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 Wiki Technical Information: A Not So Brief Summary of the Horrible Things That McFly and Co. Have Done To Keep This Wiki From Melting Down

Faction symbol bullets?

While working on more page revamping, it struck me that it might be a good idea to look into replacing the bullets in the lists with tiny faction symbol markers. On the one hand, it would make things a bit more visually pleasing and sort good bots and bad-bots in the mixed waves.
On the other, I'm not sure how we could pull that off without overloading things. A simple template like "{{bp-a1}}" (bullet point autobot 1), making sure the graphics are actually tiny and not having the wiki software scale down the images? I mean, there can be HUNDREDS of these on a page. Thoughts from the more technically-minded? --M Sipher (talk) 16:27, 11 December 2016 (EST)

I've created this mockup of what it would look like. The coding would be something like:

<ul class="iconlist">

{{bp-a1|[[Optimus Prime (G1)|Optimus Prime]]}}

{{bp-d1|[[Megatron (G1)|Megatron]]}}

</ul>

We'd have to specify the ul tags because mediawiki doesn't have a way to apply css classes to bullet points, as far as I can tell. --abates (talk) 18:59, 11 December 2016 (EST)

Okiedoke. Sooo...

• a1 (Autobot G1)
• d1 (Autobot G1)
• a2 (Autobot G2)
• d2 (Autobot G2)
• m1 (Maximal BW)
• p1 (Predacon BW)
• mt (Mutant)
• m2 (Maximal BM)
• vh (Vehicon)
• bd (Dinobot BM)
• uc (Unicron)
• ac (Anti-Cybertron)
• mc (Mini-Con)
• p2 (Predacon Prime)
• sa (SG Autobot)
• sd (SG Decepticon)

These seem like the most important ones. --M Sipher (talk) 20:01, 11 December 2016 (EST)

I've added in the G1/2 and BW ones so we can try them out. The icons are just the ones from the insignia page resized, so if anyone wants to have a try at making them more legible, feel free. --abates (talk) 23:15, 11 December 2016 (EST)

For some reason it's putting "" at the end. --M Sipher (talk) 23:26, 11 December 2016 (EST)

It should work when they're used. E.G.:

• Optimus Prime
• Megatron
• Grimlock
• Starscream
• Optimus Primal
• Megatron
• Soundwave
• Optimus Primal
• Tankor
• Magmatron

--abates (talk) 23:28, 11 December 2016 (EST)

Okay, I'd left off the "<ul>"s. Noice. I THINK we might need some half-and-halfs for multipacks. But that shouldn't be too many, I think... G1, G2, BW, SG... Oh and I guess Auto/Prime-Pred and Decep/Prime-Pred. --M Sipher (talk) 23:39, 11 December 2016 (EST)

I had a try at doing some split icons for the multipacks, but haven't had any luck. I did adjust the style to move the icons down a smidge so they line up better with the text, though it requires adding in a class to the ul tag thus: <ul class="iconlist"> --abates (talk) 05:03, 12 December 2016 (EST)

Can you give it just a tiny nudge to the right? So they end up slightly indented under the column headers, which makes them easier to read. --M Sipher (talk) 05:50, 12 December 2016 (EST)

Tweaked. I think I've got it approximately the same indent as the non-icon lists now. --abates (talk) 06:14, 12 December 2016 (EST)

REALLY not liking this. Looks far too cluttered to me. --Khajidha (talk) 13:57, 12 December 2016 (EST)

Request for vehicon template Jcbynum1 16:10, 12 December 2016 (EST)

Added the Beast Machines ones. --abates (talk) 16:30, 12 December 2016 (EST)

Request for mini-cons template Jcbynum1 17:10, 12 December 2016 (EST)

Added! --abates (talk) 19:45, 12 December 2016 (EST)

Request for Shattered Glass templates IronyMann (talk) 03:48, 13 December 2016 (EST)

Request for Combatron template for Japanese releases. S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 07:41, 13 December 2016 (EST)

