MediaWiki talk:Community Portal

This is the place for discussion of topics that affect the entire wiki. For less wide-reaching subjects, either use articles' individual talk pages or our Discord server.

Some topics that would ordinarily be here have merited their own pages:

	Specific Discussion Subjects
Moving From Wikia: Arriving Leaving Complaints New Ad Policy: Ads Bookworm Database-Crash: Damage Control Central Project:Bookworm Crash Leaving Take 2 Server Move: Arriving Take 2 Relicensing: Relicensing Dealing With Vandalism: Vandalism GoBots Sister Wiki: Discussion on the place of GoBots in this wiki Wiki Technical Information: A Not So Brief Summary of the Horrible Things That McFly and Co. Have Done To Keep This Wiki From Melting Down

User account created, but no activity

Something I've noticed when I'd pop in every once in awhile when checking the Recent Changes/User Creation Log is that once a new user account has been created, there's no activity. Granted, some have been blocked for various reasons (mostly the autoblocks), but I wonder whether there should be anything done to the others (aside of just leaving them alone). Like, delete the username after a certain period of no activity, or would that affect the IP address? I'm reminded of how one user had a history of creating and then camping subreddits, which was against Reddit's TOS. -- Lonegamer78 (talk) 00:12, 7 January 2020 (EST)

There is a maintenance script we can run which deletes old users with no edits to their name, ISTR. --abates (talk) 17:20, 7 January 2020 (EST)

That sounds good. -- Lonegamer78 (talk) 20:26, 10 January 2020 (EST)

Minor skin tweak

The latest version of Firefox was making the scrollbars look funky and blue on our site, so I have put some css in to fix them. Hopefully this should not affect any other browsers, but please let me know if you're using Chrome or IE7 or something and it is causing a problem. --abates (talk) 20:20, 8 January 2020 (EST)

2007 Movie Universe and 2018 Movie Universe

Since Bumblebee is officially a reboot, will we be separating the sections on the movies similar to what has been recently done with the IDW 2005 and 2019 sections? --Waspscream (talk) 21:36, 16 January 2020 (EST)

No, because we don't know it's a proper reboot yet, so we have no reason to do so. This has been discussed at length already. Please read this. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 23:05, 16 January 2020 (EST)

Prime Wars Placement

I'm probably being an idiot and there's a perfectly valid reason for it, but why aren't the Prime Wars Trilogy bios placed in character's G1 Cartoon sections? Is it the slight IDW influence, or not enough evidence that they belong there? --Waspscream (talk) 23:16, 26 January 2020 (EST)

The Prime Wars Trilogy is a completely separate continuity from the G1 cartoon. The G1 Cartoon sections are for information detailing a character's exploits in continuities tied directly or nearly directly to that 1984-1987 animated series produced by Marvel Productions and Sunbow Productions, which the Prime Wars Trilogy has no connection to and therefore gets it own separate section on each character's page. --Sabrblade (talk) 23:25, 26 January 2020 (EST)

I could agree to that back when Combiner Wars was out, but by the time of Power Of The Primes, there were a lot of additions, such as Megatron once having been Galvatron and Unicron stuck as a head, that seem to attempt to connect it to the cartoon. At the very least, it's somewhat tied to the cartoon, even with many incongruities. -- Waspscream (talk) 16:20, 27 January 2020 (EST)

It's really not. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 16:41, 27 January 2020 (EST)

"Things are referencing the first really huge piece of popular media most people are familiar with" is not exactly slam-dunk proof of "actually part of the same timeline". --M Sipher (talk) 21:13, 27 January 2020 (EST)

Admittedly, I didn't explain my opinions very well, but while Megatron being Galvatron is common, the use of it here seems like an attempt to reconcile the series as somewhat connected to the G1 cartoon, on a similar level to Beast Wars, I guess. There were other examples, that was just the first that came to mind. There isn't really any true proof for it, so I guess I'll leave it at that. I guess the entire thing is in a grey area free for personal interpretation of where it could belong. I'm kinda new around here, and I'm not trying to start an argument, just get some clarification about what belongs where. -- Waspscream (talk) 21:38, 27 January 2020 (EST)

Power of the Primes also hinted that when Unicron turned Megatron into Galvatron, it was by the power of the Matrix of Chaos, a device that did not exist in the G1 cartoon and thus which was not used by Unicron to turn Megatron into Galvatron in the 1986 movie. --Sabrblade (talk) 00:39, 28 January 2020 (EST)

And that Unicron was destroyed in ancient times by the Requiem Blaster, a thing that very much did not happen in the original cartoon. (And for the record, we don't treat Beast Wars as a direct cartoon followup either since it blends elements from both Marvel and Sunbow.) -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 00:57, 28 January 2020 (EST)

I am aware of that. -- Waspscream (talk) 22:13, 29 January 2020 (EST)

Given the prominence of the G1 cartoon, it is not surprising that so many later stories make reference to it or homage it. But that's all that this is, referencing and homages. --Khajidha (talk) 08:13, 28 January 2020 (EST)

Franchise pages

I wanted to float an idea regarding our franchise pages. They're typically pretty sparse and some which aren't are just plain paragraphs of text with lists. What do people think about formatting the franchise pages more like the main page? I've made an example sandbox. I used Rescue Bots Academy as an example, since we currently have it linked on the sidebar, so there's boxes for the cartoon, toyline, major characters, and a featured article (which I think would be best as a random article rather than manually being changed each month). --abates (talk) 19:46, 20 March 2020 (EDT)

I like this a LOT. That said, how would this template handle pages with way more information like Beast Wars? Also, a suggestion made on the Discord was for the featured article to change between premade selections similar to the main page disambiguation template or multilingual packaging. Would that be worth exploring? -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 20:34, 20 March 2020 (EDT)

That was my thinking as to how the featured article section would work. As for something like Beast Wars, probably everything below, say, "A dramatic change" could stay as is. The idea is to present the main info in a more appealing manner, but there's nothing to say we couldn't have more conventional sections further down. --abates (talk) 21:39, 20 March 2020 (EDT)

Source namespace

We currently have a bunch of source documents which have names like "Angry Birds Transformers bios/src". It's possible to create a Source namespace so instead they would be at names like "Source:Angry Birds Transformers bios".

Advantages: Everything that's an official document would be all in one namespace, searchable independently of mainspace articles.
Disadvantages: We wouldn't be able to have a namespace article with a title starting "Source:", but I think it's unlikely to be an issue. We have Source which is a redirect, but I don't believe it would be affected.

What does everyone think? --abates (talk) 19:32, 26 April 2020 (EDT)

Makes sense to me. There's a lot of online-only text that's disappeared from official websites (Legends card game, Robotmasters, Cloud, lots of bios, etc.) Preserving this stuff would help in the future. Saix (talk) 19:38, 26 April 2020 (EDT)

I'm in agreement. I think the pros heavily outweigh the cons, and I'm sure we can find a workaround if there's a story title that starts with "Source" down the line. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 19:57, 26 April 2020 (EDT)

If there aren't any objections then, I'll get it set up! --abates (talk) 01:55, 27 April 2020 (EDT)

Should we add a category for "Toy of the Year" winners of the Hall of fame?

Seeing that we already have categories for "Hall of Fame characters," and "Hall of Fame creators," we probably should make a category for the "Toy(s) of the Year(s)." Just my opinion. DDog (talk) 17:03, 1 May 2020 (EDT)

Minor edits

I just wanted to post a reminder about minor edits, because I've seen people mark edits as minor which I don't think should be considered minor. Minor edits are things like spelling and grammar corrections, formatting corrections, and the like. If you're adding an entire sentence to an article or a whole new note, it shouldn't be marked minor. We've got a brief section on this here: Help:Style guide#Minor and major edits. I'm not looking to single anyone out, just post a reminder because it seems to be more common recently. --abates (talk) 19:09, 3 May 2020 (EDT)

"Japanese ID number"

I dunno if "uncomfortable" is the right word, but "Japanese ID number" feels off for a variety of reasons, including these toys not being sold ONLY in Japan. I'm increasingly thinking there's a better option for this info in the toy entries.

• For entries that cover both the Hasbro and Takara versions, "Takara ID number" works better. (Conversely, those handful of Hasbro toys w/ numbers, "Hasbro ID number")
• For entries about toys ONLY released in Takara lines, just plain old "ID number" should suffice.

I realize this is... a buttload of changes across the wiki, and not a top priority or anything, but maybe something folks can pick up here and there while making other edits in the relevant sections. Thoughts? --M Sipher (talk) 00:50, 5 May 2020 (EDT)

Do Euro-Classics get their own listing or not?

We are currently very inconsistent on whether Classics (Europe) counts as a G1 toy release as distinct as a Targetmaster or Pretender upgrade. Look at Sunstreaker (G1)/toys and Prowl (G1)/toys and compare to Sludge (G1) or Wheeljack (G1)/toys. I think they should all be listed distinctly - that the Sunstreaker approach is right. Is there any reason why we wouldn't do this? --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 20:26, 5 May 2020 (EDT)

I think it's just that no one has bothered to do it. --Khajidha (talk) 21:07, 5 May 2020 (EDT)

Pretty much. A LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT of old stuff on this wiki -particularly the toy entries- needs to be dusted off and looked at and brought up to modern standards/consistency. But that's a pretty dang involved process and while it seems many of us have more spare time now, it's still... a kinda draining, droning way to spend it. (I've been tackling BW but hoofta, it's a lot.) --M Sipher (talk) 00:01, 6 May 2020 (EDT)

I brought this up years ago, I think I updated some of them, and there wasn't really any resistance I'm aware of.--Nevermore (talk) 08

04, 30 May 2021 (EDT)

TF Car Robots concept materials?

Z226_JUPITER on Twitter had been tweeting several behind-the-scenes stuff on Car Robots, namely design notes, storyboards, and height chart, like how the Almanacs were for Animated. One of the more recent tweets noted a possible 176-page book being released, as well a PDF version. Unfortunately, I don't know anyone here who's fluent in Japanese to be able to better ask Z226_JUPITER about it, much less how a copy could be obtained to further supplement the wiki here for non-Japanese readers. One thing is that I don't know if this is something like a fan-release thing or something OKed by Takara, given how there have been the occasional official doujinshi/fan-supplemented materials green-lit by companies. --Lonegamer78 (talk) 17:42, 14 May 2020 (EDT)

I've crossposted this to the Discord server and one of our Japanese speaking users there (Star-Spangled Sam) volunteered to look into it. Abates and I looked at it a bit too, and found that Z226_Jupiter has a link in his Twitter profile to his works on booth.pm. That site appears to be a place for self publishing fan works and related to Pixiv, a Japanese site which is similar to DeviantArt. The book can be purchased from that site. As for whether it has any approval from TakaraTomy, that's unclear so far. The description when run through Google Translate reads like the speaker is not affilated with TT (which makes sense given this is a fanwork) but beyond that there's no indication. We're waiting to see what Sam comes up with. --Tigerpaw28 (talk) 14:34, 3 June 2020 (EDT)

Much kudos. --Lonegamer78 (talk) 18:52, 5 June 2020 (EDT)

New bot proposal

After some discussion on the Discord about the need for a new bot and having been thinking about writing one for awhile now, I've put together a proposal for how a new bot would work, and what kinds of things it might likely do. This done with the idea that Deceptitran's functionality would need to be replaced, given Derik's infrequent appearances these days and no else having access to run Deceptitran. There's also a distinct possibility Deceptitran isn't functional at the moment as the URL for the Emopanda site Derik was using for hosting things externally (I presume this includes Deceptitran) is abandoned.

The way I see it, the bot could run a number of recurring tasks at different intervals, plus any one time "on demand" requests from Wiki editors/staff. Requests would made by editing a subpage of the bot's user page and filling out a template. This would be much the same as link fix requests worked with Deceptitran.

Every 15-30 minutes, the bot would check it's user page for new "on demand"/"editor generated" requests and process them. For these requests, I see two levels of approval they could go through: 1. Request approval and 2. Result approval. The former would be approval of the request before any processing occurs. The latter would be approval of the results of a request before the bot actually makes any changes on the Wiki.

I think the first level of approval could be handled by checking Wiki rights/permission of the requesting user. A bot request approval permission could be created and assigned to any trusted non-mod or Admin user. Then only requests from those users, mods and admins would be processed. This would prevent anons and other untrusted accounts from using the bot for nefarious purposes without requiring active moderation of the request submissions by a human.

Result approvals would be to prevent the bot from making tons of errant changes. Someone would have to manually go through the list of changes proposed by the bot to see if anything looks wrong. To limit the amount of time we have to spend looking over stuff like this, I think it would make sense to make this a requirement only for requests that would produce a minimum (10? 20?) number of changes. This limit could be gradually increased as we become more confident in the bot's logic.

Verification of these changes would be done by logging into a site running on my hosting service, same as the bot would be. As for who would do it, I am willing to do it and/or we could set it up for any mods/admins that would like to. I've also thought about the possibility of having email notifications for when a request needs to be reviewed.

