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:

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IDW first appearances on character pages

Why are these being added? Are similar additions going to be made for other continuities? They seem pretty useless and silly to me.--Khajidha (talk) 12:06, 18 June 2018 (EDT)

Well this is awkward. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 14:09, 18 June 2018 (EDT)

That proposal was for making notes about first appearances on the pages of the fiction, not the characters. I have no opinion on that. --Khajidha (talk) 14:29, 18 June 2018 (EDT)

Anyhow, M Sipher stated in the Allspark discussion thread that given the tendency of IDW continuity to show characters out of chronological sequence, it would be useful to list first real world appearances. S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 14:37, 18 June 2018 (EDT)

It's been brought up on Twitter as a problem with "nerd wikis" in general to value in-universe event order over real-world reading/experience order to the Nth degree, often to the detriment of not-already-hugely-invested readers. While we do compare favorably to most (take note that Wookiepeedia wedges licensed video game events directly into a character's main timeline, like, right in the middle of the movie story), something as simple as finding a character's first appearance in real-world reading order shouldn't be a chore requiring digging and multi-link jumping. Generally any given chunk of Transformers media's diagetic and real-world chronologies have lined up pretty well and it hasn't been much of an issue, as most of the prequel/backfills are spinoff media and we split those into their own subsections. But IDW, particularly after "phase two" started, really bounces around its own timeline; the example given was that Grimlock's IDW writeup starts with a material published four years after his first appearance.

This seems like a thing the larger IDW character sections need, a simple "start here". Honestly we should probably take a look at the IDW-as-a-publisher/continuity pages and see about making the real-world publishing list a bit more easily-found/readable (it's kind of a morass of text). It's unlikely we'll need this for most of the fiction sections of character pages, since most fictions are relatively straightforward. But IDW is an exception. --M Sipher (talk) 16:39, 18 June 2018 (EDT)

Seems like that would be better served with an Appearances section with all entries in chronological release order. --Khajidha (talk) 05:29, 19 June 2018 (EDT)

That could get excessive for some of the more popular characters. The simple "First Appearance" entry at the top of their IDW fiction section seems just fine to me. -- Dark T Zeratul (talk) 17:24, 4 July 2018 (EDT)

To me, just saying "their IDW first appearance was here" seems pretty pointless and useless if we're not going to tell the reader what comes after. --Khajidha (talk) 19:54, 4 July 2018 (EDT)

I concur with MSipher etc. that this is useful and valid, given the achronal order of IDW's reading (I was rather startled while looking at the timeline last night to be reminded that events in Lost Light are only up to ~TAAO #9!) - TBR (talk) 22:06, 4 July 2018 (EDT)

Still not sure what good telling me "His first issue was X" is if you don't then tell me "His second issue is Y" and so on. Also, why would it get excessive? Just a summary list, not necessarily linked out. Like this:

Appearances

First Title #7, 10

Second Title #1-3

First Title #13-25 --Khajidha (talk) 10:28, 15 August 2018 (EDT)

I see Wookieepedia was brought up as an example of a bad nerd wiki, but do you know what they do? Sensible appearance lists. Make it a subsection (for IDW or whatever) and list in publishing order and you basically get what everybody wants. Saix (talk) 11:57, 23 August 2018 (EDT)

Except "everybody" doesn't want comprehensive appearance lists. Some people do, but others don't, and for some characters (like Optimus frex.) this would result in some serious bloat. - TBR (talk) 03:11, 24 August 2018 (EDT)

It gives you the "first appearance", which is what some people want. And how is "bloat" relevant here with a scrollbox like Wookieepedia? Saix (talk) 03:30, 24 August 2018 (EDT)

YouTube template

I've noticed we've got a few hundred pages with different links to YouTube videos, and with more and more fiction being released via Hasbro's or other parties' YouTube channels, it might not hurt to have a template we can use to make the process easier and cleaner. I've got a draft going on my sandbox; as it stands now, it'll be a basic "'Name of video' on YouTube", link, with options to add the channel name at the end or add your own text in place of the generated linktext, but I figured I'd get opinions first. Is this something people would use, and if so, should the format be changed at all? -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 15:51, 10 July 2018 (EDT)

