MediaWiki talk:Community Portal

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Marvel UK issue pages

I feel that we need to make a change with how we handle Marvel UK comic issues. The UK comics split most of its stories up over multiple issues, and even reprinted some of the split up in a different way. This has led the story articles to become bloated with non-story info (covers, letter pages, other comics from the same issue, contests, ads) for multiple issues on a single story page. Also, navigating the UK comic is a pain in the ass, as many issues having two stories (one issue has three!), as well as the reprints.

Here's what I suggest we do:

• Make "hub" pages for the individual issues. These pages will cover issue-specific things. Those UK cover scans clogging up every Marvel Transformer story? They go here. As does information from that issue's letter pages, ads, TransFormations, and anything else that isn't a part of the actual stories. Also, there will be a list of what each issue contains, mostly the TOC from the issue itself. Non-Transformers backup strips (Machine Man, Action Force) should need nothing more beyond the name of the series and the title of the story unless more info is given in the cover, letters page, TransFormations, Coming Attractions or the like. The TOC will also have links to our story articles.

• Leave the story articles mostly unchanged The UK comic usually treated the stories like serials (think the early Flash Gotdon films or the original Doctor Who series), so splitting them up makes no sense. Aside from moving the issue-specific stuff to the hub pages, the only changes needed will be removing the story navigation box from the UK-original stories, removal of the UK navigation from the stories written for the US comic, and adding any needed "Reprinted in" links, and putting "Originally printed in" links on the stories written for the UK comic.

Marvel US 33 & 34 (Man of Iron!) and Action Force 24-27 (Ancient Relics!) would be handled in the same way. --FortMax 17:40, 1 August 2009 (EDT)

So you're suggesting that any issue which contained multiple discontinuous stories get a page for the issue, and a page for both stories? -Derik 22:37, 1 August 2009 (EDT)

Not exactly. Marvel UK is a special case because these multiple discontinuous stories are broken up over multiple issues. We would still have one page for Time Wars. I'll put together a sample tommorow. --FortMax 00:51, 2 August 2009 (EDT)

I have a very rough example at User:FortMax/Sandbox. The main reason I feel this needs to be done is because not only does the UK comic non only have multiple stories in each issue, these stories get spread out over multiple issues. For example, Time Wars was printed over seven issues. --FortMax 12:04, 2 August 2009 (EDT)

That makes sense... a 'landing page.' I'm tentatively in favor of it... but I'd like to see what others say. -Derik 15:40, 2 August 2009 (EDT)

I think this is a really good idea, because it enables us to show the very different format of the UK comic. Formats, in fact - something I didn't realise till I completed my collection is how very different the first 30 or so issues are from the rest. More like a robot enthusiast's magazine than a comic, and much more 'British' in feel. Unfortunately I've only got my scanned copies of issues 1-5 to work from at the moment, but I can mock something up to show you what I mean. --Tribimat 06:25, 4 August 2009 (EDT)

I've never been overly happy that a big, "blockbuster-that-changes-everything" story like Target: 2006 or The Legacy of Unicron only gets one issue, whereas, say, the issues leading up to US #75 get a page each. There's examples of serial storytelling and individual-issue focuses (eg, Prime surrendering, or the introduction of the Wreckers) in each. LiamK 09:25, 12 August 2009 (EDT)

I've done a fair bit across the UK comics lately and I'd be hugely in favour of breaking T:2006 (especially) into its component issues - just because they weren't individually named they get lumped together in one article which I think does a great disservice to the story. I'd compare it to a six-issue series like Devastation which gets six pages labelled issue 1, issue 2 and so forth, so I don't think articles called Target: 2006 issue 1, Target: 2006 issue 2 etc. would necessarily be beyond the pale. I don't know how far I'd want to take it though - splitting up stories like City of Fear or Legion of the Lost seems a bit pointless, more so The Fall and Rise of the Decepticon Empire which wasn't meant to be split in the first place. --Emvee 15:07, 2 September 2009 (EDT)

I'm in favour. I also think that a standard link to the appropriate letters page on transfans.net (similar to the way we do tfu.info for toys) wouldn't go amiss. --Emvee 15:07, 2 September 2009 (EDT)

I'm also in favour. This is the approach I took on Joepedia for the weekly Action Force comics where there are similar problems - see [1] for how it works on the individual issues. Timrollpickering 07:59, 26 September 2009 (EDT)

If you are taking the navigation off the stories, won't that make it more difficult to click through the UK continuity, from one story to the next one, continuity-wise? Then again, I'm not super familiar with the UK comics, maybe it is so complicated that that feature is basically broken as it is. But if the current story-based nav works I'd like to keep that as well as a issue-to-issue nav. - Starfield 10:39, 26 September 2009 (EDT)

Can the nav-template images be variables?

For example: The Henkei! Henkei! nav-template uses the logo from the toy packaging, since that applies to the majority of the pages the template is on. However, the Comic Bun Bun Henkei! material uses a completely different logo design, and it would be nice to be able to substitute it for just that page. This is one of several times I've wanted to be able to do that, and maybe there's a simple way to designate the image as a replaceable variable, but my markup-fu is weak. Any help is appreciated. - Jackpot 20:35, 6 September 2009 (EDT)

The answer seems to be "no"... for some reason, even with a default set in the parameter, the imagemap code refuses to parse the parameter's info.

You could always just post the entire code of the navigation template manually on that one page with the logo code swapped... --Jeysie 21:22, 6 September 2009 (EDT)

NM, I figured it out. You should be able to do this now:

{{nav-henkei|logo=(filename)|size=(number)(unit)}}

It's set up so that if the parameters aren't given, it'll just display the default, so you don't need to change the pages that do use the typical logo. --Jeysie 21:36, 6 September 2009 (EDT)

Awesooooooooome, thank you. - Jackpot 22:32, 6 September 2009 (EDT)

No problem. :) Let me know if you need any of the other navs altered, although you should be able to just copy and paste the code and change the defaults... (actually, with my idea for a code revamp, I wonder if it might be possible to just have one nav template with all variables...) --Jeysie 23:22, 6 September 2009 (EDT)

Hmm, I didn't know you were playing around with franchise-nav revisions. I actually have a grand proposal cooking up in my head for a full breadcrumb-trail nav revamp that would be applicable to basically any non-character/item/place article. The idea being that if you're at, say, an article about a comic issue, there would be a nav in the corner with links to the series, franchise, and continuity family going up in a column. And if you're at a series-article, you would be one step up in that chain, and the nav would have links to all the other series in that franchise (presented in the current style), as well as the vertically-arranged "title" links to the franchise and continuity family. Then if you're at a franchise, you get links to the other franchises in that continuity family, plus the continuity family itself. And, finally, the continuity-family articles themselves would have a nav with links to the other families. It would be a change in functionality to the effect that the cluster of little links would always be lateral, and digging down into more specific topics would require links within the articles themselves. Currently that's the case with most articles, the exception being franchises. But I think it would be incredibly awesome to have that kind of breadcrumb-trail so a reader always knows where he or she is in the multiverse at large. Plus it would help clarify how the hierarchy of families and franchises and series and so on actually works in specific cases, since that's often been a source of confusion and argument.

But I figure I should cobble together a working sample of some sort before I formally present the idea, and I think I might need some more markup-fu before that's even possible. Or I could make a facsimile in Flash or something... Anyway, at the very least, I think having the ability to swap out the logo image is actually a step towards making this idea happen. So thanks again!

- Jackpot 00:27, 7 September 2009 (EDT)

Well, my current idea was mainly just trying to simplify the existing coding a little, as well as adding some prev/next links to the continuity family section. I think the big problem with breadcrumb links is that people would have to put them in by hand, which would make filling in comic stories even more work than it already is. The "continuity family" section of the comicnav template already tends to be pretty inconsistent sometimes depending on how the person creating the page chooses to link it. (In other words, it's a nice idea, but it'd be too contingent on people filling it in correctly.) --Jeysie 00:41, 7 September 2009 (EDT)

The episode nav template uses standard strings to identify continuities (like "g1toon") and then uses look-up tables to find the proper series page link for this, the proper "human-readable" for that link and even look up how many episodes there are in the series, and create automatic prev/next links as long as you give it an episode number.

The reason we use strings instead of pagenames is 1) they're shorter, simpler, cleaner, more standardized... 2) it means that if the page moves (or we change our mind on the naming convention) we only have to change it in one place in the lookup tables, and the link changes on hundreds of pages.

What I'm saying is... you DON'T need to force users to fill in series/franchise/family. ...just fill in the SERIES. Let the template fill in the rest! (And let you manually override the lookup if you explicitly provide variables, for maximum flexability.)

But that's not a system you can throw together by trial and error; it needs proper architecture planning or it'll be a godawful mess.