I've come up with the following ideas for what kinds of tasks could be done on demand:

Link fixing

Category tagging/untagging

Section reordering by header level

Mass page moving

In addition to the recurring on demand processing job, I've come up with some other recurring jobs that I think might be beneficial:

At least once a day:

Page deletion

Welcoming users (placing the welcome template on their talkpage)

Fix redirects

Daily:

Remove stale dated templates

I'm open to any other ideas on what tasks we'd like to have the bot perform. I'd also like to hear some thoughts on which tasks should get added as functionality first. --Tigerpaw28 (talk) 14:34, 3 June 2020 (EDT)

G2 Go-Bots mold templates

Hey y'all, I just knocked out a set of mold templates for the original six G2 Go-Bot toolings, I think I've gotten everything consistent as far as how to refer to stuff, but it's a little idiosyncratic because unlike say, the CW limb guys, you've got a case where Motormouth was released in two slightly different but clearly distinct plastic colors (clear vs opaque) and then RID Ironhide/CR Ox had multiple different uses of the tooling in different colorways, all intended to be the same character, which I'm struggling to think of a comparable situation. If someone else wants to go over the nomeclature I used (especially for the various store exclusive redecos) be my guest.

If I'm feeling REALLY masochistic, I might try to do a template like this for the Armada Mini-Con toolings, which are probably Classics Seeker level of reused. EDIT TO ADD: If I were to do the UT Mini-Cons, would the mold templates use the names the toys were sold under (e.g. "X-Dimension Sail") or the names that were retroactively applied by Ask Vector Prime? I'm inclined towards the former and to not even mention the retronyms, because otherwise the box gets really cluttered. I sort of flirted with this with 2003 Universe Camshaft and Hoist, who were just straight reissues of KB W.A.R.S. and Ironhide, but at least they were available on shelves under those names. I didn't bother with the Prowl and Ironhide that were retroactively "declared" to be Red Alert and Trailbreaker because who cares, lol. -hx (talk) 14:44, 10 July 2020 (EDT)

Mold templates are indeed geared to names of toys themselves. As you point out, a Japanese-exclusive toy should not use an English retronym. S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 15:37, 10 July 2020 (EDT)

As someone who wrote a lot of bios that gave Japanese Mini-Cons "western" names, yeah, use the names the toys were sold under. --M Sipher (talk) 19:09, 10 July 2020 (EDT)

Scheduled downtime

Our web host has notified me of some downtime scheduled for August 7 at 3AM UTC, so the site will be unavailable for a period at that time. --abates (talk) 02:18, 17 July 2020 (EDT)

Reminder that this is later this week! --abates (talk) 18:45, 2 August 2020 (EDT)

Scoop bastard template

Since we have changed the caption bastard template to caption happy, do we wish to change the scoop bastard template as well? --Khajidha (talk) 10:32, 17 July 2020 (EDT)

Done and done. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 10:55, 17 July 2020 (EDT)

Privacy Policy

I just noticed we have an unofficial, unadopted privacy party that's over a decade old. I raised the question in more detail on its talk page, but it seems like something that should at least have a discussion and official outcome of some sort.--Waverod ✈️ (talk) 20:26, 23 July 2020 (EDT)

World of Warships article?

When Warships first announced this back in August, I was laughing so hard at the reactions. I'm a bit surprised to not see even a stub article about it.

• Announcement trailer on August 3, 2020.
• News announcement on August 3, 2020 with a one-page comic of Optimus and Bumblebee.
• September 4, 2020 news update, showing off more assets and another one-page comic of Megatron and Rumble (red).

I suppose any Warships players here and at the discord would have a field day. (I don't play it, I only knew of it through another WW2-theme online game franchise from Japan.) --Lonegamer78 (talk) 05:39, 12 September 2020 (EDT)

Officially approved YouTube videos

Here are some official videos undocumented on this wiki. Can they be documented?
Counter656 Hasbro approved stop motion videos

Masterpiece Bumblebee stop motion

Movie Masterpiece Ratchet stop motion

HISHE Bumblebee

HISHE Bumblebee video

It is approved by Paramount: [1]

Pewdiepie video

It is sponsored by Earth Wars. The original video is deleted but here is the mirror. The original upload didn't have subtitles):

Pewdiepie video

Lumaken Earth Wars stop motion

In the description, he says that this is a collaboration with the SpaceApe Games (Earth Wars developer):

Lumaken stop motion

--Primestar3 (talk) 18:47, 18 September 2020 (EDT)

First two are for sure good, as they were produced for Hasbro (and are even mirrored on the Transformers YouTube channel). I'm hesitant at best about HISHE and Lumaken, and absolutely against Pewdiepie's. Also, if we were to document all "approved" videos, we'd have to include every video where Hasbro ever sent an outlet or YouTuber a product for review, and that would be tantamount to lunacy because of just how many videos that would include. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 19:18, 18 September 2020 (EDT)

I think in regards to reviewers, they can get individual pages and have their approved videos be listed on those pages corresponding to the reviewer in question.--Primestar3 (talk) 19:51, 18 September 2020 (EDT)

Again documenting every outlet/individual and instance in which they've been sponsored or sent something would be far too much of an undertaking, and these people are only tangentially related at best. For example, IGN has been sent press kits for TF games, been granted interviews with devs, and received toys for review, but they don't get their own article; we just link to the content where appropriate, like in a game's development section. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 20:05, 18 September 2020 (EDT)

Even then, the videos I've posted above all have some sort of narrative. That's far more distinctive than simple reviews and there are less approved narrative-based videos than approved review videos, so it wouldn't be as hard to document.

I think there's precedeence to this idea as this wiki documents videos on the official Transformers Youtube channel featuring narrative such as How to Ride your Dinobot but not every other video posted on that channel (most of which aren't short narrative based videos).--Primestar3 (talk) 20:58, 18 September 2020 (EDT)

We can't go documenting everything that Transformers has sponsored or we'd be here all millennium. If they're hosted on the official Transformers YouTube account, then that's something Hasbro produced and worth mentioning. But otherwise, it's tantamount to trying to list every single instance where a Transformers commercial has aired on TV. There's been episodes of TV shows sponsored by Transformers too. It's notable that Transformers has sponsored things in general and the types of things they've sponsored. But the individual things are not notable on their own unless Hasbro or a licensee produced it or paid someone else to produce it. HISHE might have an argument as the content creator asserts that Paramount approved it. The other two not on the official channel don't. Not really sure what SpaceApe's involvement was with the Lumaken video, but it seems like some of their people helped with filming or effects. That said, the video isn't corporately sponsored and thus their involvement does not appear to qualify the video as being an official production. Pewdiepie's has no Hasbro or licensee involvement whatsoever, it's just a paid ad. They bought airtime essentially. He just happened to theme the video around the advertisement. BIG no on that one. --Tigerpaw28 (talk) 22:24, 18 September 2020 (EDT)

New game "Transformers: Battlegrounds"

For the PlayStation, and Collider did a hands-on preview of it, saying that it's based on Cyberverse. See also the trailer, with October 23, 2020 release date. --Lonegamer78 (talk) 19:13, 21 September 2020 (EDT)

Featured Article nominations

We now have a page for nominating articles to be picked as future Featured Articles: Transformers Wiki:Featured Article Nominations. While there's no guarantee that your suggestion will be picked, that's no reason not to make your voice heard! --Riptide (talk) 20:16, 3 October 2020 (EDT)

T-Beast

Hey all, I was just wondering if the T-Beast Art books were official publications through TakaraTomy? If they are, how come we haven't made pages for them on this wiki? I would make the pages if I knew much about them, but as I can't read or speak Japanese, I'd much rather leave that job for someone who knows more about them or who can translate any of whats in the books. I've watched Emgo316's review on the books on youtube and with the overuse of official names (sometimes Engrish translated) and faction insignias, it would suggest to me that it is a TakaraTomy publication. I know we won't cover the 3rd party molds based off of the designs from the books because *gasp* that's blasphemous, but the books are worth mentioning. Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 02:05, 27 October 2020 (EDT)

Those aren't official liscenced product. We wished they were, but they're not. ZacAttack (talk) 02:19, 27 October 2020 (EDT)

Interesting. It's really strange that they got away with having the insignias and names printed in the book without running into licensing issues. Anyways, thanks for clearing that up! :) Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 02:52, 27 October 2020 (EDT)

I think it's different in Japan. Might be wrong, but I think it's different. --ZacAttack (talk) 03:08, 27 October 2020 (EDT)

Iron Man in commercial

Can I add this commercial appearance to Iron Man page? Both ROTF Megatron and Endgame Iron Man appear in the same commercial.

commercial.--Primestar3 (talk) 10:34, 1 November 2020 (EST)

Can the ROTF viral sites be documented in a source page?

Realeffingdeal and Gianteffingrobots.com. Though they will be incomplete since not all of it is saved (especially the second site). I want to archive the surviving images and the posts regardless.--Primestar3 (talk) 13:11, 1 November 2020 (EST).

Go for it, why not? I wish I'd been able to archive some of the other tie-in web content that's now long since gone. -hx (talk) 13:10, 4 December 2020 (EST)

Any luck on finding the Holy Grails?

I know that they are called "Holy Grails" for a reason, but just for curiosity, and because the Holy Grail tab hasn't been updated for a while (or at least I think it hasn't), how is it going with the Holy Grails? P.S: I expected it to be hard, and also, what does it mean with "Kiss Players radio play translations"? Is it as in language translation? Supacool9Supacool9 (talk) 20:09, 19 November 2020 (EST)

Discission about things on the "Holy Grails" and the attempts to find them, can be found here.DDog (talk) 22:32, 3 November 2020 (EST)

PS: make sure you sign your username by adding four tildes (~~~~) at the end, and it will do it automatically.DDog (talk) 22:32, 3 November 2020 (EST)

Operation Skyfire

Should a page be made for this cancelled movie? Operation Skyfire forum thread--Primestar3 (talk) 14:55, 12 November 2020 (EST)

A moratorium on expanding toy entries?

There's been some discussion on the Discord recently about entries for newly-released toys getting clogged up with overlong crufty notes, as a result of people rushing in to expand the entries as soon the figure starts trickling out into the wild. I thought it could be worth discussing ways of combating these editing habits – a potential idea I'd had was a moratorium on expanding entries for newly-released toys, similar to what we did to curb poor editing habits in relation to the Facebook Ask Vector Prime? Maybe do it relative to the first US retail sighting or something? Thoughts welcome! Jalaguy (talk) 18:35, 27 November 2020 (EST)

For starters, I'm gonna suggest immediate reversion of any claims of "widespread" defects or quality/sensitivity of pieces for the first month or two of release, so as to determine if it's *actually* a widespread issue and not someone adding personal commentary on the state of their own toy. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 19:00, 27 November 2020 (EST)

I agree with this, I see mentionings of supposed "widespread" issues mentioned on here all the time that don't have sufficient evidence to back up these claims. Cyberlink420's idea of holding off for a month or so would probably be a good solution for this. It gives enough time for people to have a figure in-hand long enough to compare and document issues, allowing for us to have a better idea of whether these are as widespread as claimed or whether this is just one out of several million that has had issues with their personal figure. Especially when some people are buying stolen products long before their expected release and note issues that probably aren't even on the finished product and could possibly just be a result of a stolen test-shot. Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 19:20, 27 November 2020 (EST)

I'm going to agree with the """widespread""" issues notes needing to be held off on, but I'm not sure that waiting to just fill out basic info for an entry is going to actually curb the "overlong crufty" parts. That's... just a standard writing/editing issue that can affect toy writeups done years after a toy's release, or character profile entries, or etc. It's part of why I've been trying to "formalize" toy writeups a bit, a kind of "info goes in more or this order, try not to jump around between mode-features, paragraph breaks for X Y Z". Try and keep things less review-y and rambly. --M Sipher (talk) 20:23, 3 December 2020 (EST)

Just gonna throw out Fasttrack_(G1)#War_for_Cybertron:_Earthrise as a recent example. Open with place in toyline, altmode, altmode/robot features... new paragraph for tertiary mode features to keep the first paragraphs from being too chunky.--M Sipher (talk) 03:23, 4 December 2020 (EST)

Messing around with mold templates

As seen here for G1 Bee, here for the rest of the 84 minibots, here for the Combaticons and here for the G1 Seekers. There doesn't seem to be a consistent way to manage significant retools - the Classics Seeker template makes a lot of distinctions, while the Universe Sunstreaker template treats all the retools as one consistent toy. I'm also trying to figure out how to thread the needle on the weird international variants of the minicars, like the "Huffer in Pipes colors" that supposedly came out in Greece and also came out in a different set of "Pipes colors" in Mexico... I'm gonna leave some time for y'all to comment and cogitate on it before I actually start adding these things all over the place. -hx (talk) 13:13, 4 December 2020 (EST)

The difference between the Classics Starscream template and the Universe Sunstreaker template is simple—if there has been a significant change to the body besides just a new head tooling and accessories, then there is a new group to sort by body style. That is how I reorganised the Combiner Wars network of templates. S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 15:56, 4 December 2020 (EST)

That works for me - as for the different colored international minibots, I've made a go of it here where I've broken them down by distributor in alphabetical order, then each colorway in parentheses after. What I'd really love would be little flag emoji to represent the relevant nations - Argentina for Antex, Peru for Lynsa, etc. We could waive these for Hasbro's worldwide releases I suppose. -hx (talk) 12:57, 7 December 2020 (EST)

Changing format of some older pages.

