that's representative of the episode. There were some duds, but... consistency. And then... ''Masterforce'' started to do really, ''really'' boring ones, and I was about to give up, then it occurred to me to start using the image from the next-ep preview, which proved a winner in most cases (in fact, I may yet go back and change swap out some of the title-card images with these, if it's a better option). The mention of Victory here amuses me, though, 'cause it's a good example of title cards being boring - it's the same two images of Star Saber and Deathsaurus, rotated in and out, for the whole series. I've used them for the first two episodes just to get them on show, but I plan to use the title-images from the next-episode previews for this one. I mean, when I wake up from the dullness-inducing stupor that Victory induces. - McFeely, at work
::::::::I reverted Dinobot's sword back to the version I uploaded. As I had not viewed the page much since last year, I didn't realize that Repowers tried to brighten it up for some reason - that moment is supposed to focus on the sword, not the room. And it's the 'odd duck out' now because some people have been replacing whatever had served as the main image with the title card. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 12:24, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::I brightened it because, when it's reduced for the actual episode page where most people are going to see it, you can't tell what the heck you're looking at. Right now it looks a little bit of vague white stuff in darkness. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 13:36, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::::::::Vaat? I can see if plenty fine there, unless you're using a very, very high resolution that makes everything tiny. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 13:54, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::::Could be my home monitor, which is HUGE. It does look more discernable from a work computer, though IMO it could still stand to be a tad brighter. -- [[user:repowers|repowers]], not signed in
I've changed my mind on this situation after mulling it over. A winner is FNN. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 03:31, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
:FNN sounds even more like a Simon Furman sound effect than FFN :D --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 04:26, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
::You clearly changed your name after I replied. There's no another answer. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 04:33, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
:::Hnh. FNN never DID want to live forever. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 04:55, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

==Help/policy page namespaces==
As part of the help/policy page revamp I plan to do... eventually... I kind of want to consolidate the pages all into a single namespace. Right now we have [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=12 a bunch of stuff] in the Help namepsace, and [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=4 a bunch of other stuff] in the Transformers Wiki (aka "meta") namespace. This is needlessly confusing. I vastly prefer "Help" for the purposes of typing it all the time, but, the meta namespace is more general purpose and standard... and possibly required for some pages like the title blacklist. So I am inclined to shuffle all the Help namespace pages over to the meta namespace. Does anybody have an opinion on this? --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 17:37, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
:Help seems fine to me. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 17:45, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

== "The Battlestars" page disappeared ==

When the "Battlestar" (team) page got changed to "Battlestars", then "The Battlestars" page, which was the manga, disappeared. What happened? --[[User:Might Gaine|Might Gaine]] 13:36, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
:I don't think that page actually existed in the first place. It was a red link before any moving was done - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 14:04, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
::Hmm. My bad. --[[User:Might Gaine|Might Gaine]] 15:01, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

==Comic character box format Part IV==
I believe we should change it from 'Major characters' to 'Featured characters' like we do in the cartoon recap articles. Doing it as 'Major characters' means writers of these comic articles will just not bother list the incidental characters, such as humans, even ones with dialogue, and if any of these characters have articles, they become orphaned articles. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 06:32, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
:Well I have gone thru nearly the entire U.S. Marvel series and I think I've included just about everyone who had a speaking line, except for folks who were un-named and such. If someone wants to change from "major" to "featured", it doesn't matter to me, but I'm not gonna go thru all 80 issues again and do it. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:18, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
::I was concerned because I was looking for the article for that [[Professor Goring]] guy from [[Spotlight: Shockwave]] so I could update the article. To my surprise, Shockwave didn't link or even name him, and somebody had eliminated the 'human' column altogether because evidently we only dealt with 'major' characters. Essentially, Goring's article became orphaned. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 20:32, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
:::Well that was dumb; he should indeed be re-added. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:39, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
:::Uh, yeah. That's not good. I support the change to "Featured" not just for this... but let's face it, this wiki is not simply about "Major" characters. The vast wealth of non-major character information is what makes this wiki great, and we should make sure that they are properly linked to so people can find them, even if they weren't looking. "Oh, hey, who's this?" --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 20:39, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
::::MistaTee, well sometimes even unnamed characters can be interesting enough to warrant their own articles if they are interesting in some way/stand out in some way. After all, we have an entire category devoted to unnamed characters. So I think they should have been mentioned in the article in some way. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 04:45, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::Oh, I agree, and if I've missed any, please feel free to add. I do think the 80 issues I've updated is a lot better than they were before though. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 13:58, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::Of course. Is there article template pages somewhere on this wiki or are we copy pasting every time we write a new article? --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 14:07, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::::I've just been going through the Stormbringer articles, and I was ''not at all'' happy with the with the way characters who didn't have significant dialogue (such as ''every'' Pretender besides Bludgeon) were for the most part not even mentioned in the articles. I assume the original writer of these articles just didn't know who they were, but frankly it's just sloppy considering the information available on this wiki even in 2006. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 14:38, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::::I believe I reformatted them to the new format, but just copied the character list from what was there. When I get the chance to re-read, I will add in the others, if someone doesn't beat me to it. Oh, and I am copying and pasting from the previous article, but trying to be consistent. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 15:31, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

:So... what becomes of the former "minor characters" list? Do we even care about those dudes? Take [[Totaled!]] for example -- almost every Earth Autobot to date appears in the story (and most of the Decepticons), but the page currently lists only the speaking ones. Gods help the poor soul who decides to take that task on, but when some nobody like Air Raid makes a rare appearance in the comics, it seems worth noting. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 15:25, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
::IMO, I think those characters should perhaps be in a cameos section, a subset of "Items of note". But I sure as hellz am not going thru the whole Marvel series again to do that. Someone else can have a go at it. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 15:31, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

==Navigation boxes for shared US/UK stories==
I wish I'd noticed [[user:MistaTee|MistaTee]]'s changes to the Marvel US navigation boxes sooner, but that's water under the bridge now. When I set the boxes up, I deliberately left out certain links at points where the continuities split and come back together. The point was that there would be no duplicate links in the box. One hopes that the reader following the UK chain will be smart enough to figure out that the only "Next" link shown will lead to the next step in the chain. This goes double for US stories that have the same Next and Previous links for the UK. Why do the same links need to be duplicated?

Compare:
* [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Cold_War%21&oldid=129298 Old version of Cold War]. There's no "next" for the UK spot, 'cause it would just be the same as the US "next" link.
* [[Cold War!|current version of Cold War!]] - two "next" links are identical.

Also compare:
* [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Dark_Star%21&oldid=152775 Old version of Dark Star!] - no extraneous info.
* [[Dark Star!|Current version of Dark Star!]] - ''two'' redundant links.

To sum up my take on current version:

Minus:
* Redundant links add to confusion
* Double nav box is ugly and should be avoided when possible

Plus:
* Lists UK publication number right up front
* Consistent format for all US issues.

But I've never been one to favor consistency at the expense of practicality. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 17:54, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

:Now see, I didn't like '''not''' having a next for the UK, even if it's the same as the US one. What I think we really need is a revision of the nav box, and maybe have some more options. First, I think there should be a separator line between the US and UK nav. Secondly, maybe some logic could be programmed in so that IF "next2"="next" THEN it would say "same as U.S. version" or something along those lines. Same for the "prev"/"prev2" naturally. Thoughts? --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 18:10, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
::That sounds like an excellent trade-off -- it gets rid of the bothersome parts while keeping the good bits. Uhhh.... anybody have any idea how to do it? The coding of these things is an utter mystery to me. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 18:20, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

== How to spell Malay. ==

Hello everyone, I've noticed that on the 'English/Malay' dubs, people have spelt word 'Malay' wrong. It doesn't have a 'y', because 'Maylay' is incorrect, so if you see any mistakes, please correct it, thank you! Also, can we not put the word crack head next to it? It's quite offensive.--[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
:It's meant in jest because the [[RTM 1 dub]] is really, really bad, as if the dubbers didn't know what the hell was going on half of the time. But we have been changing such instances to 'RTM 1 dub name:' lately. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 15:29, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
:"crack head" is describing the dubs, and with good reason. Battleship Maximus is called "Spaceship Bruce", Blaster is called "Billy", Twincast "Blaster", Metroplex "Phillip", Spike "Sparkle", Soundblaster "New Soundwave", Minevera "Nightbeat", The Matrix and Energon cubes "Power Packs, etc... --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 15:35, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
::We should probably get the drone onto the task of replacing "Maylay" with "Malay", however. [[User:JW|JW]] 15:42, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
:::I don't know about the crack head comment, it's better to avoid offending people; 'though, Spaceship Bruce is my favourite, next to Wally. Also, you got your drone right here (yay?), but do we replace it with 'English/Malay dub', or 'RTM dub'? --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
::::I fully agree with the removal of "crackhead." Frankly, it IS offensive to equate the oddities that arise from the translation of Japanese into English done by people who's first language was likely neither with being on crack. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 19:14, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::Can we leave it in for just Spaceship Bruce? The others are at least somewhat understandable, but ''Spaceship Bruce''? WTCHOP? --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 19:37, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::Sorry, but I don't wanna label another country saying it's populated by drug addicts. If it weren't for them, we wouldn't have Headmasters/Masterforce/Victory in English in the early 90's(?), and for a non-Japanese speaking country, they made a good effort. I guess you can emphasise the weirdness that is Spaceship Bruce, in his bio or the RTM page. So, 'RTM dub' or 'Englsh/Malay' dub? Technically, there was no Malay in the English dubs in the first place, so I'd go for RTM dub :) --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
:::::::It takes a real willfully oppressed state of mind to interpret that as a racial/nationalist insult. I mean, you have to really ''want'' to be offended by something, and be on the lookout for any little thing to jump on. 'Cause "crack-head" is pretty clearly referring to the ''dubs'', not the ''entire freaking country'', and I'm not sure why anyone would decide to think otherwise. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 11:32, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::::You know, crackhead is generally a term that refers to ''people'', not ''things''. As I said above, we shouldn't be seen to be equating the people who produced these dubs with crackheads because of what we perceive as humorous oddities in the translation, which are possibly just the perfectly natural result of cultural and linguistic confusion. Now it might not be an insult to the entire nation of Malaysia, but it is still, I think, a bit offensive. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 16:13, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::Well, regardless.... shouldn't it actually be the "Crackhead ''RTM-1'' dub"? -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 16:23, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::::::'Cracked-up English/Malay' dub, 'though it's not my idea, and it's not so blunt. Or the shorter 'RTM dub', since there is an [[RTM 1 dub]] page where people can redirect themselves there and elucidate the weirdness of weird names; but do we have to spell Malay with two 'y's? Maybe we can make reference to that on the RTM page again. --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
:::::::::I think 'Cracked-up English/Malay' could be used for the article such as [[Ginrai]] and [[Minerva]]('cause their RTM dub name "Optimus Prime" and "Nightbeat" were too... hilarious?), while just "RTM dub" for Fortress Maximus' Spaceship Bruce. Well, just a little opinion. :) --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 12:11, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::: Agree! :D --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]

==Trivia section image formatting==
This issue came up a while ago on [[Talk:Frenzy_%28Movie%29#Image_format|Frenzy's talk page]]. There were opnions both ways, and it wasn't really resolved. The issue is, should images in trivia sections alternate left-right, or be all on one side?

Part of the trouble with alternating sides is that it kills the bullet points. A double bullet has to be inserted for it to show up, and then there's some ambiguity over which bullets should be doubled and which left single. Dpouble bullets can also cause images to overlap the text.

Several folks said there's a lot of ugly white space when the images are stacked on one side. I see it just the opposite on my (admittedly gigantic) screen, with every image having a big empty white space below it when they alternate sides. Apparently it's got something to do with monitor resolution, so there might not be a solid answer. But --

I'd ''love'' so see some screencaps from folks showing how they see things on their monitors. It's a little hard to understand this problem without seeing it from other people's POV.

I started a little Sandbox at [[:user talk:repowers/Sandbox2]] with two different versions of Frenzy's trivia. The first one stacks all the images at the top. Does this work for people on lower monitor resolutions, or does it still look like crap? With them all stacked at the front, I don't see how they could have any white space, regardless of monitor resolution. On my screen, it looks very neat and tidy, while the second one is messy. See:

[http://www.builtstlouis.net/tf/frenzy1.jpg Stacked] 
[http://www.builtstlouis.net/tf/frenzy2.jpg Alternating]

Thoughts and input welcomed. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 01:36, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

:Alternating does kind of suck now. I've been putting pics all on the right side where there are bullet points since Wikia updated their software... an update which covered single bullet points if you put an image on the left side of the screen. I suggest cutting down on images in Trivia, since most users here have smaller monitors and use lower resolutions. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 05:44, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
::I think the easiest answer is to just remove the head images. They're essentially redundant and don't really add anything to the reader's understanding. I'd call for a general limit on how many images you can stuff into a section. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 06:27, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
:::I'd remove the head images from the article proper... but then make a text link to them within the relevant paragraph so people can see them anyway if they want to. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 06:35, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
::::That works. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 07:11, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

== Foreign name format ==
I just found the foreign names doesn't have an unified format.
:For example, some are
::''Hungarian name:'' '''Kerék''' ("Wheel"(with or without ""))
:others are
::''Hungarian name'': '''Kerék''' (meaning Wheel(or "Wheel"))

I suggest we could use an unified format like the below:
:<nowiki>:''Foreign name 1:'' '''Name A''' (Form A), '''Name B''' (Form B)</nowiki>
:<nowiki>:''Foreign name 2:'' '''Name''' ("English meaning")</nowiki>

Take [[Hot Rod]] for example, it will look like:
:''Japanese name:'' '''Hot Rodimus''' (Hot Rod), '''Rodimus Convoy''' (Rodimus Prime)
:''Hungarian names:'' '''Nagyágyú''' ("Hot ''Shot''"), '''Rodimusz Fővezér''' ("Prime Commander Rodimus")

Thoughts and idea are welcomed :) --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 09:09, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
:I don't have a strong opinion on how the international names are standardized, but I strongly agree that they should be. I nominate someone else to go through and do it. -[[User:LV|LV]] 21:40, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

== Wookiepedia has a darn nifty interface ==

What would it take for us to create something similar but Transformers-y?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:36, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
:I think the admins were adament that we keep a simple, bare-bones default look to the TF wiki, in keeping with our 'let's not take this stuff too seriously' attitude and tone. At least that's what I remember them saying when I suggested an orange layout like what Teletraan I looked like in the cartoon. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 09:34, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
::The current Wookieepedia also doesn't seem to want to cooperate with my comp here at work. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 18:27, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

==Characters lacking visuals category?==
It's dawned on me that there are actually quite a few characters who don't have any form of visual representation. They may have been described, but there are no ''pictures''. While a bulk of these are from prose stories, there's several who were simply mentioned by name in comics, or in external sources (Key Code info, S7 site, etc). More than enough to justify a category. 
I think that maybe there should also be a template/visual for this to call attention to this fact on the page right up front. I'm thinking a variation on the current <nowiki>{{mainpic}}</nowiki> template... a silhouette, (different from the mainpic one) and some text saying "This character has no known official visual depiction" or something. Anyone? --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 18:33, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
:Well, for the characters with the mainpic template, the idea is that the mainpic image is there as a placeholder, and to annoy people into tracking down an image.
:However, characters that have never had any visual depiction, and are unlikely to ever get one, don't need a placeholder for their image, and the template will just pointlessly take up room. I'm against the template, but I think the category is a good idea, and will suffice to identify these characters. [[User:JW|JW]] 18:44, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
::I disagree. The point is specifically to call attention to their lack of imagery, so nobody thinks "maybe they do have an image". And considering how little there ''is'' to most of those characters, a little extra visual pizzaz to their pages can't hurt. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 19:06, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
:::''so nobody thinks "maybe they do have an image"'' Are you intending to convey that message to ''editors,'' or casual users? Editors will, in theory, know enough to look for the category. I'm not sure casual users need to have the point brought to their attention.
:::And, it's not like we have scads of frantic editors running around trying to find pics for characters who have only appeared in prose. This may be a solution without a problem. [[User:JW|JW]] 19:27, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

== Timelines disambuig ==

There doesn't seem to be a consensus on how to name the various Timelines articles.

I feel that any disambiguation in the article title should be limited to keeping the articles separate. For instance, [[Optimus Prime (Shattered Glass)]] should be at [[Optimus Prime (Timelines)]] unless there is another Optimus Prime who's first appearance in anything was in Timelines. G1 Prime appearing in the 2007 Timelines comic does not affect this, as he is already at [[Optimus Prime (G1)]]. If G1 Prime being in a Timelines comic affected this, we would need to move [[Cyclonus (Armada)]] to [[Cyclonus (Armada whatever size class he is)]] because a version of G1 Cyclonus appeared in ''Worlds Collide''. The only reason to include the set name in the article title is ''two'' separate characters who first official anything is in ''Timelines''. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 17:18, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

== Shattered Expectations ==

Um, shouldn't those[[Deathsaurus|1]][[Bug Bite|2]] who appear in ''[[Shattered Expectations]]'' have their own page like others[[Optimus Prime (Timelines)|1]][[Grimlock (Timelines)|2]] even their counterparts' article would be short? --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 06:28, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
:I brought this up on [[Category_talk:Mayhem_Suppression_Squad]]. As I said there, I think they should either get their own articles or if that's not warranted just be covered on the Mayhem Suppression Squad article. Either way, I don't think "Shattered Expectations" fiction sections belong on the normal-verse guys' pages. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 07:08, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

==Monaco skin==

Hi -- Have you guys seen the new Monaco skin that's being used on Wikia now? You can see it at [[w:c:muppet|Muppet Wiki]] and [[w:c:marveldatabase|Marvel Database]].

As we've been rolling the skin out across Wikia, there are a few things that we've found when wikis switch to Monaco:

* The number of pageviews goes up. The flyout menus encourage new readers to explore the content on the site, and people end up sticking around on the site for longer.

* The number of new editors goes up. Readers spend more time on the site, and find pages that they want to contribute to. Also, the design makes the edit button more prominent.

* The site is faster. There were some changes made last week to Monaco that make pages load a lot faster than Monobook. Hit "random page" a few times on a Monaco wiki, and you'll see what I mean.

So I'm going around and proselytizing to the Entertainment wikis that are still using Monobook. If you want to make a custom Monaco skin like Marvel Database and Wookieepedia have, I can help you make that happen. What do you guys think? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:31, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

:Monaco does look nice, though it might go against what I understand is the wiki's purpose, which is to be quick and dirty, no fancy stuff and no pretention that this wiki is in any way officially endorsed or serious. At least that's the gist of what I was told after I previously suggested we could make the default colour of this wiki a shade of orange, like the computer systems in the original Transformers cartoons. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 23:16, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

::Yeah, we don't have to do a custom skin -- it could be the basic blue and white. I'm mostly interested in the improved functionality. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 23:24, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Eh, if it makes the place ''easier'', I don't think the "pure and simple" folks will object.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 23:26, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

And truth be told, I think the main dealbreaker here might be the extent to which Suki and Derik may or may not have farted about with tweaking Monobook. I know they've both made alterations, but I don't know quite what.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 23:34, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

:That stuff won't be affected at all. We can copy Monobook.css over to Common.css, and all of the tweaks that they made will still work. No problems. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 23:52, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

My biggest concern is the menus. The "by series" list could easily fill the entire vertical direction of the screen. We don't actually have all the series listed on the main page now (Machine Wars, Dinobots, Timelines, Universe (2008), not to mention licenced lines like Animorphs, SWTF, Crossovers).--[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 00:45, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

:Well, the idea with the menus is to be selective rather than comprehensive. It's not supposed to be a complete sitemap for the wiki -- you just want to give the new readers something to click on first.

:On [[w:c:Muppet|Muppet Wiki]], we put up the most popular Muppet Show and Sesame Street characters, and then a link to "More characters". We just want to entice people into making that first click, without overwhelming them with choices.

:I have access to click-through data for the Monaco menus, so it's possible to run some tests. You could put up a set of menus for a few days, and then I'll be able to tell you which items are getting clicked. That way, you could refine the menus so that you could highlight the items that are most likely to get clicked on. I've been doing that with the Muppet menus, and it's fun to see what the readers are actually interested in reading about. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 23:34, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

::So what do you guys think? I'd like to help you switch over to the new skin... -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 19:10, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
:::For some reason none of the admins have chimed in. I assume they're all off doing useless things like living in Real Life. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 21:10, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

::::Yeah, I left messages for Chris and ItsWalky... -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:12, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::You might want to leave messages for [[User:Suki Brits]] and [[User:Steve-o]] as well. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 13:28, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Well admins? Let's hear your opinions! I find the silence from the staff to be discouraging. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 16:18, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

If there's an actual interest in switching over to Monaco, then I would certainly have nothing against that... but I'd definitely like to hear more from the community first. Aside from that, I have no objections speaking as an admin; the modifications really aren't an issue. On the other hand, speaking as a wiki editor and professional web designer... I would definitely want to use a modified version, as it's got several pretty important issues. My thoughts, in no particular order:
* Search is nigh useless, again. Right now it resembles our ''broken'' Monobook search. I don't think that's a good thing. On the other hand, I'm currently working on fixing that anyway, so it's not like the same couldn't be done for Monaco.
* The header sucks. It really, really does. It's only 150px tall, but it sends a pretty powerful message: we'd rather show you this pretty, irrelevant picture then let you immediately get to article. ''I'' would want the top of the article as close to the top as possible.
:: Gah, I brought it over into another browser that doesn't block ads... and now I see why it's so obnoxiously huge. I am ''strongly'' opposed to putting giant hideous banner ads at the top of everything. Like, it's a little insulting that Wikia really thinks that ''that'' should be the first thing readers see. Teletraan I, like everything else on Wikia, is naturally ad-driven; but Monobook isn't offensive about it.
* The language selection is in a dropdown box, which is a TERRIBLE idea. This personally doesn't affect me, as I don't speak Hungarian, but it's pretty awful for anyone who actually is interested in seeing foreign language versions of articles... and has to click a dropdown menu on every single page if they're curious.
* The "community" box is really unhelpful. Half the content (user page, user talk, etc.) is redundant with the top of the screen, and absolutely nobody is interested in just the most recent two edits. That just leaves the number of articles. This is a lot of wasted room for nothing.
* I ''do'' like that the obnoxious sidebar on the right is gone. The current framing in Monobook wastes all sorts of space and Monaco definitely doesn't ''look'' like it has that problem.
There's also a bunch of minor things, but they don't really matter so much. The big issues are the useless space, a need to do major fixes to search, and the huge obtrusive banner ads (as opposed to the ones on the side in Monobook). But if Wikia's really willing to work with us on it, then by all means, it's up to what the community thinks. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 20:48, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

:I've been around the Wookieepeedia lately, and I've noticed when you click edit, it loads significantly slower on Monaco than it does on the Monobook format. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 05:25, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

::Hi guys -- Sorry it took me so long to respond. I'll make up for it with a super-long answer. :)

::Yes, absolutely -- I want to work with you on this. Some of the things you've raised I can clear up immediately. For some, I can explain the rationale behind the approach, and show you some stats that may help. And if there are some things that need to get tweaked, I can talk to the designers & tech folks to see if we can come up with a solution.

::Just so you know: I work for Wikia now, but I started out in 2005 as the founder of [[w:c:muppet|Muppet Wiki]]. Working on wikis is my job now, but Muppet Wiki is where my heart lives, so I'm always looking out for what's going to help or hurt "my wiki". I am/was a big Monobook fan, and I was skeptical about Monaco as it was being designed. The thing that made me a Monaco fan was actually trying it out on Muppet Wiki, and then looking at the stats to see how it was working. Muppet Wiki and Teletraan I are very similar -- about a dozen really active contributors, a strong admin team and a community of about 60-80 contributors. So I can share with you what I saw on Muppet Wiki, and what I can see in the pageviews stats.

::First up, the rationale behind some of the decisions made with the new skin. There are some features on the new skin that the most active editors think are useless, like the Community box or the flyout menus. And it's true, those aren't very helpful for the active contributors. They're designed for the anonymous/new people, who are the vast majority of our readers.

::Here's the stats on unique visits for Teletraan I. (Unique visits counts the number of visits to a site, and not the number of pages you look at in each visit. So if you come to the wiki and look at 100 pages, that counts as one unique.) In the last month, there have been 2,725,000 anonymous visits, and 261,000 logged-in user visits. That means 91% of the visits to the site aren't logged-in contributors.

::Logged-in editors make 77% of the edits here, so obviously we're the people who are actually building the content that people are reading. Logged-in editors are important, and the dozen people who make over 100 edits here every month are especially important. Still, if you want to make the community bigger and more active, then you have to think about whether the design of the site encourages anonymous users to sign in and become active members.

::The purpose of designing the new skin was to make the wiki more accessible to the 91% of anonymous readers. Obviously, we have to keep the functionality that the active contributors need in order to build the wiki. At the same time, we have to be aware that the Monobook skin that we're familiar with is kind of confusing for brand-new people.

::For example, the "log in" button is in really small type at the very top right of the screen. From a website design perspective, that's crazy -- it's like we don't want people to find it. The log-in buttons on Monaco are big, green, candy-like buttons. There's one at the top right, and there's another one in the Community box on the sidebar. We want to encourage people to log in.

::In general, having all the important Monobook controls in little bitty tiny type says: We hate people who are older than 40. ("Go back to AOL, old man!") All of the Monobook buttons are in the same font, from the crucial stuff like "Log in" and "Edit this page" to the more obscure controls like "Related changes" and "Permanent link". On Monaco, the stuff that's important to brand-new users is bigger -- log-in, edit, the link to the home page. The search box is at the top, rather than being buried down in the sidebar. The controls that logged-in users need, like "What links here" and "Special pages", are in smaller type -- they're important to us, but a brand-new user wouldn't know what to do with them.

::Okay, so that's my very long introduction... Now I'll respond to the points that you guys have brought up.

::'''Search''': I think when you say that search is broken, you mean that there's just a "Go" button and not a "Search" button next to the search box. (If you mean something else, then let me know.) That's true, and it's something that I struggled with as the design for Monaco was taking shape. I use the Search button all the time, and I was frustrated that it wasn't included. Then I looked at the stats. On Teletraan I in the last month, logged-in users used Go for 91% of searches, and Search for 9%. Anonymous users used Go for 97% of searches. Given that, I think it's okay to make the Search button less prominent. I remember when I first started using wikis, I was totally confused by having two buttons. (Do I want to Go or Search? Well, I want to search, and then go to the search results...) I only figured out the difference through trial and error. So in Monaco, the search box at the top is Go, and then you can have a link to [[Special:Search]] in the toolbox. (Some wikis have that, and some don't -- Muppet has it, if you want to see how it works.)

::'''Community box''': That's one of the features that's designed to encourage brand-new users to explore the site. When you look at a wiki as a new reader, it's not always apparent that there's a community there. You read pages, but you don't necessarily know whether the articles were written today or a year ago. (Unless you look at Recent changes, which a brand-new reader doesn't know to do.) The Community box is designed to bring a little taste of the community activity up to their view. It's not a helpful way for a contributor to keep track of Recent changes, but it does show new people that something's going on. If you come to the site and see that somebody edited a page 15 seconds ago, then you understand that there's an active community. On Muppet Wiki in the last month, 1,404 anonymous readers logged in using the button in the Community box, 1,539 anon readers clicked the "more..." button to go to Recent changes, and 1,287 clicked on article links that they saw in the Latest Activity area. Those are readers who may not have been engaged with the site if they hadn't seen the activity going on in the Community box. On the other hand, logged-in contributors only clicked in the Community box 350 times. It's not designed for us; it's for the 91% of anons.

::'''Obnoxious ads''': This is the one area that's designed to help the company rather than the wiki. Basically, the deal is that Wikia doesn't make a lot of money from the "skyscraper" ads on the right sidebar. Nobody clicks on them, and most advertisers don't bother to make ads like that anymore. Advertisers want banner ads, and they want them at the top of the page. I can't justify this one in wiki terms, except to say that if we want Wikia to stay in business and continue to host wikis, then we need to change the skin to accommodate the changing ad market. Otherwise, there won't be a Wikia after a while.

::'''Languages drop-down''': We changed the list into a drop-down menu because sites like Wookieepedia had a long list, which took up a lot of sidebar space, and only had about 100 clicks on language links in a month. On Teletraan I, there have only been 2 clicks on the language links since October.

::'''Content space''': There is slightly less content area on Monaco when you first come to the page. The sidebar is smaller than the combined left & right Monobook sidebars, so the content area is wider. The banner ad means that the height takes a hit for the first screen. As you scroll down, though, the Monaco content area is bigger than on Monobook, because the page is wider. I can show you some screencaps if you want more info on this.

::'''Slow edits on Wookieepedia''': That looks like a bug that's specific to Wookieepedia... I'm not sure what's going on there. It looks like when you hit edit on Wookiee, it's looking for something from maps.google, and that can slow down the page load for the edit screen. I hadn't seen that before, so I'm really glad you pointed it out. That's not affecting other Monaco wikis like Muppet Wiki or Marvel Database, so there must be something in Wookieepedia's css that's causing that. I'll look into it. If you look at Muppet or Marvel, you'll see that the page load is lightning fast right now. (Not counting periods of site-wide database problems, which affect every skin.)

::So anyway -- this is a huge long post, but I think I responded to everything. As you can tell, I take this stuff really seriously, and I'm willing to put in the time to research the impact and explain what's going on. Do folks have other questions or concerns about Monaco? I could keep talking about this stuff all day. :) -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 17:33, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

:::Personally, as regular contributor, I'm fine with switching to Monaco, so long as we get to keep our new 'random page thumbnail' above the search box (or anywhere, really). I think it's useful for visitors to be able to visit a random page with an interesting thumbnail image rather than simply doing random searches or hitting Random page repeatedly. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 17:44, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

::::I knew there was something I forgot to mention! Yeah, the featured page thumbnail. I think that's something that we can adapt.

::::That feature doesn't have anything to do with search -- it just happens that you can put a picture in the Monobook search box. I actually think what you've made is a little misleading. The picture says "Search" on it, and it's right above the search box -- so as a user, I would assume that if I click that, I'll get some kind of search results page. Instead, it goes to a featured article, which isn't necessarily what you'd expect.

::::The feature is really a rotating spotlight for featured articles, which is cool and visual, and helps to bring readers deeper into the content. It's a great idea. I think it would actually be more effective if it was split away from search, so readers would be more likely to recognize it as a featured-article spotlight.

::::So there are a couple ways to do that in Monaco. The easiest way would be to put it in the sidebar -- check out [[MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar]] for an example. Here's pics to show what that would look like.

<gallery>
Image:Monacosidebar1.jpg
Image:Monacosidebar2.jpg|You can update this list anytime, so you can freshen it up every day or every week. Or never.
Image:Monacosidebar3.jpg|That big green, fire-snortin' lizard must be included.
Image:Monacosidebar4.jpg|If you click on "Embrace the Knowledge", it takes you to the Allspark article. Obviously.
</gallery>

::::It's not graphical, but it allows you to bring the funny into the sidebar, which you've never been able to do before. One advantage of this approach is that you can add in new articles to the sidebar without having to wait for somebody to make a graphic.

::::If that's not enough and you need to go graphical, then I can talk to our designer, Christian, about creating a widget that can go into the sidebar and have the same function. It could sit above or below the Community box. It would be separate from search, but like I said, that may be a good thing. What do you think? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:48, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

If you want to sell this to Walky... make it orange.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 22:05, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
[[Image:Orangemonaco.jpg|thumb|250px|It could be even oranger if that would help.]]
:Does this work? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:13, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

::The brick skin has a pretty nice brown/orange thing going. That's what I'm using at the moment. --[[User:Professor Icepick|Professor Icepick]] 22:17, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
:::See, that's what was needed to get his attention. The orange will draw him, like a moth to a flame.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 22:24, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
[[Image:Monacobrick.jpg|thumb|250px|Monaco Brick, in all its dark red and orange glory.]]
::::Here's how Brick looks... -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:28, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

:::::Do it! --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 00:41, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
::::::I TOLD you guys that we should make this wiki orange (to actually look like Teletraan 1) way back before we even knew about Monaco, but you were all "We are serious business about not taking ourselves seriously". --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 06:44, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

:I don't know all that much about what can and can't be modified, but can't a number of the problems with Monobook be solved simply by changing the css or js files? I'm mainly talking about the small text size for the tabs and login. Plus, most people who edit wikies are probably familiar with Wikipedia's Monobook interface. Plus, I don't think anyone wants the trouble from the ad format being changed again. A few months ago the site started taking showing wider vertical ads, and it was awhile before the horizontal scrolling mess got cleaned up. But then again I'm the guy who uses XP's Classic Windows scheme with Windows 98's colors and icons, so I may be biased when it comes to new interfaces. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 22:41, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

::The Monobook problems can't be solved with css changes. The type size is an example, but it's really a general problem with the layout. Wiki veterans are used to Monobook, but it's not necessarily a great layout for new people. I meet people all the time who read Wikipedia, but when I ask if they've ever made an edit, they say no -- it never occurred to them. I think it's important to make wikis more accessible to new people, and we're finding that Monaco is helping people to explore the wikis and make their first edit.

