MediaWiki talk:Community Portal

This is the place for discussion of topics that affect the entire wiki. For less wide-reaching subjects, either use articles' individual talk pages or our Discord server.

Some topics that would ordinarily be here have merited their own pages:

	Specific Discussion Subjects
Moving From Wikia: Arriving Leaving Complaints New Ad Policy: Ads Bookworm Database-Crash: Damage Control Central Project:Bookworm Crash Leaving Take 2 Server Move: Arriving Take 2 Relicensing: Relicensing Dealing With Vandalism: Vandalism GoBots Sister Wiki: Discussion on the place of GoBots in this wiki Wiki Technical Information: A Not So Brief Summary of the Horrible Things That McFly and Co. Have Done To Keep This Wiki From Melting Down

User account created, but no activity

Something I've noticed when I'd pop in every once in awhile when checking the Recent Changes/User Creation Log is that once a new user account has been created, there's no activity. Granted, some have been blocked for various reasons (mostly the autoblocks), but I wonder whether there should be anything done to the others (aside of just leaving them alone). Like, delete the username after a certain period of no activity, or would that affect the IP address? I'm reminded of how one user had a history of creating and then camping subreddits, which was against Reddit's TOS. -- Lonegamer78 (talk) 00:12, 7 January 2020 (EST)

There is a maintenance script we can run which deletes old users with no edits to their name, ISTR. --abates (talk) 17:20, 7 January 2020 (EST)

That sounds good. -- Lonegamer78 (talk) 20:26, 10 January 2020 (EST)

Minor skin tweak

The latest version of Firefox was making the scrollbars look funky and blue on our site, so I have put some css in to fix them. Hopefully this should not affect any other browsers, but please let me know if you're using Chrome or IE7 or something and it is causing a problem. --abates (talk) 20:20, 8 January 2020 (EST)

2007 Movie Universe and 2018 Movie Universe

Since Bumblebee is officially a reboot, will we be separating the sections on the movies similar to what has been recently done with the IDW 2005 and 2019 sections? --Waspscream (talk) 21:36, 16 January 2020 (EST)

No, because we don't know it's a proper reboot yet, so we have no reason to do so. This has been discussed at length already. Please read this. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 23:05, 16 January 2020 (EST)

Prime Wars Placement

I'm probably being an idiot and there's a perfectly valid reason for it, but why aren't the Prime Wars Trilogy bios placed in character's G1 Cartoon sections? Is it the slight IDW influence, or not enough evidence that they belong there? --Waspscream (talk) 23:16, 26 January 2020 (EST)

The Prime Wars Trilogy is a completely separate continuity from the G1 cartoon. The G1 Cartoon sections are for information detailing a character's exploits in continuities tied directly or nearly directly to that 1984-1987 animated series produced by Marvel Productions and Sunbow Productions, which the Prime Wars Trilogy has no connection to and therefore gets it own separate section on each character's page. --Sabrblade (talk) 23:25, 26 January 2020 (EST)

I could agree to that back when Combiner Wars was out, but by the time of Power Of The Primes, there were a lot of additions, such as Megatron once having been Galvatron and Unicron stuck as a head, that seem to attempt to connect it to the cartoon. At the very least, it's somewhat tied to the cartoon, even with many incongruities. -- Waspscream (talk) 16:20, 27 January 2020 (EST)

It's really not. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 16:41, 27 January 2020 (EST)

"Things are referencing the first really huge piece of popular media most people are familiar with" is not exactly slam-dunk proof of "actually part of the same timeline". --M Sipher (talk) 21:13, 27 January 2020 (EST)

Admittedly, I didn't explain my opinions very well, but while Megatron being Galvatron is common, the use of it here seems like an attempt to reconcile the series as somewhat connected to the G1 cartoon, on a similar level to Beast Wars, I guess. There were other examples, that was just the first that came to mind. There isn't really any true proof for it, so I guess I'll leave it at that. I guess the entire thing is in a grey area free for personal interpretation of where it could belong. I'm kinda new around here, and I'm not trying to start an argument, just get some clarification about what belongs where. -- Waspscream (talk) 21:38, 27 January 2020 (EST)

Power of the Primes also hinted that when Unicron turned Megatron into Galvatron, it was by the power of the Matrix of Chaos, a device that did not exist in the G1 cartoon and thus which was not used by Unicron to turn Megatron into Galvatron in the 1986 movie. --Sabrblade (talk) 00:39, 28 January 2020 (EST)

And that Unicron was destroyed in ancient times by the Requiem Blaster, a thing that very much did not happen in the original cartoon. (And for the record, we don't treat Beast Wars as a direct cartoon followup either since it blends elements from both Marvel and Sunbow.) -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 00:57, 28 January 2020 (EST)

I am aware of that. -- Waspscream (talk) 22:13, 29 January 2020 (EST)

Given the prominence of the G1 cartoon, it is not surprising that so many later stories make reference to it or homage it. But that's all that this is, referencing and homages. --Khajidha (talk) 08:13, 28 January 2020 (EST)

Franchise pages

I wanted to float an idea regarding our franchise pages. They're typically pretty sparse and some which aren't are just plain paragraphs of text with lists. What do people think about formatting the franchise pages more like the main page? I've made an example sandbox. I used Rescue Bots Academy as an example, since we currently have it linked on the sidebar, so there's boxes for the cartoon, toyline, major characters, and a featured article (which I think would be best as a random article rather than manually being changed each month). --abates (talk) 19:46, 20 March 2020 (EDT)

I like this a LOT. That said, how would this template handle pages with way more information like Beast Wars? Also, a suggestion made on the Discord was for the featured article to change between premade selections similar to the main page disambiguation template or multilingual packaging. Would that be worth exploring? -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 20:34, 20 March 2020 (EDT)

That was my thinking as to how the featured article section would work. As for something like Beast Wars, probably everything below, say, "A dramatic change" could stay as is. The idea is to present the main info in a more appealing manner, but there's nothing to say we couldn't have more conventional sections further down. --abates (talk) 21:39, 20 March 2020 (EDT)

Source namespace

We currently have a bunch of source documents which have names like "Angry Birds Transformers bios/src". It's possible to create a Source namespace so instead they would be at names like "Source:Angry Birds Transformers bios".