Hey everyone, it had been discussed earlier today on Discord that the G1 Wheelie page is in need of a complete revamp. Suggestions had been made to archive the original format of the page to keep the joke alive and available for those who still wish to see and admire it, while starting fresh in our standard character page format. It is nothing against the running joke per se, it mainly boils down to the rhyming starting to take its toll on the information that the page is supposed to present to readers of the wiki. I myself, before joining the wiki and even now, always avoid the page like a plague, as it is hard to navigate and actually obtain any information from, which goes against what the page is intended to do.

That doesn't mean all of the rhyming has to go, it is still welcome in the opening paragraph and image captions, but general consensus on Discord is that it could do to be more informative. I also believe that the long-running joke is starting to take its toll on editors adding any new additions while trying to keep with the rhyming format and quite frankly, I believe that to be another downfall to the article since the wiki is made to be as accessible as possible for anyone to edit and it just adds another layer of complications. I bring this up here rather than on the talk page as it has also been suggested that the same be done to G1 Rewind's page too for the same reasons.

I advice that you please make these discussions on the individual talk pages: Talk:Wheelie (G1) and Talk:Rewind (G1).

Feel free to bring up any other pages worth making similar changes to here as there is bound to be others that could do to be looked over too.

Thank you and Happy 2021 to all! -- Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 05:53, 1 January 2021 (EST)

Just a quick follow up after reading back over what was said on Discord: We could possibly keep the pages as is and keep them as the featured articles they are currently, while having a suite with a link to a more informative version, therefore keeping the jokes and also having a variant that actually makes "sense". Funny still wins as the main page and the other can be for readers to actually learn something more about the characters. -- Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 06:39, 1 January 2021 (EST)

I'm for redoing both into normal prose. Save the jokes for the intro. Saix (talk) 12:36, 1 January 2021 (EST)

All the human collaborators should have a page

The Human collaborators is the concept of Humans being allied with the Decepticons. It exists since the beginning of the brand, brought to existence in the Megatron's Master Plan Duology from the Transformers G1 cartoon and appeared for the last time in Transformers: Dark of the Moon, With DOTM 10th year anniversary on the horizon, i'm thinking of creating a page for all them. In fact i'm creating a sandbox about it and i want to know if its a good idea to do that or not. --Cybertron Forever (talk) 14:21, 18 January 2021 (EST)

Our existing "Category:Humans" is in pretty bad shape. It's divided into dozens of subcategories already so that the "main" listing is nowhere near a single comprehensive list. Instead people went and added subgroups like "Classified Humans" and "Military Humans" and many many etc. From an educational resource perspective it would probably be more useful to streamline the category we already have. --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 14:41, 18 January 2021 (EST)

Okay i'll streamline the "Category:Humans" but how am i supposed to do that? --Cybertron Forever (talk) 15:42, 18 January 2021 (EST)

Decepticon human collaborators have been around a lot longer than just season 2 of G1. Doctor Arkeville was actually the first Decepticon ally. Even then, characters collaborating with Decepticons had been around in the years in between G1 and DOTM. the Marvel G1 comics, Dreamwave comics, IDW comics and such, more than likely had a lot of instances where that was a thing too (I'm not too familiar with a lot of those comics). Animated had some of the human villains working with the Decepticons on some occassions too.

As for the human collaborators page, I don't feel that a separate page needs to be made, there was never a collective group or organization of them, just occassional cases of random people being told what to do while more or less being held at gun point, or on some occassions, given the sweet promise of world domination. I think if anything, Thylacine's idea of making a subcategory would probably be your best bet, but a better name would be "Decepticon allied humans" or something. As far as I'm aware, there is no page for Autobot allied humans (which there are crap tons of), so there is really no point in making one for the Decepticon allies. Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 18:10, 18 January 2021 (EST)

It most certainly is not "my idea to make a new subcategory." We have too many subcategories already. Most of them are dumb and are at the expense of having a useful, comprehensive Human category.--Thylacine 2000 (talk) 21:09, 18 January 2021 (EST)

There really is little to no point to a page for this concept; a category will do. That'd just be opening up for countless list-pages of random Things People In Fiction Sometimes Do, and this wiki is historically not keen on list pages. There's a lot of stuff characters do/are that don't have pages just because the concept is too vague, too broad, or too obvious that a page would not actually provide any new information (or comedy potential) on how its use within Transformers fiction is different from the immediately obvious. There's no page for "ninjas" (that just links to the Category), but "Cyber-Ninja Corps", a very specifically-defined group of ninjas, does get a page.

And... look, not to sound mean, but... if you have no idea how a big major overhauling project might be done, maybe you should leave that task to someone else. --M Sipher (talk) 18:40, 18 January 2021 (EST)

Besides "bad guys" like Shawn Berger or Doctor Arkeville, does Spike count when he went nuts as Autobot Spike and used Megatron to fire on the Autobots? Or do Buster Witwicky and Spike count when the Autobots had a truce with the Decepticons against a cosmically-powered Starscream? Or take Skywarp: he joined G.I.Joe and worked with them. Does that make all of G.I. Joe human collaborators? I hope not. If someone has to think this hard about who actually belongs to a category, it will actually clutter up the wiki instead of clarify relationships. Everything that could be grouped doesn't necessarily benefit from a page or category. It may be worth noting briefly on individual character pages about some characters' tendencies to work with Decepticons. Prime Radiant (talk) 19:31, 18 January 2021 (EST)

Okay it seems a page won't really be necessary, so i won't do it. But i'm until now trying to know how am i supposed to streamline the "Category:humans"? --Cybertron Forever (talk) 22:37, 18 January 2021 (EST)

Coming up with the answer to your question is the bulk of the task itself. It's a lot of work and there's no immediately obvious and clear approach. If you'd like to try something, use a sandbox and communicate with us here. If you need a lot of guidance, it's best to leave it to someone else like Sipher said. Prime Radiant (talk) 22:14, 19 January 2021 (EST)

I think i'll create a category called "Human Collaborators", but only after the "Category:humans" is streamlined, which is something someone must do here since i don't know how to do this and by doing so will help this wiki a lot. --Cybertron Forever (talk) 19:56, 21 January 2021 (EST)

I honestly think that is the opposite of what we need. The first thing to be done after streamlining should not be the addition of more subcategories. The point has been made that there are too many human subcategories already, and I agree. You seem very intent on specifically adding information about Decepticon-allied humans. Keep in mind that this is not an official faction. This is effectively like creating a category about "Humans With Yellow Boots and Blue Pants and Hard Hats". Yes, that group exists, but unless it's very funny, we don't need it. Going forward, I recommend focusing on contributing to what the wiki lacks (say, by adding information on our pages with stubs) instead of searching for differences without distinction. Prime Radiant (talk) 21:04, 21 January 2021 (EST)

Finishing the "Story sections" in the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (PS2/Wii) and (PSP) pages.

The story of the PSP and PS2/Wii versions of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen video game must be concluded and i wanted to do this myself, but i'm having difficulties due to my family and i making preparations to move out. So the question is: Can someone insert the synopsis of the remaining chapters of each version of the game here? Because if you can it will help this wiki a lot. --Cybertron Forever (talk) 15:25, 31 January 2021 (EST)

That is entirely contingent on whether or not any of the regular contributors own the game or a system to play it on. Grum (talk) 21:07, 31 January 2021 (EST)

What's the matter? can't someone see it on Youtube and then write what they've saw on the articles? Because that's how i got the information about the story of the games i insert here. In fact that's how i got the necessary info to create the Quest for Optimus Prime and MechTech Wars online games and to insert the story of Transformers: Shadows Rising. --Cybertron Forever (talk) 21:14, 31 January 2021 (EST)

You know, petulantly whining at other people to do work there is absolutely no rush on, on a site done on a volunteer basis, doesn't really get any of it done faster. Tends to disincentivize people to do it, actually. --M Sipher (talk) 01:42, 1 February 2021 (EST)

The pages have been stubs for this long, I doubt having them being left a little longer will hurt anyone. They're bound to still be there once you're done moving and have more free time on your hands. There's no rush. Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 07:33, 1 February 2021 (EST)

Micro-Sized

Hey all, was wondering if we should make a page/archive for the Mini-Con/Micro-Sized profiles from the Collectors' Club website and magazine?

They seem to be rather important pieces of fiction for a lot of those Mini-Cons and I feel we should have some form of proper write ups or a proper link to archives of the profiles themselves at the very least. Half the character pages have the profiles summed up in brief opening paragraphs but some people (me included) may want to read some of the online profiles which the Collectors' Club website doesn't appear to have anymore.

Just an idea I thought might be interesting to look into. -- Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 20:04, 31 January 2021 (EST)

Yeah, but... is it legal for us to archive that material? I honestly don't know what the current status is of fiction produced under FP (or 3H, for that matter). Does Hasbro "own" it? Does Brian Savage? Does anybody? -hx (talk) 12:48, 24 February 2021 (EST)

Fun Publications produced that material under license from Hasbro and TakaraTomy. I assume Hasbro owns it just as they enable their current comic partner IDW to reprint Marvel and Dreamwave material. S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 12:57, 24 February 2021 (EST)

New signups temporarily suspended

New signups have been temporarily suspended due to excessive vandalism. Apologies for the inconvenience. --abates (talk) 04:04, 28 February 2021 (EST)

And now they should be back on. Thank you for your patience. --abates (talk) 00:46, 7 March 2021 (EST)

Reducing negative Energon episode notes.

Alrighty, since the wiki has been taking a pretty neutral approach to things over recent years and we had already decided on reducing excessive sarcasm and negativity to the Energon cartoon page, I feel the episode pages should probably follow suit.

I'm just started my annual rewatch of the show and I'm going to add, subtract and alter things like I did in the Armada episode pages after each watch. I'm already making a start on removing pieces of sarcasm listed as "trivia" that really doesn't need to be highlighted and is only there for the sake of bashing the show.

That being said, errors, plotholes, continuity issues etc. are fine, but the "pain count" sections probably should either be removed or be relabelled as "stock phrase count" or something along those lines. I'm personally still alright with the caption jokes and quote jokes, but the excessive "This character sucks because the show sucks." is definitely a no go.

After a disscussion on Discord, it had also been suggested that we list common stock phrases from the Unicron Trilogy on a separate page much like we do for Furmanisms. -- Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 03:25, 2 March 2021 (EST)

Before anyone goes to the trouble of creating an entire "Energonisms" page, it is worth examining whether the series is well-known or well-liked enough for that to be worthwhile. Furman wrote hundreds of comics & scripts across multiple series and about 25 years; his repeat phrases are more noticeable and important. --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 07:36, 2 March 2021 (EST)

I still disagree with the concept of "Furmanisms". They're just pulpy phrasing. It's hardly unique to him. --Khajidha (talk) 09:14, 2 March 2021 (EST)

I'll be honest, the Furmanisms page is filled with rather common oldschool comicbook phrases that aren't really unique to him or Transformers for that matter. You can almost guarantee that those phrases have been used in even older comics from the 60s, like X-Men for example. Hell, they've possibly been used in material even older than that. I generally stay clear of anything that makes references to that page, because it is full of blurred lines. Perhaps this should also be a topic for discussion. In terms of Energonisms, I personally don't agree with it either, but I thought I better bring it up for those who aren't on Discord.

My main concern right now is whether we should remove the "pain count" sections from the episode pages. As I've been binging the show and updating episode info, I've been working around them, but they still hold a heavy tone of negativity while everything else around them has been altered to the neutral tone. I've tried to think of a better title to use in its place, but the further through the episode pages I go, the more excessively negative it seems to get. Yes there are a lot of stock phrases used, but if people start to include other ones that haven't already been listed—and there are quite a few—pretty soon we're gonna end up with entire dub scripts for the episodes listed lol. As for stock footage counts, it's common in practically every Japanese Transformers series (From BWII onwards at the very least), so listing them is just another example of adding things to bash the show. Our captions/jokes policies also state that Energon jokes are pretty much frowned upon by today's wiki standards.

As I am writing this post, it has also occured to me that Cybertron's episode pages have pain counts that follow the same outline too (listing stock phrases and stock footage), so perhaps we should look into removing those for the same reasons. -- Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 06:11, 5 March 2021 (EST)

I feel it should be pointed out that many of the stock phrases from Energon ("Uh...", "Huh?" "Let's do it!", "Wait up!" etc.) were first used by the same dubbing team back in Armada. If any new page is going to be created for those phrases, it's only fair that those from Armada (and probably from Cybertron too) be included since those phrases are not exclusive to Energon even if it's in that show that they're the worst offender. --Sabrblade (talk) 09:58, 5 March 2021 (EST)

I agree with removing the pain counts and overall negativity from the UT-related pages, while I disagree with creating the "Energonisms" page because that would neuter our efforts to remove said negativity. I also never cared for Furmanisms so I don't even see a reason for that page to still exist tbh. Fritz (talk) 13:11, 5 March 2021 (EST)

I don't think there's a need for Energonisms, but I think Furmanisms need to stay based solely on the fact that they're a known factor and both Furman and other creators have leaned into their existence in self-referential and parodical ways, enough that it makes sense to have a page explaining them. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 13:34, 5 March 2021 (EST)

It's funny you say that, Fritz. Armada was the first place to use the stock phrases, yet the episode pages were absent of any pain counts or any real negativity in general. As for Cybertron, listing the pain counts on those pages seems to hold the same weight as the negativity I pruned down on the main Armada page a couple of weeks ago. They seem to be an outdated case of critisms that were made when the show first came out. In my experience, Cybertron, while still not perfect, still remains the pretty widely enjoyed out of the three shows among the Facebook groups and stuff I've been in.