::Are there other concerns that people have that I can help with? I know that this discussion has gone on a bit, and I'd hate to have it just run out of steam before it gets to a decision. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 18:15, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::It seems like there aren't any more concerns about the new skin, so I'm thinking about changing it over to Monaco tomorrow, unless someone has objections. Once it's switched over, then I can help you out with whatever customization you want. Is that cool? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 15:55, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
::::A great number of us are indisposed at [[BotCon 2008]] this weekend, but there should still be a handful of us around. So you know! --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 16:09, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::Gyah. I thought we were doing Brick?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:17, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:We can do anything you guys want... I'm just playing around for a minute to see if I can come up with something interesting. It's gonna look bad for the next five minutes... and then we can talk about what you guys want, and fix it up nice. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:21, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::Okay, never mind. That just looked bad. :) So I set it to Brick. If you guys want to change these colors, we can change them to whatever you like. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:25, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

===Apparently implemented===
Is there any way to override this that '''doesn't''' override the skins on ''every'' Wikia-hosted wiki? - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 21:19, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:Do you mean, you want to see the skin in Monobook? You can go to Preferences --> Skins, and set your preferred skin to Monobook. You can check or uncheck the box that says "Let the admins override my skin choice" to either see customized skins or not. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:27, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::Yes, I know that. My problem with that is the "This setting will follow you across Wikia." clause. I don't want to override EVERYWHERE (e.g. Memory Alpha). Just Monaco wikis. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 21:30, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::Actually, they're working on switching over to the Monaco skin on Memory Alpha too... At a certain point, pretty much every Wikia wiki is going to end up on Monaco. Is there something about Monaco that you don't like? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:43, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::::The flyouts. Certainly not the only thing - the more I look, the less I like, especially the pathetic "Latest Activity" box with a practically-camouflaged recentchanges link, and why exactly are the preferences hidden? - but they're the biggest dealbreaker. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 22:01, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::::Yeah, at first I wasn't crazy about the flyouts either. We tested out using the sidebar without the flyouts on Muppet Wiki, but then I looked at the click stats and found that they really helped new readers to find content on the wiki. The pageviews went down when we took the flyouts out. If you're interested, there's details here: [[w:c:muppet:Muppet_Wiki:Current_events#Sidebar_menus|Muppet Wiki:Current events]].

:::::The "Community" box is also something for the new users. When you first come to the wiki, you might think that it's just a static site... There's no way to know that there's a living community. The latest activity shows people that there are pages that were edited in the last couple minutes. Also, logged-out users see a log-in button in that box. For active logged-in users, a lot of these features aren't that useful. They're really aimed at the 90-something% of readers that aren't logged in. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:10, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::::::(NB: I was expanding my post at the same time you were typing, since I was spending a bit of time looking around).
::::::See, I'm not coming at it from the "guy who runs the wiki" perspective. I'm not a sysop on a Wikia wiki, so "this will boost Teh Stats" has no effect on me [perhaps that means you consider my position irrelevant. I can't help that]. Nor am I a newbie to Wikis, so again, not the target group.
::::::My problem is that (1) they require me to turn JavaScript on in the first place (strictly, add to the NoScript whitelist, but...) and (2) the click-on flyout in the top right is worse than pointless, since there's room for the links without that and it just makes preferences harder to access and (3) I hate non-click flyouts since you they will inevitably be scrolled at the wrong moment, trebly so since they're on the side rather than the top. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 22:08, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::::::I think "this will boost Teh Stats" actually matters to everybody. More readers looking at more pages = more potential contributors = a more active community = more and better content on the site. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:12, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::::::::By the way, I'm not trying to make you like the skin. Either you like it, or you don't. I'm just explaining the rationale behind some of the design decisions, so you know that it wasn't just random or malicious. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:17, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

There are three things that would make me more... reconciled... to it. I still probably won't ''like'' it, but...
#On your own "help.wikia", there's a group of links beneath the flyouts to Recent Changes/Upload/etc. They don't appear here or on most Wikia wikis (well, strictly they appear for about half a second on a Ctrl-F5, which suggests they're present but being hidden with CSS or something). They should be there as standard.
#Links to Special:Preferences and Special:Contributions/(self) should be available with a single non-flyover click, either in the "Community" box or at the top right, not in a flyover only. '''ESPECIALLY''' Special:Preferences.
#Be able to override the colour scheme on an individual wiki basis, rather than just "all or nothing" - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 22:29, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::For #1, I'm not sure why you're not seeing the toolbox links. That's an important part of the skin, and it's on every wiki. Check out the screenshots that I added above -- every wiki has links to Recent changes and Upload. If you're not seeing it, then that's a weird bug which we can try to figure out. What browser are you using? Are you only seeing the toolbox disappearing on Transformers, or on other wikis too?

::If you want it, we can put links to Preferences and Contributions in the toolbox, or in the sidebar. I don't know how to change the top header.

::Can you give me an example of what you'd like to see as far as overriding the color schemes? I think it's possible that what you want is currently possible, but I'm not sure. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:54, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::Okay, #1 was my own fault. An in-browser hack I'd done on Monobook was interacting "unpredictably" with Monaco, and had knocked that (and some minor stuff that doesn't make any difference) out of joint.
:::Okay on #2. I'd be interested to find out how many people ever use Special:Preferences on any skin(s) while you're trotting out stats...
:::On #3, basically, being able to use different (non-default) skins, or at least colour schemes from the chosen skin on different wikis without being limited to the "this will follow you across Wikia". Just because one wiki chooses to smother the page in bright pink (or orange...) doesn't mean I want to change the colour scheme on every wikia. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 23:32, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Sure, I love trotting out stats!

Here's the stats on how Transformers contributors click on those links. In the last month, there have been the following clicks:

* Watchlist: 3,114
* Contributions: 427
* User page: 213
* Talk page: 67
* Preferences: 22

So, yeah, contributions is #2 on that list, but preferences is all the way down at the bottom. Preferences is useful when you need it, but people don't need it that often.

But the hypothesis is: If you put Contributions and Preferences into a drop-down menu, people won't click on it as much, and you'll see clicks on those two items going down.

To make a comparison, I looked at Muppet Wiki editors' clicks in February (on Monobook) and in April (using Monaco).

Here's the clicks on Monobook:

* Contributions: 403 (52%)
* Watchlist: 148 (19%)
* Talk page: 132 (17%)
* User page: 83 (11.5%)
* Preferences: 4 (0.5%)

Here's the clicks on Monaco:

* Contributions: 320 (60%)
* Watchlist: 123 (23%)
* Talk page: 53 (10%)
* User page: 23 (4%)
* Preferences: 15 (3%)

The hypothesis doesn't seem to hold up. Percentage-wise, clicks on Contributions and Preferences went up using Monaco. This is a really small sample, so it's not proof of anything... but it indicates that the drop-down menu doesn't chase away clicks.

As far as seeing wikis in different skins, try choosing Monobook in your skin preferences, and keep "allow admins to override my choices" checked. Transformers isn't using a custom skin right now, so you should see this wiki in Monobook -- and you'll also see the customization on Memory Alpha, etc. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 00:19, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

==Script-style quotes==
There seems to be some disagreement on whether script-style quotes should have quotation marks or not. Personally, I strongly favor including them, for two reasons:
* Visual consistency. There's no reason not to have all the quotes in as similar a format as possible. Having some with quotation marks, and some without, ''in the same section'', seems like needless variation.
* It's... well... it's a ''quote''. We're not writing a screenplay; we're quoting something someone actually said. And a quote gets quotation marks.... fullstop. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 21:18, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

:Hmm, I'm afraid I disagree. They're simply not necessary, and they clutter the page.
:And, regardless of whether we decide to use double-quotes, can we put a stop to script-style where the quotes are are in double-quotes ''and'' italicized? {shudder} [[User:JW|JW]] 21:21, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
::The italics stuff is flat out bad formatting, no disagreement here. There's an earlier discussion about it somewhere on this page or the archives. Nobody should be adding stuff in that format anymore... I hope.
::As for double quotes... um... I have no clue what you're referring to. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 21:23, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

==Gone Too Far==
I've been alerted it's past the 30-day period for "coming soon Club stuff" non-updating. Have at it. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 22:03, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

==Searchbox improvement drive==
So now we have a very nice set of searchboxes, thanks to the lovely design work of M Sipher and the superhuman coding skills of Suki Brits. The effort of these boxes is to show the visitor all of the awesome crap we have. To do that, said cap must in fact be awesome. Unfortunately, a lot of the pages linked to by searchboxes are [[Shatterpoint|imageless]], [[T-AI|missing fiction]], or [[High Wire (Armada)|pretty much content-free]]. Thus, I propose an improvement drive of the searchbox articles. When you click on one of those suckers, try and add something. I dunno how we'd make this official, exactly... - [[User:RolonBolon|RolonBolon]] 06:49, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
:Are these images supposed to show up automatically by/around/with the actual text box in which you type your search parameters? If so, I'm not seeing them in the current Monaco skin.--[[User:Apcog|Apcog]] 14:29, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
::They don't show up in Monaco, Quartz, Cologne Blue, or any other custom theme. Just Monobook, the default. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 20:15, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Is there a way to get the search box changes to load sooner? The way it is now the custom settings for the box are the last thing to load; it uses the default settings until the google ads finish loading. This can take awhile depending on how the crappy campus wireless is acting. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 20:39, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with RolonBolon about the searchbox thing. I know we're hard up for help, but why are we spending time creating these little searchbox images using pics from God knows where, yet we've neglected to upload a single image for the actual pages these buttons lead to? Not the mention pages that have absolutely no content whatsoever.
I think we've overreached ourselves, and in the future we should only do these searchbox things for articles that are largely complete and/or have alot of content and imagery, otherwise we look really half-ass and unfocused. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 22:37, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
:Yeah, what drove it home for me was Sixtrain. I see Sixtrain in the Search box. It looks nifty, like it's his box art. I click on the article, no images. Why the heck can't we upload Sixtrain's box art when we evidently have a clear enough copy of it to make a search teaser?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 23:33, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
::I was simply making boxes using what I had on the hard drive as examples, and not everything is good quality at main-image size. I don't think we've "overreached ourselves" at all. At worst, we omit a few items from the searchbox list if their entries are that empty for a little while, OH NOES. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 00:22, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
:::I am of the opinion that a fuzzy picture that can be replaced later is better than no picture at all. It helps users know what it's talking about in the meantime, right? [[User:Spriteless|Spriteless]] 02:24, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
::::We prefer no pic/no content to a crap pic/crap content. I've been taking a break from the Wiki, but it looks like I'm going on another image safari. My scanner not working is annoying. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 06:54, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

The fact that the image is the last one on the page to load isn't just visually annoying; it for some reason also makes whatever you've typed in the search field vanish in Firefox. I've had this happen to me a bunch of times. A lesser annoyance is that the input box moves when the image appears; it would be nice if it could stay in the same place (maybe by making the whole Search box a fixed size?), as it's a bad idea to have a clickable thing that spontaneously jumps around. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 20:31, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
: The way the Search Image works right now, I'd rather not even have them. My computer has slowed down ''epically'' trying to load those images each time, and if it's a high traffic time of day, the rest of the page will basically freeze for 30 seconds or more until that search image gets around to loading. This is extremely annoying when I just need a quick peek at a page before making a link, like checking if Stormcloud is one word or two or if Whirl needs to be disambig-ed in the link. And if I try to click Search to move on to a next page too early, the Image drops down in front and shang-hais my "click", so I go there instead of being able to type in where I want to go.

: I don't like the thing at all. It's been nothing but a hassle for the last day or so. There's already a Random page button right about it -- do we really need this too? --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 00:30, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::The same thing has been happening to me lately, and I've never experienced that problem on Wookieepedia. And this is a real problem for me, as I'm actually ''supportive'' of the image icons. We may want review the system. -- [[User:SFH|SFH]] 01:30, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Though in fairness, some of that may be due to Wikia's tendency to nearly-crash every weekend. And to be honest, this weekend has been rather traffic low. I mean, seriously, did every head to BotCon a week early? -- [[User:SFH|SFH]] 02:09, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Let me know if this continues to be an issue during weekdays (well, before Thursday, anyway). If it is, I'll figure out a way to let users optionally turn them off. I've never noticed it slowing down while trying to load, and any sane browser ''shouldn't'', but if that really is happening for some users, something definitely ought to be done about it.
::::I'll also take a look at preserving the form data while the images load, because that is definitely something that really ''should'' happen, too. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 03:44, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::Things sped back up again shortly after SFH's last post, but I'll post again if it keeps happening regularly. Maybe it was just an anomaly. --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 03:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::'''Furthermore:''' I did a bit of code modification that should make the form retain anything you've typed before the images loads. You may need to do a hard refresh for the change to show up, but lemme know if that doesn't work for anyone. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 03:52, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

==Templates listing==
Is there a page editors can refer to for templates (messagebox, user notices ect) without having to go through the categories or remembering the last time somebody used it so they can copy-paste it? They seem to be unnecessarily difficult to track down. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 03:43, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
:[http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=10 here] --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 04:50, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
::My main concern was not requiring the page soley for myself, but was this page obviously linked on a help page or something somewhere that anybody could find easily? I'd personally like to see this wiki become more user-friendly. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 07:25, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Agreed, as I've [http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Transformers_Wiki_talk:Community_Portal#.22First_go_here.21__Next_go_here..22 said before on this very page]. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 15:05, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Yeah. Our lack of user friendliness might discourage people from joining up. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 17:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:What I'm worried about is that some of the other users would actually be okay with that...-- [[User:SFH|SFH]] 17:48, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::Well, last time I checked some of these other users don't own the wiki. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 09:12, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

== new template: Comicinfo ==

Please checkout [[Template:Comicinfo]]. It's a little rough around the edges, but something I think could be useful on the comics pages. Comments and suggestions are welcome.--[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 02:42, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

== Masthead ==

Okay, the old Monobook masthead doesn't look so good under Monaco. How do we change this?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:31, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

== Sidebar ==

Given that we're getting a lot of Transformers Animated traffic lately, I'd say an item in the Monaco sidebar is likely going to help direct people to the right articles.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:45, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:Okay, I put it in the sidebar. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:56, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

== Hate the new skin. ==

Hate this new skin. Just wanted to say it. The old look was much more pleasent and open to read. New one is just crouded and Blah. THIS is gonna take getting use to. No Sir, I don't like it.

:Can it at least not be burgundy and orange? - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 22:08, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::Yeah, it can be any color you like. I was messing around with colors before, but wasn't doing a great job with it, and Rosicrucian said he wanted this color scheme. Any admin can change the colors by editing [[MediaWiki:Monaco.css]]. There's instructions on how to do it here: [[w:c:help:Customizing Monaco|Customizing Monaco]]. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:15, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
:::I mainly liked this because it fits with the color scheme of Teletraan itself. I'm not married to the idea, though. I also figured I'd speak up about it because Walky liked it, and he's off enjoying his ridiculously expensive Transformers collector's items at BotCon.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 22:21, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Ahh, right, well, I can see the logic, there, all right... I'm just not dying about the dark-coloured backgrounds, since it's a big visually jarring to have big white boxes of text in the middle of them. - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 22:24, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

: Seconding the hate. [[User:Hooper X|-hx]] 00:04, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
:: This looks pretty hideous compared to MonoBook... and it's hard to navigate. Well, at least I can override it in preferences, but I think I'll be ignoring admin skin choices unless a custom one appears in the future.--[[User:MCRG|MCRG]] 00:44, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

:::I think I can try to get used to the new skin unless/until I find something inconvenient. Well, so far so good. At least the seach function is better. But the logo on the left side of the top, well... um, oh. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 01:23, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
::Fourthing the hate. The colors hurt my eyes. That, and the obscure character search images are gone. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 01:45, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

:I'm afraid I don't much like it either. Fortunately, it was pretty easy to uncheck the "override" box on my preferences. [[User:JW|JW]] 01:54, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't like the new skin either. I don't get the menus at the side. "Featured characters" includes articles that I don't think have actually been Featured. G1 and Animated are listed, but no other franchises. And the menus are inconsistent. The G1 menu lists Autobot, Decepticon, and then a bunch of character pages, while the Animated menu lists Animated's toy line, cartoon, comic, and books articles. Why the difference? And what was the selection process for the "Embrace the Knowledge" menu?

By the way, in the middle of BotCon is probably the worst possible time for major changes like this to be made. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 04:29, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

:The menus at the side are examples that I made up. You guys can change them to be anything you want, by editing [[MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar]]. I'm sorry about the timing... We've been talking about this for maybe three weeks.

:Lots of things can be changed -- the colors, the menus, the logo. I'll put it back to the basic Sapphire for now, which is more like Monobook. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 05:08, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

== Anonymous edits ==

Lately, I've been looking at wikis that have decided to turn off anonymous edits, and have everybody log in before contributing to the wiki. The idea is that having everybody log in builds a stronger sense of community, because you always have a name to associate with an edit, rather than a random string of numbers. It's easier to talk to people who have names. It also gives you more control over vandalism, since you can recognize potential vandals more easily.

Some people don't like the idea, because they're worried that logging in is a barrier to entry -- if you have to log in to edit, then you won't bother, and you'll go away. Looking at the wikis that require login, that doesn't seem to be true. [[w:c:muppet|Muppet Wiki]] turned off anon edits last April, and the number of active editors has actually gone up. Some of our most active wikis require login -- [[w:c:wowwiki|World of Warcraft]], [[w:c:ffxi|FFXIclopedia]], [[w:c:tibia|Tibia Wiki]] and [[w:c:marveldatabase|Marvel Database]]. (WoW and FFXI actually require a confirmed e-mail address before you can edit.)

So I've been talking to folks about this, and we've decided to allow wiki communities to turn off anonymous edits if they want to. There are a lot of anonymous editors here, so I'm wondering what you guys think about it. Would it be helpful to require login for everybody?

Obviously, that's a big community decision... I just want to throw out the possibility, and see what you think. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 20:38, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

:I strongly oppose disabling anonymous edits! (I also oppose sweeping changes performed over botcon, and unilaterally re-skining the site when the community can argue for weeks or month about proposed style changes to individual ''templates'' without reaching a consensus-- but if you're willing to ignore the needs of registered users while making such 'big community decisions,' why would you listen to anon users?) -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 08:18, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
::Well, let's get an opposing viewpoint here. Why are you, 75.168.112.43, unwilling to get an account? [[User:JW|JW]] 11:16, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
:::You assume I don't have an account.
:::I strongly oppose disabling anonymous edits because;
::::# It puts up a gateway that discourages first time users. Not a tall gateway- but a gateway nonetheless. Even if it only turns back 30% of new editors, that's 30% of people who could potentially become productive members of the community we're turning away out of hand.
::::# Equally important to the new users are the 'casual fixers', people who will /never/ become regulars on this wiki but, while clicking around, notice a link leading to '''Megatron''' instead of '''Megatron (G1)'''. If they have to register to make that simple fix? 9 times out of 10 that kind of fix will not get done.
::::# The problem 'disabling anonymous edits' seeks to fix- trolls- will not be solved. We already have trolls who register for accounts-- right now we don't even require an e-mail address. So ''next'' to combat Troll,s we'll require all accounts to have e-mail addresses. Then we'll require those e-mails be ''verified'', then maybe we'll set up a system where new users have to be ''approved'' like so many online communities before they can use their account. IP Tracking! Requiring Persistent Cookies! Each and ''any'' of these steps makes the online experience just a little bit more unpleasant for the user (and each hoop to jump throuhg makes new users just a little disinclined to join) but none of them actually stops trolls! Clear your cache, sign up for a yahoo account and you're up and running again. The trolls that regularly bother TT1 have already demonstrated they are willing to go to these lengths to evade bans. I am opposed to any measure that would punish the general body of users (registered and non) to deal with trolls. I am '''strongly''' opposed to any measure that would punish users and '''not''' deal with trolls, which is what this promises to do.

::::And seriously- while I'm tickled to death to know that the 'wikia community developer' has been attracted to communities that place restrictions on their users, I'm not thrilled to see someone who's not part of the community lobbying that we become more insular. I think changing TT1 to a UI that's different from Wikipedia makes the site harder to use (both for new users, and for users who make contributions to multiple wikis) is an objectively bad decision that was made with little discussion because 'it looks better.' And I really dislike that this was done while everyone was gone at Botcon and it was impossible to form a quorum for proper discussion. Monorail guy dances into town and starts making global changes that he thinks 'make more sense' without understanding that [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Talk:Megatron_Rising_-_Part_2&action=history they were that way for a reason], and his whims would require massive secondary cleanup effort to enact. I don't think someone who's not a participating member of this community should be initiating that kind of change, or throwing his weight behind them for them while 'polling for consensus. On a more fundamental level- I'm suspicious about external voices telling us how we should be running this wiki, because sooner or later they're gong to tell us The Funny Should Go.
::::I feel the burden of proof is on the other side here-- show that there will be a concrete and measurable improvement to the wiki by disabling anonymous edits that will NOT place an unnecessary burden on users. -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 12:38, 28 April 2008 (UTC)<div id="wikia-credits"> From [http://transformers.wikia.com Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki], a [http://www.wikia.com Wikia] wiki.</div>

MediaWiki talk:Community Portal

2008-04-28T08:18:07Z

75.168.112.43: /* Anonymous edits */

==Archives==
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive1|Archive1]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive2|Archive2]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive3|Archive3]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive4|Archive4]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive5|Archive5]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive6|Archive6]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive7|Archive7]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive8|Archive8]]

== Continuity / Timeline ==
I'm trying to make some sense of how the various major continuities are handled, overview-wise. Some have their own continuity page; IDW's just got a timeline, with overview stuff shoved here and there among the individual miniseries. Some don't have anything. Some, like the G1 cartoon, are not much more than lists. The ones that exist tend to be hard to find, aren't categorized uniformly, etc... is there a master format for this stuff?{{unsigned|Repowers|12:15, 29 October 2007}}
:There is no master format for continuity pages. Please feel free to make one! It would be a good thing to have! --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 00:55, show30 October 2007 (UTC)
:: You know, I think it would be hot if once we got more timelines up, we began putting Chronology links to the timetable on the story pages. Several Dreamwave comic pages have them, and I think IDW comics should too, since IDW really isn't telling the story in a linear fashion.--[[User:Zodberg|Zodberg]] 09:36, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::Sounds like a good idea. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 13:51, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::Would it make sense to have an overview writeup at the start of each timeline, a few paragraphs or so? Or should "continuity" be a separate page? Where should a chronological list of issues go -- publisher's page, continuity page, timeline page? That's not such a problem with, say, Marvel G1, but Dreamwave's a little messier, IDW's all over the place, and gods help you if you want to sort out the mess that is Marvel UK. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 14:29, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:: A continuity page should have the following (in my opinion):
:: * A one-paragraph description of the continuity, not more than a few sentences long.
:: * A list of what media belongs to this continuity (which can include some stuff that's vaguely contradictory, but should exclude stuff that's way out there, like Earthforce relative to G1 comics). This can be sorted by publication order, or internal chronology, but if there's a major difference between the two, it should be spelled out.
:: * An overall description of the main events in that continuity, focusing on the events actually chronicled (not the distant past). In particular, for most continuities, changes in the leadership of either side, the changing status (living/dead, present/absent, duplicated by Straxus/encoded on a floppy, etc.)of the big two leaders (usually Optimus Prime and Megatron), any events involving Unicron or Primus, and introductions of major teams or groups of characters (Headmasters, Fuzors) should be in the summary.
:: * If necessary, a timeline, which may end up integrated with one of the above parts.
:: * Pointers to important and closely-related continuities (again, such as Earthforce), discussion of divergences, etc. [[User:JW|JW]] 15:14, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::All that sounds pretty good, though I wouldn't get too hung up on following individual characters too much, even the leaders. In Marvel G1, at least, they changed over on a pretty regular basis.
:::On a related note... this and a lot of other overview-type pages are really lost in the shuffle. They should be top-level pages, with everything branching off of them and linking back to them, but instead they're buried and nothing links to them. You start off reading, say, the article on [[Spotlight: Soundwave]]. Where do you go from there to find out more? The IDW issues category? That's the only link out of that page. If you're a newcomer, or even someone with an imperfect memory, how do you know what comes next? Either the individual issue pages need to link to the timeline and continuity pages, or the category page does, or... something.
:::Taking care of it on the category page might be simplest, like what's on the Category:Marvel US issues page. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 19:12, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::: Yes, the site is sadly lacking in both "uplinks" and "sidelinks" for the media; links from a TV episode to the TV series, links from an issue of a comic to an overview of the comic, links from one comic to the next comic in that series, etc. [[User:JW|JW]] 19:21, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::: I'm still poking around and figuring out what's been done and what's needed; it might take a while to figure out how to start cleaning things up. It looks like we've got some random timelines started (still need ones for the Beast era and a few others), as well as continuity pages for some but not all of the major storylines, so I suppose each major continuity should have both kinds of pages. I wonder if there's a way to use a category or subcategory to get individual episode/issue pages to quickly link back to the main overview pages?... -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 19:28, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::: JW, we do have that comics nav template, though I like the comic infobox on wikipedia more. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:04, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::: Ah... http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Template:Comicnav ...so we do. Very useful. Now we just gotta propagate it over a few hundred comic issue... :S -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 20:25, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::: Also, the nav setup only can link up one level. So Infiltration #2 can link up to the main Infiltration page, but not to the IDW continuity page above that. Would putting a variant of this template on the main page for each miniseries, linking up to the continuity page, work instead? Then you're never more than two clicks away from an individual issue to the continuity overview. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 20:25, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::::: That, or somehow add it to the main comicnav template, perhaps in small letters above the series name. I don't wanna step on anyone's toes though. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:45, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::::: That'd make the most sense, to add a "Continuity" level to the template, or alternately a lower-end "Mini-series" option. But hell if I can make sense out of how these things work... that might be a rainy day project, figuring that out. :\ -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 20:51, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

==Image Copyrights==
I asked awhile ago, and nobody seemed to know, so...

I've always been under the impression that images {{c}} someone else should be credited ''not'' just with a note that they belong to someone else, but a ''year'', for much the same reasons we identify ''who'' the image belongs to rather than simply saying 'we don't own it, but it's fair use.' The more info we provide, the more 'seriously' the copyright is being taken. if we wipe our ass with an unadorned, <nowiki>{{fairuse}}</nowiki> clearly we don't think the holder of the copyright is ''important''... or something.

I have a script I've been poking at. It can run through every image detail page on the wiki through a regular expression and pick out which images don't have copyright owners (Hasbro or Takara-- you're supposed to ID which even if you're using <nowiki>{{hastak}}</nowiki>,) which don't have dates, and which don't have any sort of copyright notice at all. (A significant chunk of our images have no notices that they belong to someone else.) It could also drop the offending images into categories to be sorted out and properly labeled. (I imagine I'd give it Steve-o and let it do so logged in as the bot to avoid the update-floods.)

...is anyone interested in this? Does it seem like a good idea? Terrible idea? ...Bueler? -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 15:29, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

==Cartoon Episode Format Mark II==
Picking up an old thread here... per some changes I just finished making to all the Beast Era episode pages, IMO:
* The one-line summary should be bold. It's the single most important thing on the page; your eye should leap right to it.
* It should be the very first thing on the page, above the nav box (barring temporary templates like "pics needed".)
* It should be free of links. They're distracting and ugly, and it's kinda absurd to think someone's going to click right off the summary to see what a "Maximal" or whatever is. Links can easily be integrated into the body of the plot summary.

I'd also rather see Quotes before Stats, to keep all the in-universe stuff together before moving to out-universe stuff like writers, air dates, commentary, order of appearance, etc. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 00:13, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

:I agree with all of this, except for the one-line summary being above the nav box. Pure personal preference, though, rather than any sort of functionality - I just don't like the way it looks. In fact, I think putting it below the nav box actually ''helps'' its notice-ability - it "frames" the summary quite nicely between the nav box and the contents box. - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 00:22, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
::Heh, I see it the opposite way -- having the summary first provides a frame for the inevitable white space that accompanies the nav box. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 06:24, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

::Picking up on what I said above, putting the stats section down below not just the extended summary but now below the quotes section as well is something I strongly oppose. Episode writers do not get the recognition they deserve. We should not be burying their credits like that. That section belongs ''above'' the summary. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 03:21, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
:::I do hear what you're saying, but honestly I'm less bothered by the recognition factor than by the inconsistency with comic format, where all that junk ''is'' up front (though it often looks pretty bad, IMO.) If it were ''just'' the writer credit, I'd be okay with having it up front (though I ain't gonna be the one who goes back through 78 Beast Era episode pages to change it!) But then you get into the odd condition of having that one bit of info up front, while the rest of the standard information external to the episode's events is much deeper in the article. Having much more stuff up front than that makes for a messy, unattractive, and harder-to-read format compared to having it all bundled in the Stats section... IMO, natch.
:::"If "recognition" is the concern, heck, think of the animators who slaved a lot more than the writers ever did to bring each episode to life. They get no credits at all. Neither does Robert Buckley, who provided music for both Beast series. The list goes on and on. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 06:24, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
::::The information I am suggesting be up front would only be three lines (Written by, Directed by, air date), which I don't think would be very intrusive at all. To my mind, before the summary is the only logical place for this information to be presented, as episodes themselves generally present those two credits up front, and air date is a known factor when watching an episode when it debuts.
::::On the issue of recognition, you make a good point, however my concern is a bit different. Robert Buckley may not get a lot of recognition from the fandom for the music of Beast Wars, but it's not like they give someone ''else'' all the credit on that score, pun semi-intended. But the writers? The fandom often enough acts as if Forward and DiTillio wrote every single word of Beast Wars, and Skir (alone, of course, as the Isenberg Uncertainty Principle remains in full effect) the same for Beast Machines. The story editors are obviously the most important writers, but they didn't do it all on their own.
::::Burying the names of episode writers down below the summary and quotes sections just doesn't sit right with me, is all. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 04:46, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
:::::Hrm... combined with Steve-o's consistency argument, I suppose I could go along with doing it this way, with them all tucked together and separate from/below the one line summary. Written By and Air Date are in one little combined pair of lines now, an easy cut-n-paste to move up front. I don't think anyone's added Director credits to any of the episodes, by the by.
:::::As I said, I'm in no great hurry to do it myself -- my main concern was that the Beast Era show pages had drifted into all sorts of different arrangements, some of which looked pretty sloppy. For better or worse, they're all uniform now. If we're gonna change the layout, let's work on getting one sample page ''just right'', then we can worry about propagating it. To that end, have a look at "[[Chain of Command]]", see if it clicks for you. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 05:33, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm thinking if we could merge the ''Japanese title'' into the '''''Stats''' section'' because it seems to fit the section better. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 03:14, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't have much of a preference, personally, about how to organize these things. However, I do feel pretty strongly that it should be more or less the same for both cartoon episodes and comic issues. Having different organizational schemes for different sorts of fiction doesn't serve much purpose, and makes things harder to get used to. (On the other hand, I ''also'' feel strongly that all of our passages relating fictional events should be in the same tense regardless of if they happen to be on a character page or a story page, but apparently that makes me insane, so don't take my pleas for consistency too seriously.) --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 02:35, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

===Cartoon format mark II.5===
Did we ever make a decision on whether to place the quotes area before the stats section? Because the sheer majority of episode articles (including old ones recently converted to current standards) place the stats before the quotes, but I notice some of the latest Cybertron episode articles are placing the quotes before the stats, which is creating inconsistencies in layout. Bear in mind it will create less work for us if we just leave things the way they are, with stats before quotes. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 09:34, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

==Cartoon continuity headings==
Have we decided on a definative format for this yet? most of the pages with characters who appeared in Sunbow's G1 through to the japanese series (and maybe Beast Wars as well) have quite different headings, and I recall we were worried about ''Transformers Animated'' causing problems with all the 'Animated continuity' headings on character pages. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 07:08, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
:I think we had decided on using "cartoon" instead of "animated." So use "cartoon continuity," or for those who appear in more than one cartoon continuity, use "Generation 1 cartoon continuity," "Beast Wars cartoon continuity," etc. --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 07:13, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
::Can we have Diagnostic Drone change all occurrences of "Animated continuity" to "Cartoon continuity"? That'll require some cleanup in the Animated articles, but there are far fewer of those than there are of G1 subjects that are currently mislabeled. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 17:54, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

== Section-title master list ==

I've made a sandbox for the purpose of assembling a [[User:Jackpot/Sandbox/Sections|master list of all section titles]], their relation to each other, and their proper wording/formatting. Please discuss; I've introduced some new ideas, and I'd love to see a consistent guide established. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 01:04, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
:Wow, I think this really look nice and useful. ;D --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 03:44, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

== "First go here! Next go here." ==
I was thinking a bit about the various problems we've got around here -- stuff like incomplete image descriptions, orphaned articles, etc. There's really no one central place where a newcomer (or a regular who feels like doing something useful but doesn't know what) can go to find a quick list of things that need doing. The current help pages just send you to the list of articles in need of creation, which is kind of daunting, especially for a newcomer who has to learn a million standards and Wikia tags. Is there a more comprehensive way to point people in the direction of useful things they could be doing? Whatever it might be, it should include links to:
* Pages in need of creation
* Orphaned pages
* Stubs
* Pics needed
* Any current projects, like the Beast Wars one. Hell, I couldn't find that thing if my life depended on it.
...as well as a note about common problems: dead/missing storylinks, incomplete image descriptions, and whatever else. (Heck, who knows? Maybe it could even distract an IP person long enough to prevent them from screwing with captions.... ahh, who'm I kidding?} -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 21:51, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

