MediaWiki talk:Community Portal/Archive71

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[[{{#sub:MediaWiki_talk:Community_Portal/Archive71|0|-0}}Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "{".|«]] Community Portal / Archive71   e [[{{#sub:MediaWiki_talk:Community_Portal/Archive71|0|-0}}Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "{".|»]]

from~January 2023
to~December 2023

notes: Some Dec. 2022 posts included due to Jan. 2023 responses

Nonbinary Character Category

So, we now have another nonbinary character (who actually used their pronouns during the media no less), Nightshade from Earthspark (Nightshade at time of posting doesn't have a page yet)! The other fully for certain fully intentional one is Screwball from Beast Wars: Uprising while Acid Storm was at least an out of media by writer retcon of animation, and Overlord's gender is somewhat nebulous on where that fits beyond being gender expansive due to being "what some would call genderfluid" but that at least puts us at three. Given that we have a trans category now we thought it best to at this point suggestion a nonbinary category for the sake of users (including gender expansive people) easily finding nonbinary characters on here. Obviously adding Nightshade will have to wait until they have a page but any thoughts on this yea or nay? Causeway (talk) 18:28, 8 December 2022 (EST)

I forgot about Screwball. I think with three confirmed examples, even without the edge case of Overlord, that's probably enough to justify one. Care will have to be taken, however, to only include confirmed examples and not use it as a dumping ground for any character whose gender has never been explicitly identified. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 18:37, 8 December 2022 (EST)
Authorial intent and all, but I can say that if I had the option to go back and rewrite it I would have used the term non binary for Overlord. I feel like Acid Storm is more of an edge case; it’s what one person said on their account to justify it. Whenever Acid Storm actually says something they’re animated with a female face; it’s not done at random.Escargon (talk) 18:47, 8 December 2022 (EST)
Acid Storm changes from masculine male to feminine female and back. Gender-fluid, sure, but definitely non-binary? As for Overlord, in the Legends manga Mega gives Overlord a female-presenting face - is there a pronoun change during that time? Would we have more candidates for inclusion in a Gender-fluid category first? --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 20:17, 8 December 2022 (EST)
Thank for the notes folks, that does help to piece this together! Just want to note that a pronoun change is not necessary for a gender being experienced in fluidity to be the one expressed or what have you, so unless the Legends manga actually has some sort of statement about Overlord's fluidity that kind of puts us back with an umbrella term of nonbinary (which we are unsure as not having read the Legends manga if that would work for that Overlord so we can't speak to where/if Overlord falls under gender expansiveness beyond the fact that Overlord's presentation changes depending on the binary bond partner right?). Acid Storm is an edge case yes but if we do count the edge case that they are we think it is worth noting that for Acid Storm what Catt said was specifically that changing expression is just something they do, and "any pronouns" work for Acid Storm, no statement about the binary. Of course, we only see two faces which are the two different Seeker faces that were otherwise delineated by gender, but at this point we're getting into the opt-in thing of 'x person is genderfluid and thus considers themself nonbinary' or 'z person is genderfluid and only considers themself as under the multigender umbrella'. Which we don't have detail on really if Acid Storm is genderfluid as how they know themselves right? Because that's just a thing that was written in the Female Transformers page because of (no blame being given, it's understandable) the user finding that to be the term that fit best? Feel like we've ended up just pointing out an need for just a gender expansive category instead but ah well. Causeway (talk) 21:46, 1 January 2023 (EST)
We seem to have killed this with a non-solution for the nonbinary category by pointing out that gender expansive is more certain than saying genderfluid. If we count Nightshade, Overlord, and Screwball, is that a go on nonbinary, or should we just have a gender expansive category at this point that would also be one trans characters use? For people wondering what gender expansive means you can find a definition here https://www.diversitystyleguide.com/glossary/gender-expansive/ https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/08/gender-expansive-mean/ Causeway (talk) 23:18, 6 February 2023 (EST)
Respectfully, I think needing to invoke a glossary suggests the term is so little-used in common parlance that it would not be useful for our needs and style. We don't have a category tag at the bottom of a bunch of BW characters saying "tetrapods" or "perissodactyls" (we do talk like that on Popular beast alternate modes, maybe a grouping page would be a better approach? Just a thought...). If we are looking for a category tag I think it would be better to find the term that unambiguously covers the largest number of candidates, without a need to rely on edge cases, maintaining both accuracy and readability. I see three characters that could sensibly go in a Gender-fluid tag, one that could go in a Non-binary tag (meaning we wouldn't make the latter). We may be facing a case where there are few enough disparate examples that there isn't one single category tag that usefully unites them. --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 07:55, 7 February 2023 (EST)
With the most recent block of EarthSpark episodes having further explored Nightshade's character and introduced a new nonbinary character in the form of Sam (this also saw the term nonbinary used in the show for the first time), we have been discussing the topic of introducing a Nonbinary characters category on the Discord. Doing some research, AVP also confirmed the Tigerhawk of Primax 496.22 Alpha (the Beast Wars cartoon continuity) to be nonbinary, so that's another character to justify that category. It's been suggested by an expert on the matter that we could introduce a "Gender expansive characters" category as an umbrella category, with Genderfluid characters, Nonbinary characters, and Transgender characters existing as subcategories as a way of future-proofing our coverage of gender expansive characters, while also ensuring we don't lump every gender expansive character together into a single broad category and hopefully making these concepts easier to navigate for casual readers. - Archforce (talk) 17:26, 4 March 2023 (EST)
In sequence you replied to my post of Feb 7 but seem to have side-stepped the part where I questioned the usefulness of a category tag that will not be widely understood. Also, creating such a category exactly is "lumping them all together into a single broad category." So is that approach desirable or not? --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 17:43, 4 March 2023 (EST)
They said the word nonbinary in the show. In a show full of nonbinary rep. And then nonbinary characters exists outside of that show, and it would not be a dangerous bet to expect this to continue. But people are born with an innate understanding of what an Alpha Primax 9384u743 is, or Transmetals, or Powermasters, but not what a nonbinary person is so yeah maybe we are going too far on this website for nerds who want to learn more about things related to Transformers (like nonbinary characters). We have a category called council members. Literally for any character who has served on any council. I did not understand what "council members" actually refered to before I clicked on it, assumed it was more specific than it was, but in fact it took me two seconds to figure it out. A non-binary category and/or gender-expansive category would surely be the same. And as Archforce says, make these concepts easier to navigate. Or if that was too long, what Walky said. Seriously. You also appear to misunderstand what is meant by lumping together. Because putting all non-binary people in a non-binary category is accurate, and is something I and at least some others want, putting all non-binary people on a transgender page would be a misrepresentative "all of these are the same thing right?". Gender-expansive on the other hand comes from someone familiar with the matter, and as a non-binary person myself, as someone who has researched gender representation in media at an honours level (to flex some credentials that yeah I could be making up), I agree with what is being said on the Discord. Gender expansive as an umbrella provides the room to not lump everyone together while recognising yeah there is something shared in any act of gender that is not one of cisgender conformity. Having transgender and nonbinary characters on the same page while called out as two seperate subcategories I again think helps casual readers navigate based on this. Bumblebee2000 (talk) 18:40, 4 March 2023 (EST)
Not using the best useful terms because they're not understood by enough people is extremely self-defeating. I reject that line of thinking. (also, like, c'mon, the first complete article for this wiki was gaddang Robot-Master, not Optimus Prime, so I think we can say the words "gender expansive" even if someone hasn't heard of them) --ItsWalky (talk) 17:49, 4 March 2023 (EST)
Thank you all for the discussion! To clarify regarding aesthetics (because gender is aesthetics, we can give recommendations on stuff to read re that), the term gender expansive does not in fact cover everybody, merely all the bots we're talking about it in this instance and likely future unless we get canon transformers fiction that actually uses a variable alien aesthetic system that isn't gender but is something similar. To put this another way: not all human societies' aesthetic category concepts and formulation of individual and collective context for self such as pronouns, names, expressions, (to use Leslie Feinberg's words for navigating transness and gender itself, the 'poetics,' not just construction) etc. used or uses those in a way that neatly fits modern Western gender constructs with a large number of examples both from outside Europe and within it. In a similar vein some xeno aesthetic spectrum folks (like some of ourselves, and yes we're getting very obscure here the gender parallel is xenogender) and speculative fiction/sci-fi about aliens live or navigates the idea of aesthetic structures that are not gender at all but merely overlap or parallel.
Transformers fiction has really only touched on the subject of the alien aspect of the bots' gender or lack thereof when trying to portray that something is there by e.g.; parallel with the embodying and living of their various modes such as when Lodestar speaks to having weapon retrofit dysphoria in the 2021 annual (yes, the 'embodying and living' is something we're borrowing from Gayle Salamon on how she frames gender), their unique histories, the December 23rd 2015 AVP gender answer having a note about continuities where the concept of gender is barely relevant, and possibly that time 'gal' got put in quotations (it's still unclear what Maggs meant by that but that's okay). So rest assured that while gender expansive is a broad category- it only future proofs us until alien terminology or narrative that is clearly shown in replacement of when gender would otherwise be used in a story actually happens in canon. Which would be incredibly exciting, but isn't where we are right now. Causeway (talk) 19:11, 4 March 2023 (EST)
But we are nonetheless at a special point in time in the transformations of transformers, that the categories genderfluid, nonbinary, and gender expansive would be useful for. <3 Causeway (talk) 19:15, 4 March 2023 (EST)
Gosh that felt good to dedicating an afternoon to doing, thank you for the help! We feel that Chief ought to be included in the gender expansive category, and given the entry regarding Tigerhawk that was mentioned here, Spittor arguably also could be "In some universes where Spittor scans an organic alternate mode, his biological system conforms to female while his Cybertronian gender identity is male.". Chief seems fairly obvious? RE Spittor where his situation could be argued to break down is the cybertronian understanding of gender maybe not matching gender and anatomy as framed by humans but then that in itself still qualifies. Causeway (talk) 20:32, 5 March 2023 (EST)
*shrugs* maybe the latter re Spittor and similar situations is just something to note in an eventual article rather than to throw in the category itself Causeway (talk) 20:45, 5 March 2023 (EST)
I'm gonna say that I'm for Editor while Spittor is ultimately a way of just saying that his alt-mode is a female frog even though he's male. Ala Tigatron in the cartoon, Waspinator, etc. Escargon (talk) 20:57, 5 March 2023 (EST)
Thank you, that helps clarify things! :3 Causeway (talk) 21:47, 5 March 2023 (EST)