Advantages: Everything that's an official document would be all in one namespace, searchable independently of mainspace articles.
Disadvantages: We wouldn't be able to have a namespace article with a title starting "Source:", but I think it's unlikely to be an issue. We have Source which is a redirect, but I don't believe it would be affected.

What does everyone think? --abates (talk) 19:32, 26 April 2020 (EDT)

Makes sense to me. There's a lot of online-only text that's disappeared from official websites (Legends card game, Robotmasters, Cloud, lots of bios, etc.) Preserving this stuff would help in the future. Saix (talk) 19:38, 26 April 2020 (EDT)

I'm in agreement. I think the pros heavily outweigh the cons, and I'm sure we can find a workaround if there's a story title that starts with "Source" down the line. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 19:57, 26 April 2020 (EDT)

If there aren't any objections then, I'll get it set up! --abates (talk) 01:55, 27 April 2020 (EDT)

Should we add a category for "Toy of the Year" winners of the Hall of fame?

Seeing that we already have categories for "Hall of Fame characters," and "Hall of Fame creators," we probably should make a category for the "Toy(s) of the Year(s)." Just my opinion. DDog (talk) 17:03, 1 May 2020 (EDT)

Minor edits

I just wanted to post a reminder about minor edits, because I've seen people mark edits as minor which I don't think should be considered minor. Minor edits are things like spelling and grammar corrections, formatting corrections, and the like. If you're adding an entire sentence to an article or a whole new note, it shouldn't be marked minor. We've got a brief section on this here: Help:Style guide#Minor and major edits. I'm not looking to single anyone out, just post a reminder because it seems to be more common recently. --abates (talk) 19:09, 3 May 2020 (EDT)

"Japanese ID number"

I dunno if "uncomfortable" is the right word, but "Japanese ID number" feels off for a variety of reasons, including these toys not being sold ONLY in Japan. I'm increasingly thinking there's a better option for this info in the toy entries.

• For entries that cover both the Hasbro and Takara versions, "Takara ID number" works better. (Conversely, those handful of Hasbro toys w/ numbers, "Hasbro ID number")
• For entries about toys ONLY released in Takara lines, just plain old "ID number" should suffice.

I realize this is... a buttload of changes across the wiki, and not a top priority or anything, but maybe something folks can pick up here and there while making other edits in the relevant sections. Thoughts? --M Sipher (talk) 00:50, 5 May 2020 (EDT)

Do Euro-Classics get their own listing or not?

We are currently very inconsistent on whether Classics (Europe) counts as a G1 toy release as distinct as a Targetmaster or Pretender upgrade. Look at Sunstreaker (G1)/toys and Prowl (G1)/toys and compare to Sludge (G1) or Wheeljack (G1)/toys. I think they should all be listed distinctly - that the Sunstreaker approach is right. Is there any reason why we wouldn't do this? --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 20:26, 5 May 2020 (EDT)

I think it's just that no one has bothered to do it. --Khajidha (talk) 21:07, 5 May 2020 (EDT)

Pretty much. A LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT of old stuff on this wiki -particularly the toy entries- needs to be dusted off and looked at and brought up to modern standards/consistency. But that's a pretty dang involved process and while it seems many of us have more spare time now, it's still... a kinda draining, droning way to spend it. (I've been tackling BW but hoofta, it's a lot.) --M Sipher (talk) 00:01, 6 May 2020 (EDT)

TF Car Robots concept materials?

Z226_JUPITER on Twitter had been tweeting several behind-the-scenes stuff on Car Robots, namely design notes, storyboards, and height chart, like how the Almanacs were for Animated. One of the more recent tweets noted a possible 176-page book being released, as well a PDF version. Unfortunately, I don't know anyone here who's fluent in Japanese to be able to better ask Z226_JUPITER about it, much less how a copy could be obtained to further supplement the wiki here for non-Japanese readers. One thing is that I don't know if this is something like a fan-release thing or something OKed by Takara, given how there have been the occasional official doujinshi/fan-supplemented materials green-lit by companies. --Lonegamer78 (talk) 17:42, 14 May 2020 (EDT)

I've crossposted this to the Discord server and one of our Japanese speaking users there (Star-Spangled Sam) volunteered to look into it. Abates and I looked at it a bit too, and found that Z226_Jupiter has a link in his Twitter profile to his works on booth.pm. That site appears to be a place for self publishing fan works and related to Pixiv, a Japanese site which is similar to DeviantArt. The book can be purchased from that site. As for whether it has any approval from TakaraTomy, that's unclear so far. The description when run through Google Translate reads like the speaker is not affilated with TT (which makes sense given this is a fanwork) but beyond that there's no indication. We're waiting to see what Sam comes up with. --Tigerpaw28 (talk) 14:34, 3 June 2020 (EDT)

Much kudos. --Lonegamer78 (talk) 18:52, 5 June 2020 (EDT)

New bot proposal

After some discussion on the Discord about the need for a new bot and having been thinking about writing one for awhile now, I've put together a proposal for how a new bot would work, and what kinds of things it might likely do. This done with the idea that Deceptitran's functionality would need to be replaced, given Derik's infrequent appearances these days and no else having access to run Deceptitran. There's also a distinct possibility Deceptitran isn't functional at the moment as the URL for the Emopanda site Derik was using for hosting things externally (I presume this includes Deceptitran) is abandoned.

The way I see it, the bot could run a number of recurring tasks at different intervals, plus any one time "on demand" requests from Wiki editors/staff. Requests would made by editing a subpage of the bot's user page and filling out a template. This would be much the same as link fix requests worked with Deceptitran.

Every 15-30 minutes, the bot would check it's user page for new "on demand"/"editor generated" requests and process them. For these requests, I see two levels of approval they could go through: 1. Request approval and 2. Result approval. The former would be approval of the request before any processing occurs. The latter would be approval of the results of a request before the bot actually makes any changes on the Wiki.

I think the first level of approval could be handled by checking Wiki rights/permission of the requesting user. A bot request approval permission could be created and assigned to any trusted non-mod or Admin user. Then only requests from those users, mods and admins would be processed. This would prevent anons and other untrusted accounts from using the bot for nefarious purposes without requiring active moderation of the request submissions by a human.

