Editing MediaWiki talk:Community Portal

__NEWSECTIONLINK__

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

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

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

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

'''The server move:'''
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Arriving2]]

{{chapters
|title=Community Portal Archives
|content=*[[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive1|Archive 1]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive2|Archive 2]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive3|Archive 3]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive4|Archive 4]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive5|Archive 5]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive6|Archive 6]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive7|Archive 7]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive8|Archive 8]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive9|Archive 9]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive10|Archive 10]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive11|Archive 11]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive12|Archive 12]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive13|Archive 13]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive14|Archive 14]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive15|Archive 15]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive16|Archive 16]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive17|Archive 17]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive18|Archive 18]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive19|Archive 19]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive20|Archive 20]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive21|Archive 21]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive22|Archive 22]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive23|Archive 23]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive24|Archive 24]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive25|Archive 25]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive26|Archive 26]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive27|Archive 27]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive28|Archive 28]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive29|Archive 29]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive30|Archive 30]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive31|Archive 31]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive32|Archive 32]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive33|Archive 33]]
* [[Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive33|Archive 34]]
}}

== Possible Relicensing? ==

So, Wikipedia is moving from the GFDL to a Creative Commons license, which will make it incompatible with most Wikia sites from then on. (Presumably; I haven't heard if Wikia at large or any of its individual wikis--like the old Transformers one-- are making the same transition.) Should TFWiki consider switching, too? Pretty much everyone outside the Wikipedia/Wikia family goes with CC, which is a lot simpler in a lot of ways than the GFDL.

[[wikipedia:GFDL#Compatibility with CC-BY-SA|Apparently, GFDL-licensed wikis can only make the change before August 1, 2009]]. And unlike them, we probably wouldn't have to worry about having added any content from non-wiki GFDL-licensed things, at least. And it would completely eliminate legal copying/pasting between this wiki and its rival. --[[User:Fleb|Fleb]] 17:47, 6 June 2009 (EDT)

:I would support this, at least tentatively. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 19:16, 6 June 2009 (EDT)
::On the surface, at least, it looks like a good move. It keeps the same free-info spirit, but is incompatible with Wikia's license ''and'' any info-quoting or copying from us further requires attributing the wiki, if I'm reading it right. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 21:18, 6 June 2009 (EDT)
:::Hmm. I thought about bringing this Creative Commons thing up awhile back, but I'm not Legal Smarts (S-M-R-T) enough to fully understand it. Perhaps our staff should comment on this? The final decision is probably theirs. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 04:06, 8 June 2009 (EDT)
::::I don't really have much to say, other than it sounds like a good idea. If nothing else, the legal terms of the GFDL are nightmarish at best and I'd be happy to never think of them again. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 14:02, 8 June 2009 (EDT)
IANAL, but [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Licensing_update based on Wikimedia's page,] it ''looks'' like "relicensing" the site is just a matter of changing all the text that mentions "GFDL" now. The one requirement is that we're using [http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl-1.3.html version 1.3.] [[Transformers Wiki:Copyrights]] doesn't specify a version, and neither does the edit page or the footer, so that's probably okay. <small>(''[[Transformers Wiki:Text of the GNU Free Documentation License|If the Document does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published (not as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation.]]'')</small> --[[User:Fleb|fleb]] 18:30, 8 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::One thing that's confusing me, looking again at that - Wikipedia's new licensing structure seems confusing in that all non-imported-under-a-CC-licence content will still be dual-licensed under the GDFL. If we adopted that, Wikia could import from us, but we couldn't import from Wikia. CAN the GDFL be dropped completely? - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 19:31, 8 June 2009 (EDT)
:Oh, definitely. The dual-licensing is just ''Wikipedia's'' own, weird thing to keep the Free Software Foundation loyalists from bitching and Leaving Forever. (Those CC-only things should actually "poison" individual pages so they're not truly GFDL-licensable anymore without reverting, so they'll probably eventually drop it completely.) --[[User:Fleb|fleb]] 22:05, 8 June 2009 (EDT)

Which CC license would we use?  Seems like [[wikipedia:Creative_Commons_licenses#Original_licenses|from the Wikipedia CC page]] that a by-nc-nd license would be what we're after? --[[User:Abates|abates]] 19:16, 8 June 2009 (EDT)
:It would be [[wikipedia:Share-alike|CC-by-sa]]. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 19:23, 8 June 2009 (EDT)
::That looks like a good idea to me. --[[User:Abates|abates]] 20:07, 8 June 2009 (EDT)
:::Definitely By-SA -- If we do a No-Derivatives, how would we even edit any of our own pages? --[[User:Fleb|fleb]] 22:05, 8 June 2009 (EDT)
::::Seems I misunderstood how the licensing applied. :) --[[User:Abates|abates]] 23:44, 8 June 2009 (EDT)

===ARE we going to relicence?===
So, are we going to do it, is it being investigated, or are we going to just leave it until the grace period expires and we have to stick with the GDFL after all? - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 17:09, 15 June 2009 (EDT)
:I vote we do it.  Anyone else? --[[User:Abates|abates]] 20:14, 16 June 2009 (EDT)
::It seems to be a less onerous license, and one which we have a window of opportunity to switch to. I'd say go for it.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|<sup>Talk</sup>]] 20:18, 16 June 2009 (EDT)
:::+1 vote in favor of relicensing. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 21:29, 16 June 2009 (EDT)
:::: -1, I'm against it unless we find a copyright lawyer.  The GFDL provides no provisions against re-use in commercial projects.  While I'm all for 'Hasbro' poking around on this wiki and recycling bios/names/ideas/what-have-you, if someone else decides to redistribute this content for commercial purposes (for example, selling an iPhone/Android app that's basically an offline cache of the wiki,) I want to make sure that we're not on the hook for it.  I get that Hasbro is turning a gleefully blind eye to us as long as we're just trying to stay alive as a volunteer effort, but if we end up attached to someone's attempt to profit off of our work, which is in itself a derivative work of at least a dozen various IP holders, the resulting storm of litigation would shut us down within hours.  (And no, I am in fact the 'least' qualified person around to give advice on this situation.  I'm just a paranoid freak.) --[[User:McFly|McFly]] 12:07, 18 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::...I have no idea what you just said. Literally. It seems vaguely like you're trying to argue against using the GDFL on the grounds that someone could resell the wiki content. But we're ALREADY using the GDFL and talking about '''changing''' to a [[Wikipedia:Creative Commons licenses|Creative Commons licence]] (Which includes the option for a -nc flag, although no-one here has proposed that as yet that I can see - and given that we carry ads, we may not be allowed to use a -nc flag. That's one I'd like a lawyer's opinion on).
:::::[And could you login just to prove that's you? You posted that as an anon] - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 13:45, 18 June 2009 (EDT)
::::::Yeah, under our current GDFL license, the content of this wiki can '''already''' be sold. Staying with the GDFL won't fix that.
::::::On that note, I will say I'd actually prefer to change to the non-commercial version of the Share-Alike CC license myself, but I had gotten the feeling that there was that only one specific CC license you could switch to. Was I mistaken on that? --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 14:08, 18 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::::They specifically mention CC-BY-SA 3.0, so you're probably right about -nc not being an option, I suppose. For the avoidance of doubt, the GDFL section on relicensing follows in its' own section, [http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html the GDFL as a whole is here], a [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ summary of CC-BY-SA 3.0 is here] and the [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode full CC-BY-SA 3.0 licence is here] - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 14:25, 18 June 2009 (EDT)
::::::::Hrm. I guess that's something we should ask... someone? Who's in charge of all this wiki relicensing as a whole?
::::::::But for what it's worth, we could use an -nc flag despite the ads, if it's allowed:
::::::::{{quote|'''Can I still make money from a work I make available under a Creative Commons licenses?'''

Absolutely. Firstly, because our licenses are non-exclusive which means you are not tied down to only make a piece of your content available under a Creative Commons license; you can also enter into other revenue-generating licenses in relation to your work. One of our central goals is to encourage people to experiment with new ways to promote and market their work. 

Secondly, the noncommercial license option is an inventive tool designed to allow people to maximize the distribution of their works while keeping control of the commercial aspects of their copyright. To make one thing clear that is sometimes misunderstood: the "noncommercial use" condition applies only to others who use your work, not to you (the licensor). So if you choose to license your work under a Creative Commons license that includes the “noncommercial use” option, you impose the ”noncommercial” condition on the users (licensees). However, you, the creator of the work and/or licensor, may at any time decide to use it commercially. People who want to copy or adapt your work, "primarily for monetary compensation or financial gain" must get your separate permission first.|[http://wiki.creativecommons.org/FAQ#Can_I_still_make_money_from_a_work_I_make_available_under_a_Creative_Commons_licenses.3F Creative Commons FAQ]}}
::::::::Of course, we obviously actually can't outright sell the work ourselves either, but that answer does seem to mean that, even if showing ads technically counts as "commercial use", we can still use an NC license. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 14:31, 18 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::::::Well, if the GDFL only allows us to go to CC-BY-SA3, and not CC-BY-SA-NC, it's kind of a moot point. Which is annoying, since the -nc version DEFINITELY seems more desirable, since it would absolutely lock Wikia out from copying us if true) - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 14:33, 18 June 2009 (EDT)
::::::::::I decided to send off the following e-mail to the GDFL folks' contact e-mail:
:::::::::::Greetings. I'm one of the editors on a Mediawiki-based wiki dedicated to the Transformers franchise: http://tfwiki.net/

:::::::::::We are currently discussing the prospect of also switching from the GDFL to the CC-BY-SA3. However, we were wondering if the CC-BY-SA3 is truly the *only* BY-SA that can be switched to, or if CC-BY-NC-SA3 would also be possible. Since our wiki is obviously based off writing about copyrighted material, it would help us greatly in remaining on the franchise's parent company's good side if we could ensure that our content cannot be sold.

:::::::::::Your answer on this would be much appreciated.

:::::::::::Signed,
:::::::::::Liz Calkins}}

::::::::::With any luck I'll get an answer I can pass along. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 14:55, 18 June 2009 (EDT)

===GDFL section 11, relicensing===
'''11. RELICENSING'''

"Massive Multiauthor Collaboration Site" (or "MMC Site") means any World Wide Web server that publishes copyrightable works and also provides prominent facilities for anybody to edit those works. A public wiki that anybody can edit is an example of such a server. A "Massive Multiauthor Collaboration" (or "MMC") contained in the site means any set of copyrightable works thus published on the MMC site.

"CC-BY-SA" means the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license published by Creative Commons Corporation, a not-for-profit corporation with a principal place of business in San Francisco, California, as well as future copyleft versions of that license published by that same organization.

"Incorporate" means to publish or republish a Document, in whole or in part, as part of another Document.

An MMC is "eligible for relicensing" if it is licensed under this License, and if all works that were first published under this License somewhere other than this MMC, and subsequently incorporated in whole or in part into the MMC, (1) had no cover texts or invariant sections, and (2) were thus incorporated prior to November 1, 2008.

The operator of an MMC Site may republish an MMC contained in the site under CC-BY-SA on the same site at any time before August 1, 2009, provided the MMC is eligible for relicensing.

===Derik causes problems===
What is the actual difference between these liscences?  Is there a breakdown somewhere?

The explanations I hear online are "They're exactly the same, only CC-BY-SA is worded clearer!"

Is there a more substantial difference?

Regardless, I'm going to suggest TFWiki, in addition to whatever base license we adopt, add a <small>(God help me)</small> '''signing statement''' making clear that our legal ability ''to'' license the content on this wiki extends ''only'' to our own value-added contributions, and not the content which is copywritten by Hasbro.

A '''fundamental''' problem with the GFDL (originally a license intended for creating collaborative ''software documentation'') and CC-SA (a license for artists to release their work while still retaining some control of ''how'' it is used) is that '''both''' licenses operate under the assumption that the people collaborating to produce this content '''own''' the content they're uploading.  If they produced it, they have the right to give ''other'' people the right to use it.
[[Image:Second generation reuser.jpg|thumb|250px]]
...we didn't produce Transformers.  We don't have the right to distribute Screencaps-- '''our use''' of those screencaps falls under "fair use," anyone wishing to re-use screencaps posted on this wiki is not '''granted the use of them''' via our ''release'' of the screencaps... they are claiming fair use from Hasbro again.  Even our ''article text content'' is a melange of "we can claim ownership" and "derived fromHasbro to such an extent that we cannot claim ownership over it" (moreso than Memory Alpha, because for many obscure characters, their entire bio is nothing but a rephrasing of their tech-spec.  The amount of 'value added' work done by us in relation to hasbro's copyright on the original text is very low.)

And that's even '''separate''' from McFeely's concern that someone could create an "offline TFWiki" as an iPhone app-- citing their right to use our content under GFDL-- and then never paying Hasbro a dime.  In that scenario-- we are the 'leak' for Hasbro's lawyers to plug by shutting us down.  Adopting a "NC" (non-commercial use only) license just means they couldn't ''charge'' for it... they could still create a ''free'' downloadable or java app (Transformer tech-spec viewers are fairly popular as mobile downloads, apparently) with the same result.  Besides-- a NC license would ''technically'' mean that Hasbro's own people couldn't use the Wiki as a resource anymore.  (At least, under sufficiently draconian lawyers, like Disney's.)

Equally undesirable, IMO, is someone who '''has''' a TF license via Hasbro, like a book company, that might decide to cheap-out on their content and simply re-present wiki articles-- under GFDL from ''us'' for our contributions and fully licensed from ''Hasbro'' for the portion of the content that ''they'' own.  I don't fucking '''want''' TF guidebooks cheeping out liek that-- and I'm '''really''' uncomfortable with any part of our user-generated content becoming primary source material.  That's how [[Wikipedia:Daken|Daken]] got created!

A way around ''that'' might involve a ''second'' license on our content that's '''dependent''' on a commercial producer having the TF license.  (This sounds murky, but I think it can make sense...)

...

<nowiki>*scrolls up*</nowiki>  Um, wow.  That's a lot of text.

Basically what I'm saying is;
# As long as we're updating our license, I think we should take the time to make it the '''right''' license, one that;
##Allows users to freely contribute.
##Allows ''creators'' to freely play.
##Reflect that a good deal of our content (particularly graphics) is not owned by us.
##Respects Hasbro's legal and business needs vis-a-vis copyright.
##Recognizes that TFWiki ''is'' used as a resource for commercial products.  (Share-and-share-alike is good, but it can have some ''bad'' consequences on 'child' derived works, rendering them uncopyrightable.)
##Attempt to make sure we're not the '''only''' resourced used by those products

No existing license (that I'm aware of) actually reflects the special needs of media fandom wikis.  and the degree of disconnect isn't small-- it's legally significant, and it inhibits our ability to control what happens to our content to protect both our own interests and those of Hasbro.

I think we can do that without breaking our brains ''or'' hiring a lawyer-- but it requires acting with intention.  Like-- forming an exploratory committee seriously peck the problem apart.  The upshot might be... well... considerable.  We're hardly the ''only'' wiki in this position, and taking the hammer out a standard approach stands a decent chance of being adopted elsewhere.  (That's kinda meta-benefit to TFWiki, but it's certainly reputation-building.  In terms of "moral authority" a lot of people seem to feel like TFWiki is the place that did things ''right''; our approach to WP:NPOV, leaving Wikia, stance on spoilers, our protective attitude towards the brand, etc...  at least I keep running into references to TFWiki in the ''weirdest'' places, and they're almost always complimentary in terms ''not'' just related to our content.)