Adding an informative table to each character page

I was thinking about it since it's striking.. lack.. There should be a way to tell people in which and how many episodes/issues/movies each character appears in the continuity they belong to, their debut episode/issue movie, what aliases they have had and nicknames they were given by other characters, a more centered area for the voice or live actors, a link to their gallery pages(if they have any) and one to their disambiguation pages etc. The kind of information that one would prefer to find with greater ease, especially if they aren't members. And talking about their appearances, that should prove quite useful for future page edits, since we'll know exactly where to look especially when it's about latecomers or characters that don't appear on a regular basis. I just think it'd be useful. Darthrone (talk) 15:44, 2 February 2023 (EST)

This kind of infobox was discussed at the very earliest days of this wiki, and it was decided that there was just way, way too much information for it to work... and this was in 2006, BEFORE the franchise exploded. TF is such a fragmented kludge of fictions from multiple sources and creators spanning 40 years that any major character would end up with one ultra-massive thing of dubious use (can't say I see the value in a "number of appearances" tally, aside from the headache of keeping that accurate over time and arguing "what counts"), or a billion splintered ones spread across the page for the different fictions. And "nicknames" is always a minefield as those tend to turn into a massive list of "someone called them this once" which is... not helpful. --M Sipher (talk) 17:46, 2 February 2023 (EST)
Even if it had been a day-1 thing, I don't see how this is more informative than our current style. --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 17:58, 2 February 2023 (EST)
I'm for infoboxes, but the information you're asking for is far too abstract and meaningless in this franchise. (We are absolutely not doing "nicknames". No.) Saix (talk) 18:09, 2 February 2023 (EST)

The (BWU) tag

I understand the reasons why my previous proposal regarding the proliferation of (G1) pages for random newer characters was soundly rejected. However, my main motivation for raising it was that I find the huge quantity of (BWU) pages for "repurposed" Mini-Cons and bestial Transformers to be reader-unfriendly, so I wanted to make a case for making an exception for Beast Wars: Uprising cameos. Uprising was an obscure barely-canon multi-continuity-drifting web serial which we are very unlikely to get further instalments of, and most of the relevant characters are similarly very deep pulls who will assuredly not be appearing again in future stories, and who will otherwise be stuck with tiny stub-pages forever. Most of these are Mini-Cons (here Micromasters) or bestial Transformers (here Protoformers), with a few boats or Constructicons from "Derailment". In many cases, I perceive Uprising as having tried to give these toys a hint of fiction where previously they had none at all, much like Ask Vector Prime before it. It's a very different phenomenon to most so-called "continuity transplants" we've seen in other series (such as with, say, Hot Shot (G1)), which are instead rooted in the popularity of those characters.

I think the problem here is that strictly speaking Uprising is a "Primax" continuity, sure, but it lifts dozens of characters (let alone concepts) unchanged from later stories. Slavishly hewing to that label when it's such an intertextual melting pot has resulted in this unfriendly setup. It feels like a fair decision made at the time (was this discussion the one?) but in my opinion the wiki's policy kinda fails here. If we get rid of the (BWU) tag, the (G1) back-ports remaining (a minority!) will be for more significant characters, often adapted more radically. Here's the list of tiny pages we could be rid of, just like that:

There's a handful of Uprising characters that need a (G1) page anyway for non-Uprising reasons; I'm totally ambivalent about where the Uprising content ends up for these: Tidal Wave (G1), Override (BWU) (!), Cannonball (G1), Black-Out, Halogen (G1), Knock Out (G1), Gaidora (BWU), Strongarm (G1), Thunderhoof (BWU), Twirl (G1).

Finally there's a few weird cases that would merit individual discussion but would probably just need to keep their own pages: Clobber (BWU), Apex (BWU), Offshoot (BWU), Cybaxx (BWU), Overbite (BWU), and Terrorcon (BWU).