Request for Unicron faction symbol. Grum (talk) 13:14, 13 December 2016 (EST)

I have added these. Unified documentation is here. --abates (talk) 17:43, 13 December 2016 (EST)

Off the top of my head while going through the Beast Wars page, we'll need hybrid Maximal/Predacon insignias and then... what do we do for oddball one-off things like the Starscream/Waspinator 2-pack? Grum (talk) 16:32, 12 December 2016 (EST)

Is Waspinator actually labeled as a Pred in that set, or a Decep? Honestly in either case I'd be okay with just using the Decepticon symbol. --M Sipher (talk) 16:36, 12 December 2016 (EST)

Will entries on the Cybertron toyline page need two bullets each for faction and associated planet? S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 07:45, 13 December 2016 (EST)

No. --M Sipher (talk) 13:00, 13 December 2016 (EST)

Sorry, when I called it the "Unicron" symbol, I meant the Blentron Unicron-head symbol. --M Sipher (talk) 19:07, 13 December 2016 (EST)

Ahhh, got it! --abates (talk) 19:51, 13 December 2016 (EST)

Uploading some half-an-half icons. I'm not making the templates because I'm bluntly not feeling up to it. Just getting the visuals out of the way. --M Sipher (talk) 21:44, 13 December 2016 (EST)

Kre-O pages with toys

The merging of Kre-O characters who are unambiguously based on 1 existing archetype with said archetype fell to the wayside some time ago. Anyone want to join me in restarting it? S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 00:54, 27 December 2016 (EST)

I didn't merge them back then because Sipher nixed the idea. If there's no opposition now, I'll help with merging them. Saix (talk) 01:29, 27 December 2016 (EST)

Wasn't around when Sipher nixed it, but I'll help too as many have been merged already. Jcbynum1 (talk) 07:08, 27 December 2016 (EST)

If we go through with this, we should probably begin by compiling a list to avoid any confusion over who does and does not qualify. S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 02:43, 28 December 2016 (EST)

Already made a list here. Saix (talk) 06:16, 28 December 2016 (EST)

I'm not sure the combiners should be merged. All of them have a distinct lineup, and the Terrorcons are a mix of G1 and Prime influences. S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 15:58, 28 December 2016 (EST)

"Distinct lineup" is pretty weak now we have Combiner Wars combiners with varying members and the G1 Terrorcons have used their Prime designs. Saix (talk) 16:22, 28 December 2016 (EST)

I'm not sure if the Universe Soundwave Kreon should go on Machine Wars Soundwave's page, but what about putting the Music Label Soundwave Kreon on Shattered Glass Soundwave's page since the latter is precedent for independent white Soundwaves? S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 00:34, 3 January 2017 (EST)

Final Facebook fiction

Notice to all: Fun Publications is doing one final round of Facebook story posts. Let's wait at least a little while for this storyline to finish up before we add anything to the wiki. S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 16:47, 31 December 2016 (EST)

Derailment & Uprising pages

A number of small debates are popping up here and there about character pages for BWU. I thought we could agree here on some general rules for how to handle these pages, so the same conversation doesn't keep happening on several talk pages. There will be technicalities in certain cases, as always, but in general...

• Characters drawn from non-Primax continuity families will get a new page, with a (BW) disambig. Aurex Mini-Cons like Synapse (BW), Uniend Predacons like Budora (BW), etc.
• Exceptions will be for the Primax straddling Viron and Kre-O borrowed characters like Movor or Freefall (Kre-O). Battle Beasts turned Cybertronians for Uprising will also be on the same page.
• Some characters deliberately straddle two existing characters, like Deluge, Wideload, Stockade, Eagle Killer, etc. Individual consideration is necessary.

• If the "composite" character draws more heavily on one existing character than the other (like Wideload who's clearly the Throttlebot but only borrowing the body-type and faction of the Classics Mini-Con), text should go on the more prominent page.
• If the "composite" character is equally weighted, or little more than a cameo and a description, like Eagle Killer, it may be better to create a third Eagle Killer (BW) page acknowledging it as distinct from the two previous characters.