Is anyone ''else'' with an interest in (or at least tolerance for) copyright law interested in doing this '''right'''? -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 17:37, 18 June 2009 (EDT)
:Actually, there's no reason whatsoever that Hasbro couldn't use the wiki as a resource under a NC license. They just wouldn't be able to sell any of the exact content of the wiki, if that makes sense. It's the difference between being able to look up that Optimus Prime did some obscure thing in a certain episode, and quoting the wiki article for Optimus Prime verbatim.
:Plus, AFAIK, all CC licenses allow for the licensees to make individual exceptions, meaning that even if Hasbro ''did'' want to verbatim print some part of the wiki for some reason, we could make an exception for them to do so.
:And personally I don't see any big deal with someone giving copies of the wiki away as a free resource, at least in a legal sense, seeing as how the wiki is basically a free guide to Transformers. As long as we're given credit and it's made clear that it's not in any way an official product, it's exactly the same practical result as someone surfing to the wiki itself on their iPhone browser or whatever, just made more convenient. (The only difference is that we don't get the pageviews for ad revenue if people read our material elsewhere, but that's our problem to deal with, not Hasbro's.)
:Having said all that, a license that allows for protections on things like screenshots and scans would be useful.
:However, that's not something that could be handled before August, I don't think. Personally I'd rather change to some sort of CC license now as an interim measure, and then change again later down the road if a better CC license or other license becomes available.
:Otherwise, we may end up locked into a GDFL license we can't change away from anyway, even if we do later come up with something better. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 17:51, 18 June 2009 (EDT)
:::''Actually, there's no reason whatsoever that Hasbro couldn't use the wiki as a resource under a NC license. They just wouldn't be able to sell any of the exact content of the wiki, if that makes sense.''
:::I believe (and please correct me if I'm wrong) that CC-NC also stipulates that any ''derived'' work must also be CC-NC.  So if they rewrite any portion of our content-- or re-create a diagram we created-- that's a derived work they can't include in a comercial product.  And since the license actually says that any CC-NC ''element'' caused the entire ''resulting work'' to be CC-NC, that means that if (for example) IDW did photomanip work on a CC-NC image from here and threw it in as an image on a monitor for ''Spotlight: Brunt''-- the entirely of ''Spotlight: Brunt'' would fall out of copyright.  Anyone could copy it, alter it, and legally distribute copies of it.
:::What are the odds of a singe identifiable sentence lifted from the wiki ever making it into a TF guidebook by accident?  If so-- the entire book is now CC-NC, legal to pirate.
:::At least, that's my ''understanding'' of how CC-NC works-- and I ended up having to '''read''' the entire damn license for a software thing I was working on two years ago that used a PHP-library that was CC-NC.  It's the '''same''' license, right?  It's not like CC-NC is "made for wikis," it covers a ''wide range'' of products.  Am I wrong on this?  -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 18:37, 18 June 2009 (EDT)
::::Clarification-- I'm actually referring to CC-SA3 in the previous section, not CC-NC.  but since we're considering ''moving'' to a license that '''would be''' SA3, the scenario still stands.
::::[http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/ It's right there in plain english].  <tt>If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same, similar or a compatible license.</tt>  If any of our content leaked into an official product, that product would suddenly be creative-commons and freely distribuitable.
::::...why do you think the "free information" people have been braying for the license change?  This is a stealth copyright-subversion scheme.  as accidental direct lifts from Wikipedia (or any product derived from wikipedia content) slip into comercial products, they will become '''legally contaminated''', and then contaminate anything that uses content FROM them.  It's ''better'' than the Public Domain, because derived works based on the public domain are copyrightable... derived works based on CC-SA are ''not'', they are inherently "free."  -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 18:51, 18 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::Well, once again, the [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ license outright states] that "Waiver — Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder." So again, even if Hasbro or another licensee wanted to sell any wiki-based work, we could just waive the Share-Alike and Non-Commercial aspects for them alone. So that's not a problem/issue.
:::::And again, I'd rather just make the switch now, then we can always switch again if we find something better down the road. Rather than trying to be hasty about it to fit it in before August, so we don't get locked into the GFDL for good.
:::::Further, it's not like we don't already have all of the potential problems you state under our current license anyway. Doesn't the GDFL already require you to release any derivative material under the GDFL license too? --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 18:58, 18 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::::"The Copyright holder" in this case is every person who has ever edited an article on this wiki, or Wikia before we moved.
:::::::Did you collect thousands of legal proxies that allow you to speak for them?  ''You'' can't just legally decide to 'wave a copyright,' nor can a steering committee.  The copyright has to be waived by the ''holder''.
:::::::And what the waiver notice is really saying is "you can shortform a separate license understanding independent of this liscence as long as you deal directly with the person who owns the copyright on the work."  That's ''always'' true, it's not a CC thing.  You'd have to get a list of every person who's ever edited an article and get them all to agree to waive their rights for Hasbro, which you so casually hand-wave over.
:::::::Maybe a better question-- if the primary reason to switch licenses is this "SAS" clause tyhat infects all derived work-- and we want to ''exempt'' Hasbro from that clause... why are we even switching?
:::::::I'm not even against switching licenses... I just think it should be a ''thought out'' decision, not a casual one.  '''This''' discussion has basically consisted of ''"Everyone is switching, it's a good idea u wanna?"  "LOL, sure why not!"''
:::::::There are actual not-irrelevant legal ramifications of this decision-- and I'm not sure it's in our best interests ''or'' Hasbro's best interests to do this.  Can we actually ''look'' at what we're signing off on before putting it to an up-and-down vote? -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 19:56, 18 June 2009 (EDT)
::::::::Well, I can't speak for everyone else, but my end of the discussion is more like, "We only have a month and a half to make the decision, the CC switch looks like it wouldn't add any problems that don't already exist under the GDFL, it might give us some ''benefits'' that don't already exist under the GDFL, and the CC seems to be less binding anyway, so we can switch easier down the road."
::::::::Furthermore, considering how we're already going to be able to switch to the new license without requiring everyone's sign-off anyway, I don't see why we can't just put the waiver for Hasbro and their licensees into the switch from the get-go.
::::::::Then on top of that, if you want to get absolutely technical, since Hasbro and their licensees are the copyright holders for all this stuff to begin with, they get an automatic waver on our derivative work anyway, because we don't have the legal right to lock them out of their own copyright. All we can do is lock non-Hasbro-licensees out of our take on Hasbro's copyright.
::::::::So, hey, if someone here can get a lawyer to knock out a good alternative in a month and a half, go for it. Otherwise, seeing as how '''the GDFL we're under already ''has'' all the problems you're complaining about''', I see no reason that switching would at least put us any worse off than we are already. All of your alleged problems either already exist anyway under the current GFDL license, or aren't actually problems. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 20:12, 18 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::::::''I don't see why we can't just put the waiver for Hasbro and their licensees into the switch from the get-go.''
:::::::::Because then you're committing a legal offense against both the copyright holders ''and'' the FSF?  That's actually worse than your last suggestion.
:::::::::I'd be a '''lot''' more confident in your judgment about the legal ramifications of the switch if you didn't keep suggesting things that were illegal.  -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 20:48, 18 June 2009 (EDT)
::::::::::"Then on top of that, if you want to get absolutely technical, since Hasbro and their licensees are the copyright holders for all this stuff to begin with, they get an automatic waver on our derivative work anyway, because ''we don't have the legal right to lock them out of their own copyright.'' All we can do is lock non-Hasbro-licensees out of our take on Hasbro's copyright."
::::::::::As in, I already know that part, thanks.
::::::::::As for the FSF part, I'm not sure how it's a legal offense against the FSF to insitute a waiver during the switch that the ''new license already explicitly allows as being possible''.
::::::::::I'd be a lot more interested in your rebuttals if you sounded like you read not only what I already wrote, but what the legal articles themselves say. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 20:58, 18 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::::::::In any case, like I said, if someone here can afford to ask a lawyer about this, I've got no objections to that. But I have to admit you haven't said how staying with the GFDL solves any of your concerns, seeing as how AFAIK said concerns all exist under our current GDFL too. *shrug* --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 21:03, 18 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::::::::''I'm not sure how it's a legal offense against the FSF to insitute a waiver during the switch that the ''new license already explicitly allows as being possible''.''
:::::::::::# You don't have the legal right to act as the proxy of everyone who's edited this wiki by declaring a waiver in any circumstance.
:::::::::::# You intend to muddy those legal waters by making the acceptance of this waiver a rider on the license switchover-- the FSF debated for almost a ''year'' before finally deciding the two liscences were close enough to make the switch-- '''they''' have the legal right to determine what new licensing is and is not permissible under GFDL.  That's like taking a EULA for a piece of software, agreeing to it, then declaring, "And now I'm going to make unilateral revisions to it without the other side of this contract's knowledge or agreement-- but they're totally legally binding and I can grant myself extra rights with them."  And that's even ''aside'' from making them an an accessory of your unlawful claim of proxy over the thousands of editors who've created content.  -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 21:16, 18 June 2009 (EDT)
::::::::::::#We're already making a claim of proxy over the editors by being able to switch the license to begin with.
::::::::::::#The whole point is moot anyway, because way I see it, we ''have'' to effectively give Hasbro a waiver on using anything on this wiki in their own commercial copyright, because we don't have any copyright powers over their content anyway. I don't see how we could legally force Hasbro to have no control over their own copyright to begin with, just because we wrote about it under a share-alike license, because we never had the copyrights to begin with! And that exact same problem already exists under the GFDL we're already under.<br/>Again, the only right we have at all is to keep non-Hasbro-licensees from using our content in certain ways.
::::::::::::#In short, you're the one being silly by making the claim we have the right to ever lock Hasbro out of their own copyright to begin with. You can't be unlawful by having people give up rights they don't actually have anyway. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 21:54, 18 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::::::::::''We're already making a claim of proxy over the editors by being able to switch the license to begin with.
:::::::::::::No, you're not.  All of those original users granted you the right to make a ''specific'' proxy call (switch from GFDL 1.3 to CC-BY-SA3 '''only''') under an obscure clause in GFDL.  That right was granted every time an edit was made, and has lain dormant ever since.  And relicensing ''not'' explicitly made provision for under an updated GFDL would require you to ''contact'' all those users and get them to sign off on it.  This specific license change ''only'' was pre-approoved.  It's like checking the "Organ doner, eyes" tab on your driver's license.  You granted themt he right to take your eyes ''if the opportunity came up''.  When you show up in an operating room brain dead, they can't just arbitrarily decide to take your liver too without the permission of your legal custodian.  (In this metaphor, that would be "going back to the original editors or their Power of Attorney heir and asking them to sign off on it.")
:::::::::::::STOP TRYING TO STEAL MY DAMN LIVER!  I SWEAR, EVERY DAY... THAT DAMN BIRD!  -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 22:33, 18 June 2009 (EDT)
::::::::::::::You still have yet to explain how any license we apply can possibly block out Hasbro from having the rights to their own copyright. Therefore, yet again, the whole point is moot, because Hasbro would already technically exempt from the SA (& NC) parts of the license anyway no matter what we try to claim. Yet again, you can't take away rights from our editors that they never had to begin with.
::::::::::::::The best you can possibly do is state that our claim of being under the GFDL is already invalid anyway, because we don't have the right to ever force Hasbro to release their own copyrighted material under the same GFDL license if they use our writings. In which case we might as well just ignore this whole deal that thus doesn't apply to us anyway, and switch to whatever Memory Alpha does. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 22:47, 18 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::::::::::::We would not be locking Hasbro out of their own copyrights-- Hasbro would be at risk to involuntarily surrender many of their rights.  That's a different thing.
:::::::::::::::Devaluation of the Transformers license?  That too.  -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 22:59, 18 June 2009 (EDT)
::::::::::::::::Why would Hasbro surrender any of its rights? We have the right to say how our content is used, but we don't have any right to say how Hasbro gets to use its own copyrighted material, whether they use our writings or not. You don't get to claim copyright over something just by writing about it. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 23:19, 18 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::::::::::::::If you don't grasp the concept that we have some copyright claim over our own article text here (the starting point) I don't really feel like going another round explaining everythign that follows ''after'' that to you, because it's a non-starter.  There's no point in laying out the problems involved if you're stuck on the givens at the starting point.
:::::::::::::::::Refer to my previous example with ''Spotlight: Brunt'' for why SA3 would be undesirable for IDW.  See how that legal ambiguity makes the TF License (which IDW pays an annual fee for) worth less money.  Listen as I tell you that the people pushing for this license change ''intend'' that legal ambiguity because they have an axe to grind against copyright, and they intend to cause so much ''suffering'' (and hopefully few landmark legal cases) that copyright law gets reformed.
:::::::::::::::::That's great.  I think copyright law needs reform.  But their method for doing so involves creating '''massive legal headaches''' for vast numbers of people.  I'd prefer TFWiki and Hasbro ''not'' be among those numbers of people.  -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 00:04, 19 June 2009 (EDT)

::::::::::But like Jeysie said, GFDL ''already'' has those problems, it's a Share-Alike-style license and has all the weird ambiguities that CC-By-SA has for a fandom wiki, so I'm not sure how switching advances the Brave Copyright Cause and exposes TFWiki to legal troubles anymore than the license we're already stuck with? --[[User:Fleb|fleb]] 00:43, 19 June 2009 (EDT)
::::::::::^^ This. And, you're still not paying attention to anything else I've said either.
::::::::::Hasbro has control over their copyright. And, to be perfectly honest, in the end Hasbro has full control over ''our'' stuff too anyway because it's technically unauthorized derivative works. I've known several fangames once where the parent company basically made them either sign control of the game over to them or delete the games entirely. What the fangame people wanted to do with their games regards licensing meant precisely jack, because they didn't control the copyright their work was based on. This is exactly the same situation.
::::::::::We can get away with making people not licensed by Hasbro follow our rules regards our content, but that's it. If Hasbro wants to use our content, they have the right to dictate the terms of use, not us.
::::::::::Now, if we were writing entirely original work here that wasn't based on any existing property, ''then'' we could dictate terms, because Hasbro would be using something that we had full copyright control over. ''That's'' where forcing people into using the same Share-Alike license comes into play. But since Hasbro made the initial things we're deriving ''our'' work from, we have to play by their rules for their content. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 01:21, 19 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::::::::But copyright-- even with derived works-- is ''not'' a black-and-white thing with one owner.  If I made a "Freddy Krueger vs. Aliens" fanfilm, New Line Cinema can't claim 100% ownership over my work simply by virtue of the fact that they can't claim ownership over aliens.  But they ''also'' can't claim ownership over my original character heroine.  That belongs to '''me''', not New Line or Fox.
:::::::::::Either New Line or Fox could scuttle my project (if I was insane enough to try and distribuit it) or even keep me from putting it up on YouTube-- because the work cannot exist without their copyrighted characters.
:::::::::::But, even ''after'' that happened, there's nothing to prevent me from re-filming the movie as "Dr. Jeckel vs. the Moorlocks" with my fanchar heroine intact.  Despite not having the right to use Fox and new Lines characters... the "value added" elements of my copyright-violating production '''remain my property'''.
:::::::::::And your failure to understand that is what's keeping you fron understanding the implications of SA3.
:::::::::::I freely ''admit'' they're largely '''abstract''' implications, because no one of us or hasbro actually ''cares''... but I also think that this licensing switchover is being pushed by a group with an agenda in mind that boils down to ''"get a lot of people (mainly Wikipedia) to switch their licensing, and watch legal havoc that ensues after a couple years as unforeseen implications start fucking up the copyright of books, TV episodes and movies, making their copyright status so murky, debatable and indeterminate that they essentially become legally piratable."'' and while GFDL might have some of those same problems, '''it''' isn't the license they're urging people to switch to.
:::::::::::So if both licenses are '''equally bad''', I'd much rather stick with the one we currently have rather than switch to the one that's probably going to be challenged in the supreme court 5 years from now.
:::::::::::Or at the ''very'' least have a conversation where the burden is on CC-BY-SA3 to show some ''benefit'' to us for switching, and not on me to prove GFDL is better.  Why is our action simply being ''taken for granted'' here? -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 02:04, 19 June 2009 (EDT)
::::::::::::Well, I understand how ''copyright'' actually works, because I've seen people have to deal with it. I don't understand your comment on the whole deal, no, because it makes no sense.
::::::::::::It's true that if Hasbro objects to our wiki writing about Transformers we could technically re-write it to refer to something similar but different enough to avoid Hasbro's copyright. However, unlike your "Dr. Jeckel vs. the Moorlocks" example, our doing that would be useless. In this case, it's not our value-added elements that make the wiki useful, it's the fact that the wiki is about Transformers. Take away the "about Transformers" part, and our wiki becomes pointless. Hasbro's copyright ''is'' the intrinsic value of this wiki.
::::::::::::So yes, it is an abstract implication, but it's not because nobody cares.
::::::::::::As for why switch, it basically boils down to: if we are compliant with the GDFL, then switching to the CC-BY-SA means we have the same restrictions, ''and'' will also have our info be incompatible for usage with anyone who stays on the GDFL, and we'll be able to require attribution. Basically, it gives us some benefits above the existing GDFL's benefits, without adding or removing any restrictions.
::::::::::::If we're ''not'' compliant with the GDFL due to Hasbro's copyright claims, then it turns out we're not bound by the GDFL anyway, because we never had the legal right to claim that license on our work. In which case, again, we get to ignore all this and switch to whatever license someplace like Memory Alpha has.
::::::::::::But in either case, switching gives us benefits over the current GDFL. So it really is on you to prove why staying with the GDFL is better, sorry. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 08:31, 19 June 2009 (EDT)


Whaaat? No, Derik's right. Windmills and copyright do not work that way. J. K. Rowling does not have the right to re-publish Dumbledore/Grindelwald Harry Potter [[fanfic]]. Original owners have the right to stop distribution of unauthorized derivatives, but they don't have the right to anything not already created by themselves. (So that would mean yes, ironically, fanfiction authors could C&D original authors infringing on the fanfiction's copyrights. But somehow I think they would restrain themselves.)<br/>
And if we're violating the GFDL by using it to document Transformers, we aren't then "not bound;" because that would mean our existence is illegal, and we don't get to throw up our hands and say "Well we're already illegal, might as well be illegal in a totally different way!" So no, we can't just ignore everything and switch to any license but CC-By-SA-3.0. --[[User:Fleb|fleb]] 13:49, 19 June 2009 (EDT)
:I know that Hasbro doesn't have the right to simply go ahead and publish our work without any agreement with us. But, based on my experiences with seeing other fan creators dealing with legal things regards their work, they do have the right to either make us take our work down, or relinquish our rights to it in some manner. We don't have the right to force Hasbro to use our work according to certain terms as long as it's a derivative of their work.
:As for our existence being illegal, well yeah, if you want to get technical, we're already as illegal as all other fanworks anyway. I don't see what the validity or otherwise of the contract the work was created under has to do with it, if the contract allows you to do that type of work.
:But essentially, the core of my confusion with Derik's concerns is: I don't see how he could be claiming we can ever force Hasbro to follow our terms on derivative works, when our work is already a derivative of Hasbro's work, and thus we already have to follow Hasbro's terms on derivative work. I mean, it's not that his concerns don't make sense to me from a general perspective. It's that they only make sense to me if we're the originator on top of the derivative work chain, which isn't the case here. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 17:34, 19 June 2009 (EDT)
::''based on my experiences with seeing other fan creators dealing with legal things regards their work, they do have the right to either make us take our work down, or relinquish our rights to it in some manner.''
::They have the right to threaten or strongarm someone, and the person they're threatening has the right to cave.  But they have no ability to "make you relinquish your rights."
::The idea that New Line owns ''everything'' in any work I created means that they'd be claiming ownership not just of my Mary Sue, but also of Fox's Aliens.  So that's clearly not true on the face of it.  There is a completely unprooven legal theory that a copyright owner could actually ''own'' all the value-added additions made to a derived work... but it has '''literally''' never been tested (because Paramount has no desire to own a lot of Kirk/Spock bondage fics) and there is a strong suspicion that if it ever ''went'' to trial, the entire concept would be shot down.
::Regardless-- you're '''again''' arguing "my experience," and that's the ''fundamental'' source of the musunderstanding here.  You're talking about how the law is actually '''implemented'''.  I'm talking about what the law '''is'''.  In '''your experience''', no one cares if you go through a red light if there's no one around.  But I'm telling you it's '''still illegal'''.
::And since the ''kind'' of illegal we're talking about can have a slow corrosive effect on Hasbro's copyrights, that abstract legality could come back to bite us ''and'' Hasbro in the ass.  So I'd like to have a real, ''actual'' discussion about this.  -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 17:54, 19 June 2009 (EDT)
:::Um, the entire ''point'' of copyright is that you have control over how your copyrighted work is used. If you create something using copyrighted work, then the copyright holder very much has control over what you do with it, because you're using their copyrights. Otherwise, why have copyright to begin with?
:::Now, if you remove the copyrighted material from your work, ''then'', yes, the copyright holder indeed has no control over your work, because it has no copyrighted material. Problem is that, while that might help out a fancreator if they can change their work into something original, it does us no good, because the entire point of our wiki is that it's about Transformers specifically. We could technically rewrite it to not be about Transformers, but that would just defeat the point.
:::My ''experience'' is that fanworks are always illegal, it's just that most of the time companies turn their head because usually it nets them more goodwill and publicity than anything the fanwork is taking away from them. But it's within a company's rights to turn around and tell you to either take your fanwork down, change it so it no longer contains their copyrights, or obtain a waiver from them/sign over your rights to continue displaying it.
:::Basically, the reason this is weird is because, you seem like you're saying that we can tell people who create derivative work based from our work how to use it, yet also saying that Hasbro doesn't have the same right to tell us how to use the derivative work we created from their work. Why would we have certain copyright rights, yet Hasbro not have those same rights? --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 20:28, 19 June 2009 (EDT)