Uglydolls page question

Hey, I'm still a bit shaky on this wiki, but I found that Uglydolls did an official collab with Transformers for the 2018 SDCC this year, with uploaded pictures for proof (in my contributions). I was wondering how a page should be handled for these. Thanks in advance! --ZootyCutie (talk) 16:25, 19 July 2018 (EDT)

I would suggest making entries for each of the dolls on the Merchandise pages for Optimus and Bumblebee. If you think it's warranted, perhaps make a company page for Uglydolls as well that links to those two entries. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 17:46, 19 July 2018 (EDT)

All right, thanks for the help! --ZootyCutie (talk) 19:05, 19 July 2018 (EDT)

Transformers Armada [PS2] - Demo / Alpha / Unreleased Material

I've recently gone on a deep dive into the 2004 Armada PS2 game, primarily to get a copy of the complete soundtrack but also to see whether any unreleased material existed for the project. In my travels, I've come across several demo versions and an Alpha Version of the game that contains stuff like:

A bunch of unreleased music, An official instrumental of the Transformers Armada TV Theme, Voice Clips not used in the final game, The in-house audio-cues done before recording dialogue with the voice actors, Material from Star Wars Episode II and The Transformers: The Movie (1986), Early video material and artwork, as well as string files giving an earlier glimpse of what could have been.

And this is what I've found and been able to access, record and convert so far! I'm slowly dumping everything onto Youtube [1], but I'd have no idea how to add this info to the Wiki, as it's all pretty disparate, and the game page as it stands now is pretty simple in it's construction.

I'd love to hear your thoughts as to how and structure this information, as well as your thoughts on the actual material.

Cheers!

Listing product names with Japanese words

Currently, both Unicron of Light toys are listed on that page with a direct transliteration of the Japanese words in the item name, but MP-29+ Defense Officer Shockwave is listed on his page by a translation of the Japanese words. Er, we should have some kind of consistency in this, no? S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 22:54, 16 August 2018 (EDT)

Don't the Masterpiece toys always have Latin text on them? Saix (talk) 14:48, 17 August 2018 (EDT)

Underlining continuity headers

Of late, Sipher has tested underlining major continuity headers in fiction sections, as can be seen on "Toaster" and "Cybertronian colonies". How does everyone feel about utilizing this feature on pages? S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 21:41, 18 August 2018 (EDT)

Oppose.--Khajidha (talk) 22:03, 18 August 2018 (EDT)

I like it. It makes it way easier to sort through the information being presented; the various headers can get pretty overwhelming, and this helps a lot. -Foffy (talk) 00:52, 19 August 2018 (EDT)

Anything with multiple === and ==== level sub-headers becomes a bog-down where the text size and bolding between the two is so minimally different that telling where one === level header ends and the next one begins becomes difficult. Underlining at the === level is a clear delineation; most anything at that header is going to be a "start-over" point, and the underline indication that the above continuity string (or jumble) is done and what follows, well, doesn't follow, but being ONLY under the text shows "we ain't done with the major == level section yet". Honestly, I'm mulling giving any text under a ==== or higher (we do get up to five sometimes) header an indent like we do with the toy entries for further visual shorthand of what is a sub-header of what. --M Sipher (talk) 05:18, 19 August 2018 (EDT)

Seriously opposed to this, at least the underlining. Frankly it makes the page look amateurish and my initial reaction was that something had broken. - TBR (talk) 05:52, 19 August 2018 (EDT)

I oppose. notirishman (talk) 09:08, 19 August 2018 (EDT)

I, for one, like the look of this. Omegatron (talk) 18:39, 19 August 2018 (EDT)

I have to say, when the two sides to this are "it makes the information on pages clearer and easier to read" and "it is a slight bother to me and I find it vaguely aesthetically displeasing", I find the former to be a lot more compelling than the latter. Like... Cybertronian colonies reads SO much better with those underlines in place, that's infinitely more important than whatever sense of aesthetics they may offend. -Foffy (talk) 12:07, 19 August 2018 (EDT)