I guess what I'm saying is... if we really want to rationalize and standardize the major templates on the wiki... we need a serious meta-talk about what that means, in the broadest possible scope. -Derik 01:01, 7 September 2009 (EDT)

Well, the problem is... I agree it'd be pretty easy to auto-breadcrumb the TV series. But when you start getting into things like the comics and text stories, you start running into many different miniseries and individual issues, all of which fit into different continuities. I think the continuity family is already enough info for those, provided we make sure they all point to the right ones. --Jeysie 01:48, 7 September 2009 (EDT)

That's not exactly a 'problem' as it's conventionally thought of. You could set up auto-fill-ins for the 6 most commons comics-- which would cover 70-80% of everything, but let manual values be set for the rest (or not set) to the level of detail you desire. No solution has to be 100% you know. -Derik 03:05, 7 September 2009 (EDT)

No, but for stuff like the Marvel Comics it would take just as long to copy and paste in manual info as it would to paste in the new code, after all. So it's the new pages where people would have one more thing to add in that you'd really need to worry about, if it's part of that other 20%. Whereas I agree that new TV series episodes would get to have the benefit of auto-ness.

I guess it just seems like a lot of work for little benefit, seeing as how the continuity part of the nav pretty much covers all the context necessary. Not that I don't think it's possible the ep/comicnav could use some overhaul (though what exactly I don't know; they both seem pretty complete to me), just that I don't think breadcrumbs would be an effective expenditure of time. --Jeysie 03:43, 7 September 2009 (EDT)

I'm pretty much in agreement with that last sentiment, which is one of the reasons why I'm not technically proposing my idea yet. It needs a more concrete starting point (like a mock-up design) from which all the discussion and probably argument can branch. I have my own notions about how it could be set up in a way that wouldn't involve as much work or personal discretion as Jeysie suggests, but... well, now's not the time. Maybe later. - Jackpot 01:12, 7 September 2009 (EDT)

So what needs revision? The episode templates-- fine. And the comic issues. And the franchise navigation. And a standard breadcrumbing system... but what else? -Derik 01:17, 7 September 2009 (EDT)

I've noticed on the Marvel wiki that the "writer"/"artist" text in their issue infoboxes links to Category: Writers. I'd liek us ot consider adding this. (Also, there's something about the size or spacing of their infoboxes I just like... I think we might want to take a look at 'em when we get around to recoding.)

Derik points out that in such a scenario, the breakcrumb need not be built into (for example) the episode infobox template. The more elegant solutions is something like:

 {{episode
  |breadcrumb= {{breadcrumb
                |continuity_family=[[Unicron Trilogy]]
                |franchise=[[Armada (franchise)|]]
                |series=[[Armada (cartoon)|cartoon]]
               }}
 }}

...where you'd be pass the whole breadcrumb template as a parameter to another template. That way if the breadcrumb also has to show up in other templates... there's a standard code, standard styling, etc. Cleaner simpler code, easier to maintain, more universal, easier to work with, less percussive maintenence, etc.

That's not a solution to everything though, because we've got two prev/next/series navs for comics, and some of the Marvel issues could use four or more. Stacking 4 of those things is retarded, and pointless. We need a more rational means of addressing republished stuff. I went to look up when a certain Marvel UK issue was published the other day and we didn't have the information. ...because it was published in the US first, and our template only has one "pub date" field. -Derik 00:52, 7 September 2009 (EDT)

Sankyuu! Henkei needs a bit more love. :D --Lonegamer78 22:59, 6 September 2009 (EDT)

CSS rationalization

While discussing rewriting our HTML... we should also probably discuss CSS rationalization.

Right now our code has absolutely no regard for what the page looks like printed. (Those messageboxes at the top of pages probably don't need to be there when printed.) Do we want our links to have addresses when printed? For example, I believe CSS could make this link print like this link ("Optimue Prime (G1)") or like this link ( http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Optimus_Prime_(G1) ) or like this link ( tfwiki.net/wiki/Optimus_Prime_(G1) ), any of which would be 'friendlier' for printed-out versions.

Of course, if this was applied to excessively PotHole'd articles, the text it might become almost unreadable. Perhaps smaller or faded text would make tooting my own horn User:Derik less obtrusive when printed. Regardless what's decided for article text, I strongly believe that storylinks should have the disambig visible when printing. King of the Hill (Armada episode)

Printing, I grant you, is a fairly minor concern. But what about syndication? A few people are beginning to dynamically syndicate our content. Botch went to some trouble to remove our messageboxes and various other elements-- he just wanted the guts of the article. If we'd attached standard classes to templates (ones that have no CSS associated with them as far as TFWiki is concerned) he could have just syndicated the page as-is and hidden those elements with a few lines of CSS! (If nothing else, the storylinks need a class marking them... that seems like something that many would like to hide.)

Live page syndication is clumsy. (And I need to yell at Botch, because IIRC he's doing his in a terrible way, from our server's perspective.) But if we encourage it, it's another tool in our promotional quiver! (There was a PHP script I was working on the other month that actually has some fairly good TFWiki-specific syndication. If that was polished and made easy to use, it could have some legs.)

Soto-voice snark aside-- we really need classed like .noPrint and .printOnly. And when we redo our episode/issue infoboxes... the tables should be tested to they print nicely, and we should publish the CSS people can use to turn various 'bits off. (Or a 'general guide to site CSS', if only for our OWN use.)

How about this...? We've been moving a LOT of our code out of HTML and into CSS. One of the effects of this is that simply syndicating the "rendered" page... a lot of the HTML layouts are gobbeltygook. Should we have a consideration for syndicators who don't include our CSS file? Maybe templates we know are unlikely to be wanted can be flagged with a .noSyndicate class, making it easy to hide them? Or we should have a Syndicate.css file that includes the bare-minimum CSS code for templates to lay out right? Should some templates ({{quote}}, for instance) be rewritten so that they will render in a readable (if not ideal) fashion even if no css is included? Is there a "scale" these questions all fall on... a sort of "how important is this element to the content of the page?" spectum, where at the low end we don't care and tell people to hide it, at the middle we provide identifying tags so they can be hidden, or a truncated CSS file so they render nice, and at the high end we write the HTML so the element will always be readable even without CSS to make it pretty? (That last one means code that's less contextual. Where do our priorities lie?)

These are philosophical issues. None are especially high priority, but the "cost" of addressing them is relatively tiny, so if we're doing some thorough redesigning... it'd be a good idea.

Some elements we have (like main pages) sometimes get quite "big" (laid out in a fashion that accepts a minimum of 500+ pixels wide.) Is it worth adding a .bigElement class or a .mobile class so that those elements can have code written in a mobile device CSS file that reduces their size? Is this even a concern for new mobile devices, which scale easily? How to Kindles handle them? Do e-readers support javascript? What about tablets and wireless internet devices?

More and more, content on the internet is going to be viewed by something other than what we normally think of as a "web browser," and because web-developers spend all their time in web browsers they often neglect these outlets. We do not have to bend over backward to accommodate these technologies... if problems do arise, they will probably be the 90/10 sort; 90% of the solution/benefit can be accomplished with just 10% of the effort.
Example: When a certain news site rolled out their home page redesign several years ago, it mis-rendered on some versions of Safari-- pushing the story content below the left navigation bar. In short... the page appeared blank. This problem remained unfixed for almost a year-- it was caused by the nav rendering just one pixel too wide, pushing a floated layout down. This remained unfixed for almost a year. I'm sure that this bug only affected maybe 1% of site visitors. But after a year of blank pages... that 1% also probably stopped visiting. 1% over the course of a year is a lot of lost pageviews, it's like having your site be down for 3 days.

Anyway... that's my rant. There's no solutions there... just ideas/concerns/meta.

If other people are interested in discussing this sort of thing... may I suggest we create a dumping ground at Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Quantum Cycle Upgrade where we can gather thoughts/issues about long-term infrastructure upgrades? -Derik 20:35, 8 September 2009 (EDT)

Picking up on just one thing for now:

Those messageboxes at the top of pages probably don't need to be there when printed

Thing about that is that they DO contain information you might want when printed that isn't contained elsewhere on a page (the writer of a story, for instance).

I could certainly see a certain degree of stripping down the messageboxen for printing as a good idea (take a look at http://tfwiki.net/w2/index.php?title=End_of_the_Road!_(US)&printable=yes - it's not even just the {{comicstory}} [which has become a bad name for that template as its' uses have multiplied...] box - the {{featuredcharacters}} box further down could do with being stripped for print. And I'm not sure the {{disambig2}} needs to be visible at all.), but I'm not sure about hiding them by default. - SanityOrMadness 22:15, 8 September 2009 (EDT)

I agree about stripping those kinds of things down... but when I said "messageboxes" I meant things like "picsneeded"; those have an enormous footprint, and they print. Their entire purpose is to alert editors of page deficiencies.... but people reading print-outs aren't editing those the pages, it's pointless. -Derik 22:32, 8 September 2009 (EDT)

Ah. I wasn't thinking of those, just {{comicstory}} and {{episode}}. Yeah, removing {{picsneeded}} and its ilk would make sense. - SanityOrMadness 10:20, 9 September 2009 (EDT)

Jeysie's infobox

Prisoner of War!