Ehh, you know what, this is all getting way, way off track. The only real question worth considering that's been raised with all this is whether we had a right to claim our work fits under the GDFL to begin with. If we did, then switching makes sense. If we didn't, then the contract is technically void/annulled, and we need to switch to some new license regardless. Either way, staying with the GDFL itself seems pointless to me. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 21:19, 19 June 2009 (EDT)

::::::And, as beautifully Machiavellian as Derik's contamination scenario is, it still wouldn't negate "fair use" anyway in the case of such a small "lift". - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 19:44, 18 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::::But this isn't ''about'' fair use.  It's about people who've read Lawrence Lessig's book and attended Disinfocon having a pissing contest and trying to upend how Copyright works.
:::::::See how casually you said it?  Suddenly instead of ''us'' claiming fair use use of Hasbro's intellectual property-- Hasbro is having to claim fair use of ''our'' property.  And fair use is never ''proven'' until it's challenged-- so ''any'' instance of "fair use" derived work ''massively'' weakens Hasbro's copyright on their own material-- because anyone ''wanting'' to claim their work is now SA3 is is now free to do so... and the burden is shifted onto ''Hasbro'' to hire lawyers and prove it's ''not''.
:::::::That kind of mad-cow subversion tactics would normally make me grin like an idiot-- but just because I approve of malotov-wielding free-culturists are planning the legal equivalent of the World Bank Protests '''doesn't mean I want to be stuck in the middle of it.''' -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 19:56, 18 June 2009 (EDT)

:#Derik causing problems? ''Never...'' :p
:#'''It's a binary choice - the GDFL3 licence ONLY allows us to change to CC-BY-SA3 and THEN ONLY if we do it before the 1st of August, 2009.''' The only way we could change in any other direction would be to track down every user who's ever contributed and either get them to relicense their contributions or excise their contributions and derivatives thereof from the wiki. Given that, thanks to Mr Bookworm, we don't even HAVE a complete list of contributors...
:#I think you're getting Daken mixed up with Erista (thank you Eric J. Moreels...) there
:#McFly, not McFeely.
:#The main point is number 2 - we don't have the freedom to custom-design a licence. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 17:51, 18 June 2009 (EDT)
:::Sure we do!  It just has to be a license that doesn't violate any of the GFDL or CC-BY-SA3 requirements!  That's not hard, I do object-oriented programming!  Same basic principle!
:::(In all seriousness, from a legal standpoint, you'd probably set up sort of "type-coercion comfort trap", which is like a Dan Brown novel written by a lawyer with a minor in game theory.  I'd want to get a lawyer to ''check'' it-- I know a few-- but I'm fairly sure you ''could'' do it, legally.)  -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 18:37, 18 June 2009 (EDT)
::::I'm a tad confused about what you're saying - the GDFL and the CC-BY-SA are both designed to ''limit restrictions'' on the (re)use of work. If you're ''adding more restrictions'' than either specifies (i.e., if I licence my work to you under the condition that you must give a copy to anyone who fulfils condition X, and must not give a copy to anyone who ''doesn't''; you can't then impose condition Y, which means ''not only that'' you restrict who you give a copy to ''to a subset'' of group X will receive a copy from you, but that ''you DO give copies to'' a subset of group ''Not-X''...), then you're in breach of the basic licence, ja? - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 19:44, 18 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::You offer s separate license with GFDL+ (or CC+) permission for new content (generated after the date) for specific commercial purposes.  On the date of adoption, the two liscences are exactly equal, but as time goes on, the GFDL/CC+ becomes increasingly attractive, because it offers a commercial reuser a ''better'' legal foothold on their own material.  You are giving them ''more'' rights to the material, provided they operate according to certain restrictions.  They ''could'' always choose to license the content under vanilla GFDL (or whatever,) but that ''gives up'' the increased privileges they have for the post-adoption material.
:::::The beauty is that such a liscence need not differentiate as to ''what'' part of the material is eligible for one liscence but not the other... it's a ''diffuse'' legal benefit over the content that their lawyers would ''force'' them to choose-- but '''we''' are not forcing them to choose; the content remains accessible under GFDL, as the GFDL requires, but we offer incentives of ''increased'' re-usage rights for newer content in exchange for restricted action.
:::::...this isn't going to make any sense without a chart, is it?  There are force-gradients involved.  -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 21:33, 18 June 2009 (EDT)

Okay Derik, simple basic question - if Creative Commons licences are so set for copyright Armageddon, how come Memory Alpha (one of the biggest wikis on the internets, and one which many ST creatives - including the writers of this year's movie [who also happen to write Transformers movies] - have freely admitted to using) has always been under a CC licence without Viacom/Paramount/CBS imploding? - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 21:04, 18 June 2009 (EDT)

:Because Memory Alpha is licensed under <tt>Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Generic license</tt>.  Note the absence of the "Share and share alike" clause, which in the source of the Copyright Armageddon I'm ranting about. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 21:20, 18 June 2009 (EDT)
::Okay, Derik. Bottom-line it for me. How likely is this to result in Tina Turner forcing me to fight in a cage with a brutally strong man with the mind of a child?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|<sup>Talk</sup>]] 22:04, 18 June 2009 (EDT)
:::Well, Tina Turner is signed with Virgin, and so was The Verve, whose "Bitter Sweet Symphony," got the band sued out of existence due to a 3-second sampling they claimed was "fair use," but Mick Jagger felt was a big enough use to be a copyright violation.  The courts agreed, and for a 3 second sample, they lost all rights tot he song and Jagger is now listed as the songwriter.
:::So I'd say the odds of Tina Turner smacking you around for not paying attention to this important and non-trivial legal issue involving copyright are in the range of at ''least'' 30-35% if we plow ahead heedlessly.  -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 22:23, 18 June 2009 (EDT)

Wow. Okay. Lots of words to catch up on all of a sudden. Glad I sorta-started all this, I guess?<br/>
Going waaay back to Derik's first question: [http://freedomdefined.org/Licenses#Comparison_of_Licenses There is, indeed, a breakdown. In table form.] <br/>
''"which is like a Dan Brown novel written by a lawyer with a minor in game theory"'' I would totally read that. --[[User:Fleb|fleb]] 00:13, 19 June 2009 (EDT)

:I don't trust that table.  I dont' feel informed after viewing it, I feel brushed off.
:I think I need to re-read me the full GFDL to do a proper comparison.
:<nowiki>*sigh*</nowiki>  I was hoping I wouldn't have to read this thing again.  Last time I had drugs to make it better.  -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 01:20, 19 June 2009 (EDT)

Okay, so from what you're saying, the problem with Creative Commons is that... by jumping on the CC bandwagon we might become part of a bigger target in the culture wars or otherwise pull Hasbro into the line of fire, because a CC-licensed thing is more likely to get its day in court someday, because it's popular. Whereas the GFDL, with which we shall stay for ever and ever, will safely gather dust in the FSF's basement for the next hundred years where the light of legal precedent can never touch it. 

And also a problem is if Hasbro or its licensees try to reuse our content and unwittingly license their own work under Creative Commons. Honestly, if they make a mistake like that... it's their mistake. It's no different from plagiarizing a random Transformers blog. It shouldn't happen, and it's not our responsibility if someone, somewhere might forget to do due diligence in a hypothetical future. --[[User:Fleb|fleb]] 21:33, 19 June 2009 (EDT)

===Oh, hey there===
[[Image:Meta-Wikiaccbysa.jpg|thumb|right|250px|]]
Look who else switched to CC-BY-SA. --[[User:Abates|abates]] 00:20, 23 June 2009 (EDT)
:Pfft.  We shouldn't not switch just because Wikia is.
:I finished auditing the fine print of both licenses last night.  (Whoever said the CC one is easier to read: Lies.)  I need to digest 'em... I think the GFDL is a better license for where we are ''now'', but CC-BY-SA includes a clause I was ''hoping'' would be in GFDL that might play into future legal wrangling.  (Simply because-- it's a license intended to be used by artists, and it doesn't handle our copyright situation well any more than GFDL does.)
:Regardless which one we pick, I think TFWiki needs to do ''something'' unique to better position ourselves, legally.  I'm still ruminating what that might be.  (Fortunately, we've got time yet.) -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 00:41, 23 June 2009 (EDT)
::FWIW, I got a reply from the GNU folks, and the CC-BY-SA3 is indeed the only license we can switch to under this particular allowance. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 00:58, 23 June 2009 (EDT)
:::Yes, I got that.  They had to amend the GFDL to even make that possible.  I don't think we can even make it CC-BY-SA3-NC.
:::So if we ''do'' intend to wriggle around it somehow, it will probably require some vigorous legal calisthenics.  (Fortunately legalese doesn't intimidate me.)
:::I just haven't figured out which license is a better starting point for those calisthenics yet.  Maybe I'll blog about the subject to get my thoughts straight.  -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 01:34, 23 June 2009 (EDT)
::::The full reply, if it helps:
::::{{quote|Unfortunately, the GFDL 1.3 (which enables the relicensing) specifically lists CC-BY-SA3 as the license that a wiki can migrate to, and so that is the only license available under this relicensing provision.
 
In addition, a non-commercial license is not really a free license, instead it is considered semi-free (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.html#semi-freeSoftware). The GFDL (as well as all GNU licenses) permits commercial use and distribution. While I understand your concerns, being able to use and distribute a work for any purpose, even a commercial purpose, is a part of the freedom that we work towards protecting here at the FSF. Thank you once again for your interest, and good luck with your project.}}
::::--[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 01:46, 23 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::Right, any gymnastics would have to take place outside of this licensing provision, which we're not allowed to do.
:::::(Law can be wonderfully fun when you see it as the illusionary cultural construct-- like a monster in a fairy tale whose ''terms'' must be met, but is stupid and easily tricked by turning its words against it.) -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 02:15, 23 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::You see, this is exactly the kind of granola-crunching BS that I'm worried about.  "Woo, look at us!  We're so clever, Information Wants To Be Free, Fight The Power!"  Er, no.  Information wants nothing.  It's data.  It's a thing, an inanimate pile of electron states jumbled up into a system which we can comprehend.  We can claim that we Mean No Harm, that we're a Free Information Repository For All Things Transformers, but in the end, we have screencaps, quotes, bios, comic summaries, and roughly 25 years worth of history all crammed into this site.  If Hasbro wanted to, they could shut us down '''right now''' just by scaring us with enough of a nasty C&D.  I don't exactly see us armed with a high-powered law firm, for one, and second, unless someone in this thread *coughDerikcough* wants to produce a JD and back his comments with '''actual legal expertise,''' we're merely guessing as to what we can and can't get away with.  On top of all of that, flaunting what we can theoretically get away with on a public web page with an ideally-infinite revision history means that you've just peed in the swimming pool that is the Internet.  Perhaps we can make this all easier by just charging for access, thumbing our noses at the law, and even hosting a torrent of the movie, just to make damned sure that we get dragged into court?  Smartassery + Law is a combination best left to those who have studied the practice of law. --[[User:McFly|McFly]] 21:09, 23 June 2009 (EDT)
::::::Your sarcastiggestion seems like the opposite of what's going on, if the goal's more to "get away with" adding ''more'' pro-Hasbro restrictions to ourselves/the content. And how does their granola-crunching email impact anything? That's them. Not us.
::::::Anyway, I think there's one other plus point to a switch; the CC licenses get updated at a reasonable rate. There's a chance the folks in charge will listen to concerns about fanwork and adopt language into version 4.0 or 5.0 to fit it better-- they seem to [http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/5908 solicit feedback] like that. There's not much of a chance of our use case being relevant to version 2.0 of a license intended for software documentation... ---[[User:Fleb|fleb]] 22:16, 23 June 2009 (EDT)

===Going back to the well===
Alright, in my mind we need to re-center this discussion. The first question is:
#'''Why did we originally want to re-license?'''

Which, scrolling up, seems to be "because it would provide a legal barrier to Wikia stealing what new content we've generated since the move." This, as also shown above, has become a moot point due to Wikia re-licensing in the ''exact same fashion''.

So, that particular aim coming to naught, we instead need to ask ''these'' two questions.
#'''Is there any remaining benefit to re-licensing?'''
#'''Does said benefit outweigh the hassle of doing it?'''

I look forward to answers to these.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|<sup>Talk</sup>]] 22:33, 23 June 2009 (EDT)

== Asking for permission to post links==
I'm the current Bureaucrat at [http://ghostbusters.wikia.com Ghostbusters Wiki], and there was interest in placing links to articles on this wiki to Ghostbusters wiki articles, and likewise placing links on Ghostbusters wiki to articles relating to content which has been brought up. I don't know a great deal of your wikis past dealings, other than wikia apparently kept your old wiki's content when you moved. Anyways, the wiki would rather reference to your present wiki than the one currently at wikia. We are hoping you wouldn't mind the links to our characters on pages related to the [http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Race_with_the_Devil Race with the Devil] article. [http://ghostbusters.wikia.com/wiki/User:Devilmanozzy Devilmanozzy] 02:10, June 8, 2009 (EDT)

:Can you give a few examples of articles on your wiki which would benefit from having links to this site? --[[User:Abates|abates]] 03:37, 8 June 2009 (EDT)
::IIRC it's whatshername's assistants-- the ones from the Earthforce story (Running with the Devil?) that Wildman based on the RGB models.
::(I personally have no problem with the links.  Though I think this guy added 'em once, misformatted, and they got reverted.) -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 13:06, 8 June 2009 (EDT)
:::That wasn't Nozzy but Liberal Noob, while not logged in. I told the original guy to take a step back and mind their P's and Q's before we start crosslinking, especially since it was an anonymous IP at the time. But yeah, he wants to crosslink with Race the Devil and Susan Hoffman.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|<sup>Talk</sup>]] 13:43, 8 June 2009 (EDT)
::::Only direct link between the Ghostbusters Cartoon and the G1 Transformers cartoon is [[Frank Welker]] sounded like one of his TF roles when he voiced a ghost from time to time.  I a am sorry for my wanton linking and it will not happen again. --[[User:Liberal Noob|Liberal Noob]] 22:57, 8 June 2009 (EDT) 
:::I meant which pages on the Ghostbusters wiki would benefit from having links on them to our wiki.  I'm curious, because I regard myself as reasonably familiar with Ghostbusters, and I can't think offhand of any references to Transformers in it. Perhaps in one of the cartoons? --[[User:Abates|abates]] 16:55, 8 June 2009 (EDT)
::::Thanks for the replies on this matter. A good user Liberal Noob had requested that I would more address this, apparently the mod needed to say something and form a partnership in order to have links posted related to one anothers material. To answer the question of what articles would be hyperlinked, I believe he was planning on linking to the animated pages for Peter Venkman, Egon Spengler, and Ray Stantz. Thats what I understand is being requested to being linked to.[[User:Devilmanozzy|Devilmanozzy]] 19:42, 8 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::We're not wondering which pages on our wiki would link to your wiki. We were wondering which pages on your wiki would need to link to our wiki. We didn't know there ''were'' any Transformers references in any Ghostbusters media, and thus didn't know you'd need to link to us from your wiki. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 19:59, 8 June 2009 (EDT)
::::::[[Race with the Devil]], [[Susan Hoffman]], [[Starscream's Ghost]], [[Horri-Bull]], and a few others. Links will be on is a article on [http://ghostbusters.wikia.com/wiki/Ghostbusters_Cameos Ghostbusters Cameos]. Note I believe that the section will be better built soon.[[User:Devilmanozzy|Devilmanozzy]] 20:21, 8 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::::Seems like there's a few other connections in terms of voice actors ([[Tara Strong]], [[Frank Welker]], [[Maurice LaMarche]] etc) as well. I think linking between the two sites is a good idea. --[[User:Abates|abates]] 23:37, 8 June 2009 (EDT)
::::::::Yeah I had noticed that too as I looked around here the last few days. Never knew how much Ghostbusters and Transformers had in common.[[User:Devilmanozzy|Devilmanozzy]] 23:40, 8 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::::::While I'm broadly in favour of this, could you maybe change "[[Starscream's Ghost]]" to "[[Starscream (G1)|Starscream's ghost]]" - I understand you want to keep the ghost theme going but the first is a link to an unrelated episode of the cartoon series, rather than the character himself. --[[User:Emvee|Emvee]] 07:02, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
::::::::::OK Emvee, I fixed the link on the Ghostbusters wiki as you requested.  Devilmanozzy, ''[[Star Wars]]'' also has a [[Darth Vader|lot in common]] with ''Transformers''. --[[User:Liberal Noob|Liberal Noob]] 14:52, 11 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::::::::We know, we got named an official friend of Wookiepedia about a week into the [[Project: Bookworm Crash]].  If we hadn't been scrambling to pick up the pieces, our pages would probably reflect this more.  (I assume we'll integrate more when Clone Wars starts up again, since we love to attention-whore ourselves that way.) -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 23:56, 17 June 2009 (EDT)
::::[http://www.therealeffingdeal.com/blog/dan-akroyd-ghostbusterhero/ Here is] an obscure crossover from [[The Real Effing Deal]]. - [[User:Starfield|Starfield]] 00:09, 18 June 2009 (EDT)

== Quick Links? ==

You know, now that I think about it, one thing Wikia actually did do right was having some "Quick Links" on the sidebar. I find myself missing being able to quickly get to the main continuities/series without having to search or click to the Main Page first. (Especially now that there's lots o' ROTF toys to keep tabs on...)

