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

Site Logo revamp

Up until now, our rotating logo on the main page tends to have a batch of logos pointing to pages from the most recent franchises and series, plus a few from older franchises that we forgot or didn't bother to remove. I'd like to rework this system a bit to have a more even balance franchise-wise. I think we should have one character for every franchise that has had a cartoon or movie (including the JG1 shows), plus one from each of the major English-language comic runs (Marvel, Dreamwave, IDW1, and IDW2 at the bare minimum). This would be a good way to demonstrate the breadth of the franchise scope of the wiki, and help drive new readers towards legacy content. (Of course, we'd still have a few extra banners based on whatever is currently running for the "Hey, I know that guy!" factor. Would love to get some thoughts on this, and potentially character suggestions for each franchise. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 00:59, 18 December 2021 (EST)

I think this is a great idea! Though, I'm unsure on which characters from each show would be good to use. Like, would we go most popular/memorable characters or just some really random left field obscurities like G1 Skids who appeared in only two episodes of The Transformers, just to get some more eyes on character articles from franchises newer fans may not be fully aware of? Also, would Japanese-exclusive shows include Go!, Q-Transformers and Robotmasters? If so, maybe even an image from Portal (the Russian show) would be worthwhile too. -- Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 02:47, 18 December 2021 (EST)

Obscure/minor stuff risks just being the GO! Boxes again, and we already have those. For the big logo, best to go with majorish characters from majorish media. --M Sipher (talk) 07:19, 18 December 2021 (EST)

This sounds like a great idea. We could break it down like this:

G1 Seasons 1 and 2 - Optimus Prime, TFTM/G1 Seasons 3 and 4 - Hot Rod/Rodimus Prime, G1 Marvel - Ratchet, Headmasters - Fort Max, Masterforce - Minerva, Victory - Star Saber, Idk if we would do Zone or any of the Japanese G1 stories that came after, Beast Wars - Megatron, Beast Wars II - Lio Convoy, Beast Wars Neo - Magmatron, RID/Car Robots - Side Burn, I've never read Dreamwave so I don't know a good character that represents it, Unicron Trilogy - Hot Shot, IDW could be broken into a few character reps because of how long it went on, IDW Furman Era - IDW Bumblebee, IDW Post Furman - IDW Galvatron, IDW MTMTE/LL - Nautica, IDW RID/OP - IDW Optimus Prime, Animated - Bulkhead, Movies - Bumblebee, WFC Games - Bruticus, Prime - Starscream, RID15 - Strongarm, Cyberverse - Windblade, WFC Trilogy - G1 Megatron, And then we can have a few slots open for characters from the latest shows/movies. This list would give new readers an idea on how big the franchise truly is and how diverse the characters are. Paladin Denn (talk) 18:03, 5 January 2022 (EST)

Certainly if anyone's gonna represent CR/RiD'01, it's gonna be Sky-Byte, the breakout star of the show, and not Side Burn, the Autobot womanizer. --Sabrblade (talk) 18:26, 5 January 2022 (EST)

Funilly enough I meant to put him there lol. Paladin Denn (talk) 20:43, 5 January 2022 (EST)

Dreamwave, I'd pick War Within Grimlock. Certainly Shockwave should be part of 2005 IDW since he's responsible for the whole sha-bang.--MistaTee (talk) 18:40, 5 January 2022 (EST)

Splitting Cloud characters

So now we have some sorta adequate translations, I'm being increasingly convinced that merging them just on the basis of AVP was a mistake and that the Cloud characters should be split out for simplicity and ease of explanation. Notably, the central conceit is far more similar to TransTech than G1—and more different to G1 than Cyberverse, for instance. Saix (talk) 02:44, 28 December 2021 (EST)

I was against it then and I'm against it now. They're nothing like the TransTech; they are practically nigh identical to the G1 guys, there's a war going on in their universe, and the "central conceit" of them being multiversal guardians is more akin to Alternity than it is to TransTech, who for the majority of their fiction were at most passive observers. Escargon (talk) 07:05, 28 December 2021 (EST)

I am declining to weigh in personally until I finish first pass translations but please at least pretend to look over the translated material before repeating the same arguments. -AzimuthAcolyte (talk) 12:19, 28 December 2021 (EST)

I have looked over it. Nothing is convincing me that it's all that separate from G1 stuff. Escargon (talk) 12:29, 28 December 2021 (EST)

"War going on" describes most of Transformer fiction. What makes Cyberverse "not G1", but Cloud G1, other than convenience for us editors? Saix (talk) 17:02, 28 December 2021 (EST)

As far as I can tell, there is no basic divergence, aside from Grimlock's origins, from the Cloud characters to the G1 counterparts. I could point to a fair few examples on the side of Cyberverse that rank higher than that (Grimlock's presenations, the origins of the Quintessons and Sharkticons, Skywarp, Acid Storm, etc etc.) Escargon (talk) 17:23, 28 December 2021 (EST)

We can be here all day debating over character minutiae, but the point is that Cyberverse ultimately doesn't diverge that much from G1 in its general premise as opposed to Cloud. G1 is bloated enough as it is; it doesn't hurt to take out the one thing that doesn't really fit in and make it its own thing. Saix (talk) 17:29, 28 December 2021 (EST)

Well that just comes right back to my question: what actually makes Cloud World's core conceit any different from G1 beyond the fact that they have technology that allows them dimensional travel? Because if it is just that, I simply do not believe that is enough to justify a split for characters who are almost all made to look like and have the same personality as the G1 characters. Escargon (talk) 17:51, 28 December 2021 (EST)

I agree for the sake of wiki presentation. *Cloud* is more like *TransTech* than it is like *Alternity*. *Cloud* characters got to travel to both the G1 and MD worlds as equally separate destinations. TakaraTomy used the *Generations War for Cybertron* moulds as the *United* series, which is G1 and not Aligned by our classification. *Cloud* recycling unused *Generations Fall of Cybertron* toys in a non-Aligned setting strikes me as more evidence that we can allow *Cloud* to live on its own rather than as another G1 setting. And *Cloud* was chosen by e-HOBBY over the competing proposal *Prime Shattered Glass* which would also have been on separate wiki pages despite employing purely redeco mould choiceis. S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 15:08, 28 December 2021 (EST)

I'm not convinced by the idea that them saying "G1 World" is an indicator of separateness when there is also designations for "BW Spacetime" and "MF Spacetime." Brawn is depicted as practically identical in appearance to G1 Brawn before being upgraded. As for the Prime Shattered Glass choice, I think it's pretty obvious why that would be completely separate from this particular issue. Escargon (talk) 16:25, 28 December 2021 (EST)