Is he strong? Listen, Bud, he made Megatron go thud.

Marvel Comics
Cover date	January 1985
Street date	October 2, 1984
Marvel Comics continuity

«	The Transformers (US) #3	»
«	The Transformers (US) #5–6	»

Writer	Jim Salicrup
Penciler	Frank Springer
Inker	Kim DeMulder, Jim Esposito
Colorist	Nelson Yomtov
Letterers	Janice Chiang & Others
Editor	Bob Budiansky

I remember doing this rough tweak idea based on Derik's comment that he liked the Marvel wiki's infobox.

Not very much of a tweak, admittedly, as I actually like our current setup for the most part. --Jeysie 21:46, 17 September 2009 (EDT)

Okay, some things:

1. {{comicstory}} is used for a LOT more than, well, comic stories, to the point that the template name is bad. But unless you want to go and find/change all of those uses (and they're pretty diverse, I don't think you could bot them), it's pretty much impossible to change the broad layout of the template.
2. Moving the back/forward navigation from the top (where it's easily accessible) to a point where it would be below the fold on netbooks, e-readers and less up to date PCs? Are you seriously suggesting that?!

Seriously, I don't "get" the ideas behind the layout here at all. - SanityOrMadness 22:00, 17 September 2009 (EDT)

They all use pretty much the same setup, actually, if you look at them. I can't think of any usage on text stories and books that is seriously different offhand... they have different credit/info types, yes, but they go visually in the same places. I would probably put things like page count and ISBN in the "publisher" box.

And like I said, I was emulating the Marvel wiki infobox, which actually has the navigation at the bottom. But essentially... I wanted to get the title up top, and make a "publisher" section, and a "credits" section... and the navigation made a good visual divider between the last two sections. I agree it's kind of weird, though... I could see moving it back up to the top under the title and just having a thick border in its place between the bottom two sections.

Like I said, it's pretty minor stuff... I think our infobox is just about perfect as-is, really. --Jeysie 22:10, 17 September 2009 (EDT)

It's not just stories. The Hasbro Q&A pages use it. The Collectors' Club Magazine pages use it, along with other non-story content from magazines, etc. What's the "title" in those instances?

Moreover, why move the title to the top at all? The title is already written in big letters at the top of the page on a single-story page, or at the top of the section on multi-story pages. Below the cover is a good place for it.

And the cover date & street date are hanging in no-man's land here, with no association with any relevant information - it looks like Marvel Comics had a street date of Oct 2, 1984.- SanityOrMadness 22:37, 17 September 2009 (EDT)

We'd leave the title off. You know, just like we do for miniseries already? Sheesh, I love it when people complain about something "new" without realizing the wiki already does it.</sarcasm>

That said, if we move the navigation back to the top, we could move the title back under the picture again. I guess it just seems to me like it's the "first" bit of info about a book, and you could use your comment as an argument towards leaving out the title bit entirely anyway.

I like my publisher idea, though... it separates the meta-info about the book from the credits. And the publisher's name makes the most logical sense to use in a section heading. Like you said, the title's at the top, so I have a hard time thinking anyone's going to think the street date has to do with the publisher's name instead of the issue the article's about. I like to assume basic intelligence on the part of the reader. --Jeysie 06:53, 18 September 2009 (EDT)

Our existing comicstory template is already deficient in presenting multi-part stories: I went to look up when Target: 2006 was published... and discovered it had no date. And why should it? The article spans several issues, with no single correct date to give!

(I happen to think presenting the UK stories in 1 article like this is stupid... but I lost that fight a long time ago, so the template might as well address it well.) -23:44, 17 September 2009 (EDT)

Er. What's wrong with just listing all the dates in the date section, or a range of dates? We already do that for Man of Iron, IIRC. I don't see what the big deal is there. It's a date field... no reason it can't have more than one date in it.

The only accommodation I might make is adding extra "story 2" credits to make credits for multiple stories a bit tidier, but that's less a major change and more just a tweak. --Jeysie 06:53, 18 September 2009 (EDT)

Counter-proposal

« The Transformers (US) #3 » « The Transformers (UK) #5-6 »
Is he strong? Listen, bud, he made Megatron go thud.
Prisoner of War!
Writer	Jim Salicrup
Penciler	Frank Springer
Inker	Kim DeMulder, Mike Esposito
Colorist	Nelson Yomtov
Letterers	Janice Chiang & Others
Editor	Bob Budiansky
Continuity	Marvel Comics continuity
US publication
Publisher	Marvel Comics
Release date	October 2, 1984
Cover date	January 1985
Cover price	75c (US); UK: 50p; Can: $1.00
UK publication
Publisher	Marvel UK
Cover dates	17th Nov. - 30th Nov. 1984 1st Dec. - 14th Dec. 1984
Cover price	25p (each)

Keeps the basic layout of the current {{comicstory}} (including keeping the issue numbers rather than the title at the top, which I consider key), but separates the meta-info from the story info (which is headed by the title, as it should be. I would prefer to use separate infoboxen for separate stories on the same page, but you could have separate subsections for separate stories, each headed by the title, if it was thought desirable). - SanityOrMadness 08:55, 18 September 2009 (EDT)

I definitely agree with San here that the navigation info needs to be at the top. It's just counter-intuitive otherwise.--Rosicrucian^Talk 12:15, 18 September 2009 (EDT)

I like the idea of separate credit sections in the same infobox for separate stories in a single issue, with the titles of each story as the header; I was going to suggest that myself. We could always do a "if/then" clause so the extra section only shows up if one of the pertinent parameters is used. (I think stacking entire infoboxes might get a bit too cluttered, plus it's nice to see a whole issue's overview right at the top, but I'm willing to see a mockup if someone thinks that might work better.)

I find myself wondering if continuity should be in the navigation somehow, as then we could potentially tag it as a separate prev/next series if need be. I know that I was reading the Axiom Nexus text stories, for instance, and there seems to be a lack of a good way to show how some stories relate to each other in terms of reading order when the actual publication order in the franchise it's released under has stuff in between. (The Shattered Glass stories at least had the ready excuse of being stuck under that franchise for the navigation...) --Jeysie 18:01, 18 September 2009 (EDT)

I like the idea of separate credit sections in the same infobox for separate stories in a single issue, with the titles of each story as the header; I was going to suggest that myself.

Betcha weren't :p [Seriously, with the title up top out of the way, you couldn't do anything of the sort]

Anyhoo, the main reason I'm a bit reluctant to put multiple stories together in such a fashion is that it would seem to divorce the latter stories from the infobox with their credits. If they end up so close together that the infoboxen actually stack and push the info away from the story in question, put them together in one infobox by all means. - SanityOrMadness 20:39, 18 September 2009 (EDT)

Betcha I was. Because hey, you could put the title of the issue at the top (or not, if the issue doesn't actually have a title), and the title of the individual stories in the credit sections. It's funny how that works. :D

And, like I said, if someone can do a mockup of dual infoboxes that doesn't look silly, I could buy it. As it is, I just think it'd be weird basically having two separate pages on one page. I like the idea of the infobox itself being devoted to the comic issue as a whole. --Jeysie 21:01, 18 September 2009 (EDT)

I am uncomfortable with the "dual navigation" system simply because... some of these stories have now been published 3 or 4 times. No previous/next for them? They don't get credits or publication dates? What if I want to know when IDW published an issue of "Prey," how many parts of that story they published (IDW doubled up content from 2 UK issues) or anything else important?

We're just tossing aside republishing info because our template doesn't support it. Same problem with the dates being left off multi-part stories... if it's nto clear how to add the information, the information becomes lost. -Derik 19:40, 18 September 2009 (EDT)

Isn't the point of the '"dual-navigation" system' to record contemporaneous republication? [Marvel US in Marvel UK/Marvel G2 in Fleetway G2/IDW Beast Wars & AHM in Titan TF (...actually we don't currently do that last set, although we should)/etc]. That is, we wouldn't record an IDW "Best of the UK" as such even if it was the first such reprinting, because it was twenty years later?

If you try to fit four sets of data in one poor infobox, it would become unmanageably and unreadably large. - SanityOrMadness 20:39, 18 September 2009 (EDT)

I don't disagree.

Speaking of... right now our navigation at the top of such boxes is (in theory) publication order... but with a weird mix-in of reading order too.