Anyone disagree with these guidelines, or have others they wish to add? --Xaaron (talk) 17:39, 1 January 2017 (EST)

What about a character/toy already spanning multiple non-G1 continuity families? Back when Rav (DOTM) appeared (not in beast mode) in "Identity Politics", I created Rav (BW). But Catilla (DOTM) appears in "Derailment" (under "Katilla"). S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 17:48, 1 January 2017 (EST)

Which is one reason for this thread, so we can at least get some consistent treatment. Those (DOTM) Mini-Cons seem like an odd situation. Am I right in assuming they weren't split when AVP used them in an Aurex cluster because there just wasn't enough material to bother having two pages? If we want to say "These (DOTM) guys have extremely small roles in multiple continuity families, so hug it, we're just going to have one page for each", I'm not...opposed to that. Depends on if someone has strong feelings about preserving the rule of splitting characters by Continuity Family. --Xaaron (talk) 18:08, 1 January 2017 (EST)

My bad on the Katilla front. I saw the Uprising header on his page and thought that meant it was were his fiction was meant to go. (Sorry.) Smasher (talk) 22:48, 1 January 2017 (EST)

The Book of Logos and the Lio Convoy historical paper are pretty extensive. Shall we create story articles for them as we did for "A Brush With Infamy"? Perhaps as well with the Predacon Manifesto? S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 22:28, 1 January 2017 (EST)

I agree. Separate characters, separate events. Too extensive to try and lay out in the Notes section alone. --Xaaron (talk) 22:42, 1 January 2017 (EST)

Can anyone identify these characters? On page 33 of "Derailment" there is a "teal and grey Predacon" with a wrist-mounted autocannon. On page 55 there's a male "grey/purple" Micromaster. And more likely to be generics: on page 33 is an "enterprising Maximal ro-simian" and on page 118 is a "red and green" male Maximal who is converted into a Vehicon. S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 23:30, 1 January 2017 (EST)

Where Devastator and his components are concerned, does the use of Universe 2003 toys really count as repurposing when the toy never had contemporary fiction? S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 01:40, 9 January 2017 (EST)

Classics survivors on Axiom Nexus

How do we cite that final back page from OTFCC issue #72 in the Fiction sections? Where the Classics characters survived into Axiom Nexus? Just Hasbro Transformers Collectors' Club issue 72?

"Epilogue" was the only thing we called it. (Thanks, Jesse) --Jimsorenson (talk) 11:24, 2 January 2017 (EST)

I just took it as part of the OMAM comic. Saix (talk) 12:57, 2 January 2017 (EST)

GoBots sister wiki: An Ultimatum

Inspired by some person whining about GoBots on TFWiki this morning on Tumblr, I am going to reiterate my standing offer as publicly as possible:

If you are a person who would contribute to a GoBots sister wiki, stand up and be counted. If there's interest, I will create said wiki on ShoutWiki, and set it up with the basic set of templates needed for people to jump in and start making articles for characters, episodes, etc. You'll be able to go about everything exactly as if you were doing it on TFWiki.

Thanks to my having already done the legwork for the IDW Hasbro Wiki, this will be very simple - just starting the wiki and then importing an XML of all the relevant templates and CSS. I have no particular interest in contributing to a GoBots wiki, but I'm 100% ready and willing to get it running for those who would.

DISCLAIMER: If you've read this and don't come forward with your interest, you void any right to bring up the topic of GoBots coverage on TFWiki ever again, lest you be hurled into the hugging sun.

