User talk:Abates/Archive 1

Screencaps

Your tastes in screencaps is impeccable. :D -- Repowers 01:21, 5 October 2008 (EDT)

Heh, thanks! :) --abates 01:37, 5 October 2008 (EDT)

You don't need to use the actual title cards for the main picture of episode articles. Awhile back we decided that those are redundant for the most part, so we've taken to using screencaps of scenes that are pivotal, sum up the episode and are just plain funny. For example The Ultimate Weapon. --FFN 08:50, 5 October 2008 (EDT)

Aha! Noted. Thanks :) --abates 15:46, 5 October 2008 (EDT)

And again! The BW pages are looking great. Keep 'em coming! -- Repowers 00:37, 30 November 2008 (EST)

Thanks! Almost halfway though :) --abates 01:31, 30 November 2008 (EST)

This Pic

Could you please retake this shot? It's full of little jaggies - check out the lines on Prime's shoulder and elbow. Thanks. --Monzo 12:08, 12 October 2008 (EDT)

That's how it looks in the episode - the image they used is from the end of a zooming-out shot in "An Explosive Situation", so it looks like they did a video freeze on the last frame and overlayed the clips on the top monitors. Unfortunately it was the only "someone watching footage on a monitor" shot I could find (there's another identical shot of Prime later on, but it has the same problem). --abates 16:20, 12 October 2008 (EDT)

Kudos

Your RID pages are excellent. Thanks for taking on a task that not many of us are willing to face. -- Repowers 23:31, 21 October 2008 (EDT)

Thanks! I love the show, so I'm enjoying rewatching it. :) --abates 01:08, 22 October 2008 (EDT)

Your Quote sections in particular are reminding me of what a fun show it was... particularly in light of what came after. -- Repowers 10:09, 22 October 2008 (EDT)

So devoutly seconded. -- Greenygal 15:48, 22 October 2008 (EDT)

Thanks very much for doing the work on these! --Thylacine 2000 10:08, 24 October 2008 (EDT)

Dude - awesome idea: Can you change the title card of The Ultimate Robot Warrior to an image where Buddha is firing missiles out of his mouth? Because it's so wrong it amuses me. --FFN 05:33, 29 October 2008 (EDT)

Done! --abates 05:45, 29 October 2008 (EDT)

Thanks mate. Bwahahahaha! --FFN 05:56, 29 October 2008 (EDT)

Must chime in with thanks. This is simply great work.--Rosicrucian^Talk 02:57, 22 November 2008 (EST)

Thanks! :) --abates 03:46, 22 November 2008 (EST)

Armada eps

Jeebus, now you're doing Armada episode recaps! As Repowers said last time with the RID recaps, thanks for doing what many of us are reluctant to do (and I like Armada). --FFN 02:56, 16 November 2008 (EST)

Just the two for the moment. I want to focus on finishing the RID character pages, but I happened to have the first three episodes of Armada handy. :) --abates 03:07, 16 November 2008 (EST)

More Than Meets the Eye, Part 1

Wondering why you removed the navigation box I put on this article? Admittedly it didn't come out perfectly, but it seemed to work and fulfilled a good function so why not just modify it?Khajidha 15:42, 16 November 2008 (EST)

Because it's completely redundant? The infobox on the top right does exactly the same thing. - Chris McFeely 15:45, 16 November 2008 (EST)

Just coming back to admit that I missed that. It does seem a little odd that the navigation box for the first episode doesn't match those for later episodes, but if everyone else wants it that way...Khajidha 15:48, 16 November 2008 (EST)

Oh, that's just a case of the other pages not having been updated with the newer template yet. We haven't been using the new one for that long. - Chris McFeely 15:50, 16 November 2008 (EST)

Okay. Didn't mean to cause any trouble.Khajidha 16:02, 16 November 2008 (EST)

The episode template doesn't support seasons yet which I think is why it's not in wider use. --abates 16:09, 16 November 2008 (EST)