Result approvals would be to prevent the bot from making tons of errant changes. Someone would have to manually go through the list of changes proposed by the bot to see if anything looks wrong. To limit the amount of time we have to spend looking over stuff like this, I think it would make sense to make this a requirement only for requests that would produce a minimum (10? 20?) number of changes. This limit could be gradually increased as we become more confident in the bot's logic.

Verification of these changes would be done by logging into a site running on my hosting service, same as the bot would be. As for who would do it, I am willing to do it and/or we could set it up for any mods/admins that would like to. I've also thought about the possibility of having email notifications for when a request needs to be reviewed.

I've come up with the following ideas for what kinds of tasks could be done on demand:

Link fixing

Category tagging/untagging

Section reordering by header level

Mass page moving

In addition to the recurring on demand processing job, I've come up with some other recurring jobs that I think might be beneficial:

At least once a day:

Page deletion

Welcoming users (placing the welcome template on their talkpage)

Fix redirects

Daily:

Remove stale dated templates

I'm open to any other ideas on what tasks we'd like to have the bot perform. I'd also like to hear some thoughts on which tasks should get added as functionality first. --Tigerpaw28 (talk) 14:34, 3 June 2020 (EDT)

G2 Go-Bots mold templates

Hey y'all, I just knocked out a set of mold templates for the original six G2 Go-Bot toolings, I think I've gotten everything consistent as far as how to refer to stuff, but it's a little idiosyncratic because unlike say, the CW limb guys, you've got a case where Motormouth was released in two slightly different but clearly distinct plastic colors (clear vs opaque) and then RID Ironhide/CR Ox had multiple different uses of the tooling in different colorways, all intended to be the same character, which I'm struggling to think of a comparable situation. If someone else wants to go over the nomeclature I used (especially for the various store exclusive redecos) be my guest.

If I'm feeling REALLY masochistic, I might try to do a template like this for the Armada Mini-Con toolings, which are probably Classics Seeker level of reused. EDIT TO ADD: If I were to do the UT Mini-Cons, would the mold templates use the names the toys were sold under (e.g. "X-Dimension Sail") or the names that were retroactively applied by Ask Vector Prime? I'm inclined towards the former and to not even mention the retronyms, because otherwise the box gets really cluttered. I sort of flirted with this with 2003 Universe Camshaft and Hoist, who were just straight reissues of KB W.A.R.S. and Ironhide, but at least they were available on shelves under those names. I didn't bother with the Prowl and Ironhide that were retroactively "declared" to be Red Alert and Trailbreaker because who cares, lol. -hx (talk) 14:44, 10 July 2020 (EDT)

Mold templates are indeed geared to names of toys themselves. As you point out, a Japanese-exclusive toy should not use an English retronym. S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 15:37, 10 July 2020 (EDT)

As someone who wrote a lot of bios that gave Japanese Mini-Cons "western" names, yeah, use the names the toys were sold under. --M Sipher (talk) 19:09, 10 July 2020 (EDT)

Scheduled downtime

Our web host has notified me of some downtime scheduled for August 7 at 3AM UTC, so the site will be unavailable for a period at that time. --abates (talk) 02:18, 17 July 2020 (EDT)

Reminder that this is later this week! --abates (talk) 18:45, 2 August 2020 (EDT)

Scoop bastard template

Since we have changed the caption bastard template to caption happy, do we wish to change the scoop bastard template as well? --Khajidha (talk) 10:32, 17 July 2020 (EDT)

Done and done. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 10:55, 17 July 2020 (EDT)

Privacy Policy

I just noticed we have an unofficial, unadopted privacy party that's over a decade old. I raised the question in more detail on its talk page, but it seems like something that should at least have a discussion and official outcome of some sort.--Waverod ✈️ (talk) 20:26, 23 July 2020 (EDT)

World of Warships article?

When Warships first announced this back in August, I was laughing so hard at the reactions. I'm a bit surprised to not see even a stub article about it.

• Announcement trailer on August 3, 2020.
• News announcement on August 3, 2020 with a one-page comic of Optimus and Bumblebee.
• September 4, 2020 news update, showing off more assets and another one-page comic of Megatron and Rumble (red).

I suppose any Warships players here and at the discord would have a field day. (I don't play it, I only knew of it through another WW2-theme online game franchise from Japan.) --Lonegamer78 (talk) 05:39, 12 September 2020 (EDT)

Officially approved YouTube videos

Here are some official videos undocumented on this wiki. Can they be documented?
Counter656 Hasbro approved stop motion videos

Masterpiece Bumblebee stop motion

Movie Masterpiece Ratchet stop motion

HISHE Bumblebee

HISHE Bumblebee video

It is approved by Paramount: [1]

Pewdiepie video

It is sponsored by Earth Wars. The original video is deleted but here is the mirror. The original upload didn't have subtitles):

Pewdiepie video

Lumaken Earth Wars stop motion

In the description, he says that this is a collaboration with the SpaceApe Games (Earth Wars developer):

Lumaken stop motion

--Primestar3 (talk) 18:47, 18 September 2020 (EDT)

First two are for sure good, as they were produced for Hasbro (and are even mirrored on the Transformers YouTube channel). I'm hesitant at best about HISHE and Lumaken, and absolutely against Pewdiepie's. Also, if we were to document all "approved" videos, we'd have to include every video where Hasbro ever sent an outlet or YouTuber a product for review, and that would be tantamount to lunacy because of just how many videos that would include. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 19:18, 18 September 2020 (EDT)

I think in regards to reviewers, they can get individual pages and have their approved videos be listed on those pages corresponding to the reviewer in question.--Primestar3 (talk) 19:51, 18 September 2020 (EDT)

Again documenting every outlet/individual and instance in which they've been sponsored or sent something would be far too much of an undertaking, and these people are only tangentially related at best. For example, IGN has been sent press kits for TF games, been granted interviews with devs, and received toys for review, but they don't get their own article; we just link to the content where appropriate, like in a game's development section. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 20:05, 18 September 2020 (EDT)

Even then, the videos I've posted above all have some sort of narrative. That's far more distinctive than simple reviews and there are less approved narrative-based videos than approved review videos, so it wouldn't be as hard to document.

