MediaWiki talk:Community Portal

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

	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

Adding to the Armada cartoon article

Hello! New guy around here! I would like to add information about Home Video releases of Transformers Armada to its article. As I have no authorization to add to it, here is the information I can provide:

- Home Video Release in Bulgaria: In Bulgaria "IP Video" released the complete series, spread across 15 volumes, as well as a "Best of" DVD. The DVDs were also distributed with a weekly newspaper upon their intial release. Volumes 1-8 contain 3 episodes each, with volumes 9-15 and the "Best of" DVD containing 4 episodes each.

Transformers: Armada vol.1 - First Encounter Transformers: Armada vol.2 - Soldier Transformers: Armada vol.3 - Palace Transformers: Armada vol.4 - Ruins Transformers: Armada vol.5 - Swoop Transformers: Armada vol.6 - Conspiracy Transformers: Armada vol.7 - Decisive Battle Transformers: Armada vol.8 - Chase Transformers: Armada vol.9 - Detection Transformers: Armada vol.10 - Runaway Transformers: Armada vol.11 - Rescue Transformers: Armada vol.12 - Crisis Transformers: Armada vol.13 - Uprising (The Unicron Battles - part 1) Transformers: Armada vol.14 - Dash (The Unicron Battles - part 2) Transformers: Armada vol.15 - Union (The Unicron Battles - part 3)

TF:Prime jump-fight factoid

I've just started to watch Prime, and so far every episode I've seen has had someone do a dramatic jump slowed down jump before landing on someone they are fighting, (and sometimes the camera). It's quirky enough that it's stood out, and I was wondering if it's worth adding to the episode guides? I just wanted to know now because I'm going to be watching the whole of season one over the next few days, and it's easier if I know now than if it's added later. Failing that, is there anything else that people desperatly want added to the Prime episode guides that I should be looking out for? LiamK 17:31, 23 January 2012 (EST)

There is a certain level of ridiculous info you can get away with adding if you're a regular contributor doing serious and consistent work on the pages, and you handle it with sufficient comedic value. Ref: Brawn vs. Soundwave, What Makes Starscream the Leader?, etc. This could conceivably qualify as well, but approach with caution. -- Repowers 21:22, 23 January 2012 (EST)

Fair enough. It wasn't just going to be an adding silly jokes because oh ha ha I think I'm hilarious. I was going to add anything missing to the relevent pages as well. It's just that 5 episodes in, we've had at least 4 dramatic jumps into the camera, one dramatic jump away from the camera, and several semi-dramatic jumps off to the side. It's hilarious when characters like Bulkhead are apparently able to jump 500 feet into the air. If Springer ever shows up in this continuity family, he's gonna reach orbit.LiamK 19:59, 25 January 2012 (EST)

Expandible voice actor lists

There's been some noise about some of the voice actor lists getting too long and the need for a way to have them hidden unless the user expands them. I've done some test code which is currently hosted externally but is easily converted into something that will work on the wiki. Currently tested on Firefox 9 and 10, Internet Explorer 6 and 8, Chrome 16, and Opera 11. Feedback, anyone? --abates 23:41, 31 January 2012 (EST)

Although I was expecting a show/hide like how Wikipedia does its navigation templates, I don't mind this. Still needs a "hide" option, if that's possible. —Interrobang 23:46, 31 January 2012 (EST)

I've added in a hide option. --abates 00:21, 1 February 2012 (EST)

If you set up a {{voiceactors}} template it'd be easy to hide the 'extended' cast names and have them show up automatically if you mouse over. {{voiceactors|DEFAULT-TO-VISIBLE|DEFAULT-TO-INVISIBLE}}

It wouldn't even require Javascript, it could be pure CSS. Simpler is better, IMO. -Derik 00:26, 1 February 2012 (EST)

I kinda dislike the idea of it opening on mouse-over, because it can have unexpected effects on the layout of the rest of the page if you're not paying attention to where you're moving your mouse pointer. --abates 18:32, 7 February 2012 (EST)

I dislike mouse-over anything. Hide/show is a better interface. —Interrobang 18:48, 7 February 2012 (EST)

Add a third dislike vote for mouse-over. If we do this which (if any) voice actors should be visible without clicking? Only the primary English performer? All English performers? All English and Japanese? None? I vote for none. --Khajidha 19:40, 7 February 2012 (EST)

I vote for whatever hides the German voice actors. I'd put the English and Japanese actors on a higher tier of importance, but I'm not opposed to hiding them. —Interrobang 19:48, 7 February 2012 (EST)

I think English and Japanese should always be shown, as they are the two biggest uh... markets? Whatever. Hide everything else, and DEFINITELY make the reveal a deliberate CLICK, not a mouseover. --M Sipher 19:56, 7 February 2012 (EST)

Can we have this template now? I think everybody agrees that the extraneous VAs should be hidden. If people want to hide English and Japanese VAs, then that can be further discussed. —Interrobang 10:48, 14 February 2012 (EST)

Template:va (Should it be vas?)

CSS entties which need to be added to the master file are as follows:

.tt1-voiceactorlist .tt1-extraneousFuckers{
	display:none;
}
.tt1-voiceactorlist:hover .tt1-extraneousFuckers{
	display:inline;
	font-size:smaller;
}
.tt1-voiceactorlist.tt1-more:after{
	content: "more";
	padding-left:.5em;
	font-size:smaller;
	color:#999999;
}
.tt1-voiceactorlist:hover.tt1-more:after{
	content: none;
}

Styles are visible now if you've got Kired Tools installed. Alternately you can paste the above into your css file to get a look at it in action.