Here is a (probably non-exhaustive) list of existing cases of multi-continuity drifting you should probably consider before weighing in:

To those who say the exception I'm proposing would be confusing, I submit these existing examples where we've apparently neglected to split something out as evidence that the only people this confuses are wiki editors like me wondering why they're not all that way. Maybe I'm just unaware of some aspect of the existing policy which accounts for all these cases? But is it really helpful to anyone to have a given toy's associated fiction squirrelled away somewhere separate you have to go into the disambiguation to find? We recently merged Chromhorn (another Sorenson job) on the basis that "There's literally no reason for these to be on different pages. They are the same thing." Can we not do the same for these Sorenson-penned cases that are basically going "look, the exact same guy shows up in multiple universes, alright?" And if the answer is no, will someone go through and split all these out? —The Wadapan (talk) 18:27, 6 February 2023 (EST)

I think my response to your earlier G1-import proposal still applies here: the more exceptions we make to our system for the sake of "accessibility", the harder the overall structure becomes to grok for a new reader, and thus ironically it all becomes less accessible. Why should Uprising Steel Jaw be at Steel Jaw, but Uprising Bisk be at Bisk (RID)? Or, conversely, why should Uprising Steel Jaw be at Steeljaw (RID), but LBS Steeljaw be at Steeljaw (IDW)? Neither solution is good.
As for the current list of exceptions, I'd argue everything you list from Buckethead to the DOTM Mini-Cons should probably be split. Galadria and Ramak are characters from outside media, so we don't split them across continuity lines. Wind Sheer and Skyfire have one page for consistency with the other RID guys. The source on Monsterous being Aligned is here, but I would argue that's just giving an origin to the GoBot and so they should share a page anyway.
Lastly - I object to you bringing the Chromhorn thing into this, as I don't think it's a fair comparison. Chromhorn wasn't making any exception to our categorisation system; it was one page saying "Chromhorn is a green variant of Insecticon from the UT" and another saying "Chromhorn Forest Type is a green variant of Insecticon from the UT", and the former was somehow a "repurposing" of the fictionless latter. --Broadside (talk) 20:24, 6 February 2023 (EST)
Totally get the Steeljaw example—although it is crazy that we're currently disambiguating G1 wolf Steeljaw simply by Steel Jaw. You should post about the disambiguation tag policy change you suggested on Discord, I think a lot of people were thinking along similar lines there. Agree with your interpretation of the current policy as to which of the examples listed should be split and which shouldn't—although the more I think about the Primus Vanguard, the more I think those should technically be split too. While I guess the Time Warriors are multiversal travellers like Drydock. RE: Chromhorn, I understand why it's technically different; I brought it up because I think it speaks to the tenor of Ask Vector Prime answers—in spirit, I think its aim was exactly the same as with the Mini-Con examples I've given.
What do I mean by that? To match your Steeljaw example, from the opposite angle: say I'm your typical fan scrolling Transformers: Dark of the Moon (toyline), and I click on, say, Dualor (DOTM), wondering if he's ever shown up in anything. In their current state, I get my answer immediately. With the proposed split for consistency, I instead get a page telling me that Dualor (DOTM) is a dinosaur Mini-Con from Dark of the Moon, some info about the toy, maybe ending with an inscrutable note about how he was "repurposed" as an identical guy. Now, there's already an unrelated Dualor (Armada), so we'd need to make a disambiguation page. We can see this already by looking at Snow Cat (Universe), which is barren (the very scenario AVP so often tried to address!), and doesn't even admit to the existence of Snow Cat (BWU) aside from a general Snow Cat disambiguation tag. In some existing cases like Steamhammer (BWU), we've mirrored a toy writeup, which needs upkeep in parallel; in others, like Snow Cat, we're asking the user to visit the other page to read about the toy anyway. To my mind, this is inarguably less accessible. I don't understand arguments made about accessibility here which are predicated on readers having learned editing policy to begin with, and I don't think this proposal would actually make it any harder to learn the system.
I regret not listing out all the individual members of those Mini-Con teams above, to better communicate the sheer number of pages that would need to be made (and pages that would need to be renamed, in case of conflicts) to create this inconvenience in service of a rule we've already been ignoring without issue. Nobody wants to do this work, and I think it's less that no-one cares, and more that some people think it'd actually make the wiki worse, and the rest don't particularly think it'd make the wiki better.
What about just making an exception for Mini-Cons/Micromasters? I've talked about Uprising, but obviously the vast majority of cases that theoretically need splitting aren't from Uprising at all. Could probably even do a generic template like "X exists in multiple continuity families, and is a Micromaster/Maximal/Predacon in those without Mini-Cons". Thus your Steeljaws and Bisks and Overrides go unchanged, no problems or ambiguity there! —The Wadapan (talk) 17:09, 7 February 2023 (EST)
Once upon a time, I probably would have pushed for something like this, but where we are now: I am not a fan of any push towards treating something differently based on how "relevant" something is or not. It goes against the very spirit this wiki was founded on, because that is what was happening to the Wikipedia coverage of Transformers where they were just getting rid of things wholesale because of "relevancy." I can understand the basic point behind this, but I feel that doing so would set a bad precedent that could be exploited in the future.
I'd be fine with splitting most of these out. I've said it before elsewhere but by and large a lot of the inconsistencies were largely the result of different contributors adding stuff or splitting stuff without a general consensus, and they haven't been cleaned up afterwards. Also, a minor note, but the Liftor thing was mainly cause no one noticed at the time until I wrote up about the profile years after the fact. Escargon (talk) 20:26, 6 February 2023 (EST)
If I gave the impression "relevancy" was the main thrust of my argument here, I didn't mean to! Like, it goes both ways—would we be merging because Uprising is so irrelevant that we shouldn't devote all these random stub pages to it, or are we merging because it's sufficiently relevant that we shouldn't be hiding that content in stub pages nobody visits? Either is true! I'm arguing for convenience and clarity. —The Wadapan (talk) 17:09, 7 February 2023 (EST)
This definitely feels like the strongest argument to the merge in my mind. The wiki is no stranger to niche pages, pages for nameless, fictionless, toyless nonentities. But I believe these fictionless toys and toyless fiction which are really the same thing would be a richer niche page for the merges. Bumblebee2000 (talk) 20:36, 7 February 2023 (EST)
I really think that once again, this overrates the number of people who would be confused by this, and underrates the number of people who would be able to figure out where to go if they wish to find the information. Like, I hate to do the whole "I was able to figure it out" thing but I was a small child with a single-digit age when I first discovered the wiki and I was able to figure out pretty quick why it was laid out the way it was. I'm not saying there's no room for improvement; I think there's a lot of cases in which the way we have things set up now is kind of ridiculous. But in this particular case, I don't really see how merging things would be any more convenient than just leaving them the way they are and splitting out the cases that we never got around to. Escargon (talk) 20:52, 7 February 2023 (EST)

Just found some more pages that would need splitting under current policy: Crystal Widow, Seawave, Cradon, Freefall (Kre-O), Liftoff, and Epsilon Holdings. All due to Uprising and The Allspark Almanac. Really hoping someone can propose a solution here that doesn't involve creating a billion pages and disambigs. --The Wadapan (talk) 09:24, 18 February 2023 (EST)

We don't split businesses/locations/organizations, so Epsilon Holdings isn't one we need to consider. Kre-O doesn't really occupy a continuity family in our organization and I would just split the rest, especially Crystal Widow. Saix (talk) 09:28, 18 February 2023 (EST)

Noticed the Earth Wars stub templates on Mini-Con pages for Wheeljack Kunai and Bido. The game had previously added Gabu, Zori, Baru, Bashbreaker, Windstrike, and Tricerashot. Following policy, these should all be split—see Giza (POTP) and Giza (Prime), although to be fair they're not the same animal at least. As always, I think the fiction for those toys should go on the pages for those toys. —The Wadapan (talk) 12:39, 17 March 2023 (EDT)