The only reason Brawn is shown as the G1 body is if you take consideration that all Cloud members are drawn according to the latest toy or model available... he got no real toy before that, the only options were either G1 Sunbow, G1 toy or the tiny Universe 2.0 Legends. Now if you remove their appearance and focus on the story, Cloud is still more akin to Transtech than Alternity, Deadlock for example even got to visit the Legends World, a Aligned world (possibly the Adventure toyline) and the Ehobby spin-off dimension (now called Precursor World) -MahXyme/MahXymal (talk) 17:55, 28 December 2021 (EST)

Yes, I am aware of how Cloud repurposings work. Nothing prevents one G1 universe from visiting another. And aside from that, Japan has had barely any non-JG1 cartoon related G1 fiction; of course Cloud World, which isn't directly JG1 related, would be indicated as different; that doesn't mean that it's not able to be categorized as G1. If it were an American storyline, where we have always had multiple G1 storylines, I feel that this would not nearly be as much of a point of contention. Escargon (talk) 18:05, 28 December 2021 (EST)

I'm in favor of splitting Cloud from G1. --Xaaron (talk) 19:32, 28 December 2021 (EST)

I haven't read any of the Cloud fiction myself, but I know that if our translation team collectively agrees on something based on the material available, then that's more than enough convincing for me to agree with them also. In other words, I agree with a split. -- Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 19:52, 28 December 2021 (EST)

I'd vastly prefer if we could get someone like McFeely to weigh in on this. Escargon (talk) 19:56, 28 December 2021 (EST)

i'm in favour of the split. The cloud people have enough characteristics to distonguist them from theur jg1 counterpatts.--ZacAttack (talk) 20:14, 28 December 2021 (EST)

Alright, seriously, what characteristics are there actually to distinguish them from G1? Because nobody has been able to give me a concrete example so far. Escargon (talk) 21:17, 28 December 2021 (EST)

dinobot, heavy usage of aligned designs, hellwarp --ZacAttack (talk) 21:36, 28 December 2021 (EST)

Looks like Escargon is the only voice against the split thus far. Still, I suggest the discussion should remain open longer than usual, out of courtesy for people not checking the wiki as regularly given the holiday season. --Xaaron (talk) 21:47, 28 December 2021 (EST)

As the translations are still ongoing, I think the most we can suggest at this time is a note regarding its a classification as a Primax setting by AVP. As more information comes to light I'm becoming increasingly convinced that it was a decision made on shaky logic. Unlike the Alternity there doesn't seem to be any evidence of these guys being derived in-universe from G1 guys. And as fiction, it's about a bunch of super advanced parallel universe monitor guys who regularly travel to other universes. If it's literally just "the cast is mostly recolours of toys with G1 fiction" then maybe we need to start talking about listing the War for Cybertron games as G1 too. Star Spangled Sam (talk) 01:44, 29 December 2021 (EST)

What exactly is super-advanced about them beyond SARA, who, as far as I can tell, is a gift from some being and not even their own creation? Because otherwise, they seem to be basic Transformers. Not a single person has been able to tell me that so far, and I'd be far more willing to listen if someone would just spell out what exactly makes them so distinct that means they can't be G1. It's not about in-universe stuff, because for all intents and purposes, the characters themselves are nigh-identical to the Generation 1 characters; you look at Cloud Megatron or Cloud Rodimus and it is obvious that, irregardless of whatever the fiction might say, they are being sold as new versions of the G1 characters. Escargon (talk) 04:29, 29 December 2021 (EST)

By the same logic, then why not put the FOC and WFC games under the G1 banner since it heavly takes inspirations from it, same settings (war on cybertron, the resources are becoming low, escaping to another world), closest designs to G1.. hell they were more marketed towards G1 than the Movies and Prime in mind (let's face it.. that's what Hasbro always does).. but the further Hasbro tied them to Aligned and they became their own thing.. Cloud is about that, maybe marketed as G1 at first but they became their own thing at the end -MahXyme/MahXymal (talk) 13:20, 29 December 2021 (EST)

The WFC games are their own case that, despite what you say, were always clearly a part of Hasbro's ideas for the Aligned continuity, which is something that I'm not going to bother going into here. Nothing about Cloud registers to me as being somehow so separate that it requires us splitting off things into their own pages. Escargon (talk) 13:24, 29 December 2021 (EST)

Bumping for more opinions. If there's no overall opposition to it by Friday or so, I'll start splitting. Saix (talk) 16:07, 4 January 2022 (EST)

The Cloud fiction prominently features the Cloud characters interacting with their own G1 counterparts. If nothing else, it should be split on same basis as Galvatron II. --Riptide (talk) 16:50, 4 January 2022 (EST)

We've seen that with other fiction. I'm not sure why it would justify them having their whole separate pages (Galvatron II is a unique case). If that's what it takes though to not go through some inane total split, though, then fine, whatever. Escargon (talk) 10:03, 5 January 2022 (EST)

If there is to be movement on this in the immediate future I suppose I should go ahead and weigh in. As the one doing the translation I broadly agree with Riptide. While I am unmoved by philosophical discussions on what constitutes "G1-ness" or "Transtech-ness," I believe it is important to return to our guiding principle of the end user experience. Given the already convoluted nature of the material as well as the cast's consistent interaction with both various Generation 1 continuities in general and their own incarnations in specific, I believe it will be in the best interests of intelligibility for the reader to split out Cloud from Generation 1. -AzimuthAcolyte (talk) 11:25, 5 January 2022 (EST)

We are not going to pretend that these are completely separate from the Generation 1 characters. Put up a suite or a "see [X] article for more information" because it is completely ridiculous to pretend that Cloud is it's own little continuity. Escargon (talk) 09:38, 8 January 2022 (EST)

I disagree. Cloud should be split off entirely. So let's have an official vote and resolve this. I say Split. --Xaaron (talk) 10:28, 8 January 2022 (EST)

The articles have already been split. You'll forgive me if I don't show confidence in the decision from people who blew me off when I pointed out their original reason for splitting was incorrect (that supposedly the Almanac had come out before Cloud was truly explained, but in fact it had come after almost all of it had been published). Escargon (talk) 10:35, 8 January 2022 (EST)