Nothing extensive necessary; just one linkie thingy with a fly-out menu for our six main continuities and the full series list would probably work nicely. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 03:03, 8 June 2009 (EDT)

:I think notably M.Sipher *really* hated that because any time a cursor went within a parsec of the menu, it would pop out in an annoying manner. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 04:09, 8 June 2009 (EDT)
::Wasn't just Sipher - it drove me nuts too. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 09:09, 8 June 2009 (EDT)
:::Well, in that case, maybe just an extra sidemenu then, kind of like the "Campaign Navigation" box on [http://trinsic.alienharmony.com/Main_Page this sidebar]? I just figured that a fly-out menu would save space, but an extra link sidebar would work for me too.
:::But I'd definitely like something. As Abates points out below, we don't currently have any sidebar links for actually ''browsing''. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 12:47, 8 June 2009 (EDT)
::::Could we make so that they're fly-out menus, but that they only fly-out if you actually click on the title?  That would save room while avoiding things jumping out when you're waving the cursor around. --[[User:Abates|abates]] 22:11, 8 June 2009 (EDT)

:I think having a link on the sidebar for Revenge of the Fallen would be good too.  While the Community portal and Recent Changes links are great for us Editors, they're not likely to be used much by casual visitors.  We should be using the menu to draw attention to major articles. While I'm thinking about it, we could probably change the Main Page link to read "Transformers Wiki"... --[[User:Abates|abates]] 04:11, 8 June 2009 (EDT)

Would anyone object if I went ahead and popped a link to [[Revenge of the Fallen (film)|Revenge of the Fallen]] in the navigation menu?  I'm thinking between "Main Page" and "Community portal". --[[User:Abates|abates]] 18:44, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
:I'm not of the upper brass but given the increasing coverage of ROTF as we come down the wire, it'd make the most sense. --[[User:Lonegamer78|Lonegamer78]] 19:00, 9 June 2009 (EDT)

== We need a new adspace ==

The TFwiki on our new server is doing super mega amounts of bandwidth!  (Note I've broken up the OPtimus Prime (G1) page, because, dude, that thing was a monster.)  So, uh, I think we need to add a new adspace.  One that's *above* the fold, since the ones we have are shoved down in the corner where no one can see them.  What advertiser would want to dump loads of money on those?  What I'm proposing is a 486x60 banner-shaped ad up above the "article/discussion/edit/history/delete/move/watch" links, nestled in between the Teletraan 1 image and the personal toolbar.  (You know, OUTSIDE of the content.)  If this is a terrible idea, I will also accept $5 donations.  --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 11:14, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
:I've no qualms with that. That was one of the "acceptable" adspaces, if I recall from the old discussions.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|<sup>Talk</sup>]] 11:18, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
::Long as they don't dance or talk or sing, that'll work.  Are we actively pursuing advertisers these days? -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 11:22, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
:::Well, "actively pursuing advertisers" is somewhat incompatible with our current ad setup.  To put an ad on our site now, that requires signing up with Project Wonderful and bidding.  This is good for us because it's mostly automated.  If we were to set up a "real"  in the traditional sense, we'd need a full-time ad pursuer to fill those spots.  The best we can do in our current situation is to try to convince Big Bad Toy Store and its ilk to sign up for Project Wonderful.  --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 11:33, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
:IIRC, above-the-article is what we wanted Wikia to switch ''back'' to.  I have no objection.  -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 12:20, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
:Works for me.  How does Ant handle TFU.info's advertising? [[User:Hooper X|Hooper_X]] 12:35, 9 June 2009 (EDT)

:Doesn't bother me... but can we either put it ''under'' the personal bar, or somehow make it so the personal bar would wrap? Otherwise, I'm staring at the top of my screen and realizing that I'd have an annoying horizontal scroll bar afterwards whenever I'm logged in.
:I have to admit I'm kind of befuddled that we're apparently doing so much more traffic after the move than we were before, to the point of having all those initial problems because we weren't expecting it. Did the new server somehow improve our traffic, it is sheer coincidence that traffic increased for other reasons, or was it more like the old server wasn't keeping track of bandwidth or anything, so we had no idea how we were actually doing? --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 12:38, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
::Hosting with Bookworm was cheap.  I mean, he was doing it at-cost.  Or would have, if he ever invoiced us.  Now that we've moved on, we're purchasing hosting from people who actually want to make money off us.  --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 12:41, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
:::Well, the money's part of it, but I was also thinking about how most of our initial operational troubles seemed to stem from having more traffic to deal with than we realized we were going to have, to the point of even having to run a caching setup I'm guessing we weren't running on the old server. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 12:45, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
::::The way Bookworm had his servers set up, it was difficult for him to separate out what was our traffic versus what was other traffic on the same server.  He gave us an estimate which turned out to be wrong.  --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 12:55, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::Aah, OK. Wasn't sure if it was something we needed to worry about or not. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 13:29, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::I was kinda expecting this :( I'm cool with more banners, and I think you should beg us for money now and then. We may be able to help when we can. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 13:15, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
::::Caching is what most mediawiki installations '''do.'''  We happened to start off on the most resource-intensive wiki software imaginable, and any stats from Bookworm were not only inaccurate based on whatever he was doing in the logs, but also because back then, ''the wiki was constantly crashing.''  You get zero hits per hour when it's down, and no stats in the world would help clear ''that'' up.  I'm still tweaking the hit stats, and it'll be at least a week before I can start extrapolating growth numbers, but suffice it to say, we're going to go over our current bandwidth limit before the month is out, and while we won't get shut down, we ''will'' get billed for overages.  Think of it like a normal cellphone plan instead of a pre-paid one. --[[User:McFly|McFly]] 11:47, 12 June 2009 (EDT)

::Yeah, that's mainly what I thought Walky meant. Nestled between the personal bar and the article tabs seems like fertile ground for a banner ad.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|<sup>Talk</sup>]] 13:39, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
I've got the ad code ready to go, whenever we can edit the CSS or whatever to make room.  Here is our awesome new placeholder "please bid here" graphic: [https://www.projectwonderful.com/imagewrapper.php?img=img/uploads/pics/20719-1244569575.jpg&rand=439981] --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 13:48, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
:Looks good so far. Potentially odd question: are these particular dimensions popular with Project Wonderful?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|<sup>Talk</sup>]] 15:55, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
::The Leaderboard (700ishx90) and the Big Box (300x250) are the most popular sizes, but those would really ugly up our page.  --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 15:58, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
:::And now it has its first client! That was fast.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|<sup>Talk</sup>]] 01:52, 10 June 2009 (EDT)
::::Ahhh, Dreamland Chronicles is awesome.  I spent a week a few months back reading through their archives after following an ad on our sidebar. --[[User:Abates|abates]] 02:20, 10 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::One interesting thing looking at the Project Wonderful stats is that our ad hits are ''stabilizing'' now, and they're stabilizing fairly high relative to where they were when the site was still spotty. That's got to look good for advertisers, and if the site holds up to the abuse that the film debut is going to subject it to that's only beneficial to us in the end.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|<sup>Talk</sup>]] 02:48, 10 June 2009 (EDT)

[[Image:Ptbar-notmeanttobehere.png|thumb|This = bad]]
Uh, I'm using Monobook, and as a result of this, the watchlist/preferences/etc bar has somehow ended up at the ''bottom'' of the page, just above the About Transformers Wiki/Powered by MediaWiki/etc... - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 10:36, 10 June 2009 (EDT)
:I got that on a couple of pages, too, and alt+F5ing didn't work. How I fixed it was I signed out and viewed those same pages as an anon. The userbar went back to where it should be, and it stayed there when I logged in again. - [[User:Magnus Maximus|Magnus Maximus]] 10:49, 10 June 2009 (EDT)
::Tried that, didn't work.
::In fact, it's worse than I thought, because I didn't notice at first that the page/discussion/edit tabs have gone wandering too, and are floating around the place (the "discussion" and "edit" tabs are currently in the middle of this edit box, and I can't see the others anywhere). - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 10:58, 10 June 2009 (EDT)
:::'''THE PROBLEM IS IN common.css'''.
:::The following CSS borks monobook. This is why you should use the specific stylesheets for each skin, NOT the common file:
<pre>
#p-personal {
   position: relative;
}
 

#p-personal .pBody {
   float: right;
}

#p-cactions {
   position: relative;
}

#content {
   margin-top: 16px !important;
   position: relative;
}</pre>
:::-[[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 11:30, 10 June 2009 (EDT)

The new ad space at the top of the page, which was fine yesterday, is now looking screwy in Firefox, with the ad behind the top of the Autobot symbol in the logo and the tabs at the top of the bar. Like so: [[Image:Top-ad-screwy.jpg|thumb]] --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 16:43, 10 June 2009 (EDT)
:Works fine for me in 3.0.10 and 3.5b99, both after clearing cache.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|<sup>Talk</sup>]] 16:47, 10 June 2009 (EDT)
:I made some CSS modifications in response to SanityOrMadness's issue, which may cache improperly. Try a hard refresh/clearing your cache. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 16:51, 10 June 2009 (EDT)
::Okay, clearing my cache fixed it. --[[User:KilMichaelMcC|KilMichaelMcC]] 20:19, 10 June 2009 (EDT)

=== Is it working? ===
So, between the new banner and our ad display stats in general being ''much'' better since the server stabilized, does this mean that we're taking in what we need to?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|<sup>Talk</sup>]] 14:57, 19 June 2009 (EDT)
: I think so!  We're averaging about $5 a day, which means $150 a month.  Our hosting is... $80-ish?  But how much of that $150 we'll have to spend a month remains to be seen, since we're going to be doing a lot more than our monthly allotted bandwidth.  And there's a movie yet to premiere!  So, uh, we'll have a better idea once the month is over.  --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 15:00, 19 June 2009 (EDT)
::Assuming we ever end up with more money than we need, David, I suggest you cover yourself in gold. 14 caret gold. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 16:42, 19 June 2009 (EDT)
:::If anyone's getting covered in gold, it's McFly and Scout!  --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 16:51, 19 June 2009 (EDT)
::::Yeah, but I can actually imagine you as the World's Biggest Man, resplendent in gold and jewels, laughing maniacally. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 03:28, 20 June 2009 (EDT)
::::I second McFly and Scout being covered in gold.  Also what rate are we paying for extra bandwidth? --[[User:Abates|abates]] 04:42, 20 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::I would prefer to be draped in gold, personally.  If you can arrange that, it'd be swell, thanks!  (Covered in gold is more of a Bond villain thing to do, after all.) As for the bandwidth rates, we're paying for a 1024MB Slicehost installation.  Feel free to look it up, I'm not comfortable spilling numbers all over here. --[[User:McFly|McFly]] 10:36, 25 June 2009 (EDT)

==Consolidate front page?==
[[Image:Newfrontpage062009.jpg|thumb]]
Man, that front banner is huge!  Can it be smaller? And when we make it smaller, can we stack up the top-most two boxes next to it like so?  --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 15:58, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
: The cropped image shown, of course, is just a placeholder.  --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 16:00, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
::That looks about as clunky as Wikia's frontpage, IMO.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|<sup>Talk</sup>]] 16:05, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
:::Well, it's not fine-tuned or anything.  Thing is, either that banner's going to be cut down or removed entirely.  It's huge, it's bandwidth-wasting, and it pushes all our real content down off the page.  What's your choice?   --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 16:07, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
::::I'm probably knee-jerking based on the placement of the boxes. I guess it could be made to work if it's finessed a bit. It's not like we're running a ginormous ad there like Wikia was suggesting.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|<sup>Talk</sup>]] 16:31, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::I dunno, personally I like this new idea. It reminds me of how our franchise navs look: Logo on the left, linkage on the right. Plus, yeah, unlike Wikia, our content on the right of the logo will actually be... content.
:::::As for logo ideas, why don't we make a few different options where it's the TFWiki.net logo over a pic of a single character? We could have one for Prime, Megatron, Starscream, Jazz, etc. using the <OPTION> thingy. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 16:37, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
::::::As long as the site-name logo thing itself is HUGE.  I really want to make sure the URL is shoved in your face.  Branding continues to be important as we war against Wikia for Google prominence.  --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 16:40, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
::::::::If branding's important, why not change the actual on-every-page logo to use the actual TFWiki.net logo? And put TFWiki.net in the page &lt;title&gt;? - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 11:01, 10 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::::Alternately, each one could be a group shot from a different franchise, with the font altered to match. Play up how many different continuities there are, eh?--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|<sup>Talk</sup>]] 17:00, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
[[Image:Newfrontpage062009b.jpg|thumb]]
::::::::This image to the right is what I'm now thinking.  And it should probably have movie characters predominantly, at least for the next few months.  --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 17:04, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::::::I'm inclined to agree with sticking with the movie characters now, considering it's almost two weeks till the US premiere/release. --[[User:Lonegamer78|Lonegamer78]] 17:19, 9 June 2009 (EDT)

That's pretty darn good. Brings a lot more info above the fold, and the layout's pretty clean. The white background is good too, so any other images in the rotation should follow that example.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|<sup>Talk</sup>]] 17:21, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
:How do we make it done?  The table markup on the frontpage is foreign to me.  I'll upload the new image itself... --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 17:32, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
::Since Derik doesn't seem to be about yet, I'll have a go with it. Hmm. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 17:42, 9 June 2009 (EDT)--[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 17:42, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
:::Actually, we're really going to have to do something like your first example above, with the Continuity/Category tables underneath each other instead of side-by-side, because trying to fit the logo and the two tables all side-by-side looks hideously awful on a 1024px-wide screen. I tried just simply having the smaller logo, the text notices under it, and the two tables on the right, but it looked kind of... eh. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 18:04, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
::::Mrr. OK, I made ''an'' attempt at tweaking, although I think it's going to need some external CSS tweaks at least, if only to center the Continuities table. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 03:44, 10 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::Looks okay, but the jarring thing about it is that the red and blue boxes aren't the same width, though they share a column.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|<sup>Talk</sup>]] 16:19, 10 June 2009 (EDT)
::::::That's something Derik needs to tweak in the Featured box template and/or external CSS... I can't do it just by editing the page itself.
::::::Also, yea or nay on the link buttons? It just seemed a little more "Click me!" than the paragraph o' links. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 16:49, 10 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::::I dig 'em. Good design decision, IMO. --[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|<sup>Talk</sup>]] 16:52, 10 June 2009 (EDT)
::::::::Quite aside from anything else... what's the point in liking to tfwiki.info with an image link. It ''just about'' made sense as a text link, but is only going to confuse people who click on the Autobot symbol and end up back where they started. We need to cut down on main page-to-main page links, '''not''' obfuscate where they link to. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 17:30, 10 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::::::Visual consistency. (And the mouseover text indicated it was an "alternate URL".) But, I tried tweaking it again. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 17:52, 10 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::::It's fixed! Huzzah!--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|<sup>Talk</sup>]] 20:46, 10 June 2009 (EDT)
::::::::I realized I was just approaching it the wrong way. Eheh. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 21:15, 10 June 2009 (EDT)

: I'm a little ambivalent towards the "new" logo, just because I think it's a little bland, although I'm sure it's a work in progress.  I am all for putting "TFWIKI.net" in the header and all over the fucking place as a branding effort, though.  On a slightly related note, I'd consider flipping the "current series" in said box, so ROTF is closer to the center of the page and Animated is on the outside - if we're really trying to bring in ROTF traffic, having that logo front and center is probably a pretty smart idea.  I also like the idea of a rotating logo box - maybe we even jigger it so that it links directly to the article for whoever's in it - like the Go! Boxes, but focused entirely on core characters (More Fallen, Movie Optimus, etc., less Irwin Spoon and Dinobots Strike Back).  Stick with primary Movie-verse guys for now, and then in a month or so when the hype dies down, we can start to shuffle in some sufficiently advanced and significant articles (making sure that the characters are both important to the fiction and that their articles are nearly, if not entirely complete). [[User:Hooper X|Hooper_X]] 11:17, 10 June 2009 (EDT)
:That sounds like a good idea. I'm down with that. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 17:00, 10 June 2009 (EDT)


[[Image:Boxswap.jpg|right|350px]]
I has new idea for what module ought to be above the fold, and more ROTF promotiony stuff. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 21:15, 10 June 2009 (EDT)
:Sure, I'd go for it.  --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 21:26, 10 June 2009 (EDT)