Just finished going through documenting the preliminary bios for the Night Rescue Team, Predator Attack Team, and Mini-Con Council of Sages, from when the Classics Mini-Cons were still going to be released as Cybertron two-packs, and it occurs to me that if all of those guys end up getting duplicate pages, the Unicron Trilogy pages would be where that information should probably end up. Right now it's all a bit of a mess, as some of those characters have (Cybertron) pages via the Primus bonus-pack-in, some don't, and others had their names changed from their would've-been Cybertron incarnations anyway. I've generally tried to stick to linking to the existing pages rather than redlinking—naturally I remain convinced that it'd be for the best if we didn't distinguish between Classics and Cybertron at all in this case and just kept all the relevant information for each of those Mini-Cons on one page per; I think Liftor is proof that this is in fact perfectly fine and much, much less of a headache for readers. See whatever the hell is going on with the page for the Night Rescue Team, which names the patrol car as "Strongarm/Strongarm" as though that's something which makes any sense at all. Tangentially, I also reckon the material from these early bios (which evidently made it out via the official Hasbro website somehow) should probably just be written up in fiction sections proper, along the lines of, say, cancelled Dreamwave issues...? —The Wadapan (talk) 18:03, 23 April 2023 (EDT)

The Cybertron Primus pack-in guys had bios written by Sepelak and Troop (who also wrote the bios for the Classics guys) that deliberately made them different characters for the Club website with little in common besides their physical appearances. It's not a case of "old rules" at all, it was something specific done at the time. Escargon (talk) 18:28, 23 April 2023 (EDT)

https://tfwiki.net/mediawiki/index.php?title=Smelting_pool&direction=prev&oldid=109505 Are other archived "intermediate / obsolete" edit pages still pointing to Wikia? Or have they been somehow neutralized? --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 21:52, 25 May 2023 (EDT)

Not exactly sure what you're asking? I mean, the link is literally part of the text in that edit, so it wouldn't be removed. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 23:25, 25 May 2023 (EDT)
Is that page (and presumably any other intermediate edit page from those years) still directing search engines to Wikia? Some years ago it was seen as pretty urgent that every last such link be removed, regardless of location. Not "gone from current pages," gone from everything. As I recall, there were even refs to Wikia pre-struck-out on pages so people could only see them in mid-edit, but they were still boosting Wikia's rankings, and an admin had to create a bot to scrape them out of everywhere. If they still persist on hundreds of intermediate edit pages from those years, should those pages be totally erased, as they would be when randos insert porn or hate speech here? --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 07:10, 26 May 2023 (EDT)
Historic page revisions are not indexed by Google, so they won't boost Wikia rankings. Those links will be present on any revisions before March 2008, as those revisions are from a backup imported from when the site was on Wikia. We still do have some Wikia links on live pages (Miscolorings based on the Generation 1 cartoon is an example) but those links will be marked nofollow as all external links are, so they should, in theory, not be boosting Wikia's ranking either. --abates (talk) 18:04, 26 May 2023 (EDT)

ROTB being a reboot - what should we do with that?

I don't necessarily hold an opinion on this issue, but according to an interview with the director of ROTB, Rise of the Beasts will be a reboot of the live-action movie franchise. Will this affect how existing articles are grouped and written? Or does the wiki just consider it a case of authorial intent? (source) Gigirassy (talk) 16:19, 27 May 2023 (EDT)

The wiki is intentionally waiting for the movie's official release to make a stand on the matter. Regardless, even if the movie is a reboot it will not affect the wiki as much as you may be thinking it will; both movie series will simply be considered as two different continuities that are still part of the same continuity family overall (just like the multitude of G1 universes out there that are all in the same family). What may or may not happen is some characters may get splitted pages depending on if there's enough evidence for that, but for now all we can do is just wait and see. -- Fritz (talk) 16:56, 27 May 2023 (EDT)

Adaptation notes

Can we figure out a way to format this information that isn't an ugly and intrusive note that fucks up the formatting? Like, convert them into storylinks or references. Collapsible notes. Something. Saix (talk) 15:06, 21 June 2023 (EDT)

(also probably take a weed whacker to the insane number of images people try to stuff into those film sections but that's another discussion) Saix (talk) 15:09, 21 June 2023 (EDT)
I second that. Though we would also have to find a place to put the extra information those notes sometimes provide about how the adaptation differs from the source material. Like how Optimus Prime's notes on the 07 movie mention he kills Barricade in the adaptations when that doesn't happen in the movie itself. Or the very recent example of how ROTB Wheeljack appears in a book based entirely on the half of the movie he wasn't supposed to appear in. So how will we deal with that? -- Fritz (talk) 16:40, 21 June 2023 (EDT)

Against this. When it comes to an informational wiki, utility should be a higher priority than aesthetic taste. Speaking of aesthetics, however… Escargon (talk) 17:24, 21 June 2023 (EDT)

We can be informative without haphazardly shoving "hey, here's some inconsequential adaptations you likely don't care about" into readers' faces. Not all information is created equal, as we've already established by hiding any VAs that the great majority of readers don't care about. Saix (talk) 17:41, 21 June 2023 (EDT)

I'd be against this. The notes make it clear that one thing is an adaptation of another, allow differences to be described succinctly without wholesale repetition of an entire story section, and I honestly think a mass of stoylyinks for every movie character in the first 3 Bay films after their write-up would be far more visually obtrusive and difficult to parse than the note that's already there, for example.AkibaSilver (talk) 22:31, 21 June 2023 (EDT)

I'm gonna more or less agree with the above. Storylinks are absolutely a bad idea once you get beyond, like, two in a row. And I really don't feel like there's ever going to be enough adaptations of any one thing to justify a whole template, where "voice actors in a dozen languages" and "holy crap they redecoed/retooled/rereleased this toy THIS MANY TIMES" certainly can get hugely bulky. And honestly, if they're not a huge list, I like the easy discoverability of keeping them in a note below; hiding them whiffs of "we should de-prioritize the coloring books and not-current media on character pages" that we rejected from the get-go. --M Sipher (talk) 00:56, 22 June 2023 (EDT)

Images and formatting

Here’s something that baffles me; at least far back as the MP announcement of the Trainbots, there’s been a push by some to remove images from articles for reasons that mostly elude me. I agree that a lot of our older writeups have images that aren’t good, but what I don’t get is the removal of them from sections that only have one image. Sure, a lot of the time it’s for characters that have very minor roles in something, but I’ve always thought that McFeely’s way of making articles (by getting the best possible image of each character in every section whenever possible) is the gold standard for how we make articles. On a loosely related note; I’m not convinced by Sipher’s recent push to align images to the right; I think the alternating thing we usually have is much cleaner (aside from in toy sections). Escargon (talk) 17:29, 21 June 2023 (EDT)

Opening a section with a left-justified image almost invariably fucks up the normal "flow" of how your eyes move when you reach the end of a line: you move down and left to the next line. Most of the time, left-justified images at the top of the section push that next line of text to the right of the header. It may look "better" if you unfocus and just look at the page as a blur, but if you're actually reading the text, it's a subtle but very there stumbler. If it's a section where there's a "voice actors" bit or a note template above the image where the end of that is definitely going to end up beyond the rightmost border of the image, that's fair. Every image doesn't have to be on the right. Alternating is fine within longer sections. But opening with left should be used sparingly and judiciously. --M Sipher (talk) 18:24, 21 June 2023 (EDT)