Should it become one or the other? And which is of primary importance? -Derik 02:32, 21 September 2009 (EDT)

...Didn't I more or less say that a few comments above? I think maybe we should have both... the main navigation(s) being publication order, then a third "continuity" section with a link to the issue's continuity and the prev/next reflecting proper reading order. --Jeysie 06:12, 21 September 2009 (EDT)

The thing about THAT idea is that the issue doesn't necessarily reflect the continuity if you want one infobox per page - take the AHM "coda" issues, or the Animated Arrival issues as examples, since they have multiple stories on one page. There's no one continuity place for those issues, since they're anthologies which take place out of order. You'd have to do the continuity nav at the story level, rather than the issue level. - SanityOrMadness 13:52, 21 September 2009 (EDT)

I've started work on fleshing out changes at {{Comicstory beta}} (relevant: Template:Comicstory beta/Example), but there's one major bit that I'm not sure how to deal with - Editors. Sometimes, editors work on the story level (to the point you could have separate editorial teams working on the different stories in the same issue, although I'm not aware of any TF examples off the top of my head), but sometimes they work at the issue level, overseeing a load of non-story content in addition to any stories in the issue (the latter's more common in the UK - US comics tend to have a letters page at most for non-story content). And so I'm having trouble placing where the various editorial credits should go - I've bunged them under a separate "Editorial" header temporarily, but I'm not happy with that - I want them under the story, or under the Publication info... - SanityOrMadness 14:00, 21 September 2009 (EDT)

Images for deletion

Interrobang has marked a pile of unused images for deletion. Some of them, I suspect, are unused because of the Bookworm crash, like the pictures of Lipoles. I've made a start on some of them, but if anyone wants to pitch in and fix up some of the images we should keep, be my guest! --abates 07:59, 12 September 2009 (EDT)

True, part of them are, um, "victims"(sort of) of the Bookworm crash, such as Image:Convoy BT.jpg and several others. I think those pictures should be hold and got checked/salvage for a while before being deleted. I've check the Category:To be deleted, but I can only recognize a few. People can check their watch list or Category:To be deleted to help ID those pictures they(users) know where they(pictures) belong to. --TX55^TALK 08:26, 12 September 2009 (EDT)

I've noticed that several of them aren't "unused" per se--they're not used as images anywhere, but they're still wikilinked to. For example, Image:Fat guard.JPG says "There are no pages that link to this file", but if you check "What links here", you'll see that Capture the Cube does in fact link to it. So before anyone deletes any images, I suggest checking if anything is wikilinking to them first. --Apoc 08:42, 12 September 2009 (EDT)

Yeah, I noticed a while back that the section under the image that lists pages which link to it only includes pages where the image is actually embedded. Plus some images are used in the site skin or CSS files, like the logos Derik set up to appear after links to certain sites. --abates 18:30, 12 September 2009 (EDT)

Are we intending to resurrect the community-nav template? The images used on it were among those tagged for deletion... --abates 21:11, 14 September 2009 (EDT)

I'll take that as a no. And down to 150 pictures now. Again, if anyone wants to take a look through Category:To be deleted in case anything they recognise where the images are supposed to go, please do! --abates 08:16, 16 September 2009 (EDT)

Down to 76 images. Most of those left were uploaded during the crash period, so any information about where they were intended to go is lost. Some of them, like Mugheads.jpg, are from lost talk pages. Some, like Tflive_logo_stacked.jpg, might be still useful for something. The two covers for The Ark II probably should be on the appropriate page. Some, like Mort-icons.png and Tf gf 002 back.jpg, I don't have the foggiest what they were intended for... --abates 23:23, 19 September 2009 (EDT)

This Day in Transformers History

We should try to turn the This Day in Transformers History into an exportable module, like our Go-Boxes. It'll help our SEO by encouraging links back to us as well as give us another source of dynamically-generated deep links to help users discover our content. We have info for all 366 days, we should exploit it. --Jimsorenson 15:46, 16 September 2009 (EDT)

Speaking of history, today is the 25th anniversary of the premiere of the G1 cartoon right? Want to mention that anywhere? --SuzyP 18:35, 17 September 2009 (EDT)

Boxes gone from disambig templates?

I noticed the disambiguation templates don't seem to have those gray boxes behind them anymore. Is this intentional? Because it's confusing. -Mazenoise 08:16, 17 September 2009 (EDT)

Derik shifted the CSS styling into the stylesheet. Your browser probably had the old stylesheet cached, but a shift-reload should fix it. --abates 08:20, 17 September 2009 (EDT)

Yeah, it did actually. Thanks! -Mazenoise 08:29, 17 September 2009 (EDT)

And they (well, the ones Derik hit anyway) sprouted a thick grey left border in the transition because...? - SanityOrMadness 11:34, 17 September 2009 (EDT)

I forget the reason. Rest assured that it did make sense though!

Main advantage of switching the disambig boxes to CSS: When you have multiple in a row, they stack prettier without a double-outline between them. -Derik 19:47, 17 September 2009 (EDT)

I forget the reason. Rest assured that it did make sense though!

If that's not a Derikism, it deserves to be. (And is the main reason why I'm scared of changing to external CSS rather than inline CSS - you having the keys to the styles virtually unfettered, since those admins who could either override or yank the emopanda CSS mostly either don't know how or are absent much of the time)

So now we have disambig templates that are unique amongst messageboxen in a particularly... nondescript way. Different enough to be irritating, not different enough to serve any real purpose. - SanityOrMadness 21:09, 17 September 2009 (EDT)

Eh? Oh, I thought I changed it back. (I remembered why they had a border on the left... I was testing something and decided it didn't work, I didn't realize it was still on.)

In theory Scout was going to make some changes last week to move us out of the existing CSS situation with much less living in my dev file... but she seems to have forgotten... -Derik 21:24, 17 September 2009 (EDT)

What was she planning to do? I can have a crack at it. --abates 21:29, 17 September 2009 (EDT)

Move a bunch of stuff to MediaWiki:common.css, I expect.

(Note the difference between Common.css [all skins, including the ones no-one uses like Simple and MySkin], Monacobook.css [Monacobook only] and Monobook.css [Monobook only]. Scout forgot about Monobook the last time common.css was edited. Incidentally, where did she ultimately put those changes? They ain't in the empty Monacobook.css.) - SanityOrMadness 21:44, 17 September 2009 (EDT)

I have a suspicion that the plan may be to create a new user class with rights to edit css files here (in which case I don't have the necessary access rights to do so)... --abates 21:59, 17 September 2009 (EDT)

That was the one.  :) Either she forgot, or she tried and it didn't work. I'll bug her when I remember. (It's not like it's pressing... it's been needing doing for some time so it can wait a bit longer.) -Derik 22:33, 17 September 2009 (EDT)

And to answer the css question, the changes are in this file which isn't editable through the Mediawiki interface. --abates 00:03, 18 September 2009 (EDT)

"Scout, I have 3 requests."

"No, no, yes if I don't have to do any work."

-Derik 01:51, 18 September 2009 (EDT)

Did that ever get done in the end? --abates 19:45, 19 October 2009 (EDT)

Guess what.....

I've just decided to check our statistics for no apparent reason, and we have 9,588 "legitimate content pages", whatever that means. So then I randomly decided to check out the Wikia page (which, by the way, has had the same Featured Article for God-knows-how-long), and guess what?

7,209 pages. We're beating them out by 2,349 pages, which is quite a lot. Who thinks we can hit 10,000 soon? ---Blackout- 15:15, 18 September 2009 (EDT)

No problem. ...though it's about quality, not quantity. ;) -- Silvery 15:24, 18 September 2009 (EDT)

I can tell you the quality of their articles as well.

Nonexistent. ---Blackout- 15:29, 18 September 2009 (EDT)

Oh, you're too harsh. Anyways, I know this wiki's the best 'cause I checked all TF wikis before I've decided to join... -- Silvery 15:45, 18 September 2009 (EDT)

I can personally testify, we delete articles that aren't up to snuff and don't look like they're going to be.--Rosicrucian^Talk 15:36, 18 September 2009 (EDT)

Now I'm interest in knowing how many articles the original wiki had back before the big split. - Cattleprod 15:57, 18 September 2009 (EDT)

Somewhere around 6890 or so. I should note that our current total is artificially inflated by about 75 due to the "ghost" pages causing the macron issue, so our total's nearer 9513 or so. --abates 20:36, 18 September 2009 (EDT)

@Silvery: I'm not being that harsh. Here's some examples. And I know, this will give them slightly more traffic.

Their ROTF Soundwave page.

