User talk:Derik/Archive

ARCHIVED YEAR: 2006

{{#if: | [[Image:|left{{ #if: ||px|}}{{ #if: |||}}]] | }} {{ #if: 2006 Archive |2006 Archive |}} This is an archive of Derik's User Talk from 2006, separated out for usability reasons. An abstract of this page summarizing anything important should remain on the original page, and this 2006 archive should be transcluded at User talk:Derik/Archive so that the entire user talk history can be easily viewed. {{ #if: |{{ #if: |  | }} talk page.|}} {{#if: ||}}

{{#ifeq: User talk||}}{{#ifeq: User talk|File|}}

Storylinks

Please please please please PLEASE stop float-righting the storylinks. --ItsWalky 16:34, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

They look better that way. -Derik 16:52, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Hey, Derik -- about the audio adventures you asked about last week... maybe? Or, yeah. Looks like yes: Bumblebee to the Rescue, Espionage, Menace at the Dam, and Terror of Mount Sheelah. I just suck at keeping websites updated. You know the feeling, I think. But anyway, I have them already, thanks.  :)

--Steve-o 01:25, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Uh... a spoiler template, aside from Template:Spoiler?

--Steve-o 04:10, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

That's the cutest catboy I've ever seen! --Crockalley 14:30, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Arbitron's continutiy is: medium-complicated.

Country: US / UK (countries he's appeared in in some capacity, if it jumps the english/japanese border it's just 'international')

Range:

• Generation 1: Marvel: UK (first appearance)
• Generation 1: Blackthorne: #4 (flashack)
• Robots in Disguise (mention)
• Beast Era: Beast Wars: Wreckers
• Generation 1: Dreamwave: MtMtE (mention)

Note: Arbitron's deal with Megatron takes place in many different continuities. Wreckers #4 is his only appearance after these events.

"Continuity is for beginners." -Scott Page Pageter

The problem with that chart is that it tells you so very little that the italicized intro and the table of contents at the beginning of a page don't already. After all, the table of contents tells you specifically which fiction stuff he's been in at a glance. There's absolutely no need to tell that information twice. --ItsWalky 04:39, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Arbitron's habitat/ambit

Country: US / UK
First Appearance: Marvel UK

Ambit: Arbitron's deal with Megatron is referenced in many continuities. Wreckers #4 is his only other signifigant appearance.

"Continuity is for beginners." -Scott Page Pageter

I've already been arranging the first fictional appearance of a character first in the list of fictions. (With the exception of Unicron, of course, who's a living ongoing retcon.) So I'm not sure how needed the "showed up first" thinger would be. Alpha Trion shows up first in the cartoon, thus "Animated continuity" is his first fiction section. --ItsWalky 05:14, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

*shrug* I happen to think the absolute mass of continutiy listings for characters, often containing the most minor refs, is... frankly bad. I further feel it handles the splintered nature of tf badly.

But then, I think Robotmasters shoudl be a sub-section of Generation 1, because it's set in G1, not its own side-thing. In short- I think the arrangement of the continuities has meanings, and this 'puttign the first appearance first' can, potentially anihilate those meanings.

What i liked about muy first pass at this was that it had a continuity drilldown. Generation 1 :: Marvel :: US That's a clear hierarchy.

We're inconsistent about hierarchy. I see characters listed as 'Dreamwave Comics Continuity,' with no parentign hierarchy. (I construe G1 from the italics at the top.) Dreamwave published in 6 distinct continuities.

Generation 1 => Cartoon => Redemption Center (Starscrem's amnesiac adventure)

Generation 1 => Cartoon => RobotMasters - (Air Hunter)

Generation 1 => Cartoon => Rebirth => Blackthorne #3 - (The Destructons or whatever...)

Beast Era: => Beast Wars Cartoon => Expanded Continuity :: Wreckers - (Fractly)

Beast Era: => Beast Wars Cartoon => Expanded Continuity :: IDW - (LioConvoy)

Beast Era: => Beast Wars Cartoon => Expanded Continuity :: RobotMasters - (Psycho Orb's continuity of origin)

Beast Era: => Pre-Beast Wars => Dreamwave - (Megatron's rename)

Beast Era: => Pre-Beast Wars => Timelines - (MasterColelctor's theft of the disk)

Beast Era: => Pre-Beast Wars => Wreckers - (Cryotek is the crimelord who organized the theft)

Generation 1 => Toyline => Action Master Boxback - (Where Axer started from)

Robots in Disguise => Expanded Universe - (Where he ended up)

Generation 1 => Toyline => Action Master Boxback - (Nucleon Quest Super Convoy)

Generation 1 => Joe Crossovers => TF/Joe Comic - (Nathaniel appears)

Generation 1 => Dreamwave - (Nathaniel mentioned)

This is a really stupid system. But it has a real advantage vs listing '3H Continuity' followed by 'MasterCollector Continuity.' Here you csn see- "They're both expanded continuities that consider the cartoon cannon for how they operate- but they diverge from that point and do not overlap."

What I'm gettign to is- hierarchy is important. Hierarchy conveys information.

And TF's continuity hierarchy is really, really wierd. NQSC.

/Generation 1/JG1/Post-Battlestars/../../Toyline/ Action Master Boxback

...guh!

Dont' tell me I'm overthinking it. I KNOW I'm overthinking it for this- but since TF is clearly hierachical in nature, I'm still gonna fight single-suffixing, because it fails to convey hierarchy. ^_^ -Derik 06:05, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't all this be better served via information within the articles expressly ABOUT the fictions and continuities THEMSELVES, perhaps with a flowchart of the variety presented in the Fun Pulications magazine, than creating some horrible crushing mess in every single character article where such matters frankly are not RELEVANT and creating a massive hidous arbitrary disorganiztion system? --M Sipher 06:22, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I SAID this was a bad system!

I still don't think appending series to the end of article title sis a good one either. -Derik 12:52, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I see characters listed as 'Dreamwave Comics Continuity,' with no parentign hierarchy. (I construe G1 from the italics at the top.)

....yeah. I know. That construing is the point. There's absolutely no reason to specify that it's Generation 1 animated continuity if the top of the page specifically says he's in the G1 continuity. That's why it's done that way. --ItsWalky 15:40, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Communicating with other users

For the love of God, use the user talk pages the next time you want to tell another user something. I've already said Spengler on his talk page about image copyrights. This is a better method than expecting other users to look at Recent changes and see you screaming your lungs out over something they didn't know. Singularity 06:37, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Guess you used it already. Never mind, then. Singularity 06:38, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I would consider that 'patiently explaining point by point.' The flat rock bit is a running gag.

And yes, I could just put it on his user talk page- but I had to adjust all those images anyway- so why not amuse myself with the memo field? Otherwise they'd all jsut read 'copyright'.

Er- consider me duly chastised. I'll be nicer. -Derik 06:40, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

You seemed pretty agitated, and I felt sorry for Spengler. If you were just having fun, sorry for the misunderstanding. Singularity 06:48, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Giving absolutely no tells by which someone listening to me could discern if I was joking is an annoying habit I picked up from one of my ex-supervisors.

I eventually realised that he thought people's deer-in-the-headlight responses to his dead-serious black-humored treatment of them was hilarious. I got tired or guessing and just never took him seriously.

He fired me. Nice guy. (I mean that last bit seriously, he's a great guy. GREAT sense of humor. Not so much fun to be on the recieving end.) -Derik 07:00, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Image copyrights

Ah'm gittin' to it, boy! Just getting the article up first! :) - Chris McFeely 21:49, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Matrix of Conquest

Kudos on the very nice coloring of the Matrix of Conquest. And I really shouldn't have clicked the link in your profile. --Richardstone 08:45, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Things that don't exist

No, but seriously, that Decepticon Matrix article probably needs to be a redirect of some sort. --Suki Brits 04:40, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

G2 Annual

Yeah, I own the G2 annual. I scanned the profile pages from it a while back, which I think have been floating around the internet. I need to do more with it, but as it's mostly text stories with unrelated images (mainly box art), I lose interest quickly - though I do specifically remember Deftwing showing up and doing stuff.

(There IS a strip story, too, but it's a weird retelling of how the Autobots met the Dinobots...) --Monzo 10:06, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I have scans of the first third, I loce it. It's so insane. (Rakash is the only other person I knwo that owns a copy, abnd her computer bloo'd int he middle of scannign it for me, and now it's in storage someplace...)

...there's a request to scan the rest of it buried in there somewhere. (Well, a request to scan all of it- I had the implicit assumption that I'm going to be able to recover mys cans of the first 3rd off my dead hard drive.) -Derik 10:17, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Note to self:

Digimon Savers

I shall reply here!

Personally, I think it's got a lot better, yes. The first episode did not exactly grab me - it seemed, to me, to be using in a serious way all those silly anime cliches that Medabots (if you ever watched that) went out of its way to make fun of. In comparison with past Digimon series, which I always felt had a strong "Western" tinge to them, this one is very "Anime," if you know what I mean. Particularly, there's the really quite ridiculous "wise old fisherman who's there whenever you need him to give you an obscure metaphor that coincidentally applies to your current predicament." Ironically enough, turns out the show's being... what is, directed, or... has the head writer of... whatever... of Medabots itself. So I guess it knows what it's doing in that regard. But they've taken that character and made him make a bit more sense recently. And there are a lot of things I DO like about the show. The characters, particularly defied the expectations I had of them when I saw the character designs. I like that they allowed Masaru's family to find out about Agumon right away - their relationship is VERY Ikki-and-Metabee. I like the show's portrayal of the Digital World and human interaction with it, and I REALLY like that they've taken a Gotsumon - a Digimon who has, historically, always been a goofly, harmless, fun little character - and made him into a nasty, scheming bastard. - Chris McFeely 22:40, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Power Rangers query

Are you actually the guy mentioned here? Interrobang 06:08, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Yup!  :-) -Derik 09:06, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Derik natters

I'm just doing this on my page because Walky's talk page is dedicated to more important subjects.

ARCHIVED YEAR: 2007

{{#if: | [[Image:|left{{ #if: ||px|}}{{ #if: |||}}]] | }} {{ #if: 2007 Archive |2007 Archive |}} This is an archive of Derik's User Talk from 2007, separated out for usability reasons. An abstract of this page summarizing anything important should remain on the original page, and this 2007 archive should be transcluded at User talk:Derik/Archive so that the entire user talk history can be easily viewed. {{ #if: |{{ #if: |  | }} talk page.|}} {{#if: ||}}

{{#ifeq: User talk||}}{{#ifeq: User talk|File|}}

Legend of the Five Rings Wiki vote

I vote we ban this passive-aggressive, inexplicably rigid adder of his personal fanon. -Rotty 03:28, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Novelizations

Derik, if you're going to persist in putting things up from the novels, I will be forced to remove you from the wiki until July 3rd. For the love of God, please stop. --ItsWalky 07:23, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

*squints eyes* I don't think the dates will be mentioned in the movie- it was 3rd person omniscient narrative...

Er- but as a larger statement of principle, I completely understand. Consider it muzzled. -Derik 07:28, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Movie nav

Dude, don't put it in the middle of the article. It looks shit.--FFN 08:23, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

It looks better than on top on my (admittedly wide) screen.

The layout issue you raise has been noted- I'll switch it back. -Derik 08:27, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Its not that I don't appreciate your work, I just don't agree with where its sitting at the moment. --FFN 18:32, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

FFN... I have no deep emotional investment in this matter either. I happen to rather dislike the current look/treatment of the franchise pages, but Steve-o designed them. They work well most of the time, but they appear to be working poorly on the movie page itself, so we probably need to look at either wholesale redesigning or at least readjusting our franchise navigation scheme.

I think maybe a right-collumn-type-thing like you see here might be a potential direction, because the ugliest thing about the navigation right now is that it's a different width from the image. (Would it be less repellent if we manually forces it to be 250 pixels wide?)-Derik 22:36, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

"CSS changes"

What are you talking about? You asked me if it was possible to do something once, I'm vaguely aware of you working on something code-wise, but that's frankly it. If you're going to passive-aggressively snipe at me to do what random thing you want me to do in article comments, forget it. If you want something from me, ASK. Politely, and without the attitude. --ItsWalky 21:39, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, I assumed you'd seen the original request in recent changes since you were doing edits at the same time, I hoped to avoid cluttering your already-busy user talk page with something I could communicate elsewise.

Guess you never saw it, my bad. :( This will teach me to assume your omniscience. This is what I was referring to. It's a block wikiipedia-standard CSS used for a variety of messagebox formats.

If you want to test if out on your personal css file first, stick the code here. You can see the classes at work Beast Wars.-Derik 23:15, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I went ahead and put it all in. It all looks good to me.

(Plus, I can't say no to an adorable Junkion. Ever.) --Suki Brits 00:59, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Man, I totally have to lean to keep rack of who has admin privileges here. Normally I just take my problem to Walky, which has to get old for him too...

Thanks Suki! -Derik 01:16, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Storylinks

Please please please please PLEASE stop float-righting the storylinks. --ItsWalky 16:34, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

They look better that way. -Derik 16:52, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Hey, Derik -- about the audio adventures you asked about last week... maybe? Or, yeah. Looks like yes: Bumblebee to the Rescue, Espionage, Menace at the Dam, and Terror of Mount Sheelah. I just suck at keeping websites updated. You know the feeling, I think. But anyway, I have them already, thanks.  :)

--Steve-o 01:25, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Uh... a spoiler template, aside from Template:Spoiler?

--Steve-o 04:10, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

That's the cutest catboy I've ever seen! --Crockalley 14:30, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Arbitron's continutiy is: medium-complicated.

Country: US / UK (countries he's appeared in in some capacity, if it jumps the english/japanese border it's just 'international')

Range:

• Generation 1: Marvel: UK (first appearance)
• Generation 1: Blackthorne: #4 (flashack)
• Robots in Disguise (mention)
• Beast Era: Beast Wars: Wreckers
• Generation 1: Dreamwave: MtMtE (mention)

Note: Arbitron's deal with Megatron takes place in many different continuities. Wreckers #4 is his only appearance after these events.