This discussion has been open for twelve days. An unofficial tally shows at least 7-to-1 in favor of splitting. No one else has openly agreed with your position. Given that, and that Saix announced days in advance he would start splitting if there was no further discussion, it wasn't unreasonable for him to begin. But maybe there's a different split of opinions on the Discord or wherever, so it's certainly appropriate to ask for an official vote. Beyond that...the decision is just not up to you alone. The point of democracy is for all voices to be heard, not to leave every voice feeling satisfied with the outcome. --Xaaron (talk) 11:08, 8 January 2022 (EST)

I have no idea what's going on in the Discord server; I'm barred from it. I certainly hope there's not more discussion going on over there, because I was told that there would be a push to have these sorts of big discussions to be on the wiki. Escargon (talk) 23:42, 8 January 2022 (EST)

With all due respect: You need to stop putting so much emphasis on the in-universe designation, which AVP itself pointed out was ultimately arbitrary. I understand that AVP and the Almanacs are important to you, but Jim is not infallible, and while I'm sure he had good reasons for calling it "Primax" that's ultimately just his opinion. Cloud being "its own thing" isn't some essential property; it's a matter of how to organise the wiki in order to make the fiction clear. --Riptide (talk) 11:47, 8 January 2022 (EST)

I also vote Split if only because of how better translations now has pointed out various past errors/assumptions/presumptions that needed correcting, and thus updating is needed so as to make things easier to categorize and organize here. Any wiki really worth their salt and wanting to do proper service to their respective franchises' fandoms would do the same. --Lonegamer78 (talk) 14:43, 8 January 2022 (EST)

I still haven't got an answer for what makes Cloud so different that makes it need to be split. If there were a crossover between say, Marvel and Sunbow, nobody in their right mind we should completely separate, say, Huffer from Huffer. I'm willing to admit that I might just be missing something, but nothing in the stories themselves, as far as I can see, suggests it, beyond the aforementioned Cloud World classification, which for me is not enough of a justification. Escargon (talk) 15:33, 8 January 2022 (EST)

Neither Marvel nor Sunbow consists primarily of crossovers with another G1 continuity. --Riptide (talk) 19:20, 8 January 2022 (EST)

If that's the main avenue of justification then frankly I don't think I'm ever going to agree with that line of reasoning, but I can clearly see I'm outvoted on this. I wish there would have been more people asked before the split was done, though, because I can see that this could very easily end up being another whole "retitling things to FSRLF" situation. Escargon (talk) 20:00, 8 January 2022 (EST)

We functionally split out Marvel and Sunbow versions for a lot of characters anyway. We're at the point where we draw lines based on how easy/hard it is for the information to be conveyed, not whether it's G1 enough or not. We think Cloud, as its own fullblown storyline/premise, falls on the side of "it's easier to read and parse it if they get their own shebang" instead of burying them in overlong G1 articles. Saix (talk) 21:11, 8 January 2022 (EST)

I'm not gonna argue further on this because I recognize it's a losing battle, but I think that the line of thought of "this one bit of media shouldn't be kept in an article because it won't get out there otherwise" sets a bad precedent that could easily be misused in the future. Escargon (talk) 23:39, 8 January 2022 (EST)

Should the Cloud toys also be removed from the G1 character's pages? Omegatron (talk) 09:21, 17 February 2022 (EST)

Yeah no, It vould be too convoluted, example look at the redirections there... where should each toy be redirected?? + the fiction regarding said toys has their own page now -MahXyme/MahXymal (talk) 10:58, 17 February 2022 (EST)

...What on earth are you talking about? Escargon (talk) 11:16, 17 February 2022 (EST)

Srry I misread his question.. I thought he meant "added" not "removed" from the G1 pages...

Not entirely certain what you're asking, but the eight toys in the Cloud toyline (plus Deadlock) have already been moved to the Cloud pages in conjunction with the fiction, as they solely represent Cloud characters. The remaining Cloud characters repurpose existing toys. The writeups for those toys remain on the original pages with duplicates on the repurpose pages, as is standard practice. -AzimuthAcolyte (talk) 11:54, 17 February 2022 (EST)

I mean, for example, G1 Blaster's toy page has FOC Blaster on it, due to FOC Blaster being repurposed as Cloud Blaster. Should that repurposing be removed from G1 Blaster's page, since Cloud Blaster isn't considered to be G1 Blaster anymore? Omegatron (talk) 12:34, 17 February 2022 (EST)

I believe yeah, the splitting between G1 and Cloud was recent (done last month) so there's still leftover traces on the wiki, if you can take your time to remove them why not -MahXyme/MahXymal (talk) 16:44, 17 February 2022 (EST)

Ok, good. I just wanted to check I wasn't missing anything. Omegatron (talk) 17:13, 17 February 2022 (EST)

Oh! Yes those should go, good eye! -AzimuthAcolyte (talk) 10:52, 18 February 2022 (EST)

Split Movie Character Toy lists?

Just as what happened with Optimus Prime (G1)/toys and Megatron (G1)/toys, I suggest we split certain Movie toy pages such as Bumblebee (Movie)/toys and Optimus Prime (Movie)/toys as both pages have become excessively bloated. I suggest we separate them by having the original Bay film toylines (07, ROFT, DOTM, AOE, TLK, and any pre SS sub lines) have their own page and starting a new one that Contains SS, BB, and the upcoming ROTB toylines, alongside any future movie toylines until the new page itself becomes heavily bloated Paladin Denn (talk) 18:43, 5 January 2022 (EST)

Sorry for being this late but given that ROTB toys are apparently coming this spring, I suggest you split like one part contains all 5 movies while the other starts with SS and BB until now -MahXyme/MahXymal (talk) 15:26, 22 January 2022 (EST)

Multi-part comic stories

For old Marvel UK multi-part stories like Target: 2006 or Time Wars, we put the whole thing under a single article, but for modern-day ones like each storyline in Transformers (2019 comic) we have a separate article for each issue. Is there a good reason for the discrepancy, or are the old ones just an artefact of a time in the wiki's history that didn't follow our current standards? --flicky1991 09:36, 22 January 2022 (EST)

The thing with that is that it's a result of how the UK comic was written; there'd be about 8 or so pages per issue, meaning that we'd have a lot of little articles that are easier just grouped together. Escargon (talk) 10:16, 22 January 2022 (EST)

Makes sense, although that's essentially what we have for The Transformers: Autocracy et al., which are also 8 pages per issue. --flicky1991 15:38, 23 January 2022 (EST)

The difference with Autocracy lies mostly in that pretty much all of those issues have a beginning and end, and also have different titles. Escargon (talk) 15:47, 23 January 2022 (EST)

Oh, I always thought our headings on the Marvel UK story pages were the issue titles. --flicky1991 01:21, 24 January 2022 (EST)

Composite characters and page transclusion

This is something I've had the idea about for a while, but I've finally had a look at how the markup for it works and have come up with a proposal. The pages for Greatshot and Sixshot (G1) contain an entirely duplicated section set around the Victory cartoon owing to a retcon that occurred in the much later Legends manga. This is not an ideal solution because, among other reasons, any edits to Greatshot's cartoon section necessitates making the same edit to Sixshot's section.