Considering how crowded and text-heavy the front page is, I think the best way to draw attention to the banner is to surround it in as much empty space as possible, [[User:Magnus Maximus/Temp|something like this]], especially as the new banner's white background assimilates the page's whitespace so easily. - [[User:Magnus Maximus|Magnus Maximus]] 03:10, 11 June 2009 (EDT)
:I'm not sure how that's really different than it is now, other than putting the site notice at the top... which I kind of hate doing, because that pushes all of the content stuff down. The site notice is temporary anyway.
:I was thinking we ought to make the movie stuff more prominent, rather than the continuity/category modules. I was also thinking of placing the banner, site notice, and external website links in one cell instead of two like it is now, which further creates whitespace... I just didn't think of that until after I made the layout change proposal pic.
:I do agree/think maybe we could stand to lose a few modules, though... maybe ditch the Categories module entirely, and consolidate the Holy Grails and Editing Tips somehow. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 03:32, 11 June 2009 (EDT)
::Oh yeah, you're running a 1024 desktop, aren't you? I changed my res to 1024, and you're right, it really doesn't look much different. But [http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/3349/tfwikitemp1280.jpg this] is how it looks in 1280, and even that little bit of extra space makes a huge difference compared with how it is [http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/4606/tfwikinow1280.jpg now] (in my opinion).
::I agree about the notice, but I couldn't think where else to put it. Putting it under the banner (thus between the blue and grey boxes) made it seem wedged-in and out of place. Lesser of two evils, you dig?
::I also agree about making the movie stuff more prominent, but the red and blue boxes are narrower, so they take up less of the horizontal space. I did think that maybe we could change the featured series box so that ROTF is ''on top'' of Animated instead of beside it, and shift that up next to the banner somewhat like it is on my temp page now. That also adapts to 1024 better, I think.
::And yeah, losing some of the boxes would not be the worst thing in the world. - [[User:Magnus Maximus|Magnus Maximus]] 03:52, 11 June 2009 (EDT)
:::Ehh... my problem with that idea is that, one of the reasons we redesigned the Main Page to begin with is because our greeting was so big that it was pushing useful content down below the fold. This sort of recreates that exact same problem.
:::But, I tried tweaking my Main Page design here: [[User:Jeysie/Main Page]] to give more whitespace. I figure that once the movie's been out for a while and we don't need to pimp it as much, we can replace the Featured Characters box with the Continuities box. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 11:50, 11 June 2009 (EDT)

::I was looking at the front page right now and thinking about some things - I'm glad to see most of them are in line with what's already considered. :)
::That said, I suggest taking TFA out of the featured series box, even if only temporarily, and using the [[:Image:Revenge fallen logo.jpg|logo from the franchise page]].  I feel it's more recognisable as the ROTF logo than the more colourful one we have there, plus we can make it a bit bigger.
::I also wonder if we should have "Transformers Wiki" written on there somewhere other than the site logo in the sidebar. --[[User:Abates|abates]] 07:11, 11 June 2009 (EDT)
{{-}}

:::: "TFWIKI.net - THE Transformers Wiki"? [[User:Hooper X|Hooper_X]] 07:49, 11 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::I made up a [[:Image:Wikilogo big.psd|PSD template]] of just such a logo this morning. It's layered, so the transparent overlay of the Autobot leaders is optional.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|<sup>Talk</sup>]] 12:18, 11 June 2009 (EDT)
::::::I definitely prefer the font of the current TFWIKI.NET logo to that one.
::::::Whatever we ultimately do though, surely we should use the same logo EVERYWHERE, including for the top-left logo, ja? (There's also the recurring thought that we have a G1 Autobot sigil for the top-left logo, but a '''G2''' Autobot sigil for the favicon. I understand that the G2 favicon is unique, which was the main reason we went for it, but if we're thinking about branding...) - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 12:37, 11 June 2009 (EDT)

===Logo===
[[Image:TFwikilogomock.png|right]]
If we want to be movie-centric AND use the TFWiki.net logo extensively for branding reasons, shouldn't we change the Animated-based logo to something more like this? (NB: Quick mock to make a point, '''not''' intended to be actually used, and may clash with the Teletraan on the Monacobook skin). - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 17:30, 10 June 2009 (EDT)
:I think we do need to keep some visual distinctiveness. If we go too far into the grey look of the movie we end up with understandable confusion concerning its resemblance to [http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/File:Monaco-logo.png this].--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|<sup>Talk</sup>]] 17:59, 10 June 2009 (EDT)
::Yeah.  I'm really really fine with keeping our current page design/color scheme.  The Wikia site is really gray, and I'd rather not veer to close to that.  --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 20:48, 10 June 2009 (EDT)
:::[Joke Suggestion] How about we make ours ''on fire''? --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 04:27, 11 June 2009 (EDT)
::::It wouldn't actually be ''that'' hard to do... -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 12:08, 11 June 2009 (EDT)

===Featured-series box===
<div style="float:right">
{|width="50%", 
|-
|
{{Featurebox
|Featured Series
|color=#999
|id=featured-series
|content={{User:SanityOrMadness/featured-series}}
|view=User:SanityOrMadness/featured-series
}}
|}</div>
Should we perhaps rebalance the featured-series box to be more like this? (Yes, I know there's a too-high gap between the two lines to the right of the TFA logo. It didn't preview like that, and I can't see why it's doing that.) - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 14:41, 12 June 2009 (EDT)
:That's pretty darn sweet-looking, IMHO. I tried swapping around [[User:Jeysie/Main Page|my take on the Main Page]] to include a slightly modified version of it. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 15:16, 12 June 2009 (EDT)
::The way it is on the mainpage right now looks really great. Good density of info above-the-fold.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|<sup>Talk</sup>]] 15:19, 12 June 2009 (EDT)
:::Or rather on Jeysie's test page, I see now.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|<sup>Talk</sup>]] 15:21, 12 June 2009 (EDT)
::::Thing about including [[Main Page/featured-characters]] in it like that (which I just edited to increase the header-size to be visually bigger than the character names, and debold the character names themselves) is that if you separate that from above AND below with a line, you visually make it into a franchise by itself. TFA needs a stronger separator from ROTF than the ROTF stuff does within itself. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 15:39, 12 June 2009 (EDT)
<div style="float:right">
{|width="50%", 
|-
|
{{Featurebox
|Featured Series
|color=#999
|id=featured-series
|content={{:Main Page/featured-series}}
|view=Main Page/featured-series
}}
|}</div>
How about this? - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 15:41, 12 June 2009 (EDT)
:Works for me. I added it to my test Main Page with a few minor formatting tweaks. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 16:38, 12 June 2009 (EDT)
::That looks excellent to me! --[[User:Abates|abates]] 07:23, 13 June 2009 (EDT)
:::Are we doing to do this then? - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 11:06, 14 June 2009 (EDT)
::::Was wondering that myself. Any more tweaks or suggestions to add, or should we go with my mockup? --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 13:02, 14 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::The mockup looks pretty solid to me.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|<sup>Talk</sup>]] 14:11, 14 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::I say go for it! --[[User:Abates|abates]] 16:46, 14 June 2009 (EDT)
::::::Looking again at the featured-characters bit... is Sideswipe really the best choice for that fourth spot on row 1? I already changed Soundwave to Devastator, because the latter has been a LOT more prominent in promos for the movie, but I'm not sure who would be best for a fourth Autobot. Jetfire? Skids & Mudflap? (I'm not even sure if Ironhide is best for the third slot). - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 18:54, 14 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::::I was trying to think of a balance between which characters were most prominent and which people were likely to be excited about... we could go for Optimus, Bumblebee, Jetfire, and Skids & Mudflap together in the last spot. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 19:03, 14 June 2009 (EDT)
::::::::Made that change for now, then. I think "prominence" should probably be the main factor, if we want to grab users. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 19:14, 14 June 2009 (EDT)
{{-}}

===Featured article===
Now that the featured series box has been sorted... nothing against Kup, but do we have a movie/ROTF article that could possibly take the featured spot at some point between now and the 19th? - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 17:57, 14 June 2009 (EDT)
:[[The Fallen]] is at Featured Article status. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 18:07, 14 June 2009 (EDT)
::And has been the Featured Article for awhile at A Certain Other Place. I'd rather not mirror them in that respect, personally.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|<sup>Talk</sup>]] 18:22, 14 June 2009 (EDT)
:::In that case... I've got no idea. None of the rest are at FA status, and I can't think of which one would be most relevant to pick on for cleanup. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 18:31, 14 June 2009 (EDT)
::::Surely the three most obvious non-Fallen articles "to pick on for cleanup" are [[Optimus Prime (Movie)]], [[Bumblebee (Movie)]] and [[Sam Witwicky]], ja? - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 18:51, 14 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::Simmons might be mroe fun.  ;)
:::::And Megatron more enlightening, if someone wants to take a whack at his DS-game backstory. -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 19:17, 14 June 2009 (EDT)
:::Looks like Primal Prime is the featured article at that other place, not The Fallen. In fact, it looks like their Fallen article has a cleanup tag, not a featured tag... - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 17:07, 15 June 2009 (EDT)
::::Yeah, someone replaced it a couple of days ago after noticing that their "The Fallen" article wasn't up to scratch. --[[User:Abates|abates]] 17:40, 15 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::Any objection to us featuring our superior The Fallen article after all, then? --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 18:08, 15 June 2009 (EDT)
::::::Yeah, on the 24th, the Fallen's page is going up.  ESPECIALLY if it's also up at Wikia.  Our Fallen page has to supercede theirs, and burying it on the most important week of its life isn't gonna work in our favor.  --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 18:19, 15 June 2009 (EDT)

Hell, if we want to upstage 'em over at Wikia, just put [[Sideswipe (ROTF)|Sideswipe]] as one of the featured characters. I was over there just to see how far the site had gone downhill and it surprised me. They ''don't even have a page for Sideswipe'', it just redirects you to G1 Sideswipe. How sad is that?--[[User:AWT88|AWT88]] 00:13, 17 June 2009 (EDT)
:How hard did you look? I wont link it for obvious reasons, but there IS a page for him. - [[User:Cattleprod|Cattleprod]] 00:22, 17 June 2009 (EDT)
::I think he got messed up by the fact that the Main Page links to "Sideswipe" without the parenthetical, which does indeed redirect to G1 Sideswipe.
::Having said that, their proper ROTF Sideswipe page is still miserable compared to ours, as is the fact that they got the Main Page linking wrong.
::Not only that... I also noticed that one of their registered users, while editing their Main Page, managed to change their Twitter link to our Twitter in the process. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 00:44, 17 June 2009 (EDT)
:::Yeah I didn't look very hard (alcohol is a helluva thing), the link was what I went for. Obviously someone over there screwed up. You got a problem with it Cattleprod, kiss my shiny, metal ass.--[[User:AWT88|AWT88]] 01:29, 17 June 2009 (EDT)

===Text Purging===
Next possible round of changes:
I've tweaked [[User:Jeysie/Main Page|my setup]] to remove the Categories module (is it really that useful?) and try to reduce/consolidate the Editing Tips/Holy Grails section.

I also think we should do a purge of the Series box and stick to just the "major" series/franchises: Generation 1, Generation 2, Beast Wars, Robots in Disguise, Armada, Energon, Cybertron, Animated, the two movies, and Universe. (Possibly also Classics and/or Beast Machines). We have the comprehensive list linked to for anyone who really wants to look at everything. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 19:52, 15 June 2009 (EDT)
:The categories box is useful for two reasons: (1) In and of itself, it's useful. I certainly use it. (2) Without it, your mockup has an empty white space in the right column almost the exact size and shape of the categories box... - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 20:49, 15 June 2009 (EDT)
:I further note that, [[:Image:Mainpage analytics-06-05-09.png|per Derik's statdump]], it ''gets used''. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 20:53, 15 June 2009 (EDT)
::Well, if you can suggest other ways to clean up our Main Page, I'm all for it. As it is, I agree with Walky that it's getting to be too much of a sea of text, and that struck me as being one of the least useful of the modules. I guess we could consolidate it somehow with the Continuities module as a sort of "Quick Links" box...
::We possibly could also get rid of the Editing Tips and Holy Grail modules, but I kind of hate doing that, as it's nice to try to encourage new editors to look at that sort of information. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 21:02, 15 June 2009 (EDT)

::Thing is, if I click on the first link in the Categories box because I want to find a particular character, I get a big confusing list of subcategories and... [[Mickey Mouse]].  If I'm a casual user looking for,say, [[Soundwave (G1)|Soundwave]], that doesn't help me much, because then I have to hunt through the subcategories for something that looks like it might lead me there.  Yes, it's possible that I might notice the search box and use that instead, but that kinda takes away from the point of having that there in the first place.
::Though technically I guess I'm complaining about the organisation of the Characters category rather than the box itself. :) --[[User:Abates|abates]] 21:20, 15 June 2009 (EDT)

== Jokes? ==

It is sometimes very hard to find relevant information on this wiki among all the juvenile humor. It's a little off-putting for a casual user like myself. I know this wiki is about robots who turn into cars, but, c'mon... Maybe tone it down a bit?[[Special:Contributions/71.107.102.102|71.107.102.102]] 16:56, 11 June 2009 (EDT)

:No.  [[User:Hooper X|Hooper_X]] 17:00, 11 June 2009 (EDT)

::If you can point out specific instances where the humor is getting in the way of the information, we'll take those under consideration for adjusting, but on the whole we here tend to appreciate the humor. (Including this editor back when she was a newbie/casual reader.) --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 17:04, 11 June 2009 (EDT)
:::As does the overwhelming majority of the readership, it seems. We've gotten praise from all circles for the "do not take it too seriously" approach, even from industry professionals. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 15:22, 12 June 2009 (EDT)

== Tech Upgrades ==

Since we're cracking 1.5 million hits per day, I'm running an alternate webserver for testing over on [http://tfwiki.net:8080/ port 8080.]  It's *not* cached, so I expect it to be a smidge slower, but I'm also aggressively tweaking it for better content compression and lower memory usage.  It probably doesn't matter *now,* but I suspect that as we close in on the movie, and then as the movie is released and the edits go up, we're going to need to squeeze out every last ounce of performance available to us.  That said, can you guys try to break it via logging in/out, editing articles, etc.?  It's all on the same database, so any changes made there WILL show up here (and vice versa,) but my major concern is that we don't have those damned login session problems and their ilk going forward.  Thanks! --[[User:McFly|McFly]] 11:05, 12 June 2009 (EDT)
:So... an "editing copy" on one server, and a cached copy on another?  Because 99% of TFWiki readers aren't editors? -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 11:53, 12 June 2009 (EDT)
::Let's not overcomplicate it.  Test on the new link, the software driving that will replace the existing (more resource intensive) software '''if it's any good.''' At this point, I want to find out if there are any bugs, and that's that. --[[User:McFly|McFly]] 16:38, 12 June 2009 (EDT)
:I got a 405 error when I tried to upload an image on there, but otherwise it seems to be working great. --[[User:Abates|abates]] 20:41, 12 June 2009 (EDT)

=="Wikia wiki" boilerplate==
Between FortMax, Skyjammer and myself, I believe all instances of "Teletraan-I a wikia wiki" etc have been removed from our webpages. Huzzah! Hopefully that will help our Google stats and suchlike, unless I am mis-remembering how those things work... --[[User:Monzo|Monzo]] 18:31, 12 June 2009 (EDT)
:*thumbsup!* --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 07:28, 13 June 2009 (EDT)

== Special:Imagelist ==

Is there any way to strip out the deleted images from [[Special:Imagelist]]? It's kinda useless as things stand. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 20:11, 12 June 2009 (EDT)

== Anonymous users ==

Right, the movie goes wide-release in the UK on Friday (I think there may be some previews on Thursday). Thinking about the chaos that may result [and noting that Memory Alpha - much to Wikia's displeasure - disabled ALL editing between the first opening of ''Star Trek'' and its' wide release in the US.]... I think we should give serious consideration to disabling anonymous editing from at least the 18th to the 26th of June.