I think there's precedeence to this idea as this wiki documents videos on the official Transformers Youtube channel featuring narrative such as How to Ride your Dinobot but not every other video posted on that channel (most of which aren't short narrative based videos).--Primestar3 (talk) 20:58, 18 September 2020 (EDT)

We can't go documenting everything that Transformers has sponsored or we'd be here all millennium. If they're hosted on the official Transformers YouTube account, then that's something Hasbro produced and worth mentioning. But otherwise, it's tantamount to trying to list every single instance where a Transformers commercial has aired on TV. There's been episodes of TV shows sponsored by Transformers too. It's notable that Transformers has sponsored things in general and the types of things they've sponsored. But the individual things are not notable on their own unless Hasbro or a licensee produced it or paid someone else to produce it. HISHE might have an argument as the content creator asserts that Paramount approved it. The other two not on the official channel don't. Not really sure what SpaceApe's involvement was with the Lumaken video, but it seems like some of their people helped with filming or effects. That said, the video isn't corporately sponsored and thus their involvement does not appear to qualify the video as being an official production. Pewdiepie's has no Hasbro or licensee involvement whatsoever, it's just a paid ad. They bought airtime essentially. He just happened to theme the video around the advertisement. BIG no on that one. --Tigerpaw28 (talk) 22:24, 18 September 2020 (EDT)

New game "Transformers: Battlegrounds"

For the PlayStation, and Collider did a hands-on preview of it, saying that it's based on Cyberverse. See also the trailer, with October 23, 2020 release date. --Lonegamer78 (talk) 19:13, 21 September 2020 (EDT)

Featured Article nominations

We now have a page for nominating articles to be picked as future Featured Articles: Transformers Wiki:Featured Article Nominations. While there's no guarantee that your suggestion will be picked, that's no reason not to make your voice heard! --Riptide (talk) 20:16, 3 October 2020 (EDT)

T-Beast

Hey all, I was just wondering if the T-Beast Art books were official publications through TakaraTomy? If they are, how come we haven't made pages for them on this wiki? I would make the pages if I knew much about them, but as I can't read or speak Japanese, I'd much rather leave that job for someone who knows more about them or who can translate any of whats in the books. I've watched Emgo316's review on the books on youtube and with the overuse of official names (sometimes Engrish translated) and faction insignias, it would suggest to me that it is a TakaraTomy publication. I know we won't cover the 3rd party molds based off of the designs from the books because *gasp* that's blasphemous, but the books are worth mentioning. Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 02:05, 27 October 2020 (EDT)

Those aren't official liscenced product. We wished they were, but they're not. ZacAttack (talk) 02:19, 27 October 2020 (EDT)

Interesting. It's really strange that they got away with having the insignias and names printed in the book without running into licensing issues. Anyways, thanks for clearing that up! :) Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 02:52, 27 October 2020 (EDT)

I think it's different in Japan. Might be wrong, but I think it's different. --ZacAttack (talk) 03:08, 27 October 2020 (EDT)

Iron Man in commercial

Can I add this commercial appearance to Iron Man page? Both ROTF Megatron and Endgame Iron Man appear in the same commercial.

commercial.--Primestar3 (talk) 10:34, 1 November 2020 (EST)

Can the ROTF viral sites be documented in a source page?

Realeffingdeal and Gianteffingrobots.com. Though they will be incomplete since not all of it is saved (especially the second site). I want to archive the surviving images and the posts regardless.--Primestar3 (talk) 13:11, 1 November 2020 (EST).

Go for it, why not? I wish I'd been able to archive some of the other tie-in web content that's now long since gone. -hx (talk) 13:10, 4 December 2020 (EST)

Any luck on finding the Holy Grails?

I know that they are called "Holy Grails" for a reason, but just for curiosity, and because the Holy Grail tab hasn't been updated for a while (or at least I think it hasn't), how is it going with the Holy Grails? P.S: I expected it to be hard, and also, what does it mean with "Kiss Players radio play translations"? Is it as in language translation? Supacool9Supacool9 (talk) 20:09, 19 November 2020 (EST)

Discission about things on the "Holy Grails" and the attempts to find them, can be found here.DDog (talk) 22:32, 3 November 2020 (EST)

PS: make sure you sign your username by adding four tildes (~~~~) at the end, and it will do it automatically.DDog (talk) 22:32, 3 November 2020 (EST)

Operation Skyfire

Should a page be made for this cancelled movie? Operation Skyfire forum thread--Primestar3 (talk) 14:55, 12 November 2020 (EST)

A moratorium on expanding toy entries?

There's been some discussion on the Discord recently about entries for newly-released toys getting clogged up with overlong crufty notes, as a result of people rushing in to expand the entries as soon the figure starts trickling out into the wild. I thought it could be worth discussing ways of combating these editing habits – a potential idea I'd had was a moratorium on expanding entries for newly-released toys, similar to what we did to curb poor editing habits in relation to the Facebook Ask Vector Prime? Maybe do it relative to the first US retail sighting or something? Thoughts welcome! Jalaguy (talk) 18:35, 27 November 2020 (EST)

For starters, I'm gonna suggest immediate reversion of any claims of "widespread" defects or quality/sensitivity of pieces for the first month or two of release, so as to determine if it's *actually* a widespread issue and not someone adding personal commentary on the state of their own toy. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 19:00, 27 November 2020 (EST)

I agree with this, I see mentionings of supposed "widespread" issues mentioned on here all the time that don't have sufficient evidence to back up these claims. Cyberlink420's idea of holding off for a month or so would probably be a good solution for this. It gives enough time for people to have a figure in-hand long enough to compare and document issues, allowing for us to have a better idea of whether these are as widespread as claimed or whether this is just one out of several million that has had issues with their personal figure. Especially when some people are buying stolen products long before their expected release and note issues that probably aren't even on the finished product and could possibly just be a result of a stolen test-shot. Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 19:20, 27 November 2020 (EST)