--Jalaguy (talk) 16:42, 4 January 2017 (EST)

Hell yeah. Escargon (talk) 16:48, 4 January 2017 (EST)

I'd like this to exist, but I admittedly won't be of much use other than organizational stuff. Saix (talk) 16:51, 4 January 2017 (EST)

Count me in! S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 16:52, 4 January 2017 (EST)

Obviously. Though with the caveat that I won't be touching my own stuff, which is a lot of the modern-era bits. --Jimsorenson (talk) 16:56, 4 January 2017 (EST)

I'll do my best to help out. Grum (talk) 17:17, 4 January 2017 (EST)

This is a great idea and I will help. Giggidy (talk) 19:06, 4 January 2017 (EST)

I'm in.--Khajidha (talk) 06:59, 5 January 2017 (EST)

Okay, this is going to go ahead. Hoping to set it up at the weekend. Planning discussion is currently happening the Allspark thread. Jalaguy (talk) 07:20, 5 January 2017 (EST)

Fun fact: it's been more active this week than the old TF wikia site.--Khajidha (talk) 13:40, 10 January 2017 (EST)

That's what we call "winning." :D -- Dark T Zeratul (talk) 17:15, 10 January 2017 (EST)

Okay, I actually have a serious comment, too: would it be appropriate to maintain a permanent link to the GB Wiki on our main page? Or just use an external link template on all GoBots pages? -- Dark T Zeratul (talk) 17:18, 10 January 2017 (EST)

The external links are already being added, but I do agree that this (and the IDW Hasbro wiiki) deserve a big call out, at least for a while.--Khajidha (talk) 18:21, 10 January 2017 (EST)

Could we add them to the main page's fake disambiguation box as well? That would be fun. Omegatron (talk) 18:10, 12 January 2017 (EST)

Serious question: is there a "Community Portal" type page for the GB wiki?--Khajidha (talk) 16:02, 10 January 2017 (EST)

"diff | hist" problem

Something happened to the feature that shows you what changed on a page in the history... the backing boxes are gone and the altered text is no longer in red. Which kinda compromises the usefulness of the feature. --M Sipher (talk) 19:44, 13 January 2017 (EST)

Still working for me--Khajidha (talk) 19:51, 13 January 2017 (EST)

Works for me, too. --ItsWalky (talk) 20:20, 13 January 2017 (EST)

Scope of TfWiki

I'm just curious about the scope of our wiki. I know that if things are official and Transformers related, they are covered here. So things like Gobots and GI Joe are only covered when they involve Transformers. But what about the human and alien characters from Transformers? If say Spike Witwicky were to appear in a random issue of GI Joe or in any Hasbro property where there isn't a single Transformer or perhaps he even gets his own spinoff show, as boring as that would be, (and let's just forget about revolution for a moment because I feel like that complicates things a bit), would it be covered here? How would this wiki cover things like that? Freakertron (talk) 01:50, 22 January 2017 (EST)

It's hard to forget about Revolution when that's the only example we can point to. The general, simplified scope of the Wiki has always been "When Hasbro/Takara uses/authorizes use of Transformers (the property), we cover it." But that came the implicit understanding that Has/Tak was only using Transformers stuff IN Transformers franchises. The blended Hasbro universe was unfathomable at the time. Now, we're being forced to fathom it. Thus far, the only example is Revolution, which has prompted users of the Wiki to formulate an entire separate [Hasbro Wiki] to cover the expanded universe Transformers has stumbled backwards into at Hasbro's request. Further examples of TF or no-TF characters from TF franchises used in non-TF outlets by Hasbro would have to be considered as they happened, because the Wiki really has no plan for that at this time. --Xaaron (talk) 09:58, 22 January 2017 (EST)

I see. Are the IDW versions of the Transformers going to be covered at the Hasbro ID Wiki? Freakertron (talk) 21:24, 22 January 2017 (EST)

Foreign Name Policy

Apparently there has been a discussion on AllSpark about Rāge/Rage and where to put her. So my question is, are we revisiting the wiki's stance on English name primacy? Because this is a very clear-cut case of a foreign character receiving an English language name. If so, are guys like Stepper/Ricochet and Gelshark/Sky-Byte, who were both brought up in that discussion, back on the table? I'm having trouble following the logic here. Like, to the point where I'm having a hard time understanding why it's even up for a vote. Are all policies subject to vote now upon specific implementation? Giggidy (talk) 09:44, 22 January 2017 (EST)