If you want to make it Javascript that's beyond my remit, talk to one of the tech-guys. (Also I think it's a bad idea, but I'm against modifying the DOP for presentational purposes when there's already a markup language intended to control presentation: CSS. The wiki is currently Javascript 'light', I prefer to keep it that way.) -Derik 13:21, 14 February 2012 (EST)

Why does it say "hiding the non English/Japanese voiceactors unless the user chooses to mouse over the list", I thought we had decided to make it use a click? --Khajidha 14:19, 14 February 2012 (EST)

1. I don't have the authority or access to implement that.
2. I think it's a terrible idea.

By all means, feel free to install the CSS styles (some CSS styles will be required regardless) and see what you think of this implementation.

The underlying HTML will be the same for a Javascript implementation anyway. -Derik 15:13, 14 February 2012 (EST)

So, er, did we come to a decision on either of these methods? I have to admit I kinda forgot about it until now. --abates 02:13, 5 March 2012 (EST)

I think consensus is to use clicks, not mouse-over, despite Derik's protests. —Interrobang 04:13, 13 March 2012 (EDT)

Facebook chat

Did the wiki have anyone at the TF Prime Facebook chat? -Derik 22:38, 6 February 2012 (EST)

Moving (Prime)/(WFC)/(RB)/(FOC) to (Aligned)

Considering that characters are part of the Aligned continuity family, like how Megatron (Animated) belong to the Animated continuity family and Megatron (G1) belongs to the Generation 1 continuity family.

No, that's not how we do things. Disambiguations are made by franchise of origin, hence why it's Megatron (G1), but Terrorsaur (BW) rather than Terrorsaur (G1), or why it's Ironhide (Energon) rather than Ironhide (UT). This has been discussed ad infinitum but the consensus remains the same. The only exception has been that characters who debuted in WFC but also appear in Prime get (Prime) because of the slight iffyness of the Aligned family. --Detour 10:26, 8 April 2012 (EDT)

(Edit conflict'd by Detour) I don't think we have an especially good, logical reason for why we do that with Aligned characters, other than that it simply feels very "wrong" to label a character with a prominent, regular fictional appearance in the Prime cartoon with a disambig based on their cameo appearance in a video game tie-in novel. Honestly, given that odd nature of the whole "Aligned" idea and the fact we're already breaking our standard with this continuity family's characters anyway, I'm not entirely opposed to just using (Aligned) as a much handier, self-explanatory disambig, but I don't know if anyone would agree. It would feel odd, for instance, to label the Rescue Bots with that tag. And Bot Shots are a tremendous pain in the arse - it's so annoying when we have to create articles for Aligned Roadbuster and Topspin and whoever when the Bot Shots are just clearly the movieverse characters. The whole Aligned thing can sometimes be a real wiki-headache. - Chris McFeely 10:32, 8 April 2012 (EDT)

Why DON'T they just get inserted into the Movie characters sections, then? [This thing applies to a lot of Hasbro's "fuzzier" lines of late, really - stuff's matched up with what other characters in the line are part of rather than just including them in an existing article for the version they're designed after]. - Mammalian Verisimilitude 10:41, 8 April 2012 (EDT)

I think treating Bot Shots as part of Aligned is somewhat dubious. Is there a reason it can't be viewed as using characters from multiple continuity families? --KilMichaelMcC 11:00, 8 April 2012 (EDT)

We already discussed this here. --abates 18:59, 8 April 2012 (EDT)

We do that so we don't have to pick nits over where the characters belong. Bot Shots Optimus Prime could fit many of his various incarnations. I disagree with renaming them to (Aligned), somewhat because all of the (WFC) guys will eventually be moved to (Prime), anyway. —Interrobang 05:48, 10 April 2012 (EDT)

But should (Prime)/(WFC)/(RB)/(FOC) be renamed (Aligned) or not?--Finister2 05:43, 10 April 2012 (EDT)

No. --Detour 11:29, 10 April 2012 (EDT)

Why?--Finister2 13:55, 10 April 2012 (EDT)

It's already been explained why. --Detour 14:40, 10 April 2012 (EDT)

Universal, properly-translated names of the Japanese Beast Wars/Beast Machines episodes

Okay, this has been bothering me for a while. On each page of the Beast Wars and Beast Machines episode, the Japanese title of each episode is given an English translation in each page's Foreign Localization section. And on the Geneon page, under the sections of its Beast Wars, Beast Wars Metals, and Beast wars Returns releases, the Japanese episode titles are also translated into English. What's bothering me is that certain episodes are given slightly differently-translated English names when comparing those given on the actual episode pages to those given on the Geneon page. Here's a list of each differing episode title. The episode page names are on the left, and the Geneon page names are on the right:

"The Solitary Warrior Tigatron" vs. "Lonely Warrior Tigatron"

"Goodbye, Rattle!?" vs. "Goodbye Rattle!?"

"The Falcon Warrior Airrazor" vs. "Falcon Warrior Airazor"

"Floating Island Death Match Part 1" vs. "Floating Island Deathmatch Part 1"

"Floating Island Death Match Part 2" vs. "Floating Island Deathmatch Part 2"

"The Destrons' Dramatic Finish" vs. "The Destrons Make Drama"

"Two Dinobots?" vs. "There are 2 Dinobots?"

"The Ant Warrior from Hell, Inferno" vs. "Inferno, the Ant Warrior from Hell"

"Revive, Beast Power!" vs. "Resurrected Beast Power"

"The Immortal Starscream" vs. "Starscream's Invulnerability"

"Fare Thee Well, Tigatron" vs. "Farewell Tigatron"

"The Great King of Terror Arrives!" vs. "The King of Terror Arrives!"

"You're Under Arrest, Meow" vs. "Meyow're Under Arrest"

"Gro~w Bigger" vs. "Groooww Bigger"

"I Am Resurrected, Dā" vs. "I am Resurrected!"