Two things sandboxed a while ago maybe we might consider

I mean I'm not gonna lie, these are both in the "oh my grodd so many pages" realm, and worse, they're not something we can really get a bot to do. But, Iunno, something to consider.
The insignia bullet point thing on individual character pages, only so many characters have toys across multiple factions (most would have G1/G2 variants), so this doesn't feel as "important" an addition, but, well. Could be useful. Adding altmodes to the toyline page listings, however, I think there's a decent case for, especially when dealing with obscure toy-only characters in lines loaded to the gills with toys. It'll certianly help the "man I remember I had this cool toy what was its name" searches. And it involves tweaking considerably fewer pages. --M Sipher (talk) 23:09, 27 June 2023 (EDT)

I'm in favor of the first from a readability standpoint. It just looks better. On the alt modes, I worry it might open the door to edit skirmishes on some of the more vague vehicle modes out there (thinking specifically of Devcon that just came out, or things that are just indeterminate like Cybertron Menasor or Protoform Optimus/Starscream), that just "Cybertronic car/jet/whatever" isn't a common term people outside the Wiki would really think to search, and how specific we'd need to get a la "truck" versus "longnose truck" versus "Peterbilt 379 truck". Hard to call, in my opinion.--MCRG (talk) 23:37, 27 June 2023 (EDT)
The bullet points hit me a little weird at first but I could get used to them, I think it's a neat idea. And I can see the inclusion of alt modes in toy pages as something useful, though no doubt a lot of pages would have to be slightly rearranged to make room for them. Regardless, I'd gladly give a hand with some of the editing if either one gets approved. --Fritz (talk) 09:46, 28 June 2023 (EDT)
RE: altmodes on toyline pages... As far as "arguments" go, you get those anyway. I think for these pages we can afford a bit of looseness ("red Lamborghini" for 1984 Sideswipe since there's a lot of sports cars (and two Lambos) in that line/assortment, "blue sports car" for Cyb Hot Shot since there are fewer "sports cars" in that line), giving enough for a quick ID'ing. Spacing... yeah, this will stretch the pages vertically a bit, but like, that's generally fine if the space has information in it. Plus it will likely mean we can add another pic to the right-hand side of many sections, letting us give a few more examples. And it'll beef up the absolutely anemic sections slightly. --M Sipher (talk) 01:53, 29 June 2023 (EDT)
So, anyone got any objections to these, other than "holy hell that's a lot of manual work"? If anything, it'd also be a good excuse to go in and find out what entries are in need of some sprucing up and getting to today's standards... properly sorting the features into cohesive paragraphs, moving release dates to bullet points, trimming excess or filling out light writeups, making sure links to other toys have the proper anchors, etc. --M Sipher (talk) 21:32, 4 July 2023 (EDT)
The faction symbols look neat, no issue there. Really dislike the alt-mode descriptions on the toyline pages; it's a huge amount of visual noise for very little informational gain, not even to mention the actual work involved. I honestly think they would be very error-prone as a rule, or at the very least lead to some extremely tiresome debates—for example, you've labelled Soundwave/Sideways as "Cybertronian" jets, but my understanding is that they're not Cybertronians at all...? Even until pretty recently, I often find myself clicking links on toy pages only to find that they've been broken by the epidemic of "/toys" splits (and then the subsequent merges now that that's being corrected!); so far as I'm concerned, if you're consistently able to click a link on a toyline page and immediately jump to a write-up with an actual image of the toy in question, that'd be far more useful than a brief indicator of alt-mode, especially considering most readers are going to know that Starscream probably turns into "a jet". Something else this has brought to mind for me, though—for the Cybertron toyline, could be nice to have extra faction bullets for the various Cyber Key types they came with! —The Wadapan (talk) 14:53, 6 July 2023 (EDT)
Late to the party, but I've seen some of the faction bullets have been implemented in some character articles and I really like how they look. I think it will also help in the long run with figures that are marketed as a certain faction on Hasbro's websites or packaging, but not on the toy itself or utilized in any fiction. Like, for example: Studio Series Sentinel Prime. His packaging features a Decepticon insignia, while his instructions feature an Autobot insignia, which means the toy is marketed as both factions, even if both insignia are absent on the toy itself. The alt-mode descriptors, on the other hand, are a no from me, better to leave those kinds of specifics to the toy write ups themselves, as some toy listings in toyline articles are already pretty cluttered as it is, due to all of the characters included in some sets. -- Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 01:20, 5 August 2023 (EDT)
I'm in favor of both. I think the faction bullets look neat and visually appealing, and I wouldn't mind helping with the edits. I also think that the alt-mode listings would be very helpful, and while I agree that it could create a lot of visual noise, I think it could be lessened by some formatting alterations. In particular, making the alt-mode descriptors (small) and/or on a separate line, and having fewer columns in each row so they aren't so scrunched. Played around with a couple variations here: User:Ashendawn/sandbox:ToypageAltmodesAdded --Ashendawn (talk) 15:07, 2 October 2023 (EDT)
I'm quite coming to like the faction symbols, but here's another vote against the alt descriptions. In addition to suddenly making the pages denser and busier... a lot of them are subjective and generic, and it will definitely be noticeable to have multiple generic vehicle types listed so close together. In that last sandbox, "missile truck" and "missile tank" are one on top of the other, and what's really the difference between an "off-road vehicle" and a "military buggy"? --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 15:17, 2 October 2023 (EDT)
I feel like that's REALLY getting into push-glasses-up-nose um-actually-ing and missing the entire point of the descriptors. The point is not to give a superprecise What They Very Definitely Are, but a general guide to people who don't actually remember every single toy's name and are thinking "who was that small blue truck?" while looking at the toyline pages. It's for the people who are not hyper-versed in Everything Transformers. It's for the same reasons we implemented "Major (character name here)"s on the disambiguation pages. Generalities is kind of the aim. --M Sipher (talk) 17:06, 2 October 2023 (EDT)
But the descriptors aren't "small blue truck." None of them list either color or size. Instead we see "Cybertronian space cruiser", "Cybertronian jet", and "Cybertronian shuttle" directly adjacent to each other. The amount of space we reasonably have available, and the undeniable vagueness of many TF toys, makes me think our setup isn't the right one for helping people identify unknown / barely remembered toys. And then there's the question of how someone with an unknown / barely remembered toy would know to go to the right series in the first place. --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 09:21, 4 October 2023 (EDT)
I do think listing the most predominant color(s) could be helpful. Shortening the "Cybertronian [x]" to "Cyber[x]" when possible, or omitting it (in the case of the space cruiser for example, since those don't actually exist outside of sci-fi) could help. As far as the usefulness factor goes--at least in my personal experience--as I've been working on identification of my spouse's childhood toys, we're usually able to identify the era but don't know the name of the specific toy (especially in the case of UT and and toy-only movie guys). Being able to control+F "green" and/or "jet" to find them would have saved me a lot of time. --Ashendawn (talk) 11:58, 4 October 2023 (EDT)
You're getting incredibly lost in vicious pedantry over something that's still in the process. You're acting like the proposal was for something EXACTLY unchanged from what was presented as a prototype, that still (and always would) be tweakable to see what worked better. Part of proposing this is to see if the wording and exact formatting could be tweaked, and other people have added ideas to it that I think really improve on things. The phrasing can be changed, and actually has been in the working example. ("RE: "Cybertronian", we could go with "tech" or "sci-fi" instead if we need that kind of qualifier or for space issues.) --M Sipher (talk) 16:41, 4 October 2023 (EDT)
Oh and I think making the descriptors small text helps a lot, but not wild about changing the number of columns; in most cases that'd leave some real MASSIVE gaps. Brevity will help alleviate width/clutter concerns. --M Sipher (talk) 17:08, 2 October 2023 (EDT)