BW request

Hey, if you've got you Season 2 disks handy, could you grab a shot of Quickstrike as he introduces himself? Specifically I think there's a moment when the camera's at ground level with him, and you see both his cobra and scorpion heads clearly at the same time. It'd make a great main pic for the Fuzor article. -- Repowers 20:15, 6 December 2008 (EST)

This one? :) --abates 20:26, 6 December 2008 (EST)

That one. Awesome! -- Repowers 20:27, 6 December 2008 (EST)

Appearances

The way we've been doing it is that appearances doesn't necessarily mean "as they appear on screen" but it can also mean whomever is heard first. --FFN 23:56, 31 December 2008 (EST)

Oh, I see. I didn't realise that. :) --abates 00:34, 1 January 2009 (EST)

Automated Cache Processor

Did you ever get to put this online? I wouldn't mind being able to use it on the articles where the processed cache files didn't get uploaded properly due to title problems. --Jeysie 22:42, 19 March 2009 (EDT)

Not yet, but it's a trivial thing to do, so I'll do it tonight and announce it on Damage Control Central. --abates 23:14, 19 March 2009 (EDT)

Cool, thanks. :) --Jeysie 23:28, 19 March 2009 (EDT)

References

You can attribute a news/link reference several times throughout an article by creating a reference name. Eg. Say you want to link an article that confirmed Hugo Weaving was returning to voice Megatron in both confirmed news and the cast list. You do this:

Hugo Weaving returns to voice Megatron news.<ref name="Hugo Weaving">[News Link news description]</ref>

Cast

Megatron (Hugo Weaving)<ref name="Hugo Weaving"/>

This means you don't end up linking the exact same news several times in the References section. --FFN 01:53, 21 March 2009 (EDT)

Aha! Now I know (and knowing is half the battle). --abates 01:54, 21 March 2009 (EDT)

Google Flaw

Don't have time to really deal with this myself, but the version of the Nine Great Demon General page on the wiki wasn't the most current; I couldn't even find a version to look up the cached form on Google, and had to use your MSN.com search tip to recover it. How many other pages like this? Don't know. But something to look up EITHER the Google Cache or MSN Cache version of a given page, that might be worth looking into... --Monzo 00:09, 25 March 2009 (EDT)

Was actually comparing caches last night. MSN seems to be older on most pages I check, and Google is apparently spidering faster and has some of the (heinously bad) backups Bookworm put up in place, Wikia spam and all. For the moment the sweet spot appears to maybe be Yahoo's cache.--Rosicrucian^Talk 00:18, 25 March 2009 (EDT)

Yeah, there's no cache for the Nine Great Demon Generals article in the big zip of cache files. There are one or two pages here and there which got missed out. I'm not sure why whoever was downloading that range didn't note it as a missing file on the Damage Control page. --abates 00:48, 25 March 2009 (EDT)

Re-checked caches. Yahoo has now spidered us and cached the Wikia spammed crapola, but MSN has a cache of November/December 2008. Not the best, but it had Nine Great Demon Generals whereas Yahoo or Google would only give me that page from Wikia. Potentially our best bet as advanced as the others have gotten in spidering, if we have pages that we still have no backup of.--Rosicrucian^Talk 02:39, 25 March 2009 (EDT)

FFN mentioned that fans of the wiki had offered to help out with their browser caches. It's a long shot, but assuming they've saved the files, they might have missing articles. No one answered his question regarding where they should be uploaded though. I don't know the question to that myself. --abates 03:06, 25 March 2009 (EDT)

HTML to Comic Template converter

Your converter seems to be having some issues with code that results from your HTML to Wiki converter. When I ran the cache page for Out to Lunch! through the Wiki converter, and then copied the resulting HTML for the template over to the template converter, the 'prev', 'next', and 'title' parameters are omitted. The template I converted didn't have a secondary series (It was a UK only Marvel comic) so I don't know if 'prev2' and 'next2' would also be omitted. It's still a fantastic tool though, and much appreciated. Have you thought about automating it? Seems like it wouldn't be hard to find the beginning and end of the template HTML, particularly if the script is only fed lists of comic pages (which is easily enough done). --Tigerpaw28 03:06, 29 March 2009 (EDT)