Thoughts? Objections? Flames? - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 22:26, 15 June 2009 (EDT)

:I've been advocating that for over a month.  It's the same thing we did with Animated:  material is blocked for anons until it comes out in America.  --[[User:Thylacine 2000|Thylacine 2000]] 22:51, 15 June 2009 (EDT)

::I wasn't talking about blocking specific pages, though (in the way a load of ''Animated'' pages were semi-protected) - just a blanket ban on anonymous editing until ''at least'' the 26th (and I would prefer a week or two beyond that). - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 22:57, 15 June 2009 (EDT)

:::I'd much prefer if it wasn't a total block.  Block anons on all the movie char character articles, etc.  -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 23:02, 15 June 2009 (EDT)

::::Block until a week after the movie's released in the States, namely the chara articles and the film page itself (who knows what poor soul will "unknowingly" put in spoilerific in the synopsis/trivia/notes/what-have-you). It's already difficult enough with the adaptation... --[[User:Lonegamer78|Lonegamer78]] 23:06, 15 June 2009 (EDT)

:::::I'm not just worried about spoilers, but about the casual vandalism associated with a sudden & short-lived spike in visitor numbers, which probably wouldn't be limited to the movie pages. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 23:10, 15 June 2009 (EDT)

::::::If we do so, should we have a site-wide message like Memory Alpha? --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 02:08, 16 June 2009 (EDT)

:::::::At least I know we can use [[MediaWiki:Sitenotice]], I'm not sure whether there is any other similar message. --'''[[User:TX55|<span style= "color:#00FA9A">TX55</span>]]'''<small><SUP>''[[User talk:TX55|<span style= "color:#0000CD">TALK</span>]]''</SUP></small> 07:37, 16 June 2009 (EDT)

::::::::Wow, some serious US-centric bias being spouted.  If you don't want spoiled, then don't visit.  It's now well established internet etiquette to avoid forums about a week before a film's release.  Same should apply here.  Or..... wait til the DVD is released before unlocking movie edits, just in case you're stuck in Outer Mongolia at the time of the cinema release.  Anonymous editing should be blocked, if only to stop the inevitable trolling and vandalism. [[Special:Contributions/82.7.126.27|82.7.126.27]] 14:07, 16 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::::::Er, no. For one, the 24th is the '''world''' premiere, meaning the vast majority of countries are getting it on that date, not just the US.
:::::::::For two, we need to be able to monitor all edits made to ROTF articles to make sure they're accurate and factual, and we can't do that if most of the wiki's regular editors haven't even seen the movie.
:::::::::So this has less to do with spoilers, and more with the entirely practical aim of being able to keep tabs on all ROTF edits effectively. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 14:19, 16 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::::::Gosh, thanks, I'll take your advice under consideration.... wait, no, I really won't.  If you have a problem with "U.S.-centric bias," you are in the wrong place:  this is openly stated as a U.S.-centric wiki.  We blocked anonymous edits to the new ''Animated'' episodes that for some damnfool reason were aired first in Dubai, until they were uploaded online for everyone to see.  Our U.S.-based editors shouldn't have to stop working on a website that, to a large extent, ''they created'', just out of fear that some collection of I.P. numbers will thoughtlessly spoil the movie for them.  Better to just anon-protect all the movie-related pages until after all the major markets have had their premieres.  --[[User:Thylacine 2000|Thylacine 2000]] 15:12, 16 June 2009 (EDT)

My vote is for blocking all anons from the movie-related pages for at least one week after the world premier, maybe two.  I would not be opposed to a site-wide block, however.  I really have no interest in cleaning up after a flood of one-timers and trolls and crap. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 15:23, 16 June 2009 (EDT)

::Hey, I'm all for the lockage.  But to stop the wave of trolls that will come.  Not because Americans seem to think they have the <insert deity>-given right to subjugate the free speech of others who have the rare opportuity to experience something before the Americans do.  That hardly ever happens.  America gets everything first; cars, movies, fat, gadgets, first dibs on invasion etc.  Thankfully they don't get irony first.[[Special:Contributions/82.7.126.27|82.7.126.27]] 15:38, 16 June 2009 (EDT)
:::Did you even read the post where I pointed out the vast majority of TF fans, both US and non-US, won't be seeing the movie before the 24th, because the vast majority of countries in general aren't getting it until the 24th?
:::Basically, all TF fans not in the UK and Japan aren't going to be getting to see the movie before the 24th. It's not as if we're making editing wait because everyone else is getting the movie early and the US is the only country that isn't.
:::All of our Canadian, Australian, non-UK European, non-Japan Asian, etc. editors are likely equally glad we're waiting. Maybe you should stop and actually think before you go off spouting jerkass strawman accusations. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 15:46, 16 June 2009 (EDT)

:::Are you ''intentionally'' aiming for self-parody, or did you actually seriously just try to frame your potentially being locked out of our privately-run, privately-financed web site about giant alien space robots for a few days as a ''freedom of speech'' issue?  'Cause that right there is some serious comedy gold, sir. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 15:54, 16 June 2009 (EDT)

:::I'm afraid there are no Internet Oscars for maudlin self-victimization, otherwise you'd be a shoo-in.  Here we only talk about Transformers.  You are free to start doing that any old time.  --[[User:Thylacine 2000|Thylacine 2000]] 15:55, 16 June 2009 (EDT)
:::Hahaha, did he just equate being able to post to a wiki about cartoon robots for a few days... to the right to free speech?  Man, and I thought education was bad over HERE!  --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 21:03, 16 June 2009 (EDT)

===One derailment later...===
So, then, back on the subject... I still think we should do it. Mr Anon isn't making me think less of it as an idea. And yes, a [[MediaWiki:Sitenotice]] would be essential. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 21:33, 16 June 2009 (EDT)
:So, we're all for blocking anons for a week after the 24th? --[[User:Lonegamer78|Lonegamer78]] 00:31, 17 June 2009 (EDT)
::They're gonna get pissy, but sounds good to me. But what about the editors who can't log in, is that still a problem?--[[User:AWT88|AWT88]] 09:52, 17 June 2009 (EDT)
:::Most likely. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 12:48, 17 June 2009 (EDT)
:::Which editors who can't log in?  The problem with IE users not being able to log in was fixed when McFly fixed all the other problems on the site.  I haven't heard of any reports of anyone else having the problem... --[[User:Abates|abates]] 16:32, 17 June 2009 (EDT)
::::It's not a case of being technically unable to log in. Its a case of NOT DESIRING to log in because people are at work or at school or where there are shared computers. When I was at school, I certainly didn't want to log in, and a few other people felt the same way. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 04:09, 19 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::Ah! Of course. --[[User:Abates|abates]] 04:46, 19 June 2009 (EDT)

== "Transformers Comic" ==

Okay, I've got three issues at present with the titling treatment of the Titan Movie comics:
#Ambiguity - if you look at, say, [[Transformers Comic issue 9]], there's ''at least'' three Transformers #9s with no subtitle - [[DIS-Integrated Circuits!|Marvel G1 US #9]], [[Man of Iron!|Marvel G1 UK #9]], and [[Transformers Comic issue 9|Titan Movie #9]]; and currently the only one at "Transformers Comic issue 9" is the Titan Movie issue
#DO we go by issue, or by story? - We're all over the shop on this:
#*The Marvel US issues are all at the story titles, but these pages incorporate any "Transformers Universe" bio material
#*The Marvel UK issues almost all have multiple stories or parts of stories, and I think there may even be some issues with multiple UK-originated/non-reprint stories, and each story is at its' own page, ''which incorporates multiple issues'' (e.g., [[Time Wars]]), leaving aside editorial and other non-story material.
#*The Marvel G2 issues almost all have backups, sometimes nominal, sometimes not, and they're all at the title of the lead/non-"Tales of Earth" story (e.g. [[New Dawn]]).
#*The ''first'' Panini Armada issue is at the story title ([[First Encounter!]]), while the ''rest'' are at "Panini Armada issue X" (e.g., [[Panini Armada issue 2]]).
#*The IDW issues are at the issue title even where the issue is split into multiple, titled. stories (e.g. [[The Arrival issue 4]])
#The actual title of the Titan Movie issues - Titan Movie v1 #22-25 are actually titled ''Transformers: Universe'' #22-25 (mostly in reflection of it absorbing the cancelled ''Animated'' comic), but are still at "Transformers Comic issue XX"; while v2, titled ''Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen'' #XX, is at the truly bizarre "Transformers Comic 2.XX". Really, just because the letters page said 2.x once, rather than "Revenge of the Fallen (Titan) issue X", which is what's on the cover?
What are we doing with this? - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 21:17, 16 June 2009 (EDT)

:As I've said before, I do NOT favor consistency here.  A one-size-fits-all approach will inevitably fail to encompass the widely variable situations with various comic series.
:The Marvel US book are under the story titles because, for all intents and purposes, the story and the issue are one and the same.  Likewise for most of Dreamwave's G1 run.  Sure, we could move 'em all to "The Transformers issue 2 (Marvel US)", but what do we ''gain''?  How is this any better than "Power Play!"?  What is the benefit?  Mere consistency is insufficient reason.
:This is much, much less true with the UK comic, where stories were broken into two and even three parts, and multiple stories shared page space in the same issue.   Now, I've heard rumblings to the effect that each UK issue should have its own page, and there's merit to that, insofar as each issue's contents are a mixed bag - minicomics, letters pages, and pieces and parts of various stories.  It might make sense to have a page for each issue, basically a list of its contents, with ''See main article'' links to the entire story -- so, say, UK #88, #89, #90, or whatever, all link to a single page for "Target: 2006".
:With G2, it absolutely makes complete sense to combine the two stories.  The "backup" strips are such in name only; they are absolutely integral to the main strip, and neither can be read without the other.  Separating "Tales of Earth" bits into their own pages is only going to confuse things and make them ''less informative''.  Furthermore, the main strip clearly ''is'' the MAIN strip.  It makes sense to cover the whole story under that strip's title. Our current system for G2 acknowledges this, while still distinguishing between the contents of each section.  The alternative is to move each page to "Generation 2 issue 2" or whatever... and I don't see what we gain by doing this.  
:The Titan comics should be moved to whatever the cover and indicia call them.  If they're just ''Transformers'' or something equally generic, well, that's what parenthetical disambigs are for.  Likewise for the ROTF reboot.  A simple (Titan) should cover the bases well enough, yes?
:A recent trend has been issues with 2 discreet stories, such as the ''Animated'' books you mention.  I've long been in favor of having a single page for the ''issue'' for such books, with ''See main article'' links to the individual stories within them - so "Animated: The Arrival issue 2" would be a list of stuff, with two prominent links within to pages about the two stories it contains.  Still, I can understand if people see that as unnecessarily messy -- so long as they can agree that, since the  stories are pretty much co-equal, it would make no sense at all to give one or the other naming precedence.
:So, that's my take.  Case-by-case basis FTW, baby.  -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 21:43, 16 June 2009 (EDT)

:Also, to address item #1 specifically... if we do stick with "Transformers" as the title, there should be a disambig note for Transformers at the top.  Unless "Comic" is in the title, it shouldn't be in there.  I'm thinking the article names should be "Transformers issue 1 (Titan)", etc., with the parenthetical at the end of the page title, rather than the middle.
:These books generally have stories from different continuities, don't they?  That's a point in favor of separating the story content out from the containing issue. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 11:19, 17 June 2009 (EDT)

::Personally I've been using "Comic issue" because that's what the pages were before I started adding to the wikli, and "issue 2." stuck with the former way of numbering things (and was easier to type...). If naming them after the title (so from #22 it's Transformers Universe or Transformers ROTF etc) would make more sense, I'd be happy to go with that. 
::As for whether or not to have specific issue or story pages, I'd say if we're going to have individual pages for each issue of IDW and Dreamwave miniseries (not to mention multi-parters in the cartoons), it wouldn't make sense not to for Titan. There's already a precedent that if we do this for post-Marvel comics.  -- [[User:Charles RB|Charles RB]] 20:25, 19 June 2009 (GMT)

== Non-movie (Movie) characters vs. movie (ROTF) characters with the same name ==

Anyone else think we should, at the very least, have {{tl|disambig2}}s on pages like [[Jetfire (Movie)]] and [[Mudflap (Movie)]] to the ROTF characters of the same name? Yes, I realise users could go via the disambig page, but I see it as making things simpler & easier for newbies, and in that scenario one click is always better than two. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 22:20, 17 June 2009 (EDT)
:I think I'd cautiously support adding a <nowiki>{{disambig2}}</nowiki> for characters of the same name within the same continuity if there seems like a good chance for confusion.  I'd oppose imposing it as an across-the-board standard though.  (You're nto suggesting that though.) -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 22:23, 17 June 2009 (EDT)
::I oppose it on the principle that multiple disambig templates on a page is ugly. [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 22:47, 17 June 2009 (EDT)
:::Ugly, and you can get to where you need to go through the disambig.  --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 22:48, 17 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::Here's the thing though - '''is it intiutive''' for a complete newbie, who came in via ROTF, to see "Optimus Prime (Movie)", "Bumblebee (Movie)" and "Megatron (Movie)" '''and not immediately conclude''' that the Jetfire article will be at "Jetfire (Movie)", rather than some incredibly obscure card-puzzle that even we don't have a final picture for?
:::::Hell, even take it a step up from "complete newbie" to someone who sat through Beast Wars/Machines or Armada/Energon/Cybertron, where characters changed bodies between series so that they had very little resemblance to their prior selves (in the UT's case, without any explanation). Those guys might assume that "Mudflap (Movie)" *is* Skids' twin even if he bears no resemblance to him. And it was a guy making that exact mistake and getting reverted by you last night that caused me to post this.
:::::I really think a BIG, prominent link DIRECTLY from the obscure (Movie) character to the prominent (ROTF) character is required. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 20:26, 18 June 2009 (EDT)
::::As long as there's a link to the same-universe namesake in the intro, I see no need for an additional disambig template. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 01:21, 18 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::And on that note, I added just such a line for [[Mudflap (Movie)]].  It seemed especially appropriate for him, since he's an Autobot wannabe who precedes an actual Autobot of the same name.  That having been said, though, I don't dislike the [[:Template:disambigrotf]] template you cooked up, Sanity.  It's a little unwieldy, but it's probably as succinct as such a thing could ever be. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 00:46, 19 June 2009 (EDT)
::::::I did the same for Jolt, who had the wal-mart version for the first movie and it was deleted... I was told "that's what disambig is for." [[User:Cliffjumper prime|Cliffjumper prime]] 01:12, 19 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::::Well, I'm generally in favor of intro-links because they allow for a bit more elaboration.  If it's just a disambig, then we're presenting the characters as though they are definitively separate individuals with no connection to each other, even though in most cases there's just too little evidence to say one way or t'other.  The absence of information is, itself, noteworthy. - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 02:57, 19 June 2009 (EDT)
::::::::I favour user-friendliness over concerns about how ugly or pretty it makes things look. I think those of you arguing about how ugly it makes things look and disambig3 doing the job are working under the assumption readers are fairly knowledgeable about how this wiki operates. I find that attitude to be rather unhelpful and presumptive. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 04:13, 19 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::::::Indeed. I still have a problem with not redirecting [[Optimus Prime (Energon)]]->[[Optimus Prime (Armada)]], [[Optimus Primal (BW)]]->[[Optimus Primal]], [[Optimus Prime (ROTF)]]->[[Optimus Prime (Movie)]], etc. It seems almost ''wilfully'' inconsistent to not have an equivalent parenthetical available for every character in a series to aid in newbies' browsing & editing. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 09:01, 19 June 2009 (EDT)
::::::::::I don't like the expanded ROTF disambig box. I like how Charles RB did it on the [[Sideswipe (Movie)]] page. A little tack-on to the continuity note. Although in Sideswipe's case I think the pages could actually be merged. - [[User:Starfield|Starfield]] 10:11, 19 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::::::As opposed to assuming that every reader is retarded and can't figure out [[Jetfire (Movie)]] is not the same character as [[Jetfire (ROTF)]]? [[User:Interrobang|—Interrobang]] 13:43, 19 June 2009 (EDT)
::::::::::Go look at pictures of the UT Hot Shots and get back to us (NB: First example which leapt to mind, but by no means the only one).
::::::::::It's not as if there isn't precedent for stuff without any real resemblance to each other to be randomly declared the "same character" in Transformers. Especially since "Jetfire (Movie)" is no character at all - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 14:32, 19 June 2009 (EDT)

::::::::::Why on god's green earth would someone look at a page called "Jetfire (Movie)" and assume that they have NOT found Jetfire from the live-action movie series?  Why would the expected, logical, inevitable response be, hey, there must be another guy by the exact same name in the movie series! ?  That's like, the exact opposite of retarded.  It's unretarded.  It's ''logical''.  The truth of the matter, that there's two guys in the same continuity with the exact same name, doesn't make a damn lick of sense.
::::::::::Assumption of prior knowledge is a rampant problem in this fandom.  Around here we're supposed to be smarter than that, though!  We should be able to step back from our microscopic inspection of things and say, "Hey, this whole deal really is retarded.  Let's clarify it."  Thus I am ''heavily'' in favor of liberal disambiguation.  Not only does it make things clearer for the reader, it also increases the chances of the reader working their way into the obscure backwaters of the site -- which is what we want, is it not?  If it makes the page look "ugly", well, that's OUR problem, isn't it?  Why should the reader experience suffer because of a shortcoming on our end?  Maybe we need to expand our diambiguation template options, instead of rejecting the notion on aesthetic grounds. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 16:14, 19 June 2009 (EDT)
::::::::::::I'd agree with not keeping this in the disambig. Though I see pages that had it outside the disambig section have been edited, so I presume it's now the policy to keep the information there?  -- [[User:Charles RB|Charles RB]] 00:56, 20 June 2009 (GMT)
:::::::::::Well said. I agree without reservation.
:::::::::::And on that note, I'd not only like to see more liberal redirecting (really, if "Optimus Prime" appears in ''Energon'' there is no way on Xal's green Earth there shouldn't be a valid [[Optimus Prime (Energon)]] page, even if it's just a redirect), but ALSO a general desnarking of mainpics (not captions, the ''actual pictures'' themselves) - stuff like the "self portrait" on [[Grimlock (G1)]] or the Cyber-Slammers pic on [[Brawl (Movie)]] (why... I mean WHY?!) only - and I quote from {{tl|desnark}} - "interfer[es] with the delivery of information on th[e] page." Have the pics on the page, sure, but NOT as a mainpic. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 17:49, 19 June 2009 (EDT)
::::::::::::That Cyber-Slammers pic will be removed over my fucking dead body.  --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 17:57, 19 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::::::::::Why?
:::::::::::::No, really, why? The jokiness is stated, in an official policy, as being '''all right as long as it doesn't replace something more useful'''. The whole point of a main pic is that it's the ur-version of a character, the single most representative version. If you need a pic of the character to show off how it would look in most people's minds, it would be a strong candidate if not a shoe-in.
:::::::::::::Other than you, WHO THE HELL WOULD THINK OF THE CYBER-SLAMMER FIRST?! - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 18:22, 19 June 2009 (EDT)
::::::::::::::I don't see why the Cyber-Slammer image is anti-information.  It's a perfectly good image of Brawl/Devastator!  Just not one that you particularly like.  And it's not just me.  It's not like I put the image there!  The only people I've ever seen speak out against the image are you and random anons.  So there.  --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 19:24, 19 June 2009 (EDT)

::::::::::::The only problem I see with spare diambigs like "Optimus Prime (Energon)" is that if you're typing in "Optimus Pr" into the Search box, a list of "Optimus Pr*" pages is gonna come up.  It's already a long list, limited by our software to 8 results.  With the extra disambigs, potentially useful results might scroll off the list entirely.
::::::::::::As for the images... eh.  We're not *that* rampant with the jokey images.  More importantly, you can scroll down Grimlock's page and quickly see lots of pictures of him across various media. The main pic isn't significantly inhibiting the flow of information, IMO. For Brawl... we *could* use a few more full-body shots of him near the top of the page, last time I checked at least. -- [[Special:Contributions/99.151.96.72|99.151.96.72]] 18:11, 19 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::::::::::Redirects are automatically flagged in several ways by the software - is there really no way to either exclude them from the search suggestions, or (preferably) just throw them to the bottom of the pile?
::::::::::::::Yes, but every time I've suggested doing ''just that'' instead of the zealous (overzealous, IMO) purging of redirects, someone comes up with like 3 examples where "we ''really'' want this redirect to show up."  And those 3 examples somehow outweigh the 3000 links you ''don't'' want in the search suggestion box.  -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 20:26, 19 June 2009 (EDT) 
:::::::::::::And no, we're not "that rampant" - all the more reason that we shouldn't be doing it at all. Like I say, the whole point of a main pic is to show the single most identifable version of the character in one shot. The two examples I mentioned (I'm sure I could find more, but those are the two which stick in my head) are completely the opposite - a kid's-scrawl "self-portrait" from an obscure 5-page B&W Marvel UK backup, and a version of a character that barely resembles the movie/fiction model. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] 18:22, 19 June 2009 (EDT)
::::::::::::::WHERE WILL SOMEONE FIND A PICTURE OF GRIMLOCK IF NOT AT THE TOP OF THE TFWIKI ARTICLE?! -[[User:LV|LV]] 20:09, 19 June 2009 (EDT)

::::::I withdraw my "ugly" comment now that we have the disambiguations melded into a single table.  I just didn't want a tower of them.  I see no reason for not doing it this way we're doing it now. --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 16:29, 19 June 2009 (EDT)

== "Wanted Pages" clean-up ==

The Wanted Pages list is cluttered with links to pages that... aren't wanted at all. There's a big chunk of that list that are actually just links from discussions, along the lines of: "I don't know if this is the right name for this page. How about we name it 'Alternate name 1' or 'Alternate name 2'?". There are also quite a few links that come from userpages, that do nothing but clutter up the list; "My favourite tv shows beside transformers are 'Beavis and Butthead' and 'Batman'."