I'm going to agree with the """widespread""" issues notes needing to be held off on, but I'm not sure that waiting to just fill out basic info for an entry is going to actually curb the "overlong crufty" parts. That's... just a standard writing/editing issue that can affect toy writeups done years after a toy's release, or character profile entries, or etc. It's part of why I've been trying to "formalize" toy writeups a bit, a kind of "info goes in more or this order, try not to jump around between mode-features, paragraph breaks for X Y Z". Try and keep things less review-y and rambly. --M Sipher (talk) 20:23, 3 December 2020 (EST)

Just gonna throw out Fasttrack_(G1)#War_for_Cybertron:_Earthrise as a recent example. Open with place in toyline, altmode, altmode/robot features... new paragraph for tertiary mode features to keep the first paragraphs from being too chunky.--M Sipher (talk) 03:23, 4 December 2020 (EST)

Messing around with mold templates

As seen here for G1 Bee, here for the rest of the 84 minibots, here for the Combaticons and here for the G1 Seekers. There doesn't seem to be a consistent way to manage significant retools - the Classics Seeker template makes a lot of distinctions, while the Universe Sunstreaker template treats all the retools as one consistent toy. I'm also trying to figure out how to thread the needle on the weird international variants of the minicars, like the "Huffer in Pipes colors" that supposedly came out in Greece and also came out in a different set of "Pipes colors" in Mexico... I'm gonna leave some time for y'all to comment and cogitate on it before I actually start adding these things all over the place. -hx (talk) 13:13, 4 December 2020 (EST)

The difference between the Classics Starscream template and the Universe Sunstreaker template is simple—if there has been a significant change to the body besides just a new head tooling and accessories, then there is a new group to sort by body style. That is how I reorganised the Combiner Wars network of templates. S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 15:56, 4 December 2020 (EST)

That works for me - as for the different colored international minibots, I've made a go of it here where I've broken them down by distributor in alphabetical order, then each colorway in parentheses after. What I'd really love would be little flag emoji to represent the relevant nations - Argentina for Antex, Peru for Lynsa, etc. We could waive these for Hasbro's worldwide releases I suppose. -hx (talk) 12:57, 7 December 2020 (EST)

Changing format of some older pages.

Hey everyone, it had been discussed earlier today on Discord that the G1 Wheelie page is in need of a complete revamp. Suggestions had been made to archive the original format of the page to keep the joke alive and available for those who still wish to see and admire it, while starting fresh in our standard character page format. It is nothing against the running joke per se, it mainly boils down to the rhyming starting to take its toll on the information that the page is supposed to present to readers of the wiki. I myself, before joining the wiki and even now, always avoid the page like a plague, as it is hard to navigate and actually obtain any information from, which goes against what the page is intended to do.

That doesn't mean all of the rhyming has to go, it is still welcome in the opening paragraph and image captions, but general consensus on Discord is that it could do to be more informative. I also believe that the long-running joke is starting to take its toll on editors adding any new additions while trying to keep with the rhyming format and quite frankly, I believe that to be another downfall to the article since the wiki is made to be as accessible as possible for anyone to edit and it just adds another layer of complications. I bring this up here rather than on the talk page as it has also been suggested that the same be done to G1 Rewind's page too for the same reasons.

I advice that you please make these discussions on the individual talk pages: Talk:Wheelie (G1) and Talk:Rewind (G1).

Feel free to bring up any other pages worth making similar changes to here as there is bound to be others that could do to be looked over too.

Thank you and Happy 2021 to all! -- Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 05:53, 1 January 2021 (EST)

Just a quick follow up after reading back over what was said on Discord: We could possibly keep the pages as is and keep them as the featured articles they are currently, while having a suite with a link to a more informative version, therefore keeping the jokes and also having a variant that actually makes "sense". Funny still wins as the main page and the other can be for readers to actually learn something more about the characters. -- Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 06:39, 1 January 2021 (EST)

I'm for redoing both into normal prose. Save the jokes for the intro. Saix (talk) 12:36, 1 January 2021 (EST)

All the human collaborators should have a page

The Human collaborators is the concept of Humans being allied with the Decepticons. It exists since the beginning of the brand, brought to existence in the Megatron's Master Plan Duology from the Transformers G1 cartoon and appeared for the last time in Transformers: Dark of the Moon, With DOTM 10th year anniversary on the horizon, i'm thinking of creating a page for all them. In fact i'm creating a sandbox about it and i want to know if its a good idea to do that or not. --Cybertron Forever (talk) 14:21, 18 January 2021 (EST)

Our existing "Category:Humans" is in pretty bad shape. It's divided into dozens of subcategories already so that the "main" listing is nowhere near a single comprehensive list. Instead people went and added subgroups like "Classified Humans" and "Military Humans" and many many etc. From an educational resource perspective it would probably be more useful to streamline the category we already have. --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 14:41, 18 January 2021 (EST)

Okay i'll streamline the "Category:Humans" but how am i supposed to do that? --Cybertron Forever (talk) 15:42, 18 January 2021 (EST)

Decepticon human collaborators have been around a lot longer than just season 2 of G1. Doctor Arkeville was actually the first Decepticon ally. Even then, characters collaborating with Decepticons had been around in the years in between G1 and DOTM. the Marvel G1 comics, Dreamwave comics, IDW comics and such, more than likely had a lot of instances where that was a thing too (I'm not too familiar with a lot of those comics). Animated had some of the human villains working with the Decepticons on some occassions too.

As for the human collaborators page, I don't feel that a separate page needs to be made, there was never a collective group or organization of them, just occassional cases of random people being told what to do while more or less being held at gun point, or on some occassions, given the sweet promise of world domination. I think if anything, Thylacine's idea of making a subcategory would probably be your best bet, but a better name would be "Decepticon allied humans" or something. As far as I'm aware, there is no page for Autobot allied humans (which there are crap tons of), so there is really no point in making one for the Decepticon allies. Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 18:10, 18 January 2021 (EST)

It most certainly is not "my idea to make a new subcategory." We have too many subcategories already. Most of them are dumb and are at the expense of having a useful, comprehensive Human category.--Thylacine 2000 (talk) 21:09, 18 January 2021 (EST)

There really is little to no point to a page for this concept; a category will do. That'd just be opening up for countless list-pages of random Things People In Fiction Sometimes Do, and this wiki is historically not keen on list pages. There's a lot of stuff characters do/are that don't have pages just because the concept is too vague, too broad, or too obvious that a page would not actually provide any new information (or comedy potential) on how its use within Transformers fiction is different from the immediately obvious. There's no page for "ninjas" (that just links to the Category), but "Cyber-Ninja Corps", a very specifically-defined group of ninjas, does get a page.