Their All Hail Megatron page. Count the red links. ---Blackout- 02:53, 19 September 2009 (EDT)

You're too harsh in a "hit 'em when they're down" sense. It's called "irony". :P -- Silvery 04:11, 19 September 2009 (EDT)

I get a bit of personal pride whenever I compare our Shattered Glass section to theirs. --Jeysie 06:11, 19 September 2009 (EDT)

I weep whenever i read the Animated articles...Sentinel Prime's page is the best example.--Sunjumper 15:00, 22 September 2009 (EDT)

I just removed an {ongoing} tag from their Animated Perceptor's page. What the hell? ---Blackout- 15:08, 22 September 2009 (EDT)

Also, for some reason, someone back there REALLY liked deleting my stuff. They liked it so much in fact, that my contributions page has been wiped clean. ---Blackout- 07:23, 23 September 2009 (EDT)

Also, Monaco now screws up page layouts when you move mainpics to where they're meant to be! (That's what it does on another wiki I happen to be an admin on, anyway.) Woo-freakin'-hoo. ---Blackout- 07:37, 23 September 2009 (EDT)

Wikia, seriously?

Look at the image, and be confused as to why anyone would want to see the ads? ---Blackout- 13:36, 25 September 2009 (EDT)

That option was actually put in due to user feedback. It's so they can view pages with the ads still in place and modify the layout to not look like ass.--Rosicrucian^Talk 14:17, 25 September 2009 (EDT)

I just checked their Shattered Glass (comic) page, and hell, they've not even added Soundwave, Rumble, Long Haul...I also feel a bit of pride since I uploaded the images and started writing most of those :) --Emvee 20:00, 25 September 2009 (EDT)

Reading Order

When the wiki began in 2006, reading order was a clear and obvious thing. It was straight publication order-- and even if broken up into minis like Dreamwave did, they followwed a logical "volume" order.

...IDW is nowwhere near that clean. Characters literally leave one aeries, appear in another, bunches of stories are interwoven. I think we should consider creating an IDW "reading order" page, simply because reading order is not the same as publication order, is not the same as chronological order. -Derik 04:41, 19 September 2009 (EDT)

User:Jackpot/Sandbox/IDW-G1 recommended reading order :3 --Jeysie 06:10, 19 September 2009 (EDT)

OK.....weird.

Did someone *looks at Derik* break the block log, or is it meant to only show blocks up to March this year? ---Blackout- 13:14, 22 September 2009 (EDT)

Also, how didn't I get an edit conflict when Jimsorenson and I were trying to delete the same duplicate section at the same time?

Derik, please don't break the wiki. ---Blackout- 13:16, 22 September 2009 (EDT)

Think back to what happened in March.--Rosicrucian^Talk 13:23, 22 September 2009 (EDT)

Oh yeah.

STUPID BOOKWORM! *scream is heard across the world* ---Blackout- 13:27, 22 September 2009 (EDT)

Yeah, not everything is Derik's fault. On the other hand, many awesome improvements to the site are.--Rosicrucian^Talk 13:56, 22 September 2009 (EDT)

I may have been reading a bit too much Community Portal Archives recently. ---Blackout- 14:23, 22 September 2009 (EDT)

Derik breaking things is generally content, template, or presentational related-- despite all the joking, I have only ever broken the core of the site itself once. (And even then, it was for less than 10 minutes, Siph was nice enough to delete the page that was giving the site's database epileptic fits.)

I'm actually rather proud of that one-- insofar that it was supposed to be completely impossible, but I somehow managed to do it! (This was back on Bookworm, I suspect their server bog-down issues contributed to making my impossible feat happen.)

When I break stuff it tends to be more localized or cosmetic. -Derik 14:46, 22 September 2009 (EDT)

Speaking of local/cosmetic issues, the automatic archive listing on this page does not appear to want to display archive 39.--Rosicrucian^Talk 14:48, 22 September 2009 (EDT)

The one that doesn't exist yet?

Also, This is incredibly funny. ---Blackout- 15:04, 22 September 2009 (EDT)

Oh, it most definitely exists. Click on archive 38, then use the archive navigation at the top to go to the next archive. 39 is already populated.--Rosicrucian^Talk 15:09, 22 September 2009 (EDT)

Vote to move that page to "Things that don't exist". ---Blackout- 15:19, 22 September 2009 (EDT)

That might be because the nav you're referring to isn't automatic. Just the ones in the individual archives. - —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Derik (talk • contribs) - who thought there actually were five lights in that TNG ep :p. 16:03, 22 September 2009 (EDT)

Something I just came up with.....

Because I absolutely loathe our current {{caption bastard}} tag, I came up with this.

---Blackout- 12:03, 24 September 2009 (EDT)

Tough. --M Sipher 12:51, 24 September 2009 (EDT)

You're pretty obsessed with caption edits.Dead Metal 12:57, 24 September 2009 (EDT)

I was very bored that day. ---Blackout- 01:50, 25 September 2009 (EDT)

Just a minor layout change. :D --TX55^TALK 09:35, 25 September 2009 (EDT)

Well it definitely looks better now. ---Blackout- 12:39, 25 September 2009 (EDT)

Keep an Eagle Eye (ROTF)

I notice that the first DVD-rips of ROTF have begun to drop-- 3 weeks before the movie is out on DVD. Be wary of a flurry of new screencaps appearing. -Derik 19:20, 26 September 2009 (EDT)

TF Wiki link forum signatures = spam = loss of google ranking?

Somebody on a Macross forum reported that posting links to their website via forum signatures counted as spam, which took a major hit in their site's google ranking, and it was the same for Digg linking. Since I'm not that net savvy, I'm waiting for the guy to provide more info about this, but we should probably discuss it here anyway: To our more tech and net-experienced members - does linking to our wiki via our forum signatures (as suggested and encouraged by our staff during the move last year) actually count as spam in Google's eyes and hurt our search ranking? --FFN 16:04, 27 September 2009 (EDT)

No. The worst that Google would do would be to ignore the links for the purposes of ranking. If Google did demote sites based on forum signatures, people would start putting links to their competitor's sites in their signatures. --abates 16:23, 27 September 2009 (EDT)

WTF?

Why does Archive 11 even exist? ---Blackout- 12:35, 1 October 2009 (EDT)

Obscure BW comic, anyone?

Alright for the past while now, I've been looking up and adding in obscure Beast Wars products. I remembered both the Mutating Card Game and both Jigsaw Puzzles, and I've already taken note to add those in. But one piece of memorabilia that has still eluded me is a really old comic... My memory's a bit fuzzy on this one, and I can't quite recall if it was a seperate mini-comic from the two-pack of "Optimus vs. Megatron!" or if the scenes I'm remembering are part of that comic as well. The only scenes I recall from said comic are the opening, where a pre-earth mode Cheetor peeks through some vegetation to reveal a (very small) crystal. The subsequent dialog explained that they had to take on beast modes to overcome the toxic radiation of the crystal (much like the tv show). Anyone has any similar recollection? Or if anyone has scans of the "Optimus vs. Megatron!" mini-comic to clear up wether or not it is a scene from that comic that I'm remembering, I'd appreciate it. In any case, I hope I'm not going crazy and remembering a comic that doesn't exist, because as far as I can tell, it's not listed on the Beast Wars comics page. Thanks --Ascendron 14:23, 3 October 2009 (EDT)

It's not the "Optimus Primal Vs. Megatron!" comic, that one starts with Primal(in beast mode) flying in the sky, and then Cheetor running in the dark with a glow in his eyes. Unless you mistake the sparkle in his eyes for a crystal, it's not the same comic.--Sunjumper 13:41, 5 October 2009 (EDT)

Categories for modes?

I've been trying to find out which transformer one of my old toys is, and I'd hoped I could compare it against each of the transformers with an aeroplane mode - but I couldn't find such a list. So I wondered whether it would be a good idea to have categories for the transformers' modes, so I could go to Category:Aeroplanes and look it up like that. Good idea? I'm not volunteering to do the legwork :-) 86.7.22.40 06:50, 5 October 2009 (EDT)

This external link might help. - Starfield 09:56, 5 October 2009 (EDT)

"Notes"

When did we start changing all the "Trivia" subheaders to "Notes"? ...And why even bother?--MCRG Again 20:17, 6 October 2009 (EDT)

Someone stated that they hated the header "Trivia" as it made the info seem inconsequential when sometimes it was actually useful/relevant, and those of us who thought they had a point started going along with that thought. (Although much to my annoyance I don't recall off-hand who said it or where, other than I think maybe it was on one of the Shattered Glass articles.) --Jeysie 20:34, 6 October 2009 (EDT)

It becomes irritating to me since "Notes" was solely confined to the comics and media articles and "Trivia" was confined to character and toy pages, so now we've got a bunch of random character pages with a "Notes" section (Hot Rod character page, for instance) and others with a "Trivia" section (Hot Rod toy page, for instance) for no particular reason. It looks sloppy and I have no idea whether I should be trying to track down and reset the headings to one or the other or if I'll get warned for it.--MCRG Again 23:32, 6 October 2009 (EDT)

