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Continuity / Timeline

I'm trying to make some sense of how the various major continuities are handled, overview-wise. Some have their own continuity page; IDW's just got a timeline, with overview stuff shoved here and there among the individual miniseries. Some don't have anything. Some, like the G1 cartoon, are not much more than lists. The ones that exist tend to be hard to find, aren't categorized uniformly, etc... is there a master format for this stuff?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Repowers (talk • contribs) 12:15, 29 October 2007.

There is no master format for continuity pages. Please feel free to make one! It would be a good thing to have! --Steve-o 00:55, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

You know, I think it would be hot if once we got more timelines up, we began putting Chronology links to the timetable on the story pages. Several Dreamwave comic pages have them, and I think IDW comics should too, since IDW really isn't telling the story in a linear fashion.--Zodberg 09:36, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea. --MistaTee 13:51, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Would it make sense to have an overview writeup at the start of each timeline, a few paragraphs or so? Or should "continuity" be a separate page? Where should a chronological list of issues go -- publisher's page, continuity page, timeline page? That's not such a problem with, say, Marvel G1, but Dreamwave's a little messier, IDW's all over the place, and gods help you if you want to sort out the mess that is Marvel UK. -- Repowers 14:29, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

A continuity page should have the following (in my opinion):

* A one-paragraph description of the continuity, not more than a few sentences long.

* A list of what media belongs to this continuity (which can include some stuff that's vaguely contradictory, but should exclude stuff that's way out there, like Earthforce relative to G1 comics). This can be sorted by publication order, or internal chronology, but if there's a major difference between the two, it should be spelled out.

* An overall description of the main events in that continuity, focusing on the events actually chronicled (not the distant past). In particular, for most continuities, changes in the leadership of either side, the changing status (living/dead, present/absent, duplicated by Straxus/encoded on a floppy, etc.)of the big two leaders (usually Optimus Prime and Megatron), any events involving Unicron or Primus, and introductions of major teams or groups of characters (Headmasters, Fuzors) should be in the summary.

* If necessary, a timeline, which may end up integrated with one of the above parts.

* Pointers to important and closely-related continuities (again, such as Earthforce), discussion of divergences, etc. JW 15:14, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

All that sounds pretty good, though I wouldn't get too hung up on following individual characters too much, even the leaders. In Marvel G1, at least, they changed over on a pretty regular basis.

On a related note... this and a lot of other overview-type pages are really lost in the shuffle. They should be top-level pages, with everything branching off of them and linking back to them, but instead they're buried and nothing links to them. You start off reading, say, the article on Spotlight: Soundwave. Where do you go from there to find out more? The IDW issues category? That's the only link out of that page. If you're a newcomer, or even someone with an imperfect memory, how do you know what comes next? Either the individual issue pages need to link to the timeline and continuity pages, or the category page does, or... something.

Taking care of it on the category page might be simplest, like what's on the Category:Marvel US issues page. -- Repowers 19:12, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the site is sadly lacking in both "uplinks" and "sidelinks" for the media; links from a TV episode to the TV series, links from an issue of a comic to an overview of the comic, links from one comic to the next comic in that series, etc. JW 19:21, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm still poking around and figuring out what's been done and what's needed; it might take a while to figure out how to start cleaning things up. It looks like we've got some random timelines started (still need ones for the Beast era and a few others), as well as continuity pages for some but not all of the major storylines, so I suppose each major continuity should have both kinds of pages. I wonder if there's a way to use a category or subcategory to get individual episode/issue pages to quickly link back to the main overview pages?... -- Repowers 19:28, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

JW, we do have that comics nav template, though I like the comic infobox on wikipedia more. --MistaTee 20:04, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Ah... http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Template:Comicnav ...so we do. Very useful. Now we just gotta propagate it over a few hundred comic issue... :S -- Repowers 20:25, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Also, the nav setup only can link up one level. So Infiltration #2 can link up to the main Infiltration page, but not to the IDW continuity page above that. Would putting a variant of this template on the main page for each miniseries, linking up to the continuity page, work instead? Then you're never more than two clicks away from an individual issue to the continuity overview. -- Repowers 20:25, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

That, or somehow add it to the main comicnav template, perhaps in small letters above the series name. I don't wanna step on anyone's toes though. --MistaTee 20:45, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

That'd make the most sense, to add a "Continuity" level to the template, or alternately a lower-end "Mini-series" option. But hell if I can make sense out of how these things work... that might be a rainy day project, figuring that out.  :\ -- Repowers 20:51, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Image Copyrights

I asked awhile ago, and nobody seemed to know, so...