"Blaze, Dragon" vs. "Blazing Dragon"

"I Hath Returned" vs. "We Have Returned"

"Resurrection of the Legend" vs. "Rebirth of the Legend"

"The Dearly Wished Transformation" vs. "The Transformation of a Dear Wish"

"The Memory of a Friend" vs. "Memory of a Friend"

"Mission of the Stars" vs. "Message of the Stars"

"The Moment of Truth" vs. "The End"

"Captured Souls" vs. "Capture of the Spirits"

"The Hellish All-out Attack" vs. "The General Offensive of Hell"

"The Course of the Future" vs. "The Fate of the Future"

Could someone who's more adept at Japanese please clarify which titles should be universally used on this Wiki, and help in an attempt to create a greater sense of unity between the individual episode pages and the Geneon page (and with any other such pages on this Wiki as well)? --Sabrblade 01:29, 10 April 2012 (EDT)

The titles on the episode pages are more refined. Not to mention it would be easier to change the titles on a single page. —Interrobang 05:58, 10 April 2012 (EDT)

"I Hath Returned"? That's incorrect English. "Hath" was third person singular, not first person ("he hath" not "I hath"). --Khajidha 08:10, 10 April 2012 (EDT)

Apcog translated that. I recall the intention was to capture the old-timey connotation of the original Japanese. —Interrobang 08:21, 10 April 2012 (EDT)

Something else that has me pondering are the specific choices made in spelling and grammar of a few of these titles. Like, the inclusion of a "The" where it may not need be (like in "The Solitary Warrior Tigatron" instead of just "Solitary Warrior Tigatron", or "The Falcon Warrior Airrazor" vs. "Falcon Warrior Airazor") or the use a comma (like in "Goodbye, Rattle!?" as opposed to "Goodbye Rattle!?") or a space between two words instead of making them a compound word ("Death Match" vs. "Deathmatch"), and the synonymous use of "Resurrect(ion)", "Rebirth", and "Revive". In these cases, are the titles on the episode pages truly the more precise titles, or could they also use some amending? --Sabrblade 11:20, 10 April 2012 (EDT)

Most of those details are up to the translator's discretion. But, like I said, it's easier to just edit the Genon page rather than across multiple articles. —Interrobang 11:33, 10 April 2012 (EDT)

Category:Deceased

Sub-categories

• Category:Deceased (Generation 1 cartoon)
  • Category:Deceased (Marvel comics)
  • Category:Deceased (BW)
• Category:Deceased (Armada)
• Category:Deceased (Energon)
• Category:Deceased (Movie)
  • Category:Deceased (ROTF)
  • Category:Deceased (DOTM)
• Category:Deceased (SG)
• Category:Deceased (Animated)
• Category:Deceased (Aligned)

Why not?--Finister2 05:52, 10 April 2012 (EDT)

"Deceased" is a stupid idea on a wiki that focuses on fiction with multiple continuities, time periods, vague "deaths", and resurrections. All characters will inevitably die at one point. This is not a warranted category. —Interrobang 05:55, 10 April 2012 (EDT)

Vote for "No".

A character may get killed in a sub-continuity but alive in another. Not to mention if the character will be resurrected or not. (So, we don't need Category:Resurrected characters, either.) --TX55^TALK 10:11, 10 April 2012 (EDT)

It is an appealing idea, to have categories for characters that are deceased "now." If they are patched up, they get removed from the category. I would have changed the categories to "Deceased (Movieverse)" and "Deceased (UT cartoon)" since they are supposed to be all one continuity. The only problem I see is vague deaths and continuity inconsistencies. People would probably disagree with me that Brawn (G1) obviously survived that shot to the shoulder. So, unfortunately, I can't fully endorse the idea. - Starfield 11:08, 10 April 2012 (EDT)

If we go by continuity, we are going to have a lot of "Deceased" categories. And you could only do it by continuity, which goes against our current methods to have categories by franchise. --abates 16:46, 10 April 2012 (EDT)

I agree with you guys in regards to characters. but, what about a category for real people who have been involved with the Transformers franchise (like voice actors, designers, writers, etc.) who are deceased? --Sabrblade 11:11, 10 April 2012 (EDT)

Scheduled downtime.

Our hoster is moving servers around tomorrow. One of ours is gonna be moved starting between "Thu Apr 12 23:00:00 UTC 2012 and Fri Apr 13 05:00:00 UTC 2012." So that'll happen. --ItsWalky 21:52, 11 April 2012 (EDT)

I presume all the necessary backups have been made? --Thylacine 2000 22:37, 11 April 2012 (EDT)

Regularly, like clockwork. --ItsWalky 00:51, 12 April 2012 (EDT)

Category: Cats

Presumably we have some kind of unwritten "We don't categorise by altmode" rule in play here, so I apologise if my adding a bunch of characters to this category seemed heavy-handed but in my defence the distinction between Shattered Glass Steeljaw and G1 Ravage is, eh, pretty much non-existent, Cheetor himself says "I'm a cat", it's a subset of Characters by species and we have K-9 under Dogs, so it's hardly black and white. But my main reason for doing it was that in SEO terms, having the word "Cats" repeatedly linked a bunch of times throughout the wiki is really quite useful, as in the wider internet cats are kind of a big deal. Real effing kitten calendars and all that. Isn't that something to consider? --Emvee 03:47, 26 April 2012 (EDT)

Categorizing by alternate mode has been brought up several times, but nobody has bothered to hammer out the details and do it. I don't particularly care for it one way or another, but putting Transformers in plain categories like "Cats" and "Watercraft" based on alternate mode makes them useless to those who only want to know about actual cats or watercraft in Transformers. That said, I completely fail to see the relevance of Internet memes to our categorization system. —Interrobang 03:59, 26 April 2012 (EDT)