Alternators/Binaltech headers on toy pages

It feels like something from the old days of the wiki that has become outdated by our modern standards. Binaltech is not its own toyline, it's just the Takara version of Alternators, as reflected by both lines sharing the same page. So I propose we stop using "Alternators/Binaltech" headers on toy pages. Keep "Binaltech" on characters that only have Takara toys and standardize to just "Alternators" on all pages with either only Hasbro toys or both Hasbro and Takara toys. To use similar examples, we only have "Car Robots" and "Adventure" headers on Takara-only toy pages, while all other pages have "Robots in Disguise (2001)" and "Robots in Disguise (2015)" regardless of if they have Takara toys or not. There's no "Robots in Disguise/Car Robots" or "Robots in Disguise/Adventure" headers. So can we please start using the same standard to Alternators? --Fritz (talk) 14:58, 29 June 2023 (EDT)

Energon Universe coverage

With Void Rivals #2 due out next week, I think we need to start a discussion about how much coverage we give non-TF issues in the Energon Universe. This isn't like IDW where the shared universe element came years later; we're starting out on the ground floor, with Transformers part of the universe from the very first released issue. It's going to be closely involved with all the comics going forward, so I think we need to figure out if we're going to cover everything, and if not, what qualifies for coverage. For example, it sounds like Energon is going to be a recurring element in both Void Rivals and G.I. Joe. Is that alone enough to qualify, or do there need to be actual Transformers characters? I think we need to start asking these sorts of questions so we can figure out the scope of our coverage. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 23:39, 10 July 2023 (EDT)

I'm fine with covering everything. Saix (talk) 23:42, 10 July 2023 (EDT)
I am also in favor of covering it all, the universe has established immediately that Transformers seem to be intrinsic to it, and this way we can keep all reading to one wiki. McBaggins (talk) 23:46, 10 July 2023 (EDT)
Agreed. They are presenting it as a shared, intrinsically connected universe - and yeah it's called the Energon Universe so that's very clearly transformery to us unless energon moves on from here to be a generic hasbroverse term, which we doubt. Causeway (talk) 23:52, 10 July 2023 (EDT)
Yeah. I think "cover everything" is the best approach to begin with, and then if we want to discuss splitting things off at a later date we can do that. --Broadside (talk) 00:00, 11 July 2023 (EDT)
Nothing against a "cover everything" either. --Lonegamer78 (talk) 00:53, 12 July 2023 (EDT)

Stock image sizes

Okay, I wanted to bring this up before going on a revertathon but... is there ANY need for HD stock imagery here? Frankly, 4000x2000 images at nearly a meg each seems like absolute overkill and just adding incrementally to server load (good god various Optimuses' toy pages are bad enough as it is, we prolly shouldn't be doing things to make that worse). We just need images big enough to be clear, we're not here to archive print-quality images. I've been sticking to a general 600px vertical with the odd 700px for bigger/more involved toys when doing pics, and like, that sure seems more than fine. Once you hit 1000px it feels real excessive. --M Sipher (talk) 04:01, 3 August 2023 (EDT)

Video game cameos

I'm not seeing the point in being persnickety about continuity families when it comes to mobile game cameos, especially when said game already has established characters from other continuity families. Saix (talk) 16:52, 6 August 2023 (EDT)

If you bothered to do some due diligence, you would know these guys are selectable for individual play, not "cameos". As long as our continuity family policy remains in place, they merit pages just as Prime Knock Out's G1 transplant does. S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 16:56, 6 August 2023 (EDT)
Dude, they're support units without any real role in the story (which, again, includes multiversal travelers already). That's cameo level to me. It's not comparable to Knock Out. Saix (talk) 17:04, 6 August 2023 (EDT)
Late, but they're definitely not cameos. The COMBAT bots frequently have their own dialogue and play a part in the event storylines. They're probably exactly the same situation as Knock Out, who so far as I can tell was introduced without any fanfare as to whether he's a native to the Earth Wars universe or a dimension-hopper. The same even appears true of "Breakdown Prime"! In the past, when characters from other continuities have shown up, there's always been lots of hullabaloo in the dialogues explaining where they've come from. It's silly to make definitive claims one way or another until we successfully scrape the scripts from the last couple of years and can read everything, so under current wiki policy unless someone can produce dialogues where Windstrike says "whoa, this Earth Wars universe is crazy, not at all like my home reality!" we just have to assume they're G1 versions of those characters and give them separate pages. Personally, I would actually agree that it's really silly to have created all of these tiny stub pages for these so-called "continuity transplants", and even brought up the fact earlier on the Portal that nobody had seemed to consider it problematic when they were all just lumped in on the Aligned pages, but if this is how it's gotta be then someone who feels strongly about the split oughta commit to having the coverage on the G1 pages, not the Aligned pages, and disambiguate between them properly. —The Wadapan (talk) 08:14, 25 August 2023 (EDT)

Subcategory trimming

Looking at some of our character categories, such as the subcats under Category:Generation 1 Autobots and Category:Generation 1 Decepticons, I'm starting to wonder if all of these are strictly necessary. I think there's merit to having categories for whole franchises, but I'm unsure whether we necessarily need to add more categories for inclusion in specific media or toylines, like "G1 cartoon Autobots" or "G1 toy Decepticons"; after a while, it starts to feel a little excessive and perhaps even counterproductive. Thoughts? -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 16:44, 23 August 2023 (EDT)

On the one hand, with "G1" being basically Brobdingnagian in scope, I think media/toyline subcategorization is definitely important... but I'm unsold in either direction on if the Autobot/Decep split in said subcats are necessary. I will put forward the argument for the subcategorization that categories are a very helpful method of quick-checking "who's in group x", especially with something as massive as "the Marvel comics cast". Looking for obscure comic Decepticons to maybe feature in something is a lot easier when you don't have to fish through a list that also includes every obscure comic-only Autobot. --M Sipher (talk) 18:53, 23 August 2023 (EDT)
I"m good for keeping "Generation 1 cartoon" and "Marvel comic" categories the way we do with Dreamwave, IDW1, and IDW2 characters (although I think that the Marvel category should be merged with the preexisting Category:Regeneration One Decepticons into a single "Marvel Comics continuity" category). "Generation 1 toy" seems... less necessary to me. Locoman (talk) 19:31, 23 August 2023 (EDT)
The Category:Generation 1 Seekers and Category:Generation 1 Aerialbots categories are good and useful categories to me, as the subgroup is the main thing, in these cases (IMO), and the subgroups have been divided on the franchise/continuity-family level.--Karanseraph (talk) 12:25, 25 August 2023 (EDT)

I would definitely dump the Regeneration One categories. It's just a miniseries, and not a very impactful one at that. Plus, 99% of those characters are already in Marvel G1 anyway. Saix (talk) 12:30, 25 August 2023 (EDT)

Wiki Format

I have a question regarding the set-up of this site. It is one of the only ones I've seen not using fandom and has a nice set up. The Gundam fandom users are talking about maybe moving off of fandom, and this site has shown promising to be a potential new site if a similar format can be created but changed to be Gundam style. I know of someone who "runs" the wiki, and would like to possibly get in contact with them to look at this and see if its plausible replacement for that. If anyone can do something like that, or if it's not possible to use this format like that, then please lmk, thnx! (PS: I'm on the discord, GrootimusPrime, if that would be easier contact as that's also how I'll probably get the Gundam wiki spokesperson to see.) SkywarpsTwin (talk) 11:29, 7 September 2023 (EDT)