Thanks! Working on it now. :) --abates 03:22, 29 March 2009 (EDT)

Sorted. As for automating it, I haven't done anything with directly updating the site - that's more Derik's area. --abates 03:36, 29 March 2009 (EDT)

Title still doesn't seem to be working...--MistaTee 08:40, 29 March 2009 (EDT)

Have you got an example page where it doesn't? It was working all right for me last night. --abates 15:29, 29 March 2009 (EDT)

Blinking

That'd be me. Eye-catching, isn't it? -Derik 22:55, 12 April 2009 (EDT)

That looks like it'll be extremely useful! Kudos! --abates 22:56, 12 April 2009 (EDT)

Final style is negociable. We're (theoretically) discussing it here. (Or at least we will be once other users start clawing their eyes out.)

...I should really get around to setting up a "request changes from Deceptitran" form. Most of the ones I found so far are very straightforward... with 100% of the old links able to be changed to a single correct location. -Derik 23:00, 12 April 2009 (EDT)

Double pages

Earlier last month in the Community portal you mentioned you had ideas on how to fix the "double pages" problem that is currently listing each page with a special character as orphaned. (i.e. Jo%CC%88rmungandr & J%C3%B6rmungandr). Is this still a project you're working on at all? No pressure here. I'm just curious. For some reason I consider cleaning out the Orphaned Pages list to be a pet project of mine. -- Bluestreak7 22:39, 1 May 2009 (EDT)

Well, I installed a copy of MediaWiki on my own server and tried to play around with various techniques for correcting the problem. The two possible solutions I found were:

• Use an SQL script to change the incorrect names and remove the mucked up accents, then just delete them through the interface.
• Use an SQL script to delete the incorrect article records outright.

The second solution has some uncertain effects re database integrity, and the first ISTR I encountered some residual problems with, but I don't remember what they were.

I've been meaning to go try talking to someone at MediaWiki about it, and/or getting a copy of the current database from Scout in order to make sure I'm not duplicating the problem incorrectly. But I haven't looked at the issue for a while, so I might revisit it this weekend and see what I can come up with. --abates 22:53, 1 May 2009 (EDT)

OK, having tested some more, I've gotten the first technique to work with no apparent side effects. I am testing on a nearly-empty database through, so I'd like to get a copy of the TFWiki DB and test it on that just to make doubly sure it won't cause problems. I've just emailed Suki Brits to ask about getting a copy. --abates 23:28, 1 May 2009 (EDT)

Is it bad that...

...when you added Professor Greene and T.W. Peacocke, I started wondering who did a Transformers/Clue crossover?--Rosicrucian^Talk 01:28, 24 July 2009 (EDT)

...dammit, Rosicrucian, you're making me want to see that now. --Jeysie 01:31, 24 July 2009 (EDT)

It's a Hasbro property! If there were any justice, we'd get an actual board game out of it. With Nightbeat.--Rosicrucian^Talk 01:37, 24 July 2009 (EDT)

"Grindor has been found with his face ripped off. You gather the suspects into a room..." --abates 02:01, 24 July 2009 (EDT)

Well, that's odd.

...when I started deleting them, I'd assumed ?! had already removed the links to them. Usually he's more thorough than this.--Rosicrucian^Talk 01:52, 7 September 2009 (EDT)

Uncharacteristic, indeed. I hope I didn't come across too harshly! --abates 02:09, 7 September 2009 (EDT)

Block Fixing

Poor -Blackout- got accidentally blocked and unblocked, but he's still stuck under the autoblock. Could you do that thing you did to fix when Magnus Maximus had the same problem? (Assuming it doesn't clear up before you get this.) --Jeysie 12:27, 31 October 2009 (EDT)

Should now be done! --abates 16:22, 31 October 2009 (EDT)