Well, just that keywords are good for search engines, keywords that link to relevant pages even better and lots of people search for cats on the internet. I know that my girlfriend does and at a time like this (when my birthday is coming up) it's not impossible that she might search for "Transformers cats". If that led her to, say, SG Ravage's page (which is quite accessible to an internet-savvy non-fan with its twitter references and Walky's cartoons) then she may well stick around to find out more, and maybe look for more Transformers cats through the category links at the bottom of the page. At the moment our first link in a Google search is Snow Cat, who's kinda cool but you'd probably have to be a GI Joe fan to really get it. I dunno, I'm just spitballing here, but part of my job is SEO so I hope I at least know something like what I'm talking about. Anyway, that was my line of thinking. If it's problematic then that's fine, but I'm not really convinced by the "people looking for actual cats or watercraft in Transformers" argument either - on a TF wiki I think they'd assume Transformers that turn into either of those things would be included by default. They are robots in disguise, after all. --Emvee 14:36, 26 April 2012 (EDT)

Google +

I've made a Google + for the wiki. I just need someone to link it to the main page because I don't know how. This is the link: https://plus.google.com/106006102124340784739 -- Spydersix 19:00, 30 April 2012 (EDT)

Alt-mode listings

I've seen several things here discussing listing alt-modes by category, but I'm looking for something a bit less complicated. I would really appreciate having each character's page at least openly list their alt-mode in the beginning; as it stands, some pages do not make it clear what that character turns into, generally only mentioning it in passing or in screenshots. I think some kind of fill-in-the-blanks template would work well, the kind they use on Wikipedia for comic book superheroes that have sections for code names, secret identities, a brief list of abilities, etc. It doesn't even have to be that thorough, just a small piece under the page's main picture that has "name, alt-mode, faction" would be a nice change of pace. Deusoma 15:15, 2 May 2012 (EDT)

Your idea is impractical because many characters have had numerous altmodes. Listing all of them would be ridiculously long while trying to generalize them down to a single listing would be useless. For example, Optimus Prime. The casual fan might assume that you could just list his altmode as "semi truck" and be done with it. But he has also been a bat, a Lambourghini Diablo and a shoe. And that doesn't even get into what kind of "semi truck" he is: cab over engine like the original or long nose like the Generation 2 version. And does it have a sleeper. With or without trailer. And you still haven't covered his non-Earth modes. None of the Cybertronian forms we have seen looks anything like any of the others. --Khajidha 15:29, 2 May 2012 (EDT)

I don't care one way or the other, but we could hide the minor alternate modes, the same as we do with voice actors. —Interrobang 15:40, 2 May 2012 (EDT)

While I agree that we should do our best to list alt-modes, at the beginning of the article doesn't seem like the most efficient place to do it. Rather, we should continue listing the alt-mode in the description of the various toys and work on filling in those that are lacking. - Shellspark 16:26, 2 May 2012 (EDT)

Well, there are a lot of fiction-only altmodes going on. I could see this working as a Notes subsection, possibly as a gallery. --M Sipher 17:27, 2 May 2012 (EDT)

Yeah, that's why I always attempt to get an image of each altmode in the fiction section as they appear. --ItsWalky 17:56, 2 May 2012 (EDT)

Redundant foreign names

According to Interrobang:

"So? It's been the standard for a long time and exactly how do you expect readers to know that Japan uses the same name without noting it?"

1) No, it has NOT been "the standard for a long time". In fact, we didn't do this for YEARS. You're the one who seems to have decided, fairly recently, to pull this crap. Like with "mammoth".
2) Well. Why don't we just list every country in the world that also uses that name? After all, how exactly are we to know if the Canadians don't not call her Airachnid, or the Germans, or the Zimbabweans (holy shit "Zimbabweans" is correct?), or the other 190-odd nations across the globe? Oh wait, because we can use some incredibly base deductive reasoning and assume that unless a different name is listed for a country, it's the same name and we don't need to fucking list it there just so you can get a katakana-boner. --M Sipher 06:45, 3 May 2012 (EDT)

There is the argument to be made that not including a foreign name leaves the reader unable to know if the character either has the same name in that country, or if that information is just missing from the article. Not that I disagree that it really seems to have got out of control, to the point that the Japanese words for "doctor" or "scientist" or "coach" or "mammoth" are being added to nameless characters' articles. I enjoyed our older attitude that basically amounted to "fuck katanana unless necessary to explain something". - Chris McFeely 07:05, 3 May 2012 (EDT)

The counter-argument was already made above. Transformers is a global brand now, and it's basically a waste of space to list every country where Optimus Prime is called "Optimus Prime" (or as close as they can get phonetically), and better to assume that it is "Optimus Prime" unless otherwise noted. The probability that the name is the same is pretty damn good nowadays, especially in Japan. --M Sipher 07:34, 3 May 2012 (EDT)

I'm sympathetic. If somebody actually does go through the trouble to track down what Airachnid is called in Zimbabwean and it ends up being "Airachnid" then if they put the information down, then nobody else will have to go through the trouble of looking it up. What if redundant foreign names are left <!-- commented out? --> - Starfield 10:04, 3 May 2012 (EDT)

I hate seeing redundant names, but I agree that a certain degree of "is this already known?" may exist in a vacuum. I'm not opposed to leaving them in the code but commented out to keep them out of the page itself. -LV 00:00, 4 May 2012 (EDT)

Would it be acceptable to have a template that displays the foreign names, but hides or combines entries if the names are not unique? The template might also be able to auto-categorize by "characters missing language names", too.192.249.47.177 18:49, 29 May 2012 (EDT)

Toy Fair/Pre-Toy Fair Catalogues

Collectively we went all out on getting hold of the 86 PTF catalogue when it popped up on eBay and have a nice page with full scans of it (I say "we" I completely missed that fund-raising drive). Going forward, is it a feasible aim for other Toy Fair and Pre-Toy Fair cats to be collected for the Wiki or is 86 known to be the only one of significant interest? I ask because I just stumbled upon an eBay seller with the 88 TF cat (which I'd hoped to procure for use on my Visionaries wiki) and some early 90s ones, all of which are beyond my means, but at relatively reasonable prices. Can't link to them on my phone, but I thought I'd mention it in case they are of significant interest like the 86 one was. Danja 03:45, 6 May 2012 (EDT)