At the end of the day, I don't feel it's really the wiki's place to tell people how to feel towards something. It's one thing to mention issues and critisms, but when you're pushing personal opinions onto the reader, making them steer clear of the show entirely instead of letting them form their own opinions, it doesn't really help keep the history of the brand we're supposed to be documenting alive. -- Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 15:28, 5 March 2021 (EST)

The keyword there is "outdated." Energon is from 2003 and the "pain count" stuff was probably all written in 2007 or so. In 2021 no one is creating canon with ironic joking references to a hypothetical Energonism, and even if they did, the whole source of complaint is that the dialogue is so interchangeable and empty that if someone were to say it in a future series it would probably just be seen as unrelated new bad dialogue. --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 15:44, 5 March 2021 (EST)

So I guess we're all pretty much on the same page here then. From the response I got on Discord a few days ago and the repsonse here, it seems pretty clear that the "Pain counts" should go. -- Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 16:11, 5 March 2021 (EST)

Totally agree with you there, Fanofcoolstuff27. I watched Energon and Cybertron for the first time just last year and actually enjoyed the latter a lot. At the time I felt that the pain counts were harming my own enjoyment of reading the wiki after watching each episode and I even consider removing them by myself. So I'm glad this is finally up for debate and other people are agreeing on getting rid of them. --Fritz (talk) 16:27, 5 March 2021 (EST)

I think this kind of went off on a big digression about "Energonisms" and personal liking of the series, but I think this is enough consensus to reduce the negativity of the Energon articles. (The episodes could use better summaries as well.) Saix (talk) 16:35, 5 March 2021 (EST)

The pain counts can go, but I'm 100% against removing the overal tone of negativity. Like it or not, Energon is a dull show with an objectively mediocre dub, and consistently remains the most disliked of any televised Transformers cartoon. To try and soften that in the Energon articles almost feels like a disservice to 20 years of near-universal fan rejection. (And the reason we say not to make Energon jokes on the caption page was because they were getting excessive across the whole wiki. That said, while other pages shouldn't be saddled with such jokes, there's no reason to sugarcoat things on the Energon articles themselves.) -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 16:41, 5 March 2021 (EST)

Agreed, and definitely on that last point. Energon is garbage in any language, and I feel we do a disservice to act like it's not a rushed, cheap, ugly job by the lowest bidder that runs out of plot halfway through its episode count and has to start over even BEFORE you take into account the first-draft English dub. And yes, the captions page remark about it and many other objects of derision is mostly about the unoriginality and over-use of adding new joke captions about it, not "it's wrong". --M Sipher (talk) 17:35, 5 March 2021 (EST)

See, my issue here isn't neccessarily the negativity itself, more the overuse of it. I've already taken it upon myself to remove silly pieces of "trivia" that aren't trivia at all and are more just an attempt to bash a bad show. You can mention all of it's flaws and whatever, there is no problem with that. It's the constant nitpickiness that is added, when just about every Transformers show has more or less the exact same issues. The line between openly pointing out issues in one show and turning a blind eye to those same issues in other shows is very blurred.

Given our recent response on Discord towards the removal of "Pain counts" from the Energon episode pages, perhaps we could at least settle with a mid-ground compromise. My proposal: The removal of stock footage from the counts. It's not exclusive to Energon at all, so listing them as a bad thing builds a pretty poor case. Yeah, there is a lot of stock footage use, but the show is to sell Transformers toys, so highlighting the brand's main attraction is hardly a crime. BWII, BWN, RID/Car Robots, Robot Masters, Armada/Legends of the Microns, Energon/Super Link, Cybertron/Galaxy Force, Animated, Go!, RID 2015 and I wanna say Cyberverse (?) are all guilty of using stock footage. Only about three of them are English-speaking original shows, while the rest of them are Japanese shows. It's practically been a tradition to include stock footage transformations and combinations at this point. -- Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 18:31, 5 March 2021 (EST)

Voice actor categorization

I really don't like the idea of putting voice actors into company categories based on shows or games they've appeared in (see Category:Activision or Category:DreamWorks for example). This seems a little disingenuous, considering that none of these are employees of these companies, but rather freelance. Furthermore, this doesn't include all the different shows' production companies, but rather more like picking and choosing at random. If you were to categorize them at all, I would either do so based on the studio the series was recorded at (such as Voicebox or Studiopolis) or make new "(show) voice cast" categories. (But honestly, my first choice would be to not do so at all.) -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 00:17, 6 March 2021 (EST)

How about we create nested categories such as "Category:Activision freelancers"? S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 01:34, 22 March 2021 (EDT)

"Category:Activision voice actors"? Maybe something similar with other videogames or tv series'/movies? "Category:____ voice actors". Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 02:39, 22 March 2021 (EDT)

Energon Terrorcons

I'm having issues with the way we have the Energon Terrorcon pages currently set up. The pages have a lot of misinformation being spread within them and between them and I'm not entirely sure how we should handle it.

The show presents three different colour variants/breeds/races of flying Terrorcon: Divebomb, a "Stealth Divebomb" (which is the Command Ravage colour palette placed on Divebomb), and the Shadowhawk Cosmo Type/Blackout colour scheme. I've just gone and removed the stealth colour scheme write ups from Blackout's page as they are clearly not the same thing and it would fall under potential citogenesis.

My proposal for this issue would be to move "Blackout (Terrorcon)" to "Shadowhawk Cosmo Type" and just make mention of the Energon dubs' cock up with the names as a note or that an individual Terrorcon named "Blackout" is also among them. Much like "Command Ravage", "Shadowhawk Cosmo Type" is also an official name and it's my understanding that if Hasbro names aren't available, we generally opt for the Takara names instead (e.g. Mirror), and because "Blackout" is referred to as an individual rather than a race/breed, it would be hard to use that as an offical English-language designation. I also don't feel that there would be enough to warrant an individual Shadowhawk Cosmo Type page and a Blackout page, as they'd contain most of the same information.

Secondly, I'm wondering if the stealth decoed Divebombs warrant their own page under a nickname title? e.g. Watchdog (G1). They are clearly a different breed to the two aforementioned races and with the Command Ravages being present alongside them, it only seems fair to mark them on a separate page too. If others agree, I was thinking maybe "Stealth Divebomb" or something, as the title—unless Super Link has a better term used in the episode?

Thirdly, and the least important of noting on this list of issues: The Planet Q natives featured in the flashback (before the planet was destroyed) use both the Shadowhawk Cosmo Type model and a recoloured version of the Battle Ravage model in the same colours. Do these Battle Ravage redecos warrant a page or is a note on the respective mold pages enough for them?

Thank Primus that the Insecticons and Cruellocks don't suffer from this issue of multiple breeds/repaints presented on-screen.

Let me know what you think. -- Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 05:49, 10 March 2021 (EST)

I would make a "Shadowhawk Cosmo Type" article for that color scheme in general, but keep the Blackout article for that specific individual. All of the other weird color schemes like "Shadowhawk Desert Type" could just go on the regular article, with notes pointing out their existence. Saix (talk) 15:35, 10 March 2021 (EST)

Sounds like a plan. I'll get a sandbox started for the Cosmo Type Terrorcons. Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 15:44, 10 March 2021 (EST)

Excessively long toy pages

Let's face it. A few pages such as "Optimus Prime (G1)/toys" and "Megatron (G1)/toys" have become so long that they can slow down a device just to be loaded. Will we allow indefinite expansion such that page scrolling time will balloon further? We need to do some kind of split that will set up a second page for many years to come. Some months back, there was a discussion on the Discord server suggesting the start of Generations in 2010 as a useful dividing boundary. Thoughts? S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 16:38, 13 March 2021 (EST)

I agree with the split from Generations. Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 17:36, 13 March 2021 (EST)

If no one is against this split, I might make a start on it now because I was editing the G1 Prime page before and I was worried it was going to make Chrome crash with how long it was taking just to load the previews for my edits. Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 07:22, 14 April 2021 (EDT)

Regarding Megatron, I propose splitting out all non-transforming gun mode accessories that were available with other figures into their own page. There are a lot of those, and they don't need to clutter up a page along with the transforming figures.--Nevermore (talk) 07:59, 30 May 2021 (EDT)

Template:quote and Template:bigquote

Why do we have both of these? --Khajidha (talk) 07:39, 16 March 2021 (EDT)

the big one looks much better and less confusing. i suggest getting rid of the normal one. --GobotsFanForever (talk) 07:48, 16 March 2021 (EDT)

While I find the big one hideously obnoxious and would suggest getting rid of it.--Khajidha (talk) 11:32, 16 March 2021 (EDT)

sorry, it turns out that for some reason, the normal quotes were not showing up properly on my computer. but now they are. now the big quotes do seem kinda unnecessary. --GobotsFanForever (talk) 21:11, 16 March 2021 (EDT)

Merge or not to merge the ROTF toyline and N.E.S.T. Global Alliance pages.

I think we should merge the ROTF toyline and the N.E.S.T. Global Alliance pages, since they're both from the Revenge of the Fallen movie, along with the fact that some toys from that subline imprint are in the ROTF page. Besides, the reason why users here want their pages to be merged is the same from the Armada and The Unicron Battles, which by the time of this talk, they're already merged. --Cybertron Forever (talk) 16:52 18 March 2021 (EST)

I'm down with that. Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 02:40, 22 March 2021 (EDT)

All those Takara BW-era-ish named weapon pages

So this caught my eye... we have a buncha pages for the various named weapons from the BW2/Neo-era toys, and... do we need them at all? Do these pages actually contain enough unique information to justify them? I mean, we got individual pages for Archadis's "Wing Gundreads", "Wing Bombs" and "Founder Shot", and not a one of them has anything that the actual Archadis page doesn't cover. Seems like most of these don't have any special effects like the "torque rifle" or "electro-scrambler" and such; it makes more sense to have those pages since the special effects are all right there without having to sift through non-weapon info, which feels like a good resource for writing purposes to see how these special weapons were used. But if they're all just normal old blasters and swords and whatnot, the individual pages are basically just severely chainsawed versions of the character pages. Feels kind of pointless and wasteful of the reader's time to point them at these pages. --M Sipher (talk) 17:27, 30 March 2021 (EDT)

After going through it all, I'm starting to think this is a valid point. Half of these weapons wouldn't even have enough information to fill a page to be quite honest—and that's after filling the fiction stubs too. Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 08:24, 31 March 2021 (EDT)

New Molds are Not News

It quickly gets repetitive for toy entries to say such-and-such is a new mold. I think we should have "new mold" be the default, unsaid expectation, instead pointing out when toys are retools / redecos. "Actually a new mold" should be saved for occasions when something looks or is widely perceived to be a remold but actually isn't (i.e. Smokejumper / Energon Starscream). --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 16:03, 7 April 2021 (EDT)

Agreed.--Khajidha (talk) 16:58, 7 April 2021 (EDT)

Agreed. Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 17:54, 7 April 2021 (EDT)

Impending upgrade

My intention is to attempt an upgrade of the wiki's core software tomorrow. It is not going to be a large jump in versions, so I don't anticipate it will break anything, but you never know. I'll post again here closer to the time. --abates (talk) 05:17, 23 April 2021 (EDT)

In, let's say, around about three hours. --abates (talk) 00:16, 24 April 2021 (EDT)

Ten minute warning! --abates (talk) 02:49, 24 April 2021 (EDT)

All done. Please go about your business. --abates (talk) 03:20, 24 April 2021 (EDT)

Change to combiner team member lists?

Inspired by some comments Chris was pointing out from his new Aerialbot video, I was thinking about how we could better contextualise the various extra/alternate members most combiner teams have wound up with over the years, rather than simply putting them all in a plain list that can, for instance, wrongfully give the impression that Balloon is a noteworthy Aerialbot and not a literal joke. Put together a sandbox to show what I was thinking: User:Jalaguy/Sandbox/Aerialbot - thoughts? I think this is one of those occasions - like Unicron's history and stuff - where going out-of-universe for a bit is the best way of communicating important context to the reader. Jalaguy (talk) 12:15, 24 April 2021 (EDT)

Request and code review for adding JS-based tabbed tables

A few of us were inspired by the tabbed tables on other wikis. For example, the Kingdom Hearts wiki, a main character has tables that contain "Profile" and "Journal" tabs. This request is strictly about tabs, not general infoboxes. I pulled the relevant JS and CSS and created a Template:Tab, and added the custom JS and CSS to my user page, and things seem fine. The tabifier only relies on jQuery, so we don't need to add anything extra. I have videos of the behavior on our Discord too.