"Someone" was probably me. -- Repowers 00:16, 7 October 2009 (EDT)

Yeah, you're our resident cruft inquisition!--Rosicrucian^Talk 00:18, 7 October 2009 (EDT)

I think some page's contents in the Trivia sections is, um, mixed up with notes (relevant but can't be put in other section) and trivia (a little irrelevant BUT notable) things. So, maybe page like this would still need a trivia section, that is, separate their Trivia section into Trivia and Notes section. Of course, that may involve subjective view of the users who edit the page.--TX55^TALK 21:19, 7 October 2009 (EDT)

So are we going to decide on some form of consistent change or just use the two words randomly?--MCRG Again 02:31, 7 October 2009 (EDT)

I've been changing pages to "Notes" as I work them. --M Sipher 12:34, 7 October 2009 (EDT)

It'd also be a fairly easy bot request.--Rosicrucian^Talk 13:38, 7 October 2009 (EDT)

Easy as long as you have a full list of the pages on the wiki. ---Blackout- 14:39, 7 October 2009 (EDT)

It's not as simple as it might appear - we have episode pages with Notes sections with Trivia subsections, so the bot would have to take that into account (and a blanket change of #Trivia anchors wouldn't be possible because some will be legitimately pointing to those Trivia sections). --abates 15:56, 7 October 2009 (EDT)

In the case of the bot request I made, I specifically said to replace ==Trivia== with ==Notes==. The pages you reference have ===Trivia===, which should be possible to exclude in a search.--Rosicrucian^Talk 16:54, 7 October 2009 (EDT)

Preventing direct image linking

As we know, the wiki costs a fair bit to run and early on in our post Bookworm crash server move, it used more bandwidth than our bosses calculated, so the last thing we need is people going around directly linking images off of our server for forums or even their blogs or whatever (The Mountain Dew Robots logo was one of our most popular articles... because some idiot linked the image to his website). Is there any way for us to prevent this? --FFN 11:54, 9 October 2009 (EDT)

Yes and no.

Yes in the sense that it's pretty easy to create an .htaccess file that redirects hotlinks in some way.

No in the sense that it might break the GoBoxes, if there isn't some way to make it so that the rewrite rules allow just the GoBox images to be hotlinked. Hrm. Although I think the GoBoxes are all PNGs, and we have very few PNGs as normal images, so it might not be that big a workaround problem. --Jeysie 17:40, 9 October 2009 (EDT)

Well, all the gobox images are in their own folder anyway, so it's simple enough to exclude them. This is probably a REALLY good idea; somebody give me a suitable (and tiny) replacement image and I'll try to make it so. --Suki Brits 08:45, 11 October 2009 (EDT)

Depends on what you had in mind. You could either go the route of just making a one pixel GIF (i.e. smallest image possible), or maybe use our logo with "no hotlinking permitted" written on it. --Jeysie 09:01, 11 October 2009 (EDT)

Goatse. Or the nearest TF equivalent of "ridiculous shock image." Hooper_X 10:00, 11 October 2009 (EDT)

Anything from Kiss Players, then. ---Blackout- 10:09, 11 October 2009 (EDT)

...can we still let me inline images on my blog? Can we make exceptions? Because sometimes I do that, because it's technically me paying for the bandwidth anyway. --ItsWalky 10:17, 11 October 2009 (EDT)

Whitelisting domains is easy. --Jeysie 10:36, 11 October 2009 (EDT)

I'm not extremely savvy with that kind of stuff (most of my knowledge coming from archived talkpages on this wiki), so I have no idea whether it's possible.

What is a goatse, anyway? ---Blackout- 10:24, 11 October 2009 (EDT)

You don't want to know if you don't already. Trust me. --Jeysie 10:36, 11 October 2009 (EDT)

Sorry I asked.

• remembers the vandal that came in and messed with some talk pages* ---Blackout- 10:39, 11 October 2009 (EDT)

"Or the nearest TF equivalent" - Something like this, you mean? - Magnus Maximus 10:50, 11 October 2009 (EDT)

Something more like this would be "the nearest TF equivalent", surely. [Or, potentially even more disturbing, this.] - SanityOrMadness 12:07, 11 October 2009 (EDT)

Even Kiss Players is only about a 3 on the shock meter compared to Goatse. An image of Pat Lee might be appropriate... I suggest sticking to something small anyway, otherwise the bandwidth problem is still there. --abates 15:41, 11 October 2009 (EDT)

How about this with something like "You have found The Void." -- Semysane 15:52, 11 October 2009 (EDT)

I vote for Pat Lee. That's awesome. BANDWIDTH SUPERSTAR! Hooper_X 18:06, 11 October 2009 (EDT)

Well, the GoBoxes are fairly bandwidth-light, right? What if we did a variation on them, with the leeched image replaced with a notice that the image was leeched, and encouraging them to go to TFWiki.net to learn about Transformers?--Rosicrucian^Talk 15:57, 11 October 2009 (EDT)

I stand by my Kiss Players suggestion. That or the image of dead Prime from TFTM with a tagline at the bottom saying "This image is dead due to hotlinking." ---Blackout- 01:37, 12 October 2009 (EDT)

Rosicrucian has the right idea. We make it work for us, rather than just 'punish' the people doing it. We don't try to shock or dismay, just state that hotlinking is bad (m'kay?) and that tfwiki.net is the place to learn about Transformers. --Jimsorenson 11:44, 17 October 2009 (EDT)

FFN brought up an important issue! (FFN also totally forgot about this immediately after posting the original question and only just read this discussion.) And yeah, I totally forgot about the Go-Box. Since I'm not on the Allspark, I've never really seen the go box in use, other than Derrik Wyatt's blog. --FFN 01:22, 18 October 2009 (EDT)

This is about the most vindictively confusing thing you could spike someone with, IMO. -Derik 11:47, 19 October 2009 (EDT)

USE IT. ---Blackout- 11:58, 19 October 2009 (EDT)

GoBots on this wiki

This idea is getting some traction over on the Tonka GoBots page, so I thought I'd replicate the discussion here. It's certainly a big enough change that it should get broad exposure. --Jimsorenson 11:44, 17 October 2009 (EDT)

A note should be said in the [GoBots] article about canon. What is canon? I'm guessing it is like G.I. Joe: the whole universe is canon, but only the bits that appear in Transformers fiction is MediaWiki-noteworthy. Or is it like crossovers such as Star Wars: only the bits that appear in Transformers fiction are canon. Or (I don't think so) does Hasbro's purchase of them retroactively drag everything in, cartoon and all, as a "continuity family"? - Starfield 17:07, 6 April 2009 (EDT)

Personally, I think that the GoBots should be covered here IN FULL.Khajidha 00:19, 7 April 2009 (EDT)

It is indeed like G.I. Joe or Death's Head, where the only stories that count for the purposes of our wiki are the ones that include Transformers.--ItsWalky 00:20, 7 April 2009 (EDT)

I'm not sure I agree. The Gobots cartoon has effectively been subsumed, in whole, into the Transformers mythos. This is a fundamentally different case than Death's Head, who left the Transformers multiverse explicitly, or G.I. Joe, which has implicitly diverged. Due to the legalities surrounding GoBots, the only licensed future stories set in the Gobots multiverse will be Transformers stories. We could certainly choose to catalog the 65 episodes and one movie of Gobots as effectively another Transformers continuity family, which it basically is. I'm not sure what the downside would be to that, other than it'll take a while for it to be up to the wiki's usual standards. I'd be happy enough to go through and start with character pages and episode guides though. --Jimsorenson 23:10, 16 October 2009 (EDT)

I, uh, I'm not sure that really fits the TF Wiki's "mission statement." I mean, this is a Transformers wiki. We shouldn't start making ourselves cover entire other properties just because there was a crossover. --ItsWalky 12:24, 17 October 2009 (EDT)

As much as I'd fap to the idea of having full-blown GoBots coverage on this wiki, I'd just like to get straight how deep we'd go with the coverage. Would we cover just the cartoon? Would we also cover the Robo Machine comics published in the UK? Would we do articles for each character along with complete toy write ups? Just curious. I wouldn't mind slogging through the cartoons myself, or maybe even calling dibs on the Rock Lords movie, but I'd just like to know exactly how much GoBots we'd be willing to cover.