Over in my sandbox, I've whipped up the page User:TheLastGherkin/Greatshot-test, containing only the events that happened to both Greatshot and the retconned Sixshot. By inserting {{:User:TheLastGherkin/Greatshot-test}} into the relevant parts of Greatshot and Sixshot's pages (also sandboxed here and here), the same information is automatically transcluded. And clicking "Edit" on, for example, the Legends manga section on Sixshot's page automatically redirects the user to editing that portion of Greatshot-test, thus updating all three pages at once.

If we go forward with this, I can see it being used for other characters in similar situations, like BWU Wolfang, or Unite Warriors Roller, or putting the lion's share (pun intended) of Victory Leo's fictional appearances back onto Victory Leo's page. With refinements, like say a <noinclude> explanation for what each subpage is for the layperson ("This page covers the events of the Japanese Generation 1 continuity, where Greatshot and Sixshot are the same individual...") and maybe a Category:Transcluded pages, I could see this really working, and it could probably be bent into shape for repurposed toys as well. TheLastGherkin (talk) 12:48, 10 February 2022 (EST)

If we cannot avoid this sort of duplicated information entirely, this does seem like a pretty ideal solve to mitigate the constant peril of copy editing flubs maintaining multiple copies of one write-up entails. -AzimuthAcolyte (talk) 13:56, 10 February 2022 (EST)

Is there any way to get rid of the "This section is transcluded from another page. To edit it, please edit the transcluded page." notice? Saix (talk) 15:06, 10 February 2022 (EST)

There is! I just put that there manually while experimenting and also to make clear where the transcluded section is. In practice, since clicking "Edit" on a transcluded section takes you to the source page, a notice like that can be relegated to a commented-out note for editors who click to Edit the entire page (or a larger section). TheLastGherkin (talk) 16:16, 10 February 2022 (EST)

Oh, I thought it was automatic software stuff. Whoops, never mind. Saix (talk) 16:22, 10 February 2022 (EST)

Also, this works for fiction, but I see it running into issues when it comes to toys. (Thinking of Sixshot/Greatshot, Sixshot always gets toys first with Greatshot as the retool later in the same line.) Saix (talk) 15:14, 10 February 2022 (EST)

I've made some tweaks to my sandboxes, including standardising the transcluded page. Are there any objections before I start implementing this (in fiction sections)? TheLastGherkin (talk) 07:10, 12 February 2022 (EST)

I sense that there could be an issue in the future where, for whatever reason, these sorts of characters diverge back into separate ones, whether it be through alternate continuities or whatever. Also, in the case of Greatshot, I feel like at the very beginning of his entry, there has to be something different to set up the Sixshot retcon, and just having the same opening text doesn't do that. 08:57, 12 February 2022 (EST)

His toy bio that mentions Sixshot as a separate person could go there. --Sabrblade (talk) 00:21, 16 February 2022 (EST)

This could also be applied to Primus and Vector Sigma for their 3H comics sections since they are one and the same in that continuity. --Sabrblade (talk) 19:26, 26 February 2022 (EST)

What makes a franchise? Or, does "Precursor World" exist?

So, browsing around the wiki, as one does, and came across this: Precursor World (franchise)

Now, I'm not as well-versed in the Legends + Selects comics, so maybe this is incorrect, but to the best of my understanding, the branding "Precursor World" doesn't exist — this story was told across Generations Selects and Legends, and no toy or story was ever released branded as "Precursor World". It doesn't seem like the name even existed until pretty recently.

This...isn't a franchise, right? It's a long-running story told across various medium, but it's not a franchise, and calling it such implies something that isn't true.

Particularly, the idea that there is a "toyline" seems a bit of a stretch. There are only three listed "official" toys, but none of them were released under the "Precursor World" branding (which near as I can tell does not exist) and the list of "repurposings" seems almost entirely just "this toy/characters showed up in this story" which doesn't seem like anything's been repurposed to me. The IDW comics used a bunch of existing/prior toys, but that doesn't create a toyline of that comic series.

Am I off base here? --Spectre (talk) 12:16, 3 March 2022 (EST)

Okay there's a lot to unpack here but to begin with every single one of those toys is being repurposed as a separate object/character in a separate setting a la, for example, Green Tender Convoy and the Red Matrix. Most of the unnamed crowdfillers are minimized to footnotes on existing articles to avoid generating a bazillion stubs. The closest analogue I can give you is the toyline for the original Timelines iteration of Shattered Glass. -AzimuthAcolyte (talk) 12:35, 3 March 2022 (EST)

I'll grant that those indeed seem to be repurposings, but the vast majority of toys on this list merely link to the toy entry for the toy on the regular character's page. I don't think having a list of members of these groups is bad (it's good!) but I don't think this is a toyline. Again, crucially, Shattered Glass has a brand, with the official toys released under that brand, whereas precursor world does not. IDW repurposed WfC/FoC/aligned toys as G1 characters, but this didn't create a virtual toyline associated with that comic. --Spectre (talk) 12:46, 3 March 2022 (EST)

Arguably Shattered Glass toys weren't really released under their own brand either until the recent Hasbro Pulse stuff, until then the figures were all just released under the Timelines banner or whatever else Fun Pub used at the time - the idea of a singular "Shattered Glass toyline" was just as much of a constructed idea until like a year ago. I can't say "franchise" and "toyline" aren't slightly more non-literal labels than usual in this context, but I do think there's value in having the info collated like this, and I can't think of better labels that aren't something stupid like "(meta franchise)". Jalaguy (talk) 12:57, 3 March 2022 (EST)

To be honest, I'm inclined to agree re: Shattered Glass, and would not be opposed to restructuring the toyline page to delineate between the "Shatted Glass Collection" and "Shattered Glass toys released via Timelines" or something. Shattered Glass does, however, have a leg up on Precursor World given that every official SG toy was branded as "Shattered Glass" in some way, though perhaps not as a "franchise". The box set is called Shattered Glass, and every official toy was called "Shattered Glass". There's some nuance there, of course, as arguably those are part of the character's names ala "Prime Universe Bulkhead" is still a Legacy toy, not a Prime toy, but I'd be happy to have a debate around the best way to frame Shattered Glass stuff given those discrepancies. Allll that said, Shattered Glass is today a franchise, but there have been zero anythings released with Precursor World branding or labeling. --Spectre (talk) 13:06, 3 March 2022 (EST)