Google Chrome

Does anybody else experience a really slow connection to only this site while using Google Chrome? -- spyder 21:42, 17 May 2012 (EDT)

FYI: {{bigquote}} overlaps images in Google Chrome, like on Morocco. I don't know when that started. - Starfield 16:03, 22 May 2012 (EDT)

Now, the {{picsneeded}} tag overlaps the top of the episode template. It might just be my computer, but I don't know. -- spyder 18:28, 29 May 2012 (EDT)

These layout problems are apparently an issue with the latest version of Chrome. I guess they'll get fixed in the next release or something. --abates 18:10, 31 May 2012 (EDT)

There's been two new versions of Chrome since you said that, abates, and it hasn't been fixed, so I'm reporting it to Google. Like that's gonna work. -- spyder 10:09, 19 June 2012 (EDT)

Is this problem still happening? --abates 05:22, 15 October 2012 (EDT)

Wow, completely forgot about this. And no, since I reported it to Google, it's been fixed. I'm surprised. -- spyder^{Use this!} 06:26, 15 October 2012 (EDT)

Transformers 4

Does anyone mind if I take a stab at creating a page for it? I'm not some idiot who's gonna create a crappy page with no effort. Or is it way to early to do that? -- spyder 19:03, 6 June 2012 (EDT)

I'd say wait until at least the first poster appears on the Internet, then you'll have some sort of image to put in. Really though it is a bit too early, if everything goes to plan TF4 won't be out for another two years, so the TF4 article would be sitting around with nothing on it for at least a year before we start getting concrete information. TurboFox 17:06, 24 August 2012 (EDT)

Prime game

What do people think about putting Transformers Prime: The Game in the nav bar? -- spyder 09:47, 10 June 2012 (EDT)

Or we can replace the link to the Prime cartoon page with a link to the Prime franchise page, that way it avoids overcluttering the navbar. --Detour 14:15, 10 June 2012 (EDT)

Yeah, that also might work. -- spyder 09:23, 11 June 2012 (EDT)

At least 95% of the people who click on that are likely to be looking for info on the cartoon, and I feel like if we have Rescue Bots and Dark of the Moon pointing to the cartoon/film rather than the franchises, we should aim to be consistent with our navigation. We'll presumably have to add Transformers Universe there eventually anyway. --abates 16:46, 11 June 2012 (EDT)

Yeah, I forgot about that. We probably can take Dark of the Moon to declutter it. -- spyder 16:50, 11 June 2012 (EDT)

We could divide things up with subheaders or just by putting darker lines in to split up the links. Man, I wish there was a way to easily add in more links without cluttering up the menu too much. It feels like we should have links to current toylines as well, and maybe the current IDW comics. --abates 17:21, 11 June 2012 (EDT)

Yeah probably, but what can you do, right? And I like that subheader idea. And on a different note, "Transformers Prime: The Game" is a mouthful. How can we abbreviate that? -- spyder 17:36, 11 June 2012 (EDT)

TF Prime: The Game??? Bumblebee2000 08:19, 12 June 2012 (EDT)

Probably the best we can do. -- spyder 13:37, 12 June 2012 (EDT)

On abbreviating the name, as everything on the wiki is Transformers, you can say "Prime: The Game" instead of "TF Prime: The Game". The "TF" is assumed. JohnnyMrNinja 15:30, 13 June 2012 (EDT)

So what are we going to do about this nav bar? -- spyder 18:17, 12 June 2012 (EDT)

Are we using the {{Primecap}} template for images from it? -- spyder 10:07, 13 June 2012 (EDT)

Be patient. This stuff never happens overnight. --Detour 18:50, 12 June 2012 (EDT)

Not exactly overnight anymore, two months later. As you might be able to tell, patience is not my strong suit. -- spyder 12:10, 30 August 2012 (EDT)

Sorry, I meant to have a go at fiddling with the lines to break the menu up a bit but I forgot. I'll have a go at it this weekend. --abates 17:16, 30 August 2012 (EDT)

Sweet! -- spyder 17:33, 30 August 2012 (EDT)

Niiiiccceeee. -- spyder 22:10, 1 September 2012 (EDT)

I have added this and taken out Dark of the Moon, since that's been out for over a year. I was going to add Transformers Universe, but I realised we still don't have a release date for that. I've also added darker lines under the "Main Page" and under the navigation links which are actual articles rather than Wiki things, which will hopefully make those links more grouped in function. You might have to force a refresh to see those. --abates 22:12, 1 September 2012 (EDT)

I see them. Nice looking. And I'll let you know when we have a release date. I check every day. -- spyder 22:16, 1 September 2012 (EDT)

I think I'm leaning towards moving the Prime: The Game page to Transformers Prime - The Game, since that's how the official website writes it. So the Nav bar might have to get changed. Just a heads up. -- spyder^{Use this!} 17:31, 10 October 2012 (EDT)

Rare/Unkown vintage G1 Walkie Talkie toys?

Hi guys. I was just browsing ebay and came across 3 old G1 Walkie Talkies that don't appear to be mentioned on the wiki anywhere.

1. 1- This one appears to be an Argentinian Transformer with the mold licensed from Commando Toys.
2. 2 These guys appear to be unnamed generics.
3. 3 This one features two Optimus Primes as an "Electronic Intercom Telephone System" (which seems to basically be two walkie talkies connected via a wire). Box says made by Nasta in lager photos and check out that goofy looking transformation sequence.