Would it be possible for an admin (abates?) to review the proposed additions, and if approved, merge them into the page load?

JS: https://github.com/tf-wiki-discord/wiki-utils/blob/main/tabber.js

CSS: https://github.com/tf-wiki-discord/wiki-utils/blob/main/tabber.css

Thanks for reviewing/considering! Prime Radiant (talk) 13:22, 29 April 2021 (EDT)

What's the intention to use tabs for? My main reservation would be with user experience. E.G. putting stuff behind a tab hides it from a browser search, so if a user googles a term and ends up on a page where the mention of that term is hidden behind a tab, they might not be able to find it. --abates (talk) 16:57, 29 April 2021 (EDT)

One intended use-case would be supplementary. For most Transformers, I can imagine a "tabbed mainpic", one tab being bot mode and the other being the alt mode. I'm thinking particularly about a Transformers Universe or Dreamwave's More Than Meets the Eye, where bot mode and alt mode are viewable together as a single visual unit. And this is extendable to triple- or multi-changers, or can be ignored for Action Masters. This use is not restricted to mainpic use either. I don't think images of alt modes being hidden behind a tab is worse than things are now. Saix and AzimuthAcolyte may want to weigh in here. Prime Radiant (talk) 19:42, 29 April 2021 (EDT)

This is essentially a prelude to a more specific policy proposal once we get the machinery up and running and start working with it but I believe this concept of a "tabbed image" to display all modes of a character model, toy, etc without compromising readability to be perhaps the most potent utility of this technology. -AzimuthAcolyte (talk) 20:25, 29 April 2021 (EDT)

I can see this possibly being useful for toys that end up with multiple modes used within fiction like any of the Legends and Generations Selects characters with canonized "fan-modes" that get a little crazy to document in a single image or maybe having the Hasbro and Takara variants in a tabbed system?

The only thing I find that could potentially go wrong using a tab system at the top of an article for robot and alt modes, is the fact that G1 characters (as an example)—especially in the JG1 fiction—have been through multiple bodies with multiple vehicle modes. Even G1 Prime hasn't been the same exact flat-nosed cab for the 35+ years between American continuities. So this still kinda falls under the whole "prioritizing one thing over the rest" argument that the info box discussion created on Discord. Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 20:42, 29 April 2021 (EDT)

I don't want to get too ahead of ourselves on the specifics of implementation at this juncture but I will say we've gone round on the philosophy of potential "alt mode mainpics" a bit on the Discord and I believe it would be important to emphasize consistency with the character model selected for the bot mode mainpic as opposed to getting lost in the weeds of a character's "one true alt mode" or what have you. -AzimuthAcolyte (talk) 21:29, 29 April 2021 (EDT)

New bot account on site

I wanted to give a heads up that we have a new bot account on the site: User:FuncGammaBot. This account is owned by the developer of the WikiClientLibrary library that User:Teletraan-X uses for logging in to the site. The developer asked to use us for testing his code against MediaWiki 1.19 because Fandom no longer has a 1.19 site for them to test against. I consulted with abates and since he had no issues with the developer using us for unit tests, I let them know it was okay. Unit tests are automated code tests that are run to make sure that: A. a new code fix works and B. that said new code fix doesn't break something else. This testing will allow the library to continue workinga and thus Teletraan-X to continue working while on TFWiki is on version 1.19. The account will only be interacting with it's own sandbox and not making any edits to actual content pages or the like. I wanted to let everyone know so they aren't wondering what this weird account is doing only editing sandbox pages. --Tigerpaw28 (talk) 15:46, 17 May 2021 (EDT)

Establishing gallery pages for characters

So it seems we (and creators) have run into problems with poor references (especially regarding alternate modes) and there's the simple fact that there's a huge lack of any central resource for official Transformers renders and art (aka assets)—especially for older media like Beast Machines. In that regard, I'm proposing we create gallery pages for at least characters with multiple bodies and incarnations and also serve as a repository for art. I've created an example for Beast Megatron that I hope will illustrate what I imagine those galleries to look like. Any thoughts or concerns about this? Saix (talk) 17:33, 27 May 2021 (EDT)

Technically correct but needlessly vague section headers, unhelpful "fiction first" format

I stumbled across this on the Cyclonus's Armada page. For reasons unknown to me, the section that covers how Marvel's comic adaptation of the 1986 animated movie handled Cyclonus and "his Armada" is placed under the not-so-obvious header "Marvel future timelines", with a storylink leading to "Judgment Day!", which I have to click in order to find out that it's actually not a UK future timeline story, but the comic adaptation of the movie. This is not helpful. Especially when there's currently still a deeplink further down in the "Origins" section that links to a now-defunct "Marvel The Transformers: The Movie comic adaptation" section.

Also, I feel like the "Cyclonus's Armada" section is suffering from the "fiction first, real life background information later" format. In cases where the subject of a page is a major conundrum that's more notable for the mystery surrounding it than for its fictional portrayal itself, I propose we should ingore the standard and put the background information above the fiction sections in order to make those pages more accessible to casual readers I'm not sure yet if that should be applied to Swerve (Chevy) as well.--Nevermore (talk) 08:30, 30 May 2021 (EDT)

Krunix (G1) might also benefit from an "explanation first" format. Not quite sure yet regarding Mister Johnson.--Nevermore (talk) 08:53, 30 May 2021 (EDT)

Repurpose notes

Does anyone else think it would be a good idea to add a bit to the repurposed toys note to identify where this happened? --Khajidha (talk) 10:09, 9 June 2021 (EDT)

That is a logical course of action. S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 04:26, 18 June 2021 (EDT)

Beast Era parentheticals

As already discussed here on jetliner Silverbolt's talk page, Earth Wars has clarified the need to reestablish the original Magnaboss toy trio as their own individuals with separate pages. For some consistency, what is our take on how the parentheticals will work out when Fuzors and Transmetals have not appeared outside the Beast Wars franchise?

Is this preferable?
Silverbolt (G1), Silverbolt (BW eagle), Silverbolt (BW Fuzor), Prowl (G1), Prowl (BW lion), Prowl (BW Transmetal 2)

Or is this preferable?
Silverbolt (G1), Silverbolt (BW eagle), Silverbolt (Fuzor), Prowl (G1), Prowl (BW lion), Prowl (Transmetal 2)

Should the Fuzor and owl still have "BW"? I point out that such labelling does serve as a handy signal for readers as to which franchise a wiki URL belongs. S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 19:20, 12 June 2021 (EDT)

"(BW Transmetal 2)" is definitely too long. In Owl Prowl's case, he either ought to stay at "Prowl II" (due to the complications of his past, or in consistency with Transmetal 2 Dinobot similarly being at "Dinobot II"), or be moved to either "Prowl (BW owl)", "Prowl (BW TM2)", or just "Prowl (TM2)". Of those choices, I'm leaning towards either "Prowl (BW owl)" since it would be consistent with "Prowl (BW lion), or "Prowl (TM2)" since Transmetals 2 are still just a BW-only thing. The latter would also enable the lion to be as "Prowl (BW)", unless that's too misleading since he isn't the only BW Prowl, in which case "(BW lion)" and "(BW owl)" would be the most concise.

As for the Silverbolts, I've given my piece about them, but for a recap, I'm for "Silverbolt (BW eagle)" and "Silverbolt (BW Fuzor)", with "Silverbolt (BW)" redirected to the latter. While the Fuzor is unquestionably the more prominent of the two, the eagle came first and was, for a whole year, the only BW Silverbolt in existence at the time. He has every right to the "(BW)" tag just as much as the Fuzor does. Keeping "(BW)" in the title of both makes it immediately clear that both are BW-original characters without ever having to read the article.

Frankly, I am not a fan of "(Magnaboss)" as a tag since, to the uninformed, "Silverbolt (Magnaboss)" and "Prowl (Magnaboss)" make it look like we're saying that this Silverbolt and this Prowl are each "a Magnaboss", which is misleading for anyone who doesn't know who or what Magnaboss is. Sure, it only takes a second to read their articles, but "(BW eagle)" and (BW lion) are more direct and to the point, instantly getting the message across that they both originated from BW.

And if the eagle gets to keep "BW" in its tag, then certainly the Fuzor should as well since, as mentioned, he is the more prominent of the two BW Silverbolts and shouldn't be forced to lose his "BW" to the eagle, even if the eagle has just as much right to it. Ergo, they both can share. --Sabrblade (talk) 00:51, 13 June 2021 (EDT)

I vote for the first option except for Prowl the Owl, who I think works best as Prowl (BW Owl). MrRald (talk) 01:34, 13 June 2021 (EDT)

I'm personally thinking "Prowl (BW)", "Prowl (TM2)", "Silverbolt (eagle)" and "Silverbolt (Fuzor)". To me it just needlessly over complicates things by having "(BW eagle)" and "(BW Fuzor)" because we don't go "Swerve (Universe -insert whatever specifics here-)" and "Swerve (Universe Chevy)", we try to keep the character page titles as short and sweet as possible. With that, I'd also propose that we move "Dinobot II" to "Dinobot (TM2)" because I don't recall him ever being referred to by that name in the cartoon and it certainly wasn't the name given to the toy. As far as I can tell that was just something the sourcebook added to differentiate between multiple characters with the same name (e.g. Magnaboss II and Silverbolt II). We've also tried to move away from those sourcebook naming conventions due to a lot of them being incorrect or misleading in the wider scheme of things, especially for the Japanese characters. Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 01:48, 13 June 2021 (EDT)

TM2 Dinobot was referred to as "Dinobot 2" in the Dreamwave Summer Special and as "Dinobot II" in Beast Wars Sourcebook. It's not a thing we made up. --ItsWalky (talk) 08:14, 18 June 2021 (EDT)

I continue to be opposed to inventing "compound tags" that aren't canonical terms. "Magnaboss" is a canonical term, just as much as "Stunticon," and I don't think it's so confusing to potential readers seeing it that they wouldn't think to click the link and understand just how it was possible. My votes: Silverbolt (G1), Silverbolt (Magnaboss), Prowl (Magnaboss), Prowl (TM2), Silverbolt (Fuzor). --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 10:51, 14 June 2021 (EDT)

As I had just stated on Talk:Silver Bolt and Talk:Prowl (Magnaboss), I'm actually in favour of using the "(Magnaboss)" parentheticals for all three of the Magnaboss components, after seeing how it looks as an actual page title. It unifies them and is simple and the most effective imo. I am still 100% against using the animal alt-modes in the titles as it just looks unprofessional and made up, as Thylacine had more or less pointed out. Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 05:38, 18 June 2021 (EDT)

If we really have to, we could always make it "(BW Magnaboss)" as a happy medium. Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 05:42, 18 June 2021 (EDT)

That's redundant. "Magnaboss" is simple and straight to the point. Saix (talk) 10:09, 18 June 2021 (EDT)

Rethinking Shattered Glass as a franchise/continuity family

Between the “Shards” mini-series, the new Generations Selects toys, and an increasing amount of high end collector statues, it seems like the concept of a Transformers mirror universe isn’t going away any time soon. All mirrorverse fiction since the original comic has latched onto the title “Shattered Glass”, even when that name hasn’t been applied to that particular fiction, creating “ghost” franchises like “Shattered Glass Animated” and “Shattered Glass Movie”. Given that these have no bearing on actual franchises – there’s no “real” “Shattered Glass Cybertron”, for example – I’m proposing that we treat “Shattered Glass” as less of a series of franchises and more as one big continuity family.

It’s true that:

a) continuity families are a fake idea made up by the wiki to allow for easier organisation

b) big concepts that span numerous franchises go on one article, e.g. Autobot, Decepticon, Cybertron (planet)

c) sometimes two characters from different continuity families share a page when they are either straight up the same guy (Side Burn (RID), Sky-Byte (RID)), or when their appearance is so negligible that it’s barely worth splitting them (Buckshot, Reachout (TF 2010))

Given the above, I propose that all of “Shattered Glass” be treated as one continuity family, with subheadings for G1 (the club fiction, “Expectations”, “Recordicons”, SD SG, “Shards”), Animated (lithographs, bios), Movie (Forged to Fight, high-end statues/merchandise), and whatever other mirror universes are concerned. Character articles should be moved to (SG) namespaces and merged where appropriate.