I don't think the page should be removed or even severely modified, but I do think the terminology is flawed. Iacon0 (talk) 16:02, 3 March 2022 (EST)

Precursor World is definitely not a "franchise" and should not have that label. The model to look at here is the Beast Wars: Uprising article, which gives an overview of the thing, lists it's stories and toys, but does not use the "franchise" label, and doesn't need to use it. --KilMichaelMcC (talk) 15:07, 3 March 2022 (EST)

Yeah, no, this is not a "franchise", and the page should not be labeled as such. It is a setting. --M Sipher (talk) 17:04, 3 March 2022 (EST)

I like the solution that AzimuthAcolyte gave on Discord: move "Precursor World (franchise)" to "Precursor World continuity" (with all uses of the word "franchise" changed to "continuity") and "Precursor World (toyline)" to "List of Precursor World toys". Simple and elegant. --Sabrblade (talk) 18:55, 3 March 2022 (EST)

Seconded.Iacon0 (talk) 19:00, 3 March 2022 (EST)

That seems reasonable to me. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 19:00, 3 March 2022 (EST)

I'm for that. -- Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 19:04, 3 March 2022 (EST)

That's fair. --M Sipher (talk) 23:59, 3 March 2022 (EST)

Works for me, somewhat obviously! If there are no major objections over the next day or two I'll get those moved over. --AzimuthAcolyte (talk) 11:48, 4 March 2022 (EST)

Ohhh, That works -MahXyme/MahXymal (talk) 18:19, 4 March 2022 (EST)

Alrighty as it's been a day or so with no objections I am proceeding with the moves away from (franchise) and (toyline). --AzimuthAcolyte (talk) 18:06, 5 March 2022 (EST)

Episode Order

It's come to my attention that all cartoons have been listed in production order except Beast Wars, RID01, RB, and RBA. While I understand production order is not available for the latter two I suggest we change the first two for consistency's sake - Unless I'm wrong and they are not all in production order. Iacon0 (talk) 13:48, 16 March 2022 (EDT)

We're not touching Beast Wars. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 13:52, 16 March 2022 (EDT)

Beast Wars and RiD'01 not being in production order are accepted exceptions to the norm. We leave them as they are for reasons specific to each. But as for RB and RBA, we do have an idea of the production orders for each, but we instead use a weird mixture of production order and airing order that is consistent with no other series we cover. --Sabrblade (talk) 13:53, 16 March 2022 (EDT)

OK quick correction to myself, turns out that it's all supposed to be chronological order; That just happens to be production order for everything but those four. Sorry! Iacon0 (talk) 14:09, 16 March 2022 (EDT)

Help with statues / figurines

I wrote up many of the ULTIMATES! entries, simply because no one else had. I don't actually care about that sort of merch and it ended up being me paraphrasing from press releases and copying their pics. Just today I learned there are 3 waves of TF Minimates that have no coverage here at all. It definitely seems like a lot of high-end statues are falling through the cracks as well. Is there someone who is willing to make that stuff more of a project? If not, could we perhaps put out a call for submissions on our Twitter feed? --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 10:47, 21 March 2022 (EDT)

I fear this is just... going to continue to be an Issue. The wiki is a labor of love, and the brand is at a point where there's a lot of stuff out there... well, that a lot of people probably aren't gonna love. Hasbro's moichandized the everloving HELL out of TF over the years, with more and more niche "G1" stuff that seemingly would never appeal to people for whom G1 is the big center of their fandom. I mean I just found some Micro Figures merch at a Big Lots, I've never seen these before, and I don't know offhand if they're on the wiki. They're kind of a nothing. It's hard to keep up. Same for stuff like phone games.

I don't know if there's an actual solution. Someone certainly needs to step up, but I kinda got my plate overflowing with my own pet (ha ha) niche chunk of TF history to exhaustively document, never mind dealing with stuff I am almost aggressively disinterested in. (Seriously what little Minimates experience I have left me with a worse impression of them than I already had from their hideous aesthetic alone.) Asking Twitter for people more well-versed in this stuff might could help for phone games, but... IS there anyone into Minimates as a whole Brand and not just in a "I get the licenses I like" sense to fill in gaps? --M Sipher (talk) 21:20, 21 March 2022 (EDT)

Once I had composed the thought "Hey, it's bad that there are a lot of Minimates out with us not covering them at all," it was too late, and I just had to burn 40 minutes on some cut-and-paste writups for the entire series. That's one "solution," I guess, but even my obsessive-compulsiveness can only go so far. Editing this site really should not feel like a job... --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 10:18, 22 March 2022 (EDT)

Implementing galleries

I propose making galleries on character pages a wiki standard. The current mainpic + show screenshots format doesn't cover images like character models (Unless used as a mainpic), concept art, appearances in posters or toy murals, comic book covers, etc. Other wikis have successfully implemented galleries, I think the Hololive Wiki galleries in particular work well as an example https://hololive.wiki/wiki/Tokino_Sora#Media. This gallery header covers character models and has suites for concept art and even character uses in collaborative merch.MrRald (talk) 13:27, 21 March 2022 (EDT)

Seconded. Iacon0 (talk) 13:30, 21 March 2022 (EDT)

I would say some version of this concept for a section has merit, if nothing else as a solve for major characters with several prominent character models, perhaps as a fairly unobtrusive method of documenting alt modes, etc etc. --AzimuthAcolyte (talk) 13:38, 21 March 2022 (EDT)

I'm for this. As a good example, the BotBots characters all look to have been radically redesigned for the show. By default the current standard is to keep the original stock art look will appear as the mainpic each page. Having a gallery option would be a good way to show both versions. ParadoxFactor (talk) 14:24, 21 March 2022 (EDT)

Oppose. There is no reason for these to take up space on the character pages. Would not oppose separate "gallery" pages. --Khajidha (talk) 13:57, 21 March 2022 (EDT)

If we are open to workshopping implementation I do agree a separate "gallery page" in the style we already use for more conceptual articles here and there would probably be cleaner. --AzimuthAcolyte (talk) 14:06, 21 March 2022 (EDT)