I've always been under the impression that images © someone else should be credited not just with a note that they belong to someone else, but a year, for much the same reasons we identify who the image belongs to rather than simply saying 'we don't own it, but it's fair use.' The more info we provide, the more 'seriously' the copyright is being taken. if we wipe our ass with an unadorned, {{fairuse}} clearly we don't think the holder of the copyright is important... or something.

I have a script I've been poking at. It can run through every image detail page on the wiki through a regular expression and pick out which images don't have copyright owners (Hasbro or Takara-- you're supposed to ID which even if you're using {{hastak}},) which don't have dates, and which don't have any sort of copyright notice at all. (A significant chunk of our images have no notices that they belong to someone else.) It could also drop the offending images into categories to be sorted out and properly labeled. (I imagine I'd give it Steve-o and let it do so logged in as the bot to avoid the update-floods.)

...is anyone interested in this? Does it seem like a good idea? Terrible idea? ...Bueler? -Derik 15:29, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Cartoon Episode Format Mark II

Picking up an old thread here... per some changes I just finished making to all the Beast Era episode pages, IMO:

• The one-line summary should be bold. It's the single most important thing on the page; your eye should leap right to it.
• It should be the very first thing on the page, above the nav box (barring temporary templates like "pics needed".)
• It should be free of links. They're distracting and ugly, and it's kinda absurd to think someone's going to click right off the summary to see what a "Maximal" or whatever is. Links can easily be integrated into the body of the plot summary.

I'd also rather see Quotes before Stats, to keep all the in-universe stuff together before moving to out-universe stuff like writers, air dates, commentary, order of appearance, etc. -- Repowers 00:13, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree with all of this, except for the one-line summary being above the nav box. Pure personal preference, though, rather than any sort of functionality - I just don't like the way it looks. In fact, I think putting it below the nav box actually helps its notice-ability - it "frames" the summary quite nicely between the nav box and the contents box. - Chris McFeely 00:22, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Heh, I see it the opposite way -- having the summary first provides a frame for the inevitable white space that accompanies the nav box. -- Repowers 06:24, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Picking up on what I said above, putting the stats section down below not just the extended summary but now below the quotes section as well is something I strongly oppose. Episode writers do not get the recognition they deserve. We should not be burying their credits like that. That section belongs above the summary. --KilMichaelMcC 03:21, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I do hear what you're saying, but honestly I'm less bothered by the recognition factor than by the inconsistency with comic format, where all that junk is up front (though it often looks pretty bad, IMO.) If it were just the writer credit, I'd be okay with having it up front (though I ain't gonna be the one who goes back through 78 Beast Era episode pages to change it!) But then you get into the odd condition of having that one bit of info up front, while the rest of the standard information external to the episode's events is much deeper in the article. Having much more stuff up front than that makes for a messy, unattractive, and harder-to-read format compared to having it all bundled in the Stats section... IMO, natch.

"If "recognition" is the concern, heck, think of the animators who slaved a lot more than the writers ever did to bring each episode to life. They get no credits at all. Neither does Robert Buckley, who provided music for both Beast series. The list goes on and on. -- Repowers 06:24, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

The information I am suggesting be up front would only be three lines (Written by, Directed by, air date), which I don't think would be very intrusive at all. To my mind, before the summary is the only logical place for this information to be presented, as episodes themselves generally present those two credits up front, and air date is a known factor when watching an episode when it debuts.

On the issue of recognition, you make a good point, however my concern is a bit different. Robert Buckley may not get a lot of recognition from the fandom for the music of Beast Wars, but it's not like they give someone else all the credit on that score, pun semi-intended. But the writers? The fandom often enough acts as if Forward and DiTillio wrote every single word of Beast Wars, and Skir (alone, of course, as the Isenberg Uncertainty Principle remains in full effect) the same for Beast Machines. The story editors are obviously the most important writers, but they didn't do it all on their own.

Burying the names of episode writers down below the summary and quotes sections just doesn't sit right with me, is all. --KilMichaelMcC 04:46, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Hrm... combined with Steve-o's consistency argument, I suppose I could go along with doing it this way, with them all tucked together and separate from/below the one line summary. Written By and Air Date are in one little combined pair of lines now, an easy cut-n-paste to move up front. I don't think anyone's added Director credits to any of the episodes, by the by.