Yeah, well that isn't just it, it's also takes much work to fix it on most of the pages on the wiki. While that wouldn't stop us normally, I see it as a "if it ain't broke, dont fix it." However, I can see Sipher's point, I personally don't feel its necessary, but that's just me. notirishman (talk) 14:12, 19 August 2018 (EDT)

1. I’m pretty sure if we choose to go through with this, the underlines will be added to the site’s style sheet, thus changing all the h3 headers on every page all at once. (admins correct me if I’m wrong here). 2. I’m not really sure how to tackle the idea of improved readability being “not necessary”. Like, wearing shoes while you walk across a gravel road isn’t strictly “necessary”, but it’s a massive improvement. Just because it’s not of any noticable benefit to you in particular doesn’t mean it’s of use to anyone. -Foffy (talk) 15:55, 19 August 2018 (EDT)

Yes, this would be done via style sheet, not manually. Well, indenting (if used) would be manual but that's also far more case-by-case and less common anyway. --M Sipher (talk) 16:43, 19 August 2018 (EDT)

https://tfwiki.net/wiki/User:M_Sipher/Sandbox:Subheaders Experimenting with every section having SOME text.

The indents are something I think is good. The underlines are not. Regarding a few lines up...please don't put words in my virtual mouth. It is not "a slight bother and vaguely aesthetically displeasing". It's "horrible looking and makes TFWiki look 1. broken or 2. like a Wikia". - TBR (talk) 05:55, 20 August 2018 (EDT)

Would it help if the underline looked more like the horizontal bar under the level 2 headers? Like this for instance. --abates (talk) 06:10, 20 August 2018 (EDT)

That is a bit better, but still seems "off" in general to me - part of the problem I think is that underlined stuff looks like a hyperlink. - TBR (talk) 06:24, 20 August 2018 (EDT)

I could support such a horizontal bar. --Khajidha (talk) 07:15, 20 August 2018 (EDT)

"Preferred" Airdate

Just to establish a consensus/precedent for cases like the recent Cyberverse opener: If an episode is officially released via a streaming service or storefront like iTunes or the CN app ahead of its TV premiere, which of the two dates should take preference for the "airdate" field? -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 19:43, 27 August 2018 (EDT)

Just put both in. For RID, we put both the earlier Candian release and American release. notirishman (talk) 19:50, 27 August 2018 (EDT)

Toyline sub-headers for ease of use

I have brought this up before, and I will again: scores of people think of Generations-branded toys by their subline name first instead of "Generations". Ergo, is it not the point of a wiki to have a navigation style that directs people in such a utilitarian fashion? Consider Studio Series Blackout or Studio Series Crowbar. I can't think of any casual fan who would look at the page and expect the table of contents header "Generations" to be the one that leads them to the Studio Series figure. Should we not do something about this? Just today a non-frequent user pointed out this problem and cited the hypothetical parallel of Wikipedia eliminating "bird" and "mammal" in favor of the supercategory "amniote". S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 11:30, 31 August 2018 (EDT)

Bump. Anyone want to comment on this? Again, I point to ease of casual reader use. S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 18:40, 2 October 2018 (EDT)

Prime 1 Studio Statues

I thought the large official statues that are being created by studios like Prime 1 and Imaginarium Art should be added to the wiki so I created an account and am trying to do so but all this wiki code is confusing me. Anyone know enough about the coding to add the statues? I already added a placeholder for Optimus Primal's Prime 1 statue. https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Beast_Wars_(merchandise)#Statues -- Radi0activsquid (talk) 22:25, 02 September 2018 (CST)

Transformers The Movie final character model artist

Who was responsible for creating the final character models for Transformers The Movie? It wasn't Floro Dery, the final style of the characters is too "anime-esque" for him I feel. But I can't seem to find anything on who made the finished models. Walruslaw's site has lots of the finished character model sheets, all of them are signed by "Kou" and written in Japanese. Whoever this could be I'm not sure, perhaps someone on Toei's end of the production? Here's a link to the final models http://tfraw.blogspot.com/p/g1-movie-model-sheets.html?m=1