:There are some of those things catalogued [[Special:Specialpages|here]], but I think making links to the most important of these categories, and placing them together in one easy-to-find link off the main page, would be best. Perhaps on the Help contents page, since it's linked right off the main page already, in the most logical location? I think that link is a bit small, for what it's worth. --[[User:Sntint|Sntint]] 22:09, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
::One of the projects in the back of my head is a help-page/guide specifically breaking down the creation of character pages, plus the use of "common templates" for them (disambigs, stubs, notes). I'll see if I can scrounge up some time to rough-copy one. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 22:56, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

==Other Maintenance Templates?==
I haven't had much time to do more "substantial" wiki edits lately, but I've been prepping for later with the charstub sub-categories. Fiction really isn't my bag... I mean, I know it in general, but not issue titles and numbers and bla bla. But I figure it's also nice to have the "really needs a lot of stuff" pages separated from the "just needs some stuff in one subsection" ones, especially once I can make a concentrated effort to update the toy sections of various pages. I've been thinking about other similar "needs maintenance" template/categories, but I thought I'd bring it up here since I'm not sure who else might make use of them... 
I've noticed quite a lot of pages missing storylinks. I'm not intending on going through a big wiki-wide hunt, but as I go through the stubs and other pages doing little maintenance and tweaks, well, I think I'd like to be able to mark pages I come across that are missing those links they should have. Picture and quote? Isaac Sumdac and/or Tutorbot, "I cannot believe I programmed you with such simplistic information!" (Idea courtesy of Trent Troop.) 
I'd swear there was another one, but right now, too tired to think of it and must sleep. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 06:53, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
:Perhaps a tag for a page with too many damn redlinks for concepts that will never need articles?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 07:08, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
::I don't think that will be neccessary, as it's a simple matter of removing the [[ and <nowiki>]]</nowiki>s. Storylinks, though, require some research. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 15:40, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
:::I usually label such pages with <nowiki>{{stub|storylinks}}</nowiki>. [[User:JW|JW]] 15:44, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
::::Trick is, often they're not really stubs, are they? the main info is there, there's just not a "where'd this happen?" link. And maybe it's the data-manager in me that says this, but I think it'd be a lot easier to have a common problem like lack of storylinks as a category all its own, all together for easy identification and maintenance. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 16:11, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

== Disambiguation ==

We need a consensus on hiw we handle disambuigation in article titles. We've had some moving between [[Silverbolt (BW)]] and [[Silverbolt (Fuzor)]], and [[Dirge (Timelines)]] and [[Dirge (Whatever the Botcon 05 set was)]] because there are two Silverbolts in BW and two Dirges in Timelines. However, since one of those Dirges and one of those Silverbolts are G1 characters, the (BW) and (Timelines) tags are fine for the other two. The tags are simply for keeping the articles separate; not for telling you what continuity they're in. Plus, (Timelines) is much easier to type than "(Botcon boxset name I can't remember)". --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 23:35, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

:Somewhat related to the discussion at [[Talk:Starscream (Timelines)]]. My personal criteria is that a name used for two (or more) characters in the same toyline requires more specific disambiguation, regardless of the characters' origin, because readers shouldn't be expected to remember whether some character was already in another toyline. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 23:51, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

::So... what should disambigs be?
:# Distinguished ''only'' when strictly necessary. "Silverbolt (BW)" is fine because, while there were 2 Silverbolt toys in the BW Toyline, the other one is actually Silverbolt (G1)- so only one entry is trying 'sits' in the (BW) disambig, and no more specific disambing is needed. Parenthetical disambigs should be the broadest possible category the article can sit in without conflicting with another article, (usually a continuity family or franchise.) Absolutely no 'bumping' of disambigs as a concession to aesthetics.
:# Distinguished on a logical basis. "Silverbolt (Fuzor)" because there are two Silverbolts in the BW toyline, and the article title should not allow for confusion between the two.
:# Providing continuty info. A hypothetical new character Roller in the 2008 Universe line would be "Roller (Classic)" not "Roller (Universe)"-- so that the article title doesn't mislead people into thinking he's part of the 2004 Universe continuity.
::My problem with #2 ''and'' #3 is that the diambig isn't supposed to convey that information. The first line of the article, right below the title does. It will say 'Silverbolt is a Fuzor in the Beast Wars continuity family...' or 'Roller is a Ultracon in the Classics portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.'
::We are currently usign method #1. I oppose a change to methods 2 or 3 for the following reasons:
:# The '''first line''' of the article already supplies the information that solutions 2 & 3 would seek to add- and does it ''better.''
:# Implementing 2 or 3 would make it harder for ''editors'' to know where article are sitting ("I know there was only one Silverbolt in BW, why is my link to Silverbolt (BW) broken?")
:# The purpose of the parenthetical disambigs is not to convey info- it is to keep articles with the same title from sitting in the same namespace. Attempting to make disambigs convey information actually ''adds ambiguity'', because it would force the the locations the articles sit in to become ''less'' standard.
::Let diambigs be disambigs. If we want to make continuity notes clearer or more prominent, we can look at revising our approach to '''them'''. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 00:41, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

::We already have [[Help:Disambiguation]] to more or less lay this out. (I've just made a couple small changes to it for clarification.) There is going to be no simple rule of thumb which leads to tbe best results in every case, so make the parenthetical as brief and clear as you can. Derik is correct that the purpose of the parenthetical is to give the articles different names so the database doesn't get confused. To help out editors when we make links, it is good for them to be short and easy to remember. --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 21:35, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

So, should we move [[Silverbolt (Fuzor)]] and [[Dirge (Decent into Evil)]] and the mirrorverse guys back to [[Silverbolt (BW)]], [[Dirge (Timelines)]] and [[mirrorverse guys (Timelines)]]? --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 22:42, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
:Wait to see if others have strong feelings/argument first. (We have a policy, but it's subject to conseunsus, remember? Also- I think I wrote most of that page so my point of view is unfairly over-represented there.) ''On review, no, apparently this is one policy page I '''didn't''' write. ...why can't I tell Steve-o's writing apart from my own? Scary. :~(
:Personally I say emphatically yes on Dirge, indifferent affirmative on Silverbolt, and wait and see on the Shattered Glass pages. We don't now where/if they fit in existing continuity. There's no point in movinf them a half-dozen times while arguing about unknowables. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 23:13, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

== Pages about fan sites ==

Is there a policy about this? I wanted to add TF Pulp, but I didn't see any other TF sites on here at all, so I figured I should ask first.
{{unsigned|Might Gaine|2008-02-27T14:04:54}}

:We don't give unofficial sites their own articles. You can link to information on TF Pulp from appropriate pre-existing articles, though. That sort of thing enhances the wiki by allowing people to find further information on the topics they are reading about. Just put it into an "External links" section right before the categories. --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 21:18, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

==Cartoon episode title cards redundancy==
Why are we moving towards using the title cards of episodes for the main/starting picture of episode articles? Isn't it redundant to have a boring screenshot with the name of the episode placed next to...... the name of the episode in the actual article itself? Wouldn't it be more interesting to do what we have been doing, and use a screen capture that somehow encapsulates the whole episode, or shows a pivitol point in it that sticks in our memory? --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 02:55, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
:I've wondered the same thing myself, but figured it was a done deal. I too support the "memorable/encapsulating moment" approach. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 03:04, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
::Uh... I'm sorry, I think I started it. ;-) When I was doing some early RiD ep stubs I threw in the titlecards because the early episodes were boring as sin. I think McFeely did it for the JP eps because they tend to have those painterly titlecards...
::Really, it's just something you do if there isn't a ''good'' representative image. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 17:39, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
:::Like Code of Hero (an article that needs a major overhaul itself), I originally put an image of Dinobot's sword lying on the deck of his quarters, because it looked poignant. Did the same for various other Beast Wars episodes. Then Interrobang replaced them all with screencap of the title screens. Gah. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 07:05, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::So tell him to stop! ;) -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 07:58, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::Sigh. I did it because I like consistency, even with Japanese series. "Dinobot's sword on the ground" might be your favoritest image ever but it's the odd duck out now. (It also looks terrible due to the artifacting brought about by needlessly screwing with the brightness and contrast.) [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 08:36, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::::Consistency is Victory- but Transformers Victory was incredibly boring. (Victory Gundam was pretty good though...) [[The Weak Component]], [[Survivor]] and [[End of the Line]] all have virtually ''identical'' title screens- an aerial shot of the Cybertropolis spaceport. That sucks— I'd much rather have an iconic image from each episode. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 10:07, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::::::I agree. Using iconic images is really good for the most episode guides, such as [[Code of Hero]], [[The Weak Component]], and several [[B.O.T. (episode)|others]], especially "Code of Hero" and "The Weak Component" are great and good examples. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 13:38, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::::Personally, I started doing for the Japanese series for the reason Derik gives, because it was usually a unique image made for the title card, or a good one that's representative of the episode. There were some duds, but... consistency. And then... ''Masterforce'' started to do really, ''really'' boring ones, and I was about to give up, then it occurred to me to start using the image from the next-ep preview, which proved a winner in most cases (in fact, I may yet go back and change swap out some of the title-card images with these, if it's a better option). The mention of Victory here amuses me, though, 'cause it's a good example of title cards being boring - it's the same two images of Star Saber and Deathsaurus, rotated in and out, for the whole series. I've used them for the first two episodes just to get them on show, but I plan to use the title-images from the next-episode previews for this one. I mean, when I wake up from the dullness-inducing stupor that Victory induces. - McFeely, at work
::::::::I reverted Dinobot's sword back to the version I uploaded. As I had not viewed the page much since last year, I didn't realize that Repowers tried to brighten it up for some reason - that moment is supposed to focus on the sword, not the room. And it's the 'odd duck out' now because some people have been replacing whatever had served as the main image with the title card. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 12:24, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::I brightened it because, when it's reduced for the actual episode page where most people are going to see it, you can't tell what the heck you're looking at. Right now it looks a little bit of vague white stuff in darkness. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 13:36, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::::::::Vaat? I can see if plenty fine there, unless you're using a very, very high resolution that makes everything tiny. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 13:54, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::::Could be my home monitor, which is HUGE. It does look more discernable from a work computer, though IMO it could still stand to be a tad brighter. -- [[user:repowers|repowers]], not signed in
I've changed my mind on this situation after mulling it over. A winner is FNN. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 03:31, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
:FNN sounds even more like a Simon Furman sound effect than FFN :D --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 04:26, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
::You clearly changed your name after I replied. There's no another answer. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 04:33, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
:::Hnh. FNN never DID want to live forever. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 04:55, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

==Help/policy page namespaces==
As part of the help/policy page revamp I plan to do... eventually... I kind of want to consolidate the pages all into a single namespace. Right now we have [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=12 a bunch of stuff] in the Help namepsace, and [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=4 a bunch of other stuff] in the Transformers Wiki (aka "meta") namespace. This is needlessly confusing. I vastly prefer "Help" for the purposes of typing it all the time, but, the meta namespace is more general purpose and standard... and possibly required for some pages like the title blacklist. So I am inclined to shuffle all the Help namespace pages over to the meta namespace. Does anybody have an opinion on this? --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 17:37, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
:Help seems fine to me. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 17:45, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

== "The Battlestars" page disappeared ==

When the "Battlestar" (team) page got changed to "Battlestars", then "The Battlestars" page, which was the manga, disappeared. What happened? --[[User:Might Gaine|Might Gaine]] 13:36, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
:I don't think that page actually existed in the first place. It was a red link before any moving was done - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 14:04, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
::Hmm. My bad. --[[User:Might Gaine|Might Gaine]] 15:01, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

==Comic character box format Part IV==
I believe we should change it from 'Major characters' to 'Featured characters' like we do in the cartoon recap articles. Doing it as 'Major characters' means writers of these comic articles will just not bother list the incidental characters, such as humans, even ones with dialogue, and if any of these characters have articles, they become orphaned articles. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 06:32, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
:Well I have gone thru nearly the entire U.S. Marvel series and I think I've included just about everyone who had a speaking line, except for folks who were un-named and such. If someone wants to change from "major" to "featured", it doesn't matter to me, but I'm not gonna go thru all 80 issues again and do it. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:18, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
::I was concerned because I was looking for the article for that [[Professor Goring]] guy from [[Spotlight: Shockwave]] so I could update the article. To my surprise, Shockwave didn't link or even name him, and somebody had eliminated the 'human' column altogether because evidently we only dealt with 'major' characters. Essentially, Goring's article became orphaned. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 20:32, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
:::Well that was dumb; he should indeed be re-added. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:39, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
:::Uh, yeah. That's not good. I support the change to "Featured" not just for this... but let's face it, this wiki is not simply about "Major" characters. The vast wealth of non-major character information is what makes this wiki great, and we should make sure that they are properly linked to so people can find them, even if they weren't looking. "Oh, hey, who's this?" --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 20:39, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
::::MistaTee, well sometimes even unnamed characters can be interesting enough to warrant their own articles if they are interesting in some way/stand out in some way. After all, we have an entire category devoted to unnamed characters. So I think they should have been mentioned in the article in some way. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 04:45, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::Oh, I agree, and if I've missed any, please feel free to add. I do think the 80 issues I've updated is a lot better than they were before though. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 13:58, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::Of course. Is there article template pages somewhere on this wiki or are we copy pasting every time we write a new article? --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 14:07, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::::I've just been going through the Stormbringer articles, and I was ''not at all'' happy with the with the way characters who didn't have significant dialogue (such as ''every'' Pretender besides Bludgeon) were for the most part not even mentioned in the articles. I assume the original writer of these articles just didn't know who they were, but frankly it's just sloppy considering the information available on this wiki even in 2006. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 14:38, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::::I believe I reformatted them to the new format, but just copied the character list from what was there. When I get the chance to re-read, I will add in the others, if someone doesn't beat me to it. Oh, and I am copying and pasting from the previous article, but trying to be consistent. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 15:31, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

:So... what becomes of the former "minor characters" list? Do we even care about those dudes? Take [[Totaled!]] for example -- almost every Earth Autobot to date appears in the story (and most of the Decepticons), but the page currently lists only the speaking ones. Gods help the poor soul who decides to take that task on, but when some nobody like Air Raid makes a rare appearance in the comics, it seems worth noting. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 15:25, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
::IMO, I think those characters should perhaps be in a cameos section, a subset of "Items of note". But I sure as hellz am not going thru the whole Marvel series again to do that. Someone else can have a go at it. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 15:31, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

==Navigation boxes for shared US/UK stories==
I wish I'd noticed [[user:MistaTee|MistaTee]]'s changes to the Marvel US navigation boxes sooner, but that's water under the bridge now. When I set the boxes up, I deliberately left out certain links at points where the continuities split and come back together. The point was that there would be no duplicate links in the box. One hopes that the reader following the UK chain will be smart enough to figure out that the only "Next" link shown will lead to the next step in the chain. This goes double for US stories that have the same Next and Previous links for the UK. Why do the same links need to be duplicated?

Compare:
* [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Cold_War%21&oldid=129298 Old version of Cold War]. There's no "next" for the UK spot, 'cause it would just be the same as the US "next" link.
* [[Cold War!|current version of Cold War!]] - two "next" links are identical.

Also compare:
* [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Dark_Star%21&oldid=152775 Old version of Dark Star!] - no extraneous info.
* [[Dark Star!|Current version of Dark Star!]] - ''two'' redundant links.

To sum up my take on current version:

Minus:
* Redundant links add to confusion
* Double nav box is ugly and should be avoided when possible

Plus:
* Lists UK publication number right up front
* Consistent format for all US issues.

But I've never been one to favor consistency at the expense of practicality. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 17:54, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

:Now see, I didn't like '''not''' having a next for the UK, even if it's the same as the US one. What I think we really need is a revision of the nav box, and maybe have some more options. First, I think there should be a separator line between the US and UK nav. Secondly, maybe some logic could be programmed in so that IF "next2"="next" THEN it would say "same as U.S. version" or something along those lines. Same for the "prev"/"prev2" naturally. Thoughts? --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 18:10, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
::That sounds like an excellent trade-off -- it gets rid of the bothersome parts while keeping the good bits. Uhhh.... anybody have any idea how to do it? The coding of these things is an utter mystery to me. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 18:20, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

== How to spell Malay. ==

Hello everyone, I've noticed that on the 'English/Malay' dubs, people have spelt word 'Malay' wrong. It doesn't have a 'y', because 'Maylay' is incorrect, so if you see any mistakes, please correct it, thank you! Also, can we not put the word crack head next to it? It's quite offensive.--[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
:It's meant in jest because the [[RTM 1 dub]] is really, really bad, as if the dubbers didn't know what the hell was going on half of the time. But we have been changing such instances to 'RTM 1 dub name:' lately. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 15:29, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
:"crack head" is describing the dubs, and with good reason. Battleship Maximus is called "Spaceship Bruce", Blaster is called "Billy", Twincast "Blaster", Metroplex "Phillip", Spike "Sparkle", Soundblaster "New Soundwave", Minevera "Nightbeat", The Matrix and Energon cubes "Power Packs, etc... --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 15:35, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
::We should probably get the drone onto the task of replacing "Maylay" with "Malay", however. [[User:JW|JW]] 15:42, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
:::I don't know about the crack head comment, it's better to avoid offending people; 'though, Spaceship Bruce is my favourite, next to Wally. Also, you got your drone right here (yay?), but do we replace it with 'English/Malay dub', or 'RTM dub'? --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
::::I fully agree with the removal of "crackhead." Frankly, it IS offensive to equate the oddities that arise from the translation of Japanese into English done by people who's first language was likely neither with being on crack. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 19:14, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::Can we leave it in for just Spaceship Bruce? The others are at least somewhat understandable, but ''Spaceship Bruce''? WTCHOP? --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 19:37, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::Sorry, but I don't wanna label another country saying it's populated by drug addicts. If it weren't for them, we wouldn't have Headmasters/Masterforce/Victory in English in the early 90's(?), and for a non-Japanese speaking country, they made a good effort. I guess you can emphasise the weirdness that is Spaceship Bruce, in his bio or the RTM page. So, 'RTM dub' or 'Englsh/Malay' dub? Technically, there was no Malay in the English dubs in the first place, so I'd go for RTM dub :) --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
:::::::It takes a real willfully oppressed state of mind to interpret that as a racial/nationalist insult. I mean, you have to really ''want'' to be offended by something, and be on the lookout for any little thing to jump on. 'Cause "crack-head" is pretty clearly referring to the ''dubs'', not the ''entire freaking country'', and I'm not sure why anyone would decide to think otherwise. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 11:32, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::::You know, crackhead is generally a term that refers to ''people'', not ''things''. As I said above, we shouldn't be seen to be equating the people who produced these dubs with crackheads because of what we perceive as humorous oddities in the translation, which are possibly just the perfectly natural result of cultural and linguistic confusion. Now it might not be an insult to the entire nation of Malaysia, but it is still, I think, a bit offensive. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 16:13, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::Well, regardless.... shouldn't it actually be the "Crackhead ''RTM-1'' dub"? -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 16:23, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::::::'Cracked-up English/Malay' dub, 'though it's not my idea, and it's not so blunt. Or the shorter 'RTM dub', since there is an [[RTM 1 dub]] page where people can redirect themselves there and elucidate the weirdness of weird names; but do we have to spell Malay with two 'y's? Maybe we can make reference to that on the RTM page again. --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
:::::::::I think 'Cracked-up English/Malay' could be used for the article such as [[Ginrai]] and [[Minerva]]('cause their RTM dub name "Optimus Prime" and "Nightbeat" were too... hilarious?), while just "RTM dub" for Fortress Maximus' Spaceship Bruce. Well, just a little opinion. :) --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 12:11, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::: Agree! :D --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]

==Trivia section image formatting==
This issue came up a while ago on [[Talk:Frenzy_%28Movie%29#Image_format|Frenzy's talk page]]. There were opnions both ways, and it wasn't really resolved. The issue is, should images in trivia sections alternate left-right, or be all on one side?

Part of the trouble with alternating sides is that it kills the bullet points. A double bullet has to be inserted for it to show up, and then there's some ambiguity over which bullets should be doubled and which left single. Dpouble bullets can also cause images to overlap the text.

Several folks said there's a lot of ugly white space when the images are stacked on one side. I see it just the opposite on my (admittedly gigantic) screen, with every image having a big empty white space below it when they alternate sides. Apparently it's got something to do with monitor resolution, so there might not be a solid answer. But --

I'd ''love'' so see some screencaps from folks showing how they see things on their monitors. It's a little hard to understand this problem without seeing it from other people's POV.

I started a little Sandbox at [[:user talk:repowers/Sandbox2]] with two different versions of Frenzy's trivia. The first one stacks all the images at the top. Does this work for people on lower monitor resolutions, or does it still look like crap? With them all stacked at the front, I don't see how they could have any white space, regardless of monitor resolution. On my screen, it looks very neat and tidy, while the second one is messy. See:

[http://www.builtstlouis.net/tf/frenzy1.jpg Stacked] 
[http://www.builtstlouis.net/tf/frenzy2.jpg Alternating]

Thoughts and input welcomed. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 01:36, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

:Alternating does kind of suck now. I've been putting pics all on the right side where there are bullet points since Wikia updated their software... an update which covered single bullet points if you put an image on the left side of the screen. I suggest cutting down on images in Trivia, since most users here have smaller monitors and use lower resolutions. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 05:44, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
::I think the easiest answer is to just remove the head images. They're essentially redundant and don't really add anything to the reader's understanding. I'd call for a general limit on how many images you can stuff into a section. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 06:27, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
:::I'd remove the head images from the article proper... but then make a text link to them within the relevant paragraph so people can see them anyway if they want to. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 06:35, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
::::That works. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 07:11, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

== Foreign name format ==
I just found the foreign names doesn't have an unified format.
:For example, some are
::''Hungarian name:'' '''Kerék''' ("Wheel"(with or without ""))
:others are
::''Hungarian name'': '''Kerék''' (meaning Wheel(or "Wheel"))

I suggest we could use an unified format like the below:
:<nowiki>:''Foreign name 1:'' '''Name A''' (Form A), '''Name B''' (Form B)</nowiki>
:<nowiki>:''Foreign name 2:'' '''Name''' ("English meaning")</nowiki>

Take [[Hot Rod]] for example, it will look like:
:''Japanese name:'' '''Hot Rodimus''' (Hot Rod), '''Rodimus Convoy''' (Rodimus Prime)
:''Hungarian names:'' '''Nagyágyú''' ("Hot ''Shot''"), '''Rodimusz Fővezér''' ("Prime Commander Rodimus")

Thoughts and idea are welcomed :) --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 09:09, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
:I don't have a strong opinion on how the international names are standardized, but I strongly agree that they should be. I nominate someone else to go through and do it. -[[User:LV|LV]] 21:40, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

== Wookiepedia has a darn nifty interface ==

What would it take for us to create something similar but Transformers-y?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:36, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
:I think the admins were adament that we keep a simple, bare-bones default look to the TF wiki, in keeping with our 'let's not take this stuff too seriously' attitude and tone. At least that's what I remember them saying when I suggested an orange layout like what Teletraan I looked like in the cartoon. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 09:34, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
::The current Wookieepedia also doesn't seem to want to cooperate with my comp here at work. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 18:27, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

==Characters lacking visuals category?==
It's dawned on me that there are actually quite a few characters who don't have any form of visual representation. They may have been described, but there are no ''pictures''. While a bulk of these are from prose stories, there's several who were simply mentioned by name in comics, or in external sources (Key Code info, S7 site, etc). More than enough to justify a category. 
I think that maybe there should also be a template/visual for this to call attention to this fact on the page right up front. I'm thinking a variation on the current <nowiki>{{mainpic}}</nowiki> template... a silhouette, (different from the mainpic one) and some text saying "This character has no known official visual depiction" or something. Anyone? --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 18:33, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
:Well, for the characters with the mainpic template, the idea is that the mainpic image is there as a placeholder, and to annoy people into tracking down an image.
:However, characters that have never had any visual depiction, and are unlikely to ever get one, don't need a placeholder for their image, and the template will just pointlessly take up room. I'm against the template, but I think the category is a good idea, and will suffice to identify these characters. [[User:JW|JW]] 18:44, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
::I disagree. The point is specifically to call attention to their lack of imagery, so nobody thinks "maybe they do have an image". And considering how little there ''is'' to most of those characters, a little extra visual pizzaz to their pages can't hurt. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 19:06, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
:::''so nobody thinks "maybe they do have an image"'' Are you intending to convey that message to ''editors,'' or casual users? Editors will, in theory, know enough to look for the category. I'm not sure casual users need to have the point brought to their attention.
:::And, it's not like we have scads of frantic editors running around trying to find pics for characters who have only appeared in prose. This may be a solution without a problem. [[User:JW|JW]] 19:27, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

== Timelines disambuig ==

There doesn't seem to be a consensus on how to name the various Timelines articles.

I feel that any disambiguation in the article title should be limited to keeping the articles separate. For instance, [[Optimus Prime (Shattered Glass)]] should be at [[Optimus Prime (Timelines)]] unless there is another Optimus Prime who's first appearance in anything was in Timelines. G1 Prime appearing in the 2007 Timelines comic does not affect this, as he is already at [[Optimus Prime (G1)]]. If G1 Prime being in a Timelines comic affected this, we would need to move [[Cyclonus (Armada)]] to [[Cyclonus (Armada whatever size class he is)]] because a version of G1 Cyclonus appeared in ''Worlds Collide''. The only reason to include the set name in the article title is ''two'' separate characters who first official anything is in ''Timelines''. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 17:18, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

== Shattered Expectations ==

Um, shouldn't those[[Deathsaurus|1]][[Bug Bite|2]] who appear in ''[[Shattered Expectations]]'' have their own page like others[[Optimus Prime (Timelines)|1]][[Grimlock (Timelines)|2]] even their counterparts' article would be short? --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 06:28, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
:I brought this up on [[Category_talk:Mayhem_Suppression_Squad]]. As I said there, I think they should either get their own articles or if that's not warranted just be covered on the Mayhem Suppression Squad article. Either way, I don't think "Shattered Expectations" fiction sections belong on the normal-verse guys' pages. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 07:08, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

==Monaco skin==

Hi -- Have you guys seen the new Monaco skin that's being used on Wikia now? You can see it at [[w:c:muppet|Muppet Wiki]] and [[w:c:marveldatabase|Marvel Database]].

As we've been rolling the skin out across Wikia, there are a few things that we've found when wikis switch to Monaco:

* The number of pageviews goes up. The flyout menus encourage new readers to explore the content on the site, and people end up sticking around on the site for longer.

* The number of new editors goes up. Readers spend more time on the site, and find pages that they want to contribute to. Also, the design makes the edit button more prominent.

* The site is faster. There were some changes made last week to Monaco that make pages load a lot faster than Monobook. Hit "random page" a few times on a Monaco wiki, and you'll see what I mean.

So I'm going around and proselytizing to the Entertainment wikis that are still using Monobook. If you want to make a custom Monaco skin like Marvel Database and Wookieepedia have, I can help you make that happen. What do you guys think? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:31, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

:Monaco does look nice, though it might go against what I understand is the wiki's purpose, which is to be quick and dirty, no fancy stuff and no pretention that this wiki is in any way officially endorsed or serious. At least that's the gist of what I was told after I previously suggested we could make the default colour of this wiki a shade of orange, like the computer systems in the original Transformers cartoons. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 23:16, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

::Yeah, we don't have to do a custom skin -- it could be the basic blue and white. I'm mostly interested in the improved functionality. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 23:24, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Eh, if it makes the place ''easier'', I don't think the "pure and simple" folks will object.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 23:26, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

And truth be told, I think the main dealbreaker here might be the extent to which Suki and Derik may or may not have farted about with tweaking Monobook. I know they've both made alterations, but I don't know quite what.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 23:34, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

:That stuff won't be affected at all. We can copy Monobook.css over to Common.css, and all of the tweaks that they made will still work. No problems. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 23:52, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

My biggest concern is the menus. The "by series" list could easily fill the entire vertical direction of the screen. We don't actually have all the series listed on the main page now (Machine Wars, Dinobots, Timelines, Universe (2008), not to mention licenced lines like Animorphs, SWTF, Crossovers).--[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 00:45, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

:Well, the idea with the menus is to be selective rather than comprehensive. It's not supposed to be a complete sitemap for the wiki -- you just want to give the new readers something to click on first.

:On [[w:c:Muppet|Muppet Wiki]], we put up the most popular Muppet Show and Sesame Street characters, and then a link to "More characters". We just want to entice people into making that first click, without overwhelming them with choices.

:I have access to click-through data for the Monaco menus, so it's possible to run some tests. You could put up a set of menus for a few days, and then I'll be able to tell you which items are getting clicked. That way, you could refine the menus so that you could highlight the items that are most likely to get clicked on. I've been doing that with the Muppet menus, and it's fun to see what the readers are actually interested in reading about. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 23:34, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

::So what do you guys think? I'd like to help you switch over to the new skin... -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 19:10, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
:::For some reason none of the admins have chimed in. I assume they're all off doing useless things like living in Real Life. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 21:10, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

::::Yeah, I left messages for Chris and ItsWalky... -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:12, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::You might want to leave messages for [[User:Suki Brits]] and [[User:Steve-o]] as well. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 13:28, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Well admins? Let's hear your opinions! I find the silence from the staff to be discouraging. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 16:18, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

If there's an actual interest in switching over to Monaco, then I would certainly have nothing against that... but I'd definitely like to hear more from the community first. Aside from that, I have no objections speaking as an admin; the modifications really aren't an issue. On the other hand, speaking as a wiki editor and professional web designer... I would definitely want to use a modified version, as it's got several pretty important issues. My thoughts, in no particular order:
* Search is nigh useless, again. Right now it resembles our ''broken'' Monobook search. I don't think that's a good thing. On the other hand, I'm currently working on fixing that anyway, so it's not like the same couldn't be done for Monaco.
* The header sucks. It really, really does. It's only 150px tall, but it sends a pretty powerful message: we'd rather show you this pretty, irrelevant picture then let you immediately get to article. ''I'' would want the top of the article as close to the top as possible.
:: Gah, I brought it over into another browser that doesn't block ads... and now I see why it's so obnoxiously huge. I am ''strongly'' opposed to putting giant hideous banner ads at the top of everything. Like, it's a little insulting that Wikia really thinks that ''that'' should be the first thing readers see. Teletraan I, like everything else on Wikia, is naturally ad-driven; but Monobook isn't offensive about it.
* The language selection is in a dropdown box, which is a TERRIBLE idea. This personally doesn't affect me, as I don't speak Hungarian, but it's pretty awful for anyone who actually is interested in seeing foreign language versions of articles... and has to click a dropdown menu on every single page if they're curious.
* The "community" box is really unhelpful. Half the content (user page, user talk, etc.) is redundant with the top of the screen, and absolutely nobody is interested in just the most recent two edits. That just leaves the number of articles. This is a lot of wasted room for nothing.
* I ''do'' like that the obnoxious sidebar on the right is gone. The current framing in Monobook wastes all sorts of space and Monaco definitely doesn't ''look'' like it has that problem.
There's also a bunch of minor things, but they don't really matter so much. The big issues are the useless space, a need to do major fixes to search, and the huge obtrusive banner ads (as opposed to the ones on the side in Monobook). But if Wikia's really willing to work with us on it, then by all means, it's up to what the community thinks. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 20:48, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

:I've been around the Wookieepeedia lately, and I've noticed when you click edit, it loads significantly slower on Monaco than it does on the Monobook format. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 05:25, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

::Hi guys -- Sorry it took me so long to respond. I'll make up for it with a super-long answer. :)

::Yes, absolutely -- I want to work with you on this. Some of the things you've raised I can clear up immediately. For some, I can explain the rationale behind the approach, and show you some stats that may help. And if there are some things that need to get tweaked, I can talk to the designers & tech folks to see if we can come up with a solution.

::Just so you know: I work for Wikia now, but I started out in 2005 as the founder of [[w:c:muppet|Muppet Wiki]]. Working on wikis is my job now, but Muppet Wiki is where my heart lives, so I'm always looking out for what's going to help or hurt "my wiki". I am/was a big Monobook fan, and I was skeptical about Monaco as it was being designed. The thing that made me a Monaco fan was actually trying it out on Muppet Wiki, and then looking at the stats to see how it was working. Muppet Wiki and Teletraan I are very similar -- about a dozen really active contributors, a strong admin team and a community of about 60-80 contributors. So I can share with you what I saw on Muppet Wiki, and what I can see in the pageviews stats.

::First up, the rationale behind some of the decisions made with the new skin. There are some features on the new skin that the most active editors think are useless, like the Community box or the flyout menus. And it's true, those aren't very helpful for the active contributors. They're designed for the anonymous/new people, who are the vast majority of our readers.

::Here's the stats on unique visits for Teletraan I. (Unique visits counts the number of visits to a site, and not the number of pages you look at in each visit. So if you come to the wiki and look at 100 pages, that counts as one unique.) In the last month, there have been 2,725,000 anonymous visits, and 261,000 logged-in user visits. That means 91% of the visits to the site aren't logged-in contributors.