Because even if you were correct about implementing the policy, you did it wrong. Under the English name first policy, "Rāge" would be moved to "Rage (BWN)", since that's her franchise of origin, not "Rage (BW)". You would have known that if you consulted with other contributors first. Instead, regardless of the results of the vote, now we have to go back and undo the multiple pages you altered to the erroneous link of "Rage (BW)". For Primus's sake, Giggidy...you don't understand the wiki's policies on when to move pages. You KNOW you don't understand the wiki's policies. You've been screamed at by the owner and administrators of the wiki for moving pages. And yet you refuse to learn the very simple behavior of asking first and waiting for a response. What part of this is still unclear? --Xaaron (talk) 10:39, 22 January 2017 (EST)

I'll admit I was confused on the BW / BWN disambiguation, but that's an easy fix that can be accomplished in less than 10 minutes once Rage (BWN) gets deleted. But the Rāge thing is baffling. I know that our policy is English language names taking primacy. Add in that it's very difficult to type out macrons for most people and that there's a whole lot more fiction for her in English and in Japan, and that it's more accessible, and that it's shown up in both AVP and BWU, and I find the idea of it coming up for a vote incomprehensible. Which is why I'm asking, are we changing our policy on English language names taking priority. And, as for asking first, that's exactly what I did! I suggested a move, waited a MONTH, reiterated the suggestion, waited a week, and then attempted to execute. I thought no one else gave a damn. Giggidy (talk) 11:31, 22 January 2017 (EST)

Related: do we want to move Lione to Sawback (Headmasters)? --Riptide (talk) 16:29, 22 January 2017 (EST)

Obviously yes. --Jimsorenson (talk) 16:48, 22 January 2017 (EST)

Related: why is the Headmasters disambiguation at "Headmasters" and not "HM". Did that ever come up for discussion or did we fall backwards into it? Since it's only used 4 times, it'd be an easy fix. Does anyone have strong feelings one way or the other? --Jimsorenson (talk) 23:26, 22 January 2017 (EST)

"Headmasters" is one word, so using the whole word is consistent with how we treat other one-word franchises (Armada, Victory, etc). Super-God Masterforce is a better example of how we've bypassed policy and gone with the clearer, more frequently used disambig ("Masterforce") over the more obscure but sticking to policy one ("SGM"). --abates (talk) 19:53, 23 January 2017 (EST)

Well if this subject is actually getting some attention, then are there any arguments for or against moving "Rāge" to "Rage (BWN)"? I point out that while "Rage (BWN)" would technically be following primacy of English names, this "English name" only involves a minor orthographic change, was established years after the fact in another minor continuity, and don't we now and then like to break from the ubiquitous pattern of having to use parentheticals when it's not unreasonable to do so? S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 16:02, 23 January 2017 (EST)

I would not support moving the page because of Uprising, because Uprising has its own "continuity in a blender" thing going on, with its own unique Naming Conventions to change and alter character titles. I would support moving it because the unique character "ā" makes searching for the Queen counter-intuitive and harder to find for unfamiliar visitors and difficult for editors to assign links. That said, if "Rage (BWN)" is a functional redirect for "Rāge", I don't think it matters at all WHICH of the two is the actual page title. Six of one, half-dozen of the other. --Xaaron (talk) 16:25, 23 January 2017 (EST)

It's not that hard to use the Edit Tools below the summary box to add the macron. "Makes things easier for editors" should not be a directive. As for finding it, everybody will still type "rage" into the search box and be led to the disambiguation page that will have her regardless of article title. Saix (talk) 16:47, 23 January 2017 (EST)