Writing up new comics from henceforth

As previously announced on The Allspark Forums and Twitter, Chris is stepping down from doing release day writeups for new IDW comic issues as the Hasbro Universe ends. Do we want to continue our current system of one editor(s) debuting an entire article for new issues each North American morning of release? I believe Grum has mentioned wanting to step up to the plate. S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 23:26, 25 September 2018 (EDT)

Page Renaming ("Elite Guard" and "Jetfire (Movie)")

I would like to apologize for making the move from "Cybertron Elite Guard" to "Elite Guard" unannounced (by that I mean swapping the code from one page to the other). I felt like whatever conversation I make was being neglected. On another note, the page currently titled "Jetfire (Movie)" is ready for deletion. All the necessary information from that page has been moved to the one titled "Jetfire (ROTF)". I am asking for help with deleting "Jetfire (Movie)" so "Jetfire (ROTF)" can be renamed as such. Whatever you can do would be a real help, because sometimes I feel like renaming links can be extremely tiresome. --NexusShard17 (talk) 14:26, 29 September 2018 (EDT)

Please do not move pages by copying and pasting the text, as it does not preserve the history and the people who did all of the work building the page are no longer credited. --abates (talk) 18:33, 29 September 2018 (EDT)

Yeah, if you want to get super-stickly-picayune about it, cut-and-paste moves make the cut-and-pasted page a massive copyright violation under the license the wiki uses. So...to quote Grover's Mommy: Don't Do It! - TBR (talk) 19:19, 29 September 2018 (EDT)

I appreciate the wisdom you are all giving me, and shall put that knowledge to good use. Also, I would like to inform Administration that the pages with the Elite Guard logo still have the redirection to when the page was called "Cybertron Elite Guard". Can anyone fix these loose ends please?--NexusShard17 (talk) 12:57, 30 September 2018 (EDT)

Page Merging ("Punch of Kill Everything" and "Gravity Generator")

Does anyone else think that the pages titled "Punch of Kill Everything" and "Gravity Generator" mean the same thing? I believe that the Gravity Generator is merely the name of the button switch which activates this power.--NexusShard17 (talk) 11:40, 02 October 2018 (EDT)

Live-action film series categories vs specific movie categories

Before I go on a mass reversion spree I just wanted to check that it was warranted. User:Slyhype has just changed a lot of TF2010 characters to specific movie characters. Oddly, User:NexusShard17 had previously changed them from "Live-action film" categories to "Movie" categories back in July. Since the TF2010 toyline was not called out as being specific to one particular movie, these should all go back to "live-action film" categories, right?--Khajidha (talk) 18:09, 5 October 2018 (EDT)

I would think yes. "Movie" should be specifically 2007-themed characters. AVP didn't go terribly in depth with these characters. S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 18:17, 5 October 2018 (EDT)

Done. --Khajidha (talk) 18:35, 5 October 2018 (EDT)

IDW G1 conclusion and presumed deaths

We haven't gotten ironclad closure on every single IDW character and we almost surely won't. But we've always taken reasonable inferences here before ("white Prime is Ultra Magnus"), so if Unicron eats a planet can we safely presume anyone not shown to escape is dead? And if so, what's the best way to finish out those character articles? Of course we should wait for the last month, but we should also have a plan.

"Blackarachnia was killed when Unicron consumed Eukaris"

"After Unicron consumed Eukaris, Blackarachnia was never seen again and is presumed dead."