I'm not entirely sure if any of these are legit as I've never seen them mentioned anywhere else before. Anyone else know more info about these? Should they be added to wiki? RavenG 02:27, 16 June 2012 (EDT)

I used to have a set of #2, but I've no idea where they are now. They were pretty common in the UK I think. --Emvee 03:17, 19 July 2012 (EDT)

Technical Contact (and passwords)

Hi, guys. It's Botch the Crab... though I can't sign in as my account. I lost my password. I don't know what email address is associated with the account, but whichever one it is, when I did the "forgot password" thing and was told a new password was emailed to me, I never received any emails.

So my first question is: who can help me re-claim my account?

My second question is: who are the technical administrators of the wiki, and is that information posted somewhere that I couldn't find? I tried contacting Chris McFeely and David Willis, but neither of them were able to help, nor did they know who would. So! Suggestions?

I tried emailing your username, but it didn't work... It said that I need to be logged in with a valid email set, but I had done both of those things. Can any other user successfully send an email to User:Botch the Crab? Because it might be the email module that isn't working and that's why you can't reset your password. I don't think the MediaWiki framework has been updated since 2008 (we're running MediWiki 1.12.0), and if David Willis doesn't know who's running the tech (seeing as how [http://www.networksolutions.com/whois-search/tfwiki.net he registered this site), it makes me think that there are not any people doing that. I could be mistaken, but I think there are only admins that are affecting change within the MW software.

As far as I know, once a password to a MW site is lost there is no recovery outside of email, at least that is the case for WP. JohnnyMrNinja 17:49, 16 June 2012 (EDT)

I just tried sending an email to Botch and it worked, though the copy I sent myself ended up in my gmail spam folder. --abates 18:48, 16 June 2012 (EDT)

You're right, I had to confirm my email address and now I can email, although emails from this site were marked as spam for me as well. Botch, I can only hope that you haven't checked your spam folder. JohnnyMrNinja 00:54, 17 June 2012 (EDT)

Thanks for all the help, guys. Unfortunately, I haven't received any of the "new password" emails. (Yes, I keep checking the spam folder.) The frustrating part is that without being able to sign in, I cannot confirm which email address these are being sent to. All my emails are forwarded to my gmail account, so I have no idea why I wouldn't receive them. It's a mystery. It's weird to think it's possible that none of the administrators have the access or ability to solve this.--Botch 23:18, 18 June 2012 (EDT)

I thought Scout and/or McFly were doing our technical stuff. --abates 23:27, 18 June 2012 (EDT)

I'm pretty sure that Scout and I have been over this fairly often: We're pretty damned busy, so we're not monitoring the Community Portal pages. If someone's forgotten their password AND the associated email address, there's no real secure way to get them back in. Email addresses aren't exposed to us until we get down to the to SQL DB layer, barring some additional extensions that would expose everyone's information to a trusted few. I strongly suggest making a new account in the interim, while we discuss the repercussions of adding some more User Management extensions, and figuring out who we can trust. I'll tell you this much, though: If your password isn't basically a random scramble of characters and symbols, I wouldn't trust you with maintenance access. It's like giving a handgun to a chimp. (Not picking on anyone in particular, but let's keep this in mind as we start adding cooks to the kitchen.) --McFly 11:54, 1 August 2012 (EDT)

Sad update: I managed to scrounge up the database password from some old notes, and I've got your email address: Same one listed on your website. If you can disable whatever's filtering out your spam, that might help, since your site mentions some sort of sender-response mechanism. Poor old Mediawiki is too stupid/honest to pretend that she's a human.--McFly 12:11, 1 August 2012 (EDT)

Captions need to go

It seems I am not the only one who finds the caption "humor" annoying and irrelevant to the photo it is placed with. I see in huge bold letters 'THE FUNNY STAYS. -The Management' So it seems this is not the first time someone has brought this up.

It seems " The Management " are the few people who get their kicks from such while the rest of the users are stuck just rolling their eyes. I for one will no longer be visiting this wiki because of such.

The nail in the coffin for me was a caption that I looked up as I wondered why I didn't get the "joke" as I seen tons of Xformer related shows. Heaven forbid the joke had nothing to do with transformers, only the person who wrote the joke and a small selection of people probably will understand it.

Just a little FYI 90% of the captions are unfunny, I would dare say 30% or more have nothing to do with xformers.

(sorry if this is in the wrong place, sort of new to wiki's and I wish the first thing I could have posted here would have been positive. I believe this is really positive and will help the wiki more than any article I could have wrote.)

Thank you for leaving. --ItsWalky 02:11, 21 June 2012 (EDT)

Eh, the majority of the time when I stumble on a discussion on wikis on other sites, people will cite TFWiki and Wookiepedia as the best, and are generally complimentary about the humour, so while we occasionally get complaints about it, it seems like the majority of people like it. --abates 03:29, 21 June 2012 (EDT)

I also believe that anything else you would have contributed to the wiki would have been less useful than this. --M Sipher 06:58, 21 June 2012 (EDT)

....xformers? Is spelling out Transformers properly now "2 kool for skool"? --Detour 07:32, 21 June 2012 (EDT)

The Funny STAYS. --TX55^TALK 09:26, 22 June 2012 (EDT)

I'd note that if you want a serious TF wiki, there's an abandoned Wikia wiki that nobody seems to have gotten the bright idea of turning into one yet instead of always trying to convert this one. --108.176.195.222 01:43, 22 June 2012 (EDT)

Some people here have actually mentioned this idea to the wikia "community", but they seem hellbent on remaining a poor copy of this site. The fact that they have barely added any pages since this site began while we have doubled in size doesn't seem to register to some of the people over there. --Khajidha 02:37, 22 June 2012 (EDT)

If you feel that bad about it then write some of your own on the Pics with out Captions. (hell knows that ultra magnus "I can deal with that" has been done to death)Phantom 09:38, 22 June 2012 (EDT)

To be fair, serious captions, unless vital to the understanding of the picture, tend to get rewritten here. --abates 18:42, 22 June 2012 (EDT)

Spoiler titles

Something which came up last month, but I didn't want to bring it up at the time because it would only have compounded the problem.