All these unnecessary links make the Wanted Pages hard to navigate through at times... Creating pages that appear on that list is the main way I contribute to this wiki,  but it's getting harder to do so when half the links I find there aren't necessary. However, it felt quite rude to just go into someone's userpage and edit what they had written about themselves, or change other people's words in a discussion. Would it be ok to actually go through these pages and tweak them a bit? Like just killing the links themselves? Or for something along the lines of the user's page, just changing the links to an outside site, such as Wikipedia?

Additionally, it'd be nice to encourage people not to create random links like this all the time... I'm sure if you put quotation marks around your suggested link name, people will understand thats a link you're suggesting, you don't actually have to create a link that goes nowhere. Any opinions? --[[User:Ascendron|Ascendron]] 14:50, 20 June 2009 (EDT)
:[[User:Bluestreak7|Bluestreak7]]'s been doing this sort of thing already, so I don't see why it'd be a big deal.
:If you're worried about userpages, and you see the person's still an active editor after checking their contributions, you can always just leave them a quickie note about the matter on their talk page. (If the person ''hasn't'' edited in a long time, I'd say just go for the change yourself.)
:Plus, there's no particular reason why you'd need to actually change a person's words: you can either just remove the link, or create a piped link to the correct link, whichever is more appropriate.
:Also useful would be going through and fixing any links that are spelling errors or alternate ways of linking to an already existing page or already "wanted" page. I try to do that myself from time to time, but they're not always easy to catch, especially if they're for people/things I'm not familiar with. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 15:22, 20 June 2009 (EDT)
::Heh, I had no idea that my pet project had got any notice.  One thing I have noticed is there is a good percentage of "wanted pages" that come from talk pages.  Many times when editors are figuring out how to name the particular page they actually wiki-link to multiple choices.  It would be nice just to put them in quotes or such.  I think we'll all understand what it means when discussing possible titles.  I'm hesitant in modifying these talk pages until we come up with some sort of standard.  However, I'm not hesitant in removing dead links from user pages.  Many users are now unregistered since the bookworm crash.  All those are fair game in my opinion to remove any links.  In the past few weeks we've gone from more at least 4866 to less than 4500.  That's a good start. --[[User:Bluestreak7|Bluestreak7]] 22:32, 24 June 2009 (EDT)

== Doctor Braxis/Doctor B ==

[[Withered Hope]] has a redlink for the Go-Bots Dr. Braxis character, but apparently he is only identified in the actual story as "Dr. B."  Two questions:

1) If I start the article, should it be as "Doctor Braxis" (what we know is his real name, and what the redlink already points to) or "Doctor B" (which, technically, is all he's called in TF fiction)?  (such as Nick Fury vs. 'Nicholas')

2) How much non-TF info on the doc would be appropriate to include in said article?  Especially as there's no GoBots wiki as there is for, say, Marvel, Star Wars, or Godzilla that I could provide an external link for...

I know that when it comes to crossover stuff, most every Wiki has their own policy on handling it, so I just wanted to check.  Thanks in advance! [[User:Thanos6|Thanos6]] 04:54, 21 June 2009 (EDT)

:I'd create it at "Doctor B".  Then give the "Fiction" section that explains his role in Withered Hope.  Then a "Trivia" or "Real world' or some such section that explains "This guy is Doctor Braxis, he was a bad guy from Go-Bots."  I'd say err on the side of too much info and then we can edit it down.  [[User:Hooper X|Hooper_X]] 09:09, 21 June 2009 (EDT)

== Proposal: Reorganizing movie character pages? ==

The general arrangement of the fiction sections for the movie character pages has... not ''annoyed'' me, per se, but made the back of my brain itch for a little while now. They take an approach of ''trying'' to present all the events that happen to a character in a chronological order, which is a laudible goal, and an approach taken in many, if not ''most'' other pages of the wiki, and one that in those other situations, I generally advocate. However, becuase there are so many different pieces of ancillary media for the movie, which take place before, during, after and ''aaaalll'' around the movie and ''each other'', they're getting very muddled. The "Titan" seciton is often placed before the section for the first movie, since it begins in the past... but then has to summarize events, including its alternate timeline, which take place ''after'' the movie... before the movie's event have been related in the article. You follow me? Further, I feel that this approach tends to create the appearance of one cohesive timeline, and we all know that's just not true - there are innumerable discrepancies between the movie and the ancillary media, and - avoiding any spoilers - ROTF is one of the worst examples of key parts of the movie's backstory conflicting ''wildly'' with what the ancillary media has said. So, I think that a more divisive, clinical approach is necessary, and I've quickly knocked up [[User:Chris_McFeely/ROTF_proposal|this]].

I think that the movies should be the first thing on the page, just there, on their own. They are the core of this universe and its characters - they are the pieces of fiction around which ''all'' the others are written. Everything takes the movies as its starting point and works backwards or forwards from there. Making them the first thing on the pages frees us up to more freely explore past and future depicted in other media. Also, I'm in favour of just making sub-sections for "IDW continuity" (again, the discrepancy between what the IDW comics have shown and what is actually in the ROTF movie is prompting this line of thought), and describing the eventts of all of its comics in one, long section, rather than splitting in two like we had it before, is preferable. As a follow-on from this, Titan gets its own section, with a sub-section (a la "Marvel UK future timelines") for its alt. universe, rather than just a note, making the division between the stories a lot clearer. Also, it removes the need for odd notes like the one on Scorponok's page which has to mention that he only dies in the Titan comics and nowhere else - now, it should be obvious, because the continuity has been isolated instead of interspersed with all the others. The prequel novels are about the only thing I'm not sure on - I haven't actually read them, so I don't feel capable of making a decision, and have just put them under their own heading like this for now (after the movie, but before the comics since surely, more ordinary people on the street have read the books than the comics?). Could they potentially just be put under the "Movies" header, around the movies themselves, or do they feature any major conflicts?

Right, then. Thoughts? - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 09:06, 21 June 2009 (EDT)

:I agree.  How does Wookiepedia arrange all that ancilliary stuff I wonder? [[User:Drmick|Drmick]] 09:15, 21 June 2009 (EDT)
::As the person who has been doing the most work on the movie articles on this wiki: I am not really enthused with the idea of rearranging the articles and re-learning how to deal with them. A few months ago, I determined the layout of the fiction sections (with the exception of the Titan stuff) on the assumption it is in one rough continuity (continuity errors and contradictions and all), and nobody objected, probably because nobody cared very much about movie fiction at the time. In my mind, if you ignore the Titan section, from start to finish, it reads reasonably well. May I suggest we just fence off Furman's Crackpot Titan Continuity? --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 10:11, 21 June 2009 (EDT)
:::FWIW, I don't think the IDW Prequel comics from the first movie are supposed to be in-continuity with RoS/Destiny. (Or at least, I don't think Mowry used them as references, just the scripts for the movies, so if it all matches up it's kind of coincidental.) --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 10:28, 21 June 2009 (EDT)
::::IDW has stumbled over its own prequel material continuity twice, which is not encouraging. The Planetfall story contradicted the first prequel which established the Decepticons landing in America, and then The Reign of Starscream contradicted Planetfall by showing Starscream's crew getting to Mars via starship, not by [[transition form]]. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 10:37, 21 June 2009 (EDT)

::::I remember at some point saying, verrrrrry explicitly, that there ''will'' be errors and contradictions and inconsistencies and multiple timelines in the Movie fiction -- I believe it was back when someone or other was arguing in favor of integrating ''Reign of Starscream'' et. al into the main movie summaries, and italicizing them like we do with the UK comics.  It seemed like a bad idea then.  Sounds like a bad idea now.  Sorry if my protestations weren't fervent enough to register at the time.
::::In general, our approach is and should be to divide up a character's appearances by media source.  There are exceptions to this rule (UK comics, Animated comics), but they should always be approached with caution.  I don't think the multi-timeline-spawning film series is a good candidate for this approach.  Derrick Wyatt knew what was going on with ''Animated'', but I doubt that Michael Bay really gives a crap about ''Alliance'' or whatever else. -- [[User:Repowers|Repowers]] 10:44, 21 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::That's not really the issue, though, Rob. We already ''do'' have the fiction broken up by media source - I'm just advocating a  rearrangement of the ''order'' in which that fiction is laid out in articles, to make the individual, splintering "continuities" a bit more individual. Really, I'm not expecting a conclusion right away - I'm raising this now so we can get a bit of discussion going before ROTF hits in the US. Because I gotta say, I think the sheer failure of the IDW ROTF prequel stuff to line up with ''any'' of the backstory in the film will help convince folks that this is a good reason to go down this road, but it will require you Yanks (and Aussies!) to see the film to decide first! - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 10:51, 21 June 2009 (EDT)
::::::It boils down to... when reading RoS and Destiny, you're supposed to treat the movies as part of those comics' timeline, as they're intended to fit, not be deliberately AU like the Titan stories apparently are. Hasbro had certain elements be changed because they would clash with the movies, and so on, so there was at least ''some'' attempt to make it somehow fit together. The Movies are an integral part of the RoS/Destiny continuity.
::::::However, apparently the converse isn't necessarily true: the movies may not treat RoS/Destiny as part of ''their'' timeline.
::::::So... *shrug* Structure that as you will. And the IDW Prequel comics are off doing their own equally separate thing regardless. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 11:00, 21 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::::Don't forget about prequel novels. I prefer FFN's proposal but I would definitely mix in [[The Veiled Threat]] fiction as happening near the end of Alliance. IDW+films seem to make up the backbone of the continuity, but maybe that isn't fair to the Titan comic. To be honest, from what I've heard, I'm prepared to treat the ROTF film as a micro-continuity, at least for my own fanon purposes. The adaptations seem to match the prequel material fairly well. - [[User:Starfield|Starfield]] 11:43, 21 June 2009 (EDT)
:Something to consider - the fact that The Veiled Threat, a novel from a writer(s) and a publisher who has nothing to do with IDW Publishing has taken pains to ensure it fits (more or less) within the continuity of The Reign of Starscream and Alliance suggest that somebody, somewhere, most likely Hasbro, wants us to consider the prequel material (excluding Furman's Alternate Universe stuff) as one single continuity, and to address contradictions and continuity errors as we come across them. That's my view of the movie articles and how we should do them. Without the prequel stuff, you'd just get several fenced off sections where "Stuff just happens", and that's why off-screen material exists, to explain or expand upon things that cannot fit into the movie or episode because they're too complex or too geeky for the audience. This wiki exists to tell people what happened off screen or why Bay's movies are so incoherent, and the way I see it, if we fence off Furman's UK alt-universe stuff, it more or less fits in together, and you get a decent story out of it. Sorry to ramble. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 23:56, 21 June 2009 (EDT)
::Here's the simple answer-- document the movie as it's own thing, and in the IDW section, use the IDW movie adaption as a stand-in for the movie, with all the retcons, mucked-up timelines, etc.  Best of both worlds.  -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 00:41, 22 June 2009 (EDT)
:::I meant leaving the damn articles as they are, except for fencing off Furman's stuff. I'm not about to track down those adaptation comics to (essentially) tell an abbreviated version of the same story already detailed in the same articles. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 06:33, 22 June 2009 (EDT)

== Representing the tfwiki at an IMAX premiere? ==

I've managed to get myself into an IMAX premiere or screening of Revenge of the Fallen tonight, and the promotors/Hasbro want to do a photo op/press thing with aussie fans. Should I like, hold up a sign that says "TFWIKI.NET THE TRANSFORMERS WIKI"? Or would that bring down unnecessary official scrutiny on us? --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 22:19, 22 June 2009 (EDT)
:Yeah, thanks for your advice, guys :/--[[User:FFN|FFN]] 23:01, 22 June 2009 (EDT)
::Do you have a "decaf" setting?  --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 23:18, 22 June 2009 (EDT)
:::Well the promoter let us know at the '''''very last minute''''' so plans are rushed. I have to time manage this thing with the free time of other people I am probably going with. Because frankly, the only reason I'd want to do the photo thing for the promoter is to represent the wiki, and if I was given the go ahead by you, I would have endeavoured to turn up if at all possible. I hope you at least appreciated that dedication to the wiki. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 23:25, 22 June 2009 (EDT)
::::Oh, and another thing - we were invited due to our association with Ozformers, but instead of promoting Ozformers, I want to promote the tfwiki. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 23:27, 22 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::Guess you know where your bread is buttered!   --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 23:34, 22 June 2009 (EDT)
:Hell, give of us a break, it hasn't even been an hour. I say do it, give us some representation, it might help us in the Google rankings and get us past the craptastic Wikia.--[[User:AWT88|AWT88]] 23:05, 22 June 2009 (EDT)
::Not good enough, Jan. *folds arms* --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 23:14, 22 June 2009 (EDT)
::Doesn't Hasbro kind of know about us already, seeing as how they answer questions from us every other month and their licensees send us pics and stuff sometimes? It's not like they're not scrutinizing us already if they're gonna. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 23:10, 22 June 2009 (EDT)
:::Now I gotta make a sign... --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 23:14, 22 June 2009 (EDT)
::::Try the Universal Greeting Dance.  They'll reciprocate.  -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 23:32, 22 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::Or they'll try to eat you! --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 23:33, 22 June 2009 (EDT)
::::::Is our motto "Transformers is Serious Business"? Or am I associating Shortpacked!'s motto? --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 23:44, 22 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::::"Toys are serious business" is a Shortpacked! thing.  I don't think the Wiki has a motto.  The one on the Twitter feed is "We know more about Transformers than you." --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 23:51, 22 June 2009 (EDT)
::::::::That sounds a bit confrontational, though, like people may not realise we aren't being aggressive or jerkish. Hasbro AU and Eric Siebenaler thought it was funny when I interrupted somebody complaining about Robot Heroes and Mighty Muggs by saying "Transformers is Serious Business". --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 00:08, 23 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::::::Considering how many TF creators use us as a reference as of late, I feel like it ought to be "We know about Transformers so you don't have to."
:::::::::But I have to agree that something like "Transformers is serious business, yo." would make for an amusing sign blurb. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 00:37, 23 June 2009 (EDT)
::::::::"Transformers are serious business" is thrown around as a joke a lot, but I don't think it's actually our motto.
::::::::*TFWiki.net: We know more about Transformers than you want to.
::::::::*TFWiki.net: Cooler than Star Trek, not as cool as Star Wars
::::::::*TFWiki.net: Great, there go 4 hours of my life
::::::::*TFWiki.net: Nerdgasm Evolved
::::::::*TFWiki.net<sup>[1]</sup>
:::::::::[1] amusing footnote
::::::::*Transformerology: Finally, a degree you can use in real life.
::::::::*TFWiki.net: serious intellectual debate about transforming space robots
::::::::*TFWiki.net: Disambiguiously Gay
::::::::*TFWiki.net: A Gold Standard of Geekdom
::::::::*TFWiki.net: Amazing and Kinda Scary
::::::::-[[User:Derik|Derik]] 00:44, 23 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::::::I've chosen the serious intellectual debate and we know more about TFs than you want to, as it fits my sense of humour. I'd do more signs, but I am the only TFWiki guy there, so two signs is already pushing it, and there's every chance they'll just crop the sign out or tell me to put it away. Cheers, guys. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 00:58, 23 June 2009 (EDT)
::::::::::Incidentally, I ''love'' "serious intellectual debate about transforming space robots."  Also:
::::::::::* "TFWiki.net: Remember that one guy?  He was so cool!"
::::::::::* "TFWiki.net: We remember who Groundshaker was, so you don't have to." (alternately: "TFWiki.net: Who the hell is ''that''!?")
::::::::::* "TFWiki.net: Come for the information, stay for the inevitable flamewar about funny captions."
::::::::::* "TFWiki.net: Unhealthily fixated since 2006."
::::::::::* "TFWiki.net: Because you're just ''dying'' to know what they called Thundercracker in Hungary."  [[User:Hooper X|Hooper_X]] 07:41, 23 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::::::::I just got back. I have no idea if the sign got into pics or not. However, I am pleased this discussion spurred creative ideas in potential official slogans for the wiki. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 09:16, 23 June 2009 (EDT)
::::::::::::"Come for the information, stay for the funny." has a certain ring to it. As does "We remember who Groundshaker was, so you don't have to." Or "Revering and ruining your childhood all in one website." --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 11:33, 23 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::::::::::[http://www.allspark.com/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=51208&view=findpost&p=1258252 I agree with Walky:]  "TFWiki.net: Yeah, this makes no goddamn sense, but here it is." - [[User:Jackpot|Jackpot]] 00:04, 25 June 2009 (EDT)

==Meanwhile, in other promotional exploits...==
I was interviewed this morning for the [http://www.fayobserver.com/ Fayettesville Observer].  Soon North Carolina will know alllll about Shortpacked!, our wiki, and Starscream's French-Canadian name.  --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 13:11, 23 June 2009 (EDT)
:Totally read that as "Fattysville". Home of the BBQ Double Stackticon! - [[User:Chris McFeely|Chris McFeely]] 13:21, 23 June 2009 (EDT)
::[http://www.fayobserver.com/Articles/2009/06/25/904214 And here we go!]  Got all the "important" stuff right, though apparently [[User:LV]] is now sixty years old and bought a Camaro.  --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 12:25, 25 June 2009 (EDT)
:::Huh. Not too far from where I live. I should see if some folks I know there can keep a copy. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 16:07, 25 June 2009 (EDT)

== Ridiculous Transformers ==

The StreetLevel blog recently posted a list of the [http://www.streetlevel.com/2009/06/04/the-top-10-most-ridiculous-transformers-ever/ Top 10 Most Ridiculous Transformers, Ever].