I’ve whipped up a rough concept for Optimus Prime in my sandbox. Let me know what you think of this idea below or on the Discord server. TheLastGherkin (talk) 07:29, 14 June 2021 (EDT)

Absolutely against this. It might be fine for Prime, but there is nothing linking SG Goldbug with SG Animated Bumblebee, for example. We can stand having a few smaller articles, not everything should be merged. We aren't Wikipedia, and I don't want to see this implemented. Escargon (talk) 09:54, 14 June 2021 (EDT)

I kinda like this idea, but I can also see where this could get very complicated, very fast, it's definitely not a "one size fits all" type of solution, as Escargon has stated. If nothing else, I think a continuity family page for SG (if we don't already have one) would be a good idea to have the concept laid out in the one place, since it has been used all across the franchise, but combining character articles and such is definitely looking like a possible issue. Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 10:07, 14 June 2021 (EDT)

Bumblebee would be the exception. An ideal SG Bumblebee article would start with a G1 section to the effect of "Bumblebee was small and looked like Cliffjumper; for more information see Goldbug (SG)" followed by the two relatively similar, quiet-spoken backstabber versions from Animated and Forged to Fight. TheLastGherkin (talk) 10:16, 14 June 2021 (EDT)

I'm really not sure about that. What's the point of folding them together if you're going to split one of the most prominent ones out? It's all or nothing, in my opinion. --Riptide (talk) 10:19, 14 June 2021 (EDT)

Even more than that, there's characters like Rhinox; there's nothing linking the gag character with the morally ambiguous TransTech one. Escargon (talk) 10:22, 14 June 2021 (EDT)

And before anyone brings up classic examples like Marvel v Sunbow guys, those were characters based on the same toys. Not quite the same with SG guys. Escargon (talk) 10:24, 14 June 2021 (EDT)

The one thing I agree is that we should have a page compiling all Shattered Glass universes and listing them the same way we do with continuity family pages, like Movie continuity family for example. Put SG G1 as the "major continuity" and the others as minor. We need this page because most (if not all) SG pages direct to Shattered Glass (franchise) and that's just plain wrong when we're dealing with SG Animated or SG Movie. All character pages should remain separate, but a singular SG page explaining everything is more than needed. --Fritz (talk) 12:54, 14 June 2021 (EDT)

On that I absolutely agree. Escargon (talk) 13:11, 14 June 2021 (EDT)

Oof, no. Now, "Shattered Glass" might could use a page for it as a CONCEPT, sticking to out-of-universe discussion of it and how it's been applied to stuff outside the original series. But... not this. --M Sipher (talk) 17:19, 14 June 2021 (EDT)

I mean, sure, we don't have to treat it as "one big continuity", explaining how the concept expanded is enough. I just think that a page simply listing all instances of a new SG-based universe is going to be important as time goes on if the concept keeps getting revisited. And would make more sense as a linked page than to link SG Movie Optimus to the original SG franchise page when they have no real connection. It's as wrong as if we claimed that "Fire Prime is an Autobot from the RID Animated continuity family". Unless we just use the current SG page for these purposes, but I don't see that as the better option. --Fritz (talk) 19:10, 14 June 2021 (EDT)

Honestly, if the aim of this is to try and clear up minor pages people don't want, surely it would make more sense to merge the Shattered Glass versions with the ones they're explicitly spinning off from - ie merge SG Animated into Animated pages. (I am not suggesting this as an actual idea.) Shattered Glass is just the transformers name for "evil mirror version" which stuck around, and no-one is saying we should merge all Nemesis Primes from every continuity family together because they share conceptual DNA and a name. AkibaSilver (talk) 19:26, 14 June 2021 (EDT)

Japanese retail

In the process of whipping up a comprehensive list of campaign items (those "buy toy X or Y amount of merchandise and you get this fancy exclusive redeco for free" thingies), the current progress of which can be seen here, I've discovered that a lot of the writeups for those individual items are oftentimes based on very rough Google translations, and never fixed.

As a result, I've encountered several instances of the same store being given multiple different names, such as "Eiden", "Ideon" and "Eidon" for Edion (which is the spelling in the company's website URL and official logo), or even worse, "White Peony" and "Shirobotan" (or "Shiro Botan") for Hakubotan (again, the spelling in the company's website URL).

Additionally, there is the occasional bad grammar such as "He was an exclusive in Japan to Edion toy counter" or "Japanese stores like [...] Yamada Denki toy department", sometimes chains like "AEON", "EDION" and "BIC Camera" are spelled in ALLCAPS, and the original writeups made it seem like "Hakuhinkan Toy Park Ginza" and "Shiro Botan Ishinomaki" were both the names of chains with multiple stores, when in fact the stores in question were supposedly specific stores, namely the Hakuhinkan Toy Park main store in Ginza (Toyko's main shipping district) and the Hakubotan store inside the Aeon mall in Ishinomaki.

I assume these inconsistencies are the result of different people adding those writeups, but geez, what a mess.--Nevermore (talk) 07:39, 16 June 2021 (EDT)

AAAAAND it turns out that AEON and JUSCO are one and the same company. JUSCO used to be a subsidiary of the larger AEON orporation, but the JUSCO stores in Japan all changed their name to AEON in 2011.--Nevermore (talk) 08:46, 16 June 2021 (EDT)

Weapons

Lately I've been going through (mostly) old Marvel stuff to nail down in-fiction appearances of G1 weapons - see Electro-kinetic blaster, Plasma-shell shotgun, and Thermal melter for examples. I'm thinking of adding something to the Notes section similar to the "Gadgets and Powers" we do for cartoon episodes but for weapon shout-outs in the comics, perhaps titled "Courtesy of my..." as a more ordered way of keeping track of them. Does anyone have any feelings on that one way or the other? --Emvee (talk) 08:48, 18 June 2021 (EDT)

Request

Talk:Transformers Legends (comic)#Controversy section-if somebody's willing to take this up, I'd appreciate it. Escargon (talk) 14:03, 22 June 2021 (EDT)

Separate voice actor categories by series?

This is just an off-the-cuff idea, but would it be useful create categories for voice actors that appear in a specific TF series? For example, Peter Cullen would be under "TF 1984 voice actors" (or however we'd title it) and "Prime voice actors," David Kaye in "Beast Wars voice actors" and "Animated voice actors" and so on and so forth. I'm not suggesting these would replace the "English voice actors" category, they would just be in addition to it. Now, granted, I don't know if we would/should separate any Japanese (and other languages) voice actors and make separate categories for each language, which would probably get out of hand or be too much. Or we just lump the non-English VAs with the English ones for each series. Again, this is just a random idea I had and thought I would put it out there for consideration. I totally understand if there is no need or desire for such a thing to be implemented. Turborun (talk) 20:59, 1 July 2021 (EDT)

Hershey's Kisses Treasure Surprise

I just stumbled across some of these that I had forgotten that I had received for Christmas. They are tiny figurines of TF characters packed with four Hershey's Kisses in a light blue clamshell container with a cardboard label wrapper (white card, printed with yellow background to the logos and pictures). The packaging says "Collect all five!" I have only two, but each had a different figurine: Optimus Prime and Starscream. The packaging also shows Bumblebee. To my eyes, the Starscream looks like the Classics design, but they are pretty generic (and my eyes ain't that great). Has anybody else seen these? Where should they be documented? Khajidha (talk) 09:47, 11 July 2021 (EDT)

I've seen them around in the occasional CVS as well, actually; the full list is Optimus, Megatron, Bumblebee, Starscream, and Grimlock, and they all seem to be Evergreen/Cyberverse designs. As for where they should go, I'm honestly not sure. Probably a small page of its own similar to Candy Toy, and a quick write-up in each character's toy or merch section, though I'm not sure whether to list them as G1 or Cyberverse. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 11:21, 11 July 2021 (EDT)

To my understanding we've been putting anything Evergreen-inspired under G1, except when they're specifically labeled as Cyberverse. So if the packaging only says "Transformers" and not "Cyberverse", I think they belong to G1. --Fritz (talk) 12:51, 11 July 2021 (EDT)

Reintegration of Hasbroverse wiki content

I think we should consider migrating the content from the IDW Hasbro Wiki back here. The addition of another wiki made sense as a preemptive measure when the shared universe was first announced and we had no idea how long it was going to run, but with just two years of content, there really didn't end up being all that much, and a sizable chunk of the non-TF books and related content live here already, either fully or partially. The number of links out on Rom's page, for example, is rather low. Plus it just looks kinda silly when we have issues #1, #4, and #5 of a series on the wiki, but not #2 or #3. The only major sticking point is all of the pre-Revolution G.I. Joe issues, which would be a *big* ask to include. I'd be curious to get other folks' thoughts on the matter, though. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 01:16, 23 July 2021 (EDT)

I think the Hasbroverse is Transformers centric enough to be moved to TFwiki, with GI Joe possibly being an exception. MrRald (talk) 01:26, 23 July 2021 (EDT)

I’m fine with post-Revolution stuff being incorporated. It still drives me bonkers that the last Visionaries story isn’t covered here despite 95% of that storyline being here. Saix (talk) 02:00, 23 July 2021 (EDT)

As for pre-Revolution G.I. Joe, we don't include all of Marvel G.I. Joe either despite both the G1 and G2 crossovers. -- Dark T Zeratul (talk) 05:04, 23 July 2021 (EDT)

It sorta makes sense now. I doubt there will be an attempt to make another shared universe anytime soon. I assume there's a semi-reliable Joe wiki we could link to for the pre-Revolution/post Transformers material, if necessary. --MistaTee (talk) 10:06, 23 July 2021 (EDT)

Sensible. --Jimsorenson (talk) 13:06, 23 July 2021 (EDT)

I think the current IDW Hasbroverse wiki could just be converted to solely IDW Joe, since I don't believe the general G.I. Joe wiki is very comprehensive. Saix (talk) 13:25, 23 July 2021 (EDT)

The general GI Joe wiki is nearly moribund. As an admin there, I invite anyone who wants to to come in and help. --Khajidha (talk) 15:58, 23 July 2021 (EDT)

Can't help with this at all but sounds good, have at it --notsoalex (talk) 00:25, 25 July 2021 (EDT)

Echoing others that folding in the remainder of the content between Revolution and Unicron is just sensible and we can cross the Joe bridge when we come to it. -AzimuthAcolyte (talk) 10:49, 25 July 2021 (EDT)

I'm gonna leave the discussion open for a few more days to make sure everyone who wants a say can have one, but this seems pretty unanimous so far. That said, while I'm thinking of it, what do we want to do about Jem? The stance on coverage over there is "the characters are canon to Hasbroverse, but the books and stories themselves are not, but we're going to cover them anyway". Thus as something that's kinda-sorta-but-not-really related, is that too far outside of scope to carry over, or should those articles be migrated too? -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 20:08, 26 July 2021 (EDT)

I wouldn't include Jem (or Clue) here. Only media actually in continuity with IDW TF. Saix (talk) 20:52, 26 July 2021 (EDT)

Well, that's good enough for me. I'm starting a central hub to keep track of all that pages that need to be moved over or merged with existing pages. Please add to this list as you find pages that need migrating or complete the process. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 15:37, 6 August 2021 (EDT)

Further discussion on this topic has moved to this page; please provide your input. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 19:57, 6 August 2021 (EDT)

Pre-Transformers repurposing documentation

Hey all, I had been wondering if we should document the repurposings of left over pre-Transformers products in the toy sections instead of the notes sections? Or even both maybe?

I threw together a quick sandbox of a couple of ideas I had. The first was just listing them all under the blanket term-header "Pre-Transformers" and the other was using their actual franchise of origin as a header (e.g. Diaclone, Micro Change, Microman, etc.).

I just figured that since we document fictional toys of characters that appear in comics etc. under the toy sections, wouldn't it also make sense to add the repurposed Pre-G1 toys? It especially makes sense (to me at least) when a lot of those toys or characters appeared in fiction long before any e-HOBBY, MP or Selects releases of those characters were made, and some of them haven't received official Transformers updates at all.

Let me know your thoughts. --Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 00:07, 1 August 2021 (EDT)

I believe the central debate here will be whether we consider these toys "in-scope." I do think this structure would generally be more user friendly than what we're doing at present if folks do not consider it a bridge too far. With regards to your sandbox, I would say the most sensible title structure would be the bottom one, as there's no sense in playing coy about the names of these toylines, with "Transformers" and "Pre-Transformers" supertitles when applicable. -AzimuthAcolyte (talk) 14:08, 4 August 2021 (EDT)

Creating a foreign name list

A complete list page of all so far known foreign names and phrases. Grouped by continuity families, factions and priority. (First Optimus, Bumblebee, Megatron, Starscream...) Kiké Prime (talk) 03:50, 6 August 2021 (EDT)

Transformers_Wiki:Policies#We_Hate_Lists --M Sipher (talk) 23:45, 6 August 2021 (EDT)

Generations subline toy headers on character pages

I believe this has received enough support on Discord and on "Talk:Transformers: Generations (toyline)", but I am reiterating on the Community Portal for everyone in general. It has become clear that Hasbro considers "Generations" a catch-all branding for many unrelated lines. Thusly, though I suggested the fix in the first place, it no longer makes sense for us in a post-Prime Wars Trilogy world to lump together many indented subline headers underneath "Generations". Concordantly, a lone Generations figure such as Titans Return Overlord can afford to lose the "Generations" label in favour of "Titans Return" alone. As a proof-of-concept of restoring plain chronological series order, I just overhauled "Galvatron (G1)/toys". This eliminates the ridiculous placement of the Generations Selects figure above the Kingdom figure due to technically being labelled on packaging as War for Cybertron Trilogy in tandem with the HasLab Unicron pack-in minifigure. In addition, the entry for the Legends figure is physically nearer to the entry for the contemporary Titans Return counterpart, and Kre-O can now naturally come in release order before post-Thrilling 30 series. S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 04:50, 30 August 2021 (EDT)

That honestly looks so much better. I've gone and done the same with "Megatron (G1)/Generations toys" so we have an idea on how it would look implemented on split out pages. I've also shifted the G2 Megatron repaints that were originally categorized under "War for Cybertron: Siege" and "War for Cybertron Trilogy" respectively to the "Generations Selects" header with Super Megatron. Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 05:21, 30 August 2021 (EDT)

In addition to simply reorganizing the toy headers, we really ought to be treating "Generations" like we treat "Timelines", only using it for Generations 2010 to Thrilling 30 while everything from Combiner Wars onward should be using their respective line names, including with their own disambigs. There are too many uses of "(Generations)" tags in instances where the much more direct "(CW)", "(TR)", "(POTP)", "(Selects)", "(Siege)", "(Earthrise)", and "(Kingdom)" would be far more concise. Generations stopped being the name of its own line as soon as Combiner Wars took it out of the toy packaging's main title logo and moved it to a tiny little brand logo in the corner.