Thanks! :D --Jeysie 17:19, 31 October 2009 (EDT)

Thanks for killing the autoblock! I headbutted that thing so many times my skull has become partially flat. ---Blackout- 07:04, 1 November 2009 (EST)

No problem! :) --abates 13:58, 1 November 2009 (EST)

Reunification Anon Reverting

THANK YOU. :> Sigh. Sorry about all that mess... --Jeysie 19:58, 5 November 2009 (EST)

No problem. :) --abates 20:16, 5 November 2009 (EST)

Day of the Machines

Since you were working on Day of the Machines, Dr. Gates' fellow scientist is named Dr. Andrews in the dialogue script. (This was noted on the talk page at one point, but it got lost in the crash.) --Monzo 03:37, 28 November 2009 (EST)

Cool! Should be a quick article to make. :) --abates 04:26, 28 November 2009 (EST)

Ultraplane

Hey, while you're looking at scripts, can you please check "Desertion of the Dinobots, Part 1" and see how Ultraplane is parsed? We've got it spelled four or five different ways in various articles. :) --abates 00:08, 4 December 2009 (EST)

The line is written out as:

SOUNDWAVE Ultra plane completed, Megatron.

Whether it's meant to be a proper noun or not, I dunno. --Monzo 00:17, 4 December 2009 (EST)

Awesome, thanks! From context, it probably should be capitalised "Ultra Plane". --abates 00:31, 4 December 2009 (EST)

Excuse me about Grandma

But I just wanted you to lock all of those so my mission is complete.66.45.240.66 16:44, 23 December 2009 (EST)

Your mission of being an über-douche? Yeah, mission accomplished all right. --Detour 16:51, 23 December 2009 (EST)

Unreleased toys/Gallery

Hello, I'd like to thank you for converting it in to a normal page. Thank you! ;-D --TX55^TALK 04:02, 8 April 2010 (EDT)

No problem. :) --abates 04:04, 8 April 2010 (EDT)

New bot in town

Can I get a bot tag for User:DNAVI please? - Magnus Maximus 02:05, 15 April 2010 (EDT)

Not within my powers, unfortunately! You need to ask Walky, Suki Brits or McFly. --abates 02:09, 15 April 2010 (EDT)

Ah, okay. I guess that narrows it down to Walky, then, since Suki and McFly went AWOL months ago. - Magnus Maximus 02:20, 15 April 2010 (EDT)

Why for I did that.

We have four pages that are listed in Category:Voice actors despite not actually being in it. That was one of then. --FortMax 23:09, 7 May 2010 (EDT)

I fixed it! --abates 23:40, 7 May 2010 (EDT)

Could this fix our double pages (the ones with special characters) that still show up as orphaned? --Bluestreak7 23:52, 7 May 2010 (EDT)

Unfortunately no - they're actually still in the database, I just uploaded a blank page over them, taking them out of the categories they're in. They'll still show up on the orphaned/uncategorized pages list until we get rid of them for good. --abates 23:55, 7 May 2010 (EDT)

Then maybe we should do that for a few more pages, since when searching through the wanted pages I occasionally find redlinks that are only on the unviewable versions of the page (i.e. Goryu is still linking to Goryu (Shattered Glass). --Bluestreak7 00:02, 8 May 2010 (EDT)

I'll have a look and see if I can fix some of those as well. ISTR there's one linking to ""New Narrator?" Talk about having your name determine your career choice!" Eesh. :) --abates 00:09, 8 May 2010 (EDT)

Omni dubs

Hey, you did a few of the "Lost in translation" sections for the Victory episodes - do you have the Madman DVDs? Would you be able to tell me if the dub is included on every episode, or just a few of them (and if the latter, which ones), or did you hear them elsewhere? Thanks. - Magnus Maximus 04:41, 15 May 2010 (EDT)

Yeah, I have the Madman Victory DVDs. All the episodes on them have the Omni dub. I wish all the Masterforce episodes did. :) --abates 04:51, 15 May 2010 (EDT)