And... look, not to sound mean, but... if you have no idea how a big major overhauling project might be done, maybe you should leave that task to someone else. --M Sipher (talk) 18:40, 18 January 2021 (EST)

Besides "bad guys" like Shawn Berger or Doctor Arkeville, does Spike count when he went nuts as Autobot Spike and used Megatron to fire on the Autobots? Or do Buster Witwicky and Spike count when the Autobots had a truce with the Decepticons against a cosmically-powered Starscream? Or take Skywarp: he joined G.I.Joe and worked with them. Does that make all of G.I. Joe human collaborators? I hope not. If someone has to think this hard about who actually belongs to a category, it will actually clutter up the wiki instead of clarify relationships. Everything that could be grouped doesn't necessarily benefit from a page or category. It may be worth noting briefly on individual character pages about some characters' tendencies to work with Decepticons. Prime Radiant (talk) 19:31, 18 January 2021 (EST)

Okay it seems a page won't really be necessary, so i won't do it. But i'm until now trying to know how am i supposed to streamline the "Category:humans"? --Cybertron Forever (talk) 22:37, 18 January 2021 (EST)

Coming up with the answer to your question is the bulk of the task itself. It's a lot of work and there's no immediately obvious and clear approach. If you'd like to try something, use a sandbox and communicate with us here. If you need a lot of guidance, it's best to leave it to someone else like Sipher said. Prime Radiant (talk) 22:14, 19 January 2021 (EST)

I think i'll create a category called "Human Collaborators", but only after the "Category:humans" is streamlined, which is something someone must do here since i don't know how to do this and by doing so will help this wiki a lot. --Cybertron Forever (talk) 19:56, 21 January 2021 (EST)

I honestly think that is the opposite of what we need. The first thing to be done after streamlining should not be the addition of more subcategories. The point has been made that there are too many human subcategories already, and I agree. You seem very intent on specifically adding information about Decepticon-allied humans. Keep in mind that this is not an official faction. This is effectively like creating a category about "Humans With Yellow Boots and Blue Pants and Hard Hats". Yes, that group exists, but unless it's very funny, we don't need it. Going forward, I recommend focusing on contributing to what the wiki lacks (say, by adding information on our pages with stubs) instead of searching for differences without distinction. Prime Radiant (talk) 21:04, 21 January 2021 (EST)

Finishing the "Story sections" in the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (PS2/Wii) and (PSP) pages.

The story of the PSP and PS2/Wii versions of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen video game must be concluded and i wanted to do this myself, but i'm having difficulties due to my family and i making preparations to move out. So the question is: Can someone insert the synopsis of the remaining chapters of each version of the game here? Because if you can it will help this wiki a lot. --Cybertron Forever (talk) 15:25, 31 January 2021 (EST)

That is entirely contingent on whether or not any of the regular contributors own the game or a system to play it on. Grum (talk) 21:07, 31 January 2021 (EST)

What's the matter? can't someone see it on Youtube and then write what they've saw on the articles? Because that's how i got the information about the story of the games i insert here. In fact that's how i got the necessary info to create the Quest for Optimus Prime and MechTech Wars online games and to insert the story of Transformers: Shadows Rising. --Cybertron Forever (talk) 21:14, 31 January 2021 (EST)

You know, petulantly whining at other people to do work there is absolutely no rush on, on a site done on a volunteer basis, doesn't really get any of it done faster. Tends to disincentivize people to do it, actually. --M Sipher (talk) 01:42, 1 February 2021 (EST)

The pages have been stubs for this long, I doubt having them being left a little longer will hurt anyone. They're bound to still be there once you're done moving and have more free time on your hands. There's no rush. Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 07:33, 1 February 2021 (EST)

Micro-Sized

Hey all, was wondering if we should make a page/archive for the Mini-Con/Micro-Sized profiles from the Collectors' Club website and magazine?

They seem to be rather important pieces of fiction for a lot of those Mini-Cons and I feel we should have some form of proper write ups or a proper link to archives of the profiles themselves at the very least. Half the character pages have the profiles summed up in brief opening paragraphs but some people (me included) may want to read some of the online profiles which the Collectors' Club website doesn't appear to have anymore.

Just an idea I thought might be interesting to look into. -- Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 20:04, 31 January 2021 (EST)

Yeah, but... is it legal for us to archive that material? I honestly don't know what the current status is of fiction produced under FP (or 3H, for that matter). Does Hasbro "own" it? Does Brian Savage? Does anybody? -hx (talk) 12:48, 24 February 2021 (EST)

Fun Publications produced that material under license from Hasbro and TakaraTomy. I assume Hasbro owns it just as they enable their current comic partner IDW to reprint Marvel and Dreamwave material. S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 12:57, 24 February 2021 (EST)

New signups temporarily suspended

New signups have been temporarily suspended due to excessive vandalism. Apologies for the inconvenience. --abates (talk) 04:04, 28 February 2021 (EST)

And now they should be back on. Thank you for your patience. --abates (talk) 00:46, 7 March 2021 (EST)

Reducing negative Energon episode notes.

Alrighty, since the wiki has been taking a pretty neutral approach to things over recent years and we had already decided on reducing excessive sarcasm and negativity to the Energon cartoon page, I feel the episode pages should probably follow suit.

I'm just started my annual rewatch of the show and I'm going to add, subtract and alter things like I did in the Armada episode pages after each watch. I'm already making a start on removing pieces of sarcasm listed as "trivia" that really doesn't need to be highlighted and is only there for the sake of bashing the show.

That being said, errors, plotholes, continuity issues etc. are fine, but the "pain count" sections probably should either be removed or be relabelled as "stock phrase count" or something along those lines. I'm personally still alright with the caption jokes and quote jokes, but the excessive "This character sucks because the show sucks." is definitely a no go.