The skin we use is just one of the standard skins that comes with Mediawiki (Monobook) with some styling applied. If they have someone who is expert at tweaking stylesheets, they should be fine doing that, though there are other standard skins they could also look at tweaking. --abates (talk) 16:05, 7 September 2023 (EDT)
Alright thanks, Ill look into that and relay to Iserlohn. Thanks! SkywarpsTwin (talk)

What hosting service is used? While I'm not quite sure of preferences of admin, I'm just looking into cheaper hosts that can run this wiki to be good and useable for all editors, as they span most of the world, centering around Asia and America. (PS. If anyone knows Fandom gund-wiki users, please keep this on the low-down, we are attempting to keep this relatively low-key as there has been problems between ours and their teams. Thanks.) SkywarpsTwin (talk) 09:55, 12 September 2023 (EDT)

We're hosted by Linode. --abates (talk) 16:04, 12 September 2023 (EDT)

Include these?

I feel like on fiction related pages, we should include major event sections (so readers don't have to spend 10h scouring the page for info). And maybe we also should indicate some characters' debut (and also indicate when it is the first time a char appears on that continuity, like hot rod debuting in the movie, then state which ep he debuted in the show proper, and so on so forth).Poliwag06 (talk) 19:26, 7 September 2023 (EDT)

I feel like this would be more character based, as there are subcategories, mostly of continuities and such, but then major events would typically be character based, as outside of debuts, most characters major events are different than others and arent shared.SkywarpsTwin (talk) 10:15, 12 September 2023 (EDT)

Gundam

So I've noticed a few references to Gundam here, and a few important people mentioned regarding it, but the links all go to the wiki page which isn't really that helpful, so I was wondering if I could possibly make a new page for it similar to like the go-bots where it gives a gist of it and directs to mentions of people related to it in here? SkywarpsTwin (talk) 09:26, 21 September 2023 (EDT)

No. Wiki pages are only made for other properties when they cross over directly with Transformers. Just sharing tropes or staff isn't enough. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 09:33, 21 September 2023 (EDT)
Then second question, where does one email Hasbro to angrily complain about the fact there hasn't been a crossover on the most crossover-able series ever. Literally they are perfect for each other, and if Gundam can crossover with hello kitty I think tformers would be good.SkywarpsTwin (talk) 09:37, 21 September 2023 (EDT)
This isn't the place for this. Talk pages are for meaningful discussions on how to improve the wiki, not for fandom bantering. -- Fritz (talk) 09:48, 21 September 2023 (EDT)

Fandom Terminology: #maccadam

So on the Fandom Page we have a page for fandom terminology that became official and we also have a Category for Fan Terminology, right?
Maybe it could be useful to have an actual page dedicated to widespread fanmade terms aswell in order to make it easier to get into the fandom?
Similarly to the Page for "Ruined FOREVER", which is essentially also just a list for common (ridiculous) opinions so to speak.
For example the #maccadam tag is mostly used for Fanart on platforms like Twitter, Instagram etc. but looking it up on Google leads you to the actual character and it takes some time to find an actual explanation what the tag actually means (it was supposed to make it easier for fans to differentiate between Bayverse and Non-Bayverse Content. Interesting way to split the fandom y'all.).
The Fanart community is really big for Transformers and given that Fan fiction even has its own page I feel it to also be logical to include the Fanart-Tag somewhere.
As an alternative, the tag could also just be mentioned in Maccadam's wiki entry in the Trivia section, but yeah that's why I'm here, to wonder and ask before adding info on the fandom.
Thunderwave/Bwans_Art (talk) 17:54, 20 October 2023 (EDT)

Remastering the Wiki's logo and background

This proposal is to recreate the current logo and background of the wiki in nicer quality and colors that are more accurate to the Transformers Animated logo.

It would NOT be a redesign of the wiki's skin, I'm talking about simply replacing the current files for ones in a nicer resolution. This would also be more convenient to any social media publication that requires the use of the logo, which has become a running issue due to the unavailability of a high quality file of it.

To elaborate on the colors, the current logo and background have noticeably darker and purpler shades of blue than the Animated logo, so ideally the new versions would correct that.

As an added value, having newer files whose PSD/AI files are available could open the doors to variations for Holidays such as Christmas or Halloween, which had been done in the past. MrRald (talk) 16:54, 26 October 2023 (EDT)

I think that it would be a nice idea. Does this also mean remastering the headers of the links (The "Navigation", "Search", "Toolbox" and "Advertisement" thingies.) on the sides of each webpage? JJ2104 (talk) 18:29, 27 October 2023 (EDT)
That is a possibility, yes. It will depend on how well they look alongside the hypothetical new Logo and Background. MrRald (talk) 23:49, 27 October 2023 (EDT)
I'd say this is a no-brainer and probably something we should be doing every few years. --AzimuthAcolyte (talk) 13:13, 28 October 2023 (EDT)

(Hope I'm doing this right, haven't used the community portal before) I used to do some SVG art for college work. I know Wikipedia uses SVGs for similar situations specifically so things can scale up and down without losing quality, and I'd be happy to take a crack at doing something along those lines for the TFWiki logo to futureproof it, if that would suit how these images are displayed on the backend. Magmatron (talk) 09:14, 21 November 2023 (EST)

Up button

As per a request, I added a floating up button that will take you to the top of the page you're on. It should only appear once you've scrolled a little way down a page, and will take you back to the top when clicked. I'm adding this section here so people can offer feedback. --abates (talk) 20:34, 27 October 2023 (EDT)