Even the tie-in media for Combiner Wars through now never used the "Generations" name. The cartoons were "Transformers: Combiner Wars", "Transformers: Titans Return", "Transformers: Power of the Primes", and "Transformers: War For Cybertron Trilogy". The comic events for Combiner Wars and Titans Return were the same only minus the "Transformers:" part. Even in the TV commercials for each line called them "Transformers: Combiner Wars" and so on, never calling them "Transformers Generations: Combiner Wars" etc.

These aren't subline imprints, they're their own lines, and ought to be treated as such, right down to having disambiguation tags like "(CW)", "(TR)", "(POTP)", "(Siege)", "(Earthrise)", "(Kingdom)", and "(Selects)". In the cases of FOC and Thrilling 30, those did keep the title as "Transformers: Generations", so those were subline imprints and should stay as such. It also works to distinguish between Archer Era Generations (a toyline) and Warden Era Generations (an umbrella term/category).

The current people at Hasbro call these "Generations lines" in the sense that they are each their own line belonging to an umbrella term/category rather than being the same single line that Generations used to be before the changeover of Hasbro teams in 2014-2015. It's basically become how like we would say that Beast Wars, Beast Machines, Japanese Beast Wars, and Car Robots (and arguably Animorphs) are all "Beast Era lines", or like how we'd say Armada, Energon, and Cybertron are all "Unicron Trilogy lines", or like Movie 1, ROTF, DOTM, AOE, TLK, and Bumblebee are all "Movieverse lines". Even things like half of the AOE line and all of Studio Series are officially considered "Generations lines" despite the obvious connotations of "Generations" that most fans do not associate with the Movieverse lines. --Sabrblade (talk) 11:26, 30 August 2021 (EDT)

I'm fine with changing the section headers and disambigs. Saix (talk) 11:41, 30 August 2021 (EDT)

So I'm taking that we're also changing Movieverse toy sections from "Generations" to "Studio Series". I'm down with that. --Fritz (talk) 15:11, 30 August 2021 (EDT)

Hmm, you raise an interesting point. How might we implement something like this to, say, Bumblebee (Movie)/toys, which has multiple different "Generations" headers and sub-headers between one-half of AOE's line, the whole of Studio Series/Movie Edition/Premium Finish, and a portion of Buzzworthy Bumblebee? --Sabrblade (talk) 00:12, 31 August 2021 (EDT)

My solution is, we leave the AOE portion just as it is, as it's already placed separately from the rest of Generations and in the right chronological order, and the "Generations" header is necessary there to separate those toys from the "Robots in Disguise" ones. Studio Series, Movie Edition and Premium Finish should get promoted to their own lines just like CW, TR, POTP etc, and as for Buzzworthy we should just change the "Generations" header to "Studio Series". If we all agree on this, I'd like to help implementing these changes myself. --Fritz (talk) 01:14, 31 August 2021 (EDT)

How old should my account be?

To make captions? Grimbee (talk)

It's not about age. Captions are meant to be a reward for users who actually put in the hard work adding proper content to the wiki. And considering you've barely contributed (and most of the things you HAVE posted are jokes, one-sentence articles, or talk page messages telling other people to do things), doing so would be in poor taste at best. Honestly, if you're only here because you want to add captions, you're better off going somewhere else. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 17:30, 6 September 2021 (EDT)

Streamlining disambig headers

Several on the Discord have voiced assent, so I am bringing the topic here. Our current system for putting disambig headers is unintuitive and overly complex. It creates situations like movie Sentinel who is stuck at (ROTF) thanks to a one line mention, as well as the completely jumbled mess of Aligned, with character pages at (Exodus) or (WFC) or sometimes just (Aligned) etc.

My proposal is we streamline this by just having everybody at the continuity they hail from, not the piece of it. All movie characters at (Movie) and all Unicron Trilogy characters at (Unicron Trilogy) or possibly (UT). An argument I've seen for the current system is that it specifies which part of the family somebody comes from, but the fiction section already shows what parts they are in.

Characters like RID15 Grimlock or Prime Breakdown would be exceptions to this, of course, potentially maybe suite them with the other of their name in that continuity for convenient wiki searching. McBaggins (talk) 11:15, 17 September 2021 (EDT)

Oh God a thousand times yes. --Jimsorenson (talk) 11:19, 17 September 2021 (EDT)

I have advocated for this move before so I vote in favor. There's also a set precedent with Strongarm (G1) being moved from Strongarm (BWU) for the sake of reader friendliness. Simplifying the disambigs will reduce the amount of initials and individual disambigs one has to go through when searching a specific character. MrRald (talk) 11:25, 17 September 2021 (EDT)

I'm leaning against. Under the current system everything is handled the same way, with a limited number of (G1 Autobot) type clarifiers, but if you go by continuity family first, there are so many situations that would need further disambiguation that you'd lose all consistency.

Just think how many Beast Era characters alone reuse G1 character names - you've instantly got huge swathes of characters who are gonna need further disambiguation. So then you potentially have a situation of "Terrorsaur (G1)" versus "Inferno (BW)", where guys originating in the same thing have got a random assortment of disambig tags. So maybe you make an exception for Beast Era and use (BW) and (BM) by default, but then you're starting to get half way back to the current system...

I'm not really convinced of an "ease of searching" logic because that's not what disambig tags are for, they're just a technical thing because we can't name multiple pages the same thing. If you're looking for a certain Hound, you can just type "Hound" into the search bar and pick the right one off a nice disambig page list, you don't have to try and guess at what the disambig is. (And while it obviously shouldn't be a main reason for any decisions, the amount of link changes and page moves this would require would be absolutely insane.) Jalaguy (talk) 11:34, 17 September 2021 (EDT)

I definitely agree with not throwing BW/BM characters down the G1 hole and then having to build ladders of exceptions back out for every name reuse. If we're going to try this at all, start with something that would need the fewest ad hoc fixes possible. --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 12:11, 17 September 2021 (EDT)

Not voting one way or another, but just wanted to say that the (WFC)/(Prime) and (Movie)/(ROTF)/(DOTM)/(etc) distinctions are the ones that have actually bothered me in the past. These are the ones where many prominent characters from later instalments share pages with super minor ones from the previous instalments. Conversely, I don't like the idea of merging (BW) and (BM). But creating merges for (Aligned) and (Movie) would solve a lot of headaches. (And, as a side note, the acronym WFC refers to SO many things now.) —The Wadapan (talk) 11:47, 17 September 2021 (EDT)

Instead of trying to change almost everything with a few exceptions, why not just simply zero in on making "(Aligned)" the main exceptional change? Since it's probably the one that needs the treatment of this proposal the most. For the characters who share names, I'd say neither would get to use the "(Aligned)" tag out of fairness. Like how we currently have the two BW Silverbolts at disambigs other than "(BW)". The two Sideswipes would remain at "(WFC)" and "(RID)", for instance. Same with the two Grimlocks, the two Kickbacks, the two Bludgeons, etc. Luckily, I think most shared-name cases are either with equally minor characters or equally major characters, the biggest exception I see being the Prime and COP Predakings. Maybe a suite could link those two together (along with all the other Prime and COP Predacons) since while each is their own separate person the implication of each Prime one being cloned from the COP ones suggests a biological connection between each one. --Sabrblade (talk) 11:48, 17 September 2021 (EDT)

I think the whole system could use serious overhaul but I definitely see the value in taking baby steps. Aligned seems to be the one that has the worst current system and the easiest fix so I'm all for giving it a shot. If it works, great, if not we've learned something. --Jimsorenson (talk) 12:00, 17 September 2021 (EDT)

Thinking more about this, I'm beginning to feel that maybe not every single-named Aligned character necessarily needs the "(Aligned)" tag. Some do, certainly, like those who have appeared across nearly all of the fiction spanning all of the eras. Optimus, Bumblebee, Megatron, Starscream, Jazz, who were in all/most of the games, books, and cartoons should get it. But if someone was only in the games, or only in one cartoon, then maaaaaybe they should be considered less of a priority for the "(Aligned)" tag. --Sabrblade (talk) 12:24, 17 September 2021 (EDT)

I think I would prefer just moving over the video game characters (and that dumb pop-up disambig) to "Prime". That was the main spine to Aligned, and it's weird how we got pedantic over video games and pretended they were "franchises". Saix (talk) 12:32, 17 September 2021 (EDT)

In favor of tackling Aligned first, then thinking about other continuity headings later and separately. --Xaaron (talk) 12:44, 17 September 2021 (EDT)

I just ran the numbers, and if we were to roll with this plan, 296 character pages would need to be moved from their current disambig to "(Aligned)", while 48 would be left as is due to someone or something else with the same name in that continuity. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 13:09, 17 September 2021 (EDT)

I am for this change. Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 18:42, 17 September 2021 (EDT)

I am down for starting with moving Aligned characters. I think this would help tremendously, especially if it expands to G1 and more (almost made me wish it had a better name but what ya gonna do) --notsoalex (talk) 15:49, 18 September 2021 (EDT)

I agree with using Alligned as the guinea pig for all the reasons stated above. MrRald (talk) 17:21, 18 September 2021 (EDT)

It sounds like a good idea to me in the long run. Aligned always felt messy as it is now, with so many different potential origin points for characters. I imagine a newer fan might find it confusing.ParadoxFactor (talk) 18:07, 18 September 2021 (EDT)

Absolutely against using "Aligned". It's not an official designation, it's never been an official designation, and while it's entrenched enough that there's little point in expunging all our uses of it, we shouldn't be using it for disambiguations. That said, considering WFOC to be part of the Prime franchise is something I could get behind. As to an overall "disambiguate by continuity family" approach... mmmnnh I'm not dead-set against it, but it's been debated many, many times in the past, and the decision's always come down to "franchise not family". --Riptide (talk) 18:54, 18 September 2021 (EDT)

I think I agree with avoiding "Aligned" for disambigs. Folding WFC, FOC, and COP into Prime would solve a lot of people's issues with the Aligned disambigs, I think. Saix (talk) 20:06, 18 September 2021 (EDT)

That's treating a symptom and not the disease. Pretending that they're from a different franchise because if you're too strict about which franchises 'count' you get gibberish is a bandaid. --Jimsorenson (talk) 22:03, 18 September 2021 (EDT)

I dunno, WFC, Exodus and Prime were all treated as being part of the same initiative back when they first came out, right? "Prime" is the only part of that with actual franchise branding, so I don't think it's unreasonable to consider them part of the same thing. --Riptide (talk) 21:15, 19 September 2021 (EDT)

It's absolutely not unreasonable to consider them all part of the same thing. But that thing is Aligned, not Prime. WFC was absolutely not Prime branded. And that's the whole point of this. IMO. --Jimsorenson (talk) 23:01, 19 September 2021 (EDT)

While we're focused on using Aligned as a guinea pig, it should be mentioned, however, "aligned" IS just a word. I watched an interview with FJ Desanto and he mentioned Hasbro wishes Cyberverse and WFC to match up since they are part of an aligned continuity, so key moments should match up like Optimus throwing the Allspark. Idk verbatim but I'm sure I can find it, and I'm SUPER sure they used aligned --notsoalex (talk) 11:34, 20 September 2021 (EDT)

Simplifying Japanese toyline disambigs

Related tangent—an idea I had was to simplify (Headmasters), (Masterforce), (Victory), and (Zone) to just (G1), with obvious exceptions like the Zone faction-switch Microtransformers (and I guess Ricochet since there's already a G1 Ricochet maybe we should move that to Stepper). The same would apply for (BWII) and (BWN) to (BW). Both eras were functionally sold under the general G1 and BW lines by Takara, after all.