Okay, cool. I think I've clogged up the recent changes enough for now, though, so I'll wait a bit before adding the info to each ep's home video section. Thanks again. - Magnus Maximus 05:10, 15 May 2010 (EDT)

War for Cybertron actors

Would it be all right if I added information on some of the confirmed actors in War for Cybertron? Some people seem to have the game and posted the credits for proof, so I assume that means it's not technically leaked, but I just want to check first. --NCZ 22:41, 17 June 2010 (EDT)

We should probably wait for the official release date, unless High Moon releases an official cast list. It's only 5 days away, after all. :) --abates 22:59, 17 June 2010 (EDT)

OK. I was just doing this so I didn't create a bunch of pages that would be deleted. :P Thanks! --NCZ 23:02, 17 June 2010 (EDT)

Hey.

Well, I'm sorry dude. But that guy said some bad things about me! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by TheRex4441 (talk • contribs){{#if:| {{{2}}}|}}. 00:20, 25 June 2010 (EDT)

That still doesn't excuse you from it. --Lonegamer78 00:27, 25 June 2010 (EDT)

...I didn't say anything bad about him. I just gave him pointers about what's needed to make a good character page (an intro paragraph), and told him characters who were the first to use a name didn't need disambig tags. How is that "saying bad things about him"? --Detour 00:46, 25 June 2010 (EDT)

Anon Was Right

Sorry about that, because of the grammar I didn't bother checking to see if Anon was actually right this time. My brain just kind of switches to Undo Mode as soon as I see that kind of English. -- Semysane 06:53, 20 July 2010 (EDT)

That particular anon has a history of useless trivia notes and terrible English, so I don't blame you! Their IP address is in New Zealand too, which makes me wonder if the public education system here has really gone downhill since I went through it. --abates 07:14, 20 July 2010 (EDT)

The wiki's sense of humor.

The wiki values humor. I thought creating the Animated Toxitron page would be something funny to have here. Sorry for any inconvenience. --Kaymac192 20:24, 23 July 2010 (EDT)

Humor is fine, but it needs to be coming from official materials. --Detour 20:31, 23 July 2010 (EDT)

I see. Thank you for telling me. It is a pity Derrick Wyatt isn't working with the franchise anymore, but somet things he says can still be construed as true. I guess Toxitron was a little throw away comment. If he winds up drawing a sketch of him and putting it on his blog, however... then we can talk. XD --Kaymac192 20:34, 23 July 2010 (EDT)

Not really. That would qualify as fan art, much like his Animated Scalpel drawing. But yes, it is a pity he isn't involved with TFs anymore. --Detour 20:45, 23 July 2010 (EDT)

If he gets Toxitron in something like the Allspark Almanac, that'd work! --abates 20:52, 23 July 2010 (EDT)

Errors in 3D

Over on Transformers in 3-D issue 2 (back in April) you added a note that "Scorponok is spelled 'Scorponok' on page 20", just wondering what it was meant to say. --Khajidha 13:50, 28 July 2010 (EDT)

Ah, thanks for pointing that out - it's spelled "Scorponock" in the comic. --abates 15:57, 28 July 2010 (EDT)

Can I make a page on the Omega Frequency?

I was going to make a page for Omega Frequency today, but when I went to do so, it said you'd already deleted it. I have an entire article written in WordPad; would it be OK if I went and remade the page? --Fortress Minimus 09:22, 30 July 2010 (EDT)

Yes, feel free! It only says it's been deleted because a vandal created a page there a while ago. --abates 18:14, 30 July 2010 (EDT)

Transformers 3

I knew that the page must have information that is confirmed by makers if the movie. But well, I guess you're right. Spotted things confirmed to be false by the makers of movie isn't necessary to be told in these pages. --CAJH 9:31, 6 August 2010 (EDT)

Yeah, the way Nelson is going, that page is going to have enough info on it as it is. I guess the info will drop off a bit once filming ends, but we don't know when that'll be... --abates 02:39, 6 August 2010 (EDT)