::Logged-in editors make 77% of the edits here, so obviously we're the people who are actually building the content that people are reading. Logged-in editors are important, and the dozen people who make over 100 edits here every month are especially important. Still, if you want to make the community bigger and more active, then you have to think about whether the design of the site encourages anonymous users to sign in and become active members.

::The purpose of designing the new skin was to make the wiki more accessible to the 91% of anonymous readers. Obviously, we have to keep the functionality that the active contributors need in order to build the wiki. At the same time, we have to be aware that the Monobook skin that we're familiar with is kind of confusing for brand-new people.

::For example, the "log in" button is in really small type at the very top right of the screen. From a website design perspective, that's crazy -- it's like we don't want people to find it. The log-in buttons on Monaco are big, green, candy-like buttons. There's one at the top right, and there's another one in the Community box on the sidebar. We want to encourage people to log in.

::In general, having all the important Monobook controls in little bitty tiny type says: We hate people who are older than 40. ("Go back to AOL, old man!") All of the Monobook buttons are in the same font, from the crucial stuff like "Log in" and "Edit this page" to the more obscure controls like "Related changes" and "Permanent link". On Monaco, the stuff that's important to brand-new users is bigger -- log-in, edit, the link to the home page. The search box is at the top, rather than being buried down in the sidebar. The controls that logged-in users need, like "What links here" and "Special pages", are in smaller type -- they're important to us, but a brand-new user wouldn't know what to do with them.

::Okay, so that's my very long introduction... Now I'll respond to the points that you guys have brought up.

::'''Search''': I think when you say that search is broken, you mean that there's just a "Go" button and not a "Search" button next to the search box. (If you mean something else, then let me know.) That's true, and it's something that I struggled with as the design for Monaco was taking shape. I use the Search button all the time, and I was frustrated that it wasn't included. Then I looked at the stats. On Teletraan I in the last month, logged-in users used Go for 91% of searches, and Search for 9%. Anonymous users used Go for 97% of searches. Given that, I think it's okay to make the Search button less prominent. I remember when I first started using wikis, I was totally confused by having two buttons. (Do I want to Go or Search? Well, I want to search, and then go to the search results...) I only figured out the difference through trial and error. So in Monaco, the search box at the top is Go, and then you can have a link to [[Special:Search]] in the toolbox. (Some wikis have that, and some don't -- Muppet has it, if you want to see how it works.)

::'''Community box''': That's one of the features that's designed to encourage brand-new users to explore the site. When you look at a wiki as a new reader, it's not always apparent that there's a community there. You read pages, but you don't necessarily know whether the articles were written today or a year ago. (Unless you look at Recent changes, which a brand-new reader doesn't know to do.) The Community box is designed to bring a little taste of the community activity up to their view. It's not a helpful way for a contributor to keep track of Recent changes, but it does show new people that something's going on. If you come to the site and see that somebody edited a page 15 seconds ago, then you understand that there's an active community. On Muppet Wiki in the last month, 1,404 anonymous readers logged in using the button in the Community box, 1,539 anon readers clicked the "more..." button to go to Recent changes, and 1,287 clicked on article links that they saw in the Latest Activity area. Those are readers who may not have been engaged with the site if they hadn't seen the activity going on in the Community box. On the other hand, logged-in contributors only clicked in the Community box 350 times. It's not designed for us; it's for the 91% of anons.

::'''Obnoxious ads''': This is the one area that's designed to help the company rather than the wiki. Basically, the deal is that Wikia doesn't make a lot of money from the "skyscraper" ads on the right sidebar. Nobody clicks on them, and most advertisers don't bother to make ads like that anymore. Advertisers want banner ads, and they want them at the top of the page. I can't justify this one in wiki terms, except to say that if we want Wikia to stay in business and continue to host wikis, then we need to change the skin to accommodate the changing ad market. Otherwise, there won't be a Wikia after a while.

::'''Languages drop-down''': We changed the list into a drop-down menu because sites like Wookieepedia had a long list, which took up a lot of sidebar space, and only had about 100 clicks on language links in a month. On Teletraan I, there have only been 2 clicks on the language links since October.

::'''Content space''': There is slightly less content area on Monaco when you first come to the page. The sidebar is smaller than the combined left & right Monobook sidebars, so the content area is wider. The banner ad means that the height takes a hit for the first screen. As you scroll down, though, the Monaco content area is bigger than on Monobook, because the page is wider. I can show you some screencaps if you want more info on this.

::'''Slow edits on Wookieepedia''': That looks like a bug that's specific to Wookieepedia... I'm not sure what's going on there. It looks like when you hit edit on Wookiee, it's looking for something from maps.google, and that can slow down the page load for the edit screen. I hadn't seen that before, so I'm really glad you pointed it out. That's not affecting other Monaco wikis like Muppet Wiki or Marvel Database, so there must be something in Wookieepedia's css that's causing that. I'll look into it. If you look at Muppet or Marvel, you'll see that the page load is lightning fast right now. (Not counting periods of site-wide database problems, which affect every skin.)

::So anyway -- this is a huge long post, but I think I responded to everything. As you can tell, I take this stuff really seriously, and I'm willing to put in the time to research the impact and explain what's going on. Do folks have other questions or concerns about Monaco? I could keep talking about this stuff all day. :) -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 17:33, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

:::Personally, as regular contributor, I'm fine with switching to Monaco, so long as we get to keep our new 'random page thumbnail' above the search box (or anywhere, really). I think it's useful for visitors to be able to visit a random page with an interesting thumbnail image rather than simply doing random searches or hitting Random page repeatedly. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 17:44, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

::::I knew there was something I forgot to mention! Yeah, the featured page thumbnail. I think that's something that we can adapt.

::::That feature doesn't have anything to do with search -- it just happens that you can put a picture in the Monobook search box. I actually think what you've made is a little misleading. The picture says "Search" on it, and it's right above the search box -- so as a user, I would assume that if I click that, I'll get some kind of search results page. Instead, it goes to a featured article, which isn't necessarily what you'd expect.

::::The feature is really a rotating spotlight for featured articles, which is cool and visual, and helps to bring readers deeper into the content. It's a great idea. I think it would actually be more effective if it was split away from search, so readers would be more likely to recognize it as a featured-article spotlight.

::::So there are a couple ways to do that in Monaco. The easiest way would be to put it in the sidebar -- check out [[MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar]] for an example. Here's pics to show what that would look like.

<gallery>
Image:Monacosidebar1.jpg
Image:Monacosidebar2.jpg|You can update this list anytime, so you can freshen it up every day or every week. Or never.
Image:Monacosidebar3.jpg|That big green, fire-snortin' lizard must be included.
Image:Monacosidebar4.jpg|If you click on "Embrace the Knowledge", it takes you to the Allspark article. Obviously.
</gallery>

::::It's not graphical, but it allows you to bring the funny into the sidebar, which you've never been able to do before. One advantage of this approach is that you can add in new articles to the sidebar without having to wait for somebody to make a graphic.

::::If that's not enough and you need to go graphical, then I can talk to our designer, Christian, about creating a widget that can go into the sidebar and have the same function. It could sit above or below the Community box. It would be separate from search, but like I said, that may be a good thing. What do you think? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:48, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

If you want to sell this to Walky... make it orange.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 22:05, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
[[Image:Orangemonaco.jpg|thumb|250px|It could be even oranger if that would help.]]
:Does this work? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:13, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

::The brick skin has a pretty nice brown/orange thing going. That's what I'm using at the moment. --[[User:Professor Icepick|Professor Icepick]] 22:17, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
:::See, that's what was needed to get his attention. The orange will draw him, like a moth to a flame.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 22:24, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
[[Image:Monacobrick.jpg|thumb|250px|Monaco Brick, in all its dark red and orange glory.]]
::::Here's how Brick looks... -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:28, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

:::::Do it! --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 00:41, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
::::::I TOLD you guys that we should make this wiki orange (to actually look like Teletraan 1) way back before we even knew about Monaco, but you were all "We are serious business about not taking ourselves seriously". --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 06:44, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

:I don't know all that much about what can and can't be modified, but can't a number of the problems with Monobook be solved simply by changing the css or js files? I'm mainly talking about the small text size for the tabs and login. Plus, most people who edit wikies are probably familiar with Wikipedia's Monobook interface. Plus, I don't think anyone wants the trouble from the ad format being changed again. A few months ago the site started taking showing wider vertical ads, and it was awhile before the horizontal scrolling mess got cleaned up. But then again I'm the guy who uses XP's Classic Windows scheme with Windows 98's colors and icons, so I may be biased when it comes to new interfaces. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 22:41, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

::The Monobook problems can't be solved with css changes. The type size is an example, but it's really a general problem with the layout. Wiki veterans are used to Monobook, but it's not necessarily a great layout for new people. I meet people all the time who read Wikipedia, but when I ask if they've ever made an edit, they say no -- it never occurred to them. I think it's important to make wikis more accessible to new people, and we're finding that Monaco is helping people to explore the wikis and make their first edit.

::Are there other concerns that people have that I can help with? I know that this discussion has gone on a bit, and I'd hate to have it just run out of steam before it gets to a decision. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 18:15, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::It seems like there aren't any more concerns about the new skin, so I'm thinking about changing it over to Monaco tomorrow, unless someone has objections. Once it's switched over, then I can help you out with whatever customization you want. Is that cool? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 15:55, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
::::A great number of us are indisposed at [[BotCon 2008]] this weekend, but there should still be a handful of us around. So you know! --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 16:09, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::Gyah. I thought we were doing Brick?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:17, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:We can do anything you guys want... I'm just playing around for a minute to see if I can come up with something interesting. It's gonna look bad for the next five minutes... and then we can talk about what you guys want, and fix it up nice. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:21, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::Okay, never mind. That just looked bad. :) So I set it to Brick. If you guys want to change these colors, we can change them to whatever you like. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:25, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

===Apparently implemented===
Is there any way to override this that '''doesn't''' override the skins on ''every'' Wikia-hosted wiki? - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 21:19, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:Do you mean, you want to see the skin in Monobook? You can go to Preferences --> Skins, and set your preferred skin to Monobook. You can check or uncheck the box that says "Let the admins override my skin choice" to either see customized skins or not. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:27, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::Yes, I know that. My problem with that is the "This setting will follow you across Wikia." clause. I don't want to override EVERYWHERE (e.g. Memory Alpha). Just Monaco wikis. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 21:30, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::Actually, they're working on switching over to the Monaco skin on Memory Alpha too... At a certain point, pretty much every Wikia wiki is going to end up on Monaco. Is there something about Monaco that you don't like? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:43, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::::The flyouts. Certainly not the only thing - the more I look, the less I like, especially the pathetic "Latest Activity" box with a practically-camouflaged recentchanges link, and why exactly are the preferences hidden? - but they're the biggest dealbreaker. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 22:01, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::::Yeah, at first I wasn't crazy about the flyouts either. We tested out using the sidebar without the flyouts on Muppet Wiki, but then I looked at the click stats and found that they really helped new readers to find content on the wiki. The pageviews went down when we took the flyouts out. If you're interested, there's details here: [[w:c:muppet:Muppet_Wiki:Current_events#Sidebar_menus|Muppet Wiki:Current events]].

:::::The "Community" box is also something for the new users. When you first come to the wiki, you might think that it's just a static site... There's no way to know that there's a living community. The latest activity shows people that there are pages that were edited in the last couple minutes. Also, logged-out users see a log-in button in that box. For active logged-in users, a lot of these features aren't that useful. They're really aimed at the 90-something% of readers that aren't logged in. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:10, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::::::(NB: I was expanding my post at the same time you were typing, since I was spending a bit of time looking around).
::::::See, I'm not coming at it from the "guy who runs the wiki" perspective. I'm not a sysop on a Wikia wiki, so "this will boost Teh Stats" has no effect on me [perhaps that means you consider my position irrelevant. I can't help that]. Nor am I a newbie to Wikis, so again, not the target group.
::::::My problem is that (1) they require me to turn JavaScript on in the first place (strictly, add to the NoScript whitelist, but...) and (2) the click-on flyout in the top right is worse than pointless, since there's room for the links without that and it just makes preferences harder to access and (3) I hate non-click flyouts since you they will inevitably be scrolled at the wrong moment, trebly so since they're on the side rather than the top. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 22:08, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::::::I think "this will boost Teh Stats" actually matters to everybody. More readers looking at more pages = more potential contributors = a more active community = more and better content on the site. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:12, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::::::::By the way, I'm not trying to make you like the skin. Either you like it, or you don't. I'm just explaining the rationale behind some of the design decisions, so you know that it wasn't just random or malicious. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:17, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

There are three things that would make me more... reconciled... to it. I still probably won't ''like'' it, but...
#On your own "help.wikia", there's a group of links beneath the flyouts to Recent Changes/Upload/etc. They don't appear here or on most Wikia wikis (well, strictly they appear for about half a second on a Ctrl-F5, which suggests they're present but being hidden with CSS or something). They should be there as standard.
#Links to Special:Preferences and Special:Contributions/(self) should be available with a single non-flyover click, either in the "Community" box or at the top right, not in a flyover only. '''ESPECIALLY''' Special:Preferences.
#Be able to override the colour scheme on an individual wiki basis, rather than just "all or nothing" - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 22:29, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::For #1, I'm not sure why you're not seeing the toolbox links. That's an important part of the skin, and it's on every wiki. Check out the screenshots that I added above -- every wiki has links to Recent changes and Upload. If you're not seeing it, then that's a weird bug which we can try to figure out. What browser are you using? Are you only seeing the toolbox disappearing on Transformers, or on other wikis too?

::If you want it, we can put links to Preferences and Contributions in the toolbox, or in the sidebar. I don't know how to change the top header.

::Can you give me an example of what you'd like to see as far as overriding the color schemes? I think it's possible that what you want is currently possible, but I'm not sure. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:54, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::Okay, #1 was my own fault. An in-browser hack I'd done on Monobook was interacting "unpredictably" with Monaco, and had knocked that (and some minor stuff that doesn't make any difference) out of joint.
:::Okay on #2. I'd be interested to find out how many people ever use Special:Preferences on any skin(s) while you're trotting out stats...
:::On #3, basically, being able to use different (non-default) skins, or at least colour schemes from the chosen skin on different wikis without being limited to the "this will follow you across Wikia". Just because one wiki chooses to smother the page in bright pink (or orange...) doesn't mean I want to change the colour scheme on every wikia. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 23:32, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Sure, I love trotting out stats!

Here's the stats on how Transformers contributors click on those links. In the last month, there have been the following clicks:

* Watchlist: 3,114
* Contributions: 427
* User page: 213
* Talk page: 67
* Preferences: 22

So, yeah, contributions is #2 on that list, but preferences is all the way down at the bottom. Preferences is useful when you need it, but people don't need it that often.

But the hypothesis is: If you put Contributions and Preferences into a drop-down menu, people won't click on it as much, and you'll see clicks on those two items going down.

To make a comparison, I looked at Muppet Wiki editors' clicks in February (on Monobook) and in April (using Monaco).

Here's the clicks on Monobook:

* Contributions: 403 (52%)
* Watchlist: 148 (19%)
* Talk page: 132 (17%)
* User page: 83 (11.5%)
* Preferences: 4 (0.5%)

Here's the clicks on Monaco:

* Contributions: 320 (60%)
* Watchlist: 123 (23%)
* Talk page: 53 (10%)
* User page: 23 (4%)
* Preferences: 15 (3%)

The hypothesis doesn't seem to hold up. Percentage-wise, clicks on Contributions and Preferences went up using Monaco. This is a really small sample, so it's not proof of anything... but it indicates that the drop-down menu doesn't chase away clicks.

As far as seeing wikis in different skins, try choosing Monobook in your skin preferences, and keep "allow admins to override my choices" checked. Transformers isn't using a custom skin right now, so you should see this wiki in Monobook -- and you'll also see the customization on Memory Alpha, etc. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 00:19, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

==Script-style quotes==
There seems to be some disagreement on whether script-style quotes should have quotation marks or not. Personally, I strongly favor including them, for two reasons:
* Visual consistency. There's no reason not to have all the quotes in as similar a format as possible. Having some with quotation marks, and some without, ''in the same section'', seems like needless variation.
* It's... well... it's a ''quote''. We're not writing a screenplay; we're quoting something someone actually said. And a quote gets quotation marks.... fullstop. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 21:18, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

:Hmm, I'm afraid I disagree. They're simply not necessary, and they clutter the page.
:And, regardless of whether we decide to use double-quotes, can we put a stop to script-style where the quotes are are in double-quotes ''and'' italicized? {shudder} [[User:JW|JW]] 21:21, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
::The italics stuff is flat out bad formatting, no disagreement here. There's an earlier discussion about it somewhere on this page or the archives. Nobody should be adding stuff in that format anymore... I hope.
::As for double quotes... um... I have no clue what you're referring to. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 21:23, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

==Gone Too Far==
I've been alerted it's past the 30-day period for "coming soon Club stuff" non-updating. Have at it. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 22:03, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

==Searchbox improvement drive==
So now we have a very nice set of searchboxes, thanks to the lovely design work of M Sipher and the superhuman coding skills of Suki Brits. The effort of these boxes is to show the visitor all of the awesome crap we have. To do that, said cap must in fact be awesome. Unfortunately, a lot of the pages linked to by searchboxes are [[Shatterpoint|imageless]], [[T-AI|missing fiction]], or [[High Wire (Armada)|pretty much content-free]]. Thus, I propose an improvement drive of the searchbox articles. When you click on one of those suckers, try and add something. I dunno how we'd make this official, exactly... - [[User:RolonBolon|RolonBolon]] 06:49, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
:Are these images supposed to show up automatically by/around/with the actual text box in which you type your search parameters? If so, I'm not seeing them in the current Monaco skin.--[[User:Apcog|Apcog]] 14:29, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
::They don't show up in Monaco, Quartz, Cologne Blue, or any other custom theme. Just Monobook, the default. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 20:15, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Is there a way to get the search box changes to load sooner? The way it is now the custom settings for the box are the last thing to load; it uses the default settings until the google ads finish loading. This can take awhile depending on how the crappy campus wireless is acting. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 20:39, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with RolonBolon about the searchbox thing. I know we're hard up for help, but why are we spending time creating these little searchbox images using pics from God knows where, yet we've neglected to upload a single image for the actual pages these buttons lead to? Not the mention pages that have absolutely no content whatsoever.
I think we've overreached ourselves, and in the future we should only do these searchbox things for articles that are largely complete and/or have alot of content and imagery, otherwise we look really half-ass and unfocused. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 22:37, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
:Yeah, what drove it home for me was Sixtrain. I see Sixtrain in the Search box. It looks nifty, like it's his box art. I click on the article, no images. Why the heck can't we upload Sixtrain's box art when we evidently have a clear enough copy of it to make a search teaser?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 23:33, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
::I was simply making boxes using what I had on the hard drive as examples, and not everything is good quality at main-image size. I don't think we've "overreached ourselves" at all. At worst, we omit a few items from the searchbox list if their entries are that empty for a little while, OH NOES. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 00:22, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
:::I am of the opinion that a fuzzy picture that can be replaced later is better than no picture at all. It helps users know what it's talking about in the meantime, right? [[User:Spriteless|Spriteless]] 02:24, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
::::We prefer no pic/no content to a crap pic/crap content. I've been taking a break from the Wiki, but it looks like I'm going on another image safari. My scanner not working is annoying. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 06:54, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

The fact that the image is the last one on the page to load isn't just visually annoying; it for some reason also makes whatever you've typed in the search field vanish in Firefox. I've had this happen to me a bunch of times. A lesser annoyance is that the input box moves when the image appears; it would be nice if it could stay in the same place (maybe by making the whole Search box a fixed size?), as it's a bad idea to have a clickable thing that spontaneously jumps around. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 20:31, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
: The way the Search Image works right now, I'd rather not even have them. My computer has slowed down ''epically'' trying to load those images each time, and if it's a high traffic time of day, the rest of the page will basically freeze for 30 seconds or more until that search image gets around to loading. This is extremely annoying when I just need a quick peek at a page before making a link, like checking if Stormcloud is one word or two or if Whirl needs to be disambig-ed in the link. And if I try to click Search to move on to a next page too early, the Image drops down in front and shang-hais my "click", so I go there instead of being able to type in where I want to go.

: I don't like the thing at all. It's been nothing but a hassle for the last day or so. There's already a Random page button right about it -- do we really need this too? --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 00:30, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::The same thing has been happening to me lately, and I've never experienced that problem on Wookieepedia. And this is a real problem for me, as I'm actually ''supportive'' of the image icons. We may want review the system. -- [[User:SFH|SFH]] 01:30, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Though in fairness, some of that may be due to Wikia's tendency to nearly-crash every weekend. And to be honest, this weekend has been rather traffic low. I mean, seriously, did every head to BotCon a week early? -- [[User:SFH|SFH]] 02:09, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Let me know if this continues to be an issue during weekdays (well, before Thursday, anyway). If it is, I'll figure out a way to let users optionally turn them off. I've never noticed it slowing down while trying to load, and any sane browser ''shouldn't'', but if that really is happening for some users, something definitely ought to be done about it.
::::I'll also take a look at preserving the form data while the images load, because that is definitely something that really ''should'' happen, too. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 03:44, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::Things sped back up again shortly after SFH's last post, but I'll post again if it keeps happening regularly. Maybe it was just an anomaly. --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 03:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::'''Furthermore:''' I did a bit of code modification that should make the form retain anything you've typed before the images loads. You may need to do a hard refresh for the change to show up, but lemme know if that doesn't work for anyone. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 03:52, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

==Templates listing==
Is there a page editors can refer to for templates (messagebox, user notices ect) without having to go through the categories or remembering the last time somebody used it so they can copy-paste it? They seem to be unnecessarily difficult to track down. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 03:43, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
:[http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=10 here] --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 04:50, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
::My main concern was not requiring the page soley for myself, but was this page obviously linked on a help page or something somewhere that anybody could find easily? I'd personally like to see this wiki become more user-friendly. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 07:25, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Agreed, as I've [http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Transformers_Wiki_talk:Community_Portal#.22First_go_here.21__Next_go_here..22 said before on this very page]. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 15:05, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Yeah. Our lack of user friendliness might discourage people from joining up. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 17:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:What I'm worried about is that some of the other users would actually be okay with that...-- [[User:SFH|SFH]] 17:48, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::Well, last time I checked some of these other users don't own the wiki. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 09:12, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

== new template: Comicinfo ==

Please checkout [[Template:Comicinfo]]. It's a little rough around the edges, but something I think could be useful on the comics pages. Comments and suggestions are welcome.--[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 02:42, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

== Masthead ==

Okay, the old Monobook masthead doesn't look so good under Monaco. How do we change this?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:31, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

== Sidebar ==

Given that we're getting a lot of Transformers Animated traffic lately, I'd say an item in the Monaco sidebar is likely going to help direct people to the right articles.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:45, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:Okay, I put it in the sidebar. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:56, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

== Hate the new skin. ==

Hate this new skin. Just wanted to say it. The old look was much more pleasent and open to read. New one is just crouded and Blah. THIS is gonna take getting use to. No Sir, I don't like it.

:Can it at least not be burgundy and orange? - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 22:08, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::Yeah, it can be any color you like. I was messing around with colors before, but wasn't doing a great job with it, and Rosicrucian said he wanted this color scheme. Any admin can change the colors by editing [[MediaWiki:Monaco.css]]. There's instructions on how to do it here: [[w:c:help:Customizing Monaco|Customizing Monaco]]. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:15, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
:::I mainly liked this because it fits with the color scheme of Teletraan itself. I'm not married to the idea, though. I also figured I'd speak up about it because Walky liked it, and he's off enjoying his ridiculously expensive Transformers collector's items at BotCon.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 22:21, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Ahh, right, well, I can see the logic, there, all right... I'm just not dying about the dark-coloured backgrounds, since it's a big visually jarring to have big white boxes of text in the middle of them. - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 22:24, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

: Seconding the hate. [[User:Hooper X|-hx]] 00:04, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
:: This looks pretty hideous compared to MonoBook... and it's hard to navigate. Well, at least I can override it in preferences, but I think I'll be ignoring admin skin choices unless a custom one appears in the future.--[[User:MCRG|MCRG]] 00:44, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

:::I think I can try to get used to the new skin unless/until I find something inconvenient. Well, so far so good. At least the seach function is better. But the logo on the left side of the top, well... um, oh. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 01:23, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
::Fourthing the hate. The colors hurt my eyes. That, and the obscure character search images are gone. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 01:45, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

:I'm afraid I don't much like it either. Fortunately, it was pretty easy to uncheck the "override" box on my preferences. [[User:JW|JW]] 01:54, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't like the new skin either. I don't get the menus at the side. "Featured characters" includes articles that I don't think have actually been Featured. G1 and Animated are listed, but no other franchises. And the menus are inconsistent. The G1 menu lists Autobot, Decepticon, and then a bunch of character pages, while the Animated menu lists Animated's toy line, cartoon, comic, and books articles. Why the difference? And what was the selection process for the "Embrace the Knowledge" menu?

By the way, in the middle of BotCon is probably the worst possible time for major changes like this to be made. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 04:29, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

:The menus at the side are examples that I made up. You guys can change them to be anything you want, by editing [[MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar]]. I'm sorry about the timing... We've been talking about this for maybe three weeks.

:Lots of things can be changed -- the colors, the menus, the logo. I'll put it back to the basic Sapphire for now, which is more like Monobook. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 05:08, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

== Anonymous edits ==

Lately, I've been looking at wikis that have decided to turn off anonymous edits, and have everybody log in before contributing to the wiki. The idea is that having everybody log in builds a stronger sense of community, because you always have a name to associate with an edit, rather than a random string of numbers. It's easier to talk to people who have names. It also gives you more control over vandalism, since you can recognize potential vandals more easily.

Some people don't like the idea, because they're worried that logging in is a barrier to entry -- if you have to log in to edit, then you won't bother, and you'll go away. Looking at the wikis that require login, that doesn't seem to be true. [[w:c:muppet|Muppet Wiki]] turned off anon edits last April, and the number of active editors has actually gone up. Some of our most active wikis require login -- [[w:c:wowwiki|World of Warcraft]], [[w:c:ffxi|FFXIclopedia]], [[w:c:tibia|Tibia Wiki]] and [[w:c:marveldatabase|Marvel Database]]. (WoW and FFXI actually require a confirmed e-mail address before you can edit.)

So I've been talking to folks about this, and we've decided to allow wiki communities to turn off anonymous edits if they want to. There are a lot of anonymous editors here, so I'm wondering what you guys think about it. Would it be helpful to require login for everybody?

Obviously, that's a big community decision... I just want to throw out the possibility, and see what you think. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 20:38, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

:I strongly oppose disabling anonymous edits! (I also oppose sweeping changes performed over botcon, and unilaterally re-skining the site when the community can argue for weeks or month about proposed style changes to individual ''templates'' without reaching a consensus-- but if you're willing to ignore the needs of registered users while making such 'big community decisions,' why would you listen to anon users?) -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 08:18, 28 April 2008 (UTC)<div id="wikia-credits"> From [http://transformers.wikia.com Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki], a [http://www.wikia.com Wikia] wiki.</div>

MediaWiki talk:Community Portal

2008-04-28T08:14:12Z

75.168.112.43: /* Anonymous edits */

==Archives==
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive1|Archive1]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive2|Archive2]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive3|Archive3]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive4|Archive4]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive5|Archive5]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive6|Archive6]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive7|Archive7]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive8|Archive8]]

== Continuity / Timeline ==
I'm trying to make some sense of how the various major continuities are handled, overview-wise. Some have their own continuity page; IDW's just got a timeline, with overview stuff shoved here and there among the individual miniseries. Some don't have anything. Some, like the G1 cartoon, are not much more than lists. The ones that exist tend to be hard to find, aren't categorized uniformly, etc... is there a master format for this stuff?{{unsigned|Repowers|12:15, 29 October 2007}}
:There is no master format for continuity pages. Please feel free to make one! It would be a good thing to have! --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 00:55, show30 October 2007 (UTC)
:: You know, I think it would be hot if once we got more timelines up, we began putting Chronology links to the timetable on the story pages. Several Dreamwave comic pages have them, and I think IDW comics should too, since IDW really isn't telling the story in a linear fashion.--[[User:Zodberg|Zodberg]] 09:36, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::Sounds like a good idea. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 13:51, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::Would it make sense to have an overview writeup at the start of each timeline, a few paragraphs or so? Or should "continuity" be a separate page? Where should a chronological list of issues go -- publisher's page, continuity page, timeline page? That's not such a problem with, say, Marvel G1, but Dreamwave's a little messier, IDW's all over the place, and gods help you if you want to sort out the mess that is Marvel UK. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 14:29, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:: A continuity page should have the following (in my opinion):
:: * A one-paragraph description of the continuity, not more than a few sentences long.
:: * A list of what media belongs to this continuity (which can include some stuff that's vaguely contradictory, but should exclude stuff that's way out there, like Earthforce relative to G1 comics). This can be sorted by publication order, or internal chronology, but if there's a major difference between the two, it should be spelled out.
:: * An overall description of the main events in that continuity, focusing on the events actually chronicled (not the distant past). In particular, for most continuities, changes in the leadership of either side, the changing status (living/dead, present/absent, duplicated by Straxus/encoded on a floppy, etc.)of the big two leaders (usually Optimus Prime and Megatron), any events involving Unicron or Primus, and introductions of major teams or groups of characters (Headmasters, Fuzors) should be in the summary.
:: * If necessary, a timeline, which may end up integrated with one of the above parts.
:: * Pointers to important and closely-related continuities (again, such as Earthforce), discussion of divergences, etc. [[User:JW|JW]] 15:14, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::All that sounds pretty good, though I wouldn't get too hung up on following individual characters too much, even the leaders. In Marvel G1, at least, they changed over on a pretty regular basis.
:::On a related note... this and a lot of other overview-type pages are really lost in the shuffle. They should be top-level pages, with everything branching off of them and linking back to them, but instead they're buried and nothing links to them. You start off reading, say, the article on [[Spotlight: Soundwave]]. Where do you go from there to find out more? The IDW issues category? That's the only link out of that page. If you're a newcomer, or even someone with an imperfect memory, how do you know what comes next? Either the individual issue pages need to link to the timeline and continuity pages, or the category page does, or... something.
:::Taking care of it on the category page might be simplest, like what's on the Category:Marvel US issues page. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 19:12, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::: Yes, the site is sadly lacking in both "uplinks" and "sidelinks" for the media; links from a TV episode to the TV series, links from an issue of a comic to an overview of the comic, links from one comic to the next comic in that series, etc. [[User:JW|JW]] 19:21, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::: I'm still poking around and figuring out what's been done and what's needed; it might take a while to figure out how to start cleaning things up. It looks like we've got some random timelines started (still need ones for the Beast era and a few others), as well as continuity pages for some but not all of the major storylines, so I suppose each major continuity should have both kinds of pages. I wonder if there's a way to use a category or subcategory to get individual episode/issue pages to quickly link back to the main overview pages?... -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 19:28, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::: JW, we do have that comics nav template, though I like the comic infobox on wikipedia more. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:04, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::: Ah... http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Template:Comicnav ...so we do. Very useful. Now we just gotta propagate it over a few hundred comic issue... :S -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 20:25, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::: Also, the nav setup only can link up one level. So Infiltration #2 can link up to the main Infiltration page, but not to the IDW continuity page above that. Would putting a variant of this template on the main page for each miniseries, linking up to the continuity page, work instead? Then you're never more than two clicks away from an individual issue to the continuity overview. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 20:25, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
:::::: That, or somehow add it to the main comicnav template, perhaps in small letters above the series name. I don't wanna step on anyone's toes though. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:45, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
::::::: That'd make the most sense, to add a "Continuity" level to the template, or alternately a lower-end "Mini-series" option. But hell if I can make sense out of how these things work... that might be a rainy day project, figuring that out. :\ -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 20:51, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

==Image Copyrights==
I asked awhile ago, and nobody seemed to know, so...

I've always been under the impression that images {{c}} someone else should be credited ''not'' just with a note that they belong to someone else, but a ''year'', for much the same reasons we identify ''who'' the image belongs to rather than simply saying 'we don't own it, but it's fair use.' The more info we provide, the more 'seriously' the copyright is being taken. if we wipe our ass with an unadorned, <nowiki>{{fairuse}}</nowiki> clearly we don't think the holder of the copyright is ''important''... or something.

I have a script I've been poking at. It can run through every image detail page on the wiki through a regular expression and pick out which images don't have copyright owners (Hasbro or Takara-- you're supposed to ID which even if you're using <nowiki>{{hastak}}</nowiki>,) which don't have dates, and which don't have any sort of copyright notice at all. (A significant chunk of our images have no notices that they belong to someone else.) It could also drop the offending images into categories to be sorted out and properly labeled. (I imagine I'd give it Steve-o and let it do so logged in as the bot to avoid the update-floods.)