And just to throw it out there for reference, Counter-X is probably our best source for GoBots research on the entire interwebs. --DrSpengler 23:31, 16 October 2009 (EDT)

Also, would we be able to cover the toys, or just the fiction? -- Semysane 23:47, 16 October 2009 (EDT)

I think that we'd only cover the part of GoBots that are canon for Transformers. That'd be the cartoon, basically. IMO, the toys (as something owned by Bandai) are outside of that purview. Things like Machine-Robo and associated fiction have not been brought into the Transformers canon and pretty much cannot be officially, legally, brought in. --Jimsorenson 00:35, 17 October 2009 (EDT)

Machine-Robo etc would probably fall under the same classification as Diaclone and Microchange, ie general mention but little detail. I am confused by your statement that "the toys (as something owned by Bandai) are outside of that purview." Taking that statement at face value the original Jetfire, Roadbuster and Whirl toys shouldn't be here either. Khajidha 18:35, 17 October 2009 (EDT)

Not at all. Those toys were all released as Transformers. Other Takatoku and Bandai toys wouldn't be fair game, and aren't. The reason that the GoBots CARTOON can be on this wiki is that it was effectively bought by Hasbro when they acquired Tonka, and then integrated into the Transformers universe by licensed stories like Withered Hope. There has been no comparable action regarding GoBot toys. They were licensed to Tonka by Bandai. That license has long since expired. Hasbro has no claim on those toys, and there has never been any attempt to integrate the toys into the Transformers multiverse. At least, that's the way I see it. --Jimsorenson 19:32, 17 October 2009 (EDT)

Okay, now I understand your point. For the other side, it seems to me that the toys are the source for the cartoon; if one is fair game for this wiki so is the other. Since this site is not part of Hasbro, the licensing is irrelevant. That is, while Hasbro can't use the toys; we (as archivists) are free to use them. Khajidha 20:19, 17 October 2009 (EDT)

If we can do it up to our usual standards, I'm for it. I just think it's a metric assload of material to be adding.--Rosicrucian^Talk 00:00, 17 October 2009 (EDT)

Hey, we've all got plenty of time. What's one more metric assload? --DrSpengler 00:06, 17 October 2009 (EDT)

I welcome the challenge. --Jimsorenson 00:35, 17 October 2009 (EDT)

I could definitely help out. (Dibs on swooping in and taking care of any spelling or punctuation mistakes.) ---Blackout- 11:49, 17 October 2009 (EDT)

I'm a little indecisive - the entire point of Withered Hope, etc. was that the GoBots exist OUTSIDE of the TF universe. While a given number of GoBots have since moved in, until further notice, it's unclear how many GoBots actually have integrated into the larger TF milieu. Now, if someone from Hasbro said, even in passing, that the GoBots stories are now considered part of the TF multiverse, I'd be all for it. Maybe it's something to think about for BC or the next Q&A. Hooper_X 12:45, 17 October 2009 (EDT)

A while back there was a discussion where it was said that nothing that was once canon can be removed from canon later on, even by Hasbro. Is the reverse also true, can a block of fiction be retroactively added to canon that wasn't canon at the time? I'm thinking not really. I'm thinking only the glimpses of the GoBots universe in TF fiction belong. - Starfield 13:14, 17 October 2009 (EDT)

They're not really reciprocal arguments. Imagine this scenario: Hasbro kills off G2 and is soured on Transformers. They let their new acquisition, Kenner, start their own brand of Transforming robots, called Beast Wars, and they don't use the Transformers name in conjunction with it at all. No mention of Cybertron. No character named Megatron - call him T-Wrecks. It'd effectively be a completely different toyline and cartoon, not 'canon' for Transformers. The whole first season happens, more or less as we saw but without Starscream or the few mentions of past continuity. It's a big hit, so Hasbro decides to add the Transformers logo to the Beast Wars packaging. Then the second season starts up, and lo and behold, they make a big plot point out of The Ark, and the Predacons being descended from Decepticons. They would have changed the status of the S1 stories from non-canon to canon for Transformers.

Now imagine that it wasn't until Beast Machines that this transition happened. Different logo, different writers, but a continuity of characters and ideas. It'd STILL retroactively pull all of the Beast Wars into Transformers canon. So, sure, stories can be retroactively made canon. Hell, what about this scenario - Alignment is republished by IDW, under the Transformers banner. Boom - non-canon becomes canon, just like that.

It's possible, is all I'm saying. --Jimsorenson 13:25, 17 October 2009 (EDT)

It's totally feasible, I'm just not sure it's actually HAPPENED with the GoBots material yet. Hooper_X 13:41, 17 October 2009 (EDT)

Yeah, my thought too. I don't really have a problem per se with the idea, it's just that I don't think GoBots is officially Transformers canon as a whole; just some individual characters that have shown up. Kind of like how various Marvel characters have been shown to be a part of canon, but we don't go and then write up the entire universe they hail from. --Jeysie 17:24, 17 October 2009 (EDT)

But... but... when I was a kid GoBots were decidedly not Transformers. Back in the '80's that was kind of a big deal. Not a logical argument, I know. If Alignment were published as a Transformers story, sure it would be canon. If the GoBots cartoon were published as a Transformers story it would be canon. The Beast Wars example is interesting. - Starfield 13:49, 17 October 2009 (EDT)

Yeah. Honestly, I don't know about this... at least, not now. There's still a lot of TF stuff that needs deeper exploration and suchlike, including Club materials. I'd think a focus on those things before we delve deep into GoBots' non-TF-direct stuff would be in order. --M Sipher 14:45, 17 October 2009 (EDT)

I share this thought. I think if people have enough time to be writing up a bunch of GoBot stuff, surely it's better spent (for now, at least) on writing up the TF stuff we already know we need? --Jeysie 17:24, 17 October 2009 (EDT)

There is no need to have articles here for Defendor, Destroyer, Tank, Fytor, Hans-Cuff, Jeeper Creeper, Wrexx, Pincer, Pumper, Vamp, Creepy, and probably 99.1% of all other GoBot characters and story events. We have the e-Hobby team, Withered Hope, the various Crashers and Cy-Kills and a few other circa-Dreamwave easter eggs, because they actually existed in some form in the TF multiverse. Trying to add in every other character that never did anything and doesn't matter just because we can would be about as fruitful and necessary as adding in every other G.I.Joe character ever that also never appeared here. That Eskimo Quinn dude could always use another write-up, right? --Thylacine 2000 17:51, 17 October 2009 (EDT)

Im free, I'll do the GoBots. --206.253.51.107 21:14, 17 October 2009 (EDT)

Yeah, I'm not sure how the GoBots non-TF backstory is any more canon to TFs than the entirety of GI Joe, or Death's Head's other stories, or Spiderman comics, or X-Men, or the Incredible Hulk, or... -- Repowers 22:07, 17 October 2009 (EDT)

All of Marvel 616 is totally contained within the IDW G1 continuity! Wolverine sure didn't warp from that reality to his own later on. --ItsWalky 22:39, 17 October 2009 (EDT)

Wolverine appears in three solo titles, four team books, and a spattering of guest appearances every month. If there isn't SOME kind of reality warping that helps him get around, I'd be surprised. --Xaaron 23:24, 17 October 2009 (EDT)

For me, it's like kinda minor continuity within the 616 reality, since there are too many contradictory. --TX55^TALK 23:48, 17 October 2009 (EDT)

Leaving the above joking around aside, the difference between GoBots and the other crossovers is that GoBots is tending towards convergence, where as all the other cases listed are tending towards divergence. Gobots has been, de facto, merged into the Transformers line. It started with Transformers names and lines named GoBots. Then GoBots names and likenesses started to show up, again and again. Then toys were made to represent specific GoBots. Stories were published involving GoBots, not just as new Transformers, but as GoBonaughts from their cartoon continuity entering the realms of Transformers.

This is a fundamentally different situation from the other crossovers. Death's Head started out in Transformers (leaving High Noon Tex aside) but then left for another multiverse. G.I. Joe started out in the same multiverse, really, but has slowly but surely diverged to the point where future crossovers cannot exist as a part of the main lines. The Marvel stuff, again, very briefly started out in the same multiverse (rather, the TF comic briefly started out in the Marvel universe before diverging.)

That's the real underlying reason. GoBots are being absorbed into Transformers, literally (by the acquisition of Tonka) and figuratively (as seen in Withered Hopes.) That GoBots are about a civil war between shapechanging robots (well, cyborgs, but then, Beast Wars were cyborgs too) means that it works very well thematically. That all future official GoBots stories will come from Hasbro or its licensees makes it work on a practical level. It's a finite amount of non-Transformers-branded story to catalog, a mere 65 episodes, 1 movie and some 100 characters of note. If we assume maybe 2 extra characters or devices of interest per episode, that's about 300 articles. With the 10,000 we already have, that's hardly a daunting task. Heck, it even benefits Hasbro. It gives them easier access to the information and trademarks that they've already acquired, and thus lets them better protect their intellectual property.