I love the gallery idea. There's a question of how much to include, and the exact implementation details of how to portion out overflow if there's too many images. It's a shame there isn't some way to generate them automatically just by tagging images with the characters they depict. —The Wadapan (talk) 14:24, 21 March 2022 (EDT)

A separate page seems like it would be overkill for someone like Flamewar, who would only take a few images to cover appearances not already covered by fiction section images. I assume if a small gallery was to be used on a character's page, it would be near the bottom at any rate? --abates (talk) 15:22, 21 March 2022 (EDT)

Yes, at the bottom would be ideal, no different from any of the galleries on our artist pages. IMO, separate gallery pages should only be used in instances where the number of images can't be comfortably fit onto one or two lines. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 15:33, 21 March 2022 (EDT)

I agree with Cyberlink. --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 16:29, 21 March 2022 (EDT)

Fair; Using gallery sections for those with few images and gallery pages for those with many images might make sense. Iacon0 (talk) 15:46, 21 March 2022 (EDT)

See G1 Megatron and BW Megatron for examples of characters with enough images to justify separate gallery pages. BW Rhinox, as it is now, is probably right on the line between "split it off" and "stick it at the bottom of the page". -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 15:58, 21 March 2022 (EDT)

I think choosing between a header at the bottom or a suite depending on image amount is a good solution instead of sticking to just one method. MrRald (talk) 11:29, 22 March 2022 (EDT)

Yeah, I think that would be good, as has been pointed out earlier. I do have to ask - because sometimes the artistic difference between characters in comics is slight with details only a little different in shape or kibble - would those fall under gallery stuff? Because they're effectively different per artist interpretation. I would be inclined to say yes, because effectively a different artist's rendition is shown usually of the same character without having reformatted or taken up armor or so forth. --Causeway (talk) 10:56AM 27 March 2022 (PDT)

I am very much on board with this idea. Having a gallery section or page depending on the character would be great, especially for characters like Flamewar who have a extremely prominent new design that we can't use as a main pic and for characters who have tons of designs, especially in the case of IDW where some characters change bodies every Tuesday. -- ComfyBlanket (talk) 11:35 AM 27 March 2022 (PDT)

I think artistic liberty vs. new design would have to be on a case by case basis. Burcham's art of the BW cast wouldn't count for gallery purposes, in my opinion. Saix (talk) 15:08, 27 March 2022 (EDT)

I think it would be cool to have art of the same designs in different artstyles, but I agree it should probably be on case by case basis. -- ComfyBlanket (talk) 6:17 PM 27 March 2022 (PDT)

I currently have a sandbox to test galleries using Tigatron https://tfwiki.net/wiki/User:MrRald/sandbox/Tigatron#Gallery. I'd appreciate any feedback on things to add or change! MrRald (talk) 23:44, 1 April 2022 (EDT)

I like what you have so far, I think we should maybe add a few more versions of Tigatron, like his different comic appearances and such. -- ComfyBlanket (talk)

G1 model images

To branch off of this topic, how would we feel about using DM's coloured models for the G1 cartoon model galleries? The last time I brought this topic up (on Discord), some people were against the idea, due to them being fan-colour works and not official, but a few newer developments have been made since I last brought it up.

To clarify, for those unaware of DM's works:

• All of the line art is original and unedited (unlike several of the models in The Ark books, which had been tweaked, altered and traced by Bill Forster to make them presentable for publishing).
• The models are the final ones used throughout the majority of the cartoon (in Toei-animated episodes at least). Note: several of the models in The Ark books we have also come to discover were unfinalized ones, due to the internet and more stuff being made public since what was originally found around 2007—not to discredit Jim and Bill's hard work in putting those books together, it's just some of what we knew then isn't entirely correct now.
• And finally, the colours (which was the big thing some people were against). Unlike the handful of fan-coloured models that were originally uploaded to the wiki in the past, which eye dropped colors straight from poor quality episode masters, DM's colours are based directly on Toei and Marvel Productions' model colour guides, colour codes, charts, colour chips found by a member of the Dragon Ball fandom (who has scanned and digitized said colour chips) and other original production materials, meaning that the colours DM has used are all coming from the original original source.

An alternative Mr. Rald had brought up on Discord is that we could possibly look at using the uncoloured model line art instead, if people feel strongly against using fan-coloured works, but I think in order to present the G1 character models fully as references, you kinda need the colours included, especially given how poor the cartoon production was, what with all the animation errors (even in Toei episodes) etc, making it hard to gather decent references for the characters, which is mostly what these galleries are for.

Also, for the record, DM has given us permission to use his colourings on the wiki.

Let me know you thoughts. -- Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 01:39, 6 April 2022 (EDT)

I personally think that we should use DM's coloured models, they are as official as coloured models are going to get, and it's not like DM just randomly picked and chose want colours to use as FOCS said. We could just have the model and the colour guide, but at that point, just have the model sheet coloured. I would however be in favour of the uncoloured models with colour guides and the sheets with the fully coloured models to cover all our bases. -- ComfyBlanket (talk) 11:16 AM, 6 April 2022 (PDT)

Making a page for the Unreal Engine?

War for Cybertron, Dark of the Moon (PS3/X360), Fall of Cybertron, and Rise of the Dark Spark all run on Unreal Engine, specifically Unreal Engine 3. Why isn't there a page for it. It could have good info on those wanting to mod those games.

Unrelated, but there's a server revival project being worked on for those games. Right now it's only on PC, and progress is slow, but should we include info for it in the pages for those games? It's not official btw, there's a Discord server for it and a few YouTube vids about it.Trashatron (talk) 17:29, 24 March 2022 (EDT)

I'm not sure what information we could put on an Unreal Engine page that would be useful to modders. An Unreal Engine page would be general info on the engine and a list of games which use it. Diving into technical details isn't really something we do. --abates (talk) 17:52, 24 March 2022 (EDT)

I think linking to Wikipedia should be sufficient. That's what I did when I unfortunately had to document the Funko NFTs. Iacon0 (talk) 19:11, 24 March 2022 (EDT)

I don't see what value there would be to this. Unreal warrants, at most, a mention on the relevant game pages. We don't have pages for every program used to make every piece of TF media/product. --M Sipher (talk) 20:33, 24 March 2022 (EDT)

Category for characters with no established gender

So I just had this idea and decided to share it here because why not? We have categories for female characters and variable gender characters but not for characters with undetermined genders. Many BotBots for example don't have genders and I think this category could be a useful way of grouping them together. And who knows, maybe someday it could even help official creators specifically looking for genderless characters to establish a gender to them. Does anyone agree to implement this category? -- Fritz (talk) 19:06, 3 April 2022 (EDT)