After a disscussion on Discord, it had also been suggested that we list common stock phrases from the Unicron Trilogy on a separate page much like we do for Furmanisms. -- Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 03:25, 2 March 2021 (EST)

Before anyone goes to the trouble of creating an entire "Energonisms" page, it is worth examining whether the series is well-known or well-liked enough for that to be worthwhile. Furman wrote hundreds of comics & scripts across multiple series and about 25 years; his repeat phrases are more noticeable and important. --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 07:36, 2 March 2021 (EST)

I still disagree with the concept of "Furmanisms". They're just pulpy phrasing. It's hardly unique to him. --Khajidha (talk) 09:14, 2 March 2021 (EST)

I'll be honest, the Furmanisms page is filled with rather common oldschool comicbook phrases that aren't really unique to him or Transformers for that matter. You can almost guarantee that those phrases have been used in even older comics from the 60s, like X-Men for example. Hell, they've possibly been used in material even older than that. I generally stay clear of anything that makes references to that page, because it is full of blurred lines. Perhaps this should also be a topic for discussion. In terms of Energonisms, I personally don't agree with it either, but I thought I better bring it up for those who aren't on Discord.

My main concern right now is whether we should remove the "pain count" sections from the episode pages. As I've been binging the show and updating episode info, I've been working around them, but they still hold a heavy tone of negativity while everything else around them has been altered to the neutral tone. I've tried to think of a better title to use in its place, but the further through the episode pages I go, the more excessively negative it seems to get. Yes there are a lot of stock phrases used, but if people start to include other ones that haven't already been listed—and there are quite a few—pretty soon we're gonna end up with entire dub scripts for the episodes listed lol. As for stock footage counts, it's common in practically every Japanese Transformers series (From BWII onwards at the very least), so listing them is just another example of adding things to bash the show. Our captions/jokes policies also state that Energon jokes are pretty much frowned upon by today's wiki standards.

As I am writing this post, it has also occured to me that Cybertron's episode pages have pain counts that follow the same outline too (listing stock phrases and stock footage), so perhaps we should look into removing those for the same reasons. -- Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 06:11, 5 March 2021 (EST)

I feel it should be pointed out that many of the stock phrases from Energon ("Uh...", "Huh?" "Let's do it!", "Wait up!" etc.) were first used by the same dubbing team back in Armada. If any new page is going to be created for those phrases, it's only fair that those from Armada (and probably from Cybertron too) be included since those phrases are not exclusive to Energon even if it's in that show that they're the worst offender. --Sabrblade (talk) 09:58, 5 March 2021 (EST)

I agree with removing the pain counts and overall negativity from the UT-related pages, while I disagree with creating the "Energonisms" page because that would neuter our efforts to remove said negativity. I also never cared for Furmanisms so I don't even see a reason for that page to still exist tbh. Fritz (talk) 13:11, 5 March 2021 (EST)

I don't think there's a need for Energonisms, but I think Furmanisms need to stay based solely on the fact that they're a known factor and both Furman and other creators have leaned into their existence in self-referential and parodical ways, enough that it makes sense to have a page explaining them. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 13:34, 5 March 2021 (EST)

It's funny you say that, Fritz. Armada was the first place to use the stock phrases, yet the episode pages were absent of any pain counts or any real negativity in general. As for Cybertron, listing the pain counts on those pages seems to hold the same weight as the negativity I pruned down on the main Armada page a couple of weeks ago. They seem to be an outdated case of critisms that were made when the show first came out. In my experience, Cybertron, while still not perfect, still remains the pretty widely enjoyed out of the three shows among the Facebook groups and stuff I've been in.

At the end of the day, I don't feel it's really the wiki's place to tell people how to feel towards something. It's one thing to mention issues and critisms, but when you're pushing personal opinions onto the reader, making them steer clear of the show entirely instead of letting them form their own opinions, it doesn't really help keep the history of the brand we're supposed to be documenting alive. -- Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 15:28, 5 March 2021 (EST)

The keyword there is "outdated." Energon is from 2003 and the "pain count" stuff was probably all written in 2007 or so. In 2021 no one is creating canon with ironic joking references to a hypothetical Energonism, and even if they did, the whole source of complaint is that the dialogue is so interchangeable and empty that if someone were to say it in a future series it would probably just be seen as unrelated new bad dialogue. --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 15:44, 5 March 2021 (EST)

So I guess we're all pretty much on the same page here then. From the response I got on Discord a few days ago and the repsonse here, it seems pretty clear that the "Pain counts" should go. -- Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 16:11, 5 March 2021 (EST)

Totally agree with you there, Fanofcoolstuff27. I watched Energon and Cybertron for the first time just last year and actually enjoyed the latter a lot. At the time I felt that the pain counts were harming my own enjoyment of reading the wiki after watching each episode and I even consider removing them by myself. So I'm glad this is finally up for debate and other people are agreeing on getting rid of them. --Fritz (talk) 16:27, 5 March 2021 (EST)

I think this kind of went off on a big digression about "Energonisms" and personal liking of the series, but I think this is enough consensus to reduce the negativity of the Energon articles. (The episodes could use better summaries as well.) Saix (talk) 16:35, 5 March 2021 (EST)

The pain counts can go, but I'm 100% against removing the overal tone of negativity. Like it or not, Energon is a dull show with an objectively mediocre dub, and consistently remains the most disliked of any televised Transformers cartoon. To try and soften that in the Energon articles almost feels like a disservice to 20 years of near-universal fan rejection. (And the reason we say not to make Energon jokes on the caption page was because they were getting excessive across the whole wiki. That said, while other pages shouldn't be saddled with such jokes, there's no reason to sugarcoat things on the Energon articles themselves.) -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 16:41, 5 March 2021 (EST)

Agreed, and definitely on that last point. Energon is garbage in any language, and I feel we do a disservice to act like it's not a rushed, cheap, ugly job by the lowest bidder that runs out of plot halfway through its episode count and has to start over even BEFORE you take into account the first-draft English dub. And yes, the captions page remark about it and many other objects of derision is mostly about the unoriginality and over-use of adding new joke captions about it, not "it's wrong". --M Sipher (talk) 17:35, 5 March 2021 (EST)

See, my issue here isn't neccessarily the negativity itself, more the overuse of it. I've already taken it upon myself to remove silly pieces of "trivia" that aren't trivia at all and are more just an attempt to bash a bad show. You can mention all of it's flaws and whatever, there is no problem with that. It's the constant nitpickiness that is added, when just about every Transformers show has more or less the exact same issues. The line between openly pointing out issues in one show and turning a blind eye to those same issues in other shows is very blurred.