Air Raid Micromaster

I understand there is a subcategory for Aerialbots, but then how do you explain the reason Air Raid (G1) gets to be part of the Aerialbots subcategory and the main Autobots category? Furthermore, why isn't there a Dinobots subcategory when there is clearly several different Dinobots? It doesn't make sense to me why I see some characters go in the categories and the subcategories that belong in the aforementioned categories. Air Raid isn't the only perplexing article with the same issue that I have seen. Could you care to enlighten me on the reasoning? Davis Yuy 00:36, 12 August 2010 (EDT)

Another example is Sentinel Prime (G1), he is categorized in Autobots category and Autobot leaders category, which is a subcategory of the aforementioned Autobots category. So why isn't that adding unnecessary categories? Davis Yuy 00:54, 12 August 2010 (EDT)

The Wiki will almost forever be a work in progress. Sometimes policies are put in after many articles are made, and not everyone goes looking through every category to purge the articles that no longer belong there. So rather than complaining about an oversight, why not work on fixing these oversights? Also, there is totally a category for Dinobots, so that portion of the complaint is completely invalid. --Detour 00:57, 12 August 2010 (EDT)

I wouldl love to help correct these, but I would need guidance to know how to correct them. As for the Dinobots subgroup, I do not see it listed in the Autobots category, but it is listed in the Autobots subgroup category. While Aerialbots are a subcategory in the Autobots category, but not in the Autobots subgroup category, but in the Characters by sungroup category. Im just trying to understand how to help, which categories to use and which not to use. Davis Yuy 01:05, 12 August 2010 (EDT)

Category:Dinobots is not under Category:Autobots, because not all Dinobots are Autobots - eg Goryu (SG) is a Decepticon but also a Dinobot.

Category:Aerialbots is not in Category:Autobot subgroups because Autobot subgroups is for articles about subgroups, not categories, thus Aerialbot (G1) is in Autobot subgroups instead. --abates 02:13, 12 August 2010 (EDT)

Generation 1 Air Raid is in "Autobots" and "Aerialbots" because there are incarnations of the character that wasn't an Aerialbot. Same reason why Beast Wars Megatron is in "Beast Wars characters", despite being in both "Transmetals" and "Transmetals 2", subcategories of "Beast Wars characters". —Interrobang 02:32, 12 August 2010 (EDT)

Ahhh! That explains it! --abates 02:43, 12 August 2010 (EDT)

you're belief is a basic shed

What I'd like to know is what this has to do with Cambodian bears. --FFN 01:25, 25 August 2010 (EDT)

Flying Cambodian bears apparently! There's a terrifying thought... --abates 02:18, 25 August 2010 (EDT)

Soundwave RPM

Thanks for both the cleanup and the confirmation ;)-ACIDSTORM92 00:19, 17 September 2010 (EDT)

No problem! --abates 00:29, 17 September 2010 (EDT)

Just a thread of thought on non-user edits

Wouldn't it be better that in the process of editing and making changes in some stub articles/pages, to just state the changes made, instead of telling people that "Oh, you never edited a wiki before, eh?" Naturally some people don't edit wikis at all, though they do refer to these wikis for quick info. Tell them what went wrong, rather than dissing them. I know this sounds odd, but sometimes they might take it the wrong way and think it's personal. Please share your views on this, tks. Just saying things only, without any vendetta whatsoever. (from Singapore) 155.69.15.83 04:28, 24 September 2010 (EDT)

Speaking personally, if I wanted to make an edit on a site I hadn't been to before, I would first make sure I understood what sort of phrasing is used there, and maybe take a look at the help files first. If in doubt about how best to make the change, I'd bring it up on the talk page first, otherwise if I got it wrong, someone else on the site would just have to edit it again to make sure it jived with the wording elsewhere on the site. My edit comment was meant as a gentle reprimand — I don't want to discourage people from editing, but at the same time I'd like to encourage them to learn how to edit in a way consistent with the rest of the site. --abates 05:24, 24 September 2010 (EDT)