This concept has been discussed before in the past, and generally the feeling has been that this would be a bit too much like the wiki actively trying to shape canon. Don't get me wrong, creators taking advantage of characters with no official pronouns is neat and I'm all for it, but IMO the wiki shouldn't directly serve up them. Jalaguy (talk) 19:26, 3 April 2022 (EDT)

Interestingly, I can't seem to find a prior community portal discussion about this matter, though I know it has come up on the Discord server more than once, to the conclusion Jalaguy mentioned. S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 19:35, 3 April 2022 (EDT)

Just to clarify, I thought of "official creators using it" as a quick example in favor of the category, but now I can totally see how it sounded like trying to influence canon too much. Regardless, I'd still be down for having the category if we agreed on it being useful for any other reason. -- Fritz (talk) 19:51, 3 April 2022 (EDT)

Category for trans characters

We had a productive conversation about the no established gender thing on the wiki discord and it made me realize that there should be a transgender category for the five established trans characters that there are so far, Arcee (who has established trans characterization on two different pages), Howlback, Arcadis, Anode, and Lug. Jalaguy mentioned that this has been discussed and people thought it was a good idea but it hasn't happened, so I just thought I'd ask for go-ahead on this. I figured that transgender rather than just trans could be a good word to use for this, due to them all being people who have gender. The term trans is merely more broad and could cover different kinds of transness than that or aesthetic stuff that is similar to gender, but we have no confirmation of being there yet in canon. Thus I think transgender would be the most accurate and desirable term here, and the umbrella trans can always be tacked on later if we need to. --Causeway (talk) 5:40PM 3 April 2022 (PDT) (edited 5:48PM PDT for clarity)

Seconded. -- ComfyBlanket (talk) 5:53 PM, 3 April 2022 (PDT)

Since there are no objections, I'll go ahead. :3 -- Causeway (talk) 4:19AM, 11 April 2022 (PDT)

Streamlining disambig headers (revist)

So I remember this conversation from last year about streamlining the disambiguation headers. I checked back on the talk page discussion (link to said discussion archive here https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Transformers_Wiki_talk:Community_Portal/Archive69#Streamlining_disambig_headers) to see what happened and even though there was a lot of people who liked the idea with some who did not, it did not seem like it went anywhere. I thought I'd see if anyone else would like to revisit this idea as I feel like this would streamline things more, especially for Movie and Aligned and maybe a bit of UT especially for the guys who show up in all 3 shows or those don't have other bots who are completely different sharing the same name within the trilogy. -- ComfyBlanket (talk) 9:01 PM, 12 April 2022 (PDT)

Disambig tags and suites for Masterforce paired pages

We need to balance out our page titles for Masterforce human + transtector character pairs. Right now we have among extant pages and tentative redlinks:

Bullhorn (G1), Cab (human), Cancer (G1), Clouder, Ginrai (human), Shūta Gō, Lightfoot (G1), Minerva (human), Ranger, Road King, Wilder (G1)

Bullhorn (robot), Cab (robot), Cancer (robot), [something], Ginrai (robot), Goshooter, Lightfoot (robot), Minerva (G1 robot), Ranger (robot), Road King (robot), Wilder (robot)

I propose either we do human gets no species tag with the robot getting a species tag as the splinter page:

Bullhorn (G1) | Bullhorn (G1)/robot

or the human does get a species tag to equally balance with the robot:

Bullhorn (G1)/human | Bullhorn (G1)/robot

This would eliminate the need to have any longer-within-parentheses tag like "Minerva (G1 robot)" which would be affected by future continuities which may not yet have happened. S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 15:55, 22 April 2022 (EDT)

I would prefer either the human gets the "default" continuity tag with no further disambiguation or (human)/(robot) (with needed variations for disambiguation). The slash system is ugly to me. Saix (talk) 15:59, 22 April 2022 (EDT)

I'm of the opinion that the slash option for both feels the most fair. While the human versions were the first and thus feel the most deserving of the "default" tag, the robot versions are likely to become more commonplace and relevant as newer fiction dips its toes into using more Japanese characters. On a similar note, it was decided not to give the "BW" tag to either BW Silverbolt out of fairness, so while a similar "human/robot" concept could be implemented, there is the problem with Minerva having an Animated counterpart who is also a robot, Cancer having an Animated counterpart who is also a human, there being a Kre-O Bullhorn who is also a robot, a G.I. Joe Lightfoot who is also a human, and an IDW Wilder who is also a human. "Minerva (Headmaster)" also doesn't work for the G1 robot since the human was a Headmaster too. --Sabrblade (talk) 16:29, 22 April 2022 (EDT)

The slash system may not be entirely visually pleasant, but I consider having "Minerva (G1 robot)" in parentheses worse. In my proposal, all transtector characters would be unified symmetrically as "(robot)". S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 17:47, 24 April 2022 (EDT)

Here are three proposals to unify the namespaces:

Possibility 1: humans get nothing and robots get slashes

Bullhorn (G1), Cab, Cancer (G1), Clouder, Ginrai, Shūta Gō, Lightfoot (G1), Minerva (G1), Ranger, Road King, Wilder (G1)

Bullhorn (G1)/robot, Cab/robot, Cancer (G1)/robot, Doubleclouder, Ginrai/robot, Goshooter, Lightfoot (G1)/robot, Minerva (G1)/robot, Ranger/robot, Road King/robot, Wilder (G1)/robot

Possibility 2: both humans and robots get slashes

Bullhorn (G1)/human, Cab/human, Cancer (G1)/human, Clouder/human, Ginrai/human, Shūta Gō/human, Lightfoot (G1)/human, Minerva (G1)/human, Ranger/human, Road King/human, Wilder (G1)/human

Bullhorn (G1)/robot, Cab/robot, Cancer (G1)/robot, Doubleclouder, Ginrai/robot, Goshooter, Lightfoot (G1)/robot, Minerva (G1)/robot, Ranger/robot, Road King/robot, Wilder (G1)/robot

Possibility 3: both humans and robots get parentheses

Bullhorn (G1 human), Cab (human), Cancer (G1 human), Clouder, Ginrai (human), Shūta Gō, Lightfoot (G1 human), Minerva (G1 human), Ranger (human), Road King (human), Wilder (G1 human)

Bullhorn (G1 robot), Cab (robot), Cancer (G1 robot), Doubleclouder, Ginrai (robot), Goshooter, Lightfoot (G1 robot), Minerva (G1 robot), Ranger (robot), Road King (robot), Wilder (G1 robot)