"Continuity is for beginners." -Scott Page Pageter

The problem with that chart is that it tells you so very little that the italicized intro and the table of contents at the beginning of a page don't already. After all, the table of contents tells you specifically which fiction stuff he's been in at a glance. There's absolutely no need to tell that information twice. --ItsWalky 04:39, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Arbitron's habitat/ambit

Country: US / UK
First Appearance: Marvel UK

Ambit: Arbitron's deal with Megatron is referenced in many continuities. Wreckers #4 is his only other signifigant appearance.

"Continuity is for beginners." -Scott Page Pageter

I've already been arranging the first fictional appearance of a character first in the list of fictions. (With the exception of Unicron, of course, who's a living ongoing retcon.) So I'm not sure how needed the "showed up first" thinger would be. Alpha Trion shows up first in the cartoon, thus "Animated continuity" is his first fiction section. --ItsWalky 05:14, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

*shrug* I happen to think the absolute mass of continutiy listings for characters, often containing the most minor refs, is... frankly bad. I further feel it handles the splintered nature of tf badly.

But then, I think Robotmasters shoudl be a sub-section of Generation 1, because it's set in G1, not its own side-thing. In short- I think the arrangement of the continuities has meanings, and this 'puttign the first appearance first' can, potentially anihilate those meanings.

What i liked about muy first pass at this was that it had a continuity drilldown. Generation 1 :: Marvel :: US That's a clear hierarchy.

We're inconsistent about hierarchy. I see characters listed as 'Dreamwave Comics Continuity,' with no parentign hierarchy. (I construe G1 from the italics at the top.) Dreamwave published in 6 distinct continuities.

Generation 1 => Cartoon => Redemption Center (Starscrem's amnesiac adventure)

Generation 1 => Cartoon => RobotMasters - (Air Hunter)

Generation 1 => Cartoon => Rebirth => Blackthorne #3 - (The Destructons or whatever...)

Beast Era: => Beast Wars Cartoon => Expanded Continuity :: Wreckers - (Fractly)

Beast Era: => Beast Wars Cartoon => Expanded Continuity :: IDW - (LioConvoy)

Beast Era: => Beast Wars Cartoon => Expanded Continuity :: RobotMasters - (Psycho Orb's continuity of origin)

Beast Era: => Pre-Beast Wars => Dreamwave - (Megatron's rename)

Beast Era: => Pre-Beast Wars => Timelines - (MasterColelctor's theft of the disk)

Beast Era: => Pre-Beast Wars => Wreckers - (Cryotek is the crimelord who organized the theft)

Generation 1 => Toyline => Action Master Boxback - (Where Axer started from)

Robots in Disguise => Expanded Universe - (Where he ended up)

Generation 1 => Toyline => Action Master Boxback - (Nucleon Quest Super Convoy)

Generation 1 => Joe Crossovers => TF/Joe Comic - (Nathaniel appears)

Generation 1 => Dreamwave - (Nathaniel mentioned)

This is a really stupid system. But it has a real advantage vs listing '3H Continuity' followed by 'MasterCollector Continuity.' Here you csn see- "They're both expanded continuities that consider the cartoon cannon for how they operate- but they diverge from that point and do not overlap."

What I'm gettign to is- hierarchy is important. Hierarchy conveys information.

And TF's continuity hierarchy is really, really wierd. NQSC.

/Generation 1/JG1/Post-Battlestars/../../Toyline/ Action Master Boxback

...guh!

Dont' tell me I'm overthinking it. I KNOW I'm overthinking it for this- but since TF is clearly hierachical in nature, I'm still gonna fight single-suffixing, because it fails to convey hierarchy. ^_^ -Derik 06:05, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't all this be better served via information within the articles expressly ABOUT the fictions and continuities THEMSELVES, perhaps with a flowchart of the variety presented in the Fun Pulications magazine, than creating some horrible crushing mess in every single character article where such matters frankly are not RELEVANT and creating a massive hidous arbitrary disorganiztion system? --M Sipher 06:22, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I SAID this was a bad system!

I still don't think appending series to the end of article title sis a good one either. -Derik 12:52, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I see characters listed as 'Dreamwave Comics Continuity,' with no parentign hierarchy. (I construe G1 from the italics at the top.)

....yeah. I know. That construing is the point. There's absolutely no reason to specify that it's Generation 1 animated continuity if the top of the page specifically says he's in the G1 continuity. That's why it's done that way. --ItsWalky 15:40, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Communicating with other users

For the love of God, use the user talk pages the next time you want to tell another user something. I've already said Spengler on his talk page about image copyrights. This is a better method than expecting other users to look at Recent changes and see you screaming your lungs out over something they didn't know. Singularity 06:37, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Guess you used it already. Never mind, then. Singularity 06:38, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I would consider that 'patiently explaining point by point.' The flat rock bit is a running gag.

And yes, I could just put it on his user talk page- but I had to adjust all those images anyway- so why not amuse myself with the memo field? Otherwise they'd all jsut read 'copyright'.

Er- consider me duly chastised. I'll be nicer. -Derik 06:40, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

You seemed pretty agitated, and I felt sorry for Spengler. If you were just having fun, sorry for the misunderstanding. Singularity 06:48, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Giving absolutely no tells by which someone listening to me could discern if I was joking is an annoying habit I picked up from one of my ex-supervisors.

I eventually realised that he thought people's deer-in-the-headlight responses to his dead-serious black-humored treatment of them was hilarious. I got tired or guessing and just never took him seriously.

He fired me. Nice guy. (I mean that last bit seriously, he's a great guy. GREAT sense of humor. Not so much fun to be on the recieving end.) -Derik 07:00, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Image copyrights

Ah'm gittin' to it, boy! Just getting the article up first! :) - Chris McFeely 21:49, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Matrix of Conquest

Kudos on the very nice coloring of the Matrix of Conquest. And I really shouldn't have clicked the link in your profile. --Richardstone 08:45, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Things that don't exist

No, but seriously, that Decepticon Matrix article probably needs to be a redirect of some sort. --Suki Brits 04:40, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

G2 Annual

Yeah, I own the G2 annual. I scanned the profile pages from it a while back, which I think have been floating around the internet. I need to do more with it, but as it's mostly text stories with unrelated images (mainly box art), I lose interest quickly - though I do specifically remember Deftwing showing up and doing stuff.

(There IS a strip story, too, but it's a weird retelling of how the Autobots met the Dinobots...) --Monzo 10:06, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I have scans of the first third, I loce it. It's so insane. (Rakash is the only other person I knwo that owns a copy, abnd her computer bloo'd int he middle of scannign it for me, and now it's in storage someplace...)

...there's a request to scan the rest of it buried in there somewhere. (Well, a request to scan all of it- I had the implicit assumption that I'm going to be able to recover mys cans of the first 3rd off my dead hard drive.) -Derik 10:17, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Note to self:

Digimon Savers

I shall reply here!

Personally, I think it's got a lot better, yes. The first episode did not exactly grab me - it seemed, to me, to be using in a serious way all those silly anime cliches that Medabots (if you ever watched that) went out of its way to make fun of. In comparison with past Digimon series, which I always felt had a strong "Western" tinge to them, this one is very "Anime," if you know what I mean. Particularly, there's the really quite ridiculous "wise old fisherman who's there whenever you need him to give you an obscure metaphor that coincidentally applies to your current predicament." Ironically enough, turns out the show's being... what is, directed, or... has the head writer of... whatever... of Medabots itself. So I guess it knows what it's doing in that regard. But they've taken that character and made him make a bit more sense recently. And there are a lot of things I DO like about the show. The characters, particularly defied the expectations I had of them when I saw the character designs. I like that they allowed Masaru's family to find out about Agumon right away - their relationship is VERY Ikki-and-Metabee. I like the show's portrayal of the Digital World and human interaction with it, and I REALLY like that they've taken a Gotsumon - a Digimon who has, historically, always been a goofly, harmless, fun little character - and made him into a nasty, scheming bastard. - Chris McFeely 22:40, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Power Rangers query

Are you actually the guy mentioned here? Interrobang 06:08, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Yup!  :-) -Derik 09:06, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Derik natters

I'm just doing this on my page because Walky's talk page is dedicated to more important subjects.

So, Del...

Read "The Magnificent Six" recently, did you? :) - Chris McFeely 15:42, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Someoen has to go through it. Seeing Walky's perfunctory bio of steamhammer go up that didnt' even mention he was a triplechanger spurred me into action. And I figured- might as well do it THROUGHLY. -Derik 15:47, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Junpei from the G2 Manga

You expressed interest in Junpei from the G2 manga. I just finished translating the entire thing. I warn you, though. This thing is *awful*. --DrSpengler 00:08, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Autotrooper divisions

Can we get a list of the Autotrooper devisions? I think they're based on the zodiac animals...? (I have no idea what those divisions would be though.) -Derik 13:08, 17 October 2006 (PDT)

I uploaded an image from Autorooper's box that shows the different zodiac signs and what districts they're assigned to. Mostly in Japanese, though. Evan1975 06:30, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Danke, I noticed when it went up.  :) -Derik 08:46, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

urhere

I like the urhere template, but I think the template could be made better by replacing the "previous/next episode" link text with the name of the episode or comic issue. That way, the same template can be used with all fiction. --FortMax 17:46, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Possibly. Discussing with Steve-O, I think we concluded there were enough 'issues' with presenting the information in comics that it made more sense to create one template for cartoon episodes (Of which there are about 600) and another one for comics (Of which there are... also about 600.)

I'll be moving the 'urhere' template to something like 'Episodetop' tonight, and writing some proper documentation.

IMO, the real advantage of making them separate templates is you can say {{Episodetop|G1}} and it's obvious you mean the G1 cartoon- not one of the two-dozen other forms 'G1' can take. If the same template was used for comics, you'd need to look up every time- 'okay, what're we calling the franchise'? Making this one cartoon-only significantly simplifies its use.

I do intend to make a similar topper template for comic issues... but I want to get this working first and shake out any bugs. (Like- I'd liek ot have a link to the overall 'continuity family' somewhere... but I'm not sure where/how.)-Derik19:07, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I can see where you're coming from, however it would also probably be best if the variable contained the entire link; that way we wouldn't have a "previous" link at MTMTE Part 1. (or we could just copy Wikipedia's template) The episodes template would definitely be the place to work out the bugs, as the only continuity oddity is the US/Japan split after TRoOP pt 2, which would simply use the template once for each continuity. The Marvel UK comics will definitely be a mess with its reprints and backup stories (heck, 232 has 3 TF stories in it). --FortMax 20:06, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I can see where you're coming from, however it would also probably be best if the variable contained the entire link; that way we wouldn't have a "previous" link at MTMTE Part 1.

{{urhere|G1|season=1|1|next=More Than Meets the Eye, Part 2}}

{{ #if:

{{ #switch: {{{getcolloquial}}}

1984toon=Generation 1

SRLFtoon=Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers

2010=Transformers 2010

HMtoon=The Headmasters

MFtoon=Super-God Masterforce

Victoon=Victory

Zonetoon=Zone

G2toon=Generation 2

BWtoon=Beast Wars

BW2toon=Beast Wars II

BWNeotoon=Beast Wars Neo

BMtoon=Beast Machines

RiDtoon=Robots in Disguise

Armtoon=Armada

Energontoon=Energon

SLtoon = Superlink

Cybtoon=Cybertron

Anitoon=Animated

gobotsToon=Go-Bots

{{{getcolloquial}}} }}

}{{ #if:

| {{ #switch: {{{getserieslink}}} | 1984toon=Generation 1 (cartoon)#Episodes | SRLFtoon=Generation 1 (cartoon)#Japanese release | 2010= Generation 1 (cartoon)#Japanese release | HMtoon=The Headmasters (cartoon)#Episodes | MFtoon=Super-God Masterforce (cartoon)#Episodes | Victoon=Victory (cartoon)#Episodes | Zonetoon=Zone | G2toon=Generation 2 (cartoon) | BWtoon=Beast Wars (cartoon)#Episodes | BW2toon=Beast Wars II (cartoon)#Episodes | BWNeotoon=Beast Wars Neo (cartoon)#Episodes | BMtoon=Beast Machines (cartoon)#Episodes | RiDtoon=Robots in Disguise (cartoon)#Episodes | Armtoon=Armada (cartoon)#Episodes | Energontoon=Energon (cartoon)#Episodes | SLtoon=Energon (cartoon) | Cybtoon=Cybertron (cartoon)#Episodes | gobotsToon=Go-Bots (cartoon) | Anitoon=Transformers Animated (cartoon)#Episodes | {{{getserieslink}}} }} |}}{{ #if: | {{ #switch: {{{getseasonlink}}} | BWtoon={{ #switch: {{{1}}}

|1=List of Beast Wars episodes#Season_1:_1996.E2.80.931997
|2=List of Beast Wars episodes#Season_2:_1997.E2.80.931998
|3=List of Beast Wars episodes#Season_3:_1998.E2.80.931999
|List of Beast Wars episodes
}}