Basically, that means that we CAN choose to catalog GoBots. The precedent is there in the form of the Beastformers. That doesn't necessarily mean we SHOULD, but we have the option. I for one would like to exercise that option, but only if enough people think it's a good idea. --Jimsorenson 00:52, 18 October 2009 (EDT)

How much of GoBots Hasbro owns, I thought, was subject to debate. Heck, Sipher and Trent go out of their way to not mention anybody in Withered Hope that either didn't have a Hasbro-owned name or wasn't based on a Transformers figure. That's why we have "Doctor B" instead of Doctor Braxus, why they name Leader One and not Cykill, and why they describe Turbo but do not name him. This indicates that the GoBots cartoon, as a whole, is not something that the "Withered Hope" story itself declares is open to us.

Hasbro owns Tonka... but does that really mean they now own the CotGB cartoon? They may just own some trademarks and some likenesses. That whole situation is kind of an intellectual property clusterfuck. Bandai owns the toys, Hanna Barbara may still retain rights to portions of the show, and Hasbro probably owns what little remains. --ItsWalky 01:25, 18 October 2009 (EDT)

That's a really good point. I got the impression from the IDW editors that it's all on the table, but then it hasn't come up much in my books (yet) so that hasn't been put to the test. Sipher, could you shed some light on the process? Did you restrict your use of terms because of a Hasbro missive, or was that you being proactively cautious? --Jimsorenson 03:46, 18 October 2009 (EDT)

Legally it could be an abandoned copyright. Transformers has spent the last several years walking along the train tracks to go poke it with a stick in increasingly invasive ways... and it (or whoever owns it) has not reacted as we've had Transformers toys released that are Go-Bots characters, featured them in increasingly-large roles in Transformers stories, slowly transitioning to full-on (albeit minor) characters instead of cameos, taken measures to lock out their copyrights... and finally openly acknowledging "yes, we consider Go-Bots part of our multiverse, and intend to use them." It's not even a separate universe-- the rock lords stuff is showing up in the same universe as Cybertron. (In Multiple universes, right?)

Whoever owns Go-Bots seems to have just given up. Go-Bots was never popular enough for a DVD set, even during the Maximum Nostalgia period. And with Hasbro owning their trademarks-- not just character names but the name of the damn line and species-- it's functionally impossible for them to market Go-Bots as a nostalgia property. When they didn't bring Machine Rescue Robo over to the U.S., the last real hope of a revival or relaunch died. (and most fundamentally... He-Man and Thunercats died. If they can't sustain revivals, Go-Bots doesn't stand a chance. The perception that all nostalgia properties are money-mines seems to have finally died out.) They just... what are they going to ever do with the part they own? Convention-exclusive comics that can't even be called "Go-Bots," it'd have to be "Guardians vs. Renegades" or "Challenge of the Guard-Bots"?

A fine distinction... TF does not own the Go-Bots fiction-- that's © whoever owns it separately from the property. (This might be why Dead End (Armada) couldn't be called "Gobotron," Hasbro owns Go-Bots which is enough to prevent Tonka from using "Gobotron" as a replacement name, but AFAIK the name itself comes from the fiction and wasn't a trademark Hasbro acquired-- it's owned by Warner Bros., and a handful of other fiction-producers who did books and records.)

In theory all the Go-Bots we're getting is a new universe that may resemble some past incarnation, but is actually based on the cardback bios... or something. (Which I don't think we actually have the rights to either... or maybe as part of the packaging they were part of the rights Kenner owned-- I dunno.)

(Someone who knows more than I do about Go-Bots could probably figure out better than I who owns what part of the brand, which has been sawed up and redistributed like one of Dexter Morgan's victims.)

Critical point: The 'abandoned copyright' thing I said above? It's a theoretical classification. No one relies on that, ever. It's even worse than Fair use. It is incredibly hard to abandon a copyright simply through neglect-- it basically requires an explicit declaration by all owners that they choose to do so, so all of the above theoretical musings are just that-- legal theory, and the law operates differently in a vacuum than it does in the real world.

This would make a good question to ask in our Hasbro Q&A. Not who owns Go-Bots... they won't answer that because it's too legally fraught. Ask a simple question like "we know you got the trademarks via Kenner... does that include the cardback bios?" (Because I'd like to be able to fill out the Narliphant page using its go-bots bio.)

Hypothetical aside-- remember the "Duck Dodgers meets the Green Lantern Corps" episode a few years ago? I'm not entirely sure, but I think WB could have had him meet the Go-Bots. Drop him into the full-on Hanna Barbera cartoon, using the names under a grandfather clause like Captain Marvel. ...they just have no reason to-- the trademarks effectively lock out their ability to create a new cartoon, sell toys, etc etc etc. I'm just pointing out how screwed up the rights are. -Derik 13:06, 19 October 2009 (EDT)

Interesting musings. The missing piece, though, is what kind of agreements Tonka structured with Hanna-Barbara, which have since passed to Hasbro and Warner Brothers, respectively. It's well known that Hasbro was savvy-enough to put legal agreements in place that ensured that new elements introduced in Transformers fiction continued to belong to Hasbro. Hence the manoeuvrings of Marvel with characters like Circuit Breaker and Death's Head. I don't know how Tonka structured their agreements, but that'll have a huge impact on where the rights stand now. I'm not sure, thought, that the failure to use 'Gobotron' for Dead-End had anything to do with legal wrangling.--Jimsorenson 20:38, 19 October 2009 (EDT)

Sorry if I'm beating a dead horse here, I'm just rather interested in the whole situation. I went and dug up the posted copyright notice for GoBots. Note that the actual episodes ARE indeed copyright Hanna-Barbera. On the other hand, GoBot names, characters and property is definitely copyright Tonka corp. So, the episodes themselves may not be kosher. The characters, and especially the character names, should be fair game.--Jimsorenson 02:36, 20 October 2009 (EDT)

If we do come to the conclusion that the GoBots cartoon is fair game for us, I think we should go ahead and do it. As to why someone would "waste their time" on GoBots stuff when they have regular TF stuff they could write about, well, a few reasons. First, they might have access to the GoBots episodes but not a lot of TF stuff. Second, they might decide a lot of people would be willing to write TF, but GoBots, not so many. Third, they might be more a fan of GoBots and use this as an "adoptive wiki" for the show instead of starting a brand new one just for the GoBots. Thanos6 03:40, 20 October 2009 (EDT)

Ok, so by that image Jim has established that GoBot names and most importantly characters are definately Hasbro's and the Toon epsisodes themselves are pretty certainly not. It seems the logical thing to do then would be to include GoBot characters in this wiki when they appear in TF material. Cover the characters personality and personal backstory in their main bio paragraphs at the top of of the page, as that IS their character. But leave the "Fiction" section for things that happen in TF stories or are atleast referenced there. That fits the way the material is owned AND the interests of the wiki. --76.28.72.27 08:20, 20 October 2009 (EDT)

Audio file problems - they don't seem to work

I don't think we ever resolved this when Derik brought it up a long time ago, but whatever script we use for audio files doesn't work, at least it doesn't work the way it's supposed to. On Wikia wikis, when you click on a "listen to this audio file", your browser should activate java, buffer the ogg file and play it. However, on TFWiki, the browser merely tries to download the file, not play it. If you choose to open the file via your browser's download dialogue, the file downloads into your temp files and plays it off the nearest compatible media player, which is a *remarkably* roundabout way of doing things. Is there any way we can fix this? (I'm using Firefox 3 and Internet Explorer 6)--FFN 01:19, 18 October 2009 (EDT)

I'm assuming that Wikia must have some embedded audio file player installed or something, which is probably doable via an extension. I have to admit I don't see it as a high priority... having the browser call up a helper file is a normal way of handling such things, plus I like being able to download and save the file.

Not only that, but we barely have any audio files to worry about... I think the Scene Transition page is the only article I've come across that has an appreciable number of audio files on it. Although now that I think about it, I wonder if creating WAVs of characters' main quotes where possible might be an interesting idea, to give samples of what characters sound like. --Jeysie 03:09, 18 October 2009 (EDT)

Downloading - well, there's the minor issue that the majority of our users will be unable to play .ogg files anyway, for even if codecs are easily had, it's a fairly obscure format. Hell, I never even heard of it until 2005. --FFN 03:27, 18 October 2009 (EDT)

WinAmp plays OGGs just fine out-of-the-box, among a number of other media players out there, so I don't see an issue. --Jeysie 03:35, 18 October 2009 (EDT)

In case we want to install an extension to handle this: [2] --abates 04:50, 18 October 2009 (EDT)

Editing Go Boxes?

I've utterly failed at finding a guide to editing a Go Box address, so I figured I'd just note that the Go Box for "Tankor (ROTF)" instead links to a blank "Revenge of the Fallen Tankor" page for some reason. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by MCRG Again (talk • contribs).

Fixed. Someone put the destination page down as "Revenge of the Fallen Tankor" in Template:Goicons, thus causing the GoBox to send you to a non-existent page. ---Blackout- 02:51, 19 October 2009 (EDT)