Thoughts? S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 01:12, 12 June 2022 (EDT)

Isn't Option 1 one basically just a slightly different version of what we're already using and what you're proposing to change in the first place? Anyway, like I said above, Option 2 is the most fair between the human and robot depictions (as Option 1 feels like we're saying "The human versions are the more important versions" when it's the robot versions that are more likely to get any representation in future comic appearances), and it reduces the amount of multiple-word parentheses tags that we usually dislike using and try to avoid as best we can (which is the exact opposite of what Option 3 is proposing). Though, drop the "/human" from Clouder and Shūta Gō since their names already differ from "Doubleclouder" and "Goshooter". No need to complicate those two. --Sabrblade (talk) 08:45, 12 June 2022 (EDT)

Transformers: Armada (Trading Card Collection)

I recently discovered that Fleer published a Trading Card collection in 2003 for Transformers Armada. I've documented everything I could find about it - including an Energon (preview) Scorponok card I got from a local retro game store. Iacon0/Sandbox Is it alright if I roll this out? Iacon0 (talk) 12:52, 1 May 2022 (EDT)

WFC/FOC Reenergized Server Project info?

Info: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLO5yzrWE9yVT56Rgxl9oqntVysxWr2k7e

Basically, it brings back the multiplayer servers for the Cybertron games, PC and PS3. Should this be talked about in the pages for those games? (ROTDS and ROTF aren't online at the moment, and 360 versions won't have support) Trashatron (talk)}

It's not official, so no, it shouldn't. --flicky1991 14:54, 27 June 2022 (EDT)

Handling of "former GoBots" and "former Diaclone" characters on the wiki

So recently we've been seeing multiple characters that had previously been portrayed as dimension-hoppers from non-Transformers realities, but using Transformers designs — Bug Bite (GoBots), Burn Out (Diaclone) and Lift-Ticket (Diaclone) — appearing as "normal" Transformers (Bug Bite (G1), Burn Out (G1), Lift-Ticket (G1)). There's some heavy dispute over whether we should put them on the same page or split them out (e.g. "since the GoBots Bug Bite isn't originally from a G1 universe, he shouldn't go on the G1 Bug Bite page), so I thought we should probably have a centralised place to put together a comprehensive set of standards.

My take, personally, is that GoBots and Diaclone are *not* continuity families, they're their own properties that happen to cross over with Transformers, and so shouldn't be split on that basis. I feel that Burn Out and Lift-Ticket, regardless of them being portrayed as Diaclone mecha in their initial appearance, are the same basic concept as the likes of Road Rage and Tigertrack — "Transformers versions" of existing Diaclone toys and decoes. It helps that Spin-Out (G1) inherently blurs the lines, having first appeared as a "normal" Transformer before he was portrayed as a former Diaclone mech.

For the GoBots characters, I'd frankly be tempted to go even more radical and just merge all of them — put all the Cy-Kill cameos on one page, like we do for other external property characters. Even in the edge cases like Fracture, there's the precedent of her actually being intended as just being the GoBot. It feels a lot simpler to me than the headache of having Bug Bite, the white Bumblebee who appeared in G1 stories, and Bug Bite, the other white Bumblebee who appeared in G1 stories, having separate pages on a technicality. --Riptide (talk) 19:57, 29 July 2022 (EDT)

Hard disagree on GoBots. By virtue of covering the Scioli comic in full, we have a GoBots continuity family to put them in. I say keep the ones who are explicitly GoBots at (GoBots), and put the ones who are Transformers (or ambiguous) at their respective continuity families. Basically, what we're doing for Bug Bite, do for all of them. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 20:23, 29 July 2022 (EDT)

I don't agree on movie-Fracture in specific and the mass-merge of all GoBots-based characters in general. Fracture's a movie-universe character who premiered in a movie-based toyline and appeared in movie-timeline fiction. "The toy was originally conceived as" holds very little water there in light of all the rest of that. I'm not wild about merging characters from different continuity families (aka "major franchise umbrellas", the point of that divide was always less "fiction-detail based" and more "real-world Hasbro/Takara starting over based" as an organizational tool), as that leans heavily towards the Wikipedia style "just lump 'em all together" manner that... doesn't really work for our scope. There's SG Bug Bite and Crasher too, I don't think they should go under a giant singular page for the character concept.

But in general I agree with keeping stuff like Lift-Ticket and Burn Out together because the distinction is really too nitpicky to be useful. If we get an EarthSpark Lift-Ticket who is a red Hoist-like bot, then they can go on a separate page because "new major franchise umbrella" gives a decent degree of separation. --M Sipher (talk) 20:25, 29 July 2022 (EDT)

Oh, well, the SG GoBots are an obvious exception. If it's a "mirror universe" I feel like it should never share a page because the point is that it's the opposite.

That said, there are other nuances I admit I skimmed over — stuff like Wings Universe Cop-Tur, who's based on the original but is a secret genius and a good guy, I'm not sure he should be merged in. At the same time, though, splitting the Bug Bites feels disingenuous, and I'm not sure whether there's a good middle ground between "split 'em all" and "merge 'em all". --Riptide (talk) 20:44, 29 July 2022 (EDT)

I also agree there isn't really a good middle ground. But here's the thing: If GoBots wasn't a factor and it was just G1 and Cyberverse, we wouldn't be having this conversation. At the end of the day, they're from another IP, but they're also genuine Transformers characters, and thus they should remain split like other Transformers characters. And that includes treating the genuine GoBot incarnations as separate entities. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 20:51, 29 July 2022 (EDT)

I vote for split. I regret ever pushing for merging similar concepts around the time of Ask Vector Prime because a decade ago this wouldn't have been a question, it would have been settled with "obvious they're different characters." Escargon (talk) 20:38, 29 July 2022 (EDT)

Strongly in favor of putting the Diaclones back together so long as they remain essentially G1 guys. Especially since we now have two nigh-identical Burn-Out pages that differ only by which sliver of fiction section they possess. Moderately in favor of putting all the dumb Cy-Kill cameos together because, like, it's only moderately funny to split out Cy-Kill (Armada) on a technicality. --ItsWalky (talk) 20:47, 29 July 2022 (EDT)

I'm going to stay out of the Bugbite / Fracture question. I'm too involved on the creative side. I think Walky nails it about Burn-Out & Lift-Ticket. And probably the Cy-Kill cameos too. --Jimsorenson (talk) 21:11, 29 July 2022 (EDT)