...is anyone interested in this? Does it seem like a good idea? Terrible idea? ...Bueler? -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 15:29, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

==Cartoon Episode Format Mark II==
Picking up an old thread here... per some changes I just finished making to all the Beast Era episode pages, IMO:
* The one-line summary should be bold. It's the single most important thing on the page; your eye should leap right to it.
* It should be the very first thing on the page, above the nav box (barring temporary templates like "pics needed".)
* It should be free of links. They're distracting and ugly, and it's kinda absurd to think someone's going to click right off the summary to see what a "Maximal" or whatever is. Links can easily be integrated into the body of the plot summary.

I'd also rather see Quotes before Stats, to keep all the in-universe stuff together before moving to out-universe stuff like writers, air dates, commentary, order of appearance, etc. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 00:13, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

:I agree with all of this, except for the one-line summary being above the nav box. Pure personal preference, though, rather than any sort of functionality - I just don't like the way it looks. In fact, I think putting it below the nav box actually ''helps'' its notice-ability - it "frames" the summary quite nicely between the nav box and the contents box. - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 00:22, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
::Heh, I see it the opposite way -- having the summary first provides a frame for the inevitable white space that accompanies the nav box. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 06:24, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

::Picking up on what I said above, putting the stats section down below not just the extended summary but now below the quotes section as well is something I strongly oppose. Episode writers do not get the recognition they deserve. We should not be burying their credits like that. That section belongs ''above'' the summary. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 03:21, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
:::I do hear what you're saying, but honestly I'm less bothered by the recognition factor than by the inconsistency with comic format, where all that junk ''is'' up front (though it often looks pretty bad, IMO.) If it were ''just'' the writer credit, I'd be okay with having it up front (though I ain't gonna be the one who goes back through 78 Beast Era episode pages to change it!) But then you get into the odd condition of having that one bit of info up front, while the rest of the standard information external to the episode's events is much deeper in the article. Having much more stuff up front than that makes for a messy, unattractive, and harder-to-read format compared to having it all bundled in the Stats section... IMO, natch.
:::"If "recognition" is the concern, heck, think of the animators who slaved a lot more than the writers ever did to bring each episode to life. They get no credits at all. Neither does Robert Buckley, who provided music for both Beast series. The list goes on and on. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 06:24, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
::::The information I am suggesting be up front would only be three lines (Written by, Directed by, air date), which I don't think would be very intrusive at all. To my mind, before the summary is the only logical place for this information to be presented, as episodes themselves generally present those two credits up front, and air date is a known factor when watching an episode when it debuts.
::::On the issue of recognition, you make a good point, however my concern is a bit different. Robert Buckley may not get a lot of recognition from the fandom for the music of Beast Wars, but it's not like they give someone ''else'' all the credit on that score, pun semi-intended. But the writers? The fandom often enough acts as if Forward and DiTillio wrote every single word of Beast Wars, and Skir (alone, of course, as the Isenberg Uncertainty Principle remains in full effect) the same for Beast Machines. The story editors are obviously the most important writers, but they didn't do it all on their own.
::::Burying the names of episode writers down below the summary and quotes sections just doesn't sit right with me, is all. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 04:46, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
:::::Hrm... combined with Steve-o's consistency argument, I suppose I could go along with doing it this way, with them all tucked together and separate from/below the one line summary. Written By and Air Date are in one little combined pair of lines now, an easy cut-n-paste to move up front. I don't think anyone's added Director credits to any of the episodes, by the by.
:::::As I said, I'm in no great hurry to do it myself -- my main concern was that the Beast Era show pages had drifted into all sorts of different arrangements, some of which looked pretty sloppy. For better or worse, they're all uniform now. If we're gonna change the layout, let's work on getting one sample page ''just right'', then we can worry about propagating it. To that end, have a look at "[[Chain of Command]]", see if it clicks for you. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 05:33, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm thinking if we could merge the ''Japanese title'' into the '''''Stats''' section'' because it seems to fit the section better. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 03:14, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't have much of a preference, personally, about how to organize these things. However, I do feel pretty strongly that it should be more or less the same for both cartoon episodes and comic issues. Having different organizational schemes for different sorts of fiction doesn't serve much purpose, and makes things harder to get used to. (On the other hand, I ''also'' feel strongly that all of our passages relating fictional events should be in the same tense regardless of if they happen to be on a character page or a story page, but apparently that makes me insane, so don't take my pleas for consistency too seriously.) --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 02:35, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

===Cartoon format mark II.5===
Did we ever make a decision on whether to place the quotes area before the stats section? Because the sheer majority of episode articles (including old ones recently converted to current standards) place the stats before the quotes, but I notice some of the latest Cybertron episode articles are placing the quotes before the stats, which is creating inconsistencies in layout. Bear in mind it will create less work for us if we just leave things the way they are, with stats before quotes. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 09:34, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

==Cartoon continuity headings==
Have we decided on a definative format for this yet? most of the pages with characters who appeared in Sunbow's G1 through to the japanese series (and maybe Beast Wars as well) have quite different headings, and I recall we were worried about ''Transformers Animated'' causing problems with all the 'Animated continuity' headings on character pages. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 07:08, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
:I think we had decided on using "cartoon" instead of "animated." So use "cartoon continuity," or for those who appear in more than one cartoon continuity, use "Generation 1 cartoon continuity," "Beast Wars cartoon continuity," etc. --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 07:13, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
::Can we have Diagnostic Drone change all occurrences of "Animated continuity" to "Cartoon continuity"? That'll require some cleanup in the Animated articles, but there are far fewer of those than there are of G1 subjects that are currently mislabeled. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 17:54, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

== Section-title master list ==

I've made a sandbox for the purpose of assembling a [[User:Jackpot/Sandbox/Sections|master list of all section titles]], their relation to each other, and their proper wording/formatting. Please discuss; I've introduced some new ideas, and I'd love to see a consistent guide established. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 01:04, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
:Wow, I think this really look nice and useful. ;D --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 03:44, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

== "First go here! Next go here." ==
I was thinking a bit about the various problems we've got around here -- stuff like incomplete image descriptions, orphaned articles, etc. There's really no one central place where a newcomer (or a regular who feels like doing something useful but doesn't know what) can go to find a quick list of things that need doing. The current help pages just send you to the list of articles in need of creation, which is kind of daunting, especially for a newcomer who has to learn a million standards and Wikia tags. Is there a more comprehensive way to point people in the direction of useful things they could be doing? Whatever it might be, it should include links to:
* Pages in need of creation
* Orphaned pages
* Stubs
* Pics needed
* Any current projects, like the Beast Wars one. Hell, I couldn't find that thing if my life depended on it.
...as well as a note about common problems: dead/missing storylinks, incomplete image descriptions, and whatever else. (Heck, who knows? Maybe it could even distract an IP person long enough to prevent them from screwing with captions.... ahh, who'm I kidding?} -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 21:51, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

:There are some of those things catalogued [[Special:Specialpages|here]], but I think making links to the most important of these categories, and placing them together in one easy-to-find link off the main page, would be best. Perhaps on the Help contents page, since it's linked right off the main page already, in the most logical location? I think that link is a bit small, for what it's worth. --[[User:Sntint|Sntint]] 22:09, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
::One of the projects in the back of my head is a help-page/guide specifically breaking down the creation of character pages, plus the use of "common templates" for them (disambigs, stubs, notes). I'll see if I can scrounge up some time to rough-copy one. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 22:56, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

==Other Maintenance Templates?==
I haven't had much time to do more "substantial" wiki edits lately, but I've been prepping for later with the charstub sub-categories. Fiction really isn't my bag... I mean, I know it in general, but not issue titles and numbers and bla bla. But I figure it's also nice to have the "really needs a lot of stuff" pages separated from the "just needs some stuff in one subsection" ones, especially once I can make a concentrated effort to update the toy sections of various pages. I've been thinking about other similar "needs maintenance" template/categories, but I thought I'd bring it up here since I'm not sure who else might make use of them... 
I've noticed quite a lot of pages missing storylinks. I'm not intending on going through a big wiki-wide hunt, but as I go through the stubs and other pages doing little maintenance and tweaks, well, I think I'd like to be able to mark pages I come across that are missing those links they should have. Picture and quote? Isaac Sumdac and/or Tutorbot, "I cannot believe I programmed you with such simplistic information!" (Idea courtesy of Trent Troop.) 
I'd swear there was another one, but right now, too tired to think of it and must sleep. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 06:53, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
:Perhaps a tag for a page with too many damn redlinks for concepts that will never need articles?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 07:08, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
::I don't think that will be neccessary, as it's a simple matter of removing the [[ and <nowiki>]]</nowiki>s. Storylinks, though, require some research. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 15:40, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
:::I usually label such pages with <nowiki>{{stub|storylinks}}</nowiki>. [[User:JW|JW]] 15:44, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
::::Trick is, often they're not really stubs, are they? the main info is there, there's just not a "where'd this happen?" link. And maybe it's the data-manager in me that says this, but I think it'd be a lot easier to have a common problem like lack of storylinks as a category all its own, all together for easy identification and maintenance. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 16:11, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

== Disambiguation ==

We need a consensus on hiw we handle disambuigation in article titles. We've had some moving between [[Silverbolt (BW)]] and [[Silverbolt (Fuzor)]], and [[Dirge (Timelines)]] and [[Dirge (Whatever the Botcon 05 set was)]] because there are two Silverbolts in BW and two Dirges in Timelines. However, since one of those Dirges and one of those Silverbolts are G1 characters, the (BW) and (Timelines) tags are fine for the other two. The tags are simply for keeping the articles separate; not for telling you what continuity they're in. Plus, (Timelines) is much easier to type than "(Botcon boxset name I can't remember)". --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 23:35, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

:Somewhat related to the discussion at [[Talk:Starscream (Timelines)]]. My personal criteria is that a name used for two (or more) characters in the same toyline requires more specific disambiguation, regardless of the characters' origin, because readers shouldn't be expected to remember whether some character was already in another toyline. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 23:51, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

::So... what should disambigs be?
:# Distinguished ''only'' when strictly necessary. "Silverbolt (BW)" is fine because, while there were 2 Silverbolt toys in the BW Toyline, the other one is actually Silverbolt (G1)- so only one entry is trying 'sits' in the (BW) disambig, and no more specific disambing is needed. Parenthetical disambigs should be the broadest possible category the article can sit in without conflicting with another article, (usually a continuity family or franchise.) Absolutely no 'bumping' of disambigs as a concession to aesthetics.
:# Distinguished on a logical basis. "Silverbolt (Fuzor)" because there are two Silverbolts in the BW toyline, and the article title should not allow for confusion between the two.
:# Providing continuty info. A hypothetical new character Roller in the 2008 Universe line would be "Roller (Classic)" not "Roller (Universe)"-- so that the article title doesn't mislead people into thinking he's part of the 2004 Universe continuity.
::My problem with #2 ''and'' #3 is that the diambig isn't supposed to convey that information. The first line of the article, right below the title does. It will say 'Silverbolt is a Fuzor in the Beast Wars continuity family...' or 'Roller is a Ultracon in the Classics portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.'
::We are currently usign method #1. I oppose a change to methods 2 or 3 for the following reasons:
:# The '''first line''' of the article already supplies the information that solutions 2 & 3 would seek to add- and does it ''better.''
:# Implementing 2 or 3 would make it harder for ''editors'' to know where article are sitting ("I know there was only one Silverbolt in BW, why is my link to Silverbolt (BW) broken?")
:# The purpose of the parenthetical disambigs is not to convey info- it is to keep articles with the same title from sitting in the same namespace. Attempting to make disambigs convey information actually ''adds ambiguity'', because it would force the the locations the articles sit in to become ''less'' standard.
::Let diambigs be disambigs. If we want to make continuity notes clearer or more prominent, we can look at revising our approach to '''them'''. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 00:41, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

::We already have [[Help:Disambiguation]] to more or less lay this out. (I've just made a couple small changes to it for clarification.) There is going to be no simple rule of thumb which leads to tbe best results in every case, so make the parenthetical as brief and clear as you can. Derik is correct that the purpose of the parenthetical is to give the articles different names so the database doesn't get confused. To help out editors when we make links, it is good for them to be short and easy to remember. --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 21:35, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

So, should we move [[Silverbolt (Fuzor)]] and [[Dirge (Decent into Evil)]] and the mirrorverse guys back to [[Silverbolt (BW)]], [[Dirge (Timelines)]] and [[mirrorverse guys (Timelines)]]? --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 22:42, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
:Wait to see if others have strong feelings/argument first. (We have a policy, but it's subject to conseunsus, remember? Also- I think I wrote most of that page so my point of view is unfairly over-represented there.) ''On review, no, apparently this is one policy page I '''didn't''' write. ...why can't I tell Steve-o's writing apart from my own? Scary. :~(
:Personally I say emphatically yes on Dirge, indifferent affirmative on Silverbolt, and wait and see on the Shattered Glass pages. We don't now where/if they fit in existing continuity. There's no point in movinf them a half-dozen times while arguing about unknowables. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 23:13, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

== Pages about fan sites ==

Is there a policy about this? I wanted to add TF Pulp, but I didn't see any other TF sites on here at all, so I figured I should ask first.
{{unsigned|Might Gaine|2008-02-27T14:04:54}}

:We don't give unofficial sites their own articles. You can link to information on TF Pulp from appropriate pre-existing articles, though. That sort of thing enhances the wiki by allowing people to find further information on the topics they are reading about. Just put it into an "External links" section right before the categories. --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 21:18, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

==Cartoon episode title cards redundancy==
Why are we moving towards using the title cards of episodes for the main/starting picture of episode articles? Isn't it redundant to have a boring screenshot with the name of the episode placed next to...... the name of the episode in the actual article itself? Wouldn't it be more interesting to do what we have been doing, and use a screen capture that somehow encapsulates the whole episode, or shows a pivitol point in it that sticks in our memory? --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 02:55, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
:I've wondered the same thing myself, but figured it was a done deal. I too support the "memorable/encapsulating moment" approach. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 03:04, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
::Uh... I'm sorry, I think I started it. ;-) When I was doing some early RiD ep stubs I threw in the titlecards because the early episodes were boring as sin. I think McFeely did it for the JP eps because they tend to have those painterly titlecards...
::Really, it's just something you do if there isn't a ''good'' representative image. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 17:39, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
:::Like Code of Hero (an article that needs a major overhaul itself), I originally put an image of Dinobot's sword lying on the deck of his quarters, because it looked poignant. Did the same for various other Beast Wars episodes. Then Interrobang replaced them all with screencap of the title screens. Gah. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 07:05, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::So tell him to stop! ;) -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 07:58, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::Sigh. I did it because I like consistency, even with Japanese series. "Dinobot's sword on the ground" might be your favoritest image ever but it's the odd duck out now. (It also looks terrible due to the artifacting brought about by needlessly screwing with the brightness and contrast.) [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 08:36, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::::Consistency is Victory- but Transformers Victory was incredibly boring. (Victory Gundam was pretty good though...) [[The Weak Component]], [[Survivor]] and [[End of the Line]] all have virtually ''identical'' title screens- an aerial shot of the Cybertropolis spaceport. That sucks— I'd much rather have an iconic image from each episode. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 10:07, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::::::I agree. Using iconic images is really good for the most episode guides, such as [[Code of Hero]], [[The Weak Component]], and several [[B.O.T. (episode)|others]], especially "Code of Hero" and "The Weak Component" are great and good examples. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 13:38, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::::Personally, I started doing for the Japanese series for the reason Derik gives, because it was usually a unique image made for the title card, or a good one that's representative of the episode. There were some duds, but... consistency. And then... ''Masterforce'' started to do really, ''really'' boring ones, and I was about to give up, then it occurred to me to start using the image from the next-ep preview, which proved a winner in most cases (in fact, I may yet go back and change swap out some of the title-card images with these, if it's a better option). The mention of Victory here amuses me, though, 'cause it's a good example of title cards being boring - it's the same two images of Star Saber and Deathsaurus, rotated in and out, for the whole series. I've used them for the first two episodes just to get them on show, but I plan to use the title-images from the next-episode previews for this one. I mean, when I wake up from the dullness-inducing stupor that Victory induces. - McFeely, at work
::::::::I reverted Dinobot's sword back to the version I uploaded. As I had not viewed the page much since last year, I didn't realize that Repowers tried to brighten it up for some reason - that moment is supposed to focus on the sword, not the room. And it's the 'odd duck out' now because some people have been replacing whatever had served as the main image with the title card. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 12:24, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::I brightened it because, when it's reduced for the actual episode page where most people are going to see it, you can't tell what the heck you're looking at. Right now it looks a little bit of vague white stuff in darkness. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 13:36, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
::::::::::Vaat? I can see if plenty fine there, unless you're using a very, very high resolution that makes everything tiny. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 13:54, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::::Could be my home monitor, which is HUGE. It does look more discernable from a work computer, though IMO it could still stand to be a tad brighter. -- [[user:repowers|repowers]], not signed in
I've changed my mind on this situation after mulling it over. A winner is FNN. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 03:31, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
:FNN sounds even more like a Simon Furman sound effect than FFN :D --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 04:26, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
::You clearly changed your name after I replied. There's no another answer. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 04:33, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
:::Hnh. FNN never DID want to live forever. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 04:55, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

==Help/policy page namespaces==
As part of the help/policy page revamp I plan to do... eventually... I kind of want to consolidate the pages all into a single namespace. Right now we have [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=12 a bunch of stuff] in the Help namepsace, and [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=4 a bunch of other stuff] in the Transformers Wiki (aka "meta") namespace. This is needlessly confusing. I vastly prefer "Help" for the purposes of typing it all the time, but, the meta namespace is more general purpose and standard... and possibly required for some pages like the title blacklist. So I am inclined to shuffle all the Help namespace pages over to the meta namespace. Does anybody have an opinion on this? --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 17:37, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
:Help seems fine to me. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 17:45, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

== "The Battlestars" page disappeared ==

When the "Battlestar" (team) page got changed to "Battlestars", then "The Battlestars" page, which was the manga, disappeared. What happened? --[[User:Might Gaine|Might Gaine]] 13:36, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
:I don't think that page actually existed in the first place. It was a red link before any moving was done - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 14:04, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
::Hmm. My bad. --[[User:Might Gaine|Might Gaine]] 15:01, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

==Comic character box format Part IV==
I believe we should change it from 'Major characters' to 'Featured characters' like we do in the cartoon recap articles. Doing it as 'Major characters' means writers of these comic articles will just not bother list the incidental characters, such as humans, even ones with dialogue, and if any of these characters have articles, they become orphaned articles. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 06:32, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
:Well I have gone thru nearly the entire U.S. Marvel series and I think I've included just about everyone who had a speaking line, except for folks who were un-named and such. If someone wants to change from "major" to "featured", it doesn't matter to me, but I'm not gonna go thru all 80 issues again and do it. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:18, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
::I was concerned because I was looking for the article for that [[Professor Goring]] guy from [[Spotlight: Shockwave]] so I could update the article. To my surprise, Shockwave didn't link or even name him, and somebody had eliminated the 'human' column altogether because evidently we only dealt with 'major' characters. Essentially, Goring's article became orphaned. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 20:32, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
:::Well that was dumb; he should indeed be re-added. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 20:39, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
:::Uh, yeah. That's not good. I support the change to "Featured" not just for this... but let's face it, this wiki is not simply about "Major" characters. The vast wealth of non-major character information is what makes this wiki great, and we should make sure that they are properly linked to so people can find them, even if they weren't looking. "Oh, hey, who's this?" --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 20:39, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
::::MistaTee, well sometimes even unnamed characters can be interesting enough to warrant their own articles if they are interesting in some way/stand out in some way. After all, we have an entire category devoted to unnamed characters. So I think they should have been mentioned in the article in some way. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 04:45, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::Oh, I agree, and if I've missed any, please feel free to add. I do think the 80 issues I've updated is a lot better than they were before though. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 13:58, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::Of course. Is there article template pages somewhere on this wiki or are we copy pasting every time we write a new article? --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 14:07, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::::I've just been going through the Stormbringer articles, and I was ''not at all'' happy with the with the way characters who didn't have significant dialogue (such as ''every'' Pretender besides Bludgeon) were for the most part not even mentioned in the articles. I assume the original writer of these articles just didn't know who they were, but frankly it's just sloppy considering the information available on this wiki even in 2006. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 14:38, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::::I believe I reformatted them to the new format, but just copied the character list from what was there. When I get the chance to re-read, I will add in the others, if someone doesn't beat me to it. Oh, and I am copying and pasting from the previous article, but trying to be consistent. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 15:31, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

:So... what becomes of the former "minor characters" list? Do we even care about those dudes? Take [[Totaled!]] for example -- almost every Earth Autobot to date appears in the story (and most of the Decepticons), but the page currently lists only the speaking ones. Gods help the poor soul who decides to take that task on, but when some nobody like Air Raid makes a rare appearance in the comics, it seems worth noting. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 15:25, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
::IMO, I think those characters should perhaps be in a cameos section, a subset of "Items of note". But I sure as hellz am not going thru the whole Marvel series again to do that. Someone else can have a go at it. --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 15:31, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

==Navigation boxes for shared US/UK stories==
I wish I'd noticed [[user:MistaTee|MistaTee]]'s changes to the Marvel US navigation boxes sooner, but that's water under the bridge now. When I set the boxes up, I deliberately left out certain links at points where the continuities split and come back together. The point was that there would be no duplicate links in the box. One hopes that the reader following the UK chain will be smart enough to figure out that the only "Next" link shown will lead to the next step in the chain. This goes double for US stories that have the same Next and Previous links for the UK. Why do the same links need to be duplicated?

Compare:
* [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Cold_War%21&oldid=129298 Old version of Cold War]. There's no "next" for the UK spot, 'cause it would just be the same as the US "next" link.
* [[Cold War!|current version of Cold War!]] - two "next" links are identical.

Also compare:
* [http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Dark_Star%21&oldid=152775 Old version of Dark Star!] - no extraneous info.
* [[Dark Star!|Current version of Dark Star!]] - ''two'' redundant links.

To sum up my take on current version:

Minus:
* Redundant links add to confusion
* Double nav box is ugly and should be avoided when possible

Plus:
* Lists UK publication number right up front
* Consistent format for all US issues.

But I've never been one to favor consistency at the expense of practicality. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 17:54, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

:Now see, I didn't like '''not''' having a next for the UK, even if it's the same as the US one. What I think we really need is a revision of the nav box, and maybe have some more options. First, I think there should be a separator line between the US and UK nav. Secondly, maybe some logic could be programmed in so that IF "next2"="next" THEN it would say "same as U.S. version" or something along those lines. Same for the "prev"/"prev2" naturally. Thoughts? --[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 18:10, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
::That sounds like an excellent trade-off -- it gets rid of the bothersome parts while keeping the good bits. Uhhh.... anybody have any idea how to do it? The coding of these things is an utter mystery to me. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 18:20, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

== How to spell Malay. ==

Hello everyone, I've noticed that on the 'English/Malay' dubs, people have spelt word 'Malay' wrong. It doesn't have a 'y', because 'Maylay' is incorrect, so if you see any mistakes, please correct it, thank you! Also, can we not put the word crack head next to it? It's quite offensive.--[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
:It's meant in jest because the [[RTM 1 dub]] is really, really bad, as if the dubbers didn't know what the hell was going on half of the time. But we have been changing such instances to 'RTM 1 dub name:' lately. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 15:29, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
:"crack head" is describing the dubs, and with good reason. Battleship Maximus is called "Spaceship Bruce", Blaster is called "Billy", Twincast "Blaster", Metroplex "Phillip", Spike "Sparkle", Soundblaster "New Soundwave", Minevera "Nightbeat", The Matrix and Energon cubes "Power Packs, etc... --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 15:35, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
::We should probably get the drone onto the task of replacing "Maylay" with "Malay", however. [[User:JW|JW]] 15:42, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
:::I don't know about the crack head comment, it's better to avoid offending people; 'though, Spaceship Bruce is my favourite, next to Wally. Also, you got your drone right here (yay?), but do we replace it with 'English/Malay dub', or 'RTM dub'? --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
::::I fully agree with the removal of "crackhead." Frankly, it IS offensive to equate the oddities that arise from the translation of Japanese into English done by people who's first language was likely neither with being on crack. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 19:14, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::Can we leave it in for just Spaceship Bruce? The others are at least somewhat understandable, but ''Spaceship Bruce''? WTCHOP? --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 19:37, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::Sorry, but I don't wanna label another country saying it's populated by drug addicts. If it weren't for them, we wouldn't have Headmasters/Masterforce/Victory in English in the early 90's(?), and for a non-Japanese speaking country, they made a good effort. I guess you can emphasise the weirdness that is Spaceship Bruce, in his bio or the RTM page. So, 'RTM dub' or 'Englsh/Malay' dub? Technically, there was no Malay in the English dubs in the first place, so I'd go for RTM dub :) --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
:::::::It takes a real willfully oppressed state of mind to interpret that as a racial/nationalist insult. I mean, you have to really ''want'' to be offended by something, and be on the lookout for any little thing to jump on. 'Cause "crack-head" is pretty clearly referring to the ''dubs'', not the ''entire freaking country'', and I'm not sure why anyone would decide to think otherwise. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 11:32, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::::You know, crackhead is generally a term that refers to ''people'', not ''things''. As I said above, we shouldn't be seen to be equating the people who produced these dubs with crackheads because of what we perceive as humorous oddities in the translation, which are possibly just the perfectly natural result of cultural and linguistic confusion. Now it might not be an insult to the entire nation of Malaysia, but it is still, I think, a bit offensive. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 16:13, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::Well, regardless.... shouldn't it actually be the "Crackhead ''RTM-1'' dub"? -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 16:23, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
::::::::::'Cracked-up English/Malay' dub, 'though it's not my idea, and it's not so blunt. Or the shorter 'RTM dub', since there is an [[RTM 1 dub]] page where people can redirect themselves there and elucidate the weirdness of weird names; but do we have to spell Malay with two 'y's? Maybe we can make reference to that on the RTM page again. --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]
:::::::::I think 'Cracked-up English/Malay' could be used for the article such as [[Ginrai]] and [[Minerva]]('cause their RTM dub name "Optimus Prime" and "Nightbeat" were too... hilarious?), while just "RTM dub" for Fortress Maximus' Spaceship Bruce. Well, just a little opinion. :) --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 12:11, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::: Agree! :D --[[User:akindofdrifter|akindofdrifter]]

==Trivia section image formatting==
This issue came up a while ago on [[Talk:Frenzy_%28Movie%29#Image_format|Frenzy's talk page]]. There were opnions both ways, and it wasn't really resolved. The issue is, should images in trivia sections alternate left-right, or be all on one side?

Part of the trouble with alternating sides is that it kills the bullet points. A double bullet has to be inserted for it to show up, and then there's some ambiguity over which bullets should be doubled and which left single. Dpouble bullets can also cause images to overlap the text.

Several folks said there's a lot of ugly white space when the images are stacked on one side. I see it just the opposite on my (admittedly gigantic) screen, with every image having a big empty white space below it when they alternate sides. Apparently it's got something to do with monitor resolution, so there might not be a solid answer. But --

I'd ''love'' so see some screencaps from folks showing how they see things on their monitors. It's a little hard to understand this problem without seeing it from other people's POV.

I started a little Sandbox at [[:user talk:repowers/Sandbox2]] with two different versions of Frenzy's trivia. The first one stacks all the images at the top. Does this work for people on lower monitor resolutions, or does it still look like crap? With them all stacked at the front, I don't see how they could have any white space, regardless of monitor resolution. On my screen, it looks very neat and tidy, while the second one is messy. See:

[http://www.builtstlouis.net/tf/frenzy1.jpg Stacked] 
[http://www.builtstlouis.net/tf/frenzy2.jpg Alternating]

Thoughts and input welcomed. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 01:36, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

:Alternating does kind of suck now. I've been putting pics all on the right side where there are bullet points since Wikia updated their software... an update which covered single bullet points if you put an image on the left side of the screen. I suggest cutting down on images in Trivia, since most users here have smaller monitors and use lower resolutions. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 05:44, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
::I think the easiest answer is to just remove the head images. They're essentially redundant and don't really add anything to the reader's understanding. I'd call for a general limit on how many images you can stuff into a section. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 06:27, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
:::I'd remove the head images from the article proper... but then make a text link to them within the relevant paragraph so people can see them anyway if they want to. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 06:35, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
::::That works. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 07:11, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

== Foreign name format ==
I just found the foreign names doesn't have an unified format.
:For example, some are
::''Hungarian name:'' '''Kerék''' ("Wheel"(with or without ""))
:others are
::''Hungarian name'': '''Kerék''' (meaning Wheel(or "Wheel"))

I suggest we could use an unified format like the below:
:<nowiki>:''Foreign name 1:'' '''Name A''' (Form A), '''Name B''' (Form B)</nowiki>
:<nowiki>:''Foreign name 2:'' '''Name''' ("English meaning")</nowiki>

Take [[Hot Rod]] for example, it will look like:
:''Japanese name:'' '''Hot Rodimus''' (Hot Rod), '''Rodimus Convoy''' (Rodimus Prime)
:''Hungarian names:'' '''Nagyágyú''' ("Hot ''Shot''"), '''Rodimusz Fővezér''' ("Prime Commander Rodimus")

Thoughts and idea are welcomed :) --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 09:09, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
:I don't have a strong opinion on how the international names are standardized, but I strongly agree that they should be. I nominate someone else to go through and do it. -[[User:LV|LV]] 21:40, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

== Wookiepedia has a darn nifty interface ==

What would it take for us to create something similar but Transformers-y?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:36, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
:I think the admins were adament that we keep a simple, bare-bones default look to the TF wiki, in keeping with our 'let's not take this stuff too seriously' attitude and tone. At least that's what I remember them saying when I suggested an orange layout like what Teletraan I looked like in the cartoon. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 09:34, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
::The current Wookieepedia also doesn't seem to want to cooperate with my comp here at work. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 18:27, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

==Characters lacking visuals category?==
It's dawned on me that there are actually quite a few characters who don't have any form of visual representation. They may have been described, but there are no ''pictures''. While a bulk of these are from prose stories, there's several who were simply mentioned by name in comics, or in external sources (Key Code info, S7 site, etc). More than enough to justify a category. 
I think that maybe there should also be a template/visual for this to call attention to this fact on the page right up front. I'm thinking a variation on the current <nowiki>{{mainpic}}</nowiki> template... a silhouette, (different from the mainpic one) and some text saying "This character has no known official visual depiction" or something. Anyone? --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 18:33, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
:Well, for the characters with the mainpic template, the idea is that the mainpic image is there as a placeholder, and to annoy people into tracking down an image.
:However, characters that have never had any visual depiction, and are unlikely to ever get one, don't need a placeholder for their image, and the template will just pointlessly take up room. I'm against the template, but I think the category is a good idea, and will suffice to identify these characters. [[User:JW|JW]] 18:44, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
::I disagree. The point is specifically to call attention to their lack of imagery, so nobody thinks "maybe they do have an image". And considering how little there ''is'' to most of those characters, a little extra visual pizzaz to their pages can't hurt. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 19:06, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
:::''so nobody thinks "maybe they do have an image"'' Are you intending to convey that message to ''editors,'' or casual users? Editors will, in theory, know enough to look for the category. I'm not sure casual users need to have the point brought to their attention.
:::And, it's not like we have scads of frantic editors running around trying to find pics for characters who have only appeared in prose. This may be a solution without a problem. [[User:JW|JW]] 19:27, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

== Timelines disambuig ==

There doesn't seem to be a consensus on how to name the various Timelines articles.

I feel that any disambiguation in the article title should be limited to keeping the articles separate. For instance, [[Optimus Prime (Shattered Glass)]] should be at [[Optimus Prime (Timelines)]] unless there is another Optimus Prime who's first appearance in anything was in Timelines. G1 Prime appearing in the 2007 Timelines comic does not affect this, as he is already at [[Optimus Prime (G1)]]. If G1 Prime being in a Timelines comic affected this, we would need to move [[Cyclonus (Armada)]] to [[Cyclonus (Armada whatever size class he is)]] because a version of G1 Cyclonus appeared in ''Worlds Collide''. The only reason to include the set name in the article title is ''two'' separate characters who first official anything is in ''Timelines''. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 17:18, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

== Shattered Expectations ==

Um, shouldn't those[[Deathsaurus|1]][[Bug Bite|2]] who appear in ''[[Shattered Expectations]]'' have their own page like others[[Optimus Prime (Timelines)|1]][[Grimlock (Timelines)|2]] even their counterparts' article would be short? --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 06:28, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
:I brought this up on [[Category_talk:Mayhem_Suppression_Squad]]. As I said there, I think they should either get their own articles or if that's not warranted just be covered on the Mayhem Suppression Squad article. Either way, I don't think "Shattered Expectations" fiction sections belong on the normal-verse guys' pages. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 07:08, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

==Monaco skin==

Hi -- Have you guys seen the new Monaco skin that's being used on Wikia now? You can see it at [[w:c:muppet|Muppet Wiki]] and [[w:c:marveldatabase|Marvel Database]].

As we've been rolling the skin out across Wikia, there are a few things that we've found when wikis switch to Monaco:

* The number of pageviews goes up. The flyout menus encourage new readers to explore the content on the site, and people end up sticking around on the site for longer.

* The number of new editors goes up. Readers spend more time on the site, and find pages that they want to contribute to. Also, the design makes the edit button more prominent.