The title for IDW MtMtE #5 was placed at the end of the issue, "The Night Gwen Stacy Died"-style (rather than the typical beginning/first splash page), because it was itself a spoiler.

So, of course, every page which had a {{spoiler}}-tag for the issue plastered it in the spoiler tag itself.

There's got to be a better way of doing this if a comic gets a spoiler-title again. -- Mammalian Verisimilitude 20:19, 7 July 2012 (EDT)

The spoiler tags could have linked to the "More than Meets the Eye issue 5" redirect instead (the issue was originally created there to avoid just that problem, but then it got moved to the actual title anyway) --abates 20:30, 7 July 2012 (EDT)

Speaking of SPOILERS, is there any way people could stop putting them up for comics before the issues actually come out? By sheer happenstance, I just came across some significant details on the Wiki about the DJD, their leader, and their membership that I honestly would have preferred to read for myself when it's published. It was posted by long time members, so I'm assuming it's legit and came from SDCC or somewhere, but there are no sources so I can't be sure. If an anon posted that stuff, I probably would have removed it as typical Wikipedia fanfic trying to creep in.

Regardless, it's getting tough to come onto the TFwiki because of this stuff. Whenever a new 5-page preview for RID or MTMTE comes out, people are immediately updating the crew on the Lost Light page, adding place-holder storylinks to pages for new characters showing up, and just generally revealing every detail they can extract from the previews ahead of time. I get that avoiding spoilers on the internet is a luxury nowadays, but these previews come out nearly a week in advance for each of IDW's two series. Its one thing to avoid SPOILERS-labeled topics in a message board...its another to avoid the entire TFwiki for a third of every month to dodge preview materials. --Xaaron 21:52, 20 July 2012 (EDT)

This one I'll have to own, as 'twas me that did the deed. It was, as you speculated, another five page preview from IDW. I'd hoped the details I put in weren't too spoilery, as in the leader's case it was mostly putting a name to details we'd found out issues before. I can only apologize and try to be a bit more careful.--Rosicrucian^Talk 22:11, 20 July 2012 (EDT)

I'll also say that I was going to stick the group shot of them up on the wiki, but I can hold off if you think that would be best.--Rosicrucian^Talk 22:40, 20 July 2012 (EDT)

Autobot Communications officer in Headmasters

[[Image:Hm - autobot communications officer.jpg|thumb]] Hey, this guy appeared in a single episode of Heamasters where he was the communications officer on-duty at Autobot City. ...does anyone know which episode? -Derik

The Final Showdown on Earth (Part 1). --abates 01:27, 18 July 2012 (EDT)

Sir, you are a gentleman and a Transformerologist. -Derik 01:47, 18 July 2012 (EDT)

Connection issues

Is it just me or are there problems with the wiki's server or in how many connections it can manage at a time? I've not been around for awhile and have noticed that if I spend a few hours reading or editing the wiki, it randomly stops working for periods between 5 minutes to half an hour, which is a problem if I've just made a large edit to something. In fact, in the few minutes that it took for me to write this, it twice stopped working (so I couldn't preview the edit), and that was after sitting around for perhaps 10 minutes waiting for the wiki to allow me to open the community portal page. --FFN 15:00, 2 August 2012 (EDT)

I get this a lot, usually only for short periods but quite regularly. Either it just hangs or I get the "unable to serve page" error. Usually halfway through a big edit too, which is why I keep a text editor open to cut and paste stuff into. --Emvee 04:41, 30 August 2012 (EDT)

I ♥ you guys

Am I the only one who sees ♥'s everywhere in the RecentChanges page?

Did we screw up the CSS while adding an admin? -67.6.127.163 23:03, 29 August 2012 (EDT)

You don't see them if you're logged in.--Rosicrucian^Talk 19:10, 30 August 2012 (EDT)

I think if you're logged in, you still see them if you have the enhanced Recent Changes turned off, because Derik only coded them for the simple version of RC. --abates 21:39, 1 September 2012 (EDT)

G.I. Joe wiki - a little help?

Hello, all. I just wanted to add a request for some help for what should really by this wiki's sister site, Joepedia, the G.I. Joe Wiki. Now, I posted a similar request on some other sci-fi themed wiki, but the only answer I got was being told that the rules forbid a request from another wiki to be made. Well, I think that was kind of stupid, considering the communal attitude the whole wiki concept represents. BUT, ANYWAY, the Joepedia has been growing over the years, but it's mostly frequented by a small dedicated group of contributors. Since Transformers and G.I. Joe are so closely linked, I hoped some folks on here would like to help.

I will add that I have no authority over on that site, and I don't really contribute much, mostly because of the time spent my own website. I'm just a concerned geeky citizen drumming up some support. --JMM 10:26, 7 September 2012 (EDT)

Well, I would, but I really don't know jack shit about G.I. Joe. And when I think about it, I'm not sure this post belongs here. -- spyder 17:36, 7 September 2012 (EDT)

Just looking around for a little help. This seemed like the closest thing to a G.I. Joe wiki out there, and I figured it was worth a try. --JMM 13:23, 13 September 2012 (EDT)

I don't see a problem with a polite request for assistance or notification that a Joe wiki exists, since there IS some crossover interest. I just don't know how much useful crossover interest for the Joe wiki there is from this end outside of what we've already done. I mean, we've got extensive coverage of the parts of Joe directly involving TFs... I'd say that's probably going to be the most useful thing we have for you. But, if others wanna try it out...