Given our recent response on Discord towards the removal of "Pain counts" from the Energon episode pages, perhaps we could at least settle with a mid-ground compromise. My proposal: The removal of stock footage from the counts. It's not exclusive to Energon at all, so listing them as a bad thing builds a pretty poor case. Yeah, there is a lot of stock footage use, but the show is to sell Transformers toys, so highlighting the brand's main attraction is hardly a crime. BWII, BWN, RID/Car Robots, Robot Masters, Armada/Legends of the Microns, Energon/Super Link, Cybertron/Galaxy Force, Animated, Go!, RID 2015 and I wanna say Cyberverse (?) are all guilty of using stock footage. Only about three of them are English-speaking original shows, while the rest of them are Japanese shows. It's practically been a tradition to include stock footage transformations and combinations at this point. -- Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 18:31, 5 March 2021 (EST)

Voice actor categorization

I really don't like the idea of putting voice actors into company categories based on shows or games they've appeared in (see Category:Activision or Category:DreamWorks for example). This seems a little disingenuous, considering that none of these are employees of these companies, but rather freelance. Furthermore, this doesn't include all the different shows' production companies, but rather more like picking and choosing at random. If you were to categorize them at all, I would either do so based on the studio the series was recorded at (such as Voicebox or Studiopolis) or make new "(show) voice cast" categories. (But honestly, my first choice would be to not do so at all.) -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 00:17, 6 March 2021 (EST)

Energon Terrorcons

I'm having issues with the way we have the Energon Terrorcon pages currently set up. The pages have a lot of misinformation being spread within them and between them and I'm not entirely sure how we should handle it.

The show presents three different colour variants/breeds/races of flying Terrorcon: Divebomb, a "Stealth Divebomb" (which is the Command Ravage colour palette placed on Divebomb), and the Shadowhawk Cosmo Type/Blackout colour scheme. I've just gone and removed the stealth colour scheme write ups from Blackout's page as they are clearly not the same thing and it would fall under potential citogenesis.

My proposal for this issue would be to move "Blackout (Terrorcon)" to "Shadowhawk Cosmo Type" and just make mention of the Energon dubs' cock up with the names as a note or that an individual Terrorcon named "Blackout" is also among them. Much like "Command Ravage", "Shadowhawk Cosmo Type" is also an official name and it's my understanding that if Hasbro names aren't available, we generally opt for the Takara names instead (e.g. Mirror), and because "Blackout" is referred to as an individual rather than a race/breed, it would be hard to use that as an offical English-language designation. I also don't feel that there would be enough to warrant an individual Shadowhawk Cosmo Type page and a Blackout page, as they'd contain most of the same information.

Secondly, I'm wondering if the stealth decoed Divebombs warrant their own page under a nickname title? e.g. Watchdog (G1). They are clearly a different breed to the two aforementioned races and with the Command Ravages being present alongside them, it only seems fair to mark them on a separate page too. If others agree, I was thinking maybe "Stealth Divebomb" or something, as the title—unless Super Link has a better term used in the episode?

Thirdly, and the least important of noting on this list of issues: The Planet Q natives featured in the flashback (before the planet was destroyed) use both the Shadowhawk Cosmo Type model and a recoloured version of the Battle Ravage model in the same colours. Do these Battle Ravage redecos warrant a page or is a note on the respective mold pages enough for them?

Thank Primus that the Insecticons and Cruellocks don't suffer from this issue of multiple breeds/repaints presented on-screen.

Let me know what you think. -- Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 05:49, 10 March 2021 (EST)

I would make a "Shadowhawk Cosmo Type" article for that color scheme in general, but keep the Blackout article for that specific individual. All of the other weird color schemes like "Shadowhawk Desert Type" could just go on the regular article, with notes pointing out their existence. Saix (talk) 15:35, 10 March 2021 (EST)

Sounds like a plan. I'll get a sandbox started for the Cosmo Type Terrorcons. Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 15:44, 10 March 2021 (EST)

Excessively long toy pages

Let's face it. A few pages such as "Optimus Prime (G1)/toys" and "Megatron (G1)/toys" have become so long that they can slow down a device just to be loaded. Will we allow indefinite expansion such that page scrolling time will balloon further? We need to do some kind of split that will set up a second page for many years to come. Some months back, there was a discussion on the Discord server suggesting the start of Generations in 2010 as a useful dividing boundary. Thoughts? S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 16:38, 13 March 2021 (EST)

I agree with the split from Generations. Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 17:36, 13 March 2021 (EST)

Template:quote and Template:bigquote

Why do we have both of these? --Khajidha (talk) 07:39, 16 March 2021 (EDT)

the big one looks much better and less confusing. i suggest getting rid of the normal one. --GobotsFanForever (talk) 07:48, 16 March 2021 (EDT)

While I find the big one hideously obnoxious and would suggest getting rid of it.--Khajidha (talk) 11:32, 16 March 2021 (EDT)

sorry, it turns out that for some reason, the normal quotes were not showing up properly on my computer. but now they are. now the big quotes do seem kinda unnecessary. --GobotsFanForever (talk) 21:11, 16 March 2021 (EDT)

Merge or not to merge the ROTF toyline and N.E.S.T. Global Alliance pages.

I think we should merge the ROTF toyline and the N.E.S.T. Global Alliance pages, since they're both from the Revenge of the Fallen movie, along with the fact that some toys from that subline imprint are in the ROTF page. Besides, the reason why users here want their pages to be merged is the same from the Armada and The Unicron Battles, which by the time of this talk, they're already merged. --Cybertron Forever (talk) 16:52 18 March 2021 (EST)