|{{{2}}}#Season {{{1}}} }} |}}{{ #if: | {{ #switch: {{{getexplicit}}} | g1toon=1984toon | sunbow=1984toon | g1=1984toon | headmasters=HMtoon | head masters=HMtoon | masterforce=MFtoon | master force=MFtoon | victory=Victoon | zone=Zonetoon | g2=G2toon | beastwars=BWtoon | beast wars=BWtoon | bw=BWtoon | beast wars ii=BW2toon | beastwars ii=BW2toon | beastwarsii=BW2toon | beast wars 2=BW2toon | beastwars 2=BW2toon | beastwars2=BW2toon | bwii=BW2toon | bw2=BW2toon | beast wars neo=BWNeotoon | beastwars neo=BWNeotoon | beast wars neo=BWNeotoon | beastwarsneo=BWNeotoon | bw neo=BWNeotoon | bwneo=BWNeotoon | bwn=BWNeotoon | beast machines=BMtoon | beastmachines=BMtoon | bm=BMtoon | robots in disguise=RiDtoon | robotsindisguise=RiDtoon | rid=RiDtoon | armada=Armtoon | arm=Armtoon | energon=Energontoon | cybertron=Cybtoon | cyb=Cybtoon | gobots=gobotsToon | animated=Anitoon | ani=Anitoon | {{{getexplicit}}} }} |}}{{ #if: G1 |[[|]] > |}}{{ #if: |[[|Season {{{seasonlink}}}]] >  |}}{{ #if: 1 |{{ #if: | {{ #switch: {{{getcolloquial}}} | 1984toon=Generation 1 | SRLFtoon=Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers | 2010=Transformers 2010 | HMtoon=The Headmasters | MFtoon=Super-God Masterforce | Victoon=Victory | Zonetoon=Zone | G2toon=Generation 2 | BWtoon=Beast Wars | BW2toon=Beast Wars II | BWNeotoon=Beast Wars Neo | BMtoon=Beast Machines | RiDtoon=Robots in Disguise | Armtoon=Armada | Energontoon=Energon | SLtoon = Superlink | Cybtoon=Cybertron | Anitoon=Animated | gobotsToon=Go-Bots | {{{getcolloquial}}} }} |}}{{ #if: | {{ #switch: {{{getserieslink}}} | 1984toon=Generation 1 (cartoon)#Episodes | SRLFtoon=Generation 1 (cartoon)#Japanese release | 2010= Generation 1 (cartoon)#Japanese release | HMtoon=The Headmasters (cartoon)#Episodes | MFtoon=Super-God Masterforce (cartoon)#Episodes | Victoon=Victory (cartoon)#Episodes | Zonetoon=Zone | G2toon=Generation 2 (cartoon) | BWtoon=Beast Wars (cartoon)#Episodes | BW2toon=Beast Wars II (cartoon)#Episodes | BWNeotoon=Beast Wars Neo (cartoon)#Episodes | BMtoon=Beast Machines (cartoon)#Episodes | RiDtoon=Robots in Disguise (cartoon)#Episodes | Armtoon=Armada (cartoon)#Episodes | Energontoon=Energon (cartoon)#Episodes | SLtoon=Energon (cartoon) | Cybtoon=Cybertron (cartoon)#Episodes | gobotsToon=Go-Bots (cartoon) | Anitoon=Transformers Animated (cartoon)#Episodes | {{{getserieslink}}} }} |}}{{ #if: | {{ #switch: {{{getseasonlink}}} | BWtoon={{ #switch: {{{1}}}

|1=List of Beast Wars episodes#Season_1:_1996.E2.80.931997
|2=List of Beast Wars episodes#Season_2:_1997.E2.80.931998
|3=List of Beast Wars episodes#Season_3:_1998.E2.80.931999
|List of Beast Wars episodes
}}

|{{{2}}}#Season {{{1}}} }} |}}{{ #if: | {{ #switch: {{{getexplicit}}} | g1toon=1984toon | sunbow=1984toon | g1=1984toon | headmasters=HMtoon | head masters=HMtoon | masterforce=MFtoon | master force=MFtoon | victory=Victoon | zone=Zonetoon | g2=G2toon | beastwars=BWtoon | beast wars=BWtoon | bw=BWtoon | beast wars ii=BW2toon | beastwars ii=BW2toon | beastwarsii=BW2toon | beast wars 2=BW2toon | beastwars 2=BW2toon | beastwars2=BW2toon | bwii=BW2toon | bw2=BW2toon | beast wars neo=BWNeotoon | beastwars neo=BWNeotoon | beast wars neo=BWNeotoon | beastwarsneo=BWNeotoon | bw neo=BWNeotoon | bwneo=BWNeotoon | bwn=BWNeotoon | beast machines=BMtoon | beastmachines=BMtoon | bm=BMtoon | robots in disguise=RiDtoon | robotsindisguise=RiDtoon | rid=RiDtoon | armada=Armtoon | arm=Armtoon | energon=Energontoon | cybertron=Cybtoon | cyb=Cybtoon | gobots=gobotsToon | animated=Anitoon | ani=Anitoon | {{{getexplicit}}} }} |}}{{ #if: |[[|]] > |}}{{ #if: 1 |[[|Season 1]] >  |}} |}}{{ #if: 1 |Episode 1 |User talk:Derik/Archive}} |- | colspan="2" |{{ #if: |[[{{{prev}}}|Previous episode]]|}} || style="text-align:right;padding-left:1em;" colspan="2"| {{#if: More than Meets the Eye, Part 2|Next episode|}}{{#if: | |-style="font-size:xx-small;opacity:.7;" | colspan="4" style="padding-top:1em;" |{{ #if: | {{ #switch: {{{getcolloquial}}} | 1984toon=Generation 1 | SRLFtoon=Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers | 2010=Transformers 2010 | HMtoon=The Headmasters | MFtoon=Super-God Masterforce | Victoon=Victory | Zonetoon=Zone | G2toon=Generation 2 | BWtoon=Beast Wars | BW2toon=Beast Wars II | BWNeotoon=Beast Wars Neo | BMtoon=Beast Machines | RiDtoon=Robots in Disguise | Armtoon=Armada | Energontoon=Energon | SLtoon = Superlink | Cybtoon=Cybertron | Anitoon=Animated | gobotsToon=Go-Bots | {{{getcolloquial}}} }} |}}{{ #if: | {{ #switch: {{{getserieslink}}} | 1984toon=Generation 1 (cartoon)#Episodes | SRLFtoon=Generation 1 (cartoon)#Japanese release | 2010= Generation 1 (cartoon)#Japanese release | HMtoon=The Headmasters (cartoon)#Episodes | MFtoon=Super-God Masterforce (cartoon)#Episodes | Victoon=Victory (cartoon)#Episodes | Zonetoon=Zone | G2toon=Generation 2 (cartoon) | BWtoon=Beast Wars (cartoon)#Episodes | BW2toon=Beast Wars II (cartoon)#Episodes | BWNeotoon=Beast Wars Neo (cartoon)#Episodes | BMtoon=Beast Machines (cartoon)#Episodes | RiDtoon=Robots in Disguise (cartoon)#Episodes | Armtoon=Armada (cartoon)#Episodes | Energontoon=Energon (cartoon)#Episodes | SLtoon=Energon (cartoon) | Cybtoon=Cybertron (cartoon)#Episodes | gobotsToon=Go-Bots (cartoon) | Anitoon=Transformers Animated (cartoon)#Episodes | {{{getserieslink}}} }} |}}{{ #if: | {{ #switch: {{{getseasonlink}}} | BWtoon={{ #switch: {{{1}}}

|1=List of Beast Wars episodes#Season_1:_1996.E2.80.931997
|2=List of Beast Wars episodes#Season_2:_1997.E2.80.931998
|3=List of Beast Wars episodes#Season_3:_1998.E2.80.931999
|List of Beast Wars episodes
}}

|{{{2}}}#Season {{{1}}} }} |}}{{ #if: | {{ #switch: {{{getexplicit}}} | g1toon=1984toon | sunbow=1984toon | g1=1984toon | headmasters=HMtoon | head masters=HMtoon | masterforce=MFtoon | master force=MFtoon | victory=Victoon | zone=Zonetoon | g2=G2toon | beastwars=BWtoon | beast wars=BWtoon | bw=BWtoon | beast wars ii=BW2toon | beastwars ii=BW2toon | beastwarsii=BW2toon | beast wars 2=BW2toon | beastwars 2=BW2toon | beastwars2=BW2toon | bwii=BW2toon | bw2=BW2toon | beast wars neo=BWNeotoon | beastwars neo=BWNeotoon | beast wars neo=BWNeotoon | beastwarsneo=BWNeotoon | bw neo=BWNeotoon | bwneo=BWNeotoon | bwn=BWNeotoon | beast machines=BMtoon | beastmachines=BMtoon | bm=BMtoon | robots in disguise=RiDtoon | robotsindisguise=RiDtoon | rid=RiDtoon | armada=Armtoon | arm=Armtoon | energon=Energontoon | cybertron=Cybtoon | cyb=Cybtoon | gobots=gobotsToon | animated=Anitoon | ani=Anitoon | {{{getexplicit}}} }} |}}{{ #if: {{{series2}}} |[[|]] > |}}{{ #if: |[[|Season {{{seasonlink}}}]] >  |}}{{ #if: |ep{{{episode2}}} |User talk:Derik/Archive}}|}}{{ #if: | |-style="font-size:xx-small;opacity:.7;" | colspan="2"|{{ #if: |[[{{{prev2}}}|Previous Episode]]|}} || style="text-align:right;padding-left:1em;" colspan="2" |{{ #if: |[[{{{next2}}}|Next Episode]]|}} |}} |}

If you don't put in a 'prev' value, you don't get a link. Same for season. (Since a lot of TF series don't have multiple seasons.)

(or we could just copy Wikipedia's template)

Which one?

I agree the Headmasters/Rebirth thing is a pain for RoOP- but that's the only place that pain-in-the-butt happens, so it can live in a special note.

as for the UK stuff especially- I think yu have to decide- are we talking about stories, or are we talking about issues? issues is really simple to do. 234 is followed by 235. And I think trying to do anything else is madness.

A lot of the episode-stats templates I looked at were both massively overpowered and massively under-flexible for our purposes. This is a lowest-common-denominator solution. -Derik 20:44, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and before I forget, the logic behind having the text be 'next' instead of the episode/story/page name... is because long titles would break the layout. The goal is simple/clean. -Derik 20:52, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

RE UK issues. The main reason the "next issue" thing won't work with the UK issues is we don't actually have issue pages for them, as US issues are broken up, and any UK stories printed across multiple issues get a single article. This doesn't even take into account when later comics reprinted half of a full UK comic. --FortMax 17:51, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Money is Everything

Yessir, that would be an, er, "Mega-Erg." - Chris McFeely 12:24, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Seeker variants page

Your variant Seekers page has been gone for a while right? You don't happen to still have all those other colored model sheets (in addition to the few on the Seeker page here). I hold vague dreams of repainting some Classics and I was looking for some good references. :) Thanks. -ZacWilliam.

Re: The Funny Stays

Bravo. :) -Zac

Maybe if there's a subtle hint at the top of the discussion page that this issue has been gone over before, it will encourage posters to read those discussions, and only start a new one if they have something to add.

(At least, that's how I'm justifying it.)-Derik 13:47, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Templates

I appreciate your work on them, and I very much like the idea of all our templates not being ridiculously boring; but I think it would be appropriate to keep the tone of them serious. Not taking ourselves too seriously is one of the best parts of the wiki, no doubt, but in general, all administrative messages should be straightforward and simple. It just complicates things otherwise, and you're never going to get a good joke into one, anyway. --Suki Brits 00:25, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Okay, so you didn't liek the text. I went back and forth on that. However- what you just reverted was an interm step to the main change- adding a Quint death's head to the tobedeleted template. Sipher suggested it ont he community forum 3 days ago and no one opposed it. Is that alright so long as the text remain intact? (IU ask because I'll require an admin to put throught he final CSS change, and you just volunteered yourself.) -Derik 00:27, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I think the images are a great idea, for every reason Siph gave. Just keep the text simple. (And yeah, yeah, I'd be doing the CSS changes anyway... sure.) --Suki Brits 00:30, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Hey, Derik -- I don't know what all the CSS classes you've added are/do, so I'm going to rely on you to deal with this... I added a min-height property to the Tobedeleted div because the bottom of the Quint head graphic was sticking out of the box. But, the box itself displays some strange behavior, like overlapping with whatever is below it. I assume that's the fault of one of your style rules. It was doing it before to a lesser extent, but now that the box is taller it's really obvious. Also, I tried putting a vertical-align:center rule in so the text isn't all pushed to the top but that that didn't work. Fix that too, if you can. --Steve-o 14:02, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Min-height isn't widely supported and is unlikely to be widely supported for another 5 years. It's a valid tag- it just won't do anything in most cases. The icons are supposed to tail out of the bottom of the messageboxes, that was their intentonal design. There are some other functional issues you might be having witht he quint box (since it went in I've been havign a nagging feeling like it might need some custom margins because it's much taller than the cleanup template) however, words are sadly ambiguious when discussing this. Can you make a screencap of the most egregious example so we both know exactly what you're referrign to? -Derik 20:53, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I guess the head wasn't sticking out far enough for me to realize it was intentional. In looking at the cleanup template, I do like the way that one looks... So, I dunno what the right thing to do is. Anyway, I reverted the template. But yes, I think the template needs more bottom margin or something. Here's an example of what I see. That's a screenshot from Opera. In Firefox it's not as pronounced, but the "tails" still penetrate slightly into the category box. --Steve-o 15:25, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Strange! Well, it's all custom namespaced- I'll just give it some more custom breathing room. Thanks Steve! -Derik 21:06, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Bumblebee fixes

Done. --Steve-o and DD 03:30, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Thankee! -Derik 03:43, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Sun Raid

There's a book too?? But yeah, I suck. This is just the sort of ribbing I need to get me to do it, though, so good show on that. --Steve-o 14:28, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Just colorforms with backgrounds, no text. I wanted to hear the audio version before I figured out how I'd scan it. (Is there a logical place for the colorforms, or...?) -Derik 14:31, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Zelda symbols?!

I was wondering if you would know why the Sector Seven arg site uses symbols from TLOZ: Ocarina of Time (at least, if you use the password "BYEBYEPOWERS"). Does that mean that that game has something to do with this, or is that just Sector Seven being weird?KrytenKoro 00:50, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

The consensus on Stop Sector Seven is that it's the programmers making a joke- but they have been wrong before, they thought the domain registration information for sectorseven.org wasn't part of the game either. -Derik 01:05, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion?