I think it would be anticlimactic - an underweighting of the stakes of the story - to just leave those articles with their final undisputed appearances, as though nothing significant had happened. --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 10:20, 26 October 2018 (EDT)

No, because that is speculative. If they didn't appear, then they didn't appear. Saix (talk) 10:45, 26 October 2018 (EDT)

I'd say we generally don't do that. I'm thinking of the Marvel Comics and the Autobot deaths from the Underbase Saga; we don't have notes on pages like Hoist, Perceptor, or Omega Supreme saying "They presumably were revived behind the scenes by Grimlock's Nucleon infusions." --Xaaron (talk) 11:25, 26 October 2018 (EDT)

I agree with Saix. --Khajidha (talk) 11:42, 26 October 2018 (EDT)

What if instead of "presumed dead" it simply said "After Unicron ate *planet*, *character* was never seen again."? That's less speculative, it's still accurate, and it updates that chsracter in light of significant story events. --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 14:08, 26 October 2018 (EDT)

I'd still argue against it. If they weren't specifically mentioned as being on the planet at the time it was eaten how do you know that they hadn't left? If the source doesn't tell us about them, we can't say anything about them.--Khajidha (talk) 14:15, 26 October 2018 (EDT)

It's not our job to give implications either. Lots of characters across continuities never appear again, and this isn't really any different. Saix (talk) 14:28, 26 October 2018 (EDT)

I agree with Thy on this one, actually. Maybe something like "It is unclear whether Blackarachnia was still on Eukaris when it was consumed by Unicron"? I'm sure we've had notes like that before. --Riptide (talk) 14:38, 26 October 2018 (EDT)

Christ no. It's making things up by implication based on supposition, and not even solid supposition at that. Countless characters just drop out of fiction at some point with no "closure", and often at cataclysmic events (TFTM, anyone?). This really is no different. --M Sipher (talk) 03:35, 27 October 2018 (EDT)

What constitutes "G1 cartoon continuity"?

This was a question posed on the Prime's Directive, Part One talk page, but I wanted to open it up to wider discussion since it affects a lot of pages. My question is, with multiple G1 characters having pages dedicated to their cartoon-specific incarnations, what constitutes a piece of fiction also occupying space on that page? Obviously, both the American and Japanese cartoons themselves go there, but what about cases like the Wings Universe and Mars Attacks: The Transformers, where the world is established as only a broad parody or loose interpretation of the cartoon? Or in cases like Star Trek vs. Transformers and Transformers: Bumblebee - Win If You Dare, where everything meshes aesthetically but it features a later character like Windblade that wasn't in the cartoon? Or should we keep it to JUST what was in the American cartoon itself and Japanese tie-in media, and move everything else back to their main pages? I'd appreciate some input to prevent edit warring due to future fringe cases like STvTF. -- Cyberlink420 (talk)

"Generation 1 cartoon continuity" has always been interpreted loosely. Optimus Prime (G1)/Generation 1 cartoon continuity should really be titled "Generation 1 cartoon continuities" since it covers the US G1 cartoon continuity, Japanese G1 cartoon continuity, Wings, etc. The solicit and fact that they're deliberately copying the animation style from the cartoon day to me that this is intended as a G1 cartoon continuity. --abates (talk) 16:02, 28 October 2018 (EDT)

"Appearances" proposal

I've set up an example of my suggestion to replace the "first appearance" asides with a full, comprehensive list of appearances by order of publishing. Thoughts? Saix (talk) 18:50, 4 November 2018 (EST)

(1) "First appearance" doesn't need replacing. (2) The format is ugly; Scroll boxes are ugly on Wookiepedia, and they're ugly here. (3) I know you intend this to be a chronological-by-release date list of appearances. The average visitor would not understand what this is. (4) Repeating the issue titles from the Bio section like this is pointless -- one reason we added "First Appearance" in the first place was to service casual fans and visitors who don't know issues by title, but would more easily recognize "MTMTE Issue 1", etc. This is just a relisting of those same titles they wouldn't recognize, stripped of any useful explanatory test. (5) Seriously, what's your problem with "First Appearances" as a concept? You're trying to replace something that works with something that attempts to do something entirely different and fails. --Xaaron (talk) 20:19, 4 November 2018 (EST)

I would have to agree with Xaaron. --notirishman (talk) 20:23, 4 November 2018 (EST)