And the various (SL), (Adventure), (LOTM), etc disambigs would default to their Hasbro counterpart lines. This thing is being more pedantic than we need to. Saix (talk) 15:04, 17 September 2021 (EDT)

Listing of pages with Japanese disambigs. Saix (talk) 15:49, 17 September 2021 (EDT)

As someone who has been slowly going through and changing all of our JG1 toy headers to the accurate F!SRLT ones, I am all for this simplification. Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 18:41, 17 September 2021 (EDT)

Likewise. Much more straightforward for the casual reader. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 18:53, 17 September 2021 (EDT)

https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Star_Saber_(disambiguation)

So under the proposed system, would it be the main page saying "Star Saber (G1)", nothing changed further? Or would that disambig page now additionally say "G1 Star Saber" and "Star Saber, the Supreme Commander from G1"? --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 11:59, 18 September 2021 (EDT)

Either way is fine to me. I'm not that invested in disambiguation wording. Saix (talk) 13:26, 18 September 2021 (EDT)

This is an obviously good idea. --Jimsorenson (talk) 17:25, 18 September 2021 (EDT)

This is definitely a change for the better. MrRald (talk) 17:29, 18 September 2021 (EDT)

This is a pretty straightforward extension of the toy section streamlining initiative already underway. I echo others that this would absolutely be a win for reader accessibility. No sense hairsplitting by what is essentially country of origin. -AzimuthAcolyte (talk) 18:19, 18 September 2021 (EDT)

I'm in favour of this, yeah, assuming "if there's a preexisting G1 character of the same name, we keep the JG1 subline disambig". --Riptide (talk) 18:49, 18 September 2021 (EDT)

i'm glad i looked away for exactly two days and we've decided to just start recategorizing the entire damn wiki under continuity family rather than franchise of origin --ItsWalky (talk) 19:24, 19 September 2021 (EDT)

goddamn we deliberated longer on splitting out non-G1 versions of the magnaboss guys... and this was kind of a major-ass overhaul --ItsWalky (talk) 19:29, 19 September 2021 (EDT)

As I said, I'm in favour of this change — rooted in "Japan treated all the various lines as part of the G1/BW franchises", not "reorganising based on continuity family" — but, yeah, it's been THREE DAYS. We absolutely can't treat "well there wasn't any disagreement" as basis to make these kinds of sweeping changes so quickly. --Riptide (talk) 21:18, 19 September 2021 (EDT)

While I am in favor of what's been done, it seems to highlight the problem I have with us using Discord. The presentation of this proposal here seemed to me to imply that the discussion on Discord had favored it and it was pretty much good to go. I assumed that Walky and others who had previously opposed such moves had weighed in there. I really don't agree with the idea of discussions that affect the wiki being held off site. It's too "secret cabal" for me. --Khajidha (talk) 09:50, 20 September 2021 (EDT)

THANK YOU. The Discordification of the wiki is one of the worst things to ever happen to it. Every major change made here should be based on a discussion that is held here, with a transparent and permanent record of it. --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 09:55, 20 September 2021 (EDT)

I made this argument back when major decisions were being made on the Allspark wiki thread. Once the Discord was launched, and I was told major decisions would not be made on another webpage but an entirely different platform I would have to download in order to follow, I chose to quit contributing for a year. I agree that it smells of "secret cabal". Decisions about wiki content and policies should be made on the wiki, visible to everyone. --Xaaron (talk) 10:04, 20 September 2021 (EDT)

Policy on the Discord has always been that regardless of any discussion there, all major changes should be brought up and discussed here on the talk pages to have everything on record and avoid this very scenario. That's why this thread even exists. The recent moves are not "secret cabal", it's one person rushing into things before due process had a chance to run its course. (And Thylacine and Xaaron, considering I've seen you both post in the AllSpark thread, another source for off-site wiki discussion that now no longer has a record thereof, I don't think you have room to criticize the "Discordization" of the wiki. If you choose to participate in off-site discussion on one site but think another is over the line, that's exclusively on you.) -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 11:25, 20 September 2021 (EDT)

I participated in the AllSpark wiki thread because it was often necessary to be involved there about decisions here, while also advocating that that shouldn't be the case at the same time. I can't point to the occasional rant I had about it on Allspark anymore after their attack, but you can see here in Archive65, "Other versions of character" where I complain about people announcing major changes on Allspark instead of the Community Portal. And, like Thy said, at least I could find the Allspark discussions. I tried to learn Discord during the Allspark/Pete thing, and I found it impossible to find/follow a conversation that was only hours old at the time. So, once the process of off-site discussions was both something I disagreed with AND something I couldn't follow even if I tried, I stopped being involved in the site community. --Xaaron (talk) 12:18, 20 September 2021 (EDT)

There was never a major change made based on the AS thread, there certainly wasn't the pervasive attitude of "Why are you reverting such-and-such, this was already worked out on the Discord" for the AS thread, and also at least the AS thread was in the same format as our wiki pages so you could go back and quickly follow the sequence of a threaded discussion from years ago if you'd wanted to. Stuff on Discord scrolls away if you're not looking and unless someone specifically searches for it they'd never even see the discussion at all. You are correct that the AS thread now has no record - but that is a bug, not a feature, as it was erased along with the entire Allspark board, and I don't expect anyone will try to make a new one, precisely because such vulnerabilities are now obvious. --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 11:47, 20 September 2021 (EDT)

Also, Discord doesn't require you to download anything; you can use the browser-based version just fine. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 11:36, 20 September 2021 (EDT)

I think Discord is a fine place to brainstorm, drum up support for an idea, figure out what some of the pros and cons are of any given proposal. But enthusiastic support for an idea on Discord should not be taken as a reason to bypass discussion here. I'm enthusiastically in favor of this change and even I think it was implemented too quickly. Discord people (of whom I'm one), voicing your support and reasoning there is no substitute for voicing it here. But I'd like to push back on the notion that there's anything secret about it, it's a very open forum and can be fantastic for hashing out half-formed thoughts without having to take such a black-and-white stand on every issue. I think Saix just jumped the gun. --Jimsorenson (talk) 11:49, 20 September 2021 (EDT)

Just chiming in as one of the Discord mods to say that we have been trying our best to direct important changes here. I think the instantaneous nature of the Discord makes it easy to end up in a rush over things. However, I think the "live" nature of it has genuinely helped reduce the number of heated arguments like those that happen on talkpages/threads, because miscommunications seem to happen less often and can be cleared up faster; it's a shame that it's introduced problems of its own. The intent absolutely isn't to obfuscate! Speaking historically, the reason the wiki Discord was made was to try and merge two groups of editors—those posting in the Allspark thread, and those posting in the Allspark Discord—which, honestly, was a status quo that much more closely (if inadvertently) resembled a secret cabal. The current setup is broadly an improvement over that; it's not perfect, but hopefully people can get used to the "brainstorm there, table here" approach we've been trying to push and we'll see less of these problems over time, rather than more. —The Wadapan (talk) 12:40, 20 September 2021 (EDT)

When it comes to off-site discussions, we have always been directed by both the admins of the wiki and the moderators of the Discord server to bring our topics up either here or on the respective talk pages. The input here always gets taken as the "true" vote no matter what, whereas most discussions on Discord are as Jim and Wads have said, just throwing around ideas and brainstorming, which can be very beneficial for filtering out the "dumb" and/or half-formed ideas before presenting the well-thought out ones here. That being said, Saix's actions yesterday should not be taken as the collective work of any off-site discussions. Most of us weren't even aware that he had already started moving stuff until Walky brought up his concerns here after the fact. But yeah, it seems that the Discord's instantaneous real-time reply system has made a few of us forget that talk page and portal discussions aren't as fast and that some users aren't around every hour of every day, leaving us with moments where things get changed a little too hastily before everyone has had a chance to see it or respond to it. -- Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 12:53, 20 September 2021 (EDT)

We should probably move all of the talk about off-site discussion to a different header, as it seems we've gone overboard with it. --DDog (talk) 12:59, 20 September 2021 (EDT)

Hypothetically, potentially, in an imaginary alternate universe... is it possible to switch everything back? The next live-action movie is going to be about Beasts and so is its tie-in media. If they invent Movie Manterror and Movie Tigatron, then we're going to have to disambig the prior characters as being from G1 and not BW. And, uh, no. --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 13:41, 20 September 2021 (EDT)

BW is not going to be folded back into G1, period. Any BW characters stay (BW), and in that hypothetical scenario, those pages would get moved to Manterror (BW) and Tigatron (BW). -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 13:46, 20 September 2021 (EDT)

But then we're using a blatant double standard out of sentimental favoritism, on a huge, un-ignorable, wiki-wide scale. And we shouldn't do that. If we're going to keep the distinctiveness of Beast Wars, we should keep that of Victory. --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 14:20, 20 September 2021 (EDT)

The next movie isn't going to be a Beast Wars movie, though. It's going be a "Rise of the Beasts" movie. Any new Manterror or Tigatron introduced in that movie would have a "(ROTB)" tag. If the movie was to be called "Transformers: Beast Wars", then we'd have a problem. --Sabrblade (talk) 14:26, 20 September 2021 (EDT)

The title of the movie isn't the point. Once there is a shared character name, all with that name get disambigs. There is no "default" Inferno. So once we have to disambig everyone effected, either we stay consistent with our Sept2021 system and disambig "old" Tigatron and Manterror as G1, or we work with multiple different systems for the same function on the same wiki based on subjective favoritism mostly shaped by how old people were when they first found the hobby. EDIT: actually it isn't hypothetical, if we're sticking with the Sept2021 system then Quickstrike (BW) and Depth Charge (BW) must now be disambigged as G1, or we're saying after about 20 hours that we're already largely ignoring our new system but still keeping it around to create confusion. Welcome to Hell. --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 14:32, 20 September 2021 (EDT)

Huh? Isn't the Beast Era as a whole already treated as a special case, an umbrella thing, in the same vein as say, "Unicron Trilogy"? I know on a strict continuity sense it's all quote unquote Primax, but the point of this move is a "let's not be nerds about this" thing. AOE Lockdown being at Lockdown (ROTF) is kinda weird; that's what this is about. —The Wadapan (talk) 15:13, 20 September 2021 (EDT)

Beast Era is definitely a special case, otherwise we would have BW Megatron on a different page than G1 Megatron. (And don't say 'but they met each other' because Transformers meet other versions of themselves all the time.) There are also things like Strongarm (G1) and I do note that we don't have Trypticon (G1) under Trypticon (Scramble City) even though he appeared there before anywhere else. We make exceptions all the time when it makes sense to do so. --Jimsorenson (talk) 15:27, 20 September 2021 (EDT)

Disambigs for TM2 characters

While we're still on the topic of page moves and titles and what not, I figured I should bring up these two cases that have bugged me for a while now.

I personally feel that we should move "Dinobot II" and "Prowl II" to "Dinobot (TM2)" and "Prowl (TM2)", respectively. These two were not given the Roman numeral suffix things (for lack of a better term) until the IDW Beast Wars Sourcebooks which were written what, 10 or so years after the fact?

Both the toy packaging for the pair and their bios never gave them that title and I'm pretty sure Dinobot was never called "Dinobot II" in the BW cartoon (granted, I haven't watched it in about 2 years, so I could be wrong). It just feels incredibly weird that we're naming these two after the Sourcebook names and not their original names.

MrRald had also brought up on Discord that the fiction surrounding Prowl II and Prowl (TM2) should be split, but I personally think that we should keep them together as it's the same character, just with a different origin, which is no different to say any G1 character between Marvel, IDW and the cartoon, etc. -- Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 22:41, 19 September 2021 (EDT)

I agree with this change because the use of Dinobot II and Prowl II in the titles gives the wrong idea that these names have been used much more often than they actually have. Also there's always the possibility that someone will use those names in an official capacity just because they saw them on this wiki, and I think that's something we should try to avoid. --Fritz (talk) 00:02, 20 September 2021 (EDT)

The Sourcebook didn't even use the "II" in anything outside of the page titles and the Credits Index. Not in any of the biographical information for any of the "II" characters. In fact, the Credits Index goes the extra mile of placing each "II" inside a set of parentheses like "(II)", as if to say "These are each the second character listed with a shared name, but the 'II' isn't actually part of their names." --Sabrblade (talk) 00:48, 20 September 2021 (EDT)

Prowl-II-the-owl-and-Binaltec-car was such a chore to put together, the only thing worse would be finding a way to take it apart - and both halves would need to refer to one another so much they would take up more space and cause more confusion than the single article currently is. Let's leave it alone. --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 09:52, 20 September 2021 (EDT)

Yeah, as stated above I'm personally not for a split. I think MrRald also has plans on bringing it up on the talk page itself, so I'll leave that discussion more up to him to bring up. But what's your thoughts on the moves to "(TM2)"? -- Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 11:35, 20 September 2021 (EDT)

Are either "Dinobot II" or "Prowl II" canonically-published names, or are they convenient shorthand this wiki made up? Beast Wars Universe says "TM2 Dinobot", the BotCon 2002 postcard set says "Dinobot (Transmetal 2)". I don't own BW Sourcebook. In general I side with names that are official (even if obscure) over those we made up. --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 13:03, 20 September 2021 (EDT)

They were used officially, but only in the Sourcebooks for the most part. In Prowl's case, the Sourcebook use was kinda pseudo-retconned into being the JG1 version of the character, with AVP building onto the story and solidifying him as part of the Binaltech stuff. But other than that, both prowl and Dinobot have appeared in more pieces of fiction without the "II" in the name. -- Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 13:30, 20 September 2021 (EDT)