I would perhaps insert in it's place "wrote and added to the value of the article while making a specific note drawing others attention to this section I aware I lack an impartial viewpoint on, knowing they would doubtless wish to moderate it." (I have faith in the collaborative, and often combative, system to settle on an acceptable consensus.)

I recall reading an earlier comment on a Talk page from you along these same lines. You state that you make these obviously opinionated edits to articles, expecting others to modify them so that they are more impartial, or at least more appropriate?

If you absolutely cannot make additions to the articles in such a manner that edits by other users are not inherently necessary, then can I suggest you, instead, make suggestions on the Talk pages about adding such information? Having to continually monitor your contributions - argueably more closely than others'? - is an unfair request to make of people, and can become tiresome. --Sntint 15:07, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Cleanup categories

Hey, Derik. User:JW recently created Category:Wiki cleanup, which seems to be the category that articles marked with Template:Cleanup go if the month argument isn't given? Is that right? We should really have all the cleanup categories in a single hierarchy under Category:Teletraan I Wiki. Since you made the templates, I will let you figure out how to accomplish that and make the fixes, but I wanted to make sure you had noticed. --Steve-o 05:09, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

The script doesn't create the categories though- that's a manual job. (It assigns them automatically, but the cleanup-by-month categories themselves dont' exist until someone creates them, like Category: Things that don't exist.)

As such, adjusting the hierarchy doesn't affects the script. -05:33, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Copyrights thing

Basically, I have no idea. --Steve-o 21:19, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

A little bit of help on a template

I've made a template that will allow "previous" and "next" links for splits in the Marvel US and UK printing, but there are sone kinks I haven't been able to iron out.

{{ #if: Marvel US | Marvel US | The Transformers (Marvel comic) }} > {{ #if: {{#ifexpr: 5 }} | 5 | Issue # 5 }}
Previous Issue|}}	{{ #if: The Worse of Two Evils!|Next Issue|}}
{{ #if: The Transformers (Marvel comic) | Marvel UK | Marvel UK }} > {{ #if: {{#ifexpr: Issue #s 22 - 23 }} | Issue #s 22 - 23 | Issue #Issue #s 22 - 23 }} |}}
Previous Issue|}}	{{ #if: The Worse of Two Evils!|Next Issue|}}

You'll notice the top two rows have more space between them than the other rows. I'm wanting the large space to be between the middle two rows, but I have no idea how to do this. --FortMax 17:31, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Let's see...

{{ #if: Marvel US | Marvel US | The Transformers (Marvel comic) }} > {{ #if: {{#ifexpr: 5 }} | 5 | Issue # 5 }}
Previous Issue|}}	{{ #if: The Worse of Two Evils!|Next Issue|}}
{{ #if: The Transformers (Marvel comic) | Marvel UK | Marvel UK }} > {{ #if: {{#ifexpr: Issue #s 22 - 23 }} | Issue #s 22 - 23 | Issue #Issue #s 22 - 23 }} |}}
Previous Issue|}}	{{ #if: The Worse of Two Evils!|Next Issue|}}

By using the 'subst' commend ({{subst:User:FortMax/Template:Comicnav|etc|etc|etc}}) I can cause any template to vomit out a 'rendered' version of its text when saved.

In this case that's telling me that the reason for that extra space is that, when rendered, there is a newline before the contents of the first row, unlike the others. Now, I have no idea why a newline at the top results in space at the bottom- but it is clearly so!

In your template... this is the critical spot:

| colspan=2 | <--- Right here!
'''{{ #if: {{{seriesname|}}} | [[{{{1}}}|{{{seriesname}}}]] | [[{{{1}}}]] }} > {{ #if: {{#ifexpr: {{{2}}} }} | {{{2}}} | Issue #{{{2}}} }} '''

Remove it where you don't want the space, add it where you do. -Derik 22:57, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Night Attack Broadside

Use more descriptive filenames, please. We have three different Broadsides, and two are Mini-Cons. I suggest reuploading his toy image with a filename starting with Armada. --FFN 14:39, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Why is putting "night attack" in front of "broadside" not enough? Are we counting on a new Night Attack Broadside? --ItsWalky 16:02, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

If he had typed NightAttack_Broadside_toy or something, then I wouldn't have a problem. But 'Nat'? That's kind of vague, especially when the focus of the filename (as they are the only actual words) are broadside and toy. Yes, I'm a stickler for clearly defined filenames so one can tell at a glance what it is. --FFN 16:28, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Night Attack Team.

Frankly, I'm of two minds on this whole 'sile names have to be super descriptive' thing. The file details page has to be descriptive, the file name merely has to be unique- the names should just be distinct enough to keep track of what's what. (Editing an article filled of images named Soundeave.jpg, Soundwave2,jpg, Soundwave3.jpg would be a nightmare.)

That said, I'll take you desire for more immediately descriptive filenames under consideration in the future. -Derik 04:54, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Archive

My complete user talk history (including archived years) is viewable at: User talk:Derik/Archive.

2006 (Archived)

{{ #if: {{#ifexpr: 3 }}

|

3

|

• Walky: "Storylinks shouldn't float!"
• Continuity range box (proposal)
• Explicit continuity drilldown (proposal)
• Passive-aggressive edit memos are not good communication
• Monzo own the the G2 annual, but hasn't scanned it.
• Derik confirms he's this guy.

}}

2007 (Archived)

{{ #if: {{#ifexpr: 3 }}

|

3

|

• User:Rotty demands I be banned because i voted for a different wikia in a poll for a weekly feature.
• Don't post spoielrs from novels
• User:Crockalley calls my userpic 'the cutest catboy he's ever seen.'
• Screed at people in a series of edit memos is impolite.
• Autotrooper divisions
• Derik should remember that is it not other users jobs to fix his opinionated edits.
• Descriptive filenames are better.

}}

2008 (Archived)

{{ #if: {{#ifexpr: 3 }}

|

3

|

• Don't put templates in categories
• Mosaics are not canon
• Undermining the Wikia adblock.
• Archive is incomplete due to the Bookworm Crash.

}}

2009

Post restoration Wikia link clean up

I recall you telling us last year about something you did that would remove all 250,000-odd links that wikia inserted into every page and every revision of every page. Would you be able to do the same again after we've restored our articles? --FFN 07:00, 18 March 2009 (EDT)

I made alterations to the import script, so they never even got to our database. They're in now, they need to be edited out one by one.

...I'll look at maybe setting up an edit script. 27,000+ individual edits in history. JOY. :p

Oh, for God's Sake :( So it needs to be done manually? --FFN 07:30, 18 March 2009 (EDT)

After I saw this (there's really no way to get them out the history?), I looked to see if AutoWikiBrowser could be used to start zapping the Wikia links - no dice, apparently http://tfwiki.net/w2/api.php is out-of-line with http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php and it needs to be the same. - SanityOrMadness 10:59, 18 March 2009 (EDT)

Uhhh... I don't have a webcomic. And my name's not Tim.

Don't think too hard about it. I've been calling one of our admins Doug for a year and he never bothered to correct me. (His name is Alan... I think.) -Derik 14:42, 23 March 2009 (EDT)

The Franchise Navigation Templates

I figure that as long as I'm going through everything, I might as well update all the templates to the new look, right?

Question, though: Did I assume right that the plain links above the navigation templates are supposed to be links to the continuity families? (Like, it says "Generation 1" above the Generation 1 template, and "Live action film series" above the 2K7 and ROTF ones.) That stumped me a little when I got to the Headmasters template. --Jeysie 04:34, 24 March 2009 (EDT)

They are inconsistent.

The nav above the 2007 movie (pre-crash) should be "ready," in terms of HTML. IIRC The CSS for the new design was recovered. -Derik 06:01, 24 March 2009 (EDT)

Well, I already updated the 2K7, ROTF, and G1 navs based on the cache files that used those templates. I just figured that I might as well update the other franchise headers to use the same format while I was at it (I hate pink, what can I say?) but was stumped over how to translate that one bit of the new template. That line in the G1 and movie templates ends up being readable as a continuity family link, so I was wondering if you meant it that way, so I know how to adapt it to other franchises. --Jeysie 06:43, 24 March 2009 (EDT)

A FYI

http://www.emopanda.com/cleanupbot/ - linked from Category:Cleanup by month - needs to be updated to fix our cleanup count, rather than The Other Place's. [Plus, I suspect it may overwrite the category on the page, so please make sure it leaves it in Category:Wiki cleanup. Although I half more than half a mind to just move the subcats from C:CbM to C:WC and save a redundant layer...] - SanityOrMadness 15:58, 27 March 2009 (EDT)

I don't think it actually updates their account either, it hadn't worked since the Monaco upgrade.

Hrm... you did just give me an idea though!

And a question: Is it safe to put {{speedy}} on the twelve month templates at the start of Category:Real-world_events_by_day? They don't APPEAR to be used, but I'd like to double-check that Template:Cal-date doesn't use them in any way first. - SanityOrMadness 16:55, 27 March 2009 (EDT)

Nope! They're used for navigation! Clicking on a month in the date nav brings you to the 12-month calendar, because July redirect to Calendar. But clicking the "NEXT-MONTH" button takes you to Template:August, which is just the month of August, unlike August, which is the full 366 day calendar.

The idea being... if you click next-month, you're looking for a near-ish date. And if you click on the month itself, you're looking to navigate within the full year. Separating the two display options out with templates actually does (or at least should) make quickly navigating dates much easier, more "natural" to how people are likely to search dates. -Derik 17:42, 27 March 2009 (EDT)

Well, could you do something to stop them appearing on Special:Unusedtemplates, if they're actually necessary, then?

It seems a hellava bodge to be using a template as, in effect, a page - can't you just change the links from (e.g.) [[July]] to [[Calendar|July]] and put the "Templates" in the namespace where they belong? - SanityOrMadness 19:10, 27 March 2009 (EDT)

I'll look into it. Part of the reason it's set up like this is simply-- this is the way ti was set up before the crash. -Derik 19:16, 27 March 2009 (EDT)

Admittedly I was thinking before the crash that if the Month links on the day pages are getting redirected to the calendar, they should, well, just actually link directly to the calendar. And the months should be actual pages, yes.

In fact, is it possible to have noinclude on a regular page? Because then we could have each of the months be a proper regular page with all of the day pages transcluded into it in noinclude tags, then have that page be transcluded where it needs to be in order to show just the calendar part.

(Um. When we have time to actually work on this sort of thing, I mean.) --Jeysie 20:32, 27 March 2009 (EDT)

This thing you describe is possible... I will think about it, it'd require some re-jiggering, and at least 320 edits. (Every day's page would have to have its code changed.)

Tell you what though-- I do know a way to get the month templates off the Unused templates page! -Derik 14:01, 28 March 2009 (EDT)

Hey

Since you worked pretty hard on figuring out Staff Sergeant Tracy's name , help me with this :) --FFN 15:33, 7 April 2009 (EDT)

Bot request

I have a Deceptitran request. Could links to "Revelation (comic issue)" please move to "Revelation (War and Peace)" and "Revelation (Dreamwave issue)" to "Revelation (The Dark Ages)"? Thanks! - Starfield 21:23, 13 April 2009 (EDT)

Change links from [[Revelation (comic issue)]] => Revelation (War and Peace)

Requested by: - Starfield 21:23, 13 April 2009 (EDT)
Status: Incomplete
I have a Deceptitran request. Could links to "Revelation (comic issue)" please move to "Revelation (War and Peace)" and "Revelation (Dreamwave issue)" to "Revelation (The Dark Ages)"? Thanks! - Starfield 21:23, 13 April 2009 (EDT)

Change links from [[Revelation (Dreamwave issue)]] => Revelation (The Dark Ages)

Requested by: - Starfield 21:23, 13 April 2009 (EDT)
Status: Incomplete
I have a Deceptitran request. Could links to "Revelation (comic issue)" please move to "Revelation (War and Peace)" and "Revelation (Dreamwave issue)" to "Revelation (The Dark Ages)"? Thanks! - Starfield 21:23, 13 April 2009 (EDT)

The LongArm of the bot...

http://tfwiki.net/w2/index.php?title=Cybertron_Elite_Guard&diff=271888&oldid=267284

Huh? Even besides the fact that it seems to have been decided that the TransWarped credit was an aberration and the page has been reverted to small-a mode... wouldn't it have made more sense to change the link to Shockwave (Animated) in the first place? - SanityOrMadness 23:11, 15 April 2009 (EDT)

The bot is automated to detect moves and change links accordingly. Since somebody moved Longarm Prime to LongArm Prime (despite the fact that it was a redirect), the bot acted accordingly. —Interrobang 23:43, 15 April 2009 (EDT)

No, I add them manually. (I have it scrap the move log for recent moves and choose which ones to add to the queue.)

I just assumed someone knew what they were doign when they moved LongArm. Not correct? -Derik 23:56, 15 April 2009 (EDT)

In search of a less stupid cleanup tag.

A quandary. I'd like to make the cleanup tag template automatically datestamp if you neglect to specify one, via currentmonthname and currentyear variables, so it ends up in the proper category. However... if I subst those in the template itself, it will be forever April 2009. If I leave them variables, the date the tag was applied will not be preserved. Thoughts?--Rosicrucian^Talk 19:05, 21 April 2009 (EDT)

This thing you say... I do not believe it is possible. The problem is that {{CURRENTDAY}} will always be updated when the page re-caches. You need the page editor to either enter ~~~~~ or a subst: command for this sort of "expansion" to happen.

The only solution I've ever thought of would be to have an off-site 'bot monitor pages in a category "Pages with undated..." and make edits to those pages, adding the dates to the templates. The results wouldn't be perfect, but they'd be more-or-less right.