* The site is faster. There were some changes made last week to Monaco that make pages load a lot faster than Monobook. Hit "random page" a few times on a Monaco wiki, and you'll see what I mean.

So I'm going around and proselytizing to the Entertainment wikis that are still using Monobook. If you want to make a custom Monaco skin like Marvel Database and Wookieepedia have, I can help you make that happen. What do you guys think? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:31, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

:Monaco does look nice, though it might go against what I understand is the wiki's purpose, which is to be quick and dirty, no fancy stuff and no pretention that this wiki is in any way officially endorsed or serious. At least that's the gist of what I was told after I previously suggested we could make the default colour of this wiki a shade of orange, like the computer systems in the original Transformers cartoons. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 23:16, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

::Yeah, we don't have to do a custom skin -- it could be the basic blue and white. I'm mostly interested in the improved functionality. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 23:24, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Eh, if it makes the place ''easier'', I don't think the "pure and simple" folks will object.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 23:26, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

And truth be told, I think the main dealbreaker here might be the extent to which Suki and Derik may or may not have farted about with tweaking Monobook. I know they've both made alterations, but I don't know quite what.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 23:34, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

:That stuff won't be affected at all. We can copy Monobook.css over to Common.css, and all of the tweaks that they made will still work. No problems. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 23:52, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

My biggest concern is the menus. The "by series" list could easily fill the entire vertical direction of the screen. We don't actually have all the series listed on the main page now (Machine Wars, Dinobots, Timelines, Universe (2008), not to mention licenced lines like Animorphs, SWTF, Crossovers).--[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 00:45, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

:Well, the idea with the menus is to be selective rather than comprehensive. It's not supposed to be a complete sitemap for the wiki -- you just want to give the new readers something to click on first.

:On [[w:c:Muppet|Muppet Wiki]], we put up the most popular Muppet Show and Sesame Street characters, and then a link to "More characters". We just want to entice people into making that first click, without overwhelming them with choices.

:I have access to click-through data for the Monaco menus, so it's possible to run some tests. You could put up a set of menus for a few days, and then I'll be able to tell you which items are getting clicked. That way, you could refine the menus so that you could highlight the items that are most likely to get clicked on. I've been doing that with the Muppet menus, and it's fun to see what the readers are actually interested in reading about. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 23:34, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

::So what do you guys think? I'd like to help you switch over to the new skin... -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 19:10, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
:::For some reason none of the admins have chimed in. I assume they're all off doing useless things like living in Real Life. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 21:10, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

::::Yeah, I left messages for Chris and ItsWalky... -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:12, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::You might want to leave messages for [[User:Suki Brits]] and [[User:Steve-o]] as well. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 13:28, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Well admins? Let's hear your opinions! I find the silence from the staff to be discouraging. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 16:18, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

If there's an actual interest in switching over to Monaco, then I would certainly have nothing against that... but I'd definitely like to hear more from the community first. Aside from that, I have no objections speaking as an admin; the modifications really aren't an issue. On the other hand, speaking as a wiki editor and professional web designer... I would definitely want to use a modified version, as it's got several pretty important issues. My thoughts, in no particular order:
* Search is nigh useless, again. Right now it resembles our ''broken'' Monobook search. I don't think that's a good thing. On the other hand, I'm currently working on fixing that anyway, so it's not like the same couldn't be done for Monaco.
* The header sucks. It really, really does. It's only 150px tall, but it sends a pretty powerful message: we'd rather show you this pretty, irrelevant picture then let you immediately get to article. ''I'' would want the top of the article as close to the top as possible.
:: Gah, I brought it over into another browser that doesn't block ads... and now I see why it's so obnoxiously huge. I am ''strongly'' opposed to putting giant hideous banner ads at the top of everything. Like, it's a little insulting that Wikia really thinks that ''that'' should be the first thing readers see. Teletraan I, like everything else on Wikia, is naturally ad-driven; but Monobook isn't offensive about it.
* The language selection is in a dropdown box, which is a TERRIBLE idea. This personally doesn't affect me, as I don't speak Hungarian, but it's pretty awful for anyone who actually is interested in seeing foreign language versions of articles... and has to click a dropdown menu on every single page if they're curious.
* The "community" box is really unhelpful. Half the content (user page, user talk, etc.) is redundant with the top of the screen, and absolutely nobody is interested in just the most recent two edits. That just leaves the number of articles. This is a lot of wasted room for nothing.
* I ''do'' like that the obnoxious sidebar on the right is gone. The current framing in Monobook wastes all sorts of space and Monaco definitely doesn't ''look'' like it has that problem.
There's also a bunch of minor things, but they don't really matter so much. The big issues are the useless space, a need to do major fixes to search, and the huge obtrusive banner ads (as opposed to the ones on the side in Monobook). But if Wikia's really willing to work with us on it, then by all means, it's up to what the community thinks. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 20:48, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

:I've been around the Wookieepeedia lately, and I've noticed when you click edit, it loads significantly slower on Monaco than it does on the Monobook format. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 05:25, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

::Hi guys -- Sorry it took me so long to respond. I'll make up for it with a super-long answer. :)

::Yes, absolutely -- I want to work with you on this. Some of the things you've raised I can clear up immediately. For some, I can explain the rationale behind the approach, and show you some stats that may help. And if there are some things that need to get tweaked, I can talk to the designers & tech folks to see if we can come up with a solution.

::Just so you know: I work for Wikia now, but I started out in 2005 as the founder of [[w:c:muppet|Muppet Wiki]]. Working on wikis is my job now, but Muppet Wiki is where my heart lives, so I'm always looking out for what's going to help or hurt "my wiki". I am/was a big Monobook fan, and I was skeptical about Monaco as it was being designed. The thing that made me a Monaco fan was actually trying it out on Muppet Wiki, and then looking at the stats to see how it was working. Muppet Wiki and Teletraan I are very similar -- about a dozen really active contributors, a strong admin team and a community of about 60-80 contributors. So I can share with you what I saw on Muppet Wiki, and what I can see in the pageviews stats.

::First up, the rationale behind some of the decisions made with the new skin. There are some features on the new skin that the most active editors think are useless, like the Community box or the flyout menus. And it's true, those aren't very helpful for the active contributors. They're designed for the anonymous/new people, who are the vast majority of our readers.

::Here's the stats on unique visits for Teletraan I. (Unique visits counts the number of visits to a site, and not the number of pages you look at in each visit. So if you come to the wiki and look at 100 pages, that counts as one unique.) In the last month, there have been 2,725,000 anonymous visits, and 261,000 logged-in user visits. That means 91% of the visits to the site aren't logged-in contributors.

::Logged-in editors make 77% of the edits here, so obviously we're the people who are actually building the content that people are reading. Logged-in editors are important, and the dozen people who make over 100 edits here every month are especially important. Still, if you want to make the community bigger and more active, then you have to think about whether the design of the site encourages anonymous users to sign in and become active members.

::The purpose of designing the new skin was to make the wiki more accessible to the 91% of anonymous readers. Obviously, we have to keep the functionality that the active contributors need in order to build the wiki. At the same time, we have to be aware that the Monobook skin that we're familiar with is kind of confusing for brand-new people.

::For example, the "log in" button is in really small type at the very top right of the screen. From a website design perspective, that's crazy -- it's like we don't want people to find it. The log-in buttons on Monaco are big, green, candy-like buttons. There's one at the top right, and there's another one in the Community box on the sidebar. We want to encourage people to log in.

::In general, having all the important Monobook controls in little bitty tiny type says: We hate people who are older than 40. ("Go back to AOL, old man!") All of the Monobook buttons are in the same font, from the crucial stuff like "Log in" and "Edit this page" to the more obscure controls like "Related changes" and "Permanent link". On Monaco, the stuff that's important to brand-new users is bigger -- log-in, edit, the link to the home page. The search box is at the top, rather than being buried down in the sidebar. The controls that logged-in users need, like "What links here" and "Special pages", are in smaller type -- they're important to us, but a brand-new user wouldn't know what to do with them.

::Okay, so that's my very long introduction... Now I'll respond to the points that you guys have brought up.

::'''Search''': I think when you say that search is broken, you mean that there's just a "Go" button and not a "Search" button next to the search box. (If you mean something else, then let me know.) That's true, and it's something that I struggled with as the design for Monaco was taking shape. I use the Search button all the time, and I was frustrated that it wasn't included. Then I looked at the stats. On Teletraan I in the last month, logged-in users used Go for 91% of searches, and Search for 9%. Anonymous users used Go for 97% of searches. Given that, I think it's okay to make the Search button less prominent. I remember when I first started using wikis, I was totally confused by having two buttons. (Do I want to Go or Search? Well, I want to search, and then go to the search results...) I only figured out the difference through trial and error. So in Monaco, the search box at the top is Go, and then you can have a link to [[Special:Search]] in the toolbox. (Some wikis have that, and some don't -- Muppet has it, if you want to see how it works.)

::'''Community box''': That's one of the features that's designed to encourage brand-new users to explore the site. When you look at a wiki as a new reader, it's not always apparent that there's a community there. You read pages, but you don't necessarily know whether the articles were written today or a year ago. (Unless you look at Recent changes, which a brand-new reader doesn't know to do.) The Community box is designed to bring a little taste of the community activity up to their view. It's not a helpful way for a contributor to keep track of Recent changes, but it does show new people that something's going on. If you come to the site and see that somebody edited a page 15 seconds ago, then you understand that there's an active community. On Muppet Wiki in the last month, 1,404 anonymous readers logged in using the button in the Community box, 1,539 anon readers clicked the "more..." button to go to Recent changes, and 1,287 clicked on article links that they saw in the Latest Activity area. Those are readers who may not have been engaged with the site if they hadn't seen the activity going on in the Community box. On the other hand, logged-in contributors only clicked in the Community box 350 times. It's not designed for us; it's for the 91% of anons.

::'''Obnoxious ads''': This is the one area that's designed to help the company rather than the wiki. Basically, the deal is that Wikia doesn't make a lot of money from the "skyscraper" ads on the right sidebar. Nobody clicks on them, and most advertisers don't bother to make ads like that anymore. Advertisers want banner ads, and they want them at the top of the page. I can't justify this one in wiki terms, except to say that if we want Wikia to stay in business and continue to host wikis, then we need to change the skin to accommodate the changing ad market. Otherwise, there won't be a Wikia after a while.

::'''Languages drop-down''': We changed the list into a drop-down menu because sites like Wookieepedia had a long list, which took up a lot of sidebar space, and only had about 100 clicks on language links in a month. On Teletraan I, there have only been 2 clicks on the language links since October.

::'''Content space''': There is slightly less content area on Monaco when you first come to the page. The sidebar is smaller than the combined left & right Monobook sidebars, so the content area is wider. The banner ad means that the height takes a hit for the first screen. As you scroll down, though, the Monaco content area is bigger than on Monobook, because the page is wider. I can show you some screencaps if you want more info on this.

::'''Slow edits on Wookieepedia''': That looks like a bug that's specific to Wookieepedia... I'm not sure what's going on there. It looks like when you hit edit on Wookiee, it's looking for something from maps.google, and that can slow down the page load for the edit screen. I hadn't seen that before, so I'm really glad you pointed it out. That's not affecting other Monaco wikis like Muppet Wiki or Marvel Database, so there must be something in Wookieepedia's css that's causing that. I'll look into it. If you look at Muppet or Marvel, you'll see that the page load is lightning fast right now. (Not counting periods of site-wide database problems, which affect every skin.)

::So anyway -- this is a huge long post, but I think I responded to everything. As you can tell, I take this stuff really seriously, and I'm willing to put in the time to research the impact and explain what's going on. Do folks have other questions or concerns about Monaco? I could keep talking about this stuff all day. :) -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 17:33, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

:::Personally, as regular contributor, I'm fine with switching to Monaco, so long as we get to keep our new 'random page thumbnail' above the search box (or anywhere, really). I think it's useful for visitors to be able to visit a random page with an interesting thumbnail image rather than simply doing random searches or hitting Random page repeatedly. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 17:44, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

::::I knew there was something I forgot to mention! Yeah, the featured page thumbnail. I think that's something that we can adapt.

::::That feature doesn't have anything to do with search -- it just happens that you can put a picture in the Monobook search box. I actually think what you've made is a little misleading. The picture says "Search" on it, and it's right above the search box -- so as a user, I would assume that if I click that, I'll get some kind of search results page. Instead, it goes to a featured article, which isn't necessarily what you'd expect.

::::The feature is really a rotating spotlight for featured articles, which is cool and visual, and helps to bring readers deeper into the content. It's a great idea. I think it would actually be more effective if it was split away from search, so readers would be more likely to recognize it as a featured-article spotlight.

::::So there are a couple ways to do that in Monaco. The easiest way would be to put it in the sidebar -- check out [[MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar]] for an example. Here's pics to show what that would look like.

<gallery>
Image:Monacosidebar1.jpg
Image:Monacosidebar2.jpg|You can update this list anytime, so you can freshen it up every day or every week. Or never.
Image:Monacosidebar3.jpg|That big green, fire-snortin' lizard must be included.
Image:Monacosidebar4.jpg|If you click on "Embrace the Knowledge", it takes you to the Allspark article. Obviously.
</gallery>

::::It's not graphical, but it allows you to bring the funny into the sidebar, which you've never been able to do before. One advantage of this approach is that you can add in new articles to the sidebar without having to wait for somebody to make a graphic.

::::If that's not enough and you need to go graphical, then I can talk to our designer, Christian, about creating a widget that can go into the sidebar and have the same function. It could sit above or below the Community box. It would be separate from search, but like I said, that may be a good thing. What do you think? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:48, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

If you want to sell this to Walky... make it orange.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 22:05, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
[[Image:Orangemonaco.jpg|thumb|250px|It could be even oranger if that would help.]]
:Does this work? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:13, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

::The brick skin has a pretty nice brown/orange thing going. That's what I'm using at the moment. --[[User:Professor Icepick|Professor Icepick]] 22:17, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
:::See, that's what was needed to get his attention. The orange will draw him, like a moth to a flame.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 22:24, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
[[Image:Monacobrick.jpg|thumb|250px|Monaco Brick, in all its dark red and orange glory.]]
::::Here's how Brick looks... -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:28, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

:::::Do it! --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 00:41, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
::::::I TOLD you guys that we should make this wiki orange (to actually look like Teletraan 1) way back before we even knew about Monaco, but you were all "We are serious business about not taking ourselves seriously". --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 06:44, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

:I don't know all that much about what can and can't be modified, but can't a number of the problems with Monobook be solved simply by changing the css or js files? I'm mainly talking about the small text size for the tabs and login. Plus, most people who edit wikies are probably familiar with Wikipedia's Monobook interface. Plus, I don't think anyone wants the trouble from the ad format being changed again. A few months ago the site started taking showing wider vertical ads, and it was awhile before the horizontal scrolling mess got cleaned up. But then again I'm the guy who uses XP's Classic Windows scheme with Windows 98's colors and icons, so I may be biased when it comes to new interfaces. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 22:41, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

::The Monobook problems can't be solved with css changes. The type size is an example, but it's really a general problem with the layout. Wiki veterans are used to Monobook, but it's not necessarily a great layout for new people. I meet people all the time who read Wikipedia, but when I ask if they've ever made an edit, they say no -- it never occurred to them. I think it's important to make wikis more accessible to new people, and we're finding that Monaco is helping people to explore the wikis and make their first edit.

::Are there other concerns that people have that I can help with? I know that this discussion has gone on a bit, and I'd hate to have it just run out of steam before it gets to a decision. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 18:15, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::It seems like there aren't any more concerns about the new skin, so I'm thinking about changing it over to Monaco tomorrow, unless someone has objections. Once it's switched over, then I can help you out with whatever customization you want. Is that cool? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 15:55, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
::::A great number of us are indisposed at [[BotCon 2008]] this weekend, but there should still be a handful of us around. So you know! --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 16:09, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::Gyah. I thought we were doing Brick?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:17, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:We can do anything you guys want... I'm just playing around for a minute to see if I can come up with something interesting. It's gonna look bad for the next five minutes... and then we can talk about what you guys want, and fix it up nice. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:21, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::Okay, never mind. That just looked bad. :) So I set it to Brick. If you guys want to change these colors, we can change them to whatever you like. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:25, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

===Apparently implemented===
Is there any way to override this that '''doesn't''' override the skins on ''every'' Wikia-hosted wiki? - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 21:19, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:Do you mean, you want to see the skin in Monobook? You can go to Preferences --> Skins, and set your preferred skin to Monobook. You can check or uncheck the box that says "Let the admins override my skin choice" to either see customized skins or not. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:27, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::Yes, I know that. My problem with that is the "This setting will follow you across Wikia." clause. I don't want to override EVERYWHERE (e.g. Memory Alpha). Just Monaco wikis. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 21:30, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::Actually, they're working on switching over to the Monaco skin on Memory Alpha too... At a certain point, pretty much every Wikia wiki is going to end up on Monaco. Is there something about Monaco that you don't like? -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:43, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::::The flyouts. Certainly not the only thing - the more I look, the less I like, especially the pathetic "Latest Activity" box with a practically-camouflaged recentchanges link, and why exactly are the preferences hidden? - but they're the biggest dealbreaker. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 22:01, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::::Yeah, at first I wasn't crazy about the flyouts either. We tested out using the sidebar without the flyouts on Muppet Wiki, but then I looked at the click stats and found that they really helped new readers to find content on the wiki. The pageviews went down when we took the flyouts out. If you're interested, there's details here: [[w:c:muppet:Muppet_Wiki:Current_events#Sidebar_menus|Muppet Wiki:Current events]].

:::::The "Community" box is also something for the new users. When you first come to the wiki, you might think that it's just a static site... There's no way to know that there's a living community. The latest activity shows people that there are pages that were edited in the last couple minutes. Also, logged-out users see a log-in button in that box. For active logged-in users, a lot of these features aren't that useful. They're really aimed at the 90-something% of readers that aren't logged in. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:10, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::::::(NB: I was expanding my post at the same time you were typing, since I was spending a bit of time looking around).
::::::See, I'm not coming at it from the "guy who runs the wiki" perspective. I'm not a sysop on a Wikia wiki, so "this will boost Teh Stats" has no effect on me [perhaps that means you consider my position irrelevant. I can't help that]. Nor am I a newbie to Wikis, so again, not the target group.
::::::My problem is that (1) they require me to turn JavaScript on in the first place (strictly, add to the NoScript whitelist, but...) and (2) the click-on flyout in the top right is worse than pointless, since there's room for the links without that and it just makes preferences harder to access and (3) I hate non-click flyouts since you they will inevitably be scrolled at the wrong moment, trebly so since they're on the side rather than the top. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 22:08, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::::::I think "this will boost Teh Stats" actually matters to everybody. More readers looking at more pages = more potential contributors = a more active community = more and better content on the site. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:12, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::::::::By the way, I'm not trying to make you like the skin. Either you like it, or you don't. I'm just explaining the rationale behind some of the design decisions, so you know that it wasn't just random or malicious. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:17, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

There are three things that would make me more... reconciled... to it. I still probably won't ''like'' it, but...
#On your own "help.wikia", there's a group of links beneath the flyouts to Recent Changes/Upload/etc. They don't appear here or on most Wikia wikis (well, strictly they appear for about half a second on a Ctrl-F5, which suggests they're present but being hidden with CSS or something). They should be there as standard.
#Links to Special:Preferences and Special:Contributions/(self) should be available with a single non-flyover click, either in the "Community" box or at the top right, not in a flyover only. '''ESPECIALLY''' Special:Preferences.
#Be able to override the colour scheme on an individual wiki basis, rather than just "all or nothing" - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 22:29, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::For #1, I'm not sure why you're not seeing the toolbox links. That's an important part of the skin, and it's on every wiki. Check out the screenshots that I added above -- every wiki has links to Recent changes and Upload. If you're not seeing it, then that's a weird bug which we can try to figure out. What browser are you using? Are you only seeing the toolbox disappearing on Transformers, or on other wikis too?

::If you want it, we can put links to Preferences and Contributions in the toolbox, or in the sidebar. I don't know how to change the top header.

::Can you give me an example of what you'd like to see as far as overriding the color schemes? I think it's possible that what you want is currently possible, but I'm not sure. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:54, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:::Okay, #1 was my own fault. An in-browser hack I'd done on Monobook was interacting "unpredictably" with Monaco, and had knocked that (and some minor stuff that doesn't make any difference) out of joint.
:::Okay on #2. I'd be interested to find out how many people ever use Special:Preferences on any skin(s) while you're trotting out stats...
:::On #3, basically, being able to use different (non-default) skins, or at least colour schemes from the chosen skin on different wikis without being limited to the "this will follow you across Wikia". Just because one wiki chooses to smother the page in bright pink (or orange...) doesn't mean I want to change the colour scheme on every wikia. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 23:32, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Sure, I love trotting out stats!

Here's the stats on how Transformers contributors click on those links. In the last month, there have been the following clicks:

* Watchlist: 3,114
* Contributions: 427
* User page: 213
* Talk page: 67
* Preferences: 22

So, yeah, contributions is #2 on that list, but preferences is all the way down at the bottom. Preferences is useful when you need it, but people don't need it that often.

But the hypothesis is: If you put Contributions and Preferences into a drop-down menu, people won't click on it as much, and you'll see clicks on those two items going down.

To make a comparison, I looked at Muppet Wiki editors' clicks in February (on Monobook) and in April (using Monaco).

Here's the clicks on Monobook:

* Contributions: 403 (52%)
* Watchlist: 148 (19%)
* Talk page: 132 (17%)
* User page: 83 (11.5%)
* Preferences: 4 (0.5%)

Here's the clicks on Monaco:

* Contributions: 320 (60%)
* Watchlist: 123 (23%)
* Talk page: 53 (10%)
* User page: 23 (4%)
* Preferences: 15 (3%)

The hypothesis doesn't seem to hold up. Percentage-wise, clicks on Contributions and Preferences went up using Monaco. This is a really small sample, so it's not proof of anything... but it indicates that the drop-down menu doesn't chase away clicks.

As far as seeing wikis in different skins, try choosing Monobook in your skin preferences, and keep "allow admins to override my choices" checked. Transformers isn't using a custom skin right now, so you should see this wiki in Monobook -- and you'll also see the customization on Memory Alpha, etc. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 00:19, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

==Script-style quotes==
There seems to be some disagreement on whether script-style quotes should have quotation marks or not. Personally, I strongly favor including them, for two reasons:
* Visual consistency. There's no reason not to have all the quotes in as similar a format as possible. Having some with quotation marks, and some without, ''in the same section'', seems like needless variation.
* It's... well... it's a ''quote''. We're not writing a screenplay; we're quoting something someone actually said. And a quote gets quotation marks.... fullstop. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 21:18, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

:Hmm, I'm afraid I disagree. They're simply not necessary, and they clutter the page.
:And, regardless of whether we decide to use double-quotes, can we put a stop to script-style where the quotes are are in double-quotes ''and'' italicized? {shudder} [[User:JW|JW]] 21:21, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
::The italics stuff is flat out bad formatting, no disagreement here. There's an earlier discussion about it somewhere on this page or the archives. Nobody should be adding stuff in that format anymore... I hope.
::As for double quotes... um... I have no clue what you're referring to. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 21:23, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

==Gone Too Far==
I've been alerted it's past the 30-day period for "coming soon Club stuff" non-updating. Have at it. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 22:03, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

==Searchbox improvement drive==
So now we have a very nice set of searchboxes, thanks to the lovely design work of M Sipher and the superhuman coding skills of Suki Brits. The effort of these boxes is to show the visitor all of the awesome crap we have. To do that, said cap must in fact be awesome. Unfortunately, a lot of the pages linked to by searchboxes are [[Shatterpoint|imageless]], [[T-AI|missing fiction]], or [[High Wire (Armada)|pretty much content-free]]. Thus, I propose an improvement drive of the searchbox articles. When you click on one of those suckers, try and add something. I dunno how we'd make this official, exactly... - [[User:RolonBolon|RolonBolon]] 06:49, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
:Are these images supposed to show up automatically by/around/with the actual text box in which you type your search parameters? If so, I'm not seeing them in the current Monaco skin.--[[User:Apcog|Apcog]] 14:29, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
::They don't show up in Monaco, Quartz, Cologne Blue, or any other custom theme. Just Monobook, the default. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 20:15, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Is there a way to get the search box changes to load sooner? The way it is now the custom settings for the box are the last thing to load; it uses the default settings until the google ads finish loading. This can take awhile depending on how the crappy campus wireless is acting. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 20:39, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with RolonBolon about the searchbox thing. I know we're hard up for help, but why are we spending time creating these little searchbox images using pics from God knows where, yet we've neglected to upload a single image for the actual pages these buttons lead to? Not the mention pages that have absolutely no content whatsoever.
I think we've overreached ourselves, and in the future we should only do these searchbox things for articles that are largely complete and/or have alot of content and imagery, otherwise we look really half-ass and unfocused. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 22:37, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
:Yeah, what drove it home for me was Sixtrain. I see Sixtrain in the Search box. It looks nifty, like it's his box art. I click on the article, no images. Why the heck can't we upload Sixtrain's box art when we evidently have a clear enough copy of it to make a search teaser?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 23:33, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
::I was simply making boxes using what I had on the hard drive as examples, and not everything is good quality at main-image size. I don't think we've "overreached ourselves" at all. At worst, we omit a few items from the searchbox list if their entries are that empty for a little while, OH NOES. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 00:22, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
:::I am of the opinion that a fuzzy picture that can be replaced later is better than no picture at all. It helps users know what it's talking about in the meantime, right? [[User:Spriteless|Spriteless]] 02:24, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
::::We prefer no pic/no content to a crap pic/crap content. I've been taking a break from the Wiki, but it looks like I'm going on another image safari. My scanner not working is annoying. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 06:54, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

The fact that the image is the last one on the page to load isn't just visually annoying; it for some reason also makes whatever you've typed in the search field vanish in Firefox. I've had this happen to me a bunch of times. A lesser annoyance is that the input box moves when the image appears; it would be nice if it could stay in the same place (maybe by making the whole Search box a fixed size?), as it's a bad idea to have a clickable thing that spontaneously jumps around. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 20:31, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
: The way the Search Image works right now, I'd rather not even have them. My computer has slowed down ''epically'' trying to load those images each time, and if it's a high traffic time of day, the rest of the page will basically freeze for 30 seconds or more until that search image gets around to loading. This is extremely annoying when I just need a quick peek at a page before making a link, like checking if Stormcloud is one word or two or if Whirl needs to be disambig-ed in the link. And if I try to click Search to move on to a next page too early, the Image drops down in front and shang-hais my "click", so I go there instead of being able to type in where I want to go.

: I don't like the thing at all. It's been nothing but a hassle for the last day or so. There's already a Random page button right about it -- do we really need this too? --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 00:30, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::The same thing has been happening to me lately, and I've never experienced that problem on Wookieepedia. And this is a real problem for me, as I'm actually ''supportive'' of the image icons. We may want review the system. -- [[User:SFH|SFH]] 01:30, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Though in fairness, some of that may be due to Wikia's tendency to nearly-crash every weekend. And to be honest, this weekend has been rather traffic low. I mean, seriously, did every head to BotCon a week early? -- [[User:SFH|SFH]] 02:09, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Let me know if this continues to be an issue during weekdays (well, before Thursday, anyway). If it is, I'll figure out a way to let users optionally turn them off. I've never noticed it slowing down while trying to load, and any sane browser ''shouldn't'', but if that really is happening for some users, something definitely ought to be done about it.
::::I'll also take a look at preserving the form data while the images load, because that is definitely something that really ''should'' happen, too. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 03:44, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::Things sped back up again shortly after SFH's last post, but I'll post again if it keeps happening regularly. Maybe it was just an anomaly. --[[User:Xaaron|Xaaron]] 03:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::'''Furthermore:''' I did a bit of code modification that should make the form retain anything you've typed before the images loads. You may need to do a hard refresh for the change to show up, but lemme know if that doesn't work for anyone. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 03:52, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

==Templates listing==
Is there a page editors can refer to for templates (messagebox, user notices ect) without having to go through the categories or remembering the last time somebody used it so they can copy-paste it? They seem to be unnecessarily difficult to track down. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 03:43, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
:[http://transformers.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=10 here] --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 04:50, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
::My main concern was not requiring the page soley for myself, but was this page obviously linked on a help page or something somewhere that anybody could find easily? I'd personally like to see this wiki become more user-friendly. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 07:25, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Agreed, as I've [http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Transformers_Wiki_talk:Community_Portal#.22First_go_here.21__Next_go_here..22 said before on this very page]. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 15:05, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Yeah. Our lack of user friendliness might discourage people from joining up. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 17:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:What I'm worried about is that some of the other users would actually be okay with that...-- [[User:SFH|SFH]] 17:48, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::Well, last time I checked some of these other users don't own the wiki. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 09:12, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

== new template: Comicinfo ==

Please checkout [[Template:Comicinfo]]. It's a little rough around the edges, but something I think could be useful on the comics pages. Comments and suggestions are welcome.--[[User:MistaTee|MistaTee]] 02:42, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

== Masthead ==

Okay, the old Monobook masthead doesn't look so good under Monaco. How do we change this?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:31, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

== Sidebar ==

Given that we're getting a lot of Transformers Animated traffic lately, I'd say an item in the Monaco sidebar is likely going to help direct people to the right articles.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:45, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:Okay, I put it in the sidebar. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 21:56, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

== Hate the new skin. ==

Hate this new skin. Just wanted to say it. The old look was much more pleasent and open to read. New one is just crouded and Blah. THIS is gonna take getting use to. No Sir, I don't like it.

:Can it at least not be burgundy and orange? - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 22:08, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

::Yeah, it can be any color you like. I was messing around with colors before, but wasn't doing a great job with it, and Rosicrucian said he wanted this color scheme. Any admin can change the colors by editing [[MediaWiki:Monaco.css]]. There's instructions on how to do it here: [[w:c:help:Customizing Monaco|Customizing Monaco]]. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 22:15, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
:::I mainly liked this because it fits with the color scheme of Teletraan itself. I'm not married to the idea, though. I also figured I'd speak up about it because Walky liked it, and he's off enjoying his ridiculously expensive Transformers collector's items at BotCon.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 22:21, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Ahh, right, well, I can see the logic, there, all right... I'm just not dying about the dark-coloured backgrounds, since it's a big visually jarring to have big white boxes of text in the middle of them. - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 22:24, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

: Seconding the hate. [[User:Hooper X|-hx]] 00:04, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
:: This looks pretty hideous compared to MonoBook... and it's hard to navigate. Well, at least I can override it in preferences, but I think I'll be ignoring admin skin choices unless a custom one appears in the future.--[[User:MCRG|MCRG]] 00:44, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

:::I think I can try to get used to the new skin unless/until I find something inconvenient. Well, so far so good. At least the seach function is better. But the logo on the left side of the top, well... um, oh. --[[User:TX55|TX55]] 01:23, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
::Fourthing the hate. The colors hurt my eyes. That, and the obscure character search images are gone. --[[User:FortMax|FortMax]] 01:45, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

:I'm afraid I don't much like it either. Fortunately, it was pretty easy to uncheck the "override" box on my preferences. [[User:JW|JW]] 01:54, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't like the new skin either. I don't get the menus at the side. "Featured characters" includes articles that I don't think have actually been Featured. G1 and Animated are listed, but no other franchises. And the menus are inconsistent. The G1 menu lists Autobot, Decepticon, and then a bunch of character pages, while the Animated menu lists Animated's toy line, cartoon, comic, and books articles. Why the difference? And what was the selection process for the "Embrace the Knowledge" menu?

By the way, in the middle of BotCon is probably the worst possible time for major changes like this to be made. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 04:29, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

:The menus at the side are examples that I made up. You guys can change them to be anything you want, by editing [[MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar]]. I'm sorry about the timing... We've been talking about this for maybe three weeks.

:Lots of things can be changed -- the colors, the menus, the logo. I'll put it back to the basic Sapphire for now, which is more like Monobook. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 05:08, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

== Anonymous edits ==

Lately, I've been looking at wikis that have decided to turn off anonymous edits, and have everybody log in before contributing to the wiki. The idea is that having everybody log in builds a stronger sense of community, because you always have a name to associate with an edit, rather than a random string of numbers. It's easier to talk to people who have names. It also gives you more control over vandalism, since you can recognize potential vandals more easily.

Some people don't like the idea, because they're worried that logging in is a barrier to entry -- if you have to log in to edit, then you won't bother, and you'll go away. Looking at the wikis that require login, that doesn't seem to be true. [[w:c:muppet|Muppet Wiki]] turned off anon edits last April, and the number of active editors has actually gone up. Some of our most active wikis require login -- [[w:c:wowwiki|World of Warcraft]], [[w:c:ffxi|FFXIclopedia]], [[w:c:tibia|Tibia Wiki]] and [[w:c:marveldatabase|Marvel Database]]. (WoW and FFXI actually require a confirmed e-mail address before you can edit.)

So I've been talking to folks about this, and we've decided to allow wiki communities to turn off anonymous edits if they want to. There are a lot of anonymous editors here, so I'm wondering what you guys think about it. Would it be helpful to require login for everybody?