It is very dumb.  I want to counter with a ''better'' list.

Anyone have any suggestions?  Legion and Pepsi Convoy are already a lock.  -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 13:16, 23 June 2009 (EDT)
: It hurts my braaaaaaaaain.  (And don't forget there's a Megatron that transforms into a shoe.)  --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 13:18, 23 June 2009 (EDT)
:: And [[Esmeral]].  --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 13:21, 23 June 2009 (EDT)
:::Piano Transformer guy?
:::Is this just for ridiculous transformations?  Are there any in-universe guys who are ridiculous?
:::...I'm ''so'' putting Drift on this list.  -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 13:23, 23 June 2009 (EDT)
::::Don't be that guy, man.  You might as well start adding Nightscream and Wheelie.  --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 13:25, 23 June 2009 (EDT)
::::They have redeeming features.  Drift is Poochie.  "Designed-by-committie awesome" ''always'' looks ridiculous.  He's not just a traitor or a samurai-- he's an albino-japanese-streetracer-taciturn-former-Decepticon-honorbound-samurai-ninja.
:::::So then I hope you're putting Animated Prowl on that list, too!  --[[User:ItsWalky|ItsWalky]] 14:28, 23 June 2009 (EDT)
::::::Much less ridiculous than Drift.  I am adding [[Break]] though.  There are more ridiculous transformers, but "Penguin Antagonist Naruto" is easy to shorthand.  -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 14:51, 23 June 2009 (EDT)
::::I'll give him a fair shake and note he hasn't been that annoying in the fiction itself... but in ''concept'' he's clearly ridiculous.  -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 13:28, 23 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::Looking at that list, I'm assuming that "ridiculous transformation" is the one major factor. I could nominate [[Signal Lancer]] and his friend [[Pay phone refugee]] on that criterion.
:::::If we're going for the whole package, [[Misfire]]'s gotta be on there somewhere. I have a big soft spot for the fellow, but there's no getting around a Con that can't shoot being ridiculous. Plus he's the only male TF I can think of off-hand that canonically has ''pink'' as his main color. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 13:43, 23 June 2009 (EDT)
::::::[[Sky Lynx (Energon Wars)|''Energon Wars'' Sky Lynx.]]  He's pointlessly obscure, to boot!  (And yes, definitely the Victory Decepti-wives.)  [[User:Hooper X|Hooper_X]] 16:15, 23 June 2009 (EDT)

:Eh, their focus seems to be different than ours. They're internet hipsters mocking things you thought were cool when you were a kid (something that's in plentiful supply on the interwebs). They're not looking very deeply, and have constrained themselves to US G1 because that's all most people even remember exists. So it plays to their target audience, rather than people that actually pay attention to the brand.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|<sup>Talk</sup>]] 13:35, 23 June 2009 (EDT)
::True, but I've always been of the firm belief that if your parody doesn't focus what actually ''is'' wrong/stupid about the thing you're picking on, instead of just generic put-downs, you should step back and let someone who actually knows comedy do the writing. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 13:43, 23 June 2009 (EDT)
::I don't have a problem with their targets being so generic... I just think the nits they picked were so... ''obvious''.  And not very accurate.  (Apparently Blaster is inherently racist?)
::Sky-Bite!  Awesome '''and''' ridiculous.  -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 13:47, 23 June 2009 (EDT)
:::Well, yes, pretty much. Saying Megatron or Scorponok are ridiculous is kind of missing the mark. Especially when, as you say, there are TFs who are quite delicious in their actual ridiculousness.
:::I mean, now that I think about it, in addition to my nominations above, there's also [[Shortround]], a toy-collecting dork of a Con with a hopeless crush on the "hot chick", who can also be mistransformed into looking like a toilet just to polish it all off. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 14:04, 23 June 2009 (EDT)
[[Heinrad]] is definitely up there with the most ridiculous, as are the [[Jointron]]s..but I'm sure you've already thought of them.  -[[User:Mazenoise|Mazenoise]] 14:19, 23 June 2009 (EDT)
:Much as I love the KP TFs, [[Glit]]'s profile always makes me wonder why A.) he is a Decepticon and B.) how on Cybertron he's still alive. Gary Stu right there. [[User:Geewunling|Geewunling]] 14:49, 23 June 2009 (EDT)

:Dude.  They used Wikia as their resource.  Of course they, and their article, suck.  [[User:Hooper X|Hooper_X]] 16:16, 23 June 2009 (EDT)

[http://deriksmith.livejournal.com/40853.html List is up], thanks for all the help guys! -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 22:21, 23 June 2009 (EDT)
:Consensus on the Allspark seems to be that your list has much better choices but needs more humor in the descriptions. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 11:05, 24 June 2009 (EDT)
::Aww.  I think the Wiki has ruined me with it's dryly informative style.  -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 12:27, 24 June 2009 (EDT)
:::You just need practice in channeling copious amounts of sarcastic hyperbolic incredulity when chronicaling stuff that's ridiculous. --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 17:38, 24 June 2009 (EDT)

== Four hour downtime of June 24 ==

So, was today's downtime caused by massive server backlog of people wanting to add info to Revenge of the Fallen, or did we just get another unforseen downtime again? -- [[User:SFH|SFH]] 17:23, 24 June 2009 (EDT)
:Probably the latter. We'd more likely get a shitload of visitors than a shitload of editors. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 17:28, 24 June 2009 (EDT)
:It was most assuredly the former. The server has not actually been down at all. --[[User:Suki Brits|Suki Brits]] 23:53, 24 June 2009 (EDT)
::Wow, so we actually had would-be-contributor overload?  Guess I'm gonna have to see the movie by this weekend or I won't be able to visit here at all w/o accidentally getting spoiled for every little thing before I get the chance to watch it. --[[User:Apcog|Apcog]] 01:46, 25 June 2009 (EDT)
:::Ouch, well, I didn't expect that. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 04:39, 25 June 2009 (EDT)
::If the problem was a flood of people trying to edit the movie articles, would locking some of them against unregistered users prevent a repeat of yesterday?  Or is the flood likely to be over? --[[User:Abates|abates]] 07:17, 25 June 2009 (EDT)
:It happened again today, at roughly the same time for almost the same period. Did anybody else experience this apparent downtime or is it just me? I tried to make a comment about it earlier, but it stopped loading again. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 02:42, 26 June 2009 (EDT)
::Yes, it did. McFly's been working on the problem. --[[User:Abates|abates]] 03:08, 26 June 2009 (EDT)
:::Ahh good. I thought it was only happening to me/I was going insane. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 13:52, 27 June 2009 (EDT)
::::Lag's been pretty bad today, though it appears to clear up now and then.  (I'm taking advantage of an apparent lull right now to post this.)  I guess we just have to be patient until McFly and/or Scout get a chance to do something substantial about it.  Do we have any clearer idea of what it would take, both in terms of money and effort, to alleviate this sort of thing, at least?--[[User:Apcog|Apcog]] 18:14, 29 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::When I asked about upgrading to a more expensive hosting plan, McFly said that wouldn't help because we're not utilising the current server fully[http://www.allspark.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=51208&view=findpost&p=1259877]. --[[User:Abates|abates]] 21:12, 29 June 2009 (EDT)
::::::Well, we are now, in that Apache (the web server) is fighting for resources against the database, and Apache is, to put it mildly, a fucking pig.  I can spend days going on about how utterly broken Apache is, as it is effectively a wonderful Swiss Army Knife when all we need is a working goddamned X-Acto, but to make a long story short:  We can either cache pages for anons (as we currently do by running Apache with Squid caching most of the content,) or we can process PHP code (that is, EVERY FREAKING PAGE) faster, without the benefit of caching, as every test with Squid in front of a lighter web server (nginx in our case, though lighttpd is similarly sparse on feedback) has resulted in Utter Goddamned Failure.  To say that I'm at my wit's end is a bit of an understatement, though the bigger scare for me is trying to figure out what can be moved where in order to skirt around these problems entirely while staying within a reasonable budget. --[[User:McFly|McFly]] 23:15, 30 June 2009 (EDT)
:::::::I assume you don't mean '''now'''.  According to the [http://www.google.com/trends?q=transformers Google Trends] data for Transformers... search volume for Transformers spiked at ~950% of "normal" on the opening weekend of "Transformers (2007)."  We can expect them to drop back down to 'merely' twice normal within 5-6 weeks (maybe a 50% drop in the next 10-12 days) and long curve out from there.  -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 00:06, 1 July 2009 (EDT)
::::::::...What in blazes are you getting at?  What, precisely, does a spike in 2007 have to do with a server that was only brought online in mid-2009?  This is an issue with the ''performance of the current server,'' which is utterly unrelated to ANY search volume OR traffic spikes in 2007, back when Wikia was doing the hosting for free, with many more servers, much more infrastructure overall, and more server-side staff.  Of course, if you would '''like''' for us to start obscuring content with CSS-breaking ads of minimal relevance and relatively low conversion rate, I'm sure we can arrange that.  "Normal" has nothing to do with *anything* that you're currently talking about, and everything to do with '''the stats of the current server,''' which has close to 2 million hits only halfway through TODAY. --[[User:McFly|McFly]] 12:16, 1 July 2009 (EDT)
:::::::::I think he's trying to say that 2007 could be used as a traffic ''predictor'', McFly. As in traffic spiked by a similar amount then, and can probably be expected to return to "normal" levels at a similar rate. I don't think it's a commentary on Wikia's hosting practices at all, just as an indicator of "this is what a major motion picture does to the number of people looking for Transformers information."--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|<sup>Talk</sup>]] 12:42, 1 July 2009 (EDT)
::::::::::That makes sense as a bit of analysis, but not in the context of the conversation.  Alden quoted my claim that we weren't using the server fully.  I updated with the fact that we *are* using it fully at this point, in that there are points in time where we are using up all but a few megabytes of RAM just trying to serve up pages.  Derik attempted to correct with stats that are completely irrelevant to that situation.  We already knew about the "why," and at this point, we're just assessing the damage in order to shore up the levees for next time. --[[User:McFly|McFly]] 12:58, 1 July 2009 (EDT)
:::::::So, upshot is that we're stuck like this for the foreseeable future, barring a major revelation from on high to you of a workable solution.  Dang.  Well, your effort's appreciated, regardless.--[[User:Apcog|Apcog]] 01:40, 1 July 2009 (EDT)

::::::::''"What in blazes are you getting at? What, precisely, does a spike in 2007 have to do with a server that was only brought online in mid-2009? This is an issue with the performance of the current server, which is utterly unrelated to ANY search volume OR traffic spikes"''  Wow.  This quote is brilliant.  Encapsulates a lot of......... real life and Transformers issues.  Like a microcosm of the fandom, in a single quote. [[User:Drmick|Drmick]] 13:03, 1 July 2009 (EDT)
:::::::::Admittedly, I was a bit... enthusiastic in my reaction.  However, as noted in my response to [[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]], feeding contextually irrelevant info doesn't really help out.  It's not that we didn't know about the incoming spike, it's that we didn't know just what we'd need to throw at the problem.  What we don't know about the two previous hosts (Wikia, then Bookworm) could fill a few bookshelves, and it's all of that info which we're stuck at digging up solely via trial and error.  It's basically crash-testing a scratch-built car without any notes about how to set up crumplezones or airbags or seat belt tensioners.--[[User:McFly|McFly]] 13:34, 1 July 2009 (EDT)
::::::::::Can you still learn a lot from a dummy?--[[User:Apcog|Apcog]] 13:44, 1 July 2009 (EDT)
:::::::::::Well, we '''did''' buckle up.  Problem is, the seat belts didn't retract fast enough, the airbag suffocated the driver, and the crumplezones failed, pushing the engine ''through'' our shins.  On the upside, our prototype car has decent handling, acceptable acceleration, and it passed emissions testing!  Now if we can just tackle those pesky side-impact explosions...--[[User:McFly|McFly]] 14:02, 1 July 2009 (EDT)

== 9000 articles ==

Not long now until we hit 5 figures! --[[User:Abates|abates]] 20:09, 28 June 2009 (EDT)
:Yep. :D So we've got...
:* 8000th article: [[Ego]] on January 25th, 2009
:* 9000th article: [[Michael York]] on June 28th, 2009
:Whoo-hoo! --[[User:Jeysie|Jeysie]] 20:17, 28 June 2009 (EDT)

== Affiliate sites ==

Over at [[Template:External]], I've been poking at the coding that flags certain external links.  (It's been doing this in External Links sectiosn for months, and there was a discussion... somewhere... where we agreed that everyone was okay with these sites beign thus flagged.)

Here's my thing... if we consider these guys preferred content providers... we should reward them.  I think we should disable rel=nofollow for these sites.  (Something that makes our links to them not be 'counted' in search engines.)

Also-- I notice that rel=nofollow has been ''reset'' for Wookieepedia-- it had been off, part of our 'friends of' networking program.  The setting probably got un-flagged in the software upgrade.  We should fix that.  -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 02:18, 30 June 2009 (EDT)
:Sounds good to me.  We trust these sites, so it shouldn't be an issue if we unnofollow the links to them. --[[User:Abates|abates]] 03:05, 30 June 2009 (EDT)

== Firefox 3.5 ==

Firefox is launching [http://scitech.blogs.cnn.com/2009/07/01/first-impressions-of-firefox-3-5/ it's first major upgrade in 18 months], and it sounds like there's signifigant under-the-hood reccoding to make it lighter and faster.

Please report any problems associated with the new version here.  -[[User:Derik|Derik]] 15:09, 1 July 2009 (EDT)
:I've been using it since the beta. I've noticed no major issues with the site, and I've had it for months. The major under-the-hood stuff was related to javascript parsing, and our functions that depend on it (image description previews, faction symbol, etc.) seem to work just fine.--[[User:Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian]][[User Talk:Rosicrucian|<sup>Talk</sup>]] 15:13, 1 July 2009 (EDT)

== Size-scale references ==
someone is adding the scale size to a lot of the ROTF toys, and I was wondering A) if anyone cares considering they're not supposed to be any scale like the alternators/binaltech, and B) should we stop it before it gets outa hand. I don't think we need this information, personally, but maybe the rest of you disagree. it poses the problem of adding this ridiculous scale system to EVERY page on here. [[User:Cliffjumper prime|Cliffjumper prime]] 18:49, 1 July 2009 (EDT)
:Nope, I don't care for noting scale unless it's some sort of unusual circumstance that should be noted (say a toy that turns into a train fitting on whatever scale train tracks). And like somebody who asked us to list the heights of every modern toy ever made, I'm not going to waste my time listing scales and such. I have more important things to do on the wiki. --[[User:FFN|FFN]] 18:55, 1 July 2009 (EDT)
::I especially thought it was pointless considering a lot of more recent toys are simply approximations of real vehicles, or altered versions, not the real thing. [[User:Cliffjumper prime|Cliffjumper prime]] 19:10, 1 July 2009 (EDT)
:::I'd rather reserve the whole size-scaling thing for JUST Binaltech/Alternators and Alternity! --[[User:Lonegamer78|Lonegamer78]] 19:47, 1 July 2009 (EDT)
::::Oh, definitely. When scale is explicitly called for (1:24 Alternators, 1:32 Alternity, whatever else Takara tries) we should point it out, but otherwise it's just stupid. --[[User:Detour|Detour]] 19:51, 1 July 2009 (EDT)