Uprising or not, the character was also referred to as "Rage" in Ask Vector Prime, which does not particularly have unique Naming Conventions. Arguments in favor of the move: One, that's our policy. Two, she has considerably more fiction under the name Rage than Rāge. Three, she has considerably more accessible fiction under the name Rage than Rāge. Freely downloadable PDFs versus ancient low-print-run BWN manga. Four, Rāge is in fact difficult to write and type. I always find myself cutting and pasting. Five, she's never actually been officially referred to as "Rāge" anywhere, ever, in any fiction. If you are really a purist, then wouldn't "ラーゲ" make more sense, especially if as Saix argues making things easier for editors isn't a priority? Six, you need to have a functional knowledge of conventions for transliterating Japanese to English to be able to read and understand how to pronounce Rāge. 99% of our audience or more will look at that and think "Raaay-j", rather than "rah-geh". Arguments against the move: one, it's been at Rāge a long time. Two, it's how the character was first introduced to the fandom, such as it was. Any other?--Giggidy (talk) 19:34, 23 January 2017 (EST)

Your points 2 and 3 are flawed. Rage only properly appeared in 1 BWU story, and while BWU is indeed more accessible, I don't see how niche Internet-only Club fiction has that much more ground on old manga. S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 03:35, 24 January 2017 (EST)

This "people won't understand how to say it" is kind of an annoying point. We wouldn't be having that sort of argument if it were a non-English word natively rendered in Latin characters. People can't pronounce foreign dub actors' names correctly. We had the Chinese characters at their strict Pinyin names even though most people don't understand how to read it. I'm not sure why "can readers pronounce it correctly" even matters. Saix (talk) 04:21, 24 January 2017 (EST)

"Rage" isn't happening. --M Sipher (talk) 05:09, 24 January 2017 (EST)

Is that you voting against it? Or you tallying the vote? I don't really see any kind of consensus one way or the other. And are there greater policy implications? Giggidy (talk) 09:03, 24 January 2017 (EST)

I agree that Uprising's name conventions are too, well, unconventional for it to be able to take precedence over an established-for-years name. However, the macron was never official and arguably never correct in the first place. The Japanese extended A is not the English long A, and the macron implies the latter. Aren't Japanese extended vowels normally represented by just doubling the vowel in romanization? I think "Raage" would be more correct than "Rāge". NovaSaber (talk) 19:51, 23 January 2017 (EST)

Macrons are used in Hepburn romanization to indicate lengthened vowels because there are native words with two As next to each other that are pronounced separately. Saix (talk) 20:04, 23 January 2017 (EST)

The extent of our G.I. Joe coverage

So this is a subject that was talked about on the AllSpark but that should be raised here, just because I've spotted Charles's edit to the Cobra article today. So we're doing G.I. Joe vol. 5 issue articles, because Skywarp's in it and they use the Nemesis as their base and have Cybertronian weapons. Okay, fine and dandy, no problem. BUT. Outside of those limited cases, I do not think we want to be updating the Joes' and Cobras' character articles with every issue's information. Lady Jaye and Gung-Ho's articles do not need to have detailed write-ups of their mission in Greece, for instance. This is an odd situation and we need to have a line regarding how much of the content of these issues needs covered on the characters' individual articles, when this is what we have the IDW Hasbro Wiki for. - Chris McFeely (talk) 09:20, 27 January 2017 (EST)

Okay, what I'd say:

• Character articles get a very generic overview line with a link-out to the IDW Hasbro Wiki. Like, "Lady Jaye was a member of G.I. Joe who worked for the team after Skywarp joined." No real information that doesn't directly pertain to Skywarp being involved.
• The G.I. Joe and Cobra articles get sllllightly more detailed summaries that still link out to IDWHW for full coverage. These, again, would mostly center on Transformers involvement (the Nemesis, the laser guns, Skywarp).
• Anything/anyone that actually appears in a Transformers title gets a full writeup of those exploits, but will still link out to IDWHW for anything that isn't in a TF comic.