Obviously, that's a big community decision... I just want to throw out the possibility, and see what you think. -- [[User:Toughpigs|Danny]]<staff /> ([[User talk:Toughpigs|talk]]) 20:38, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

:I strongly oppose disabling anonymous edits! (I also oppose sweeping changes performed over botcon, and unilaterally re-skining the site when the community can argue for weeks or month about proposed style changes to individual ''templates'' without reaching a consensus-- but if you're willing to ignore the needs of registered users by doing so, why would you listen to non users?) -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 08:14, 28 April 2008 (UTC)<div id="wikia-credits"> From [http://transformers.wikia.com Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki], a [http://www.wikia.com Wikia] wiki.</div>

Micromaster Combiner

2008-04-14T09:06:06Z

75.168.112.43:

{{disambig2|the tiny vehicles that combine in pairs|the teams of 3 to 6 robots that make one big robot|Combiner}}
{{disambig2|pairs of Micromasters that combine to form vehicles|pairs of Micromasters that combine to form robots|Combi-Micromaster}}

:''Micromaster Combiners are pairs of Transformers from the [[Generation 1]] [[continuity family]].''

[[Image:Micromastercombiners-mixandmatch.jpg|right|thumb|300px|Come on! Let's go space truckin'!]]

Most [[Micromasters]] function just like a typical larger-scaled Transformer: one robot mode, one vehicle mode. However, some transform into only half a vehicle, and must combine with a partner to form a complete vehicle mode. These Transformers are known as '''Micromaster Combiners'''.

Micromaster Combiner pairs typically include a front-end member and a back-end member. The connection points between the pairings are wired such that ''any'' front-end combiner can join with ''any'' rear-end combiner. In addition to the childish innuendos that this inevitably suggests, it also can result in the formation of some ''extremely'' bizarre vehicle combinations.

==Fiction==
===Dreamwave continuity===
A grayish-blue Micromaster seen only from the back was among the crowd relaxing in a neutral bar in [[Little Iacon]]. Some have speculated this may have been [[Cement-Head]] or [[Terror-Tread]]. {{storylink|The Gray Race}}

{{note|Apart from this, the Micromaster Combiners were curiously absent from [[Dreamwave]]'s [[Micromasters]] comic, which is the only fiction that most of the 1990 Micromasters ever appeared in.}}

==Toys==
===Generation 1===
* [[Astro Squad]] (1990)
* [[Battle Squad]] (1990)
* [[Constructor Squad]] (1990)
* [[Metro Squad]] (1990)

[[Image:Micromastercombiners-vehicles.jpg|right|thumb|150px| ]]

[[Image:Micromastercombiners-fronttofront.jpg|right|thumb|150px|Who's gonna drive you home? Not these guys.]]

:The Micromaster Combiners were sold in carded "squads" with six Transformers to a squad, making up three vehicles. The pairings allowed much longer vehicle forms than the typical Micromaster, allowing such alternate forms as tractor-trailers and a hovercraft. Many of the vehicle modes, however, were fanciful at best.

:Each Micromaster Combiner has a standardized post and hole on one end, allowing them to plug into any other Micromaster Combiner in vehicle mode. Of course, you're only supposed to combine front-end guys with back-end guys... but who can resist the absurdity of creating a flying dump truck or a truck with two cabs? As a side effect of the combination system, many of the Micromaster Combiners are stuck with vehicle forms that are utterly useless without their partners, such as half of a space shuttle, the container portion of a dump truck, or the trailer of a truck.

:Several of these molds were redeco'd and sold with transformable battle rigs as the [[Micromaster Transport]]s. Each transport has ports that allow a Micromaster Combiner to plug into the ends.

[[Category: Generation 1]]
[[Category: Micromaster teams]]<div id="wikia-credits"> From [http://transformers.wikia.com Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki], a [http://www.wikia.com Wikia] wiki.</div>

Primus

2008-04-11T02:52:38Z

75.168.112.43: /* Fleer and DK */

[[Image:PrimusG1.jpg|300px|thumb|That's MISTER God to you.]]

'''Primus''' is [[Unicron]]'s sibling, and the creator god of the [[Transformer]]s. His body is the planet [[Cybertron (planet)|Cybertron]], and the mega-computer [[Vector Sigma]] serves as his internal mainframe. Though he rarely meddles in the affairs of his creations, he has gifted a portion of his lifeforce within the [[Matrix of Leadership|Matrix]], which determines the [[Prime (rank)|leader]] of the [[Autobot]]s. Prophecies of a war to come were written down in his [[Covenant of Primus|holy covenant]] as well. The [[spark]] of each Transformer is a small piece of Primus's essence, and together they form his lifeforce, the [[Allspark]].

{{quote|Until all are one!|Primus to his children|"[[Trap]]"}}

==In the beginning==

[[Image:Primus_original.jpg|thumb|left|Hold the sword and say, "I am the Protector of the Universe!"]]

Before the dawn of time, Order and Chaos existed within an extradimensional entity known as the [[One]]. To explore the fledging universe, he created the astral being known as [[Unicron]], and then subdivided him, creating his twin, Primus. Both brothers were multiversal singularities, unique in all realities, but whereas Unicron could only exist in one dimension at a time, moving between them at will, Primus existed simultaneously in all realities at once. It is suggested, in fact, that the two brothers embody the basic concepts of reality - good and evil, order and chaos - and that their continued existence is necessary for the stability of the multiverse.

[[Image:Primusoriginal.jpg|thumb|right|"No, [[Rumble (G1)|Rumble]] is ''[[RIBFIR|blue]]''!"]]

As Unicron and Primus went about their appointed task, venturing through the cosmos, it became apparent to Primus that Unicron was a corrupt being, and he took it upon himself to stop the threat posed to all of existence by his sibling. In combat, Primus was no match for Unicron. In cunning, however, he proved himself to his brother's superior when he shifted their battle to the astral plane, and then back to the physical world once more, only to have both their essences manifest within metallic planetoids, leaving them both trapped. It was with this act of sacrifice that Primus hoped to contain Unicron's evil forever. Unfortunately for him, over time, Unicron learned to psionically shape his prison into a giant metallic planet, and Primus followed suit, becoming the mechanical world of [[Cybertron (planet)|Cybertron]]. When Unicron then learned to transform his planetary form even further, into a gigantic robot form, Primus adapted the idea to suit his own ends - rather than transforming his own body, he would create small beings that would be able to change their shape, like Unicron. After performing a "test run" on the moon of [[Protos]], where he successfully created [[Covenant|twelve transforming robotic beings]], {{storylink|Herald, Covenant, Schism, Paradox|Covenant}} he birthed from his own body a group of thirteen robots that possessed the ability to change shape, like Unicron. These were the [[13 original Transformers]], each one infused with a fragment of Primus's life essence known as a [[spark]].

The Thirteen were Primus's soldiers in his war with Unicron, which came to its seeming end during a climactic battle in which one of the Thirteen, who would forever afterwards be known as the [[Fallen]], betrayed Primus and became an acolyte of Unicron. The battle ended when the Fallen and Unicron were sucked into a black hole and disappeared from reality. With Unicron gone for now, Primus entered an eons-long slumber, his self-imposed sleep preventing Unicron from detecting him through the mental link the brothers shared. The Transformer race grew, and Primus fell into the realm of legend, with a portion of his power, the [[Matrix of Leadership]], handed down through the generations, serving as the Transformers' ever-present link to their creator.

===Evolution of the Primus/Unicron myth===

''The Primus/Unicron backstory has evolved and been rewritten a good number of times since it first originated in the [[Marvel Comics]] series. The version recounted above is the current iteration, which has slowly solidified across a wide swath of media (beginning around the time of [[Armada]]). Before the Primus/Unicron mythos reached its present form it went through several distinct versions in the Marvel G1 comics and elsewhere.''

====Unicron's story====

''The first time we ever heard the Primus/Unicron backstory was in the UK comic continuity, from Unicron himself, in the story [[Legacy of Unicron]], when he recounted it to [[Death's Head]]. Per Unicron's telling of events, he was a primal force of evil at the dawn of the universe, who led a legion of [[Dark Armies]] against his mortal foe, Primus, Lord of the [[Light Gods]] (note the plural). Events proceeded to play out basically as described above, though the role of the Light Gods and Dark Armies would diminish with each subsequent retelling of the story, until the current version, in which Primus and Unicron are alone, and have a unique origin. (Only one of the other gods was ever named - the [[Chronarchitect]]. How exactly he factors into the current iteration of the myth is unknown.)''

====The Keeper's story====

''The second time the story was told was in the US book by the [[Keeper]], an ancient mechanoid who guarded Primus's head at the center of Cybertron. This telling is effectively the same as the previous UK story, but mentions that their battle was towards the end of the era of gods, that Primus and Unicron were the last of their respective pantheons, and Primus had to defeat Unicron before he could take his place with the other gods in the "[[Omniversal Matrix]]".''

====Primus's story====

''The third time the story was told was also in the US Marvel series, this time by Primus, when he gathered all his children together to prepare for Unicron's coming. It was with this telling that we learned that Unicron predated the current universe, and had destroyed the previous universe which existed before the current one. He had slept peacefully, alone in the void of uncreation that remained, until fragments of the old universe that he had overlooked reacted, causing the Big Bang and birthing the current universe. The "sentient core" of this new universe recognized the threat that Unicron posed, and so created Primus to counter his evil and be guardian of the new creation.''

====Fleer and DK====

[[Image:WarWithinPrimus.jpg|left|thumb|150px|I feel prickly...]]
''The first modern retelling of the origins of Primus and Unicron did not come from G1-oriented media, but from a set of ''[[Armada]]'' trading cards released by Fleer. It was the backstory printed on Unicron's card which introduced the concept of the two being brothers created to explore the new universe by an extradimensional entity, here named the "[[Allspark]]."''

''This was subsequently expanded on and combined with aspects of the various Marvel Comics stories in [[Transformers: The Ultimate Guide]], published by Dorling Kindersley and written by [[Simon Furman]], who had written all three prior tellings in the first place. Here, the entity Fleer had called the "Allspark" was redubbed "[[One|The One]]," and the modern iteration of the myth detailed above was firmly established, and went on to form the backbone of subsequent fiction such as ''[[Universe]]'' and [[Fun Publications]]' ''[[Cybertron (franchise)|Cybertron]]'' comics.''

''It was also at this point that it was established that Primus could transform from Cybertron into a robot mode like Unicron, but preferred not to, choosing to remain connected to the universe on a planetary level.''

''The [[Transformers (2007)|movie continuity]] appears to contradict this retcon by having Cybertron and Transformer life be created by the [[All Spark]] cube.''

{{-}}

==Generation 1==

===Marvel Comics continuity===

[[Image:Primalscream.jpg|right|thumb|KHHHHHAAAAANNNNN!]]

Eventually, millions of years later, in [[Generation 1 (Marvel Comics)|one version]] of Generation 1 continuity, [[Grimlock (G1)|Grimlock]], [[Jazz]], and [[Bumblebee (G1)|Bumblebee]] found themselves transported to the center of Cybertron, where they discovered the sleeping form of Primus and were told the tale of his and the Transformers' origins by the Keeper. Subsequently, [[Bludgeon (G1)|Bludgeon]]'s [[Pretender]]s attacked, and during the battle, a laser blast ricocheted off Grimlock and struck the essence of the sleeping Primus, causing a multiverse-shaking "Primal Scream" that woke Unicron and alerted him to Primus's location. Primus himself immediately slipped back into his sleep, but it was too late. {{storylink|Primal Scream}}

[[Image:Emirate_prmus.jpg|left|thumb|200px|Form blazing god!]]

Unicron dispatched a group of [[Hook, Line, and Sinker|heralds]] to attack Cybertron and pave the way for his coming, including a [[Galvatron II|Galvatron]] plucked from an [[Rhythms of Darkness!|alternate future]]. Galvatron, however, was not content to serve under Unicron, and instead captured Autobot leader [[Emirate Xaaron]], forcing him to fully awaken Primus, who possessed Xaaron's body and summoned Transformers from all across the universe back to Cybertron. {{storylink|Out of Time!}} Primus intended for all his children to battle Unicron together, but when the planet-eater arrived, sheer terror prevented them from carrying out his desire. Primus instead made a stand himself, attempting to dupe Unicron into believing he still retained his full power, but Unicron saw through the deception, and destroyed Xaaron's body. [[Optimus Prime (G1)|Optimus Prime]] subsequently used the Matrix, the full measure of Primus's power, to destroy Unicron. {{storylink|On the Edge of Extinction!}} His body in this universe obliterated, Unicron moved on to another dimension, to ravage other worlds, and make further attempts on Cybertrons throughout the multiverse.

''('''Note:''' As originally written, it is quite clear that the story intends for Primus to have died after his battle with Unicron. As the current retcon makes it clear that this cannot possibly be, one must assume that Prime was wrong in his analysis that Primus had died. Notably, even in the original comics themselves, the Matrix - the life-force of Primus - is shown to still exist and is functioning fine in the G2 Marvel Comics series that follows his supposed death.)''

{{-}}

===Animated continuity===

Primus did not exist in the Generation 1 cartoon as it was originally written. There, Cybertron's oldest revealed status was as a factory world of the [[Quintesson]]s who invented the Transformers, and Unicron was created by the ancient genius [[Primacron]]. The animated continuity is, then, easily the fiction that is least compatible with the subsequent retcon that establishes Primus as a multiversal singularity and part of all Transformers universe, although [[Disclosure|Wreckers #3]] did attempt to retcon the Primus mythology into the Quintesson-creation backstory of the original cartoon.

==Beast Era==

===''Beast Wars''/''Beast Machines''===

In addition to its occasional invocation in prayer or in righteous anger by the Beast Warriors, Primus's name was also leant to a set of propehtical datatrax, known as the [[Covenant of Primus]]. From this document, the [[Megatron (BW)|Megatron]] of this era took his name (as did, presumably, the original [[Megatron (G1)|Megatron]]), and the scriptures foretold the events which completed the [[Beast Wars]]. {{storylink|Nemesis Part 2}}

After the Beast Wars, Megatron intended to incorporate Primus's essence, the [[Allspark (dimension)|Allspark]], into his own being and become godlike by stealing every [[Spark]] of every Transformer on [[Cybertron (planet)|Cybertron]]. {{storylink|Sparkwar Pt. III: The Siege}} Ultimately, this was merely one step of the [[Oracle]]'s plan to reformat Cybertron into a [[technorganic]] paradise. After Megatron and Optimus Primal were plunged into the planet's core, the planet was reborn and the abducted Sparks were returned to new technorganic bodies. {{storylink|Endgame Pt. III: Seeds of the Future}}

===''Universe''===

[[Image:TFUPrimus.jpg|right|thumbnail|[[Alpha Trion|Alpha]], [[Unicron|Rita]]'s escaped! Recruit a [[Children of Primus|team of teenagers with attitude]]!]]

Following the recreation of Cybertron as a technorganic world, [[Unicron]] began gathering Transformers from across the multiverse, forcing them to fight and harvesting the [[Spark]]s of the losers to restore his power. With each spark devoured, Primus was weakened, and so, communing with Autobot elder [[Alpha Trion]], called back from the Allspark the now-legendary Maximal commander and Cybertron's savior, [[Optimus Primal (BW)|Optimus Primal]], to rescue the possessed, battling captives from the Pit of Unicron -- and to lead a team of multiversal warriors to put a stop to his soul-stealing scheme before it could cause the Allspark to collapse.

Primus allowed Optimus Primal to choose any Transformer who ever existed -- living or dead -- for his army. This required considerable amounts of Primus's power, so Primal was told to choose sparingly. Primal chose his departed former troops [[Rhinox (BW)|Rhinox]] and [[Depth Charge]]. Ultimately, however, Unicron's defeat came not as a result of their efforts, but as a consequence of another battle, happening in another corner of the Transformers multiverse.

{{-}}

==Unicron Trilogy==

===Energon===
:''Voice actor:'' [[Ron Halder]] (English), [[Tesshō Genda]] (Japanese)
[[Image:Primus_eng.jpg|left|thumb|200px|Primus mistakes Kicker for a Japanese schoolgirl.]]

In the Unicron Trilogy universe, Primus made was introduced as the living energy core of Cybertron, as well as the originator of the precious and ancient fuel, [[energon]]. Transformers of this universe believed the stories of Unicron, Primus, and [[Omega Supreme (Energon)|Omega Supreme]] to be only myth and legend until the existence of Unicron was revealed in the "Unicron Battles" of 2010. With Cybertron left in a disastrous state after the chaos-bringer's attack, large amounts of Energon were required to repair the planet, and to search for and acquire the mineral, the united Autbot-Decepticon forces entered into an alliance with the Earth Federated Government.

Primus entered into the equation when the project's head scientist, [[Dr. Brian Jones]], brought his son, [[Kicker]], to Cybertron. Terrified of the giant robots surrounding him, Kicker fled, only find himself tumbling through tunnels into a hidden chamber deep beneath Cybertron's surface. Primus awoke and saved Kicker from what would have been a fatal fall, and for his own reasons, imbued the child with a special gift - the ability to detect energon throughout the universe. [[Optimus Prime (Armada)|Optimus Prime]] subsequently discovered Kicker in Primus's chamber, and the god chose to work with the Transformers quite directly, imbuing them with the "Spark of Combination," which would allow the Autobots to combine and increase their powers. Primus went on to advise Optimus Prime on his actions in order to prepare for the future, including the Terrorcon invasion, the return of [[Megatron (Armada)|Megatron]], and the next battle with Unicron; although vague at times, he would offer just enough information to allow his children to survive the threats they faced. Primus was often very weak due to the damage done to the planet's surface, and spent most of his time in a mode of stasis to preserve his energy and keep Cybertron's energy grid online.

When Megatron succeeded in reanimating Unicron, most of the Autobot army was critically wounded in the ensuing battle. This prompted the sleeping Primus to awaken and infuse their armor with his power, upgrading them into new forms, and allowing Optimus Prime and Omega Supreme to combine into a gigantic form and defeat Unicron. {{storylink|Unicron Perishes}} Unicron's spark survived, however, and Primus sought to contain it by trapping it at the heart of a new sun that he created from a reservoir of "super energon" hidden within Cybertron. {{storylink|The Sun}}

===Cybertron===
:''Voice actor:'' [[Michael Donovan]] (English), [[Tesshō Genda]] (Japanese)

[[Image:Map-Primus.jpg|right|thumbnail|200px|If Unicron is Galactus, does that mean that Primus is Ego, The Living Planet?]]

Primus's plan to contain Unicron's essence in the center of the sun failed when the star collapsed into a massive [[Unicron Singularity|black hole]] which threatened not only Cybertron and the universe, but the entire multiverse itself. His energy drained to the point that he had once again been rendered dormant, Primus could now only be awakened and restored to full power by the four ancient [[Cyber Planet Key]]s, lost to the far reaches of the galaxy in a failed [[space bridge]] experiment eons ago. The magnitude of the threat posed to the multiverse was enough to summon [[Vector Prime]] - one of the original thirteen Transformers, who had been following Unicron through the multiverse and repairing the damage he had done - back to Cybertron to aid the Autobots in the quest for the keys.

[[Image:Primus Cybertrony.jpg|left|thumb|200px|Oh so prickly...]]

Eventually, despite continued attempts by both Megatron and [[Starscream (Armada)|Starscream]] to steal the power of the Cyber Planet Keys, the Autobots were able to gather the keys from [[Velocitron]], the [[Jungle Planet]] and [[Earth]], and brought them and their focusing device, the [[Omega Lock]], back to Cybertron. Coupling these three keys with the power of the Matrix, Optimus Prime was able to initiate Primus's transformation from planet mode to robot mode. Communicating with the Autobots through the [[Mini-Con]], [[Jolt (Cybertron)|Jolt]], Primus explained that the destruction of Unicron, the embodiment of the force of evil, had unbalanced the universe, and that only he could seal the black hole and restore order - but to do that, the fourth Cyber Planet Key, from [[Gigantion]], the Giant Planet, was required to reconnect Primus's spark with his body and restore his full power. {{Storylink|Cybertron (Cybertron episode)|Cybertron}}

[[Image:Starscream_Vs_Primus.jpg|right|thumb|200px|Mother...]]

Attempting to retrieve the Omega Lock, [[Starscream (Armada)|Starscream]] made a rather pointless attack on Primus, only to be smacked down hard. {{Storylink|Balance}} Shortly thereafter, when Primus was in the process of channelling some of his power into holding back the ever-growing black hole, Starscream tried again, plunging into the energy beam and absorbing some of Primus's power into himself. Starscream expanded in size until he was as large as Primus himself, but Primus did not take this slight lightly, as he converted Cybertron's moons into a pair of mace weapons and relentlessly pounded Starscream into submission. {{storylink|Titans}}

Eventually, the Autobots were able to acquire the final key, as well as to reactivate the four ancient ships which had carried the keys to the respective worlds ages ago - the [[Atlantis]], the [[Lemuria]], the [[Hyperborea]] and the [[Ogygia]]. Primus fused the four ships together to form the [[Ark (Cybertron)|Ark]], and with his powers subsequently restored by all four keys, he channelled all of his power through the Ark as a beam, straight into the heart of the black hole. With a massive blast, the black hole was finally sealed, and Primus transformed back into Cybertron - not Cybertron has it had been, but a new Cybertron, infused with the differing aspects of Velociton, Jungle Planet, Earth and Gigantion, a true paradise for Transformers and humans alike. {{storylink|End}}

====Fun Publications ''Cybertron'' comic====

While the Autobots were occupied with the quest for the Cyber Planet Keys, Unicron's heralds [[Ramjet (Universe)|Ramjet]] and [[Nemesis Prime (Universe)|Nemesis Prime]] arrived on Cybertron, intent on unleashing the [[Dead Matrix]] - as the Matrix was the antithesis of Unicron, so too would the Dead Matrix ensure the destruction of Primus, thereby totally destabilizing the multiverse and reducing it to a sea of entropic chaos. For the first time, it would be possible to Unicron to strike at Primus in all realities simultaneously, ending their cosmic feud once and for all.

Ramjet and Nemesis Prime were ultimately stopped by Vector Prime and allies [[Sentinel Maximus]] and [[Omega Prime]], plucked from the midst of the ''Universe'' conflict by the multiverse-warping energies of the black hole. The Dead Matrix, however, was cast into the heart of the black hole by Unicron's servant [[Soundwave (Cybertron)|Soundwave]], freeing Unicron's spark and allowing it to adopt a new, diminutive physical form. Unicron participated in the escalating Mini-Con civil war on Cybertron's moons, but when the planet transformed into Primus's robot mode, Unicron fled. His whereabouts are unknown.

====Kiss Players continuity====

While on an adventure through space and time, the singing group known as the [[Kiss Players (singing group)|Kiss Players]] - natives of the Generation 1 universe - were accidentally scattered across the multiverse, and found themselves in the Unicron Trilogy universe. [[Shaoshao Li]] and [[Zangetsu]] found themselves stranded on the surface of Cybertron, where they were menaced by [[Scrapmetal]]s. Shao was rescued by [[Safeguard (Cybertron)|Safeguard]], who told her that she stood upon Primus himself. Shortly thereafter, with help from [[Vector Prime]], the giant golden hand of the Primus from her native universe took her back home.

== IDW comics continuity ==

As of this writing, neither Unicron nor Primus has appeared in the new [[IDW Publishing|IDW comic universe]]. Writer [[Simon Furman]] has outright said that this universe will have "no Primus. No Unicron", while hinting IDW may be "poking and prodding around the pre-history of the Transformers... the very beginning". [http://forum.idwpublishing.com/viewtopic.php?t=2850] IDW publisher [[Chris Ryall]] has also stated "we're also going to do the TF origins this year [2008], too. That one will be called ''The Thirteen''". [http://www.seibertron.com/news/view.php?id=12209]

While [[author intent]] on its own could still leave room for an IDW Primus, if the upcoming story has a contradictory origin for the Transformers, that would retcon out the previous retcon, rendering Primus as being once again a feature of only some Transformer continuities. (And then some poor sod would have to heavily edit this article)

It is confirmed that there was ''a'' Primus in some shape or form, as Cybertronians were shown taking his name in vain while under attack in [[Megatron Origin, part 4]]. Furman's explanation for this in his blog is that this is not the G1 Primus, but it is possible there was "something or someone" called Primus at some point. [http://simonfurman.wordpress.com/2008/01/14/all-this-and-devastation-4/]

In the absence of Primus, there were some other interesting things to mention in Cybertronian religion. In the [[Stormbringer (comics)|Stormbringer]] miniseries, [[Jetfire (G1)|Jetfire]] and [[Scoop]] make mention of [[Primacron]] in an almost religious manner ("Primacron help us" and "Primacron only knows"). [[Bludgeon (G1)|Bludgeon]] claims that there is a spirit of Cybertron which needs to be appeased to restore Cybertron, which one could easily interpret as Primus. However, Bludgeon's idea of appeasing Cybertron was to allow [[Thunderwing (G1)|Thunderwing]] to destroy a bunch of planets in a mass sacrifice, so his sources (and his sanity) are a matter of debate.

==Primus in Japan==

While Primus has been a staple in Western Transformers fiction since 1988, the character has only recently made the leap across the Pacific to take part in the world of Japanese Transformers storylines.

===Unicron Trilogy===

Primus did not exist in Japanese Transformers fiction until he was introduced in ''Superlink'' (''Energon''). Although his nature is not fully divulged in the course of either this series or ''Galaxy Force'' (''Cybertron''), some early ''Superlink'' [http://web.archive.org/web/20041207164548/www.tfpulp.com/archive/energonprod/energonprod.html pre-production notes] go into the specifics of Primus's creation. Not particularly in-line with the Western multiversal origin of the character, they present Primus as an entity consisting purely of energon. Energon, the notes state, is the product of the "genetic material" of the sun interacting with planetary bodies - this, then, appears to be a very literal interpretation of Primus's role as a "light god," presenting him as an actual product of the light of the sun.

===Kiss Players/Teletraan Go! Go!===
[[Image:TGGPrimus.jpg|left|thumb|Now you need to get this toy.]]

The Japanese decided at last to introduce a "G1" equivalent of the character in the [[Kiss Players]] fiction of 2007, wholly distinct from the version seen in ''Energon'' and ''Cybertron'', since the character is not a multiversal singularity in Japan. Here, the character was envisioned as part of a complicated retcon that merged various animated concepts - [[Oracle (G1)|Primacron's assistant]], [[Vector Sigma]] and the [[Oracle]] - into one singular entity, who was also Primus.

Formerly the assistant to the Primacron, the ancient genius who created the giant mechanoid Unicron, the robotic being known as the Oracle was badly damaged when Unicron rebelled against his creator. His essence fled to a dead world at the centre of the galaxy, which he used his powers to transform into a verdant, green planet. This world was eventually discovered by the alien Quintessons, and the Oracle was captured and transformed into the mega-computer, [[Vector Sigma]]. The Oracle's world was transformed into the metallic planet of Cybertron, his powers were harnessed by the Quintessons to create the races of robots that would eventually become the Transformers, and the shell that had held his essence became the Matrix of Leadership.

[[Image:TGGPrimus2.jpg|right|thumb|100px|Primus = Oracle = Vector Sigma = Primacron's Assistant = aaaargh.]]

Eons later, in the year 2007, three of Unicron's servants, the [[Sparkbot]]s, co-opted the human singing group, the [[Kiss Players (singing group)|Kiss Players]], into helping them gather up the scattered [[Angolmois|essence]] of the master following his destruction in 2005. The three girls - [[Marissa Faireborn]], [[Atari Hitotonari]] and [[Shaoshao Li]] - were taken on a journey through space and time, and were tricked into believing that they were recovering fragments of the so-called "Allspark" from [[Autobot]] or [[Maximal]] leaders throughout history. The Oracle - by this stage calling himself Primus - was forced to intervene, appearing as a giant golden hand which began to steal away the fragments before the Kiss Players could gather them. Pursuing him across the multiverse, the Kiss Players collided with the [[Wall of Time]] and were scattered across dimensions.

Primus rescue the girls from the Unicron Trilogy universe and revealed the Sparkbots deception, before transforming into his "golden ark" mode (which Shaoshao thought looked more like a camper truck) to pursue the three villains back in time to prehistoric Earth. They arrived just in time to witness the Sparkbots' successful restoration of Unicron to life, but Primus transformed once more and unleashed the power of his mobile cannon platform, destroying Unicron's energy and sealing it and the Sparkbots deep within the planet. To ensure that Unicron would never be freed again, he created a mighty guardian, [[Fortress Maximus (RID)|Fortress Maximus]], who would watch over it and the Earth. With the battle over, Shaoshao asked about the Kiss Players' future, but Primus did not reply. His work complete, the god transformed into a golden sphere and went to sleep.

{{-}}

==Toys==
===Generation 1===
*'''God Primus''' (2004)
[[Image:GodPrimus1.jpg|left|thumb|150px|Popemobile, meet Godtruck]][[Image:GodPrimus2.jpg|right|thumb|150px|The Rod God.]]
:Unbeknowst to many Western fans, the first Primus figure was a "[[Lucky Draw]]" toy in Japan, a [[Vacuum metalizing|vacuum metalized]] gold chrome recolored [[Rodimus Prime]] that was given away as a contest prize from the collector book, ''[[Transformers: Generations]]''. Supposedly, only 100 pieces of these lucky draw figures were manufactured.
:As a [[redeco]] of a Rodimus (no doubt inspired by the resemblance of his astral form to Rodimus in the UK comics), Primus transforms into a futuristic truck resembling nothing so much as a winnebago. Following the trend started by Optimus Prime, his trailer splits down the middle to transform into a battle station with an extending double-barrelled cannon. The figure comes with a large, hand-held blaster, and two blast-shield accessories that plug into the sides of his battle station cannon.

===Cybertron===
*'''Cybertron Primus''' (Supreme, 2006)
: ''Japanese ID number:'' '''C-00'''

[[Image:Cybertron_Primus_toy.jpg|left|thumb|250px|Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven images.]]

:Cybertron Primus is the first toy representation of the Transformers' creator as their home planet of Cybertron. In planet mode, he is considerably more detailed than [[Unicron]] from the ''Armada'' line, with visible cities, including [[Iacon]], based upon its appearance in the [[DK Books]] ''[[Transformers Ultimate Guide]]'', and [[Kaon]] as seen in ''[[The War Within]]''. On the 'bottom' of the planet mode there are four hard rubber legs, molded to be shaped like towers, allowing Primus to be displayed in planet mode, yet not require a flat base as Unicron did.

:Primus's transformation is unusual, in many ways similar to a [[Powermaster]], in that he requires the owner to insert his accompanying Omega Lock accessory into several special ports around the planet, then manipulate it to unlock his parts and transform him. When the Omega Lock is inserted into his back and pushed, a transforming sound is heard. When it is inserted into his chest and pushed up to reveal his head, his eyes glow red and a laser-type sound effect is heard. The Lock itself lights up red when it is inserted into any of the ports.

:In robot mode, Primus resembles both the ''[[Beast Wars Neo]]'' Unicron prototype as well as [[Don Figueroa]]'s Primus concept, created for ''The War Within'' and used in ''The Ultimate Guide''. He is bristling with weaponry, including two shoulder-mounted cannons that can fire missiles, two forearm blasters that raise and extend when a Cyber Power Key is inserted, and several banks of [[wikipedia:Gatling_gun|gatling guns]], lasers and missile launchers in his shins and legs revealed by the Omega Lock.

:Primus also has what might charitably be called a third mode - an intergalactic world-ship, which is basically formed by transforming the figure halfway and leaving the head down and the legs backward. It features no dedicated parts or transformation steps, making it very obvious that it was created after the fact.It looks kinda like The Starship Enterprise...backwards.

:Primus comes with two accessories, the aforementioned battery-operated Omega Lock that lights up red when inserted into any of the four Omega Lock ports, and a special silver Cybertron-Planet Cyber Power Key. Any four Cyber Planet Keys can be inserted into the four key slots at the base of the Omega Lock, though doing this does not activate any feature. There are also nine inactive Mini-Con [[powerlinx]] ports on the Primus figure, including two on the claws on his legs.

:In North America, limited early-run versions of Cybertron Primus came packaged with a very creepy "battle damaged" Unicron head based upon his Armada appearance.

:A later version, [[exclusive]] to Wal-Mart as a [[Black Friday]] 2006 special, included four Mini-Cons; [[Strongarm (Cybertron)|Strongarm]], [[Knockdown (Cybertron)|Knockdown]], [[Nightscream (Cybertron)|Nightscream]], and [[Offshoot (Cybertron)|Offshoot]].

{{-}}

==Trivia==
* The original form of Primus in Marvel Comic continuity is similar to [[Hot Rod]] or Rodimus Prime.
* The myth of Primus and Unicron bears a little resemblance to the [[Wikipedia:Zoroastrianism|Zoroastrian]] myth of [[Wikipedia:Ahura Mazda|Ahura Mazda]] and [[Wikipedia:Ahriman|Ahriman]].