But that seems like a LOT of work for the result. -Derik 01:56, 22 April 2009 (EDT)

I think I may have found the trick:

A less versatile method for multilevel substitution is with a pair of includeonly tags: they can be used to prevent substitution on the page itself, while not having any effect when transcluding the page. Substitution is prevented by having the template call inside these tags. Substitution is also prevented by having one or both tags anywhere in the template call except inside a parameter definition. Thus the tag(s) can be before, inside, or after "subst:", or inside or after the template name. The positions of the two tags only influence the rendering of the template page itself. If the closing tag is put immediately after the opening tag the full wikitext is rendered, e.g.

{{<includeonly></includeonly>subst:tc}} is shown as {{subst:tc}}

wikipedia:Help:Substitution#Includeonly

Plausible?--Rosicrucian^Talk 02:21, 22 April 2009 (EDT)

I've read this documentation before, and it makes my head hurt.

How does that help us? -Derik 02:27, 22 April 2009 (EDT)

On further examination, it doesn't unless the template containing those includeonly tags is also substituted. Which leaves us no closer. Drat. I shall delve deeper into the nature of transclusion and substitution and pray I don't inadvertently become a cultist of Azathoth.--Rosicrucian^Talk 02:30, 22 April 2009 (EDT)

The problem is you want to substitute on the page itself-- you want a 'flattened' date. So that means the editor needs to put in the "subst:." (Or more simply, a ~~~~~,) it can't be optionally assigned by the template if non-present, because that would require the template reaching 'up' into the page it's included on to make changes to the base text. -Derik 02:39, 22 April 2009 (EDT)

We could, I suppose, create something to the effect of {{lazycleanuptag}} which forces substitution and only outputs {{cleanup|{{subst:currentmonthname}} {{subst:currentyear}}|}} ...but that seems like going 'round Robin Hood's barn to get there.--Rosicrucian^Talk 02:35, 22 April 2009 (EDT)

And of course misses the point entirely of plunking a date tag in when people forget to do so, the original point of this exercise. It is for the most part admitting defeat.--Rosicrucian^Talk 02:36, 22 April 2009 (EDT)

See, I didn't think that was how that worked. See if you can make that work, with exactly that substitution. If it does we at least have a starting point. -Derik 02:43, 22 April 2009 (EDT)

It does work. In that if I use the includeonly trick on the subst bits in that, and also subst the shell template itself, said template would then leave in the article text {{cleanup|April 2009}}, being a multi-level substitution as described in the mediawiki help. But, as I said above, it only works if the template using the includeonly trick is also substituted. The date variables get rendered flat, and the lazy cleanup template also gets reduced to standard wiki text, but any templates it calls aren't substituted, and thus still render as genuine transclusions.--Rosicrucian^Talk 02:50, 22 April 2009 (EDT)

The problem with that approach being that forced substitution is pretty much nonexistent, beyond a simple nag message.--Rosicrucian^Talk 02:56, 22 April 2009 (EDT)

Bot request for image tagging

I've noticed that all of the images that haven't had their descriptions restored have the text "Importing image file" instead. Can we have Deceptitran replace all instances of that phrase in the image namespace with "{{bookworm|5}}"? I think that'll make that part of the recovery process go much quicker. - Jackpot 18:09, 24 April 2009 (EDT)

Link me an example file! -Derik 20:00, 24 April 2009 (EDT)

Perfect example. Oh, and I was thinking about it, and it's probably best to replace the phrase with "{{bookworm|5|Description and copyright info}}" just to make sure it's clear. - Jackpot 20:25, 24 April 2009 (EDT)

BW Neo Models

So, I'm looking for future projects, and BW II / BW Neo seem like likely candidates. A while back, while we were debating, you posted scans of Deadend http://www.emopanda.com/tmp/deadend_model.jpg that showed several angles. Do you still have access to that book, and would you be willing/able to make some high quality scans? Also, does the book cover the secondary characters like Survive, Bazooka, Bump, Hydra, Sharp Edge. Randy and Sharp Edge? --Jimsorenson 01:05, 2 May 2009 (EDT)

• Beast Wars II Guidebook
  • Big Convoy (full++)
  • Longstickupass (full)
  • Break (full)
  • Stampy (full)
  • Chorada (full)
  • Heinrad (full)
  • Mach Kick (full)
  • Lockbuster (full)
  • Randy (full-ish)
  • Bump (full)
  • Sharpedge (full)
  • Survive (full)
  • True One (fron + transformation)
  • High Council (single shot)
  • Magmatron (front and magamasaur only, toy control art for other modes)
  • Guildart (full)
  • Saberback (full)
  • Dead End (full)
  • Sling (full)
  • Archadis (robot front/back only, toy control art for beast mode)
  • Hydra (single shot of robot mode only)
  • Hardheaded old fart (full)
  • Crazybolt (single shot of robot mode only)
  • Bazooka (control art for all modes, no character models)
  • Vector Sigma (concept sketch)
  • Yukikaze (3 views)
  • Fuzzy seal things from episode 3 (front on both characters)
  • Yukikaze Shuttle (multiple angles)
  • Concept art of CR-chambers
  • Hideos Spider Monster from episode 9 (partial model set)
  • Star Upper (robot + beast, same model seen on his article now-- I colored it for that.)
  • NAVI unit (3 angles + claw detail)
  • Killerpunch (illo of his arm shooting only-- no proper models)
• Beast Wars II Movie Guidebook
  • Lio Convoy (full)
  • Apache (full)
  • Tasmania Kid (full)
  • Bighorn (full)
  • Scuba/Ikard (full)
  • Diver (full)
  • Insectrons (Full set, but partially obscured. I have their colroed character models in another book to recover detail from...)
  • Tripledacus (front only + head detail)
  • Jointrons (low resolution, front and beast only)
  • Artemis (several angles)
  • Moon (rabbit only)
  • Galbatron (full+)
  • Megastrom (full)
  • Starscream (full)
  • BBB (full)
  • Dirge (full)
  • Thrust (full)
  • Autorollers x4 (front, back, + 1 isometric vehicle view)
• Beast Wars Neo Big Encyclopaedia (despite the name, it is small-format)
  • Majin Zarak (monster/aircraft)
  • Lio Convoy (full)
  • Apache (full)
  • Tasmania Kid (full)
  • Bighorn (full)
  • Diver (full)
  • Scuba/Ikard (full)
  • Taco Tank (full-- with that name you'd think it belonged to the Jointrons...)
  • LioJr.Skywarp/Santon/Magnaboss (full)
  • Galbatron (full)
  • Gigastrom (full)
  • Hellscream (full)
  • MaxB (full)
  • Dirgegun (full)
  • Thrustol (full)
  • Optimus Primal (full)
  • Majin Zarak (full)

That's what I have for BW-era character models...

Major stuff missing: Killerpunch, all the Seacons (I have the colored models though-- you can see them on their pages on the wiki.) Some 'sets' are less-than-complete, but might be filled out if you were able to pull lineart back out of the color models. (I have several guidebooks that include colored models-- usually partially obscured by text but potentially useful.)

I am looking for:

• BWII Manga v 2
• Car Robots encyclopedia (whatever its name is-- there was a mini-guidebook published for car that included a bunch of character models. I didn't buy it when I had the chance, which I've eternally regretted.)

...that's probably a more complete answer than you expected. -Derik 03:40, 2 May 2009 (EDT)

The Beast Wars II Super Encyclopedia has colored models for all the pre-angolmois guys, including the missing Seacons. (front angles in both modes only)

The Beast Wars Neo Guidebook of Fuckwin has colored models of everyone. Front angles only again.

Both of these would require some work-- even assuming it's possible to extract lineart from them, they're partially obscured by text and boxes. -Derik 03:56, 2 May 2009 (EDT)

... aaaaand that is why you kick SO much ass! It looks like between the art I've already got and these guide books, there is VERY little that's missing. Thankfully, I've got Killerpunch (one of the few ancillary characters from Neo I do have). It looks like, assuming you're willing to make some scans / bring some books to Botcon for me to scan, you fill in pretty much all the gaps that I've got. Generally, I CAN extract lineart from color models when necessary, but it isn't my first choice. Looks like I'd be interested in:

Lockbuster (full)

Randy (full-ish)

Bump (full)

Sharpedge (full)

Survive (full)

Hydra (single shot of robot mode only)

True One (fron + transformation)

Vector Sigma (concept sketch)

Fuzzy seal things from episode 3 (front on both characters)

Concept art of CR-chambers

Hideos Spider Monster from episode 9 (partial model set)

Star Upper (robot + beast, same model seen on his article now-- I colored it for that.)

Gigastrom (full)

Optimus Primal (full)

Majin Zarak (full)

Plus, from Beast Wars II Super Encyclopedia, colored Seacons. From Beast Wars Neo Guidebook of Fuckwin, colored Hydra and Bazooka. That would give full model sets for nearly everyone. Poor Hydra (he's so lonely) and Bazooka may be the only ones who wind up with just fronts. Ironic, since they'll be more work than the others.

Do you have my email address? Cheers! --Jimsorenson 10:38, 2 May 2009 (EDT)

Actually, I could use better shots of Guiledart's dinosaur mode too. --Jimsorenson 11:24, 3 May 2009 (EDT)

Ads tot he list.

Do you need these toot-sweet, or can it take a few days? (Just determines how much cleanup work I do.) -Derik 15:24, 3 May 2009 (EDT)

Ideally I'd get it before Botcon. Thanks for the help. --Jimsorenson 17:21, 3 May 2009 (EDT)

The New Merge Template

...*dies laughing* Is all. --Jeysie 22:20, 11 May 2009 (EDT)

Template:Source

Trying to get it to match our new copyright tags, and have been mostly successful. Two problems. Trying to flatten out the if statements has met with less than perfect results, and the H2 tag there has forced me to use a bit of a kludge to prevent the TOC from being rendered IN the template. Hoping to get it in the same nice canary yellow and orange color scheme the original box you made for original sources used. Could you have a gander at it?--Rosicrucian^Talk 17:28, 12 May 2009 (EDT)

Revenge of the Fallen books.

I can't say as I really think this is one.--Rosicrucian^Talk 02:40, 19 May 2009 (EDT)

mfghrthr54tjtyj6t7kj67k5

Seriously, stop bunging a Merge with Spotlight: Sixshot template on random pages, along with the other drunken stuff you've been doing tonight like the "Quatuar" page. - SanityOrMadness 22:24, 27 May 2009 (EDT)

I'm practicing for my drunken rampage during Botcon. -Derik 22:36, 27 May 2009 (EDT)

Earthforce/US timeline

Note: this is not speculation, the UK Letters page confirm the US timeline is a result o the Timestorm.

Which issue? - SanityOrMadness 20:18, 28 May 2009 (EDT)

I lost my notes on the UK Letters Page when my laptop was stolen-- ask Jim Sorrenson, he's researched the letters pages more recently than I. They say it at least twice. -Derik 20:40, 28 May 2009 (EDT)

Bot work

Task: Scour the Wiki for all the myriard variant spellings of "Toys"R"Us", change them all to Toys"R"Us (no reversed "R", no spaces, standard quotation marks), make the first mention a Wiki link. Leave the Toys"R"Us page itself alone, especially the introductory paragraph.--Nevermore 16:41, 10 June 2009 (EDT)

Can your bot handle creating links as well as changing them? I was thinking it'd be nice to go through and link up all dates that aren't linked already. Would promote the date pages and make it easier to catch everything that belongs on each date page. --Jeysie 17:54, 12 June 2009 (EDT)

There is a concern that blindly linking to anything that looks like a date will cause more trouble than it solves. What if the text is part of a text link? For example, in disambigs, it's quite common to say in [[Transformers (2007)|the 2007 movie]] portion of the...

There is no simple way to prevent it from making a mess of those.  :( -Derik 22:58, 13 June 2009 (EDT)

Not the years, the months and days. Like "January 1", "May 15", "August 8", etc. I guess those could show up in links too, but I think it'd be a much rarer occurrance. --Jeysie 23:08, 13 June 2009 (EDT)

...potentially. I'll look into it if Scout ever fixes the pagelisting utility I use to generate a master list. -Derik 01:06, 14 June 2009 (EDT)

Bot Request

I was trying to manually swap out Beest with Beast but the wiki delays have got me down. Any chance you can bot it? --Jimsorenson 14:10, 7 July 2009 (EDT)

Sure. When did the spelling change though? I thought Dreamwave's spelling ruled. -Derik 17:13, 7 July 2009 (EDT)

Actually, we may well have gotten them all. Spelling change was by (small) consensus, based on Metrodome and The Ark using the traditional spelling.--Jimsorenson 17:23, 7 July 2009 (EDT)

Yeah, I'm not really sure why we moved it either. We have a name that doesn't require a parenthetical, which was used in English-language media. It can rightly be considered the English name of the planet. I don't know what moving it to a name that needs a parenthetical gains us.--Rosicrucian^Talk 17:24, 7 July 2009 (EDT)

Avoiding a disambiguation parenthetical shouldn't be a reason for deciding the name of an article-- it leads to stupidity like "All Spark."

But yeah... I get Jim's point of "two English-language sources for Beast," but they're both out-fiction sources that're just aping the Japanese name. (Quality of sources vs. quantity, I guess.) I prefer Dreamwave's spelling both because it has primacy and because it's less dumb (I'm not fond of Japan's dead-literal names) without really being a 'renaming.' The fact it removes the need for disambiguation is a plus, but not an active factor.

And it's worth pointing out that "Beast (G1)" isn't a very good parenthetical for the Dinobot combiner when Beest has appeared in Dreamwave's Transformers Generation 1 comics.