Y/N?--Riptide (talk) 09:34, 27 January 2017 (EST)

Yeah, I figure we should basically do what we do when an article links out to a "Examplor (G1)/Example G1 continuity" type sub-page - one or two summary paragraphs with the Main (or MainIDW in this case) template at the top. Jalaguy (talk) 11:19, 27 January 2017 (EST)

That all sounds very reasonable. --M Sipher (talk) 14:06, 27 January 2017 (EST)

Maintenance

I'm going to do some maintenance on the server shortly. It may make the site slow temporarily, but we'll see... --abates (talk) 02:08, 18 February 2017 (EST)

All finished! --abates (talk) 03:00, 18 February 2017 (EST)

Use of "parsed"

"Parsed" is often used on here to describe how names or titles are written, but I submit that it's not a good word choice in these cases. "Parse" is like "read", whereas something like "render" would be more like "write" which would be more appropriate to the intent of a line like "Sometimes his name is parsed Cross-Cut". I'm sure the difference doesn't matter to many people, but I personally was legitimately puzzled the first several times I encountered it here and I expect it's happened to others as well. I figured I'd submit this for discussion before actually making any changes in case there was a good argument for continuing to use "parsed" instead of "rendered". Steelfire (talk) 15:20, 19 February 2017 (EST)

"Spelled" would be a better option than "parsed" here too. I'm not sure why we're using "parsed" in this way... --abates (talk) 16:54, 19 February 2017 (EST)

I think I read in the dictionary some years ago that we were not using "parse" correctly, but I could never be bothered to point this out. S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 16:58, 19 February 2017 (EST)

Yeah, "parsed" is synonymous with "understood as". For instance, IAMNOWHERE can be parsed as "I am nowhere" or "I am now here". So the word is only appropriate when there's some level of analysis and interpretation involved. Translations, for instance: When this note about Deathsaurus's name lists all the romanizations people have come up with, I think you could validly say his name has been "parsed" in those ways because they involve trying to extract something sensible to English speakers from the unclear Japanese. But unfortunately we've rarely used the word in situations like that; the vast majority of the time it's been used to describe the presence or absence of hyphens and spaces. If those had an effect on meaning, such as in IAMNOWHERE, that could be appropriate, but I don't see any instances where that's the case. - Jackpot (talk) 13:56, 27 February 2017 (EST)

IDWHasbro link icons

Links to the IDWHasro Wiki should now have the favicon for that site auto-inserted on the end. I made an exception for Template:MainIDW because I thought it looked redundant to have icons after each link, but thoughts? --abates (talk) 06:15, 1 April 2017 (EDT)

Crew pages

I've been going through the orphaned pages and I found there's a lot of "person X was this crew member on Y movie or Z tv show." Would a cast and crew credits page for the individual TV shows and movies be a helpful idea in cleaning this up? Otherwise I'm at a loss as to where to link a random stunt pilot or storyboard artist. --Bluestreak7 (talk) 16:22, 3 April 2017 (EDT)

I think it's a good idea. We already have limited crew credits on Transformers (film), so we could have a link to a subpage with the full credits. Though maybe leave the names unlinked until they have actual pages, to avoid flooding the Wanted Pages list with a ton of new entries. --abates (talk) 18:44, 3 April 2017 (EDT)

New anti-spam measure

Since we had to shut down signups last week due to spam, I've implemented a mediawiki plugin (You can see it listed in Special:Version as Sentinel) to try to automatically ban spammers - if you see a new user sign up and then get banned by WikiSysop, that means the plugin detected them trying to add spam to the wiki. It will also email a copy of what they were trying to add to me, so in the hopefully unlikely event someone who is not a spammer gets caught by it, I can unblock them. --abates (talk) 20:49, 13 April 2017 (EDT)

Foreign name format

Okay, I'm bringing this here as it affects a large number of pages. I recently changed the Eagle Eye (G2) page from "*Japanese: Hawking (ホーキング Hōkingu), Hawk ("Badlands", ホーク Hōku)" to "*Japanese: Hawking (ホーキング Hōkingu), Hawk (ホーク Hōku. Badlands)" on the grounds that the previous version implied that "Badlands" was the translation of "Hawk". Flicky1991 reverted me on the grounds that the prior version matched the format used on many other pages. To me, this seems like a widespread error that needs to be fixed but I wanted to bring it up here before going on a hunt for all instances of this. --Khajidha (talk) 07:35, 3 May 2017 (EDT)