==See also==
*[[Allspark]]
*[[Vector Sigma]]

[[Category:Contest prizes]]
[[Category:Cybertron characters]]
[[Category:Energon characters]]
[[Category:Generation 1 characters]]
[[Category:Gods]]
[[Category:Kiss Players characters]]
[[Category:Planets]]
[[Category:Primus| ]]
[[Category:Universe characters]]
[[Category:Wal-Mart exclusives]]<div id="wikia-credits"> From [http://transformers.wikia.com Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki], a [http://www.wikia.com Wikia] wiki.</div>

Talk:Popular beast alternate modes

2008-04-07T00:46:46Z

75.168.112.43: /* Cobrabreast? */ new section

If we're going to have this page at all, we're going to have to at least try to respect biological classification: pick levels we deem noteworthy and then stick with them across all groups. "Panther" is not a real animal name. Work in progress... --[[User:Thylacine 2000|Thylacine 2000]] 02:25, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

:Should we just eliminate the common names, then? Everyone should still know what we're talking about if we just say ''Panthera'' and ''Gorilla'', surely. -[[User:Rotty|Rotty]] 02:56, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

::But they won't automatically know what we're talking about when they see ''Acinonyx'' or ''Ceratotherium''. Though I guess it becomes clear when you list the characters beneath them. --[[User:Thylacine 2000|Thylacine 2000]] 03:56, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

:Thy, I have to disagree. We are writing this article for random laypeople that want to know about shared beast forms, not biologists. I think the page becomes significantly less useful if we do anything other than refer to the animals at the level at which random uneducated people will refer to them. None of the organization should be erroneous, of course, but random people will know the difference between at least some big cat species, and we should reflect that by splitting the big cats up. Readers will ''care'' whether the altmode is a lion versus a tiger, or perhaps even a polar bear versus some other variety of bear. But most people don't really know or care about different scorpions, for instance, so there is no need to split them up. --[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 04:19, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

::I agree with Steve, but I think it would serve to identify both ways. If we categorize with general "layman" animal types, we can give a scientific name, perhaps in parentheses, following the Transformer name on each entry into the list. --[[User:Sntint|Sntint]] 04:33, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

:::We don't need to do that after every Transformer's name! I already broke all the vertebrates except "Bats" and "Rhinos" (which need work) down to the genus in parentheses. -[[User:Rotty|Rotty]] 05:27, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

::::Well, then for those for whom it is necessary or pertinent? List the bats and rhinos as bats and rhinos, then specify after each individual's name. For the sake of information. --[[User:Sntint|Sntint]] 05:44, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

==Dinoforce==
Are we to include these guys? Does the disguise of the shell count as an "alternate mode" to the robot, even if it's a mode that doesn't resemble that of the inner altmode (unlike Carnivac and Catilla, who unambiguously do fit on this list)?
Also, while I'm here, the pterosaur shit is really hard because I honestly don't remember which "Swoop" and "Terranotron" came out in BM or Armada and which ones were naming errors on instruction sheets and whatnot. --[[User:Thylacine 2000|Thylacine 2000]] 19:51, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
:I don't consider a Pretender shell to be a "mode" at all. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 20:04, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
::Yeah, considering Pretender shells can have modes of their own, not to mention several pretenders already being listed on the virtue of their inner body's alt-mode.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]] 21:17, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

==Snapdragon==
Anyone feels that though his name has "Dragon", but his altmode looks like kinda dinosaur rather the Dragon. -- [[User:TX55|TX55]] 09:02, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
: He's not readily identifiable as any sort of creature other than "upright lizardy guy" so no, not really. It's not like he's blatantly a t. rex or what-have-you. [[User:Hooper X|-hx]] 12:50, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

==Speaking of which...==
I kind of think we should break "Dragons" down to "Traditional Dragons" and "Two-Headed Dragons," since we've got quite a few of those out there (RiD Megs, Hun-Grr, Doublecross, Sinnertwin sorta... I feel like I'm forgetting someone. Anyway, just a thought. I don't think there's any other fantasy monsters that are as common or as identifiable. [[User:Hooper X|-hx]] 12:52, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
:Singular and Double Dragons?--[[User:Zodberg|Zodberg]] 13:44, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
::Multi-headed. Cyb. Scourge has 3 heads. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 15:11, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

== Megatron in Beast Machines-Dragon Category ==

When he gets angry in beast machines he drops out of the armor and changes to a dragon. Why isn't this in there? It only lists Beast Wars Megatron's Dragon form currently. If there's a good reason I'm missing, please inform me. [[User:Mrhthepie|Mrhthepie]]
:It COULD be because BW Megatron is already listed, much like how Deathsaurus is only listed once instead of twice (his original Japanese toy form and his Botcon exclusive toy). BM Megatron and BW Megatron are the same character. --[[User:Detour|Detour]] 21:32, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

== Cobrabreast? ==

Who is Cobrabreast? Is he a Beastformer? A Breastmaster component? -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 00:46, 7 April 2008 (UTC)<div id="wikia-credits"> From [http://transformers.wikia.com Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki], a [http://www.wikia.com Wikia] wiki.</div>

Talk:Transformers: Shattered Glass (franchise)

2008-04-06T21:33:30Z

75.168.112.43: /* Continuity family */

==Character list==

Should we add one, now that Roddy's been confirmed, (complete with twisty tache)

I think we should, since the story seems that it will revolve around Cliffjumper. Rodimus is confirmed so is 'Jumper so I think we should. Anyone else think we should?[[User:AWT88|AWT88]] 17:45, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

==Separate Continuity?==
So Siph brought it up and Steve-o and I talked about it for a bit... Anyway, how are we going to treat the characters from BotCon 2008? From what we know about the set, it's clearly just G1-but-evil, so I don't think it's different enough to pass off as a separate continuity family. On the other hand, it'd be cleaner to give them their own pages. Meanwhile, pages like Optimus Prime's are long enough that even his fiction sections need to begin being split off anyway.

What I think we should do, at the moment, is treat Mirror Optimus Prime as a split from G1 Prime's page. As.... [[Optimus Prime (G1 mirror)]], maybe? Also, uh, create some [[Optimus Prime (G1 cartoon)]] and [[Optimus Prime (G1 Marvel)]] pages and the like. Akin to Wikipedia, Optimus Prime's main page should have abbreviated versions of these sections which link to the full versions on separate pages. --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 02:38, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
:I'm not so sure I'm up for splitting the pages around. True, some like Optimus and Megatron are quite large, but some of them are also ''quite'' small. I just don't think that we should split up just because a page is getting large. We've discussed that kinda idea at Wookieepedia before, and we concluded that it would just be easier to keep it all at one page. -- [[User:SFH|SFH]] 02:45, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
::I'm also against splitting up large pages of main characters, since keeping it all in one page would help readers get the full history of the character (well as much as we've written) from the various continuities. Easier for editing too, if one doesn't need to keep track of two different fictional versions of the same character on two different pages (three if you also have to add a summerised version on the main Optimus Prime (G1) page).
::As for Mirror Prime... how about we just call him Optimus Prime (Mirror)? --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 03:05, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
:::Technically, he shouldn't be a new page, so long as he's clearly a G1 Prime. --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 03:39, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps giving them [[Timelines]] parentheticals would be valid?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 02:50, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Look who all's in the set... Prime, Jazz, Bumblebee, Grimlock and Starscream. Aren't all those pages already hideously long? --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 02:52, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
And oh yeah. I'm against splitting up the Fiction sections. Toys into their own, yes. But I'm leery of splitting up Fiction. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 03:07, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
:So in ten years, when Optimus Prime's page is three times as long, that'll be okay? That sounds a little ridiculous. --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 03:13, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

:'''About fiction sections:''' What Walky and I discussed perhaps hasn't been clearly explained here: We're not saying to take the fiction section out entirely like we did with "toys". The idea is that in the case of very long articles (like Prime's), we can take, say, the cartoon subsection, create a new article out of it, and in its spot on the main Prime page just have a summary of the high points with a note "see this other article for all the details". (Of course, his cartoon subsection right now isn't especially complete anyway. He appears in nearly every episode of Seasons 1-2 but most of those events aren't mentioned.) Important stuff in the main article, excruciating detail in a separate article. Perhaps it's not quite time for that yet, but eventually it will be. Like Walky says, G1 Prime's fiction section is just going to get longer and longer.
:'''About Shattered Glass guys:''' If we treat them as distinct characters with their own pages, I think "Shattered Glass" is the appropriate parenthetical. Definitely not "mirror" since that word doesn't seem to be in the description of the set. There should definitely be linking between the Shattered and normal articles, though. Perhaps even with the normal guys having a Timeslines: Shattered Glass subsection that says "see this other article for his evil counterpart".
:--[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 03:47, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
::Hmm...I suppose that's okay, if we keep the main highlights in the main article. But I also agree that now is not the time. -- [[User:SFH|SFH]] 03:53, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
:::Then when? Optimus Prime's page, even sans toys, is already twice as long than is recommended. --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 03:57, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

::Considering that we treat Universe Obsidian, Tankor, and Inferno as distinct characters with their own pages despite just being alternate timeline variations, then clearly the Shattered Glass guys should get their own articles. "Shattered Glass" would be my choice of parenthetical as well. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 03:58, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
:::Frankly, I've been against splitting those dudes up for some time. --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 03:59, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

::I vote for these dudes getting their own pages. If they're "mirror" versions, they have completely different personalities and hence would need completely new profile writeups as well as fiction sections. If you wanna compare Tankor and Obsidian, they were basically the same dudes; they'd just made different choices along the line. This doesn't seem to be the case for the Shattered Glass guys. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 21:25, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Hey, PacifistPrime here.

I just thought I'd chip in with my two cents, since I created these first ''Shattered Glass'' articles last night. I think we should keep the articles for these characters separate, at least for now. Although yes, obviously, it does '''''appear''''' to be the case that ''Shattered Glass'' is just "Mirror G1" (as it were), we don't actually '''''know''''' that yet. I mean, to be fair, I think some of us are gettng ahead of ourselves here. Until we know otherwise for sure, I'm of the opinion that we should treat these as separate characters (just like the alternate universe [[Optimus Prime (Worlds Collide)|Optimus Prime from the ''Armada'' comic]]. I mean, if ''he'' gets his own page, then I think these guys should.

And I certainly think "Shattered Glass" is the preferable paranthetical, since there is (as yet) no other official term like "mirror" being used in relation to the set. Furthermore, it fits with our general naming convention of using the title of the character's native franchise/continuity, e.g. [[Thrust (Armada)]], [[Tankor (BM)]], [[Grimlock (Animated)]] etc..

Cheers,
--[[User:PacifistPrime|PacifistPrime]]
:Hey, PP, could you sign your posts with four tildes, so we can see what time you made the post? It helps for keeping track of discussions.
:On-topic, we're staring at the fundamental problem of how "different" a continuity needs to be, to no longer be G1. The most inclusive definition seems to be, "If all the robot characters have the same names and approximate roles as characters from the G1 toyline, it's a G1 continuity. Unless it's the Movie." Time period is irrelevant, human characters are irrelevant, when and how the robots came to Earth is irrelevant, altmodes are irrelevant, the origin of the TF species is irrelevant . . . et cetera.
:But, if want to include Shattered Glass as a G1 continuity, we need to drop "approximate role". Unless "who's the good guy and who's the bad guy" is not considered to be part of "role". [[User:JW|JW]] 21:32, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
::Well, you gotta remember that part of the reason for the continuity family splits here on the Wiki is simple bookkeeping and convenience. The Movie has a big G1 influence; it could also be considered a ground-up reinvention; but either way, it heralded an unprecedented avalanche of new toys, characters and fiction. That alone was a good reason to separate it. By contrast, I don't think Shattered Glass will go much further than a story or two, some bios, and a small set of toys. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 21:45, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
:::''"part of the reason for the continuity family splits here on the Wiki is simple bookkeeping and convenience"''
:::Granted. However, part of our current problem is that a lot of little things have added up to become a big thing. If OP (G1) was just the Marvel comic and the original cartoon, he'd be more manageable, but a bajillion little G1-ish bits have been added on to him. We can keep adding little bits on to him, or we can say that some of them are different enough to warrant a new page. The universe in which he's a murderous fiend fits that bill.
:::(Our criteria can't sensibly be ''size,'' after all.) [[User:JW|JW]] 22:01, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
::::Oh, yeah, I'm all for giving the ''characters'' their own pages -- they share names and bodies, but they have new personalities. But it sounded like some people are wondering if SG should be a whole different continuity family, which IMO is overkill -- I think it can easily fit under the G1 umbrella. I might have just misunderstood what someone was saying, too. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 22:15, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Based on what is known so far about the set/story, I have the following positions:
#Shattered Glass should be placed under the G1 umbrella. Yes, Prime is now evil, but he's still the leader, etc.. His role isn't ''that'' different.
#Each Shattered Glass character should have their own character page, with links back and forth to their "regular" character. Despite thinking of Shattered Glass as being G1, I think that the character differences ''in concert with'' bookkeeping/convenience factors make splitting the best option. I don't want my Bumblebee fiction section to be full of all this stuff about "normal" Bumblebees and then in the middle there's this random evil Bumblebee who has no fictional connections to all the surrounding material.
--[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 17:03, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
: I suppose that works. --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 17:19, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
:Steve-o, I'm curious as to what you mean by "fictional connection". I mean, is the fictional connection between OP (IDW) and OP (Marvel) stronger than the fictional connection between OP (Marvel) and OP (Shattered Glass)?
:(Of course, all this essentially gets back to the problem that OP (Marvel) and OP (Sunbow) are from two different universes, but were represented by the same toy(s), and came into being at the same time, so they're "the same guy". I can't find a way of disagreeing with that which doesn't lead to more problems than it solves. Like, those G1 toys who didn't appear in fiction {{m-}} are they from the Marvel universe, the Sunbow universe, or somewhere else entirely? Bleh!) [[User:JW|JW]] 17:58, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
::"Connection" isn't really the right word, but it was the best I could come up with at the time. "Similarity", maybe? I mean, the Bumblebee fiction would read like...
::{{quote|'''Continuity X''': Bumblebee loves humans and does lots of funny and cute stuff to help save the universe. '''Continuity Y''': Bumblebee loves humans and does lots of different but still funny and cute stuff to help save the universe. '''Shattered Glass''': Bumblebee is hardcore evil and wants to kill you for no particular reason. '''Continuity Z''': Bumblebee loves humans and does yet another set of funny and cute stuff to help save the universe.}}
::And that's just not a sensible page. Makes way more sense to split him out.
::--[[User:Steve-o|Steve-o]] 19:59, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
Heya, PacifistPrime here again. I agree that the characters should have separate pages (I mean, if [[Optimus Prime (Worlds Collide)]] gets a page, then ''surely''...!), but I'm unclear about the designation of the overall continuity/universe. Are we simply talking about category tags here, or something else? From a metafictional, rather than organisational, point of view I've always preferred (somewhat controversially) to have a more conservative view of G1 than the "everything but the movie" approach favoured here. In my view, broad issues of toy-accurate altmodes and basic storyline-premise/character mythology are pretty important, which is why I've always argued that the IDWverse and the MovieVerse are each different enough to all prior versions of G1 (even if they're not ''equally'' dissimilar) that they should '''both''' be considered to fall within ''or'' without the G1 continuity family. And, in developments since I originally aired this opinion, I'd say the same now goes for ''Transformers Animated'', which is also evidently a deeply G1-ish universe.

Indeed, now that we've got Animated in the mix, I'd argue that it's become even ''less'' defensible that the IDWverse is being categorised here as part of G1 when these other two aren't. Although it takes some cues from the MovieVerse, granted, I think it's a pretty hard sell to deem Animated as being ''all that much more'' radically different from G1 than the IDWverse, given that both use almost exclusively G1 characters with non-G1-toy accurate designs and drastically different basic storyline premises, human characters and background mythos. Apart from a debatable organisational imperative to avoid splitting articles, I increasingly fail to see a reasonable rational for lumping IDW in with G1 when Animated and Movie are not.

But I digress. As far as ''Shattered Glass'' ' category is concerned, I think it should be regarded as a separate [[continuity]] but probably not belonging to a separate [[continuity family]], ''at least until we know more''.

Also, aren't we jumping the gun a bit with the Timelines categorisation? Sure, it's extremely probable that it'll get that designation, but shouldn't we wait until this is official?

Cheers, [[User:PacifistPrime|PacifistPrime]][[User:PacifistPrime|PP]] 07:49, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

:<nowiki>*dittos everything PP posted about IDW*</nowiki> - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 19:28, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

==Bring in the funny==
Since this is all about evil twins, I submit that the article is in desperate need of a joke about how they will mainly be identified by their goatees. Anyone else?

(Clearly, however, it would have to be written so that its status as a '''joke''' is clear, lest anyone be misled) [[User:Buttbutt|Buttbutt]] 01:09, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Just remember that Omega Trion would have no facial hair, unlike his good universe counterpart. --[[User:Blue Spider|Blue Spider]] 05:28, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

== The comic ==

...oh God, there's comic preview pages on the Botcon site.

The whole thing is drawn to look like a G2 homage. Linestyle, coloring, ''everything''.

It even has a ''huge'' sprinkling of Furmanisms.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 05:11, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
:Is this supposed to be April Fools? I'm not seeing anything on the Botcon page. All I see is a drawing of a robotic hand on the TF Club main page. They say the comic previews will go up on the 3rd. --[[User:Detour|Detour]] 05:40, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
:Nevermind, found em. [http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/conventions-15/botcon-comic-preview-and-more-guests-announced-this-week-164541/] --[[User:Detour|Detour]] 05:43, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
::Yeah. Not linked on the main site, but ''hosted'' there. These brought tears to my eyes. They're just made of ''100% pure win''.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 05:45, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
:::This is unmitigated awesome. I love it. They've even got the Double Pretender spider in the background on the second page, wot? The good versions of the evil Botcon characters are pure hilarity.--[[User:MCRG|MCRG]] 06:48, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Is that... is that Shattered Glass Cicadacon? Dude!
::::Edit: No... no, wait, I'm an idiot. Still bucket-loads of awesome, though - [[User:Semysane|Semysane]] 07:17, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::Oh lordy, they're trying to kill the Wiki.

:::::We've got:
:::::*[[Astrotrain (Shattered Glass)]]
:::::*[[Astro-Hook (Shattered Glass)]]
:::::*[[Astro-Line (Shattered Glass)]]
:::::*[[Astro-Sinker (Shattered Glass)]]
:::::*[[Bug Bite (Shattered Glass)]]
:::::*[[Buzzclaw (Shattered Glass)]] or [[Dirge (Shattered Glass)]] (or [[Dirge (Shattered Glass Insecticon)]])
:::::*[[Buzzsaw (Timelines)]]
:::::*[[Deathsaurus (Timelines)]]
:::::*[[Dirge (Shattered Glass)]] (or [[Dirge (Shattered Glass Seeker)]]) or [[Thrust (Timelines)]]
:::::*[[Overbite (Timelines)]]
:::::*[[Seawing (Timelines)]]
:::::*[[Snaptrap (Timelines)]]
:::::*[[Tentakil (Timelines)]]
:::::*[[Thundercracker (Timelines)]]

:::::If they use both Dirges, I will kill somebody. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 07:27, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
::::::To keep things from cluttering up the wiki, I'd suggest a general [[Mayhem Suppression Squad]] page for those guys, seeing as they're only in one panel. Point out that they're Good-Alternate-Universe-Doppelgangers of their 'real' versions, link to said 'real' versions from there and call it a day. [[User:Omnibus|Omnibus]] 19:24, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::::Seems to be the most sensible approach. Should have a sizable trivia section explaining that every one of these was a convention exclusive.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 19:36, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
The whole "I, Grimlock, wot?" thing transcends cool into sublime. [[User:JW|JW]] 11:25, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh my christ. They actually made this universe hilariously awesome. Way to fucking go, Savage & Co. [[User:Hooper X|-hx]] 13:56, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
:If you ask me, this makes ''all'' the difference. All the goofiness of the concept of this universe, all the silly looks of the figures, all of this is vindicated in this moment with this the most sublime of convention comics. I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for the Diamond edition of this.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 17:21, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
::...well crud. It was just Sipher pulling one over on us. It could have been beautiful. I want blood, Sipher! Blooooood!--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 17:40, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
:::I KNEW it was too well-written to be a Botcon comic! --[[User:74.57.3.251|74.57.3.251]] 17:47, 1 April 2008 (UTC) ([[User:Detour|Detour at work]])
I dub this "Shattered Expectations"... though I don't think we're DONE with this goofyass take at all. At least, not if we have any say about it. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 18:22, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
:...So, horribly-dashed expectations of awesomeness aside, how Official are the April Fools' Pages? Does Shattered Glass Jazz get a "Shattered Expectations" sub-heading along the lines of the Marvel Comics Continuity/Animated Continuity divide where it says "He was totally G2ishly Evil Mr. T"? [[User:Omnibus|Omnibus]] 18:36, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
::I actually think we ought to do exactly that. Jazz talking like Mr. T is too much fun to go unchronicled.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 18:53, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Depending on how utterly shit the finished comic is, I hereby present the possibility of forgoing "Shattered Expectations" (which could mean something ''better'' than what you expected) and using "Shattered Hopes" (which means "Man, this is shit"). - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 19:48, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

:These definately need to be in there. Especially since Fun Pub now plans to go back to them at some point since the fandom that they thought would hate it actually loved these better than just about everything else they've ever done. :) Not sure the best way to tag them though.[[User:71.235.142.128|71.235.142.128]] 19:51, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Hey, what's Wiki policy on images from Shattered Expectations? Except for the APRIL FOOL'S! page, they aren't actually officially hosted anywhere public, even though they were intentionally uploaded and kept incredibly-obviously-easily-discovered-secret with the intention of having someone figuring out how to incredibly-obviously easily discover and share them.{{unsigned|Omnibus}}
:Good question. Sipher, can we consider these to be officially released material (and thus fair game for comic panels)?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:29, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
::I think it should be all good. I mean, it was MEANT to be spread... like your mom. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 21:56, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Hey, I'm going to go ahead and ask if anyone want's to put up what the preview pages (posted '''today''') on the fiction, or just leave it with the joke Fun Pub pulled over on us? I'm running tight on time right now and if no one has seen the 3 pages, it depicts the real Cliffjumper, going through some kinda rift on Earth and ending up on a Cybertron that is all kinds of backwards for him. Not to mention that Hot Rod looks awesome in Decepticon colors ''and'' a freaking goatte. Just wanna throw this out there because I'm not the best when it comes to writing some of this stuff. Whadda think?[[User:AWT88|AWT88]] 01:27, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
:...if Hot Rod with a Spock-style Van Dyke is the bagged exclusive for the convention, I may have to sell my blood to be able to afford him.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 02:34, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

== Continuity family ==

I think we can safely say that it's no longer "unknown" how Shattered Glass will fit into existing continuity families. We've got Cliffjumper arriving immediately after his plot in the Fan Club comic. It's pretty plainly in the world-hopping Timelines continuity family now.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 18:27, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
:Timelines isn't a "continuity family" at all. It's an over-arching name that includes things from multiple continuity families. [[Landquake (Timelines)]] is from the Unicron Trilogy. [[Games of Deception]] is a Timelines story that takes place in G1. Etc. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 18:35, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
::Kil is right. Timelines is not a continuity family, but a bunch of loosely-affiliated stories that take place across several continuity families. --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 19:28, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Meanwhile, I'm inclined to believe it's part of G1, since everyone so far (even the hi-then-dies) is a direct analog to a G1 character. The only exception is the April Fools version with Cybertron Astrotrain and his Mini-Cons, and even then, that's just a G1 analog dude. If Hot Shot or Tidal Wave show up or something, I'll change my mind, but until then...--[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 19:30, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
::::We should call it the "1G" continuity. --[[User:Thylacine 2000|Thylacine 2000]] 19:43, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::The 3-page preview actually makes it seem like this is the classics universe, and something caused the autobots to become evil and the decepticons to become good--[[User:Autobotx1010|Autobotx1010]] 20:35, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
::::::I'm not really getting that impression at all. Cliffjumper had a counterpart in this universe, and that counterpart is either dead or working for the Decepticons. Ruckus seemed to recognize him.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 21:00, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::::''"I'm inclined to believe it's part of G1"'' I dunno, with Razorclaw in there, this timeline has ''prominent'' Mini-Cons. (No doubt creations of the heroic planet-regurgitating Unicron.) I'd say it's a whole new beast. [[User:JW|JW]] 21:22, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
::::::::Classics has Mini-Cons. (And is Razorclaw even a Mini-con? They refer to him as a Predacon, shrunk down. Isn't he supposed to be G1 Razorclaw?) -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 21:33, 6 April 2008 (UTC)<div id="wikia-credits"> From [http://transformers.wikia.com Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki], a [http://www.wikia.com Wikia] wiki.</div>

User talk:Blue Spider

2008-04-05T07:46:32Z

75.168.112.43:

...ominous. However, it's easier to get stuff done on a wiki by actually ''doing it'' rather than pointing out shortcomings.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 01:58, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

:Oh boy, I hope he's here to edit out all the needless frivolity and mirth that makes this wiki so useless and unreadable! [[User:Hooper X|-hx]] 02:16, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

::I've done stuff. But the ideas I have can't be done if I haven't been doing little things to prove that I'm not just a jerk making stupid comments and poking at people. For instance, I love frivolity and mirth, especially the kind that many don't see the use in. Attaching the removal of mirth to me at any point, however, makes you a tool. --[[User:Blue Spider|Blue Spider]] 02:42, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I can't wait to find out why we suck so horribly. You must be blessed with wisdom beyond all known capacities, non-contributor. Soon we will learn the silly error of our ways! --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 03:05, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
:So the stuff I think should be added to six or so articles and another kind of information thrown into all the characters profiles.... means that I think "you" "suck"? Wow! That's oversensitive. --[[User:Blue Spider|Blue Spider]] 03:47, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
::I'm beginning to think you don't interact with people much, at least not through text. Your user page is (was) extremely pretentious. --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 03:54, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
:::What part is the pretentious? The part that did not say the wiki sucked or the part that did not say it needed me or anything I type? Now, it was brusque and left open the possibility that I think the wiki sucks. I'm a bit surprised that I have to clarify stuff specifically in my own User page in order to head off suspicions that I hate things. As for "interactions".... I really don't interact much in this kind of thing, no: generally when I type something short and non-informative in my User page I don't get messages telling me how horrible I am, or guessing that my intentions are contrary to the community's themes. I'm not used to automatic assumption that I didn't read half of the FAQs and guides regarding humor. --[[User:Blue Spider|Blue Spider]] 04:17, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
::::In the time you've spent dithering with this, you probably could've fixed whatever problems you've noted. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 04:24, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::Hell, he doesn't even have to fix the problems himself. All he had to do was tell us what's wrong instead of "I'll tell you in a week." That wastes time and accomplishes nothing.

:::::I wonder if we're just being trolled. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 04:31, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::Eeeeeexactly. "I think there are things that need improving on this wiki and I'll tell you next week what they are" is not exactly ''encouraging''. Actions speak louder, and too much navel gazing doesn't get anything done.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|Talk]] 04:33, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Holy crap. Two sentences are interpreted as me thinking there are problems that need to be addressed and that things suck. I never thought that I had to say that things I didn't say outright are things I didn't mean to imply. I think I was having more fun when I left my User page blank and was outright ignored. --[[User:Blue Spider|Blue Spider]] 04:39, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
:The content and tone of the first 3 sentences of your userpage is nearly identical to a recurring troll (or possibly trolls) who've harassed this wiki. Saying the wiki has problems but you won't deign to explain what they are right now does not endear. Your total contributions thus far are miscellaneous trivia or potshots that got reverted. No one's accusing you of being a troll- but there is a cynical skepticism until you actually contribute non-token content. -[[User:75.168.112.43|75.168.112.43]] 07:46, 5 April 2008 (UTC)<div id="wikia-credits"> From [http://transformers.wikia.com Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki], a [http://www.wikia.com Wikia] wiki.</div>

Holepunch (G1)

2008-04-05T05:58:29Z

75.168.112.43:

:''Holepunch is a [[Nebulan]] [[Targetmaster|Double Targetmaster]] partnered with [[Tracer (Nebulan)|Tracer]] and the [[Autobot]] [[Scoop]] in the [[Generation 1]] continuity family.''

[[Image:Holepunch dt.jpg|thumb|Five citations, and you're looking at a violation. Four of those, and you'll receive a verbal warning. Keep it up, and you're looking at a written warning. Two of those, that'll land you in a world of hurt in the form of a disciplinary review, written up by me and placed on the desk of my immediate superior.]]

Holepunch is a bureaucrat from hell. He compensates for his complete lack of people skills or formal managerial training with the natural gifts of a bossy attitude and inflated sense of his own importance.

As an office manager for a water purification company on Nebulos, Holepunch had only his subordinates to terrorize. When the Decepticons invaded, Holepunch (doubtless encouraged by his co-workers) concluded the Autobots were in need of his special touch.

Holepunch turns into a dual compression cannon capable of shattering steel. As a "double" Targetmaster, Holepunch is able to combine with Tracer to increase the power of his own weapon or boost the power of Tracer's ion blaster.

Holepunch is unable to suppress his managerial instincts. As a result he drains the productivity and damages the morale of any unit to which he's assigned.

==Fiction==
===Marvel Comics continuity===
Scoop wielded Holepunch and Tracer in "double weapon" mode during a series of fuel raids on Cybertron alongside the recently revived Grimlock, Jazz and Bumblebee. When [[Hook (G1) (Unicron)|Hook]], [[Line (G1)|Line]] and [[Sinker (G1)|Sinker]] attacked some months later, Flintlock, Silencer and the other Nebulan "double" Targetmasters appeared absent.

==Toys==
*'''Scoop with Holepunch and Tracer''' (Targetmaster, 1988)
[[Image:G1 Scoop toy.jpg|thumb|right|150px|I believe you have my stapler.]]

:Holepunch, like all the "double" Targetmaster Nebulans, is one of the smallest and least complicated Transformers. Fold the barrel away, and stand him up. He can also combine with Tracer to form a rifle. He was released with the Autobot Scoop in 1988. No version of this character or mold was released in Japan.

{{-}}

==External links==
*[http://www.tfu.info/1988/Autobot/Scoop/scoop.htm Holepunch Tracer and Scoop on TFU.info]
*[http://www.ntfa.net/universe/english/index.php?act=view&char=Scoop Scoop's Transformers Universe profile on NTFA]

[[Category: Autobots]]
[[Category: Nebulans]]
[[Category: Targetmasters]]<div id="wikia-credits"> From [http://transformers.wikia.com Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki], a [http://www.wikia.com Wikia] wiki.</div>

G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers continuity

2008-04-03T01:41:52Z

75.168.112.43: grammar doesn't work that way

[[Image:RTPrimePatriot.jpg|thumb|250px|Art from one of the early (unproduced) concepts for the third G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers series.]]

'''''G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers''''' is an ongoing series-of-miniseries published by [[Devil's Due Press]], who currently holds the G.I. Joe comic-book license.

The JOEvTF universe is set apart from both the ongoing [[G.I. Joe]] or [[Transformers]] comics by its overriding sense of ''fun''. Because neither group of fans takes this crossover universe very seriously, it revels in its ability to do whatever it wants, kill important characters, or change the world. For example the [[G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers: Black Horizon|fourth series]] seems to be a gleeful exercise in throwing as many ideas that fans love to hate as possible into one story (principally [[Cobra-La]] and the [[Pretender]]s) and telling a pulp adventure with them.

==Production==
Devil's Dues' ''G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers'' was originally the counterpart to [[Dreamwave Productions]]' ''[[Transformers/G.I. Joe]]''. The series were published ''offset'', so that the Dreamwave series began as the Devil's Due series ended, with little overlap in-between.

Devil's Due changed the second series from six issues into four (with double-sized first and last issues) in order to get the last issue published before Dreamwave lost the Transformers [[Hasbro|license]] (and to avoid the legal headache around their right to publish the end of the series.)

Initially, each series was not planned ahead of time, leading to a somewhat disjointed overall story arc (technology given to humans after the first story is being decommissioned at the beginning of the second). Many different story ideas were considered for the second and third series, but subsequent series have followed 'seeds' (obvious hooks) of stories planted earlier.

A fifth series (if produced) is expected to feature [[Iron Klaw]].

==Universe==
In 2003, the newly-founded [[Cobra]] unearthed the ''[[Ark (G1)|Ark]]'', containing 39 Transformers, which it sought to reprogram to use as weapons, triggering a series of increasingly bizarre encounters between [[Earth]] and [[Cybertron (planet)|Cybertron]].

Ironically, this [[reboot]] of the G.I. Joe timeline, founding the organization in 2003 instead of 1982, makes most of the team children of the 1980s.

The JOEvTF universe includes a version of the ''[[Beast Wars]]'' series in its past. {{Storylink|The Art of War issue 1}}

==Series==
{{picsneeded|Omnibus}}
# ''[[G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers]]'' (2003–2004)
# ''[[G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers II]]'' (2004)
# ''[[G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers: The Art of War]]'' (2006)
# ''[[G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers: Black Horizon]]'' (2007)

* All four series have also been collected in a ''G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers Omnibus'', published in January 2008.

[[Category:Continuities]]
[[Category:Generation 1]]
[[Category:G.I. Joe properties]]<div id="wikia-credits"> From [http://transformers.wikia.com Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki], a [http://www.wikia.com Wikia] wiki.</div>