I don't actually care enough to contribute to that debate, but feel cree to carbon-copy my comments if they seem helpful. -Derik 20:16, 7 July 2009 (EDT)

The Void

Seriously, how do you undo that transparency? - Jackpot 01:42, 19 July 2009 (EDT)

Opacity:.5; -Derik 16:49, 19 July 2009 (EDT)

I have no idea where that setting is or how you're changing it without it registering in the History, but I do appreciate that you've changed it back. Thank you. (As the one who came up with the gag of the page in the first place, I'm a little defensive of it.) - Jackpot 22:12, 21 July 2009 (EDT)

It's not on the page-- it's in the sitewide CSS. I have a rapid-development CSS file loaded off my web-space as an include in TFWiki's common.css file. The ideas is that since only admins can edit common.css and since I do a fair amount of our template work... I have a file that can be easily edited, so you can make 50-60 changes while testing/developing template code.

In theory you could do this by yourself and then tell people to edit their personal .css file so they could see the changes... but in practice the result is that only 5 people would ever bother, even for major proposed changes-- and twice that number would look at a proposed template and say "it looks messed up" because they were lacking the .css for 'em.

(When Rosh and Jessye were developing styles for Monacobook and the main page, we just threw their code into the temp file so everyone could see it and respond easily.)

If something's really wild and out there, it can be tested using Kired Tools, and is only visible to users who've installed the tools... but KT came later-- and anyway for 90% of stuff the rapid-development file is better-suited.

The idea is that eventually CSS changes, once they're completely solid, will migrate to the central common.css file. In practice... some of this code has been there for more than a year-- but I don't think I've gone more than 3 days without making some sort of edit to the file-- either for a new template or to accommodate a minor template tweak someone else wanted. The "button" code for example (used for the previous/next buttons) has been tweaked slightly with every new template that uses it. (Eventually I'll probably gut it and we'll get a generalized version made which can migrate to common.css.)

Oh-- and to answer your question re: the void specifically... you can set styles for specific pages. The Void was an extreme example. A much simpler one: our main page doesn't display the redundant "Main Page" title which was competing with the acctual site title (TFWiki.net) in the visual hierarchy.

So yeah... that's basically it. If you require quick CSS changes or a test you can bug me. I, in turn, have to be careful and play nice with the demi-godlike power entrusted in me, or I have it taken away. (I've been warned a couple times about the limits of what I should and shouldn't do.) Net-net, everyone benefits and TFWiki.net has some of the nicer-looking templates out there.

...this is long. I hope it answers your questions. The seedy underbelly of TFWiki.net developers, with off-site archives and changes that don't show up in history! -Derik 13:20, 22 July 2009 (EDT)

Oh and before I forgety-- I suggest installing Firebug. It's awesome-- and it woudl have todl you right away 'where' the code that was baffling you on the void page was coming from. -Derik 13:28, 22 July 2009 (EDT)

Bot Oddities

I've noticed during the SG switch that sometimes, while fixing one link, the bot will at the same time revert a previously changed link back for some reason. Check out this diff, for instance. --Jeysie 22:32, 6 August 2009 (EDT)

The two edits were made to the same page 4 seconds apart. Probably one was made by the 1-a-minute crontab script and the other was made by the speed-editor (which runs in-browser) and they tripped over one another's feet. (I'll turn off the 1-a-minute editor. The in-browser speed editor should force all the edits to execute in sequence instead of parallel.)

You say 'sometimes,' have you seen it anywhere else? Normally that would only happen once in a blue moon. -Derik 22:45, 6 August 2009 (EDT)

Well, sometimes right now, at least, due to the huge volume of link changes we're running. If you go to the Recent Changes page and show the bot edits, and skim down through it, you can see various instances on a number of pages where the size difference is (0) instead of a negative multiple of 13, meaning it fixed one link but reverted another. (Or there's 2 edits, but the size diff is only -13, etc.)

Here's just one page as an example, you can see the instances where the size doesn't change, and they seem to match up to the quirky reverts. --Jeysie 22:56, 6 August 2009 (EDT)

...great, I'm running up against caching lag then. -Derik 23:28, 6 August 2009 (EDT)

I think when I'm done I'll just re-up all the moved pages "Move all the links again." Only this time instead of 1,400 links, it'll find maybe 30 loose ones.

Ultimately if I re-architectured the 'bot to do all the pending relinks on a given page instead of making multiple edits the problem would go away. I looked at making such a change this afternoon, but the code changes involved were too complicated. :p -Derik 23:31, 6 August 2009 (EDT)

Faction Icons

Derik, per Template_talk:Factions, trying to swap out the Armada Unicron symbol for the Blendtron Unicron symbol ... how would I do that? --Jimsorenson 11:43, 11 August 2009 (EDT)

That's done on template:factions/icons.--Rosicrucian^Talk 11:46, 11 August 2009 (EDT)

I can't figure out how, just from that link. --Jimsorenson 12:26, 11 August 2009 (EDT)

Mazenoise got it. Once the cache refreshes, the pages should reflect this.--Rosicrucian^Talk 12:28, 11 August 2009 (EDT)

Thanks. (Sorry for your real estate, Derik.) --Jimsorenson 13:54, 11 August 2009 (EDT)

Eh, no problem. I point out that Kired Tools adds as 'purge' button @ the top of an article after the 'watch' button, which enables you to force a page to re-cache with a single click. (Quite useful when making changes to templates... you don't have to wait for them to re-cache to see how the result looks.) -Derik 16:05, 11 August 2009 (EDT)

Template numeracy

Just curious, is there a simple way to perform operations on a numeric template variable?

That is, if the template has a variable x, can the template be made to spit out x+1 and x-1? And, taking it a stage further, can it be made to spit these out as a fixed number of digits (that is, if x=5, can it be made to spit out x+1 as 06 and x-1 as 04 without any further intervention?) - SanityOrMadness 17:29, 6 September 2009 (EDT)

{{#pad: {{#expr: 1 + 2}} |4|0}} <!-- Pad to 4 characters using "0" the result of the expression

• Relevant link with more info. (This and other useful links can be found in the last section of my userpage. You want anything called "functions." )-Derik 17:44, 6 September 2009 (EDT)

Thanks, I managed to figure out the rest from that :) [It was just to have autogenerated back/forward links on the Marvel cover templates, given that I didn't want to edit 97 pages by hand again and I hadn't been able to figure it out originally. There's still a slight question of styling, but meh, it'll do now] - SanityOrMadness 22:13, 6 September 2009 (EDT)

Sun Raid

I posted the audio of Sun Raid on my Yahoo Video page. It was among the requests. Credit to Retro Robot Radio and positive feedback would be appreciated. [1] 69.14.142.90 17:32, 7 September 2009 (EDT

What a piece of work are you,

how noble in reason,

how infinite in faculties,

in form and moving how express and admirable,

in action how like an angel,

in apprehension how like a god! -Derik 18:07, 8 September 2009 (EDT)

Thanks, I just meant give it 5 stars in the Yahoo Video ratings and maybe say "thanks for posting this" in the user comments on that page. I'd been searching for Sun Raid for ages. I think I just need the audio for Decepticon Hostage now. 207.181.17.24 16:58, 9 September 2009 (EDT)

I guess this is a job for the bot

Transfans.net relocated to transfans.co.uk lately, there's a thread about it here: http://transfans.co.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=112756 - we have a bunch of links to their scans of the UK comic letters pages, so we'll need to sort them before the redirects go away. Cheers, Emvee 14:07, 15 September 2009 (EDT)

Navmenu Work in Progress

User:Jeysie/Navmenu

Sorry I'm taking so long on it, but I can only wrestle with IE for so long before I want to start kicking things, and my cat doesn't deserve that.

(And yeah, I know the design is ugly... that's not my strong point. I figure once the functionality's done, the design can be tweaked.)

(...wait, why did I name this "navmenu"? It's not a freaking navmenu. Oh well, whatev.) --Jeysie 19:09, 25 September 2009 (EDT)

Uh, why include {{HMcover{{#if:||{{{2}}}|}}}}, {{MarvelUScover{{#if:||{{{2}}}|}}}} and {{MarvelG2cover{{#if:||{{{2}}}|}}}}? They're all done - there's only 4, 80 and 13 (respectively) of each and they're all uploaded in the right places (unlike the Marvel UK covers, where 91 covers need moved for naming errors large and small. Also, someone needs to figure out the UK copyright situation on them enough to write {{MarvelUKcover{{#if:||{{{2}}}|}}}} and {{MarvelUKinterior{{#if:||{{{2}}}|}}}}.). Even if you wanted to upload a new version, you wouldn't need to insert those templates all over again.

[And I can't tell, since I don't have the JS plugins/etc - does the code just spurt out stuff like {{MarvelUSinterior}}, or does it include the variables? And if this is for file uploading, why {{badimage{{#if:||{{{2}}}|}}}} and the replacedimage template?) - SanityOrMadness 19:34, 25 September 2009 (EDT)

Because I just grabbed every single template in the Image Templates category. I don't actually know if all of those templates are useful or not, I was just interested in the core functionality of the thing. Since the HTML code is just a simple list, those folks who do know what is and isn't useful can easily remove (or add) stuff as needed.

And, right now all it does is insert the basic template code itself sans variables, using the same wiki code that the Edit Tools bit uses. Derik will have to add back in the JS, as I don't know jack about JS. --Jeysie 19:43, 25 September 2009 (EDT)

It spurts out the same code test that is displayed. If we convert the template to javascript (which, to be fair, can be done AFTER the design) we can re-rig it so that it spits out the template WITH all the variables listed and ready to be filled in to make it easier to use. -Derik 19:23, 26 September 2009 (EDT)

Re: your Internet Explorer questions... do they perhaps relate to IE not properly registering mouseover events on objects other than A's? -Derik 19:48, 26 September 2009 (EDT)

No, IE7 can handle that (at least, it can in the test case... I'm hoping that the wiki's DOCTYPE and whatnot won't screw with it somehow), and there's a relatively easy tweak known as "behaviors" that can duplicate the functionality in IE6. It's more just IE being irritating in how it handles general display compared to FF and Opera, especially when you're fooling around with position:absolute. --Jeysie 19:52, 26 September 2009 (EDT)

*shrug* IE's stupidity has mostly gone unconscious for me-- I've spent a decade dealing with it. Most of the time I code on Firefox now, and go back and fix any display issues... but that only works because I automatically avoid the types of conflicts that cause IE's worst problems, so no fundamental re-coding it needed, just tweaks. -Derik 19:56, 26 September 2009 (EDT)

Yeah, I usually try to avoid the more problematic stuff too, but there's no getting around using position when doing CSS menus. --Jeysie 20:00, 26 September 2009 (EDT)

Note to self...

As of ^{({{#time: M-d-y| 15:34, 20 October 2009 (EDT) }})} there are 34,321 pages and 3,229 reirects on the wiki. -Derik 15:34, 20 October 2009 (EDT)

Another bot request

Is it somehow possible to have Deceptitran add Category:Images by Nelson Yomtov to every Marvel US image? -Mazenoise 06:38, 27 October 2009 (EDT)

Hmmm... do they all share a common category? -Derik 07:22, 27 October 2009 (EDT)

Well, there's Category:Marvel US interior images, which would make this a lot simpler than I thought. The only thing remaining after that would be to hunt down all those images that don't have the {{MarvelUSinterior{{#if:||{{{2}}}|}}}} template on them.. -Mazenoise 07:30, 27 October 2009 (EDT)

Working on it. - SanityOrMadness 11:21, 27 October 2009 (EDT)

er- you realize that we have 2,283 images on the wiki with NO description other than "Importing Image File"? -Derik 08:25, 27 October 2009 (EDT)

Could you post that list somewhere, by any chance? - SanityOrMadness 11:21, 27 October 2009 (EDT)

I'm running some DB queries on my own server now related to it. (I also want to catch all the images whose description is ""; a totally blank page.)

Once that's in place, then I'm going to re-code the 'bot (it's currently broken) into something more robust which can better handle our needs (Deceptitran 1.0 would stubbornly refuse to fix some links, wouldn't fix the in-template pagelinks we use, etc.) and use it to flag all the problem images.

You know-- in between doing 6 other things, like working out a proposal for a total re-think on infobox layout, and a template for ad-hoc category tagging articles related to maintenance projects, writing a generic content-syndication script... -Derik 12:13, 27 October 2009 (EDT)

Would it be easy enough to make the bot just go through changing "Importing Image File" (and the blank pages) to {{Bookworm{{#if:||{{{2}}}|}}}} for now? - Magnus Maximus 15:23, 27 October 2009 (EDT)

That's essentially what I've got planned, yes.

Trolls

I read your essay on trolls a while back, and I thought it was one of the most concise and clear explanations of troll behavior in a wiki setting that I've seen. If it's okay with you, I'd like to present it as an unofficial essay on the wiki's I work on (obviously crediting you). So

1. Is that fine with you?
2. Could you provide a link to the original essay, both for crediting and because I'm stupid and can't find it.

Thanks!KrytenKoro 14:17, 7 November 2009 (EST)

Sure, is it the "agree to disagree is not collaborate understanding" rant around Soundwave's profile you're looking for? -Derik 06:21, 11 November 2009 (EST)

Oh man, I just realized I never replied to this. I apologize for my rudeness; yes, it was the one about Soundwave's profile.68.58.56.172 01:11, 9 December 2010 (EST)

Year subpages

As I've been filling out the year pages, I've noticed that very few of the "subpages" for the year pages have been filled out. And those that have been filled out, don't seem to contain any information that isn't already found on the main year pages. What was the intent of those pages? As is, they seem redundant. --Tigerpaw28 16:16, 15 November 2009 (EST)

Trash 'em! We've struggled to figure out what to do with the "year" pages. -Derik 06:00, 21 November 2009 (EST)

Ok. You're only saying to trash the subpages, I hope? I think the year pages are still valuable as lists of what was released that year. And by the by, have you seen what I did with 1985 or 1986 yet? --Tigerpaw28 12:59, 21 November 2009 (EST)

Yeah, there was this sort of vague idea that the year pages ought to be highly structured... but it just hasn't worked out in practice (no one does the work) to the year pages have languished. If they're finally turning into something then by all means feel free to trash those early experiments and impose the working structure. -Derik 15:55, 21 November 2009 (EST)

Suite template

I made a minor tweak to the suite template, which I've currently got at User:Abates/suitetest. The reason for it is because the suite template as it's currently engineered seems to generate bogus entries in the WantedPages list for "Optimus Prime (G1)/Merchandise/suite" and so on. As you're the resident template guru, I thought I'd better check with you before storming ahead and implementing it, in case there was some drawback I hadn't thought of with regards to the way I've done it. The only problem I can think of offhand is if it's used on an article with a / in it, for instance if we had "Transformers/G.I. Joe/Gallery". --abates 19:57, 9 December 2009 (EST)

Bot request - redirects cat

Disregard.