I see it when I load a page and it goes away when I scroll down. Saix (talk) 20:42, 27 October 2023 (EDT)
It might require doing a shift-reload or whatever the equivalent is in your browser, as stuff can get cached. If that doesn't fix it, let me know which browser you're using, as it might be browser specific. --abates (talk) 20:47, 27 October 2023 (EDT)
Gotcha, works now. (Using Chrome.) Saix (talk) 20:56, 27 October 2023 (EDT)
Oh that's nice. --M Sipher (talk) 21:12, 27 October 2023 (EDT)
I like it! -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 22:09, 27 October 2023 (EDT)
I personally find the new up button a bit distracting (I think just because it's a large button placed in the middle of the important content part, though I understand we don't have unlimited screen real estate here) but I can see its purpose. I like the red arrow which matches well with the GO! buttons, gives it cohesion and prevents it from clashing with the rest of the site aesthetically too much. Personally blocking it in uBlock Origin for now myself just because it's not too useful for me personally, but I can imagine a quick way to the top being a valuable addition. --ShyAndroid (talk) 23:57, 27 October 2023 (EDT)
I can kinda see the opinion of it being distracting, what with it being a bright red object appearing in the top-middle of the screen. Were it off to the side like, say, on the top-right or bottom-right corner of the screen, it'd be more conveniently out of the way. --Sabrblade (talk) 02:44, 28 October 2023 (EDT)
Definitely a great UX improvement. As to workshopping, perhaps moving it to the left of the screen where we maintain a big ol bar of negative space anyway? Presuming we can set it only to appear once the reader is below the bottom banner ad to avoid overlap, of course. --AzimuthAcolyte (talk) 03:30, 28 October 2023 (EDT)
I dunno, if we're gonna move it to either side, maybe the right near the scroll bar would be better and more intuitive, people're more likely to look in that direction if they wanna jump (and if this works on mobile, which I've not checked, even better since mobile scroll bars suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck). I think the center is fine tho. --M Sipher (talk) 03:58, 28 October 2023 (EDT)
Nah, having it in the centre looks hideous. It'd be better off on one of the sides - I'd say the left side, under the banner ad in the negative space column, but the right side could work if it doesn't block the edit buttons or anything like that. BattleBlade (talk) 10:36, 28 October 2023 (EDT)
I say the right because putting it on the left would make it appear over all the various sidebars we have over there. We don't have anything on the right side, so it would have plenty of negative space to hover over out of the way. Put it either in the top-right corner or the bottom-right corner. --Sabrblade (talk) 13:05, 28 October 2023 (EDT)
Again, going left justified is only being discussed under the condition we can prevent it from appearing until the user is below the sidebars. --AzimuthAcolyte (talk) 13:20, 28 October 2023 (EDT)
I think it's appearing way too early and on pages that are too short. Right now it's hovering there right after the sidebar hits the top of my screen, where scrolling back to the top is laughably easy. Also, having it in the middle doesn't seem readability friendly – I clicked through to this section of discussion from Recent Changes, and having an arrow obscuring the body text of the section I was directly linked to seems like a bad idea. I'm seconding the need for it to be somewhere less obtrusive – preferably the blue space on the left once one scrolls past the sidebars/ad. —TheLastGherkin (talk) 13:31, 28 October 2023 (EDT) P.S. it seems weird to have it on editing/backstage pages??
I agree with the opinion that the mostly empty space on the lower left is the best solution, appearing after all the actual stuff there is out of the way. Articles short enough to not go past the useful part of the left side benefit little from its appearance since the left sidebars aren't all too long, and it's a convenient spot where it wouldn't block anything else. While I can see where people discussing placement in the lower right are coming from, if we can get it appearing after all of the important things, I'd be in full support of its placement in the lower left. ShyAndroid (talk) 14:26, 28 October 2023 (EDT)
How far down before it appears is easily adjustable - at the moment it's set to 200dp, so making it only appear further down is just a matter of changing that to a larger number. I'll tweak to lower left and we'll see how we go. --abates (talk) 17:15, 28 October 2023 (EDT)
I'm going to add another vote for "it's super distracting on desktop and appears when I've barely even started to scroll down at my resolution." -- Dark T Zeratul (talk) 17:38, 28 October 2023 (EDT)
I've moved it to bottom left so it'll be out of the way and also only appear once you've scrolled past the stuff in the left column. You may need to hit reload to see the change, as caching can be aggressive. --abates (talk) 17:59, 28 October 2023 (EDT)
Much better, thanks! -- Dark T Zeratul (talk) 16:37, 1 November 2023 (EDT)
I would prefer that it appear only on mobile if it has to appear at all. When I browse webpages on my PC, I can just hit the Home key to jump to the top. Bag of Magic Food (talk) 15:14, 28 October 2023 (EDT)
Since a lot of users on the Discord were confused by its appearance, it does seem that its function isn't immediately obvious at first glance, so we're implementing a new version with "GO to top!" written below it for clarity. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 15:01, 28 October 2023 (EDT)
Oh wow that looks perfect now imo! --AzimuthAcolyte (talk) 18:09, 28 October 2023 (EDT)
For me (Chrome on desktop) it's displayed right underneath the page title and if I scroll even just slightly down it vanishes, completely defeating the purpose hahaha.
The button in general looks very clunky, it takes up a bit too much space imho. Why not have it hover left from the page title instead of underneath? - Thunderwave/Bwans_Art (talk) 08:41, 31 October 2023 (EDT)
You need to clear your browser cache. Hold Shift and press F5. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 08:55, 31 October 2023 (EDT)
Ohh got it, thanks! Thunderwave/Bwans_Art (talk) 15:03, 1 November 2023 (EDT)

Desktop site mobile bug?

I don't know if this is just my phone or not, but just recently when viewing the wiki on mobile, it looks like it's in Desktop site all the time even if it's not actually in Desktop site. Is this just me? It really affects reading.--CyclonustheWarrior (talk) 20:16, 3 November 2023 (EDT)

I'm pretty sure that we don't even have a "mobile version". --Khajidha (talk) 11:40, 14 November 2023 (EST)
We do, though you have to be logged in and switch to it in your preferences. We have WPtouch which is a generic Mediawiki mobile version and there's also MonacoBookBeta, which was my attempt to make a skin that looks like our regular one but which switches to a mobile formatting automatically. --abates (talk) 14:02, 14 November 2023 (EST)

Linking to SG versions of characters through suites?

Maybe I'm alone in this, but I find it odd that we don't have some sort of more direct and obvious link to the SG iterations of characters in the articles of their "positive universe" counterparts. I'm not suggesting we merge them, obviously, but I don't think it would hurt to add a link to, say, SG Optimus Prime to G1 Optimus Prime's suite. Same goes for the SG Animated characters like SG Animated Optimus. Granted, I'm not sure if it would make some of the suites, especially Optimus', too crowded. I'm also not sure how to handle non-G1 characters like SG Demolishor and SG Hot Shot, if we would put them on their UT counter pages or their G1 counterpart pages. Turborun (talk) 18:34, 4 November 2023 (EDT)

I think this is pretty pointless. If someone wants to look for a character who is from Shattered Glass, they're going to look up "[character name] (SG)" or whatever. And from there they can get to the main counterpart from the disambiguation template at the top. Escargon (talk) 18:38, 4 November 2023 (EDT)
Suites are for linking together subpages that would ordinarily all be on the same article but were split off because of length. I think using them to link to other characters is just going to lead to them becoming bloated. --abates (talk) 19:14, 4 November 2023 (EDT)
Yeah. And let's be real, there's other versions of those characters that are WAY closer together than most SG iterations are to their namesakes, and at that point we're just replicating the disambig template function with unnecessary bloat. --M Sipher (talk) 19:19, 4 November 2023 (EDT)

All fair points. I didn't really consider the fact that suites are mainly used for subpages. Nevermind then. Turborun (talk) 20:01, 4 November 2023 (EDT)

Replacing images (IDW)

I intend to replace as many of the images from IDW as possible with higher quality versions of themselves(where there's space for improvement that is). I want to know if that's okay with everybody. -- Darthrone (talk) 11:08, 12 November 2023 (GMT)

Define "higher quality". I've brought this up before in regards to toy stock images (see above), but this wiki doesn't really need huge, HD, print-level imagery for most things, and in fact, bigger images can actually be a problem by putting vast amounts of incremental work on our servers to thumbnail stuff. Cleaner is fine (though given most of our comic images likely come from old Comixology digital editions good luck getting cleaner than that), but we rarely need a pic to be more than like 600 to 800 pixels tall. --M Sipher (talk) 21:42, 12 November 2023 (EST)
I only thought of the idea after I ran into a surprisingly low quality image. Of course most of them aren't like that, but I intend to find those that are in a similar situation. The size of the images was actually my main concern and why I had to ask by the way. Thank you for the tip, I'll attempt to find cleaner versions above all else. -- Darthrone (talk) 10:34, 13 November 2023 (GMT)
If you're looking for low-quality images to replace, we have a whole category full of those. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 03:50, 13 November 2023 (EST)
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