...unless you're on Wikia.... --M Sipher 13:27, 13 September 2012 (EDT)

Yeah, it was just a quick heads up so people who may be interested are aware. I know a number of people who are equally obsessed with TF and Joe. :) Oh, and yes, it is on Wikia! --JMM 14:22, 13 September 2012 (EDT)

We did at one point approach a partnership with Joepedia, and even had a template that cross-linked articles we shared. It was just a little premature at the time (which was years ago) as Joepedia was just starting out and often our articles were more complete than theirs, or theirs were just stubs. It looks like they've gotten off the ground a bit more now.--Rosicrucian^Talk 15:30, 13 September 2012 (EDT)

Yes, their wiki got started later than this one. They have a small group of dedicated contributers, but the site's yet to attract the kind of interest this one does. --JMM 16:34, 13 September 2012 (EDT)

New stub template

Does anybody have any objections to a video game stub template? It would look something like this:

If anybody knows of a better picture that would go well with this, please upload it so it can be put in. Thanks! -- spyder^{Use this!} 15:52, 2 October 2012 (EDT)

How about a pic from the story where Prime dies in a video game? Heh if only Beta had ever been in a game, that'd be perfect. --76.28.76.206 16:03, 2 October 2012 (EDT)

What story was that? And yeah, that woulda been great. -- spyder^{Use this!} 19:53, 2 October 2012 (EDT)

That would be Afterdeath!. --Detour 21:56, 2 October 2012 (EDT)

Well if people really want a picture from that, someone else will have to upload it, as I don't have access to it. -- spyder^{Use this!} 21:59, 2 October 2012 (EDT)

Right here, dude.--Detour 22:34, 2 October 2012 (EDT)

Thanks, man. It's on the Prime: The Game page if you want to see it. -- spyder^{Use this!} 22:50, 2 October 2012 (EDT)

In addition to the video game stub, I'd like to suggest adding several templates, such as "section stub" and "fiction stub". Right now, we only have "characer stub fiction" for pages only missing fiction section, but no templates for non-character page missing fiction appearance. While "section stub" can use for articles only missing one or two sections. --TX55^TALK 22:05, 2 October 2012 (EDT)

Ok, so I'm gonna go ahead and make the video game one, and TX, if I get around to it later, maybe the others. If not, well, someone else will. Oh, and if I miss an article that the video game one should go on, put it here. -- spyder^{Use this!} 22:31, 2 October 2012 (EDT)

Megatron Barcode Battler Card

Hi, I was wondering if anyone here had come across this Megatron card for the Barcode Battler, or knows where in the Wiki it should go:

It seems to have been released by Toys R Us in 1992 as a promo for the Barcode Battler (which they were trying to sell in store), and was (as far as is known) the only such Transformers card, probably given away with two blank cards (the bottom scan - the middle is from the Barcode Battler box) to add your own barcodes to, and a card wallet.

The text ("Clad in steel, armed to the teeth, nobody toys with us good guys when this moody cool deadly-dudey is around.") is probably enough to make you want to forget this was ever made (is it really calling Megatron a good guy?), but it's cropped up in enough eBay sales (occasionally found in Barcode Battler lots with the seller unaware that they've got something rare) to make it likely to be genuine.

So does anyone else have any information on it, and whereabouts should this go? xensyria 12:26, 16 October 2012 (EDT) EDIT: 13:10, 16 October 2012 (EDT)

I definitely don't know anything about it, besides that it's awesome, but if it's from 1992, then the only Megatron it could be is Megatron (G1), and so it should probably be on his toys/merchandise page.

It's also plausible that someone who knows something about Barcode Battlers should make a short article on them for the wiki, since we have a lot of those "this broader thing had a TF thing released under it" pages. -LV 12:31, 16 October 2012 (EDT)

Or...this isn't anything to do with a licensed Transformers thing? I sort of blindly assumed Hasbro was the entity selling the Barcode Battler in the UK, but the packaging doesn't seem to support that. It's hard to believe it's not intended to be TF Megatron, but I'm also not sure it's an official product. Especially since this Megatron guy seems to be the boxfront "main character" for the UK Barcode Battler release. -LV 12:37, 16 October 2012 (EDT)

Ah, that's a possibility, but Barcode Battler was being distributed in most of Europe by Tomy, so they probably gave Toys R Us rights to use Megatron. Perhaps they couldn't get the rights to use his picture though (as you say, it's Tomy's Barcode Battler cover on the card, so anyone who used the card probably wouldn't think it was supposed to be Megatron). I should also say that 1992 is more of an educated guess than fact, but it's bound to be somewhere around that.

If it's offical I don't mind making a Barcode Battler article (though I'll have to check out some of the other examples you mention first). xensyria 13:02, 16 October 2012 (EDT)

Wait, I just re-read Wikipedia, and Tomy was rivals with Takara who owned Transformers at the time. Still, I wonder if such big companies would risk a lawsuit over using Megatron, when they had all sorts of other franchises they could use instead; more likely Toys R Us arranged the deal with Hasbro, who they no doubt were one of the biggest retailers for at the time. xensyria 13:04, 16 October 2012 (EDT) EDIT: 13:12, 16 October 2012 (EDT)

Unlikely to be a Hasbro/TF related thing. In 1992 TFs weren't even being made in the US and the UK line didn't have a Megatron, the Decepticons were led by Skyquake at that time. --Khajidha 13:14, 16 October 2012 (EDT)

Well, this is sort of like with Yu-Gi-Oh's Space Megatron, Hasbro's trademark just didn't apply to things like gaming cards, so Tomy, just like Konami later, was in a safe zone. --Detour 14:20, 16 October 2012 (EDT)

Ah, that would explain the "good guys" text as well. It seems to be a U.K. only thing, and though there may not have been Megatron toys there (is there a reference to them not being released in the U.K. on this on the wiki?) the name would have been familiar from the the film. Is there anywhere for similarly unofficial merchandice here, or should it be cast back into the purgatory of its makers' device? xensyria 15:11, 16 October 2012 (EDT)