Now that you've got D'tran back up and working, could you possibly ask him to add any and all redirect pages into Category:Redirects to stop them clogging up Special:Uncategorizedpages, please? - Magnus Maximus 04:05, 11 December 2009 (EST)

I'm confused - I don't see any redirects in the Uncategorized Pages list! --abates 04:31, 11 December 2009 (EST)

You know what? You're right. I must be thinking of something else, but I can't think what it is. Ignore me. - Magnus Maximus 04:43, 11 December 2009 (EST)

I probably SHOULD do that with all the recursive redirect templates though... -Derik 13:18, 29 December 2009 (EST)

Rounded corners stuff

Thought I'd mention the little thing that the next version of Opera will support the border-radius property (since IIRC we just have FF & Safari's proprietary rounded border properties). IE still sucks, of course. --Jeysie 09:13, 22 December 2009 (EST)

Ayep, Opera 10.5 definitely has rounded border support. I added tweaks of all of the border-radius things I could find to my personal CSS. --Jeysie 15:15, 8 March 2010 (EST)

2010

PSX Transmetals

Hey, Derik. The Playstation version of the Transmetals fighting game won't emulate on my machine. Would you be able to get shots of the player 2 color schemes for the various characters in it, like you did Windrazor? (Is there really only one secondary color scheme per character in the PS version? The N64 game went crazy with 'em. I still need to finish screenshotting those...) -- Monzo 08:47, 26 January 2010 (EST)

This is a page I was working on in 2003 documenting the Tranemetals game which I never got finished. You can download a rar of the whole directory here, which includes full-res TGA's of my master screenshots (well, most of 'em. It's kinda a mish-mash.)

Have at thee! You're free to use anything there! -Derik 11:23, 26 January 2010 (EST)

Question

I don't suppose you know if there's a way to reskin a particular page, and only that page? I'm trying to do that on another wiki. ---Blackout- 08:58, 15 February 2010 (EST)

Every page on a wiki has a unique class associated witht he base <BODY> element based on its name. For the main page, this class is "page-Main_Page"

So to hide the page title on the main page (which would otherwise supurfulously read "Main Page," and our analytics indicated were causing users to think they were not truly at the siteroot) we use the following css:

.page-Main_Page .firstHeading {
     display:none;
}

I hope that's helpful! You cna find the class-identifier from a page by viewing the source or (easier IMO) using the Firebug extension. (But if you're not a developer, the Firebug extension may be confusing.) -Derik 22:56, 15 February 2010 (EST)

Sorry, but that makes no sense. You see, I'm trying to do something similar to what you were trying to do with Shattered Glass (franchise) at one point. ---Blackout- 03:48, 16 February 2010 (EST)

.page-Shattered_Glass_franchise.

It's a css class that is assigned to the document root dynamically by the mediawiki software which reflects the name of the page. -Derik 03:52, 16 February 2010 (EST)

Right.

Sorry, but I'm kinda stuck with the Monaco skin right now, and this stubbornly refuses to work. The closest I ever got was accidentally turning all the text on the target page white. ---Blackout- 04:37, 16 February 2010 (EST)

Have you tried hitting it? Try hitting it. -- Semysane 04:51, 16 February 2010 (EST)

Assuming you're working with your personal styles page...

Many default mediawiki styles are flagged with the "do not override" debug-code. This is terrible practice, but they did it, not us. Many others are id-prefixed (which gives them precedence.) This is good practice. Both are annoying.

Try something like .page-Shattered_Glass_franchise #content h1.firstHeading (where .firstHeading is whatever class you're trying to affect. More specific rules has precedence, so adding the tag to the class may help too.) If it's still un-cooperative you can use the debug code in the rule. background-color:pink !important;.

This, incidentally, is why I use Firebug; it shows you what rules are overriding what. -Derik 10:43, 16 February 2010 (EST)

Actually, I'm working with the main .css file (One of the perks of being an almighty god admin.) ---Blackout- 12:58, 16 February 2010 (EST)

By "main" I assume you mean common.css, not the skin base file. (IIRC the skin file requires FTP access to change.)

What are you trying to do? Maybe I can help. -Derik 16:10, 16 February 2010 (EST)

I'm actually stuck with Wikia, so I'm working with MediaWiki:monaco.css.

Anyway, I'm (pretty much) running a wiki about a text-based RPG on a forum you have most likely never heard of before, and we just introduced a mirrorverse.

I'm trying to change the skin's colours (which are maroon-ish and grey, if that helps), to light blue and slightly darker gray, thus giving an "inverted colours" appearance" on that page and that page only. If it's possible to reverse the link colours too (blue links are red, red links are blue), that would be nice. ---Blackout- 04:57, 17 February 2010 (EST)

shift-refresh to clear your cache if you're not seeing the colors.

.page-User_talk_Derik #content{
	background-color:#cccccc !important;
}


.page-User_talk_Derik #content a.new{
	color:#5A3696 !important;
}

.page-User_talk_Derik #content a{
	color:#CC2200 !important;
}

The basic principle involved should be clear enough. Let me know when you've seen this so I can remove it from TT1's master CSS file. -Derik 23:28, 18 February 2010 (EST)

I have it. ---Blackout- 03:02, 19 February 2010 (EST)

And, quite annoyingly, it is still not working. ---Blackout- 07:25, 19 February 2010 (EST)

Install the firebug plugin. Use it to highlight the affected element. It will show you which CSS rules apply to that element, and which are overriding each other. -Derik 20:27, 20 February 2010 (EST)

GoBot Wiki spam

FYI: Your user page and a couple of others on GoBots wiki has been spammed. - Starfield 12:38, 15 February 2010 (EST)

Your userpage

When did this wiki get horribly fused with the wiki where I actually am an admin and have access to the site css? :)

(No, really. Fix that when you get around to it.) ---Blackout- 11:30, 20 February 2010 (EST)

Bot Request

We need to nuke all the sub-categories in Category:Functions named "foo specialist". --FortMax 12:46, 11 March 2010 (EST)

common_tmp.css versus the css on emopanda

Hey! User:Derik/Common tmp.css and tfwiki_tmp_global.css on emopanda are both included in common.css at the moment. I would have simply removed one as mostly they're duplicates of each other, but it looks like you'd added stuff (e.g. the feed icons) to your emopanda copy which isn't in common_tmp.css. Should I move the new styling into common_tmp.css and remove the emopanda file from common.css? --abates 17:00, 11 March 2010 (EST)

emopanda malware warning.

I'm getting a malware warning off emopanda when I load the site in chrome (I had to remove the call to the css file on there from common.css). The warning I got linked to this page so you can check it out. --abates 04:38, 29 August 2010 (EDT)

...odd. I wonder if my host got infected? I haven't touched a thing on the site. -Derik 18:28, 7 September 2010 (EDT)

Request for info

Hey there, I'm Dr Ishmael, an admin at GuildWiki. We are currently in the planning stages of leaving Wikia, and you were mentioned as a good resource to contact for advice on the technical details of this process.

Specifically, it was mentioned that when TFwiki moved, you initially had a form of cross-site authentication in place so that Wikia users could re-register their usernames here with the same password. I was wondering if you could give me any specifics on how that was implemented (I've written similar code before in Perl, so I'm familiar with the idea), or even if you still had the code lying around that you could send me.

If you have any additional advice about this or any other aspect of moving a wiki, we would certainly appreciate the help. Feel free to email me directly or contact me at GuildWiki. Thanks! Dr ishmael 13:35, 1 October 2010 (EDT)

A friendly anon posted at GuildWiki to direct me to your LJ posts about the move. I think they cover everything I had questions about so far. However, Wikia is now using a fancy AJAX-based login page (Special:Signup) and I don't know if Special:UserLogin still functions or not (going to the URL just redirects to Special:Signup, but it might still accept POST requests). If I run into any problems adapting the code for the new login page, I may be back with more questions. Dr ishmael 15:28, 1 October 2010 (EDT)

Good luck! It's kinda cool to see other people telling Wikia where they can shove it. -- Semysane 16:03, 1 October 2010 (EDT)

I'm a bureaucrat at the Might and Magic Wiki which is also in the process of telling Wikia where "it" belongs and moving elsewhere. Love the new interface here and its strong resemblance to Monaco: I wanted to ask whether it would be considered a violation of any laws/goodwill if we shamelessly copy it as a template (and if so, whether we could inquire about related technical help around here during the transfer)? Thanks! --Dubiel 18:15, 23 October 2010 (EDT)

2011

Monaco-book skin

Hi! I am User:KrytenKoro at kingdomhearts.wikia.com, and we recently moved to khwiki.net . We are trying to install monaco, but our host said that wikia's version is too buggy to use, so we wanted to use tfwiki's monaco-book as an alternative. From what I can tell, you worked on that skin some, and I was hoping that you could help our host (here) get that installed. If there's anything I can do to help, please don't hesitate to ask, and if I'm bugging the wrong person, I apologize. Thanks! KrytenKoro14:23, 9 February 2011 (EST)

You want to ask User:Rosicrucian about that.

(I imagine we're fine with it-- we internally refer to our skin as "Monacobook" because it's a deliberate hybrid.) But Ros is the guy who did all the heavy lifting putting the skin together, so you'd want to ask him for guidance. -Derik 18:47, 10 February 2011 (EST)

Our skin took kind of a weird path to get here. The stuff that went into it started as me futzing around with reskinning Monaco, then when it became obvious that too much of Monaco was tied into weird Wikia specific stuff, I shifted to reskinning Monobook. The thing to realize about coming up with mediawiki skins is that really all it takes is some basic knowledge of CSS and enough spare time to throw up a working file in your userspace and bang away at it until you get something you like. Really, I haven't radically changed anything in Monobook, and CSS files are pretty human-readable on purpose. I mean seriously, I think maybe the most "different" thing we did was applying patterns to the various header bars and finding a way to substitute graphics in the place of the sidebar header text. If you mean just straight-up "how to install skins in MediaWiki" there is actually a very good tutorial on that already in the MediaWiki documentation. As I don't think I did anything too special with our skin, I personally don't have much qualms if you appropriate the basic structure and make it your own. Just familiarize yourself with what a CSS file looks like, and bear in mind the stuff I did is going to point rather obviously to assets on this server, so your own reskinned version will of course have to substitute new graphics and their respective paths in.--Rosicrucian^Talk 23:00, 10 February 2011 (EST)

Thanks!12.53.10.226 18:49, 17 February 2011 (EST)

I feel kind of stupid for asking this, but where is your actual monacobook code?KrytenKoro 15:10, 22 February 2011 (EST)

Here.--Rosicrucian^Talk 23:03, 26 February 2011 (EST)

Template:Disbox?

Hey, Derik, is Template:Disbox actually in use for anything? I'm trying to clean up Uncategorized Templates. JW 09:55, 13 February 2011 (EST)

It's a legacy of a proposed change to how the disambig pages were done.

Feel free to trash it. -Derik 20:28, 13 February 2011 (EST)

Camera

Love you Derik. Antimatter 19:37, 19 July 2011 (EDT)

Robot Masters online comic

Would you happen to have the last three chapters of it? —Interrobang 14:01, 27 July 2011 (EDT)

I don't know how the chapters break... I have 26 pages, does that help?

Here's everything I have from Robotmasters.

(I think I'm gonna limit myself to talk pages for awhile.) -Derik 15:32, 27 July 2011 (EDT)

26 should be the right number (two pages per chapter). Thank you! —Interrobang 16:04, 27 July 2011 (EDT)

Glad I could be helpful! Does this mean there is going to be coverage for the RM comics?

Please let me know if the red thing Victory Leo emerges from is the Bloody Zone, will you?

Also, it occurs to me that even if we're holding off on the unsubbed BWII/Neo episodes for accuracy, we could probably manage 1-sentence summaries on top and cast lists. Make the articles less spare and at least slightly useful.

(Uh, I'm not suggesting you to do that, I'm just thinking aloud.) -Derik 16:25, 27 July 2011 (EDT)

Well, I've increased the amount of information on the individual pages, but they still lack synopses because I'm uneasy about making them when I have little clue what the characters're saying (not to mention the accompanying prose).

The panel you're talking about is artistic license to show Victory Leo having an internal dialogue; it's not literal, as is also indicated by the giant floating head. That's common to Japanese media. (He's also, uh, already there.) The only visual example of the Blastizone I've found is this. —Interrobang 16:46, 27 July 2011 (EDT)

What's the onomatopoeia? -Derik 03:59, 28 July 2011 (EDT)

There doesn't appear to be any mention of the Blasty Zone by name anywhere in the comics. (mind you, I mostly skimmed through looking for the proper katakana) The onomatopoeia used for Primal's appearance appears to be "Buon". --Detour 04:08, 28 July 2011 (EDT)

I mention because other than the Bleed (which seems to share certain attributes with Bloody Zone) I always thought the Blasty Zone sounded like a Boom Tube. Among a Boom Tube's other attributes... it changes the size' of anything that travels through it to fit the local environments. (Giants come through human-sized and vice-versa.)

I'm not even beginning to suggest any connection there-- I just think it's funny.  :) -Derik 04:34, 28 July 2011 (EDT)

Do you still have the comics anywhere? Megaupload has imploded since you posted that link, and I'd like #11-13 and #2 of the pack-in comic for completion's sake? Mimi 20:02, 29 September 2013 (EDT)

Maybe useful website?