As I said, I'm in no great hurry to do it myself -- my main concern was that the Beast Era show pages had drifted into all sorts of different arrangements, some of which looked pretty sloppy. For better or worse, they're all uniform now. If we're gonna change the layout, let's work on getting one sample page just right, then we can worry about propagating it. To that end, have a look at "Chain of Command", see if it clicks for you. -- Repowers 05:33, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm thinking if we could merge the Japanese title into the Stats section because it seems to fit the section better. --TX55 03:14, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't have much of a preference, personally, about how to organize these things. However, I do feel pretty strongly that it should be more or less the same for both cartoon episodes and comic issues. Having different organizational schemes for different sorts of fiction doesn't serve much purpose, and makes things harder to get used to. (On the other hand, I also feel strongly that all of our passages relating fictional events should be in the same tense regardless of if they happen to be on a character page or a story page, but apparently that makes me insane, so don't take my pleas for consistency too seriously.) --Steve-o 02:35, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Cartoon continuity headings

Have we decided on a definative format for this yet? most of the pages with characters who appeared in Sunbow's G1 through to the japanese series (and maybe Beast Wars as well) have quite different headings, and I recall we were worried about Transformers Animated causing problems with all the 'Animated continuity' headings on character pages. --FFN 07:08, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I think we had decided on using "cartoon" instead of "animated." So use "cartoon continuity," or for those who appear in more than one cartoon continuity, use "Generation 1 cartoon continuity," "Beast Wars cartoon continuity," etc. --ItsWalky 07:13, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Can we have Diagnostic Drone change all occurrences of "Animated continuity" to "Cartoon continuity"? That'll require some cleanup in the Animated articles, but there are far fewer of those than there are of G1 subjects that are currently mislabeled. - Jackpot 17:54, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Section-title master list

I've made a sandbox for the purpose of assembling a master list of all section titles, their relation to each other, and their proper wording/formatting. Please discuss; I've introduced some new ideas, and I'd love to see a consistent guide established. - Jackpot 01:04, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Wow, I think this really look nice and useful. ;D --TX55 03:44, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

"First go here! Next go here."

I was thinking a bit about the various problems we've got around here -- stuff like incomplete image descriptions, orphaned articles, etc. There's really no one central place where a newcomer (or a regular who feels like doing something useful but doesn't know what) can go to find a quick list of things that need doing. The current help pages just send you to the list of articles in need of creation, which is kind of daunting, especially for a newcomer who has to learn a million standards and Wikia tags. Is there a more comprehensive way to point people in the direction of useful things they could be doing? Whatever it might be, it should include links to:

• Pages in need of creation
• Orphaned pages
• Stubs
• Pics needed
• Any current projects, like the Beast Wars one. Hell, I couldn't find that thing if my life depended on it.

...as well as a note about common problems: dead/missing storylinks, incomplete image descriptions, and whatever else. (Heck, who knows? Maybe it could even distract an IP person long enough to prevent them from screwing with captions.... ahh, who'm I kidding?} -- Repowers 21:51, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

There are some of those things catalogued here, but I think making links to the most important of these categories, and placing them together in one easy-to-find link off the main page, would be best. Perhaps on the Help contents page, since it's linked right off the main page already, in the most logical location? I think that link is a bit small, for what it's worth. --Sntint 22:09, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

One of the projects in the back of my head is a help-page/guide specifically breaking down the creation of character pages, plus the use of "common templates" for them (disambigs, stubs, notes). I'll see if I can scrounge up some time to rough-copy one. --M Sipher 22:56, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Other Maintenance Templates?

I haven't had much time to do more "substantial" wiki edits lately, but I've been prepping for later with the charstub sub-categories. Fiction really isn't my bag... I mean, I know it in general, but not issue titles and numbers and bla bla. But I figure it's also nice to have the "really needs a lot of stuff" pages separated from the "just needs some stuff in one subsection" ones, especially once I can make a concentrated effort to update the toy sections of various pages. I've been thinking about other similar "needs maintenance" template/categories, but I thought I'd bring it up here since I'm not sure who else might make use of them...
I've noticed quite a lot of pages missing storylinks. I'm not intending on going through a big wiki-wide hunt, but as I go through the stubs and other pages doing little maintenance and tweaks, well, I think I'd like to be able to mark pages I come across that are missing those links they should have. Picture and quote? Isaac Sumdac and/or Tutorbot, "I cannot believe I programmed you with such simplistic information!" (Idea courtesy of Trent Troop.)
I'd swear there was another one, but right now, too tired to think of it and must sleep. --M Sipher 06:53, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps a tag for a page with too many damn redlinks for concepts that will never need articles?--Rosicrucian^Talk 07:08, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that will be neccessary, as it's a simple matter of removing the [[ and ]]s. Storylinks, though, require some research. --M Sipher 15:40, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I usually label such pages with {{stub|storylinks}}. JW 15:44, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Trick is, often they're not really stubs, are they? the main info is there, there's just not a "where'd this happen?" link. And maybe it's the data-manager in me that says this, but I think it'd be a lot easier to have a common problem like lack of storylinks as a category all its own, all together for easy identification and maintenance. --M Sipher 16:11, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Disambiguation