More maintenance

I'm going to do some more maintenance on the server in a couple of hours. There'll be a bit of downtime, but it should be brief. --abates (talk) 02:01, 7 May 2017 (EDT)

All done, please go about your business! --abates (talk) 04:36, 7 May 2017 (EDT)

Anti-spam AGAIN

Okay, somehow spambots are getting through the automated stuff. And if YouTube, Steam and Twitter have proven anything, it's that relying solely on automation for administration doesn't fucking work. I'm pretty convinced there needs to be a HUMAN level of interaction for new account signups.
As noted in the Allspark thread, one possibility is that new users are auto-blocked from editing any pages but their own talkpages. Said talkpage would also be automatically created with a template explaining that they need to put something ON this newly-created talkpage so we know they're human, and an admin will be along to unlock editing privileges once they've seen some evidence of human. And of course they'd be getting alerts to a change to their talkpage automatically, both in the topbar and via email, so it'd be hard to miss.
Sure, they might have to wait a bit for an admin to come along. But there's almost always an admin online at any given point in the day, and I'd prefer this than cleaning up another rampage of fake Userpages full of shit. --M Sipher (talk) 14:06, 8 May 2017 (EDT)

I am not actually sure how this new crop of spammers got past the anti-spam plugin I added. It should have caught them! I've disabled signups for now until I can take a look at it, but I'll have to look into if what you're suggesting is feasible to do. --abates (talk) 15:16, 8 May 2017 (EDT)

List of female TFs

I've been looking at the List of female Transformers page, which has become pretty ungainly and cluttered, and wondering if there's a better way to handle it; and I've ended up wondering — do we actually need it? Particularly as female Transformers become more common and the lines between continuity families get blurrier, is there any particular role it serves that the Female Transfomers category doesn't? I'm fairly certain that it either isn't necessary or needs a big overhaul. --Riptide (talk) 07:31, 17 May 2017 (EDT)

I'll add my vote for "no longer necessary." The Female Transformers page will have any relevant information about female Transformers in general, and the Female Transformers Category is available for users who wish to browse a full listing. -- Dark T Zeratul (talk) 17:13, 23 May 2017 (EDT)

Factions

I just noticed we have a category for factions but not an article for the general concept. Could just be an article saying something like "Most Transformers fiction revolves around wars between two or more factions", and then a description of the major factions in play in each continuity. Thoughts? --flicky1991 13:02, 23 May 2017 (EDT)

Sure, sounds good to me.--MistaTee (talk) 16:36, 23 May 2017 (EDT)

disambig pages

i'm editing a few disambig pages (Shockwave (disambiguation) at the moment), and i have some questions.

Is there a guideline for how to organize Not to be confused with sections? Alphabetically or chronologically, perhaps?

If something goes in the Not to be confused with section for a reason other than "their names are similar", should the disambig page explain why so-and-so is on such-and-such (disambiguation)? (Example: Shockwave disambiguates Nitro and Whirl.)

How similar do names have to be to go on a disambig page (in the main section or Not to be confused with)? (Example: i'm thinking of adding Shockdrive to Shockwave's disambig.)

At what point should Not to be confused with be replaced with (or augmented by) see other articles starting with [whatever]? (i'm probably about to add other articles that start with "Shock" to Shockwave (disambiguation).)

...i'll come back if i remember the other questions i wanted to ask.

--Rhymus (talk) 19:05, 3 June 2017 (EDT)

I think adding a lot of less relevant names to disambiguation pages makes it harder for people to find stuff. --abates (talk) 23:38, 3 June 2017 (EDT)

Speaking of disambig pages, I've noticed a few characters have had their toy sections split off from their main pages without the toy pages being added to the disambig pages as we'd usually do... --flicky1991 05:41, 4 June 2017 (EDT)

What exactly are these pictures behind Megatron supposed to be?

File:Example.jpg

Picture taken from episode "Master of the House".