Just so you don't have to strain your eyes when looking at blurry kanji, this site has a glossary of BWN stuff. It's... pretty much the only site I've found that goes in any depth about BWII and BWN. —Interrobang 04:40, 4 August 2011 (EDT)

Kersweet! Matching kanji when it doesn't OCR will be much easier than trying to figure out the radical combinations. Thanks !?! -Derik 04:44, 4 August 2011 (EDT)

Bot test

I wonder how this handles:

• multibyte link
• トランスフォーマー カーロボッ - multibyte visible
• トランスフォーマー カーロボッ - multibyte both
• トランスフォーマー カーロボッ simple multibyte link
• トランスフォーマー カーロボッ - multibyte storylink
• トランスフォーマー カーロボッ - multibyte both
• トランスフォーマー カーロボッ simple multibyte storylink

-Derik 20:46, 20 October 2011 (EDT)

Redirect fix list for bot

Matrix Quest (Marvel) - Matrix Quest

Dark Designs (episode) - Dark Designs

Showdown (episode) - Showdown

Dark Star (issue) - Dark Star

All Fall Down (issue) - All Fall Down

Primal Scream (issue) - Primal Scream

Fallen Angel (issue) - Fallen Angel

Time Wars (issue) - Time Wars

Way of the Warrior (issue) - Way of the Warrior

The Best of Simon Furman - The Transformers: The Best of Simon Furman

Greatest Battles of Optimus Prime and Megatron - The Transformers: Greatest Battles of Optimus Prime and Megatron

Best of Optimus Prime - The Transformers: Best of Optimus Prime

All Hail Megatron - The Transformers: All Hail Megatron

The Arrival - Transformers Animated: The Arrival

The Ascending - Transformers: Beast Wars: The Ascending

Beast Wars Sourcebook - Transformers: Beast Wars Sourcebook

Defiance - Transformers: Defiance

Destiny - Transformers: Destiny

Escalation (IDW) - The Transformers: Escalation

Evolutions - The Transformers: Evolutions

The Gathering - Transformers, Beast Wars: The Gathering

Foundation - Transformers: Foundation

Infiltration - The Transformers: Infiltration

Last Stand of the Wreckers - The Transformers: Last Stand of the Wreckers

Maximum Dinobots - The Transformers: Maximum Dinobots

Megatron Origin - The Transformers: Megatron Origin

Movie Adaptation - Transformers: Movie Adaptation

Movie Prequel - Transformers: Movie Prequel

Nefarious - Transformers: Nefarious

The Reign of Starscream - Transformers: The Reign of Starscream

Balancing Act (issue) - Balancing Act

Revenge of the Fallen (comic series) - Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Official Movie Adaptation

Rising Storm - Transformers: Rising Storm

Saga of the Allspark - Transformers: Saga of the Allspark

Spotlight (comics) - The Transformers: Spotlight

Stormbringer (comics) - The Transformers: Stormbringer

Target 2006 (IDW) - The Transformers: Target: 2006

Tales of the Fallen - Transformers: Tales of the Fallen

Devastation (IDW) - The Transformers: Devastation

Claster - Claster Television

Headmasters (comic) - The Transformers: Headmasters

Generation One (Dreamwave comic) - Transformers: Generation 1 (Dreamwave)

The War Within - Transformers: The War Within

War Within: The Dark Ages - Transformers: War Within: The Dark Ages

War Within: The Age of Wrath - Transformers: War Within: The Age of Wrath

Makoto (Stargate Battles) - Makoto (Star Gate)

The Cool - Transformers Animated: The Cool

The Stargate Battles (issue) - The Battle of the Star Gate

Not all of them, but sizable enough to take a while. Additions are forthcoming. —Interrobang 05:29, 28 October 2011 (EDT)

BOT: replacing (1) links to "The Gathering" with "Transformers: Beast Wars: The Gathering" — should be Transformers, Beast Wars: The Gathering with a comma, not a colon. --abates 06:59, 4 November 2011 (EDT)

But that looks silly! -Derik 21:50, 4 November 2011 (EDT)

The comma only applies to The Gathering, not The Ascending. (Blame the indicia.) —Interrobang 22:39, 4 November 2011 (EDT)

I remember when indicia was something we used to make formal titles better, not worse. -Derik 01:59, 5 November 2011 (EDT)

I think Deceptitran might need some tweaking when it comes to storylinks [2] It's turning {{storylink|Y}} into {{storylink|X|Y|}}X| in some places. --abates 03:57, 7 November 2011 (EST)

...fucking hell. IT'S the SAME DAMN CODE it's had for 3 years! Why would it...?

Has it been doing it all over? I am very confused by this.

*sigh* Anyway, it's not running now. I'm going to be gone for a day or two, I'll look at it then. I'm sorry man.  :( -Derik 04:05, 7 November 2011 (EST)

Hey, it could have been worse - there's no data loss after all! (though with the amount of backups we have, even that wouldn't have been a problem) --abates 05:17, 7 November 2011 (EST)

Was it just that BW link it was doing it on? -Derik 10:48, 7 November 2011 (EST)

Unfortunately no. Looks like it was anywhere a title was in a storylink. I fixed a bunch of War Within storylinks last night. --abates 13:53, 7 November 2011 (EST)

$%^&*( How long has it been doing that for?! I know it wasn't last week.

*sigh* This is probably a result of changes to make it work on links within templates. But they shouldn't affect storylinks!

I'll probably just roll the entire 'bot back to a previous version. (Assuming I can find where I put the previous version.) -Derik 19:48, 7 November 2011 (EST)

NetJet

What are the odds of you being able to track down a workable rip/ROM/whatnot of Transformers Battle Universe? --Monzo 01:52, 13 November 2011 (EST)

I see zero references to Net Jet ROM's or rips online, so probably no.

I assume the online servers are no longer active? -Derik 15:54, 13 November 2011 (EST)

The Bloody Zone draft you did

Did you want to keep that? If so, you should probably move it to User space or something. Also the gender-icons template you did has been up for deletion for a few months, so, er, ditto? --abates 04:16, 17 December 2011 (EST)

Nah, trash 'em both.

(Though I still think it's retarded that our article on the Bleed pretends we don't know what it is.) -Derik 13:35, 17 December 2011 (EST)

Sorry, I shouldn't say retarded. It's differently abled. -Derik 14:21, 17 December 2011 (EST)

Suite code

I'm trying to replicate the suite code here, and I copied the common.css from here to here. However, as you can see on the test article, the "suite" first line isn't as thin as it is on the tfwiki. Do you recognize this bug, and can you give me any pointers on fixing it?KrytenKoro 23:37, 23 December 2011 (EST)

2012

Google+

Hey, I made a Google+ page for the wiki. Can you update the main page to also include the Google+ picture link next to the other social network links? -- spyder^{Use this!} 21:38, 8 October 2012 (EDT)

Relevant article to your current efforts

Intelligence officer. 24.211.29.87 22:44, 22 July 2012 (EDT)

blah. Gratitude though. I think I'll finish the article then go back and merge the two. Thank you!! -Derik 22:48, 22 July 2012 (EDT)

Ladybird scans at green-ranger

Hey, Derik -- Long time! I just got an email from somebody about my old book scans site informing me that the Ladybird scans you put on green-ranger.com are gone! Have they been relocated, or are they down right now? --Steve-o 08:41, 31 July 2013 (EDT)

I certainly don't have them, but the internet is full of packrats. From the TFG pastebin:

Ladybird books #1-10 + Movie - http://www.sendspace.com/file/s65zfe
Ladybird books Audio Tapes #1-10 + Movie - http://www.sendspace.com/file/n8z67h

-Derik

New Bot Shots battle game armors

I just noticed they added two more armor sets (Minotaur and Dragonscale) if you wanna grab images of 'em for our article. Also any chance you could grab better images of Skystalker, Buzzclaw, Hydrax and Hun-Gurrr off there? --abates 03:55, 19 August 2013 (EDT)

Template:Spoiler implementation on another wiki

I've tried patching this template in at Hellboy wiki, but I'm fumbling around because it's not working. Could you give me any guidance?KrytenKoro (talk) 10:24, 22 May 2014 (EDT)

2016

Gasp! Can it be?

Welcome back to the land of moving parts. Drop me a line at some point. --Jimsorenson (talk) 19:49, 22 March 2016 (EDT)

How can I edit the template?

Hello, Derik. I am tjdnf1995, a newcomer in this wiki. I'm from South Korea and name's Jin-bo Sim. So just call me Jin-bo.

I'm going to add a South Korean voice actor on Demolishor (ROTF) page without deleting any other actors. I added the korean actor on template:voiceactor, too. But when I saved my edit, there was nothing but only original actor and spanish voice actor. So I changed the queue. Then, the Spanish actor is disappeared. That really makes me angry. I tried to edit the template, but I couldn't because of its mechanism was hard to find. How do I find and edit it? --Tjdnf1995 (talk) 12:04, 13 June 2016 (EDT)

"Pre-Requiem continuity"

That's not a thing! --KilMichaelMcC (talk) 14:31, 14 March 2019 (EDT)

• Figure out another term then! (I place Requiem for the Wreckers as the fundamental end of that universe with Unicron just tidying up.) But I do think Bold new Era makes sense. --Derik (talk) 20:54, 14 March 2019 (EDT)

Discussions at the community portal (few as they may be so far) have proposed "IDW 2005 continuity" and "IDW 2019 continuity", both for being descriptive to a fault and as future-proofing in the event of another reboot, though such a change has yet to be implemented site-wide. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 21:02, 14 March 2019 (EDT)

That satisfies our needs but the fancom is going to choose their own term and it won't disambig by year. DC certainly never chose the term "post-Crisis." I by they would have preferred "DC 84" as well. -Derik (talk) 14:55, 16 March 2019 (EDT)

It would have been "DC 86" (or even later. The reboot dragged out a looong time - Wonder Woman didn't launch in the new continuity until 1987)

And there was an in-continuity event for the reboot in Crisis. There's no equivalent Reality Rewriting here - the place Barber left things in Unicron (the closest equivalent to Crisis in this respect) and OP, you absolutely could continue from. (Even the "flashforwards" of the last issue of Lost Light are no different to Costa's last issue.) - Mammalian Verisimilitude (talk) 16:21, 16 March 2019 (EDT)

Fair point. I chose Requiem because it left the timeline being rewritten as Chekov's gun while Unicron was rolling up the carpets.

I still think 'Bold New Era' is a better banner than 'IDW 2019.' That's shite. Plus IDW is using the term BNE. -Derik (talk) 19:35, 16 March 2019 (EDT)

"Bold New Era" is a description, not a name. Plus, things are only "new" for so long - either this continuity persists, in which case it either becomes old before it dies, or it ends soonish (with or without a replacement). Either way, it's not "new" for long. - Mammalian Verisimilitude (talk) 22:45, 16 March 2019 (EDT)

For all we know, IDW could ditch the "Bold New Era" branding as soon as the initial five-parter ends. That, and labeling an ongoing continuity as "new" anything is only going to make the title more ridiculous as time passes. See: every joke ever made about "New Super Mario Bros.", for example. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 23:00, 16 March 2019 (EDT)

I am 100% certain that IDW will drop the 'Bold New Era' banner eventually. But we need something to call this and 'Bold Era' works.

Throw out some proposals that are not just a IDW+year. -Derik (talk) 00:32, 17 March 2019 (EDT)

Old templates

Hi, I've been going through the unused templates list and found a few you created that seem to be ideas that ended up not going anywhere:

• Cal-date/offset2
• Cal-date/offset recurs
• Infobox-tabs
• Vid-icon

Vid-icon seems to be a convenience wrapper that never got used, while the Cal-date offset templates look like alternate offset template ideas you were working on, but Infobox-tabs I can't decipher the use of outside of somehow enhancing one our infoboxes. Are any of these of value at this point? --Tigerpaw28 (talk) 19:23, 17 November 2021 (EST)

I suspect the extra cal-date offsets were development or testing versions of the templates, or possibly used to testbed a new format or somethign which was never aprooved. You can trash those.

The Infobox-tabs was an idea I had for visually marking the language and medium of a story. It was actually part of a concept I had that intersected with with vid-icon template....

I wanted us to have a 'Release history' section on comic book pages. So a story would have a series of listings for "Printed in Marvel UK #XX-XX. (Year)" "Printed in Panini #XX (Year)" "Collected in Titan 'Failing Upwards' trade paperback (year)", "serialized in 'Kids Weekly' #XX-XX (year) (Black & White)" To really reflect WHERE these stories can be found. Armada comics were published singly, had single issues cut up into smaller sections for weekly publication in the UK, reprinted with a few other issues in an Annual AND collected in Trade Paperbacks. That's not just multiple printings... it's being chopped up and repackaged in some really WEIRD ways and I thought it was useful to have a little section on the bottom of the page to track this.

...but I was overruled every time I brought it up.

Anyway, the Infobox-tabs template was a proposal for a similar visual cue for episodes -- language, year and format or release. But that was just a concept study.

Junk 'em all! -Derik (talk) 04:48, 18 November 2021 (EST)

Thanks for the info. The Infobox-tabs idea is actually rather interesting. I might throw it out on the Discord to see what others think. My main concern is that it wouldn't be useful enough to justify the effort it would take to add that on all the pages and that it would potentially become a maintenance headache to keep up with it. I'll get the templates junked as they don't look to be far enough along to be useful and there was a tabbed infobox concept proposed for another use that could probably be tweaked if we did decide to pursue the idea. --Tigerpaw28 (talk) 00:04, 20 November 2021 (EST)

I don't consider those templates useful at all... it's more of a concept test for 'maybe add more immediately scannable visual coding?' Any actually implementation would be much different.-Derik (talk) 00:46, 21 November 2021 (EST)