We need a consensus on hiw we handle disambuigation in article titles. We've had some moving between Silverbolt (BW) and Silverbolt (Fuzor), and Dirge (Timelines) and Dirge (Whatever the Botcon 05 set was) because there are two Silverbolts in BW and two Dirges in Timelines. However, since one of those Dirges and one of those Silverbolts are G1 characters, the (BW) and (Timelines) tags are fine for the other two. The tags are simply for keeping the articles separate; not for telling you what continuity they're in. Plus, (Timelines) is much easier to type than "(Botcon boxset name I can't remember)". --FortMax 23:35, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Somewhat related to the discussion at Talk:Starscream (Timelines). My personal criteria is that a name used for two (or more) characters in the same toyline requires more specific disambiguation, regardless of the characters' origin, because readers shouldn't be expected to remember whether some character was already in another toyline. —Interrobang 23:51, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

So... what should disambigs be?

1. Distinguished only when strictly necessary. "Silverbolt (BW)" is fine because, while there were 2 Silverbolt toys in the BW Toyline, the other one is actually Silverbolt (G1)- so only one entry is trying 'sits' in the (BW) disambig, and no more specific disambing is needed. Parenthetical disambigs should be the broadest possible category the article can sit in without conflicting with another article, (usually a continuity family or franchise.) Absolutely no 'bumping' of disambigs as a concession to aesthetics.
2. Distinguished on a logical basis. "Silverbolt (Fuzor)" because there are two Silverbolts in the BW toyline, and the article title should not allow for confusion between the two.
3. Providing continuty info. A hypothetical new character Roller in the 2008 Universe line would be "Roller (Classic)" not "Roller (Universe)"-- so that the article title doesn't mislead people into thinking he's part of the 2004 Universe continuity.

My problem with #2 and #3 is that the diambig isn't supposed to convey that information. The first line of the article, right below the title does. It will say 'Silverbolt is a Fuzor in the Beast Wars continuity family...' or 'Roller is a Ultracon in the Classics portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.'

We are currently usign method #1. I oppose a change to methods 2 or 3 for the following reasons:

1. The first line of the article already supplies the information that solutions 2 & 3 would seek to add- and does it better.
2. Implementing 2 or 3 would make it harder for editors to know where article are sitting ("I know there was only one Silverbolt in BW, why is my link to Silverbolt (BW) broken?")
3. The purpose of the parenthetical disambigs is not to convey info- it is to keep articles with the same title from sitting in the same namespace. Attempting to make disambigs convey information actually adds ambiguity, because it would force the the locations the articles sit in to become less standard.

Let diambigs be disambigs. If we want to make continuity notes clearer or more prominent, we can look at revising our approach to them. -Derik 00:41, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

We already have Help:Disambiguation to more or less lay this out. (I've just made a couple small changes to it for clarification.) There is going to be no simple rule of thumb which leads to tbe best results in every case, so make the parenthetical as brief and clear as you can. Derik is correct that the purpose of the parenthetical is to give the articles different names so the database doesn't get confused. To help out editors when we make links, it is good for them to be short and easy to remember. --Steve-o 21:35, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

So, should we move Silverbolt (Fuzor) and Dirge (Decent into Evil) and the mirrorverse guys back to Silverbolt (BW), Dirge (Timelines) and mirrorverse guys (Timelines)? --FortMax 22:42, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Wait to see if others have strong feelings/argument first. (We have a policy, but it's subject to conseunsus, remember? Also- I think I wrote most of that page so my point of view is unfairly over-represented there.) On review, no, apparently this is one policy page I didn't write. ...why can't I tell Steve-o's writing apart from my own? Scary.  :~(

Personally I say emphatically yes on Dirge, indifferent affirmative on Silverbolt, and wait and see on the Shattered Glass pages. We don't now where/if they fit in existing continuity. There's no point in movinf them a half-dozen times while arguing about unknowables. -Derik 23:13, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Pages about fan sites

Is there a policy about this? I wanted to add TF Pulp, but I didn't see any other TF sites on here at all, so I figured I should ask first. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Might Gaine (talk • contribs) 2008-02-27T14:04:54.

We don't give unofficial sites their own articles. You can link to information on TF Pulp from appropriate pre-existing articles, though. That sort of thing enhances the wiki by allowing people to find further information on the topics they are reading about. Just put it into an "External links" section right before the categories. --Steve-o 21:18, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Cartoon episode title cards redundancy

Why are we moving towards using the title cards of episodes for the main/starting picture of episode articles? Isn't it redundant to have a boring screenshot with the name of the episode placed next to...... the name of the episode in the actual article itself? Wouldn't it be more interesting to do what we have been doing, and use a screen capture that somehow encapsulates the whole episode, or shows a pivitol point in it that sticks in our memory? --FFN 02:55, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I've wondered the same thing myself, but figured it was a done deal. I too support the "memorable/encapsulating moment" approach. -- Repowers 03:04, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

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